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At least 505 records · Page 28

Alignment Focus of Daily Image Guidance for Concurrent Treatment of Prostate and Pelvic Lymph Nodes

Purpose: To determine the dosimetric impact of daily imaging alignment focus on the prostate soft tissue versus the pelvic bones for the concurrent treatment of the prostate and pelvic lymph nodes (PLN) and to assess whether multileaf collimator (MLC) tracking or adaptive planning (ART) is necessary with the current clinical planning margins of 8 mm/6 mm posterior to the prostate and 5 mm to the PLN. Methods and Materials: A total of 124 kilovoltage cone-beam computed tomography (kV-CBCT) images from 6 patients were studied. For each KV-CBCT, 4 plans were retrospectively created using an isocenter shifting method with 2 different alignment focuses (prostate, PLN), an MLC shifting method, and the ART method. The selected dosimetric endpoints were compared among these plans. Results: For the isoshift contour, isoshift bone, MLC shift, and ART plans, D99 of the prostate was ≥97% of the prescription dose in 97.6%, 73.4%, 98.4%, and 96.8% of 124 fractions, respectively. Accordingly, D99 of the PLN was ≥97% of the prescription dose in 98.4%, 98.4%, 98.4%, and 100% of 124 fractions, respectively. For the rectum, D5 exceeded 105% of the planned D5 (and D5 of ART plans) in 11% (4%), 10% (2%), and 13% (5%) of 124 fractions, respectively. For the bladder, D5 exceeded 105% of the planned D5 (and D5 of ART) plans in 0% (2%), 0% (2%), and 0% (1%) of 124 fractions, respectively. Conclusion: For concurrent treatment of the prostate and PLN, with a planning margin to the prostate of 8 mm/6 mm posterior and a planning margin of 5 mm to the PLN, aligning to the prostate soft tissue can achieve adequate dose coverage to the both target volumes; aligning to the pelvic bone would result in underdosing to the prostate in one-third of fractions. With these planning margins, MLC tracking and ART methods have no dosimetric advantages.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

AdS/QCD, Light-Front Holography, and Sublimated Gluons

The gauge/gravity duality leads to a simple analytical and phenomenologically compelling nonperturbative approximation to the full light-front QCD Hamiltonian - 'Light-Front Holography', which provides a Lorentz-invariant first-approximation to QCD, and successfully describes the spectroscopy of light-quark meson and baryons, their elastic and transition form factors, and other hadronic properties. The bound-state Schroedinger and Dirac equations of the soft-wall AdS/QCD model predict linear Regge trajectories which have the same slope in orbital angular momentum L and radial quantum number n for both mesons and baryons. Light-front holography connects the fifth-dimensional coordinate of AdS space z to an invariant impact separation variable {zeta} in 3+1 space at fixed light-front time. A key feature is the determination of the frame-independent light-front wavefunctions of hadrons - the relativistic analogs of the Schroedinger wavefunctions of atomic physics which allow one to compute form factors, transversity distributions, spin properties of the valence quarks, jet hadronization, and other hadronic observables. One thus obtains a one-parameter color-confining model for hadron physics at the amplitude level. AdS/QCD also predicts the form of the non-perturbative effective coupling {alpha}{sub s}{sup AdS} (Q) and its {beta}-function with an infrared fixed point which agrees with the effective coupling a{sub g1} (Q{sup 2}) extracted from measurements of the Bjorken sum rule below Q{sup 2} < 1 GeV{sup 2}. This is consistent with a flux-tube interpretation of QCD where soft gluons with virtualities Q{sup 2} < 1 GeV{sup 2} are sublimated into a color-confining potential for quarks. We discuss a number of phenomenological hadronic properties which support this picture.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Electroweak logarithms in inclusive cross sections

