A randomised comparison of three different immobilisation devices for thoracic and abdominal cancers

Introduction: Patient immobilisation is critically important for both highly conformal conventionally fractionated radiotherapy and for stereotactic body radiotherapy. Different immobilisation devices are available to maintain patient position for radiotherapy but the most suitable one remains unknown. Methods: Forty-five patients were randomly allocated to one of three immobilisation devices; the Q fix arm shuttle, BodyFIX without wrap or BodyFIX with wrap. Patients were imaged before and after treatment to ascertain intra-fraction and inter-fraction motion. Bony anatomy was used for matching to determine the positional accuracy of each device. Treatments were timed using a standard method. Patient comfort and staff satisfaction questionnaires were also issued to determine comfort, ease of use and preferences for each device. Results: The BodyFIX without wrap was the more accurate device; however, the differences between the devices were not statistically significant. The BodyFIX with wrap was found to take significantly longer to set up and set down compared to the arm shuttle and the BodyFIX without wrap (all P < 0.001). Patients (37%) marginally preferred the BodyFIX with wrap. Most (81%) staff preferred the BodyFIX without wrap. Conclusion: Immobilisation using the BodyFIX without wrap was deemed to be suitable for clinical use. It was a clinically accurate device, the more efficient in terms of set up and set down time, the most preferred by staff and was accepted by patients

Otter Realm, November 20, 2003, Vol. 9 No. 5

Measure Q, Special election to determine fate of Nativdad -- Taking back the campus -- Rowdy partie plague campus aprtments -- News: Community trots out life\u27s stresses -- Ballots have been mailed out -- Sports: Into the net: Otters suit up for new season -- Wounded Otter hopes for a speedy recovery -- Women\u27s volleyball has best season yet, Otters head to playoffs but are knocked out in round two -- Game wrap -- Under the surface: Divers explore underwater world -- Colin\u27s Column -- Outstanding Otters, Honors awarded for exceptional performance -- STREETLIFE SNAPSHOTS -- in the Mountains -- Cinema Thursday, Free flicks on campus draw crowd -- Arts & Entertainment:Ships ahoy! Study at Sea with Cal Maritime Academy -- Rule Breakers, Online dater does dinner and a movie -- Film festival spotlights Latin culture, talent -- Letters -- Editorial: HCOM administration shows lack of consideration for students -- Person on campus: Are parties a problem here on campus? -- Artist Spotlight: From Italy to CSUMB: Graphic artist combines nature, technologyhttps://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/otterrealm/1109/thumbnail.jp

A conceptual and empirical framework to analyze the economics of consumer food waste

We develop a microeconomic model to understand food waste of consumers. We capture at-home and away-from home food consumption and distinguish between food purchases and food consumption. We allow the consumer to choose the rate of food waste at home optimally to maximize her utility. We show that consumer purchases can decline or increase with a cut in the rate of consumer waste, depending on the elasticity of food demand. Using the UK data for poultry in 2012, we also show a case where for a price elastic demand food consumption increases with a reduction in the food waste rate, but food purchases (retail sales) increase

Carrier Transport in High Mobility InAs Nanowire Junctionless Transistors

Ability to understand and model the performance limits of nanowire transistors is the key to design of next generation devices. Here, we report studies on high-mobility junction-less gate-all-around nanowire field effect transistor with carrier mobility reaching 2000 cm2/V.s at room temperature. Temperature-dependent transport measurements reveal activated transport at low temperatures due to surface donors, while at room temperature the transport shows a diffusive behavior. From the conductivity data, the extracted value of sound velocity in InAs nanowires is found to be an order less than the bulk. This low sound velocity is attributed to the extended crystal defects that ubiquitously appear in these nanowires. Analyzing the temperature-dependent mobility data, we identify the key scattering mechanisms limiting the carrier transport in these nanowires. Finally, using these scattering models, we perform drift-diffusion based transport simulations of a nanowire field-effect transistor and compare the device performances with experimental measurements. Our device modeling provides insight into performance limits of InAs nanowire transistors and can be used as a predictive methodology for nanowire-based integrated circuits.Comment: 22 pages, 5 Figures, Nano Letter

InAs nanowire transistors with multiple, independent wrap-gate segments

We report a method for making horizontal wrap-gate nanowire transistors with up to four independently controllable wrap-gated segments. While the step up to two independent wrap-gates requires a major change in fabrication methodology, a key advantage to this new approach, and the horizontal orientation more generally, is that achieving more than two wrap-gate segments then requires no extra fabrication steps. This is in contrast to the vertical orientation, where a significant subset of the fabrication steps needs to be repeated for each additional gate. We show that cross-talk between adjacent wrap-gate segments is negligible despite separations less than 200 nm. We also demonstrate the ability to make multiple wrap-gate transistors on a single nanowire using the exact same process. The excellent scalability potential of horizontal wrap-gate nanowire transistors makes them highly favourable for the development of advanced nanowire devices and possible integration with vertical wrap-gate nanowire transistors in 3D nanowire network architectures.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, In press for Nano Letters (DOI below