Dear all, I am a new phD student in EE. I am trying to identify a key field related to signal processing which can have some scientific prospect that can allow some great scientific discovery, since I want to do academia later. I hope it is not too engineering. At the same time, I also want to be able to secure a decent job and earn a decent living. I have backgrounds in signal processing, image/video processing, networking, communications, VLSI, etc. After much thinking, I guess medical imaging is more or less related to science and may some scientific discovery can be made? I am wondering if it can be a good field for me? Any thoughts are welcome! thank you very much! -Lucy
is medical imaging a great field to do phD research in EE?
Started by ●July 28, 2004
Reply by ●July 28, 20042004-07-28
On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 00:37:27 -0700, "gino" <mizhael@yahoo.com> wrote in comp.dsp:> Dear all, > > I am a new phD student in EE. I am trying to identify a key field related to > signal processing which can have some scientific prospect that can allow > some great scientific discovery, since I want to do academia later. I hope > it is not too engineering. At the same time, I also want to be able to > secure a decent job and earn a decent living. I have backgrounds in signal > processing, image/video processing, networking, communications, VLSI, etc. > After much thinking, I guess medical imaging is more or less related to > science and may some scientific discovery can be made? I am wondering if it > can be a good field for me? Any thoughts are welcome! thank you very much! > > -LucyThe biggest new thing in medical imaging today is multi-modality image fusion. This is where images of the same patient from two different types of imaging equipment are fused together. Originally these images were taken on two different pieces of equipment at two different times, and the fused images were less than optimum. The latest trend is cameras with two different types of imaging technology in them, where the patient is placed on the table and scanned by both technologies in succession without being moved. The first application, beginning a few years ago, was PET/CT combinations. The latest thing, just being introduced at medical trade shows and shipping early next year, is SPECT/CT scanners. A relative high resolution technology like CT or MRI can show anatomical detail clearly, but often times they will not show a tumor or lesion because it has the same density to X-Rays as the surrounding healthy tissue. Nuclear imaging (PET or SPECT) works by injecting the patient with a radiopharmecutical, that is some drug that has been tagged with an isotope that emits gamma rays or positrons. With the right choice of radioactive isotope and carrier compound, this results in what is called functional or molecular imaging. The diseased tissue shows up clearly in an image reconstructed from gamma rays emitted by radioactive decay of the isotope because it absorbs either much more or much less of the carrier compound than the surrounding normal tissue. The downside is that the resolution of this type of imaging is low compared to CT, so from this image alone it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact location of the lesion. Taking both a CT and nuclear image of the same patient and fusing them allows the lesion to be precisely located within the higher resolution anatomical image. This provides for better radiotherapy and surgery. While the fusion of CT and nuclear (PET or SPECT) images is well along, and the major medical imaging manufacturers like Philips, Siemens, and GE all have products, I have heard of radiologists, radiotherapists, and surgeons wish for more. In particular they talk about fusing MRI and ultrasound with other modalities. You might investigate if there are any potential projects in this area that are relatively untouched so far. -- Jack Klein Home: http://JK-Technology.Com FAQs for comp.lang.c http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html comp.lang.c++ http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/ alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++ http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~ajo/docs/FAQ-acllc.html
Reply by ●July 28, 20042004-07-28
"gino" <mizhael@yahoo.com> wrote:>Dear all, > >I am a new phD student in EE. I am trying to identify a key field related to >signal processing which can have some scientific prospect that can allow >some great scientific discovery, since I want to do academia later. I hope >it is not too engineering. At the same time, I also want to be able to >secure a decent job and earn a decent living. I have backgrounds in signal >processing, image/video processing, networking, communications, VLSI, etc. >After much thinking, I guess medical imaging is more or less related to >science and may some scientific discovery can be made? I am wondering if it >can be a good field for me? Any thoughts are welcome! thank you very much!There are still exciting advances being made in medical imaging, but I'm not sure how much potential there is for great scientific discoveries. But of course, there is the potential for those to be made in most any field, for a committed talented person. There's a lot of excitement in the genome side of the medical field these days too. Regards, Robert www.gldsp.com ( modify address for return email ) www.numbersusa.com www.americanpatrol.com
