A point kernel algorithm for microbeam radiation therapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Debus, Charlotte; Oelfke, Uwe; Bartzsch, Stefan

2017-11-01

Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) is a treatment approach in radiation therapy where the treatment field is spatially fractionated into arrays of a few tens of micrometre wide planar beams of unusually high peak doses separated by low dose regions of several hundred micrometre width. In preclinical studies, this treatment approach has proven to spare normal tissue more effectively than conventional radiation therapy, while being equally efficient in tumour control. So far dose calculations in MRT, a prerequisite for future clinical applications are based on Monte Carlo simulations. However, they are computationally expensive, since scoring volumes have to be small. In this article a kernel based dose calculation algorithm is presented that splits the calculation into photon and electron mediated energy transport, and performs the calculation of peak and valley doses in typical MRT treatment fields within a few minutes. Kernels are analytically calculated depending on the energy spectrum and material composition. In various homogeneous materials peak, valley doses and microbeam profiles are calculated and compared to Monte Carlo simulations. For a microbeam exposure of an anthropomorphic head phantom calculated dose values are compared to measurements and Monte Carlo calculations. Except for regions close to material interfaces calculated peak dose values match Monte Carlo results within 4% and valley dose values within 8% deviation. No significant differences are observed between profiles calculated by the kernel algorithm and Monte Carlo simulations. Measurements in the head phantom agree within 4% in the peak and within 10% in the valley region. The presented algorithm is attached to the treatment planning platform VIRTUOS. It was and is used for dose calculations in preclinical and pet-clinical trials at the biomedical beamline ID17 of the European synchrotron radiation facility in Grenoble, France.

Calculation of electron and isotopes dose point kernels with fluka Monte Carlo code for dosimetry in nuclear medicine therapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Botta, F; Di Dia, A; Pedroli, G

The calculation of patient-specific dose distribution can be achieved by Monte Carlo simulations or by analytical methods. In this study, fluka Monte Carlo code has been considered for use in nuclear medicine dosimetry. Up to now, fluka has mainly been dedicated to other fields, namely high energy physics, radiation protection, and hadrontherapy. When first employing a Monte Carlo code for nuclear medicine dosimetry, its results concerning electron transport at energies typical of nuclear medicine applications need to be verified. This is commonly achieved by means of calculation of a representative parameter and comparison with reference data. Dose point kernel (DPK),more » quantifying the energy deposition all around a point isotropic source, is often the one.Methods: fluka DPKs have been calculated in both water and compact bone for monoenergetic electrons (10–3 MeV) and for beta emitting isotopes commonly used for therapy (89Sr, 90Y, 131I, 153Sm, 177Lu, 186Re, and 188Re). Point isotropic sources have been simulated at the center of a water (bone) sphere, and deposed energy has been tallied in concentric shells. fluka outcomes have been compared to penelope v.2008 results, calculated in this study as well. Moreover, in case of monoenergetic electrons in water, comparison with the data from the literature (etran, geant4, mcnpx) has been done. Maximum percentage differences within 0.8·RCSDA and 0.9·RCSDA for monoenergetic electrons (RCSDA being the continuous slowing down approximation range) and within 0.8·X90 and 0.9·X90 for isotopes (X90 being the radius of the sphere in which 90% of the emitted energy is absorbed) have been computed, together with the average percentage difference within 0.9·RCSDA and 0.9·X90 for electrons and isotopes, respectively.Results: Concerning monoenergetic electrons, within 0.8·RCSDA (where 90%–97% of the particle energy is deposed), fluka and penelope agree mostly within 7%, except for 10 and 20 keV electrons (12% in

Point kernel calculations of skyshine exposure rates

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Roseberry, M.L.; Shultis, J.K.

1982-02-01

A simple point kernel model is presented for the calculation of skyshine exposure rates arising from the atmospheric reflection of gamma radiation produced by a vertically collimated or a shielded point source. This model is shown to be in good agreement with benchmark experimental data from a /sup 60/Co source for distances out to 700 m.

Comparison of GATE/GEANT4 with EGSnrc and MCNP for electron dose calculations at energies between 15 keV and 20 MeV.

PubMed

Maigne, L; Perrot, Y; Schaart, D R; Donnarieix, D; Breton, V

2011-02-07

The GATE Monte Carlo simulation platform based on the GEANT4 toolkit has come into widespread use for simulating positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging devices. Here, we explore its use for calculating electron dose distributions in water. Mono-energetic electron dose point kernels and pencil beam kernels in water are calculated for different energies between 15 keV and 20 MeV by means of GATE 6.0, which makes use of the GEANT4 version 9.2 Standard Electromagnetic Physics Package. The results are compared to the well-validated codes EGSnrc and MCNP4C. It is shown that recent improvements made to the GEANT4/GATE software result in significantly better agreement with the other codes. We furthermore illustrate several issues of general interest to GATE and GEANT4 users who wish to perform accurate simulations involving electrons. Provided that the electron step size is sufficiently restricted, GATE 6.0 and EGSnrc dose point kernels are shown to agree to within less than 3% of the maximum dose between 50 keV and 4 MeV, while pencil beam kernels are found to agree to within less than 4% of the maximum dose between 15 keV and 20 MeV.

Sub-second pencil beam dose calculation on GPU for adaptive proton therapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

da Silva, Joakim; Ansorge, Richard; Jena, Rajesh

2015-06-01

Although proton therapy delivered using scanned pencil beams has the potential to produce better dose conformity than conventional radiotherapy, the created dose distributions are more sensitive to anatomical changes and patient motion. Therefore, the introduction of adaptive treatment techniques where the dose can be monitored as it is being delivered is highly desirable. We present a GPU-based dose calculation engine relying on the widely used pencil beam algorithm, developed for on-line dose calculation. The calculation engine was implemented from scratch, with each step of the algorithm parallelized and adapted to run efficiently on the GPU architecture. To ensure fast calculation, it employs several application-specific modifications and simplifications, and a fast scatter-based implementation of the computationally expensive kernel superposition step. The calculation time for a skull base treatment plan using two beam directions was 0.22 s on an Nvidia Tesla K40 GPU, whereas a test case of a cubic target in water from the literature took 0.14 s to calculate. The accuracy of the patient dose distributions was assessed by calculating the γ-index with respect to a gold standard Monte Carlo simulation. The passing rates were 99.2% and 96.7%, respectively, for the 3%/3 mm and 2%/2 mm criteria, matching those produced by a clinical treatment planning system.

Sub-second pencil beam dose calculation on GPU for adaptive proton therapy.

PubMed

da Silva, Joakim; Ansorge, Richard; Jena, Rajesh

2015-06-21

Although proton therapy delivered using scanned pencil beams has the potential to produce better dose conformity than conventional radiotherapy, the created dose distributions are more sensitive to anatomical changes and patient motion. Therefore, the introduction of adaptive treatment techniques where the dose can be monitored as it is being delivered is highly desirable. We present a GPU-based dose calculation engine relying on the widely used pencil beam algorithm, developed for on-line dose calculation. The calculation engine was implemented from scratch, with each step of the algorithm parallelized and adapted to run efficiently on the GPU architecture. To ensure fast calculation, it employs several application-specific modifications and simplifications, and a fast scatter-based implementation of the computationally expensive kernel superposition step. The calculation time for a skull base treatment plan using two beam directions was 0.22 s on an Nvidia Tesla K40 GPU, whereas a test case of a cubic target in water from the literature took 0.14 s to calculate. The accuracy of the patient dose distributions was assessed by calculating the γ-index with respect to a gold standard Monte Carlo simulation. The passing rates were 99.2% and 96.7%, respectively, for the 3%/3 mm and 2%/2 mm criteria, matching those produced by a clinical treatment planning system.

SU-F-T-672: A Novel Kernel-Based Dose Engine for KeV Photon Beams

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Reinhart, M; Fast, M F; Nill, S

2016-06-15

Purpose: Mimicking state-of-the-art patient radiotherapy with high precision irradiators for small animals allows advanced dose-effect studies and radiobiological investigations. One example is the implementation of pre-clinical IMRT-like irradiations, which requires the development of inverse planning for keV photon beams. As a first step, we present a novel kernel-based dose calculation engine for keV x-rays with explicit consideration of energy and material dependencies. Methods: We follow a superposition-convolution approach adapted to keV x-rays, based on previously published work on micro-beam therapy. In small animal radiotherapy, we assume local energy deposition at the photon interaction point, since the electron ranges in tissuemore » are of the same order of magnitude as the voxel size. This allows us to use photon-only kernel sets generated by MC simulations, which are pre-calculated for six energy windows and ten base materials. We validate our stand-alone dose engine against Geant4 MC simulations for various beam configurations in water, slab phantoms with bone and lung inserts, and on a mouse CT with (0.275mm)3 voxels. Results: We observe good agreement for all cases. For field sizes of 1mm{sup 2} to 1cm{sup 2} in water, the depth dose curves agree within 1% (mean), with the largest deviations in the first voxel (4%) and at depths>5cm (<2.5%). The out-of-field doses at 1cm depth agree within 8% (mean) for all but the smallest field size. In slab geometries, the mean agreement was within 3%, with maximum deviations of 8% at water-bone interfaces. The γ-index (1mm/1%) passing rate for a single-field mouse irradiation is 71%. Conclusion: The presented dose engine yields an accurate representation of keV-photon doses suitable for inverse treatment planning for IMRT. It has the potential to become a significantly faster yet sufficiently accurate alternative to full MC simulations. Further investigations will focus on energy sampling as well as

Use of convolution/superposition-based treatment planning system for dose calculations in the kilovoltage energy range

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alaei, Parham

2000-11-01

A number of procedures in diagnostic radiology and cardiology make use of long exposures to x rays from fluoroscopy units. Adverse effects of these long exposure times on the patients' skin have been documented in recent years. These include epilation, erythema, and, in severe cases, moist desquamation and tissue necrosis. Potential biological effects from these exposures to other organs include radiation-induced cataracts and pneumonitis. Although there have been numerous studies to measure or calculate the dose to skin from these procedures, there have only been a handful of studies to determine the dose to other organs. Therefore, there is a need for accurate methods to measure the dose in tissues and organs other than the skin. This research was concentrated in devising a method to determine accurately the radiation dose to these tissues and organs. The work was performed in several stages: First, a three dimensional (3D) treatment planning system used in radiation oncology was modified and complemented to make it usable with the low energies of x rays used in diagnostic radiology. Using the system for low energies required generation of energy deposition kernels using Monte Carlo methods. These kernels were generated using the EGS4 Monte Carlo system of codes and added to the treatment planning system. Following modification, the treatment planning system was evaluated for its accuracy of calculations in low energies within homogeneous and heterogeneous media. A study of the effects of lungs and bones on the dose distribution was also performed. The next step was the calculation of dose distributions in humanoid phantoms using this modified system. The system was used to calculate organ doses in these phantoms and the results were compared to those obtained from other methods. These dose distributions can subsequently be used to create dose-volume histograms (DVHs) for internal organs irradiated by these beams. Using this data and the concept of normal tissue

SU-E-T-439: An Improved Formula of Scatter-To-Primary Ratio for Photon Dose Calculation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhu, T

2014-06-01

Purpose: Scatter-to-primary ratio (SPR) is an important dosimetric quantity that describes the contribution from the scatter photons in an external photon beam. The purpose of this study is to develop an improved analytical formula to describe SPR as a function of circular field size (r) and depth (d) using Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. Methods: MC simulation was performed for Mohan photon spectra (Co-60, 4, 6, 10, 15, 23 MV) using EGSNRC code. Point-spread scatter dose kernels in water are generated. The scatter-to-primary ratio (SPR) is also calculated using MC simulation as a function of field size for circular field sizemore » with radius r and depth d. The doses from forward scatter and backscatter photons are calculated using a convolution of the point-spread scatter dose kernel and by accounting for scatter photons contributing to dose before (z'd) reaching the depth of interest, d, where z' is the location of scatter photons, respectively. The depth dependence of the ratio of the forward scatter and backscatter doses is determined as a function of depth and field size. Results: We are able to improve the existing 3-parameter (a, w, d0) empirical formula for SPR by introducing depth dependence for one of the parameter d0, which becomes 0 for deeper depths. The depth dependence of d0 can be directly calculated as a ratio of backscatter-to-forward scatter doses for otherwise the same field and depth. With the improved empirical formula, we can fit SPR for all megavoltage photon beams to within 2%. Existing 3-parameter formula cannot fit SPR data for Co-60 to better than 3.1%. Conclusion: An improved empirical formula is developed to fit SPR for all megavoltage photon energies to within 2%.« less

Testing of the analytical anisotropic algorithm for photon dose calculation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Esch, Ann van; Tillikainen, Laura; Pyykkonen, Jukka

2006-11-15

The analytical anisotropic algorithm (AAA) was implemented in the Eclipse (Varian Medical Systems) treatment planning system to replace the single pencil beam (SPB) algorithm for the calculation of dose distributions for photon beams. AAA was developed to improve the dose calculation accuracy, especially in heterogeneous media. The total dose deposition is calculated as the superposition of the dose deposited by two photon sources (primary and secondary) and by an electron contamination source. The photon dose is calculated as a three-dimensional convolution of Monte-Carlo precalculated scatter kernels, scaled according to the electron density matrix. For the configuration of AAA, an optimizationmore » algorithm determines the parameters characterizing the multiple source model by optimizing the agreement between the calculated and measured depth dose curves and profiles for the basic beam data. We have combined the acceptance tests obtained in three different departments for 6, 15, and 18 MV photon beams. The accuracy of AAA was tested for different field sizes (symmetric and asymmetric) for open fields, wedged fields, and static and dynamic multileaf collimation fields. Depth dose behavior at different source-to-phantom distances was investigated. Measurements were performed on homogeneous, water equivalent phantoms, on simple phantoms containing cork inhomogeneities, and on the thorax of an anthropomorphic phantom. Comparisons were made among measurements, AAA, and SPB calculations. The optimization procedure for the configuration of the algorithm was successful in reproducing the basic beam data with an overall accuracy of 3%, 1 mm in the build-up region, and 1%, 1 mm elsewhere. Testing of the algorithm in more clinical setups showed comparable results for depth dose curves, profiles, and monitor units of symmetric open and wedged beams below d{sub max}. The electron contamination model was found to be suboptimal to model the dose around d{sub max

Calculation of electron and isotopes dose point kernels with fluka Monte Carlo code for dosimetry in nuclear medicine therapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Botta, F.; Mairani, A.; Battistoni, G.

Purpose: The calculation of patient-specific dose distribution can be achieved by Monte Carlo simulations or by analytical methods. In this study, fluka Monte Carlo code has been considered for use in nuclear medicine dosimetry. Up to now, fluka has mainly been dedicated to other fields, namely high energy physics, radiation protection, and hadrontherapy. When first employing a Monte Carlo code for nuclear medicine dosimetry, its results concerning electron transport at energies typical of nuclear medicine applications need to be verified. This is commonly achieved by means of calculation of a representative parameter and comparison with reference data. Dose point kernelmore » (DPK), quantifying the energy deposition all around a point isotropic source, is often the one. Methods: fluka DPKs have been calculated in both water and compact bone for monoenergetic electrons (10{sup -3} MeV) and for beta emitting isotopes commonly used for therapy ({sup 89}Sr, {sup 90}Y, {sup 131}I, {sup 153}Sm, {sup 177}Lu, {sup 186}Re, and {sup 188}Re). Point isotropic sources have been simulated at the center of a water (bone) sphere, and deposed energy has been tallied in concentric shells. fluka outcomes have been compared to penelope v.2008 results, calculated in this study as well. Moreover, in case of monoenergetic electrons in water, comparison with the data from the literature (etran, geant4, mcnpx) has been done. Maximum percentage differences within 0.8{center_dot}R{sub CSDA} and 0.9{center_dot}R{sub CSDA} for monoenergetic electrons (R{sub CSDA} being the continuous slowing down approximation range) and within 0.8{center_dot}X{sub 90} and 0.9{center_dot}X{sub 90} for isotopes (X{sub 90} being the radius of the sphere in which 90% of the emitted energy is absorbed) have been computed, together with the average percentage difference within 0.9{center_dot}R{sub CSDA} and 0.9{center_dot}X{sub 90} for electrons and isotopes, respectively. Results: Concerning monoenergetic

Dose Calculations for [131I] Meta-Iodobenzylguanidine-Induced Bystander Effects

PubMed Central

Gow, M. D.; Seymour, C. B.; Boyd, M.; Mairs, R. J.; Prestiwch, W. V.; Mothersill, C. E.

2014-01-01

Targeted radiotherapy is a potentially useful treatment for some cancers and may be potentiated by bystander effects. However, without estimation of absorbed dose, it is difficult to compare the effects with conventional external radiation treatment. Methods: Using the Vynckier – Wambersie dose point kernel, a model for dose rate evaluation was created allowing for calculation of absorbed dose values to two cell lines transfected with the noradrenaline transporter (NAT) gene and treated with [131I]MIBG. Results: The mean doses required to decrease surviving fractions of UVW/NAT and EJ138/NAT cells, which received medium from [131I]MIBG-treated cells, to 25 – 30% were 1.6 and 1.7 Gy respectively. The maximum mean dose rates achieved during [131I]MIBG treatment were 0.09 – 0.75 Gy/h for UVW/NAT and 0.07 – 0.78 Gy/h for EJ138/NAT. These were significantly lower than the external beam gamma radiation dose rate of 15 Gy/h. In the case of control lines which were incapable of [131I]MIBG uptake the mean absorbed doses following radiopharmaceutical were 0.03 – 0.23 Gy for UVW and 0.03 – 0.32 Gy for EJ138. Conclusion: [131I]MIBG treatment for ICCM production elicited a bystander dose-response profile similar to that generated by external beam gamma irradiation but with significantly greater cell death. PMID:24659931

Approximate kernel competitive learning.

PubMed

Wu, Jian-Sheng; Zheng, Wei-Shi; Lai, Jian-Huang

2015-03-01

Kernel competitive learning has been successfully used to achieve robust clustering. However, kernel competitive learning (KCL) is not scalable for large scale data processing, because (1) it has to calculate and store the full kernel matrix that is too large to be calculated and kept in the memory and (2) it cannot be computed in parallel. In this paper we develop a framework of approximate kernel competitive learning for processing large scale dataset. The proposed framework consists of two parts. First, it derives an approximate kernel competitive learning (AKCL), which learns kernel competitive learning in a subspace via sampling. We provide solid theoretical analysis on why the proposed approximation modelling would work for kernel competitive learning, and furthermore, we show that the computational complexity of AKCL is largely reduced. Second, we propose a pseudo-parallelled approximate kernel competitive learning (PAKCL) based on a set-based kernel competitive learning strategy, which overcomes the obstacle of using parallel programming in kernel competitive learning and significantly accelerates the approximate kernel competitive learning for large scale clustering. The empirical evaluation on publicly available datasets shows that the proposed AKCL and PAKCL can perform comparably as KCL, with a large reduction on computational cost. Also, the proposed methods achieve more effective clustering performance in terms of clustering precision against related approximate clustering approaches. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Patient-specific Monte Carlo-based dose-kernel approach for inverse planning in afterloading brachytherapy.

PubMed

D'Amours, Michel; Pouliot, Jean; Dagnault, Anne; Verhaegen, Frank; Beaulieu, Luc

2011-12-01

Brachytherapy planning software relies on the Task Group report 43 dosimetry formalism. This formalism, based on a water approximation, neglects various heterogeneous materials present during treatment. Various studies have suggested that these heterogeneities should be taken into account to improve the treatment quality. The present study sought to demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating Monte Carlo (MC) dosimetry within an inverse planning algorithm to improve the dose conformity and increase the treatment quality. The method was based on precalculated dose kernels in full patient geometries, representing the dose distribution of a brachytherapy source at a single dwell position using MC simulations and the Geant4 toolkit. These dose kernels are used by the inverse planning by simulated annealing tool to produce a fast MC-based plan. A test was performed for an interstitial brachytherapy breast treatment using two different high-dose-rate brachytherapy sources: the microSelectron iridium-192 source and the electronic brachytherapy source Axxent operating at 50 kVp. A research version of the inverse planning by simulated annealing algorithm was combined with MC to provide a method to fully account for the heterogeneities in dose optimization, using the MC method. The effect of the water approximation was found to depend on photon energy, with greater dose attenuation for the lower energies of the Axxent source compared with iridium-192. For the latter, an underdosage of 5.1% for the dose received by 90% of the clinical target volume was found. A new method to optimize afterloading brachytherapy plans that uses MC dosimetric information was developed. Including computed tomography-based information in MC dosimetry in the inverse planning process was shown to take into account the full range of scatter and heterogeneity conditions. This led to significant dose differences compared with the Task Group report 43 approach for the Axxent source. Copyright © 2011

An analytical dose-averaged LET calculation algorithm considering the off-axis LET enhancement by secondary protons for spot-scanning proton therapy.

PubMed

Hirayama, Shusuke; Matsuura, Taeko; Ueda, Hideaki; Fujii, Yusuke; Fujii, Takaaki; Takao, Seishin; Miyamoto, Naoki; Shimizu, Shinichi; Fujimoto, Rintaro; Umegaki, Kikuo; Shirato, Hiroki

2018-05-22

To evaluate the biological effects of proton beams as part of daily clinical routine, fast and accurate calculation of dose-averaged linear energy transfer (LET d ) is required. In this study, we have developed the analytical LET d calculation method based on the pencil-beam algorithm (PBA) considering the off-axis enhancement by secondary protons. This algorithm (PBA-dLET) was then validated using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) results. In PBA-dLET, LET values were assigned separately for each individual dose kernel based on the PBA. For the dose kernel, we employed a triple Gaussian model which consists of the primary component (protons that undergo the multiple Coulomb scattering) and the halo component (protons that undergo inelastic, nonelastic and elastic nuclear reaction); the primary and halo components were represented by a single Gaussian and the sum of two Gaussian distributions, respectively. Although the previous analytical approaches assumed a constant LET d value for the lateral distribution of a pencil beam, the actual LET d increases away from the beam axis, because there are more scattered and therefore lower energy protons with higher stopping powers. To reflect this LET d behavior, we have assumed that the LETs of primary and halo components can take different values (LET p and LET halo ), which vary only along the depth direction. The values of dual-LET kernels were determined such that the PBA-dLET reproduced the MCS-generated LET d distribution in both small and large fields. These values were generated at intervals of 1 mm in depth for 96 energies from 70.2 to 220 MeV and collected in the look-up table. Finally, we compared the LET d distributions and mean LET d (LET d,mean ) values of targets and organs at risk between PBA-dLET and MCS. Both homogeneous phantom and patient geometries (prostate, liver, and lung cases) were used to validate the present method. In the homogeneous phantom, the LET d profiles obtained by the dual-LET kernels

Evaluation of the accuracy of mono-energetic electron and beta-emitting isotope dose-point kernels using particle and heavy ion transport code system: PHITS.

PubMed

Shiiba, Takuro; Kuga, Naoya; Kuroiwa, Yasuyoshi; Sato, Tatsuhiko

2017-10-01

We assessed the accuracy of mono-energetic electron and beta-emitting isotope dose-point kernels (DPKs) calculated using the particle and heavy ion transport code system (PHITS) for patient-specific dosimetry in targeted radionuclide treatment (TRT) and compared our data with published data. All mono-energetic and beta-emitting isotope DPKs calculated using PHITS, both in water and compact bone, were in good agreement with those in literature using other MC codes. PHITS provided reliable mono-energetic electron and beta-emitting isotope scaled DPKs for patient-specific dosimetry. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Absorbed Dose and Dose Equivalent Calculations for Modeling Effective Dose

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Welton, Andrew; Lee, Kerry

2010-01-01

While in orbit, Astronauts are exposed to a much higher dose of ionizing radiation than when on the ground. It is important to model how shielding designs on spacecraft reduce radiation effective dose pre-flight, and determine whether or not a danger to humans is presented. However, in order to calculate effective dose, dose equivalent calculations are needed. Dose equivalent takes into account an absorbed dose of radiation and the biological effectiveness of ionizing radiation. This is important in preventing long-term, stochastic radiation effects in humans spending time in space. Monte carlo simulations run with the particle transport code FLUKA, give absorbed and equivalent dose data for relevant shielding. The shielding geometry used in the dose calculations is a layered slab design, consisting of aluminum, polyethylene, and water. Water is used to simulate the soft tissues that compose the human body. The results obtained will provide information on how the shielding performs with many thicknesses of each material in the slab. This allows them to be directly applicable to modern spacecraft shielding geometries.

DICOM organ dose does not accurately represent calculated dose in mammography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suleiman, Moayyad E.; Brennan, Patrick C.; McEntee, Mark F.

2016-03-01

This study aims to analyze the agreement between the mean glandular dose estimated by the mammography unit (organ dose) and mean glandular dose calculated using Dance et al published method (calculated dose). Anonymised digital mammograms from 50 BreastScreen NSW centers were downloaded and exposure information required for the calculation of dose was extracted from the DICOM header along with the organ dose estimated by the system. Data from quality assurance annual tests for the included centers were collected and used to calculate the mean glandular dose for each mammogram. Bland-Altman analysis and a two-tailed paired t-test were used to study the agreement between calculated and organ dose and the significance of any differences. A total of 27,869 dose points from 40 centers were included in the study, mean calculated dose and mean organ dose (+/- standard deviation) were 1.47 (+/-0.66) and 1.38 (+/-0.56) mGy respectively. A statistically significant 0.09 mGy bias (t = 69.25; p<0.0001) with 95% limits of agreement between calculated and organ doses ranging from -0.34 and 0.52 were shown by Bland-Altman analysis, which indicates a small yet highly significant difference between the two means. The use of organ dose for dose audits is done at the risk of over or underestimating the calculated dose, hence, further work is needed to identify the causal agents for differences between organ and calculated doses and to generate a correction factor for organ dose.

Low-energy electron dose-point kernel simulations using new physics models implemented in Geant4-DNA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bordes, Julien; Incerti, Sébastien; Lampe, Nathanael; Bardiès, Manuel; Bordage, Marie-Claude

2017-05-01

When low-energy electrons, such as Auger electrons, interact with liquid water, they induce highly localized ionizing energy depositions over ranges comparable to cell diameters. Monte Carlo track structure (MCTS) codes are suitable tools for performing dosimetry at this level. One of the main MCTS codes, Geant4-DNA, is equipped with only two sets of cross section models for low-energy electron interactions in liquid water (;option 2; and its improved version, ;option 4;). To provide Geant4-DNA users with new alternative physics models, a set of cross sections, extracted from CPA100 MCTS code, have been added to Geant4-DNA. This new version is hereafter referred to as ;Geant4-DNA-CPA100;. In this study, ;Geant4-DNA-CPA100; was used to calculate low-energy electron dose-point kernels (DPKs) between 1 keV and 200 keV. Such kernels represent the radial energy deposited by an isotropic point source, a parameter that is useful for dosimetry calculations in nuclear medicine. In order to assess the influence of different physics models on DPK calculations, DPKs were calculated using the existing Geant4-DNA models (;option 2; and ;option 4;), newly integrated CPA100 models, and the PENELOPE Monte Carlo code used in step-by-step mode for monoenergetic electrons. Additionally, a comparison was performed of two sets of DPKs that were simulated with ;Geant4-DNA-CPA100; - the first set using Geant4‧s default settings, and the second using CPA100‧s original code default settings. A maximum difference of 9.4% was found between the Geant4-DNA-CPA100 and PENELOPE DPKs. Between the two Geant4-DNA existing models, slight differences, between 1 keV and 10 keV were observed. It was highlighted that the DPKs simulated with the two Geant4-DNA's existing models were always broader than those generated with ;Geant4-DNA-CPA100;. The discrepancies observed between the DPKs generated using Geant4-DNA's existing models and ;Geant4-DNA-CPA100; were caused solely by their different cross

Superficial dose evaluation of four dose calculation algorithms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cao, Ying; Yang, Xiaoyu; Yang, Zhen; Qiu, Xiaoping; Lv, Zhiping; Lei, Mingjun; Liu, Gui; Zhang, Zijian; Hu, Yongmei

2017-08-01

Accurate superficial dose calculation is of major importance because of the skin toxicity in radiotherapy, especially within the initial 2 mm depth being considered more clinically relevant. The aim of this study is to evaluate superficial dose calculation accuracy of four commonly used algorithms in commercially available treatment planning systems (TPS) by Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and film measurements. The superficial dose in a simple geometrical phantom with size of 30 cm×30 cm×30 cm was calculated by PBC (Pencil Beam Convolution), AAA (Analytical Anisotropic Algorithm), AXB (Acuros XB) in Eclipse system and CCC (Collapsed Cone Convolution) in Raystation system under the conditions of source to surface distance (SSD) of 100 cm and field size (FS) of 10×10 cm2. EGSnrc (BEAMnrc/DOSXYZnrc) program was performed to simulate the central axis dose distribution of Varian Trilogy accelerator, combined with measurements of superficial dose distribution by an extrapolation method of multilayer radiochromic films, to estimate the dose calculation accuracy of four algorithms in the superficial region which was recommended in detail by the ICRU (International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurement) and the ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection). In superficial region, good agreement was achieved between MC simulation and film extrapolation method, with the mean differences less than 1%, 2% and 5% for 0°, 30° and 60°, respectively. The relative skin dose errors were 0.84%, 1.88% and 3.90%; the mean dose discrepancies (0°, 30° and 60°) between each of four algorithms and MC simulation were (2.41±1.55%, 3.11±2.40%, and 1.53±1.05%), (3.09±3.00%, 3.10±3.01%, and 3.77±3.59%), (3.16±1.50%, 8.70±2.84%, and 18.20±4.10%) and (14.45±4.66%, 10.74±4.54%, and 3.34±3.26%) for AXB, CCC, AAA and PBC respectively. Monte Carlo simulation verified the feasibility of the superficial dose measurements by multilayer Gafchromic films. And the rank

SU-E-T-22: A Deterministic Solver of the Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck Equation for Dose Calculation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hong, X; Gao, H; Paganetti, H

2015-06-15

Purpose: The Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck equation (BFPE) accurately models the migration of photons/charged particles in tissues. While the Monte Carlo (MC) method is popular for solving BFPE in a statistical manner, we aim to develop a deterministic BFPE solver based on various state-of-art numerical acceleration techniques for rapid and accurate dose calculation. Methods: Our BFPE solver is based on the structured grid that is maximally parallelizable, with the discretization in energy, angle and space, and its cross section coefficients are derived or directly imported from the Geant4 database. The physical processes that are taken into account are Compton scattering, photoelectric effect, pairmore » production for photons, and elastic scattering, ionization and bremsstrahlung for charged particles.While the spatial discretization is based on the diamond scheme, the angular discretization synergizes finite element method (FEM) and spherical harmonics (SH). Thus, SH is used to globally expand the scattering kernel and FFM is used to locally discretize the angular sphere. As a Result, this hybrid method (FEM-SH) is both accurate in dealing with forward-peaking scattering via FEM, and efficient for multi-energy-group computation via SH. In addition, FEM-SH enables the analytical integration in energy variable of delta scattering kernel for elastic scattering with reduced truncation error from the numerical integration based on the classic SH-based multi-energy-group method. Results: The accuracy of the proposed BFPE solver was benchmarked against Geant4 for photon dose calculation. In particular, FEM-SH had improved accuracy compared to FEM, while both were within 2% of the results obtained with Geant4. Conclusion: A deterministic solver of the Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck equation is developed for dose calculation, and benchmarked against Geant4. Xiang Hong and Hao Gao were partially supported by the NSFC (#11405105), the 973 Program (#2015CB856000) and the Shanghai

Evaluation of the new electron-transport algorithm in MCNP6.1 for the simulation of dose point kernel in water

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Antoni, Rodolphe; Bourgois, Laurent

2017-12-01

In this work, the calculation of specific dose distribution in water is evaluated in MCNP6.1 with the regular condensed history algorithm the "detailed electron energy-loss straggling logic" and the new electrons transport algorithm proposed the "single event algorithm". Dose Point Kernel (DPK) is calculated with monoenergetic electrons of 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 3000 keV for different scoring cells dimensions. A comparison between MCNP6 results and well-validated codes for electron-dosimetry, i.e., EGSnrc or Penelope, is performed. When the detailed electron energy-loss straggling logic is used with default setting (down to the cut-off energy 1 keV), we infer that the depth of the dose peak increases with decreasing thickness of the scoring cell, largely due to combined step-size and boundary crossing artifacts. This finding is less prominent for 500 keV, 1 MeV and 3 MeV dose profile. With an appropriate number of sub-steps (ESTEP value in MCNP6), the dose-peak shift is almost complete absent to 50 keV and 100 keV electrons. However, the dose-peak is more prominent compared to EGSnrc and the absorbed dose tends to be underestimated at greater depths, meaning that boundaries crossing artifact are still occurring while step-size artifacts are greatly reduced. When the single-event mode is used for the whole transport, we observe the good agreement of reference and calculated profile for 50 and 100 keV electrons. Remaining artifacts are fully vanished, showing a possible transport treatment for energies less than a hundred of keV and accordance with reference for whatever scoring cell dimension, even if the single event method initially intended to support electron transport at energies below 1 keV. Conversely, results for 500 keV, 1 MeV and 3 MeV undergo a dramatic discrepancy with reference curves. These poor results and so the current unreliability of the method is for a part due to inappropriate elastic cross section treatment from the ENDF/B-VI.8 library in those

Statistic and dosimetric criteria to assess the shift of the prescribed dose for lung radiotherapy plans when integrating point kernel models in medical physics: are we ready?

PubMed

Chaikh, Abdulhamid; Balosso, Jacques

2016-12-01

To apply the statistical bootstrap analysis and dosimetric criteria's to assess the change of prescribed dose (PD) for lung cancer to maintain the same clinical results when using new generations of dose calculation algorithms. Nine lung cancer cases were studied. For each patient, three treatment plans were generated using exactly the same beams arrangements. In plan 1, the dose was calculated using pencil beam convolution (PBC) algorithm turning on heterogeneity correction with modified batho (PBC-MB). In plan 2, the dose was calculated using anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA) and the same PD, as plan 1. In plan 3, the dose was calculated using AAA with monitor units (MUs) obtained from PBC-MB, as input. The dosimetric criteria's include MUs, delivered dose at isocentre (Diso) and calculated dose to 95% of the target volume (D95). The bootstrap method was used to assess the significance of the dose differences and to accurately estimate the 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Wilcoxon and Spearman's rank tests were used to calculate P values and the correlation coefficient (ρ). Statistically significant for dose difference was found using point kernel model. A good correlation was observed between both algorithms types, with ρ>0.9. Using AAA instead of PBC-MB, an adjustment of the PD in the isocentre is suggested. For a given set of patients, we assessed the need to readjust the PD for lung cancer using dosimetric indices and bootstrap statistical method. Thus, if the goal is to keep on with the same clinical results, the PD for lung tumors has to be adjusted with AAA. According to our simulation we suggest to readjust the PD by 5% and an optimization for beam arrangements to better protect the organs at risks (OARs).

Absorbed dose evaluation of Auger electron-emitting radionuclides: impact of input decay spectra on dose point kernels and S-values

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Falzone, Nadia; Lee, Boon Q.; Fernández-Varea, José M.; Kartsonaki, Christiana; Stuchbery, Andrew E.; Kibédi, Tibor; Vallis, Katherine A.

2017-03-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of decay data provided by the newly developed stochastic atomic relaxation model BrIccEmis on dose point kernels (DPKs - radial dose distribution around a unit point source) and S-values (absorbed dose per unit cumulated activity) of 14 Auger electron (AE) emitting radionuclides, namely 67Ga, 80mBr, 89Zr, 90Nb, 99mTc, 111In, 117mSn, 119Sb, 123I, 124I, 125I, 135La, 195mPt and 201Tl. Radiation spectra were based on the nuclear decay data from the medical internal radiation dose (MIRD) RADTABS program and the BrIccEmis code, assuming both an isolated-atom and condensed-phase approach. DPKs were simulated with the PENELOPE Monte Carlo (MC) code using event-by-event electron and photon transport. S-values for concentric spherical cells of various sizes were derived from these DPKs using appropriate geometric reduction factors. The number of Auger and Coster-Kronig (CK) electrons and x-ray photons released per nuclear decay (yield) from MIRD-RADTABS were consistently higher than those calculated using BrIccEmis. DPKs for the electron spectra from BrIccEmis were considerably different from MIRD-RADTABS in the first few hundred nanometres from a point source where most of the Auger electrons are stopped. S-values were, however, not significantly impacted as the differences in DPKs in the sub-micrometre dimension were quickly diminished in larger dimensions. Overestimation in the total AE energy output by MIRD-RADTABS leads to higher predicted energy deposition by AE emitting radionuclides, especially in the immediate vicinity of the decaying radionuclides. This should be taken into account when MIRD-RADTABS data are used to simulate biological damage at nanoscale dimensions.

A new discriminative kernel from probabilistic models.

PubMed

Tsuda, Koji; Kawanabe, Motoaki; Rätsch, Gunnar; Sonnenburg, Sören; Müller, Klaus-Robert

2002-10-01

Recently, Jaakkola and Haussler (1999) proposed a method for constructing kernel functions from probabilistic models. Their so-called Fisher kernel has been combined with discriminative classifiers such as support vector machines and applied successfully in, for example, DNA and protein analysis. Whereas the Fisher kernel is calculated from the marginal log-likelihood, we propose the TOP kernel derived; from tangent vectors of posterior log-odds. Furthermore, we develop a theoretical framework on feature extractors from probabilistic models and use it for analyzing the TOP kernel. In experiments, our new discriminative TOP kernel compares favorably to the Fisher kernel.

The influence of the dose calculation resolution of VMAT plans on the calculated dose for eye lens and optic pathway.

PubMed

Park, Jong Min; Park, So-Yeon; Kim, Jung-In; Carlson, Joel; Kim, Jin Ho

2017-03-01

To investigate the effect of dose calculation grid on calculated dose-volumetric parameters for eye lenses and optic pathways. A total of 30 patients treated using the volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) technique, were retrospectively selected. For each patient, dose distributions were calculated with calculation grids ranging from 1 to 5 mm at 1 mm intervals. Identical structures were used for VMAT planning. The changes in dose-volumetric parameters according to the size of the calculation grid were investigated. Compared to dose calculation with 1 mm grid, the maximum doses to the eye lens with calculation grids of 2, 3, 4 and 5 mm increased by 0.2 ± 0.2 Gy, 0.5 ± 0.5 Gy, 0.9 ± 0.8 Gy and 1.7 ± 1.5 Gy on average, respectively. The Spearman's correlation coefficient between dose gradients near structures vs. the differences between the calculated doses with 1 mm grid and those with 5 mm grid, were 0.380 (p < 0.001). For the accurate calculation of dose distributions, as well as efficiency, using a grid size of 2 mm appears to be the most appropriate choice.

Practical applications of internal dose calculations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carbaugh, E.H.

1994-06-01

Accurate estimates of intake magnitude and internal dose are the goal for any assessment of an actual intake of radioactivity. When only one datum is available on which to base estimates, the choices for internal dose assessment become straight-forward: apply the appropriate retention or excretion function, calculate the intake, and calculate the dose. The difficulty comes when multiple data and different types of data become available. Then practical decisions must be made on how to interpret conflicting data, or how to adjust the assumptions and techniques underlying internal dose assessments to give results consistent with the data. This article describesmore » nine types of adjustments which can be incorporated into calculations of intake and internal dose, and then offers several practical insights to dealing with some real-world internal dose puzzles.« less

TH-E-BRE-07: Development of Dose Calculation Error Predictors for a Widely Implemented Clinical Algorithm

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Egan, A; Laub, W

2014-06-15

Purpose: Several shortcomings of the current implementation of the analytic anisotropic algorithm (AAA) may lead to dose calculation errors in highly modulated treatments delivered to highly heterogeneous geometries. Here we introduce a set of dosimetric error predictors that can be applied to a clinical treatment plan and patient geometry in order to identify high risk plans. Once a problematic plan is identified, the treatment can be recalculated with more accurate algorithm in order to better assess its viability. Methods: Here we focus on three distinct sources dosimetric error in the AAA algorithm. First, due to a combination of discrepancies inmore » smallfield beam modeling as well as volume averaging effects, dose calculated through small MLC apertures can be underestimated, while that behind small MLC blocks can overestimated. Second, due the rectilinear scaling of the Monte Carlo generated pencil beam kernel, energy is not properly transported through heterogeneities near, but not impeding, the central axis of the beamlet. And third, AAA overestimates dose in regions very low density (< 0.2 g/cm{sup 3}). We have developed an algorithm to detect the location and magnitude of each scenario within the patient geometry, namely the field-size index (FSI), the heterogeneous scatter index (HSI), and the lowdensity index (LDI) respectively. Results: Error indices successfully identify deviations between AAA and Monte Carlo dose distributions in simple phantom geometries. Algorithms are currently implemented in the MATLAB computing environment and are able to run on a typical RapidArc head and neck geometry in less than an hour. Conclusion: Because these error indices successfully identify each type of error in contrived cases, with sufficient benchmarking, this method can be developed into a clinical tool that may be able to help estimate AAA dose calculation errors and when it might be advisable to use Monte Carlo calculations.« less

Dose-Response Calculator for ArcGIS

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hanser, Steven E.; Aldridge, Cameron L.; Leu, Matthias; Nielsen, Scott E.

2011-01-01

The Dose-Response Calculator for ArcGIS is a tool that extends the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) ArcGIS 10 Desktop application to aid with the visualization of relationships between two raster GIS datasets. A dose-response curve is a line graph commonly used in medical research to examine the effects of different dosage rates of a drug or chemical (for example, carcinogen) on an outcome of interest (for example, cell mutations) (Russell and others, 1982). Dose-response curves have recently been used in ecological studies to examine the influence of an explanatory dose variable (for example, percentage of habitat cover, distance to disturbance) on a predicted response (for example, survival, probability of occurrence, abundance) (Aldridge and others, 2008). These dose curves have been created by calculating the predicted response value from a statistical model at different levels of the explanatory dose variable while holding values of other explanatory variables constant. Curves (plots) developed using the Dose-Response Calculator overcome the need to hold variables constant by using values extracted from the predicted response surface of a spatially explicit statistical model fit in a GIS, which include the variation of all explanatory variables, to visualize the univariate response to the dose variable. Application of the Dose-Response Calculator can be extended beyond the assessment of statistical model predictions and may be used to visualize the relationship between any two raster GIS datasets (see example in tool instructions). This tool generates tabular data for use in further exploration of dose-response relationships and a graph of the dose-response curve.

Three-Dimensional Electron Beam Dose Calculations.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shiu, Almon Sowchee

The MDAH pencil-beam algorithm developed by Hogstrom et al (1981) has been widely used in clinics for electron beam dose calculations for radiotherapy treatment planning. The primary objective of this research was to address several deficiencies of that algorithm and to develop an enhanced version. Two enhancements have been incorporated into the pencil-beam algorithm; one models fluence rather than planar fluence, and the other models the bremsstrahlung dose using measured beam data. Comparisons of the resulting calculated dose distributions with measured dose distributions for several test phantoms have been made. From these results it is concluded (1) that the fluence-based algorithm is more accurate to use for the dose calculation in an inhomogeneous slab phantom, and (2) the fluence-based calculation provides only a limited improvement to the accuracy the calculated dose in the region just downstream of the lateral edge of an inhomogeneity. The source of the latter inaccuracy is believed primarily due to assumptions made in the pencil beam's modeling of the complex phantom or patient geometry. A pencil-beam redefinition model was developed for the calculation of electron beam dose distributions in three dimensions. The primary aim of this redefinition model was to solve the dosimetry problem presented by deep inhomogeneities, which was the major deficiency of the enhanced version of the MDAH pencil-beam algorithm. The pencil-beam redefinition model is based on the theory of electron transport by redefining the pencil beams at each layer of the medium. The unique approach of this model is that all the physical parameters of a given pencil beam are characterized for multiple energy bins. Comparisons of the calculated dose distributions with measured dose distributions for a homogeneous water phantom and for phantoms with deep inhomogeneities have been made. From these results it is concluded that the redefinition algorithm is superior to the conventional

Technical Note: Dose gradients and prescription isodose in orthovoltage stereotactic radiosurgery

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fagerstrom, Jessica M., E-mail: fagerstrom@wisc.edu; Bender, Edward T.; Culberson, Wesley S.

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to examine the trade-off between prescription isodose and dose gradients in orthovoltage stereotactic radiosurgery. Methods: Point energy deposition kernels (EDKs) describing photon and electron transport were calculated using Monte Carlo methods. EDKs were generated from 10  to 250 keV, in 10 keV increments. The EDKs were converted to pencil beam kernels and used to calculate dose profiles through isocenter from a 4π isotropic delivery from all angles of circularly collimated beams. Monoenergetic beams and an orthovoltage polyenergetic spectrum were analyzed. The dose gradient index (DGI) is the ratio of the 50% prescription isodosemore » volume to the 100% prescription isodose volume and represents a metric by which dose gradients in stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) may be evaluated. Results: Using the 4π dose profiles calculated using pencil beam kernels, the relationship between DGI and prescription isodose was examined for circular cones ranging from 4 to 18 mm in diameter and monoenergetic photon beams with energies ranging from 20 to 250 keV. Values were found to exist for prescription isodose that optimize DGI. Conclusions: The relationship between DGI and prescription isodose was found to be dependent on both field size and energy. Examining this trade-off is an important consideration for designing optimal SRS systems.« less

Benchmarking of MCNP for calculating dose rates at an interim storage facility for nuclear waste.

PubMed

Heuel-Fabianek, Burkhard; Hille, Ralf

2005-01-01

During the operation of research facilities at Research Centre Jülich, Germany, nuclear waste is stored in drums and other vessels in an interim storage building on-site, which has a concrete shielding at the side walls. Owing to the lack of a well-defined source, measured gamma spectra were unfolded to determine the photon flux on the surface of the containers. The dose rate simulation, including the effects of skyshine, using the Monte Carlo transport code MCNP is compared with the measured dosimetric data at some locations in the vicinity of the interim storage building. The MCNP data for direct radiation confirm the data calculated using a point-kernel method. However, a comparison of the modelled dose rates for direct radiation and skyshine with the measured data demonstrate the need for a more precise definition of the source. Both the measured and the modelled dose rates verified the fact that the legal limits (<1 mSv a(-1)) are met in the area outside the perimeter fence of the storage building to which members of the public have access. Using container surface data (gamma spectra) to define the source may be a useful tool for practical calculations and additionally for benchmarking of computer codes if the discussed critical aspects with respect to the source can be addressed adequately.

Application of kernel method in fluorescence molecular tomography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Yue; Baikejiang, Reheman; Li, Changqing

2017-02-01

Reconstruction of fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) is an ill-posed inverse problem. Anatomical guidance in the FMT reconstruction can improve FMT reconstruction efficiently. We have developed a kernel method to introduce the anatomical guidance into FMT robustly and easily. The kernel method is from machine learning for pattern analysis and is an efficient way to represent anatomical features. For the finite element method based FMT reconstruction, we calculate a kernel function for each finite element node from an anatomical image, such as a micro-CT image. Then the fluorophore concentration at each node is represented by a kernel coefficient vector and the corresponding kernel function. In the FMT forward model, we have a new system matrix by multiplying the sensitivity matrix with the kernel matrix. Thus, the kernel coefficient vector is the unknown to be reconstructed following a standard iterative reconstruction process. We convert the FMT reconstruction problem into the kernel coefficient reconstruction problem. The desired fluorophore concentration at each node can be calculated accordingly. Numerical simulation studies have demonstrated that the proposed kernel-based algorithm can improve the spatial resolution of the reconstructed FMT images. In the proposed kernel method, the anatomical guidance can be obtained directly from the anatomical image and is included in the forward modeling. One of the advantages is that we do not need to segment the anatomical image for the targets and background.

Verification of Internal Dose Calculations.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aissi, Abdelmadjid

The MIRD internal dose calculations have been in use for more than 15 years, but their accuracy has always been questionable. There have been attempts to verify these calculations; however, these attempts had various shortcomings which kept the question of verification of the MIRD data still unanswered. The purpose of this research was to develop techniques and methods to verify the MIRD calculations in a more systematic and scientific manner. The research consisted of improving a volumetric dosimeter, developing molding techniques, and adapting the Monte Carlo computer code ALGAM to the experimental conditions and vice versa. The organic dosimetric system contained TLD-100 powder and could be shaped to represent human organs. The dosimeter possessed excellent characteristics for the measurement of internal absorbed doses, even in the case of the lungs. The molding techniques are inexpensive and were used in the fabrication of dosimetric and radioactive source organs. The adaptation of the computer program provided useful theoretical data with which the experimental measurements were compared. The experimental data and the theoretical calculations were compared for 6 source organ-7 target organ configurations. The results of the comparison indicated the existence of an agreement between measured and calculated absorbed doses, when taking into consideration the average uncertainty (16%) of the measurements, and the average coefficient of variation (10%) of the Monte Carlo calculations. However, analysis of the data gave also an indication that the Monte Carlo method might overestimate the internal absorbed doses. Even if the overestimate exists, at least it could be said that the use of the MIRD method in internal dosimetry was shown to lead to no unnecessary exposure to radiation that could be caused by underestimating the absorbed dose. The experimental and the theoretical data were also used to test the validity of the Reciprocity Theorem for heterogeneous

SU-C-BRC-04: Efficient Dose Calculation Algorithm for FFF IMRT with a Simplified Bivariate Gaussian Source Model

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Li, F; Park, J; Barraclough, B

2016-06-15

Purpose: To develop an efficient and accurate independent dose calculation algorithm with a simplified analytical source model for the quality assurance and safe delivery of Flattening Filter Free (FFF)-IMRT on an Elekta Versa HD. Methods: The source model consisted of a point source and a 2D bivariate Gaussian source, respectively modeling the primary photons and the combined effect of head scatter, monitor chamber backscatter and collimator exchange effect. The in-air fluence was firstly calculated by back-projecting the edges of beam defining devices onto the source plane and integrating the visible source distribution. The effect of the rounded MLC leaf end,more » tongue-and-groove and interleaf transmission was taken into account in the back-projection. The in-air fluence was then modified with a fourth degree polynomial modeling the cone-shaped dose distribution of FFF beams. Planar dose distribution was obtained by convolving the in-air fluence with a dose deposition kernel (DDK) consisting of the sum of three 2D Gaussian functions. The parameters of the source model and the DDK were commissioned using measured in-air output factors (Sc) and cross beam profiles, respectively. A novel method was used to eliminate the volume averaging effect of ion chambers in determining the DDK. Planar dose distributions of five head-and-neck FFF-IMRT plans were calculated and compared against measurements performed with a 2D diode array (MapCHECK™) to validate the accuracy of the algorithm. Results: The proposed source model predicted Sc for both 6MV and 10MV with an accuracy better than 0.1%. With a stringent gamma criterion (2%/2mm/local difference), the passing rate of the FFF-IMRT dose calculation was 97.2±2.6%. Conclusion: The removal of the flattening filter represents a simplification of the head structure which allows the use of a simpler source model for very accurate dose calculation. The proposed algorithm offers an effective way to ensure the safe delivery

A deterministic partial differential equation model for dose calculation in electron radiotherapy.

