Forgot to metion

Forgot to mention that this summer, I am also working for the first time in my life. And no, I am not flipping burgers, although if done properly by actually thinking about the physics of flipping burgers, you could get some pretty nice results.

My first job is in research actually, at Sunnybrook Health and Sciences Center in Toronto. More exactly at the Ultrasound Lab. I've been working here since the beginning of July, and I am already done my first project which was to install and configure a 10 computer based cluster. It took me a bit longer then expected, as I had to learn Linux (always wanted to do it, never had a reason or time to). The end configuration was with Cent OS as a linux distro, Perceus as a cluster management program. They already had another cluster with warewulf, but they needed another cluster. So the new cluster also acted as a test platform for the Perceus software, as we couldn't really afford any downtime with the cluster running warewulf, so we wanted to see that everything is fine, before making a transition. As a resource manager I installed Torque, as they didn't want to actually pay for any of this software.

My second project is writing a program to numerically solve the Bioheat Equation in 3D. What I did until know, is that I wrote it for 1D in Matlab, and 1D in C++, now working on the 3D C++ version. Once I am done this I'll have to do a 3D Matlab version as well.

The work they are actually doing there consists of trying to fry or damage tumors using ultrasound and microbubles. For frying the idea is relatively simple and consists in focusing a ultrasound wave on a small surface, thus heating it up and frying it without trying to damage too much of the rest of the tissues. Another way is trying to inject microbubbles into the tumor area, and then ultrasounding it, which will make the microbubbles oscillate and change size hitting the tumor in the process. This will have the same effect as really small punches to the tumor, which will hopefully break it apart.

So this is pretty much my summer, with an 8:30 to 4:30 program, which I actually like. Too bad Sunnybrook hospital doesn't have a Gallery, so that we could see surgeries during lunch.

-G-raph out-