Medical imaging for diagnosis, image guided surgery and drug discoveryBEST Summer Course @ Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 2004BEST is an organization managed by students, which strives to make technology students more internationally minded by encouraging their mobility and intercultural communication. BEST has 1700 active members in 64 local groups and organizes 45 summer courses all over Europe. BEST local groups make all the necessary arrangements and raise funding in order to provide accommodation, food, leisure and sport activities for participants to engage in during their stay in a foreign country. Although all of these matters are important, it is the academic activities that attract the students to a certain course and are the reason for this gathering. During a period of two weeks, 20 or so students from different European countries together with organizers - fellow students from the country hosting the event - face the challenge to learn something new and up-to-date in modern science and to gain a unique experience of working in a multicultural, international environment. This year, the little town of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium hosted a seminar named "Medical imaging for diagnosis, image guided surgery and drug discovery", under the partial sponsorship of Similar - the European taskforce creating human-machine interfaces, similar to human-human communication. The seminar took place from July 18 - 31, 2004. Louvain-la-Neuve is a 30 year old town, and is characteristic of its inhabitants who are mostly students. The town literally consists of a University and dormitories accommodation for students. In Louvain-la-Neuve French is spoken, but all the lectures were of course in English. Besides the lead lecturer Prof. Michel Benoit from the UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain), various guest lecturers gave presentations in their field of expertise. Most presentations were given by SIMILAR researchers, coming from the Institut de Synergie des Sciences et de la Santé (France) and Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). Some of the interesting themes were:
Also, among other cultural excursions such as visits to the cities of Brussels, Bruges, Louvain and a Trappist brewery at Chimay, two academic visits were arranged. The first academic visit was to St. Luc University Hospital in Brussels, where diagnosis methods were demonstrated, and the other was to a cyclotron facility in LLN which is unique for its three interconnected cyclotrons. During the course, students had a task of creating a simple edge detection filter using Matlab in order to have a better grasp of the lectures given on that subject. Also, participants had to make a PowerPoint presentation in their own language (12 languages for 12 countries), which is intended to be presented in high schools, as part of a lasting effort to encourage more high school students to continue their education in the field of technical engineering. The day of the departure was a sad one, as it was hard for everyone to part from their friends. Participants and organizers unanimously concluded that those two weeks were some of the most beautiful in their lives, and that it was an experience to be remembered. Goodbyes were said, but only till some other BEST event. For more information on the summer course, please visit www.similar.cc by choosing "Dissemination", "Best Summer Workshop"
Zoran Novakovic
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