3,494 research outputs found
A practical high current 11 MeV production of high specific activity 89Zr
Introduction
Zr-89 is a useful radionuclide for radiolabeling proteins and other molecules.1,2 There are many reports of cyclotron production of 89Zr by the 89Y (p,n) reaction. Most irradiations use thin metal backed deposits of Y and irradiation currents up to 100 µA or thicker amounts of Y or Y2O3 with
~ 20 µA irradiations.3,4 We are working to develop high specific activity 89Zr using a low energy 11 MeV cyclotron. We have found that target Y metal contains carrier Zr and higher specific activities are achieved with less Y. The goal of this work was to optimize yield while minimizing the amount of Y that was irradiated.
Material and Methods
All irradiations were done using a Siemens Eclipse 11 MeV proton cyclotron. Y foils were used for the experiments described here. Y2O3 was tried and abandoned due to lower yield and poor heat transfer. Yttrium metal foils from Alfa Aesar, ESPI Metals and Sigma Aldrich, 0.1 to
1 mm in thickness, were tested. Each foil was irradiated for 10 to 15 minutes.
The targets to hold the Y foils were made of aluminum and were designed to fit within the “paper burn” unit of the Siemen’s Eclipse target station, allowing the Y target body to be easily inserted and removed from the system. Several Al targets of 2 cm diam. and 7.6 cm long were tested with the face of the targets from 11, 26 or 90o relative to the beam to vary watts cm−2 on the foil. The front of the foils was cooled by He convection and the foil backs by conduction to the Al target body. The target body was cooled by conduction to the water cooled Al sleeve of the target holder.
Results and Conclusion
The best target was two stacked, 0.25 mm thick, foils to stop beam. 92% of the 89Zr activity was in the front 0.25 mm Y foil. With the greatest slant we could irradiate up to 30 µA of beam on tar-get. However, the 13×30 mm dimensions of the foil was more mass (0.41 g) and lower specific activity than was desired. Redesign of the target gave a target 90o to the beam with 12×12 mm foils (0.15 g/foil) that were undamaged with up to 30 µA irradiation when two foils were used. This design has a reduction in beam at the edges of ~10%. With this design, a single Y foil, 0.25 mm thick sustained over 31 µA of beam and a peak power on target of 270 watts cm−2. The product was radionuclidically pure 89Zr after all 89mZr and small amounts of 13N produced from oxygen at the surface had decayed (TABLE 1).
Our conclusion is that the optimum target is a single 0.25 mm thick Y foil to obtain the greatest specific activity at this proton energy. This produces 167 MBq of 89Zr at EOB with a 15 minute and 31 µA irradiation. We are continuing to redesign the clamp design to reduce losses at the edge of the beam
Feasibility study for a numerical aerodynamic simulation facility. Volume 1
A Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Facility (NASF) was designed for the simulation of fluid flow around three-dimensional bodies, both in wind tunnel environments and in free space. The application of numerical simulation to this field of endeavor promised to yield economies in aerodynamic and aircraft body designs. A model for a NASF/FMP (Flow Model Processor) ensemble using a possible approach to meeting NASF goals is presented. The computer hardware and software are presented, along with the entire design and performance analysis and evaluation
Gentle Perturbations of the Free Bose Gas I
It is demonstrated that the thermal structure of the noncritical free Bose
Gas is completely described by certain periodic generalized Gaussian stochastic
process or equivalently by certain periodic generalized Gaussian random field.
Elementary properties of this Gaussian stochastic thermal structure have been
established. Gentle perturbations of several types of the free thermal
stochastic structure are studied. In particular new models of non-Gaussian
thermal structures have been constructed and a new functional integral
representation of the corresponding euclidean-time Green functions have been
obtained rigorously.Comment: 51 pages, LaTeX fil
Testbeam and Laboratory Characterization of CMS 3D Pixel Sensors
The pixel detector is the innermost tracking device in CMS, reconstructing
interaction vertices and charged particle trajectories. The sensors located in
the innermost layers of the pixel detector must be upgraded for the ten-fold
increase in luminosity expected with the High- Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) phase.
