Read-out electronics for digital silicon photomultiplier modules

A new kind of a PET-Scanner (PET = positron emission tomography) for plant research is developed asa joint project of the Forschungszentrum Jülich and Philips Digital Photon Counting (PDPC). Thisscanner will utilize digital silicon photomultiplier (dSiPM) for plant phenotyping for the very first time.The goal of this work is to get a further knowledge of the operation of digital silicon photomultiplier.On this account a test-facility for this new photo detectors has been installed at the central instituteof engineering, electronics and analytics (ZEA-2 electronic systems) to determine the usage of thissensors, having regard to use them as scintillation detectors in a PET-Scanner later on.This work has its focus on the development of a fast read-out electronic for the used photo sensorsDPC3200-22-44. As there will be high data rates a fast USB 3.0 interface has been used. All thenecessary processing and data handling has been implemented in a state of the art FPGA

Professional Standards in Medical Ultrasound - EFSUMB Position Paper (Long Version) - General Aspects

This first position paper of the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB) on professional standards presents a common position across the different medical professions within EFSUMB regarding optimal standards for the performing and reporting of ultrasound examinations by any professional ultrasound operator. It describes general aspects of professionality that ensure procedure quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability in virtually all application fields of medical ultrasound. Recommendations are given related to safety and indication of ultrasound examinations, requirements for examination rooms, structured examination, systematic reporting of results, and management, communication and archiving of ultrasound data. The print version of this article is a short version. The long version is published online.publishersversionPeer reviewe

The Use of USB 3.0 for Fast Data Transfer in a Plant PET Detector

The Research Centre Juelich is developing a PET detector for plant phenotyping together with Philips Digital PhotonCounting, Aachen. The scientific goal is to study the carbon transport in plants. The poster will give an overview overthe whole project, but will focus on the use of USB 3.0 to transfer data from the FPGA to the acquisition computer. Todetect the photon pairs we use a ring of digital photon counters recently developed by Philips.For the prototype we decided to use a Xilinx Kintex evaluation board for data concentration and processing of thecoincidences. It is assumed that the necessary data rate from the FPGA to the acquisition computer is about 300MByte/s. As data link a 10-gigabit Ethernet link would be preferred, but the evaluation board contains a USB 3.0interface already, therefore we chose to use this one in order to reduce the development costs. The poster will discussthe pros and cons of the use of USB for data acquisition and the results achieved so far

Emergency point-of-care ultrasound stewardship - a joint position paper by EuSEM and EFSUMB and endorsed by IFEM and WFUMB

Emergency Medicine Point-of-Care Ultrasound (EMPoCUS) is a convincing concept. It has spread rapidly because of its intuitive, simple applicability and low equipment costs. The speed of its emerging growth frequently outpaces the development of quality assurance and education. Indeed, education standards vary worldwide, and in some cases seem to neglect the principles of modern competence-based education. Additional challenges are encountered such as remote or low resource medical practice. Here, EMPoCUS might be the only ad-hoc imaging modality available. Once mastery of EMPoCUS is achieved, emergency physicians should be able to independently and efficiently care for their patients using a variety of PoCUS skills. However, most curricula only define these tasks as non-binding and in general terms or use outdated measures, such as length of training and self-reporting of achieved examinations with variable oversight, or administrative measures to create educational milestones. This threatens to take quality assurance down the wrong path. It created a scenario in which concrete EMPoCUS skill outcome measures that would realistically reflect the training objectives and simultaneously would be easily observable and verifiable are lacking. In view of the dangers of poorly controlled EMPoCUS dissemination and the current lack of European guidelines, we would like to set central standards for European EMPoCUS stewardship based on a critical review of the current situation. This position paper, which was jointly developed by EuSEM and EFSUMB and endorsed by IFEM and WFUMB, is also intended to accompany the EFSUMB/EuSEM guidelines on PoCUS currently being prepared for publication

Professional standards in medical ultrasound - EFSUMB position paper (Long Version) - general aspects

This first position paper of the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB) on professional standards presents a common position across the different medical professions within EFSUMB regarding optimal standards for the performing and reporting of ultrasound examinations by any professional ultrasound operator. It describes general aspects of professionality that ensure procedure quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability in virtually all application fields of medical ultrasound. Recommendations are given related to safety and indication of ultrasound examinations, requirements for examination rooms, structured examination, systematic reporting of results, and management, communication and archiving of ultrasound data. The print version of this article is a short version. The long version is published online