| 1. |
- Eriksson, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Design Considerations of Phoswich Detectors for High Resolution Positron Emission Tomography
- 2009
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Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science. - 0018-9499 .- 1558-1578. ; 56:1, s. 182-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A way to improve the spatial resolution in positron emission tomography (PET) is to determine the depth-of-interaction (DOI) in the detector. A way to achieve this is to use the phoswich approach, a detector with two or more layers of different scintitlators. The layer identification is done by using differences in scintillation decay time and pulse shape discrimination techniques. The advantages of the concept have been demonstrated in the HRRT high resolution PET system using a LSO/LYSO combination giving a high spatial resolution uniformity of around 2.5 mm within a larger part of the imaged volume. A phoswich combination that lately has received attention is LuAP/LSO or LuYAP/LSO. The suggestions come from the Crystal Clear Collaboration and there is a patent application for its use in PET. This particular combination of phoswich may, however, have a complication since both LuAP and LuYAP emit in the excitation band of LSO, thus making the functionality more complex. In the present paper we have looked into this and suggested different ways to overcome potential drawbacks.
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| 2. |
- Hollmark, Malin, et al.
(författare)
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Analytical model for light ion pencil beam dose distributions: multiple scattering of primary and secondary ions
- 2008
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Ingår i: Physics in Medicine and Biology. - : IOP Publishing. - 0031-9155 .- 1361-6560. ; 53:13, s. 3477-3491
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An analytical algorithm based on the generalized Fermi–Eyges theory, amended for multiple Coulomb scattering and energy loss straggling, is used for calculation of the dose distribution of light ion beams in water. Pencil beam energy deposition distributions are derived for light ions by weighting a Monte Carlo (MC) calculated planar integral dose distribution with analytically calculated multiple scattering and range straggling distributions. The planar integral dose distributions are calculated using the MC code SHIELD-HIT07, in which multiple scattering and energy loss straggling processes are excluded. The contribution from nuclear reactions is included in the MC calculations. Multiple scattering processes are calculated separately for primary and secondary ions and parameters of the initial angular and radial spreads, and the covariance of these are derived by a least-square parameterization of the SHIELD-HIT07 data. The results from this analytical algorithm are compared to pencil beam dose distributions obtained from SHIELD-HIT07, where all processes are included, as well as to experimental data. The presented analytical approach allows for the accurate calculation of the spatial energy deposition distributions of ions of atomic numbers Z = 1 − 8.
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| 3. |
- Xu, Hao, et al.
(författare)
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Mechanisms of fluorescence decays of colloidal CdSe-CdS/ZnS quantum dots unraveled by time-resolved fluorescence measurement
- 2015
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Ingår i: Physical Chemistry, Chemical Physics - PCCP. - : Royal Society of Chemistry. - 1463-9076 .- 1463-9084. ; 17:41, s. 27588-27595
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- By narrowing the detection bandpass and increasing the signal-to-noise ratio in measuring the time-resolved fluorescence decay spectrum of colloidal CdSe-CdS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs), we show that directly after the photoexcitation, the fluorescence decay spectrum is characterized by a single exponential decay, which represents the energy relaxation of the photogenerated exciton from its initial high-energy state to the ground exciton state. The fluorescence decay spectrum of long decay time is in the form of beta/t(2), where beta is the radiative recombination time of the ground-state exciton and t is the decay time. Our findings provide us with a direct and quantitative link between fluorescence decay measurement data and fundamental photophysics of QD exciton, thereby leading to a novel way of applying colloidal QDs to study microscopic, physical and chemical processes in many fields including biomedicine.
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| 4. |
- Andreo, Pedro
(författare)
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On the clinical spatial resolution achievable with protons and heavier charged particle radiotherapy beams
- 2009
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Ingår i: Physics in Medicine and Biology. - 0031-9155 .- 1361-6560. ; 54:11, s. n205-N215
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The 'sub-millimetre precision' often claimed to be achievable in protons and light ion beam therapy is analysed using the Monte Carlo code SHIELD-HIT for a broad range of energies. Based on the range of possible values and uncertainties of the mean excitation energy of water and human tissues, as well as of the composition of organs and tissues, it is concluded that precision statements deserve careful reconsideration for treatment planning purposes. It is found that the range of I-values of water stated in ICRU reports 37, 49 and 73 (1984, 1993 and 2005) for the collision stopping power formulae, namely 67 eV, 75 eV and 80 eV, yields a spread of the depth of the Bragg peak of protons and heavier charged particles (carbon ions) of up to 5 or 6 mm, which is also found to be energy dependent due to other energy loss competing interaction mechanisms. The spread is similar in protons and in carbon ions having analogous practical range. Although accurate depth-dose distribution measurements in water can be used at the time of developing empirical dose calculation models, the energy dependence of the spread causes a substantial constraint. In the case of in vivo human tissues, where distribution measurements are not feasible, the problem poses a major limitation. In addition to the spread due to the currently accepted uncertainties of their I-values, a spread of the depth of the Bragg peak due to the varying compositions of soft tissues is also demonstrated, even for cases which could be considered practically identical in clinical practice. For these, the spreads found were similar to those of water or even larger, providing support to international recommendations advising that body-tissue compositions should not be given the standing of physical constants. The results show that it would be necessary to increase the margins of a clinical target volume, even in the case of a water phantom, due to an 'intrinsic basic physics uncertainty', adding to those margins usually considered in normal clinical practice due to anatomical or therapeutic strategy reasons. Individualized patient determination of tissue composition along the complete beam path, rather than CT Hounsfield numbers alone, would also probably be required even to reach 'sub-centimetre precision'.
