BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS All interested medical physicists are encouraged to have their names added to a list of available reviewers. Please rank your interest among radiation therapy, x-ray imaging, nuclear medicine imaging, ultrasound imaging, MR imaging, radiation injury, radiation protection, and others. Make your interest known to Chester Reft, Ph.D., Books Review Editor (
[email protected]). Include your name and e-mail address in the body of the response.
Book Reviews Advanced Signal Processing Handbook: Theory and Implementation for Radar, Sonar, and Medical Imaging Real— Time Systems. Stergios Stergiopoulos, editor. 752 pp. CRC, Boca Raton, Florida, 2000. Price: $119.95. ISBN: 0-84933691-0. This Handbook covers a broad range of topics in modern signal processing applications. It is directed at research audiences in universities, industry and the military providing exposure to signal processing applications and methods that may lie outside the expertise of any single reader. Each of the 20 chapters provides a readable, self-contained 共with one or two exceptions兲 introduction to various topics covering signal processing in sonar, radar and medical imaging systems. Aside from the introduction, the handbook is divided into three sections: chapters 2–9 cover topics on signal processing, chapters 10–12 discuss sonar and radar applications, and chapters 13–20 present medical imaging applications. The purpose of this book is to provide a unified discussion of signal processing applications from a variety of sensing devices. The introduction could have been written more clearly, e.g., better figures and a little less technical jargon. But hopefully this introductory chapter will not put off the potential reader, because the rest of the book is well written. Chapter 2 gives a general discussion on adaptive filtering, which are filtering algorithms that are self-optimizing and can track variations in the statistical properties of a given signal. The application of Gaussian mixtures to signal processing is discussed in chapter 3. Chapter 4 discusses matched field processing, which is a method to attack signal-processing problems where one needs to estimate both an unknown signal source and unknown system parameters. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss acoustic signal processing and sonar applications. Chapter 7 switches gears and discusses volume visualization in medical imaging. This chapter deals with how tomographic slices can be put together to give a three dimensional picture. Chapters 8 and 9 go back to general issues in signal processing involving tracking of target signals.
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The second section covers signalprocessing applications that are mostly in the military research domain. Chapters 10 and 11 get into the details of how sonar works, and what the related signal processing issues are in both active and passive sonar systems. Chapter 12 presents a discussion of phased array radar systems. The third and final sections focus on medical imaging applications. Chapters 13 and 14 provide an introduction to ultrasound imaging, dealing with current trends for future applications in medicine. Chapter 15 introduces the physics of computed tomographic imaging. One of the problems facing this modality of medical imaging is artifacts in the image due to patient motion. Chapter 16 addresses this issue, though not very clearly. Chapters 17 and 18 cover magnetic resonance imaging including the basic imaging principles and its application to functional imaging—the imaging of a tracer that tags a substance involved in some biological process in the body. Chapter 19 shows how images obtained from different tomographic modalities can be fused into a single image, thereby enhancing the information. Chapter 20 involves medical imaging in radiotherapy treatment planning. All of the topics discussed in this book are relevant to current developments in signal processing in medical, military and industrial applications. Considering the wide range of topics covered, the chapters are generally well written and accessible to the wide audience that it is intended for. Reviewed by Xiaochuan Pan and Emily Sidky Xiaochuan Pan is Associate Professor, and Emil Sidky is a Fellow, University of Chicago. Both are in the Department of Radiology and they work on tomographic image reconstruction. Practical Radiation Protection in Healthcare. Colin J. Martin and David G. Sutton, editors. 384 pp. Oxford University Press, New York, 2000. Price: $69.95. ISBN: 0-19-263-82-2. This is the book I have been seeking for years to use as the text for my radiation protection course for graduate medical physics students. The problem I have found with other radiation protection books is that they spend far too much time
and space dealing with either introductory material that is better covered in other textbooks and courses, or topics mainly of interest to students and readers in the nuclear power industry. This book is aimed fair and square at medical physicists. Part I of the book is indeed, introductory, but deals with these topics in a compact manner, relating each topic to applications in radiation protection. It makes a brief, yet thorough enough, overview of radiation interaction mechanisms, radiobiology, and radiation measurement, leading into the practical applications in the rest of the book. Part II has excellent chapters on ionizing radiation protection principles and regulations from a worldwide perspective. For the North American readers it has just brief introductions to U.S. and Canadian regulations. These will need to be supplemented by the reader or instructor. However, I found the review of regulations in other parts of the world both interesting and instructive. Since most of the authors of chapters are based in the U.K., detailed information relates to U.K. and European standards, or international guidelines and publications 共ICRP, IAEA, IRPA, etc.兲. Nevertheless, I never found this to be a problem since North American and international standards are all derived from the same basic data and criteria. The chapters on control methods and applications, personnel monitoring, control of radionuclides, and radiation accidents and emergencies are all excellent. Part III deals specifically with application in medicine and research, with chapters on risk control, diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine, and radiotherapy, including brachytherapy. Finally, Part IV covers safety for nonionizing radiations, such as lasers, UV, electromagnetic fields, microwaves, and ultrasound. In summary, this is a superb textbook for all those interested in radiation protection in medicine. I highly recommend it to professional medical physicists, students, and teachers. Reviewed by Colin G. Orton Colin G. Orton, Ph.D., is Program Director of the Wayne State University CAMPEP accredited M.S. and Ph.D. Medical Physics programs and Editor of Medical Physics.
© 2003 Am. Assoc. Phys. Med.
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