Applicability of American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria Decision-Making Model for Acute Appendicitis Diagnosis in Children.

Acute appendicitis is one of the most common causes of abdominal pain in the emergency department and the most common surgical emergency reason for children younger than 15 years of age, which could be enormously dangerous when ruptured. The choice of radiological approach is very important for the diagnosis. In this way, unnecessary surgery is avoided.

A polymer optical fiber fuel level sensor: application to paramotoring and powered paragliding.

A low-cost intensity-based polymer optical fiber (POF) sensor for fuel level measurements in paramotoring and powered paragliding is presented, exploiting the advantages of the optical fiber sensing technology. Experimental results demonstrate that the best option can be performed by stripping the fiber at the desired discrete points to measure the fuel level as well as with a gauge-shape fiber bending. The prototype has a good linearity, better than 4% full scale (F.

Analysis of the electric field propagation method: theoretical model applied to perfluorinated graded-index polymer optical fiber links.

We evaluate a theoretical model based on the electric field propagation method but applied for the first time to amorphous perfluorinated graded-index polymer optical fibers (PF GIPOFs). The belief is that a better understanding of the factors that affect the fiber frequency response will prove very useful in increasing the performance of PF-GIPOF-based optical links in real situations. The influence of some parameters involved in the frequency response is addressed, and results show experimental data that validate, with tolerable discrepancy, the model described applied to this kind of optical fibers.

Laser optoacoustic spectroscopy of gold nanorods within a highly scattering medium.

We describe a spectroscopic comparative analysis based on the optoacoustic technique over the wavelength range from 410nm to 1000nm using a Q-switched Nd:YAG pumped optical parametric oscillator tunable source on a gold nanostructure solution located within a highly scattering medium. The advantages of this method over standard spectroscopy techniques are the possibility to localize and monitor the spectroscopic response of absorbing materials located within turbid media. The operation is confirmed using a comparative analysis with the spectroscopic results obtained from a reference measurement scheme, based on a highly sensitive collimated optical transmission setup in parallel and under the same experimental conditions as the optoacoustic technique.

Optoacoustic imaging using fiber-optic interferometric sensors.

An interferometric sensor based on nonmetallic silica optical fiber is presented as an ultrasonic wideband transducer for optoacoustic imaging applications. We have characterized the sensitivity of the optical fiber sensor by detecting optoacoustic signals from an optically absorbing object embedded in a tissue-mimicking phantom and have compared the signals recorded with those detected from the same phantom using an array of piezoelectric transducers. The optical fiber sensor was also scanned along the phantom surface in order to reconstruct two-dimensional optoacoustic images of the phantom.

High-sensitivity ultrasound interferometric single-mode polymer optical fiber sensors for biomedical applications.

This work describes the results of ultrasonic wideband sensors based on single-mode polymer optical fibers that may be used for biomedical applications. We have compared the ultrasonic sensitivities of two Mach-Zehnder interferometric intrinsic optical fiber sensors. One is based on a single-mode polymethylmethacrylate optical fiber and the second on single-mode silica optical fiber, both operating at 632.