James C. Tilton, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, for some years now has been working on new image enhancement software to help automatically analyze satellite data of the Earth. Hierarchical Segmentation Software (HSEG), as the tool is called, identifies relatively homogeneous areas of an image and highlights them.
Our eyes and brains are pretty good at image analysis, but large dense maps can be quite a challenge. Although originally designed for aerial cartography, the first commercial use of the software came in the form of a mammogram enhancement and analysis system.
The lakes of northern Wisconsin (top) are very much like dense breast tissue (side) to a NASA scientist it turns out, and porting over the code and optimizing it led to the MED-SEG™ system from Bartron Medical Imaging (New Haven, Connecticut). Having received FDA approval, plans are now being made to conduct clinical trials evaluating how MED-SEG can benefit radiologists in cancer diagnosis. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
A new sensor developed at Stony Brook University may become a clinically useful tool for detecting disease biomarkers in breath. The nanoprobe-based technology is currently able to detect acetone, but should be modifiable to spot other compounds.
From the study abstract:
This paper describes a sensor nanotechnology suitable for non-invasive monitoring of a signaling gas, such as acetone, in exhaled breath. This is a nanomedicine tool comprised of a selective acetone nanoprobe working on the principle of ferroelectric poling sensing, and a microelectronics circuit for comparing the actual sensor signal to a predetermined threshold value, displaying the result using LED signals. This on/off type non-invasive diagnostics platform technology is based on nanotechnology, gives a fast response, it is simple to operate and inexpensive to manufacture, and may truly revolutionize personalized medicine.
Mechai Viravaidya has been fighting poverty and disease in Southeast Asia through innovative promotions of safe sex practices. In this TED talk, he gives an amusing overview of how Thailand went from seven children per family to 1.5 in less than four decades and a 90 percent reduction in HIV infection rates from 1991 to 2003.
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Dynamic Controls out of Christchurch, New Zealand, has developed a system by which wheelchair users can control their iPhone using the chair’s own joystick.
Additionally, the iPhone can display important information about the wheelchair, such as the battery charge state, speed, seat adjustment, and heading direction.
All this is communicated via Bluetooth between the iPhone and the wheelchair. The new version of the iPortal system will be unveiled at Rehacare 2010 in Dusseldorf, Germany, next month.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed an iPhone application that keeps you up-to-date with drug safety reports and allows you to submit any side effects directly to the FDA.
The app, called MedWatcher can keep a list of medications for which you receive both official FDA alerts and news from other channels. Users can report side effects straight from the app and view other submitted reports. The researchers hope to lower the barrier to reporting side effects, increasing the participation in safety surveillance.
Reports of serious adverse events are reviewed by members of the Children’s Computational Epidemiology Group and then submitted to the FDA. The app was developed using technology from the Outbreaks Near Me app, which we covered one year ago. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
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James C. Tilton, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, for some years now has been working on new image enhancement software to help automatically analyze satellite data of the Earth. Hierarchical Segmentation Software (HSEG), as the tool is called, identifies relatively homogeneous areas of an image and highlights them.
Dynamic Controls out of Christchurch, New Zealand, has developed a system by which wheelchair users can control their iPhone using the chair’s own joystick.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed an iPhone application that keeps you up-to-date with drug safety reports and allows you to submit any side effects directly to the FDA.
