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Aguiar, P., Rafecas, M., Ortuño, J. E., Kontaxakis, G., Santos, A., Pavia, J., et al. (2010). Geometrical and Monte Carlo projectors in 3D PET reconstruction. Med. Phys., 37(11), 5691–5702.
Abstract: Purpose: In the present work, the authors compare geometrical and Monte Carlo projectors in detail. The geometrical projectors considered were the conventional geometrical Siddon ray-tracer (S-RT) and the orthogonal distance-based ray-tracer (OD-RT), based on computing the orthogonal distance from the center of image voxel to the line-of-response. A comparison of these geometrical projectors was performed using different point spread function (PSF) models. The Monte Carlo-based method under consideration involves an extensive model of the system response matrix based on Monte Carlo simulations and is computed off-line and stored on disk. Methods: Comparisons were performed using simulated and experimental data of the commercial small animal PET scanner rPET. Results: The results demonstrate that the orthogonal distance-based ray-tracer and Siddon ray-tracer using PSF image-space convolutions yield better images in terms of contrast and spatial resolution than those obtained after using the conventional method and the multiray-based S-RT. Furthermore, the Monte Carlo-based method yields slight improvements in terms of contrast and spatial resolution with respect to these geometrical projectors. Conclusions: The orthogonal distance-based ray-tracer and Siddon ray-tracer using PSF image-space convolutions represent satisfactory alternatives to factorizing the system matrix or to the conventional on-the-fly ray-tracing methods for list-mode reconstruction, where an extensive modeling based on Monte Carlo simulations is unfeasible.
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Wagner, C., Verde, L., & Boubekeur, L. (2010). N-body simulations with generic non-Gaussian initial conditions I: power spectrum and halo mass function. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 10(10), 022–24pp.
Abstract: We address the issue of setting up generic non-Gaussian initial conditions for N-body simulations. We consider inflationary-motivated primordial non-Gaussianity where the perturbations in the Bardeen potential are given by a dominant Gaussian part plus a non-Gaussian part specified by its bispectrum. The approach we explore here is suitable for any bispectrum, i.e. it does not have to be of the so-called separable or factorizable form. The procedure of generating a non-Gaussian field with a given bispectrum (and a given power spectrum for the Gaussian component) is not univocal, and care must be taken so that higher-order corrections do not leave a too large signature on the power spectrum. This is so far a limiting factor of our approach. We then run N-body simulations for the most popular inflationary-motivated non-Gaussian shapes. The halo mass function and the non-linear power spectrum agree with theoretical analytical approximations proposed in the literature, even if they were so far developed and tested only for a particular shape (the local one). We plan to make the simulations outputs available to the community via the non-Gaussian simulations comparison project web site http://icc.ub.edu/similar to liciaverde/NGSCP.html.
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Blume, M., Martinez-Moller, A., Keil, A., Navab, N., & Rafecas, M. (2010). Joint Reconstruction of Image and Motion in Gated Positron Emission Tomography. IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging, 29(11), 1892–1906.
Abstract: We present a novel intrinsic method for joint reconstruction of both image and motion in positron emission tomography (PET). Intrinsic motion compensation methods exclusively work on the measured data, without any external motion measurements. Most of these methods separate image from motion estimation: They use deformable image registration/optical flow techniques in order to estimate the motion from individually reconstructed gates. Then, the image is estimated based on this motion information. With these methods, a main problem lies in the motion estimation step, which is based on the noisy gated frames. The more noise is present, the more inaccurate the image registration becomes. As we show both visually and quantitatively, joint reconstruction using a simple deformation field motion model can compete with state-of-the-art image registration methods which use robust multilevel B-spline motion models.
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NEMO-3 Collaboration(Argyriades, J. et al), Martin-Albo, J., & Novella, P. (2010). Measurement of the two neutrino double beta decay half-life of Zr-96 with the NEMO-3 detector. Nucl. Phys. A, 847(3-4), 168–179.
Abstract: Using 9.4 g of Zr-96 isotope and 1221 days of data from the NEMO-3 detector corresponding (0 0.031 kg y, the obtained 2 nu beta beta decay half-life measurement is T-1/2(2 nu) = [2.35 +/- 0.14(stat) +/- 0.16(syst)] x 10(19) yr. Different characteristics of the final state electrons have been studied, such as the energy sum, individual electron energy, and angular distribution. The 2v nuclear matrix element is extracted using the measured 2 nu beta beta half-life and is M-2 nu = 0.049 +/- 0.002. Constraints on 0 nu beta beta decay have also been set.
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Marco-Hernandez, R. (2011). Development of a beam test telescope based on the Alibava readout system. J. Instrum., 6, C01002–7pp.
Abstract: A telescope for a beam test have been developed as a result of a collaboration among the University of Liverpool, Centro Nacional de Microelectronica (CNM) of Barcelona and Instituto de Fisica Corpuscular (IFIC) of Valencia. This system is intended to carry out both analogue charge collection and spatial resolution measurements with different types of microstrip or pixel silicon detectors in a beam test environment. The telescope has four XY measurement as well as trigger planes (XYT board) and it can accommodate up to twelve devices under test (DUT board). The DUT board uses two Beetle ASICs for the readout of chilled silicon detectors. The board could operate in a self-triggering mode. The board features a temperature sensor and it can be mounted on a rotary stage. A peltier element is used for cooling the DUT. Each XYT board measures the track space points using two silicon strip detectors connected to two Beetle ASICs. It can also trigger on the particle tracks in the beam test. The board includes a CPLD which allows for the synchronization of the trigger signal to a common clock frequency, delaying and implementing coincidence with other XYT boards. An Alibava mother board is used to read out and to control each XYT/DUT board from a common trigger signal and a common clock signal. The Alibava board has a TDC on board to have a time stamp of each trigger. The data collected by each Alibava board is sent to a master card by means of a local data/address bus following a custom digital protocol. The master board distributes the trigger, clock and reset signals. It also merges the data streams from up to sixteen Alibava boards. The board has also a test channel for testing in a standard mode a XYT or DUT board. This board is implemented with a Xilinx development board and a custom patch board. The master board is connected with the DAQ software via 100M Ethernet. Track based alignment software has also been developed for the data obtained with the DAQ software.
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