As a possible replacement for planar sensors, 3D silicon technology is under
consideration due to its good performance after high radiation fluence. In this
paper, we report on pre- and post- irradiation measurements for CMS 3D pixel
sensors with different electrode configurations. The effects of irradiation on
electrical properties, charge collection efficiency, and position resolution of
3D sensors are discussed. Measurements of various test structures for
monitoring the fabrication process and studying the bulk and surface
properties, such as MOS capacitors, planar and gate-controlled diodes are also
presented.Comment: 14 page
Continuation-Passing C: compiling threads to events through continuations
In this paper, we introduce Continuation Passing C (CPC), a programming
language for concurrent systems in which native and cooperative threads are
unified and presented to the programmer as a single abstraction. The CPC
compiler uses a compilation technique, based on the CPS transform, that yields
efficient code and an extremely lightweight representation for contexts. We
provide a proof of the correctness of our compilation scheme. We show in
particular that lambda-lifting, a common compilation technique for functional
languages, is also correct in an imperative language like C, under some
conditions enforced by the CPC compiler. The current CPC compiler is mature
enough to write substantial programs such as Hekate, a highly concurrent
BitTorrent seeder. Our benchmark results show that CPC is as efficient, while
using significantly less space, as the most efficient thread libraries
available.Comment: Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation (2012). arXiv admin note:
substantial text overlap with arXiv:1202.324
Cerebral palsy and placental infection: a case-cohort study
BACKGROUND: The association between cerebral palsy in very preterm infants and clinical, histopathologic and microbiological indicators of chorioamnionitis, including the identification of specific micro-organisms in the placenta, was evaluated in a case-cohort study. METHODS: Children with a diagnosis of cerebral palsy at five years of age were identified from amongst participants in a long-term follow-up program of preterm infants. The comparison group was a subcohort of infants randomly selected from all infants enrolled in the program. The placentas were examined histopathologically for chorioamnionitis and funisitis, and the chorioamnionic interface was aseptically swabbed and comprehensively cultured for aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, yeast and genital mycoplasmas. Associations between obstetric and demographic variables, indicators of chorioamnionitis and cerebral palsy status were examined by univariate analysis. RESULTS: Eighty-two infants with cerebral palsy were compared with the subcohort of 207 infants. Threatened preterm labor was nearly twice as common among the cases as in the subcohort (p < 0.01). Recorded clinical choroamnionitis was similar in the two groups and there was no difference in histopathologic evidence of infection between the two groups. E. coli was cultured from the placenta in 6/30 (20%) of cases as compared with 4/85 (5%) of subcohort (p = 0.01). Group B Streptococcus was more frequent among the cases, but the difference was not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The association between E. coli in the chorioamnion and cerebral palsy in preterm infants identified in this study requires confirmation in larger multicenter studies which include microbiological study of placentas
Metabolic clusters of breast cancer in relation to gene- and protein expression subtypes
Background: The heterogeneous biology of breast cancer leads to high diversity in prognosis and response to treatment, even for patients with similar clinical diagnosis, histology, and stage of disease. Identifying mechanisms contributing to this heterogeneity may reveal new cancer targets or clinically relevant subgroups for treatment stratification. In this study, we have merged metabolite, protein, and gene expression data from breast cancer patients to examine the heterogeneity at a molecular level.Methods: The study included primary tumor samples from 228 non-treated breast cancer patients. High-resolution magic-angle spinning magnetic resonance spectroscopy (HR MAS MRS) was performed to extract the tumors metabolic profiles further used for hierarchical cluster analysis resulting in three significantly different metabolic clusters (Mc1, Mc2, and Mc3). The clusters were further combined with gene and protein expression data.Results: Our result revealed distinct differences in the metabolic profile of the three metabolic clusters. Among the most interesting differences, Mc1 had the highest levels of glycerophosphocholine (GPC) and phosphocholine (PCho), Mc2 had the highest levels of glucose, and Mc3 had the highest levels of lactate and alanine. Integrated pathway analysis of metabolite and gene expression data uncovered differences in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis and glycerophospholipid metabolism between the clusters. All three clusters had significant differences in the distribution of protein subtypes classified by the expression of breast cancer-related proteins. Genes related to collagens and extracellular matrix were downregulated in Mc1 and consequently upregulated in Mc2 and Mc3, underpinning the differences in protein subtypes within the metabolic clusters. Genetic subtypes were evenly distributed among the three metabolic clusters and could therefore contribute to additional explanation of breast cancer heterogeneity.Conclusions: Three naturally occurring metabolic clusters of breast cancer were detected among primary tumors from non-treated breast cancer patients. The clusters expressed differences in breast cancer-related protein as well as genes related to extracellular matrix and metabolic pathways known to be aberrant in cancer. Analyses of metabolic activity combined with gene and protein expression provide new information about the heterogeneity of breast tumors and, importantly, the metabolic differences infer that the clusters may be susceptible to different metabolically targeted drugs
Run control communication for the upgrade of the ATLAS Muon-to-Central Trigger Processor Interface (MUCTPI)
Multi-Photon Signals from Composite Models at LHC
We analyze the collider signals of composite scalars that emerge in certain
little Higgs models and models of vectorlike confinement. Similar to the decay
of the pion into photon pairs, these scalars mainly decay through
anomaly-induced interactions into electroweak gauge bosons, leading to a
distinct signal with three or more photons in the final state. We study the
standard model backgrounds for these signals, and find that the LHC can
discover these models over a large range of parameter space with 30 fb
at 14 TeV. An early discovery at the current 7 TeV run is possible in some
regions of parameter space. We also discuss possibilities to measure the spin
of the particles in the and decay channels.Comment: 18 pages, LaTe
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