Thermal dosimetry for bladder hyperthermia treatment. An overview.

The urinary bladder is a fluid-filled organ. This makes, on the one hand, the internal surface of the bladder wall relatively easy to heat and ensures in most cases a relatively homogeneous temperature distribution; on the other hand the variable volume, organ motion, and moving fluid cause artefacts for most non-invasive thermometry methods, and require additional efforts in planning accurate thermal treatment of bladder cancer. We give an overview of the thermometry methods currently used and investigated for hyperthermia treatments of bladder cancer, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages within the context of the specific disease (muscle-invasive or non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer) and the heating technique used. The role of treatment simulation to determine the thermal dose delivered is also discussed. Generally speaking, invasive measurement methods are more accurate than non-invasive methods, but provide more limited spatial information; therefore, a combination of both is desirable, preferably supplemented by simulations. Current efforts at research and clinical centres continue to improve non-invasive thermometry methods and the reliability of treatment planning and control software. Due to the challenges in measuring temperature across the non-stationary bladder wall and surrounding tissues, more research is needed to increase our knowledge about the penetration depth and typical heating pattern of the various hyperthermia devices, in order to further improve treatments. The ability to better determine the delivered thermal dose will enable clinicians to investigate the optimal treatment parameters, and consequentially, to give better controlled, thus even more reliable and effective, thermal treatments

Active cooling control of the CLEO detector using a hydrocarbon coolant farm

We describe a novel approach to particle-detector cooling in which a modular farm of active coolant-control platforms provides independent and regulated heat removal from four recently upgraded subsystems of the CLEO detector: the ring-imaging Cherenkov detector, the drift chamber, the silicon vertex detector, and the beryllium beam pipe. We report on several aspects of the system: the suitability of using the aliphatic-hydrocarbon solvent PF(TM)-200IG as a heat-transfer fluid, the sensor elements and the mechanical design of the farm platforms, a control system that is founded upon a commercial programmable logic controller employed in industrial process-control applications, and a diagnostic system based on virtual instrumentation. We summarize the system's performance and point out the potential application of the design to future high-energy physics apparatus.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, 5 PostScript figures; version accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research

Split-screen single-camera stereoscopic PIV application to a turbulent confined swirling layer with free surface

An annular liquid wall jet, or vortex tube, generated by helical injection inside a tube is studied experimentally as a possible means of fusion reactor shielding. The hollow confined vortex/swirling layer exhibits simultaneously all the complexities of swirling turbulence, free surface, droplet formation, bubble entrapment; all posing challenging diagnostic issues. The construction of flow apparatus and the choice of working liquid and seeding particles facilitate unimpeded optical access to the flow field. A split-screen, single-camera stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) scheme is employed for flow field characterization. Image calibration and free surface identification issues are discussed. The interference in measurements of laser beam reflection at the interface are identified and discussed. Selected velocity measurements and turbulence statistics are presented at Re_λ = 70 (Re = 3500 based on mean layer thickness)

Agent based modeling of energy networks

Attempts to model any present or future power grid face a huge challenge because a power grid is a complex system, with feedback and multi-agent behaviors, integrated by generation, distribution, storage and consumption systems, using various control and automation computing systems to manage electricity flows. Our approach to modeling is to build upon an established model of the low voltage electricity network which is tested and proven, by extending it to a generalized energy model. But, in order to address the crucial issues of energy efficiency, additional processes like energy conversion and storage, and further energy carriers, such as gas, heat, etc., besides the traditional electrical one, must be considered. Therefore a more powerful model, provided with enhanced nodes or conversion points, able to deal with multidimensional flows, is being required. This article addresses the issue of modeling a local multi-carrier energy network. This problem can be considered as an extension of modeling a low voltage distribution network located at some urban or rural geographic area. But instead of using an external power flow analysis package to do the power flow calculations, as used in electric networks, in this work we integrate a multiagent algorithm to perform the task, in a concurrent way to the other simulation tasks, and not only for the electric fluid but also for a number of additional energy carriers. As the model is mainly focused in system operation, generation and load models are not developed

Random Matrix Models, Double-Time Painlev\'e Equations, and Wireless Relaying

This paper gives an in-depth study of a multiple-antenna wireless communication scenario in which a weak signal received at an intermediate relay station is amplified and then forwarded to the final destination. The key quantity determining system performance is the statistical properties of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) \gamma\ at the destination. Under certain assumptions on the encoding structure, recent work has characterized the SNR distribution through its moment generating function, in terms of a certain Hankel determinant generated via a deformed Laguerre weight. Here, we employ two different methods to describe the Hankel determinant. First, we make use of ladder operators satisfied by orthogonal polynomials to give an exact characterization in terms of a "double-time" Painlev\'e differential equation, which reduces to Painlev\'e V under certain limits. Second, we employ Dyson's Coulomb Fluid method to derive a closed form approximation for the Hankel determinant. The two characterizations are used to derive closed-form expressions for the cumulants of \gamma, and to compute performance quantities of engineering interest.Comment: 72 pages, 6 figures; Minor typos corrected; Two additional lemmas added in Appendix

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 2 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division 9 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 12 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 14 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 16 Advertisements IEEE

Microstructure devices for water evaporation

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.Evaporation of liquids is of major interest for many topics in process engineering. One of these is chemical process engineering, where evaporation of liquids and generation of superheated steam is mandatory for numerous processes. Generally, this is performed by use of classical pool boiling and evaporation process equipment, providing relatively limited performance, or by other systems like falling-film evaporators. Due to the advantages of microstructure devices especially in chemical process engineering the interest in microstructure evaporators and steam generators have been increased through the last decade. In this publication different microstructure devices used for evaporation and generation of steam will be described. Starting with simple liquid-heated devices, different types of electrically powered devices containing micro channels as well as non-channel microstructures will be shown. While evaporation of liquids in crossflow and counterflow or co-current flow micro channel devices is possible, it is, in many cases, not possible to obtain superheated steam due to certain boundary conditions. Thus, a new design was proposed to obtain complete evaporation and superheating of the generated steam