Workshops

Sunday, September 9, 2007 9:30 am - 12:30 pm

Practical Whole Slide Imaging Digital Pathology Workshop
Drazen M. Jukic, MD, PhD; Jonhan Ho, MD; Robert C. Zalme, MS, DDS Jon D. Duboy; Leslie Anthony, MA; Larry C. George, BA; and Anil Parwani, MD, PhD
Presentation 1 | Presentation 2 | Presentation 3 | Presentation 4 | Presentation 5 | Presentation 6 | Presentation 7

Automated high-speed, whole slide imaging (WSI) systems are becoming increasingly robust with image quality sufficient for diagnostic purposes.  Vendors now offer systems that are ready for use in clinical environments, although issues remain that need to be addressed before the automated, high-speed WSI can reach its potential in anatomic pathology.  This interactive workshop offers participants a unique opportunity to test top-rated WSI systems, side-by-side.  A pre-selected set of pathology slides will be imaged using various WSI systems prior to the workshop.  During the workshop, trained facilitators will help participants use computers to access the images and gain first-hand experience viewing and managing these digital image sets.  Vendor representatives will be available to offer additional assistance and information.  Participants will also be able to bring their personal slides for imaging, as desired.  The benefits and limitations of current systems will be discussed and participants will be asked to contribute their feedback regarding experiences with WSI systems and integration of digital pathology into anatomic pathology. 

Following this highly interactive session, participants are invited to attend a round-table luncheon with imaging representatives to hear more about the systems, proposed advances in technologies and workflow integration.

Monday, September 10, 2007, 7:30 am – 8:30 am

Implementing an RDF Schema for Pathology Images, From the Association for Pathology Informatics
Jules J. Berman, MD, PhD (Co-chair of the Laboratory Digital Imaging Project)

The Laboratory Digital Imaging Project (LDIP) was a three year effort (2004-2007) under the direction and sponsorship of the Association for Pathology Informatics (API).  The primary goal of LDIP was to develop a free, open source image specification that would convey clinical, histologic, and technical descriptors, along with image files.  The purpose of the specification is to facilitate data sharing and to promote the creation of richly annotated pathology images that can be archived, analyzed, or published and that support data integration across heterogeneous biomedical domains.  A specification was created in RDF Schema, the technology created by the W3C (World-Wide Web Consortium) as the logical scaffold for the semantic web.  By annotating images in API's RDF Schema, RDF documents can be created that include objects and metadata from any other RDF Schema or from publicly available biomedical ontologies and can be ported to and from other data standards, including DICOM and OME (Open Microscopy Environment).  This workshop will explain RDF, RDF Schemas, namespaces, object classes and data properties, and will describe methods for implementing API's RDF Schema for pathology images.  Examples will be provided in which pathology images are annotated with several different RDF Schemas containing classes and properties relevant to pathology data sources.  After this workshop, API's RDF Schema will be released as an online public document that can be linked from any RDF document.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007, 11:30 am  - 12:30 pm

Book Publishing in Biomedical Informatics
Jules J. Berman, MD, PhD (author of Biomedical Informatics and consulting editor for the Biomedical Informatics Series, Jones & Bartlett Publishers). 

Biomedical informatics is the branch of medicine that combines biology with computer science.  The purpose of all medical disciplines is to advance medical progress and to eliminate diseases.  In the field of biomedical informatics, this is done by integrating biological information with medical information using computational techniques.  Pathology informatics is a subdiscipline of biomedical informatics and involves organizing, archiving, reporting, integrating, and analyzing data collected by pathology laboratories.  Biomedical informatics is a vital component of patient care and translational research.  Unfortunately, the number of published books in the field of biomedical informatics is totally inadequate for this interdisciplinary and growing field.  All of the major medical publishing houses are currently seeking authors.  The purpose of this workshop is to review current publishing needs in biomedical informatics, and to provide potential authors with knowledge of the publishing process.  The workshop will discuss the following topics: titles needed in the field, author qualifications, first contact between an author and a publisher, the book proposal, the book contract, royalties and payments, writing and editing the book, marketing issues, author and publisher etiquette guidelines, ethics, legal obligations, and alternative publishing venues.  Contact information for several different medical publishers will be provided.