Lawrence Chan PhD, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Han K. Huang DSC, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Fei Cao PhD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Zheng Zhou MS, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Maria Law, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Fuk Hay Tang PhD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

S. K. Hau, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Richard Li, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Kent Leung, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Eric C. H. Wong, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

C. H. Law, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

et al, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Internet-2 is high performance advanced network initiated by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) with the effort of US research universities. The high bandwidth, low latency, quality of service (QoS), multicast function and security assurance of Internet-2 facilitate remote applications such as rapid distribution of large-volume medical images and interactive teleconsultation. In North America, over 200 research universities and laboratories are connected by Abilene backbone that currently has 10 Gigabit-per-second capacity and about 50 ms round-trip-time across the US continent. However, global medical image and knowledge exchange requires a tremendously long and expensive connection from international partners outside US to a Chicago-based optical infrastructure for international Internet-2 access, called StarLight. With limited local support, the bandwidth of the existing connection from the Hong Kong Academic and Research Network (HARNET) to StarLight is 45 Megabit-per-second (Mbps) only. This connection has been used for daily medical image exchange between the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and the University of Southern California since October 2002. In October 2003, a multiple end-point video-teleconference connecting PolyU, University of Hawaii and University of Pittsburgh was successfully held. Such bandwidth is sufficient for video streaming. When it comes to remote synchronized image manipulation, the high latency of the international connection becomes a large barrier to synchronize data and instructions between remote sites.Our Hong Kong Internet-2 community and Web100 project have been designated to derive tuning protocols to tackle this problem by optimizing the TCP/IP parameters. The preliminary result shows that the network throughput with tuning is 14 Mbps, while it was only 1.5 Mbps before tuning. Since the tuning protocol should be consistent and repeatable in the clinical environment, the protocol is required to be self-contained in the kernel of operating system. The methodology, clinical implementation, performance and advantage of the proposed tuning protocol will be presented and discussed.

(1) To highlight the factors affecting performance of international Internet-2 in medical image transmission. (2) To propose tuning protocol to fully utilize bandwidth of international Internet-2. (3) To present and discuss the methodology, implementation, network performance and advantage of the proposed tuning method in clinical environment.

Chan, L, Huang, H, Cao, F, Zhou, Z, Law, M, Tang, F, Hau, S, Li, R, Leung, K, Wong, E, Law, C, et al, , A Consistent and Repeatable Clinical Protocol for High Performance International Internet-2 Connection in Remote Medical Image Transmission.  Radiological Society of North America 2004 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 28 - December 3, 2004 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2004/4408041.html