Laurie Wilson

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation | CSIRO · Division of Computational Informatics

This paper explores some of the benefits of formally capturing stakeholder perspectives through conducting stakeholder interviews in a large, collaborative project. The case study discussed is an Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) venture between two universities, industry, government and communities based in the for...

Human health is inextricably linked to animal health and production, particularly in developing regions of the world where animals play an important role in communities by providing transportation and food. Many deaths occur each year from a number of well-known and preventable animal diseases that are transmitted to humans, especially in developin...

This paper reflects on the Action Research approach adopted in the design of the ECHONET (EchoCardiographic Healthcare Online Networking Expertise in Tasmania) system --a telemedicine system developed by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation) Australia to facilitate the sharing of expertise and services between the Intensi...

In this paper we describe the design process of the Virtual Critical Care Unit (ViCCU®) -- an advanced telemedicine system developed by CSIRO in conjunction with Sydney West Area Health Service. The system allows an emergency care specialist in a major referral hospital to remotely lead a team in a small rural hospital during the treatment of criti...

The ViCCU (Virtual Critical Care Unit) Project sought to address the problems of shortages of Critical Care staff by developing a system that could use the capabilities of Ultrabroadband networks so as to have a Critical Care Specialist virtually present at a distant location. This is not possible in a clinically useful way with current systems. A...

This paper presents a computer aided diagnosis system in chest radiograph to extract abnormalities and suggest the possible disease states using multiple classification ripple down rule (MCRDR) and fuzzy function. The system generates image features in numerical parameter values using low-level image processing and converts them to linguistic (symb...

Typically, inspiration is preferred when xraying the lungs. The x-ray technologist will ask a patient to be still and to take a deep breath and to hold it. This not only reduces the possibility of a blurred image but also enhances the quality of the image since air-filled lungs are easier to see on x-ray film. However, inspiration causes low densit...

This paper presents a new method called 'Score-Block operation', which is originally from the general image retrieval concept, with k nearest neighbour classifier for automated categorization of interstitial pattern in chest radiographs. Before this method is applied on a chest radiograph, the lung field is extracted from the image and image featur...

The Hospital Without Walls is an ongoing ambitious project in home telecare that incorporates research into physiological monitoring, low-power radio communication, database storage of physiological data and methods of viewing clinically relevant information from large quantities of stored data. The system records vital signs from patients in their...

This paper introduces a new approach to content based image retrieval by texture. There are three problems to solve: high computational time, handling high dimension data, and comparing images consistent with human perception. To decrease the computational, time, we present a new strategy to extract an image feature with high retrieval accuracy. We...

The Centre for Networking Technologies for the Information Economy (CeNTIE) was establishedin 2001 as part of the Advanced Networks Program of the Australian Department ofCommunications, Information Technology and the Arts. Its aim is to provide a platform fordemonstrating applications which require advanced networks. The CeNTIE Foundation Networkl...

The challenges to the health system posed by increasing health costs and ageing populations are well documented. An inevitable consequence seems likely to be a substantial increase in services provided directly to individuals in their homes, rather than through institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes and the like. Information and telecommunic...

Home telecare uses a number of telemedicine technologies used for caring for patients in their homes rather than in the hospital system. To provide continuous monitoring of vital signs with minimal disruption of a normal lifestyle, we have developed an ultra-low power wireless and sensing system which may be installed in the home. The system is bui...

The advent of real-time ultrasound in the 1970s, together with a growing interest in tissue characterization, led to a number of investigators using the nature of tissue motion to distinguish healthy from diseased tissue. Our group at the (then) Ultrasonics Institute demonstrated the use of phase methods for detecting very small tissue motions, usi...

Aging populations and rising health costs have created the need to care for more patients in their own homes. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) is developing a project, Hospital Without Walls, which aims to provide continuous monitoring of patients in certain diagnostic categories. The key technology i...

Knowledge-based image segmentation is defined in terms of the separation of image analysis procedures and representation of knowledge. Such architecture is particularly suitable for medical image segmentation, because of the large amount of structured domain knowledge. A general methodology for the application of knowledge-based methods to medical...

We present a knowledge-based approach to segmentation and analysis of the lung boundaries in chest X-rays. Image edges are matched to an anatomical model of the lung boundary using parametric features. A modular system architecture was developed which incorporates the model, image processing routines, an inference engine and a blackboard. Edges ass...

Routine screening mammography for the early detection of breast cancer in women over the age of 50 is now widespread in many countries including Australia. The introduction of these screening programs has stimulated research into computer systems which may assist radiologists examining these mammogram images.

We present an automated, knowledge-based method for segmenting chest computed tomography (CT) datasets. Anatomical knowledge including expected volume, shape, relative position, and X-ray attenuation of organs provides feature constraints that guide the segmentation process. Knowledge is represented at a high level using an explicit anatomical mode...

The intravascular insonation of a blood vessel in the presence of an impedance interface between blood and the inner vessel wall is studied theoretically. The model, which uses a ray approximation, is three dimensional and allows consideration of arbitrary noncircular lumen shapes. Model results are presented for the image geometry, and the insonat...