PubMed

Duclous, R; Dubroca, B; Frank, M

2010-07-07

High-energy ionizing radiation is a prominent modality for the treatment of many cancers. The approaches to electron dose calculation can be categorized into semi-empirical models (e.g. Fermi-Eyges, convolution-superposition) and probabilistic methods (e.g.Monte Carlo). A third approach to dose calculation has only recently attracted attention in the medical physics community. This approach is based on the deterministic kinetic equations of radiative transfer. We derive a macroscopic partial differential equation model for electron transport in tissue. This model involves an angular closure in the phase space. It is exact for the free streaming and the isotropic regime. We solve it numerically by a newly developed HLLC scheme based on Berthon et al (2007 J. Sci. Comput. 31 347-89) that exactly preserves the key properties of the analytical solution on the discrete level. We discuss several test cases taken from the medical physics literature. A test case with an academic Henyey-Greenstein scattering kernel is considered. We compare our model to a benchmark discrete ordinate solution. A simplified model of electron interactions with tissue is employed to compute the dose of an electron beam in a water phantom, and a case of irradiation of the vertebral column. Here our model is compared to the PENELOPE Monte Carlo code. In the academic example, the fluences computed with the new model and a benchmark result differ by less than 1%. The depths at half maximum differ by less than 0.6%. In the two comparisons with Monte Carlo, our model gives qualitatively reasonable dose distributions. Due to the crude interaction model, these so far do not have the accuracy needed in clinical practice. However, the new model has a computational cost that is less than one-tenth of the cost of a Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, simulations can be set up in a similar way as a Monte Carlo simulation. If more detailed effects such as coupled electron-photon transport, bremsstrahlung

A deterministic partial differential equation model for dose calculation in electron radiotherapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duclous, R.; Dubroca, B.; Frank, M.

2010-07-01

High-energy ionizing radiation is a prominent modality for the treatment of many cancers. The approaches to electron dose calculation can be categorized into semi-empirical models (e.g. Fermi-Eyges, convolution-superposition) and probabilistic methods (e.g. Monte Carlo). A third approach to dose calculation has only recently attracted attention in the medical physics community. This approach is based on the deterministic kinetic equations of radiative transfer. We derive a macroscopic partial differential equation model for electron transport in tissue. This model involves an angular closure in the phase space. It is exact for the free streaming and the isotropic regime. We solve it numerically by a newly developed HLLC scheme based on Berthon et al (2007 J. Sci. Comput. 31 347-89) that exactly preserves the key properties of the analytical solution on the discrete level. We discuss several test cases taken from the medical physics literature. A test case with an academic Henyey-Greenstein scattering kernel is considered. We compare our model to a benchmark discrete ordinate solution. A simplified model of electron interactions with tissue is employed to compute the dose of an electron beam in a water phantom, and a case of irradiation of the vertebral column. Here our model is compared to the PENELOPE Monte Carlo code. In the academic example, the fluences computed with the new model and a benchmark result differ by less than 1%. The depths at half maximum differ by less than 0.6%. In the two comparisons with Monte Carlo, our model gives qualitatively reasonable dose distributions. Due to the crude interaction model, these so far do not have the accuracy needed in clinical practice. However, the new model has a computational cost that is less than one-tenth of the cost of a Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, simulations can be set up in a similar way as a Monte Carlo simulation. If more detailed effects such as coupled electron-photon transport, bremsstrahlung

Dose calculation accuracy of the Monte Carlo algorithm for CyberKnife compared with other commercially available dose calculation algorithms.

PubMed

Sharma, Subhash; Ott, Joseph; Williams, Jamone; Dickow, Danny

2011-01-01

Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithms have the potential for greater accuracy than traditional model-based algorithms. This enhanced accuracy is particularly evident in regions of lateral scatter disequilibrium, which can develop during treatments incorporating small field sizes and low-density tissue. A heterogeneous slab phantom was used to evaluate the accuracy of several commercially available dose calculation algorithms, including Monte Carlo dose calculation for CyberKnife, Analytical Anisotropic Algorithm and Pencil Beam convolution for the Eclipse planning system, and convolution-superposition for the Xio planning system. The phantom accommodated slabs of varying density; comparisons between planned and measured dose distributions were accomplished with radiochromic film. The Monte Carlo algorithm provided the most accurate comparison between planned and measured dose distributions. In each phantom irradiation, the Monte Carlo predictions resulted in gamma analysis comparisons >97%, using acceptance criteria of 3% dose and 3-mm distance to agreement. In general, the gamma analysis comparisons for the other algorithms were <95%. The Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithm for CyberKnife provides more accurate dose distribution calculations in regions of lateral electron disequilibrium than commercially available model-based algorithms. This is primarily because of the ability of Monte Carlo algorithms to implicitly account for tissue heterogeneities, density scaling functions; and/or effective depth correction factors are not required. Copyright © 2011 American Association of Medical Dosimetrists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Agreement between gamma passing rates using computed tomography in radiotherapy and secondary cancer risk prediction from more advanced dose calculated models

PubMed Central

Balosso, Jacques

2017-01-01

Background During the past decades, in radiotherapy, the dose distributions were calculated using density correction methods with pencil beam as type ‘a’ algorithm. The objectives of this study are to assess and evaluate the impact of dose distribution shift on the predicted secondary cancer risk (SCR), using modern advanced dose calculation algorithms, point kernel, as type ‘b’, which consider change in lateral electrons transport. Methods Clinical examples of pediatric cranio-spinal irradiation patients were evaluated. For each case, two radiotherapy treatment plans with were generated using the same prescribed dose to the target resulting in different number of monitor units (MUs) per field. The dose distributions were calculated, respectively, using both algorithms types. A gamma index (γ) analysis was used to compare dose distribution in the lung. The organ equivalent dose (OED) has been calculated with three different models, the linear, the linear-exponential and the plateau dose response curves. The excess absolute risk ratio (EAR) was also evaluated as (EAR = OED type ‘b’ / OED type ‘a’). Results The γ analysis results indicated an acceptable dose distribution agreement of 95% with 3%/3 mm. Although, the γ-maps displayed dose displacement >1 mm around the healthy lungs. Compared to type ‘a’, the OED values from type ‘b’ dose distributions’ were about 8% to 16% higher, leading to an EAR ratio >1, ranged from 1.08 to 1.13 depending on SCR models. Conclusions The shift of dose calculation in radiotherapy, according to the algorithm, can significantly influence the SCR prediction and the plan optimization, since OEDs are calculated from DVH for a specific treatment. The agreement between dose distribution and SCR prediction depends on dose response models and epidemiological data. In addition, the γ passing rates of 3%/3 mm does not translate the difference, up to 15%, in the predictions of SCR resulting from alternative

Acceleration of intensity-modulated radiotherapy dose calculation by importance sampling of the calculation matrices.

PubMed

Thieke, Christian; Nill, Simeon; Oelfke, Uwe; Bortfeld, Thomas

2002-05-01

In inverse planning for intensity-modulated radiotherapy, the dose calculation is a crucial element limiting both the maximum achievable plan quality and the speed of the optimization process. One way to integrate accurate dose calculation algorithms into inverse planning is to precalculate the dose contribution of each beam element to each voxel for unit fluence. These precalculated values are stored in a big dose calculation matrix. Then the dose calculation during the iterative optimization process consists merely of matrix look-up and multiplication with the actual fluence values. However, because the dose calculation matrix can become very large, this ansatz requires a lot of computer memory and is still very time consuming, making it not practical for clinical routine without further modifications. In this work we present a new method to significantly reduce the number of entries in the dose calculation matrix. The method utilizes the fact that a photon pencil beam has a rapid radial dose falloff, and has very small dose values for the most part. In this low-dose part of the pencil beam, the dose contribution to a voxel is only integrated into the dose calculation matrix with a certain probability. Normalization with the reciprocal of this probability preserves the total energy, even though many matrix elements are omitted. Three probability distributions were tested to find the most accurate one for a given memory size. The sampling method is compared with the use of a fully filled matrix and with the well-known method of just cutting off the pencil beam at a certain lateral distance. A clinical example of a head and neck case is presented. It turns out that a sampled dose calculation matrix with only 1/3 of the entries of the fully filled matrix does not sacrifice the quality of the resulting plans, whereby the cutoff method results in a suboptimal treatment plan.

MO-G-17A-06: Kernel Based Dosimetry for 90Y Microsphere Liver Therapy Using 90Y Bremsstrahlung SPECT/CT

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mikell, J; Siman, W; Kappadath, S

2014-06-15

Purpose: 90Y microsphere therapy in liver presents a situation where beta transport is dominant and the tissue is relatively homogenous. We compare voxel-based absorbed doses from a 90Y kernel to Monte Carlo (MC) using quantitative 90Y bremsstrahlung SPECT/CT as source distribution. Methods: Liver, normal liver, and tumors were delineated by an interventional radiologist using contrast-enhanced CT registered with 90Y SPECT/CT scans for 14 therapies. Right lung was segmented via region growing. The kernel was generated with 1.04 g/cc soft tissue for 4.8 mm voxel matching the SPECT. MC simulation materials included air, lung, soft tissue, and bone with varying densities.more » We report percent difference between kernel and MC (%Δ(K,MC)) for mean absorbed dose, D70, and V20Gy in total liver, normal liver, tumors, and right lung. We also report %Δ(K,MC) for heterogeneity metrics: coefficient of variation (COV) and D10/D90. The impact of spatial resolution (0, 10, 20 mm FWHM) and lung shunt fraction (LSF) (1,5,10,20%) on the accuracy of MC and kernel doses near the liver-lung interface was modeled in 1D. We report the distance from the interface where errors become <10% of unblurred MC as d10(side of interface, dose calculation, FWHM blurring, LSF). Results: The %Δ(K,MC) for mean, D70, and V20Gy in tumor and liver was <7% while right lung differences varied from 60–90%. The %Δ(K,MC) for COV was <4.8% for tumor and liver and <54% for the right lung. The %Δ(K,MC) for D10/D90 was <5% for 22/23 tumors. d10(liver,MC,10,1–20) awere <9mm and d10(liver,MC,20,1–20) awere <15mm; both agreed within 3mm to the kernel. d10(lung,MC,10,20), d10(lung,MC,10,1), d10(lung,MC,20,20), and d10(lung,MC,20,1) awere 6, 25, 15, and 34mm, respectively. Kernel calculations on blurred distributions in lung had errors > 10%. Conclusions: Liver and tumor voxel doses with 90Y kernel and MC agree within 7%. Large differences exist between the two methods in right lung. Research reported

A TPS kernel for calculating survival vs. depth: distributions in a carbon radiotherapy beam, based on Katz's cellular Track Structure Theory.

PubMed

Waligórski, M P R; Grzanka, L; Korcyl, M; Olko, P

2015-09-01

An algorithm was developed of a treatment planning system (TPS) kernel for carbon radiotherapy in which Katz's Track Structure Theory of cellular survival (TST) is applied as its radiobiology component. The physical beam model is based on available tabularised data, prepared by Monte Carlo simulations of a set of pristine carbon beams of different input energies. An optimisation tool developed for this purpose is used to find the composition of pristine carbon beams of input energies and fluences which delivers a pre-selected depth-dose distribution profile over the spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP) region. Using an extrapolation algorithm, energy-fluence spectra of the primary carbon ions and of all their secondary fragments are obtained over regular steps of beam depths. To obtain survival vs. depth distributions, the TST calculation is applied to the energy-fluence spectra of the mixed field of primary ions and of their secondary products at the given beam depths. Katz's TST offers a unique analytical and quantitative prediction of cell survival in such mixed ion fields. By optimising the pristine beam composition to a published depth-dose profile over the SOBP region of a carbon beam and using TST model parameters representing the survival of CHO (Chinese Hamster Ovary) cells in vitro, it was possible to satisfactorily reproduce a published data set of CHO cell survival vs. depth measurements after carbon ion irradiation. The authors also show by a TST calculation that 'biological dose' is neither linear nor additive. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Dose calculation of dynamic trajectory radiotherapy using Monte Carlo.

PubMed

Manser, P; Frauchiger, D; Frei, D; Volken, W; Terribilini, D; Fix, M K

2018-04-06

Using volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) delivery technique gantry position, multi-leaf collimator (MLC) as well as dose rate change dynamically during the application. However, additional components can be dynamically altered throughout the dose delivery such as the collimator or the couch. Thus, the degrees of freedom increase allowing almost arbitrary dynamic trajectories for the beam. While the dose delivery of such dynamic trajectories for linear accelerators is technically possible, there is currently no dose calculation and validation tool available. Thus, the aim of this work is to develop a dose calculation and verification tool for dynamic trajectories using Monte Carlo (MC) methods. The dose calculation for dynamic trajectories is implemented in the previously developed Swiss Monte Carlo Plan (SMCP). SMCP interfaces the treatment planning system Eclipse with a MC dose calculation algorithm and is already able to handle dynamic MLC and gantry rotations. Hence, the additional dynamic components, namely the collimator and the couch, are described similarly to the dynamic MLC by defining data pairs of positions of the dynamic component and the corresponding MU-fractions. For validation purposes, measurements are performed with the Delta4 phantom and film measurements using the developer mode on a TrueBeam linear accelerator. These measured dose distributions are then compared with the corresponding calculations using SMCP. First, simple academic cases applying one-dimensional movements are investigated and second, more complex dynamic trajectories with several simultaneously moving components are compared considering academic cases as well as a clinically motivated prostate case. The dose calculation for dynamic trajectories is successfully implemented into SMCP. The comparisons between the measured and calculated dose distributions for the simple as well as for the more complex situations show an agreement which is generally within 3% of the maximum

Ray-tracing in three dimensions for calculation of radiation-dose calculations. Master's thesis

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kennedy, D.R.

1986-05-27

This thesis addresses several methods of calculating the radiation-dose distribution for use by technicians or clinicians in radiation-therapy treatment planning. It specifically covers the calculation of the effective pathlength of the radiation beam for use in beam models representing the dose distribution. A two-dimensional method by Bentley and Milan is compared to the method of Strip Trees developed by Duda and Hart and then a three-dimensional algorithm built to perform the calculations in three dimensions. The use of PRISMS conforms easily to the obtained CT Scans and provides a means of only doing two-dimensional ray-tracing while performing three-dimensional dose calculations.more » This method is already being applied and used in actual calculations.« less

A MULTIMODEL APPROACH FOR CALCULATING BENCHMARK DOSE

EPA Science Inventory

A Multimodel Approach for Calculating Benchmark Dose
Ramon I. Garcia and R. Woodrow Setzer

In the assessment of dose response, a number of plausible dose- response models may give fits that are consistent with the data. If no dose response formulation had been speci...

CALCULATIONAL TOOL FOR SKIN CONTAMINATION DOSE ESTIMATE

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

HILL, R.L.

2005-03-31

A spreadsheet calculational tool was developed to automate the calculations performed for estimating dose from skin contamination. This document reports on the design and testing of the spreadsheet calculational tool.

Ranking Support Vector Machine with Kernel Approximation

PubMed Central

Dou, Yong

2017-01-01

Learning to rank algorithm has become important in recent years due to its successful application in information retrieval, recommender system, and computational biology, and so forth. Ranking support vector machine (RankSVM) is one of the state-of-art ranking models and has been favorably used. Nonlinear RankSVM (RankSVM with nonlinear kernels) can give higher accuracy than linear RankSVM (RankSVM with a linear kernel) for complex nonlinear ranking problem. However, the learning methods for nonlinear RankSVM are still time-consuming because of the calculation of kernel matrix. In this paper, we propose a fast ranking algorithm based on kernel approximation to avoid computing the kernel matrix. We explore two types of kernel approximation methods, namely, the Nyström method and random Fourier features. Primal truncated Newton method is used to optimize the pairwise L2-loss (squared Hinge-loss) objective function of the ranking model after the nonlinear kernel approximation. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method gets a much faster training speed than kernel RankSVM and achieves comparable or better performance over state-of-the-art ranking algorithms. PMID:28293256

Ranking Support Vector Machine with Kernel Approximation.

PubMed

Chen, Kai; Li, Rongchun; Dou, Yong; Liang, Zhengfa; Lv, Qi

2017-01-01

Learning to rank algorithm has become important in recent years due to its successful application in information retrieval, recommender system, and computational biology, and so forth. Ranking support vector machine (RankSVM) is one of the state-of-art ranking models and has been favorably used. Nonlinear RankSVM (RankSVM with nonlinear kernels) can give higher accuracy than linear RankSVM (RankSVM with a linear kernel) for complex nonlinear ranking problem. However, the learning methods for nonlinear RankSVM are still time-consuming because of the calculation of kernel matrix. In this paper, we propose a fast ranking algorithm based on kernel approximation to avoid computing the kernel matrix. We explore two types of kernel approximation methods, namely, the Nyström method and random Fourier features. Primal truncated Newton method is used to optimize the pairwise L2-loss (squared Hinge-loss) objective function of the ranking model after the nonlinear kernel approximation. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method gets a much faster training speed than kernel RankSVM and achieves comparable or better performance over state-of-the-art ranking algorithms.

Final Aperture Superposition Technique applied to fast calculation of electron output factors and depth dose curves

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Faddegon, B.A.; Villarreal-Barajas, J.E.; Mt. Diablo Regional Cancer Center, 2450 East Street, Concord, California

2005-11-15

The Final Aperture Superposition Technique (FAST) is described and applied to accurate, near instantaneous calculation of the relative output factor (ROF) and central axis percentage depth dose curve (PDD) for clinical electron beams used in radiotherapy. FAST is based on precalculation of dose at select points for the two extreme situations of a fully open final aperture and a final aperture with no opening (fully shielded). This technique is different than conventional superposition of dose deposition kernels: The precalculated dose is differential in position of the electron or photon at the downstream surface of the insert. The calculation for amore » particular aperture (x-ray jaws or MLC, insert in electron applicator) is done with superposition of the precalculated dose data, using the open field data over the open part of the aperture and the fully shielded data over the remainder. The calculation takes explicit account of all interactions in the shielded region of the aperture except the collimator effect: Particles that pass from the open part into the shielded part, or visa versa. For the clinical demonstration, FAST was compared to full Monte Carlo simulation of 10x10,2.5x2.5, and 2x8 cm{sup 2} inserts. Dose was calculated to 0.5% precision in 0.4x0.4x0.2 cm{sup 3} voxels, spaced at 0.2 cm depth intervals along the central axis, using detailed Monte Carlo simulation of the treatment head of a commercial linear accelerator for six different electron beams with energies of 6-21 MeV. Each simulation took several hours on a personal computer with a 1.7 Mhz processor. The calculation for the individual inserts, done with superposition, was completed in under a second on the same PC. Since simulations for the pre calculation are only performed once, higher precision and resolution can be obtained without increasing the calculation time for individual inserts. Fully shielded contributions were largest for small fields and high beam energy, at the surface

Verification of calculated skin doses in postmastectomy helical tomotherapy.

PubMed

Ito, Shima; Parker, Brent C; Levine, Renee; Sanders, Mary Ella; Fontenot, Jonas; Gibbons, John; Hogstrom, Kenneth

2011-10-01

To verify the accuracy of calculated skin doses in helical tomotherapy for postmastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT). In vivo thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) were used to measure the skin dose at multiple points in each of 14 patients throughout the course of treatment on a TomoTherapy Hi·Art II system, for a total of 420 TLD measurements. Five patients were evaluated near the location of the mastectomy scar, whereas 9 patients were evaluated throughout the treatment volume. The measured dose at each location was compared with calculations from the treatment planning system. The mean difference and standard error of the mean difference between measurement and calculation for the scar measurements was -1.8% ± 0.2% (standard deviation [SD], 4.3%; range, -11.1% to 10.6%). The mean difference and standard error of the mean difference between measurement and calculation for measurements throughout the treatment volume was -3.0% ± 0.4% (SD, 4.7%; range, -18.4% to 12.6%). The mean difference and standard error of the mean difference between measurement and calculation for all measurements was -2.1% ± 0.2% (standard deviation, 4.5%: range, -18.4% to 12.6%). The mean difference between measured and calculated TLD doses was statistically significant at two standard deviations of the mean, but was not clinically significant (i.e., was <5%). However, 23% of the measured TLD doses differed from the calculated TLD doses by more than 5%. The mean of the measured TLD doses agreed with TomoTherapy calculated TLD doses within our clinical criterion of 5%. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Verification of Calculated Skin Doses in Postmastectomy Helical Tomotherapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ito, Shima; Parker, Brent C., E-mail: bcparker@marybird.com; Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, Baton Rouge, LA

2011-10-01

Purpose: To verify the accuracy of calculated skin doses in helical tomotherapy for postmastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT). Methods and Materials: In vivo thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) were used to measure the skin dose at multiple points in each of 14 patients throughout the course of treatment on a TomoTherapy Hi.Art II system, for a total of 420 TLD measurements. Five patients were evaluated near the location of the mastectomy scar, whereas 9 patients were evaluated throughout the treatment volume. The measured dose at each location was compared with calculations from the treatment planning system. Results: The mean difference and standard errormore » of the mean difference between measurement and calculation for the scar measurements was -1.8% {+-} 0.2% (standard deviation [SD], 4.3%; range, -11.1% to 10.6%). The mean difference and standard error of the mean difference between measurement and calculation for measurements throughout the treatment volume was -3.0% {+-} 0.4% (SD, 4.7%; range, -18.4% to 12.6%). The mean difference and standard error of the mean difference between measurement and calculation for all measurements was -2.1% {+-} 0.2% (standard deviation, 4.5%: range, -18.4% to 12.6%). The mean difference between measured and calculated TLD doses was statistically significant at two standard deviations of the mean, but was not clinically significant (i.e., was <5%). However, 23% of the measured TLD doses differed from the calculated TLD doses by more than 5%. Conclusions: The mean of the measured TLD doses agreed with TomoTherapy calculated TLD doses within our clinical criterion of 5%.« less

Monte Carlo dose calculations for high-dose-rate brachytherapy using GPU-accelerated processing.

PubMed

Tian, Z; Zhang, M; Hrycushko, B; Albuquerque, K; Jiang, S B; Jia, X

2016-01-01

Current clinical brachytherapy dose calculations are typically based on the Association of American Physicists in Medicine Task Group report 43 (TG-43) guidelines, which approximate patient geometry as an infinitely large water phantom. This ignores patient and applicator geometries and heterogeneities, causing dosimetric errors. Although Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculation is commonly recognized as the most accurate method, its associated long computational time is a major bottleneck for routine clinical applications. This article presents our recent developments of a fast MC dose calculation package for high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy, gBMC, built on a graphics processing unit (GPU) platform. gBMC-simulated photon transport in voxelized geometry with physics in (192)Ir HDR brachytherapy energy range considered. A phase-space file was used as a source model. GPU-based parallel computation was used to simultaneously transport multiple photons, one on a GPU thread. We validated gBMC by comparing the dose calculation results in water with that computed TG-43. We also studied heterogeneous phantom cases and a patient case and compared gBMC results with Acuros BV results. Radial dose function in water calculated by gBMC showed <0.6% relative difference from that of the TG-43 data. Difference in anisotropy function was <1%. In two heterogeneous slab phantoms and one shielded cylinder applicator case, average dose discrepancy between gBMC and Acuros BV was <0.87%. For a tandem and ovoid patient case, good agreement between gBMC and Acruos BV results was observed in both isodose lines and dose-volume histograms. In terms of the efficiency, it took ∼47.5 seconds for gBMC to reach 0.15% statistical uncertainty within the 5% isodose line for the patient case. The accuracy and efficiency of a new GPU-based MC dose calculation package, gBMC, for HDR brachytherapy make it attractive for clinical applications. Copyright © 2016 American Brachytherapy Society. Published by

SU-E-T-36: A GPU-Accelerated Monte-Carlo Dose Calculation Platform and Its Application Toward Validating a ViewRay Beam Model

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, Y; Mazur, T; Green, O

Purpose: To build a fast, accurate and easily-deployable research platform for Monte-Carlo dose calculations. We port the dose calculation engine PENELOPE to C++, and accelerate calculations using GPU acceleration. Simulations of a Co-60 beam model provided by ViewRay demonstrate the capabilities of the platform. Methods: We built software that incorporates a beam model interface, CT-phantom model, GPU-accelerated PENELOPE engine, and GUI front-end. We rewrote the PENELOPE kernel in C++ (from Fortran) and accelerated the code on a GPU. We seamlessly integrated a Co-60 beam model (obtained from ViewRay) into our platform. Simulations of various field sizes and SSDs using amore » homogeneous water phantom generated PDDs, dose profiles, and output factors that were compared to experiment data. Results: With GPU acceleration using a dated graphics card (Nvidia Tesla C2050), a highly accurate simulation – including 100*100*100 grid, 3×3×3 mm3 voxels, <1% uncertainty, and 4.2×4.2 cm2 field size – runs 24 times faster (20 minutes versus 8 hours) than when parallelizing on 8 threads across a new CPU (Intel i7-4770). Simulated PDDs, profiles and output ratios for the commercial system agree well with experiment data measured using radiographic film or ionization chamber. Based on our analysis, this beam model is precise enough for general applications. Conclusions: Using a beam model for a Co-60 system provided by ViewRay, we evaluate a dose calculation platform that we developed. Comparison to measurements demonstrates the promise of our software for use as a research platform for dose calculations, with applications including quality assurance and treatment plan verification.« less

Quantum kernel applications in medicinal chemistry.

PubMed

Huang, Lulu; Massa, Lou

2012-07-01

Progress in the quantum mechanics of biological molecules is being driven by computational advances. The notion of quantum kernels can be introduced to simplify the formalism of quantum mechanics, making it especially suitable for parallel computation of very large biological molecules. The essential idea is to mathematically break large biological molecules into smaller kernels that are calculationally tractable, and then to represent the full molecule by a summation over the kernels. The accuracy of the kernel energy method (KEM) is shown by systematic application to a great variety of molecular types found in biology. These include peptides, proteins, DNA and RNA. Examples are given that explore the KEM across a variety of chemical models, and to the outer limits of energy accuracy and molecular size. KEM represents an advance in quantum biology applicable to problems in medicine and drug design.

Determination of dose distributions and parameter sensitivity. Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project; dose code recovery activities; Calculation 005

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Napier, B.A.; Farris, W.T.; Simpson, J.C.

1992-12-01

A series of scoping calculations has been undertaken to evaluate the absolute and relative contribution of different radionuclides and exposure pathways to doses that may have been received by individuals living in the vicinity of the Hanford site. This scoping calculation (Calculation 005) examined the contributions of numerous parameters to the uncertainty distribution of doses calculated for environmental exposures and accumulation in foods. This study builds on the work initiated in the first scoping study of iodine in cow`s milk and the third scoping study, which added additional pathways. Addressed in this calculation were the contributions to thyroid dose ofmore » infants from (1) air submersion and groundshine external dose, (2) inhalation, (3) ingestion of soil by humans, (4) ingestion of leafy vegetables, (5) ingestion of other vegetables and fruits, (6) ingestion of meat, (7) ingestion of eggs, and (8) ingestion of cows` milk from Feeding Regime 1 as described in Calculation 001.« less

Influence of dose calculation algorithms on the predicted dose distribution and NTCP values for NSCLC patients.

PubMed

Nielsen, Tine B; Wieslander, Elinore; Fogliata, Antonella; Nielsen, Morten; Hansen, Olfred; Brink, Carsten

2011-05-01

To investigate differences in calculated doses and normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) values between different dose algorithms. Six dose algorithms from four different treatment planning systems were investigated: Eclipse AAA, Oncentra MasterPlan Collapsed Cone and Pencil Beam, Pinnacle Collapsed Cone and XiO Multigrid Superposition, and Fast Fourier Transform Convolution. Twenty NSCLC patients treated in the period 2001-2006 at the same accelerator were included and the accelerator used for treatments were modeled in the different systems. The treatment plans were recalculated with the same number of monitor units and beam arrangements across the dose algorithms. Dose volume histograms of the GTV, PTV, combined lungs (excluding the GTV), and heart were exported and evaluated. NTCP values for heart and lungs were calculated using the relative seriality model and the LKB model, respectively. Furthermore, NTCP for the lungs were calculated from two different model parameter sets. Calculations and evaluations were performed both including and excluding density corrections. There are found statistical significant differences between the calculated dose to heart, lung, and targets across the algorithms. Mean lung dose and V20 are not very sensitive to change between the investigated dose calculation algorithms. However, the different dose levels for the PTV averaged over the patient population are varying up to 11%. The predicted NTCP values for pneumonitis vary between 0.20 and 0.24 or 0.35 and 0.48 across the investigated dose algorithms depending on the chosen model parameter set. The influence of the use of density correction in the dose calculation on the predicted NTCP values depends on the specific dose calculation algorithm and the model parameter set. For fixed values of these, the changes in NTCP can be up to 45%. Calculated NTCP values for pneumonitis are more sensitive to the choice of algorithm than mean lung dose and V20 which are also commonly

A dose error evaluation study for 4D dose calculations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Milz, Stefan; Wilkens, Jan J.; Ullrich, Wolfgang

2014-10-01

Previous studies have shown that respiration induced motion is not negligible for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy. The intrafractional breathing induced motion influences the delivered dose distribution on the underlying patient geometry such as the lung or the abdomen. If a static geometry is used, a planning process for these indications does not represent the entire dynamic process. The quality of a full 4D dose calculation approach depends on the dose coordinate transformation process between deformable geometries. This article provides an evaluation study that introduces an advanced method to verify the quality of numerical dose transformation generated by four different algorithms. The used transformation metric value is based on the deviation of the dose mass histogram (DMH) and the mean dose throughout dose transformation. The study compares the results of four algorithms. In general, two elementary approaches are used: dose mapping and energy transformation. Dose interpolation (DIM) and an advanced concept, so called divergent dose mapping model (dDMM), are used for dose mapping. The algorithms are compared to the basic energy transformation model (bETM) and the energy mass congruent mapping (EMCM). For evaluation 900 small sample regions of interest (ROI) are generated inside an exemplary lung geometry (4DCT). A homogeneous fluence distribution is assumed for dose calculation inside the ROIs. The dose transformations are performed with the four different algorithms. The study investigates the DMH-metric and the mean dose metric for different scenarios (voxel sizes: 8 mm, 4 mm, 2 mm, 1 mm 9 different breathing phases). dDMM achieves the best transformation accuracy in all measured test cases with 3-5% lower errors than the other models. The results of dDMM are reasonable and most efficient in this study, although the model is simple and easy to implement. The EMCM model also achieved suitable results, but the approach requires a more complex

A dose error evaluation study for 4D dose calculations.

PubMed

Milz, Stefan; Wilkens, Jan J; Ullrich, Wolfgang

2014-11-07

Previous studies have shown that respiration induced motion is not negligible for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy. The intrafractional breathing induced motion influences the delivered dose distribution on the underlying patient geometry such as the lung or the abdomen. If a static geometry is used, a planning process for these indications does not represent the entire dynamic process. The quality of a full 4D dose calculation approach depends on the dose coordinate transformation process between deformable geometries. This article provides an evaluation study that introduces an advanced method to verify the quality of numerical dose transformation generated by four different algorithms.The used transformation metric value is based on the deviation of the dose mass histogram (DMH) and the mean dose throughout dose transformation. The study compares the results of four algorithms. In general, two elementary approaches are used: dose mapping and energy transformation. Dose interpolation (DIM) and an advanced concept, so called divergent dose mapping model (dDMM), are used for dose mapping. The algorithms are compared to the basic energy transformation model (bETM) and the energy mass congruent mapping (EMCM). For evaluation 900 small sample regions of interest (ROI) are generated inside an exemplary lung geometry (4DCT). A homogeneous fluence distribution is assumed for dose calculation inside the ROIs. The dose transformations are performed with the four different algorithms.The study investigates the DMH-metric and the mean dose metric for different scenarios (voxel sizes: 8 mm, 4 mm, 2 mm, 1 mm; 9 different breathing phases). dDMM achieves the best transformation accuracy in all measured test cases with 3-5% lower errors than the other models. The results of dDMM are reasonable and most efficient in this study, although the model is simple and easy to implement. The EMCM model also achieved suitable results, but the approach requires a more complex programming

Computer calculated dose in paediatric prescribing.

PubMed

Kirk, Richard C; Li-Meng Goh, Denise; Packia, Jeya; Min Kam, Huey; Ong, Benjamin K C

2005-01-01

Medication errors are an important cause of hospital-based morbidity and mortality. However, only a few medication error studies have been conducted in children. These have mainly quantified errors in the inpatient setting; there is very little data available on paediatric outpatient and emergency department medication errors and none on discharge medication. This deficiency is of concern because medication errors are more common in children and it has been suggested that the risk of an adverse drug event as a consequence of a medication error is higher in children than in adults. The aims of this study were to assess the rate of medication errors in predominantly ambulatory paediatric patients and the effect of computer calculated doses on medication error rates of two commonly prescribed drugs. This was a prospective cohort study performed in a paediatric unit in a university teaching hospital between March 2003 and August 2003. The hospital's existing computer clinical decision support system was modified so that doctors could choose the traditional prescription method or the enhanced method of computer calculated dose when prescribing paracetamol (acetaminophen) or promethazine. All prescriptions issued to children (<16 years of age) at the outpatient clinic, emergency department and at discharge from the inpatient service were analysed. A medication error was defined as to have occurred if there was an underdose (below the agreed value), an overdose (above the agreed value), no frequency of administration specified, no dose given or excessive total daily dose. The medication error rates and the factors influencing medication error rates were determined using SPSS version 12. From March to August 2003, 4281 prescriptions were issued. Seven prescriptions (0.16%) were excluded, hence 4274 prescriptions were analysed. Most prescriptions were issued by paediatricians (including neonatologists and paediatric surgeons) and/or junior doctors. The error rate in the

A dose assessment method for arbitrary geometries with virtual reality in the nuclear facilities decommissioning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chao, Nan; Liu, Yong-kuo; Xia, Hong; Ayodeji, Abiodun; Bai, Lu

2018-03-01

During the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, a large number of cutting and demolition activities are performed, which results in a frequent change in the structure and produce many irregular objects. In order to assess dose rates during the cutting and demolition process, a flexible dose assessment method for arbitrary geometries and radiation sources was proposed based on virtual reality technology and Point-Kernel method. The initial geometry is designed with the three-dimensional computer-aided design tools. An approximate model is built automatically in the process of geometric modeling via three procedures namely: space division, rough modeling of the body and fine modeling of the surface, all in combination with collision detection of virtual reality technology. Then point kernels are generated by sampling within the approximate model, and when the material and radiometric attributes are inputted, dose rates can be calculated with the Point-Kernel method. To account for radiation scattering effects, buildup factors are calculated with the Geometric-Progression formula in the fitting function. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method was verified by means of simulations using different geometries and the dose rate results were compared with that derived from CIDEC code, MCNP code and experimental measurements.

Clinical implementation and evaluation of the Acuros dose calculation algorithm.

PubMed

Yan, Chenyu; Combine, Anthony G; Bednarz, Greg; Lalonde, Ronald J; Hu, Bin; Dickens, Kathy; Wynn, Raymond; Pavord, Daniel C; Saiful Huq, M

2017-09-01

The main aim of this study is to validate the Acuros XB dose calculation algorithm for a Varian Clinac iX linac in our clinics, and subsequently compare it with the wildely used AAA algorithm. The source models for both Acuros XB and AAA were configured by importing the same measured beam data into Eclipse treatment planning system. Both algorithms were validated by comparing calculated dose with measured dose on a homogeneous water phantom for field sizes ranging from 6 cm × 6 cm to 40 cm × 40 cm. Central axis and off-axis points with different depths were chosen for the comparison. In addition, the accuracy of Acuros was evaluated for wedge fields with wedge angles from 15 to 60°. Similarly, variable field sizes for an inhomogeneous phantom were chosen to validate the Acuros algorithm. In addition, doses calculated by Acuros and AAA at the center of lung equivalent tissue from three different VMAT plans were compared to the ion chamber measured doses in QUASAR phantom, and the calculated dose distributions by the two algorithms and their differences on patients were compared. Computation time on VMAT plans was also evaluated for Acuros and AAA. Differences between dose-to-water (calculated by AAA and Acuros XB) and dose-to-medium (calculated by Acuros XB) on patient plans were compared and evaluated. For open 6 MV photon beams on the homogeneous water phantom, both Acuros XB and AAA calculations were within 1% of measurements. For 23 MV photon beams, the calculated doses were within 1.5% of measured doses for Acuros XB and 2% for AAA. Testing on the inhomogeneous phantom demonstrated that AAA overestimated doses by up to 8.96% at a point close to lung/solid water interface, while Acuros XB reduced that to 1.64%. The test on QUASAR phantom showed that Acuros achieved better agreement in lung equivalent tissue while AAA underestimated dose for all VMAT plans by up to 2.7%. Acuros XB computation time was about three times faster than AAA for VMAT plans, and

Integrating the Gradient of the Thin Wire Kernel

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Champagne, Nathan J.; Wilton, Donald R.

2008-01-01

A formulation for integrating the gradient of the thin wire kernel is presented. This approach employs a new expression for the gradient of the thin wire kernel derived from a recent technique for numerically evaluating the exact thin wire kernel. This approach should provide essentially arbitrary accuracy and may be used with higher-order elements and basis functions using the procedure described in [4].When the source and observation points are close, the potential integrals over wire segments involving the wire kernel are split into parts to handle the singular behavior of the integrand [1]. The singularity characteristics of the gradient of the wire kernel are different than those of the wire kernel, and the axial and radial components have different singularities. The characteristics of the gradient of the wire kernel are discussed in [2]. To evaluate the near electric and magnetic fields of a wire, the integration of the gradient of the wire kernel needs to be calculated over the source wire. Since the vector bases for current have constant direction on linear wire segments, these integrals reduce to integrals of the form

Determination of the spatial resolution required for the HEDR dose code. Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project: Dose code recovery activities, Calculation 007

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Napier, B.A.; Simpson, J.C.

1992-12-01

A series of scoping calculations has been undertaken to evaluate the doses that may have been received by individuals living in the vicinity of the Hanford site. This scoping calculation (Calculation 007) examined the spatial distribution of potential doses resulting from releases in the year 1945. This study builds on the work initiated in the first scoping calculation, of iodine in cow`s milk; the third scoping calculation, which added additional pathways; the fifth calculation, which addressed the uncertainty of the dose estimates at a point; and the sixth calculation, which extrapolated the doses throughout the atmospheric transport domain. A projectionmore » of dose to representative individuals throughout the proposed HEDR atmospheric transport domain was prepared on the basis of the HEDR source term. Addressed in this calculation were the contributions to iodine-131 thyroid dose of infants from (1) air submersion and groundshine external dose, (2) inhalation, (3) ingestion of soil by humans, (4) ingestion of leafy vegetables, (5) ingestion of other vegetables and fruits, (6) ingestion of meat, (7) ingestion of eggs, and (8) ingestion of cows` milk from-Feeding Regime 1 as described in scoping calculation 001.« less

Dose calculation and verification of the Vero gimbal tracking treatment delivery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prasetio, H.; Wölfelschneider, J.; Ziegler, M.; Serpa, M.; Witulla, B.; Bert, C.

2018-02-01

The Vero linear accelerator delivers dynamic tumor tracking (DTT) treatment using a gimbal motion. However, the availability of treatment planning systems (TPS) to simulate DTT is limited. This study aims to implement and verify the gimbal tracking beam geometry in the dose calculation. Gimbal tracking was implemented by rotating the reference CT outside the TPS according to the ring, gantry, and gimbal tracking position obtained from the tracking log file. The dose was calculated using these rotated CTs. The geometric accuracy was verified by comparing calculated and measured film response using a ball bearing phantom. The dose was verified by comparing calculated 2D dose distributions and film measurements in a ball bearing and a homogeneous phantom using a gamma criterion of 2%/2 mm. The effect of implementing the gimbal tracking beam geometry in a 3D patient data dose calculation was evaluated using dose volume histograms (DVH). Geometrically, the gimbal tracking implementation accuracy was  <0.94 mm. The isodose lines agreed with the film measurement. The largest dose difference of 9.4% was observed at maximum tilt positions with an isocenter and target separation of 17.51 mm. Dosimetrically, gamma passing rates were  >98.4%. The introduction of the gimbal tracking beam geometry in the dose calculation shifted the DVH curves by 0.05%-1.26% for the phantom geometry and by 5.59% for the patient CT dataset. This study successfully demonstrates a method to incorporate the gimbal tracking beam geometry into dose calculations. By combining CT rotation and MU distribution according to the log file, the TPS was able to simulate the Vero tracking treatment dose delivery. The DVH analysis from the gimbal tracking dose calculation revealed changes in the dose distribution during gimbal DTT that are not visible with static dose calculations.

SU-F-T-667: Development and Validation of Dose Calculation for An Open-Source KV Treatment Planning System for Small Animal Radiotherapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Prajapati, S; Mo, X; Bednarz, B

Purpose: An open-source, convolution/superposition based kV-treatment planning system(TPS) was developed for small animal radiotherapy from previously existed in-house MV-TPS. It is flexible and applicable to both step and shoot and helical tomotherapy treatment delivery. For initial commissioning process, the dose calculation from kV-TPS was compared with measurements and Monte Carlo(MC) simulations. Methods: High resolution, low energy kernels were simulated using EGSnrc user code EDKnrc, which was used as an input in kV-TPS together with MC-simulated x-ray beam spectrum. The Blue Water™ homogeneous phantom (with film inserts) and heterogeneous phantom (with film and TLD inserts) were fabricated. Phantom was placed atmore » 100cm SSD, and was irradiated with 250 kVp beam for 10mins with 1.1cm × 1.1cm open field (at 100cm) created by newly designed binary micro-MLC assembly positioned at 90cm SSD. Gafchromic™ EBT3 film was calibrated in-phantom following AAPM TG-61 guidelines, and were used for measurement at 5 different depths in phantom. Calibrated TLD-100s were obtained from ADCL. EGS and MNCP5 simulation were used to model experimental irradiation set up calculation of dose in phantom. Results: Using the homogeneous phantom, dose difference between film and kV-TPS was calculated: mean(x)=0.9%; maximum difference(MD)=3.1%; standard deviation(σ)=1.1%. Dose difference between MCNP5 and kV-TPS was: x=1.5%; MD=4.6%; σ=1.9%. Dose difference between EGS and kV-TPS was: x=0.8%; MD=1.9%; σ=0.8%. Using the heterogeneous phantom, dose difference between film and kV-TPS was: x=2.6%; MD=3%; σ=1.1%; and dose difference between TLD and kV-TPS was: x=2.9%; MD=6.4%; σ=2.5%. Conclusion: The inhouse, open-source kV-TPS dose calculation system was comparable within 5% of measurements and MC simulations in both homogeneous and heterogeneous phantoms. The dose calculation system of the kV-TPS is validated as a part of initial commissioning process for small animal

Monte Carlo dose calculation in dental amalgam phantom

PubMed Central

Aziz, Mohd. Zahri Abdul; Yusoff, A. L.; Osman, N. D.; Abdullah, R.; Rabaie, N. A.; Salikin, M. S.

2015-01-01

It has become a great challenge in the modern radiation treatment to ensure the accuracy of treatment delivery in electron beam therapy. Tissue inhomogeneity has become one of the factors for accurate dose calculation, and this requires complex algorithm calculation like Monte Carlo (MC). On the other hand, computed tomography (CT) images used in treatment planning system need to be trustful as they are the input in radiotherapy treatment. However, with the presence of metal amalgam in treatment volume, the CT images input showed prominent streak artefact, thus, contributed sources of error. Hence, metal amalgam phantom often creates streak artifacts, which cause an error in the dose calculation. Thus, a streak artifact reduction technique was applied to correct the images, and as a result, better images were observed in terms of structure delineation and density assigning. Furthermore, the amalgam density data were corrected to provide amalgam voxel with accurate density value. As for the errors of dose uncertainties due to metal amalgam, they were reduced from 46% to as low as 2% at d80 (depth of the 80% dose beyond Zmax) using the presented strategies. Considering the number of vital and radiosensitive organs in the head and the neck regions, this correction strategy is suggested in reducing calculation uncertainties through MC calculation. PMID:26500401

Skin dose from radionuclide contamination on clothing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Taylor, D.C.; Hussein, E.M.A.; Yuen, P.S.

1997-06-01

Skin dose due to radio nuclide contamination on clothing is calculated by Monte Carlo simulation of electron and photon radiation transport. Contamination due to a hot particle on some selected clothing geometries of cotton garment is simulated. The effect of backscattering in the surrounding air is taken into account. For each combination of source-clothing geometry, the dose distribution function in the skin, including the dose at tissue depths of 7 mg cm{sup -2} and 1,000 Mg cm{sup -2}, is calculated by simulating monoenergetic photon and electron sources. Skin dose due to contamination by a radionuclide is then determined by propermore » weighting of & monoenergetic dose distribution functions. The results are compared with the VARSKIN point-kernel code for some radionuclides, indicating that the latter code tends to under-estimate the dose for gamma and high energy beta sources while it overestimates skin dose for low energy beta sources. 13 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs.« less

Optimization of Monte Carlo dose calculations: The interface problem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soudentas, Edward

1998-05-01

High energy photon beams are widely used for radiation treatment of deep-seated tumors. The human body contains many types of interfaces between dissimilar materials that affect dose distribution in radiation therapy. Experimentally, significant radiation dose perturbations has been observed at such interfaces. The EGS4 Monte Carlo code was used to calculate dose perturbations at boundaries between dissimilar materials (such as bone/water) for 60Co and 6 MeV linear accelerator beams using a UNIX workstation. A simple test of the reliability of a random number generator was also developed. A systematic study of the adjustable parameters in EGS4 was performed in order to minimize calculational artifacts at boundaries. Calculations of dose perturbations at boundaries between different materials showed that there is a 12% increase in dose at water/bone interface, and a 44% increase in dose at water/copper interface. with the increase mainly due to electrons produced in water and backscattered from the high atomic number material. The dependence of the dose increase on the atomic number was also investigated. The clinically important case of using two parallel opposed beams for radiation therapy was investigated where increased doses at boundaries has been observed. The Monte Carlo calculations can provide accurate dosimetry data under conditions of electronic non-equilibrium at tissue interfaces.

Reconstruction of noisy and blurred images using blur kernel

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ellappan, Vijayan; Chopra, Vishal

2017-11-01

Blur is a common in so many digital images. Blur can be caused by motion of the camera and scene object. In this work we proposed a new method for deblurring images. This work uses sparse representation to identify the blur kernel. By analyzing the image coordinates Using coarse and fine, we fetch the kernel based image coordinates and according to that observation we get the motion angle of the shaken or blurred image. Then we calculate the length of the motion kernel using radon transformation and Fourier for the length calculation of the image and we use Lucy Richardson algorithm which is also called NON-Blind(NBID) Algorithm for more clean and less noisy image output. All these operation will be performed in MATLAB IDE.

Study of dose calculation on breast brachytherapy using prism TPS

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fendriani, Yoza; Haryanto, Freddy

2015-09-30

PRISM is one of non-commercial Treatment Planning System (TPS) and is developed at the University of Washington. In Indonesia, many cancer hospitals use expensive commercial TPS. This study aims to investigate Prism TPS which been applied to the dose distribution of brachytherapy by taking into account the effect of source position and inhomogeneities. The results will be applicable for clinical Treatment Planning System. Dose calculation has been implemented for water phantom and CT scan images of breast cancer using point source and line source. This study used point source and line source and divided into two cases. On the firstmore » case, Ir-192 seed source is located at the center of treatment volume. On the second case, the source position is gradually changed. The dose calculation of every case performed on a homogeneous and inhomogeneous phantom with dimension 20 × 20 × 20 cm{sup 3}. The inhomogeneous phantom has inhomogeneities volume 2 × 2 × 2 cm{sup 3}. The results of dose calculations using PRISM TPS were compared to literature data. From the calculation of PRISM TPS, dose rates show good agreement with Plato TPS and other study as published by Ramdhani. No deviations greater than ±4% for all case. Dose calculation in inhomogeneous and homogenous cases show similar result. This results indicate that Prism TPS is good in dose calculation of brachytherapy but not sensitive for inhomogeneities. Thus, the dose calculation parameters developed in this study were found to be applicable for clinical treatment planning of brachytherapy.« less

Travel-time sensitivity kernels in long-range propagation.

