Advances in Biomedical Measurement

The current scientific and technical literature in the fields of medi­ cine and engineering, in addition to learned society journals, embraces textbooks, monographs and conference proceedings. The last of these cate­ gories is potentially of prime importance given the increasing pace at which knowledge is advancing. However, traditional conference proceedings often tend to be indigestable, both due to their excessive volume and to the un­ evenness of the ingredients. Here we have attempted to overcome these deficiencies by selecting a set of contributions which, in our opinion, in the best sense convey the flavour of the 4th IMEKO Conference on "Advances in Biomedical Measurement". This meeting, which took place in Bratislava in May, 1987, was held concurrently with the 1st Regional Conference of the Socialist European Countries on Biomedical Engineering and the 2nd Czecho­ slovak Conference on Biomedical Engineering. From more than 200 papers presented in 14 sessions, 56 contributions have been selected to represent four major areas within which advances in biomedical measurement are occurring. These are: measurement and instru­ mentation (including prosthetics); signal and image processing; modelling and simulation; and decision support. The process of deciding which authors should be invited to contribute to this volume was not always easy. What we have tried to do is to achieve a mix which provides an overview of the state of the art across this broad spectrum of endeavour.

1 Measurement and Instrumentation.- A Family of Microcomputer Electrocardiographs.- A Personal Computer-Based System for Cardiac Electric Field Investigation in the Clinic and in Research.- Technical Means for Clinical Investigations of Brain Bioelectrical Processes.- Microcomputer-Based Objective Visual Field Diagnosis.- A Temperature Sensitive Microelectrode for Measurements in Soft Tissues at the Cellular Level.- Electrical Measurement of Fluid Distribution in Human Legs and Arms and Its Clinical Application.- A New Method for Eliminating Micro-Bubbles in the Extra-Corporial Blood Circulation System.- Measurement of Leg Blood Volume Change by Impedance Plethysmography with Special Reference to Micro-Gravity Simulation Testing.- A Method for Continuous Measurement of Muscle Fibre Conduction Velocity.- A System for Intracranial Pressure Processing and Inter-Pretation in Intensive Care.- Electromagnetic Cardiography: Theory, Clinical and Technical Aspects.- Identification of Average Non-Linear Properties of a Typical Ultrasonic Real-Time Sector Scanner Under More Realistic Conditions.- An Experimental Approach to The Problem of Possible Embryotoxicity Due to Biomedical Ultrasound.- Interaction of Blood with Biomedical Polymers — Some Basic Aspects.- Changes in Vascular Regulation After Implantation of a Total Artificial Heart.- Topographical Methods in Electrocardiological Diagnostics.- Biomagnetic Measurements in Unshielded Environment.- Method for Determining Some Elements of Impedance Plethys-Mography (IPG) Signals to be Used in Automatic Analysis.- Neurostimulation and Neuroprostheses.- 2 Signal and Image Processing.- Detection of Late Potentials of The Heart.- ECG Interpolation Using Taut Cubic Splines.- A Quantitative Estimation of Proximity Between ECG Waveforms.- R@-System — The Software System for Real Biomedical Data Acquisition and Processing with Regard to Clinic and Research.- A First Experience with the Automatic Extraction of Compressed Information from the EEG in Clinical Practice.- Non-Linear Models of Time Series and Applications to Analysis of EEG Signals.- Amplitude and Correlational Mapping of EEG — A Software System.- Foetal Monitoring: Autocorrelation of Ultrasound Foetal Signal in the Device AM-2.- Analysis of Frequency Properties of Images from Ultrasound Scanners.- Digital Processing of Biomedical Dynamical Images.- Computer Simulation of the Fourier Method of Image Reconstruction from Projections in Tomography.- A Mathematical Model for CT-Reconstruction with Uncertain Data.- 3 Modelling and Simulation.- Development of Minimal Modelling of IVGTT: The Measurement of Glucose Production.- Modelling and Control Properties of the Basal Ganglia.- Identification Problems of a Non-Linear RLC Lung Model During Artificial Ventilation.- Evaluation of Cardiorespiratory Functions During Heart Catheterisation Through Simulation Model Identification.- Computer Modelling of Atrioventricular Nodal Properties.- Simulation of Biological Processes and of Health Care Systems: Methodological Problems.- Model of Electromagnetic Field Distribution in the Human Brain During Electric Stimulation.- 4 Decision Support.- Intelligent Instrumentation in Critical Care Medicine.- ICAR - Intensive Care Expert System.- An Expert System for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Ischaemic Heart Disease: Cardexp.- Search for the Most Discriminative Features of Coronary Heart Disease Using a Branch and Bound Method.- Application of Expert Systems and Simulation Processing in the Physiology of Exercise.- A Program System for Computer-Aided Drug Dosage.- Graphsearch A* Algorithm in Insulin Therapy.- An Expert System for Therapy Management of Type I Diabetic — Diabetex.- Projection of the Prevalence of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.- Computer-Aided Consultation in Gynaecological Health Care Based Upon Medical Expert Knowledge.- Sequential Methods in Medical Decision Making.- Application of Fuzzy Sets in Rheumatology.- Experience from Running the Clinical Information System CIS 1.T.- DPS — A Diagnostic Preventive System.- Transformation of Data to Findings.- Conceptual Modelling in Medical Database Design.- Application of the FEL-Expert Sysem in the Diagnosis of Genetic Diseases.- Methods for the Evaluation of Expert Systems.- Contributors.