Spectral CT distinguishes contrast agents with K-edges only 4 keV apart. Multi-contrast imaging and molecular CT are potential future applications.

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Human disturbance induces significant geomorphic changes to river systems. In eastern Australia, land-use practices such as clearance of forests and riparian vegetation, and removal of wood from channels in the 19th and 20th centuries induced widespread geomorphic impacts. However, since the 1970s, there has been a noticeable shift in the geomorphic condition of many rivers in eastern New South Wales (NSW). This transition to a recovery trajectory reflects a reduction in land-use pressures and improved farming practices on the one hand and adoption of recovery enhancement approaches to river conservation and rehabilitation by management authorities on the other. Monitoring and tracking changes in condition by state government agencies involves identifying when geomorphic recovery is occurring so that decision-support frameworks can determine whether river management is required, where, when, and how much to intervene to enhance river recovery and when to opt-out of management because the system requires little (or no) intervention. Here, we document procedures that are used to manage process-based, recovery enhancement in NSW. Following a brief review of river change in eastern NSW since European settlement, we outline an approach to identify and measure key geomorphic indicators of river recovery for different river types. We use case studies to demonstrate examples of geomorphic river recovery, prior to showing how state government agencies in NSW are monitoring trajectories and rates of recovery.Broader implications of this 'good news story' are discussed.

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Spectral molecular imaging is a new imaging technique able to discriminate and quantify different components of tissue simultaneously at high spatial and high energy resolution. Our MARS scanner is an x-ray based small animal CT system designed to be used in the diagnostic energy range (20 -140 keV). In this paper, we demonstrate the use of the MARS scanner, equipped with the Medipix3RX spectroscopic photon-processing detector, to discriminate fat, calcium, and water in tissue. We present data collected from a sample of lamb meat including bone as an illustrative example of human tissue imaging. The data is analyzed using our 3D Algebraic Reconstruction Algorithm (MARS-ART) and by material decomposition based on a constrained linear least squares algorithm. The results presented here clearly show the quantification of lipid-like, water-like and bone-like components of tissue. However, it is also clear to us that better algorithms could extract more information of clinical interest from our data. Because we are one of the first to present data from multi-energy photonprocessing small animal CT systems, we make the raw, partial and fully processed data available with the intention that others can analyze it using their familiar routines. The raw, partially processed and fully processed data of lamb tissue along with the phantom calibration data can be found at [http://hdl.handle.net/10092/8531].