Objectives: Small field of view gamma detection and imaging technologies for monitoring in vivo tracer uptake are rapidly expanding and being introduced for bed-side imaging and image guided surgical procedures. The Hybrid Gamma Camera (HGC) has been developed to enhance the localization of targeted radiopharmaceuticals during surgical procedures; for example in sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsies and for bed-side imaging in procedures such as lacrimal drainage imaging and thyroid scanning. In this study, a prototype anthropomorphic head and neck phantom has been designed, constructed, and evaluated using representative modelled medical scenarios to study the capability of the HGC to detect SLNs and image small organs. Methods: An anthropomorphic head and neck phantom has been designed to mimic the adult head and neck including some internal organs and tissues of interest, such as the thyroid gland and sentinel lymph nodes. The design of the head and neck phantom included an adjustable inner jig holding the simulated SLNs and thyroid gland. The simulated thyroid gland was designed and 3D printed taking into consideration the size and the shape of a healthy adult thyroid gland. The inner sealed space of the thyroid was filled with 15MBq of 99mTc through two upper filling valves. Sealed micro-tubes (0.2ml) have been employed to simulate SLNs containing various 99mTc activity concentrations ranging between 0.1MBq and 1MBq, and can be positioned at any desired place in the head and neck region. An active background was simulated through mixing 10MBq of 99mTc solution with the water used to fill the outer shell of the head and neck phantom. Results: The head and neck phantom was employed to simulate a situation where there are four SLNs distributed at two different vertical levels and at two depths within the neck. Contrast to noise ratio (CNR) calculations were performed for the detected SLNs at an 80mm distance between both pinhole collimators (i.e. 0.5mm and 1.0mm diameters) and the surface of the head and neck phantom with a 100s acquisition time. The recorded CNR values for the simulated SLNs are higher when the HGC was fitted with the 1.0mm diameter pinhole collimator. For instance, the recorded CNR values for the superficially simulated SLN containing 0.1MBq of 99mTc using 0.5mm and 1.0mm diameter pinhole collimators are 6.48 and 16.42, respectively (~87% difference). The anatomical context provided by the hybrid imaging aided the localization process of radioactivity accumulation in simulated SLNs. Gamma and hybrid optical images were acquired using the HGC with both available pinhole collimators for the simulated thyroid gland. The thyroid images produced varied in terms of spatial resolution and detectability. The count profiles through the middle of the simulated thyroid gland images provided by both pinhole collimators were obtained. The HGC could clearly differentiate the individual peaks of both thyroid lobes in the gamma image produced by the 0.5mm pinhole collimator. In contrast, the recorded count profile for the acquired image using the 1.0mm diameter pinhole collimator showed broader peaks for both lobes, reflecting the degradation of the spatial resolution with increasing the diameter of the pinhole collimator. Conclusion: The capability of the HGC has been evaluated utilizing a prototype anthropomorphic head and neck phantom, and the gamma and hybrid images obtained demonstrate that it is ideally suited for intraoperative SLNs detection and small organ imaging. The standardization of test phantoms and protocols for SFOV portable gamma systems will provide an opportunity to collect data across various medical centers and research groups. Moreover, it will provide a technical baseline for researchers and clinical practitioners to consider when assessing their SFOV gamma imaging systems. The anthropomorphic head and neck phantom described is cost effective, reproducible, flexible and anatomically representative.
The research aims to identify the current (after the readings in the collection of foreign
students to the geographical material) To achieve this, the researcher developed the following
null hypothesis:
No statistically significant differences at the level of (0.05) between the average scores who
are studying the use of article readings and the average external degree students who are
studying material in the traditional manner of collection.
The researcher has chosen Qsidia middle school Amma, which includes six divisions for
Grade average, randomly selected Division (a) to represent the control group, while
representing the Division of (c) the experimental group and reached the research sample (44)
student, b
Owing to high antibacterial resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, it could be considered as the main reason behind the nosocomial infections. P. aeruginosa has a well-known biofilm forming ability. The expression of polysaccharide encoding locus (pelA gene) by P. aeruginosa is essential for this ability. The purpose of the current research was to determine the biofilm formation in P. aeruginosa isolated from clinical samples and to evaluate the role of the selected PelA gene in biofilm formation using PCR method in Iraqi patients. Results revealed that 24 (96%) isolates were found to have the ability to form biofilm that was remarkably related to gentamicin resistance. Moreover, the pelA gene was found in all biofilm-producers. In c
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The current research focuses on examining the isohyets in a set of (3) climatic maps of Iraq. Two of these maps were published in the Iraq Climate Atlas and the third one was published in an English source about the geography of Iraq. The first map represents the period from 1923-to-1944, the second is for the period from 1961-to-1990, whereas the third represents the period from 1971-to-2000. Comparing among these three maps, it has become clear that there are noticeable changes of rain in Iraq. In the first map, which represents the decade of the twenties, thirties and early forties, Iraq was located between two Isohyet lines (127 mm) in the far south and (1270 mm) in the far north. As for the second map, which represents the sixties,
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The applications of hot plasma are many and numerous applications require high values of the temperature of the electrons within the plasma region. Improving electron temperature values is one of the important processes for using this specification in plasma for being adopted in several modern applications such as nuclear fusion, plating operations and in industrial applications. In this work, theoretical computations were performed to enhance electron temperature under dense homogeneous plasma. The effect of power and duration time of pulsed Nd:YAG laser was studied on the heating of plasmas by inverse bremsstrahlung for several values for the electron density ratio. There results for these ca
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This intervention study is composed on 55 patients at Saddam Center for Cardiac Surgery (Aben-Albetar) throughout the period from 1st of July 1997 to 15th of January 1999. The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of constructed nursing education program on reduction of complications and improving recovery among patients with Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) surgery through the application of repeated measures. The sample is divided into 27 patients who received the nursing educational program (study group) and 28 patients who continued to receive regular care (controls). Based on previous research meth
In this study the isomerization of desulfuerized light Iraqi petroleum naphtha (Al-Dura Refinery) with boiling point range of 37 to 124 °C , 80.5 API specific gravity and 68.2 octane number has been investigated. Two types of catalysts were prepared (Pt/HX and Pt/SrX) by impregnation of 0.8 wt% Pt on l 3X-zeolite. The catalyst activity and selectivity toward isomerization, and catalyst deactivation were investigated.
The isomerization unit consisted of a vertical tubular stainless steel reactor of 2 cm internal diameter, 3 cm external diameter and 68 cm height. The operating pressure was atmospheric for all experimental runs. The liquid flow of lightnaphtha was 0.4 Uh, and the catalyst weight was 50 gm, H/
... Show MoreIn this paper we use non-polynomial spline functions to develop numerical methods to approximate the solution of 2nd kind Volterra integral equations. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the applications of these method, and to compare the computed results with other known methods.