The University of British Columbia

Other

Ultrasonix Medical Corporation

Serve Operating Co.

Hani Eskandari

Robert Rohling

Septimiu Edmund Salcudean

Ali Baghani

Ali Haghighat Kashani

Sean Tracey Plaice

Bastian Jan Michael Lehmann

Septimu E Salcudean

Reza Zahiri Azar

Linda Pendziwol

Techniques described in this application are directed to an autonomous robot that is configured to interact with its environment through identifying the presence and emotional state (e.g., mood) of live subjects in the scene. The autonomous robot includes one or more remote physiological data collecting sensors capable of remotely collecting physiological data such as heart rate, blood circulation, or respiratory activity of the live subjects within close proximity of the robot.

Remote physiological data sensing robot

A computer-implemented method for arranging communication between two or more users is provided. The two or more users including at least a first client and at least a first consultant. The first computing device is associated with the at least first client. The second computing device is associated with the at least first consultant. The method includes operations performed by at least one computer processor. The operations include enabling the at least first computing device to send a request to a server, identifying a list of matching consultants associated with the server, wherein the at least first consultant is identified as a matching consultant from the list of matching consultants, sending a notification from the server to enable the at least first consultant to accept or decline the consultation request, establishing a communication session between the at least first client through the first computing device and the at least first consultant through the second computing device, and enabling the at least first client and the at least first consultant to communicate in real-time.

System and method for arranging communication among parties

The embodiments described herein relate generally to an elastography method and system for obtaining ultrasound images of an excited tissue over a certain time period, then computationally determining one or more mechanical properties of the tissue within a real time refresh rate. This method can perform elastography in real time as only a thin volume of the excited tissue is imaged and processed. The thin volume includes a desired cross-sectional plane of the tissue and at least two adjacent planes that are adjacent to the desired cross-sectional plane. A maximum number of adjacent planes is selected so that a computer system is capable of computationally determining mechanical properties within a real time refresh rate.

Elastography using ultrasound imaging of a thin volume

A method includes constructing a variation image from an ovarian follicle B-mode ultrasound image, wherein the variation image is indicative of local variations in the ovarian follicle B-mode ultrasound image, constructing a binary image from the variation image and the ovarian follicle B-mode image, identifying connected components in the binary image, wherein each connected component corresponds to a different ovarian follicle candidate, constructing a coarse follicle mask from the binary image where each identified connected component represents a mask for a corresponding different ovarian follicle candidate in the binary image, optimizing contours of the follicles in the coarse follicle mask, and segmenting one or more ovarian follicles from the ovarian follicle B-mode ultrasound image with the optimized follicle mask.

Ovarian follicle segmentation in ultrasound images

The characterization of tissue viscoelastic properties requires the measurement of tissue displacements over a region of interest at frequencies that exceed significantly the frame rates of conventional medical imaging devices. The present invention involves using bandpass sampling to track high-frequency tissue displacements. With this approach, high frequency signals limited to a frequency bandwidth can be sampled and reconstructed without aliasing at a sampling frequency that is lower than the Nyquist rate. With bandpass sampling, it is feasible to use conventional beam-forming on diagnostic ultrasound machines to perform high frequency dynamic elastography. The method is simple to implement as it does not require beam interleaving, additional hardware or synchronization and can be applied to magnetic resonance elastography.

Bandpass sampling for elastography

Described herein are a method and apparatus for determining viscoelastic parameters of a tissue. A vibration signal is applied to the tissue and displacements at a plurality of locations within the tissue are measured at a plurality of times. The viscoelastic parameters of the tissue, including elasticity and viscosity, can then be determined by fitting a finite element model of the tissue to the vibration signal and the measured displacements and by solving for the viscoelastic parameters of the model. A value for density of each element of the model is selected and the absolute values for the viscoelastic parameters of each of the elements in the model is determined. Alternatively, the difference in relaxation-times between two locations within the tissue can be determined from the difference in phases of the strains at the two locations.

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Vancouver, Canada

Hani Eskandari