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| 5. |
- Andreo, Pedro
(författare)
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On the p(dis) correction factor for cylindrical chambers
- 2010
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Ingår i: Physics in Medicine and Biology. - 0031-9155 .- 1361-6560. ; 55:5, s. l9-L16
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The authors of a recent paper (Wang and Rogers 2009 Phys. Med. Biol. 54 1609) have used the Monte Carlo method to simulate the 'classical' experiment made more than 30 years ago by Johansson et al (1978 National and International Standardization of Radiation Dosimetry (Atlanta 1977) vol 2 (Vienna: IAEA) pp 243-70) on the displacement (or replacement) perturbation correction factor p(dis) for cylindrical chambers in Co-60 and high-energy photon beams. They conclude that an 'unreasonable normalization at dmax' of the ionization chambers response led to incorrect results, and for the IAEA TRS-398 Code of Practice, which uses ratios of those results, 'the difference in the correction factors can lead to a beam calibration deviation of more than 0.5% for Farmer-like chambers'. The present work critically examines and questions some of the claims and generalized conclusions of the paper. It is demonstrated that for real, commercial Farmer-like chambers, the possible deviations in absorbed dose would be much smaller (typically 0.13%) than those stated by Wang and Rogers, making the impact of their proposed values negligible on practical high-energy photon dosimetry. Differences of the order of 0.4% would only appear at the upper extreme of the energies potentially available for clinical use (around 25 MV) and, because lower energies are more frequently used, the number of radiotherapy photon beams for which the deviations would be larger than say 0.2% is extremely small. This work also raises concerns on the proposed value of p(dis) for Farmer chambers at the reference quality of Co-60 in relation to their impact on electron beam dosimetry, both for direct dose determination using these chambers and for the cross-calibration of plane-parallel chambers. The proposed increase of about 1% in p(dis) (compared with TRS-398) would lower the k(Q) factors and therefore D-w in electron beams by the same amount. This would yield a severe discrepancy with the current good agreement between electron dosimetry based on an electron cross-calibrated plane-parallel chamber (against a Farmer) or on a directly Co-60 calibrated plane-parallel chamber, which is not likely to be in error by 1%. It is suggested that the influence of the Co-60 source spectrum used in the simulations may not be negligible for calculations aimed at an uncertainty level of 0.1%.
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| 6. |
- Bäck, Torbjörn, et al.
(författare)
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An educational tool for demonstrating the TOF-PET technique
- 2001
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOC. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 471:1-2, s. 200-204
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A detector system for positron emission tomography with time-of-flight capability has been built to serve as an educational tool for undergraduate students. The set-up consists of 48 BaF2 scintillator crystals, each coupled to a fast photo-multiplier tube, mounted in a circular geometry. The analogue detector pulses are handled by fast constant fraction discriminators. A dedicated unit reduces the 48 channels to eight channels via delay-fine encoding, and the signals are then fed to an eight channel fast time-to-digital converter. A VME processor sorts the events and sends them to a workstation where the coincident events are extracted. The time resolution of the detectors together with fast VME based electronics allows for time-of-flight measurements to improve on the signal-to-noise ratio in the, reconstructed images. The system can be used for different types of exercises for the students, varying from the fundamentals of scintillator detectors to advanced image reconstruction. The set-up is described and some results are presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 7. |
- Fu, Ying, et al.
