Medical imaging can involve different modalities, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and ultrasound. Each examination generated by these modalities has a set of unique instructions, the imaging protocol, which are imaging parameters determine the signal and contrast for creating a particular medical image. Properly managing imaging protocols is like systemically documenting an instruction handbook, which guarantees the quality of scans by providing the radiologist and technicians with appropriate procedures for a given indication. It also ensures patients’ safety by reducing repeated scans to acquire the desired image information. Radiology Protocols (RP) is a company that provides an online medical protocol database to improve protocol management. It recently developed RP Import, an imaging protocol import software, to automatically collecting elements from the medical imaging file – Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) files, and mapping them to the specified protocol database. With the help of RP Import, protocol creation is much faster and eliminates manual definition of the parameters, thus this tool lays the foundation of the further development of imaging protocol management. Radiology Protocols also developed a series of Modality Calculators to assist radiologists and technicians to build or modify imaging protocols as they are needed. These calculators cover most of the essential medical parameter calculations associated with different modalities. By using them, computing specific parameters while editing protocols becomes more convenient, and determining the use and amount of certain medical parameters becomes more precise as well. In summary, RP Import and Modality Calculators are two meaningful tools in protocol management, and they also play very important roles in regulating procedure and dosage during the medical image practice.

Given the accessibility of media devices available to us today and utilising van Leeuwen's concept of inscription and synthesis as a guide, this thesis explores the practice of re-presenting a domestic material object, the Croxley Recipe Book, into digital media. Driven by a creative practice research method, but also utilising materiality, digital storytelling practices and modality as important conceptual frames, this project was fundamentally experimental in nature. A materiality-framed content analysis, interpreted through cultural analysis, initially unraveled some of the cookbook's significance and contextualised it within a particular time of New Zealand's cultural history. Through the expressive and anecdotal practice of digital storytelling the cookbook's significance was further negotiated, especially as the material book was engaged with through the affective and experiential digital medium of moving-image. A total of six digital film works were created on an accompanying DVD, each of which represents some of the cookbook's significance but approached through different representational strategies. The Croxley Recipe Book Archive Film and Pav. Bakin' with Mark are archival documentaries, while Pav is more expressive and aligned with the digital storytelling form. Spinning Yarns and Tall Tales, a film essay, engages and reflects with the multiple processes and trajectories of the project, while Extras and The Creative Process Journal demonstrate the emergent nature of the research. The written thesis discusses the emergent nature of the research process and justifies the conceptual underpinning of the research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-130).

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / Bibliography: leaves 64-70.

In order to leverage the use of various modalities such as audio-visual-touch in instilling learning behaviour, we present an intuitive approach of annotation based hapto-audio-visual interaction with the traditional digital learning materials such as eBooks. By integrating the traditional home entertainment system and respective media in the user's reading experience combined with haptic interfaces, we examine whether such augmentation of modalities influence the user's reading experience in terms of attention, entertainment and retention. The proposed Haptic E-Book (HE-Book) system leverages the haptic jacket, haptic arm band as well as haptic sofa interfaces to receive haptic emotive signals wirelessly in the form of patterned vibrations of the actuators and expresses the learning material by incorporating audio-video based augmentation in order to pave ways for intimate reading experience in the popular eBook platform. We have designed and developed desktop, mobile/tablet based HE-Book system as well as a semi-automated annotation authoring tool. Our system also supports multimedia based diverse quiz augmentations, which can help in learning tracking. We have conducted quantitative and qualitative tests using the developed prototype systems. We have adopted the indirect objective based performance analysis methodology, which is commonly used for multimedia based learning investigation. The user study shows that, there is a positive tendency of accepting multimodal interactions including haptics with traditional eBook reading experience. Though our limited number of laboratory tests reveal, that haptics can be an influencing media in eBook reading experience, but it requires large scale real life tests to provide a concluding remarks.

