Bio Medical Engineering (BME) is the application of engineering principles and techniques to the medical field.
It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to help improve patient health care and the quality of life of individuals.
As the new discipline, much of the work in biomedical engineering consists of research and development, covering an array of fields; bioinformatics, medical imaging, image processing, physiological signal processing, biomechanics, biomaterials and bioengineering, systems analysis and 3D Modeling.
Examples of concrete applications of biomedical engineering are the development and manufacture of biocompatible prostheses, medical devices, diagnostic devices and imaging equipment such as MRIs and EEGs, and pharmaceutical drugs.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
By Dr Abdul Jalil Nordin
Trend in Diagnostic Imaging
Routine workflow for a patient seeking treatment in a hospital involve several medical investigations before the final diagnosis is achieved. This include medical imaging. In general, diagnostic medical imaging consists of Diagnostic Radiology and Diagnostic Nuclear Imaging.
Diagnostic Imaging in Radiology
Diagnostic Imaging in Radiology is a study of cross sectional anatomy of different organs in every systems. The function of this modality is to seek any forms of anatomical abnormalities to the organs studied.
Various forms of imaging modalities commonly available in hospitals including plain radiography, fluoroscopy, ultrasound, mammography, Interventional Radiology, Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
In some circumstances especially studies using Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, chemical in liquid form called ‘contrast agents’ is injected in to the patients. The purpose of this injection is to acquire more specific information during the study.
Generally tumours and inflammations are more evident through demonstration of specific tissue characterisation following contrast injection. This should lead to the clinician close to the diagnosis.
Diagnostic Nuclear Imaging
In Malaysia, the utilisation of nuclear imaging in diagnosis is limited by its availability. In theory, various forms of Diagnostic Nuclear Imaging techniques are available.
This include diagnostic works involving gamma camera, gamma camera with single photon emission, computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission photography (PET), positron emission photography computed tomography (PET/CT) and single photon emission computed tomography /computed tomography (SPECT/CT).
The function of this modalities depend on the availability of radioisotopes and its tagging agents.
In principle, this study utilises the physics property of unstable elements called ‘radioisotopes’
Due to its instability, these elements will continuously decay until they reach a stabilized form. During the process of transformation, energy is being released in the form of ionising ray.
In medical imaging, majority of the emitted rays utilised are the gamma rays.
Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography (PET/CT)
The latest nuclear imaging tool available in Malaysia is the fusion integrated combined imaging technique, PET/CT.
This diagnostic imaging modality is a combined tool between both modality is a combined tool between both modalities.
In general, there are 2 important principles in this imaging modality that need to be understood in order to know how PET/CT works at molecular level.
First a special chemical resembling glucose molecule has been developed to be utilised in PET modality called ‘floro deox glucose’ (FDG).
Since glucose is an essential elements to all living cells for energy production, this agent when tagged with a suitable radioisotope for PET imaging will demonstrate the road map to tissues with high metabolic activities.
In Malaysia, most common radioisotope available for PET imaging is 18-flourine (18F).
Secondly, cancer tissues contain numerous abnormal cells with abnormally large capability to reproduce. These cancerous cells are metabolically active in comparison to normal cells.
During PET imaging, metabolically active abnormal cells will demonstrate high 18F-FDG uptake.
These tissues will be readily visible and prominent against the normal tissue activity in the background.
For this reason, PET is also known as a functional imaging modality.
However, PET alone is unable to provide previce information on the locations of these lesions. CT on the contrary, gives best information on cross sectional anatomy.
When both modalities are combined, the information gathered will increase the accuracy at diagnosis as the precise location of the abnormal cells can be identified.
Routine workflow for a patient seeking treatment in a hospital involve several medical investigations before the final diagnosis is achieved. This include medical imaging. In general, diagnostic medical imaging consists of Diagnostic Radiology and Diagnostic Nuclear Imaging.