Reply by ●August 1, 20042004-08-01
gino wrote:> Dear all, > > I am a new phD student in EE. I am trying to identify a key field related to > signal processing which can have some scientific prospect that can allow > some great scientific discovery, since I want to do academia later.I must suggest you are being a little naive. Great scientific discoveries seldom have anything to do with success in academia. Success as an academic means publications, and the most efficient way to generate these is by having a team of graduate students to plagiarize from. To get the team of graduate students you need grants (money), and it is the ability to obtain grants which distinguishes the successful academic from the less successful. Me, twisted and bitter? Never. -- Regards, Martin Leese E-mail: please@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID Web: http://members.tripod.com/martin_leese/
Reply by ●August 2, 20042004-08-02
Martin Leese <please@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID> wrote in message news:<410DA168.90708@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID>...> gino wrote: > > Dear all, > > > > I am a new phD student in EE. I am trying to identify a key field related to > > signal processing which can have some scientific prospect that can allow > > some great scientific discovery, since I want to do academia later. > > I must suggest you are being a little naive. Great > scientific discoveries seldom have anything to do with > success in academia. Success as an academic means > publications, and the most efficient way to generate > these is by having a team of graduate students to > plagiarize from. To get the team of graduate students > you need grants (money), and it is the ability to > obtain grants which distinguishes the successful > academic from the less successful. > > Me, twisted and bitter? Never.No, of course not. I think you gave a very cool, calm and collected description of academia today. A few months ago I got involved in an exchange of emails with a few people who have very distinguished scientific carreers. Some 100-150 published articles each, one had recieved a reward for distinguished researchers under age 35, one had become member of the National Academy of Engineering (in USA). I pointed out that their main thesis did not check with elementary maths as I learned when I was 12. I got a furious response, but based solely on that the papers I attacked was published in 1992 and had been cited 70 times since then, that the authors were "reckognized superstars of [this particular field of research]" and the already mentioned distinctions. After I challenged these "distinguished researchers" to actually verify their thesis themselves (i.e. do all the job themselves and not rely on grad students or tech assistants to do the hands-on work) and evaluate the results according to proper scientific procedure (involving blind tests, comparing results to pure guesswork), I never heard from them again. Rune
Reply by ●August 3, 20042004-08-03
Rune Allnor wrote:> Martin Leese <please@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID> wrote in message news:<410DA168.90708@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID>... > >>gino wrote: >> >>>Dear all, >>> >>>I am a new phD student in EE. I am trying to identify a key field related to >>>signal processing which can have some scientific prospect that can allow >>>some great scientific discovery, since I want to do academia later. >> >>I must suggest you are being a little naive. Great >>scientific discoveries seldom have anything to do with >>success in academia. Success as an academic means >>publications, and the most efficient way to generate >>these is by having a team of graduate students to >>plagiarize from. To get the team of graduate students >>you need grants (money), and it is the ability to >>obtain grants which distinguishes the successful >>academic from the less successful. >> >>Me, twisted and bitter? Never. > > > No, of course not. I think you gave a very cool, calm and collected > description of academia today. A few months ago I got involved in an > exchange of emails with a few people who have very distinguished > scientific carreers. Some 100-150 published articles each, one had > recieved a reward for distinguished researchers under age 35, one had > become member of the National Academy of Engineering (in USA). > > I pointed out that their main thesis did not check with elementary maths > as I learned when I was 12. I got a furious response, but based solely > on that the papers I attacked was published in 1992 and had been cited > 70 times since then, that the authors were "reckognized superstars of > [this particular field of research]" and the already mentioned distinctions. > After I challenged these "distinguished researchers" to actually verify > their thesis themselves (i.e. do all the job themselves and not rely on > grad students or tech assistants to do the hands-on work) and evaluate > the results according to proper