This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The main vision for this research is to capture brain shape deformation during surgery. Brain deforms during surgery as a result of actual surgical processes like injection of anesthetic agents, and actions of the surgeons such as resection and retraction.The location of a tumor, as well as other critical structures that need to be preserved, may shift from their pre-operative locations due to these doformations, significantly diminishing the accuracy of the neuro-navigation procedure planned pre-operatively. We are developing a biomechanical finite element model that will capture intra-operative brain shape deformation in real time and provide 3-D volumetric simulation based visualization to surgeons for intra-operative surgical navigation. Intra-operative MRI scans will be used, as boundary conditions, for this finite element model. This simulation needs to happen in a very short amount of time (within few minutes), such that the results are of practical use to the surgeons during surgery. As a result access to multi-teraflop parallel machines, as provided within the teragrid infrastructure, is needed. In addition to developing the parallel biomechanical finite element model, we are also looking into on-demand computing aspect of the teragrid.We have developed a software that will allow us to test the queue wait time, on different teragrid clusters, for different job sizes. We plan to use this software to test and collect data on queue wait times on various teragrid clusters to develop a database of characteristics that can be used to decide effective on-demand compuing need for our application. In summary we are looking into two research aspects for which teragrid is useful: 1. the development and testing of the parallel finite element model 2. the actual testing of clusters for on-demand computing.
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