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.
A frequently used approach for denoising is the shrinkage of coefficients of the noisy signal representation in a transform domain. This paper proposes an algorithm based on hybrid transform (stationary wavelet transform proceeding by slantlet transform); The slantlet transform is applied to the approximation subband of the stationary wavelet transform. BlockShrink thresholding technique is applied to the hybrid transform coefficients. This technique can decide the optimal block size and thresholding for every wavelet subband by risk estimate (SURE). The proposed algorithm was executed by using MATLAB R2010aminimizing Stein’s unbiased with natural images contaminated by white Gaussian noise. Numerical results show that our algorithm co
... Show MoreEmotion recognition has important applications in human-computer interaction. Various sources such as facial expressions and speech have been considered for interpreting human emotions. The aim of this paper is to develop an emotion recognition system from facial expressions and speech using a hybrid of machine-learning algorithms in order to enhance the overall performance of human computer communication. For facial emotion recognition, a deep convolutional neural network is used for feature extraction and classification, whereas for speech emotion recognition, the zero-crossing rate, mean, standard deviation and mel frequency cepstral coefficient features are extracted. The extracted features are then fed to a random forest classifier. In
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The study aimed to identify the effect of Total Quality Management on enhancing competitiveness through the opinions of employees of the front- rows of customer service in local Palestinian banks, the researcher adopted an analytical descriptive method through developing a special questionnaire to accomplish the study’s objectives and answer its questions. The study involved all the Palestinian local banks, with their scattered branches in West Bank. The study sample consisted of 3470 executive employees for banking services out of 4753 employees, in the rate of 73%, and the study sample reached (485) employees who were randomly selected working in the front -rows to provide services in the local Palestinian banks during the ye
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Abstract
The research has discussed the public relations as dependent variable of its branch dimensions( confidence , commitment, control and satisfaction ) and the governmental service quality as independent variable of its branch dimensions (response, dependency, emphasis, tangibility and sympathy), and the research problem has represented by weakness of service quality presented to the customers dealing with company, which is observed via field co-existence of the researcher, where he observe that the quality presented in the company services, are inappropriate with the customers expectations level, also there is weakness of attention and recognition by the
This research amid to measure the impact of organizational flexibility (structural flexibility, operational flexibility, and strategic flexibility) in achieving organizational prosperity and its dimensions (strategic agility, intellectual capital, innovation and sustainable competitive advantage) in a number of Iraqi cellular communications companies. The research adopted descriptive analytical approach. A sample of (85) persons from the research community was selected, which included (Department managers, Directors administrative units, Communication engineers), to answer the questionnaire prepared for this purpose. And to analyze data and derive results. Statist
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The research aims to measure the impact of envy on job stress because the topic of envy represents a negative emotion that exists at all organizational levels, which may cause stress in the work environment.
The Research problem is represented by the lack of perception of most of the faculty staff on the negative effects of envy on their well-being in the Technical College of Management - Baghdad, and what is the impact level of envy on their job stress.
To achieve this, the scale of envy was based on two dimensions (being envied, Envying others), While the job stress scale was based on seven dimensions (workload, conflict role, Family factors, work environment, work relationships
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Positron annihilation lifetime has been utilized for the first time to investigate the free - volume hole properties in thermolumenscent dosimeter ( TLD ) as a function of gamma-dosc . The hole volume, free volume fraction determined form orthopsitronium lifetime are found to be ?lamatically increase to large values , and then to minimum values as a function ofgamma-dose . The free - volume holes size is found to be 0.163nm’ and to have maximum of 0.166nm^ at the gamma-dose of 0.1 and 0.8 Gy, respectively-
The reaction of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PV A) with Urea in (DMSO) resulted in uerthanised oxim, wr,ich reacted with diacetylmonoxime in a (DY.ISOfmethanol) to give anew type (N2) polymeric bidentate imine oxime ligand [HL], The ligand was reacted with MCh (where M= Co, Cu, and Hg). Under reflux in a (DMF/Methanol) mixture with (I:1) ratio to give Complexes of the general formula [M (T.)2]X, (where M= Co,Hg, Cu). All .:ompouncs have been characterized by spectroscopic methods [IR, U.V.-Vis, A tomi<;absorption] microanalysis along with conductivity measurements, from the above:: data the proposed molecular structure for Co,Cu, and Hg is a distorted. Tetrahedml