Objectives: Recently, there have been important advances in the clinical application of targeted hybrid near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent-radioactive tracers. ICG-99mTc-nanocolloid, for example, is already being used by some centres for sentinel lymph node biopsy in head and neck cancer. The radioactive component allows imaging at depths which would not be possible with NIR alone and, once exposed, the NIR fluorescence reporter can be imaged at very high resolution. Gamma detection is currently carried out with a separate hand-held gamma camera or with a non-imaging probe. Visualisation of NIR fluorescence during surgery requires a dedicated NIR camera, several of which are available commercially. We describe a novel hand-held hybrid NIR-gamma small field of view camera, capable of displaying co-aligned images from both modalities, which can be fused into one image or viewed separately. This study is a preliminary investigation of the performance of the fluorescence component of this camera, including phantom studies and first images from a preclinical pilot study. Methods: The hybrid camera consists of a 1500 µm thick thallium doped caesium iodide columnar (CsI:Tl) scintillator coupled to an electron multiplying charged coupled device (EMCCD). A 1.0mm diameter tungsten pinhole collimator gives a 40mm x 40mm nominal field of view for an 8mm x 8mm CCD detection area. A fluorescence camera was aligned to provide the same field of view as the gamma camera with an LED ring as the excitation source. The performance of the fluorescence imaging was quantified in this study for the fluorophores ICG and IRDye800CW (CW800) using a range of bespoke phantom experiments. In vivo images were also obtained from a preclinical study of a targeted hybrid tracer (cRGD-CW800-TCO + TCO-DOTA-111In) in mice with HT29 colorectal cancer xenografts. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The portable hybrid camera prototype has been shown to successfully image dual NIR-gamma tracers using both in vitro and in vivo experimental models. With further development, this camera could be used intraoperatively, offering the benefits of gamma imaging at depth in tissues and high resolution surface NIR fluorescence imaging in a single imaging system.
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In order to advance the education process and raise the educational level of the players, it became necessary to introduce new educational aids, programmed education in the education process, through which the basic skills to be learned are explained and clarified, and immediate feedback is provided that would enhance the information of the learner, and Reaching the goal to be achieved, taking into account the individual differences between the players, and thus it is possible to move away from the educational methods used in learning skills, which requires great effort and time, in addition to that the open playground may not perform the skill accurately and the player looks from one side, while when using the computer you look from severa
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This paper proposes a compact, plasmonic-based 4 × 4 nonblocking switch for optical networks. This device uses six 2 × 2 plasmonic Mach-Zehnder switch (MZS), whose arm waveguide is supported by a JRD1 polymer layer as a high electro-optic coefficient material. The 4 × 4 switch is designed in COMSOL environment for 1550 nm wavelength operation. The performance of the proposed switch outperforms those of conventional (nonplasmonic) counterparts. The designed switch yields a compact structure ( 500 × 70 µ m 2 ) having V π L = 12 V · µ m , 1.5 THz optical bandwidth, 7.7 dB insertion loss, and −26.5 dB crosstalk. The capability of the switch to route 8 × 40 Gbps WDM signal is demonstrated successfully.
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Reinforced concrete (RC) slabs strengthened with carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) and subjected to flexural actions may experience many types of failure, including FRP debonding, FRP rupture and concrete crushing. Of these different types of failure modes, FRP debonding stands out as the most predominant type of failure because of its dependence on the relatively weak bond interface between the soffit of the RC member and the FRP sheet attached to it. Many anchorage systems have been developed to enhance the performance of strengthened systems, one of which is the hybrid anchor, which combines the effects of patch anchors and spike anchors. Hybrid anchors have shown significant enhancement when used with RC members subjected to shear
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In this paper, an experimental study of the thermal performance for hybrid solar air conditioning system was carried out, to investigate system suitability for the hot climate in Iraq. The system consists of vapor compression unit combined with evacuated tube solar collector and liquid storage tank. A three-way valve was installed after the compressor to control the direction flow of the refrigerant, either to the storage tank or directly to the condenser. The performance parameters were collected by data logger to display and record in the computer by using LabVIEW software. The results show that the average coefficient of performance of hybrid solar air conditioning system (R=1) was about 2.42 to 2.77 and the average p
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