CRESST Dark Matter Search with Cryogenic Calorimeters

Das CRESST Experiment im Gran Sasso Untergrundlabor sucht nach Dunkler Materie in Form von schwach wechselwirkenden massiven Teilchen (WIMPs) ueber elastische Streuung an Kernen. Die erste Phase von CRESST benutzte 262 g Saphir Kristalle als Absorber. Ein niedriger Untergrund, eine Langzeitstabilitaet des kryogenen Aufbaus, sowie eine niedrige Schwelle und eine hohe Sensitivitaet fuer leichte WIMPs wurden damit erreicht. In einer sehr stabilen Messung von 1.5 kg Tagen wurden ein Untergrund besser als 1 Ereignis/kg/Tag/keV ueber 20 keV und eine Schwelle von 580 eV erreicht. Saphir Detektoren sind besonders geeignet, um leichte WIMPs mit spin-abhaengiger Wechselwirkung zu messen. Die Ergebnisse verbessern existierende Limits in diesem Bereich. Die zweite Phase von CRESST benutzt szintillierende Kristalle als Absorber. In einem Szintillator wird nach einer Energiedeposition neben Phononen auch Licht erzeugt. Kernrueckstoesse erzeugen weniger Licht als voll ionisierende Wechselwirkungen. Die gleichzeitige Messung des Phononen- und Lichtsignals ermoeglicht eine Identifizierung der Wechselwirkung. Erste Messungen mit 300 g CaWO4 Detektoren wurden im Aufbau am Gran Sasso durchgefuehrt. Trotz einiger technischer Probleme war eine Charakterisierung der Detektoren moeglich, die das grosse Potential der Ereignisdiskriminierung aufzeigt

Towards the FAIRification of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Images

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we describe the data management practices and services developed for making FAIR compliant a scientific archive of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) images. As a first step, we extracted the instrument metadata of each image of the dataset to create a structured database. We then enriched these metadata with information on the structure and composition of the surface by means of a pipeline that leverages human annotation, machine learning techniques, and instrument metadata filtering. To visually explore both images and metadata, as well as to improve the accessibility and usability of the dataset, we developed “STM explorer” as a web service integrated within the Trieste Advanced Data services (TriDAS) website. On top of these data services and tools, we propose an implementation of the W3C PROV standard to describe provenance metadata of STM images

Rational design of a user-friendly aptamer/peptide-based device for the detection of staphylococcus aureus

The urgent need to develop a detection system for Staphylococcus aureus, one of the most common causes of infection, is prompting research towards novel approaches and devices, with a particular focus on point-of-care analysis. Biosensors are promising systems to achieve this aim. We coupled the selectivity and affinity of aptamers, short nucleic acids sequences able to recognize specific epitopes on bacterial surface, immobilized at high density on a nanostructured zirconium dioxide surface, with the rational design of specifically interacting fluorescent peptides to assemble an easy-to-use detection device. We show that the displacement of fluorescent peptides upon the competitive binding of S. aureus to immobilized aptamers can be detected and quantified through fluorescence loss. This approach could be also applied to the detection of other bacterial species once aptamers interacting with specific antigens will be identified, allowing the development of a platform for easy detection of a pathogen without requiring access to a healthcare environment

Comprehensive deep learning-based framework for automatic organs-at-risk segmentation in head-and-neck and pelvis for MR-guided radiation therapy planning

Introduction: The excellent soft-tissue contrast of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is appealing for delineation of organs-at-risk (OARs) as it is required for radiation therapy planning (RTP). In the last decade there has been an increasing interest in using deep-learning (DL) techniques to shorten the labor-intensive manual work and increase reproducibility. This paper focuses on the automatic segmentation of 27 head-and-neck and 10 male pelvis OARs with deep-learning methods based on T2-weighted MR images.Method: The proposed method uses 2D U-Nets for localization and 3D U-Net for segmentation of the various structures. The models were trained using public and private datasets and evaluated on private datasets only.Results and discussion: Evaluation with ground-truth contours demonstrated that the proposed method can accurately segment the majority of OARs and indicated similar or superior performance to state-of-the-art models. Furthermore, the auto-contours were visually rated by clinicians using Likert score and on average, 81% of them was found clinically acceptable

Competence Centre ICDI per Open Science, FAIR, ed EOSC - Mission, Strategia e piano d'azione

This document presents the mission and strategy of the Italian Competence Centre on Open Science, FAIR, and EOSC. The Competence Centre is an initiative born within the Italian Computing and Data Infrastructure (ICDI), a forum created by representatives of major Italian Research Infrastructures and e-Infrastructures, with the aim of promoting sinergies at the national level, and optimising the Italian participation to European and global challenges in this field, including the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), the European Data Infrastructure (EDI) and HPC. This working paper depicts the mission and objectives of the ICDI Competence Centre, a network of experts with various skills and competences that are supporting the national stakeholders on topics related to Open Science, FAIR principles application and participation to the EOSC. The different actors and roles are described in the document as well as the activities and services offered, and the added value each stakeholder can find the in Competence Centre. The tools and services provided, in particular the concept for the portal, though which the Centre will connect to the national landscape and users, are also presented

Seismic Hazard Assesment: Parametric Studies On Grid Infrastructures.

