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.
Modeling the microclimate of a greenhouse located in Baghdad under its weather conditions to calculate the heating and cooling loads by computer simulation. Solar collectors with a V-corrugated absorber plate and an auxiliary heat source were used as a heating system. A rotary silica gel desiccant dehumidifier, a sensible heat exchanger, and an evaporative cooler were added to the collectors to form an open-cycle solar assisted desiccant cooling system. A dynamic model was adopted to predict the inside air and the soil surface temperatures of the greenhouse. These temperatures are used to predict the greenhouse heating and cooling loads through an energy balance method which takes into account the soil heat gain. This is not included in
... Show MoreIn this paper, a numerical model for fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis is developed for investigating the aeroelastic response of a single wind turbine blade. The Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory was adopted to calculate the aerodynamic forces considering the effects of wind shear and tower shadow. The wind turbine blade was modeled as a rotating cantilever beam discretized using Finite Element Method (FEM) to analyze the deformation and vibration of the blade. The aeroelastic response of the blade was obtained by coupling these aerodynamic and structural models using a coupled BEM-FEM program written in MATLAB. The governing FSI equations of motion are iteratively calculated at each time step, through exchanging data between
... Show MoreThis paper deals with a Twin Rotor Aerodynamic System (TRAS). It is a Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) system with high crosscoupling between its two channels. It proposes a hybrid design procedure that combines frequency response and root locus approaches. The proposed controller is designated as PID-Lead Compensator (PIDLC); the PID controller was designed in previous work using frequency response design specifications, while the lead compensator is proposed in this paper and is designed using the root locus method. A general explicit formula for angle computations in any of the four quadrants is also given. The lead compensator is designed by shifting the dominant closed-loop poles slightly to the left in the
... Show MoreBackground: COVID-19 is a disease that started in Wuhan/China in late 2019 and continued through 2020 worldwide. Scientists worldwide continue to research to find vaccines, treatments, and medication for this disease. Studies also conenue to find the pathogenicity and epidemiology mechanisms. Materials and Methods: In this work, we analyzed cases obtained from Alshifaa center in Baghdad/Iraq for 23/2/2020-31/5/2020 with total instances of 797, positive cases of 393, and death cases of 30. Results: Results showed that the highest infection cases were among people aged between 41-45. Also, it was found that males' number of cases was more than females. In contrast, death cases were significantly higher in males than females. It was not
... Show MoreTo maintain a sustained competitive position in the contemporary environment of knowledge economy, organizations as an open social systems must have an ability to learn and know how to adapt to rapid changes in a proper fashion so that organizational objectives will be achieved efficiently and effectively. A multilevel approach is adopted proposing that organizational learning suffers from the lack of interest about the strategic competitive performance of the organization. This remains implicit almost in all models of organizational learning and there is little focus on how learning organizations achieve sustainable competitive advantage . A dynamic model that captures t
... Show MoreDust and bird residue are problems impeding the operation of solar street lighting systems, especially in semi-desert areas, such as Iraq. The system in this paper was designed and developed locally using simple and inexpensive materials. The system runs automatically. It Connects to solar panels used in solar street lighting, and gets the required electricity from the same solar system. Solar panels are washed with dripping water in less than half a minute by this system. The cleaning period can also be controlled. It can also control, sensing the amount of dust the system operates. The impact of different types of falling dust on panels has also been studied. This was collected from different winds and studied their impact o
... Show MoreAcne vulgaris is a very common, chronic disorder, involving inflammation of the pilosebaceous units that can be varied in presentation and difficult to treat. Inflammatory acne may yield both scarring and pigmentary changes so early and adequate therapy will, in all cases, decrease its severity and may entirely suppress this disease. Serratiopeptidase has anti-inflammatory, anti-edemic and fibrinolytic activity and acts rapidly on localized inflammation. Serratiopeptidase was added in aim to hasten acne resolution. During March to July 2010, A comparative study for a 50 healthy patient suffering from acne was divided into 2 groups: 1st group treated by common acne modalities and the 2nd one with same modalities
... Show MoreSkin drug administration is the method used to provide drugs for local or systemic therapy, which is recognized for clinical usage. It is the third-largest method of medication delivery, after only intravenous administration and oral administration. Using a transdermal delivery method makes the administration easy, and blood concentration and adverse effects can be reduced. A microneedle is a micron-sized needle with a short height of no more than 500 micrometers and a width of no more than 50 micrometers. The needle comes into contact with the epidermal layer of the skin before it gets to the dermal layer, where there is no discomfort. Several materials, such as metals, inorganic, and polymer materials, are used to create microneed
... Show MoreIn Baghdad city, Iraq, the traffic volumes have rapidly grown during the last 15 years. Road networks need to reevaluate and decide if they are operating properly or not regarding the increase in the number of vehicles. Al-Jadriyah intersection (a four-leg signalized intersection) and Kamal Junblat Square (a multi-lane roundabout), which are two important intersections in Baghdad city with high traffic volumes, were selected to be reevaluated by the SIDRA package in this research. Traffic volume and vehicle movement data were abstracted from videotapes by the Smart Traffic Analyzer (STA) Software. The performance measures include delay and LOS. The analysis results by SIDRA Intersection 8.0.1 show that the performance of the roundab
... Show MoreThe recent advancements in security approaches have significantly increased the ability to identify and mitigate any type of threat or attack in any network infrastructure, such as a software-defined network (SDN), and protect the internet security architecture against a variety of threats or attacks. Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) are among the most popular techniques for preventing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on any kind of network. The objective of this systematic review is to identify, evaluate, and discuss new efforts on ML/DL-based DDoS attack detection strategies in SDN networks. To reach our objective, we conducted a systematic review in which we looked for publications that used ML/DL approach
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