Diagnostic Imaging in Radiology
Diagnostic Imaging in Radiology is a study of cross sectional anatomy of different organs in every systems. The function of this modality is to seek any forms of anatomical abnormalities to the organs studied.
Various forms of imaging modalities commonly available in hospitals including plain radiography, fluoroscopy, ultrasound, mammography, Interventional Radiology, Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
In some circumstances especially studies using Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, chemical in liquid form called ‘contrast agents’ is injected in to the patients. The purpose of this injection is to acquire more specific information during the study.
Generally tumours and inflammations are more evident through demonstration of specific tissue characterisation following contrast injection. This should lead to the clinician close to the diagnosis.
Diagnostic Nuclear Imaging
In Malaysia, the utilisation of nuclear imaging in diagnosis is limited by its availability. In theory, various forms of Diagnostic Nuclear Imaging techniques are available.
This include diagnostic works involving gamma camera, gamma camera with single photon emission, computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission photography (PET), positron emission photography computed tomography (PET/CT) and single photon emission computed tomography /computed tomography (SPECT/CT).
The function of this modalities depend on the availability of radioisotopes and its tagging agents.
In principle, this study utilises the physics property of unstable elements called ‘radioisotopes’
Due to its instability, these elements will continuously decay until they reach a stabilized form. During the process of transformation, energy is being released in the form of ionising ray.
In medical imaging, majority of the emitted rays utilised are the gamma rays.
Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography (PET/CT)
The latest nuclear imaging tool available in Malaysia is the fusion integrated combined imaging technique, PET/CT.
This diagnostic imaging modality is a combined tool between both modality is a combined tool between both modalities.
In general, there are 2 important principles in this imaging modality that need to be understood in order to know how PET/CT works at molecular level.
First a special chemical resembling glucose molecule has been developed to be utilised in PET modality called ‘floro deox glucose’ (FDG).
Since glucose is an essential elements to all living cells for energy production, this agent when tagged with a suitable radioisotope for PET imaging will demonstrate the road map to tissues with high metabolic activities.
In Malaysia, most common radioisotope available for PET imaging is 18-flourine (18F).
Secondly, cancer tissues contain numerous abnormal cells with abnormally large capability to reproduce. These cancerous cells are metabolically active in comparison to normal cells.
During PET imaging, metabolically active abnormal cells will demonstrate high 18F-FDG uptake.
These tissues will be readily visible and prominent against the normal tissue activity in the background.
For this reason, PET is also known as a functional imaging modality.
However, PET alone is unable to provide previce information on the locations of these lesions. CT on the contrary, gives best information on cross sectional anatomy.
When both modalities are combined, the information gathered will increase the accuracy at diagnosis as the precise location of the abnormal cells can be identified.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Revolutionary Hungarian Invention Claims American Award
VIRTUAL REALITY COMES TO LIFE WITH 3D DESIGN TOOL 'LEONAR3DO'
"TO EFFECTIVELY MODEL REALITY in 3D design, you have to be able to imagine being inside the picture." According to young inventor Daniel Ratai who had set out to revololutionize the traditional methods of 3D design. He emerged with the prototype of 'Leonar3Do', a system transforming an ordinary PC into a window of virtual reality, which was recently granted the 'Microsoft Education Award'.
"The user of Leonar3Do, even your average child, can create a virtual world emerging from the monitor of his own home," Ratai told Diplomacy and Trade. "You can actually manipulate the 3D image, create models, build structures and much more."
Ratai believes a picture is worth a thousand words."However, I also believe a single three-dimensional image is worth more than a thousand two-dimensional pictures." Similar technologies have gained ground in recent years in several fields including archeology, interior design, construction, criminial investigations, engineering, medicine, geology and tourism. According to former Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) President, Szilveszter E. Vizi, even the scientific community has yet to realize the full potential of Leonar3Do."In my field of brain research it could be a tremendous boost," he said.
