Abstract A variety of radiopharmaceuticals and imaging techniques are currently available for scintigraphic imaging of infections. However, comparisons on the clinical value of such techniques have been limited, especially in prosthesis infections. This series included 138 cases with suspected prosthesis infections – 94 in hip and 44 in knee prostheses of patients whose final diagnoses were based on clinical, operative and microbiological findings, and who underwent three-phase bone, 99mTc -leukocyte and 99mTc-ciprofloxacin imaging in the Department of Clinical Chemistry, Oulu University Hospital and in the Laboratory, L?nsi-Pohja Central Hospital, during the years from 1993 to 2001. The normal arterial and soft-tissue phase images of three-phase bone imaging practically excluded infection in hip prostheses, whereas these techniques frequently yielded false positive findings in patients with knee prostheses, resulting in specificity of 23% or less. In combined 99mTc-leukocyte/bone imaging, diagnostic accuracy was 80–86% at two- to four-hour images and 87–98% at 24-hour images. The 99mTc-ciprofloxacin images showed unspecific accumulation of tracer in the one-hour and four-hour images, which disappeared in the 24-hour images in most hip and knee prostheses. 99mTc-ciprofloxacin imaging yielded almost as good diagnostic accuracy as combined 99mTc-leukocyte/bone imaging. In conclusion, in suspected hip prosthesis infections, normal findings in three-phase bone imaging exclude infection, whereas abnormal results in the arterial and soft-tissue phases should be confirmed with 99mTc-leukocyte imaging using 24-hour images. Contrary-wise, in suspected knee prosthesis infections, 99mTc-leukocyte imaging with 24-hour images is the first-line examination, and abnormal results in 24-hour images should be confirmed by using 99mTc-bone-metabolic imaging. 99mTc-ciprofloxacin yielded almost equally good results as 99mTc-leukocyte/bone-metabolic imaging, but unfortunately, the tracer is not commercially available, although it has been patented.

Os W-operadores são operadores invariantes por translação e localmente definidos dentro de uma janela W. Devido a sua grande utilidade em análise de imagens, estes operadores foram extensamente pesquisados, sendo que uma abordagem para o seu estudo é a partir da Morfologia Matemática. Uma propriedade interessante de W-operadores é que eles possuem uma sup-decomposição, ou seja, um W-operador pode ser decomposto em termos de uma família de operadores sup-geradores que, por sua vez, são parametrizados por elementos da base desse $W$-operador. No entanto, a sup-decomposição tem uma estrutura intrinsecamente paralela que não permite uma implementação eficiente em máquinas de processamento sequencial. Em um trabalho publicado em 2001, Hashimoto e Barrera formalizaram o problema de transformar a sup-decomposição em decomposições puramente sequenciais como um problema de encontrar soluções discretas de uma equação. Neste texto, estendemos o trabalho desenvolvido por eles. Estudamos e exploramos as propriedades matemáticas do problema, e desenvolvemos estratégias heurísticas para encontrar uma decomposição sequencial de um $W$-operador a partir de sua base que seja eficiente ao ser executado. / W-operators are defined as operators which are translation invariant and locally defined within a finite window W. Due to their great contribution to image processing, these operators have been widely researched and used, specially in Mathematical Morphology. An interesting property of W-operators is that they have a sup-decomposition in terms of a family of sup-generating operators, that are parameterized by their basis. However, the sup-decomposition has a parallel structure that is not efficient in sequential machines. In a paper published in 2001, Hashimoto and Barrera formalized the problem of transforming sup-decompositions into purely sequential decompositions as a problem of finding discrete solutions of an equation. In this work, we extend Hashimoto and Barrera\'s approach. We study and explore mathematical properties of this problem and we elaborate heuristic strategies to find a sequential decomposition of a $W$-operator from its basis that can be executed efficiently.