PubMed

Skarsoulis, E K; Cornuelle, B D; Dzieciuch, M A

2009-11-01

Wave-theoretic travel-time sensitivity kernels (TSKs) are calculated in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) environments and their behavior with increasing propagation range is studied and compared to that of ray-theoretic TSKs and corresponding Fresnel-volumes. The differences between the 2D and 3D TSKs average out when horizontal or cross-range marginals are considered, which indicates that they are not important in the case of range-independent sound-speed perturbations or perturbations of large scale compared to the lateral TSK extent. With increasing range, the wave-theoretic TSKs expand in the horizontal cross-range direction, their cross-range extent being comparable to that of the corresponding free-space Fresnel zone, whereas they remain bounded in the vertical. Vertical travel-time sensitivity kernels (VTSKs)-one-dimensional kernels describing the effect of horizontally uniform sound-speed changes on travel-times-are calculated analytically using a perturbation approach, and also numerically, as horizontal marginals of the corresponding TSKs. Good agreement between analytical and numerical VTSKs, as well as between 2D and 3D VTSKs, is found. As an alternative method to obtain wave-theoretic sensitivity kernels, the parabolic approximation is used; the resulting TSKs and VTSKs are in good agreement with normal-mode results. With increasing range, the wave-theoretic VTSKs approach the corresponding ray-theoretic sensitivity kernels.

Development of a web-based CT dose calculator: WAZA-ARI.

PubMed

Ban, N; Takahashi, F; Sato, K; Endo, A; Ono, K; Hasegawa, T; Yoshitake, T; Katsunuma, Y; Kai, M

2011-09-01

A web-based computed tomography (CT) dose calculation system (WAZA-ARI) is being developed based on the modern techniques for the radiation transport simulation and for software implementation. Dose coefficients were calculated in a voxel-type Japanese adult male phantom (JM phantom), using the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System. In the Monte Carlo simulation, the phantom was irradiated with a 5-mm-thick, fan-shaped photon beam rotating in a plane normal to the body axis. The dose coefficients were integrated into the system, which runs as Java servlets within Apache Tomcat. Output of WAZA-ARI for GE LightSpeed 16 was compared with the dose values calculated similarly using MIRD and ICRP Adult Male phantoms. There are some differences due to the phantom configuration, demonstrating the significance of the dose calculation with appropriate phantoms. While the dose coefficients are currently available only for limited CT scanner models and scanning options, WAZA-ARI will be a useful tool in clinical practice when development is finalised.

Accelerating the Original Profile Kernel.

PubMed

Hamp, Tobias; Goldberg, Tatyana; Rost, Burkhard

2013-01-01

One of the most accurate multi-class protein classification systems continues to be the profile-based SVM kernel introduced by the Leslie group. Unfortunately, its CPU requirements render it too slow for practical applications of large-scale classification tasks. Here, we introduce several software improvements that enable significant acceleration. Using various non-redundant data sets, we demonstrate that our new implementation reaches a maximal speed-up as high as 14-fold for calculating the same kernel matrix. Some predictions are over 200 times faster and render the kernel as possibly the top contender in a low ratio of speed/performance. Additionally, we explain how to parallelize various computations and provide an integrative program that reduces creating a production-quality classifier to a single program call. The new implementation is available as a Debian package under a free academic license and does not depend on commercial software. For non-Debian based distributions, the source package ships with a traditional Makefile-based installer. Download and installation instructions can be found at https://rostlab.org/owiki/index.php/Fast_Profile_Kernel. Bugs and other issues may be reported at https://rostlab.org/bugzilla3/enter_bug.cgi?product=fastprofkernel.

Georgia fishery study: implications for dose calculations. Revision 1

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Turcotte, M.D.S.

Fish consumption will contribute a major portion of the estimated individual and population doses from L-Reactor liquid releases and Cs-137 remobilization in Steel Creek. It is therefore important that the values for fish consumption used in dose calculations be as realistic as possible. Since publication of the L-Reactor Environmental Information Document (EID), data have become available on sport fishing in the Savannah River. These data provide SRP with a site-specific sport fish harvest and consumption values for use in dose calculations. The Georgia fishery data support the total population fish consumption and calculated dose reported in the EID. The datamore » indicate, however, that both the EID average and maximum individual fish consumption have been underestimated, although each to a different degree. The average fish consumption value used in the EID is approximately 3% below the lower limit of the fish consumption range calculated using the Georgia data. Maximum fish consumption in the EID has been underestimated by approximately 60%, and doses to the maximum individual should also be recalculated. Future dose calculations should utilize an average adult fish consumption value of 11.3 kg/yr, and a maximum adult fish consumption value of 34 kg/yr. Consumption values for the teen and child age groups should be increased proportionally: (1) teen average = 8.5; maximum = 25.9 kg/yr; and (2) child average = 3.6; maximum = 11.2 kg/yr. 8 refs.« less

Surface and top-of-atmosphere radiative feedback kernels for CESM-CAM5

DOE PAGES

Pendergrass, Angeline G.; Conley, Andrew; Vitt, Francis M.

2018-02-21

Radiative kernels at the top of the atmosphere are useful for decomposing changes in atmospheric radiative fluxes due to feedbacks from atmosphere and surface temperature, water vapor, and surface albedo. Here we describe and validate radiative kernels calculated with the large-ensemble version of CAM5, CESM1.1.2, at the top of the atmosphere and the surface. Estimates of the radiative forcing from greenhouse gases and aerosols in RCP8.5 in the CESM large-ensemble simulations are also diagnosed. As an application, feedbacks are calculated for the CESM large ensemble. The kernels are freely available at https://doi.org/10.5065/D6F47MT6, and accompanying software can be downloaded from https://github.com/apendergrass/cam5-kernels.

Surface and top-of-atmosphere radiative feedback kernels for CESM-CAM5

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pendergrass, Angeline G.; Conley, Andrew; Vitt, Francis M.

Radiative kernels at the top of the atmosphere are useful for decomposing changes in atmospheric radiative fluxes due to feedbacks from atmosphere and surface temperature, water vapor, and surface albedo. Here we describe and validate radiative kernels calculated with the large-ensemble version of CAM5, CESM1.1.2, at the top of the atmosphere and the surface. Estimates of the radiative forcing from greenhouse gases and aerosols in RCP8.5 in the CESM large-ensemble simulations are also diagnosed. As an application, feedbacks are calculated for the CESM large ensemble. The kernels are freely available at https://doi.org/10.5065/D6F47MT6, and accompanying software can be downloaded from https://github.com/apendergrass/cam5-kernels.

Independent Monte-Carlo dose calculation for MLC based CyberKnife radiotherapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mackeprang, P.-H.; Vuong, D.; Volken, W.; Henzen, D.; Schmidhalter, D.; Malthaner, M.; Mueller, S.; Frei, D.; Stampanoni, M. F. M.; Dal Pra, A.; Aebersold, D. M.; Fix, M. K.; Manser, P.

2018-01-01

This work aims to develop, implement and validate a Monte Carlo (MC)-based independent dose calculation (IDC) framework to perform patient-specific quality assurance (QA) for multi-leaf collimator (MLC)-based CyberKnife® (Accuray Inc., Sunnyvale, CA) treatment plans. The IDC framework uses an XML-format treatment plan as exported from the treatment planning system (TPS) and DICOM format patient CT data, an MC beam model using phase spaces, CyberKnife MLC beam modifier transport using the EGS++ class library, a beam sampling and coordinate transformation engine and dose scoring using DOSXYZnrc. The framework is validated against dose profiles and depth dose curves of single beams with varying field sizes in a water tank in units of cGy/Monitor Unit and against a 2D dose distribution of a full prostate treatment plan measured with Gafchromic EBT3 (Ashland Advanced Materials, Bridgewater, NJ) film in a homogeneous water-equivalent slab phantom. The film measurement is compared to IDC results by gamma analysis using 2% (global)/2 mm criteria. Further, the dose distribution of the clinical treatment plan in the patient CT is compared to TPS calculation by gamma analysis using the same criteria. Dose profiles from IDC calculation in a homogeneous water phantom agree within 2.3% of the global max dose or 1 mm distance to agreement to measurements for all except the smallest field size. Comparing the film measurement to calculated dose, 99.9% of all voxels pass gamma analysis, comparing dose calculated by the IDC framework to TPS calculated dose for the clinical prostate plan shows 99.0% passing rate. IDC calculated dose is found to be up to 5.6% lower than dose calculated by the TPS in this case near metal fiducial markers. An MC-based modular IDC framework was successfully developed, implemented and validated against measurements and is now available to perform patient-specific QA by IDC.

The Impact of Monte Carlo Dose Calculations on Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siebers, J. V.; Keall, P. J.; Mohan, R.

The effect of dose calculation accuracy for IMRT was studied by comparing different dose calculation algorithms. A head and neck IMRT plan was optimized using a superposition dose calculation algorithm. Dose was re-computed for the optimized plan using both Monte Carlo and pencil beam dose calculation algorithms to generate patient and phantom dose distributions. Tumor control probabilities (TCP) and normal tissue complication probabilities (NTCP) were computed to estimate the plan outcome. For the treatment plan studied, Monte Carlo best reproduces phantom dose measurements, the TCP was slightly lower than the superposition and pencil beam results, and the NTCP values differed little.

Direct Measurement of Wave Kernels in Time-Distance Helioseismology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Duvall, T. L., Jr.

2006-01-01

Solar f-mode waves are surface-gravity waves which propagate horizontally in a thin layer near the photosphere with a dispersion relation approximately that of deep water waves. At the power maximum near 3 mHz, the wavelength of 5 Mm is large enough for various wave scattering properties to be observable. Gizon and Birch (2002,ApJ,571,966)h ave calculated kernels, in the Born approximation, for the sensitivity of wave travel times to local changes in damping rate and source strength. In this work, using isolated small magnetic features as approximate point-sourc'e scatterers, such a kernel has been measured. The observed kernel contains similar features to a theoretical damping kernel but not for a source kernel. A full understanding of the effect of small magnetic features on the waves will require more detailed modeling.

Increasing accuracy of dispersal kernels in grid-based population models

USGS Publications Warehouse

Slone, D.H.

2011-01-01

Dispersal kernels in grid-based population models specify the proportion, distance and direction of movements within the model landscape. Spatial errors in dispersal kernels can have large compounding effects on model accuracy. Circular Gaussian and Laplacian dispersal kernels at a range of spatial resolutions were investigated, and methods for minimizing errors caused by the discretizing process were explored. Kernels of progressively smaller sizes relative to the landscape grid size were calculated using cell-integration and cell-center methods. These kernels were convolved repeatedly, and the final distribution was compared with a reference analytical solution. For large Gaussian kernels (σ > 10 cells), the total kernel error was <10 &sup-11; compared to analytical results. Using an invasion model that tracked the time a population took to reach a defined goal, the discrete model results were comparable to the analytical reference. With Gaussian kernels that had σ ≤ 0.12 using the cell integration method, or σ ≤ 0.22 using the cell center method, the kernel error was greater than 10%, which resulted in invasion times that were orders of magnitude different than theoretical results. A goal-seeking routine was developed to adjust the kernels to minimize overall error. With this, corrections for small kernels were found that decreased overall kernel error to <10-11 and invasion time error to <5%.

Kernel Machine SNP-set Testing under Multiple Candidate Kernels

PubMed Central

Wu, Michael C.; Maity, Arnab; Lee, Seunggeun; Simmons, Elizabeth M.; Harmon, Quaker E.; Lin, Xinyi; Engel, Stephanie M.; Molldrem, Jeffrey J.; Armistead, Paul M.

2013-01-01

Joint testing for the cumulative effect of multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms grouped on the basis of prior biological knowledge has become a popular and powerful strategy for the analysis of large scale genetic association studies. The kernel machine (KM) testing framework is a useful approach that has been proposed for testing associations between multiple genetic variants and many different types of complex traits by comparing pairwise similarity in phenotype between subjects to pairwise similarity in genotype, with similarity in genotype defined via a kernel function. An advantage of the KM framework is its flexibility: choosing different kernel functions allows for different assumptions concerning the underlying model and can allow for improved power. In practice, it is difficult to know which kernel to use a priori since this depends on the unknown underlying trait architecture and selecting the kernel which gives the lowest p-value can lead to inflated type I error. Therefore, we propose practical strategies for KM testing when multiple candidate kernels are present based on constructing composite kernels and based on efficient perturbation procedures. We demonstrate through simulations and real data applications that the procedures protect the type I error rate and can lead to substantially improved power over poor choices of kernels and only modest differences in power versus using the best candidate kernel. PMID:23471868

Preliminary skyshine calculations for the Poloidal Diverter Tokamak Experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nigg, D. W.; Wheeler, F. J.

1981-01-01

A calculational model is presented to estimate the radiation dose, due to the skyshine effect, in the control room and at the site boundary of the Poloidal Diverter Experiment (PDX) facility at Princeton University which requires substantial radiation shielding. The required composition and thickness of a water-filled roof shield that would reduce this effect to an acceptable level is computed, using an efficient one-dimensional model with an Sn calculation in slab geometry. The actual neutron skyshine dose is computed using a Monte Carlo model with the neutron source at the roof surface obtained from the slab Sn calculation, and the capture gamma dose is computed using a simple point-kernel single-scatter method. It is maintained that the slab model provides the exact probability of leakage out the top surface of the roof and that it is nearly as accurate as and much less costly than multi-dimensional techniques.

Proton depth dose distribution: 3-D calculation of dose distributions from solar flare irradiation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leavitt, Dennis D.

1990-11-01

Relative depth dose distribution to the head from 3 typical solar flare proton events were calculated for 3 different exposure geometries: (1) single directional radiation incident upon a fixed head; (2) single directional radiation incident upon head rotating axially (2-D rotation); and (3) omnidirectional radiation incident upon head (3-D rotation). Isodose distributions in the transverse plane intersecting isocenter are presented for each of the 3 solar flare events in all 3 exposure geometries. In all 3 calculation configurations the maximum predicted dose occurred on the surface of the head. The dose at the isocenter of the head relative to the surface dose for the 2-D and 3-D rotation geometries ranged from 2 to 19 percent, increasing with increasing energy of the event. The calculations suggest the superficially located organs (lens of the eye and skin) are at greatest risk for the proton events studied here.

Dose equivalent rate constants and barrier transmission data for nuclear medicine facility dose calculations and shielding design.

PubMed

Kusano, Maggie; Caldwell, Curtis B

2014-07-01

A primary goal of nuclear medicine facility design is to keep public and worker radiation doses As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA). To estimate dose and shielding requirements, one needs to know both the dose equivalent rate constants for soft tissue and barrier transmission factors (TFs) for all radionuclides of interest. Dose equivalent rate constants are most commonly calculated using published air kerma or exposure rate constants, while transmission factors are most commonly calculated using published tenth-value layers (TVLs). Values can be calculated more accurately using the radionuclide's photon emission spectrum and the physical properties of lead, concrete, and/or tissue at these energies. These calculations may be non-trivial due to the polyenergetic nature of the radionuclides used in nuclear medicine. In this paper, the effects of dose equivalent rate constant and transmission factor on nuclear medicine dose and shielding calculations are investigated, and new values based on up-to-date nuclear data and thresholds specific to nuclear medicine are proposed. To facilitate practical use, transmission curves were fitted to the three-parameter Archer equation. Finally, the results of this work were applied to the design of a sample nuclear medicine facility and compared to doses calculated using common methods to investigate the effects of these values on dose estimates and shielding decisions. Dose equivalent rate constants generally agreed well with those derived from the literature with the exception of those from NCRP 124. Depending on the situation, Archer fit TFs could be significantly more accurate than TVL-based TFs. These results were reflected in the sample shielding problem, with unshielded dose estimates agreeing well, with the exception of those based on NCRP 124, and Archer fit TFs providing a more accurate alternative to TVL TFs and a simpler alternative to full spectral-based calculations. The data provided by this paper should assist

Effective dose rate coefficients for exposure to contaminated soil

DOE PAGES

Veinot, Kenneth G.; Eckerman, Keith F.; Bellamy, Michael B.; ...

2017-05-10

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge has undertaken calculations related to various environmental exposure scenarios. A previous paper reported the results for submersion in radioactive air and immersion in water using age-specific mathematical phantoms. This paper presents age-specific effective dose rate coefficients derived using stylized mathematical phantoms for exposure to contaminated soils. Dose rate coefficients for photon, electron, and positrons of discrete energies were calculated and folded with emissions of 1252 radionuclides addressed in ICRP Publication 107 to determine equivalent and effective dose rate coefficients. The MCNP6 radiation transport code was used for organ dose ratemore » calculations for photons and the contribution of electrons to skin dose rate was derived using point-kernels. Bremsstrahlung and annihilation photons of positron emission were evaluated as discrete photons. As a result, the coefficients calculated in this work compare favorably to those reported in the US Federal Guidance Report 12 as well as by other authors who employed voxel phantoms for similar exposure scenarios.« less

Effective dose rate coefficients for exposure to contaminated soil

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Veinot, Kenneth G.; Eckerman, Keith F.; Bellamy, Michael B.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge has undertaken calculations related to various environmental exposure scenarios. A previous paper reported the results for submersion in radioactive air and immersion in water using age-specific mathematical phantoms. This paper presents age-specific effective dose rate coefficients derived using stylized mathematical phantoms for exposure to contaminated soils. Dose rate coefficients for photon, electron, and positrons of discrete energies were calculated and folded with emissions of 1252 radionuclides addressed in ICRP Publication 107 to determine equivalent and effective dose rate coefficients. The MCNP6 radiation transport code was used for organ dose ratemore » calculations for photons and the contribution of electrons to skin dose rate was derived using point-kernels. Bremsstrahlung and annihilation photons of positron emission were evaluated as discrete photons. As a result, the coefficients calculated in this work compare favorably to those reported in the US Federal Guidance Report 12 as well as by other authors who employed voxel phantoms for similar exposure scenarios.« less

Surface and top-of-atmosphere radiative feedback kernels for CESM-CAM5

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pendergrass, Angeline G.; Conley, Andrew; Vitt, Francis M.

2018-02-01

Radiative kernels at the top of the atmosphere are useful for decomposing changes in atmospheric radiative fluxes due to feedbacks from atmosphere and surface temperature, water vapor, and surface albedo. Here we describe and validate radiative kernels calculated with the large-ensemble version of CAM5, CESM1.1.2, at the top of the atmosphere and the surface. Estimates of the radiative forcing from greenhouse gases and aerosols in RCP8.5 in the CESM large-ensemble simulations are also diagnosed. As an application, feedbacks are calculated for the CESM large ensemble. The kernels are freely available at https://doi.org/10.5065/D6F47MT6, and accompanying software can be downloaded from kernels" target="_blank">https://github.com/apendergrass/cam5-kernels.

SU-E-T-02: 90Y Microspheres Dosimetry Calculation with Voxel-S-Value Method: A Simple Use in the Clinic

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Maneru, F; Gracia, M; Gallardo, N

2015-06-15

Purpose: To present a simple and feasible method of voxel-S-value (VSV) dosimetry calculation for daily clinical use in radioembolization (RE) with {sup 90}Y microspheres. Dose distributions are obtained and visualized over CT images. Methods: Spatial dose distributions and dose in liver and tumor are calculated for RE patients treated with Sirtex Medical miscrospheres at our center. Data obtained from the previous simulation of treatment were the basis for calculations: Tc-99m maggregated albumin SPECT-CT study in a gammacamera (Infinia, General Electric Healthcare.). Attenuation correction and ordered-subsets expectation maximization (OSEM) algorithm were applied.For VSV calculations, both SPECT and CT were exported frommore » the gammacamera workstation and registered with the radiotherapy treatment planning system (Eclipse, Varian Medical systems). Convolution of activity matrix and local dose deposition kernel (S values) was implemented with an in-house developed software based on Python code. The kernel was downloaded from www.medphys.it. Final dose distribution was evaluated with the free software Dicompyler. Results: Liver mean dose is consistent with Partition method calculations (accepted as a good standard). Tumor dose has not been evaluated due to the high dependence on its contouring. Small lesion size, hot spots in health tissue and blurred limits can affect a lot the dose distribution in tumors. Extra work includes: export and import of images and other dicom files, create and calculate a dummy plan of external radiotherapy, convolution calculation and evaluation of the dose distribution with dicompyler. Total time spent is less than 2 hours. Conclusion: VSV calculations do not require any extra appointment or any uncomfortable process for patient. The total process is short enough to carry it out the same day of simulation and to contribute to prescription decisions prior to treatment. Three-dimensional dose knowledge provides much more

Neutron dose rate analysis on HTGR-10 reactor using Monte Carlo code

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suwoto; Adrial, H.; Hamzah, A.; Zuhair; Bakhri, S.; Sunaryo, G. R.

2018-02-01

The HTGR-10 reactor is cylinder-shaped core fuelled with kernel TRISO coated fuel particles in the spherical pebble with helium cooling system. The outlet helium gas coolant temperature outputted from the reactor core is designed to 700 °C. One advantage HTGR type reactor is capable of co-generation, as an addition to generating electricity, the reactor was designed to produce heat at high temperature can be used for other processes. The spherical fuel pebble contains 8335 TRISO UO2 kernel coated particles with enrichment of 10% and 17% are dispersed in a graphite matrix. The main purpose of this study was to analysis the distribution of neutron dose rates generated from HTGR-10 reactors. The calculation and analysis result of neutron dose rate in the HTGR-10 reactor core was performed using Monte Carlo MCNP5v1.6 code. The problems of double heterogeneity in kernel fuel coated particles TRISO and spherical fuel pebble in the HTGR-10 core are modelled well with MCNP5v1.6 code. The neutron flux to dose conversion factors taken from the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP-74) was used to determine the dose rate that passes through the active core, reflectors, core barrel, reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and a biological shield. The calculated results of neutron dose rate with MCNP5v1.6 code using a conversion factor of ICRP-74 (2009) for radiation workers in the radial direction on the outside of the RPV (radial position = 220 cm from the center of the patio HTGR-10) provides the respective value of 9.22E-4 μSv/h and 9.58E-4 μSv/h for enrichment 10% and 17%, respectively. The calculated values of neutron dose rates are compliant with BAPETEN Chairman’s Regulation Number 4 Year 2013 on Radiation Protection and Safety in Nuclear Energy Utilization which sets the limit value for the average effective dose for radiation workers 20 mSv/year or 10μSv/h. Thus the protection and safety for radiation workers to be safe from the radiation source has

SU-E-T-374: Evaluation and Verification of Dose Calculation Accuracy with Different Dose Grid Sizes for Intracranial Stereotactic Radiosurgery

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Han, C; Schultheiss, T

Purpose: In this study, we aim to evaluate the effect of dose grid size on the accuracy of calculated dose for small lesions in intracranial stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), and to verify dose calculation accuracy with radiochromic film dosimetry. Methods: 15 intracranial lesions from previous SRS patients were retrospectively selected for this study. The planning target volume (PTV) ranged from 0.17 to 2.3 cm{sup 3}. A commercial treatment planning system was used to generate SRS plans using the volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) technique using two arc fields. Two convolution-superposition-based dose calculation algorithms (Anisotropic Analytical Algorithm and Acuros XB algorithm) weremore » used to calculate volume dose distribution with dose grid size ranging from 1 mm to 3 mm with 0.5 mm step size. First, while the plan monitor units (MU) were kept constant, PTV dose variations were analyzed. Second, with 95% of the PTV covered by the prescription dose, variations of the plan MUs as a function of dose grid size were analyzed. Radiochomic films were used to compare the delivered dose and profile with the calculated dose distribution with different dose grid sizes. Results: The dose to the PTV, in terms of the mean dose, maximum, and minimum dose, showed steady decrease with increasing dose grid size using both algorithms. With 95% of the PTV covered by the prescription dose, the total MU increased with increasing dose grid size in most of the plans. Radiochromic film measurements showed better agreement with dose distributions calculated with 1-mm dose grid size. Conclusion: Dose grid size has significant impact on calculated dose distribution in intracranial SRS treatment planning with small target volumes. Using the default dose grid size could lead to under-estimation of delivered dose. A small dose grid size should be used to ensure calculation accuracy and agreement with QA measurements.« less

Spatial frequency performance limitations of radiation dose optimization and beam positioning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stewart, James M. P.; Stapleton, Shawn; Chaudary, Naz; Lindsay, Patricia E.; Jaffray, David A.

2018-06-01

The flexibility and sophistication of modern radiotherapy treatment planning and delivery methods have advanced techniques to improve the therapeutic ratio. Contemporary dose optimization and calculation algorithms facilitate radiotherapy plans which closely conform the three-dimensional dose distribution to the target, with beam shaping devices and image guided field targeting ensuring the fidelity and accuracy of treatment delivery. Ultimately, dose distribution conformity is limited by the maximum deliverable dose gradient; shallow dose gradients challenge techniques to deliver a tumoricidal radiation dose while minimizing dose to surrounding tissue. In this work, this ‘dose delivery resolution’ observation is rigorously formalized for a general dose delivery model based on the superposition of dose kernel primitives. It is proven that the spatial resolution of a delivered dose is bounded by the spatial frequency content of the underlying dose kernel, which in turn defines a lower bound in the minimization of a dose optimization objective function. In addition, it is shown that this optimization is penalized by a dose deposition strategy which enforces a constant relative phase (or constant spacing) between individual radiation beams. These results are further refined to provide a direct, analytic method to estimate the dose distribution arising from the minimization of such an optimization function. The efficacy of the overall framework is demonstrated on an image guided small animal microirradiator for a set of two-dimensional hypoxia guided dose prescriptions.

Use of Fluka to Create Dose Calculations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Kerry T.; Barzilla, Janet; Townsend, Lawrence; Brittingham, John

2012-01-01

Monte Carlo codes provide an effective means of modeling three dimensional radiation transport; however, their use is both time- and resource-intensive. The creation of a lookup table or parameterization from Monte Carlo simulation allows users to perform calculations with Monte Carlo results without replicating lengthy calculations. FLUKA Monte Carlo transport code was used to develop lookup tables and parameterizations for data resulting from the penetration of layers of aluminum, polyethylene, and water with areal densities ranging from 0 to 100 g/cm^2. Heavy charged ion radiation including ions from Z=1 to Z=26 and from 0.1 to 10 GeV/nucleon were simulated. Dose, dose equivalent, and fluence as a function of particle identity, energy, and scattering angle were examined at various depths. Calculations were compared against well-known results and against the results of other deterministic and Monte Carlo codes. Results will be presented.

KINETIC-J: A computational kernel for solving the linearized Vlasov equation applied to calculations of the kinetic, configuration space plasma current for time harmonic wave electric fields

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Green, David L.; Berry, Lee A.; Simpson, Adam B.; Younkin, Timothy R.

2018-04-01

We present the KINETIC-J code, a computational kernel for evaluating the linearized Vlasov equation with application to calculating the kinetic plasma response (current) to an applied time harmonic wave electric field. This code addresses the need for a configuration space evaluation of the plasma current to enable kinetic full-wave solvers for waves in hot plasmas to move beyond the limitations of the traditional Fourier spectral methods. We benchmark the kernel via comparison with the standard k →-space forms of the hot plasma conductivity tensor.

Preliminary skyshine calculations for the Poloidal Diverter Tokamak Experiment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nigg, D.W.; Wheeler, F.J.

1981-01-01

A calculational model is presented to estimate the radiation dose, due to the skyshine effect, in the control room and at the site boundary of the Poloidal Diverter Experiment (PDX) facility at Princeton University which requires substantial radiation shielding. The required composition and thickness of a water-filled roof shield that would reduce this effect to an acceptable level is computed, using an efficient one-dimensional model with an Sn calculation in slab geometry. The actual neutron skyshine dose is computed using a Monte Carlo model with the neutron source at the roof surface obtained from the slab Sn calculation, and themore » capture gamma dose is computed using a simple point-kernel single-scatter method. It is maintained that the slab model provides the exact probability of leakage out the top surface of the roof and that it is nearly as accurate as and much less costly than multi-dimensional techniques.« less

Anelastic sensitivity kernels with parsimonious storage for adjoint tomography and full waveform inversion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Komatitsch, Dimitri; Xie, Zhinan; Bozdaǧ, Ebru; Sales de Andrade, Elliott; Peter, Daniel; Liu, Qinya; Tromp, Jeroen

2016-09-01

We introduce a technique to compute exact anelastic sensitivity kernels in the time domain using parsimonious disk storage. The method is based on a reordering of the time loop of time-domain forward/adjoint wave propagation solvers combined with the use of a memory buffer. It avoids instabilities that occur when time-reversing dissipative wave propagation simulations. The total number of required time steps is unchanged compared to usual acoustic or elastic approaches. The cost is reduced by a factor of 4/3 compared to the case in which anelasticity is partially accounted for by accommodating the effects of physical dispersion. We validate our technique by performing a test in which we compare the Kα sensitivity kernel to the exact kernel obtained by saving the entire forward calculation. This benchmark confirms that our approach is also exact. We illustrate the importance of including full attenuation in the calculation of sensitivity kernels by showing significant differences with physical-dispersion-only kernels.

Improvements in dose calculation accuracy for small off-axis targets in high dose per fraction tomotherapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hardcastle, Nicholas; Bayliss, Adam; Wong, Jeannie Hsiu Ding

2012-08-15

Purpose: A recent field safety notice from TomoTherapy detailed the underdosing of small, off-axis targets when receiving high doses per fraction. This is due to angular undersampling in the dose calculation gantry angles. This study evaluates a correction method to reduce the underdosing, to be implemented in the current version (v4.1) of the TomoTherapy treatment planning software. Methods: The correction method, termed 'Super Sampling' involved the tripling of the number of gantry angles from which the dose is calculated during optimization and dose calculation. Radiochromic film was used to measure the dose to small targets at various off-axis distances receivingmore » a minimum of 21 Gy in one fraction. Measurements were also performed for single small targets at the center of the Lucy phantom, using radiochromic film and the dose magnifying glass (DMG). Results: Without super sampling, the peak dose deficit increased from 0% to 18% for a 10 mm target and 0% to 30% for a 5 mm target as off-axis target distances increased from 0 to 16.5 cm. When super sampling was turned on, the dose deficit trend was removed and all peak doses were within 5% of the planned dose. For measurements in the Lucy phantom at 9.7 cm off-axis, the positional and dose magnitude accuracy using super sampling was verified using radiochromic film and the DMG. Conclusions: A correction method implemented in the TomoTherapy treatment planning system which triples the angular sampling of the gantry angles used during optimization and dose calculation removes the underdosing for targets as small as 5 mm diameter, up to 16.5 cm off-axis receiving up to 21 Gy.« less

Limitations of analytical dose calculations for small field proton radiosurgery.

PubMed

Geng, Changran; Daartz, Juliane; Lam-Tin-Cheung, Kimberley; Bussiere, Marc; Shih, Helen A; Paganetti, Harald; Schuemann, Jan

2017-01-07

The purpose of the work was to evaluate the dosimetric uncertainties of an analytical dose calculation engine and the impact on treatment plans using small fields in intracranial proton stereotactic radiosurgery (PSRS) for a gantry based double scattering system. 50 patients were evaluated including 10 patients for each of 5 diagnostic indications of: arteriovenous malformation (AVM), acoustic neuroma (AN), meningioma (MGM), metastasis (METS), and pituitary adenoma (PIT). Treatment plans followed standard prescription and optimization procedures for PSRS. We performed comparisons between delivered dose distributions, determined by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, and those calculated with the analytical dose calculation algorithm (ADC) used in our current treatment planning system in terms of dose volume histogram parameters and beam range distributions. Results show that the difference in the dose to 95% of the target (D95) is within 6% when applying measured field size output corrections for AN, MGM, and PIT. However, for AVM and METS, the differences can be as great as 10% and 12%, respectively. Normalizing the MC dose to the ADC dose based on the dose of voxels in a central area of the target reduces the difference of the D95 to within 6% for all sites. The generally applied margin to cover uncertainties in range (3.5% of the prescribed range  +  1 mm) is not sufficient to cover the range uncertainty for ADC in all cases, especially for patients with high tissue heterogeneity. The root mean square of the R90 difference, the difference in the position of distal falloff to 90% of the prescribed dose, is affected by several factors, especially the patient geometry heterogeneity, modulation and field diameter. In conclusion, implementation of Monte Carlo dose calculation techniques into the clinic can reduce the uncertainty of the target dose for proton stereotactic radiosurgery. If MC is not available for treatment planning, using MC dose distributions to

Incorporating partial shining effects in proton pencil-beam dose calculation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Yupeng; Zhang, Xiaodong; Fwu Lii, Ming; Sahoo, Narayan; Zhu, Ron X.; Gillin, Michael; Mohan, Radhe

2008-02-01

A range modulator wheel (RMW) is an essential component in passively scattered proton therapy. We have observed that a proton beam spot may shine on multiple steps of the RMW. Proton dose calculation algorithms normally do not consider the partial shining effect, and thus overestimate the dose at the proximal shoulder of spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP) compared with the measurement. If the SOBP is adjusted to better fit the plateau region, the entrance dose is likely to be underestimated. In this work, we developed an algorithm that can be used to model this effect and to allow for dose calculations that better fit the measured SOBP. First, a set of apparent modulator weights was calculated without considering partial shining. Next, protons spilled from the accelerator reaching the modulator wheel were simplified as a circular spot of uniform intensity. A weight-splitting process was then performed to generate a set of effective modulator weights with the partial shining effect incorporated. The SOBPs of eight options, which are used to label different combinations of proton-beam energy and scattering devices, were calculated with the generated effective weights. Our algorithm fitted the measured SOBP at the proximal and entrance regions much better than the ones without considering partial shining effect for all SOBPs of the eight options. In a prostate patient, we found that dose calculation without considering partial shining effect underestimated the femoral head and skin dose.

Analytical probabilistic proton dose calculation and range uncertainties

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bangert, M.; Hennig, P.; Oelfke, U.

2014-03-01

We introduce the concept of analytical probabilistic modeling (APM) to calculate the mean and the standard deviation of intensity-modulated proton dose distributions under the influence of range uncertainties in closed form. For APM, range uncertainties are modeled with a multivariate Normal distribution p(z) over the radiological depths z. A pencil beam algorithm that parameterizes the proton depth dose d(z) with a weighted superposition of ten Gaussians is used. Hence, the integrals ∫ dz p(z) d(z) and ∫ dz p(z) d(z)2 required for the calculation of the expected value and standard deviation of the dose remain analytically tractable and can be efficiently evaluated. The means μk, widths δk, and weights ωk of the Gaussian components parameterizing the depth dose curves are found with least squares fits for all available proton ranges. We observe less than 0.3% average deviation of the Gaussian parameterizations from the original proton depth dose curves. Consequently, APM yields high accuracy estimates for the expected value and standard deviation of intensity-modulated proton dose distributions for two dimensional test cases. APM can accommodate arbitrary correlation models and account for the different nature of random and systematic errors in fractionated radiation therapy. Beneficial applications of APM in robust planning are feasible.

Calculation of Organ Doses for a Large Number of Patients Undergoing CT Examinations.

PubMed

Bahadori, Amir; Miglioretti, Diana; Kruger, Randell; Flynn, Michael; Weinmann, Sheila; Smith-Bindman, Rebecca; Lee, Choonsik

2015-10-01

The objective of our study was to develop an automated calculation method to provide organ dose assessment for a large cohort of pediatric and adult patients undergoing CT examinations. We adopted two dose libraries that were previously published: the volume CT dose index-normalized organ dose library and the tube current-exposure time product (100 mAs)-normalized weighted CT dose index library. We developed an algorithm to calculate organ doses using the two dose libraries and the CT parameters available from DICOM data. We calculated organ doses for pediatric (n = 2499) and adult (n = 2043) CT examinations randomly selected from four health care systems in the United States and compared the adult organ doses with the values calculated from the ImPACT calculator. The median brain dose was 20 mGy (pediatric) and 24 mGy (adult), and the brain dose was greater than 40 mGy for 11% (pediatric) and 18% (adult) of the head CT studies. Both the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and ImPACT methods provided similar organ doses (median discrepancy < 20%) for all organs except the organs located close to the scanning boundaries. The visual comparisons of scanning coverage and phantom anatomies revealed that the NCI method, which is based on realistic computational phantoms, provides more accurate organ doses than the ImPACT method. The automated organ dose calculation method developed in this study reduces the time needed to calculate doses for a large number of patients. We have successfully used this method for a variety of CT-related studies including retrospective epidemiologic studies and CT dose trend analysis studies.

Nonparametric entropy estimation using kernel densities.

PubMed

Lake, Douglas E

2009-01-01

The entropy of experimental data from the biological and medical sciences provides additional information over summary statistics. Calculating entropy involves estimates of probability density functions, which can be effectively accomplished using kernel density methods. Kernel density estimation has been widely studied and a univariate implementation is readily available in MATLAB. The traditional definition of Shannon entropy is part of a larger family of statistics, called Renyi entropy, which are useful in applications that require a measure of the Gaussianity of data. Of particular note is the quadratic entropy which is related to the Friedman-Tukey (FT) index, a widely used measure in the statistical community. One application where quadratic entropy is very useful is the detection of abnormal cardiac rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation (AF). Asymptotic and exact small-sample results for optimal bandwidth and kernel selection to estimate the FT index are presented and lead to improved methods for entropy estimation.

Semisupervised kernel marginal Fisher analysis for face recognition.

PubMed

Wang, Ziqiang; Sun, Xia; Sun, Lijun; Huang, Yuchun

2013-01-01

Dimensionality reduction is a key problem in face recognition due to the high-dimensionality of face image. To effectively cope with this problem, a novel dimensionality reduction algorithm called semisupervised kernel marginal Fisher analysis (SKMFA) for face recognition is proposed in this paper. SKMFA can make use of both labelled and unlabeled samples to learn the projection matrix for nonlinear dimensionality reduction. Meanwhile, it can successfully avoid the singularity problem by not calculating the matrix inverse. In addition, in order to make the nonlinear structure captured by the data-dependent kernel consistent with the intrinsic manifold structure, a manifold adaptive nonparameter kernel is incorporated into the learning process of SKMFA. Experimental results on three face image databases demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.

Flexibly imposing periodicity in kernel independent FMM: A multipole-to-local operator approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Wen; Shelley, Michael

2018-02-01

An important but missing component in the application of the kernel independent fast multipole method (KIFMM) is the capability for flexibly and efficiently imposing singly, doubly, and triply periodic boundary conditions. In most popular packages such periodicities are imposed with the hierarchical repetition of periodic boxes, which may give an incorrect answer due to the conditional convergence of some kernel sums. Here we present an efficient method to properly impose periodic boundary conditions using a near-far splitting scheme. The near-field contribution is directly calculated with the KIFMM method, while the far-field contribution is calculated with a multipole-to-local (M2L) operator which is independent of the source and target point distribution. The M2L operator is constructed with the far-field portion of the kernel function to generate the far-field contribution with the downward equivalent source points in KIFMM. This method guarantees the sum of the near-field & far-field converge pointwise to results satisfying periodicity and compatibility conditions. The computational cost of the far-field calculation observes the same O (N) complexity as FMM and is designed to be small by reusing the data computed by KIFMM for the near-field. The far-field calculations require no additional control parameters, and observes the same theoretical error bound as KIFMM. We present accuracy and timing test results for the Laplace kernel in singly periodic domains and the Stokes velocity kernel in doubly and triply periodic domains.

Uncertainty analysis of absorbed dose calculations from thermoluminescence dosimeters.

PubMed

Kirby, T H; Hanson, W F; Johnston, D A

1992-01-01

Thermoluminescence dosimeters (TLD) are widely used to verify absorbed doses delivered from radiation therapy beams. Specifically, they are used by the Radiological Physics Center for mailed dosimetry for verification of therapy machine output. The effects of the random experimental uncertainties of various factors on dose calculations from TLD signals are examined, including: fading, dose response nonlinearity, and energy response corrections; reproducibility of TL signal measurements and TLD reader calibration. Individual uncertainties are combined to estimate the total uncertainty due to random fluctuations. The Radiological Physics Center's (RPC) mail out TLD system, utilizing throwaway LiF powder to monitor high-energy photon and electron beam outputs, is analyzed in detail. The technique may also be applicable to other TLD systems. It is shown that statements of +/- 2% dose uncertainty and +/- 5% action criterion for TLD dosimetry are reasonable when related to uncertainties in the dose calculations, provided the standard deviation (s.d.) of TL readings is 1.5% or better.

Implementation of Monte Carlo Dose calculation for CyberKnife treatment planning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, C.-M.; Li, J. S.; Deng, J.; Fan, J.

2008-02-01

Accurate dose calculation is essential to advanced stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) especially for treatment planning involving heterogeneous patient anatomy. This paper describes the implementation of a fast Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithm in SRS/SRT treatment planning for the CyberKnife® SRS/SRT system. A superposition Monte Carlo algorithm is developed for this application. Photon mean free paths and interaction types for different materials and energies as well as the tracks of secondary electrons are pre-simulated using the MCSIM system. Photon interaction forcing and splitting are applied to the source photons in the patient calculation and the pre-simulated electron tracks are repeated with proper corrections based on the tissue density and electron stopping powers. Electron energy is deposited along the tracks and accumulated in the simulation geometry. Scattered and bremsstrahlung photons are transported, after applying the Russian roulette technique, in the same way as the primary photons. Dose calculations are compared with full Monte Carlo simulations performed using EGS4/MCSIM and the CyberKnife treatment planning system (TPS) for lung, head & neck and liver treatments. Comparisons with full Monte Carlo simulations show excellent agreement (within 0.5%). More than 10% differences in the target dose are found between Monte Carlo simulations and the CyberKnife TPS for SRS/SRT lung treatment while negligible differences are shown in head and neck and liver for the cases investigated. The calculation time using our superposition Monte Carlo algorithm is reduced up to 62 times (46 times on average for 10 typical clinical cases) compared to full Monte Carlo simulations. SRS/SRT dose distributions calculated by simple dose algorithms may be significantly overestimated for small lung target volumes, which can be improved by accurate Monte Carlo dose calculations.

Kernel Abortion in Maize 1

PubMed Central

Hanft, Jonathan M.; Jones, Robert J.

1986-01-01

Kernels cultured in vitro were induced to abort by high temperature (35°C) and by culturing six kernels/cob piece. Aborting kernels failed to enter a linear phase of dry mass accumulation and had a final mass that was less than 6% of nonaborting field-grown kernels. Kernels induced to abort by high temperature failed to synthesize starch in the endosperm and had elevated sucrose concentrations and low fructose and glucose concentrations in the pedicel during early growth compared to nonaborting kernels. Kernels induced to abort by high temperature also had much lower pedicel soluble acid invertase activities than did nonaborting kernels. These results suggest that high temperature during the lag phase of kernel growth may impair the process of sucrose unloading in the pedicel by indirectly inhibiting soluble acid invertase activity and prevent starch synthesis in the endosperm. Kernels induced to abort by culturing six kernels/cob piece had reduced pedicel fructose, glucose, and sucrose concentrations compared to kernels from field-grown ears. These aborting kernels also had a lower pedicel soluble acid invertase activity compared to nonaborting kernels from the same cob piece and from field-grown ears. The low invertase activity in pedicel tissue of the aborting kernels was probably caused by a lack of substrate (sucrose) for the invertase to cleave due to the intense competition for available assimilates. In contrast to kernels cultured at 35°C, aborting kernels from cob pieces containing all six kernels accumulated starch in a linear fashion. These results indicate that kernels cultured six/cob piece abort because of an inadequate supply of sugar and are similar to apical kernels from field-grown ears that often abort prior to the onset of linear growth. PMID:16664846

Sensitivity of NTCP parameter values against a change of dose calculation algorithm.

PubMed

Brink, Carsten; Berg, Martin; Nielsen, Morten

2007-09-01

Optimization of radiation treatment planning requires estimations of the normal tissue complication probability (NTCP). A number of models exist that estimate NTCP from a calculated dose distribution. Since different dose calculation algorithms use different approximations the dose distributions predicted for a given treatment will in general depend on the algorithm. The purpose of this work is to test whether the optimal NTCP parameter values change significantly when the dose calculation algorithm is changed. The treatment plans for 17 breast cancer patients have retrospectively been recalculated with a collapsed cone algorithm (CC) to compare the NTCP estimates for radiation pneumonitis with those obtained from the clinically used pencil beam algorithm (PB). For the PB calculations the NTCP parameters were taken from previously published values for three different models. For the CC calculations the parameters were fitted to give the same NTCP as for the PB calculations. This paper demonstrates that significant shifts of the NTCP parameter values are observed for three models, comparable in magnitude to the uncertainties of the published parameter values. Thus, it is important to quote the applied dose calculation algorithm when reporting estimates of NTCP parameters in order to ensure correct use of the models.

Development of low-frequency kernel-function aerodynamics for comparison with time-dependent finite-difference methods

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bland, S. R.

1982-01-01

Finite difference methods for unsteady transonic flow frequency use simplified equations in which certain of the time dependent terms are omitted from the governing equations. Kernel functions are derived for two dimensional subsonic flow, and provide accurate solutions of the linearized potential equation with the same time dependent terms omitted. These solutions make possible a direct evaluation of the finite difference codes for the linear problem. Calculations with two of these low frequency kernel functions verify the accuracy of the LTRAN2 and HYTRAN2 finite difference codes. Comparisons of the low frequency kernel function results with the Possio kernel function solution of the complete linear equations indicate the adequacy of the HYTRAN approximation for frequencies in the range of interest for flutter calculations.

Effect of Embolization Material in the Calculation of Dose Deposition in Arteriovenous Malformations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

De la Cruz, O. O. Galvan; Moreno-Jimenez, S.; Larraga-Gutierrez, J. M.

2010-12-07

In this work it is studied the impact of the incorporation of high Z materials (embolization material) in the dose calculation for stereotactic radiosurgery treatment for arteriovenous malformations. A statistical analysis is done to establish the variables that may impact in the dose calculation. To perform the comparison pencil beam (PB) and Monte Carlo (MC) calculation algorithms were used. The comparison between both dose calculations shows that PB overestimates the dose deposited. The statistical analysis, for the quantity of patients of the study (20), shows that the variable that may impact in the dose calculation is the volume of themore » high Z material in the arteriovenous malformation. Further studies have to be done to establish the clinical impact with the radiosurgery result.« less

Weighted Feature Gaussian Kernel SVM for Emotion Recognition

PubMed Central

Jia, Qingxuan

2016-01-01

Emotion recognition with weighted feature based on facial expression is a challenging research topic and has attracted great attention in the past few years. This paper presents a novel method, utilizing subregion recognition rate to weight kernel function. First, we divide the facial expression image into some uniform subregions and calculate corresponding recognition rate and weight. Then, we get a weighted feature Gaussian kernel function and construct a classifier based on Support Vector Machine (SVM). At last, the experimental results suggest that the approach based on weighted feature Gaussian kernel function has good performance on the correct rate in emotion recognition. The experiments on the extended Cohn-Kanade (CK+) dataset show that our method has achieved encouraging recognition results compared to the state-of-the-art methods. PMID:27807443

A new discrete dipole kernel for quantitative susceptibility mapping.

PubMed

Milovic, Carlos; Acosta-Cabronero, Julio; Pinto, José Miguel; Mattern, Hendrik; Andia, Marcelo; Uribe, Sergio; Tejos, Cristian

2018-09-01

Most approaches for quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) are based on a forward model approximation that employs a continuous Fourier transform operator to solve a differential equation system. Such formulation, however, is prone to high-frequency aliasing. The aim of this study was to reduce such errors using an alternative dipole kernel formulation based on the discrete Fourier transform and discrete operators. The impact of such an approach on forward model calculation and susceptibility inversion was evaluated in contrast to the continuous formulation both with synthetic phantoms and in vivo MRI data. The discrete kernel demonstrated systematically better fits to analytic field solutions, and showed less over-oscillations and aliasing artifacts while preserving low- and medium-frequency responses relative to those obtained with the continuous kernel. In the context of QSM estimation, the use of the proposed discrete kernel resulted in error reduction and increased sharpness. This proof-of-concept study demonstrated that discretizing the dipole kernel is advantageous for QSM. The impact on small or narrow structures such as the venous vasculature might by particularly relevant to high-resolution QSM applications with ultra-high field MRI - a topic for future investigations. The proposed dipole kernel has a straightforward implementation to existing QSM routines. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Validation of GPU based TomoTherapy dose calculation engine.

PubMed

Chen, Quan; Lu, Weiguo; Chen, Yu; Chen, Mingli; Henderson, Douglas; Sterpin, Edmond

2012-04-01

The graphic processing unit (GPU) based TomoTherapy convolution/superposition(C/S) dose engine (GPU dose engine) achieves a dramatic performance improvement over the traditional CPU-cluster based TomoTherapy dose engine (CPU dose engine). Besides the architecture difference between the GPU and CPU, there are several algorithm changes from the CPU dose engine to the GPU dose engine. These changes made the GPU dose slightly different from the CPU-cluster dose. In order for the commercial release of the GPU dose engine, its accuracy has to be validated. Thirty eight TomoTherapy phantom plans and 19 patient plans were calculated with both dose engines to evaluate the equivalency between the two dose engines. Gamma indices (Γ) were used for the equivalency evaluation. The GPU dose was further verified with the absolute point dose measurement with ion chamber and film measurements for phantom plans. Monte Carlo calculation was used as a reference for both dose engines in the accuracy evaluation in heterogeneous phantom and actual patients. The GPU dose engine showed excellent agreement with the current CPU dose engine. The majority of cases had over 99.99% of voxels with Γ(1%, 1 mm) < 1. The worst case observed in the phantom had 0.22% voxels violating the criterion. In patient cases, the worst percentage of voxels violating the criterion was 0.57%. For absolute point dose verification, all cases agreed with measurement to within ±3% with average error magnitude within 1%. All cases passed the acceptance criterion that more than 95% of the pixels have Γ(3%, 3 mm) < 1 in film measurement, and the average passing pixel percentage is 98.5%-99%. The GPU dose engine also showed similar degree of accuracy in heterogeneous media as the current TomoTherapy dose engine. It is verified and validated that the ultrafast TomoTherapy GPU dose engine can safely replace the existing TomoTherapy cluster based dose engine without degradation in dose accuracy.

