A Ray of Hope

02:00 am 16th September

He replied!! My external guide, replied to my mail..! Although there wasn't much content, it at least consisted of a promise. Expecting a call from him tomorrow sometime. Have studied the workflow, made the report and sent it to him. Now its my turn to ask questions.

1. No literature available on the internet nor with any doctor regarding diagnosis based on audio doppler. Any resource?

2. The diagnosis of the audio will change as the gestational age increases. What gestational age data should be collected and analysed for training of the neural system?

3. The audio output port doesn't exist for a normal ultrasound machine, how to acquire data? Options are:

a) Buy a Digital Voice Recorder, b) Buy a Doppler Hand-Held Machine.

Then gotta brief him about my plan of using Wavelet Transform and Neural Networks for initial classification.

ATB!

Persistent Problems

07:10 am

Yesterday, at around 2:45 pm, Nilkath called up with a news that I was dreading. He said, the audio  from the ultrasound Doppler is not recordable. He tried it, but only images can be stored. Not even video recording is possible.

Solutions to this:

1. I remember reading somewhere that 15 to 45 secs of .avi clips can be stored in the ultrasound machine. Possibility is that, may be the model that I read about is different. So, I messaged to ask Nilkanth the model number. He said it was Phlips HD11XE. Read throgh all the documentation possible about the data management capabilities of this model. Couldn't find any mention of audio or video storage capability.

2. At this instant I remember my External guide telling me something to the effect, "What if, by using some kind of recording device, you could capture the sound coming from the ultrasound machine, and process it to diagnose Placental Dysfunction?" Now I realise and understand why he said that. So, going by his way, I could buy a digital recorder to record the audio output from the ultrasound machine. Two ways it could be done,

• Hold the recorder in front of the speaker. Need a digital recorder not a tape recorder. I donno how that works. Gotta find out.
• If audio output ports exists, gotta find out if any digital audio recorder can be connected to these ports.

In any case, I will have to be there in the ultrasound lab at all times to record the output by myself. Can't ask Nilkanth to do it.

3. If the above two solutions get striked off, I will have to go for a Doppler ultrasound machine, and ask Nilkanth to do the same procedure that he does with the ultrasound machine with my hand-held machine. For this both the thing I dislike will have to be done. 1. Ask him to do it, 2. I have to be there.

First step, straight into the puddle. :(

ATB.

A Visit in Vain

12:45 pm

Returned a half an hour back from what I may call a futile visit to Goa Medical College. Shouldn't have had such high hopes about today. :( Was hoping to stay there, see patients, and whichever patient does the Doppler that I need, tell Nilkanth to copy only that data, and burn my CD. Turned out, I went at the wrong time. It was very crowded and everyone was very busy. I didn't realize that I was imposing, untill Nilkanth told me to leave the CDs with him. So, will be going there next to collect the CDs when he informs me that it's done. Have informed him that I need the audio clip of MCA and UAD for IUGR. Hope he remembers to  do it. Not having a good feeling about this :( Let's hope for the best..

The only good thing that happened is that I got time to prepare for the remaining work. Cousin sister Sneha Nargundkar informed that the reviews will surely be on this weekend, which gives me only 2 days to be prepared with the ppt. Have prepared the outline. Will be doing the first two bullets today. I think this top isn't lucky for me.. 2nd instance of something bad happening when I've worn this top. Hmm..

Anyway, ATB!

06:30 pm

Editing this post.. Urgently.. Because I just stumbled upon a very important fact and a consideration that I should make right at the beginning of project. That of gestational age! The placental or fetal conditions vary during the period of maternity. The diagnosis too, thus, varies. In my Signal Extraction system, there exists a neural network component which learns the data fed to it to get trained to interpret.

Firstly, I will have to decide on a particular range of gestational age for which my system will work. Secondly, due to this fact, the system will have to be trained with the data belonging to this gestational age! Now, depending on this, to come up with a range, I have to either go with gestational age of majority data  that Nilkanth gives me, OR I can find a paper on the net which will mention which is the best gestational age at which Placental Insufficiency can be detected, OR I can find a paper on the net which will mention which is the most common gestational age at which either Umbilical Artery or Middle Cerebral Artery Doppler is performed. Freeks.. Gotta make this very important decision, right away!

ATB!

