Multimedia Fair showcases leading-edge advances in information technology

By Eileen K. McCluskey

Special to the Gazette

On a computer screen in the Taubman Building last Thursday, a digitized MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of an anonymous patient's upper torso was displayed. The demonstrator cursored around the image, showing how the bones and soft tissue could be scrutinized.

On another computer screen across the room, visitors viewed an enlarged version of a daguerreotype of an "unidentified Chinese man."

Between these stations were other demonstrations ranging from an animated Christmas card created by a student at the Extension School, to a tool developed at the Graduate School of Education to help middle school children sharpen their negotiation skills.

It all happened at the fourth annual Harvard Digital Video and Multimedia Fair. The event is organized each year by the informal but apparently hard-working ABCD Committee, comprised of faculty, administrators, researchers, and students. The fair's chief engineers are ABCD Chair Lenny Solomon and the enthusiastic Bijoy Misra, who chairs the committee's imaging and visualization group.

The fair is organized, said Misra, "to encourage a sharing of knowledge and expertise, and to help create a University-wide strategy to enrich classroom resources."

This year the event brought together those initiating technological innovations at the Law School, Graduate School of Education, Medical School, Extension School, Graduate School of Design, Kennedy School of Government, University Library, Science Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

A stroll through the Taubman Building's ground and fifth floors, and a visit to the presentations in the Wiener Auditorium, imparted a sense that the University community is sowing seeds for the future in soil rich with interest.

Resolving Disputes

Sara Jo Slate of the Graduate School of Education demonstrated software she developed to accompany a course for children aged 11 to 14.

The course is called "Young Negotiators" and its companion software is "Case Creator." Case Creator asks the child a series of questions about whatever conflict the child wishes to resolve. To answer the computer's queries, users must consider not only their own view of the problem, but their opponent's as well.

"The kids use this software in a very interactive way, with their counselor at their school," said Slate. "It helps them apply the concepts they learn in the course."

Beating the Traffic

Brigham and Women's Hospital has initiated Project BRAHMS, a clinical imaging system designed to provide referring physicians with online access to digital radiological images and diagnostic reports, thus providing an alternative to film.

Through BRAHMS, the referring physician can view, from one of 11 Unix workstations, CT (cathode tube) and MRI images that their patients have had done at the Brigham. BRAHMS developers William Hanlon and Scott Davis, of Brigham's Radiology Department, demonstrated the new system, displaying an MRI image of the top portion of a patient's lungs, and showing how, by cursoring around the image, bone and soft tissue can be studied.

In the project's next phase, images created through digital chest x-ray, angiogram, ultrasound, and nuclear medicine will be placed online. This service will also be made available from any computer, so that the physician could view the images even from home.

"We know we can beat the traffic," predicts Hanlon of the convenience the new service will offer its users.

Virtual Patients

The Medical School and the Brigham have developed a "virtual patient clinic" which, according to James McGhee, has been created to provide third- and fourth-year medical students access to a broader range of patients than they can see these days as in-patients in hospitals, where most of a medical student's clinical training takes place.

In "Virtual patient number one," a video still of a man appears, accompanied by audio background and text. The student hears about the patient's immediate problem, then moves through the case interactively. After viewing the patient's initial "history," for example, the student chooses from a menu of actions, including running diagnostic tests, spending more time with the patient, admitting the patient to the hospital, or consulting with another physician.

At the session's conclusion, the computer tallies the student's actions and displays a comparison of, for instance, tests run and expenses incurred, versus what an expert would have done. The student thus receives immediate feedback regarding how efficiently and effectively the patient was served.

Digital Daguerreotypes

University Library Preservation Center's Stephen Chapman demonstrated the Harvard Daguerreotype Database.

Daguerreotypes, those earliest of photographs that are one-of-a-kind images on silver-coated metal plates, are "very awkward to use, and incredibly valuable," said Chapman.

Scattered collections of daguerreotypes exist throughout Harvard, and the Daguerreotype Database will be a repository of a single virtual collection of the photos. When viewing the image on the library's Web site, the clear-as-a-bell photo is accompanied by text which includes information on the original's repository, a contact name there, the photo's title, and other data. By pointing and clicking, the viewer can see an enlarged version of the daguerreotype.

Images in Time

The Medical School's Media Technical Specialist Frank DeGirolamo illustrated the beauty of making lectures available on the Web to second-year students who may have missed all or part of a given class.

"Students can access this from home," said DeGirolamo. The day's instruction is provided in a combination of audio and video stills. The audio is a complete record of the teacher's talk, while the video stills capture slides and other visuals used in the lecture. Each picture is associated with the specific time in the lecture it was used. Students can slide the audio's time indicator, using their computer mouse, to a point matching any of the video stills, click on "play," and sit back to hear what the professor had to say at that moment in the lecture.

Beirut Rebuilt

A team from the Graduate School of Design has developed an exhibit on the modernization of Beirut, spanning the years 1831-1995. As a timeline scrolls leisurely across the screen, the viewer can click on any date to see a video still and listen to an audio accompaniment of that year's developmental highlights.

Another of the exhibit's dimensions is a vast array of biographies about the major architectural and developmental players in Beirut's modernization process. The user simply clicks on a name to see a slide show that provides a glimpse into the person's work in Beirut.

Instant Demographics

With the click of a mouse, the number of crimes committed around the Bay State appeared on Harvard Map Collection's "electronic atlas of Massachusetts."

The atlas is the result of a digitizing project, explained David Cobb of the Map Collection. Visitors to this "library without walls" can choose from an extensive list of data categories, then click on "map it" to see an instant version of Massachusetts, customized for the user's demographic interests.

Virtually South Africa

David Eddy Spicer, of the Kennedy School of Government, took fair attendees to the South African town of Yeoville when he presented his multimedia, online case, which shows video clips of community leaders in this faraway place. The case offers students a virtual visit to Yeoville, placing the student in the role of a scout for urban planners.

Gifts from the gods

Robert Doyle, digital video editor of NEWMEDIA magazine, gave a dizzying keynote speech focusing on the 1990s as the decade of digital video (dv). Doyle iterated some late-breaking tools that help to harness digital technology, which, like everything computer-related, seems to change with the speed of light.

Doyle's presentation included the latest dope on emerging technologies such as the small-enough-to-carry-in-your-pocket dv camcorder. The new camcorders use small, inexpensive tapes capable of recording 60 minutes of better-than-Beta video; and Doyle gleefully pointed out that Beta tapes are clumsy and costly compared to those for the dv camcorder. "It's like a gift from the gods," he declared.

"Digital video has changed the way video is captured," said Doyle, "it's becoming digital video on the tape." This technological improvement will, in turn, soon be eclipsed by the first "MPEG" camcorder which, Doyle explained, will record digital data of images and sounds directly onto a tiny hard drive.

With the future moving in so fast that even the latest technological gadget is nearly obsolete as soon as it appears, those at the front of computer applications have their work cut out for them. But with so many seeds for the future being sown throughout the University, the harvest will surely be bountiful.