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An important application of quantitative imaging in nuclear medicine is the estimation of absorbed doses in radionuclide therapy. Depending on the radionuclide used for therapy, quantitative imaging of the kinetics of the therapeutic radiopharmaceutical could be done using planar imaging, SPECT or PET. Since many nuclear medicine departments have a gamma camera system that is also suitable for coincidence imaging, the performance of these systems with respect to quantitative imaging of PET isotopes that could be of use in radionuclide dosimetry is of interest. We investigated the performance of a gamma camera with coincidence imaging capabilities with 99mTc, 111In, 18F and 76Br and a dedicated PET system with 18F and 76Br, using a single standard set of phantom measurements. Here, 76Br was taken as a typical example of prompt gamma-emitting PET isotopes that are applicable in radionuclide therapy dosimetry such as 86Y and 124I. Image quality measurements show comparable image contrasts for 76Br coincidence imaging and 111In SPECT. Although the spatial resolution of coincidence imaging is better than single photon imaging, the contrast obtained with 76Br is not better than that with 99mTc or 111In because of the prompt gamma involved. Additional improvements are necessary to allow for quantitative coincidence imaging of long-lived, prompt gamma producing positron emitters.

Power frequency magnetic fields with flux densities greater than 0.5 μT are not uncommon in offices. This level has been shown to induce jitter on VDT monitors. In the present project, these magnetic field-induced disturbances have been studied in the laboratory in order to establish a firm technical basis for future studies of the disturbance's influence on eye strain in VDT workers. Eight volunteers judged the occurrence of distortion when an applied external magnetic field was varied both in amplitude and frequency for 8 investigated VDT screens. The level of the external 50 Hz magnetic field when the distortion was detectable ranged from 0.6 to 1.1 μT. If the screen was viewed through a stereomicroscope (25 × magnification), the corresponding level was in the order of 0.2 μT. If the frequency difference between the external magnetic field and the refresh rate of the screen is only ±1-2 Hz, the disturbance is noticeable at even lower flux densities.

Portfolio theory deals with the question of how to allocate resources among several competing alternatives (stocks, bonds), many of which have an unknown outcome. In this paper we provide an overview of different portfolio models with emphasis on the corresponding optimization problems. For the classical Markowitz mean-variance model we present computational results, applying a dual algorithm for constrained optimization.