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Issues & Experts Archive > Mental health, pipe band, 3D ’worms’ – Issues, Experts and Ideas
Mental health, pipe band, 3D ’worms’ – Issues, Experts and Ideas
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November 01, 2006
Too little too late: Plan to help mentally ill
SFU drummer brings home rare win
3D crawlers ‘traverse’ blood vessels
Too little too late: Plan to help mentally ill
Marina Morrow, an assistant professor in SFU's faculty of health sciences, contends that the provincial government's plan to build better facilities for the mentally ill is short on details and late in coming. Morrow notes the announcement comes well after "many people have suffered enormously as a result of cutbacks and policy changes such as disbanding the mental health advocate office." The community psychologist, who is currently studying the psychiatric deinstitutionalization process in B.C., can expand on why she agrees with the government's admission that its concept of deinstitutionalization has failed. Morrow can also comment on why she feels re-building institutions such as Riverview isn't a viable alternative.
Marina Morrow, 604.268.6906, mmorrow@sfu.ca
SFU drummer brings home rare win
Talk about a trans-Atlantic winner. Steven McWhirter, who lives in Northern Ireland, but moves to Burnaby every spring and summer to play in the SFU Pipe Band, has won the adult grade of the World solo drumming championship in Belfast. The adult grade is the highest level of the international competition, which is so challenging that only eight different drummers have won the more than 50-year-old event in the last 30 years. McWhirter, a 23-year-old corps drummer in SFU's Grade 1 pipe band, was among 56 drummers competing for the coveted championship and trophy. The closest an SFU drummer has come to winning the title previously was in 2000, when lead drummer Reid Maxwell placed second.
Rob MacNeil, SFU Pipe Band promotions, 604.279.5422 ext. 326
Steven McWhirter, 604.420.3772 (til Nov. 6) , stevenmcwhirter@gmail.com
3D crawlers ‘traverse’ blood vessels
Imagine an intelligent microscopic worm that could painlessly crawl through blood vessels, mapping every branch and passage. Such a creature could guide surgeons cutting cancerous growths or cardiologists searching for narrow arteries. Computer scientists at SFU have created virtual animals that travel the complex tree-like vessels in three-dimensional medical images from CAT scans or MRIs. Assistant professor Ghassan Hamarneh and graduate student Chris McIntosh can talk about their 3D crawlers. McIntosh earned a Canadian Institute of Health Research graduate scholarship master’s award for his work – the only award to go to a computer scientist – in 2006.
Ghassan Hamarneh, 604.291.3007; harmaneh@cs.sfu.ca
Chris McIntosh, 604.291.5509; cmcintos@cs.sfu.ca