Seismic hazard assessment can be performed following a neo-deterministic approach (NDSHA), which allows to give a realistic description of the seismic ground motion due to an earthquake of given distance and magnitude. The approach is based on modelling techniques that have been developed from a detailed knowledge of both the seismic source process and the propagation of seismic waves. This permits us to define a set of earthquake scenarios and to simulate the associated synthetic signals without having to wait for a strong event to occur. NDSHA can be applied at the regional scale, computing seismograms at the nodes of a grid with the desired spacing, or at the local scale, taking into account the source characteristics, the path and local geological and geotechnical conditions. Synthetic signals can be produced in a short time and at a very low cost/benefit ratio. They can be used as seismic input in subsequent engineering analyses aimed at the computation of the full non-linear seismic response of the structure or simply the earthquake damaging potential. Massive parametric tests, to explore the influence not only of deterministic source parameters and structural models but also of random properties of the same source model, enable realistic estimate of seismic hazard and their uncertainty. This is particular true in those areas for which scarce (or no) historical or instrumental information is available. Here we describe the implementation of the seismological codes and the results of some parametric tests performed using the EU-India Grid infrastructure

Evaluating a radiotherapy deep learning synthetic CT algorithm for PET-MR attenuation correction in the pelvis

Abstract Background Positron emission tomography–magnetic resonance (PET-MR) attenuation correction is challenging because the MR signal does not represent tissue density and conventional MR sequences cannot image bone. A novel zero echo time (ZTE) MR sequence has been previously developed which generates signal from cortical bone with images acquired in 65 s. This has been combined with a deep learning model to generate a synthetic computed tomography (sCT) for MR-only radiotherapy. This study aimed to evaluate this algorithm for PET-MR attenuation correction in the pelvis. Methods Ten patients being treated with ano-rectal radiotherapy received a $$^{18}$$ 18 F-FDG-PET-MR in the radiotherapy position. Attenuation maps were generated from ZTE-based sCT (sCTAC) and the standard vendor-supplied MRAC. The radiotherapy planning CT scan was rigidly registered and cropped to generate a gold standard attenuation map (CTAC). PET images were reconstructed using each attenuation map and compared for standard uptake value (SUV) measurement, automatic thresholded gross tumour volume (GTV) delineation and GTV metabolic parameter measurement. The last was assessed for clinical equivalence to CTAC using two one-sided paired t tests with a significance level corrected for multiple testing of $$p \le 0.05/7 = 0.007$$ p ≤ 0.05 / 7 = 0.007 . Equivalence margins of $$\pm 3.5\%$$ ± 3.5 % were used. Results Mean whole-image SUV differences were −0.02% (sCTAC) compared to −3.0% (MRAC), with larger differences in the bone regions (−0.5% to −16.3%). There was no difference in thresholded GTVs, with Dice similarity coefficients $$\ge 0.987$$ ≥ 0.987 . However, there were larger differences in GTV metabolic parameters. Mean differences to CTAC in $${\mathrm {SUV}}_{\max}$$ SUV max were $$1.0 \pm 0.8\%$$ 1.0 ± 0.8 % (± standard error, sCTAC) and $$-4.6 \pm 0.9\%$$ - 4.6 ± 0.9 % (MRAC), and $$1.0 \pm 0.7\%$$ 1.0 ± 0.7 % (sCTAC) and $$-4.3 \pm 0.8\%$$ - 4.3 ± 0.8 % (MRAC) in $${\mathrm {SUV}}_{\rm mean}$$ SUV mean . The sCTAC was statistically equivalent to CTAC within a $$\pm 3.5\%$$ ± 3.5 % equivalence margin for $${\mathrm {SUV}}_{\max}$$ SUV max and $${\mathrm {SUV}}_{\rm mean}$$ SUV mean ( $$p = 0.007$$ p = 0.007 and $$p = 0.002$$ p = 0.002 ), whereas the MRAC was not ( $$p = 0.88$$ p = 0.88 and $$p = 0.83$$ p = 0.83 ). Conclusion Attenuation correction using this radiotherapy ZTE-based sCT algorithm was substantially more accurate than current MRAC methods with only a 40 s increase in MR acquisition time. This did not impact tumour delineation but did significantly improve the accuracy of whole-image and tumour SUV measurements, which were clinically equivalent to CTAC. This suggests PET images reconstructed with sCTAC would enable accurate quantitative PET images to be acquired on a PET-MR scanner

Comprehensive dose evaluation of a Deep Learning based synthetic Computed Tomography algorithm for pelvic Magnetic Resonance-only radiotherapy

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Magnetic Resonance (MR)-only radiotherapy enables the use of MR without the uncertainty of MR-Computed Tomography (CT) registration. This requires a synthetic CT (sCT) for dose calculations, which can be facilitated by a novel Zero Echo Time (ZTE) sequence where bones are visible and images are acquired in 65 seconds. This study evaluated the dose calculation accuracy for pelvic sites of a ZTE-based Deep Learning sCT algorithm developed by GE Healthcare. MATERIALS AND METHODS: ZTE and CT images were acquired in 56 pelvic radiotherapy patients in the radiotherapy position. A 2D U-net convolutional neural network was trained using pairs of deformably registered CT and ZTE images from 36 patients. In the remaining 20 patients the dosimetric accuracy of the sCT was assessed using cylindrical dummy Planning Target Volumes (PTVs) positioned at four different central axial locations, as well as the clinical treatment plans (for prostate (n=10), rectum (n=4) and anus (n=6) cancers). The sCT was rigidly and deformably registered, the plan recalculated and the doses compared using mean differences and gamma analysis. RESULTS: Mean dose differences to the PTV D98% were ≤ 0.5% for all dummy PTVs and clinical plans (rigid registration). Mean gamma pass rates at 1%/1 mm were 98.0 ± 0.4% (rigid) and 100.0 ± 0.0% (deformable), 96.5 ± 0.8% and 99.8 ± 0.1%, and 95.4 ± 0.6% and 99.4 ± 0.4% for the clinical prostate, rectum and anus plans respectively. CONCLUSIONS: A ZTE-based sCT algorithm with high dose accuracy throughout the pelvis has been developed. This suggests the algorithm is sufficiently accurate for MR-only radiotherapy for all pelvic sites