Cette thèse est consacrée à l'analyse mathématique et numérique d'un problème d'interaction fluide-structure stationnaire, couplant un fluide newtonien, visqueux et incompressible, modélisé par les équations de Stokes 2D et une structure déformable, décrite par les équations d'une poutre 1D. Le fluide et la structure sont couplés via une condition aux limites de type frottement à l'interface.Dans l'étude théorique, nous montrons un résultat d'existence et unicité de solutions faibles, dans le cadre de petits déplacements, du problème de couplage fluide structure avec une condition de glissement de type Tresca en utilisant le théorème de point fixe de Schauder.Dans l'analyse numérique, nous étudions d'abord, l'approximation du problème de Stokes avec la condition de Tresca par une méthode d'éléments finis mixtes à quatre champs. Nous montrons ensuite une estimation d'erreur a priori optimale pour des données régulières et nous réalisons des tests numériques. Enfin, nous présentons un algorithme de point fixe pour la simulation numérique du problème couplé avec des conditions aux limites non linéaires. / This PHD thesis is devoted to the theoretical and numerical analysis of a stationary fluid-structure interaction problem between an incompressible viscous Newtonian fluid, modeled by the 2D Stokes equations, and a deformable structure modeled by the 1D beam equations.The fluid and structure are coupled via a friction boundary condition at the fluid-structure interface.In the theoretical study, we prove the existence of a unique weak solution, under small displacements, of the fluid-structure interaction problem under a slip boundary condition of friction type (SBCF) by using Schauder fixed point theorem.In the numerical analysis, we first study a mixed finite element approximation of the Stokes equations under SBCF.We also prove an optimal a priori error estimate for regular data and we provide numerical examples.Finally, we present a fixed point algorithm for numerical simulation of the coupled problem under nonlinear boundary conditions.

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Controlling the authenticity of a product in the supply chain has been a struggle formanufacturers, and increasing complexity of the chains intensifies the imitation andcounterfeiting threats. Indeed, counterfeiting is absent from effective control in supply chainand manufacturers are looking for a technology to supply this control. The ability of RFID toprovide a tagged item with unique electronic code, it’s characteristic to hold some historicaldata about the item and supply automatic, immediate and accurate data about the tagged itemattracts manufacturers to use RFID technology to provide the effective control throughout thesupply chain. In line with this issue, SToP1 (Stop Tampering of Products), an EU foundedproject, aimed at developing an anti-counterfeiting solution based on auto-identificationtechnologies for consortium companies concerned with or affected by fake products. SToP iscommitted to establish the business cases, do research and at the end issue applicationguidelines for using RFID technology against counterfeiting in particular business contexts.Under SToP’s umbrella, this master thesis is initiated with the purpose to design a practicalguideline for choosing an appropriate RFID system for anti-counterfeiting in the aviationindustry that is one of the affected industries.The conclusion of the thesis consists of a number of sections, which altogether fulfill thepurpose of the thesis. The thesis forms a base for continues challenge of implementing RFIDas an anti-counterfeiting device focusing on the aviation industry, proposes solution scenariosbased on RFID technology, suggests applicable standards and proposes a secure RFID methodto prevent counterfeiting specially in the aviation industry. Jointly, these sections fromguidelines as a foundation for decision-making for kind of RFID system for anti-counterfeitingapplication in the aviation industry. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Nous étudions des estimations apriori du type sup *inf pour les solutions de l' équation de la courbure sclaire prescrite dans un ouvert de R^n. Nous donnons des résultats quand l'exposant est sous-critique tendant vers l'exposant critique de Sobolev, la perturbation du à l'exposant sous-critique apparait dans l'estimation a priori, ce résultat est vrai en toute dimension superieure ou egale à 3 avec des conditions minimales sur les courbures scalaires prescrites. Nous etudions aussi les cas n=3 et 4, mais sans avoir de perturnation sous-critique. Nous obtenons des inégalités à priori du type (sup)^(1/3) * inf borné sur tout compact de R^3, alors qu'en dimension 4, si les minimas sont uniformément minorés, les maxims sur tout compact sont uniformément majorés. Nous traitons également, le cas où on a une perturbation de l'équation par un terme non linéaire mais en puissance sous-critique, dans ce cas la majorations du sup* inf est obtenue. Dans notre travail, nous nous occupons de la minoration du sup *inf sur une variété compacte de dimension >=2, pour l'équation de la courbure sclaire prescrite, on prouve que si la courbure sclaire est positive sans etre identiquement nulle, alors il y a majorations du sup*inf. Quand à la dimension 2, le résultat est obtenu sur toute surface de Riemann avec des hypotheses de bornitude uniforme du gradient des courbures scalaires prescrites. Pour le cas de la sphère, cette derniere condition n'est pas imposée, la positivité et bornitude uniforme des courbures scalaires prescrites suffisent.