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Automated border detection using graph searching principles has been shown useful for many biomedical imaging applications. Unfortunately, in an often unpredictable subset of images, automated border detection methods may fail. Most current edge detection methods fail to take into account the added information available in a temporal or spatial sequence of images that are commonly available in biomedical image applications. To utilize this information we extended our previously reported single frame graph searching method to include data from a sequence. Our method transforms the three-dimensional surface definition problem in a sequence of images into a two-dimensional problem so that traditional graph searching algorithms may be used. Additionally, we developed a more efficient method of searching the three-dimensional data set using heuristic search techniques which vastly improve execution time by relaxing the optimality criteria. We have applied both methods to detect myocardial borders in computer simulated images as well as in short-axis magnetic resonance images of the human heart. Preliminary results show that the new multiple image methods may be more robust in certain circumstances when compared to a single frame method and that the heuristic search techniques may reduce analysis times without compromising robustness.

The deepening financial crisis that is now affecting markets and people around the globe gives new context to what the nation is facing. Americans cannot think of business as usual in any sector of public or private life, including higher education. President-elect Barack Obama will have very little financial latitude and enormous immediate problems, beginning with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a troubled health-care system, and the complex economic conundrum. It is time to strengthen and clarify the role that those at colleges and universities can play in this unsettling environment. The nation is at an unprecedented moment, one that higher education can seize as an opportunity to become a more crucial determinant of the direction taken by the United States. Higher education has not been on the national agenda except insofar as it is viewed as less and less affordable, and to some extent less relevant to a broad range of challenges. In effect, policy makers and the public view it as an elective at a time when more, not less, knowledge and preparation are needed to overcome national difficulties. That must change. In this article, the author calls on his fellow leaders in higher education--in community colleges, liberal-arts institutions, and research universities--to come together to make higher education more relevant on the national and international agenda.

Speaking at a Harvard University commencement 60 years ago, Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed a massive program of aid and redevelopment--since known as the Marshall Plan--to bring a war-ravaged Europe back to economic health, political stability, and peace. Today colleges and universities need a new such plan, with university teaching, research, and outreach at its center, to help resolve the socioeconomic inequalities that threaten the country and the world. At a time when other nations are challenging the United States economically as well as on religious, moral, and ideological grounds, presidents should enlist their colleges and universities to fulfill their potential as one of their most effective and credible diplomatic assets. Colleges and universities can and should play a more central role in helping countries that are struggling to meet the needs of their citizens by improving local education, research, and problem-solving skills. Indeed, the development of human capacity is not only one of the most effective ways to ameliorate global inequalities, but it is also a prerequisite for any enduring improvement of the standard of living at the local level, where it matters most. Ultimately, university and college presidents should develop a comprehensive strategy with global reach to guide and assist governmental efforts of the United States and other nations.