scientific procedure (involving blind > tests, comparing results to pure guesswork), I never heard from them > again. > > RuneNot everyone is like that. Sometime around 1950 (when I graduated from high school), there was an article in Scientific American about the muscular efficiency of butterflies, which are known to fly long distances over water. The author measured the average weights of butterflies before and after the journey, thereby measuring the "fuel" used, and calculated the energy cost. He measured the moment of inertia of the wings and the energy needed for one cycle assuming no expenditure for lift or drag. He measured the unusually high (he thought) stiffness of the thorax to which the wings were rigidly attached, and the muscle energy needed to flex it away from equilibrium. (It seemed to him an unlikely coincidence that these numbers were nearly equal, and repeated his measurements to verify them.) He tethered butterflies to a wire and measured their wing's frequency. He then added the flexure and inertial energy of each stroke, multiplied by the frequency, and called the result power. He had described the most efficient engine imaginable. It bugged me. I knew a little calculus, and I played with the numbers. I wrote to the author privately. (Scientific American forwarded my sealed envelope to him.) I pointed out that the wings were, by calculation on his numbers, operating in resonance, so that the nearly equal energies he had added ought to have been subtracted instead. He asked me to hold off a letter to the editor for a month or two until after his dissertation and defense: this was his thesis paper and none of his advisors had caught the error. In the end, I never wrote, but a year later, he sent me a copy of a letter he had written debunking his own paper as cited by another author. For all I know, he's still being cited, but he's rather not be. Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●August 3, 20042004-08-03
Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message news:<410f0c31$0$2843$61fed72c@news.rcn.com>...> He asked me to hold off a letter to the editor for a month or two > until after his dissertation and defense: this was his thesis paper and > none of his advisors had caught the error. In the end, I never wrote, > but a year later, he sent me a copy of a letter he had written debunking > his own paper as cited by another author. For all I know, he's still > being cited, but he's rather not be. > > JerryThat's due to either a one-of-a-kind scientist or ages long past. Or both. With the distinct exception of the academics who frequent comp.dsp (which is not merely a benevolent manner of speaking, but due to the fact that posting at comp.dsp requires a sincere interest in, and eventually results in a more than basic knowledge of DSP), I see no correlation between academic degree and knowledge or proficiency in a subject. Last winter I was asked to attend a meeting as an bysitter/aide to a potential customer for a radar-based measuring device. The vendor of this system was a professor with a long and apparently distinguished record of publishing. This guy had also been involved for a couple of decades with the most prestiguous research labs of radar and high-frequency EM propagation. The device had been tested for some time in a geometrically and material- wise very complex situation, and in an environment of very strong EM fields, though due to 50 Hz power. When I was approached the first time, the customers said that they had got some apparently not utterly useles results after the professor had "calibrated the EM index of refraction in air to a value of 1.4." Of course, all alarm bells in my mind went off, and I consulted my high-school(!) physics text to find that the index of refraction in air was on the order of 1.0003. Me pointing this discrepancy out to the customer was probably the reason why I was invited to the meeting. Before this meeting I made some very quick sketches of the geometry where this device was to be used. I made a few very coarse MPEG-movies based on wave simulation software. Very basic stuff: Huygens' principle of wave fronts emanating from a source of finite aperture, reflections of pulses from a plane surface, diffraction of pulses off corners. So when I showed the simulation this ducted geometry with lots of corners inside, the wavefield becme a mess, completely as expected. There were ducted waves, there were internal reflections, there were diffractions, the resonances sustained for 20 times the duration of the source pulse. No wonder this system never worked properly. When asked to comment on my simulations, the professor merely commented that I had used software intended for acoustics, not EM as were the waves that propagated. When he saw my reference to a high-school text, he literally exploded with rage and proclaimed that his methods were far too advanced to be understood in terms of high-school physics. When asked to comment on his "calibration" of the index of recfraction, he stated that this would be due to the strong background EM fields in the area. He was never able to produce an academic reference or a comprehensable argument (he was, in fact, not able to produce any argument) why the 50 Hz bacground field would interact with the several GHz waves his device used. I could go on and on and on. It is very sad, but the last few years I have come to view academics with very strong suspicion, with regard to their knowledge and proficiency within their fields. True, I have this PhD diploma myself, but my Post.Doc position ends at the end of the year, and after that I don't know why I would need the diploma. I'll have to think of what to do with it. Rune
