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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 1971)
Page 2 THE BATTALION College Station, Texas Wednesday, April 14, 1971 CADET SLOUCH by Jim Earle NASA research will aid heart doctors TV “I*m sorry but I’m afraid I can’t make out^the note I wrote on your paper Oh, yes, it says ‘improve your legibility.’ ” WASHINGTON (NASA) — Doctors can watch a movie of the beating of a patient’s diseased heart — identifying dead spots or scar tissue in the heart wall, aneurysms (bubble-like projec tions of the heart muscle), and other malfunctions — with a computer method devised by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Stanford Univer sity team. The system, still under devel opment, would improve on cur rent complex diagnostic rhethods by providing a simple means of viewing the heart in action. Fig uratively, it allows doctors to “walk around” the isolated beat ing heart, viewing it from any desired angle. Doctors also can stop the dis play at any desired point of heart expansion or contraction and can play the picture back and forth for many cycles. The system projects a three- dimensional, animated cartoon like image of any desired cham ber of the patient’s heart in lines of light on a computer display screen, similar to a television screen. The display is derived from two - dimensional “X-ray movies” made by injecting X-ray contrast dye into the desired heart chamber. Scientists and doctors from NASA-Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., and the Third inflation alert given WASHINGTON <A>)_The White House said Tuesday the steel industry’s competitive posi tion would be jeopardized and employment reduced if steel workers land a large increase in wages. In their third and sharpest in flation alert to date, President Nixon’s economic advisers edged to the brink of calling wage de mands by steel workers inflation ary. But the alert, a three-month report put out by the White House, stopped short of direct criticism of union demands, or even of naming a wage boost that might be acceptable. In a roundabout way, however, by linking the demands to a re cent settlement in the can indus try, the White House made clear fts- unhappiness with the union call for a hefty three-year wage increase, unofficially estimated at from 26 to 32 per cent. First, it called the 9 per cent annual boost in benefits to can industry workers “clearly in ex cess of any realistic assessment of long-term productivity growth prospects.” And it noted that the can industry settlement usu ally is a pattern for other metals industries. “If the terms of the settlement are extended to the basic metals industries, the competitive posi tion of these industries and many of the metals-using industries will be jeopardized,” the alert said. “Our steel industry is faced with strong international compe tition and if its competitive po sition is significantly eroded through large increases in wage costs, the result will be sharply reduced employment opportuni ties in the industry,” it said. But Paul W. McCracken, coun cil chairman, refused to specify what would be acceptable. “Since this is a problem area,” he told newsmen, “I think it would be inappropriate for me to discuss it in detail.” I. W. Abel, president of the United Steel Workers, said in a statement issued in Pittsburgh that the facts do not support the conclusion in the White House report. And he reiterated that the union will follow its previous ly outlined position in bargain ing. “The facts clearly demonstrate steelworkers have been the vic tims of inflation, not the cause of it. The facts clearly show that the purchasing power of steel workers has declined,” he said. “Therefore, the steelworkers have no intention of acquiescing voluntarily in any effort that would deny them an equitable settlement ...” There was no immediate com ment from the industry. Although steel clearly was the focus of the report, the White House saved its toughest com ments for recent taxicab fare in creases in New York City. The problem in New York, it said, is that the city restricts the number of cabs on the street and that number has not increased since 1937. It added that in Washington, D.C., by contrast, where no such restrictions exist, fares are well under half of those in New York. McCracken said the council decided to mention the taxicab issue because it “epitomizes the kind of problem that is develop ing in regulated industries.” Railroad freight rates, for ex ample, have gone up drastically since the middle of last year be cause of the lack of competition in the transportation industry. The freight rate increases, ap proved by the Interstate Com merce Commission are “of a magnitude that will produce in creases far above those for wholesale prices generally,” the alert said. The alert said the large in creases “highlight the urgency of mea&ures to improve efficiency and stabilization” in transporta tion, such as gradual deregula tion of the industry’s pricing structure. Cardiology Division of Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, Calif., have worked togeth er on the system. It appears the method may be a major advance for the physi cian to determine the patient’s need for heart surgery, coronary artery grafts, and treatment of various heart conditions. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. The system’s animated display is exact enough to show dead sec tions of the heart wall about the size of a nickel (two centimeters) details of large malfunctions, and holes between heart chambers. Combined with standard clini cal measurements of blood flow per heart beat, it can measure inefficient pumping by heart chambers. It also will help to identify leaky valves and shows the severity of valve damage. The system will allow further validation of a sonar-like system for testing heart function is also under development by this group of scientists. These sonar sys tems would allow examination of the healthy hearts of astronauts, pilots and ordinary citizens, us ing a simple sensor placed on the chest. “The Ames animated display system seems to be an important advance in the diagnostic tools for studying heart disease,” said Dr. Donald C. Harrison, chief of the Division of Medical Cardiolo gy at Stanford Medical Center, which is doing the clinical work on the project. “While X-ray examinations of hearts as they beat are currently in use,” said Ames’ Dr. Harold Sandler, originator of the ' sys tem, “X-rays are two-dimension al and hard to interpret because of the various other body struc tures in the same picture.” The value of the method for doctors is that it eliminates all irrelevant details. For example, it can show the complete interior surface of the beating left ven tricle (the heart’s main pump) on the lighted display screen and nothing else. The system can do the same with the right ventricle and the two auricles (intake pumps). Since the animated displays