Classification With Truncated Distance Kernel.

PubMed

Huang, Xiaolin; Suykens, Johan A K; Wang, Shuning; Hornegger, Joachim; Maier, Andreas

2018-05-01

This brief proposes a truncated distance (TL1) kernel, which results in a classifier that is nonlinear in the global region but is linear in each subregion. With this kernel, the subregion structure can be trained using all the training data and local linear classifiers can be established simultaneously. The TL1 kernel has good adaptiveness to nonlinearity and is suitable for problems which require different nonlinearities in different areas. Though the TL1 kernel is not positive semidefinite, some classical kernel learning methods are still applicable which means that the TL1 kernel can be directly used in standard toolboxes by replacing the kernel evaluation. In numerical experiments, the TL1 kernel with a pregiven parameter achieves similar or better performance than the radial basis function kernel with the parameter tuned by cross validation, implying the TL1 kernel a promising nonlinear kernel for classification tasks.

Virtual reality based adaptive dose assessment method for arbitrary geometries in nuclear facility decommissioning.

PubMed

Liu, Yong-Kuo; Chao, Nan; Xia, Hong; Peng, Min-Jun; Ayodeji, Abiodun

2018-05-17

This paper presents an improved and efficient virtual reality-based adaptive dose assessment method (VRBAM) applicable to the cutting and dismantling tasks in nuclear facility decommissioning. The method combines the modeling strength of virtual reality with the flexibility of adaptive technology. The initial geometry is designed with the three-dimensional computer-aided design tools, and a hybrid model composed of cuboids and a point-cloud is generated automatically according to the virtual model of the object. In order to improve the efficiency of dose calculation while retaining accuracy, the hybrid model is converted to a weighted point-cloud model, and the point kernels are generated by adaptively simplifying the weighted point-cloud model according to the detector position, an approach that is suitable for arbitrary geometries. The dose rates are calculated with the Point-Kernel method. To account for radiation scattering effects, buildup factors are calculated with the Geometric-Progression formula in the fitting function. The geometric modeling capability of VRBAM was verified by simulating basic geometries, which included a convex surface, a concave surface, a flat surface and their combination. The simulation results show that the VRBAM is more flexible and superior to other approaches in modeling complex geometries. In this paper, the computation time and dose rate results obtained from the proposed method were also compared with those obtained using the MCNP code and an earlier virtual reality-based method (VRBM) developed by the same authors. © 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd.

SU-F-T-441: Dose Calculation Accuracy in CT Images Reconstructed with Artifact Reduction Algorithm

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ng, C; Chan, S; Lee, F

Purpose: Accuracy of radiotherapy dose calculation in patients with surgical implants is complicated by two factors. First is the accuracy of CT number, second is the dose calculation accuracy. We compared measured dose with dose calculated on CT images reconstructed with FBP and an artifact reduction algorithm (OMAR, Philips) for a phantom with high density inserts. Dose calculation were done with Varian AAA and AcurosXB. Methods: A phantom was constructed with solid water in which 2 titanium or stainless steel rods could be inserted. The phantom was scanned with the Philips Brillance Big Bore CT. Image reconstruction was done withmore » FBP and OMAR. Two 6 MV single field photon plans were constructed for each phantom. Radiochromic films were placed at different locations to measure the dose deposited. One plan has normal incidence on the titanium/steel rods. In the second plan, the beam is at almost glancing incidence on the metal rods. Measurements were then compared with dose calculated with AAA and AcurosXB. Results: The use of OMAR images slightly improved the dose calculation accuracy. The agreement between measured and calculated dose was best with AXB and image reconstructed with OMAR. Dose calculated on titanium phantom has better agreement with measurement. Large discrepancies were seen at points directly above and below the high density inserts. Both AAA and AXB underestimated the dose directly above the metal surface, while overestimated the dose below the metal surface. Doses measured downstream of metal were all within 3% of calculated values. Conclusion: When doing treatment planning for patients with metal implants, care must be taken to acquire correct CT images to improve dose calculation accuracy. Moreover, great discrepancies in measured and calculated dose were observed at metal/tissue interface. Care must be taken in estimating the dose in critical structures that come into contact with metals.« less

Sensitivity of NTCP parameter values against a change of dose calculation algorithm

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brink, Carsten; Berg, Martin; Nielsen, Morten

2007-09-15

Optimization of radiation treatment planning requires estimations of the normal tissue complication probability (NTCP). A number of models exist that estimate NTCP from a calculated dose distribution. Since different dose calculation algorithms use different approximations the dose distributions predicted for a given treatment will in general depend on the algorithm. The purpose of this work is to test whether the optimal NTCP parameter values change significantly when the dose calculation algorithm is changed. The treatment plans for 17 breast cancer patients have retrospectively been recalculated with a collapsed cone algorithm (CC) to compare the NTCP estimates for radiation pneumonitis withmore » those obtained from the clinically used pencil beam algorithm (PB). For the PB calculations the NTCP parameters were taken from previously published values for three different models. For the CC calculations the parameters were fitted to give the same NTCP as for the PB calculations. This paper demonstrates that significant shifts of the NTCP parameter values are observed for three models, comparable in magnitude to the uncertainties of the published parameter values. Thus, it is important to quote the applied dose calculation algorithm when reporting estimates of NTCP parameters in order to ensure correct use of the models.« less

Calculation of organ doses from breast cancer radiotherapy: a Monte Carlo study

PubMed Central

Berris, T.; Mazonakis, M.; Stratakis, J.; Tzedakis, A.; Fasoulaki, A.

2013-01-01

The current study aimed to: a) utilize Monte Carlo simulation methods for the assessment of radiation doses imparted to all organs at risk to develop secondary radiation induced cancer, for patients undergoing radiotherapy for breast cancer; and b) evaluate the effect of breast size on dose to organs outside the irradiation field. A simulated linear accelerator model was generated. The in‐field accuracy of the simulated photon beam properties was verified against percentage depth dose (PDD) and dose profile measurements on an actual water phantom. Off‐axis dose calculations were verified with thermoluminescent dosimetry (TLD) measurements on a humanoid physical phantom. An anthropomorphic mathematical phantom was used to simulate breast cancer radiotherapy with medial and lateral fields. The effect of breast size on the calculated organ dose was investigated. Local differences between measured and calculated PDDs and dose profiles did not exceed 2% for the points at depths beyond the depth of maximum dose and the plateau region of the profile, respectively. For the penumbral regions of the dose profiles, the distance to agreement (DTA) did not exceed 2 mm. The mean difference between calculated out‐of‐field doses and TLD measurements was 11.4%±5.9%. The calculated doses to peripheral organs ranged from 2.32 cGy up to 161.41 cGy depending on breast size and thus the field dimensions applied, as well as the proximity of the organs to the primary beam. An increase to the therapeutic field area by 50% to account for the large breast led to a mean organ dose elevation by up to 85.2% for lateral exposure. The contralateral breast dose ranged between 1.4% and 1.6% of the prescribed dose to the tumor. Breast size affects dose deposition substantially. PACS numbers: 87.10.rt, 87.56.bd, 87.53.Bn, 87.55.K‐, 87.55.ne, 87.56.jf, 87.56.J‐ PMID:23318389

Sensitivities Kernels of Seismic Traveltimes and Amplitudes for Quality Factor and Boundary Topography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hsieh, M.; Zhao, L.; Ma, K.

2010-12-01

Finite-frequency approach enables seismic tomography to fully utilize the spatial and temporal distributions of the seismic wavefield to improve resolution. In achieving this goal, one of the most important tasks is to compute efficiently and accurately the (Fréchet) sensitivity kernels of finite-frequency seismic observables such as traveltime and amplitude to the perturbations of model parameters. In scattering-integral approach, the Fréchet kernels are expressed in terms of the strain Green tensors (SGTs), and a pre-established SGT database is necessary to achieve practical efficiency for a three-dimensional reference model in which the SGTs must be calculated numerically. Methods for computing Fréchet kernels for seismic velocities have long been established. In this study, we develop algorithms based on the finite-difference method for calculating Fréchet kernels for the quality factor Qμ and seismic boundary topography. Kernels for the quality factor can be obtained in a way similar to those for seismic velocities with the help of the Hilbert transform. The effects of seismic velocities and quality factor on either traveltime or amplitude are coupled. Kernels for boundary topography involve spatial gradient of the SGTs and they also exhibit interesting finite-frequency characteristics. Examples of quality factor and boundary topography kernels will be shown for a realistic model for the Taiwan region with three-dimensional velocity variation as well as surface and Moho discontinuity topography.

Analytical calculation of proton linear energy transfer in voxelized geometries including secondary protons.

PubMed

Sanchez-Parcerisa, D; Cortés-Giraldo, M A; Dolney, D; Kondrla, M; Fager, M; Carabe, A

2016-02-21

In order to integrate radiobiological modelling with clinical treatment planning for proton radiotherapy, we extended our in-house treatment planning system FoCa with a 3D analytical algorithm to calculate linear energy transfer (LET) in voxelized patient geometries. Both active scanning and passive scattering delivery modalities are supported. The analytical calculation is much faster than the Monte-Carlo (MC) method and it can be implemented in the inverse treatment planning optimization suite, allowing us to create LET-based objectives in inverse planning. The LET was calculated by combining a 1D analytical approach including a novel correction for secondary protons with pencil-beam type LET-kernels. Then, these LET kernels were inserted into the proton-convolution-superposition algorithm in FoCa. The analytical LET distributions were benchmarked against MC simulations carried out in Geant4. A cohort of simple phantom and patient plans representing a wide variety of sites (prostate, lung, brain, head and neck) was selected. The calculation algorithm was able to reproduce the MC LET to within 6% (1 standard deviation) for low-LET areas (under 1.7 keV μm(-1)) and within 22% for the high-LET areas above that threshold. The dose and LET distributions can be further extended, using radiobiological models, to include radiobiological effectiveness (RBE) calculations in the treatment planning system. This implementation also allows for radiobiological optimization of treatments by including RBE-weighted dose constraints in the inverse treatment planning process.

Analytical calculation of proton linear energy transfer in voxelized geometries including secondary protons

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sanchez-Parcerisa, D.; Cortés-Giraldo, M. A.; Dolney, D.; Kondrla, M.; Fager, M.; Carabe, A.

2016-02-01

In order to integrate radiobiological modelling with clinical treatment planning for proton radiotherapy, we extended our in-house treatment planning system FoCa with a 3D analytical algorithm to calculate linear energy transfer (LET) in voxelized patient geometries. Both active scanning and passive scattering delivery modalities are supported. The analytical calculation is much faster than the Monte-Carlo (MC) method and it can be implemented in the inverse treatment planning optimization suite, allowing us to create LET-based objectives in inverse planning. The LET was calculated by combining a 1D analytical approach including a novel correction for secondary protons with pencil-beam type LET-kernels. Then, these LET kernels were inserted into the proton-convolution-superposition algorithm in FoCa. The analytical LET distributions were benchmarked against MC simulations carried out in Geant4. A cohort of simple phantom and patient plans representing a wide variety of sites (prostate, lung, brain, head and neck) was selected. The calculation algorithm was able to reproduce the MC LET to within 6% (1 standard deviation) for low-LET areas (under 1.7 keV μm-1) and within 22% for the high-LET areas above that threshold. The dose and LET distributions can be further extended, using radiobiological models, to include radiobiological effectiveness (RBE) calculations in the treatment planning system. This implementation also allows for radiobiological optimization of treatments by including RBE-weighted dose constraints in the inverse treatment planning process.

Dose Calculation For Accidental Release Of Radioactive Cloud Passing Over Jeddah

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alharbi, N. D.; Mayhoub, A. B.

2011-12-01

For the evaluation of doses after the reactor accident, in particular for the inhalation dose, a thorough knowledge of the concentration of the various radionuclide in air during the passage of the plume is required. In this paper we present an application of the Gaussian Plume Model (GPM) to calculate the atmospheric dispersion and airborne radionuclide concentration resulting from radioactive cloud over the city of Jeddah (KSA). The radioactive cloud is assumed to be emitted from a reactor of 10 MW power in postulated accidental release. Committed effective doses (CEDs) to the public at different distance from the source to the receptor are calculated. The calculations were based on meteorological condition and data of the Jeddah site. These data are: pasquill atmospheric stability is the class B and the wind speed is 2.4m/s at 10m height in the N direction. The residence time of some radionuclides considered in this study were calculated. The results indicate that, the values of doses first increase with distance, reach a maximum value and then gradually decrease. The total dose received by human is estimated by using the estimated values of residence time of each radioactive pollutant at different distances.

Regional teleseismic body-wave tomography with component-differential finite-frequency sensitivity kernels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, Y.; Shen, Y.; Chen, Y. J.

2015-12-01

By using ray theory in conjunction with the Born approximation, Dahlen et al. [2000] computed 3-D sensitivity kernels for finite-frequency seismic traveltimes. A series of studies have been conducted based on this theory to model the mantle velocity structure [e.g., Hung et al., 2004; Montelli et al., 2004; Ren and Shen, 2008; Yang et al., 2009; Liang et al., 2011; Tang et al., 2014]. One of the simplifications in the calculation of the kernels is the paraxial assumption, which may not be strictly valid near the receiver, the region of interest in regional teleseismic tomography. In this study, we improve the accuracy of traveltime sensitivity kernels of the first P arrival by eliminating the paraxial approximation. For calculation efficiency, the traveltime table built by the Fast Marching Method (FMM) is used to calculate both the wave vector and the geometrical spreading at every grid in the whole volume. The improved kernels maintain the sign, but with different amplitudes at different locations. We also find that when the directivity of the scattered wave is being taken into consideration, the differential sensitivity kernel of traveltimes measured at the vertical and radial component of the same receiver concentrates beneath the receiver, which can be used to invert for the structure inside the Earth. Compared with conventional teleseismic tomography, which uses the differential traveltimes between two stations in an array, this method is not affected by instrument response and timing errors, and reduces the uncertainty caused by the finite dimension of the model in regional tomography. In addition, the cross-dependence of P traveltimes to S-wave velocity anomaly is significant and sensitive to the structure beneath the receiver. So with the component-differential finite-frequency sensitivity kernel, the anomaly of both P-wave and S-wave velocity and Vp/Vs ratio can be achieved at the same time.

Biphasic and monophasic repair: comparative implications for biologically equivalent dose calculations in pulsed dose rate brachytherapy of cervical carcinoma

PubMed Central

Millar, W T; Davidson, S E

2013-01-01

Objective: To consider the implications of the use of biphasic rather than monophasic repair in calculations of biologically-equivalent doses for pulsed-dose-rate brachytherapy of cervix carcinoma. Methods: Calculations are presented of pulsed-dose-rate (PDR) doses equivalent to former low-dose-rate (LDR) doses, using biphasic vs monophasic repair kinetics, both for cervical carcinoma and for the organ at risk (OAR), namely the rectum. The linear-quadratic modelling calculations included effects due to varying the dose per PDR cycle, the dose reduction factor for the OAR compared with Point A, the repair kinetics and the source strength. Results: When using the recommended 1 Gy per hourly PDR cycle, different LDR-equivalent PDR rectal doses were calculated depending on the choice of monophasic or biphasic repair kinetics pertaining to the rodent central nervous and skin systems. These differences virtually disappeared when the dose per hourly cycle was increased to 1.7 Gy. This made the LDR-equivalent PDR doses more robust and independent of the choice of repair kinetics and α/β ratios as a consequence of the described concept of extended equivalence. Conclusion: The use of biphasic and monophasic repair kinetics for optimised modelling of the effects on the OAR in PDR brachytherapy suggests that an optimised PDR protocol with the dose per hourly cycle nearest to 1.7 Gy could be used. Hence, the durations of the new PDR treatments would be similar to those of the former LDR treatments and not longer as currently prescribed. Advances in knowledge: Modelling calculations indicate that equivalent PDR protocols can be developed which are less dependent on the different α/β ratios and monophasic/biphasic kinetics usually attributed to normal and tumour tissues for treatment of cervical carcinoma. PMID:23934965

User Guide for GoldSim Model to Calculate PA/CA Doses and Limits

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Smith, F.

2016-10-31

A model to calculate doses for solid waste disposal at the Savannah River Site (SRS) and corresponding disposal limits has been developed using the GoldSim commercial software. The model implements the dose calculations documented in SRNL-STI-2015-00056, Rev. 0 “Dose Calculation Methodology and Data for Solid Waste Performance Assessment (PA) and Composite Analysis (CA) at the Savannah River Site”.

A framework for optimal kernel-based manifold embedding of medical image data.

PubMed

Zimmer, Veronika A; Lekadir, Karim; Hoogendoorn, Corné; Frangi, Alejandro F; Piella, Gemma

2015-04-01

Kernel-based dimensionality reduction is a widely used technique in medical image analysis. To fully unravel the underlying nonlinear manifold the selection of an adequate kernel function and of its free parameters is critical. In practice, however, the kernel function is generally chosen as Gaussian or polynomial and such standard kernels might not always be optimal for a given image dataset or application. In this paper, we present a study on the effect of the kernel functions in nonlinear manifold embedding of medical image data. To this end, we first carry out a literature review on existing advanced kernels developed in the statistics, machine learning, and signal processing communities. In addition, we implement kernel-based formulations of well-known nonlinear dimensional reduction techniques such as Isomap and Locally Linear Embedding, thus obtaining a unified framework for manifold embedding using kernels. Subsequently, we present a method to automatically choose a kernel function and its associated parameters from a pool of kernel candidates, with the aim to generate the most optimal manifold embeddings. Furthermore, we show how the calculated selection measures can be extended to take into account the spatial relationships in images, or used to combine several kernels to further improve the embedding results. Experiments are then carried out on various synthetic and phantom datasets for numerical assessment of the methods. Furthermore, the workflow is applied to real data that include brain manifolds and multispectral images to demonstrate the importance of the kernel selection in the analysis of high-dimensional medical images. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Jdpd: an open java simulation kernel for molecular fragment dissipative particle dynamics.

PubMed

van den Broek, Karina; Kuhn, Hubert; Zielesny, Achim

2018-05-21

Jdpd is an open Java simulation kernel for Molecular Fragment Dissipative Particle Dynamics with parallelizable force calculation, efficient caching options and fast property calculations. It is characterized by an interface and factory-pattern driven design for simple code changes and may help to avoid problems of polyglot programming. Detailed input/output communication, parallelization and process control as well as internal logging capabilities for debugging purposes are supported. The new kernel may be utilized in different simulation environments ranging from flexible scripting solutions up to fully integrated "all-in-one" simulation systems.

Total Ambient Dose Equivalent Buildup Factor Determination for Nbs04 Concrete.

PubMed

Duckic, Paulina; Hayes, Robert B

2018-06-01

Buildup factors are dimensionless multiplicative factors required by the point kernel method to account for scattered radiation through a shielding material. The accuracy of the point kernel method is strongly affected by the correspondence of analyzed parameters to experimental configurations, which is attempted to be simplified here. The point kernel method has not been found to have widespread practical use for neutron shielding calculations due to the complex neutron transport behavior through shielding materials (i.e. the variety of interaction mechanisms that neutrons may undergo while traversing the shield) as well as non-linear neutron total cross section energy dependence. In this work, total ambient dose buildup factors for NBS04 concrete are calculated in terms of neutron and secondary gamma ray transmission factors. The neutron and secondary gamma ray transmission factors are calculated using MCNP6™ code with updated cross sections. Both transmission factors and buildup factors are given in a tabulated form. Practical use of neutron transmission and buildup factors warrants rigorously calculated results with all associated uncertainties. In this work, sensitivity analysis of neutron transmission factors and total buildup factors with varying water content has been conducted. The analysis showed significant impact of varying water content in concrete on both neutron transmission factors and total buildup factors. Finally, support vector regression, a machine learning technique, has been engaged to make a model based on the calculated data for calculation of the buildup factors. The developed model can predict most of the data with 20% relative error.

Influence of metallic dental implants and metal artefacts on dose calculation accuracy.

PubMed

Maerz, Manuel; Koelbl, Oliver; Dobler, Barbara

2015-03-01

Metallic dental implants cause severe streaking artefacts in computed tomography (CT) data, which inhibit the correct representation of shape and density of the metal and the surrounding tissue. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of dental implants on the accuracy of dose calculations in radiation therapy planning and the benefit of metal artefact reduction (MAR). A second aim was to determine the treatment technique which is less sensitive to the presence of metallic implants in terms of dose calculation accuracy. Phantoms consisting of homogeneous water equivalent material surrounding dental implants were designed. Artefact-containing CT data were corrected using the correct density information. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans were calculated on corrected and uncorrected CT data and compared to 2-dimensional dose measurements using GafChromic™ EBT2 films. For all plans the accuracy of dose calculations is significantly higher if performed on corrected CT data (p = 0.015). The agreement of calculated and measured dose distributions is significantly higher for VMAT than for IMRT plans for calculations on uncorrected CT data (p = 0.011) as well as on corrected CT data (p = 0.029). For IMRT and VMAT the application of metal artefact reduction significantly increases the agreement of dose calculations with film measurements. VMAT was found to provide the highest accuracy on corrected as well as on uncorrected CT data. VMAT is therefore preferable over IMRT for patients with metallic implants, if plan quality is comparable for the two techniques.

Calculations of dose distributions using a neural network model.

PubMed

Mathieu, R; Martin, E; Gschwind, R; Makovicka, L; Contassot-Vivier, S; Bahi, J

2005-03-07

The main goal of external beam radiotherapy is the treatment of tumours, while sparing, as much as possible, surrounding healthy tissues. In order to master and optimize the dose distribution within the patient, dosimetric planning has to be carried out. Thus, for determining the most accurate dose distribution during treatment planning, a compromise must be found between the precision and the speed of calculation. Current techniques, using analytic methods, models and databases, are rapid but lack precision. Enhanced precision can be achieved by using calculation codes based, for example, on Monte Carlo methods. However, in spite of all efforts to optimize speed (methods and computer improvements), Monte Carlo based methods remain painfully slow. A newer way to handle all of these problems is to use a new approach in dosimetric calculation by employing neural networks. Neural networks (Wu and Zhu 2000 Phys. Med. Biol. 45 913-22) provide the advantages of those various approaches while avoiding their main inconveniences, i.e., time-consumption calculations. This permits us to obtain quick and accurate results during clinical treatment planning. Currently, results obtained for a single depth-dose calculation using a Monte Carlo based code (such as BEAM (Rogers et al 2003 NRCC Report PIRS-0509(A) rev G)) require hours of computing. By contrast, the practical use of neural networks (Mathieu et al 2003 Proceedings Journees Scientifiques Francophones, SFRP) provides almost instant results and quite low errors (less than 2%) for a two-dimensional dosimetric map.

Calculations of dose distributions using a neural network model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mathieu, R.; Martin, E.; Gschwind, R.; Makovicka, L.; Contassot-Vivier, S.; Bahi, J.

2005-03-01

The main goal of external beam radiotherapy is the treatment of tumours, while sparing, as much as possible, surrounding healthy tissues. In order to master and optimize the dose distribution within the patient, dosimetric planning has to be carried out. Thus, for determining the most accurate dose distribution during treatment planning, a compromise must be found between the precision and the speed of calculation. Current techniques, using analytic methods, models and databases, are rapid but lack precision. Enhanced precision can be achieved by using calculation codes based, for example, on Monte Carlo methods. However, in spite of all efforts to optimize speed (methods and computer improvements), Monte Carlo based methods remain painfully slow. A newer way to handle all of these problems is to use a new approach in dosimetric calculation by employing neural networks. Neural networks (Wu and Zhu 2000 Phys. Med. Biol. 45 913-22) provide the advantages of those various approaches while avoiding their main inconveniences, i.e., time-consumption calculations. This permits us to obtain quick and accurate results during clinical treatment planning. Currently, results obtained for a single depth-dose calculation using a Monte Carlo based code (such as BEAM (Rogers et al 2003 NRCC Report PIRS-0509(A) rev G)) require hours of computing. By contrast, the practical use of neural networks (Mathieu et al 2003 Proceedings Journées Scientifiques Francophones, SFRP) provides almost instant results and quite low errors (less than 2%) for a two-dimensional dosimetric map.

Generalization of the subsonic kernel function in the s-plane, with applications to flutter analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cunningham, H. J.; Desmarais, R. N.

1984-01-01

A generalized subsonic unsteady aerodynamic kernel function, valid for both growing and decaying oscillatory motions, is developed and applied in a modified flutter analysis computer program to solve the boundaries of constant damping ratio as well as the flutter boundary. Rates of change of damping ratios with respect to dynamic pressure near flutter are substantially lower from the generalized-kernel-function calculations than from the conventional velocity-damping (V-g) calculation. A rational function approximation for aerodynamic forces used in control theory for s-plane analysis gave rather good agreement with kernel-function results, except for strongly damped motion at combinations of high (subsonic) Mach number and reduced frequency.

HADOC: a computer code for calculation of external and inhalation doses from acute radionuclide releases

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Strenge, D.L.; Peloquin, R.A.

The computer code HADOC (Hanford Acute Dose Calculations) is described and instructions for its use are presented. The code calculates external dose from air submersion and inhalation doses following acute radionuclide releases. Atmospheric dispersion is calculated using the Hanford model with options to determine maximum conditions. Building wake effects and terrain variation may also be considered. Doses are calculated using dose conversion factor supplied in a data library. Doses are reported for one and fifty year dose commitment periods for the maximum individual and the regional population (within 50 miles). The fractional contribution to dose by radionuclide and exposure modemore » are also printed if requested.« less

Common Errors in the Calculation of Aircrew Doses from Cosmic Rays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Brien, Keran; Felsberger, Ernst; Kindl, Peter

2010-05-01

Radiation doses to air crew are calculated using flight codes. Flight codes integrate dose rates over the aircraft flight path, which were calculated by transport codes or obtained by measurements from take off at a specific airport to landing at another. The dose rates are stored in various ways, such as by latitude and longitude, or in terms of the geomagnetic vertical cutoff. The transport codes are generally quite satisfactory, but the treatment of the boundary conditions is frequently incorrect. Both the treatment of solar modulation and of the effect of the geomagnetic field are often defective, leading to the systematic overestimate of the crew doses.

An investigation of voxel geometries for MCNP-based radiation dose calculations.

PubMed

Zhang, Juying; Bednarz, Bryan; Xu, X George

2006-11-01

Voxelized geometry such as those obtained from medical images is increasingly used in Monte Carlo calculations of absorbed doses. One useful application of calculated absorbed dose is the determination of fluence-to-dose conversion factors for different organs. However, confusion still exists about how such a geometry is defined and how the energy deposition is best computed, especially involving a popular code, MCNP5. This study investigated two different types of geometries in the MCNP5 code, cell and lattice definitions. A 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm test phantom, which contained an embedded 2 cm x 2 cm x 2 cm target at its center, was considered. A planar source emitting parallel photons was also considered in the study. The results revealed that MCNP5 does not calculate total target volume for multi-voxel geometries. Therefore, tallies which involve total target volume must be divided by the user by the total number of voxels to obtain a correct dose result. Also, using planar source areas greater than the phantom size results in the same fluence-to-dose conversion factor.

A clinical study of lung cancer dose calculation accuracy with Monte Carlo simulation.

PubMed

Zhao, Yanqun; Qi, Guohai; Yin, Gang; Wang, Xianliang; Wang, Pei; Li, Jian; Xiao, Mingyong; Li, Jie; Kang, Shengwei; Liao, Xiongfei

2014-12-16

The accuracy of dose calculation is crucial to the quality of treatment planning and, consequently, to the dose delivered to patients undergoing radiation therapy. Current general calculation algorithms such as Pencil Beam Convolution (PBC) and Collapsed Cone Convolution (CCC) have shortcomings in regard to severe inhomogeneities, particularly in those regions where charged particle equilibrium does not hold. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the PBC and CCC algorithms in lung cancer radiotherapy using Monte Carlo (MC) technology. Four treatment plans were designed using Oncentra Masterplan TPS for each patient. Two intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plans were developed using the PBC and CCC algorithms, and two three-dimensional conformal therapy (3DCRT) plans were developed using the PBC and CCC algorithms. The DICOM-RT files of the treatment plans were exported to the Monte Carlo system to recalculate. The dose distributions of GTV, PTV and ipsilateral lung calculated by the TPS and MC were compared. For 3DCRT and IMRT plans, the mean dose differences for GTV between the CCC and MC increased with decreasing of the GTV volume. For IMRT, the mean dose differences were found to be higher than that of 3DCRT. The CCC algorithm overestimated the GTV mean dose by approximately 3% for IMRT. For 3DCRT plans, when the volume of the GTV was greater than 100 cm(3), the mean doses calculated by CCC and MC almost have no difference. PBC shows large deviations from the MC algorithm. For the dose to the ipsilateral lung, the CCC algorithm overestimated the dose to the entire lung, and the PBC algorithm overestimated V20 but underestimated V5; the difference in V10 was not statistically significant. PBC substantially overestimates the dose to the tumour, but the CCC is similar to the MC simulation. It is recommended that the treatment plans for lung cancer be developed using an advanced dose calculation algorithm other than PBC. MC can accurately

Theoretical study of the influence of a heterogeneous activity distribution on intratumoral absorbed dose distribution.

PubMed

Bao, Ande; Zhao, Xia; Phillips, William T; Woolley, F Ross; Otto, Randal A; Goins, Beth; Hevezi, James M

2005-01-01

Radioimmunotherapy of hematopoeitic cancers and micrometastases has been shown to have significant therapeutic benefit. The treatment of solid tumors with radionuclide therapy has been less successful. Previous investigations of intratumoral activity distribution and studies on intratumoral drug delivery suggest that a probable reason for the disappointing results in solid tumor treatment is nonuniform intratumoral distribution coupled with restricted intratumoral drug penetrance, thus inhibiting antineoplastic agents from reaching the tumor's center. This paper describes a nonuniform intratumoral activity distribution identified by limited radiolabeled tracer diffusion from tumor surface to tumor center. This activity was simulated using techniques that allowed the absorbed dose distributions to be estimated using different intratumoral diffusion capabilities and calculated for tumors of varying diameters. The influences of these absorbed dose distributions on solid tumor radionuclide therapy are also discussed. The absorbed dose distribution was calculated using the dose point kernel method that provided for the application of a three-dimensional (3D) convolution between a dose rate kernel function and an activity distribution function. These functions were incorporated into 3D matrices with voxels measuring 0.10 x 0.10 x 0.10 mm3. At this point fast Fourier transform (FFT) and multiplication in frequency domain followed by inverse FFT (iFFT) were used to effect this phase of the dose calculation process. The absorbed dose distribution for tumors of 1, 3, 5, 10, and 15 mm in diameter were studied. Using the therapeutic radionuclides of 131I, 186Re, 188Re, and 90Y, the total average dose, center dose, and surface dose for each of the different tumor diameters were reported. The absorbed dose in the nearby normal tissue was also evaluated. When the tumor diameters exceed 15 mm, a much lower tumor center dose is delivered compared with tumors between 3 and 5 mm in

Real-time dose calculation and visualization for the proton therapy of ocular tumours

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pfeiffer, Karsten; Bendl, Rolf

2001-03-01

A new real-time dose calculation and visualization was developed as part of the new 3D treatment planning tool OCTOPUS for proton therapy of ocular tumours within a national research project together with the Hahn-Meitner Institut Berlin. The implementation resolves the common separation between parameter definition, dose calculation and evaluation and allows a direct examination of the expected dose distribution while adjusting the treatment parameters. The new tool allows the therapist to move the desired dose distribution under visual control in 3D to the appropriate place. The visualization of the resulting dose distribution as a 3D surface model, on any 2D slice or on the surface of specified ocular structures is done automatically when adapting parameters during the planning process. In addition, approximate dose volume histograms may be calculated with little extra time. The dose distribution is calculated and visualized in 200 ms with an accuracy of 6% for the 3D isodose surfaces and 8% for other objects. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of this new approach.

Considerations for applying VARSKIN mod 2 to skin dose calculations averaged over 10 cm2.

PubMed

Durham, James S

2004-02-01

VARSKIN Mod 2 is a DOS-based computer program that calculates the dose to skin from beta and gamma contamination either directly on skin or on material in contact with skin. The default area for calculating the dose is 1 cm2. Recently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued new guidelines for calculating shallow dose equivalent from skin contamination that requires the dose be averaged over 10 cm2. VARSKIN Mod 2 was not filly designed to calculate beta or gamma dose estimates averaged over 10 cm2, even though the program allows the user to calculate doses averaged over 10 cm2. This article explains why VARSKIN Mod 2 overestimates the beta dose when applied to 10 cm2 areas, describes a manual method for correcting the overestimate, and explains how to perform reasonable gamma dose calculations averaged over 10 cm2. The article also describes upgrades underway in Varskin 3.

Calculation of the effective dose from natural radioactivity in soil using MCNP code.

PubMed

Krstic, D; Nikezic, D

2010-01-01

Effective dose delivered by photon emitted from natural radioactivity in soil was calculated in this work. Calculations have been done for the most common natural radionuclides in soil (238)U, (232)Th series and (40)K. A ORNL human phantoms and the Monte Carlo transport code MCNP-4B were employed to calculate the energy deposited in all organs. The effective dose was calculated according to ICRP 74 recommendations. Conversion factors of effective dose per air kerma were determined. Results obtained here were compared with other authors. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Wilson Dslash Kernel From Lattice QCD Optimization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Joo, Balint; Smelyanskiy, Mikhail; Kalamkar, Dhiraj D.

2015-07-01

Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (LQCD) is a numerical technique used for calculations in Theoretical Nuclear and High Energy Physics. LQCD is traditionally one of the first applications ported to many new high performance computing architectures and indeed LQCD practitioners have been known to design and build custom LQCD computers. Lattice QCD kernels are frequently used as benchmarks (e.g. 168.wupwise in the SPEC suite) and are generally well understood, and as such are ideal to illustrate several optimization techniques. In this chapter we will detail our work in optimizing the Wilson-Dslash kernels for Intel Xeon Phi, however, as we will show themore » technique gives excellent performance on regular Xeon Architecture as well.« less

Optimized Kernel Entropy Components.

PubMed

Izquierdo-Verdiguier, Emma; Laparra, Valero; Jenssen, Robert; Gomez-Chova, Luis; Camps-Valls, Gustau

2017-06-01

This brief addresses two main issues of the standard kernel entropy component analysis (KECA) algorithm: the optimization of the kernel decomposition and the optimization of the Gaussian kernel parameter. KECA roughly reduces to a sorting of the importance of kernel eigenvectors by entropy instead of variance, as in the kernel principal components analysis. In this brief, we propose an extension of the KECA method, named optimized KECA (OKECA), that directly extracts the optimal features retaining most of the data entropy by means of compacting the information in very few features (often in just one or two). The proposed method produces features which have higher expressive power. In particular, it is based on the independent component analysis framework, and introduces an extra rotation to the eigen decomposition, which is optimized via gradient-ascent search. This maximum entropy preservation suggests that OKECA features are more efficient than KECA features for density estimation. In addition, a critical issue in both the methods is the selection of the kernel parameter, since it critically affects the resulting performance. Here, we analyze the most common kernel length-scale selection criteria. The results of both the methods are illustrated in different synthetic and real problems. Results show that OKECA returns projections with more expressive power than KECA, the most successful rule for estimating the kernel parameter is based on maximum likelihood, and OKECA is more robust to the selection of the length-scale parameter in kernel density estimation.

Improving prediction of heterodimeric protein complexes using combination with pairwise kernel.

PubMed

Ruan, Peiying; Hayashida, Morihiro; Akutsu, Tatsuya; Vert, Jean-Philippe

2018-02-19

Since many proteins become functional only after they interact with their partner proteins and form protein complexes, it is essential to identify the sets of proteins that form complexes. Therefore, several computational methods have been proposed to predict complexes from the topology and structure of experimental protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. These methods work well to predict complexes involving at least three proteins, but generally fail at identifying complexes involving only two different proteins, called heterodimeric complexes or heterodimers. There is however an urgent need for efficient methods to predict heterodimers, since the majority of known protein complexes are precisely heterodimers. In this paper, we use three promising kernel functions, Min kernel and two pairwise kernels, which are Metric Learning Pairwise Kernel (MLPK) and Tensor Product Pairwise Kernel (TPPK). We also consider the normalization forms of Min kernel. Then, we combine Min kernel or its normalization form and one of the pairwise kernels by plugging. We applied kernels based on PPI, domain, phylogenetic profile, and subcellular localization properties to predicting heterodimers. Then, we evaluate our method by employing C-Support Vector Classification (C-SVC), carrying out 10-fold cross-validation, and calculating the average F-measures. The results suggest that the combination of normalized-Min-kernel and MLPK leads to the best F-measure and improved the performance of our previous work, which had been the best existing method so far. We propose new methods to predict heterodimers, using a machine learning-based approach. We train a support vector machine (SVM) to discriminate interacting vs non-interacting protein pairs, based on informations extracted from PPI, domain, phylogenetic profiles and subcellular localization. We evaluate in detail new kernel functions to encode these data, and report prediction performance that outperforms the state-of-the-art.

Site-specific range uncertainties caused by dose calculation algorithms for proton therapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schuemann, J.; Dowdell, S.; Grassberger, C.; Min, C. H.; Paganetti, H.

2014-08-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the possibility of introducing site-specific range margins to replace current generic margins in proton therapy. Further, the goal was to study the potential of reducing margins with current analytical dose calculations methods. For this purpose we investigate the impact of complex patient geometries on the capability of analytical dose calculation algorithms to accurately predict the range of proton fields. Dose distributions predicted by an analytical pencil-beam algorithm were compared with those obtained using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations (TOPAS). A total of 508 passively scattered treatment fields were analyzed for seven disease sites (liver, prostate, breast, medulloblastoma-spine, medulloblastoma-whole brain, lung and head and neck). Voxel-by-voxel comparisons were performed on two-dimensional distal dose surfaces calculated by pencil-beam and MC algorithms to obtain the average range differences and root mean square deviation for each field for the distal position of the 90% dose level (R90) and the 50% dose level (R50). The average dose degradation of the distal falloff region, defined as the distance between the distal position of the 80% and 20% dose levels (R80-R20), was also analyzed. All ranges were calculated in water-equivalent distances. Considering total range uncertainties and uncertainties from dose calculation alone, we were able to deduce site-specific estimations. For liver, prostate and whole brain fields our results demonstrate that a reduction of currently used uncertainty margins is feasible even without introducing MC dose calculations. We recommend range margins of 2.8% + 1.2 mm for liver and prostate treatments and 3.1% + 1.2 mm for whole brain treatments, respectively. On the other hand, current margins seem to be insufficient for some breast, lung and head and neck patients, at least if used generically. If no case specific adjustments are applied, a generic margin of 6.3% + 1.2 mm would be

Improvements to the kernel function method of steady, subsonic lifting surface theory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Medan, R. T.

1974-01-01

The application of a kernel function lifting surface method to three dimensional, thin wing theory is discussed. A technique for determining the influence functions is presented. The technique is shown to require fewer quadrature points, while still calculating the influence functions accurately enough to guarantee convergence with an increasing number of spanwise quadrature points. The method also treats control points on the wing leading and trailing edges. The report introduces and employs an aspect of the kernel function method which apparently has never been used before and which significantly enhances the efficiency of the kernel function approach.

Spectral Kernel Approach to Study Radiative Response of Climate Variables and Interannual Variability of Reflected Solar Spectrum

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jin, Zhonghai; Wielicki, Bruce A.; Loukachine, Constantin; Charlock, Thomas P.; Young, David; Noeel, Stefan

2011-01-01

The radiative kernel approach provides a simple way to separate the radiative response to different climate parameters and to decompose the feedback into radiative and climate response components. Using CERES/MODIS/Geostationary data, we calculated and analyzed the solar spectral reflectance kernels for various climate parameters on zonal, regional, and global spatial scales. The kernel linearity is tested. Errors in the kernel due to nonlinearity can vary strongly depending on climate parameter, wavelength, surface, and solar elevation; they are large in some absorption bands for some parameters but are negligible in most conditions. The spectral kernels are used to calculate the radiative responses to different climate parameter changes in different latitudes. The results show that the radiative response in high latitudes is sensitive to the coverage of snow and sea ice. The radiative response in low latitudes is contributed mainly by cloud property changes, especially cloud fraction and optical depth. The large cloud height effect is confined to absorption bands, while the cloud particle size effect is found mainly in the near infrared. The kernel approach, which is based on calculations using CERES retrievals, is then tested by direct comparison with spectral measurements from Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) (a different instrument on a different spacecraft). The monthly mean interannual variability of spectral reflectance based on the kernel technique is consistent with satellite observations over the ocean, but not over land, where both model and data have large uncertainty. RMS errors in kernel ]derived monthly global mean reflectance over the ocean compared to observations are about 0.001, and the sampling error is likely a major component.

SU-E-T-226: Correction of a Standard Model-Based Dose Calculator Using Measurement Data

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chen, M; Jiang, S; Lu, W

Purpose: To propose a hybrid method that combines advantages of the model-based and measurement-based method for independent dose calculation. Modeled-based dose calculation, such as collapsed-cone-convolution/superposition (CCCS) or the Monte-Carlo method, models dose deposition in the patient body accurately; however, due to lack of detail knowledge about the linear accelerator (LINAC) head, commissioning for an arbitrary machine is tedious and challenging in case of hardware changes. On the contrary, the measurement-based method characterizes the beam property accurately but lacks the capability of dose disposition modeling in heterogeneous media. Methods: We used a standard CCCS calculator, which is commissioned by published data,more » as the standard model calculator. For a given machine, water phantom measurements were acquired. A set of dose distributions were also calculated using the CCCS for the same setup. The difference between the measurements and the CCCS results were tabulated and used as the commissioning data for a measurement based calculator. Here we used a direct-ray-tracing calculator (ΔDRT). The proposed independent dose calculation consists of the following steps: 1. calculate D-model using CCCS. 2. calculate D-ΔDRT using ΔDRT. 3. combine Results: D=D-model+D-ΔDRT. Results: The hybrid dose calculation was tested on digital phantoms and patient CT data for standard fields and IMRT plan. The results were compared to dose calculated by the treatment planning system (TPS). The agreement of the hybrid and the TPS was within 3%, 3 mm for over 98% of the volume for phantom studies and lung patients. Conclusion: The proposed hybrid method uses the same commissioning data as those for the measurement-based method and can be easily extended to any non-standard LINAC. The results met the accuracy, independence, and simple commissioning criteria for an independent dose calculator.« less

7 CFR 981.408 - Inedible kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... kernel is modified to mean a kernel, piece, or particle of almond kernel with any defect scored as... purposes of determining inedible kernels, pieces, or particles of almond kernels. [59 FR 39419, Aug. 3...

7 CFR 981.408 - Inedible kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... kernel is modified to mean a kernel, piece, or particle of almond kernel with any defect scored as... purposes of determining inedible kernels, pieces, or particles of almond kernels. [59 FR 39419, Aug. 3...

7 CFR 981.408 - Inedible kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... kernel is modified to mean a kernel, piece, or particle of almond kernel with any defect scored as... purposes of determining inedible kernels, pieces, or particles of almond kernels. [59 FR 39419, Aug. 3...

7 CFR 981.408 - Inedible kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... kernel is modified to mean a kernel, piece, or particle of almond kernel with any defect scored as... purposes of determining inedible kernels, pieces, or particles of almond kernels. [59 FR 39419, Aug. 3...

UNICOS Kernel Internals Application Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Caredo, Nicholas; Craw, James M. (Technical Monitor)

1995-01-01

Having an understanding of UNICOS Kernel Internals is valuable information. However, having the knowledge is only half the value. The second half comes with knowing how to use this information and apply it to the development of tools. The kernel contains vast amounts of useful information that can be utilized. This paper discusses the intricacies of developing utilities that utilize kernel information. In addition, algorithms, logic, and code will be discussed for accessing kernel information. Code segments will be provided that demonstrate how to locate and read kernel structures. Types of applications that can utilize kernel information will also be discussed.

The validation of tomotherapy dose calculations in low-density lung media

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chaudhari, Summer R.; Pechenaya, Olga L.; Goddu, S. Murty; Mutic, Sasa; Rangaraj, Dharanipathy; Bradley, Jeffrey D.; Low, Daniel

2009-04-01

The dose-calculation accuracy of the tomotherapy Hi-Art II® (Tomotherapy, Inc., Madison, WI) treatment planning system (TPS) in the presence of low-density lung media was investigated. In this evaluation, a custom-designed heterogeneous phantom mimicking the mediastinum geometry was used. Gammex LN300 and balsa wood were selected as two lung-equivalent materials with different densities. Film analysis and ionization chamber measurements were performed. Treatment plans for esophageal cancers were used in the evaluation. The agreement between the dose calculated by the TPS and the dose measured via ionization chambers was, in most cases, within 0.8%. Gamma analysis using 3% and 3 mm criteria for radiochromic film dosimetry showed that 98% and 95% of the measured dose distribution had passing gamma values <=1 for LN300 and balsa wood, respectively. For a homogeneous water-equivalent phantom, 95% of the points passed the gamma test. It was found that for the interface between the low-density medium and water-equivalent medium, the TPS calculated the dose distribution within acceptable limits. The phantom developed for this work enabled detailed quality-assurance testing under realistic conditions with heterogeneous media.

The validation of tomotherapy dose calculations in low-density lung media.

PubMed

Chaudhari, Summer R; Pechenaya, Olga L; Goddu, S Murty; Mutic, Sasa; Rangaraj, Dharanipathy; Bradley, Jeffrey D; Low, Daniel

2009-04-21

The dose-calculation accuracy of the tomotherapy Hi-Art II(R) (Tomotherapy, Inc., Madison, WI) treatment planning system (TPS) in the presence of low-density lung media was investigated. In this evaluation, a custom-designed heterogeneous phantom mimicking the mediastinum geometry was used. Gammex LN300 and balsa wood were selected as two lung-equivalent materials with different densities. Film analysis and ionization chamber measurements were performed. Treatment plans for esophageal cancers were used in the evaluation. The agreement between the dose calculated by the TPS and the dose measured via ionization chambers was, in most cases, within 0.8%. Gamma analysis using 3% and 3 mm criteria for radiochromic film dosimetry showed that 98% and 95% of the measured dose distribution had passing gamma values < or =1 for LN300 and balsa wood, respectively. For a homogeneous water-equivalent phantom, 95% of the points passed the gamma test. It was found that for the interface between the low-density medium and water-equivalent medium, the TPS calculated the dose distribution within acceptable limits. The phantom developed for this work enabled detailed quality-assurance testing under realistic conditions with heterogeneous media.

Different kernel functions due to rainfall response from borehole strainmeter in Taiwan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yen Chen, Chih; Hu, Jyr Ching; LIu, Chi Ching

2014-05-01

In order to realize reasons inducing earthquakes, project of monitoring of the fault activity using 3-component Gladwin Tensor Strainmeter (GTSM) has been initiated since 2003 in Taiwan, which is one of the most active seismic regions in the world. Observed strain contains several different effects within including barometric, tidal, groundwater, precipitation, tectonics, seismic and other irregular noise. After removing the response of tides and air pressure on strain, we still can find some anomalies highly related to the rainfall in short time in days. The strain response induced by rainfall can be separated into two parts as observation in groundwater, slow response and quick response, respectively. Quick response reflects the strain responding to the load of falling water drops on the ground surface. A kernel function shows the continual response induced by unit precipitation water in time domain. We split the quick response from data removing tidal and barometric response, and then calculate the kernel function by use of deconvolution method. More, an average kernel function was calculated to reduce the noise level. There are five of the sites installed by CGS Taiwan were selected to calculate kernel functions for individual sites. The results show there may be different on rainfall response in different environmental settings. In the case of stations site on gentle terrain, kernel function for each site shows the similar trend, it rises quickly to maximum in 1 to 2 hrs, and then goes down near to zero gently in period of 2-3 days. But in the case of sites settled side by the rivers, there will be 2nd peak of function when collected water in the catchment flows along by the sites related to the hydrograph of creeks. More, landslides will occur in some sites in hazard of landslide with more rainfall stored on, just like DARB in ChiaYi. The curve of kernel function will be controlled by landslides and debris flows.

Linked-cluster formulation of electron-hole interaction kernel in real-space representation without using unoccupied states.

PubMed

Bayne, Michael G; Scher, Jeremy A; Ellis, Benjamin H; Chakraborty, Arindam

2018-05-21

Electron-hole or quasiparticle representation plays a central role in describing electronic excitations in many-electron systems. For charge-neutral excitation, the electron-hole interaction kernel is the quantity of interest for calculating important excitation properties such as optical gap, optical spectra, electron-hole recombination and electron-hole binding energies. The electron-hole interaction kernel can be formally derived from the density-density correlation function using both Green's function and TDDFT formalism. The accurate determination of the electron-hole interaction kernel remains a significant challenge for precise calculations of optical properties in the GW+BSE formalism. From the TDDFT perspective, the electron-hole interaction kernel has been viewed as a path to systematic development of frequency-dependent exchange-correlation functionals. Traditional approaches, such as MBPT formalism, use unoccupied states (which are defined with respect to Fermi vacuum) to construct the electron-hole interaction kernel. However, the inclusion of unoccupied states has long been recognized as the leading computational bottleneck that limits the application of this approach for larger finite systems. In this work, an alternative derivation that avoids using unoccupied states to construct the electron-hole interaction kernel is presented. The central idea of this approach is to use explicitly correlated geminal functions for treating electron-electron correlation for both ground and excited state wave functions. Using this ansatz, it is derived using both diagrammatic and algebraic techniques that the electron-hole interaction kernel can be expressed only in terms of linked closed-loop diagrams. It is proved that the cancellation of unlinked diagrams is a consequence of linked-cluster theorem in real-space representation. The electron-hole interaction kernel derived in this work was used to calculate excitation energies in many-electron systems and results

New approach to CT pixel-based photon dose calculations in heterogeneous media

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wong, J.W.; Henkelman, R.M.

