Cancer is one of the major causes of worldwide mortality. Imaging plays a vital role in the staging, follow-up, and evaluation of therapeutic response in cancer patients. Whole-body (WB) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as a non-ionizing imaging technique, is a promising procedure to assess tumor spreading in a single examination. New MRI technological developments now enable the application of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) of the entire body. DWI reflects the random motion of water molecules and provides functional information of body tissues. DWI can be quantified with the use of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). The aim of this dissertation was to demonstrate the value of WB MRI including DWI in cancer patients. WB MRI including DWI, 18F-NaF PET/CT, and bone scintigraphy was performed on 49 patients with newly diagnosed, high-risk prostate cancer, for the purpose of detecting bone metastases. WB DWI showed higher specificity, but lower sensitivity compared to 18F-NaF PET/CT. In addition, WB MRI including DWI, and CT of the chest and abdomen was performed in 23 patients with malignant melanoma. We concluded that WB MRI could not completely supplant CT for the staging of malignant melanoma, especially with respect to the detection of lesions in the chest region. In this study, WB MRI and DWI were able to detect more bone lesions compared to CT, and showed several lesions outside the CT field of view, reinforcing the advantage of whole-body examination. WB MRI, including DWI, was performed in 71 patients with testicular cancer. This modality demonstrated its feasibility for use in the follow-up of such patients. WB MRI, including DWI, and 18F-FDG PET-CT, were carried out in 50 patients with malignant lymphoma. Both these imaging modalities proved to be promising approaches for predicting clinical outcomes and discriminating between different subtypes of lymphomas. In conclusion, WB MRI, including DWI, is an evolving technique that is continuing to undergo technical refinement. Standardization of image acquisition and analysis will be invaluable, allowing for more accurate comparison between studies, and widespread application of this technique in clinical practice. Both WB MRI, including DWI and PET/CT, have their particular strengths and weaknesses in the evaluation of metastatic disease. DWI and PET/CT are different functional techniques, so that combinations of these techniques may provide complementary and more comprehensive information of tumor tissue.

Elliptic curve cryptography has gained much popularity in the past decade and has been challenging the dominant RSA/DSA systems today. This is mainly due to elliptic curves offer cryptographic systems with higher speed, less memory and smaller key sizes than older ones. Among the various arithmetic operations required in implementing public key cryptographic algorithms based on elliptic curves, the elliptic curve scalar multiplication has probably received the maximum attention from the research community in the past a few years. Many methods for efficient and secure implementation of scalar multiplication have been proposed by many researchers. In this thesis, many scalar multiplication methods are studied in terms of their mathematical, computational and implementational points.

et oxygène gazeux dans un électrolyte contenant principalement de la cryolithe (Na3AlF6) à ≈1000°C. Au fur et à mesure que l'aluminium liquide se forme, plus dense que le bain il se dépose au fond de la cuve d'électrolyse (la cathode) et peut induire des réactions secondaires qui vont influencer négativement l'efficacité du procédé comme la dissolution de l'Aluminium à l'interface Al/électrolyte et son transfert ultérieur dans l'électrolyte. Du fait de la température élevée et de la nature très corrosive et réactive de ces sels, la nature des espèces chimiques formées dans les bains en présence du métal fondu est difficilement accessible expérimentalement et les modèles proposés sont souvent controversés. C'est le but de l'étude décrite dans ce mémoire. Notre démarche s'est articulée selon deux directions : une approche " in situ " des bains fondus par RMN de 19F, 23Na et 27Al à haute température, suivie d'une caractérisation des phases solidifiées à température ambiante par microscopie ESEM, RMN MAS de 19F, 23Na et 27Al et DRX. Une étude par DSC a permis de suivre les modifications thermiques de la température ambiante jusqu'à 1050°C dans ces bains. Nous avons montré expérimentalement que, à haute température, le métal réagit fortement avec les bains riches en NaF par un enrichissement du bain en AlF3. L'évolution des déplacements chimiques des trois noyaux s'explique par la formation d'espèces aluminofluorées de types x AlFx −x = 3 ( 4,5,6) dans le liquide. Les analyses à température ambiante ont confirmé cet enrichissement et ont mis en évidence la présence de fines particules (<3μm) métalliques disséminées dans les bains. Dans le cas des fortes teneurs en AlF3, nous n'observons pas de réaction chimique entre le métal et le bain mais uniquement la présence de grosses particules d'Aluminium (≈ 30 μm) plus ou moins oxydées.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Blömmer, Otto, and Seifert presented a fault attack on elliptic curve scalar multiplication called the Sign Change Attack, which causes a fault that changes the sign of the accumulation point. As the use of a sign bit for an extended integer is highly unlikely, this appears to be a highly selective manipulation of the key stream. In this thesis we describe two plausible fault attacks on a smart card implementation of elliptic curve cryptography. King and Wang designed a new attack called counter fault attack by attacking the scalar multiple of discrete-log cryptosystem. They then successfully generalize this approach to a family of attacks. By implementing King and Wang's scheme on RSA, we successfully attacked RSA keys for a variety of sizes. Further, we generalized the attack model to an attack on any implementation that uses NAF and wNAF key.