Java-based framework for processing and displaying short-echo-time magnetic resonance spectroscopy signals.
Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be used to determine in a non-invasive way the concentrations of certain chemical substances, also called metabolites. The spectra of MRS signals contain peaks that correspond to the metabolites of interest. Short-echo-time signals are characterized by heavily overlapping metabolite peaks and require sophisticated processing methods. To be useful in a clinical environment tools are needed that can process those signals in an accurate and fast way. Therefore, we developed novel processing methods and we designed a freely available and open-source framework (http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/sista/members/biomed) in which the processing methods can be integrated. The framework has a set of abstract classes, called hot spots, and its goal is to provide a general structure and determine the control flow of the program. It provides building blocks or components in order to help developers with integrating their methods in the framework via a plug-in system. The framework is designed with the unified modeling language (UML) and implemented in Java. When a developer implements the framework he gets an application that acts like a simple and user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) for processing MRS data. This article describes in detail the structure and implementation of the framework and the integration of our processing methods in it.
De Neuter
B
B
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Department Electrical Engineering, ESAT-SCD, Belgium.
Luts
J
J
Vanhamme
L
L
Lemmerling
P
P
Van Huffel
S
S
D001530:Belgium; D003626:Data Display; D006801:Humans; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D012984:Software