The effects of small cavities on dose in water and the dose in a homogeneous nonunit density medium illustrate that inhomogeneities do not act independently in photon dose perturbation, and serve as two constraints which should be satisfied by approximate methods of computed tomography (CT) pixel-based dose calculations. Current methods at best satisfy only one of the two constraints and show inadequacies in some intermediate geometries. We have developed an approximate method that satisfies both these constraints and treats much of the synergistic effect of multiple inhomogeneities correctly. The method calculates primary and first-scatter doses by first-order ray tracing withmore » the first-scatter contribution augmented by a component of second scatter that behaves like first scatter. Multiple-scatter dose perturbation values extracted from small cavity experiments are used in a function which approximates the small residual multiple-scatter dose. For a wide range of geometries tested, our method agrees very well with measurements. The average deviation is less than 2% with a maximum of 3%. In comparison, calculations based on existing methods can have errors larger than 10%.« less

Calculation of radiation therapy dose using all particle Monte Carlo transport

DOEpatents

Chandler, William P.; Hartmann-Siantar, Christine L.; Rathkopf, James A.

1999-01-01

The actual radiation dose absorbed in the body is calculated using three-dimensional Monte Carlo transport. Neutrons, protons, deuterons, tritons, helium-3, alpha particles, photons, electrons, and positrons are transported in a completely coupled manner, using this Monte Carlo All-Particle Method (MCAPM). The major elements of the invention include: computer hardware, user description of the patient, description of the radiation source, physical databases, Monte Carlo transport, and output of dose distributions. This facilitated the estimation of dose distributions on a Cartesian grid for neutrons, photons, electrons, positrons, and heavy charged-particles incident on any biological target, with resolutions ranging from microns to centimeters. Calculations can be extended to estimate dose distributions on general-geometry (non-Cartesian) grids for biological and/or non-biological media.

Calculation of radiation therapy dose using all particle Monte Carlo transport

DOEpatents

Chandler, W.P.; Hartmann-Siantar, C.L.; Rathkopf, J.A.

1999-02-09

The actual radiation dose absorbed in the body is calculated using three-dimensional Monte Carlo transport. Neutrons, protons, deuterons, tritons, helium-3, alpha particles, photons, electrons, and positrons are transported in a completely coupled manner, using this Monte Carlo All-Particle Method (MCAPM). The major elements of the invention include: computer hardware, user description of the patient, description of the radiation source, physical databases, Monte Carlo transport, and output of dose distributions. This facilitated the estimation of dose distributions on a Cartesian grid for neutrons, photons, electrons, positrons, and heavy charged-particles incident on any biological target, with resolutions ranging from microns to centimeters. Calculations can be extended to estimate dose distributions on general-geometry (non-Cartesian) grids for biological and/or non-biological media. 57 figs.

Effect of ultra-low doses, ASIR and MBIR on density and noise levels of MDCT images of dental implant sites.

PubMed

Widmann, Gerlig; Al-Shawaf, Reema; Schullian, Peter; Al-Sadhan, Ra'ed; Hörmann, Romed; Al-Ekrish, Asma'a A

2017-05-01

Differences in noise and density values in MDCT images obtained using ultra-low doses with FBP, ASIR, and MBIR may possibly affect implant site density analysis. The aim of this study was to compare density and noise measurements recorded from dental implant sites using ultra-low doses combined with FBP, ASIR, and MBIR. Cadavers were scanned using a standard protocol and four low-dose protocols. Scans were reconstructed using FBP, ASIR-50, ASIR-100, and MBIR, and either a bone or standard reconstruction kernel. Density (mean Hounsfield units [HUs]) of alveolar bone and noise levels (mean standard deviation of HUs) was recorded from all datasets and measurements were compared by paired t tests and two-way ANOVA with repeated measures. Significant differences in density and noise were found between the reference dose/FBP protocol and almost all test combinations. Maximum mean differences in HU were 178.35 (bone kernel) and 273.74 (standard kernel), and in noise, were 243.73 (bone kernel) and 153.88 (standard kernel). Decreasing radiation dose increased density and noise regardless of reconstruction technique and kernel. The effect of reconstruction technique on density and noise depends on the reconstruction kernel used. • Ultra-low-dose MDCT protocols allowed more than 90 % reductions in dose. • Decreasing the dose generally increased density and noise. • Effect of IRT on density and noise varies with reconstruction kernel. • Accuracy of low-dose protocols for interpretation of bony anatomy not known. • Effect of low doses on accuracy of computer-aided design models unknown.

Protein Subcellular Localization with Gaussian Kernel Discriminant Analysis and Its Kernel Parameter Selection.

PubMed

Wang, Shunfang; Nie, Bing; Yue, Kun; Fei, Yu; Li, Wenjia; Xu, Dongshu

2017-12-15

Kernel discriminant analysis (KDA) is a dimension reduction and classification algorithm based on nonlinear kernel trick, which can be novelly used to treat high-dimensional and complex biological data before undergoing classification processes such as protein subcellular localization. Kernel parameters make a great impact on the performance of the KDA model. Specifically, for KDA with the popular Gaussian kernel, to select the scale parameter is still a challenging problem. Thus, this paper introduces the KDA method and proposes a new method for Gaussian kernel parameter selection depending on the fact that the differences between reconstruction errors of edge normal samples and those of interior normal samples should be maximized for certain suitable kernel parameters. Experiments with various standard data sets of protein subcellular localization show that the overall accuracy of protein classification prediction with KDA is much higher than that without KDA. Meanwhile, the kernel parameter of KDA has a great impact on the efficiency, and the proposed method can produce an optimum parameter, which makes the new algorithm not only perform as effectively as the traditional ones, but also reduce the computational time and thus improve efficiency.

7 CFR 981.7 - Edible kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Edible kernel. 981.7 Section 981.7 Agriculture... Regulating Handling Definitions § 981.7 Edible kernel. Edible kernel means a kernel, piece, or particle of almond kernel that is not inedible. [41 FR 26852, June 30, 1976] ...

Integrating semantic information into multiple kernels for protein-protein interaction extraction from biomedical literatures.

PubMed

Li, Lishuang; Zhang, Panpan; Zheng, Tianfu; Zhang, Hongying; Jiang, Zhenchao; Huang, Degen

2014-01-01

Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) extraction is an important task in the biomedical information extraction. Presently, many machine learning methods for PPI extraction have achieved promising results. However, the performance is still not satisfactory. One reason is that the semantic resources were basically ignored. In this paper, we propose a multiple-kernel learning-based approach to extract PPIs, combining the feature-based kernel, tree kernel and semantic kernel. Particularly, we extend the shortest path-enclosed tree kernel (SPT) by a dynamic extended strategy to retrieve the richer syntactic information. Our semantic kernel calculates the protein-protein pair similarity and the context similarity based on two semantic resources: WordNet and Medical Subject Heading (MeSH). We evaluate our method with Support Vector Machine (SVM) and achieve an F-score of 69.40% and an AUC of 92.00%, which show that our method outperforms most of the state-of-the-art systems by integrating semantic information.

Unconventional protein sources: apricot seed kernels.

PubMed

Gabrial, G N; El-Nahry, F I; Awadalla, M Z; Girgis, S M

1981-09-01

Hamawy apricot seed kernels (sweet), Amar apricot seed kernels (bitter) and treated Amar apricot kernels (bitterness removed) were evaluated biochemically. All kernels were found to be high in fat (42.2--50.91%), protein (23.74--25.70%) and fiber (15.08--18.02%). Phosphorus, calcium, and iron were determined in all experimental samples. The three different apricot seed kernels were used for extensive study including the qualitative determination of the amino acid constituents by acid hydrolysis, quantitative determination of some amino acids, and biological evaluation of the kernel proteins in order to use them as new protein sources. Weanling albino rats failed to grow on diets containing the Amar apricot seed kernels due to low food consumption because of its bitterness. There was no loss in weight in that case. The Protein Efficiency Ratio data and blood analysis results showed the Hamawy apricot seed kernels to be higher in biological value than treated apricot seed kernels. The Net Protein Ratio data which accounts for both weight, maintenance and growth showed the treated apricot seed kernels to be higher in biological value than both Hamawy and Amar kernels. The Net Protein Ratio for the last two kernels were nearly equal.

Influence of different dose calculation algorithms on the estimate of NTCP for lung complications.

PubMed

Hedin, Emma; Bäck, Anna

2013-09-06

Due to limitations and uncertainties in dose calculation algorithms, different algorithms can predict different dose distributions and dose-volume histograms for the same treatment. This can be a problem when estimating the normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) for patient-specific dose distributions. Published NTCP model parameters are often derived for a different dose calculation algorithm than the one used to calculate the actual dose distribution. The use of algorithm-specific NTCP model parameters can prevent errors caused by differences in dose calculation algorithms. The objective of this work was to determine how to change the NTCP model parameters for lung complications derived for a simple correction-based pencil beam dose calculation algorithm, in order to make them valid for three other common dose calculation algorithms. NTCP was calculated with the relative seriality (RS) and Lyman-Kutcher-Burman (LKB) models. The four dose calculation algorithms used were the pencil beam (PB) and collapsed cone (CC) algorithms employed by Oncentra, and the pencil beam convolution (PBC) and anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA) employed by Eclipse. Original model parameters for lung complications were taken from four published studies on different grades of pneumonitis, and new algorithm-specific NTCP model parameters were determined. The difference between original and new model parameters was presented in relation to the reported model parameter uncertainties. Three different types of treatments were considered in the study: tangential and locoregional breast cancer treatment and lung cancer treatment. Changing the algorithm without the derivation of new model parameters caused changes in the NTCP value of up to 10 percentage points for the cases studied. Furthermore, the error introduced could be of the same magnitude as the confidence intervals of the calculated NTCP values. The new NTCP model parameters were tabulated as the algorithm was varied from PB

7 CFR 981.8 - Inedible kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Inedible kernel. 981.8 Section 981.8 Agriculture... Regulating Handling Definitions § 981.8 Inedible kernel. Inedible kernel means a kernel, piece, or particle of almond kernel with any defect scored as serious damage, or damage due to mold, gum, shrivel, or...

7 CFR 51.1415 - Inedible kernels.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Inedible kernels. 51.1415 Section 51.1415 Agriculture... Standards for Grades of Pecans in the Shell 1 Definitions § 51.1415 Inedible kernels. Inedible kernels means that the kernel or pieces of kernels are rancid, moldy, decayed, injured by insects or otherwise...

The Mayak Worker Dosimetry System (MWDS-2013): Implementation of the Dose Calculations.

PubMed

Zhdanov, А; Vostrotin, V; Efimov, А; Birchall, A; Puncher, M

2016-07-15

The calculation of internal doses for the Mayak Worker Dosimetry System (MWDS-2013) involved extensive computational resources due to the complexity and sheer number of calculations required. The required output consisted of a set of 1000 hyper-realizations: each hyper-realization consists of a set (1 for each worker) of probability distributions of organ doses. This report describes the hardware components and computational approaches required to make the calculation tractable. Together with the software, this system is referred to here as the 'PANDORA system'. It is based on a commercial SQL server database in a series of six work stations. A complete run of the entire Mayak worker cohort entailed a huge amount of calculations in PANDORA and due to the relatively slow speed of writing the data into the SQL server, each run took about 47 days. Quality control was monitored by comparing doses calculated in PANDORA with those in a specially modified version of the commercial software 'IMBA Professional Plus'. Suggestions are also made for increasing calculation and storage efficiency for future dosimetry calculations using PANDORA. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Dose estimation for astronauts using dose conversion coefficients calculated with the PHITS code and the ICRP/ICRU adult reference computational phantoms.

PubMed

Sato, Tatsuhiko; Endo, Akira; Sihver, Lembit; Niita, Koji

2011-03-01

Absorbed-dose and dose-equivalent rates for astronauts were estimated by multiplying fluence-to-dose conversion coefficients in the units of Gy.cm(2) and Sv.cm(2), respectively, and cosmic-ray fluxes around spacecrafts in the unit of cm(-2) s(-1). The dose conversion coefficients employed in the calculation were evaluated using the general-purpose particle and heavy ion transport code system PHITS coupled to the male and female adult reference computational phantoms, which were released as a common ICRP/ICRU publication. The cosmic-ray fluxes inside and near to spacecrafts were also calculated by PHITS, using simplified geometries. The accuracy of the obtained absorbed-dose and dose-equivalent rates was verified by various experimental data measured both inside and outside spacecrafts. The calculations quantitatively show that the effective doses for astronauts are significantly greater than their corresponding effective dose equivalents, because of the numerical incompatibility between the radiation quality factors and the radiation weighting factors. These results demonstrate the usefulness of dose conversion coefficients in space dosimetry. © Springer-Verlag 2010

Dose calculation with respiration-averaged CT processed from cine CT without a respiratory surrogate

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Riegel, Adam C.; Ahmad, Moiz; Sun Xiaojun

2008-12-15

Dose calculation for thoracic radiotherapy is commonly performed on a free-breathing helical CT despite artifacts caused by respiratory motion. Four-dimensional computed tomography (4D-CT) is one method to incorporate motion information into the treatment planning process. Some centers now use the respiration-averaged CT (RACT), the pixel-by-pixel average of the ten phases of 4D-CT, for dose calculation. This method, while sparing the tedious task of 4D dose calculation, still requires 4D-CT technology. The authors have recently developed a means to reconstruct RACT directly from unsorted cine CT data from which 4D-CT is formed, bypassing the need for a respiratory surrogate. Using RACTmore » from cine CT for dose calculation may be a means to incorporate motion information into dose calculation without performing 4D-CT. The purpose of this study was to determine if RACT from cine CT can be substituted for RACT from 4D-CT for the purposes of dose calculation, and if increasing the cine duration can decrease differences between the dose distributions. Cine CT data and corresponding 4D-CT simulations for 23 patients with at least two breathing cycles per cine duration were retrieved. RACT was generated four ways: First from ten phases of 4D-CT, second, from 1 breathing cycle of images, third, from 1.5 breathing cycles of images, and fourth, from 2 breathing cycles of images. The clinical treatment plan was transferred to each RACT and dose was recalculated. Dose planes were exported at orthogonal planes through the isocenter (coronal, sagittal, and transverse orientations). The resulting dose distributions were compared using the gamma ({gamma}) index within the planning target volume (PTV). Failure criteria were set to 2%/1 mm. A follow-up study with 50 additional lung cancer patients was performed to increase sample size. The same dose recalculation and analysis was performed. In the primary patient group, 22 of 23 patients had 100% of points within the PTV pass

7 CFR 981.408 - Inedible kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Inedible kernel. 981.408 Section 981.408 Agriculture... Administrative Rules and Regulations § 981.408 Inedible kernel. Pursuant to § 981.8, the definition of inedible kernel is modified to mean a kernel, piece, or particle of almond kernel with any defect scored as...

Calculation of Glucose Dose for Intraperitoneal Glucose Tolerance Tests in Lean and Obese Mice.

PubMed

Jørgensen, Mikkel S; Tornqvist, Kristina S; Hvid, Henning

2017-01-01

Glucose tolerance tests are used frequently in nonclinical research with laboratory animals, for example during characterization of obese phenotypes. Despite published standard operating procedures for glucose tolerance tests in rodents, how glucose doses should be calculated when obese and lean animals are compared is not well documented. Typically the glucose dose is calculated as 2 g/kg body weight, regardless of body composition. With this approach, obese mice receive larger glucose doses than do lean animals, potentially leading to overestimation of glucose intolerance in obese animals. In this study, we performed intraperitoneal glucose tolerance tests in mice with diet-induced obesity and their lean controls, with glucose doses based on either the total body weight or the lean body mass of the animals. To determine glucose tolerance, we determined the blood glucose AUC during the glucose tolerance test. We found that the blood glucose AUC was increased significantly in obese mice compared with lean mice by 75% on average when glucose was dosed according to the lean body mass and by 87% when the glucose dose was calculated according to total body weight. Therefore, mice with diet-induced obesity were approximately equally glucose intolerant between the 2 dose-calculation protocols. However, we recommend calculating the glucose dose according to the lean body mass of the mice, because doing so eliminates the concern regarding overdosing of obese animals.

Effect of Acrocomia aculeata Kernel Oil on Adiposity in Type 2 Diabetic Rats.

PubMed

Nunes, Ângela A; Buccini, Danieli F; Jaques, Jeandre A S; Portugal, Luciane C; Guimarães, Rita C A; Favaro, Simone P; Caldas, Ruy A; Carvalho, Cristiano M E

2018-03-01

The macauba palm (Acrocomia aculeata) is native of tropical America and is found mostly in the Cerrados and Pantanal biomes. The fruits provide an oily pulp, rich in long chain fatty acids, and a kernel that encompass more than 50% of lipids rich in medium chain fatty acids (MCFA). Based on biochemical and nutritional evidences MCFA is readily catabolized and can reduce body fat accumulation. In this study, an animal model was employed to evaluate the effect of Acrocomia aculeata kernel oil (AKO) on the blood glucose level and the fatty acid deposit in the epididymal adipose tissue. The A. aculeata kernel oil obtained by cold pressing presented suitable quality as edible oil. Its fatty acid profile indicates high concentration of MCFA, mainly lauric, capric and caprilic. Type 2 diabetic rats fed with that kernel oil showed reduction of blood glucose level in comparison with the diabetic control group. Acrocomia aculeata kernel oil showed hypoglycemic effect. A small fraction of total dietary medium chain fatty acid was accumulated in the epididymal adipose tissue of rats fed with AKO at both low and high doses and caprilic acid did not deposit at all.

Calculation of dose distribution above contaminated soil

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuroda, Junya; Tenzou, Hideki; Manabe, Seiya; Iwakura, Yukiko

2017-07-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between altitude and the distribution of the ambient dose rate in the air over soil decontamination area by using PHITS simulation code. The geometry configuration was 1000 m ×1000 m area and 1m in soil depth and 100m in altitude from the ground to simulate the area of residences or a school grounds. The contaminated region is supposed to be uniformly contaminated by Cs-137 γ radiation sources. The air dose distribution and space resolution was evaluated for flux of the gamma rays at each altitude, 1, 5, 10, and 20m. The effect of decontamination was calculated by defining sharpness S. S was the ratio of an average flux and a flux at the center of denomination area in each altitude. The suitable flight altitude of the drone is found to be less than 15m above a residence and 31m above a school grounds to confirm the decontamination effect. The calculation results can be a help to determine a flight planning of a drone to minimize the clash risk.

Poster - Thurs Eve-43: Verification of dose calculation with tissue inhomogeneity using MapCHECK.

PubMed

Korol, R; Chen, J; Mosalaei, H; Karnas, S

2008-07-01

MapCHECK (Sun Nuclear, Melbourne, FL) with 445 diode detectors has been used widely for routine IMRT quality assurance (QA) 1 . However, routine IMRT QA has not included the verification of inhomogeneity effects. The objective of this study is to use MapCHECK and a phantom to verify dose calculation and IMRT delivery with tissue inhomogeneity. A phantom with tissue inhomogeneities was placed on top of MapCHECK to measure the planar dose for an anterior beam with photon energy 6 MV or 18 MV. The phantom was composed of a 3.5 cm thick block of lung equivalent material and solid water arranged side by side with a 0.5 cm slab of solid water on the top of the phantom. The phantom setup including MapCHECK was CT scanned and imported into Pinnacle 8.0d for dose calculation. Absolute dose distributions were compared with gamma criteria 3% for dose difference and 3 mm for distance-to-agreement. The results are in good agreement between the measured and calculated planar dose with 88% pass rate based on the gamma analysis. The major dose difference was at the lung-water interface. Further investigation will be performed on a custom designed inhomogeneity phantom with inserts of varying densities and effective depth to create various dose gradients at the interface for dose calculation and delivery verification. In conclusion, a phantom with tissue inhomogeneities can be used with MapCHECK for verification of dose calculation and delivery with tissue inhomogeneity. © 2008 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

LZW-Kernel: fast kernel utilizing variable length code blocks from LZW compressors for protein sequence classification.

PubMed

Filatov, Gleb; Bauwens, Bruno; Kertész-Farkas, Attila

2018-05-07

Bioinformatics studies often rely on similarity measures between sequence pairs, which often pose a bottleneck in large-scale sequence analysis. Here, we present a new convolutional kernel function for protein sequences called the LZW-Kernel. It is based on code words identified with the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) universal text compressor. The LZW-Kernel is an alignment-free method, it is always symmetric, is positive, always provides 1.0 for self-similarity and it can directly be used with Support Vector Machines (SVMs) in classification problems, contrary to normalized compression distance (NCD), which often violates the distance metric properties in practice and requires further techniques to be used with SVMs. The LZW-Kernel is a one-pass algorithm, which makes it particularly plausible for big data applications. Our experimental studies on remote protein homology detection and protein classification tasks reveal that the LZW-Kernel closely approaches the performance of the Local Alignment Kernel (LAK) and the SVM-pairwise method combined with Smith-Waterman (SW) scoring at a fraction of the time. Moreover, the LZW-Kernel outperforms the SVM-pairwise method when combined with BLAST scores, which indicates that the LZW code words might be a better basis for similarity measures than local alignment approximations found with BLAST. In addition, the LZW-Kernel outperforms n-gram based mismatch kernels, hidden Markov model based SAM and Fisher kernel, and protein family based PSI-BLAST, among others. Further advantages include the LZW-Kernel's reliance on a simple idea, its ease of implementation, and its high speed, three times faster than BLAST and several magnitudes faster than SW or LAK in our tests. LZW-Kernel is implemented as a standalone C code and is a free open-source program distributed under GPLv3 license and can be downloaded from https://github.com/kfattila/LZW-Kernel. akerteszfarkas@hse.ru. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics Online.

Estimating the uncertainty of calculated out-of-field organ dose from a commercial treatment planning system.

PubMed

Wang, Lilie; Ding, George X

2018-06-12

Therapeutic radiation to cancer patients is accompanied by unintended radiation to organs outside the treatment field. It is known that the model-based dose algorithm has limitation in calculating the out-of-field doses. This study evaluated the out-of-field dose calculated by the Varian Eclipse treatment planning system (v.11 with AAA algorithm) in realistic treatment plans with the goal of estimating the uncertainties of calculated organ doses. Photon beam phase-space files for TrueBeam linear accelerator were provided by Varian. These were used as incident sources in EGSnrc Monte Carlo simulations of radiation transport through the downstream jaws and MLC. Dynamic movements of the MLC leaves were fully modeled based on treatment plans using IMRT or VMAT techniques. The Monte Carlo calculated out-of-field doses were then compared with those calculated by Eclipse. The dose comparisons were performed for different beam energies and treatment sites, including head-and-neck, lung, and pelvis. For 6 MV (FF/FFF), 10 MV (FF/FFF), and 15 MV (FF) beams, Eclipse underestimated out-of-field local doses by 30%-50% compared with Monte Carlo calculations when the local dose was <1% of prescribed dose. The accuracy of out-of-field dose calculations using Eclipse is improved when collimator jaws were set at the smallest possible aperture for MLC openings. The Eclipse system consistently underestimates out-of-field dose by a factor of 2 for all beam energies studied at the local dose level of less than 1% of prescribed dose. These findings are useful in providing information on the uncertainties of out-of-field organ doses calculated by Eclipse treatment planning system. © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

Postimplant dosimetry using a Monte Carlo dose calculation engine: a new clinical standard.

PubMed

Carrier, Jean-François; D'Amours, Michel; Verhaegen, Frank; Reniers, Brigitte; Martin, André-Guy; Vigneault, Eric; Beaulieu, Luc

2007-07-15

To use the Monte Carlo (MC) method as a dose calculation engine for postimplant dosimetry. To compare the results with clinically approved data for a sample of 28 patients. Two effects not taken into account by the clinical calculation, interseed attenuation and tissue composition, are being specifically investigated. An automated MC program was developed. The dose distributions were calculated for the target volume and organs at risk (OAR) for 28 patients. Additional MC techniques were developed to focus specifically on the interseed attenuation and tissue effects. For the clinical target volume (CTV) D(90) parameter, the mean difference between the clinical technique and the complete MC method is 10.7 Gy, with cases reaching up to 17 Gy. For all cases, the clinical technique overestimates the deposited dose in the CTV. This overestimation is mainly from a combination of two effects: the interseed attenuation (average, 6.8 Gy) and tissue composition (average, 4.1 Gy). The deposited dose in the OARs is also overestimated in the clinical calculation. The clinical technique systematically overestimates the deposited dose in the prostate and in the OARs. To reduce this systematic inaccuracy, the MC method should be considered in establishing a new standard for clinical postimplant dosimetry and dose-outcome studies in a near future.

Assessing the Clinical Impact of Approximations in Analytical Dose Calculations for Proton Therapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schuemann, Jan, E-mail: jschuemann@mgh.harvard.edu; Giantsoudi, Drosoula; Grassberger, Clemens

2015-08-01

Purpose: To assess the impact of approximations in current analytical dose calculation methods (ADCs) on tumor control probability (TCP) in proton therapy. Methods: Dose distributions planned with ADC were compared with delivered dose distributions as determined by Monte Carlo simulations. A total of 50 patients were investigated in this analysis with 10 patients per site for 5 treatment sites (head and neck, lung, breast, prostate, liver). Differences were evaluated using dosimetric indices based on a dose-volume histogram analysis, a γ-index analysis, and estimations of TCP. Results: We found that ADC overestimated the target doses on average by 1% to 2%more » for all patients considered. The mean dose, D95, D50, and D02 (the dose value covering 95%, 50% and 2% of the target volume, respectively) were predicted within 5% of the delivered dose. The γ-index passing rate for target volumes was above 96% for a 3%/3 mm criterion. Differences in TCP were up to 2%, 2.5%, 6%, 6.5%, and 11% for liver and breast, prostate, head and neck, and lung patients, respectively. Differences in normal tissue complication probabilities for bladder and anterior rectum of prostate patients were less than 3%. Conclusion: Our results indicate that current dose calculation algorithms lead to underdosage of the target by as much as 5%, resulting in differences in TCP of up to 11%. To ensure full target coverage, advanced dose calculation methods like Monte Carlo simulations may be necessary in proton therapy. Monte Carlo simulations may also be required to avoid biases resulting from systematic discrepancies in calculated dose distributions for clinical trials comparing proton therapy with conventional radiation therapy.« less

Finite-frequency sensitivity kernels for head waves

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Zhigang; Shen, Yang; Zhao, Li

2007-11-01

Head waves are extremely important in determining the structure of the predominantly layered Earth. While several recent studies have shown the diffractive nature and the 3-D Fréchet kernels of finite-frequency turning waves, analogues of head waves in a continuous velocity structure, the finite-frequency effects and sensitivity kernels of head waves are yet to be carefully examined. We present the results of a numerical study focusing on the finite-frequency effects of head waves. Our model has a low-velocity layer over a high-velocity half-space and a cylindrical-shaped velocity perturbation placed beneath the interface at different locations. A 3-D finite-difference method is used to calculate synthetic waveforms. Traveltime and amplitude anomalies are measured by the cross-correlation of synthetic seismograms from models with and without the velocity perturbation and are compared to the 3-D sensitivity kernels constructed from full waveform simulations. The results show that the head wave arrival-time and amplitude are influenced by the velocity structure surrounding the ray path in a pattern that is consistent with the Fresnel zones. Unlike the `banana-doughnut' traveltime sensitivity kernels of turning waves, the traveltime sensitivity of the head wave along the ray path below the interface is weak, but non-zero. Below the ray path, the traveltime sensitivity reaches the maximum (absolute value) at a depth that depends on the wavelength and propagation distance. The sensitivity kernels vary with the vertical velocity gradient in the lower layer, but the variation is relatively small at short propagation distances when the vertical velocity gradient is within the range of the commonly accepted values. Finally, the depression or shoaling of the interface results in increased or decreased sensitivities, respectively, beneath the interface topography.

A self-calibrated angularly continuous 2D GRAPPA kernel for propeller trajectories

PubMed Central

Skare, Stefan; Newbould, Rexford D; Nordell, Anders; Holdsworth, Samantha J; Bammer, Roland

2008-01-01

The k-space readout of propeller-type sequences may be accelerated by the use of parallel imaging (PI). For PROPELLER, the main benefits are reduced blurring due to T2 decay and SAR reduction, while for EPI-based propeller acquisitions such as Turbo-PROP and SAP-EPI, the faster k-space traversal alleviates geometric distortions. In this work, the feasibility of calculating a 2D GRAPPA kernel on only the undersampled propeller blades themselves is explored, using the matching orthogonal undersampled blade. It is shown that the GRAPPA kernel varies slowly across blades, therefore an angularly continuous 2D GRAPPA kernel is proposed, in which the angular variation of the weights is parameterized. This new angularly continuous kernel formulation greatly increases the numerical stability of the GRAPPA weight estimation, allowing the generation of fully sampled diagnostic quality images using only the undersampled propeller data. PMID:19025911

Calculation of organ doses in x-ray examinations of premature babies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Smans, Kristien; Tapiovaara, Markku; Cannie, Mieke

Lung disease represents one of the most life-threatening conditions in prematurely born children. In the evaluation of the neonatal chest, the primary and most important diagnostic study is the chest radiograph. Since prematurely born children are very sensitive to radiation, those radiographs may lead to a significant radiation detriment. Knowledge of the radiation dose is therefore necessary to justify the exposures. To calculate doses in the entire body and in specific organs, computational models of the human anatomy are needed. Using medical imaging techniques, voxel phantoms have been developed to achieve a representation as close as possible to the anatomicalmore » properties. In this study two voxel phantoms, representing prematurely born babies, were created from computed tomography- and magnetic resonance images: Phantom 1 (1910 g) and Phantom 2 (590 g). The two voxel phantoms were used in Monte Carlo calculations (MCNPX) to assess organ doses. The results were compared with the commercially available software package PCXMC in which the available mathematical phantoms can be downsized toward the prematurely born baby. The simple phantom-scaling method used in PCXMC seems to be sufficient to calculate doses for organs within the radiation field. However, one should be careful in specifying the irradiation geometry. Doses in organs that are wholly or partially outside the primary radiation field depend critically on the irradiation conditions and the phantom model.« less

Head-and-neck IMRT treatments assessed with a Monte Carlo dose calculation engine.

PubMed

Seco, J; Adams, E; Bidmead, M; Partridge, M; Verhaegen, F

2005-03-07

IMRT is frequently used in the head-and-neck region, which contains materials of widely differing densities (soft tissue, bone, air-cavities). Conventional methods of dose computation for these complex, inhomogeneous IMRT cases involve significant approximations. In the present work, a methodology for the development, commissioning and implementation of a Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculation engine for intensity modulated radiotherapy (MC-IMRT) is proposed which can be used by radiotherapy centres interested in developing MC-IMRT capabilities for research or clinical evaluations. The method proposes three levels for developing, commissioning and maintaining a MC-IMRT dose calculation engine: (a) development of a MC model of the linear accelerator, (b) validation of MC model for IMRT and (c) periodic quality assurance (QA) of the MC-IMRT system. The first step, level (a), in developing an MC-IMRT system is to build a model of the linac that correctly predicts standard open field measurements for percentage depth-dose and off-axis ratios. Validation of MC-IMRT, level (b), can be performed in a rando phantom and in a homogeneous water equivalent phantom. Ultimately, periodic quality assurance of the MC-IMRT system is needed to verify the MC-IMRT dose calculation system, level (c). Once the MC-IMRT dose calculation system is commissioned it can be applied to more complex clinical IMRT treatments. The MC-IMRT system implemented at the Royal Marsden Hospital was used for IMRT calculations for a patient undergoing treatment for primary disease with nodal involvement in the head-and-neck region (primary treated to 65 Gy and nodes to 54 Gy), while sparing the spinal cord, brain stem and parotid glands. Preliminary MC results predict a decrease of approximately 1-2 Gy in the median dose of both the primary tumour and nodal volumes (compared with both pencil beam and collapsed cone). This is possibly due to the large air-cavity (the larynx of the patient) situated in the centre

Partial Deconvolution with Inaccurate Blur Kernel.

PubMed

Ren, Dongwei; Zuo, Wangmeng; Zhang, David; Xu, Jun; Zhang, Lei

2017-10-17

Most non-blind deconvolution methods are developed under the error-free kernel assumption, and are not robust to inaccurate blur kernel. Unfortunately, despite the great progress in blind deconvolution, estimation error remains inevitable during blur kernel estimation. Consequently, severe artifacts such as ringing effects and distortions are likely to be introduced in the non-blind deconvolution stage. In this paper, we tackle this issue by suggesting: (i) a partial map in the Fourier domain for modeling kernel estimation error, and (ii) a partial deconvolution model for robust deblurring with inaccurate blur kernel. The partial map is constructed by detecting the reliable Fourier entries of estimated blur kernel. And partial deconvolution is applied to wavelet-based and learning-based models to suppress the adverse effect of kernel estimation error. Furthermore, an E-M algorithm is developed for estimating the partial map and recovering the latent sharp image alternatively. Experimental results show that our partial deconvolution model is effective in relieving artifacts caused by inaccurate blur kernel, and can achieve favorable deblurring quality on synthetic and real blurry images.Most non-blind deconvolution methods are developed under the error-free kernel assumption, and are not robust to inaccurate blur kernel. Unfortunately, despite the great progress in blind deconvolution, estimation error remains inevitable during blur kernel estimation. Consequently, severe artifacts such as ringing effects and distortions are likely to be introduced in the non-blind deconvolution stage. In this paper, we tackle this issue by suggesting: (i) a partial map in the Fourier domain for modeling kernel estimation error, and (ii) a partial deconvolution model for robust deblurring with inaccurate blur kernel. The partial map is constructed by detecting the reliable Fourier entries of estimated blur kernel. And partial deconvolution is applied to wavelet-based and learning

Convergence of high order memory kernels in the Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized master equation and rate constants: Case study of the spin-boson model.

PubMed

Xu, Meng; Yan, Yaming; Liu, Yanying; Shi, Qiang

2018-04-28

The Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized master equation provides a formally exact framework to simulate quantum dynamics in condensed phases. Yet, the exact memory kernel is hard to obtain and calculations based on perturbative expansions are often employed. By using the spin-boson model as an example, we assess the convergence of high order memory kernels in the Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized master equation. The exact memory kernels are calculated by combining the hierarchical equation of motion approach and the Dyson expansion of the exact memory kernel. High order expansions of the memory kernels are obtained by extending our previous work to calculate perturbative expansions of open system quantum dynamics [M. Xu et al., J. Chem. Phys. 146, 064102 (2017)]. It is found that the high order expansions do not necessarily converge in certain parameter regimes where the exact kernel show a long memory time, especially in cases of slow bath, weak system-bath coupling, and low temperature. Effectiveness of the Padé and Landau-Zener resummation approaches is tested, and the convergence of higher order rate constants beyond Fermi's golden rule is investigated.

Convergence of high order memory kernels in the Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized master equation and rate constants: Case study of the spin-boson model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Meng; Yan, Yaming; Liu, Yanying; Shi, Qiang

2018-04-01

The Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized master equation provides a formally exact framework to simulate quantum dynamics in condensed phases. Yet, the exact memory kernel is hard to obtain and calculations based on perturbative expansions are often employed. By using the spin-boson model as an example, we assess the convergence of high order memory kernels in the Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized master equation. The exact memory kernels are calculated by combining the hierarchical equation of motion approach and the Dyson expansion of the exact memory kernel. High order expansions of the memory kernels are obtained by extending our previous work to calculate perturbative expansions of open system quantum dynamics [M. Xu et al., J. Chem. Phys. 146, 064102 (2017)]. It is found that the high order expansions do not necessarily converge in certain parameter regimes where the exact kernel show a long memory time, especially in cases of slow bath, weak system-bath coupling, and low temperature. Effectiveness of the Padé and Landau-Zener resummation approaches is tested, and the convergence of higher order rate constants beyond Fermi's golden rule is investigated.

Adiabatic-connection fluctuation-dissipation DFT for the structural properties of solids—The renormalized ALDA and electron gas kernels

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Patrick, Christopher E., E-mail: chripa@fysik.dtu.dk; Thygesen, Kristian S., E-mail: thygesen@fysik.dtu.dk

2015-09-14

We present calculations of the correlation energies of crystalline solids and isolated systems within the adiabatic-connection fluctuation-dissipation formulation of density-functional theory. We perform a quantitative comparison of a set of model exchange-correlation kernels originally derived for the homogeneous electron gas (HEG), including the recently introduced renormalized adiabatic local-density approximation (rALDA) and also kernels which (a) satisfy known exact limits of the HEG, (b) carry a frequency dependence, or (c) display a 1/k{sup 2} divergence for small wavevectors. After generalizing the kernels to inhomogeneous systems through a reciprocal-space averaging procedure, we calculate the lattice constants and bulk moduli of a testmore » set of 10 solids consisting of tetrahedrally bonded semiconductors (C, Si, SiC), ionic compounds (MgO, LiCl, LiF), and metals (Al, Na, Cu, Pd). We also consider the atomization energy of the H{sub 2} molecule. We compare the results calculated with different kernels to those obtained from the random-phase approximation (RPA) and to experimental measurements. We demonstrate that the model kernels correct the RPA’s tendency to overestimate the magnitude of the correlation energy whilst maintaining a high-accuracy description of structural properties.« less

A simplified analytical random walk model for proton dose calculation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yao, Weiguang; Merchant, Thomas E.; Farr, Jonathan B.

2016-10-01

We propose an analytical random walk model for proton dose calculation in a laterally homogeneous medium. A formula for the spatial fluence distribution of primary protons is derived. The variance of the spatial distribution is in the form of a distance-squared law of the angular distribution. To improve the accuracy of dose calculation in the Bragg peak region, the energy spectrum of the protons is used. The accuracy is validated against Monte Carlo simulation in water phantoms with either air gaps or a slab of bone inserted. The algorithm accurately reflects the dose dependence on the depth of the bone and can deal with small-field dosimetry. We further applied the algorithm to patients’ cases in the highly heterogeneous head and pelvis sites and used a gamma test to show the reasonable accuracy of the algorithm in these sites. Our algorithm is fast for clinical use.

Calculation of Dose Deposition in 3D Voxels by Heavy Ions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Plante, Ianik; Cucinotta, Francis A.

2010-01-01

The biological response to high-LET radiation is very different from low-LET radiation, and can be partly attributed to the energy deposition by the radiation. Several experiments, notably detection of gamma-H2AX foci by immunofluorescence, has revealed important differences in the nature and in the spatial distribution of double-strand breaks (DSB) induced by low- and high-LET radiations. Many calculations, most of which are based on amorphous track models with radial dose, have been combined with chromosome models to calculate the number and distribution of DSB within nuclei and chromosome aberrations. In this work, the Monte-Carlo track structure simulation code RITRACKS have been used to calculate directly the energy deposition in voxels (3D pixels). A cubic volume of 5 micrometers of side was irradiated by 1) 450 (1)H+ ions of 300 MeV (LET is approximately 0.3 keV/micrometer) and 2) by 1 (56)Fe26+ ion of 1 GeV/amu (LET is approximately 150 keV/micrometer). In both cases, the dose deposited in the volume is approximately 1 Gy. All energy deposition events are recorded and dose is calculated in voxels of 20 micrometers of side. The voxels are then visualized in 3D by using a color scale to represent the intensity of the dose in a voxel. This simple approach has revealed several important points which may help understand experimental observations. In both simulations, voxels which receive low dose are the most numerous, and those corresponding to electron track ends received a dose which is in the higher range. The dose voxels are distributed randomly and scattered uniformly within the volume irradiated by low-LET radiation. The distribution of the voxels shows major differences for the (56)Fe26+ ion. The track structure can still be seen, and voxels with much higher dose are found in the region corresponding to the track "core". These high-dose voxels are not found in the low-LET irradiation simulation and may be responsible for DSB that are more difficult to

Modification and validation of an analytical source model for external beam radiotherapy Monte Carlo dose calculations.

PubMed

Davidson, Scott E; Cui, Jing; Kry, Stephen; Deasy, Joseph O; Ibbott, Geoffrey S; Vicic, Milos; White, R Allen; Followill, David S

2016-08-01

A dose calculation tool, which combines the accuracy of the dose planning method (DPM) Monte Carlo code and the versatility of a practical analytical multisource model, which was previously reported has been improved and validated for the Varian 6 and 10 MV linear accelerators (linacs). The calculation tool can be used to calculate doses in advanced clinical application studies. One shortcoming of current clinical trials that report dose from patient plans is the lack of a standardized dose calculation methodology. Because commercial treatment planning systems (TPSs) have their own dose calculation algorithms and the clinical trial participant who uses these systems is responsible for commissioning the beam model, variation exists in the reported calculated dose distributions. Today's modern linac is manufactured to tight specifications so that variability within a linac model is quite low. The expectation is that a single dose calculation tool for a specific linac model can be used to accurately recalculate dose from patient plans that have been submitted to the clinical trial community from any institution. The calculation tool would provide for a more meaningful outcome analysis. The analytical source model was described by a primary point source, a secondary extra-focal source, and a contaminant electron source. Off-axis energy softening and fluence effects were also included. The additions of hyperbolic functions have been incorporated into the model to correct for the changes in output and in electron contamination with field size. A multileaf collimator (MLC) model is included to facilitate phantom and patient dose calculations. An offset to the MLC leaf positions was used to correct for the rudimentary assumed primary point source. Dose calculations of the depth dose and profiles for field sizes 4 × 4 to 40 × 40 cm agree with measurement within 2% of the maximum dose or 2 mm distance to agreement (DTA) for 95% of the data points tested. The model was

Modification and validation of an analytical source model for external beam radiotherapy Monte Carlo dose calculations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Davidson, Scott E., E-mail: sedavids@utmb.edu

Purpose: A dose calculation tool, which combines the accuracy of the dose planning method (DPM) Monte Carlo code and the versatility of a practical analytical multisource model, which was previously reported has been improved and validated for the Varian 6 and 10 MV linear accelerators (linacs). The calculation tool can be used to calculate doses in advanced clinical application studies. One shortcoming of current clinical trials that report dose from patient plans is the lack of a standardized dose calculation methodology. Because commercial treatment planning systems (TPSs) have their own dose calculation algorithms and the clinical trial participant who usesmore » these systems is responsible for commissioning the beam model, variation exists in the reported calculated dose distributions. Today’s modern linac is manufactured to tight specifications so that variability within a linac model is quite low. The expectation is that a single dose calculation tool for a specific linac model can be used to accurately recalculate dose from patient plans that have been submitted to the clinical trial community from any institution. The calculation tool would provide for a more meaningful outcome analysis. Methods: The analytical source model was described by a primary point source, a secondary extra-focal source, and a contaminant electron source. Off-axis energy softening and fluence effects were also included. The additions of hyperbolic functions have been incorporated into the model to correct for the changes in output and in electron contamination with field size. A multileaf collimator (MLC) model is included to facilitate phantom and patient dose calculations. An offset to the MLC leaf positions was used to correct for the rudimentary assumed primary point source. Results: Dose calculations of the depth dose and profiles for field sizes 4 × 4 to 40 × 40 cm agree with measurement within 2% of the maximum dose or 2 mm distance to agreement (DTA) for 95% of the

Comparison of EGS4 and MCNP Monte Carlo codes when calculating radiotherapy depth doses.

PubMed

Love, P A; Lewis, D G; Al-Affan, I A; Smith, C W

1998-05-01

The Monte Carlo codes EGS4 and MCNP have been compared when calculating radiotherapy depth doses in water. The aims of the work were to study (i) the differences between calculated depth doses in water for a range of monoenergetic photon energies and (ii) the relative efficiency of the two codes for different electron transport energy cut-offs. The depth doses from the two codes agree with each other within the statistical uncertainties of the calculations (1-2%). The relative depth doses also agree with data tabulated in the British Journal of Radiology Supplement 25. A discrepancy in the dose build-up region may by attributed to the different electron transport algorithims used by EGS4 and MCNP. This discrepancy is considerably reduced when the improved electron transport routines are used in the latest (4B) version of MCNP. Timing calculations show that EGS4 is at least 50% faster than MCNP for the geometries used in the simulations.

Dose Estimating Application Software Modification: Additional Function of a Size-Specific Effective Dose Calculator and Auto Exposure Control.

PubMed

Kobayashi, Masanao; Asada, Yasuki; Matsubara, Kosuke; Suzuki, Shouichi; Matsunaga, Yuta; Haba, Tomonobu; Kawaguchi, Ai; Daioku, Tomihiko; Toyama, Hiroshi; Kato, Ryoichi

2017-05-01

Adequate dose management during computed tomography is important. In the present study, the dosimetric application software ImPACT was added to a functional calculator of the size-specific dose estimate and was part of the scan settings for the auto exposure control (AEC) technique. This study aimed to assess the practicality and accuracy of the modified ImPACT software for dose estimation. We compared the conversion factors identified by the software with the values reported by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group 204, and we noted similar results. Moreover, doses were calculated with the AEC technique and a fixed-tube current of 200 mA for the chest-pelvis region. The modified ImPACT software could estimate each organ dose, which was based on the modulated tube current. The ability to perform beneficial modifications indicates the flexibility of the ImPACT software. The ImPACT software can be further modified for estimation of other doses. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

7 CFR 981.9 - Kernel weight.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Kernel weight. 981.9 Section 981.9 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Regulating Handling Definitions § 981.9 Kernel weight. Kernel weight means the weight of kernels, including...

Calculations vs. measurements of remnant dose rates for SNS spent structures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Popova, I. I.; Gallmeier, F. X.; Trotter, S.; Dayton, M.

2018-06-01

Residual dose rate measurements were conducted on target vessel #13 and proton beam window #5 after extraction from their service locations. These measurements were used to verify calculation methods of radionuclide inventory assessment that are typically performed for nuclear waste characterization and transportation of these structures. Neutronics analyses for predicting residual dose rates were carried out using the transport code MCNPX and the transmutation code CINDER90. For transport analyses complex and rigorous geometry model of the structures and their surrounding are applied. The neutronics analyses were carried out using Bertini and CEM high energy physics models for simulating particles interaction. Obtained preliminary calculational results were analysed and compared to the measured dose rates and overall are showing good agreement with in 40% in average.

7 CFR 51.2295 - Half kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Half kernel. 51.2295 Section 51.2295 Agriculture... Standards for Shelled English Walnuts (Juglans Regia) Definitions § 51.2295 Half kernel. Half kernel means the separated half of a kernel with not more than one-eighth broken off. ...

Oecophylla longinoda (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Lead to Increased Cashew Kernel Size and Kernel Quality.

PubMed

Anato, F M; Sinzogan, A A C; Offenberg, J; Adandonon, A; Wargui, R B; Deguenon, J M; Ayelo, P M; Vayssières, J-F; Kossou, D K

2017-06-01

Weaver ants, Oecophylla spp., are known to positively affect cashew, Anacardium occidentale L., raw nut yield, but their effects on the kernels have not been reported. We compared nut size and the proportion of marketable kernels between raw nuts collected from trees with and without ants. Raw nuts collected from trees with weaver ants were 2.9% larger than nuts from control trees (i.e., without weaver ants), leading to 14% higher proportion of marketable kernels. On trees with ants, the kernel: raw nut ratio from nuts damaged by formic acid was 4.8% lower compared with nondamaged nuts from the same trees. Weaver ants provided three benefits to cashew production by increasing yields, yielding larger nuts, and by producing greater proportions of marketable kernel mass. © The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Influence of different dose calculation algorithms on the estimate of NTCP for lung complications

PubMed Central

Bäck, Anna

2013-01-01

Due to limitations and uncertainties in dose calculation algorithms, different algorithms can predict different dose distributions and dose‐volume histograms for the same treatment. This can be a problem when estimating the normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) for patient‐specific dose distributions. Published NTCP model parameters are often derived for a different dose calculation algorithm than the one used to calculate the actual dose distribution. The use of algorithm‐specific NTCP model parameters can prevent errors caused by differences in dose calculation algorithms. The objective of this work was to determine how to change the NTCP model parameters for lung complications derived for a simple correction‐based pencil beam dose calculation algorithm, in order to make them valid for three other common dose calculation algorithms. NTCP was calculated with the relative seriality (RS) and Lyman‐Kutcher‐Burman (LKB) models. The four dose calculation algorithms used were the pencil beam (PB) and collapsed cone (CC) algorithms employed by Oncentra, and the pencil beam convolution (PBC) and anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA) employed by Eclipse. Original model parameters for lung complications were taken from four published studies on different grades of pneumonitis, and new algorithm‐specific NTCP model parameters were determined. The difference between original and new model parameters was presented in relation to the reported model parameter uncertainties. Three different types of treatments were considered in the study: tangential and locoregional breast cancer treatment and lung cancer treatment. Changing the algorithm without the derivation of new model parameters caused changes in the NTCP value of up to 10 percentage points for the cases studied. Furthermore, the error introduced could be of the same magnitude as the confidence intervals of the calculated NTCP values. The new NTCP model parameters were tabulated as the algorithm was

Monte Carlo calculation of skyshine'' neutron dose from ALS (Advanced Light Source)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Moin-Vasiri, M.

1990-06-01

This report discusses the following topics on skyshine'' neutron dose from ALS: Sources of radiation; ALS modeling for skyshine calculations; MORSE Monte-Carlo; Implementation of MORSE; Results of skyshine calculations from storage ring; and Comparison of MORSE shielding calculations.

