Abstract: Depiction, within a single imaging modality, of an intervention device and body tissue surrounding the device, is improved by interrogating a subject that includes the intervention device and the tissue. An image is created using, for a parameter, a value, of the parameter (160), better suited to one or the other of a device region depicting the intervention device and a tissue region depicting the tissue. The value is used to yield respectively either a first image (152) or a second image (154). Respective presets may correspondingly have different values for the parameter. From jointly the first image and the second image which are both of the single modality, a combination is formed that is an image of the intervention device depicted as surrounded by the tissue. The combinations may be formed dynamically and ongoingly.

Abstract: An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system for shear wave measurement transmits push pulses in the form of a sheet of energy. The sheet of energy produces a shear wavefront which is a plane wave, which does not suffer from the 1/R radial dissipation of push pulse force as does a conventional push pulse generated along a single push pulse vector. The sheet of energy can be planar, curved, or in some other two or three dimensional shape. A curved sheet of energy can produce a shear wave source which focuses into a thin line, which increases the resolution and sensitivity of the measuring techniques used to detect the shear wave effect.

Abstract: A device and a method for computing a weighted-average-based position of a shear wave in a temporal domain based on a sampling of shear wave displacements along a propagation path of the shear wave. The weighted-average-based position is, for example, by displacement observed at a plurality of times that correspond to sampling, and represents a time of arrival of the shear wave at a location being sampled along the propagation path. Further, times of arrival of the shear wave at respective locations along the propagation path are functionally related to known inter-location distances to derive shear-wave group velocity. The derived shear-wave group velocity serves as an input into algorithms for estimating a shear elasticity of a medium, such as a body tissue, for purposes of a clinical diagnosis and therapy assessment.

Abstract: An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system produces an image of shear wave velocities by transmitting push pulses to generate shear waves. A plurality of tracking lines are transmitted and echoes received by a focusing beamformer adjacent to the location of the push pulses. The tracking lines are sampled in a time-interleaved manner. The echo data acquired along each tracking line is processed to determine the time of peak tissue displacement caused by the shear waves at points along the tracking line, and the times of peaks at adjacent tracking lines compared to compute a local shear wave velocity. The resultant map of shear wave velocity values is color-coded and displayed over an anatomical image of the region of interest.

Abstract: A medical ultrasound acquisition-data analysis device acquires channel data (144) via ultrasound received on the channels, uses the acquired channel data to estimate data coherence and derive dominance of an eigen-value of a channel covariance matrix and, based on the estimate and dominance, distinguishes microcalcifications (142) from background. Microcalcifications may then be made distinguishable visually on screen via highlighting, coloring, annotation, etc. The channel data operable upon by the estimating may have been subject to beamforming delays and may be summed in a beamforming procedure executed in the estimating. In the estimating and deriving, both field point-by-field point, multiple serial transmits (116, 118) may be used for each field point. In one embodiment results of the estimating and deriving are multiplied point-by-point and submitted to thresholding.

Abstract: An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system and method translates an aperture across an array transducer which is less that the size of the array. At each aperture location a transmit beam is focused above, or alternatively below, the array and a region of interest being scanned from the aperture location, resulting in broad insonification of the region of interest. At the lateral ends of the array the aperture is no longer translated but the focal point of the transmit beam is translated from the same aperture position, preferably with tilting of the beam direction. Multiple receive beams are processed in response to each transmit event and the overlapping receive beams and echo locations are spatially combined to produce synthetic transmit focusing over the center of the image field and noise reduction by spatial compounding at the lateral ends of the image field.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an ultrasound elastography system (10) for providing an elastography measurement result of an anatomical site (32) a corresponding method. The system (10) is configured to visualize a suitability for shear wave elastography of the region of interest (33) to the user within the ultrasound image (52) and/or to recommend an elastography acquisition plane (48, 50) for conducting shear wave elastography to the user. By this, proper selection of a location for an elastography measurement may be supported.

Abstract: An acoustically registerable probe includes a transducer (212) to generate acoustic pulses, and a beamformer (222) coupled to the transducer to adjust a field of view of the acoustic pulses. The transducer is configured to iteratively send and receive acoustic energy with a decremented field of view angles to identify a position of the transducer (216) to other transducers and to reveal positions of the other transducers to the transducer through a medium carrying the acoustic pulses to register the transducer to the other transducers coupled to the medium.

Abstract: A diagnostic ultrasound system has a 2D array transducer which is operated with 1×N patches, patches which are only a single element wide. The “N” length of the patches extends in the elevation direction of a scanned 2D image plane, with the single element width extending in the lateral (azimuth) direction. Focusing is done along each patch in the elevation direction by a microbeamformer, and focusing in the lateral (azimuth) direction is done by the system beamformer. The minimal width of each patch in the azimuth direction enables the production of images highly resolved in the azimuthal plane of a 2D image, including the reception of highly resolved multilines for high frame rate imaging.

Abstract: An acoustic probe connectable to an imaging system. The acoustic probe has a substrate with first and second principal surfaces, at least one device insertion port comprising an opening passing through the substrate from the first principal surface to the second principal surface, and an array of acoustic transducer elements supported by the substrate and disposed around the at least one device insertion port. The acoustic probe comprising an instrument guide disposed within the device insertion port, the instrument guide being configured to selectively allow the interventional device to move freely within the device insertion port and to selectively lock the interventional device within the device insertion port in response to a user input via a user interface connected to the acoustic probe.

