Complementary use of priors for pulmonary imaging with electrical impedance and ultrasound computed tomography.

For medical professionals caring for patients undergoing mechanical ventilation due to respiratory failure, the ability to quickly and safely obtain images of pulmonary function at the patient's bedside would be highly desirable. Such images could be used to provide early warnings of developing pulmonary pathologies in real time, thereby reducing the incidence of complications and improving patient outcomes. Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) and low-frequency ultrasound computed tomography (USCT) are two imaging techniques with the potential to provide real-time non-ionizing pulmonary monitoring in the ICU setting, and each method has its own unique advantages as well as drawbacks.

Objective color calibration for manufacturing facial prostheses.

Significance: Rehabilitation through facial prostheses' main goal is to aid individual's social reintegration as well as improving their quality of life. However, this treatment is not yet widely available in Brazil due to the lack of specialized clinics and the cost associated with the high number of necessary medical appointments until the final result. One of the steps in the process consists of measuring skin color, which is observer-dependent and may suffer from the effect of metamerism.

Guidewire path determination for intravascular applications.

Vascular diseases are among the major causes of death in developed countries and the treatment of those pathologies may require endovascular interventions, in which the physician utilizes guidewires and catheters through the vascular system to reach the injured vessel region. Several computational studies related to endovascular procedures are in constant development. Thus, predicting the guidewire path may be of great value for both physicians and researchers.

Compression of high-density EMG signals for trapezius and gastrocnemius muscles.

Background: New technologies for data transmission and multi-electrode arrays increased the demand for compressing high-density electromyography (HD EMG) signals. This article aims the compression of HD EMG signals recorded by two-dimensional electrode matrices at different muscle-contraction forces. It also shows methodological aspects of compressing HD EMG signals for non-pinnate (upper trapezius) and pinnate (medial gastrocnemius) muscles, using image compression techniques.

Automatic lumen segmentation in IVOCT images using binary morphological reconstruction.

Background: Atherosclerosis causes millions of deaths, annually yielding billions in expenses round the world. Intravascular Optical Coherence Tomography (IVOCT) is a medical imaging modality, which displays high resolution images of coronary cross-section. Nonetheless, quantitative information can only be obtained with segmentation; consequently, more adequate diagnostics, therapies and interventions can be provided.

Realistic IVUS image generation in different intraluminal pressures.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) phantoms are important to calibrate and evaluate many IVUS imaging processing tasks. However, phantom generation is never the primary focus of related works; hence, it cannot be well covered, and is usually based on more than one platform, which may not be accessible to investigators. Therefore, we present a framework for creating representative IVUS phantoms, for different intraluminal pressures, based on the finite element method and Field II.

Edge-preserving speckle texture removal by interference-based speckle filtering followed by anisotropic diffusion.

Ultrasonography has an inherent noise pattern, called speckle, which is known to hamper object recognition for both humans and computers. Speckle noise is produced by the mutual interference of a set of scattered wavefronts. Depending on the phase of the wavefronts, the interference may be constructive or destructive, which results in brighter or darker pixels, respectively.

Automatic coronary wall segmentation in intravascular ultrasound images using binary morphological reconstruction.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) image segmentation can provide more detailed vessel and plaque information, resulting in better diagnostics, evaluation and therapy planning. A novel automatic segmentation proposal is described herein; the method relies on a binary morphological object reconstruction to segment the coronary wall in IVUS images. First, a preprocessing followed by a feature extraction block are performed, allowing for the desired information to be extracted.

Evaluation of plaque composition by intravascular ultrasound "virtual histology": the impact of dense calcium on the measurement of necrotic tissue.

Aims: We aimed to evaluate if the co-localisation of calcium and necrosis in intravascular ultrasound virtual histology (IVUS-VH) is due to artefact, and whether this effect can be mathematically estimated.

Methods And Results: We hypothesised that, in case calcium induces an artefactual coding of necrosis, any addition in calcium content would generate an artificial increment in the necrotic tissue. Stent struts were used to simulate the "added calcium".

Assessing the scientific research productivity of a Brazilian healthcare institution: a case study at the Heart Institute of São Paulo, Brazil.

Introduction: The present study was motivated by the need to systematically assess the research productivity of the Heart Institute (InCor), Medical School of the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Objective: To explore methodology for the assessment of institutional scientific research productivity.

Materials And Methods: Bibliometric indicators based on searches for author affiliation of original scientific articles or reviews published in journals indexed in the databases Web of Science, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS and SciELO from January 2000 to December 2003 were used in this study.

Providing integrity and authenticity in DICOM images: a novel approach.

The increasing adoption of information systems in healthcare has led to a scenario where patient information security is more and more being regarded as a critical issue. Allowing patient information to be in jeopardy may lead to irreparable damage, physically, morally, and socially to the patient, potentially shaking the credibility of the healthcare institution. Medical images play a crucial role in such context, given their importance in diagnosis, treatment, and research.

Medical Image distribution and visualization in a hospital using CORBA.

In this work it is presented the solution adopted by the Heart Institute (InCor) of Sao Paulo for medical image distribution and visualization inside the hospital's intranet as part of the PACS system. A CORBA-based image server was developed to distribute DICOM images across the hospital together with the images' report. The solution adopted allows the decoupling of the server implementation and the client.

Proposal for DICOM multiframe medical image integrity and authenticity.

This paper presents a novel algorithm to successfully achieve viable integrity and authenticity addition and verification of n-frame DICOM medical images using cryptographic mechanisms. The aim of this work is the enhancement of DICOM security measures, especially for multiframe images. Current approaches have limitations that should be properly addressed for improved security.

A contextual medical image viewer.

The conventional visualization of medical images is not enough for a rich and comprehensive electronic healthcare record. We believe that it is necessary to provide a viewer with more advanced capabilities than those of regular medical image viewers. In this paper, we propose an architecture that allows the use of contextual information to assist the healthcare professional in his regular tasks.

Multilingual information retrieval in thoracic radiology: feasibility study.

Most essential information contained in the electronic medical record is stored as text, and this imposes several difficulties on automated data extraction and retrieval. Natural language processing is an approach that can unlock clinical information from free texts. The proposed methodology uses the specialized natural language processor MEDLEE developed for the English language.

Managing medical images and clinical information: InCor's experience.

Patients usually get medical assistance in several clinics and hospitals during their lifetime, archiving vital information in a dispersed way. Clearly, a proper patient care should take into account that information in order to check for incompatibilities, avoid unnecessary exams, and get relevant clinical history. The Heart Institute (InCor) of São Paulo, Brazil, has been committed to the goal of integrating all exams and clinical information within the institution and other hospitals.

A contextual role-based access control authorization model for electronic patient record.

The design of proper models for authorization and access control for electronic patient record (EPR) is essential to a wide scale use of EPR in large health organizations. In this paper, we propose a contextual role-based access control authorization model aiming to increase the patient privacy and the confidentiality of patient data, whereas being flexible enough to consider specific cases. This model regulates user's access to EPR based on organizational roles.