SPECT and PET myocardial perfusion imaging in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland results of the first joint survey of 2021

PURPOSE This paper presents the results of the first joint survey on the use of SPECT and PET myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) and cardiac amyloidosis imaging in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland of the year 2021. METHODS A questionnaire was sent in 2022 to centres practicing nuclear medicine. RESULTS Data from 14 Austrian (10,710 SPECT), 218 German (133,047 SPECT), and 16 Swiss centres (11,601 MPI (6,879 SPECT, 4722 PET)) were analysed. In Austria and Germany, the PET MPI numbers were close to zero and not considered. Official MPS numbers from 2015 to 2021 from Austria and Germany revealed a decline in Austria by about 40% in the pandemic years 2020 to 2021, but an increase in Germany by 9%. Ambulatory care cardiologists represented the major referral group (56-71%). Mostly, stress tests were performed pharmacologically (58-92%). Contrary to Germany, a 1-day protocol was predominant (58-97%) in Austria and Switzerland. The leading camera systems were SPECT-CT in Austria and Switzerland (57-79%) and multi-head systems in Germany (58%). Switzerland had the highest proportion of SPECT MPI with attenuation correction (84%), followed by Austria (43%), and Germany (33%). Electrocardiogram-gated SPECT MPI showed an overall high penetration of 87-99%. Scoring was most frequently applied in Germany (72%), followed by Austria (64%), and Switzerland (60%). Related to the population, the number of cardiac amyloidosis imaging was highest in Austria, followed by Switzerland and Germany. CONCLUSIONS This first joint survey of 2021 shows considerable differences among the countries. The Swiss situation is outstanding due to the wide use of PET MPI. In terms of camera equipment, Switzerland is also leading, followed by Austria and Germany. Despite the differences in procedural issues, the results reveal an overall high standard of MPI imaging

GeoCLEF 2007: the CLEF 2007 cross-language geographic information retrieval track overview

GeoCLEF ran as a regular track for the second time within the Cross Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF) 2007. The purpose of GeoCLEF is to test and evaluate cross-language geographic information retrieval (GIR): retrieval for topics with a geographic specification. GeoCLEF 2007 consisted of two sub tasks. A search task ran for the third time and a query classification task was organized for the first. For the GeoCLEF 2007 search task, twenty-five search topics were defined by the organizing groups for searching English, German, Portuguese and Spanish document collections. All topics were translated into English, Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish and German. Several topics in 2007 were geographically challenging. Thirteen groups submitted 108 runs. The groups used a variety of approaches. For the classification task, a query log from a search engine was provided and the groups needed to identify the queries with a geographic scope and the geographic components within the local queries

Co- variation in soil biodiversity and biogeochemistry in northern and southern Victoria Land, Antarctica

Data from six sites in Victoria Land (72–77°S) investigating co-variation in soil communities (microbial and invertebrate) with biogeochemical properties showthe influence of soil properties on habitat suitability varied among local landscapes as well as across climate gradients. Species richness of metazoan invertebrates (Nematoda, Tardigrada and Rotifera) was similar to previous descriptions in this region, though identification of three cryptic nematode species of Eudorylaimus through DNA analysis contributed to the understanding of controls over habitat preferences for individual species. Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis profiles revealed unexpectedly high diversity of bacteria. Distribution of distinct bacterial communities was associated with specific sites in northern and southern Victoria Land, as was the distribution of nematode and tardigrade species. Variation in soil metazoan communities was related to differences in soil organic matter, while bacterial diversity and community structure were not strongly correlated with any single soil property. There were no apparent correlations between metazoan and bacterial diversity, suggesting that controls over distribution and habitat suitability are different for bacterial and metazoan communities. Our results imply that top-down controls over bacterial diversity mediated by their metazoan consumers are not significant determinants of bacterial community structure and biomass in these ecosystems

Anatomy of Cirrus Clouds: Results from the Emerald Airborne Campaigns

2000 FLORIDA AVE NW, WASHINGTON, USA, DC, 2000

GeoCLEF 2006: the CLEF 2006 Ccross-language geographic information retrieval track overview

After being a pilot track in 2005, GeoCLEF advanced to be a regular track within CLEF 2006. The purpose of GeoCLEF is to test and evaluate cross-language geographic information retrieval (GIR): retrieval for topics with a geographic specification. For GeoCLEF 2006, twenty-five search topics were defined by the organizing groups for searching English, German, Portuguese and Spanish document collections. Topics were translated into English, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese. Several topics in 2006 were significantly more geographically challenging than in 2005. Seventeen groups submitted 149 runs (up from eleven groups and 117 runs in GeoCLEF 2005). The groups used a variety of approaches, including geographic bounding boxes, named entity extraction and external knowledge bases (geographic thesauri and ontologies and gazetteers)

Parameter evaluation and fully-automated radiosynthesis of [11C]harmine for imaging of MAO-A for clinical trials

AbstractThe aim of the present study was the evaluation and automation of the radiosynthesis of [11C]harmine for clinical trials. The following parameters have been investigated: amount of base, precursor concentration, solvent, reaction temperature and time. The optimum reaction conditions were determined to be 2–3mg/mL precursor activated with 1eq. 5M NaOH in DMSO, 80°C reaction temperature and 2min reaction time. Under these conditions 6.1±1GBq (51.0±11% based on [11C]CH3I, corrected for decay) of [11C]harmine (n=72) were obtained. The specific activity was 101.32±28.2GBq/µmol (at EOS). All quality control parameters were in accordance with the standards for parenteral human application. Due to its reliability and high yields, this fully-automated synthesis method can be used as routine set-up

Challenges to evaluation of multilingual geographic information retrieval in GeoCLEF

This is the third year of the evaluation of geographic information retrieval (GeoCLEF) within the Cross-Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF). GeoCLEF 2006 presented topics and documents in four languages (English, German, Portuguese and Spanish). After two years of evaluation we are beginning to understand the challenges to both Geographic Information Retrieval from text and of evaluation of the results of geographic information retrieval. This poster enumerates some of these challenges to evaluation and comments on the limitations encountered in the first two evaluations

Predispositions and the Political Behavior of American Economic Elites: Evidence from Technology Entrepreneurs

Economic elites regularly seek to exert political influence. But what policies do they support? Many accounts implicitly assume economic elites are homogeneous and that increases in their political power will increase inequality. We shed new light on heterogeneity in economic elites' political preferences, arguing that economic elites from an industry can share distinctive preferences due in part to sharing distinctive predispositions. Consequently, how increases in economic elites' influence affect inequality depends on which industry's elites are gaining influence and which policy issues are at stake. We demonstrate our argument with four original surveys, including the two largest political surveys of American economic elites to date: one of technology entrepreneurs—whose influence is burgeoning—and another of campaign donors. We show that technology entrepreneurs support liberal redistributive, social, and globalistic policies but conservative regulatory policies—a bundle of preferences rare among other economic elites. These differences appear to arise partly from their distinctive predispositions

Ultrahigh-temperature osumilite gneisses in southern Madagascar record combined heat advection and high rates of radiogenic heat production in a long-lived high-T orogen

We report the discovery of osumilite in ultrahigh‐temperature (UHT) metapelites of the Anosyen domain, southern Madagascar. The gneisses equilibrated at ~930°C/0.6 GPa. Monazite and zircon U–Pb dates record 80 Ma of metamorphism. Monazite compositional trends reflect the transition from prograde to retrograde metamorphism at 550 Ma. Eu anomalies in monazite reflect changes in fO_2 relative to quartz–fayalite–magnetite related to the growth and breakdown of spinel. The ratio Gd/Yb in monazite records the growth and breakdown of garnet. High rates of radiogenic heat production were the primary control on metamorphic grade at the regional scale. The short duration of prograde metamorphism in the osumilite gneisses (<29 ± 8 Ma) suggests that a thin mantle lithosphere (<80 km) or advective heating may have also been important in the formation of this high‐T, low‐P terrane

Serving GODAE Data and Products to the Ocean Community

The Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE [http:// www.godae.org]) has spanned a decade of rapid technological development. The ever-increasing volume and diversity of oceanographic data produced by in situ instruments, remote-sensing platforms, and computer simulations have driven the development of a number of innovative technologies that are essential for connecting scientists with the data that they need. This paper gives an overview of the technologies that have been developed and applied in the course of GODAE, which now provide users of oceanographic data with the capability to discover, evaluate, visualize, download, and analyze data from all over the world. The key to this capability is the ability to reduce the inherent complexity of oceanographic data by providing a consistent, harmonized view of the various data products. The challenges of data serving have been addressed over the last 10 years through the cooperative skills and energies of many individuals