Holidays

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Eva's leave of absence

The lab will be without a supervisor during January. I will be on Christmas vacation and then on leave of absence until the 8th of February. I have put a red binder marked "SMILE" in the bookshelf by the red wall, which contains manuals and how-to:s for the more common tasks in Imagelab (reading CD:s and so on), which hopefully will be helpful during my absence.

Freja is incapacitated

During my absence (at the neuGRID Toledo meeting last week, which by the way was very rewarding, with a presentation of the graphical interface of the grid) freja decided to close down on itself. Tomas has heroically tried to get it back up, but so far no success. We have been working on getting the new freja online instead, but have not managed to do so before the Christmas break. Work will continue after New Year's...

Eat more fruit

There's LOTS of fruit in Imagelab -- leftovers from the KI Brain Imaging course. Enjoy!!

Glögg reminder

Don't forget to sign up for the glögg party at SMILE on Friday the 11th of December! Email me at the latest tomorrow Wednesday the 9th.

KI course Brain Imaging

The KI course Brain Imaging is now in full swing (still 2-3 listener seats available though!). Today (Tuesday 8.12), tomorrow and on Thursday the Imagelab will be full of KI students testing various software applications.

Spring Statistica courses

The Statistica newsletter sent to me tells already now of the Statistica Stockholm course dates for spring:

STATISTICA BLOCK 1
9-10 februari, KS, Huddinge
16-17 mars, KS, Solna

STATISTICA BLOCK 2
18-19 mars, KS, Solna

STATISTICA BLOCK 3 (new!)
6-7 maj, KS, Solna

Interested? Read more about the Statistica courses at www.statsoft.se/services/courses.html

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Talk by Olof

Olof will give a PhD student seminar tomorrow 3rd of December, at 10.00 in the seminar room on the 4th floor in Novum. The title is "Morphometric subclassification of frontotemporal dementia".

Whiteboard

A whiteboard has been affixed to the wall in Imagelab, making it easier to write and draw during scientific discussions. I will get some more whiteboard pens in different colours soon...

Pierre is leaving

Pierre Vestman is leaving his part-time position at SMILE for a position as MR physicist in Solna, where he starts on January 1st. We will miss Pierre, and wish him good luck in his new job!

Financing 2010

The core facility support distribution for 2010 has been announced, and SMILE has been given 500 000:-!

Glögg party

The yearly SMILE glögg party will take place in the R43 conference room on Friday the 11th of December at 15.00. Sign up by telling me at the latest on the 9th of December!

Fewer toilets

This week a construction crew has torn out the two toilets between Imagelab and the R43 conference room. Remodelling will hopefully start soon and be finished in three weeks' time. Meanwhile, we still have access to the large toilet inside the R43 conference room (that one is not expected to be remodelled).

Dagens Medicin

In this week's issue of Dagens Medicin, the featured theme is "Bilddiagnostik". Check out the interview with Katarina Wahlund on her research project!

Blog via email

I've realized that there are several ways to read blog posts via email. You can 1) get one email with the contents of each post, or you can 2) have a digest with links and truncated blog posts, or you can also 3) have one email with all new posts in a day sent to you. I'd missed the last alternative. That's why you are all getting a digest email with worthless links -- I didn't want to clutter up your mailboxes with lots of email. But since the blog is not overly active I'd say that alternative 1) and 3) are also attractive. As a test I've changed the settings so that you will have one email with all new posts in a day sent to you. Give me a shout if you don't like it!

In case you want to access the blog directly, the address is http://smileki.blogspot.com/

Managing CD:s in Hermes

Finally, it is now possible to confidently handle CD:s in the Hermes environment. The only thing which does not work is writing DICOM CD:s in the GOLD2 environment, but that can easily be bypassed by linking the wanted GOLD2-folder to a new GOLD3-folder. I sent out the how-to on the Imagelab emailing list, but feel free to ask me for help if you need it!

Interesting MRI course

I had a tip about an interesting MRI course/workshop:

Modifying Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast From Water Dynamics to Molecular and Cellular Imaging

Venue: University of Kuopio, Tietoteknia Auditorium, Savilahdentie 6, Kuopio
Time: December 16 - 18, 2009
Organized by:
*Biomedical Imaging Unit, A.I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Kuopio
*Graduate School of Molecular Medicine, University of Kuopio
Program: http://www.uku.fi/gsmm/mmri/index.shtml
Registration deadline November 30, 2009.
Registration: http://www.oppi.uku.fi/lomake/data/6031-85743.html

More coffee!

Coffee, tea and sugar levels in the kitchen are at 100% again.

IT contact, level 2

I have just cleared becoming a second level IT contact -- so I can now order new computer and phone outlets, and turn them on and off. The bad news is that I still cannot order stationary IP numbers. Seems as if this has to go via MTA...

az fixed -- did you have files on it?

The az Hermes client is now working properly again. However, it was only possible to restart it by making a copy of the disk on asterix and installing that on the az client, so any personal files you may have had on the C: or D: disk on az are now lost. The disk is still available, so if it was something really important, we can ask Hermes support (aka Ronnie) to dig it up for you.

SMILE lab movie

The SMILE lab is a movie star! Or rather, we show up for a short while in the movie made by the Academy of Finland to show one day in the life of professor Miia Kivipelto, on the occasion of her being awarded the very prestigious Academy of Finland Award for social impact. Congratulations professor Kivipelto!

The Academy of Finland Award for social impact is granted to a researcher who has significantly contributed to increasing public awareness of scientific research or the researcher’s job, who has inspired interest in science, who has actively contributed to public debate in society or otherwise strengthened the role, application and impact of research in society.

You can find the video (approx 6 minutes) at http://www.aka.fi/tietysti_videot/2009_miia.html

and the press release about the award at http://www.aka.fi/en-gb/A/Academy-of-Finland/The-Academy/Academy-releases2/Academy-recognizes-two-outstanding-researchers/

More seats for the Brain Imaging course

As the lecture rooms I booked for the Brain Imaging course were larger than expected, we have allowed five more listeners to join the course. So if you know of someone who would like to just listen in (but not get the credits for the course), ask them to contact me!

Ooops

I inadvertently turned off the email digest list during the blog setup...! That explains why you were added to a google group and nothing more happened. I think I fixed it now, so hopefully the digests will start coming.

az problems

The Hermes client az has gone down (could not reboot, perhaps due to memory problems). Hermes service has been contacted, but the problem will not be solved during the weekend.

IT contact

I am now installed as IT contact for SMILE. This means that I will be able to order e.g. PACS-accounts for Imagelab users, extra wall sockets for computers and other things. However, there seems to be yet another level of access required to be able to order IP numbers (which was the point of this whole exercise). I'm working on it...

Testing the waters

I just created a blog for SMILE. The idea is to create a channel where the minor going-ons at the lab can be posted, without having to edit the webpage all the time. The blog will also replace the obsolete guest book which only attracts spam and does not work anymore.

Below are some blog posts, all made today, but which should have been posted over the last few weeks. This is just to give you a sense of what the active SMILE blog would look like.
Please feel free to leave your comments and opinions about the blog here!

Technicalities of the blog

• You can go to this webpage to read posts, or you can ask to have email digests of the posts sent once each day. In that case, ask Eva to be added to the digest list (called SMILE_onceaday). To unsubscribe, ask Eva to remove you from the Google group.
  
• Anybody can comment on a post on the blog. Just click on the "X comments" link at the bottom of the post, or click on the post headline in the right-hand list of contents. That's the easiest way to read a blog post comment, too. (It is currently not possible to show a comment on the main page at blogspot).
  
• You can also write posts on the page yourself, as long as you have a Gmail account. Ask Eva to be added as writer, and you will get an email confirmation (with a link that will help you set up a Gmail account in one minute in case you haven't got one). To post to the blog, log on to the smileki.blogspot page with your Gmail username and click on "Nytt inlägg".

Congratulations Eric!

Congratulations to Dr. Eric Westman on giving a marvellous defense of his thesis on Friday the 16:th!

Hermes OK!

All Hermes problems on my list have been fixed! ...Except the direct link from Hermes to valhall, which is not possible to set up, since valhall will not accept dicom format directly.

Hermes visit delayed

Hermes will visit us on Wednesday the 14/10 instead. Send new problems with Hermes (or old) to me asap so they have a chance to be fixed next week!

neuGRID video

For those who still are unclear on what the neuGRID project is, check out this Youtube link to a power point talk by David Manset:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpfD6GZ90tQ&v=30

Enjoy!

Freja is here!

The new Linux machine -- new freja -- has arrived! We put it in Pierre's office while we configure it.

Hermes on the way?

Perhaps we will get service from Hermes on Wednesday 7/10...? My list of Hermes complaints includes the following:

• License problems (all licenses in use when they're clearly not)
• Not possible to run obelix remotely
• X-manager problems on asterix and idefix
• New printer to be installed
• CD reading problems
• Connection Hermes -> valhall possible?

Email me if you have something to add to the list!

New posters on the wall

Finally, there are posters on all the walls inside SMILE! I draw your attention in particular to the award-winning poster by Yi Zhang (2nd place in the IPA 2009 Junior Research Awards in Psychogeriatrics) and the award-winning poster by Olof Lindberg (1:st prize for pedagogical content at the yearly Brain Power meeting).

Check out library books!

A new feature at SMILE is the little black book on the shelf with library books. In case you borrow a library book, please check it out in the black book!

Enter

1. the name of the book you borrow
2. today's date
3. your name and phone number/email

Don't forget to cross out your name in the check-out book when you return the borrowed book to the library shelf...

Warning: exam work approaching

You may not all know that I still haven't completed my exam work as medical physicist... I'll start working on a new project this fall, measuring the volumes of thigh muscles. This means a lot of coding, and that part of my time will have to be dedicated to this project (meaning less time for other projects). I'll of course deal with emergencies just as usual, so don't worry, I'm not disappearing off the face of the planet!

Board meeting

Today the SMILE board gathered for the September meeting (which has had to be postponed from the beginning of September). The discussion focused on how to manage the SMILE bench fee, and also on how important it is for all who use SMILE to properly acknowledge us in papers and on posters. I also mentioned the SMILE starter kit idea -- a set of information about Imagelab that all new users will be given when they code in their cards here, with things good to know. I'll bring that up at the next users' meeting!

Film team at SMILE

Today SMILE was visited by a small film team. The theme was "A day in the reseacher Miia Kivipelto's life", and the movie will be posted onto the Finnish Research Academy's home page some time later this year. I didn't have a camera handy, but Araidna did, and promised to send me some photos which will appear here later on.