We expand the framework to perform all-orders resummation of electroweak logarithms of Q/M for inclusive scattering processes at energies Q much above the electroweak scale M . We determine all ingredients needed at next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) order and provide an explicit recipe to implement this for 2 → 2 processes. PDF evolution including electroweak corrections, which lead to Sudakov double logarithms, is computed. If only the invariant mass of the final state is measured, all electroweak logarithms can be resummed by the PDF evolution, at least to LL. However, simply identifying a lepton in the final state requires the corresponding fragmentation function and introduces angular dependence through the exchange of soft gauge bosons. Furthermore, we show the importance of polarization effects for gauge bosons, due to the chiral nature of SU(2) — even the gluon distribution in an unpolarized proton becomes polarized at high scales due to electroweak effects. We justify our approach with a factorization analysis, finding that the objects entering the factorization theorem do not need to be SU(2) × U(1) gauge singlets, even though we perform the factorization and resummation in the symmetric phase. We also discuss a range of extensions, including jets and how to calculate the EW logarithms when you are fully exclusive in the central (detector) region and fully inclusive in the forward (beam) regions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Characterization of a triboelectric x-ray spectrum

Low-energy X-ray imaging system has been useful in medical diagnostic in order to obtain high contrast in soft tissue. Recently, Camara et al. and most recently Hird et al. have produced low-energy X-rays using a triboelectric effect. The main aim of this work is to characterize the penetration (beam quality) of a triboelectric X-ray source in terms of the computed Half Value Layer (HVL). Additionally, the computed HVL of the triboelectric X-ray source has been compared with the HVL of X-ray tube Mo-anode (Apogee 5000). According to our computations the triboelectric X-ray source has a similar penetration such as a X-ray tube source.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Pre- and post-treatment image-based dosimetry in 90 Y-microsphere radioembolization using the TOPAS Monte Carlo toolkit

Objective.To evaluate the pre-treatment and post-treatment imaging-based dosimetry of patients treated with 90Y-microspheres, including accurate estimations of dose to tumor, healthy liver and lung. To do so, the Monte Carlo (MC) TOPAS platform is in this work extended towards its utilization in radionuclide therapy. Approach. In this study, five patients treated at the Massachusetts General Hospital were selected for this study. All patients had data for both pre-treatment SPECT-CT imaging using 99mTc-MAA as a surrogate of the 90Y-microspheres treatment and SPECT-CT imaging immediately after the 90Y activity administration. Pre- and post-treatment doses were computed with TOPAS using the SPECT images to localize the source positions and the CT images to account for tissue inhomoegeneities. We compared our results with analytical calculations following the voxel-based MIRD scheme. Main results. TOPAS results largely agreed with the MIRD-based calculations in soft tissue regions: the average difference in mean dose to the liver was 0.14 Gy GBq -1 (2.6%). However, dose distributions in the lung differed considerably: absolute differences in mean doses to the lung ranged from 1.2 to 6.3 Gy GBq -1 and relative differences from 153% to 231%. We also found large differences in the intra-hepatic dose distributions between pre- and post-treatment imaging, but only limited differences in the pulmonary dose. Significance. Doses to lung were found to be higher using TOPAS with respect to analytical calculations which may significantly underestimate dose to the lung, suggesting the use of MC methods for 90Y dosimetry. According to our results, pre-treatment imaging may still be representative of dose to lung in these treatments.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

EUV photolithography mask inspection using Fourier ptychography

Fourier ptychography is a computational imaging techniques that combines various full-field coherent images acquired under varied illumination angles and combined to yield a angular spectrum with a large synthetic numerical aperture and non-interferometric phase information. We present here the implementation of this technique in a full-field soft x-ray microscope designed to emulate modern EUV lithography tools imaging conditions, and we show that this technique can be used for the study of EUV photomasks. The technique allows us to quantitatively characterize phase defects (predominant in EUV lithography), to study new mask designs made of phase structures, to study sub-resolution assist features and extend the resolution of the microscope down to 26-nm, correspond to the N1 technology node.