Kernel abortion in maize : I. Carbohydrate concentration patterns and Acid invertase activity of maize kernels induced to abort in vitro.

PubMed

Hanft, J M; Jones, R J

1986-06-01

Kernels cultured in vitro were induced to abort by high temperature (35 degrees C) and by culturing six kernels/cob piece. Aborting kernels failed to enter a linear phase of dry mass accumulation and had a final mass that was less than 6% of nonaborting field-grown kernels. Kernels induced to abort by high temperature failed to synthesize starch in the endosperm and had elevated sucrose concentrations and low fructose and glucose concentrations in the pedicel during early growth compared to nonaborting kernels. Kernels induced to abort by high temperature also had much lower pedicel soluble acid invertase activities than did nonaborting kernels. These results suggest that high temperature during the lag phase of kernel growth may impair the process of sucrose unloading in the pedicel by indirectly inhibiting soluble acid invertase activity and prevent starch synthesis in the endosperm. Kernels induced to abort by culturing six kernels/cob piece had reduced pedicel fructose, glucose, and sucrose concentrations compared to kernels from field-grown ears. These aborting kernels also had a lower pedicel soluble acid invertase activity compared to nonaborting kernels from the same cob piece and from field-grown ears. The low invertase activity in pedicel tissue of the aborting kernels was probably caused by a lack of substrate (sucrose) for the invertase to cleave due to the intense competition for available assimilates. In contrast to kernels cultured at 35 degrees C, aborting kernels from cob pieces containing all six kernels accumulated starch in a linear fashion. These results indicate that kernels cultured six/cob piece abort because of an inadequate supply of sugar and are similar to apical kernels from field-grown ears that often abort prior to the onset of linear growth.

The effects of food irradiation on quality of pine nut kernels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gölge, Evren; Ova, Gülden

2008-03-01

Pine nuts ( Pinus pinae) undergo gamma irradiation process with the doses 0.5, 1.0, 3.0, and 5.0 kGy. The changes in chemical, physical and sensory attributes were observed in the following 3 months of storage period. The data obtained from the experiments showed the peroxide values of the pine nut kernels increased proportionally to the dose. On contrary, irradiation process has no effect on the physical quality such as texture and color, fatty acid composition and sensory attributes.

An Approximate Approach to Automatic Kernel Selection.

PubMed

Ding, Lizhong; Liao, Shizhong

2016-02-02

Kernel selection is a fundamental problem of kernel-based learning algorithms. In this paper, we propose an approximate approach to automatic kernel selection for regression from the perspective of kernel matrix approximation. We first introduce multilevel circulant matrices into automatic kernel selection, and develop two approximate kernel selection algorithms by exploiting the computational virtues of multilevel circulant matrices. The complexity of the proposed algorithms is quasi-linear in the number of data points. Then, we prove an approximation error bound to measure the effect of the approximation in kernel matrices by multilevel circulant matrices on the hypothesis and further show that the approximate hypothesis produced with multilevel circulant matrices converges to the accurate hypothesis produced with kernel matrices. Experimental evaluations on benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of approximate kernel selection.

Calculation of midplane dose for total body irradiation from entrance and exit dose MOSFET measurements.

PubMed

Satory, P R

2012-03-01

This work is the development of a MOSFET based surface in vivo dosimetry system for total body irradiation patients treated with bilateral extended SSD beams using PMMA missing tissue compensators adjacent to the patient. An empirical formula to calculate midplane dose from MOSFET measured entrance and exit doses has been derived. The dependency of surface dose on the air-gap between the spoiler and the surface was investigated by suspending a spoiler above a water phantom, and taking percentage depth dose measurements (PDD). Exit and entrances doses were measured with MOSFETs in conjunction with midplane doses measured with an ion chamber. The entrance and exit doses were combined using an exponential attenuation formula to give an estimate of midplane dose and were compared to the midplane ion chamber measurement for a range of phantom thicknesses. Having a maximum PDD at the surface simplifies the prediction of midplane dose, which is achieved by ensuring that the air gap between the compensator and the surface is less than 10 cm. The comparison of estimated midplane dose and measured midplane dose showed no dependence on phantom thickness and an average correction factor of 0.88 was found. If the missing tissue compensators are kept within 10 cm of the patient then MOSFET measurements of entrance and exit dose can predict the midplane dose for the patient.

Viscozyme L pretreatment on palm kernels improved the aroma of palm kernel oil after kernel roasting.

PubMed

Zhang, Wencan; Leong, Siew Mun; Zhao, Feifei; Zhao, Fangju; Yang, Tiankui; Liu, Shaoquan

2018-05-01

With an interest to enhance the aroma of palm kernel oil (PKO), Viscozyme L, an enzyme complex containing a wide range of carbohydrases, was applied to alter the carbohydrates in palm kernels (PK) to modulate the formation of volatiles upon kernel roasting. After Viscozyme treatment, the content of simple sugars and free amino acids in PK increased by 4.4-fold and 4.5-fold, respectively. After kernel roasting and oil extraction, significantly more 2,5-dimethylfuran, 2-[(methylthio)methyl]-furan, 1-(2-furanyl)-ethanone, 1-(2-furyl)-2-propanone, 5-methyl-2-furancarboxaldehyde and 2-acetyl-5-methylfuran but less 2-furanmethanol and 2-furanmethanol acetate were found in treated PKO; the correlation between their formation and simple sugar profile was estimated by using partial least square regression (PLS1). Obvious differences in pyrroles and Strecker aldehydes were also found between the control and treated PKOs. Principal component analysis (PCA) clearly discriminated the treated PKOs from that of control PKOs on the basis of all volatile compounds. Such changes in volatiles translated into distinct sensory attributes, whereby treated PKO was more caramelic and burnt after aqueous extraction and more nutty, roasty, caramelic and smoky after solvent extraction. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On the interpretation of kernels - Computer simulation of responses to impulse pairs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hung, G.; Stark, L.; Eykhoff, P.

1983-01-01

A method is presented for the use of a unit impulse response and responses to impulse pairs of variable separation in the calculation of the second-degree kernels of a quadratic system. A quadratic system may be built from simple linear terms of known dynamics and a multiplier. Computer simulation results on quadratic systems with building elements of various time constants indicate reasonably that the larger time constant term before multiplication dominates in the envelope of the off-diagonal kernel curves as these move perpendicular to and away from the main diagonal. The smaller time constant term before multiplication combines with the effect of the time constant after multiplication to dominate in the kernel curves in the direction of the second-degree impulse response, i.e., parallel to the main diagonal. Such types of insight may be helpful in recognizing essential aspects of (second-degree) kernels; they may be used in simplifying the model structure and, perhaps, add to the physical/physiological understanding of the underlying processes.

A fast and objective multidimensional kernel density estimation method: fastKDE

DOE PAGES

O'Brien, Travis A.; Kashinath, Karthik; Cavanaugh, Nicholas R.; ...

2016-03-07

Numerous facets of scientific research implicitly or explicitly call for the estimation of probability densities. Histograms and kernel density estimates (KDEs) are two commonly used techniques for estimating such information, with the KDE generally providing a higher fidelity representation of the probability density function (PDF). Both methods require specification of either a bin width or a kernel bandwidth. While techniques exist for choosing the kernel bandwidth optimally and objectively, they are computationally intensive, since they require repeated calculation of the KDE. A solution for objectively and optimally choosing both the kernel shape and width has recently been developed by Bernacchiamore » and Pigolotti (2011). While this solution theoretically applies to multidimensional KDEs, it has not been clear how to practically do so. A method for practically extending the Bernacchia-Pigolotti KDE to multidimensions is introduced. This multidimensional extension is combined with a recently-developed computational improvement to their method that makes it computationally efficient: a 2D KDE on 10 5 samples only takes 1 s on a modern workstation. This fast and objective KDE method, called the fastKDE method, retains the excellent statistical convergence properties that have been demonstrated for univariate samples. The fastKDE method exhibits statistical accuracy that is comparable to state-of-the-science KDE methods publicly available in R, and it produces kernel density estimates several orders of magnitude faster. The fastKDE method does an excellent job of encoding covariance information for bivariate samples. This property allows for direct calculation of conditional PDFs with fastKDE. It is demonstrated how this capability might be leveraged for detecting non-trivial relationships between quantities in physical systems, such as transitional behavior.« less

Multiple kernel learning in protein-protein interaction extraction from biomedical literature.

PubMed

Yang, Zhihao; Tang, Nan; Zhang, Xiao; Lin, Hongfei; Li, Yanpeng; Yang, Zhiwei

2011-03-01

Knowledge about protein-protein interactions (PPIs) unveils the molecular mechanisms of biological processes. The volume and content of published biomedical literature on protein interactions is expanding rapidly, making it increasingly difficult for interaction database administrators, responsible for content input and maintenance to detect and manually update protein interaction information. The objective of this work is to develop an effective approach to automatic extraction of PPI information from biomedical literature. We present a weighted multiple kernel learning-based approach for automatic PPI extraction from biomedical literature. The approach combines the following kernels: feature-based, tree, graph and part-of-speech (POS) path. In particular, we extend the shortest path-enclosed tree (SPT) and dependency path tree to capture richer contextual information. Our experimental results show that the combination of SPT and dependency path tree extensions contributes to the improvement of performance by almost 0.7 percentage units in F-score and 2 percentage units in area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC). Combining two or more appropriately weighed individual will further improve the performance. Both on the individual corpus and cross-corpus evaluation our combined kernel can achieve state-of-the-art performance with respect to comparable evaluations, with 64.41% F-score and 88.46% AUC on the AImed corpus. As different kernels calculate the similarity between two sentences from different aspects. Our combined kernel can reduce the risk of missing important features. More specifically, we use a weighted linear combination of individual kernels instead of assigning the same weight to each individual kernel, thus allowing the introduction of each kernel to incrementally contribute to the performance improvement. In addition, SPT and dependency path tree extensions can improve the performance by including richer context information

Effective Dose Calculation Program (EDCP) for the usage of NORM-added consumer product.

PubMed

Yoo, Do Hyeon; Lee, Jaekook; Min, Chul Hee

2018-04-09

The aim of this study is to develop the Effective Dose Calculation Program (EDCP) for the usage of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) added consumer products. The EDCP was developed based on a database of effective dose conversion coefficient and the Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) program to incorporate a Graphic User Interface (GUI) for ease of use. To validate EDCP, the effective dose calculated with EDCP by manually determining the source region by using the GUI and that by using the reference mathematical algorithm were compared for pillow, waist supporter, eye-patch and sleeping mattress. The results show that the annual effective dose calculated with EDCP was almost identical to that calculated using the reference mathematical algorithm in most of the assessment cases. With the assumption of the gamma energy of 1 MeV and activity of 1 MBq, the annual effective doses of pillow, waist supporter, sleeping mattress, and eye-patch determined using the reference algorithm were 3.444 mSv year -1 , 2.770 mSv year -1 , 4.629 mSv year -1 , and 3.567 mSv year -1 , respectively, while those calculated using EDCP were 3.561 mSv year -1 , 2.630 mSv year -1 , 4.740 mSv year -1 , and 3.780 mSv year -1 , respectively. The differences in the annual effective doses were less than 5%, despite the different calculation methods employed. The EDCP can therefore be effectively used for radiation protection management in the context of the usage of NORM-added consumer products. Additionally, EDCP can be used by members of the public through the GUI for various studies in the field of radiation protection, thus facilitating easy access to the program. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Use of computer code for dose distribution studies in A 60CO industrial irradiator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Piña-Villalpando, G.; Sloan, D. P.

1995-09-01

This paper presents a benchmark comparison between calculated and experimental absorbed dose values tor a typical product, in a 60Co industrial irradiator, located at ININ, México. The irradiator is a two levels, two layers system with overlapping product configuration with activity around 300kCi. Experimental values were obtanied from routine dosimetry, using red acrylic pellets. Typical product was Petri dishes packages, apparent density 0.13 g/cm3; that product was chosen because uniform size, large quantity and low density. Minimum dose was fixed in 15 kGy. Calculated values were obtained from QAD-CGGP code. This code uses a point kernel technique, build-up factors fitting was done by geometrical progression and combinatorial geometry is used for system description. Main modifications for the code were related with source sumilation, using punctual sources instead of pencils and an energy and anisotropic emission spectrums were included. Results were, for maximum dose, calculated value (18.2 kGy) was 8% higher than experimental average value (16.8 kGy); for minimum dose, calculated value (13.8 kGy) was 3% higher than experimental average value (14.3 kGy).

The Monte Carlo code MCPTV--Monte Carlo dose calculation in radiation therapy with carbon ions.

PubMed

Karg, Juergen; Speer, Stefan; Schmidt, Manfred; Mueller, Reinhold

2010-07-07

The Monte Carlo code MCPTV is presented. MCPTV is designed for dose calculation in treatment planning in radiation therapy with particles and especially carbon ions. MCPTV has a voxel-based concept and can perform a fast calculation of the dose distribution on patient CT data. Material and density information from CT are taken into account. Electromagnetic and nuclear interactions are implemented. Furthermore the algorithm gives information about the particle spectra and the energy deposition in each voxel. This can be used to calculate the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for each voxel. Depth dose distributions are compared to experimental data giving good agreement. A clinical example is shown to demonstrate the capabilities of the MCPTV dose calculation.

Calculation of plasma dielectric response in inhomogeneous magnetic field near electron cyclotron resonance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evstatiev, Evstati; Svidzinski, Vladimir; Spencer, Andy; Galkin, Sergei

2014-10-01

Full wave 3-D modeling of RF fields in hot magnetized nonuniform plasma requires calculation of nonlocal conductivity kernel describing the dielectric response of such plasma to the RF field. In many cases, the conductivity kernel is a localized function near the test point which significantly simplifies numerical solution of the full wave 3-D problem. Preliminary results of feasibility analysis of numerical calculation of the conductivity kernel in a 3-D hot nonuniform magnetized plasma in the electron cyclotron frequency range will be reported. This case is relevant to modeling of ECRH in ITER. The kernel is calculated by integrating the linearized Vlasov equation along the unperturbed particle's orbits. Particle's orbits in the nonuniform equilibrium magnetic field are calculated numerically by one of the Runge-Kutta methods. RF electric field is interpolated on a specified grid on which the conductivity kernel is discretized. The resulting integrals in the particle's initial velocity and time are then calculated numerically. Different optimization approaches of the integration are tested in this feasibility analysis. Work is supported by the U.S. DOE SBIR program.

7 CFR 51.1441 - Half-kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Half-kernel. 51.1441 Section 51.1441 Agriculture... Standards for Grades of Shelled Pecans Definitions § 51.1441 Half-kernel. Half-kernel means one of the separated halves of an entire pecan kernel with not more than one-eighth of its original volume missing...

Accurate heterogeneous dose calculation for lung cancer patients without high‐resolution CT densities

PubMed Central

Li, Jonathan G.; Liu, Chihray; Olivier, Kenneth R.; Dempsey, James F.

2009-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the relative accuracy of megavoltage photon‐beam dose calculations employing either five bulk densities or independent voxel densities determined by calibration of the CT Houndsfield number. Full‐resolution CT and bulk density treatment plans were generated for 70 lung or esophageal cancer tumors (66 cases) using a commercial treatment planning system with an adaptive convolution dose calculation algorithm (Pinnacle3, Philips Medicals Systems). Bulk densities were applied to segmented regions. Individual and population average densities were compared to the full‐resolution plan for each case. Monitor units were kept constant and no normalizations were employed. Dose volume histograms (DVH) and dose difference distributions were examined for all cases. The average densities of the segmented air, lung, fat, soft tissue, and bone for the entire set were found to be 0.14, 0.26, 0.89, 1.02, and 1.12 g/cm3, respectively. In all cases, the normal tissue DVH agreed to better than 2% in dose. In 62 of 70 DVHs of the planning target volume (PTV), agreement to better than 3% in dose was observed. Six cases demonstrated emphysema, one with bullous formations and one with a hiatus hernia having a large volume of gas. These required the additional assignment of density to the emphysemic lung and inflammatory changes to the lung, the regions of collapsed lung, the bullous formations, and the hernia gas. Bulk tissue density dose calculation provides an accurate method of heterogeneous dose calculation. However, patients with advanced emphysema may require high‐resolution CT studies for accurate treatment planning. PACS number: 87.53.Tf

Quantification of residual dose estimation error on log file-based patient dose calculation.

PubMed

Katsuta, Yoshiyuki; Kadoya, Noriyuki; Fujita, Yukio; Shimizu, Eiji; Matsunaga, Kenichi; Matsushita, Haruo; Majima, Kazuhiro; Jingu, Keiichi

2016-05-01

The log file-based patient dose estimation includes a residual dose estimation error caused by leaf miscalibration, which cannot be reflected on the estimated dose. The purpose of this study is to determine this residual dose estimation error. Modified log files for seven head-and-neck and prostate volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans simulating leaf miscalibration were generated by shifting both leaf banks (systematic leaf gap errors: ±2.0, ±1.0, and ±0.5mm in opposite directions and systematic leaf shifts: ±1.0mm in the same direction) using MATLAB-based (MathWorks, Natick, MA) in-house software. The generated modified and non-modified log files were imported back into the treatment planning system and recalculated. Subsequently, the generalized equivalent uniform dose (gEUD) was quantified for the definition of the planning target volume (PTV) and organs at risks. For MLC leaves calibrated within ±0.5mm, the quantified residual dose estimation errors that obtained from the slope of the linear regression of gEUD changes between non- and modified log file doses per leaf gap are in head-and-neck plans 1.32±0.27% and 0.82±0.17Gy for PTV and spinal cord, respectively, and in prostate plans 1.22±0.36%, 0.95±0.14Gy, and 0.45±0.08Gy for PTV, rectum, and bladder, respectively. In this work, we determine the residual dose estimation errors for VMAT delivery using the log file-based patient dose calculation according to the MLC calibration accuracy. Copyright © 2016 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An introduction to kernel-based learning algorithms.

PubMed

Müller, K R; Mika, S; Rätsch, G; Tsuda, K; Schölkopf, B

2001-01-01

This paper provides an introduction to support vector machines, kernel Fisher discriminant analysis, and kernel principal component analysis, as examples for successful kernel-based learning methods. We first give a short background about Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory and kernel feature spaces and then proceed to kernel based learning in supervised and unsupervised scenarios including practical and algorithmic considerations. We illustrate the usefulness of kernel algorithms by discussing applications such as optical character recognition and DNA analysis.

Pencil-beam redefinition algorithm dose calculations for electron therapy treatment planning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boyd, Robert Arthur

2001-08-01

The electron pencil-beam redefinition algorithm (PBRA) of Shiu and Hogstrom has been developed for use in radiotherapy treatment planning (RTP). Earlier studies of Boyd and Hogstrom showed that the PBRA lacked an adequate incident beam model, that PBRA might require improved electron physics, and that no data existed which allowed adequate assessment of the PBRA-calculated dose accuracy in a heterogeneous medium such as one presented by patient anatomy. The hypothesis of this research was that by addressing the above issues the PBRA-calculated dose would be accurate to within 4% or 2 mm in regions of high dose gradients. A secondary electron source was added to the PBRA to account for collimation-scattered electrons in the incident beam. Parameters of the dual-source model were determined from a minimal data set to allow ease of beam commissioning. Comparisons with measured data showed 3% or better dose accuracy in water within the field for cases where 4% accuracy was not previously achievable. A measured data set was developed that allowed an evaluation of PBRA in regions distal to localized heterogeneities. Geometries in the data set included irregular surfaces and high- and low-density internal heterogeneities. The data was estimated to have 1% precision and 2% agreement with accurate, benchmarked Monte Carlo (MC) code. PBRA electron transport was enhanced by modeling local pencil beam divergence. This required fundamental changes to the mathematics of electron transport (divPBRA). Evaluation of divPBRA with the measured data set showed marginal improvement in dose accuracy when compared to PBRA; however, 4% or 2mm accuracy was not achieved by either PBRA version for all data points. Finally, PBRA was evaluated clinically by comparing PBRA- and MC-calculated dose distributions using site-specific patient RTP data. Results show PBRA did not agree with MC to within 4% or 2mm in a small fraction (<3%) of the irradiated volume. Although the hypothesis of the

Dose rate calculations around 192Ir brachytherapy sources using a Sievert integration model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Karaiskos, P.; Angelopoulos, A.; Baras, P.; Rozaki-Mavrouli, H.; Sandilos, P.; Vlachos, L.; Sakelliou, L.

2000-02-01

The classical Sievert integral method is a valuable tool for dose rate calculations around brachytherapy sources, combining simplicity with reasonable computational times. However, its accuracy in predicting dose rate anisotropy around 192 Ir brachytherapy sources has been repeatedly put into question. In this work, we used a primary and scatter separation technique to improve an existing modification of the Sievert integral (Williamson's isotropic scatter model) that determines dose rate anisotropy around commercially available 192 Ir brachytherapy sources. The proposed Sievert formalism provides increased accuracy while maintaining the simplicity and computational time efficiency of the Sievert integral method. To describe transmission within the materials encountered, the formalism makes use of narrow beam attenuation coefficients which can be directly and easily calculated from the initially emitted 192 Ir spectrum. The other numerical parameters required for its implementation, once calculated with the aid of our home-made Monte Carlo simulation code, can be used for any 192 Ir source design. Calculations of dose rate and anisotropy functions with the proposed Sievert expression, around commonly used 192 Ir high dose rate sources and other 192 Ir elongated source designs, are in good agreement with corresponding accurate Monte Carlo results which have been reported by our group and other authors.

Calculations vs. measurements of remnant dose rates for SNS spent structures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Popova, Irina I.; Gallmeier, Franz X.; Trotter, Steven M.

Residual dose rate measurements were conducted on target vessel #13 and proton beam window #5 after extraction from their service locations. These measurements were used to verify calculation methods of radionuclide inventory assessment that are typically performed for nuclear waste characterization and transportation of these structures. Neutronics analyses for predicting residual dose rates were carried out using the transport code MCNPX and the transmutation code CINDER90. For transport analyses complex and rigorous geometry model of the structures and their surrounding are applied. The neutronics analyses were carried out using Bertini and CEM high energy physics models for simulating particles interaction.more » Obtained preliminary calculational results were analysed and compared to the measured dose rates and overall are showing good agreement with in 40% in average.« less

Influence of CT contrast agent on dose calculation of intensity modulated radiation therapy plan for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

PubMed

Lee, F K-H; Chan, C C-L; Law, C-K

2009-02-01

Contrast enhanced computed tomography (CECT) has been used for delineation of treatment target in radiotherapy. The different Hounsfield unit due to the injected contrast agent may affect radiation dose calculation. We investigated this effect on intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Dose distributions of 15 IMRT plans were recalculated on CECT. Dose statistics for organs at risk (OAR) and treatment targets were recorded for the plain CT-calculated and CECT-calculated plans. Statistical significance of the differences was evaluated. Correlations were also tested, among magnitude of calculated dose difference, tumor size and level of enhancement contrast. Differences in nodal mean/median dose were statistically significant, but small (approximately 0.15 Gy for a 66 Gy prescription). In the vicinity of the carotid arteries, the difference in calculated dose was also statistically significant, but only with a mean of approximately 0.2 Gy. We did not observe any significant correlation between the difference in the calculated dose and the tumor size or level of enhancement. The results implied that the calculated dose difference was clinically insignificant and may be acceptable for IMRT planning.

GTV-based prescription in SBRT for lung lesions using advanced dose calculation algorithms.

PubMed

Lacornerie, Thomas; Lisbona, Albert; Mirabel, Xavier; Lartigau, Eric; Reynaert, Nick

2014-10-16

The aim of current study was to investigate the way dose is prescribed to lung lesions during SBRT using advanced dose calculation algorithms that take into account electron transport (type B algorithms). As type A algorithms do not take into account secondary electron transport, they overestimate the dose to lung lesions. Type B algorithms are more accurate but still no consensus is reached regarding dose prescription. The positive clinical results obtained using type A algorithms should be used as a starting point. In current work a dose-calculation experiment is performed, presenting different prescription methods. Three cases with three different sizes of peripheral lung lesions were planned using three different treatment platforms. For each individual case 60 Gy to the PTV was prescribed using a type A algorithm and the dose distribution was recalculated using a type B algorithm in order to evaluate the impact of the secondary electron transport. Secondly, for each case a type B algorithm was used to prescribe 48 Gy to the PTV, and the resulting doses to the GTV were analyzed. Finally, prescriptions based on specific GTV dose volumes were evaluated. When using a type A algorithm to prescribe the same dose to the PTV, the differences regarding median GTV doses among platforms and cases were always less than 10% of the prescription dose. The prescription to the PTV based on type B algorithms, leads to a more important variability of the median GTV dose among cases and among platforms, (respectively 24%, and 28%). However, when 54 Gy was prescribed as median GTV dose, using a type B algorithm, the variability observed was minimal. Normalizing the prescription dose to the median GTV dose for lung lesions avoids variability among different cases and treatment platforms of SBRT when type B algorithms are used to calculate the dose. The combination of using a type A algorithm to optimize a homogeneous dose in the PTV and using a type B algorithm to prescribe the

Kernel Abortion in Maize 1

PubMed Central

Hanft, Jonathan M.; Jones, Robert J.

1986-01-01

This study was designed to compare the uptake and distribution of 14C among fructose, glucose, sucrose, and starch in the cob, pedicel, and endosperm tissues of maize (Zea mays L.) kernels induced to abort by high temperature with those that develop normally. Kernels cultured in vitro at 30 and 35°C were transferred to [14C]sucrose media 10 days after pollination. Kernels cultured at 35°C aborted prior to the onset of linear dry matter accumulation. Significant uptake into the cob, pedicel, and endosperm of radioactivity associated with the soluble and starch fractions of the tissues was detected after 24 hours in culture on labeled media. After 8 days in culture on [14C]sucrose media, 48 and 40% of the radioactivity associated with the cob carbohydrates was found in the reducing sugars at 30 and 35°C, respectively. This indicates that some of the sucrose taken up by the cob tissue was cleaved to fructose and glucose in the cob. Of the total carbohydrates, a higher percentage of label was associated with sucrose and a lower percentage with fructose and glucose in pedicel tissue of kernels cultured at 35°C compared to kernels cultured at 30°C. These results indicate that sucrose was not cleaved to fructose and glucose as rapidly during the unloading process in the pedicel of kernels induced to abort by high temperature. Kernels cultured at 35°C had a much lower proportion of label associated with endosperm starch (29%) than did kernels cultured at 30°C (89%). Kernels cultured at 35°C had a correspondingly higher proportion of 14C in endosperm fructose, glucose, and sucrose. These results indicate that starch synthesis in the endosperm is strongly inhibited in kernels induced to abort by high temperature even though there is an adequate supply of sugar. PMID:16664847

SU-F-T-600: Influence of Acuros XB and AAA Dose Calculation Algorithms On Plan Quality Metrics and Normal Lung Doses in Lung SBRT

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yaparpalvi, R; Mynampati, D; Kuo, H

Purpose: To study the influence of superposition-beam model (AAA) and determinant-photon transport-solver (Acuros XB) dose calculation algorithms on the treatment plan quality metrics and on normal lung dose in Lung SBRT. Methods: Treatment plans of 10 Lung SBRT patients were randomly selected. Patients were prescribed to a total dose of 50-54Gy in 3–5 fractions (10?5 or 18?3). Doses were optimized accomplished with 6-MV using 2-arcs (VMAT). Doses were calculated using AAA algorithm with heterogeneity correction. For each plan, plan quality metrics in the categories- coverage, homogeneity, conformity and gradient were quantified. Repeat dosimetry for these AAA treatment plans was performedmore » using AXB algorithm with heterogeneity correction for same beam and MU parameters. Plan quality metrics were again evaluated and compared with AAA plan metrics. For normal lung dose, V{sub 20} and V{sub 5} to (Total lung- GTV) were evaluated. Results: The results are summarized in Supplemental Table 1. PTV volume was mean 11.4 (±3.3) cm{sup 3}. Comparing RTOG 0813 protocol criteria for conformality, AXB plans yielded on average, similar PITV ratio (individual PITV ratio differences varied from −9 to +15%), reduced target coverage (−1.6%) and increased R50% (+2.6%). Comparing normal lung doses, the lung V{sub 20} (+3.1%) and V{sub 5} (+1.5%) were slightly higher for AXB plans compared to AAA plans. High-dose spillage ((V105%PD - PTV)/ PTV) was slightly lower for AXB plans but the % low dose spillage (D2cm) was similar between the two calculation algorithms. Conclusion: AAA algorithm overestimates lung target dose. Routinely adapting to AXB for dose calculations in Lung SBRT planning may improve dose calculation accuracy, as AXB based calculations have been shown to be closer to Monte Carlo based dose predictions in accuracy and with relatively faster computational time. For clinical practice, revisiting dose-fractionation in Lung SBRT to correct for dose

Impact of temporal probability in 4D dose calculation for lung tumors.

PubMed

Rouabhi, Ouided; Ma, Mingyu; Bayouth, John; Xia, Junyi

2015-11-08

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the dosimetric uncertainty in 4D dose calculation using three temporal probability distributions: uniform distribution, sinusoidal distribution, and patient-specific distribution derived from the patient respiratory trace. Temporal probability, defined as the fraction of time a patient spends in each respiratory amplitude, was evaluated in nine lung cancer patients. Four-dimensional computed tomography (4D CT), along with deformable image registration, was used to compute 4D dose incorporating the patient's respiratory motion. First, the dose of each of 10 phase CTs was computed using the same planning parameters as those used in 3D treatment planning based on the breath-hold CT. Next, deformable image registration was used to deform the dose of each phase CT to the breath-hold CT using the deformation map between the phase CT and the breath-hold CT. Finally, the 4D dose was computed by summing the deformed phase doses using their corresponding temporal probabilities. In this study, 4D dose calculated from the patient-specific temporal probability distribution was used as the ground truth. The dosimetric evaluation matrix included: 1) 3D gamma analysis, 2) mean tumor dose (MTD), 3) mean lung dose (MLD), and 4) lung V20. For seven out of nine patients, both uniform and sinusoidal temporal probability dose distributions were found to have an average gamma passing rate > 95% for both the lung and PTV regions. Compared with 4D dose calculated using the patient respiratory trace, doses using uniform and sinusoidal distribution showed a percentage difference on average of -0.1% ± 0.6% and -0.2% ± 0.4% in MTD, -0.2% ± 1.9% and -0.2% ± 1.3% in MLD, 0.09% ± 2.8% and -0.07% ± 1.8% in lung V20, -0.1% ± 2.0% and 0.08% ± 1.34% in lung V10, 0.47% ± 1.8% and 0.19% ± 1.3% in lung V5, respectively. We concluded that four-dimensional dose computed using either a uniform or sinusoidal temporal probability distribution can

Local Observed-Score Kernel Equating

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiberg, Marie; van der Linden, Wim J.; von Davier, Alina A.

2014-01-01

Three local observed-score kernel equating methods that integrate methods from the local equating and kernel equating frameworks are proposed. The new methods were compared with their earlier counterparts with respect to such measures as bias--as defined by Lord's criterion of equity--and percent relative error. The local kernel item response…

Credit scoring analysis using kernel discriminant

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Widiharih, T.; Mukid, M. A.; Mustafid

2018-05-01

Credit scoring model is an important tool for reducing the risk of wrong decisions when granting credit facilities to applicants. This paper investigate the performance of kernel discriminant model in assessing customer credit risk. Kernel discriminant analysis is a non- parametric method which means that it does not require any assumptions about the probability distribution of the input. The main ingredient is a kernel that allows an efficient computation of Fisher discriminant. We use several kernel such as normal, epanechnikov, biweight, and triweight. The models accuracy was compared each other using data from a financial institution in Indonesia. The results show that kernel discriminant can be an alternative method that can be used to determine who is eligible for a credit loan. In the data we use, it shows that a normal kernel is relevant to be selected for credit scoring using kernel discriminant model. Sensitivity and specificity reach to 0.5556 and 0.5488 respectively.

TH-A-19A-06: Site-Specific Comparison of Analytical and Monte Carlo Based Dose Calculations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schuemann, J; Grassberger, C; Paganetti, H

2014-06-15

Purpose: To investigate the impact of complex patient geometries on the capability of analytical dose calculation algorithms to accurately predict dose distributions and to verify currently used uncertainty margins in proton therapy. Methods: Dose distributions predicted by an analytical pencilbeam algorithm were compared with Monte Carlo simulations (MCS) using TOPAS. 79 complete patient treatment plans were investigated for 7 disease sites (liver, prostate, breast, medulloblastoma spine and whole brain, lung and head and neck). A total of 508 individual passively scattered treatment fields were analyzed for field specific properties. Comparisons based on target coverage indices (EUD, D95, D90 and D50)more » were performed. Range differences were estimated for the distal position of the 90% dose level (R90) and the 50% dose level (R50). Two-dimensional distal dose surfaces were calculated and the root mean square differences (RMSD), average range difference (ARD) and average distal dose degradation (ADD), the distance between the distal position of the 80% and 20% dose levels (R80- R20), were analyzed. Results: We found target coverage indices calculated by TOPAS to generally be around 1–2% lower than predicted by the analytical algorithm. Differences in R90 predicted by TOPAS and the planning system can be larger than currently applied range margins in proton therapy for small regions distal to the target volume. We estimate new site-specific range margins (R90) for analytical dose calculations considering total range uncertainties and uncertainties from dose calculation alone based on the RMSD. Our results demonstrate that a reduction of currently used uncertainty margins is feasible for liver, prostate and whole brain fields even without introducing MC dose calculations. Conclusion: Analytical dose calculation algorithms predict dose distributions within clinical limits for more homogeneous patients sites (liver, prostate, whole brain). However, we

TU-AB-BRC-12: Optimized Parallel MonteCarlo Dose Calculations for Secondary MU Checks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

French, S; Nazareth, D; Bellor, M

Purpose: Secondary MU checks are an important tool used during a physics review of a treatment plan. Commercial software packages offer varying degrees of theoretical dose calculation accuracy, depending on the modality involved. Dose calculations of VMAT plans are especially prone to error due to the large approximations involved. Monte Carlo (MC) methods are not commonly used due to their long run times. We investigated two methods to increase the computational efficiency of MC dose simulations with the BEAMnrc code. Distributed computing resources, along with optimized code compilation, will allow for accurate and efficient VMAT dose calculations. Methods: The BEAMnrcmore » package was installed on a high performance computing cluster accessible to our clinic. MATLAB and PYTHON scripts were developed to convert a clinical VMAT DICOM plan into BEAMnrc input files. The BEAMnrc installation was optimized by running the VMAT simulations through profiling tools which indicated the behavior of the constituent routines in the code, e.g. the bremsstrahlung splitting routine, and the specified random number generator. This information aided in determining the most efficient compiling parallel configuration for the specific CPU’s available on our cluster, resulting in the fastest VMAT simulation times. Our method was evaluated with calculations involving 10{sup 8} – 10{sup 9} particle histories which are sufficient to verify patient dose using VMAT. Results: Parallelization allowed the calculation of patient dose on the order of 10 – 15 hours with 100 parallel jobs. Due to the compiler optimization process, further speed increases of 23% were achieved when compared with the open-source compiler BEAMnrc packages. Conclusion: Analysis of the BEAMnrc code allowed us to optimize the compiler configuration for VMAT dose calculations. In future work, the optimized MC code, in conjunction with the parallel processing capabilities of BEAMnrc, will be applied to provide

TU-D-209-05: Automatic Calculation of Organ and Effective Dose for CBCT and Interventional Fluoroscopic Procedures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xiong, Z; Vijayan, S; Oines, A

Purpose: To compare PCXMC and EGSnrc calculated organ and effective radiation doses from cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) and interventional fluoroscopically-guided procedures using automatic exposure-event grouping. Methods: For CBCT, we used PCXMC20Rotation.exe to automatically calculate the doses and compared the results to those calculated using EGSnrc with the Zubal patient phantom. For interventional procedures, we use the dose tracking system (DTS) which we previously developed to produce a log file of all geometry and exposure parameters for every x-ray pulse during a procedure, and the data in the log file is input into PCXMC and EGSnrc for dose calculation. A MATLABmore » program reads data from the log files and groups similar exposures to reduce calculation time. The definition files are then automatically generated in the format used by PCXMC and EGSnrc. Processing is done at the end of the procedure after all exposures are completed. Results: For the Toshiba Infinix CBCT LCI-Middle-Abdominal protocol, most organ doses calculated with PCXMC20Rotation closely matched those calculated with EGSnrc. The effective doses were 33.77 mSv with PCXMC20Rotation and 32.46 mSv with EGSnrc. For a simulated interventional cardiac procedure, similar close agreement in organ dose was obtained between the two codes; the effective doses were 12.02 mSv with PCXMC and 11.35 mSv with EGSnrc. The calculations can be completed on a PC without manual intervention in less than 15 minutes with PCXMC and in about 10 hours with EGSnrc, depending on the level of data grouping and accuracy desired. Conclusion: Effective dose and most organ doses in CBCT and interventional radiology calculated by PCXMC closely match those calculated by EGSnrc. Data grouping, which can be done automatically, makes the calculation time with PCXMC on a standard PC acceptable. This capability expands the dose information that can be provided by the DTS. Partial support from NIH Grant R01-EB002873

Monte Carlo calculations for reporting patient organ doses from interventional radiology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huo, Wanli; Feng, Mang; Pi, Yifei; Chen, Zhi; Gao, Yiming; Xu, X. George

2017-09-01

This paper describes a project to generate organ dose data for the purposes of extending VirtualDose software from CT imaging to interventional radiology (IR) applications. A library of 23 mesh-based anthropometric patient phantoms were involved in Monte Carlo simulations for database calculations. Organ doses and effective doses of IR procedures with specific beam projection, filed of view (FOV) and beam quality for all parts of body were obtained. Comparing organ doses for different beam qualities, beam projections, patients' ages and patient's body mass indexes (BMIs) which generated by VirtualDose-IR, significant discrepancies were observed. For relatively long time exposure, IR doses depend on beam quality, beam direction and patient size. Therefore, VirtualDose-IR, which is based on the latest anatomically realistic patient phantoms, can generate accurate doses for IR treatment. It is suitable to apply this software in clinical IR dose management as an effective tool to estimate patient doses and optimize IR treatment plans.

An analytic linear accelerator source model for GPU-based Monte Carlo dose calculations.

PubMed

Tian, Zhen; Li, Yongbao; Folkerts, Michael; Shi, Feng; Jiang, Steve B; Jia, Xun

2015-10-21

Recently, there has been a lot of research interest in developing fast Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculation methods on graphics processing unit (GPU) platforms. A good linear accelerator (linac) source model is critical for both accuracy and efficiency considerations. In principle, an analytical source model should be more preferred for GPU-based MC dose engines than a phase-space file-based model, in that data loading and CPU-GPU data transfer can be avoided. In this paper, we presented an analytical field-independent source model specifically developed for GPU-based MC dose calculations, associated with a GPU-friendly sampling scheme. A key concept called phase-space-ring (PSR) was proposed. Each PSR contained a group of particles that were of the same type, close in energy and reside in a narrow ring on the phase-space plane located just above the upper jaws. The model parameterized the probability densities of particle location, direction and energy for each primary photon PSR, scattered photon PSR and electron PSR. Models of one 2D Gaussian distribution or multiple Gaussian components were employed to represent the particle direction distributions of these PSRs. A method was developed to analyze a reference phase-space file and derive corresponding model parameters. To efficiently use our model in MC dose calculations on GPU, we proposed a GPU-friendly sampling strategy, which ensured that the particles sampled and transported simultaneously are of the same type and close in energy to alleviate GPU thread divergences. To test the accuracy of our model, dose distributions of a set of open fields in a water phantom were calculated using our source model and compared to those calculated using the reference phase-space files. For the high dose gradient regions, the average distance-to-agreement (DTA) was within 1 mm and the maximum DTA within 2 mm. For relatively low dose gradient regions, the root-mean-square (RMS) dose difference was within 1.1% and the maximum

A shortest-path graph kernel for estimating gene product semantic similarity.

PubMed

Alvarez, Marco A; Qi, Xiaojun; Yan, Changhui

2011-07-29

Existing methods for calculating semantic similarity between gene products using the Gene Ontology (GO) often rely on external resources, which are not part of the ontology. Consequently, changes in these external resources like biased term distribution caused by shifting of hot research topics, will affect the calculation of semantic similarity. One way to avoid this problem is to use semantic methods that are "intrinsic" to the ontology, i.e. independent of external knowledge. We present a shortest-path graph kernel (spgk) method that relies exclusively on the GO and its structure. In spgk, a gene product is represented by an induced subgraph of the GO, which consists of all the GO terms annotating it. Then a shortest-path graph kernel is used to compute the similarity between two graphs. In a comprehensive evaluation using a benchmark dataset, spgk compares favorably with other methods that depend on external resources. Compared with simUI, a method that is also intrinsic to GO, spgk achieves slightly better results on the benchmark dataset. Statistical tests show that the improvement is significant when the resolution and EC similarity correlation coefficient are used to measure the performance, but is insignificant when the Pfam similarity correlation coefficient is used. Spgk uses a graph kernel method in polynomial time to exploit the structure of the GO to calculate semantic similarity between gene products. It provides an alternative to both methods that use external resources and "intrinsic" methods with comparable performance.

Quantification of confounding factors in MRI-based dose calculations as applied to prostate IMRT

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maspero, Matteo; Seevinck, Peter R.; Schubert, Gerald; Hoesl, Michaela A. U.; van Asselen, Bram; Viergever, Max A.; Lagendijk, Jan J. W.; Meijer, Gert J.; van den Berg, Cornelis A. T.

2017-02-01

Magnetic resonance (MR)-only radiotherapy treatment planning requires pseudo-CT (pCT) images to enable MR-based dose calculations. To verify the accuracy of MR-based dose calculations, institutions interested in introducing MR-only planning will have to compare pCT-based and computer tomography (CT)-based dose calculations. However, interpreting such comparison studies may be challenging, since potential differences arise from a range of confounding factors which are not necessarily specific to MR-only planning. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify and quantify the contribution of factors confounding dosimetric accuracy estimation in comparison studies between CT and pCT. The following factors were distinguished: set-up and positioning differences between imaging sessions, MR-related geometric inaccuracy, pCT generation, use of specific calibration curves to convert pCT into electron density information, and registration errors. The study comprised fourteen prostate cancer patients who underwent CT/MRI-based treatment planning. To enable pCT generation, a commercial solution (MRCAT, Philips Healthcare, Vantaa, Finland) was adopted. IMRT plans were calculated on CT (gold standard) and pCTs. Dose difference maps in a high dose region (CTV) and in the body volume were evaluated, and the contribution to dose errors of possible confounding factors was individually quantified. We found that the largest confounding factor leading to dose difference was the use of different calibration curves to convert pCT and CT into electron density (0.7%). The second largest factor was the pCT generation which resulted in pCT stratified into a fixed number of tissue classes (0.16%). Inter-scan differences due to patient repositioning, MR-related geometric inaccuracy, and registration errors did not significantly contribute to dose differences (0.01%). The proposed approach successfully identified and quantified the factors confounding accurate MRI-based dose calculation in

Three-Dimensional Sensitivity Kernels of Z/H Amplitude Ratios of Surface and Body Waves

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bao, X.; Shen, Y.

2017-12-01

The ellipticity of Rayleigh wave particle motion, or Z/H amplitude ratio, has received increasing attention in inversion for shallow Earth structures. Previous studies of the Z/H ratio assumed one-dimensional (1D) velocity structures beneath the receiver, ignoring the effects of three-dimensional (3D) heterogeneities on wave amplitudes. This simplification may introduce bias in the resulting models. Here we present 3D sensitivity kernels of the Z/H ratio to Vs, Vp, and density perturbations, based on finite-difference modeling of wave propagation in 3D structures and the scattering-integral method. Our full-wave approach overcomes two main issues in previous studies of Rayleigh wave ellipticity: (1) the finite-frequency effects of wave propagation in 3D Earth structures, and (2) isolation of the fundamental mode Rayleigh waves from Rayleigh wave overtones and converted Love waves. In contrast to the 1D depth sensitivity kernels in previous studies, our 3D sensitivity kernels exhibit patterns that vary with azimuths and distances to the receiver. The laterally-summed 3D sensitivity kernels and 1D depth sensitivity kernels, based on the same homogeneous reference model, are nearly identical with small differences that are attributable to the single period of the 1D kernels and a finite period range of the 3D kernels. We further verify the 3D sensitivity kernels by comparing the predictions from the kernels with the measurements from numerical simulations of wave propagation for models with various small-scale perturbations. We also calculate and verify the amplitude kernels for P waves. This study shows that both Rayleigh and body wave Z/H ratios provide vertical and lateral constraints on the structure near the receiver. With seismic arrays, the 3D kernels afford a powerful tool to use the Z/H ratios to obtain accurate and high-resolution Earth models.

SU-E-T-538: Evaluation of IMRT Dose Calculation Based on Pencil-Beam and AAA Algorithms.

PubMed

Yuan, Y; Duan, J; Popple, R; Brezovich, I

2012-06-01

To evaluate the accuracy of dose calculation for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) based on Pencil Beam (PB) and Analytical Anisotropic Algorithm (AAA) computation algorithms. IMRT plans of twelve patients with different treatment sites, including head/neck, lung and pelvis, were investigated. For each patient, dose calculation with PB and AAA algorithms using dose grid sizes of 0.5 mm, 0.25 mm, and 0.125 mm, were compared with composite-beam ion chamber and film measurements in patient specific QA. Discrepancies between the calculation and the measurement were evaluated by percentage error for ion chamber dose and γ〉l failure rate in gamma analysis (3%/3mm) for film dosimetry. For 9 patients, ion chamber dose calculated with AAA-algorithms is closer to ion chamber measurement than that calculated with PB algorithm with grid size of 2.5 mm, though all calculated ion chamber doses are within 3% of the measurements. For head/neck patients and other patients with large treatment volumes, γ〉l failure rate is significantly reduced (within 5%) with AAA-based treatment planning compared to generally more than 10% with PB-based treatment planning (grid size=2.5 mm). For lung and brain cancer patients with medium and small treatment volumes, γ〉l failure rates are typically within 5% for both AAA and PB-based treatment planning (grid size=2.5 mm). For both PB and AAA-based treatment planning, improvements of dose calculation accuracy with finer dose grids were observed in film dosimetry of 11 patients and in ion chamber measurements for 3 patients. AAA-based treatment planning provides more accurate dose calculation for head/neck patients and other patients with large treatment volumes. Compared with film dosimetry, a γ〉l failure rate within 5% can be achieved for AAA-based treatment planning. © 2012 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

SU-E-I-28: Evaluating the Organ Dose From Computed Tomography Using Monte Carlo Calculations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ono, T; Araki, F

Purpose: To evaluate organ doses from computed tomography (CT) using Monte Carlo (MC) calculations. Methods: A Philips Brilliance CT scanner (64 slice) was simulated using the GMctdospp (IMPS, Germany) based on the EGSnrc user code. The X-ray spectra and a bowtie filter for MC simulations were determined to coincide with measurements of half-value layer (HVL) and off-center ratio (OCR) profile in air. The MC dose was calibrated from absorbed dose measurements using a Farmer chamber and a cylindrical water phantom. The dose distribution from CT was calculated using patient CT images and organ doses were evaluated from dose volume histograms.more » Results: The HVLs of Al at 80, 100, and 120 kV were 6.3, 7.7, and 8.7 mm, respectively. The calculated HVLs agreed with measurements within 0.3%. The calculated and measured OCR profiles agreed within 3%. For adult head scans (CTDIvol) =51.4 mGy), mean doses for brain stem, eye, and eye lens were 23.2, 34.2, and 37.6 mGy, respectively. For pediatric head scans (CTDIvol =35.6 mGy), mean doses for brain stem, eye, and eye lens were 19.3, 24.5, and 26.8 mGy, respectively. For adult chest scans (CTDIvol=19.0 mGy), mean doses for lung, heart, and spinal cord were 21.1, 22.0, and 15.5 mGy, respectively. For adult abdominal scans (CTDIvol=14.4 mGy), the mean doses for kidney, liver, pancreas, spleen, and spinal cord were 17.4, 16.5, 16.8, 16.8, and 13.1 mGy, respectively. For pediatric abdominal scans (CTDIvol=6.76 mGy), mean doses for kidney, liver, pancreas, spleen, and spinal cord were 8.24, 8.90, 8.17, 8.31, and 6.73 mGy, respectively. In head scan, organ doses were considerably different from CTDIvol values. Conclusion: MC dose distributions calculated by using patient CT images are useful to evaluate organ doses absorbed to individual patients.« less

Modeling adaptive kernels from probabilistic phylogenetic trees.

PubMed

Nicotra, Luca; Micheli, Alessio

2009-01-01

Modeling phylogenetic interactions is an open issue in many computational biology problems. In the context of gene function prediction we introduce a class of kernels for structured data leveraging on a hierarchical probabilistic modeling of phylogeny among species. We derive three kernels belonging to this setting: a sufficient statistics kernel, a Fisher kernel, and a probability product kernel. The new kernels are used in the context of support vector machine learning. The kernels adaptivity is obtained through the estimation of the parameters of a tree structured model of evolution using as observed data phylogenetic profiles encoding the presence or absence of specific genes in a set of fully sequenced genomes. We report results obtained in the prediction of the functional class of the proteins of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisae which favorably compare to a standard vector based kernel and to a non-adaptive tree kernel function. A further comparative analysis is performed in order to assess the impact of the different components of the proposed approach. We show that the key features of the proposed kernels are the adaptivity to the input domain and the ability to deal with structured data interpreted through a graphical model representation.

Nonlinear Deep Kernel Learning for Image Annotation.

