Co- Chairs: TBD
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; 1.00 PM - 2.30 PM

Presenters:
A. Merla and G. L. Romani , University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy;
Antoni Nowakowski, Tech. University of Gdansk, Poland.
Abby Vogel, M. Hassan, A. Gandjbakhche, National Institutes of Health, USA B.Wiecek, B.Ostrowski, M.Kulinski, Tech. University of Lodz, Poland;
T.Swiatczak and B. Wiecek, Tech.University of Lodz, Poland
N. Sun, I. Pavlidis, University of Houston, USA

Abstract :
Medical Infrared (IR) is enjoying increased attention as a viable quantitative imaging modality.  The new CRC Biomedical Engineering Handbook (3rd.edition) contains a comprehensive section on this topic.  Also, infrared imaging has been selected as one of the seven Spin-off books (to be published by CRC in January 2007).  This mini symposium will address technological enhancements and clinical results achieved recently. The series of six presentations will be on the following:

1. The first presentation focuses on medical infrared imaging as a functional, quantitative diagnostic methodology used effectively in medical centers. This approach requires advanced image processing, diagnostic paradigms, appropriate software for data analysis and a novel data processing method. 

2. Understanding the thermal transient process in Active Dynamic Thermography and why the thermal time constants may vary depending on the state of the medical abnormality as indicated in clinical results.

3. In-depth review of clinical work at NIH for the assessment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma therapy using infrared imaging in a multi-modality environment.

4. Integrated software for thermal image processing both for static (passive) and dynamic (active, lock-in) thermography will be presented, as well as new software for statistical parameter calculation, windowed FFT analysis, time-domain image processing, filtering and calibration. 

5. Thermal and geometric parameter evaluation using lock-in and pulse thermography. heat transfer co-efficients, thermal conductivity of the material and thickness of multi-layer structure are the major parameters for the evaluation. This approach can be used effectively for biological and medical applications.

6. This paper will focus on the contact free cardiac pulse measurement method and the enhancements introduced to overcome the former shortcomings of this infrared imaging based techniques