Wojdyla, Antoine↗

Controllable Reset Behavior in Domain Wall–Magnetic Tunnel Junction Artificial Neurons for Task-Adaptable Computation

Neuromorphic computing with spintronic devices has been of interest due to the limitations of CMOS-driven von Neumann computing. Domain wall–magnetic tunnel junction (DW-MTJ) devices have been shown to be able to intrinsically capture biological neuron behavior. Edgy-relaxed behavior, where a frequently firing neuron experiences a lower action potential threshold, may provide additional artificial neuronal functionality when executing repeated tasks. In this letter, we demonstrate that this behavior can be implemented in DW-MTJ artificial neurons via three alternative mechanisms: shape anisotropy, magnetic field, and current-driven soft reset. Using micromagnetics and analytical device modeling to classify the Optdigits handwritten digit dataset, we show that edgy-relaxed behavior improves both classification accuracy and classification rate for ordered datasets while sacrificing little to no accuracy for a randomized dataset. This letter establishes methods by which artificial spintronic neurons can be flexibly adapted to datasets.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Robust Operation of Soft Open Points in Active Distribution Networks with High Penetration of Photovoltaic Integration

Distributed generators (DGs) including photovoltaic panels (PVs) have been integrated dramatically in active distribution networks (ADNs). Due to the strong volatility and uncertainty, the high penetration of PV generation immensely exacerbates the conditions of voltage violation in ADNs. However, the emerging flexible interconnection technology based on soft open points (SOPs) provides increased controllability and flexibility to the system operation. For fully exploiting the regulation ability of SOPs to address the problems caused by PV, this paper proposes a robust optimization method to achieve the robust optimal operation of SOPs in ADNs. A two-stage adjustable robust optimization model is built to tackle the uncertainties of PV outputs, in which robust operation strategies of SOPs are generated to eliminate the voltage violations and reduce the power losses of ADNs. A column-and-constraint generation (C&CG) algorithm is developed to solve the proposed robust optimization model, which are formulated as second-order cone program (SOCP) to facilitate the accuracy and computation efficiency. Here, case studies on the modified IEEE 33-node system and comparisons with the deterministic optimization approach are conducted to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Impact response of US Army and National Football League helmet pad systems

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [LLNL] was tasked to compare the impact response of NFL helmet pad systems and U.S. Army pad systems compatible with an Advanced Combat Helmet [ACH] at impact velocities up to 20 ft/s. This was a one-year study funded by the U.S. Army and JIEDDO. The Army/JIEDDO point of contact is COL R. Todd Dombroski, DO, JIEDDO Surgeon. LLNL was chosen by committee to perform the research based on prior published computational studies of the mechanical response of helmets and skulls to blast. Our collaborators include the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory [USAARL] (a DoD laboratory responsible for impact testing helmets), Team Wendy and Oregon Aero (current and former ACH pad manufacturers), Riddell and Xenith (NFL pad manufacturers), and d3o (general purpose sports pad manufacturer). The manufacturer-supplied pad systems that were studied are shown in the figure below. The first two are the Army systems, which are bilayer foam pads with both hard and soft foam and a water-resistant airtight wrapper (Team Wendy) or a water-resistant airtight coating (Oregon Aero). The next two are NFL pad systems. The Xenith system consists of a thin foam pad and a hollow air-filled cylinder that elastically buckles under load. The Riddell system is a bilayer foam pad that is encased in an inflatable airbag with relief channels to neighboring pads in the helmet. The inflatable airbag is for comfort and provides no enhancement to impact mitigation. The d3o system consists of a rate-sensitive homogeneous dense foam. LLNL performed experiments to characterize the material properties of the individual foam materials and the response of the complete pad systems, to obtain parameters needed for the simulations. LLNL also performed X-ray CT scans of an ACH helmet shell that were used to construct a geometrically accurate computational model of the helmet. Two complementary sets of simulations were performed. The first set of simulations reproduced the experimental helmet impact certification tests performed by USAARL, who provided data for comparison. The goal of this set of simulations was to demonstrate the overall validity of LLNL's computational analyses and methods and understand the general physics of helmet impacts. In these tests and the corresponding simulations, an inverted ACH containing pads and a head-form are dropped onto a hemispherical anvil, at 10 and 14.14 ft/s impact velocities. The simulations predicted peak accelerations (the metric used by USAARL for comparing the performance of pad systems), rebound velocities, and impact durations consistent with the experimental data, thus demonstrating the validity and relevance of the simulation methods. Because the NFL pad systems are approximately double the thickness of the U.S. Army pads, they do not fit into the ACH. As a result, the NFL pads could not be simply placed into an ACH shell in either a simulation or an experiment without modifying their size and shape. Since impact mitigation depends critically on the available stopping distance and the area over which the stopping force is applied, it is important to consider identically shaped pads in order to compare their performance in a fair and meaningful manner. Consequently, the second set of simulations utilized a simplified simulation geometry consisting of a 5 kg cylindrical impactor (equal in mass to a head) striking equally sized pads from each manufacturer. The simulated bilayer foam pads had the same proportions of hard and soft foam as the actual pad systems, while the Xenith pads were simulated as a bilayer foam pad with material properties adjusted to give the same response as the actual Xenith pads. The effects of trapped air were included in the simulations of the Team Wendy and Oregon Aero pads. All simulations used material properties derived from the experiments conducted at LLNL. The acceleration history of the center of mass of the impactor was used to calculate the Head Injury Criterion (HIC) for each simulation, to assess the pad performance. The HIC is a well-established metric that combines both acceleration and duration of impact to assess the danger of injury, and is a more robust measure than peak acceleration. Our key findings are: (1) The performance of a pad depends on the range of impact velocities. At lower impact velocity, softer pads perform better. At higher impact velocity, harder pads perform better; (2) Thicker pads perform better at all velocities, but especially at high velocities; and (3) For comparable thicknesses, neither the NFL systems nor the Oregon Aero pads outperform the Team Wendy pads currently used in the ACH system in militarily-relevant impact scenarios (impact speeds less than 20 ft/s). The second finding suggests a commercial off-the-shelf solution for mitigating impact-related traumatic brain injury to soldiers.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Polymers with controlled assembly and rigidity made with click-functional peptide bundles

