Aerospace Medicine and Biology. A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 244 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1981. Aerospace medicine and aerobiology topics are included. Listings for physiological factors, astronaut performance, control theory, artificial intelligence, and cybernetics are included

Treatment Planning System in Radiotherapy: A Short Review

Treatment planning is the core in radiotherapy. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between treatment planning system and radiotherapy. Some of the important steps in radiation treatment planning system have been discussed in this paper such as patient positioning, contouring, and simulation of pre-treatment. Detailed information has been acquired by the author about dose calculations in different conditions, techniques used in beam modification such as wedge filters, bolus or multileaf collimators. Since ionising radiation creates ions in the cells of the tissues it travels through, it is frequently utilised to treat cancer cells. By taking away electrons from atoms and molecules, ions are created. It can therefore either eliminate the genes or inhibit their growth. The molecular mechanisms causing tissue damage to demonstrate that ionising radiation also chemo-selectively changes a number of biomolecules in addition to its global impact. Linear accelerator is abbreviated as LINAC. It produces high energy electron or X-ray  beams using electricity. Although there are many applications for these beams, cancer treatment is one of them

Non-Conventional Radiotherapy for Total Body Irradiation: Antecedents, Current Research and Perspectives

In addition to the conventional techniques used in radiotherapy, certain procedures, special-called for the treatment of both some cancer diseases and clinical application are usually required. Such practices typically manifest a technical problem with respect to the equipment used, which requires important adjusts that diverge significantly from the standard implemented in the common treatments. Total body irradiation is one of those special techniques, in which the radiation target is the entire patient body. In a broad sense, the concept covers all radiation processes with photon beam fields more wide than standard field size. Treatment with total body irradiation is usually applied with purpose of providing immunosuppression to prevent rejection in bone marrow transplantation procedure. Diseases such as aplastic anemia and a varied number of leukemia and lymphomas respond favorably to this treatment scheme. Beams of megavoltage photons, such as Cobalt sources and linear accelerators, are used for such purposes. In this chapter, the technique will be studied analyzing its definition and first applications. The chapter includes a description of the main treatment schemes on which it is based, covering the calibration process, ergonomic criteria as well as the main contributions in the clinical research field, opportunity fields and novel research perspectives

Basic knowledge and new advances in panoramic radiography imaging techniques: A narrative review on what dentists and radiologists should know

Objectives: A panoramic radiograph (PAN) is the most frequently diagnostic imaging technique carried out in dentistry and oral surgery. The correct performance of image acquisition is crucial to obtain adequate image quality. The aim of the present study is to (i) review the principles of PAN image acquisition and (ii) describe positioning errors and artefacts that may affect PAN image quality. Methods: Articles regarding PAN acquisition principles, patient’s positioning errors, artefacts, and image quality were retrieved from the literature. Results: Head orientation is of the utmost importance in guaranteeing correct image acquisition. Symmetry, occlusal plane inclination, mandibular condyles localization, cervical spine position, aspect of upper teeth root apexes, exposure parameters, and metal and motion artefacts are factors that greatly affect the image quality of a successful PAN. Conclusions: Several factors are the basis for PAN performance; therefore, a systematic approach that takes into account correct patient positioning and preparation is strongly suggested to improve overall examination quality

Optimising image quality for medical imaging

OPTIMAX 2016 was held at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester. It is the fourth summer school of OPTIMAX with other renditions having been organized at the University of Salford (2013), ESTeSL, Lisbon (2014) and Hanze UAS, Groningen (2015). For OPTIMAX 2016, 72 people participated from eleven countries, comprising PhD, MSc and BSc students as well as tutors from the seven European partner universities. Professional mix was drawn from engineering, medical physics/ physics and radiography. OPTIMAX 2016 was partly funded by the partner universities and partly by the participants. Two students from South Africa and two from Brazil were invited by Hanze UAS (Groningen) and ESTeSL (Lisbon). One student from the United Kingdom was funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The summer school included lectures and group projects in which experimental research was conducted in five teams. Each team project focus varied and included: optimization of full spine curvature radiography in paediatrics; ultrasound assessment of muscle thickness and muscle cross-sectional area: a reliability study; the Influence of Source-to-Image Distance on Effective Dose and Image Quality for Mobile Chest X-rays; Impact of the anode heel effect on image quality and effective dose for AP Pelvis: A pilot study; and the impact of pitch values on Image Quality and radiation dose in an abdominal adult phantom using CT. OPTIMAX 2016 culminated in a poster session and a conference, in which the research teams presented their posters and oral presentations. This book comprises of two sections, the first four chapters concern generic background information which has value to summer school organization and also theory on which the research projects were built. The second section contains the research papers in written format. The research papers have been accepted for the ECR conference, Vienna, 2017 as either oral presentations or posters

Optimax 2016 : peer observation of facilitation

In August 2016, a 3-week research Summer School was delivered at University of Salford. The Summer School, known as ‘OPTIMAX’ was in its fourth year of delivery. Previous iterations were held in the Netherlands (2015), Portugal (2014) and Salford (2013). The purpose of OPTIMAX is to facilitate collaborative international and interdisciplinary research between university academics and students. This offers an exceptional opportunity not only for students, but also for tutors who want to develop their facilitation skills. The project reported here used tutor observers (i.e. tutors who attend the summer school, in an observational capacity only, to develop their own skills as teachers) to observe, identify and reflect on a range of facilitation practices for managing the diverse OPTIMAX research groups. The project presents a description of the peer-observation method we used and highlights a number of findings related to facilitator strategies that appeared to influence group dynamics and learning. These observations are then used to make recommendations about how OPTIMAX tutors can be prepared for their facilitation experience

Evaluation of the region-specific risks of accidental radioactive releases from the European Spallation Source

The European Spallation Source (ESS) is a neutron research facility under construction in southern Sweden. The facility will produce a wide range ofradionuclides that could be released into the environment. Some radionuclides are of particular concern such as the rare earth gadolinium-148. In this article, the local environment was investigated in terms of food production and rare earth element concentration in soil. The collected data will later be used to model thetransfer of radioactive contaminations from the ESS