Boris Veytsman*, Leila Akhmadeeva** * George Mason University, Fairfax, ** Russia Play (42min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

A medical pedigree is an important tool for researchers, clinicians, students and patients. It helps to diagnose many hereditary diseases, estimate risks for family members, etc (Bennett, Steinhaus, Uhrich, O’Sullivan, Resta, Lochner–Doyle, Markei, Vincent, and Hamanishi, 1995). Recently we reported a comprehensive package for automatic pedigree drawing (Veytsman and Akhmadeeva, 2006; Veytsman and Akhmadeeva, 2007). Since then we extended the algorithm for a number of complex cases, including correct drawing of consanguinic relationships, twins and many others.

In this talk we review the facilities of the current version of the program and the new challenges in computer–aided drawing of medical pedigrees.

We try to make the talk interesting to TeXnicians and TeXperts by discussing the experience of design a TeX–based application working in a “real world”.

Manjusha S. Joshi Pune, India Play (25min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

There are software with the help of which we can draw diagrams easily. However, there may be some things missing in it, like angle marks, arrows in between vertices etc. Being LaTeX user we also wish to use LaTeX math mode to label diagrams, for that one may require to edit the diagram.

Now–a–days, many figure drawing tools has option of exporting file in PSTricks. Which then generates, PSTricks code for the figure, in a simple LaTeX format. Which is readable and editable. It makes the job easy and efficient.