The engineering of biological molecules is a key concept in the design of highly functional, sophisticated soft materials. Biomolecules exhibit a wide range of functions and structures, including chemical recognition (of enzyme substrates or adhesive ligands, for example), exquisite nanostructures (composed of peptides, proteins or nucleic acids), and unusual mechanical properties (such as silk-like strength, stiffness, viscoelasticity and resiliency). Here we combine the computational design of physical (noncovalent) interactions with pathway-dependent, hierarchical ‘click’ covalent assembly to produce hybrid synthetic peptide-based polymers. The nanometre-scale monomeric units of these polymers are homotetrameric, α-helical bundles of low-molecular-weight peptides. These bundled monomers, or ‘bundlemers’, can be designed to provide complete control of the stability, size and spatial display of chemical functionalities. The protein-like structure of the bundle allows precise positioning of covalent linkages between the ends of distinct bundlemers, resulting in polymers with interesting and controllable physical characteristics, such as rigid rods, semiflexible or kinked chains, and thermally responsive hydrogel networks. Chain stiffness can be controlled by varying only the linkage. Moreover, by controlling the amino acid sequence along the bundlemer periphery, we use specific amino acid side chains, including non-natural ‘click’ chemistry functionalities, to conjugate moieties into a desired pattern, enabling the creation of a wide variety of hybrid nanomaterials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

CAT: computer aided triage improving upon the Bayes risk through ε-refusal triage rules