are a form of computer readout, they can be transmitted to doctors at distant locations by an ordinary telephone line, and recreated on a computer display screen. The displays are derived from X-ray movies, plus a computer program based on intensive re search in heart configurations and dimensions, plus new three- dimensional computer display techniques. Daryl Rasmussen, Ames Research engineer, devel oped the mathematical and com puter techniques, using data gathered by Dr. Sandler during six years of work at Ames on heart chamber dimensions and means of measuring them. Doctors first take the X-ray movie, known as an angiogram. To do this, they inject a dye opaque to X-rays through a cath eter into the patient’s heart. The X-rays then outline the selected heart chamber in cross section as it expands and contracts. Stanford cardiologists working under Dr. Harrison’s direction take two sets of X-ray movies at right angles to each other, at 60 frames per second. Obtaining the X-rays may be difficult since injection of the angiographic dye itself changes the function of the heart and makes only the data from two heart beats acceptable for analy sis. However, the researchers use a variety of independent measurements to make sure the two beats used are exactly typi cal. Validation of the technique by other independent means is now being accomplished. Analysis Soviets concerned By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Under the towering spire of the massive Stalinesque Foreign Min istry building in Moscow, experts of the far east division must be bitting their nails, wondering what sort of devilment is being cooked up in China. Are those Peking “revisionists” planning some sort of Great Leap For ward in foreign policy ? Automakers plan few for 1972, late model years tonight on the tube 15 (12) Numbers in ( ) denote chan nels on the cable. 2:30 3 (5) Edge of Night Sesame Street (PBS) (Repeat of Tuesday) Gomer Pyle Town Talk University Instructional That Girl Bewitched What’s New (NET) General Hospital Misterogers’ Neighborhood (PBS) CBS News 3:00 3 3:30 3 15 4:00 3 4:30 3 15 5:00 3 15 (5) (5) (12) (5) (5) (12) (5) (12) 5:30 3 (5) 15 (12) Sesame Street (PBS) 6:00 3 (5) Evening News 6:30 3 (5) Jacques Cousteau Special 15 (12) Campus and Community Today 7:00 15 (12) NET Playhouse 7:30 3 (5) To Rome With Love 8:00 3 (5) Changing Scene 8:30 15 (12) Soul (PBS) 9:00 3 (5) Hawaii Five-0 9:30 15 (12) They Went Thataway (PBS) 10:00 3 (5) Final News 10:30 3 (5) The FBI 11:30 3 (5) The Law and Mr. Jones Bingo—Weekdays at 5, BCS*TV/9. Nothing to buy. You need not be present to win. DETROIT OP) — Extensive re styling of Ford Motor Co.’s in termediate Ford Torino and Mer cury Montego lines will be the biggest changes when the auto makers unveil their 1972 models next summer. Most of the other lines will re ceive only minor restyling this year and even fewer changes can be expected in coming years, as manufacturers cut back on their annual revisions. Henry Ford II, board chair man of Ford Motor Co., sounded the death knell for major annual model revisions in a letter to Bulletin Board TONIGHT India Association will meet at 7:30 p.m. in room 145 of the Phy sics Building to elect officer bear ers. All members are urged to be present. THURSDAY Mid-Jefferson County Hometown Club will meet at 8 p.m. in room 2A of the MSC to complete plans for the Hensel barbecue, discuss the Somerville party, view the 1939 A&M-Tulane Sugar Bowl game, and hear two speakers. Texas A&M Motorcycle Club will meet at 7:30 p.m. in room 2C of the MSC to view a film on mo torcycle racing. Members are urg ed to attend, and nonmembers are welcome. stockholders earlier this month. “In future years we plan to change the design of our North American products less frequent ly and less extensively,” Ford wrote. While stopping short of Ford’s pronouncements, other auto exec utives have also indicated the model change is on the way out. When Ford spoke, however, the 1972 models were already in the works since the tools, dies and machines needed to build the new models must be ordered months in advance. General Motors is expected to make little change in its lines this fall. The full-sized GM cars underwent a major restyling last year and a planned restyling of the intermediate models reported ly was canceled after the 67-day United Auto Workers strike. Little change also is expected from Chrysler Corp., where fi nancial problems last year report edly resulted in a sharp cutback in restyling plans. The Chinese are smiling at Americans and suddenly present ing an amiable image to the out side world. To Soviet experts that must surely spell some sort of bad news. It isn’t necessarily good news for the U. S. government, for that matter. The regime thus far is smiling only upon table tennis players and the few cor respondents permitted to accom pany them on their unexpected tour into Red China. The reason behind all this is far from clear. There has been no indication of smiles on the official level nor of any softening of Peking’s atti tude toward Washington. It sounds like bad news to the Russians, however, because they are as suspicious of a Peking approach to the United States as the Chinese have been of a Rus sian approach in the same direc tion. The two one-time Commu nist allies, now accustomed to calling each other bad names, often accuse one another of shin ing up to the “American imper ialists.” A China relatively isolated from much of the outside world had been troublesome for Mos cow, notably in the field of ideology and in impact on the extreme left. It remains to be seen what Peking does next. Is China about to woo Wash ington actively? Is the table ten nis thing just a curtain raiser? The answer — for the time be ing — is probably “no.” But the Chinese probably would just as soon let the Russians stew about it. From the two X-ray movies, the computer constructs the ani mated display. The entire se quence of movie frames, each one containing the heart chamber outline, is traced on a computer input screen, and is retained in the computer memory. The com puter program then mathemati cally projects the two views of the heart chamber back into space. From these it reconstructs the chamber. This three-dimen sional construction is also stored in the computer memory for analysis and display. The technique allows the com puter to calculate the changing positions of the entire interior surface of the heart chamber in question, so the moving heart chamber can be seen from any point. The computer program is based on studies of the exact propor tions of hundreds of normal and abnormal human hearts gathered by Dr. Sandler from autopsies, and studies of patients witl heart diseases of various types, The two stored beats are re peated over and over by the com puter, allowing doctors to stud; the heart in action for any de- sired period of time. ALLEN OLDS. - CAD. 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