Contour Detector and Data Acquisition System for the Left Ventricular Outline

A real-time contour detector and data acquisition system is described for an angiographic apparatus having a video scanner for converting an X-ray image of a structure characterized by a change in brightness level compared with its surrounding into video format and displaying the X-ray image in recurring video fields. The real-time contour detector and data acqusition system includes track and hold circuits; a reference level analog computer circuit; an analog compartor; a digital processor; a field memory; and a computer interface

Event program

UNLV Undergraduates from all departments, programs and colleges participated in a campus-wide symposium on April 16, 2011. Undergraduate posters from all disciplines and also oral presentations of research activities, readings and other creative endeavors were exhibited throughout the festival

Event program

UNLV Undergraduates from all departments, programs and colleges participated in a campus-wide symposium on April 16, 2011. Undergraduate posters from all disciplines and also oral presentations of research activities, readings and other creative endeavors were exhibited throughout the festival

Introduction to QCA, IVUS and OCT in interventional cardiology

Cardiovascular Aspects of Radiolog

The Price of Progress: Funding and Financing Alzheimer\u27s Disease Drug Development

Introduction Advancing research and treatment for Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) and the search for effective treatments depend on a complex financial ecosystem involving federal, state, industry, advocacy, venture capital, and philanthropy funding approaches. Methods We conducted an expert review of the literature pertaining to funding and financing of translational research and drug development for AD. Results The federal government is the largest public funder of research in AD. The National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and National Center for Advancing Translational Science all fund aspects of research in AD drug development. Non-National Institutes of Health federal funding comes from the National Science Foundation, Veterans Administration, Food and Drug Administration, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Academic Medical Centers host much of the federally funded basic science research and are increasingly involved in drug development. Funding of the “Valley of Death” involves philanthropy and federal funding through small business programs and private equity from seed capital, angel investors, and venture capital companies. Advocacy groups fund both basic science and clinical trials. The Alzheimer Association is the advocacy organization with the largest research support portfolio relevant to AD drug development. Pharmaceutical companies are the largest supporters of biomedical research worldwide; companies are most interested in late stage de-risked drugs. Drugs progressing into phase II and III are candidates for pharmaceutical industry support through licensing, mergers and acquisitions, and co-development collaborations. Discussion Together, the funding and financing entities involved in supporting AD drug development comprise a complex, interactive, dynamic financial ecosystem. Funding source interaction is largely unstructured and available funding is insufficient to meet all demands for new therapies. Novel approaches to funding such as mega-funds have been proposed and more integration of component parts would assist in accelerating drug development

Effectiveness of Visualisations for Detection of Errors in Segmentation of Blood Vessels

Vascular disease diagnosis often requires a precise segmentation of the vessel lumen. When 3D (Magnetic Resonance Angiography, MRA, or Computed Tomography Angiography, CTA) imaging is available, this can be done automatically, but occasional errors are inevitable. So, the segmentation has to be checked by clinicians. This requires appropriate visualisation techniques. A number of visualisation techniques exist, but there has been little in the way of user studies that compare the different alternatives. In this study we examine how users interact with several basic visualisations, when performing a visual search task, checking vascular segmentation correctness of segmented MRA data. These visualisations are: direct volume rendering (DVR), isosurface rendering, and curved planar reformatting (CPR). Additionally, we examine if visual highlighting of potential errors can help the user find errors, so a fourth visualisation we examine is DVR with visual highlighting. Our main findings are that CPR performs fastest but has higher error rate, and there are no significant differences between the other three visualisations. We did find that visual highlighting actually has slower performance in early trials, suggesting that users learned to ignore them

Opening the Black Box of Deliberation: What are Arguments (Really) Based On? A theory-driven and exploratory analysis of the role of knowledge in the process of deliberation

How much knowledge do you need to form opinions and talk about them? Located within a broader body of work on the relation between knowledge and attitude formation, this research explores the role of knowledge in the process of deliberation by taking an in-depth look at a real-world deliberation exercise on social welfare in Germany. Deliberative theory is based on the assumption that while deliberating, informed citizens weigh information in order to form 'ideal' opinions. Yet, empirical findings suggest rather low levels of political knowledge among the population. Taking a real-world case of deliberation on social welfare in Germany, this article has two goals: first, it draws on data collected on the level of knowledge regarding the German welfare system to get an initial insight into the distribution of political knowledge, which has been scarce to non-existent to date. Second, it applies a qualitative content analysis to explore the kind of information people in real-world deliberation exercises use as the basis for their arguments and ends with a discussion of the role of knowledge in group attitude-formation processes. While the results confirm previous findings on relatively low levels of political knowledge among the participants, this study raises three further issues that are relevant for understanding the role of knowledge in transferring theoretical deliberative norms and ideals to reality. These issues, which relate to the weighing of arguments, the handling of false or missing information, and the issue of procedural knowledge, are highlighted, and implications for further research and possible procedures for the transfer of normative deliberative goals to real-world deliberations are outlined

The Relevance of the Constitution in Today\u27s Society

How relevant is the Constitution in today’s society? This is the document that guides the three branches of government in day to day operation, demonstrating that what the Constitution means to the people of the United States is essential in gauging how relevant people think our government is. In this experiment, I surveyed 348 different college students on Boise State campus with a list of different questions to first find out their general knowledge of our Constitution, then their opinion of it. Students were randomly assigned to receive a text about a Supreme Court case that involves interpreting the Constitution or receive no information. I predicted that providing information about different Constitutional interpretation would lead to more negative attitudes towards the Constitution. In contrast to my predictions, the results show us that when comparing the treatment and control group, even though the treatment group had a less favorable opinion of the Constitution, the difference was not statistically significant enough to indicate that people with greater knowledge of the Constitution and the Supreme Court interpretation had any different opinions about the Constitution than those who did not. This tells us that individuals may already have sufficient information about the Constitution or they have preconceived notions of the document itself