PATTERN RECOGNITION OF BIOMEDICAL OBJECTS
Introduzione - Indice
Introduzione
It is my pleasure to introduce this volume which contains
the papers presented at the Workshop on 'Pattern Recognition of Biomedical
Objects' which 1 organized in Ischia in October 1978, This Workshop
was part of the Intemational Scientific Exchange scheme
between the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the Italian National
Research Council (CNR) and I am truly indebted to Prof, M. Natecz, scientific
advisor on the Polish Bide, for his assistance in arranging alI matters
concerning the participation of the Polish researchers.
Although the topics discussed at the meeting seem to be very dissimilar
in nature and treatment, the main Common goal of the workshop was to bring
together polish and italian researchers who are interested in using
pattern recognition techniques for obtaining an efficient classification
of biomedical objects.
The difficulties which are generally present in any real problem, one
dealing with natural data (as opposed to the theoretical binary images),
make this field very challenging and, at the sametime, worthwhile, since
many human tasks could be solved with a clever use of the machine (computer)
even if it is widely recognized that no machine, at present, will
completely substitute man.
Many years have gone since some research groups started thinking about
the automation of chromosome karyotyping and yet no fully automated system
exists which is routinely used within a hospital; this means that
the problem is really complex and that many efforts must stilI
be spent to improve the definition of biomedical tasks, to increase the
speed of currently available computers (perhaps with the development of
new architectures) and to introduce new high level languages which may
help in naturally writing the processing algorithms.
It is my duty to express my thanks to Prof. E. Biondi who encouraged
me in this venture, to Prof. A. Monroy for providing us with the
Ecology Laboratory which hosted the workshop, to Prof. A. Barone (Director
of the Istituto di Cibernetica) who helped me in many different and complex
phases of the organization and to Mrs. L. Mendia for her constant good
will in overcoming alI the inevitable problems which accompany any scientific
meeting. Special thanks are due to Mr. U. Cascini for his drafting assistance.
1 believe we may consider the workshop a successful one if the participants
had the chance to exchange their ideas within an informal, friendly atmosphere
so as to feel free to express their doubts more than their certainties.
STEFANO LEVIALDI
