International Maritime Organization Maritime Safety Committee, at its 91 session on November 2012, adopted draft amendment to SOLAS regulation II-1/3-12, which changes the Code on noise levels on board ships from non-mandatory to mandatory. This paper provides optimizing process for ship noise in the accommodation space on the basis of results of noise analysis using SEA models of a certain oil tanker of 6,500 kiloliters actually constructed by a shipyard. In this regard, the authors identified how hull structure should be arranged and how noise control measures should be applied in order to reduce the target ship's noise levels efficiently by using generally useful optimizing process.
Numerical analysis on the influence of the structural asymmetry on the vertical beam quality and optimization of laser characteristics are studied in the paper. Deflection of the vertical beam toward the GaAs substrate is caused by the disagreement of the steady-state optical field between the active region and the window region. The calculated angle of deflection is approximately 1.5 /spl deg/, which agrees with the measurement.
This paper presents a novel design theory for radio frequency (RF) inverters. We project the zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) and zero-voltage-derivative-switching (ZVDS) load impedances on the Smith chart, and find out that their loci exhibit geodesic arcs. We show that any complex impedance can be transformed by a lossless reciprocal network from one geodesic to another. Exploiting this geometric theorem, we establish a design theory of geodesic-to-geodesic (G2G) networks, which employs three LC elements. With the G2G network, RF-switching inverters can achieve ZVS operations over the full load resistance range. The G2G inverter maintains its output voltage or current at a constant amplitude. The design theory is verified via circuit simulations. The presented theory is quite elegant as it is based on a graphical approach.
Purpose We conducted a pilot study to prospectively evaluate theefficacyofPET/CTwith 11 C-choline(cholinePET/CT)for primary diagnosis and staging of urothelial carcinoma of the upper urinary tract (UUT-UC). Methods Enrolled in this study were 16 patients (9 men, 7 women; age range 51 – 83 years, mean±SD 69±10.8 years) withsuspectedUUT-UC.Thepatientswereexaminedbycholine PET/CT, and 13 underwent laparoscopic nephroureterectomy and partial cystectomy. Lymphadenectomy and chemotherapy were also performed as necessary in some of the patients. Of the 16 patients, 12 were confirmed to have UUT-UC (7 renal pelvis carcinoma and 5 ureteral carcinoma), 1 had malignant lymphoma (ureter), 1 had IgG4-related disease (ureter), and 2 had other benign diseases (ureter). Results Of the 16 study patients, 13 showed definite choline uptake in urothelial lesions, and of these, 11 had UUT-UC, 1 had malignant lymphoma, and 1 had IgG4-related disease. Three patients without choline uptake comprised one with UUT-UC and two with benign diseases. Of the 12 patients withUUT-UC,3haddistantmetastases,2hadmetastasesonly in the regional lymph nodes, and 7 had no metastases. Distant metastases and metastases in the regional lymph nodes showed definite choline uptake. The outcome in patients with UUT-UC, which was evaluated 592 – 1,530 days after surgery, corresponded to the patient classification based on the presence or absence of metastases and locoregional or distant metastases. Choline uptake determined as SUVmax 10 min after administration was significantly higher than at 20 min in metastatic tumours of UUT-UC (p<0.05), whereas there was no statistically significant difference between the SUVmax values at 10 and those at 20 min in primary tumours of UUT-UC. Conclusion This study suggests that choline PET/CT is a promising tool for the primary diagnosis and staging of UUT-UC.
Abstract Background Semi-quantitative analysis is used to evaluate the degree of tracer binding to the striatum in dopamine transporter (DaT) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). In DaT SPECT, it is difficult to evaluate the accurate tracer accumulation due to the partial volume effect (PVE). In this study, we propose a novel semi-quantitative approach for measuring the amount of accumulation by examining the approximate image. Using the striatal phantom, we verified the validity of a newly proposed method that can accurately evaluate the tracer accumulations in the caudate and putamen, separately. Methods The left and right caudate/putamen regions, and the whole brain region as the background (BG) region were identified in computed tomography (CT) images obtained by SPECT/CT imaging, and the positional information of each region was obtained. The SPECT-like images were generated by assigning assumed accumulation amounts to the left and right caudate/putamen and BG regions based on the positional information. By changing the assumed accumulation amounts assigned to each region, the SPECT-like image, which was approximated to the image obtained by the SPECT imaging, was examined. The accumulation amounts assumed, when the generated SPECT-like image approximated the most to the image actually obtained by the SPECT imaging, were determined as the accumulation amounts in each region. We evaluated the correlation between the count density calculated by the proposed method and the actual count density of 123 I solution filled into the striatal phantom, and verified the validity of the proposed method. In addition, the specific binding ratio (SBR) and caudate-putamen ratio (CPR) computed by the proposed method were compared with the theoretical SBR and CPR calculated by the count density of the 123 I solution filled into the striatal phantom. Results The count density calculated by the proposed method and the count density of 123 I solution filled in the striatal phantom had an extremely strong positive correlation (r=0.997, p < 0.001). The SBRs computed by the proposed method were overestimated. However, the obtained CPRs were very similar to the theoretical CPRs. Conclusions The proposed method was able to compute the accurate accumulation amounts in the caudate and putamen, considering the PVE.
