La fibra oscura de un mundo nuevo: Entrevista con Geert Lovink

Considerado uno de los pioneros de la reflexión teórica en torno a los nuevos medios de comunicación, Geert Lovink (Amsterdam, 1959) comenzó a escribir sobre Internet, las nuevas tecnologías y la cultura digital en la década de los noventa como miembro de Adilkno (Fundación para el Avance del Conocimiento Ilegal). En 2004 fundó en Amsterdam el Institute of Network Culture, dedicado a la exploración, documentación y promoción de los nuevos medios de comunicación como herramientas del cambio social. Muchos de sus proyectos exceden los marcos puramente tecnológicos y se adentran en terrenos estéticos y culturales.

Multi-modal ultrasound imaging for breast cancer detection

This work describes preliminary results of a two-modality imaging system aimed at the early detection of breast cancer. The first technique is based on compounding conventional echographic images taken at regular angular intervals around the imaged breast. The other modality obtains tomographic images of propagation velocity using the same circular geometry. For this study, a low-cost prototype has been built. It is based on a pair of opposed 128-element, 3.2 MHz array transducers that are mechanically moved around tissue mimicking phantoms. Compounded images around 360 degrees provide improved resolution, clutter reduction, artifact suppression and reinforce the visualization of internal structures. However, refraction at the skin interface must be corrected for an accurate image compounding process. This is achieved by estimation of the interface geometry followed by computing the internal ray paths. On the other hand, sound velocity tomographic images from time of flight projections have been also obtained. Two reconstruction methods, Filtered Back Projection (FBP) and 2D Ordered Subset Expectation Maximization (2D OSEM), were used as a first attempt towards tomographic reconstruction. These methods yield useable images in short computational times that can be considered as initial estimates in subsequent more complex methods of ultrasound image reconstruction. These images may be effective to differentiate malignant and benign masses and are very promising for breast cancer screening. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.