An ultrasonic imaging system including an array transducer that includes a plurality of elements each performing at least one of emission or reception of ultrasonic waves, at least some of the plurality of elements being disposed so as to face each other. The ultrasonic imaging system performs malfunction inspection including specifying one emitting element among emitting elements that emit ultrasonic waves and a group of receiving elements that are at least some of the plurality of elements and that receive transmitted waves emitted from the emitting element and transmitted through an imaging region; collecting measurement data of the transmitted waves via the group of receiving elements while switching the emitting element; calculating transfer characteristic values from the measurement data; and detecting a malfunctioning element among the plurality of elements on the basis of the transfer characteristic values.

A three-dimensional ultrasound tomography method and system based on spiral scanning are provided. The method includes the following. (1) Collecting raw data: an emission array element is switched while a probe maintains a uniform linear motion, so that changes in trajectory with time of a position of an equivalent emission array element in a three-dimensional space show a spiral or a partial spiral, and echo data is received. (2) Pre-processing data. (3) Calculating coordinates of each equivalent emission array element. (4) Calculating coordinates of an imaging focus point. (5) Performing synthetic aperture focusing on each imaging focus point. (6) Post-processing data. The disclosure improves the principle of the imaging method, the design of the overall process, etc. Volume data containing information of continuous tissue layers is obtained through spiral scanning. Applying the synthetic aperture focusing technique in the three-dimensional space improves the resolution between layers and shorten the scan time.

Extracorporeal motion (130) relative to a medical subject being imaged is detected, through the imaging or from motion detectors on the imaging probe, and either backed out of the medical images so that it can be determined whether lung sliding exists or measured to determine whether lung sliding detection is to be suspended due to excessive extracorporeal motion. Image sub-regions (164, 168) corresponding to respective ones of the images are selected for image-to-image comparison such that the selected sub-regions contain only body tissue that is, with respect to imaging depth in the acquiring of the images, shallower than an anatomical landmark within the images. Based on a result of the comparing, lung sliding detection that entails examining image data deeper than the landmark may be initialized. A motion sensor may detect the extracorporeal motion and, based on its output: pair-wise co-register (170) images to an extent of backing out the effect of the extracorporeal motion and/or determine whether to suspend deciding as to whether lung sliding is, during the respiration, occurring in the subject.

An interposer includes: a circuit board stack in which circuit boards are stacked; and an outer board arranged on at least one of outer side surfaces of the circuit board stack. The circuit boards are arranged include first conductive lines having first ends exposed through a first side portion of the circuit boards and second ends exposed through a second side portion opposite the first side portion of the circuit boards. The outer board includes second conductive lines having first ends exposed through a different side from the first side portion of the circuit boards and second ends exposed through a side portion located on a same side as the second side portion of the circuit boards.

A method for applying a regional block of the articular sensory branch of femoral (FN), obturator (ON) and accessory obturator nerves (AON) comprising injection of an anesthetic at a single needle entry point into a these nerves anatomical sites. Another aspect of this technology is a kit for performing this method.

An ultrasonic transducer module including: a plurality of piezoelectric elements, each being aligned in the same direction that is a longitudinal direction thereof; an electrode formed on a surface of each of the piezoelectric elements; a wiring member configured to be joined with the electrode and electrically connected with the electrode; and a dematching layer provided on a surface of each of the piezoelectric elements, the surface being opposite to another surface of the corresponding piezoelectric element on which the electrode and the wiring member are joined.

The present disclosure provides an ultrasound imaging system comprising an array of transducer elements, a plurality of receive circuits configured to provide one or more output signals, a plurality of delay circuits configured to output one or more delayed signals, and at least one multi-channel beamformer configured to (i) receive representations of a plurality of microbeamformed signals and (ii) output at least one representation of a beamformed signal. The plurality of microbeamformed signals may represent a combination of delayed signals from the plurality of delay circuits. The plurality of delay circuits may be characterized by a plurality of time delay values. The plurality of time delay values may be controllable or adjustable such that one or more points-of-focus characterizing the microbeamformed signals can move along a line of sight.

A device and method used to image wells and other fluid-carrying tubulars having localized features of interest. The device scans large areas of the tubular first in a low-resolution mode, then identifies areas that contain those localized features with some probability. The device images the identified areas in a high-resolution mode and stores the images for further image processing. The device may comprise two sensors axially spaced-apart on the device, which sensors may be electromagnetic, acoustic, or cameras.

A device and method used to image wells and other fluid-carrying tubulars having localized features of interest. The device scans large areas of the tubular first in a low-resolution mode using an ultrasound sensor and in a high-resolution mode using a camera, then identifies areas that contain those localized features with some probability. The device images are stored for further image processing. The two sensors are axially spaced-apart on the device. A computer remote from the imaging device renders a visualization of the tubular and localized features using the optical and ultrasound images.

The invention concerns an apparatus for estimating a velocity of at least one scatterer in a medium, the apparatus comprising a generator for generating excitation signals, a curved array of virtual transducers (T.sub.1-T.sub.n) for transforming said excitation signals into Archimedean spiral waves and for: emitting said Archimedean spiral waves in a plurality of predetermined directions of propagation defined by a set of insonification angles (α.sub.i), a curvature of said curved array of virtual transducers defining a reference center (O) and a radius of curvature (r.sub.n), and for receiving, from said at least one scatterer, scattered signals generated by scattering of said Archimedean spiral waves emitted from said curved array of virtual transducers, a driving and processing unit (U.sub.c) for estimating the velocity of said at least one scatterer wherein axial and lateral velocity components are estimated using a set of local wavefront orientations (α.sub.eq,i) of the Archimedean spiral waves as a function of the initial set of insonification angles (α.sub.i), the geometry of the curved array of transducers and the distance (r) to the reference center (O), each local wavefront orientation satisfying the following formula:

[00001]${\alpha }_{\mathrm{eq},i}=\mathrm{arc}\sin \left(\frac{r_n}{r}\sin {\alpha }_i\right).$