Series Of Awards In 2005, Ratai was awarded at 'Intel, International Science and Engineering Fair', where he claimed first prize in six categories. The same year, he won the 'Gyorgy Olah Young Scientist Award', presented by the Hungarian-born Nobel Prize-winning scientist, himself. Also in 2005, in recognition of Leonar3Do, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's 'Lincoln Laboratory' named a discovered planets after the young inventor. Ratai's family founded a company, '3D for All', for research into projects related to his invention. One of these was launched at the Institute of Experimental Medicine at MTA, concerning a 'two-photon scanning microscope' used in brain research. "Projects like this justify our expectations to become one of the major players on the 3D design market," Ratai said. Leonar3Do is a so-called 'work environment', and consists of two sensors placed on the PC monitor following the motion of the pen (which manipulates the 3D image), a pair of goggles (to see the image), and special software.
MAGYAR INNOVATION: With Leonar3Do, even a child can create a virtual world emerging from the monitor of his own home, manipulating the 3D image to create models, build structures and much more, inventor Daniel Ratai said.
Honouring Russia's war heroes, 60 years on
In the decades since World War 2, search squads have recovered more than 250,000 soldiers heaped in mass graves. The search is still on in Russia's vast battlefields to give the remains of the nation's defenders a respectful burial, writes ALISSA DE CARBONNEL
EVERY spring, when the ground thaws, searchers fan out across Russia's vast swamps and forests armed with metal detectors, shovels and long metal probes, scouring for bones.
Most are are barely teenagers, their nails caked in the dirt of the Valley of Glory, located west of Moscow, where up to 30,000 soldiers died before Adolf Hitler's advancing Nazi army in 1941.
"Out here, it's worth thinking about what they did for us. If it weren't for them, we might not be here," said Nikolai Krasikov, 23, standing thigh deep in muddy water and plunging for remains.
"It's our duty to find and bury our heroes with honour."
Krasikov's grandparents were all caught up in the Soviet mobilisation for what is known as the Great Patriotic War.
One grandmother survived the 30-month siege of Leningrad, where more than a million people are said to have died; the other worked at a depot on the front.
His grandfathers were among an estimated 27 million Soviet citizens who perished in World War 2. Millions more simply disappeared.
"The front for searchers with our spades and metal detectors stretches from Berlin to Moscow," said Leonid Melnikov, a colonel in the Russian army who heads a search group.
The volunteers, crouched on all fours in the marshes, painstakingly sift through clumps of dirt in the hopes of finding the tiny identity cylinders that Soviet soldiers carried.
Dressed in head-to-toe camouflage and large rubber gaiters they gave the impression of children playing in the mud, if not for a growing pile of bones: the remains of two Russian soldiers.
Five hours of searching gave up a tooth, an exploded helmet, a gas mask, bullets, leg bones, shrapnel, a pair of boots riddled with more bones and one mossy shoe.
"They say when you find a soldier, his soul is freed," said Yulia, a 17-year old studying to be an art restorer.
"My parents aren't happy I'm here, they're worried because I'm missing school. My friends: I think they're jealous, but they don't really get it," she said, straggles of red hair peaking out under her army-issue bandana.
The fields, about 140km west of Moscow, where the Red Army's 32nd Rifle Division held Nazi troops for 15 days in December 1941, have yielded over 600 skeletons in the last decade.
In just a few days this spring, the strip that used to be known as the Valley of Death has yielded the remains of eight men.
None have been identified and the recovered identity capsules were empty, washed clear by water and rot or, perhaps, because soldierly superstition had it that signing your name to the identity form would herald sure death.
A set of initials and a date of birth, R.A.A. 1920, scratched on the back of a wrist compass and a tube of German toothpaste were the only clues found with the scattered bones of the lost soldiers.
"For us, the war is not over until the last soldier is buried," said Vyasheslav Pirogov, 32, who has been digging for 11 years.
In the 64 years since World War 2, search squads have recovered more than 250,000 soldiers heaped in mass graves and still haunting Russia's vast battlefields, according to Yuri Smirnov head of the Russian Search Squads, a non-governmental group.
