• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.57-62
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• 2021

Gas is an energy source widely used in general households and industrial sites, and is also a process material widely used in petrochemical and semiconductor processes. However, while it is easy to use, it can cause large-scale human damage due to leakage, explosion, and human inhalation. Therefore, a gas facility safety management solution that can be safely used at home and industrial sites is essential. In particular, the need to develop advanced gas safety solutions is emerging as gas facilities are aging. In this paper, a technology was developed to measure the presence and concentration of gas leaks from a distance by irradiating photons, the minimum energy unit that can no longer be divided into gas facilities, and analyzing the number of reflected photons. This overcomes technical limitations such as short detection distance and inability to detect fine leaks, which are the limitations of conventional electric/chemical gas sensors or infrared-based gas leak detectors.

• Journal of the Korean Physical Society
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• v.73 no.9
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• pp.1393-1398
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• 2018

In conventional single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), only the photoelectric events in the detectors are used for image reconstruction. However, if the $^{131}I$ isotope, which emits high-energy radiations (364, 637, and 723 keV), is used in nuclear medicine, both photoelectric and Compton scattering events can be used for image reconstruction. The purpose of our work is to perform simulations for Compton SPECT by using the Geant4 application for tomographic emission (GATE). The performance of Compton SPECT is evaluated and compared with that of conventional SPECT. The Compton SPECT unit has an area of $12cm{\times}12cm$ with four gantry heads. Each head is composed of a 2-cm tungsten collimator and a $40{\times}40$ array of CdZnTe (CZT) crystals with a $3{\times}3mm^2$ area and a 6-mm thickness. Compton SPECT can use not only the photoelectric effect but also the Compton scattering effect for image reconstruction. The correct sequential order of the interactions used for image reconstruction is determined using the angular resolution measurement (ARM) method and the energies deposited in each detector. In all the results of simulations using spherical volume sources of various diameters, the reconstructed images of Compton SPECT show higher signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) without degradation of the image resolution when compared to those of conventional SPECT because the effective count for image reconstruction is higher. For a Derenzo-like phantom, the reconstructed images for different modalities are compared by visual inspection and by using their projected histograms in the X-direction of the reconstructed images.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.218-224
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• 2014

The small field dosimetry is very important in modern radiotherapy because it has been frequently used to treat the tumor with high dose hypo-fractionated radiotherapy or high dose single fraction stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) with small size target. But, the dosimetry of a small field (< $3{\times}3cm^2$) has been great challenges in radiotherapy. Small field dosimetry is difficult because of (a) a lack of lateral electronic equilibrium, (b) steep dose gradients, and (c) partial blocking of the source. The objectives of this study were to measure and verify with the various detectors the output factors in a small field (<3 cm) for the 6 MV photon beams. Output factors were measured using the CC13, CC01, EDGE detector, thermoluminescence dosimeters (TLDs), and Gafchromic EBT2 films at the sizes of field such as $0.5{\times}0.5$, $1{\times}1$, $2{\times}2$, $3{\times}3$, $5{\times}5$, and $10{\times}10cm^2$. The differences in the output factors with the various detectors increased with decreasing field size. Our study demonstrates that the dosimetry for a small photon beam (< $3{\times}3cm^2$) should use CC01 or EDGE detectors with a small active volume. And also, Output factors with the EDGE detectors in a small field (< $3{\times}3cm^2$) coincided well with the Gafchromic EBT2 films.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.156-162
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• 2007

The parallel beam SPECT system acquires projection data by using collimators in conjunction with photon detectors. The projection data of the parallel beam SPECT system is, however, blurred by the point response function of the collimator that is used to define the range of directions where photons can be detected. By increasing the number of parallel holes per unit area in collimator, one can reduce such blurring effect. This approach also, however, has the blurring problem if the distance between the object and the collimator becomes large. In this paper we consider correction methods for artifacts caused by non-circular orbit of parallel beam SPECT with many parallel holes per detector cell. To do so, we model the relationship between the object and its projection data as a linear system, and propose an iterative reconstruction method including artifacts correction. We compute the projector and the backprojector, which are required in iterative method, as a sum of convolutions with distance-dependent point response functions instead of matrix form, where those functions are analytically computed from a single function. By doing so, we dramatically reduce the computation time and memory required for the generation of the projector and the backprojector. We conducted several simulation studies to compare the performance of the proposed method with that of conventional Fourier method. The result shows that the proposed method outperforms Fourier methods objectively and subjectively.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.151-156
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to confirm the feasibility of imaging of therapy region from the boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) using the measurement of the prompt gamma ray depending on the neutron flux. Through the Monte Carlo simulation, we performed the verification of physical phenomena from the BNCT; (1) the effects of neutron according to the existence of boron uptake region (BUR), (2) the internal and external measurement of prompt gamma ray dose, (3) the energy spectrum by the prompt gamma ray. All simulation results were deducted using the Monte Carlo n-particle extended (MCNPX, Ver.2.6.0, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA) simulation tool. The virtual water phantom, thermal neutron source, and BURs were simulated using the MCNPX. The energy of the thermal neutron source was defined as below 1 eV with 2,000,000 n/sec flux. The prompt gamma ray was measured with the direction of beam path in the water phantom. The detector material was defined as the lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate (Lu0,6Y1,4Si0,5:Ce; LYSO) scintillator with lead shielding for the collimation. The BUR's height was 5 cm with the 28 frames (bin: 0.18 cm) for the dose calculation. The neutron flux was decreased dramatically at the shallow region of BUR. In addition, the dose of prompt gamma ray was confirmed at the 9 cm depth from water surface, which is the start point of the BUR. In the energy spectrum, the prompt gamma ray peak of the 478 keV was appeared clearly with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the 41 keV (energy resolution: 8.5%). In conclusion, the therapy region can be monitored by the gamma camera and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) using the measurement of the prompt gamma ray during the BNCT.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.65-77
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• 1996

Using the 2-D and 3-D Hoffman brain phantom, 3-D Jaszczak phantom and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, the effects of data acquisition parameter, attenuation, noise, scatter and reconstruction algorithm on image quantitation as well as image quality were studied. For the data acquisition parameters, the images were acquired by changing the increment angle of rotation and the radius. The less increment angle of rotation resulted in superior image quality. Smaller radius from the center of rotation gave better image quality, since the resolution degraded as increasing the distance from detector to object increased. Using the flood data in Jaszczak phantom, the optimal attenuation coefficients were derived as 0.12cm$\^$-1/ for all collimators. Consequently, the all images were corrected for attenuation using the derived attenuation coefficients. It showed concave line profile without attenuation correction and flat line profile with attenuation correction in flood data obtained with jaszczak phantom. And the attenuation correction improved both image qulity and image quantitation. To study the effects of noise, the images were acquired for 1min, 2min, 5min, 10min, and 20min. The 20min image showed much better noise characteristics than 1min image indicating that increasing the counting time reduces the noise characteristics which follow the Poisson distribution. The images were also acquired using dual-energy windows, one for main photopeak and another one for scatter peak. The images were then compared with and without scatter correction. Scatter correction improved image quality so that the cold sphere and bar pattern in Jaszczak phantom were clearly visualized. Scatter correction was also applied to 3-D Hoffman brain phantom and resulted in better image quality. In conclusion, the SPECT images were significantly affected by the factors of data acquisition parameter, attenuation, noise, scatter, and reconstruction algorithm and these factors must be optimized or corrected to obtain the useful SPECT data in clinical applications.