The clinical impact of multidetector SPET technology

Introduction: Single photon emission tomography (SPET) is an established technique in Nuclear Medicine. Recent advances in SPET technology have now permitted the development of multidetector gamma cameras. This thesis evaluates some of these new gamma cameras and their impact on clinical practice. Aim: (a) To assess four new multidetector SPET gamma cameras (IGE Neurocam, Toshiba GCA-9300A, IGE Optima and Sopha DST). (b) To establish appropriate acquisition and analytical clinical protocols. Methodology: For each instrument, the tomographic spatial resolution, contrast and sensitivity were measured. The capability of a new slant hole collimator (IGE Optima) to perform radionuclide ventriculography (RNV) was assessed. To evaluate the utility of these systems, a total of 1215 patient studies were performed (1007 cardiac, 85 skeletal, 73 renal and 50 brain studies). The effect of 8, 16 and 32 minutes data acquisition on image quality and clinical relevance was evaluated. In addition, a new cardiac SPET protocol for rest/stress myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (thallium-201/Tc-99m tetrofosmin) was tested. Results: Tomographic spatial resolution of the order of 10 mm FWHM was achieved by all four systems. System sensitivity was related to the number of detectors and ranged between 9.2–11.2 Kcps/(MBq/ml)/cm per detector. The slant hole collimator with cephalic tilt gave highly reproducible results (r=0.98,SEE=+2) for ejection fraction measurements in 75 patients. There was no significant difference in the clinical information obtained using 8 min, 16 min and 32 min acquisitions. Based on patient studies and experience with these multidetector SPET systems, optimum acquisition and analysis protocols for commonly performed SPET studies were documented for routine clinical use. Artefacts due to patient movement during Tl-201 myocardial SPET studies were less frequent on a dual-detector system compared with a single detector system (0.7% and 4% respectively); while artefacts due to poor positioning or shift in centre of rotation were more. The rest/stress thallium-201/Tc-99m tetrofosmin study protocol (acquisition and analysis) was completed in 90 min. This protocol gave a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 70% for the detection of coronary artery disease. Conclusion: For the first time a comprehensive comparison of multidetector SPET systems has been documented. Optimum acquisition and analysis protocols have been identified. The study also shows that the new generation of multidetector SPET systems offer adequate resolution and sensitivity for routine clinical imaging. Increased sensitivity can be translated into an increased patient throughput. This can increase the cost-effectiveness of this new technology

Codeswitching of bilingual preschoolers in Pakistan: A study of Arabic and Urdu alphabets

Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, while Arabic is the language of the Holy Quran, Muslims' sacred book. Pakistan, as a Muslim country with a religious bond, makes it obligatory for Muslims to recognize and interpret Allah's commandments, as well as to pray and recite the Holy Quran. The most effective skill is oral communication. It has become one of the fundamental language learning skills, alongside listening, reading, and writing. Pronunciation is the process of processing speech sounds to communicate. The current research study focuses on the codeswitching of bilingual preschoolers while learning the Arabic and Urdu alphabets. The study demonstrates why preschool children fail to recognize images of simple words in Arabic and Urdu at the same time and how this challenge can be tackled with the ingenuity of a committed teacher. The researcher used the Oral Proficiency Test (OPT) to assess the quality of the children's pronunciation, and he processed the data using Setiyadi’s (2020) Triangulation of method, which includes three data collection techniques: observation, interview, and questionnaire. The observation focused on how the teacher pronounced both alphabets and how the children responded by pronouncing the same at the top of their voices to make good use of articulators. Later, an interview and a questionnaire were conducted to collect data that could be used to ensure the validity of the observational results. Creswell & Baez’s (2020) Model of the Structure of Study was implemented. The research on bilingual preschoolers is significant in that it reveals that the children had difficulty in discerning resembling sounds from the Arabic and Urdu alphabets and that this difficulty caused them to deviate from one alphabet to the other. Speech therapists, pathologists, psychologists, bilingual scholars, and researchers will all benefit from the research

Maulana Tariq Jameel’s supplication for safety against COVID-19: A Pragmatic analysis