He estimates that between 40,000 and 60,000 people across the country volunteer for search teams, who work nearly exclusively from private donations.
Only once, in 1995, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet victory over the Nazis, did the government make a small allocation, he said.
All the diggers in the valley -- a bar-tender, a cook, a police officer, teachers -- helped buy a US$1,000 (RM3,500) metal detector and other equipment.
"The saddest thing for me is that this work is being carried out by children. Adults don't have any use for history, but, children, they need to live in the present," said Vyasheslav Pirogov, a professor who leads his own scout group.
The Pioneers and Komsomol, the youth wings of the Communist party, spearheaded the search for fallen soldiers in the 1960s, but searchers complained the state did not do enough.
While Moscow marks its victory in the war with great fanfare and a military parade across Red Square, searchers say they know a better way to honour the nation's defenders.
"There is patriotism in words and patriotism in action," said Smirnov.
"You should just once see the tears in a grandmother's eyes when you tell her you've buried her husband or brother."
Last year, searchers buried the remains of two Soviet Yak-7 fighter pilots in Russia's northern region of Pskov in a ceremony with full military honours, the coffins draped with the Russian flag.
"I have tears in my eyes again remembering," said Nikolai Peskulov, grandson of one of the pilots, who watched the ceremony by chance on army television from his Moscow apartment.
"Our nation is very, very proud of our victory," said Nikolai's wife, Elena. "We will go to Pskov this spring to lay flowers at his grave." -- AFP
EVERY spring, when the ground thaws, searchers fan out across Russia's vast swamps and forests armed with metal detectors, shovels and long metal probes, scouring for bones.
Most are are barely teenagers, their nails caked in the dirt of the Valley of Glory, located west of Moscow, where up to 30,000 soldiers died before Adolf Hitler's advancing Nazi army in 1941.
"Out here, it's worth thinking about what they did for us. If it weren't for them, we might not be here," said Nikolai Krasikov, 23, standing thigh deep in muddy water and plunging for remains.
"It's our duty to find and bury our heroes with honour."
Krasikov's grandparents were all caught up in the Soviet mobilisation for what is known as the Great Patriotic War.
One grandmother survived the 30-month siege of Leningrad, where more than a million people are said to have died; the other worked at a depot on the front.
His grandfathers were among an estimated 27 million Soviet citizens who perished in World War 2. Millions more simply disappeared.
"The front for searchers with our spades and metal detectors stretches from Berlin to Moscow," said Leonid Melnikov, a colonel in the Russian army who heads a search group.
The volunteers, crouched on all fours in the marshes, painstakingly sift through clumps of dirt in the hopes of finding the tiny identity cylinders that Soviet soldiers carried.
Dressed in head-to-toe camouflage and large rubber gaiters they gave the impression of children playing in the mud, if not for a growing pile of bones: the remains of two Russian soldiers.
Five hours of searching gave up a tooth, an exploded helmet, a gas mask, bullets, leg bones, shrapnel, a pair of boots riddled with more bones and one mossy shoe.
"They say when you find a soldier, his soul is freed," said Yulia, a 17-year old studying to be an art restorer.
"My parents aren't happy I'm here, they're worried because I'm missing school. My friends: I think they're jealous, but they don't really get it," she said, straggles of red hair peaking out under her army-issue bandana.
The fields, about 140km west of Moscow, where the Red Army's 32nd Rifle Division held Nazi troops for 15 days in December 1941, have yielded over 600 skeletons in the last decade.
In just a few days this spring, the strip that used to be known as the Valley of Death has yielded the remains of eight men.
None have been identified and the recovered identity capsules were empty, washed clear by water and rot or, perhaps, because soldierly superstition had it that signing your name to the identity form would herald sure death.
A set of initials and a date of birth, R.A.A. 1920, scratched on the back of a wrist compass and a tube of German toothpaste were the only clues found with the scattered bones of the lost soldiers.
