Augmented environments for minimally invasive therapy: implementation barriers from technology to practice.

International audienceAugmented environments for medical applications have been explored and developed in an effort to enhance the clinician's view of anatomy and facilitate the performance of minimally invasive procedures. These environments must faithfully represent the real surgical field and require seamless integration of pre- and intra-operative imaging, surgical instrument tracking and display technology into a common framework centered around the patient. However, few image guidance environments have been successfully translated into clinical use. Several challenges that contribute to the slow progress of integrating such environments into clinical practice are discussed here in terms of both technical and clinical limitations

On mixed reality environments for minimally invasive therapy guidance: systems architecture, successes and challenges in their implementation from laboratory to clinic.

International audienceMixed reality environments for medical applications have been explored and developed over the past three decades in an effort to enhance the clinician's view of anatomy and facilitate the performance of minimally invasive procedures. These environments must faithfully represent the real surgical field and require seamless integration of pre- and intra-operative imaging, surgical instrument tracking, and display technology into a common framework centered around and registered to the patient. However, in spite of their reported benefits, few mixed reality environments have been successfully translated into clinical use. Several challenges that contribute to the difficulty in integrating such environments into clinical practice are presented here and discussed in terms of both technical and clinical limitations. This article should raise awareness among both developers and end-users toward facilitating a greater application of such environments in the surgical practice of the future

Experience of Withstand Testing of Cable Systems in the USA - B1-303

Presented at CIGRÉ - Session 2010 - Paris, 22-27 August, 2010.High voltage withstand tests are used within manufacturing plants to ensure the quality of completed cable system components from MV to EHV. Thus, it is quite natural for utilities to also use withstand tests as commissioning and maintenance tests for cable systems in the field. The goal of these tests is the same as in the factory test, namely to have any weak components of the cable system fail in a controlled manner, such that the minimum number of customers are affected. In fact a recent study has shown that withstand tests are among the most routinely employed diagnostic tests in the USA; this study has also shown that the most preferred withstand tests use Very Low Frequency (VLF: 0.02 to 0.1 Hz) AC methods