Browsing by Author "Dicken, A. J."

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Classification of fracture and non-fracture groups by analysis of coherent X-ray scatter
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2016-07-01) Dicken, A. J.; Evans, J. Paul O.; Rogers, Keith; Stone, N.; Greenwood, Charlene; Godber, S. X.; Clement, J. G.; Lyburn, Iain Douglas; Martin, R. M.; Zioupos, Peter
    Osteoporotic fractures present a significant social and economic burden, which is set to rise commensurately with the aging population. Greater understanding of the physicochemical differences between osteoporotic and normal conditions will facilitate the development of diagnostic technologies with increased performance and treatments with increased efficacy. Using coherent X-ray scattering we have evaluated a population of 108 ex vivo human bone samples comprised of non-fracture and fracture groups. Principal component fed linear discriminant analysis was used to develop a classification model to discern each condition resulting in a sensitivity and specificity of 93% and 91%, respectively. Evaluating the coherent X-ray scatter differences from each condition supports the hypothesis that a causal physicochemical change has occurred in the fracture group. This work is a critical step along the path towards developing an in vivo diagnostic tool for fracture risk prediction.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Combined X-ray diffraction and absorption tomography using a conical shell beam
    (2019-07-15) Shevchuk, Alex; Evans, J. Paul O.; Dicken, A. J.; Elarnaut, D.; Downes, D.; Godber, S. X.; Rogers, Keith D.
    We combine diffraction and absorption tomography by raster scanning samples through a hollow cone of pseudo monochromatic X-rays with a mean energy of 58.4 keV. A single image intensifier takes 90x90 (x,y) snapshots during the scan. We demonstrate a proof-of-principle of our technique using a heterogeneous three-dimensional (x,y,z) phantom (90x90x170 mm3) comprised of different material phases, i.e., copper and sodium chlorate. Each snapshot enables the simultaneous measurement of absorption contrast and diffracted flux. The axial resolution was ~1 mm along the (x,y) orthogonal scan directions and ~7 mm along the z-axis. The tomosynthesis of diffracted flux measurements enable the calculation of d-spacing values with ~0.1 Å full width at half maximum (FWHM) at ~2 Å. Thus the identified materials may be color-coded in the absorption optical sections. Characterization of specific material phases is of particular interest in security screening for the identification of narcotics and a wide range of homemade explosives concealed within complex “everyday objects.” Other potential application areas include process control and biological imaging.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Depth resolved snapshot energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction using a conical shell beam
    (Optical Society of America, 2017-08-23) Dicken, A. J.; Evans, J. Paul O.; Rogers, Keith; Prokopiou, Danae; Godber, S. X.; Wilson, M.
    We demonstrate a novel imaging architecture to collect range encoded diffraction patterns from overlapping samples in a single conical shell projection. The patterns were measured in the dark area encompassed by the beam via a centrally positioned aperture optically coupled to a pixelated energy-resolving detector. We show that a single exposure measurement of 0.3 mAs enables d-spacing values to be calculated. The axial positions of the samples were not required and the resultant measurements were robust in the presence of crystallographic textures. Our results demonstrate rapid volumetric materials characterization and the potential for a direct imaging method, which is of great relevance to applications in medicine, non-destructive testing and security screening.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Fracture toughness of the cancellous bone of FNF femoral heads in relation to its microarchitecture
    (European Society of Biomechanics, 2016-07) Greenwood, Charlene; Clements, J. G.; Dicken, A. J.; Evans, J. Paul O.; Lyburn, Iain Douglas; Martin, R. M.; Rogers, Keith; Stone, N.; Adams, G.; Zioupos, Peter
    This study considers the relationship between microarchitecture and mechanical properties for cancellous bone specimens collected from a cohort of patients who had suffered fractured necks of femur. OP is an acute skeletal condition with huge socioeconomic impact [1] and it is associated with changes in both bone quantity and quality [2], which affect greatly the strength and toughness of the tissue [3].
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    The micro-architecture of human cancellous bone from fracture neck of femur patients in relation to the structural integrity and fracture toughness of the tissue
    (Elsevier, 2015-10-05) Greenwood, Charlene; Clement, J. G.; Dicken, A. J.; Evand, J. P. O.; Lyburn, Iain Douglas; Martin, R. M.; Rogers, Keith; Stone, N.; Adams, G.; Zioupos, Peter
    Osteoporosis is clinically assessed from bone mineral density measurements using dual energy X-ray absorption (DXA). However, these measurements do not always provide an accurate fracture prediction, arguably because DXA does not grapple with ‘bone quality’, which is a combined result of microarchitecture, texture, bone tissue properties, past loading history, material chemistry and bone physiology in reaction to disease. Studies addressing bone quality are comparatively few if one considers the potential importance of this factor. They suffer due to low number of human osteoporotic specimens, use of animal proxies and/or the lack of differentiation between confounding parameters such as gender and state of diseased bone. The present study considers bone samples donated from patients (n = 37) who suffered a femoral neck fracture and in this very well defined cohort we have produced in previous work fracture toughness measurements (FT) which quantify its ability to resist crack growth which reflects directly the structural integrity of the cancellous bone tissue. We investigated correlations between BV/TV and other microarchitectural parameters; we examined effects that may suggest differences in bone remodelling between males and females and compared the relationships with the FT properties. The data crucially has shown that TbTh, TbSp, SMI and TbN may provide a proxy or surrogate for BV/TV. Correlations between FT critical stress intensity values and microarchitecture parameters (BV/TV, BS/TV, TbN, BS/BV and SMI) for osteoporotic cancellous tissue were observed and are for the first time reported in this study. Overall, this study has not only highlighted that the fracture model based upon BMD could potentially be improved with inclusion of other microarchitecture parameters, but has also given us clear clues as to which of them are more influential in this role.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    X-ray absorption tomography employing a conical shell beam
    (Optical Society of America, 2016-12-12) Evans, J. Paul O.; Godber, S. X.; Elarnaut, F.; Downes, D.; Dicken, A. J.; Rogers, Keith
    We demonstrate depth-resolved absorption imaging by scanning an object through a conical shell of X-rays. We measure ring shaped projections and apply tomosynthesis to extract optical sections at different axial focal plane positions. Three-dimensional objects have been imaged to validate our theoretical treatment. The novel principle of our method is scalable with respect to both scan size and X-ray energy. A driver for this work is to complement previously reported methods concerning the measurement of diffracted X-rays for structural analysis. The prospect of employing conical shell beams to combine both absorption and diffraction modalities would provide enhanced analytical utility and has many potential applications in security screening, process control and diagnostic imaging.