The goal and purpose of this essay is to study if and how multimodality is used within a Swedish school in Kalmar. This is accomplished by observing the different modalities inside the classroom and how the use of different modalities affects the teaching. Unstructured observations combined with a material-based thematic presentation leads up to an analysis based on social semiotics and multimodality. The essay shows how the teaching uses lots of modalities: sound, images, movies, speeches and literary text in lots of different ways. These different types of modalities are used in a multimodal context, providing good conditions for learning.

The use of complementary non-invasive imaging modalities has been proposed to track disease progression, particularly cancer, while simultaneously evaluating therapeutic efficacy. A major obstacle is a limited ability to compare parameters obtained from different modalities, especially those from exogenous contrast agents or tracers. We hypothesize that combining Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Ultrasound (US) will improve characterization of the tumour microenvironment. In this study, we describe a co-registration apparatus that facilitates the acquisition of a priori co-registered MR and US images in vivo. This apparatus was validated using phantom data and it was found that the US slices can be selected to an accuracy of +/- 100µm translationally and +/- 2 degrees rotationally. Additionally, it was shown that MRI and US may provide complimentary information about the tumour microenvironment, but more work needs to be done to assess repeatability of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI and US.

Ted Sider writes that "many are impressed with the utility of possible worlds in linguistics and philosophy", and this is true, in particular, of those with an interest in modal logic. However, in the midst of the marvelous milieu brought on by the development of possible world semantics, some have stopped to ask just what it is that possible worlds are. They certainly seem useful, and we seem to understand how to use them and talk about them, but what precisely is it that we're talking about when we talk of possible worlds? In this thesis, I will attempt to outline the most significant and well-recognized view in this debate: that of David Lewis. Through my discussion of him, I will find occasion to discuss some alternative views that have arisen. After finishing my presentation of Lewis, I will discuss where people have begun to take this debate and address the question of whether progress can be made towards a substantive answer. In Chapter I, I begin by presenting the motivation of the question of possible worlds found in the study of modal logic. I then present the major approaches taken to answering the questions that were raised, leading into my discussion of David Lewis's famous and robust account. I present key features of Lewis's view and then move into his criticisms of the other major responses. This much should suffice as a relatively thorough treatment of the answers that have come before. In Chapter II, I discuss the current state of the debate. I begin by mentioning several problems that can be spotted in Lewis's views in particular. I then move to Menzel's account, which tries to answer the question of possible worlds from a new angle, jettisoning the direction taken by Lewis and his contemporaries. I explain why Menzel has taken this new approach, and then move into another new approach, this time given by Stephen Yablo. I discuss how these two approaches can help serve each other in helpful ways. But, at last, I present several hurdles these two views would have to overcome in order to play together nicely.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Linguistics, 2009. / Bibliography: p. 210-223.

The recent increase in survival rates of most cancers is due to early detection greatly aided by medical imaging modalities. Combined ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging provide both morphological and functional/molecular information which can help to detect and diagnose cancer in its earliest stages. However, both modalities can benefit from the use of contrast agents. The objective of this thesis was to design, synthesize, and test a nano-sized, dual contrast agent for combined ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging named Photoacoustic nanoDroplets. This agent consists of liquid perfluorocarbon nanodroplets with encapsulated plasmonic nanoparticles. These dual contrast agents utilize optically triggered vaporization for photoacoustic signal generation, providing significantly higher signal amplitude than that from the traditionally used mechanism, thermal expansion. Upon pulsed laser irradiation, liquid perfluorocarbon undergoes a liquid-to-gas phase transition generating giant photoacoustic transients from these dwarf nanoparticles. Once triggered, the gaseous phase provides ultrasound contrast enhancement. Demonstrated in this work are the design, synthesis, characterization, and testing of Photoacoustic nanoDroplets in phantom and animal studies, and preliminary work into adapting these agents into targeted, drug delivery vehicles for simultaneous detection, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases. / text