Investigation of a solid-state detector for advanced computed tomography

Utilization of solid-state detectors for computed tomography (CT) has been the focus of many studies. Previous phantom and clinical experiments have shown that one of the important performance parameters for the solid-state detector is the primary speed and afterglow. In this paper, we present a detailed investigation on the signal decay characteristics of the HiLight (GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee, WI) scintillating detector. The detector primary speed and afterglow are modeled by a multiexponential function and fully characterized by a set of time constants and relative strengths. The sensitivity of these parameters to X-ray photon energy, detector aging, and radiation exposure is then established and analyzed. No statistically significant variation is observed in these parameters due to changes in the above external variables. The impact of various decay time constants on CT image quality, such as spatial resolution, noise, and artifacts, is subsequently illustrated with computer simulations and phantom experiments. Finally, an algorithmic correction scheme is derived to compensate for detector afterglow. The correction scheme employs a recursive filter to remove adverse effects of the detector decay on image quality. Experimental results have shown that the correction scheme successfully restores system spatial resolution, produces a more homogeneous noise pattern, and eliminates ring-band image artifacts due to detector afterglow. The effectiveness and robustness of the correction scheme are demonstrated by extensive phantom and clinical experiments.     

Tomographic reconstruction for tilted helical multislice CT

One of the most recent technical advancements in computed tomography (CT) is the introduction of multislice CT (MCT). Because multiple detector rows are used for data acquisition, MCT offers higher volume coverage, faster scan speed, and reduced X-ray tube loading. Recognizing its unique data-sampling pattern, several image reconstruction algorithms were developed. These algorithms have been shown to be adequate in producing clinically acceptable images. Recent studies, however, have revealed that the image quality of MCT can be significantly degraded when helical data are acquired with a tilted gantry. The degraded image quality has rendered this feature unacceptable for clinical usage. In this paper, we first present a detailed investigation on the cause of the image quality degradation. An analytical model is derived to provide a mathematical basis for correction. Several compensation schemes are subsequently presented, and a detailed performance comparison is provided in terms of spatial resolution, noise, computation efficiency, and image artifacts.     

Telechelic elastomers

Telechelic elastomers, polymers with reactive terminal groups, can be prepared in emulsion and solution systems. Examples of characterization of the polymers and preparation of a mercapto telechelic copolymer in an emulsion system and of mercapto-, hydroxy-, and aziridinyl-telechelic elastomers in solution systems are given. The elastomers were cured in peroxide or sulfur-accelerator formulations. The telechelic polymers exhibited enhanced stress-strain and dynamic properties in comparision to those of the controls. In tread formulations, outstanding properties were obtained for the mercapto-and azieridinyl-telechelic butadiene-styrene copolymers.     

Sampling variability of the area under the ROC-curve and of d'e.

By computer simulation, random samples were drawn from underlying Gaussian, uniform, and negative exponential distributions which differed in terms of their mean and variance. The conditional probability of an observation of a given magnitude, or higher, was computed for each of 2 distributions. Resulting conditional probabilities for the 2 distributions trace out a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The area under the ROC-curve, which provides a distribution-free measure of performance, was calculated over a wide range of possible performances. It is shown that the sampling variability of the area measure is dependent upon its mean value and is relatively independent of the complex of conditions which lead to the given mean value. A similar conclusion is reached for the sampling variability of the intersection of the ROC-curve with the negative diagonal. This measure leads to an estimate of the sampling variability of the measure d'e, an index of O performance, often employed in the signal detectability approach to performance measurement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High performance data compression method with pattern matching for biomedical ECG and arterial pulse waveforms

Biomedical waveforms, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and arterial pulse, always possess a lot of important clinical information in medicine and are usually recorded in a long period of time in the application of telemedicine. Due to the huge amount of data, to compress the biomedical waveform data is vital. By recognizing the strong similarity and correlation between successive beat patterns in biomedical waveform sequences, an efficient data compression scheme mainly based on pattern matching is introduced in this paper. The waveform codec consists mainly of four units: beat segmentation, beat normalization, two-stage pattern matching and template updating and residual beat coding. Three different residual beat coding methods, such as Huffman/run-length coding, Huffman/run-length coding in discrete cosine transform domain, and vector quantization, are employed. The simulation results show that our compression algorithms achieve a very significant improvement in the performances of compression ratio and error measurement for both ECG and pulse, as compared with some other compression methods.     

Macromodelling — an approach for analysing large-scale circuits

Macromodelling is a new area of circuit theory which has gained importance with the advent of large scale integration for semiconductor chips. These integrated circuits require an analysis capability which far exceeds presently available computer-aided network analysis programs. This paper gives an overview of work which pertains to the area of macromodelling. Also, recent progress in macroanalysis is discussed, such as the latent approach, which is a method which takes advantage of the natural small activity in large systems.     

An Ultra-Wideband Distributed Active Mixer MMIC in 0.18-μm CMOS Technology

In this paper, a distributed circuit topology for active mixers suitable for ultra-wideband operations is presented. By employing nonuniform artificial transmission lines with the complementary transconductance stages in the Gilbert-cell multiplier, the proposed mixer demonstrates broadband characteristics at microwave frequencies while maintaining a high conversion gain (CG) with improved gain flatness. Using a 0.18-mum CMOS process, the proposed circuit is implemented, exhibiting a -3-dB bandwidth of 28 GHz. With a local-oscillator power of 3 dBm and an IF frequency of 10 MHz, the fabricated circuit has a CG of 12.5plusmn1 dB and an average input third-order intercept point (IIP₃) of 0 dBm within the entire frequency range. The fully integrated wideband mixer occupies a chip area of 0.87times0.82 mm² and consumes a dc power of 20 mW from a 2-V supply voltage     

Wideband microwave filter constructed by asymmetrical compact microstrip resonator and floating plate coupling structure

The realisation of a microwave filter is presented by using the asymmetrical compact microstrip resonator and floating plate coupling structures. The filter demonstrates the properties of low insertion loss, wide pass bandwidth and two controllable transmission zeros, which results in fast roll-off responses near to the corner frequencies of the passband. It also has the advantages of compact size, ease of fabrication and absence of via holes. An X-band prototype with 34% fractional bandwidth was designed and fabricated to verify the proposed design concept. Good agreement between simulation and measurement was obtained.     

Embedded TFT nand-Type Nonvolatile Memory in Panel

A new NAND-type nonvolatile memory with a field-enhancing tip structure embedded in low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) panel was demonstrated on a glass substrate for the first time. A thin-film transistor (TFT) metal-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (MONOS) device based on sequential lateral solidification crystallization with a fully depleted poly-Si channel, an oxide-nitride-oxide stack gate dielectric, and a metal gate is integrated into a NAND array. A NAND test array based on p-channel LTPS TFTs exhibits good cycling endurance and data retention properties and negligible program and read disturbance. These results strongly support the claim that this TFT-MONOS device is a promising candidate for use in embedded nonvolatile memory for system-on-panel and 3-D IC applications