Manual extraction of information from electronic pathology (epath) reports to populate the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Result (SEER) database is labor intensive. Systematizing the data extraction automatically using machine-learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) is desirable to reduce the human labor required to populate the SEER database and to improve the timeliness of the data. This enables scaling up registry efficiency and collection of new data elements. To ensure the integrity, quality, and continuity of the SEER data, the misclassification error of ML and NPL algorithms needs to be negligible. Current algorithms fail to achieve the precision of human experts who can bring additional information in their assessments. Differences in registry format and the desire to develop a common information extraction platform further complicate the ML/NLP tasks. The purpose of our study is to develop triage rules to partially automate registry workflow to improve the precision of the auto-extracted information. This paper presents a mathematical framework to improve the precision of a classifier beyond that of the Bayes classifier by selectively classifying item that are most likely to be correct. This results in a triage rule that only classifies a subset of the item. We characterize the optimal triage rule and demonstrate its usefulness in the problem of classifying cancer site from electronic pathology reports to achieve a desired precision. From the mathematical formalism, we propose a heuristic estimate for triage rule based on post-processing the soft-max output from standard machine learning algorithms. We show, in test cases, that the triage rule significantly improve the classification accuracy.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Stability, Visibility, and Histologic Analysis of a New Implanted Fiducial for Use as a Kilovoltage Radiographic or Radioactive Marker for Patient Positioning and Monitoring in Radiotherapy

Purpose: To analyze the stability, visibility, and histology of a novel implantable soft-tissue marker (nonradioactive and radioactive) implanted in dog prostate and rabbit liver. Methods and Materials: A total of 34 nonradioactive and 35 radioactive markers were implanted in 1 dog and 16 rabbits. Stability was assessed by measuring intermarker distance (IMD) variation relative to IMDs at implantation. The IMDs were measured weekly for 4 months in the dog and biweekly for 2-4 weeks in the rabbits. Ultrasound and X-ray imaging were performed on all subjects. Computed tomography and MRI were performed on the dog. Histologic analysis was performed on the rabbits after 2 or 4 months. Results: A total of 139 measurements had a mean ({+-} SD) absolute IMD variation of 1.1 {+-} 1.1 mm. These IMD variations are consistent with those reported in the literature as due to random organ deformation. The markers were visible, identifiable, and induced minimal or no image artifacts in all tested imaging modalities. Histologic analysis revealed that all pathologic changes were highly localized and not expected to be clinically significant. Conclusions: The markers were stable from the time of implantation. The markers were found to be compatible with all common medical imaging modalities. The markers caused no significant histologic effects. With respect to marker stability, visibility, and histologic analysis these implanted fiducials are appropriate for soft-tissue target positioning in radiotherapy.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Performance simulation of the soft gamma-ray concentrator

The soft gamma-ray concentrator is a telescope mission concept utilizing a suitable arrangement of bent multilayer structures of alternating low- and high-density materials. This lens is able to channel gamma-ray photons via total external reflection and concentrate the incident radiation to a point. The channeling technique offers the potential for concentrating gamma rays with focal lengths <10 m and energies >100 keV, beyond the reach of current grazing-incidence hard x-ray mirrors. For the performance estimation of such an instrument, we have developed a flexible set of computer modeling tools to compute the optical properties of multilayer structures, predict the channeling efficiency for a given multilayer configuration, and aid in the optimization of potential gamma-ray concentrator-based telescope designs. This modeling includes the multilayer optical properties calculated by the IMD software, the ray tracing using an IDL code, and the focal plane detector simulation by MEGAlib. We illustrate the potential of this approach by presenting simulated astronomical observations from a balloon-borne platform. The final result, including simulated effective area, instrument sensitivity, and polarization performance, shows that the gamma-ray concentrator will provide greatly increased sensitivity for next-generation soft gamma-ray missions with modest cost and complexity.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Farm-level Interactions Study of a Novel Tri-port Soft-switching Medium-Voltage String Inverter (MVSI) based Large-scale PV-Plus-Storage Farms

A medium-voltage photovoltaic power conversion unit supported by battery based on a novel topology of soft switching solid state transformer is presented in this paper. It can reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of PVS farm in an extended degree. However, its capability to provide grid-support services, such as frequency response, reactive power support, etc, have not been demonstrated. A series/parallel combination of these modules form a large 20 MVA solar farm. To validate them with reduced computation burden, a small-signal model of MVSI is firstly derived and validated in this paper. The model has been validated to match the full-switch model in both steady-state and dynamic conditions. Next, a farm-level simulation based on the proved small-signal model was implemented to demonstrate grid-support services. Real irradiation date from NREL is used to show the operational capabilities of the system. As a result, the overall farm is simulated based on MATLAB/Simulink domain to check the performance for various cases namely: power transfer from dc-ac side, reactive power support during grid voltage sag and utilization of battery during grid voltage disturbance or partial shading over PV panels.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

