Brief Project Overview:

Focus:

Acoustic and ultrasound education, research, and development with emphases on medical and industrial applications.

Goals:

1.Stimulate innovations in the focusing areas by catalyzing partnerships between universities, and private and public sector organizations.

2.Broaden the participations of the partner academic institutions.

3.Enhance the enabling infrastructure to sustain the partnership.

Top Contributions:1.Novel applications of advanced/emerging signal processing techniques to

a. Improving ultrasound imaging for medical applications;

b. Acoustic and ultrasound monitoring of machinery to advance predictive maintenance.

2. Development of new joint teaching curricula in acoustics.

NSF Award #IIP-0917690 2 Year Award Start Date: 1 March 2010

Top Challenges:1.Identification of specific technology opportunities in medical imaging and predictive maintenance.

2.Access to raw data streams.

3.Validation and assessment of outcomes and results.

4.Follow-on funding.

Program Activities:

Partners:

Key Attributes of our Innovation Ecosystem:

Questioning & Curiosity:Machine Monitoring:

1.How to best characterize abnormalities?

2.How to validate developed algorithms?

3.Is it possible to perform fusion to improve performance of device monitoring?

Medical Imaging:

1.Can advances in signal processing algorithms improve detection and classification of anomalies?

2.Are the proposed solutions robust and patient-invariant or are they sensitive to patient variables (e.g., obesity)?

Risk Taking:

1.Enhancement might be minimal or non-existent!

2.Cost of implementations might be too high!

3.Necessary and prior patient information may be inaccurate or unattainable!

4.Timeline may be too short or funding may be too small!

5.Real data may become hard to obtain and face logistic difficulties!

Openness:

1.Technical publication of results

2.Course development at university partners

3.Sharing information and research findings among all partners

Collaboration Across Fields:

1.Physics

2.Electrical engineering

3.Mechanical engineering

4.Medical imaging

5.Medicine

6.Commercialization and economic development

Placing Partners in “New Environments” & “Playgrounds”:

1.GMC has not been involved in an NSF project since 1992.

2.Villanova plans to use this award to shift its activities into industrial and medical fields.

3.Siemens has never worked with any of the partners of this project.

4.Villanova and GMC have never worked on a project together.

5.Bucknell has never worked with any of the partners neither has it collaborated with Villanova in research or education.

Leading/Inspiring for Surprising or Unexpected Results

1.Partners in this PFI are all new to each other.

2.In leading this team, Villanova hopes to capitalize on their unique skills and experience such that the whole will exceed the sum of the parts.

3.Inside-out thinking by all will lead to novel results – both expected and unexpected.

National Science Foundation Partnerships For InnovationGrantee’s Meeting April 25-27, 2010 Arlington, VA. .PFI .

VillanovaUniversity

Senior Institutional Administrator

Bucknell University

TechnologyNAVSEATechnology

Gwynedd-Mercy College

TechnologyTechnology

Technology

Ben FranklinTechnology

Partners

Corporate Partners

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Tec

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State Funding

New, Small and Medium Companies

Education

Investment/Technology/Commercialization

Funding

Com

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izat

ionFunding

FundingEducation

Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ)

Partnership

1. Bring together a team of three Universities, a Federal Lab, four companies, and a State Economic Development Organization, to advance the state-of-the-art in acoustic and ultrasound technologies.

2. Broaden participation by partnering with Gwynedd-Mercy College (75% female enrollment, a group typically underserved in technical opportunities) and Bucknell University (never participated in any inter-university NSF program).

3. Create a strong team with diverse skills and experience, necessary for establishing a regional infrastructure which will sustain and enhance acoustic and ultrasound technologies.

PFI in Acoustic and Ultrasound Technologies for Medical and Industrial Applications

Villanova UniversityCenter for Advanced Communications, College of Engineering

PI: Moeness Amin Co PIs: Gary Gabriele, Richard Thompson, Yimin Zhang

Facilities

Metallic prosthetic mitral valve () causes acoustic shadowing and reverberation () due to the interaction of the ultrasound with the metallic structures, making accurate determination of the presence/absence of vegetation (infection) difficult.