PubMed

Jiu, Mingyuan; Sahbi, Hichem

2017-02-08

Multiple kernel learning (MKL) is a widely used technique for kernel design. Its principle consists in learning, for a given support vector classifier, the most suitable convex (or sparse) linear combination of standard elementary kernels. However, these combinations are shallow and often powerless to capture the actual similarity between highly semantic data, especially for challenging classification tasks such as image annotation. In this paper, we redefine multiple kernels using deep multi-layer networks. In this new contribution, a deep multiple kernel is recursively defined as a multi-layered combination of nonlinear activation functions, each one involves a combination of several elementary or intermediate kernels, and results into a positive semi-definite deep kernel. We propose four different frameworks in order to learn the weights of these networks: supervised, unsupervised, kernel-based semisupervised and Laplacian-based semi-supervised. When plugged into support vector machines (SVMs), the resulting deep kernel networks show clear gain, compared to several shallow kernels for the task of image annotation. Extensive experiments and analysis on the challenging ImageCLEF photo annotation benchmark, the COREL5k database and the Banana dataset validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Poster - 08: Preliminary Investigation into Collapsed-Cone based Dose Calculations for COMS Eye Plaques

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Morrison, Hali; Menon, Geetha; Sloboda, Ron

Purpose: To investigate the accuracy of model-based dose calculations using a collapsed-cone algorithm for COMS eye plaques loaded with I-125 seeds. Methods: The Nucletron SelectSeed 130.002 I-125 seed and the 12 mm COMS eye plaque were incorporated into a research version of the Oncentra® Brachy v4.5 treatment planning system which uses the Advanced Collapsed-cone Engine (ACE) algorithm. Comparisons of TG-43 and high-accuracy ACE doses were performed for a single seed in a 30×30×30 cm{sup 3} water box, as well as with one seed in the central slot of the 12 mm COMS eye plaque. The doses along the plaque centralmore » axis (CAX) were used to calculate the carrier correction factor, T(r), and were compared to tabulated and MCNP6 simulated doses for both the SelectSeed and IsoAid IAI-125A seeds. Results: The ACE calculated dose for the single seed in water was on average within 0.62 ± 2.2% of the TG-43 dose, with the largest differences occurring near the end-welds. The ratio of ACE to TG-43 calculated doses along the CAX (T(r)) of the 12 mm COMS plaque for the SelectSeed was on average within 3.0% of previously tabulated data, and within 2.9% of the MCNP6 simulated values. The IsoAid and SelectSeed T(r) values agreed within 0.3%. Conclusions: Initial comparisons show good agreement between ACE and MC doses for a single seed in a 12 mm COMS eye plaque; more complicated scenarios are being investigated to determine the accuracy of this calculation method.« less

A comparison study of size-specific dose estimate calculation methods.

PubMed

Parikh, Roshni A; Wien, Michael A; Novak, Ronald D; Jordan, David W; Klahr, Paul; Soriano, Stephanie; Ciancibello, Leslie; Berlin, Sheila C

2018-01-01

The size-specific dose estimate (SSDE) has emerged as an improved metric for use by medical physicists and radiologists for estimating individual patient dose. Several methods of calculating SSDE have been described, ranging from patient thickness or attenuation-based (automated and manual) measurements to weight-based techniques. To compare the accuracy of thickness vs. weight measurement of body size to allow for the calculation of the size-specific dose estimate (SSDE) in pediatric body CT. We retrospectively identified 109 pediatric body CT examinations for SSDE calculation. We examined two automated methods measuring a series of level-specific diameters of the patient's body: method A used the effective diameter and method B used the water-equivalent diameter. Two manual methods measured patient diameter at two predetermined levels: the superior endplate of L2, where body width is typically most thin, and the superior femoral head or iliac crest (for scans that did not include the pelvis), where body width is typically most thick; method C averaged lateral measurements at these two levels from the CT projection scan, and method D averaged lateral and anteroposterior measurements at the same two levels from the axial CT images. Finally, we used body weight to characterize patient size, method E, and compared this with the various other measurement methods. Methods were compared across the entire population as well as by subgroup based on body width. Concordance correlation (ρ c ) between each of the SSDE calculation methods (methods A-E) was greater than 0.92 across the entire population, although the range was wider when analyzed by subgroup (0.42-0.99). When we compared each SSDE measurement method with CTDI vol, there was poor correlation, ρ c <0.77, with percentage differences between 20.8% and 51.0%. Automated computer algorithms are accurate and efficient in the calculation of SSDE. Manual methods based on patient thickness provide acceptable dose

Impact of deep learning on the normalization of reconstruction kernel effects in imaging biomarker quantification: a pilot study in CT emphysema

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jin, Hyeongmin; Heo, Changyong; Kim, Jong Hyo

2018-02-01

Differing reconstruction kernels are known to strongly affect the variability of imaging biomarkers and thus remain as a barrier in translating the computer aided quantification techniques into clinical practice. This study presents a deep learning application to CT kernel conversion which converts a CT image of sharp kernel to that of standard kernel and evaluates its impact on variability reduction of a pulmonary imaging biomarker, the emphysema index (EI). Forty cases of low-dose chest CT exams obtained with 120kVp, 40mAs, 1mm thickness, of 2 reconstruction kernels (B30f, B50f) were selected from the low dose lung cancer screening database of our institution. A Fully convolutional network was implemented with Keras deep learning library. The model consisted of symmetric layers to capture the context and fine structure characteristics of CT images from the standard and sharp reconstruction kernels. Pairs of the full-resolution CT data set were fed to input and output nodes to train the convolutional network to learn the appropriate filter kernels for converting the CT images of sharp kernel to standard kernel with a criterion of measuring the mean squared error between the input and target images. EIs (RA950 and Perc15) were measured with a software package (ImagePrism Pulmo, Seoul, South Korea) and compared for the data sets of B50f, B30f, and the converted B50f. The effect of kernel conversion was evaluated with the mean and standard deviation of pair-wise differences in EI. The population mean of RA950 was 27.65 +/- 7.28% for B50f data set, 10.82 +/- 6.71% for the B30f data set, and 8.87 +/- 6.20% for the converted B50f data set. The mean of pair-wise absolute differences in RA950 between B30f and B50f is reduced from 16.83% to 1.95% using kernel conversion. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of applying the deep learning technique for CT kernel conversion and reducing the kernel-induced variability of EI quantification. The deep learning model has a

First-principles X-ray absorption dose calculation for time-dependent mass and optical density.

PubMed

Berejnov, Viatcheslav; Rubinstein, Boris; Melo, Lis G A; Hitchcock, Adam P

2018-05-01

A dose integral of time-dependent X-ray absorption under conditions of variable photon energy and changing sample mass is derived from first principles starting with the Beer-Lambert (BL) absorption model. For a given photon energy the BL dose integral D(e, t) reduces to the product of an effective time integral T(t) and a dose rate R(e). Two approximations of the time-dependent optical density, i.e. exponential A(t) = c + aexp(-bt) for first-order kinetics and hyperbolic A(t) = c + a/(b + t) for second-order kinetics, were considered for BL dose evaluation. For both models three methods of evaluating the effective time integral are considered: analytical integration, approximation by a function, and calculation of the asymptotic behaviour at large times. Data for poly(methyl methacrylate) and perfluorosulfonic acid polymers measured by scanning transmission soft X-ray microscopy were used to test the BL dose calculation. It was found that a previous method to calculate time-dependent dose underestimates the dose in mass loss situations, depending on the applied exposure time. All these methods here show that the BL dose is proportional to the exposure time D(e, t) ≃ K(e)t.

CALCULATION OF GAMMA SPECTRA IN A PLASTIC SCINTILLATOR FOR ENERGY CALIBRATIONAND DOSE COMPUTATION.

PubMed

Kim, Chankyu; Yoo, Hyunjun; Kim, Yewon; Moon, Myungkook; Kim, Jong Yul; Kang, Dong Uk; Lee, Daehee; Kim, Myung Soo; Cho, Minsik; Lee, Eunjoong; Cho, Gyuseong

2016-09-01

Plastic scintillation detectors have practical advantages in the field of dosimetry. Energy calibration of measured gamma spectra is important for dose computation, but it is not simple in the plastic scintillators because of their different characteristics and a finite resolution. In this study, the gamma spectra in a polystyrene scintillator were calculated for the energy calibration and dose computation. Based on the relationship between the energy resolution and estimated energy broadening effect in the calculated spectra, the gamma spectra were simply calculated without many iterations. The calculated spectra were in agreement with the calculation by an existing method and measurements. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Monte Carlo calculation of the neutron dose to a fetus at commercial flight altitudes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alves, M. C.; Galeano, D. C.; Santos, W. S.; Hunt, John G.; d'Errico, Francesco; Souza, S. O.; de Carvalho Júnior, A. B.

2017-11-01

Aircrew members are exposed to primary cosmic rays as well as to secondary radiations from the interaction of cosmic rays with the atmosphere and with the aircraft. The radiation field at flight altitudes comprises neutrons, protons, electrons, positrons, photons, muons and pions. Generally, 50% of the effective dose to airplane passengers is due to neutrons. Care must be taken especially with pregnant aircrew members and frequent fliers so that the equivalent dose to the fetus will not exceed prescribed limits during pregnancy (1 mSv according to ICRP, and 5 mSv according to NCRP). Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the equivalent dose to a fetus in the maternal womb. Up to now, the equivalent dose rate to a fetus at commercial flight altitudes was obtained using stylized pregnant-female phantom models. The aim of this study was calculating neutron fluence to dose conversion coefficients for a fetus of six months of gestation age using a new, realistic pregnant-female mesh-phantom. The equivalent dose rate to a fetus during an intercontinental flight was also calculated by folding our conversion coefficients with published spectral neutron flux data. The calculated equivalent dose rate to the fetus was 2.35 μSv.h-1, that is 1.5 times higher than equivalent dose rates reported in the literature. The neutron fluence to dose conversion coefficients for the fetus calculated in this study were 2.7, 3.1 and 3.9 times higher than those from previous studies using fetus models of 3, 6 and 9 months of gestation age, respectively. The differences between our study and data from the literature highlight the importance of using more realistic anthropomorphic phantoms to estimate doses to a fetus in pregnant aircrew members.

Graph Kernels for Molecular Similarity.

PubMed

Rupp, Matthias; Schneider, Gisbert

2010-04-12

Molecular similarity measures are important for many cheminformatics applications like ligand-based virtual screening and quantitative structure-property relationships. Graph kernels are formal similarity measures defined directly on graphs, such as the (annotated) molecular structure graph. Graph kernels are positive semi-definite functions, i.e., they correspond to inner products. This property makes them suitable for use with kernel-based machine learning algorithms such as support vector machines and Gaussian processes. We review the major types of kernels between graphs (based on random walks, subgraphs, and optimal assignments, respectively), and discuss their advantages, limitations, and successful applications in cheminformatics. Copyright © 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

SU-E-T-196: Comparative Analysis of Surface Dose Measurements Using MOSFET Detector and Dose Predicted by Eclipse - AAA with Varying Dose Calculation Grid Size

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Badkul, R; Nejaiman, S; Pokhrel, D

2015-06-15

Purpose: Skin dose can be the limiting factor and fairly common reason to interrupt the treatment, especially for treating head-and-neck with Intensity-modulated-radiation-therapy(IMRT) or Volumetrically-modulated - arc-therapy (VMAT) and breast with tangentially-directed-beams. Aim of this study was to investigate accuracy of near-surface dose predicted by Eclipse treatment-planning-system (TPS) using Anisotropic-Analytic Algorithm (AAA)with varying calculation grid-size and comparing with metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect-transistors(MOSFETs)measurements for a range of clinical-conditions (open-field,dynamic-wedge, physical-wedge, IMRT,VMAT). Methods: QUASAR™-Body-Phantom was used in this study with oval curved-surfaces to mimic breast, chest wall and head-and-neck sites.A CT-scan was obtained with five radio-opaque markers(ROM) placed on the surface of phantom to mimic themore » range of incident angles for measurements and dose prediction using 2mm slice thickness.At each ROM, small structure(1mmx2mm) were contoured to obtain mean-doses from TPS.Calculations were performed for open-field,dynamic-wedge,physical-wedge,IMRT and VMAT using Varian-21EX,6&15MV photons using twogrid-sizes:2.5mm and 1mm.Calibration checks were performed to ensure that MOSFETs response were within ±5%.Surface-doses were measured at five locations and compared with TPS calculations. Results: For 6MV: 2.5mm grid-size,mean calculated doses(MCD)were higher by 10%(±7.6),10%(±7.6),20%(±8.5),40%(±7.5),30%(±6.9) and for 1mm grid-size MCD were higher by 0%(±5.7),0%(±4.2),0%(±5.5),1.2%(±5.0),1.1% (±7.8) for open-field,dynamic-wedge,physical-wedge,IMRT,VMAT respectively.For 15MV: 2.5mm grid-size,MCD were higher by 30%(±14.6),30%(±14.6),30%(±14.0),40%(±11.0),30%(±3.5)and for 1mm grid-size MCD were higher by 10% (±10.6), 10%(±9.8),10%(±8.0),30%(±7.8),10%(±3.8) for open-field, dynamic-wedge, physical-wedge, IMRT, VMAT respectively.For 6MV, 86% and 56% of all measured

Experimental verification of a CT-based Monte Carlo dose-calculation method in heterogeneous phantoms.

PubMed

Wang, L; Lovelock, M; Chui, C S

1999-12-01

To further validate the Monte Carlo dose-calculation method [Med. Phys. 25, 867-878 (1998)] developed at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, we have performed experimental verification in various inhomogeneous phantoms. The phantom geometries included simple layered slabs, a simulated bone column, a simulated missing-tissue hemisphere, and an anthropomorphic head geometry (Alderson Rando Phantom). The densities of the inhomogeneity range from 0.14 to 1.86 g/cm3, simulating both clinically relevant lunglike and bonelike materials. The data are reported as central axis depth doses, dose profiles, dose values at points of interest, such as points at the interface of two different media and in the "nasopharynx" region of the Rando head. The dosimeters used in the measurement included dosimetry film, TLD chips, and rods. The measured data were compared to that of Monte Carlo calculations for the same geometrical configurations. In the case of the Rando head phantom, a CT scan of the phantom was used to define the calculation geometry and to locate the points of interest. The agreement between the calculation and measurement is generally within 2.5%. This work validates the accuracy of the Monte Carlo method. While Monte Carlo, at present, is still too slow for routine treatment planning, it can be used as a benchmark against which other dose calculation methods can be compared.

SU-E-J-60: Efficient Monte Carlo Dose Calculation On CPU-GPU Heterogeneous Systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xiao, K; Chen, D. Z; Hu, X. S

Purpose: It is well-known that the performance of GPU-based Monte Carlo dose calculation implementations is bounded by memory bandwidth. One major cause of this bottleneck is the random memory writing patterns in dose deposition, which leads to several memory efficiency issues on GPU such as un-coalesced writing and atomic operations. We propose a new method to alleviate such issues on CPU-GPU heterogeneous systems, which achieves overall performance improvement for Monte Carlo dose calculation. Methods: Dose deposition is to accumulate dose into the voxels of a dose volume along the trajectories of radiation rays. Our idea is to partition this proceduremore » into the following three steps, which are fine-tuned for CPU or GPU: (1) each GPU thread writes dose results with location information to a buffer on GPU memory, which achieves fully-coalesced and atomic-free memory transactions; (2) the dose results in the buffer are transferred to CPU memory; (3) the dose volume is constructed from the dose buffer on CPU. We organize the processing of all radiation rays into streams. Since the steps within a stream use different hardware resources (i.e., GPU, DMA, CPU), we can overlap the execution of these steps for different streams by pipelining. Results: We evaluated our method using a Monte Carlo Convolution Superposition (MCCS) program and tested our implementation for various clinical cases on a heterogeneous system containing an Intel i7 quad-core CPU and an NVIDIA TITAN GPU. Comparing with a straightforward MCCS implementation on the same system (using both CPU and GPU for radiation ray tracing), our method gained 2-5X speedup without losing dose calculation accuracy. Conclusion: The results show that our new method improves the effective memory bandwidth and overall performance for MCCS on the CPU-GPU systems. Our proposed method can also be applied to accelerate other Monte Carlo dose calculation approaches. This research was supported in part by NSF under

A virtual photon energy fluence model for Monte Carlo dose calculation.

PubMed

Fippel, Matthias; Haryanto, Freddy; Dohm, Oliver; Nüsslin, Fridtjof; Kriesen, Stephan

2003-03-01

The presented virtual energy fluence (VEF) model of the patient-independent part of the medical linear accelerator heads, consists of two Gaussian-shaped photon sources and one uniform electron source. The planar photon sources are located close to the bremsstrahlung target (primary source) and to the flattening filter (secondary source), respectively. The electron contamination source is located in the plane defining the lower end of the filter. The standard deviations or widths and the relative weights of each source are free parameters. Five other parameters correct for fluence variations, i.e., the horn or central depression effect. If these parameters and the field widths in the X and Y directions are given, the corresponding energy fluence distribution can be calculated analytically and compared to measured dose distributions in air. This provides a method of fitting the free parameters using the measurements for various square and rectangular fields and a fixed number of monitor units. The next step in generating the whole set of base data is to calculate monoenergetic central axis depth dose distributions in water which are used to derive the energy spectrum by deconvolving the measured depth dose curves. This spectrum is also corrected to take the off-axis softening into account. The VEF model is implemented together with geometry modules for the patient specific part of the treatment head (jaws, multileaf collimator) into the XVMC dose calculation engine. The implementation into other Monte Carlo codes is possible based on the information in this paper. Experiments are performed to verify the model by comparing measured and calculated dose distributions and output factors in water. It is demonstrated that open photon beams of linear accelerators from two different vendors are accurately simulated using the VEF model. The commissioning procedure of the VEF model is clinically feasible because it is based on standard measurements in air and water. It is

SU-E-T-535: Proton Dose Calculations in Homogeneous Media.

PubMed

Chapman, J; Fontenot, J; Newhauser, W; Hogstrom, K

2012-06-01

To develop a pencil beam dose calculation algorithm for scanned proton beams that improves modeling of scatter events. Our pencil beam algorithm (PBA) was developed for calculating dose from monoenergetic, parallel proton beams in homogeneous media. Fermi-Eyges theory was implemented for pencil beam transport. Elastic and nonelastic scatter effects were each modeled as a Gaussian distribution, with root mean square (RMS) widths determined from theoretical calculations and a nonlinear fit to a Monte Carlo (MC) simulated 1mm × 1mm proton beam, respectively. The PBA was commissioned using MC simulations in a flat water phantom. Resulting PBA calculations were compared with results of other models reported in the literature on the basis of differences between PBA and MC calculations of 80-20% penumbral widths. Our model was further tested by comparing PBA and MC results for oblique beams (45 degree incidence) and surface irregularities (step heights of 1 and 4 cm) for energies of 50-250 MeV and field sizes of 4cm × 4cm and 10cm × 10cm. Agreement between PBA and MC distributions was quantified by computing the percentage of points within 2% dose difference or 1mm distance to agreement. Our PBA improved agreement between calculated and simulated penumbral widths by an order of magnitude compared with previously reported values. For comparisons of oblique beams and surface irregularities, agreement between PBA and MC distributions was better than 99%. Our algorithm showed improved accuracy over other models reported in the literature in predicting the overall shape of the lateral profile through the Bragg peak. This improvement was achieved by incorporating nonelastic scatter events into our PBA. The increased modeling accuracy of our PBA, incorporated into a treatment planning system, may improve the reliability of treatment planning calculations for patient treatments. This research was supported by contract W81XWH-10-1-0005 awarded by The U.S. Army Research

Preliminary skyshine calculations for the Poloidal Diverter Tokamak Experiment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nigg, D.W.; Wheeler, F.J.

1981-01-01

The Poloidal Diverter Experiment (PDX) facility at Princeton University is the first operating tokamak to require substantial radiation shielding. A calculational model has been developed to estimate the radiation dose in the PDX control room and at the site boundary due to the skyshine effect. An efficient one-dimensional method is used to compute the neutron and capture gamma leakage currents at the top surface of the PDX roof shield. This method employs an S /SUB n/ calculation in slab geometry and, for the PDX, is superior to spherical models found in the literature. If certain conditions are met, the slabmore » model provides the exact probability of leakage out the top surface of the roof for fusion source neutrons and for capture gamma rays produced in the PDX floor and roof shield. The model also provides the correct neutron and capture gamma leakage current spectra and angular distributions, averaged over the top roof shield surface. For the PDX, this method is nearly as accurate as multidimensional techniques for computing the roof leakage and is much less costly. The actual neutron skyshine dose is computed using a Monte Carlo model with the neutron source at the roof surface obtained from the slab S /SUB n/ calculation. The capture gamma dose is computed using a simple point-kernel single-scatter method.« less

Patient-specific IMRT verification using independent fluence-based dose calculation software: experimental benchmarking and initial clinical experience.

PubMed

Georg, Dietmar; Stock, Markus; Kroupa, Bernhard; Olofsson, Jörgen; Nyholm, Tufve; Ahnesjö, Anders; Karlsson, Mikael

2007-08-21

Experimental methods are commonly used for patient-specific intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) verification. The purpose of this study was to investigate the accuracy and performance of independent dose calculation software (denoted as 'MUV' (monitor unit verification)) for patient-specific quality assurance (QA). 52 patients receiving step-and-shoot IMRT were considered. IMRT plans were recalculated by the treatment planning systems (TPS) in a dedicated QA phantom, in which an experimental 1D and 2D verification (0.3 cm(3) ionization chamber; films) was performed. Additionally, an independent dose calculation was performed. The fluence-based algorithm of MUV accounts for collimator transmission, rounded leaf ends, tongue-and-groove effect, backscatter to the monitor chamber and scatter from the flattening filter. The dose calculation utilizes a pencil beam model based on a beam quality index. DICOM RT files from patient plans, exported from the TPS, were directly used as patient-specific input data in MUV. For composite IMRT plans, average deviations in the high dose region between ionization chamber measurements and point dose calculations performed with the TPS and MUV were 1.6 +/- 1.2% and 0.5 +/- 1.1% (1 S.D.). The dose deviations between MUV and TPS slightly depended on the distance from the isocentre position. For individual intensity-modulated beams (total 367), an average deviation of 1.1 +/- 2.9% was determined between calculations performed with the TPS and with MUV, with maximum deviations up to 14%. However, absolute dose deviations were mostly less than 3 cGy. Based on the current results, we aim to apply a confidence limit of 3% (with respect to the prescribed dose) or 6 cGy for routine IMRT verification. For off-axis points at distances larger than 5 cm and for low dose regions, we consider 5% dose deviation or 10 cGy acceptable. The time needed for an independent calculation compares very favourably with the net time for an experimental

Performance of dose calculation algorithms from three generations in lung SBRT: comparison with full Monte Carlo‐based dose distributions

PubMed Central

Kapanen, Mika K.; Hyödynmaa, Simo J.; Wigren, Tuija K.; Pitkänen, Maunu A.

2014-01-01

The accuracy of dose calculation is a key challenge in stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) of the lung. We have benchmarked three photon beam dose calculation algorithms — pencil beam convolution (PBC), anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA), and Acuros XB (AXB) — implemented in a commercial treatment planning system (TPS), Varian Eclipse. Dose distributions from full Monte Carlo (MC) simulations were regarded as a reference. In the first stage, for four patients with central lung tumors, treatment plans using 3D conformal radiotherapy (CRT) technique applying 6 MV photon beams were made using the AXB algorithm, with planning criteria according to the Nordic SBRT study group. The plans were recalculated (with same number of monitor units (MUs) and identical field settings) using BEAMnrc and DOSXYZnrc MC codes. The MC‐calculated dose distributions were compared to corresponding AXB‐calculated dose distributions to assess the accuracy of the AXB algorithm, to which then other TPS algorithms were compared. In the second stage, treatment plans were made for ten patients with 3D CRT technique using both the PBC algorithm and the AAA. The plans were recalculated (with same number of MUs and identical field settings) with the AXB algorithm, then compared to original plans. Throughout the study, the comparisons were made as a function of the size of the planning target volume (PTV), using various dose‐volume histogram (DVH) and other parameters to quantitatively assess the plan quality. In the first stage also, 3D gamma analyses with threshold criteria 3%/3 mm and 2%/2 mm were applied. The AXB‐calculated dose distributions showed relatively high level of agreement in the light of 3D gamma analysis and DVH comparison against the full MC simulation, especially with large PTVs, but, with smaller PTVs, larger discrepancies were found. Gamma agreement index (GAI) values between 95.5% and 99.6% for all the plans with the threshold criteria 3%/3 mm were

Comparing Alternative Kernels for the Kernel Method of Test Equating: Gaussian, Logistic, and Uniform Kernels. Research Report. ETS RR-08-12

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Yi-Hsuan; von Davier, Alina A.

2008-01-01

The kernel equating method (von Davier, Holland, & Thayer, 2004) is based on a flexible family of equipercentile-like equating functions that use a Gaussian kernel to continuize the discrete score distributions. While the classical equipercentile, or percentile-rank, equating method carries out the continuization step by linear interpolation,…

Improving spot-scanning proton therapy patient specific quality assurance with HPlusQA, a second-check dose calculation engine

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mackin, Dennis; Li, Yupeng; Taylor, Michael B.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to validate the use of HPlusQA, spot-scanning proton therapy (SSPT) dose calculation software developed at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as second-check dose calculation software for patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA). The authors also showed how HPlusQA can be used within the current PSQA framework.Methods: The authors compared the dose calculations of HPlusQA and the Eclipse treatment planning system with 106 planar dose measurements made as part of PSQA. To determine the relative performance and the degree of correlation between HPlusQA and Eclipse, the authors compared calculated with measured point doses.more » Then, to determine how well HPlusQA can predict when the comparisons between Eclipse calculations and the measured dose will exceed tolerance levels, the authors compared gamma index scores for HPlusQA versus Eclipse with those of measured doses versus Eclipse. The authors introduce the αβγ transformation as a way to more easily compare gamma scores.Results: The authors compared measured and calculated dose planes using the relative depth, z/R × 100%, where z is the depth of the measurement and R is the proton beam range. For relative depths than less than 80%, both Eclipse and HPlusQA calculations were within 2 cGy of dose measurements on average. When the relative depth was greater than 80%, the agreement between the calculations and measurements fell to 4 cGy. For relative depths less than 10%, the Eclipse and HPlusQA dose discrepancies showed a negative correlation, −0.21. Otherwise, the correlation between the dose discrepancies was positive and as large as 0.6. For the dose planes in this study, HPlusQA correctly predicted when Eclipse had and had not calculated the dose to within tolerance 92% and 79% of the time, respectively. In 4 of 106 cases, HPlusQA failed to predict when the comparison between measurement and Eclipse's calculation had exceeded the tolerance levels of

Improving spot-scanning proton therapy patient specific quality assurance with HPlusQA, a second-check dose calculation engine.

PubMed

Mackin, Dennis; Li, Yupeng; Taylor, Michael B; Kerr, Matthew; Holmes, Charles; Sahoo, Narayan; Poenisch, Falk; Li, Heng; Lii, Jim; Amos, Richard; Wu, Richard; Suzuki, Kazumichi; Gillin, Michael T; Zhu, X Ronald; Zhang, Xiaodong

2013-12-01

The purpose of this study was to validate the use of HPlusQA, spot-scanning proton therapy (SSPT) dose calculation software developed at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as second-check dose calculation software for patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA). The authors also showed how HPlusQA can be used within the current PSQA framework. The authors compared the dose calculations of HPlusQA and the Eclipse treatment planning system with 106 planar dose measurements made as part of PSQA. To determine the relative performance and the degree of correlation between HPlusQA and Eclipse, the authors compared calculated with measured point doses. Then, to determine how well HPlusQA can predict when the comparisons between Eclipse calculations and the measured dose will exceed tolerance levels, the authors compared gamma index scores for HPlusQA versus Eclipse with those of measured doses versus Eclipse. The authors introduce the αβγ transformation as a way to more easily compare gamma scores. The authors compared measured and calculated dose planes using the relative depth, z∕R × 100%, where z is the depth of the measurement and R is the proton beam range. For relative depths than less than 80%, both Eclipse and HPlusQA calculations were within 2 cGy of dose measurements on average. When the relative depth was greater than 80%, the agreement between the calculations and measurements fell to 4 cGy. For relative depths less than 10%, the Eclipse and HPlusQA dose discrepancies showed a negative correlation, -0.21. Otherwise, the correlation between the dose discrepancies was positive and as large as 0.6. For the dose planes in this study, HPlusQA correctly predicted when Eclipse had and had not calculated the dose to within tolerance 92% and 79% of the time, respectively. In 4 of 106 cases, HPlusQA failed to predict when the comparison between measurement and Eclipse's calculation had exceeded the tolerance levels of 3% for dose and 3 mm for

GPU-based ultra-fast dose calculation using a finite size pencil beam model.

PubMed

Gu, Xuejun; Choi, Dongju; Men, Chunhua; Pan, Hubert; Majumdar, Amitava; Jiang, Steve B

2009-10-21

Online adaptive radiation therapy (ART) is an attractive concept that promises the ability to deliver an optimal treatment in response to the inter-fraction variability in patient anatomy. However, it has yet to be realized due to technical limitations. Fast dose deposit coefficient calculation is a critical component of the online planning process that is required for plan optimization of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Computer graphics processing units (GPUs) are well suited to provide the requisite fast performance for the data-parallel nature of dose calculation. In this work, we develop a dose calculation engine based on a finite-size pencil beam (FSPB) algorithm and a GPU parallel computing framework. The developed framework can accommodate any FSPB model. We test our implementation in the case of a water phantom and the case of a prostate cancer patient with varying beamlet and voxel sizes. All testing scenarios achieved speedup ranging from 200 to 400 times when using a NVIDIA Tesla C1060 card in comparison with a 2.27 GHz Intel Xeon CPU. The computational time for calculating dose deposition coefficients for a nine-field prostate IMRT plan with this new framework is less than 1 s. This indicates that the GPU-based FSPB algorithm is well suited for online re-planning for adaptive radiotherapy.

Construction of new skin models and calculation of skin dose coefficients for electron exposures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yeom, Yeon Soo; Kim, Chan Hyeong; Nguyen, Thang Tat; Choi, Chansoo; Han, Min Cheol; Jeong, Jong Hwi

2016-08-01

The voxel-type reference phantoms of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), due to their limited voxel resolutions, cannot represent the 50- μm-thick radiosensitive target layer of the skin necessary for skin dose calculations. Alternatively, in ICRP Publication 116, the dose coefficients (DCs) for the skin were calculated approximately, averaging absorbed dose over the entire skin depth of the ICRP phantoms. This approximation is valid for highly-penetrating radiations such as photons and neutrons, but not for weakly penetrating radiations like electrons due to the high gradient in the dose distribution in the skin. To address the limitation, the present study introduces skin polygon-mesh (PM) models, which have been produced by converting the skin models of the ICRP voxel phantoms to a high-quality PM format and adding a 50- μm-thick radiosensitive target layer into the skin models. Then, the constructed skin PM models were implemented in the Geant4 Monte Carlo code to calculate the skin DCs for external exposures of electrons. The calculated values were then compared with the skin DCs of the ICRP Publication 116. The results of the present study show that for high-energy electrons (≥ 1 MeV), the ICRP-116 skin DCs are, indeed, in good agreement with the skin DCs calculated in the present study. For low-energy electrons (< 1 MeV), however, significant discrepancies were observed, and the ICRP-116 skin DCs underestimated the skin dose as much as 15 times for some energies. Besides, regardless of the small tissue weighting factor of the skin ( w T = 0.01), the discrepancies in the skin dose were found to result in significant discrepancies in the effective dose, demonstarting that the effective DCs in ICRP-116 are not reliable for external exposure to electrons.

Lens of the eye dose calculation for neuro-interventional procedures and CBCT scans of the head

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiong, Zhenyu; Vijayan, Sarath; Rana, Vijay; Jain, Amit; Rudin, Stephen; Bednarek, Daniel R.

2016-03-01

The aim of this work is to develop a method to calculate lens dose for fluoroscopically-guided neuro-interventional procedures and for CBCT scans of the head. EGSnrc Monte Carlo software is used to determine the dose to the lens of the eye for the projection geometry and exposure parameters used in these procedures. This information is provided by a digital CAN bus on the Toshiba Infinix C-Arm system which is saved in a log file by the real-time skin-dose tracking system (DTS) we previously developed. The x-ray beam spectra on this machine were simulated using BEAMnrc. These spectra were compared to those determined by SpekCalc and validated through measured percent-depth-dose (PDD) curves and half-value-layer (HVL) measurements. We simulated CBCT procedures in DOSXYZnrc for a CTDI head phantom and compared the surface dose distribution with that measured with Gafchromic film, and also for an SK150 head phantom and compared the lens dose with that measured with an ionization chamber. Both methods demonstrated good agreement. Organ dose calculated for a simulated neuro-interventional-procedure using DOSXYZnrc with the Zubal CT voxel phantom agreed within 10% with that calculated by PCXMC code for most organs. To calculate the lens dose in a neuro-interventional procedure, we developed a library of normalized lens dose values for different projection angles and kVp's. The total lens dose is then calculated by summing the values over all beam projections and can be included on the DTS report at the end of the procedure.

Shading correction for cone-beam CT in radiotherapy: validation of dose calculation accuracy using clinical images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marchant, T. E.; Joshi, K. D.; Moore, C. J.

2017-03-01

Cone-beam CT (CBCT) images are routinely acquired to verify patient position in radiotherapy (RT), but are typically not calibrated in Hounsfield Units (HU) and feature non-uniformity due to X-ray scatter and detector persistence effects. This prevents direct use of CBCT for re-calculation of RT delivered dose. We previously developed a prior-image based correction method to restore HU values and improve uniformity of CBCT images. Here we validate the accuracy with which corrected CBCT can be used for dosimetric assessment of RT delivery, using CBCT images and RT plans for 45 patients including pelvis, lung and head sites. Dose distributions were calculated based on each patient's original RT plan and using CBCT image values for tissue heterogeneity correction. Clinically relevant dose metrics were calculated (e.g. median and minimum target dose, maximum organ at risk dose). Accuracy of CBCT based dose metrics was determined using an "override ratio" method where the ratio of the dose metric to that calculated on a bulk-density assigned version of the image is assumed to be constant for each patient, allowing comparison to "gold standard" CT. For pelvis and head images the proportion of dose errors >2% was reduced from 40% to 1.3% after applying shading correction. For lung images the proportion of dose errors >3% was reduced from 66% to 2.2%. Application of shading correction to CBCT images greatly improves their utility for dosimetric assessment of RT delivery, allowing high confidence that CBCT dose calculations are accurate within 2-3%.

Fast CPU-based Monte Carlo simulation for radiotherapy dose calculation.

PubMed

Ziegenhein, Peter; Pirner, Sven; Ph Kamerling, Cornelis; Oelfke, Uwe

2015-08-07

Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations are considered to be the most accurate method for calculating dose distributions in radiotherapy. Its clinical application, however, still is limited by the long runtimes conventional implementations of MC algorithms require to deliver sufficiently accurate results on high resolution imaging data. In order to overcome this obstacle we developed the software-package PhiMC, which is capable of computing precise dose distributions in a sub-minute time-frame by leveraging the potential of modern many- and multi-core CPU-based computers. PhiMC is based on the well verified dose planning method (DPM). We could demonstrate that PhiMC delivers dose distributions which are in excellent agreement to DPM. The multi-core implementation of PhiMC scales well between different computer architectures and achieves a speed-up of up to 37[Formula: see text] compared to the original DPM code executed on a modern system. Furthermore, we could show that our CPU-based implementation on a modern workstation is between 1.25[Formula: see text] and 1.95[Formula: see text] faster than a well-known GPU implementation of the same simulation method on a NVIDIA Tesla C2050. Since CPUs work on several hundreds of GB RAM the typical GPU memory limitation does not apply for our implementation and high resolution clinical plans can be calculated.

An organ-based approach to dose calculation in the assessment of dose-dependent biological effects of ionising radiation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

PubMed

Biermans, Geert; Horemans, Nele; Vanhoudt, Nathalie; Vandenhove, Hildegarde; Saenen, Eline; Van Hees, May; Wannijn, Jean; Vives i Batlle, Jordi; Cuypers, Ann

2014-07-01

There is a need for a better understanding of biological effects of radiation exposure in non-human biota. Correct description of these effects requires a more detailed model of dosimetry than that available in current risk assessment tools, particularly for plants. In this paper, we propose a simple model for dose calculations in roots and shoots of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings exposed to radionuclides in a hydroponic exposure setup. This model is used to compare absorbed doses for three radionuclides, (241)Am (α-radiation), (90)Sr (β-radiation) and (133)Ba (γ radiation). Using established dosimetric calculation methods, dose conversion coefficient values were determined for each organ separately based on uptake data from the different plant organs. These calculations were then compared to the DCC values obtained with the ERICA tool under equivalent geometry assumptions. When comparing with our new method, the ERICA tool appears to overestimate internal doses and underestimate external doses in the roots for all three radionuclides, though each to a different extent. These observations might help to refine dose-response relationships. The DCC values for (90)Sr in roots are shown to deviate the most. A dose-effect curve for (90)Sr β-radiation has been established on biomass and photosynthesis endpoints, but no significant dose-dependent effects are observed. This indicates the need for use of endpoints at the molecular and physiological scale. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dose calculations using artificial neural networks: A feasibility study for photon beams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vasseur, Aurélien; Makovicka, Libor; Martin, Éric; Sauget, Marc; Contassot-Vivier, Sylvain; Bahi, Jacques

2008-04-01

Direct dose calculations are a crucial requirement for Treatment Planning Systems. Some methods, such as Monte Carlo, explicitly model particle transport, others depend upon tabulated data or analytic formulae. However, their computation time is too lengthy for clinical use, or accuracy is insufficient, especially for recent techniques such as Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy. Based on artificial neural networks (ANNs), a new solution is proposed and this work extends the properties of such an algorithm and is called NeuRad. Prior to any calculations, a first phase known as the learning process is necessary. Monte Carlo dose distributions in homogeneous media are used, and the ANN is then acquired. According to the training base, it can be used as a dose engine for either heterogeneous media or for an unknown material. In this report, two networks were created in order to compute dose distribution within a homogeneous phantom made of an unknown material and within an inhomogeneous phantom made of water and TA6V4 (titanium alloy corresponding to hip prosthesis). All NeuRad results were compared to Monte Carlo distributions. The latter required about 7 h on a dedicated cluster (10 nodes). NeuRad learning requires between 8 and 18 h (depending upon the size of the training base) on a single low-end computer. However, the results of dose computation with the ANN are available in less than 2 s, again using a low-end computer, for a 150×1×150 voxels phantom. In the case of homogeneous medium, the mean deviation in the high dose region was less than 1.7%. With a TA6V4 hip prosthesis bathed in water, the mean deviation in the high dose region was less than 4.1%. Further improvements in NeuRad will have to include full 3D calculations, inhomogeneity management and input definitions.

Monte Carlo calculated doses to treatment volumes and organs at risk for permanent implant lung brachytherapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sutherland, J. G. H.; Furutani, K. M.; Thomson, R. M.

2013-10-01

Iodine-125 (125I) and Caesium-131 (131Cs) brachytherapy have been used with sublobar resection to treat stage I non-small cell lung cancer and other radionuclides, 169Yb and 103Pd, are considered for these treatments. This work investigates the dosimetry of permanent implant lung brachytherapy for a range of source energies and various implant sites in the lung. Monte Carlo calculated doses are calculated in a patient CT-derived computational phantom using the EGsnrc user-code BrachyDose. Calculations are performed for 103Pd, 125I, 131Cs seeds and 50 and 100 keV point sources for 17 implant positions. Doses to treatment volumes, ipsilateral lung, aorta, and heart are determined and compared to those determined using the TG-43 approach. Considerable variation with source energy and differences between model-based and TG-43 doses are found for both treatment volumes and organs. Doses to the heart and aorta generally increase with increasing source energy. TG-43 underestimates the dose to the heart and aorta for all implants except those nearest to these organs where the dose is overestimated. Results suggest that model-based dose calculations are crucial for selecting prescription doses, comparing clinical endpoints, and studying radiobiological effects for permanent implant lung brachytherapy.

TU-D-201-05: Validation of Treatment Planning Dose Calculations: Experience Working with MPPG 5.a

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xue, J; Park, J; Kim, L

2016-06-15

Purpose: Newly published medical physics practice guideline (MPPG 5.a.) has set the minimum requirements for commissioning and QA of treatment planning dose calculations. We present our experience in the validation of a commercial treatment planning system based on MPPG 5.a. Methods: In addition to tests traditionally performed to commission a model-based dose calculation algorithm, extensive tests were carried out at short and extended SSDs, various depths, oblique gantry angles and off-axis conditions to verify the robustness and limitations of a dose calculation algorithm. A comparison between measured and calculated dose was performed based on validation tests and evaluation criteria recommendedmore » by MPPG 5.a. An ion chamber was used for the measurement of dose at points of interest, and diodes were used for photon IMRT/VMAT validations. Dose profiles were measured with a three-dimensional scanning system and calculated in the TPS using a virtual water phantom. Results: Calculated and measured absolute dose profiles were compared at each specified SSD and depth for open fields. The disagreement is easily identifiable with the difference curve. Subtle discrepancy has revealed the limitation of the measurement, e.g., a spike at the high dose region and an asymmetrical penumbra observed on the tests with an oblique MLC beam. The excellent results we had (> 98% pass rate on 3%/3mm gamma index) on the end-to-end tests for both IMRT and VMAT are attributed to the quality beam data and the good understanding of the modeling. The limitation of the model and the uncertainty of measurement were considered when comparing the results. Conclusion: The extensive tests recommended by the MPPG encourage us to understand the accuracy and limitations of a dose algorithm as well as the uncertainty of measurement. Our experience has shown how the suggested tests can be performed effectively to validate dose calculation models.« less

7 CFR 981.401 - Adjusted kernel weight.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... based on the analysis of a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000 pounds with less than 95 percent kernels, and a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000... percent kernels containing the following: Edible kernels, 530 grams; inedible kernels, 120 grams; foreign...

7 CFR 981.401 - Adjusted kernel weight.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... based on the analysis of a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000 pounds with less than 95 percent kernels, and a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000... percent kernels containing the following: Edible kernels, 530 grams; inedible kernels, 120 grams; foreign...

7 CFR 981.401 - Adjusted kernel weight.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... based on the analysis of a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000 pounds with less than 95 percent kernels, and a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000... percent kernels containing the following: Edible kernels, 530 grams; inedible kernels, 120 grams; foreign...

7 CFR 981.401 - Adjusted kernel weight.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... based on the analysis of a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000 pounds with less than 95 percent kernels, and a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000... percent kernels containing the following: Edible kernels, 530 grams; inedible kernels, 120 grams; foreign...

7 CFR 981.401 - Adjusted kernel weight.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... based on the analysis of a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000 pounds with less than 95 percent kernels, and a 1,000 gram sample taken from a lot of almonds weighing 10,000... percent kernels containing the following: Edible kernels, 530 grams; inedible kernels, 120 grams; foreign...

7 CFR 51.1403 - Kernel color classification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Kernel color classification. 51.1403 Section 51.1403... STANDARDS) United States Standards for Grades of Pecans in the Shell 1 Kernel Color Classification § 51.1403 Kernel color classification. (a) The skin color of pecan kernels may be described in terms of the color...

SU-F-19A-10: Recalculation and Reporting Clinical HDR 192-Ir Head and Neck Dose Distributions Using Model Based Dose Calculation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carlsson Tedgren, A; Persson, M; Nilsson, J

Purpose: To retrospectively re-calculate dose distributions for selected head and neck cancer patients, earlier treated with HDR 192Ir brachytherapy, using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and compare results to distributions from the planning system derived using TG43 formalism. To study differences between dose to medium (as obtained with the MC code) and dose to water in medium as obtained through (1) ratios of stopping powers and (2) ratios of mass energy absorption coefficients between water and medium. Methods: The MC code Algebra was used to calculate dose distributions according to earlier actual treatment plans using anonymized plan data and CT imagesmore » in DICOM format. Ratios of stopping power and mass energy absorption coefficients for water with various media obtained from 192-Ir spectra were used in toggling between dose to water and dose to media. Results: Differences between initial planned TG43 dose distributions and the doses to media calculated by MC are insignificant in the target volume. Differences are moderate (within 4–5 % at distances of 3–4 cm) but increase with distance and are most notable in bone and at the patient surface. Differences between dose to water and dose to medium are within 1-2% when using mass energy absorption coefficients to toggle between the two quantities but increase to above 10% for bone using stopping power ratios. Conclusion: MC predicts target doses for head and neck cancer patients in close agreement with TG43. MC yields improved dose estimations outside the target where a larger fraction of dose is from scattered photons. It is important with awareness and a clear reporting of absorbed dose values in using model based algorithms. Differences in bone media can exceed 10% depending on how dose to water in medium is defined.« less

Comparison of selected dose calculation algorithms in radiotherapy treatment planning for tissues with inhomogeneities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woon, Y. L.; Heng, S. P.; Wong, J. H. D.; Ung, N. M.

2016-03-01

Inhomogeneity correction is recommended for accurate dose calculation in radiotherapy treatment planning since human body are highly inhomogeneous with the presence of bones and air cavities. However, each dose calculation algorithm has its own limitations. This study is to assess the accuracy of five algorithms that are currently implemented for treatment planning, including pencil beam convolution (PBC), superposition (SP), anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA), Monte Carlo (MC) and Acuros XB (AXB). The calculated dose was compared with the measured dose using radiochromic film (Gafchromic EBT2) in inhomogeneous phantoms. In addition, the dosimetric impact of different algorithms on intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) was studied for head and neck region. MC had the best agreement with the measured percentage depth dose (PDD) within the inhomogeneous region. This was followed by AXB, AAA, SP and PBC. For IMRT planning, MC algorithm is recommended for treatment planning in preference to PBC and SP. The MC and AXB algorithms were found to have better accuracy in terms of inhomogeneity correction and should be used for tumour volume within the proximity of inhomogeneous structures.

78 FR 64030 - Monitoring Criteria and Methods To Calculate Occupational Radiation Doses

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-10-25

... NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [NRC-2013-0234] Monitoring Criteria and Methods To Calculate... regulatory guide (DG), DG-8031, ``Monitoring Criteria and Methods to Calculate Occupational Radiation Doses.'' This guide describes methods that the NRC staff considers acceptable for licensees to use to determine...

Calculation of out-of-field dose distribution in carbon-ion radiotherapy by Monte Carlo simulation.

PubMed

Yonai, Shunsuke; Matsufuji, Naruhiro; Namba, Masao

2012-08-01

Recent radiotherapy technologies including carbon-ion radiotherapy can improve the dose concentration in the target volume, thereby not only reducing side effects in organs at risk but also the secondary cancer risk within or near the irradiation field. However, secondary cancer risk in the low-dose region is considered to be non-negligible, especially for younger patients. To achieve a dose estimation of the whole body of each patient receiving carbon-ion radiotherapy, which is essential for risk assessment and epidemiological studies, Monte Carlo simulation plays an important role because the treatment planning system can provide dose distribution only in∕near the irradiation field and the measured data are limited. However, validation of Monte Carlo simulations is necessary. The primary purpose of this study was to establish a calculation method using the Monte Carlo code to estimate the dose and quality factor in the body and to validate the proposed method by comparison with experimental data. Furthermore, we show the distributions of dose equivalent in a phantom and identify the partial contribution of each radiation type. We proposed a calculation method based on a Monte Carlo simulation using the PHITS code to estimate absorbed dose, dose equivalent, and dose-averaged quality factor by using the Q(L)-L relationship based on the ICRP 60 recommendation. The values obtained by this method in modeling the passive beam line at the Heavy-Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba were compared with our previously measured data. It was shown that our calculation model can estimate the measured value within a factor of 2, which included not only the uncertainty of this calculation method but also those regarding the assumptions of the geometrical modeling and the PHITS code. Also, we showed the differences in the doses and the partial contributions of each radiation type between passive and active carbon-ion beams using this calculation method. These results indicated that

Study on Energy Productivity Ratio (EPR) at palm kernel oil processing factory: case study on PT-X at Sumatera Utara Plantation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haryanto, B.; Bukit, R. Br; Situmeang, E. M.; Christina, E. P.; Pandiangan, F.

2018-02-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the performance, productivity and feasibility of the operation of palm kernel processing plant based on Energy Productivity Ratio (EPR). EPR is expressed as the ratio of output to input energy and by-product. Palm Kernel plan is process in palm kernel to become palm kernel oil. The procedure started from collecting data needed as energy input such as: palm kernel prices, energy demand and depreciation of the factory. The energy output and its by-product comprise the whole production price such as: palm kernel oil price and the remaining products such as shells and pulp price. Calculation the equality of energy of palm kernel oil is to analyze the value of Energy Productivity Ratio (EPR) bases on processing capacity per year. The investigation has been done in Kernel Oil Processing Plant PT-X at Sumatera Utara plantation. The value of EPR was 1.54 (EPR > 1), which indicated that the processing of palm kernel into palm kernel oil is feasible to be operated based on the energy productivity.

