High frame rate 3D intracardiac echography (3D-ICE) might enable full-volumetric flow, tissue, and electro-mechanical wave tracking in the heart, thus supporting complex interventional procedures. Designing ICE transducers is very challenging due to the constraints imposed by the catheter's diameter on the transducer aperture and cable accommodation within the shaft. Current ICE probes only offer a 2D or limited 3D field of view at low frame rates. This work presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of an ICE prototype transducer aiming at high frame rate 3D imaging with a large field of view.

In many parts of the world, flooding is a big risk. There are numerous strategies to reduce flood risk. The amount of flood risk reduction strategies grows exponentially with the amount of possible measures that can be implemented and possible timings when measures can be implemented. In this paper, the use of a financial method called “equivalent annual cost” (EAC) is assessed to reduce that number of strategies and evaluate cost-optimal strategies. The use of EAC allows the comparison between short-term and long-term measures by expressing them into an annual interest weighted expected expenditure. As soon as a measure has to be implemented (i.e. the annual risk becomes too large or the safety standards are exceeded), the EAC for all combinations of measures is determined and the combination is implemented with the lowest EAC. This almost leads to cost-optimal flood risk reduction strategies that, by manual optimization, can be improved further. A case study has also been performed in the Hollandsche IJssel which proved the use of EAC. Here it has led to cost-optimal flood risk reduction strategies. The method is tested in one case and it is recommended to apply and test it in other cases as well.