Modification of CT quality assurance phantom for PET/CT alignment and PET resolution

Radiotherapy treatment planning utilizing PET and CT is rapidly gaining acceptance in oncology. A limiting factor of the dual modality is the PET/CT alignment. A small error in PET/CT alignment may result in giving large doses of radiation to healthy tissues as a result of poor treatment planning. For this purpose, regular quality assurance testing of PET/CT must be performed. Separate QA procedures and phantoms have been developed for the two different modalities. In particular, many existing phantoms cannot be used for both modalities, which is a requirement for evaluating PET/CT alignment. Our goal is to evaluate several existing phantom designs to evaluate their utility for checking PET/CT alignment. The three phantoms investigated are a Gammex 464 phantom, a Triple-Line Source PET phantom, and a Hot Sphere PET phantom. The PET phantoms are unmodified the Gammex 464 phantom is modified to perform PET/CT alignment. The Gammex 464 phantom is typically used for routine quality assurance of CT scanners. Several CT parameters are determined with this phantom before and after modification. Then PET/CT alignment testing is performed using this modified CT phantom and the two other phantoms. Three methods have been used for analyzing the PET/CT images to measure the PET/CT alignment errors. The methods are the Manual method which calculates the alignment error from hand-drawn profiles, the Maximum-Pixel Value method which measures the error based on the pixel value of the objects in the PET/CT images, and the Curve-fitting method, which measures the alignment error by getting the best fit values for the object profiles. The Curve-fitting method also estimates the PET resolution from apparent size of objects in the phantoms. Our PET/CT alignment data and results suggest that the Maximum-Pixel Value method for the modified phantom with acrylic insert is a good choice for measuring the PET/CT alignment error, providing a reasonable balance between computational analysis effort and measurement precision

Management of an Infective Ulcer : A Case Study

The development of wound infection depends on the complex interplay of many factors. Nowadays, leg ulcers are at a rise due to increase in elderly population, life style changes and has been a common feature associated with infection, malignancy, adverse drug reaction, trauma and haematological disorders. Hence timely and effective management of ulcer is necessary. A patient of infected leg ulcer aged 62 years female presented with ulcer over right lower limb. The patient was treated with Panchavalkala Kashaya Parisheka followed by Yashtimadhu Ghrita dressing for 1 week following which the ulcer healed completely within 2 weeks and no recurrence in the 2 months of follow up

Pilonidal Sinus - A Case Report

Pilonidal sinus is an acquired condition with significant morbidity and patient discomfort. The incidence of the disease is calculated to be 26 per 100,000 people. It has a male predominance with a ratio of 3:1. There are several methods to treat pilonidal sinus, but the recurrence rate is more. This apparently minor condition can present the surgeon with major challenges. Many of the standard surgical procedures are associated with a significant risk both of delayed healing and of recurrent disease. Location of the disease is in the natal cleft with midline positioning of the lesion associated with moisture and abundant hair poses greater threat to effective management. According to Ayurveda it can be correlated to Salyaja Nadi Vrana. Even though the disease is Kricchrasadhya, it is managed through Patana (surgery) followed by Shodhana and Ropana treatment. We report a 38 year old male patient presented with pus discharge from cleft of the buttock. Excision was done followed by diathermy and wound is treated with Jathyadi Taila dressing. Disease healed well with no recurrence in the 4months follow up period

Automatic Driver Drowsiness Detection System

The proposed system aims to lessen the number of accidents that occur due to drivers’ drowsiness and fatigue, which will in turn increase transportation safety. This has become a common reason for accidents in recent times. Several facial and body gestures are considered signs of drowsiness and fatigue in drivers, including tiredness in the eyes and yawning. These features are an indication that the driver’s condition is improper. EAR (Eye Aspect Ratio) computes the ratio of distances between the horizontal and vertical eye landmarks, which is required for the detection of drowsiness. For the purpose of yawn detection, a YAWN value is calculated using the distance between the lower lip and the upper lip, and the distance will be compared against a threshold value. We have deployed an eSpeak module (text-to-speech synthesiser), which is used for giving appropriate voice alerts when the driver is feeling drowsy or is yawning. The proposed system is designed to decrease the rate of accidents and contribute to technology with the goal of preventing fatalities caused by road accidents. Over the past ten years, advances in artificial intelligence and computing technologies have improved driver monitoring systems. Several experimental studies have gathered data on actual driver fatigue using different artificial intelligence systems. In order to dramatically improve these systems' real-time performance, feature combinations are used. An updated evaluation of the driver sleepiness detection technologies put in place during the previous ten years is presented in this research. The paper discusses and displays current systems that track and identify drowsiness using various metrics. Based on the information used, each system can be categorised into one of four groups. Each system in this paper comes with a thorough discussion of the features, classification rules, and datasets it employs.&nbsp

A Case Study on efficacy of Apamarga Kshara Sootra in multiple Fistulae-In-Ano

Bhagandara (fistula-in-ano) is a disease which is pertaining to anorectal region which is a highly prevalent disease among the anorectal diseases. Acharya Sushruta considered it as one among the Ashtamahagadas. There is a wide description of its etiology, pathogenesis, types, Sadhyasadhyata, various modality of treatment, Pathya and Apathya in various classical texts. Ayurveda classics have explained different types of Bhagandara and its Chikitsa which includes medical, surgical alternative and surgical management. The modern medical system treats the condition using seton technique or surgery. The Ksharasootra method explained in Ayurveda Samhitas believed to have more efficacy than the seton technique. The incidence of fistula-in-ano is increasing gradually irrespective of age and sex. It affects the day-to-day life of the patients with its severity in presentation. Here a case study is discussed in which the patient suffered from multiple fistula-in-ano, was treated with Teekshna Apamarga Ksharasootra and internal medications. Fistula got completely cured in 6 months without recurrence in 1 year follow up

Neutrality of a magnetized two-flavor quark superconductor

We investigate the effect of electric and color charge neutrality on the two-flavor color superconducting (2SC) phase of cold and dense quark matter in presence of constant external magnetic fields and at moderate baryon densities. Within the framework of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model, we study the inter-dependent evolution of the quark's BCS gap and constituent mass with increasing density and magnetic field. While confirming previous results derived for the highly magnetized 2SC phase with color neutrality alone, we obtain new results as a consequence of imposing charge neutrality. In the charge neutral gapless 2SC phase (g2SC), a large magnetic field drives the color superconducting phase transition to a crossover, while the chiral phase transition is first order. At larger diquark-to-scalar coupling ratio $G_D/G_S$, where the 2SC phase is preferred, we see hints of the Clogston-Chandrasekhar limit at a very large value of the magnetic field ($B\sim 10^{19}$G), but this limit is strongly affected by Shubnikov de Haas-van Alphen oscillations of the gap, indicating the transition to a domain-like state.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, Matches with the published versio