Christian Political Theology : A Marxian Guide

New Yorkx, 256 p.; 22 c

Interleaved dual slope ADC for a diamond dosimeter ASIC

Monocrystalline diamond, grown with CVD techniques, is a very good base material for clinical dosimetry sensors. Diamond also shows good physical and electronic properties in term of tissue equivalence and very low dark currents. The sensor current readout is made by electrometers, these are expensive and bulky and, due to the need of shielded cables, can hardly be used for matrix sensor readout. In order to overcome these problems an ASIC, directly bonded to the sensor, could be the most suitable electronic readout. The ASIC should be capable of integrating currents smaller than the pA, with a serial interface to minimize interconnection cable volume, providing a compact and portable device. This paper describes the main functional ASIC blocks we designed. The ASIC has nine channels that will be able to operate in the clinical dosimetry current range, and one channel dedicated to dark currents integration. We present simulation results for every functional block and the final chip layout

[Diagnostic value of out-patient lymph node biopsy].

Authors review their outpatient lymph node biopsies in order to verify safety and diagnostic accuracy. They didn't observe any complication and in every case, the procedure provided the correct diagnosis. Lymph node biopsy is the procedure of choice to study the pharmacologic therapy non responsive lymph node pathology that is not surely defined by fine needle aspiration, as almost always in lymphomas

A new iterative algorithm for pixilated and continuous scintillating crystal

In this work, we present a mean square estimation (MSE) based algorithm to calculate the position of a scintillation event within the crystal of a gamma camera dedicated to single photon imaging applications. The performances analysis takes into account pixilated and continuous shape configuration crystals, coupled to an Hamamatsu H8500C multi-anodes PMT (MA-PMT). The readout electronics used for readout has 64-independent channels each reading simultaneously the 64 anodes of the MA-PMT. An array of NaI(Tl) scintillation crystal with 2.0 mm pitch, one of CsI(Tl) with 1.6 mm pitch and one of YAP with 2.0 mm pixel size are taken into account. In addition, a continuous LaBr 3(Ce) crystal coupled to an Hamamatsu H8500C-Mod8 MA-PMT equipped with a super-bialkali photocathode (38% QE at 380 nm) was analyzed. Position linearity and spatial resolution analyzed with collimated (for continuous crystal) and uncollimated (for pixilated crystal) Co57 radioactive source and the scintillation points are calculated both with MSE and with a standard center of gravity (CoG) algorithm. The MSE algorithm improves spatial resolution and expands the useful field of view (UFOV) of the gamma camera that nearly reaches the size of the photocathode area thus showing a great advantage with respect to the CoG algorithm. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved