The potential for coral reef establishment through free-living stabilization

Corals thrive in a variety of environments, from low wave and tidal energy lagoons, to high energy tidal reef flats, but remain dependent upon suitable substrate. Herein we reviewed the phenomenon of free-living corals (coralliths), examined whether they have the capacity to create their own stable habitat in otherwise uninhabitable, poor substrate environments through 'free-living stabilization', and explore their potential ecological role on coral reefs. This stabilization could be achieved by coral settlement and survival on mobile substrate, with subsequent growth into free-living coralliths until a critical mass is reached that prevents further movement. This allows for secondary reef colonization by other coral species. To preliminarily test this hypothesis we provide evidence that the potential to support secondary coral colonisation increases with corallith size. Due to the limited diversity of corallith species observed here and in the literature, and the lack of physiological differences exhibited by coralliths here to static controls, it seems likely that only a small selection of coral species have the ability to form coralliths, and the potential to create their own stable habitat

Image quality assessment of LaBr3-based whole-body 3D PET scanners: a Monte Carlo evaluation. Phys Med Biol,

Abstract The main thrust for this work is the investigation and design of a wholebody PET scanner based on new lanthanum bromide scintillators. We use Monte Carlo simulations to generate data for a 3D PET scanner based on LaBr 3 detectors, and to assess the count-rate capability and the reconstructed image quality of phantoms with hot and cold spheres using contrast and noise parameters. Previously we have shown that LaBr 3 has very high light output, excellent energy resolution and fast timing properties which can lead to the design of a time-of-flight (TOF) whole-body PET camera. The data presented here illustrate the performance of LaBr 3 without the additional benefit of TOF information, although our intention is to develop a scanner with TOF measurement capability. The only drawbacks of LaBr 3 are the lower stopping power and photo-fraction which affect both sensitivity and spatial resolution. However, in 3D PET imaging where energy resolution is very important for reducing scattered coincidences in the reconstructed image, the image quality attained in a non-TOF LaBr 3 scanner can potentially equal or surpass that achieved with other high sensitivity scanners. Our results show that there is a gain in NEC arising from the reduced scatter and random fractions in a LaBr 3 scanner. The reconstructed image resolution is slightly worse than a high-Z scintillator, but at increased count-rates, reduced pulse pileup leads to an image resolution similar to that of LSO. Image quality simulations predict reduced contrast for small hot spheres compared to an LSO scanner, but improved noise characteristics at similar clinical activity levels

3d Image Reconstruction for PET by Multi-Slice Rebinning and Axial Filtering

Two different approaches are used at present to reconstruct from 3D coincidence data in PET. We refer to these approaches as the single-slice rebinning approach and the fully-3D approach. The single-slice rebinning approach involves geometrical approximations, but it requires the least possible amount of computation. Fully-3D reconstruction algorithms, both iterative and non-iterative, do not make such approximations, but require much more computation. Multi-slice rebinning with axial filtering is a new approach which attempts to achieve the geometrical accuracy of the fully-3D approach with the simplicity and modest amount of computation of the single-slice rebinning approach. The first step (multi-slice rebinning) involves rebinning of coincidence lines into a stack of 2D sinograms, where multiple sinograms are incremented for each oblique coincidence line. This operation is followed by an axial filtering operation, either before or after slice-by-slice reconstruction, to reduce the blurring in the axial direction. Tests with simulated and experimental data indicate that the new method has better geometrical accuracy than single-slice rebinning, at the cost of only a modest increase in computation. 11 refs

Effect of increased axial field of view of on the performance of a volume PET scanner

The performance of the PENN-PET 240H scanner from UGM Medical Systems is tested and compared to the prototype PENN-PET scanner built at the University of Pennsylvania. The UGM PENN-PET scanner consists of six continuous position-sensitive NaI(Tl) detectors, which results in a 50-cm transverse field-of-view and a 12.8-cm axial field-of-view. The fine spatial sampling in the axial direction allows the data to be sorted into as many as 64 transverse planes, each 2-mm thick. A large axial acceptance angle, without interplane septa, results in a high sensitivity, with a low scatter and randoms fraction, due to the use of a narrow photopeak energy window. This paper emphasizes those performance measurements that illustrate the special characteristics of a volume imaging scanner and how they change as the axial length is increased

Comparison of positron tomography and scintigraphy with sup201sup 201Tl for delineation of the myocardium

Recent advances in nuclear medicine instrumentation have led to the development of improved positron-imaging systems which exceed in performance the earlier systems which were limited mainly by low count rate capability. This has led to renewed interest in positron imaging in general, primarily because such devices offer better resolution and higher sensitivity than conventional, mechanically collimated gamma cameras, as well as tomographic capability which may provide additional and more accurate information for the clinician. Furthermore, the unique capabilities of positrons for use in reconstructive imaging are beginning to be exploited. In the present report, results are presented from a preliminary study in which longitudinal tomographic myocardial images, produced with $sup 81$Rb as the positron-emitting label using the double camera coincidence system are compared with conventional myocardial images obtained with $sup 201$Tl and a gamma camera. (auth