FAST - Advanced Signal-Processing for Ultra-Fast Magnetic Resonance - FAST workshop on pulse sequence programming

FAST workshop on pulse sequence programming

The FAST workshop on pulse sequence programming took place from Tuesday 8th September to Thursday 10th September 2009 at the EPFL in Lausanne. The course was organized by Christian Labadie to train the Marie Curie fellows in IDEA sequence programming, with the main focus on spectroscopy sequences. To meet the needs of the participants the best, the content of the course was discussed and selected together in advance.

Five early stage researchers fellows, two experienced researcher fellows, and five PhD candidates from Leipzig (1 PhD of ULeipzig), Nijmegen (1 PhD of RUN) and Lausanne (3 PhD of CIBM/EPFL) attended the FAST workshop on pulse sequence programmingat the Center for Biomedical Imaging, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland with the following training contents:

designing pulse sequences for the Siemens sequence development environment IDEA and implementing sequence building block objects in C++
generating pulses, simulating sequences, editing measurement protocols
modifying standard single voxel spectroscopy and chemical shift imaging sequences with tailored objects such as an inversion preparation
creating a pulse sequence and performing a phantom measurement

and received a certificate of attendance from Prof. Rolf Gruetter (FAST task leader MRSI acquisition). Spin-off: as follow-up of this workshop an ESR from UAB will be involved in an "e-research" secondment (online) with ULeipzig for the development of a safety unit-test to detect forbidden acoustic frequencies in the gradient schemes of echo planar imaging pulse sequences (related to the FAST tasks T2 MRSI acquisition and T5.2 hands-free eMRSI voice commands)

First day: Basic concepts The focus of the first day was on learning the basic design of the IDEA sequence development environment. On the basis of simple examples the structure of the framework has been explained, concentrating mainly on concepts, which are used in programming of spectroscopy sequences.

learning basic pulse sequence objects
Second day:
Application of learned concepts Wednesday started with programming code. The participants applied and deepened the learned knowledge from the first day by modifying given spectroscopy sequence examples. At the end of the day the different solutions were discussed together.

implementing an object-oriented sequence building block with a programming partner
Third day:
Writing of a mini-PEPSI sequence in teamwork On the third day all fellows wrote one mini-PEPSI sequence together. To reach this goal, small teams of participants programmed different parts of the sequence, which were joined together to a working sequence in the end. Beside the programming skills the participants trained to work on one piece of code and therefore make decisions about structure and conventions together. In the afternoon it was possible to have a look at the 7 Tesla Scanner, before the working mini-PEPSI sequence could be celebrated at dinner. e-research:

combining object oriented pulse sequence programming skills with project management
to create a proton echo planar spectroscopic imaging (PEPSI) pulse sequence

In addition to the improved sequence programming skills, the course was a good opportunity to meet each other again and to discuss, next to work, also private things. The amicable collegiality created a pleasant working atmosphere.

Last but not least the participants of the course would like to thank Christian Labadie for organizing this very instructive and helpful course. He spared no effort to give a complete overview of IDEA and to explain it in a use-oriented manner. Thank you!

Isabell Steinseifer

Here is an account from another participant of the workshop:

I am a new Early Stage Researcher in the FAST network and for me the training offered by Christian Labadie in Lausanne was a consistent introduction in the pulse sequence programming area. The topics that were approached, followed immediately by practically implementing them on the computer, made me understand the flow of implementing into code the magnetic resonance knowledge, using Siemens tools for doing that. The workshop gathered researchers that come from different areas of study like computer science, physics, electrical engineering and we were grouped in teams that were meant to combine the programming skills with magnetic resonance imaging knowledge and I think that the way of grouping was excellent since my colleague facilitated my understanding of several concepts issued, since he was the MRI specialist part of the team I was in. Also the teams interacted and exchanged information all the time, fact that has offered a dynamic environment there, that I really enjoyed.

The follow up of this workshop for me is the fact that I will continue studying pulse programming and using it in jMRUI in order to analyze several spectra, obtained with scanners from users of jMRUI.

I would like to thank Christian Labadie for making this workshop happen!

Diana Amariei

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