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 hydrological process has a dynamic nature characterised by randomness and complex phenomena. The application of machine learning (ML) models in forecasting river flow has grown rapidly. This is owing to their capacity to simulate the complex phenomena associated with hydrological and environmental processes. Four different ML models were developed for river flow forecasting located in semiarid region, Iraq. The effectiveness of data division influence on the ML models process was investigated. Three data division modeling scenarios were inspected including 70%–30%, 80%–20, and 90%–10%. Several statistical indicators are computed to verify the performance of the models. The results revealed the potential of the hybridized s
... Show MoreImage retrieval is used in searching for images from images database. In this paper, content – based image retrieval (CBIR) using four feature extraction techniques has been achieved. The four techniques are colored histogram features technique, properties features technique, gray level co- occurrence matrix (GLCM) statistical features technique and hybrid technique. The features are extracted from the data base images and query (test) images in order to find the similarity measure. The similarity-based matching is very important in CBIR, so, three types of similarity measure are used, normalized Mahalanobis distance, Euclidean distance and Manhattan distance. A comparison between them has been implemented. From the results, it is conclud
... Show MoreNurse scheduling problem is one of combinatorial optimization problems and it is one of NP-Hard problems which is difficult to be solved as optimal solution. In this paper, we had created an proposed algorithm which it is hybrid simulated annealing algorithm to solve nurse scheduling problem, developed the simulated annealing algorithm and Genetic algorithm. We can note that the proposed algorithm (Hybrid simulated Annealing Algorithm(GS-h)) is the best method among other methods which it is used in this paper because it satisfied minimum average of the total cost and maximum number of Solved , Best and Optimal problems. So we can note that the ratios of the optimal solution are 77% for the proposed algorithm(GS-h), 28.75% for Si
... Show MoreIn this article, the high accuracy and effectiveness of forecasting global gold prices are verified using a hybrid machine learning algorithm incorporating an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) model with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Gray Wolf Optimizer (GWO). The hybrid approach had successes that enabled it to be a good strategy for practical use. The ARIMA-ANFIS hybrid methodology was used to forecast global gold prices. The ARIMA model is implemented on real data, and then its nonlinear residuals are predicted by ANFIS, ANFIS-PSO, and ANFIS-GWO. The results indicate that hybrid models improve the accuracy of single ARIMA and ANFIS models in forecasting. Finally, a comparison was made between the hybrid foreca
... Show MoreThe rise in the general level of prices in Iraq makes the local commodity less able to compete with other commodities, which leads to an increase in the amount of imports and a decrease in the amount of exports, since it raises demand for foreign currencies while decreasing demand for the local currency, which leads to a decrease in the exchange rate of the local currency in exchange for an increase in the exchange rate of currencies. This is one of the most important factors affecting the determination of the exchange rate and its fluctuations. This research deals with the currency of the European Euro and its impact against the Iraqi dinar. To make an accurate prediction for any process, modern methods can be used through which
... Show MoreUntil recently, researchers have utilized and applied various techniques for intrusion detection system (IDS), including DNA encoding and clustering that are widely used for this purpose. In addition to the other two major techniques for detection are anomaly and misuse detection, where anomaly detection is done based on user behavior, while misuse detection is done based on known attacks signatures. However, both techniques have some drawbacks, such as a high false alarm rate. Therefore, hybrid IDS takes advantage of combining the strength of both techniques to overcome their limitations. In this paper, a hybrid IDS is proposed based on the DNA encoding and clustering method. The proposed DNA encoding is done based on the UNSW-NB15
... Show MoreBackground: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a devious pathogen with the tendency to prompt many acute and serious chronic diseases. This study aims to detect novel genes (Toxins-Antitoxins II system), especially; higB and higA encoded from P. aeruginosa by PCR technique and the relation between these genes and antibiotic resistance of P. aeruginosa. Methods: This study detected 50 isolates of P. aeruginosa from distinct clinical sources. The most common origin of isolates was (44%) burn swabs, (22%) urine culture, (12%) wound swabs, (14%) sputum, and (8%) ear swabs. The bacteria were isolated using implantation MacConkey agar and blood agar, as well as biochemical tests including oxidase test, catalase test then VITEK-2 System of P. aerug
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