Imasonic

Cantonese trade painters catered to diverse global markets in the early nineteenth century. American consumers of Chinese reverse glass paintings acquired works that were popular throughout the British Empire, but also commissioned works that spoke to their status as a newly independent nation. This article considers a group of Chinese reverse glass paintings with early American provenances and themes through selections from the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum, one of the United States' earliest museums.

Because the UT (ultrasonic testing) flexible probe technology may be an appropriate answer to examine components with uneven surface, AREVA has developed an industrial application of the CEA's (French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies) flexible phased arrays sensors. As a "first of a kind" project, the challenges faced were significant, including developing a phased array smart probe suitable for industrial use on rather simple but large scale geometries, permitting UT propagation within a constraining media structure and then targeting a qualification according to ENIQ (European Network for Inspection Qualification) methodology. A prototype flexible probe, designed for UT validation, and final flexible linear array probes permitting the UT behavior (as, e.g., detection and sizing from diffraction type echoes) to be maintained on wavy coupling surfaces, have been manufactured. These probes include a profilemeter with optical sensors control and a specifically designed coupling circuit (avoiding probe housing tightness issues). Qualification has been performed using open test blocks, (where known "defects" exist, for procedure qualification), and blind test blocks, (where "defects" are unknown, for qualification of testing personnel). One open test bloc was customized to represent a "real" surface condition, with gaps up to 2.5 mm under the regular rigid probes. AREVAI/BGSI in Germany was selected to lead the project, with assistance in development and manufacturing sub-contracted to "CEA/LIST" laboratory, and the companies "IMASONIC" and "M2M". This paper describes the development of these probes and explains a few features (ENIQ qualification objectives fulfilled, UT data acquired on actual perturbed surface) that made their industrial implementation successful.

Modern technologies allow the delivery of high radiation doses to intramedullary spinal cord metastases while lowering the dose to the neighboring organs at risk. Whether this dosimetric advantage translates into clinical benefit is not well known. This study evaluates the acute and late toxicity outcomes in a patient treated with robotic radiosurgery for an intramedullary spinal cord metastasis.A 50-year-old woman diagnosed in May 2006 with invasive ductal carcinoma of the right breast T2N3M1 (two liver metastases) received chemotherapy with a complete response. Subsequently, she underwent adjuvant whole-breast radiotherapy, along with tamoxifen. After several distant relapses, treated mainly with systemic therapy, the patient developed an intramedullary lesion at the C3-C4 level and was referred to our CyberKnife unit for assessment. A total dose of 14 Gy prescribed to the 74% isodose line was administered to the intramedullary lesion in one fraction. One hundred and two treatment beams were used covering 95.63% of the target volume. The mean dose was 15.93 Gy and the maximum dose, 18.92 Gy. Maximum dose to the spinal cord was 13.96 Gy, V12 ~ 0.13 cc and V8 ~ 0.43 cc.Three months after treatment, magnetic resonance imaging showed a reduction in size and enhancement of the intramedullary lesion with no associated toxicity. During this period, the patient showed a good performance status without neurological deficits. Currently, with a follow-up of 37 months, the patient has the ability to perform activities of daily life.Intramedullary spinal cord metastases is a rare and aggressive disease, often treatment-refractory. Our case demonstrates that radiation therapy delivery with robotic radiosurgery allows the achievement of a high local control without adding toxicity.

The piping inspection in nuclear power plants is mainly performed in contact with ultrasonic wedge transducers. During the scanning, the fixed shape of the wedges cannot conform to the irregular surfaces and complex geometries of the components (butt weld, nozzle, elbow). The surface irregularities lead to thickness variations of the coupling medium that result in beam distortions and losses of sensitivity. A 3‐D ultrasonic flexible phased‐array is presented here and applied to the ultrasonic inspection of a welded pipe. This example of a complex geometry inspection is typical of the field of application for such sensor. The phased‐array probe is flexible to conform to a complex profile and to minimize the thickness of the coupling layer. The independent piezoelectric elements composing the radiating surface are mechanically assembled to build an articulated structure. A profilometer, embedded in the transducer, measures the local surface distortion allowing to compute in real‐time the optimized delay laws and to compensate the distortions of the 2D or 3D profiles. Those delay laws transferred to the UT‐acquisition system are applied in real‐time to the piezoelectric elements. The experiments presented here aim to determine the detection abilities of this technique using multi‐shot configurations (e.g. angular scanning, several points focusing).

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is now a recognized method for the non-invasive treatment of tumors, and transducers are required to have more and more capabilities. The most advanced HIFU transducers can produce enough power for thermal ablation and can also electronically steer and focus the power ultrasonic beam to create a defined volume necrosis using 2D transducer arrays. In addition, the formation of the necrosis must be controlled by monitoring the treatment through an appropriate imaging method, usually either external ultrasound imaging (UI) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The proposed design, based on power piezocomposite technology, combines UI and HIFU capabilities with the same active area. To achieve this goal, the electro-acoustic structure is optimized, as well as the acoustical and electrical matching of the transducer elements. The 2D structure of the array is designed to allow both the electronic driving of the HIFU focal point into a volume and also the monitoring of the treatment through the imaging of the area of interest around the necrosis. Additional functions such as tracking the movements made during the treatment can also be carried out with elements of the array. The MRI compatibility of the whole transducer can be achieved by the right choice of materials, making the simultaneous control by MRI and UI possible. It is expected that this multi-mode matrix type of transducer has good potential for both external and endocavitary HIFU applications.

By increasing inspection speed, and deflection capabilities of the transducers, Phased‐array technology has proved its interest to face new ∂ NDT challenges, and is becoming more and more popular in the main industrial fields of activities. This paper describes the main effects of specifications on transducer performances, and explains how to defined them. The second part speaks about the manufacturing step, showing the influence of component choice on performances. Several Phased‐array applications examples illustrating these considerations will be presented.