3,925 research outputs found
Technology of swallowable capsule for medical applications
Medical technology has undergone major breakthroughs in recent years, especially in the area of the examination tools for diagnostic purposes. This paper reviews the swallowable capsule technology in the examination of the gastrointestinal system for various diseases. The wireless camera pill has created a more advanced method than many traditional examination methods for the diagnosis of gastrointestinal diseases such as gastroscopy by the use of an endoscope. After years of great innovation, commercial swallowable pills have been produced and applied in clinical practice. These smart pills can cover the examination of the gastrointestinal system and not only provide to the physicians a lot more useful data that is not available from the traditional methods, but also eliminates the use of the painful endoscopy procedure. In this paper, the key state-of-the-art technologies in the existing Wireless Capsule Endoscopy (WCE) systems are fully reported and the recent research progresses related to these technologies are reviewed. The paper ends by further discussion on the current technical bottlenecks and future research in this area
Dirac cohomology, elliptic representations and endoscopy
The first part (Sections 1-6) of this paper is a survey of some of the recent
developments in the theory of Dirac cohomology, especially the relationship of
Dirac cohomology with (g,K)-cohomology and nilpotent Lie algebra cohomology;
the second part (Sections 7-12) is devoted to understanding the unitary
elliptic representations and endoscopic transfer by using the techniques in
Dirac cohomology. A few problems and conjectures are proposed for further
investigations.Comment: This paper will appear in `Representations of Reductive Groups, in
Honor of 60th Birthday of David Vogan', edited by M. Nervins and P. Trapa,
published by Springe
Ergonomics of the Operative Field in Paediatric Minimal Access Surgery
Imperial Users onl
Genericity and contragredience in the local Langlands correspondence
We prove the recent conjectures of Adams-Vogan and D. Prasad on the behavior
of the local Langlands correspondence with respect to taking the contragredient
of a representation. The proof holds for tempered representations of
quasi-split real K-groups and quasi-split p-adic classical groups (in the sense
of Arthur). We also prove a formula for the behavior of the local Langlands
correspondence for these groups with respect to changes of the Whittaker data.Comment: Minor changes to the introduction and references to place the paper
in the proper context. Corollary 4.10 added. An inaccuracy in the treatment
of even orthogonal groups fixe
Development of a synthetic phantom for the selection of optimal scanning parameters in CAD-CT colonography
The aim of this paper is to present the development of a synthetic phantom that can be used for the selection of optimal scanning parameters in computed tomography (CT) colonography. In this paper we attempt to evaluate the influence of the main scanning parameters including slice thickness, reconstruction interval, field of view, table speed and radiation dose on the overall performance of a computer aided detection (CAD)–CTC system. From these parameters the radiation dose received a special attention, as the major problem associated with CTC is the patient exposure to significant levels of ionising radiation. To examine the influence of the scanning parameters we performed 51 CT scans where the spread of scanning parameters was divided into seven different protocols. A large number of experimental tests were performed and the results analysed. The results show that automatic polyp detection is feasible even in cases when the CAD–CTC system was applied to low dose CT data acquired with the following protocol: 13 mAs/rotation with collimation of 1.5 mm × 16 mm, slice thickness of 3.0 mm, reconstruction interval of 1.5 mm, table speed of 30 mm per rotation. The CT phantom data acquired using this protocol was analysed by an automated CAD–CTC system and the experimental results indicate that our system identified all clinically significant polyps (i.e. larger than 5 mm)
Computer- and robot-assisted Medical Intervention
Medical robotics includes assistive devices used by the physician in order to
make his/her diagnostic or therapeutic practices easier and more efficient.
This chapter focuses on such systems. It introduces the general field of
Computer-Assisted Medical Interventions, its aims, its different components and
describes the place of robots in that context. The evolutions in terms of
general design and control paradigms in the development of medical robots are
presented and issues specific to that application domain are discussed. A view
of existing systems, on-going developments and future trends is given. A
case-study is detailed. Other types of robotic help in the medical environment
(such as for assisting a handicapped person, for rehabilitation of a patient or
for replacement of some damaged/suppressed limbs or organs) are out of the
scope of this chapter.Comment: Handbook of Automation, Shimon Nof (Ed.) (2009) 000-00
Endogent: Centre for Anatomy and Invasive Techniques
The invention of new endoscopical techniques for surgery and interventional radiology demand improved training at postgraduate level. The Endogent Centre for Anatomy and Invasive Techniques support these requirements by establishing hands-on practical training courses by using new procedures for cadaver embalming. Cadavers fixed by conventional procedures using formalin for conservation, are of limited use for practical surgical courses due to the profound changes of colour, strength and fragility of organs and tissues. The new Thiel embalming technique is based on the use of 4-chloro-3- methylenphenol, various salts for fixation, boric acid for disinfecting, and ethylene glycol for preservation of tissue plasticity, while the concentration of formalin is kept to the strict minimum (0.8%). This results in well preserved organs and tissues concerning colour, consistency, flexibility and plasticity. The articular joints remain freely movable and the peritoneal cavity can be inflated for laparoscopic procedures. Up to now this cadaver model was used in our institute for laparoscopic bariatric surgery, colon surgery, arthroscopy and thorax surgery. Another feature is that the lungs can be ventilated during surgical procedures. Preliminary findings seem to indicate that the corpses also serve as a suitable phantom for assessing thorax radiological equipment. Expert clinicians work as tutors and give intensive instructions before the participants start with hands-on surgery. We intend to expose also our undergraduate medical students to demonstrations of surgical approaches on Thiel embalmed corpses, in order to reveal the need for detailed anatomical knowledge in the clinic at an early stage in the medical curriculum
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