(författare)
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Radiative and nonradiative recombination of photoexcited excitons in multi-shell-coated CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots
- 2009
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Ingår i: Europhysics letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 0295-5075 .- 1286-4854. ; 86:3, s. 37003-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Colloidal quantum dots (QDs) have been widely studied for nanophotonics and bioimaging applications for which the lifetime of their fluorescence is of critical importance. We report experimental and theoretical characterizations of dynamic optical properties of multi-shell-coated CdSe/CdS/ZnS QDs. Quantum-mechanical studies of fundamental optical excitations and Monte Carlo simulations of energy relaxation mechanisms indicate that the excitonic states are densely compacted in the QDs and are easily photoexcited by the laser pulse in the presence of nonradiative electron-phonon interactions. For spherical QDs, the decay time of spontaneous radiative emission of individual photoexcited excitonic states with zero angular momenta is found to be only tens of picoseconds. In our multi-shell QDs, high-energy excitonic states of nonzero angular momenta have to go through a number of nonradiative electron-phonon interaction steps in order to relax to zero-angular-momentum excitonic states for radiative emission, resulting in an effective fluorescence peak at about 2 ns in the photoncount-time relationship. This explains the measured long average fluorescence lifetime of 3.6 ns. Such a long lifetime facilitates the applications of colloidal QDs in areas such as QD-based solar cells, bioimaging and metamaterials.
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| 8. |
- Hultqvist, Martha, et al.
(författare)
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Monte Carlo simulation of correction factors for IAEA TLD holders
- 2010
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Ingår i: Physics in Medicine and Biology. - 0031-9155 .- 1361-6560. ; 55:6, s. N161-N166
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The IAEA standard thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) holder has been developed for the IAEA/WHO TLD postal dose program for audits of high-energy photon beams, and it is also employed by the ESTRO-QUALity assurance network (EQUAL) and several national TLD audit networks. Factors correcting for the influence of the holder on the TL signal under reference conditions have been calculated in the present work from Monte Carlo simulations with the PENELOPE code for Co-60 gamma-rays and 4, 6, 10, 15, 18 and 25 MV photon beams. The simulation results are around 0.2% smaller than measured factors reported in the literature, but well within the combined standard uncertainties. The present study supports the use of the experimentally obtained holder correction factors in the determination of the absorbed dose to water from the TL readings; the factors calculated by means of Monte Carlo simulations may be adopted for the cases where there are no measured data.
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| 9. |
- Kempe, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
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Analytical theory for the fluence, planar fluence, energy fluence, planar energy fluence and absorbed dose of primary particles and their fragments in broad therapeutic light ion beams
- 2010
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Ingår i: Physica medica (Testo stampato). - : Elsevier BV. - 1120-1797 .- 1724-191X. ; 26:1, s. 6-16
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of the present work is to develop analytical expressions for the depth variation of the fluence, planar fluence, the energy fluence, planar energy fluence, the mean energy and absorbed dose of primary ions and their associated fragments in tissue-like media with ranges of clinical interest. The analytical expressions of the primary ions and associated fragments take into account nuclear interactions, energy losses, range straggling and multiple scattering. The analytical models of the radiation field quantities were compared with the results of the modified Monte Carlo (MC) code SHIELD-HIT+. The results show that the shape of the depth absorbed dose distribution of the primary particles is characterized by an increasingly steep exponential fluence decrease with depth as the charge and atomic weight increase. This is accompanied by a compensating increased energy loss towards the Bragg peak as the charge of the ion increases. These largely compensating mechanisms are the main reason that the depth absorbed dose curve of all light ions is surprisingly similar. In addition, a rather uniform dose in the plateau region is obtained since the increasing fragment production almost precisely compensates the loss of primaries. The dominating light fragments such as protons and alpha particles are characterized by longer ranges than the primaries and their depth dose curves to some extent coincide well with the depth fluence curves due to a rather slow variation of mean stopping powers. In contrast, the heavier fragments are characterized by the build up of a slowing down spectrum similar to that of the primaries but with initially slightly shorter or longer ranges depending on their mass to atomic number ratio. The presented analytical theory for the light ion penetration in matter agree quite well with the MC and experimental data and may be very useful for fast analytical calculations of quantities like mean energy, fluence, energy fluence, absorbed dose, and LET.
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| 10. |
- Larsson, Karl-Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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Structural mechanism of allosteric substrate specificity regulation in a ribonucleotide reductase
- 2004
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Ingår i: Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1545-9993 .- 1545-9985. ; 11:11, s. 1142-1149
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs) catalyze the reduction of ribonucleotides into deoxyribonucleotides, which constitute the precursor pools used for DNA synthesis and repair. Imbalances in these pools increase mutational rates and are detrimental to the cell. Balanced precursor pools are maintained primarily through the regulation of the RNR substrate specificity. Here, the molecular mechanism of the allosteric substrate specificity regulation is revealed through the structures of a dimeric coenzyme B12-dependent RNR from Thermotoga maritima, both in complexes with four effector-substrate nucleotide pairs and in three complexes with only effector. The mechanism is based on the flexibility of loop 2, a key structural element, which forms a bridge between the specificity effector and substrate nucleotides. Substrate specificity is achieved as different effectors and their cognate substrates stabilize specific discrete loop 2 conformations. The mechanism of substrate specificity regulation is probably general for most class I and class II RNRs.
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