What are you reading this summer?  This is the time of the year when many of us indulge in recreational reading.  I just read a really scary book, one others might want to consider, called “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen (of course I read it on my Kindle).  It’s the story of what happens after a high-altitude nuclear device is exploded resulting in an Electro-Magnetic Pulse that instantly disables anything with electronics.  This includes cars, airplanes, electricity, computers, networks, communications - in fact, the entire infrastructure as we know it now.  For sure PACS is gone as well as most imaging equipment and all EMR.  The story takes place in a small town in North Carolina and is most frightening because it could happen.

What do you think?  Do you have another book to suggest, maybe with a lighter theme?

I hope you are eating hot-dogs, shooting fire-works and having fun today.  Let’s all take a moment to remember how thankful we are to be living in the United States and how greatful we are to the men and women who keep us safe and free.  I know our economy is a mess right now, but when I look around at the alternatives to the United States, I’m happy I’m here.  For those of you readers from other countries, this is our celebration of our independence from England.  It’s one of our truly joyful holidays without political, racial, or religious lines dividing us.  Happy 4th of July and have another piece of pie !!

by Zheng, Guoyan

Single standard anteroposterior radiograph-based methods for measuring cup orientation following total hip arthroplasty (THA) are subject to substantial errors if the individual pelvic orientation with respect to X-ray plate is not taken into consideration. Previously, we proposed to use a hybrid 2D–3D registration scheme to determine the postoperative acetabular cup orientation and developed an object-oriented cross-program called “HipMatch.” However, its accuracy and robustness have not been fully investigated. To assess the potential factors that may affect the accuracy and robustness of the hybrid 2D–3D registration scheme in determining the postoperative acetabular cup orientation, a comprehensive validation study using a cadaver pelvis was performed. Nine X-ray radiographs taken from different pelvic positions relative to the X-ray plate and two computed tomography volumes of the pelvis with one acquired before the cup implantation and the other acquired after the cup implantation were used in the validation study. Potential factors that may affect the accuracy and robustness of the hybrid 2D–3D registration scheme were experimentally determined. Our experimental results demonstrate that (1) the plain radiograph-based method is not accurate; (2) the hybrid 2D–3D registration scheme helps to improve the estimation accuracy; (3) the hybrid 2D–3D registration scheme can robustly and accurately estimate the cup orientation even when a big portion of the radiograph is occluded; and (4) image resolution has minor effect on the estimation accuracy. The hybrid 2D–3D registration scheme is an accurate and robust method to measure exact cup orientation in THA. It holds the promise to be a valuable tool for clinical routine usage for providing evidence-based information.

DOI: 10.1007/s10278-009-9226-4
Online Date: 7/21/2009
View article on SpringerLink

by Sankar, Deepa; Thomas, Tessamma

In this paper, a novel fast method for modeling mammograms by deterministic fractal coding approach to detect the presence of microcalcifications, which are early signs of breast cancer, is presented. The modeled mammogram obtained using fractal encoding method is visually similar to the original image containing microcalcifications, and therefore, when it is taken out from the original mammogram, the presence of microcalcifications can be enhanced. The limitation of fractal image modeling is the tremendous time required for encoding. In the present work, instead of searching for a matching domain in the entire domain pool of the image, three methods based on mean and variance, dynamic range of the image blocks, and mass center features are used. This reduced the encoding time by a factor of 3, 89, and 13, respectively, in the three methods with respect to the conventional fractal image coding method with quad tree partitioning. The mammograms obtained from The Mammographic Image Analysis Society database (ground truth available) gave a total detection score of 87.6%, 87.6%, 90.5%, and 87.6%, for the conventional and the proposed three methods, respectively.

DOI: 10.1007/s10278-009-9224-6
Online Date: 7/18/2009
View article on SpringerLink

by Wu, Min; Zhang, Xiao; Koenig, Lisa; Lynch, John; Wirtz, Thomas; Mao, En; Ying, Lei

DOI: 10.1007/s10278-009-9223-7
Online Date: 7/8/2009
View article on SpringerLink