"For us, the war is not over until the last soldier is buried," said Vyasheslav Pirogov, 32, who has been digging for 11 years.
In the 64 years since World War 2, search squads have recovered more than 250,000 soldiers heaped in mass graves and still haunting Russia's vast battlefields, according to Yuri Smirnov head of the Russian Search Squads, a non-governmental group.
He estimates that between 40,000 and 60,000 people across the country volunteer for search teams, who work nearly exclusively from private donations.
Only once, in 1995, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet victory over the Nazis, did the government make a small allocation, he said.
All the diggers in the valley -- a bar-tender, a cook, a police officer, teachers -- helped buy a US$1,000 (RM3,500) metal detector and other equipment.
"The saddest thing for me is that this work is being carried out by children. Adults don't have any use for history, but, children, they need to live in the present," said Vyasheslav Pirogov, a professor who leads his own scout group.
The Pioneers and Komsomol, the youth wings of the Communist party, spearheaded the search for fallen soldiers in the 1960s, but searchers complained the state did not do enough.
While Moscow marks its victory in the war with great fanfare and a military parade across Red Square, searchers say they know a better way to honour the nation's defenders.
"There is patriotism in words and patriotism in action," said Smirnov.
"You should just once see the tears in a grandmother's eyes when you tell her you've buried her husband or brother."
Last year, searchers buried the remains of two Soviet Yak-7 fighter pilots in Russia's northern region of Pskov in a ceremony with full military honours, the coffins draped with the Russian flag.
"I have tears in my eyes again remembering," said Nikolai Peskulov, grandson of one of the pilots, who watched the ceremony by chance on army television from his Moscow apartment.
"Our nation is very, very proud of our victory," said Nikolai's wife, Elena. "We will go to Pskov this spring to lay flowers at his grave." -- AFP
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Kartika Airlines Orders 15 Sukhoi Superjet 100s
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company (SCAC) and Kartika Airlines have signed the Heads of Agreement for 15 Sukhoi Superjet 100s and another 15 optional aircraft. The order is valued at $448 million at list prices. With the announcement, Kartika Airlines is the first SSJ100 customer in South-East Asia.
“With Kartika Airlines being our launch customer in South-East Asia we are opening a new market for SSJ100,” said Victor Soubbotine, president SCAC. “It’s a real milestone for the Sukhoi Superjet 100 Program which is gaining pace having recently launched the full-scale certification phase. The first results of flight tests which are under way in Komsomolsk confirm designed characteristics and bring confidence that SSJ100 will be a perfect match to Kartika’s fleet.”
Kartika Airlines, an Indonesian regional airline, will employ the aircraft in both its domestic and international networks. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2011.
The agreement includes 15 firm orders and options for an additional 15 SSJ100/95B. The SSJ100/95B ordered accommodates 98 passengers in a single class configuration or 86 passengers in a dual class configuration (78 in economy and 8 in premium). The aircraft will be powered by two SaM146 engines.
http://www.compilots.com/news/article2963.html
“With Kartika Airlines being our launch customer in South-East Asia we are opening a new market for SSJ100,” said Victor Soubbotine, president SCAC. “It’s a real milestone for the Sukhoi Superjet 100 Program which is gaining pace having recently launched the full-scale certification phase. The first results of flight tests which are under way in Komsomolsk confirm designed characteristics and bring confidence that SSJ100 will be a perfect match to Kartika’s fleet.”
Kartika Airlines, an Indonesian regional airline, will employ the aircraft in both its domestic and international networks. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2011.
The agreement includes 15 firm orders and options for an additional 15 SSJ100/95B. The SSJ100/95B ordered accommodates 98 passengers in a single class configuration or 86 passengers in a dual class configuration (78 in economy and 8 in premium). The aircraft will be powered by two SaM146 engines.
http://www.compilots.com/news/article2963.html
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