About

This free Tech Talk explores how passive listening sonar can be used to screen for cardiovascular disease.

About this Event

The stethoscope is the iconic low-cost, “passive listening” device in diagnostic medicine. Unfortunately, even with modern digital technology, the basic acoustic principles of the stethoscope have not changed since its invention by Rene Laennec in 1816. The principles are the transduction and aural interpretation of sound-induced vibration performed at a sequence of single points on the body surface. By contrast, modern passive sonar has been evolving rapidly in the naval submarine underwater sound community since World War II. Coincidentally, since World War II, cardiovascular disease has become the number one killer of women and men in America (697,000 deaths in 2020 compared to 598,000 from cancer and 375,000 from Covid). This presentation discusses the nature of coronary artery disease, the options available for early diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD) and why/how modern passive listening SONAR (SOund Navigation and Ranging) is being formulated to screen for CAD.

Details

• Free, but please register. 
• This event is planned for BARN's Great Room on the upper floor.

Class Policies

• Ages 14 and up are welcome.
  

• View BARN’s current COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

• BARN is committed to accessibility. Tuition assistance is available. Fill out the application before registering.

• For those who might need physical assistance, learn more about our Companion Program.

Instructor

Norman L. Owsley has had two overlapping careers in the research and development of digital passive sonar systems - four decades in submarine acoustics and three decades in medical acoustics that culminated in the founding of Phonoflow Medical Corp. In both careers, he has applied the same “tool box” to two distinctly different problems - the common threads being statistical signal processing, structural acoustics and turbulent flow and fluid dynamics. Whether it is the hunt for “Red October” or the diagnosis of pre-symptomatic, obstructive coronary artery disease, both are sonar-friendly.