Supplication, the symbol of man's humility, is at the core of all religions, with Allah regarded as the Supreme Being who listens to people's prayers and rewards them accordingly, regardless of religion. The purpose of this qualitative research is to look into the unique service provided by Maulana Tariq Jameel to God for protection from COVID-19, which is currently wreaking havoc on people's lives. On April 21, 2020, the program was broadcast live on the ARY News Channel's Shab-e- Meeraj programme, hosted by Waseem Badami, and was available to watch online. Devout Muslims from all over the world gathered for a specially organised 'Dua' to demonstrate their heartfelt humility and unwavering faith in Allah, who they believe will alleviate their deathly affliction as a result of their prayers. The video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSRuAo14NEI provided the data. The data was assessed using Aristotle's three modes of persuasion. The researchers paid close attention to the supplication during the study and coded the most relevant phrases before translating them from Urdu to English and analysed them from a pragmatic standpoint. The discussion section included references to prayers from a variety of religious traditions from various countries to integrate the study's findings. The study's findings show that when individuals, societies, or nations of any faith face a major calamity, they are more likely to be prone to Allah for protection than to other sources of protectionKeywords: Du’a, Persuasion, Religion, Staunch Faith, The sovereignty of Alla

Certain Properties of a Class of Close-to-Convex Functions Related to Conic Domains

We aim to define a new class of close-to-convex functions which is related to conic domains. Many interesting properties such as sufficiency criteria, inclusion results, and integral preserving properties are investigated here. Some interesting consequences of our results are also observed

Determinant Attributes of Customer Choice of Banks, Supplying Mortgage Products

The present study focuses on finding out the main attributes that determine the customer’s choice of bank for supplying the mortgage products. The data has been gathered through questionnaires from 400 customers using mortgage products of different banks. Reviewing the literature four variable are taken for study to determine the dependent variable customer choice of banks using mortgage products and they include cost of bank, quality of services, confidence of customer in bank and convenience of customer using mortgage product. Results were analyzed using ordinary least square (OLS) regression and correlation techniques and findings of the data have been tested which appeared as significant statistically. The results indicated that choice of customers for the mortgage product depends on all the independent variables like quality of services, cost of mortgage product, confidence level of customers build by the bank and convenience of the customers. Further analysis can be done on exploring more independent variables, which are important for customers in choosing a bank providing mortgage products

High repetition rate quantum dot mode-locked lasers operating at ~1.55 μm.

This thesis is concerned with the design, fabrication and investigation of InAs/InP quantum dot mode-locked lasers operating at ~1.55 μm with multi-gigahertz repetition rates. Devices with dual contact configuration operating at ~35 GHz were fabricated and mode-locking characteristics were investigated as a function of the saturable absorber length. The deposition of HR and AR coatings on the two cleaved facets provided an increase in the quantum efficiency and shifted the optimum mode-locking region to a higher injection current. This simple technological step increased the peak power of the emitted pulses by nearly a factor of 2. Furthermore, the appearance of two distinct lobes in the optical spectrum, which is a typical feature of quantum dot material systems, was also investigated. The sonogram technique confirmed the presence of two pulse trains under moderate values of current injection and stable locking of only one lobe at high injection currents. Finally, techniques for high repetition rate mode locking such as colliding pulse, asymmetric colliding pulse and double interval mode-locking were evaluated. Harmonic mode-locking at repetitions rates of ~71 GHz, ~107 GHz and ~238 GHz was demonstrated by placing the absorbers on cavity locations corresponding to the 2nd, 3rd and 7th harmonic, respectively. A monolithically integrated coupled cavity device was also explored, in which an FIB-milled intra-cavity reflector provided mode-locking at a repetition rate of ~107 GHz

Improving the Scalability of Reduct Determination in Rough Sets

Rough Set Data Analysis (RSDA) is a non-invasive data analysis approach that solely relies on the data to find patterns and decision rules. Despite its noninvasive approach and ability to generate human readable rules, classical RSDA has not been successfully used in commercial data mining and rule generating engines. The reason is its scalability. Classical RSDA slows down a great deal with the larger data sets and takes much longer times to generate the rules. This research is aimed to address the issue of scalability in rough sets by improving the performance of the attribute reduction step of the classical RSDA - which is the root cause of its slow performance. We propose to move the entire attribute reduction process into the database. We defined a new schema to store the initial data set. We then defined SOL queries on this new schema to find the attribute reducts correctly and faster than the traditional RSDA approach. We tested our technique on two typical data sets and compared our results with the traditional RSDA approach for attribute reduction. In the end we also highlighted some of the issues with our proposed approach which could lead to future research