Abstract: A system includes an acoustic probe and an acoustic imaging machine connected to the acoustic probe. The acoustic probe a substrate with first and second principal surfaces, at least one device insertion port comprising an opening passing through the substrate from the first principal surface to the second principal surface, and an array of acoustic transducer elements supported by the substrate and disposed around the at least one device insertion port. The acoustic imaging machine is configured systematically vary the size and/or position of the active acoustic aperture of the ultrasound probe by providing transmit signals to selected acoustic transducer elements to cause the array of acoustic transducer elements to transmit an acoustic probe signal to an area of interest, and recording a feedback signal of the transmit signals from an acoustic receiver (610) provided at a distal end of an interventional device passed through the device insertion port into the area of interest.

Abstract: In one aspect, an ultrasound receive beamformer is configured for one-way only beamforming of transmissive ultrasound using one-way delays. The receive beamforming in some embodiments is used to track, in real time, a catheter, needle or other surgical tool within an image of a region of interest. The tool can have embedded at its tip a small ultrasound transmitter or receiver for transmitting or receiving the transmissive ultrasound. Optionally, additional transducers are fixed along the tool to provide the orientation of the tool.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including medium-encoded computer program products, for generating and visualizing 3D scenes include, in one aspect, a method including: obtaining metadata for 2D images that are related to a location of interest; searching for discrete image correspondences between pairs of the 2D images; grouping the 2D images into different time periods, including inferring one or more time periods for a portion of the 2D images that do not have date metadata; receiving a selection of at least one of the different time periods; finding camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameters for each image grouped into the selected time period; reconstructing a 3D scene of the location during the selected time period from the 2D images grouped into the selected time period using the camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameters; and providing the 3D scene for use in displaying the location of interest from different 3D perspectives.

Abstract: An electrical activity monitoring device based on an RFID sensor device attachable to a power cable of an electrical device for monitoring the electrical status of the electrical device. The device comprises an antenna element which performs the dual functions of magnetically coupling with an electrical pulse generated in the power cable in response to a change of electrical power state of the electrical device and to wirelessly transmit data to an RFID reader. An electrical activity monitoring apparatus is also provided for monitoring the electrical status of at least one electrical device connected to a power supply network by a respective power cable provided with an RFID sensor device. The electrical activity monitoring apparatus comprises an RFID reader for communicating with the RFID sensor device.

Abstract: The invention relates to a device for transmitting and/or receiving radio frequency signals comprising at least one antenna and/or at least one filter realised in printed technology on a dielectric substrate. According to the invention, this device is equipped with means for compensating the permittivity dispersions of the substrate. For this purpose, the device comprises a circuit for measuring the dielectric permittivity of the substrate able to deliver a measured permittivity value and adjustment means able to adjust the impedance of the antenna and/or the frequency response of said filter according to said measured permittivity value.

Abstract: A segmentation selection system includes a transducer (14) configured to transmit and receive imaging energy for imaging a subject. A signal processor (26) is configured to process imaging data received to generate processed image data. A segmentation module (50) is configured to generate a plurality of segmentations of the subject based on features or combinations of features of the imaging data and/or the processed image data. A selection mechanism (52) is configured to select one of the plurality of segmentations that best meets a criterion for performing a task.

Abstract: Depiction, within a single imaging modality, of an intervention device and body tissue surrounding the device, is improved by interrogating a subject that includes the intervention device and the tissue. An image is created using, for a parameter, a value, of the parameter (160), better suited to one or the other of a device region depicting the intervention device and a tissue region depicting the tissue. The value is used to yield respectively either a first image (152) or a second image (154). Respective presets may correspondingly have different values for the parameter. From jointly the first image and the second image which are both of the single modality, a combination is formed that is an image of the intervention device depicted as surrounded by the tissue. The combinations may be formed dynamically and ongoingly.

Abstract: In an image compressing ultrasound system, for generating an imaging sample, delays are applied transducer-element-wise to respective time samples. The delayed samples are summed coherently in time, the coherently summed delays being collectively non-focused. An image is sparsified based on imaging samples and, otherwise than merely via said imaging samples, on angles (236) upon which respectively the delays for the generating of the imaging samples are functionally dependent. An image-compressing processor (120) may minimize a first p-norm of a first matrix which is a product of two matrices the content of one representing the image in a compression basis. The minimizing is subject to a constraint that a second p-norm of a difference between a measurement matrix and a product of an image-to-measurement-basis transformation matrix, an image representation dictionary matrix, and the matrix representing the image in the compression basis does not exceed an allowed-error threshold.

Abstract: An image compounding apparatus acquires, via ultrasound, pixel-based images (126-130) of a region of interest for, by compounding, forming a composite image of the region. The image includes composite pixels (191) that spatially correspond respectively to pixels of the images. Further included is a pixel processor for beamforming with respect to a pixel from among the pixels, and for assessing, with respect to the composite pixel and from the data acquired (146), amounts of local information content of respective ones of the images. The processor determines, based on the assessment, weights for respective application, in the forming, to the pixels, of the images, that spatially correspond to the composite pixel. In some embodiments, the assessing commences operating on the data no later than upon the beamforming. In some embodiments, brightness values are assigned to the spatially corresponding pixels; and, in spatial correspondence, the maximum and the mean values are determined.

Abstract: An electrical activity monitoring device based on a sensor device attachable to a power cable of an electrical device for monitoring the electrical status of the electrical device. The device comprises an antenna element which performs the dual functions of magnetically coupling with an electrical pulse generated in the power cable in response to a change of electrical power state of the electrical device and to transmit data to a reader via the power cable. An electrical activity monitoring apparatus is also provided for monitoring the electrical status of at least one electrical device connected to a power supply network by a respective power cable provided with a sensor device. The electrical activity monitoring apparatus comprises a reader and a reader-power line interface device.