The Data Declaration

05:20 pm

Just returned after a visit to GMC. Dr. Jeevan Vernekar is so kind. He is the best of the rare breed doctors that I was talking about yesterday. And Nilkath, the Ultrasound Expert was just awesome! Totally willing to help, and there, in case I need any help. Got his number! He showed me the entire 'Umbilical Artery Doppler' and 'Middle Cerebral Artery Doppler' procedure, the audio data of which I need. He's called me tomorrow to the hospital, to take the first bits of data home! :) Yeay!! Everything that I wanted is here now!!

Nilkanth told me that the audio data is recordable, and can be written on to a CD. I will have to see exactly what format the data is recorded, and whether it is compatible to be used with MATLAB. He also told me that it wasn't necessary to get an official letter or anything, but, just to be careful, I'm thinking, I'll talk to the our ETC HOD about this, get a letter ready, show it to Dr. Mahesh Sardessai, the HOD of that GMC Radiology Department and Get Going!! Truly happy!!

Am thinking of giving the data acquisition a maximum of 2 weeks from now. So, the day that I have to start processing the data is 24th of September.

• Gotta go to GMC tomorrow by 10:30 am with a CD. Yeay!!

ATB!

Recognizing Patterns, Thank you Dr. Robi Polikar

12:20 pm

Started the 2- way database search. The one that happens sooner, shall be pursued. Compiled the Workflow study for Placental Insufficiency, mailed our External Guide and asked him for help regarding the database, which he had initially promised us. But looking at his long distance interest in the subject matter, I highly doubt his involvement. In an attempt in desperation to search for his alternate email ID, found that he has a Facebook account, and, surprise, surprise, a Twitter account! Followed him on Twitter, and sent him a friends request on Facebook. He accepted it. So he knows I exist, and doesn't forget my name.

The other direction that I'm desperately pursuing is my own search for a good Ultrasound specialist in and around Panaji or Ponda, who might be gentle and understanding and encouraging. A difficult species to find indeed. The two ultrasound specialists I've seen till now are:

1. Dr. Sanjay Sardesai: He's been really really helpful in what I asked him at the time. Didn't get an idea of asking him for the database at the time. He's been really encouraging,.. May God Bless him!

2. Dr. Rajaram Mahambrey : The worst ultrasound specialist,.. I don't think he had any idea of what I was saying, nor was he ready to listen to my idea. All that I heard him say was "No,.. I don't think that can be done...", "No,.. That's not possible..", "No, I don't think that's a good idea". When he heard me for just 1 minutes, he said oh,.. is it? That's great! For every "No" of his, I had to prove him wrong, and then he would change his word to yes. How can you trust or even feel like working with such a doctor? Horrible experience all in all. No help whatsoever.

3. Dr. Jeevan Vernekar: Looking forward to meeting him. Got his name from my uncle, Dr. Sharatchandra Nargundkar, and his contact with the help from my, batch-mate Rohit Naik. The great coincidence which connects all the three meetings with the ultrasound specialists is that, Dr. Sanjay Sardessai works in GMC, so does Dr. Jeevan Vernekar, and GMC is the place Dr. Rajaram Mahambrey told me to visit in order to get the database. So, really hoping that I'll get help from this good man! ATB.

Now, I'm guessing, that in the worst case scenario, as Dr. Mahambrey told me, I'll have to get a letter from GEC, HOD, Dr. R. B. Lohani, which can allow me to use the GMC database. Have to be prepared for this I guess. Hope our HOD helps in this regard.

• Gotta prepare the letter for permission to access the database after the meeting with Dr. Jeevan Vernekar.

Today I decided to work a bit with MATLAB, in an attempt to stay on track with the first schedule I ever made. Learnt that signal processing toolbox and wavelet toolbox already exists in the MATLAB version I have on my Dell. Then, learnt to import and play a .wav file, and plot its Power Spectral Density, fft. The Wavelet tutorial documentation provided in the MATLAB help files is nice too. Started reading it. 

• Gotta continue.

Thought about the 'Pattern Recognition' pdf that I'd downloaded by Dr. Robi Polikar. This man is a magician really. So nice is his way of explaining things. Since I'm going to be trying to recognize patterns in the abnormal data, and train the neural network and stuff, realized I have to go through this and memntion it as 'Literature survey' in my Review I. Started reading it.

• Gotta continue.

ATB!