2008 UA Physics Undergraduate

Research SymposiumRobert J. Rose, Esq.B.S., M.S., J.D.

Answers are not as important as the questions

you ask

How you frame your question determines the

answer.

5

6

7

A simple candle

What is research?

•Informed play

•Correlation observation

•Hypothesis

•Testing

•Tool building

•Causation confirmation

Pattern or No

Pattern?Watch closely . . .

Pattern?Now?

Pattern?Do you see it . . .

Pattern?Clearer?

Contact eBay!

We are all toast.

correlation is not causation

Your experience is proportional to the equipment

you ruin.

Computer GUI for Segmentation of Nerves During

Ultrasound Guided Anesthesia

Play andCorrelation observation

Hypothesisthe MCN can appear in a variety of forms, either as hyperechoic or hypoechoic

regions, but in most instances it appears echoically distinct from the surrounding tissue.

This suggests that segmentation techniques can assist in acquisition and

visualization of these nerves.

Testing: Tool Creation

Confirmation

New HypothesisThere will be an observable correlation between the isotropy of the spatial frequency

spectrum of imaged nerves, and nerve injury.  So, the tool, modified to produce

a spatial frequency spectrum, can be used as a

 diagnostic tool to confirm nerve injury.

24Affine Transformations

Image PerspectiveImage PerspectiveIssue: A method for correcting perspective so that viewer could see a scene in “virtual reality” with correct perspective, with viewer and projector at different locations.

25Affine Transformations

One Way: Ray TracingOne Way: Ray Tracing

26Affine Transformations

Different Way:Affine Transformation

Different Way:Affine Transformation

Straight lines remain straight after warp

27Affine Transformations

Simulated RenderingSimulated RenderingView From Camera Simulated Virtual Camera

Pre-distorted

Image Being Sent

to Projector

to Compensate for Dome & Pilot POV

Reference Line

Lines Straighter

Lines straighterFOV close to correct

Lines curve left

All lines straightFOV correct

Read books

•Edward Tufte

•Visual Explanations

•The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

•The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within

•Biographies of Scientists

•Einstein, His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson

•Anything about Richard Feynman

•Stories by Scientists

•The Quark and the Jaguar, by Murray Gell-Mann

•Anything by Richard Feynman

•Expand your horizons

•Freakonomics, A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

•Prisoners, A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide, by Jeffrey Goldberg

•Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer and Stephen Jay Gould

The “bookstore” test