Reply by ●August 3, 20042004-08-03
Rune Allnor wrote: ...> I could go on and on and on. It is very sad, but the last few years I have > come to view academics with very strong suspicion, with regard to their > knowledge and proficiency within their fields. True, I have this PhD > diploma myself, but my Post.Doc position ends at the end of the year, > and after that I don't know why I would need the diploma. I'll have to > think of what to do with it.Don't use it for Kleenex. (That's the first step in not letting it go to your head.) Like the odd fasteners you have in a jar somewhere, it may come in handy some day; another tool in your kit. Some of the blowhards you meet have always gotten by on bluff and bluster; they are to be despised. Others started well, but lost it. With no friends to holler "Bullshit!", they drift into delusion. Often colleagues and circumstance conspire to reinforce the delusion. At some point, they are to be pitied. I saw what I hope was Hermann Baumann's last public performance. The great horn player, two years my junior and certainly the best (to my taste) since Dennis Brain, came to town. He toured the state with the New Jersey Symphony and gave a series of master classes at Rutgers, the State University. I know someone who drove 300 miles to hear him play. The concert was a disaster. It was clear after the first movement that one of the orchestra members should have taken over for him, but he continued doggedly. Seeing the great man's art in tatters devastated me. I wept, not alone. It was so bad that the reviewers were kind. Instead of the truth -- he's lost it -- they wrote that he seemed to be losing it. He must have known how bad he was. If he didn't, he's to be pitied all the more. Late in her life, Lotte Lenya was interviewed by a pleasant ditsy chatterbox on a local classical music radio station. At one point, the interviewer said, "It must be tragic to know that you can't sing any more." Wise Lotte answered, "Oh no, my dear. It would be tragic if I did not!" Just maybe, when you come up against one of those blowhards, you are witness to such a tragedy. Jerry __________________________________________ http://www.dispeker.com/page/baumann.html -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●August 3, 20042004-08-03
"Jerry Avins" <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message news:410FAC1E.8000900@ieee.org...> Rune Allnor wrote: > > I saw what I hope was Hermann Baumann's last public performance. The > great horn player, two years my junior and certainly the best (to my > taste) since Dennis Brain, came to town. He toured the state with the > New Jersey Symphony and gave a series of master classes at Rutgers, the > State University. I know someone who drove 300 miles to hear him play. > > The concert was a disaster. It was clear after the first movement that > one of the orchestra members should have taken over for him, but he > continued doggedly. Seeing the great man's art in tatters devastated me. > I wept, not alone. It was so bad that the reviewers were kind. Instead > of the truth -- he's lost it -- they wrote that he seemed to be losing > it. He must have known how bad he was. If he didn't, he's to be pitied > all the more.As a fellow horn player, this story struck a note with me! :-) Thanks for sharing. I agree with your assessment of both Baumann and Brain. I have a recording of Baumann playing a Weber horn concerto that is just amazing. I used to listen to over and over as a kid in wonder. It is a shame that Brain passed on before his talent fully developed and before the high quality classical recording quality that we take for granted today was common-place. But his recordings of the Mozart horn concertos are the best out there in my opinion, even though the recording quality is vastly inferior to what can be produced today. My best in-person horn experience was with Dale Clevenger, principle of the Chicago Symphony. For several years he has taught and played at a music camp up here in the NW, and I attended as a high schooler. He had a great performance of the Strauss first concerto.
Reply by ●August 4, 20042004-08-04
Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message news:<410FAC1E.8000900@ieee.org>...> Late in her life, Lotte Lenya was interviewed by a pleasant ditsy > chatterbox on a local classical music radio station. At one point, the > interviewer said, "It must be tragic to know that you can't sing any > more." Wise Lotte answered, "Oh no, my dear. It would be tragic if I did > not!" Just maybe, when you come up against one of those blowhards, you > are witness to such a tragedy.One would like to think so... in one or two instances, this may very well be the case. Still, the pattern is too consistent to ignore. Rune
