GLOSSARY
- 3D Slicer An interactive visualization and analysis package developed originally by the NAC and now used and developed by a number of projects including BIRN, NA-MIC, and NCIGT.
- AJAX Usually defined as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX refers to a style of web programming that avoids page refreshes and gives the appearance and “feel” of traditional desktop software applications.
- AMIGO Suite The Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating Suite, a BWH project to serve as a laboratory for experimenting with sophisticated imaging-based therapies. Development of technology for AMIGO is supported in part by the NCIGT.
- Amira A commercial system for visualization.
- BIRN The Biomedical Informatics Research Network, an NCRR funded initiative involving dozens of institutions to apply advanced networking, database, analysis, and related technologies to the problems of multi-site studies.
- BrainVoyager A commercial neuroimage analysis system for structural MRI and fMRI analysis.
- BSD (License) The Berkeley Standard Distribution software license with few restrictions on reuse of the code.
- BWH Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a major teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and, with MGH, a part of Partners Healthcare.
- CMake/CTest/CPack A suite of tools for cross-platform software development, testing, and deployment. Originally an outgrowth of ITK, these tools have been further developed by the community and supported by efforts including NA-MIC.
- Dart A web server for displaying the results of software tests across multiple platforms and over time.
- DICOM The Digital Communications In Medicine standard, widely used for processing radiology images.
- DWI/DTI/DTMRI Diffusion Weighted Imaging / Diffusion Tensor Imaging /Diffusion Tensor MRI
- fBIRN The Function BIRN is a testbed to apply BIRN technology to multi-site studies of schizophrenia using fMRI.
- FIPS The Functional Image Processing Stream, under development as part of the fBIRN project and based on FSL, with significant enhancements to work with the fBIRN informatics infrastructure.
- fMRI Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
- FreeSurfer A suite of programs for analysis of neuroimages developed primarily by the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH. FreeSurfer is a particularly strong tool for analysis of cortical and subcortical structures with accurate measurements of cortical thickness and related measures.
- FSL A suite of fMRI analysis programs and related tools developed by the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB).
- Glyph A term used in visualization to refer to a graphical representation for an abstract quantity; for example, an arrow showing the local orientation of a magnetic field.
- GMail A web-based mail system using AJAX technology.
- Google A technology company specializing in web search and related software.
- Google Maps A web-based mapping system using AJAX technology.
- GPL (License) An Open Source software license that requires works based on GPL code to also be licensed under the GPL. This widely used license is often considered inappropriate for commercial use under many business models.
- IBVD The Internet Brain Volume Database, developed by the Center for Morphometric Analysis at MGH. http://www.cma.mgh.harvard.edu/ibvd/. IDL An interactive data analysis tool and programming environment.
- Irix The Silicon Graphics, Inc., proprietary version of Unix.
- Isomics, Inc. A software development firm specializing in medical image analysis. Major contributor to the 3D Slicer platform.
- ITK The Insight Toolkit An NLM sponsored C++ system for segmentation and registration of medical images that has become a de facto standard for development of advanced imaging algorithms.
- Java A programming language popular for web and database development, but also generally powerful as an application platform.
- Kitware, Inc. A visualization and software development firm in Clifton Park, NY. Primary developers of the VTK, ITK, and CMake packages.
- Linux An Open Source implementation of the Unix operating system.
- LONI Pipeline A workflow tool developed by the Laboratory for Neuro- Imaging at the University of California at Los Angeles.
- Mathematica A symbolic and numeric computer mathematics system.
- MATLAB A commercial numerical processing system produced by Mathworks, Inc.
- mBIRN The Morphometry BIRN is a testbed to apply BIRN technology to the problem of assessing brain structure in diseases such as Alzheimer’s through multi-site imaging studies.
- MGH Massachusetts General Hospital, a major teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and, with BWH, a part of Partners Healthcare.
- MIT (License) The Massachusetts Institute of Technology software license with few restrictions on reuse of the code used by the X Window System and some other projects developed at MIT.
- NA-MIC National Alliance for Medical Image Computing, an NIH Roadmap Initiative National Center for Biomedical Computing (NCBC).
- NCIGT The National Center for Image-Guided Therapy, an NIH P41 Research Resource located at BWH.
- NIfTI The Neuroimaging Informatics Technology Initiative, an NIH sponsored effort to provide standardized data formats to facilitate software interoperability.
- NLM The National Library of Medicine.
- NRRD Nearly Raw Raster Data, a file format for representing image data. NRRD is well suited for representing DWI/DTI data.
- Ontology The study of the categories and relationships of things. In the field of computer science, ontology refers to a well-formed data model that relates digital information to the real world objects and concepts to which it refers.
- Open Source A term used to cover many types of software distribution, where the source code is available for viewing and possibly modification. Often the software is also free of charge, but not always.
- Protégé A software package for editing ontologies.
- PubMed A service of the National Library of Medicine to provide information about medical literature.
- Python A dynamic object-oriented programming language.
- Slicer Daemon A server that runs as part of 3D Slicer to support data interchange with external programs.
- Slicer2.6 Refers to Version 2.6 of 3D Slicer. Current stable release as of this writing.
- Slicer3 Refers to Version 3.0 of 3D Slicer.
- Solaris The Sun Microsystems proprietary version of Unix.
- SPL The Surgical Planning Laboratory, Ron Kikinis, MD, Director. A part of the MRI division of the Radiology Department of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. .
- SPM A MATLAB-based set of tools for analysis of neuroimages, including fMRI. Developed by the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College, London.
- Tcl Tcl/Tk The Tool Control Language, a lightweight but powerful scripting language. The Tk windowing toolkit supports cross-platform user interface development.
- VTK The Visualization Toolkit, originally developed by GE, and later spun out to Kitware, Inc. Provides a rich set of visualization tools in a cross platform C++ class hierarchy.
- Web/Grid Services Refers to a distributed computing technique in which data and computation are allocated to remote servers through a standard protocol that incorporates security mechanisms that span administrative domains.
- Wikipedia A community-edited encyclopedia project.
