take a nap!

uhm… a bit weird 🙂

this first year

The first year of my PhD has almost gone. I’ve spent 10 months here in Télécom Bretagne – Brest and it has been amazing! From the scientific/academic point of view I feel like I’ve learnt many useful things. My project is working out fine and I’ve just submitted my first publication (on croise les doigts!!). Concerning more personal achievements, I’ve met wonderful people and made really close friends… it won’t be too difficult to keep in touch, since we’re all staying more or less “close to each other” thanks to thousands of stages, internships, new PhD projects that are about to start in the next months. World is not big at all and we’ll meet again, for sure 🙂

Starting from September, the second year of my PhD will be entirely spent at the LIRMM Laboratory in Montpellier. It seems like it will be a brand new experience for me, after these two years in France my lifestyle will change a bit… basically, no more University Campus but apartment in downtown (Contact section is already up to date)! Let’s see what happens… in any case, this first year has been wonderful and I’ll always make treasure of such experiences.

See you soon, Brest 😉

what’s LaTIM ?

The Laboratory of Medical Information Processing (LaTIM – INSERM UMR 1101) is a research team made up of the University Hospital of Brest, the Faculty of Medicine and Telecom Bretagne (graduate engineering school). It carries out many projects in three main research areas:

1. Computer-Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery (IPAL research team);
2. Quantitative Multimodal Imaging for Diagnosis and Therapy (Quantitative Multi-modality Imaging Team);
3. Multimedia Medical Information Indexing, Tracking and Integrity (IT2IM Team).

These three themes are integrated within a methodological approach of the diagnostic and therapeutic imaging based on information and knowledge. For my PhD project I am member of the IPAL Team, carrying out my research in the field of Computer-Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery (CAOS).

Knee Alignment Conditions

The lower limb Mechanical Axis is defined by a line running through the centre of the hip joint to the centre of the ankle joint.  This line should pass essentially through the centre of the knee joint.

The tangential distance of this line from the centre of the knee joint is referred to as the Mechanical Axis Deviation.

In a Varus knee, the axis passes through the knee medial compartment, while in a Valgus knee it crosses the knee lateral side.

Another key concept is the one of Anatomical Axis. The Anatomical Axis of a bone is represented by a line drawn down the centre of the medullary cavity of the bone.

In the femur, the mechanical and anatomical axes deviate whereas in the tibia the mechanical and anatomical axes are essentially represented by the same line.

The angle between the Anatomical Axis of the femur and the lower limb Mechanical Axis is normally 6° of Valgus.

source: this website