SALUS-A Study on Self-Tonometry for Glaucoma Patients: Design and Implementation of the Electronic Case File.

Background:  In times of omnipresent digitization and big data, telemedicine and electronic case files (ECFs) are gaining ground for networking between players in the health care sector. In the context of the SALUS study, this approach is applied in practice in the form of electronic platforms to display and process disease-relevant data of glaucoma patients.

Objectives:  The SALUS ECF is designed and implemented to support data acquisition and presentation, monitoring, and outcome control for patients suffering from glaucoma in a clinical setting.

Effectiveness of simulator-based echocardiography training of noncardiologists in congenital heart diseases.

Background: Congenital heart diseases (CHD) are responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality in neonates. The preliminary diagnosis often is made by noncardiologists. For this reason, there is a huge demand of training in echocardiography of CHD.

Short-term feedback regulation of bile salt uptake by bile salts in rodent liver.

Unlabelled: The sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (Ntcp) is the major bile salt uptake transporter at the sinusoidal membrane of hepatocytes. Short-term feedback regulation of Ntcp by primary bile salts has not yet been investigated in vivo. Subcellular localization of Ntcp was analyzed in Ntcp-transfected HepG2-cells by flow cytometry and in immunofluorescence images from tissue sections by a new automated image analysis method.

Evaluating descriptors for the lateral translocation of membrane proteins.

Microscopic images of tissue sections are used for diagnosis and monitoring of therapy, by analysis of protein patterns correlating to disease states. Spatial protein distribution is influenced by protein translocation between different membrane compartments and quantified by comparison of microscopic images of biological samples. Cholestatic liver diseases are characterized by translocation of transport proteins, and quantification of their dislocation offers new diagnostic options.

Toponomics method for the automated quantification of membrane protein translocation.

Background: Intra-cellular and inter-cellular protein translocation can be observed by microscopic imaging of tissue sections prepared immunohistochemically. A manual densitometric analysis is time-consuming, subjective and error-prone. An automated quantification is faster, more reproducible, and should yield results comparable to manual evaluation.

Qualification of a new and precise automatic tool for the assessment of hair diameters in phototrichograms.

Background/purpose: To automatically assess hair growth during cosmetic trials, incorporating parameters such as anagen-to-telogen rate, growth rate, and especially hair diameter.

Methods: We designed and qualified a new and automatic phototrichogram system based on a high-resolution DSLR camera system (theoretical resolution of 2.557 μm/pixel) and modular macrolens system with fixed focus, combined with a trainable pattern recognition software for automated analysis.

Analyzing and mining automated imaging experiments.

Image mining is the application of computer-based techniques that extract and exploit information from large image sets to support human users in generating knowledge from these sources. This review focuses on biomedical applications of this technique, in particular automated imaging at the cellular level. Due to increasing automation and the availability of integrated instruments, biomedical users are becoming increasingly confronted with the problem of analyzing such data.

Analyzing and mining image databases.

Image mining is the application of computer-based techniques that extract and exploit information from large image sets to support human users in generating knowledge from these sources. This review focuses on biomedical applications, in particular automated imaging at the cellular level. An image database is an interactive software application that combines data management, image analysis and visual data mining.

Computer-based training in two-dimensional echocardiography using an echocardiography simulator.

Two-dimensional (2D) echocardiography is a user-dependent technique that poses some inherent problems to the beginner. The first problem for beginners is spatial orientation, especially the orientation of the scan plane in reference to the 3-dimensional (3D) geometry of the heart. The second problem for beginners is steering of the ultrasound probe.

Three-Dimensional Echocardiography: The Gateway to Virtual Reality!

Virtual reality (VR) is one of the latest developments in cardiac three-dimensional (3-D) ultrasound. A VR heart model linked to 3-D echocardiographic image datasets provides the observers spatial information regarding a 3-D image dataset and prevents the "lost in space effect" in difficult and relevant coupled diseases when integrated into 3-D reconstruction software. Standardized echocardiographic views can be selected within the integrated developed VR heart model, and this is the first step to automatic 3-D computations with minimal operator interaction.