Abstract. Time-resolved measurement of early arriving photons through diffusive media has been shown to effectively reduce the high degree of light scatter in biological tissue. However, the experimentally achievable reduction in photon scatter and the impact of time-gated detection on instrument noise performance is not well understood. We measure time-dependent photon density sensitivity functions (PDSFs) between a pulsed laser source and a photomultiplier tube operating in timecorrelated single-photon-counting mode. Our data show that with our system, measurement of early arriving photons reduces the full width half maximum of PDSFs on average by about 40 to 60% versus quasicontinuous wave photons over a range of experimental conditions similar to those encountered in small animal tomography, corresponding to a 64 to 84% reduction in PDSF volume. Factoring in noise considerations, the optimal operating point of our instrument is determined to be about the 10% point on the rising edge of the transmitted intensity curve. Time-dependant Monte Carlo simulations and the time-resolved diffusion approximation are used to model photon propagation and are evaluated for agreement with experimental data. C 2010 Society of PhotoOptical Instrumentation Engineers.

New fast detector technology has driven significant renewed interest in time-resolved measurement of early photons in improving imaging resolution in diffuse optical tomography and fluorescence mediated tomography in recent years. In practice, selection of early photons results in significantly narrower instrument photon density sensitivity functions (PDSFs) than the continuous wave case, resulting in a better conditioned reconstruction problem. In this work, we studied the quantitative impact of instrument temporal impulse response function (TIRF) on experimental PDSFs in tissue mimicking optical phantoms. We used a multi-mode fiber dispersion method to vary the system TIRF over a range of representative literature values. Substantial disagreement in PDSF width – by up to 40% - was observed between experimental measurements and Monte Carlo (MC) models of photon propagation over the range of TIRFs studied. On average, PDSFs were broadened by about 0.3 mm at the center plane of the 2 cm wide imaging chamber per 100 ps of instrument TIRF at early times. Further, this broadening was comparable on both the source and detector sides. Results were confirmed by convolution of instrument TIRFs with MC simulations. These data also underscore the importance of correcting imaging PDSFs for instrument TIRF when performing tomographic image reconstruction to ensure accurate data-model agreement.

BackgroundBiomedical image reconstruction applications require producing high fidelity images in or close to real-time. We have implemented reconstruction of three dimensional conebeam computed tomography(CBCT) with two dimensional projections. The algorithm takes slices of the target, weights and filters them to backproject the data, then creates the final 3D volume. We have implemented the algorithm using several hardware and software approaches and taken advantage of different types of parallelism in modern processors. The two hardware platforms used are a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a heterogeneous system with a combination of CPU and GPU. On the CPU we implement serial MATLAB, parallel MATLAB, C and parallel C with OpenMP extensions. These codes are compared against the heterogeneous versions written in CUDA-C and OpenCL.FindingsOur results show that GPUs are particularly well suited to accelerating CBCT. Relative performance was evaluated on a mathematical phantom as well as on mouse data. Speedups of up to 200x are observed by using an AMD GPU compared to a parallel version in C with OpenMP constructs.ConclusionsIn this paper, we have implemented the Feldkamp-Davis-Kress algorithm, compatible with Fessler’s image reconstruction toolbox and tested it on different hardware platforms including CPU and a combination of CPU and GPU. Both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs have been used for performance evaluation. GPUs provide significant speedup over the parallel CPU version.

A dynamically polarized target of protons and deuterons in irradiated NH3 and ND3 will be employed with the CLAS12 detector system to explore the spin structure of the nucleon in Hall B at Jefferson Lab. This target will feature a versatile, horizontal 1 K refrigerator that has been constructed by a collaboration of Christopher Newport University, Old Dominion University, the University of Virginia, and the JLab Target Group. A description of the challenges involved with designing the target for the CLAS12 experiments and the collaboration's solutions will be presented. These include a modular and compact design of the 1 K refrigerator and its ancillary equipment, as well as a novel mechanism for loading the target samples. Initial test results of the system will also be included.

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tritium, or other weak beta-emitting radionuclides, on surfaces. One form of detector operates on the principle of thermally stimulated exoelectron emission (TSEE), the other by discharge of an electret ion chamber (EIC). There are currently two specific types of commercially available detector systems that lend themselves to making surface measurements, One is the thin-film Be0 on a graphite disc, and the other is the Teflon EIC. Two other types of TSEE dosimeters (ceramic Be0 and carbon doped alumina) are described but lack either a suitable commercially available reader or standardized methods of fabrication. The small size of these detectors allows deployment in locations difficult to access with conventional windowless gas-flow proportional counters. Preliminary testing shows that quantitative measurements are realized with exposure times of 1-10 hours for the TSEE dosimeters (at the DOE release guideline of 5000 dpdl00cm' for fixed beta contamination). The EIC detectors exhibit an MDA of 26,000 dpm/100cm2 for a 24 hour exposure. Both types of integrating device are inexpensive and reusable. Measurements can, therefore, be made that are faster, cheaper, safer, and better than those possible with baseline monitoring technology.We describe development of small passive, solid-state detectors for in-situ measurements of