Testing of the assisting software for radiologists analysing head CT images: lessons learned

Background: Assessing a plan for user testing and evaluation of the assisting software developed for radiologists.Methods: Test plan was assessed in experimental testing, where users performed reporting on head computed tomography studies with the aid of the software developed. The user testing included usability tests, questionnaires, and interviews. In addition, search relevance was assessed on the basis of user opinions.Results: The testing demonstrated weaknesses in the initial plan and enabled improvements. Results showed that the software has acceptable usability level but some minor fixes are needed before larger-scale pilot testing. The research also proved that it is possible even for radiologists with under a year's experience to perform reporting of non-obvious cases when assisted by the software developed. Due to the small number of test users, it was impossible to assess effects on diagnosis quality.Conclusions: The results of the tests performed showed that the test plan designed is useful, and answers to the key research questions should be forthcoming after testing with more radiologists. The preliminary testing revealed opportunities to improve test plan and flow, thereby illustrating that arranging preliminary test sessions prior to any complex scenarios is beneficial

Young Children Learning Languages in a Multilingual Context

Luxembourg is a trilingual country where residents communicate in Luxembourgish, French and German concurrently. Children therefore study these languages at primary school. In this paper I explore how six eight-year-old Luxembourgish children use and learn German, French and English in formal and informal settings over a period of one year. Their eagerness to learn and use German and English contrasted with their cautious and formal approach to the learning of French. My findings demonstrate that second language learning in a multilingual country is not an 'automatic' or 'natural' process but, rather, children's language behaviour depends on their personal goals, interests, competence, confidence and understanding of what counts as appropriate language use. These factors are influenced by the formal approach to language learning at school

Improved susceptibility-weighted imaging for high contrast and resolution thalamic nuclei mapping at 7T.

The thalamus is an important brain structure and neurosurgical target, but its constituting nuclei are challenging to image non-invasively. Recently, susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) at ultra-high field has shown promising capabilities for thalamic nuclei mapping. In this work, several methodological improvements were explored to enhance SWI quality and contrast, and specifically its ability for thalamic imaging. High-resolution SWI was performed at 7T in healthy participants, and the following techniques were applied: (a) monitoring and retrospective correction of head motion and B <sub>0</sub> perturbations using integrated MR navigators, (b) segmentation and removal of venous vessels on the SWI data using vessel enhancement filtering, and (c) contrast enhancement by tuning the parameters of the SWI phase-magnitude combination. The resulting improvements were evaluated with quantitative metrics of image quality, and by comparison to anatomo-histological thalamic atlases. Even with sub-millimeter motion and natural breathing, motion and field correction produced clear improvements in both magnitude and phase data quality (76% and 41%, respectively). The improvements were stronger in cases of larger motion/field deviations, mitigating the dependence of image quality on subject performance. Optimizing the SWI phase-magnitude combination yielded substantial improvements in image contrast, particularly in the thalamus, well beyond previously reported SWI results. The atlas comparisons provided compelling evidence of anatomical correspondence between SWI features and several thalamic nuclei, for example, the ventral intermediate nucleus. Vein detection performed favorably inside the thalamus, and vein removal further improved visualization. Altogether, the proposed developments substantially improve high-resolution SWI, particularly for thalamic nuclei imaging

Testing of the assisting software for radiologists analysing head CT images:lessons learned

Abstract Background: Assessing a plan for user testing and evaluation of the assisting software developed for radiologists. Methods: Test plan was assessed in experimental testing, where users performed reporting on head computed tomography studies with the aid of the software developed. The user testing included usability tests, questionnaires, and interviews. In addition, search relevance was assessed on the basis of user opinions. Results: The testing demonstrated weaknesses in the initial plan and enabled improvements. Results showed that the software has acceptable usability level but some minor fixes are needed before larger-scale pilot testing. The research also proved that it is possible even for radiologists with under a year’s experience to perform reporting of non-obvious cases when assisted by the software developed. Due to the small number of test users, it was impossible to assess effects on diagnosis quality. Conclusions: The results of the tests performed showed that the test plan designed is useful, and answers to the key research questions should be forthcoming after testing with more radiologists. The preliminary testing revealed opportunities to improve test plan and flow, thereby illustrating that arranging preliminary test sessions prior to any complex scenarios is beneficial