The NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Physics and Engineering of
Medical Imaging has addressed a subject which in the wide area of
biomedical technology is one of those which are showing greater impact
in the practice of medicine for the ability to picture both Anatomy and
Physiology. The information and accuracy obtained by whatever imaging
methodology is a complex result of a multidisciplinary effort of several
sciences such as Physics, Engineering, Electronics, Chemistry, Medicine,
etc ... Development has occurred through work performed in different
environments such as basic and applied research laboratories, industries
and clinical centers, with the aim of achieving an efficient transfer of
know-how and technology for the improvement of both investigation
possibilities and health care. On one hand, such an effort requires an
ever-increasing committment of human and financial resources at research
and industrial level, and, on the other, it meets serious difficulties
in recruiting the necessary human expertise oriented to this technology
which breaks with the tradi tiona I academic borders of the single
disciplines. Furthermore, the scientific community is continually
dealing with the problem of increasing the performance and, at the same
time, complexity and costs of instruments, applying more and more
sophisticated technology in an effort to meet the demand for more
complete and accurate clinical information. The scientific program of
this ASI and the qualification of the authors reveals the intrinsic
complexity of the development process of the Imaging methodologies.