SU-E-T-795: Validations of Dose Calculation Accuracy of Acuros BV in High-Dose-Rate (HDR) Brachytherapy with a Shielded Cylinder Applicator Using Monte Carlo Simulation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Li, Y; Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing; Tian, Z

Purpose: Acuros BV has become available to perform accurate dose calculations in high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy with phantom heterogeneity considered by solving the Boltzmann transport equation. In this work, we performed validation studies regarding the dose calculation accuracy of Acuros BV in cases with a shielded cylinder applicator using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Methods: Fifteen cases were considered in our studies, covering five different diameters of the applicator and three different shielding degrees. For each case, a digital phantom was created in Varian BrachyVision with the cylinder applicator inserted in the middle of a large water phantom. A treatment plan withmore » eight dwell positions was generated for these fifteen cases. Dose calculations were performed with Acuros BV. We then generated a voxelized phantom of the same geometry, and the materials were modeled according to the vendor’s specifications. MC dose calculations were then performed using our in-house developed fast MC dose engine for HDR brachytherapy (gBMC) on a GPU platform, which is able to simulate both photon transport and electron transport in a voxelized geometry. A phase-space file for the Ir-192 HDR source was used as a source model for MC simulations. Results: Satisfactory agreements between the dose distributions calculated by Acuros BV and those calculated by gBMC were observed in all cases. Quantitatively, we computed point-wise dose difference within the region that receives a dose higher than 10% of the reference dose, defined to be the dose at 5mm outward away from the applicator surface. The mean dose difference was ∼0.45%–0.51% and the 95-percentile maximum difference was ∼1.24%–1.47%. Conclusion: Acuros BV is able to accurately perform dose calculations in HDR brachytherapy with a shielded cylinder applicator.« less

Improved patient size estimates for accurate dose calculations in abdomen computed tomography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Chang-Lae

2017-07-01

The radiation dose of CT (computed tomography) is generally represented by the CTDI (CT dose index). CTDI, however, does not accurately predict the actual patient doses for different human body sizes because it relies on a cylinder-shaped head (diameter : 16 cm) and body (diameter : 32 cm) phantom. The purpose of this study was to eliminate the drawbacks of the conventional CTDI and to provide more accurate radiation dose information. Projection radiographs were obtained from water cylinder phantoms of various sizes, and the sizes of the water cylinder phantoms were calculated and verified using attenuation profiles. The effective diameter was also calculated using the attenuation of the abdominal projection radiographs of 10 patients. When the results of the attenuation-based method and the geometry-based method shown were compared with the results of the reconstructed-axial-CT-image-based method, the effective diameter of the attenuation-based method was found to be similar to the effective diameter of the reconstructed-axial-CT-image-based method, with a difference of less than 3.8%, but the geometry-based method showed a difference of less than 11.4%. This paper proposes a new method of accurately computing the radiation dose of CT based on the patient sizes. This method computes and provides the exact patient dose before the CT scan, and can therefore be effectively used for imaging and dose control.

Neutron track length estimator for GATE Monte Carlo dose calculation in radiotherapy.

PubMed

Elazhar, H; Deschler, T; Létang, J M; Nourreddine, A; Arbor, N

2018-06-20

The out-of-field dose in radiation therapy is a growing concern in regards to the late side-effects and secondary cancer induction. In high-energy x-ray therapy, the secondary neutrons generated through photonuclear reactions in the accelerator are part of this secondary dose. The neutron dose is currently not estimated by the treatment planning system while it appears to be preponderant for distances greater than 50 cm from the isocenter. Monte Carlo simulation has become the gold standard for accurately calculating the neutron dose under specific treatment conditions but the method is also known for having a slow statistical convergence, which makes it difficult to be used on a clinical basis. The neutron track length estimator, a neutron variance reduction technique inspired by the track length estimator method has thus been developped for the first time in the Monte Carlo code GATE to allow a fast computation of the neutron dose in radiotherapy. The details of its implementation, as well as the comparison of its performances against the analog MC method, are presented here. A gain of time from 15 to 400 can be obtained by our method, with a mean difference in the dose calculation of about 1% in comparison with the analog MC method.

Out-of-Sample Extensions for Non-Parametric Kernel Methods.

PubMed

Pan, Binbin; Chen, Wen-Sheng; Chen, Bo; Xu, Chen; Lai, Jianhuang

2017-02-01

Choosing suitable kernels plays an important role in the performance of kernel methods. Recently, a number of studies were devoted to developing nonparametric kernels. Without assuming any parametric form of the target kernel, nonparametric kernel learning offers a flexible scheme to utilize the information of the data, which may potentially characterize the data similarity better. The kernel methods using nonparametric kernels are referred to as nonparametric kernel methods. However, many nonparametric kernel methods are restricted to transductive learning, where the prediction function is defined only over the data points given beforehand. They have no straightforward extension for the out-of-sample data points, and thus cannot be applied to inductive learning. In this paper, we show how to make the nonparametric kernel methods applicable to inductive learning. The key problem of out-of-sample extension is how to extend the nonparametric kernel matrix to the corresponding kernel function. A regression approach in the hyper reproducing kernel Hilbert space is proposed to solve this problem. Empirical results indicate that the out-of-sample performance is comparable to the in-sample performance in most cases. Experiments on face recognition demonstrate the superiority of our nonparametric kernel method over the state-of-the-art parametric kernel methods.

SU-E-T-465: Dose Calculation Method for Dynamic Tumor Tracking Using a Gimbal-Mounted Linac

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sugimoto, S; Inoue, T; Kurokawa, C

Purpose: Dynamic tumor tracking using the gimbal-mounted linac (Vero4DRT, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Japan) has been available when respiratory motion is significant. The irradiation accuracy of the dynamic tumor tracking has been reported to be excellent. In addition to the irradiation accuracy, a fast and accurate dose calculation algorithm is needed to validate the dose distribution in the presence of respiratory motion because the multiple phases of it have to be considered. A modification of dose calculation algorithm is necessary for the gimbal-mounted linac due to the degrees of freedom of gimbal swing. The dose calculation algorithm for the gimbalmore » motion was implemented using the linear transformation between coordinate systems. Methods: The linear transformation matrices between the coordinate systems with and without gimbal swings were constructed using the combination of translation and rotation matrices. The coordinate system where the radiation source is at the origin and the beam axis along the z axis was adopted. The transformation can be divided into the translation from the radiation source to the gimbal rotation center, the two rotations around the center relating to the gimbal swings, and the translation from the gimbal center to the radiation source. After operating the transformation matrix to the phantom or patient image, the dose calculation can be performed as the no gimbal swing. The algorithm was implemented in the treatment planning system, PlanUNC (University of North Carolina, NC). The convolution/superposition algorithm was used. The dose calculations with and without gimbal swings were performed for the 3 × 3 cm{sup 2} field with the grid size of 5 mm. Results: The calculation time was about 3 minutes per beam. No significant additional time due to the gimbal swing was observed. Conclusions: The dose calculation algorithm for the finite gimbal swing was implemented. The calculation time was moderate.« less

A general model for stray dose calculation of static and intensity-modulated photon radiation.

PubMed

Hauri, Pascal; Hälg, Roger A; Besserer, Jürgen; Schneider, Uwe

2016-04-01

There is an increasing number of cancer survivors who are at risk of developing late effects caused by ionizing radiation such as induction of second tumors. Hence, the determination of out-of-field dose for a particular treatment plan in the patient's anatomy is of great importance. The purpose of this study was to analytically model the stray dose according to its three major components. For patient scatter, a mechanistic model was developed. For collimator scatter and head leakage, an empirical approach was used. The models utilize a nominal beam energy of 6 MeV to describe two linear accelerator types of a single vendor. The parameters of the models were adjusted using ionization chamber measurements registering total absorbed dose in simple geometries. Whole-body dose measurements using thermoluminescent dosimeters in an anthropomorphic phantom for static and intensity-modulated treatment plans were compared to the 3D out-of-field dose distributions calculated by a combined model. The absolute mean difference between the whole-body predicted and the measured out-of-field dose of four different plans was 11% with a maximum difference below 44%. Computation time of 36 000 dose points for one field was around 30 s. By combining the model-calculated stray dose with the treatment planning system dose, the whole-body dose distribution can be viewed in the treatment planning system. The results suggest that the model is accurate, fast and can be used for a wide range of treatment modalities to calculate the whole-body dose distribution for clinical analysis. For similar energy spectra, the mechanistic patient scatter model can be used independently of treatment machine or beam orientation.

Computed tomography coronary stent imaging with iterative reconstruction: a trade-off study between medium kernel and sharp kernel.

PubMed

Zhou, Qijing; Jiang, Biao; Dong, Fei; Huang, Peiyu; Liu, Hongtao; Zhang, Minming

2014-01-01

To evaluate the improvement of iterative reconstruction in image space (IRIS) technique in computed tomographic (CT) coronary stent imaging with sharp kernel, and to make a trade-off analysis. Fifty-six patients with 105 stents were examined by 128-slice dual-source CT coronary angiography (CTCA). Images were reconstructed using standard filtered back projection (FBP) and IRIS with both medium kernel and sharp kernel applied. Image noise and the stent diameter were investigated. Image noise was measured both in background vessel and in-stent lumen as objective image evaluation. Image noise score and stent score were performed as subjective image evaluation. The CTCA images reconstructed with IRIS were associated with significant noise reduction compared to that of CTCA images reconstructed using FBP technique in both of background vessel and in-stent lumen (the background noise decreased by approximately 25.4% ± 8.2% in medium kernel (P kernel (P kernel (P kernel (P kernel showed better visualization of the stent struts and in-stent lumen than that with medium kernel. Iterative reconstruction in image space reconstruction can effectively reduce the image noise and improve image quality. The sharp kernel images constructed with iterative reconstruction are considered the optimal images to observe coronary stents in this study.

Monte-Carlo Simulation of Radiation Track Structure and Calculation of Dose Deposition in Nanovolumes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Plante, I.; Cucinotta, F. A.

2010-01-01

INTRODUCTION: The radiation track structure is of crucial importance to understand radiation damage to molecules and subsequent biological effects. Of a particular importance in radiobiology is the induction of double-strand breaks (DSBs) by ionizing radiation, which are caused by clusters of lesions in DNA, and oxidative damage to cellular constituents leading to aberrant signaling cascades. DSB can be visualized within cell nuclei with gamma-H2AX experiments. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In DSB induction models, the DSB probability is usually calculated by the local dose obtained from a radial dose profile of HZE tracks. In this work, the local dose imparted by HZE ions is calculated directly from the 3D Monte-Carlo simulation code RITRACKS. A cubic volume of 5 micron edge (Figure 1) is irradiated by a (Fe26+)-56 ion of 1 GeV/amu (LET approx.150 keV/micron) and by a fluence of 450 H+ ions, 300 MeV/amu (LET approx. 0.3 keV/micron). In both cases, the dose deposited in the volume is approx.1 Gy. The dose is then calculated into each 3D pixels (voxels) of 20 nm edge and visualized in 3D. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The dose is deposited uniformly in the volume by the H+ ions. The voxels which receive a high dose (orange) corresponds to electron track ends. The dose is deposited differently by the 56Fe26+ ion. Very high dose (red) is deposited in voxels with direct ion traversal. Voxels with electron track ends (orange) are also found distributed around the path of the track. In both cases, the appearance of the dose distribution looks very similar to DSBs seen in gammaH2AX experiments, particularly when the visualization threshold is applied. CONCLUSION: The refinement of the dose calculation to the nanometer scale has revealed important differences in the energy deposition between high- and low-LET ions. Voxels of very high dose are only found in the path of high-LET ions. Interestingly, experiments have shown that DSB induced by high-LET radiation are more difficult to

SU-E-T-202: Impact of Monte Carlo Dose Calculation Algorithm On Prostate SBRT Treatments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Venencia, C; Garrigo, E; Cardenas, J

2014-06-01

Purpose: The purpose of this work was to quantify the dosimetric impact of using Monte Carlo algorithm on pre calculated SBRT prostate treatment with pencil beam dose calculation algorithm. Methods: A 6MV photon beam produced by a Novalis TX (BrainLAB-Varian) linear accelerator equipped with HDMLC was used. Treatment plans were done using 9 fields with Iplanv4.5 (BrainLAB) and dynamic IMRT modality. Institutional SBRT protocol uses a total dose to the prostate of 40Gy in 5 fractions, every other day. Dose calculation is done by pencil beam (2mm dose resolution), heterogeneity correction and dose volume constraint (UCLA) for PTV D95%=40Gy andmore » D98%>39.2Gy, Rectum V20Gy<50%, V32Gy<20%, V36Gy<10% and V40Gy<5%, Bladder V20Gy<40% and V40Gy<10%, femoral heads V16Gy<5%, penile bulb V25Gy<3cc, urethra and overlap region between PTV and PRV Rectum Dmax<42Gy. 10 SBRT treatments plans were selected and recalculated using Monte Carlo with 2mm spatial resolution and mean variance of 2%. DVH comparisons between plans were done. Results: The average difference between PTV doses constraints were within 2%. However 3 plans have differences higher than 3% which does not meet the D98% criteria (>39.2Gy) and should have been renormalized. Dose volume constraint differences for rectum, bladder, femoral heads and penile bulb were les than 2% and within tolerances. Urethra region and overlapping between PTV and PRV Rectum shows increment of dose in all plans. The average difference for urethra region was 2.1% with a maximum of 7.8% and for the overlapping region 2.5% with a maximum of 8.7%. Conclusion: Monte Carlo dose calculation on dynamic IMRT treatments could affects on plan normalization. Dose increment in critical region of urethra and PTV overlapping region with PTV could have clinical consequences which need to be studied. The use of Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithm is limited because inverse planning dose optimization use only pencil beam.« less

Sensitivity kernels for viscoelastic loading based on adjoint methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Al-Attar, David; Tromp, Jeroen

2014-01-01

Observations of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) allow for inferences to be made about mantle viscosity, ice sheet history and other related parameters. Typically, this inverse problem can be formulated as minimizing the misfit between the given observations and a corresponding set of synthetic data. When the number of parameters is large, solution of such optimization problems can be computationally challenging. A practical, albeit non-ideal, solution is to use gradient-based optimization. Although the gradient of the misfit required in such methods could be calculated approximately using finite differences, the necessary computation time grows linearly with the number of model parameters, and so this is often infeasible. A far better approach is to apply the `adjoint method', which allows the exact gradient to be calculated from a single solution of the forward problem, along with one solution of the associated adjoint problem. As a first step towards applying the adjoint method to the GIA inverse problem, we consider its application to a simpler viscoelastic loading problem in which gravitationally self-consistent ocean loading is neglected. The earth model considered is non-rotating, self-gravitating, compressible, hydrostatically pre-stressed, laterally heterogeneous and possesses a Maxwell solid rheology. We determine adjoint equations and Fréchet kernels for this problem based on a Lagrange multiplier method. Given an objective functional J defined in terms of the surface deformation fields, we show that its first-order perturbation can be written δ J = int _{MS}K_{η }δ ln η dV +int _{t0}^{t1}int _{partial M}K_{dot{σ }} δ dot{σ } dS dt, where δ ln η = δη/η denotes relative viscosity variations in solid regions MS, dV is the volume element, δ dot{σ } is the perturbation to the time derivative of the surface load which is defined on the earth model's surface ∂M and for times [t0, t1] and dS is the surface element on ∂M. The `viscosity

Anisotropic hydrodynamics with a scalar collisional kernel

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Almaalol, Dekrayat; Strickland, Michael

2018-04-01

Prior studies of nonequilibrium dynamics using anisotropic hydrodynamics have used the relativistic Anderson-Witting scattering kernel or some variant thereof. In this paper, we make the first study of the impact of using a more realistic scattering kernel. For this purpose, we consider a conformal system undergoing transversally homogenous and boost-invariant Bjorken expansion and take the collisional kernel to be given by the leading order 2 ↔2 scattering kernel in scalar λ ϕ4 . We consider both classical and quantum statistics to assess the impact of Bose enhancement on the dynamics. We also determine the anisotropic nonequilibrium attractor of a system subject to this collisional kernel. We find that, when the near-equilibrium relaxation-times in the Anderson-Witting and scalar collisional kernels are matched, the scalar kernel results in a higher degree of momentum-space anisotropy during the system's evolution, given the same initial conditions. Additionally, we find that taking into account Bose enhancement further increases the dynamically generated momentum-space anisotropy.

Experimental evaluation of a GPU-based Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithm in the Monaco treatment planning system.

PubMed

Paudel, Moti R; Kim, Anthony; Sarfehnia, Arman; Ahmad, Sayed B; Beachey, David J; Sahgal, Arjun; Keller, Brian M

2016-11-08

A new GPU-based Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithm (GPUMCD), devel-oped by the vendor Elekta for the Monaco treatment planning system (TPS), is capable of modeling dose for both a standard linear accelerator and an Elekta MRI linear accelerator. We have experimentally evaluated this algorithm for a standard Elekta Agility linear accelerator. A beam model was developed in the Monaco TPS (research version 5.09.06) using the commissioned beam data for a 6 MV Agility linac. A heterogeneous phantom representing several scenarios - tumor-in-lung, lung, and bone-in-tissue - was designed and built. Dose calculations in Monaco were done using both the current clinical Monte Carlo algorithm, XVMC, and the new GPUMCD algorithm. Dose calculations in a Pinnacle TPS were also produced using the collapsed cone convolution (CCC) algorithm with heterogeneity correc-tion. Calculations were compared with the measured doses using an ionization chamber (A1SL) and Gafchromic EBT3 films for 2 × 2 cm2, 5 × 5 cm2, and 10 × 10 cm2 field sizes. The percentage depth doses (PDDs) calculated by XVMC and GPUMCD in a homogeneous solid water phantom were within 2%/2 mm of film measurements and within 1% of ion chamber measurements. For the tumor-in-lung phantom, the calculated doses were within 2.5%/2.5 mm of film measurements for GPUMCD. For the lung phantom, doses calculated by all of the algorithms were within 3%/3 mm of film measurements, except for the 2 × 2 cm2 field size where the CCC algorithm underestimated the depth dose by ~ 5% in a larger extent of the lung region. For the bone phantom, all of the algorithms were equivalent and calculated dose to within 2%/2 mm of film measurements, except at the interfaces. Both GPUMCD and XVMC showed interface effects, which were more pronounced for GPUMCD and were comparable to film measurements, whereas the CCC algorithm showed these effects poorly. © 2016 The Authors.

A computer program for calculation of approximate embryo/fetus radiation dose in nuclear medicine applications.

PubMed

Bayram, Tuncay; Sönmez, Bircan

2012-04-01

In this study, we aimed to make a computer program that calculates approximate radiation dose received by embryo/fetus in nuclear medicine applications. Radiation dose values per MBq-1 received by embryo/fetus in nuclear medicine applications were gathered from literature for various stages of pregnancy. These values were embedded in the computer code, which was written in Fortran 90 program language. The computer program called nmfdose covers almost all radiopharmaceuticals used in nuclear medicine applications. Approximate radiation dose received by embryo/fetus can be calculated easily at a few steps using this computer program. Although there are some constraints on using the program for some special cases, nmfdose is useful and it provides practical solution for calculation of approximate dose to embryo/fetus in nuclear medicine applications. None declared.

The accuracy of the out-of-field dose calculations using a model based algorithm in a commercial treatment planning system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Lilie; Ding, George X.

2014-07-01

The out-of-field dose can be clinically important as it relates to the dose of the organ-at-risk, although the accuracy of its calculation in commercial radiotherapy treatment planning systems (TPSs) receives less attention. This study evaluates the uncertainties of out-of-field dose calculated with a model based dose calculation algorithm, anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA), implemented in a commercial radiotherapy TPS, Varian Eclipse V10, by using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, in which the entire accelerator head is modeled including the multi-leaf collimators. The MC calculated out-of-field doses were validated by experimental measurements. The dose calculations were performed in a water phantom as well as CT based patient geometries and both static and highly modulated intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) fields were evaluated. We compared the calculated out-of-field doses, defined as lower than 5% of the prescription dose, in four H&N cancer patients and two lung cancer patients treated with volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) and IMRT techniques. The results show that the discrepancy of calculated out-of-field dose profiles between AAA and the MC depends on the depth and is generally less than 1% for in water phantom comparisons and in CT based patient dose calculations for static field and IMRT. In cases of VMAT plans, the difference between AAA and MC is <0.5%. The clinical impact resulting from the error on the calculated organ doses were analyzed by using dose-volume histograms. Although the AAA algorithm significantly underestimated the out-of-field doses, the clinical impact on the calculated organ doses in out-of-field regions may not be significant in practice due to very low out-of-field doses relative to the target dose.

Rare variant testing across methods and thresholds using the multi-kernel sequence kernel association test (MK-SKAT).

PubMed

Urrutia, Eugene; Lee, Seunggeun; Maity, Arnab; Zhao, Ni; Shen, Judong; Li, Yun; Wu, Michael C

Analysis of rare genetic variants has focused on region-based analysis wherein a subset of the variants within a genomic region is tested for association with a complex trait. Two important practical challenges have emerged. First, it is difficult to choose which test to use. Second, it is unclear which group of variants within a region should be tested. Both depend on the unknown true state of nature. Therefore, we develop the Multi-Kernel SKAT (MK-SKAT) which tests across a range of rare variant tests and groupings. Specifically, we demonstrate that several popular rare variant tests are special cases of the sequence kernel association test which compares pair-wise similarity in trait value to similarity in the rare variant genotypes between subjects as measured through a kernel function. Choosing a particular test is equivalent to choosing a kernel. Similarly, choosing which group of variants to test also reduces to choosing a kernel. Thus, MK-SKAT uses perturbation to test across a range of kernels. Simulations and real data analyses show that our framework controls type I error while maintaining high power across settings: MK-SKAT loses power when compared to the kernel for a particular scenario but has much greater power than poor choices.

Effectiveness of the training material in drug-dose calculation skills.

PubMed

Basak, Tulay; Aslan, Ozlem; Unver, Vesile; Yildiz, Dilek

2016-07-01

The aim of study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the training material based on low-level environmental fidelity simulation in drug-dose calculation skills in senior nursing students. A quasi-experimental design with one group. The sample included senior nursing students attending a nursing school in Turkey in the period December 2012-January 2013. Eighty-two senior nursing students were included in the sample. Data were obtained using a data collection form which was developed by the researchers. A paired-sample t-test was used to compare the pretest and post-test scores. The difference between the mean pretest score and the mean post-test score was statistically significant (P < 0.05). This study revealed that the training material based on low-level environmental fidelity simulation positively impacted accurate drug-dose calculation skills in senior nursing students. © 2016 Japan Academy of Nursing Science.

Wigner functions defined with Laplace transform kernels.

PubMed

Oh, Se Baek; Petruccelli, Jonathan C; Tian, Lei; Barbastathis, George

2011-10-24

We propose a new Wigner-type phase-space function using Laplace transform kernels--Laplace kernel Wigner function. Whereas momentum variables are real in the traditional Wigner function, the Laplace kernel Wigner function may have complex momentum variables. Due to the property of the Laplace transform, a broader range of signals can be represented in complex phase-space. We show that the Laplace kernel Wigner function exhibits similar properties in the marginals as the traditional Wigner function. As an example, we use the Laplace kernel Wigner function to analyze evanescent waves supported by surface plasmon polariton. © 2011 Optical Society of America

Metabolic network prediction through pairwise rational kernels.

PubMed

Roche-Lima, Abiel; Domaratzki, Michael; Fristensky, Brian

2014-09-26

Metabolic networks are represented by the set of metabolic pathways. Metabolic pathways are a series of biochemical reactions, in which the product (output) from one reaction serves as the substrate (input) to another reaction. Many pathways remain incompletely characterized. One of the major challenges of computational biology is to obtain better models of metabolic pathways. Existing models are dependent on the annotation of the genes. This propagates error accumulation when the pathways are predicted by incorrectly annotated genes. Pairwise classification methods are supervised learning methods used to classify new pair of entities. Some of these classification methods, e.g., Pairwise Support Vector Machines (SVMs), use pairwise kernels. Pairwise kernels describe similarity measures between two pairs of entities. Using pairwise kernels to handle sequence data requires long processing times and large storage. Rational kernels are kernels based on weighted finite-state transducers that represent similarity measures between sequences or automata. They have been effectively used in problems that handle large amount of sequence information such as protein essentiality, natural language processing and machine translations. We create a new family of pairwise kernels using weighted finite-state transducers (called Pairwise Rational Kernel (PRK)) to predict metabolic pathways from a variety of biological data. PRKs take advantage of the simpler representations and faster algorithms of transducers. Because raw sequence data can be used, the predictor model avoids the errors introduced by incorrect gene annotations. We then developed several experiments with PRKs and Pairwise SVM to validate our methods using the metabolic network of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. As a result, when PRKs are used, our method executes faster in comparison with other pairwise kernels. Also, when we use PRKs combined with other simple kernels that include evolutionary information, the accuracy

Kernel machines for epilepsy diagnosis via EEG signal classification: a comparative study.

PubMed

Lima, Clodoaldo A M; Coelho, André L V

2011-10-01

prevailing more consistently. Moreover, the choice of the kernel function and parameter value as well as the choice of the feature extractor are critical decisions to be taken, albeit the choice of the wavelet family seems not to be so relevant. Also, the statistical values calculated over the Lyapunov exponents were good sources of signal representation, but not as informative as their wavelet counterparts. Finally, a typical sensitivity profile has emerged among all types of machines, involving some regions of stability separated by zones of sharp variation, with some kernel parameter values clearly associated with better accuracy rates (zones of optimality). Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

SU-F-J-109: Generate Synthetic CT From Cone Beam CT for CBCT-Based Dose Calculation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, H; Barbee, D; Wang, W

Purpose: The use of CBCT for dose calculation is limited by its HU inaccuracy from increased scatter. This study presents a method to generate synthetic CT images from CBCT data by a probabilistic classification that may be robust to CBCT noise. The feasibility of using the synthetic CT for dose calculation is evaluated in IMRT for unilateral H&N cancer. Methods: In the training phase, a fuzzy c-means classification was performed on HU vectors (CBCT, CT) of planning CT and registered day-1 CBCT image pair. Using the resulting centroid CBCT and CT values for five classified “tissue” types, a synthetic CTmore » for a daily CBCT was created by classifying each CBCT voxel to obtain its probability belonging to each tissue class, then assigning a CT HU with a probability-weighted summation of the classes’ CT centroids. Two synthetic CTs from a CBCT were generated: s-CT using the centroids from classification of individual patient CBCT/CT data; s2-CT using the same centroids for all patients to investigate the applicability of group-based centroids. IMRT dose calculations for five patients were performed on the synthetic CTs and compared with CT-planning doses by dose-volume statistics. Results: DVH curves of PTVs and critical organs calculated on s-CT and s2-CT agree with those from planning-CT within 3%, while doses calculated with heterogeneity off or on raw CBCT show DVH differences up to 15%. The differences in PTV D95% and spinal cord max are 0.6±0.6% and 0.6±0.3% for s-CT, and 1.6±1.7% and 1.9±1.7% for s2-CT. Gamma analysis (2%/2mm) shows 97.5±1.6% and 97.6±1.6% pass rates for using s-CTs and s2-CTs compared with CT-based doses, respectively. Conclusion: CBCT-synthesized CTs using individual or group-based centroids resulted in dose calculations that are comparable to CT-planning dose for unilateral H&N cancer. The method may provide a tool for accurate dose calculation based on daily CBCT.« less

TU-AB-BRC-09: Fast Dose-Averaged LET and Biological Dose Calculations for Proton Therapy Using Graphics Cards

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wan, H; Tseung, Chan; Beltran, C

Purpose: To demonstrate fast and accurate Monte Carlo (MC) calculations of proton dose-averaged linear energy transfer (LETd) and biological dose (BD) on a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) card. Methods: A previously validated GPU-based MC simulation of proton transport was used to rapidly generate LETd distributions for proton treatment plans. Since this MC handles proton-nuclei interactions on an event-by-event using a Bertini intranuclear cascade-evaporation model, secondary protons were taken into account. The smaller contributions of secondary neutrons and recoil nuclei were ignored. Recent work has shown that LETd values are sensitive to the scoring method. The GPU-based LETd calculations were verifiedmore » by comparing with a TOPAS custom scorer that uses tabulated stopping powers, following recommendations by other authors. Comparisons were made for prostate and head-and-neck patients. A python script is used to convert the MC-generated LETd distributions to BD using a variety of published linear quadratic models, and to export the BD in DICOM format for subsequent evaluation. Results: Very good agreement is obtained between TOPAS and our GPU MC. Given a complex head-and-neck plan with 1 mm voxel spacing, the physical dose, LETd and BD calculations for 10{sup 8} proton histories can be completed in ∼5 minutes using a NVIDIA Titan X card. The rapid turnover means that MC feedback can be obtained on dosimetric plan accuracy as well as BD hotspot locations, particularly in regards to their proximity to critical structures. In our institution the GPU MC-generated dose, LETd and BD maps are used to assess plan quality for all patients undergoing treatment. Conclusion: Fast and accurate MC-based LETd calculations can be performed on the GPU. The resulting BD maps provide valuable feedback during treatment plan review. Partially funded by Varian Medical Systems.« less

Finite-frequency sensitivity kernels for global seismic wave propagation based upon adjoint methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Qinya; Tromp, Jeroen

2008-07-01

We determine adjoint equations and Fréchet kernels for global seismic wave propagation based upon a Lagrange multiplier method. We start from the equations of motion for a rotating, self-gravitating earth model initially in hydrostatic equilibrium, and derive the corresponding adjoint equations that involve motions on an earth model that rotates in the opposite direction. Variations in the misfit function χ then may be expressed as , where δlnm = δm/m denotes relative model perturbations in the volume V, δlnd denotes relative topographic variations on solid-solid or fluid-solid boundaries Σ, and ∇Σδlnd denotes surface gradients in relative topographic variations on fluid-solid boundaries ΣFS. The 3-D Fréchet kernel Km determines the sensitivity to model perturbations δlnm, and the 2-D kernels Kd and Kd determine the sensitivity to topographic variations δlnd. We demonstrate also how anelasticity may be incorporated within the framework of adjoint methods. Finite-frequency sensitivity kernels are calculated by simultaneously computing the adjoint wavefield forward in time and reconstructing the regular wavefield backward in time. Both the forward and adjoint simulations are based upon a spectral-element method. We apply the adjoint technique to generate finite-frequency traveltime kernels for global seismic phases (P, Pdiff, PKP, S, SKS, depth phases, surface-reflected phases, surface waves, etc.) in both 1-D and 3-D earth models. For 1-D models these adjoint-generated kernels generally agree well with results obtained from ray-based methods. However, adjoint methods do not have the same theoretical limitations as ray-based methods, and can produce sensitivity kernels for any given phase in any 3-D earth model. The Fréchet kernels presented in this paper illustrate the sensitivity of seismic observations to structural parameters and topography on internal discontinuities. These kernels form the basis of future 3-D tomographic inversions.

Characterization of a maximum-likelihood nonparametric density estimator of kernel type

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Geman, S.; Mcclure, D. E.

1982-01-01

Kernel type density estimators calculated by the method of sieves. Proofs are presented for the characterization theorem: Let x(1), x(2),...x(n) be a random sample from a population with density f(0). Let sigma 0 and consider estimators f of f(0) defined by (1).

Ideal regularization for learning kernels from labels.

PubMed

Pan, Binbin; Lai, Jianhuang; Shen, Lixin

2014-08-01

In this paper, we propose a new form of regularization that is able to utilize the label information of a data set for learning kernels. The proposed regularization, referred to as ideal regularization, is a linear function of the kernel matrix to be learned. The ideal regularization allows us to develop efficient algorithms to exploit labels. Three applications of the ideal regularization are considered. Firstly, we use the ideal regularization to incorporate the labels into a standard kernel, making the resulting kernel more appropriate for learning tasks. Next, we employ the ideal regularization to learn a data-dependent kernel matrix from an initial kernel matrix (which contains prior similarity information, geometric structures, and labels of the data). Finally, we incorporate the ideal regularization to some state-of-the-art kernel learning problems. With this regularization, these learning problems can be formulated as simpler ones which permit more efficient solvers. Empirical results show that the ideal regularization exploits the labels effectively and efficiently. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

SEMI-SUPERVISED OBJECT RECOGNITION USING STRUCTURE KERNEL

PubMed Central

Wang, Botao; Xiong, Hongkai; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Ling, Fan

2013-01-01

Object recognition is a fundamental problem in computer vision. Part-based models offer a sparse, flexible representation of objects, but suffer from difficulties in training and often use standard kernels. In this paper, we propose a positive definite kernel called “structure kernel”, which measures the similarity of two part-based represented objects. The structure kernel has three terms: 1) the global term that measures the global visual similarity of two objects; 2) the part term that measures the visual similarity of corresponding parts; 3) the spatial term that measures the spatial similarity of geometric configuration of parts. The contribution of this paper is to generalize the discriminant capability of local kernels to complex part-based object models. Experimental results show that the proposed kernel exhibit higher accuracy than state-of-art approaches using standard kernels. PMID:23666108

The pre-image problem in kernel methods.

PubMed

Kwok, James Tin-yau; Tsang, Ivor Wai-hung

2004-11-01

In this paper, we address the problem of finding the pre-image of a feature vector in the feature space induced by a kernel. This is of central importance in some kernel applications, such as on using kernel principal component analysis (PCA) for image denoising. Unlike the traditional method which relies on nonlinear optimization, our proposed method directly finds the location of the pre-image based on distance constraints in the feature space. It is noniterative, involves only linear algebra and does not suffer from numerical instability or local minimum problems. Evaluations on performing kernel PCA and kernel clustering on the USPS data set show much improved performance.

Dose Calculation Evolution for Internal Organ Irradiation in Humans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jimenez V., Reina A.

2007-10-01

The International Commission of Radiation Units (ICRU) has established through the years, a discrimination system regarding the security levels on the prescription and administration of doses in radiation treatments (Radiotherapy, Brach therapy, Nuclear Medicine). The first level is concerned with the prescription and posterior assurance of dose administration to a point of interest (POI), commonly located at the geometrical center of the region to be treated. In this, the effects of radiation around that POI, is not a priority. The second level refers to the dose specifications in a particular plane inside the patient, mostly the middle plane of the lesion. The dose is calculated to all the structures in that plane regardless if they are tumor or healthy tissue. In this case, the dose is not represented by a point value, but by level curves called "isodoses" as in a topographic map, so you can assure the level of doses to this particular plane, but it also leave with no information about how this values go thru adjacent planes. This is why the third level is referred to the volumetrical description of doses so these isodoses construct now a volume (named "cloud") that give us better assurance about tissue irradiation around the volume of the lesion and its margin (sub clinical spread or microscopic illness). This work shows how this evolution has resulted, not only in healthy tissue protection improvement but in a rise of tumor control, quality of life, better treatment tolerance and minimum permanent secuelae.

Exploiting graph kernels for high performance biomedical relation extraction.

PubMed

Panyam, Nagesh C; Verspoor, Karin; Cohn, Trevor; Ramamohanarao, Kotagiri

2018-01-30

Relation extraction from biomedical publications is an important task in the area of semantic mining of text. Kernel methods for supervised relation extraction are often preferred over manual feature engineering methods, when classifying highly ordered structures such as trees and graphs obtained from syntactic parsing of a sentence. Tree kernels such as the Subset Tree Kernel and Partial Tree Kernel have been shown to be effective for classifying constituency parse trees and basic dependency parse graphs of a sentence. Graph kernels such as the All Path Graph kernel (APG) and Approximate Subgraph Matching (ASM) kernel have been shown to be suitable for classifying general graphs with cycles, such as the enhanced dependency parse graph of a sentence. In this work, we present a high performance Chemical-Induced Disease (CID) relation extraction system. We present a comparative study of kernel methods for the CID task and also extend our study to the Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) extraction task, an important biomedical relation extraction task. We discuss novel modifications to the ASM kernel to boost its performance and a method to apply graph kernels for extracting relations expressed in multiple sentences. Our system for CID relation extraction attains an F-score of 60%, without using external knowledge sources or task specific heuristic or rules. In comparison, the state of the art Chemical-Disease Relation Extraction system achieves an F-score of 56% using an ensemble of multiple machine learning methods, which is then boosted to 61% with a rule based system employing task specific post processing rules. For the CID task, graph kernels outperform tree kernels substantially, and the best performance is obtained with APG kernel that attains an F-score of 60%, followed by the ASM kernel at 57%. The performance difference between the ASM and APG kernels for CID sentence level relation extraction is not significant. In our evaluation of ASM for the PPI task, ASM

Correlation and classification of single kernel fluorescence hyperspectral data with aflatoxin concentration in corn kernels inoculated with Aspergillus flavus spores.

PubMed

Yao, H; Hruska, Z; Kincaid, R; Brown, R; Cleveland, T; Bhatnagar, D

2010-05-01

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between fluorescence emissions of corn kernels inoculated with Aspergillus flavus and aflatoxin contamination levels within the kernels. Aflatoxin contamination in corn has been a long-standing problem plaguing the grain industry with potentially devastating consequences to corn growers. In this study, aflatoxin-contaminated corn kernels were produced through artificial inoculation of corn ears in the field with toxigenic A. flavus spores. The kernel fluorescence emission data were taken with a fluorescence hyperspectral imaging system when corn kernels were excited with ultraviolet light. Raw fluorescence image data were preprocessed and regions of interest in each image were created for all kernels. The regions of interest were used to extract spectral signatures and statistical information. The aflatoxin contamination level of single corn kernels was then chemically measured using affinity column chromatography. A fluorescence peak shift phenomenon was noted among different groups of kernels with different aflatoxin contamination levels. The fluorescence peak shift was found to move more toward the longer wavelength in the blue region for the highly contaminated kernels and toward the shorter wavelengths for the clean kernels. Highly contaminated kernels were also found to have a lower fluorescence peak magnitude compared with the less contaminated kernels. It was also noted that a general negative correlation exists between measured aflatoxin and the fluorescence image bands in the blue and green regions. The correlation coefficients of determination, r(2), was 0.72 for the multiple linear regression model. The multivariate analysis of variance found that the fluorescence means of four aflatoxin groups, <1, 1-20, 20-100, and >or=100 ng g(-1) (parts per billion), were significantly different from each other at the 0.01 level of alpha. Classification accuracy under a two-class schema ranged from 0.84 to

Adaptive kernel function using line transect sampling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Albadareen, Baker; Ismail, Noriszura

2018-04-01

The estimation of f(0) is crucial in the line transect method which is used for estimating population abundance in wildlife survey's. The classical kernel estimator of f(0) has a high negative bias. Our study proposes an adaptation in the kernel function which is shown to be more efficient than the usual kernel estimator. A simulation study is adopted to compare the performance of the proposed estimators with the classical kernel estimators.

Kernel K-Means Sampling for Nyström Approximation.

PubMed

He, Li; Zhang, Hong

2018-05-01

A fundamental problem in Nyström-based kernel matrix approximation is the sampling method by which training set is built. In this paper, we suggest to use kernel -means sampling, which is shown in our works to minimize the upper bound of a matrix approximation error. We first propose a unified kernel matrix approximation framework, which is able to describe most existing Nyström approximations under many popular kernels, including Gaussian kernel and polynomial kernel. We then show that, the matrix approximation error upper bound, in terms of the Frobenius norm, is equal to the -means error of data points in kernel space plus a constant. Thus, the -means centers of data in kernel space, or the kernel -means centers, are the optimal representative points with respect to the Frobenius norm error upper bound. Experimental results, with both Gaussian kernel and polynomial kernel, on real-world data sets and image segmentation tasks show the superiority of the proposed method over the state-of-the-art methods.

Real-time dose computation: GPU-accelerated source modeling and superposition/convolution

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jacques, Robert; Wong, John; Taylor, Russell

Purpose: To accelerate dose calculation to interactive rates using highly parallel graphics processing units (GPUs). Methods: The authors have extended their prior work in GPU-accelerated superposition/convolution with a modern dual-source model and have enhanced performance. The primary source algorithm supports both focused leaf ends and asymmetric rounded leaf ends. The extra-focal algorithm uses a discretized, isotropic area source and models multileaf collimator leaf height effects. The spectral and attenuation effects of static beam modifiers were integrated into each source's spectral function. The authors introduce the concepts of arc superposition and delta superposition. Arc superposition utilizes separate angular sampling for themore » total energy released per unit mass (TERMA) and superposition computations to increase accuracy and performance. Delta superposition allows single beamlet changes to be computed efficiently. The authors extended their concept of multi-resolution superposition to include kernel tilting. Multi-resolution superposition approximates solid angle ray-tracing, improving performance and scalability with a minor loss in accuracy. Superposition/convolution was implemented using the inverse cumulative-cumulative kernel and exact radiological path ray-tracing. The accuracy analyses were performed using multiple kernel ray samplings, both with and without kernel tilting and multi-resolution superposition. Results: Source model performance was <9 ms (data dependent) for a high resolution (400{sup 2}) field using an NVIDIA (Santa Clara, CA) GeForce GTX 280. Computation of the physically correct multispectral TERMA attenuation was improved by a material centric approach, which increased performance by over 80%. Superposition performance was improved by {approx}24% to 0.058 and 0.94 s for 64{sup 3} and 128{sup 3} water phantoms; a speed-up of 101-144x over the highly optimized Pinnacle{sup 3} (Philips, Madison, WI) implementation

Calculations of individual doses for Techa River Cohort members exposed to atmospheric radioiodine from Mayak releases.

PubMed

Napier, Bruce A; Eslinger, Paul W; Tolstykh, Evgenia I; Vorobiova, Marina I; Tokareva, Elena E; Akhramenko, Boris N; Krivoschapov, Victor A; Degteva, Marina O

2017-11-01

Time-dependent thyroid doses were reconstructed for over 29,000 Techa River Cohort members living near the Mayak production facilities from 131 I released to the atmosphere for all relevant exposure pathways. The calculational approach uses four general steps: 1) construct estimates of releases of 131 I to the air from production facilities; 2) model the transport of 131 I in the air and subsequent deposition on the ground and vegetation; 3) model the accumulation of 131 I in environmental media; and 4) calculate individualized doses. The dose calculations are implemented in a Monte Carlo framework that produces best estimates and confidence intervals of dose time-histories. Other radionuclide contributors to thyroid dose were evaluated. The 131 I contribution was 75-99% of the thyroid dose. The mean total thyroid dose for cohort members was 193 mGy and the median was 53 mGy. Thyroid doses for about 3% of cohort members were larger than 1 Gy. About 7% of children born in 1940-1950 had doses larger than 1 Gy. The uncertainty in the 131 I dose estimates is low enough for this approach to be used in regional epidemiological studies. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

A generic high-dose rate {sup 192}Ir brachytherapy source for evaluation of model-based dose calculations beyond the TG-43 formalism

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ballester, Facundo, E-mail: Facundo.Ballester@uv.es; Carlsson Tedgren, Åsa; Granero, Domingo

Purpose: In order to facilitate a smooth transition for brachytherapy dose calculations from the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Task Group No. 43 (TG-43) formalism to model-based dose calculation algorithms (MBDCAs), treatment planning systems (TPSs) using a MBDCA require a set of well-defined test case plans characterized by Monte Carlo (MC) methods. This also permits direct dose comparison to TG-43 reference data. Such test case plans should be made available for use in the software commissioning process performed by clinical end users. To this end, a hypothetical, generic high-dose rate (HDR) {sup 192}Ir source and a virtual watermore » phantom were designed, which can be imported into a TPS. Methods: A hypothetical, generic HDR {sup 192}Ir source was designed based on commercially available sources as well as a virtual, cubic water phantom that can be imported into any TPS in DICOM format. The dose distribution of the generic {sup 192}Ir source when placed at the center of the cubic phantom, and away from the center under altered scatter conditions, was evaluated using two commercial MBDCAs [Oncentra{sup ®} Brachy with advanced collapsed-cone engine (ACE) and BrachyVision ACUROS{sup TM}]. Dose comparisons were performed using state-of-the-art MC codes for radiation transport, including ALGEBRA, BrachyDose, GEANT4, MCNP5, MCNP6, and PENELOPE2008. The methodologies adhered to recommendations in the AAPM TG-229 report on high-energy brachytherapy source dosimetry. TG-43 dosimetry parameters, an along-away dose-rate table, and primary and scatter separated (PSS) data were obtained. The virtual water phantom of (201){sup 3} voxels (1 mm sides) was used to evaluate the calculated dose distributions. Two test case plans involving a single position of the generic HDR {sup 192}Ir source in this phantom were prepared: (i) source centered in the phantom and (ii) source displaced 7 cm laterally from the center. Datasets were independently produced

7 CFR 51.2125 - Split or broken kernels.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Split or broken kernels. 51.2125 Section 51.2125 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards... kernels. Split or broken kernels means seven-eighths or less of complete whole kernels but which will not...

Robotic Intelligence Kernel: Driver

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

The INL Robotic Intelligence Kernel-Driver is built on top of the RIK-A and implements a dynamic autonomy structure. The RIK-D is used to orchestrate hardware for sensing and action as well as software components for perception, communication, behavior and world modeling into a single cognitive behavior kernel that provides intrinsic intelligence for a wide variety of unmanned ground vehicle systems.

Bell nozzle kernel analysis program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Elliot, J. J.; Stromstra, R. R.

1969-01-01

Bell Nozzle Kernel Analysis Program computes and analyzes the supersonic flowfield in the kernel, or initial expansion region, of a bell or conical nozzle. It analyzes both plane and axisymmetric geometrices for specified gas properties, nozzle throat geometry and input line.

Heavy ion track-structure calculations for radial dose in arbitrary materials

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cucinotta, Francis A.; Katz, Robert; Wilson, John W.; Dubey, Rajendra R.

1995-01-01

The delta-ray theory of track structure is compared with experimental data for the radial dose from heavy ion irradiation. The effects of electron transmission and the angular dependence of secondary electron ejection are included in the calculations. Several empirical formulas for electron range and energy are compared in a wide variety of materials in order to extend the application of the track-structure theory. The model of Rudd for the secondary electron-spectrum in proton collisions, which is based on a modified classical kinematics binary encounter model at high energies and a molecular promotion model at low energies, is employed. For heavier projectiles, the secondary electron spectrum is found by scaling the effective charge. Radial dose calculations for carbon, water, silicon, and gold are discussed. The theoretical data agreed well with the experimental data.

7 CFR 51.2296 - Three-fourths half kernel.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Three-fourths half kernel. 51.2296 Section 51.2296 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards...-fourths half kernel. Three-fourths half kernel means a portion of a half of a kernel which has more than...

Carbothermic synthesis of 820 μm uranium nitride kernels: Literature review, thermodynamics, analysis, and related experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindemer, T. B.; Voit, S. L.; Silva, C. M.; Besmann, T. M.; Hunt, R. D.

2014-05-01

The US Department of Energy is developing a new nuclear fuel that would be less susceptible to ruptures during a loss-of-coolant accident. The fuel would consist of tristructural isotropic coated particles with uranium nitride (UN) kernels with diameters near 825 μm. This effort explores factors involved in the conversion of uranium oxide-carbon microspheres into UN kernels. An analysis of previous studies with sufficient experimental details is provided. Thermodynamic calculations were made to predict pressures of carbon monoxide and other relevant gases for several reactions that can be involved in the conversion of uranium oxides and carbides into UN. Uranium oxide-carbon microspheres were heated in a microbalance with an attached mass spectrometer to determine details of calcining and carbothermic conversion in argon, nitrogen, and vacuum. A model was derived from experiments on the vacuum conversion to uranium oxide-carbide kernels. UN-containing kernels were fabricated using this vacuum conversion as part of the overall process. Carbonitride kernels of ∼89% of theoretical density were produced along with several observations concerning the different stages of the process.

Three-dimensional waveform sensitivity kernels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marquering, Henk; Nolet, Guust; Dahlen, F. A.

1998-03-01

The sensitivity of intermediate-period (~10-100s) seismic waveforms to the lateral heterogeneity of the Earth is computed using an efficient technique based upon surface-wave mode coupling. This formulation yields a general, fully fledged 3-D relationship between data and model without imposing smoothness constraints on the lateral heterogeneity. The calculations are based upon the Born approximation, which yields a linear relation between data and model. The linear relation ensures fast forward calculations and makes the formulation suitable for inversion schemes; however, higher-order effects such as wave-front healing are neglected. By including up to 20 surface-wave modes, we obtain Fréchet, or sensitivity, kernels for waveforms in the time frame that starts at the S arrival and which includes direct and surface-reflected body waves. These 3-D sensitivity kernels provide new insights into seismic-wave propagation, and suggest that there may be stringent limitations on the validity of ray-theoretical interpretations. Even recently developed 2-D formulations, which ignore structure out of the source-receiver plane, differ substantially from our 3-D treatment. We infer that smoothness constraints on heterogeneity, required to justify the use of ray techniques, are unlikely to hold in realistic earth models. This puts the use of ray-theoretical techniques into question for the interpretation of intermediate-period seismic data. The computed 3-D sensitivity kernels display a number of phenomena that are counter-intuitive from a ray-geometrical point of view: (1) body waves exhibit significant sensitivity to structure up to 500km away from the source-receiver minor arc; (2) significant near-surface sensitivity above the two turning points of the SS wave is observed; (3) the later part of the SS wave packet is most sensitive to structure away from the source-receiver path; (4) the sensitivity of the higher-frequency part of the fundamental surface-wave mode is wider

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic analysis of rice kernels and flours: Measurement of surface chemical composition.

PubMed

Nawaz, Malik A; Gaiani, Claire; Fukai, Shu; Bhandari, Bhesh

2016-12-01

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the ability of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to differentiate rice macromolecules and to calculate the surface composition of rice kernels and flours. The uncooked kernels and flours surface composition of the two selected rice varieties, Thadokkham-11 (TDK11) and Doongara (DG) demonstrated an over-expression of lipids and proteins and an under-expression of starch compared to the bulk composition. The results of the study showed that XPS was able to differentiate rice polysaccharides (mainly starch), proteins and lipids in uncooked rice kernels and flours. Nevertheless, it was unable to distinguish components in cooked rice samples possibly due to complex interactions between gelatinized starch, denatured proteins and lipids. High resolution imaging methods (Scanning Electron Microscopy and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy) were employed to obtain complementary information about the properties and location of starch, proteins and lipids in rice kernels and flours. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Dose distribution verification for GYN brachytherapy using EBT Gafchromic film and TG-43 calculation.

PubMed