Contrast enhancement

Besides chemicai staining, contrast enhancement can aiso be achieved through physical effects. This is of particular interest if the polymers do not possess the double bonds or reactive groups needed for chemical staining to work. One effect is based on irradiation-induced cross-linking processes. This mechanism, called irradiation-induced fixation and contrast enhancement in semicrystalline poiymers, is illustrated in Fig. 1.48. 

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In statistical terms, a perceptual improvement is therefore obtained if the amplitude distribution in the filtered signal (image) is more concentrated around zero than in the raw data (contrast enhancement). A more concentrated amplitude distribution generally means smaller entropy. Thus, from an operator perception point of view, interesting results should be obtained if the raw data can be filtered to yield low entropy amplitude distributions. However, one should note that the entropy can be minimized by means of a (pathological) filter which always outputs zero or another constant value. Thus, appropriate restrictions must be imposed on the filter construction process. 

After digitization, the images have been presented to the same observers group. The first diagnosis has been established without the use of any filters or contrast enhancement. For the second one, observers have been allowed to use ... 

B1.18.5.5 CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT AND PRACTICAL LIMITS TO CONFOCAL ONE-PHOTON-EXCITATION FLUORESCENCE MICROSCOPY... 

Figure 1.1 is a rather remarkable photograph which shows individual polystyrene molecules as spherical blobs having average diameters of about 20 nm. The picture is an electron micrograph in which a 10" % solution of polystyrene was deposited on a suitable substrate, the solvent evaporated, and the contrast enhanced by shadow casting. There is a brief discussion of both electron microscopy and shadowing in Sec. 4.7. Several points should be noted in connection with Fig. 1.1 ...

Video-Enhanced Contrast. This technique is more expensive but much more effective than any other contrast-enhancing technique (15). Since the 1970s, the development of video processing of microscopical images has resulted in electronic control of contrast. As Shinya InouH, author of a classic text in the field, states "We can now see objects that are far too thin to be resolved, and extract clear images from scenes that appeared too fuzzy, too pale, or too dim, or that appeared to be nothing but noise" (16). The depth of the in-focus field can now be expanded or confined, very thin but very sharp optical sections can be produced, and a vertical succession of these images can be accumulated to reconstmct thicker stmctures in three dimensions (16). 

Yasuda R, Munechika H Delayed adverse reactions to nonionic monomeric contrast-enhanced media. 

The amount of contrast material required for CTA is comparable to that used for conventional contrast-enhanced CT imaging. The amount of scanning time required for a CTA examination of the head and neck, such as is usually performed for acute... 

Rempp KA, Brix G, Wenz F, Becker CR, Guckel F, Lorenz WJ. Quantification of regional cerebral blood flow and volume with dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced MR imaging. Radiology 1994 193 637-641. 

Johnston DC, Eastwood JD, Nguyen T, Goldstein LB. Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography of carotid arteries utility in routine clinical practice. Stroke 2002 33(12) 2834-2838. 

To date, we have exercised these materials in basically three types of multilayer lithographic applications (1) as short wavelength contrast enhancing layers, (2) as imagable 02-RIE resistant materials in bilayer processes and (3) as radiation sensitive materials for multilayer, e-beam processes. 

Contrast enhancement lithography is a clever procedure which uses a bleachable contrast enhancing layer to restore the distorted aerial image of the mask which has been blurred by diffraction effects into a sharp image at the underlying photoresist surface. The process is too complicated to explain in detail here and the interested reader is referred to the cited literature (60,61). Suffice it to say that the large extinction coefficients of most polysilane derivatives coupled with their ready bleachability make them ideally suited for such purposes and we have demonstrated this application at 313 nm (16,18). 

A rapidly increasing number of publications on polysilanes documents current interest in these polymers (JJ. Polysilanes are potentially applicable in microlithography as high resolution UV-resists (2J, imageable etch barriers ), or contrast enhancement layers (4). They have been successfully used as precursors to Si-C fibers (5J and ceramic reinforcing agents ((L). Polysilanes have also initiated polymerization of vinyl monomers (J ). Doping of polysilanes have increased their conductivity to the level of semiconductors (8). Very recently polysilanes were used as photoconductors (9) and non-linear optical materials (10b... 

Metal Complexes as AIRl Contrast Enhancement Agents... 

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