Carter Chu

Ms. Meece

Capstone Period 7

3 November 2017

Mentor Reflection 2

On October 20, I went to Texas Childrens Hospital to meet my mentor. When I arrived, we first
talked about data results. He said that, when looking at the graph of data, he noticed that some of the
points had a perimetric ratio of 1 but had a decently high fractal dimension value. Together, we looked
and searched into the patient data, finding the cases that marked the outliers on the graph. When
looking at the MRI images, it was noticed that the images werent descriptive of LVNC, as they were
mostly round and had little floating mass inside of them. It was interesting to notice that shape
influenced fractal analysis, so I began to code a program that would make random ellipses in random
orientations to see the impact of shape and orientation on fractal dimension. We talked about how
important it is to notice these outliers and try to find why they exist. Good researchers need to
constantly be on the lookout for these variations and attempt to learn about them. By noticing these
outliers, Dr. Amol Pednekar and I could discover an aspect of fractal analysis that could make a research
paper much more accurate and outstanding.

Speaking of research papers, my mentor started to talk to me about how he wanted me to help
him write an abstract that would be submitted to the Society of Pediatric Radiology Annual Meeting. I
was ecstatic to contribute. He talked about the process of writing a research paper. It is crucial to write a
portion of it every week, since every week, you might realize some key factor or sentence that you want
to include into the paper. He told me that he often has trouble fitting all the information he wants into
the character and word limit put onto research paper submissions. He told me that to bypass these
restrictions, he creates figures with very long captions, since the captions arent included into the word
and character count. I found his solution to be quite funny and clever. Its not necessary to include
everything into a research paper if multiple research papers are submitted over time. Research is an
ongoing process that shouldnt be rushed.

Lastly, we talked about how we could combine both the trabeculation simulation and floating
mass simulation to create a more accurate representation of LVNC. He wanted for the trabeculation
mass to match the floating mass total, since he hypothesizes that the myocardium of the wall loses mass
to create the floating mass, so the total mass of the left ventricle remains the same. I have yet to code
this program, but I anticipate to within the next few weeks.

I also talked to my Clements mentor, Mrs. Lorena, about potential Spring Action events. I asked
her what she thought of my project and what I could do for Spring Action. She was quite intrigued about
my project, and noted that it is practical applications of computer science that are important. Many
students are obsessed with potential technology and machine learning, neglecting to see the computer
science applications that are already present in fields such as medicine. She agreed that a lecture,
promoting the learning of computer science and encouraging research in the medical field, would be a
great Spring Action event.