Extremely intense development of civilization requires from foundry casting technologies very high quality and not expensive castings. In

the foundries, there are many treatments that allow increasing of the final properties of produced castings such as refining, modification,

heat treatment, etc. One of the methods of increasing the quality of the casting by removing inclusions from the liquid alloy is filtration.

The use of ceramic-carbon foam filters in filtration process is still analysed phenomenon that allows improving the final properties of

castings. A modern method of research, testing and synthesis of innovative chemical compositions allows improving the properties of such

filters. In the paper the evaluation of application properties of developed ceramic-carbon bonded foam filters is presented. The quality of

the foam filters is evaluated by Computer Tomography and foundry trials in pouring of liquid metal in test molds. Additionally computer

simulations were made to visualize the flow characteristics in the foam filter. The analysed filters are the result of the research work of

Foundry Research Institute and the Institute of Ceramics and Building Materials, Refractory Materials Department in Gliwice.

Authors paid attention to anatomy and clinical implications which are associated with the variations of the sphenoid sinus. We discuss also anatomical structure of the sphenoid bone implementing clinical application of this bone to diff erent invasive and miniinvasive procedures (i.e. FESS).

The paper presents the development procedures for both virtual 3D-CAD and material models of fractured segments of human spine formulated with the use of computer tomography (CT) and rapid prototyping (RP) technique. The research is a part of the project within the framework of which a database is developed, comprising both 3D-CAD and material models of segments of thoracic-lumbar spine in which one vertebrae is subjected to compressive fracture for a selected type of clinical cases. The project is devoted to relocation and stabilisation procedures of fractured vertebrae made with the use of ligamentotaxis method. The paper presents models developed for five patients and, for comparison purposes, one for a normal spine. The RP material models have been built basing on the corresponding 3D-CAD ones with the use of fused deposition modelling (FDM) technology. 3D imaging of spine segments in terms of 3D-CAD and material models allows for the analysis of bone structures, classification of clinical cases and provides the surgeons with the data helpful in choosing the proper way of treatment. The application of the developed models to numerical and experimental simulations of relocation procedure of fractured vertebra is planned.

The paper describes an innovative ultrasound imaging method called Doppler Tomography (DT), otherwise known as Continuous Wave Ultrasonic Tomography (CWUT). Thanks to this method, it is possible to image the tissue cross-section in vivo using a simple two-transducer ultrasonic probe and using the Doppler effect. It should be noted that DT significantly differs from the conventional ultrasound Doppler method of measuring blood flow velocity. The main difference is that when measuring blood flow, we receive information with an image of the velocity distribution in a given blood vessel (Nowicki, 1995), while DT allows us to obtain a cross-sectional image of stationary tissue structure. In the conventional method, the probe remains stationary, while in the DT method, the probe moves and the examined tissue remains stationary.

This paper presents a method of image reconstruction using the DT method. First, the basic principle of correlation of generated Doppler frequencies with the location of inclusions from which they originate is explained. Then the exact process and algorithm in this method are presented. Finally, the impact of several key parameters on imaging quality is examined. As a result, the conclusions of the research allow to improve the image reconstruction process using the DT method.

The exact measurement of multiphase flow is an important and essential task in the oil and petrochemical related industries. Several methods have already been proposed in this field. In the existing methods, flow rate measurement depends on the fluid flow pattern. Flow pattern recognition requiring calibration has created instability in such systems. In this paper, a imple and reliable method is proposed which is based on ultrasonic tomography. It is free from calibration and instability problems that existing methods have. The obtained data from a 32-digit array of ultrasonic sensors have been used and the two-phase flow rate including liquid and gas phases have been calculated through a simple algebraic algorithm. Simulation results show that while applying this method the measurement technique is independent from the fluid flow pattern and the system error is decreased. For the proposed algorithm, the average amount of the spatial imaging error (SIE) for a bubble at different positions inside the pipe is about 5%.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) – a kind of optical counterpart of ultrasound imaging – is continually being improved as image contrast boosting techniques are developed.

During four Polish Geodynamical Expeditions to West Antarctica between 1979 and 1991, seismic measurements were made along 21 deep refraction profiles in the Bransfield Strait and along the coastal area of Antarctic Peninsula using explosion sources. Recordings were made by 16 land stations and 8 ocean bottom seismometers. Good quality recordings were obtained up to about 250 km distance. This allowed a detailed study of the seismic wave field and crustal structure. Three-dimensional tomographic inversion was carried out using first arriv­als from the complete data set including off-line recordings. As a result, we obtained a 3-D model of the P-wave velocity distribution in the study area. In the area adjacent to the Antarctic Peninsula coast, sedimentary cover of 0.2 to 3 km thickness was found, whereas in the shelf area and in the Bransfield Strait sedimentary basins with thickness from 5 to 8 km were observed. In the Bransfield Strait a high velocity body with Vp > 7.5 km/s was found at 12 km depth. The use of the off-line data allowed for determination of the horizontal extent of the body. The thickness of the crust varies from more than 35-40 km in the coastal area south of the Hero Fracture Zone to 30-35 km in the area of Bransfield Strait and South Shetland Islands and about 12 km in the Pacific Ocean NW of South Shetland Islands.