PrFont34Bin0BinSub0Frac0Def1Margin0Margin0Jc1Indent1440Lim0Lim1L.S.Wilson, M.S. Brown, B.D.Doust, R.W.Gill, S.Brown and D.Nair. Computer-aided diagnosis using anatomical models. [Japanese Journal of] Medical Imaging Technology Vol 14, pp 652-663, 1996

Excised femoral and iliac artery segments have been examined with 20 MHz intravascular ultrasound followed by histological assessment. During the ultrasound examinations, radio-frequency (RF) data were recorded digitally, and used for calculating local values of attenuation slope throughout the tissue, using a frequency-domain technique. The RF dat...

Spectral tissue strain (STS) is a new technique for measuring and imaging tissue strain from a set of images using intravascular ultrasound. The technique is based on the Fourier scaling property and uses the chirp z-transform (CZT) to estimate strain within the vessel walls. Some preliminary results, both in vitro and in vivo, are described. A nov...

A technique has been developed for measuring the two in-plane components of blood velocity using ultrasound. The principle is based on analyzing a time sequence of successive images of the speckle pattern, and forming spatial projections of the resulting three-dimensional data set. The mathematics may be understood in terms of sections through a th...

Considering data from a Doppler sample volume as a two-dimensional function of depth and time, the properties of its two-dimensional fast Fourier transform (2DFFT) are discussed. It is shown that the 2DFFT of idealized Doppler data from moving scatterers is a line whose slope is the velocity of the scatterers. Aliasing, finite bandwidth effects, an...

Diagnostic ultrasound has achieved wide acceptance in its 30-year history, largely because of its cost-effectiveness and safety combined with a steady improvement in image quality. Australian scientists have played a major role in its development. The two most important modes of operation are imaging and Doppler, which may be combined. Current rese...

The data on the relationship of sound speed to tissue condition, and the development of methods for measurement of sound speed in vivo, are outlined. The methods developed by the authors are discussed. These include methods which use the spatial shift in images of targets viewed from different directions, time-of-flight measurements along increment...

In this initial report, an imaging technique is described for automatically recognising the walls of a blood vessel during Doppler measurements, and hence automatically adjusting the position of the sample volume. The method reduces the inherently two-dimensional edge detection problem to a one-dimensional one, and iterates over several imaging fra...

Fibrosis in patients with myelofibrosis (MF) is seen not only in the bone marrow but also around the metaplastic foci in the spleen and liver. Following our observation of reversal of bone marrow fibrosis in MF patients treated with chemotherapy, we undertook ultrasonic splenic tissue characterization studies using sound speed measurements to asses...

Ultrasonic attenuation has been measured using frequency domain signal processing in clinical trials of patients with liver and spleen diseases. By comparing the variance encountered in local measurements and in measurements at a number of adjoining sites, the need for averaging over large volumes of tissue to avoid the effects of large fluctuation...

The paper describes an implementation of clinical sound speed measurement using either a commercial water path scanner or a specially developed dual transducer real time scanner, each interfaced to a general purpose minicomputer for off-line analysis. It describes the examination technique to obtain suitable clinical data from the liver and the spl...

A workshop was held immediately after the WFUMB '85 conference in Sydney to review the papers on the subject of Tissue Characterisation presented at the Conference, and to discuss their implications on the future of the subject. The Workshop took the form of a panel discussion with each panellist presenting a different aspect of Tissue Characterisa...

A frequency domain signal processing scheme is developed for measuring attenuation and attenuation slope in vivo, using equally spaced depth samples and linear regression techniques. The algorithm may be expressed in terms of linear, commuting operators acting on an array of log power spectra. By interchanging operators, a computationally efficient...

The measurement of tissue attenuation from pulse-echo data has been widely investigated. This paper examines correction of the measurements for the effect of the transducer beam. Computer and experimental studies are performed on a number of reflectors including smooth and rough planes, ideal point scatterers, T.M. material and liver and spleen tis...

Diagnostic ultrasound is a pulse echo imaging system similar to radar, sonar or exploration seismology. It has its most widespread use in the examination of pregnancy, but also finds routine use in the examination of the organs of the upper abdomen and its use is increasing in other areas. Using current techniques the information obtained is largel...

A method is proposed for determining velocity of propagation of ultrasound in tissue by processing the pulse-echo data obtained from a compound scan. Individual sectors from different transducer positions are reconstructed and a suitable area common to the two sectors is selected. Cross-correlation of the region of interest is used to detect an app...

A signal processing technique is described for analyzing radio frequency M-mode signals to obtain significantly better depth resolution than previously available. Displacement and deformation waveforms may be measured for displacements less than 0.1 mm and deformations of less than 1 percent. Waveforms of liver dynamics caused by aortic pulsation a...

The action of reflection and refraction in producing shadows and enhancement in ultrasonic echograms behind cystic structures is well known, but the physical explanations usually used are incomplete. In this paper the emergent beam patterns for a number of cases are plotted and this data used to explain the shadows and enhancement observed. Cases a...

PrFont34Bin0BinSub0Frac0Def1Margin0Margin0Jc1Indent1440Lim0Lim11. D.J.McCleese and L.S.Wilson. Cloud Top Heights from Temperature Sounding Instruments. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 102, pp. 781-790, 1976.

The Sydney giant air shower array has been in operation now for approximately five years. The authors analyse the first 10000 showers observed and derives a muon size and total energy spectrum. The area time product involved for these data is about 175 km2 yr and the threshold energy for these showers is about 1017 eV. The detection probability of...