Translating contemporary literature: Translating parts of Elisabeth Sheffield's "Fort Da - a report" into German

Fort Da - A Report stands surely in the tradition of Lolita, and is a successful re-writing of Nabokov's work. Elisabeth Sheffield takes a modern approach to the subject matter. The object of desire in Fort Da - A Report is Aslan, a Turkish-Cyprian boy who lives in Germany. Aslan is desired by Rosemarie Ramee, an almost forty-year old american neuroscientist, who works and lives in Kiel, Germany. Translating the unfolding of this provocative story was motivated by its cultural context, its contemporary manner as well as experimental writing style, such as using footnotes, neologisms and passive voice. Approaching this translation, it was important to emphasize the closeness to the original text in terms of the detached writing style, word choices and foreign elements. Various translation theories have informed this work and the result is an engaging translation of the complex story of a male Lolita

Motion Robust Magnetic Susceptibility and Field Inhomogeneity Estimation Using Regularized Image Restoration Techniques for fMRI

In functional MRI, head motion may cause dynamic nonlinear field-inhomogeneity changes, especially with large out-of-plane rotations. This may lead to dynamic geometric distortion or blurring in the time series, which may reduce activation detection accuracy. The use of image registration to estimate dynamic field inhomogeneity maps from a static field map is not sufficient in the presence of such rotations. This paper introduces a retrospective approach to estimate magnetic susceptibility induced field maps of an object in motion, given a static susceptibility induced field map and the associated object motion parameters. It estimates a susceptibility map from a static field map using regularized image restoration techniques, and applies rigid body motion to the former. The dynamic field map is then computed using susceptibility voxel convolution. The method addresses field map changes due to out-of-plane rotations during time series acquisition and does not involve real time field map acquisitions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85944/1/Fessler233.pd

Zero and First-Order Phase Shift Correction for Field Map Estimation with Dual-Echo GRE Using Bipolar Gradients

A simple phase error correction technique used for field map estimation with a generally available dual-echo gradient-echo (GRE) sequence is presented. Magnetic field inhomogeneity maps estimated using two separate GRE volume acquisitions at different echo times are prone to dynamic motion errors between acquisitions. By using the dual-echo sequence, the data are collected during two back-to-back readout gradients in opposite polarity after a single radio frequency pulse, and interecho motion artifacts and alignment errors in field map estimation can be factored out. Residual phase error from the asymmetric readout pulses is modeled as an affine term in the readout direction. Results from phantom and human data suggest that the first-order phase correction term stays constant over time and, hence, can be applied to different data acquired with the same protocol over time. The zero-order phase correction term may change with time and is estimated empirically for different scans.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85843/1/Fessler31.pd

Nearest Neighbour Interconnect Architecture in Deep Submicron FPGAs

Several commercial FPGA architectures provide fast connections between adjacent logic blocks that decrease the best-case delay between circuit elements with the goal of increasing overall performance. This paper explores the architecture of these Nearest Neighbour (NN) interconnects to determine topologies, quantities and distances that are best for performance and area. We show that certain architectures can achieve a 7.4% performance improvement at the cost of a 6.3% increase in total FPGA area when fully populated. We also show that a 6.4% improvement can be achieved for a more modest cost of 3.8% increase in area

Effectiveness of navigator-based prospective motion correction in MPRAGE data acquired at 3T.

In MRI, subject motion results in image artifacts. High-resolution 3D scans, like MPRAGE, are particularly susceptible to motion because of long scan times and acquisition of data over multiple-shots. Such motion related artifacts have been shown to cause a bias in cortical measures extracted from segmentation of high-resolution MPRAGE images. Prospective motion correction (PMC) techniques have been developed to help mitigate artifacts due to subject motion. In this work, high-resolution MPRAGE images are acquired during intentional head motion to evaluate the effectiveness of navigator-based PMC techniques to improve both the accuracy and reproducibility of cortical morphometry measures obtained from image segmentation. The contribution of reacquiring segments of k-space affected by motion to the overall performance of PMC is assessed. Additionally, the effect of subject motion on subcortical structure volumes is investigated. In the presence of head motion, navigator-based PMC is shown to improve both the accuracy and reproducibility of cortical and subcortical measures. It is shown that reacquiring segments of k-space data that are corrupted by motion is an essential part of navigator-based PMC performance. Subcortical structure volumes are not affected by motion in the same way as cortical measures; there is not a consistent underestimation

Requirements for room temperature shimming of the human brain.

Room temperature (RT) shims are used routinely in MRI to remove global and local B(0) field inhomogeneity introduced by the subject. Most clinical scanners use only second-order spherical harmonic terms, but with the increasing availability of very high field systems, third- and fourth-order terms are a serious consideration. However, choosing appropriate coil strengths is of critical importance in shim coil design since overspecification of the shim strengths can lead to a variety of problems, including shim coil self-resonance. In this study B(0) field map data collected over a period of 6 months (over 400 brain volumes) were analyzed to find the characteristic B-fields required to shim these brains. These data can be used to specify the coil requirements to effectively shim the human brain