New oil and natural gas deposits can be recognized using X-ray computed tomography (CT) technology, and their potential value can be evaluated using increasingly advanced computational methods.

We present spectral emission characteristics from laser-plasma EUV/SXR sources produced by irradiation of < 1 J energy laser pulse on eleven different double stream gas puff targets, with most intense electronic transitions identified in the spectral range from 1 nm to 70 nm wavelength which corresponds to photon energy from 18 eV to 1240 eV. The spectra were obtained using grazing incidence and transmission spectro- graphs from laser-produced plasma emission, formed by the interaction of a laser beam with a double stream gas puff target. Laser pulses with a duration of 4 ns and energy of 650 mJ were used for the experiment. We present the results obtained from three different spectrometers in the wavelength ranges of SXR (1–5.5 nm), SXR/EUV (4–15.5 nm), and EUV (10–70 nm). In this paper, detailed information about the source, gas targets under investigation, the experimental setup, spectral measurements and the results are presented and discussed. Such data may be useful for the identification of adequate spectral emissions from gasses in the EUV and SXR wavelength ranges dedicated to various experiments (i.e. broadband emission for the X-ray coherence tomography XCT) or may be used for verification of magnetohydrodynamic plasma codes.

In this paper methods and their examination results for automatic segmentation and parameterization of vessels based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) of the retina are presented. We present three strategies for morphologic image processing of a fundus image reconstructed from OCT scans. A specificity of initial image processing for fundus reconstruction is analysed. Then, the parameterization step is performed based on the vessels segmented with the proposed algorithm. The influence of various methods on the vessel segmentation and fully automatic vessel measurement is analysed. Experiments were carried out with a set of 3D OCT scans obtained from 24 eyes (12 healthy volunteers) with the use of an Avanti RTvue OCT device. The results of automatic vessel segmentation were numerically compared with those prepared manually by the medical doctor experts.

The purpose of this work is to examine the possibility of using multi-angle conventional ultrasound B-mode scanning in efficient 3-D imaging. In the paper, the volume of an object is reconstructed from vertical projections registered at fixed angular positions of the multi-element linear ultrasonic probe rotated in relation to the object submerged in water. The possible configurations are: vertical lateral, vertical top or vertical bottom. In the vertical lateral configuration, the ultrasonic probe acquires 2-D images of object’s vertical cross-sections, turning around its lateral surface. In the vertical top or bottom configuration, the ultrasonic probe acquires 2-D images of the object’s vertical cross-sections, turning on the horizontal plane over the top or under the bottom surface of the object. The method of recording 3-D volume of an object’s structure and reconstruction algorithm have been designed. Studies show the method in the vertical top or bottom configuration could be successfully applied to the effective 3-D visualisation of the structure of the female breast in vivo as the new complement ultrasonic imaging modality in the prototype of the developed ultrasound tomography scanner.

This paper presents the results of acoustic field distribution simulations for the 1024-element ultrasonic ring array intended for the diagnosis of female breast tissue with the use of ultrasound tomography. For the purpose of analysing data, all acoustic fields created by each elementary transducer were combined. The natural position of the focus inside the ultrasonic ring array was changed by altering activation time of individual transducers in sectors consisting of 32, 64, and 128 ultrasonic transducers. Manipulating the position of the focus inside the array will allow to concentrate the ultrasonic beam in a chosen location in the interior space of the ring array. The goal of this research is to receive the best possible quality of images of cross-sections of the female breast. The study also analysed the influence of the acoustic field distribution on the inclination of the beam. The results will enable to choose an optimal focus and an optimal number of activated transducers.

A new technique of Mueller-matrix mapping of the birefringent structure of biological preparations of human organs tissues is suggested. The algorithms of reconstruction of average values and magnitude of fluctuations of the phase (birefringence) and amplitude (dichroism) of optically anisotropic structure of myocardium and connective tissue component of the vaginal wall histological section are proposed. The magnitudes and ranges of changes in the statistical moments of the 1st-4th order that characterize the distribution of average values and magnitude of fluctuations of birefringence and dichroism of the myocardium and connective tissue of the vaginal tissues histological sections were determined. Joint studies of distributions of the characteristics of phase and amplitude of the anisotropy of myocardium and connective tissue component of the vaginal wall tissues of different states were performed. The cases of various necrotic changes in the myocardium and pathological conditions of the vagina wall (prolapse of the genitals) are examined. Balanced accuracy of the method of Mueller-matrix polarization-phase and diffuse tomography of optically anisotropic polycrystalline networks in the differentiation of necrotic and pathological changes in human organs is determined.