Written by Kazuya Tashiro, IAFR Member
This May, I had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of ISFRI & IAFR in France. It was my 4th time to join the meeting, having attended in Denmark, Germany, and Japan. After the long interval due to COVID-19 pandemic, it was a great pleasure to get together in person at the venue, with my junior colleague of the same workplace, along with other Japanese researchers. The venue was held at Toulouse, in Southeastern France. One of the good aspects of ISFRI & IAFR is that the annual meeting is generally held in district places with a local atmosphere, not a big capital city like Paris.
From my perspective, two sessions were very impressive. One was the opening session. I could see the epoch-making trial of utilizing a “blockchain” method for archiving forensic digital imaging data. In the session regarding renovation of radiological technology and forensic radiology, we were given explanations regarding metal artifact reduction (MAR) technique, global illumination reconstruction, simplified anatomic analysis of the ribs, and ultra-high-resolution CT combined with other postmortem images. The application of those technologies in the forensic medicine field is expected in the near future. The second impressive session was the one for International Association of Forensic Radiographers. Many new topics were presented from Japanese researchers. It was a great opportunity to know what radiographers in the world are focusing their attention on and what they are currently investigating. Also, other countries’ approaches in the utilization of “Lodox imaging” for forensic purposes, a high-speed full body X-ray imaging device which has not been available in Japan, were impressive.
One of the important missions for radiographers is to optimize image acquisition settings for various situations. I hope to contribute in this field by investigating and writing research papers through hearing and exchanging opinions with other researchers in the world. I would like to conclude this report with a photo of Dr. Gascho taken with me as a memory at the ISFRI2023 meeting.
