Obstetrics with an Open Mind

09:09pm (while watching KBC)

Visited another ultrasound clinic today. That of Dr. Rajaram Mahambrey. Surprised with his lack of knowledge about ultrasound, and beaming negativity... A futile meeting I must say, with respect to the knowledge I was hoping to get. Though, realized a few things, after watching a few project presentations in college, and in retrospect.

1. I need a data base. But since I will be trying to find the frequency pattern for a particular abnormality, and then make sure that, THAT is what I have to look for in a signal to detect the abnormality, I need an abnormality database of size 50 at the least.

2. Since I need to prove that the database is in fact the abnormality database, I will have to have it's image output with it. So, the database should be an audio + a video or image database.

3. Private doctors, don't know anything,.... ANYTHING!!!! So, gotta contact the government doctors, ask if any official letter is necessary to obtain the database. That will be troublesome!! The other alternative is, contact the External Guide for database. He needs the workflow!! Damn it!! Gotta start working both ways. Have the workflow ready. Will mail it to the External Guide, brief him with planned activities, ask for his opinion and ask for the database. Hoping Anisha Cotta's project presentation, for which he is the external is soon, so that we get to meet him, and ask him as much information as we need. But, gotta mail him first. That's the 1st TO DO thing tomorrow. Get the workflow, and mail.

ATB!

Searching and Sorting

09:54 pm

Got my hands on Yadnesh Sanzgiri's Paper. Went through. Pretty cool. After spending at least a week since the beginning of my project, on trying to search for any information regarding any ultrasound doppler signal database, or their classification, I have realised that they do not exist on the net. Not even on physionet. A first concern!! Because a lot  depends on it. Got to think of alternatives.

Have to meet the ultrasound specialist who Rohan Naik from micro was talking about! It seems he's free most of the times. We'll see if he's got anything of my concern. Either information about how diagnosis of Placental Insufficiency is done based on the audio doppler, or the database.Can I do without it? I guess NOT.

Coming to the review Presentation, guess the sequence to progress would be this:

• What is Placenta? It's function and importance. What is Placenta Insufficiency? Its ffects. Diagnosis workflow in short, emphasis on Umbilical Artery Doppler and middle cerebral artery doppler (Image).
• Discussion of audio doppler. Comparison of information content in Audio and Image. Thus importance of Audio diagnosis. But not much research, very less papers available.Thus the aim of the paper.
• Summary of 2 papers that I've found on the subject.
• What is doppler effect? Application in our case of  Biomedical Diagnosis(UAD and MCA). Explanation in short how Image and audio sounds are produced (have a paper + textbook xerox for explanation).
• Planned signal Processing using MATLAB and Neural Network: Looking through Principal Component Analysis, Independent Component Analysis, Wavelet and variations available with combinations of these. Their comparison to find out which would be the appropriate one.
• Basic study of neural network.

Preparation for all this will take at least 7 days + 2days apprx 10 days. Assuming week after Ganesh Chaturthi are the reviews, I have just about 14 days in hand. Gotta make each day count.

1. Gotta catch hold of that Ponda Ultrasound Specialist and find information about audio indications of Placental Insufficiency, and see if he can give me some database.

2. Gotta start getting the presentation ready, because then I can just take excerpts from this and make the report for submission at the time of the review. Considering the number of days at hand and bullets as mentioned, each bullet can afford around 2 to 3 days. Starting from the day after tomorrow because tomorrow is my father's 66th birthday, gotta kinda celebrate type of a thing.

Nothing else on my mind right now. The way our external guide told us to go ahead with the project makes no sense considering the direction of the project, and doing it just for the sake of it is not the luxury I can afford to take considering the time and effort required to do it first according to him, and then redo it according to me. Have to put my foot down! Here we go! Sorted!

ATB

New Possibilities, Independent Component Analysis

08:30 pm

Was away from my laptop for a period of 11 days, a reason due to which I couldn't dive into my project work in full swing. Got my laptop back today, and have promised to take it's good care,.. at least for a year, till my project gets completed. The replaced part are, Keyboard : 3 months warranty, Motherboard: 6 months warranty, battery: 1 year warranty!

Getting back right on. Was struck with 2 new possibilities of DSP stage of the project, the Principle Component Analysis (PCA), and Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Nothing tough, only have to find papers comparing all of these DSP methods, and have to resolve to the best one. If I find these papers, will be able to add to the literature survey section too.

Both ICA and PCA have a lot of papers written on them, both work in MATLAB. Toolboxes for both are available. This one is for ICA.

Deadlines and checkpoints mentioned in previous posts have been achieved. The new to do:

1. Study the photo material Chapter 4 brought from Dr. Sanjay Sardesai.
2. Form the mail to be sent to the External Guide which will have the Project flow as he had mentioned. Mail and ask   for database.
3. Form the Project Review document.
4. Dive into MATLAB signal processing, try out ICALAB, Wavelet Transforms.
5. Search for papers that compare Digital Signal Processing Techniques to choose the best one and to be used as literature survey papers.

Here is a good page that will give you the source for anything related to ICA.

Diving into MATLAB now! Yeay! ATB