CT image artifacts from brachytherapy seed implants: A postprocessing 3D adaptive median filter

Purpose: To design a postprocessing 3D adaptive median filter that minimizes streak artifacts and improves soft-tissue contrast in postoperative CT images of brachytherapy seed implantations. Methods: The filter works by identifying voxels that are likely streaks and estimating more reflective voxel intensity by using voxel intensities in adjacent CT slices and applying a median filter over voxels not identified as seeds. Median values are computed over a 5x5x5 mm region of interest (ROI) within the CT volume. An acrylic phantom simulating a clinical seed implant arrangement and containing nonradioactive seeds was created. Low contrast subvolumes of tissuelike material were also embedded in the phantom. Pre- and postprocessed image quality metrics were compared using the standard deviation of ROIs between the seeds, the CT numbers of low contrast ROIs embedded within the phantom, the signal to noise ratio (SNR), and the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) of the low contrast ROIs. The method was demonstrated with a clinical postimplant CT dataset. Results: After the filter was applied, the standard deviation of CT values in streak artifact regions was significantly reduced from 76.5 to 7.2 HU. Within the observable low contrast plugs, the mean of all ROI standard deviations was significantly reduced from 60.5 to 3.9 HU, SNR significantly increased from 2.3 to 22.4, and CNR significantly increased from 0.2 to 4.1 (all P<0.01). The mean CT in the low contrast plugs remained within 5 HU of the original values. Conclusion: An efficient postprocessing filter that does not require access to projection data, which can be applied irrespective of CT scan parameters has been developed, provided the slice thickness and spacing is 3 mm or less.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Enhancement of diffraction efficiency of laminar-type diffraction gratings overcoated with diamond-like carbon (DLC) in soft x-ray region

Boron is the critical trace element in the production of high quality steel, creating a great demand for an efficient detection method of the B-K emission band at around 6.76 nm. To meet this demand we made a simulation study and obtained a practical method to improve the diffraction efficiency of metal-coated laminar-type gratings for a grazing incidence flat-field spectrograph by overcoating a sufficiently transparent high-density material. In the simulation the diffraction efficiency in a spectral region of 3.5-8.5 nm was computed for several combinations of overcoating materials and coating metals, with various thicknesses of the overcoating layer. The result obtained are: (1) the best overcoating material is high-density diamond-like carbon (DLC) having a density of 3.1 g/cm{sup 3}, (2) its optimum thickness is 24 nm at an angle of incidence of 87.0°, and (3) with this thickness the first-order diffraction efficiency is expected to reach 29.7 %, which well exceeds 15.6 % for Ni-coated (or 14.1 % for Au-coated) grating.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Actuating Liquid Crystals Rapidly and Reversibly by Using Chemical Catalysis

Abstract Microtubules and catalytic motor proteins underlie the microscale actuation of living materials, and they have been used in reconstituted systems to harness chemical energy to drive new states of organization of soft matter (e.g., liquid crystals (LCs)). Such materials, however, are fragile and challenging to translate to technological contexts. Rapid (sub‐second) and reversible changes in the orientations of LCs at room temperature using reactions between gaseous hydrogen and oxygen that are catalyzed by Pd/Au surfaces are reported. Surface chemical analysis and computational chemistry studies confirm that dissociative adsorption of H 2 on the Pd/Au films reduces preadsorbed O and generates 1 ML of adsorbed H, driving nitrile‐containing LCs from a perpendicular to a planar orientation. Subsequent exposure to O 2 leads to oxidation of the adsorbed H, reformation of adsorbed O on the Pd/Au surface, and a return of the LC to its initial orientation. The roles of surface composition and reaction kinetics in determining the LC dynamics are described along with a proof‐of‐concept demonstration of microactuation of beads. These results provide fresh ideas for utilizing chemical energy and catalysis to reversibly actuate functional LCs on the microscale.

Chemistry↗