Radiation dosimetry in lung equivalent regions by use of polymer gel foams and quantitative magnetization transfer imaging

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Lunar base mission technology issues and orbital demonstration requirements on space station

The International Space Station has been the object of considerable design, redesign, and alteration since it was originally proposed in early 1984. In the intervening years the station has slowly evolved to a specific design that was thoroughly reviewed by a large agency-wide Critical Evaluation Task Force (CETF). As space station designs continue to evolve, studies must be conducted to determine the suitability of the current design for some of the primary purposes for which the station will be used. This paper concentrates on the technology requirements and issues, the on-orbit demonstration and verification program, and the space station focused support required prior to the establishment of a permanently manned lunar base as identified in the National Commission on Space report. Technology issues associated with the on-orbit assembly and processing of the lunar vehicle flight elements are also discussed

Design of Anisotropic Diffusion Hardware Fiber Phantoms

A gold standard for the validation of diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) in brain white matter (WM) is essential for clinical purposes but still not available. Synthetic anisotropic fiber bundles are proposed as phantoms for the validation of DW-MRI because of their well-known structure, their long preservability and the possibility to create complex geometries such as curved and fiber crossings. A crucial question is how the different material properties and size of the fiber phantoms influence the outcome of the DW-MRI experiment. Several fiber materials are compared in this study. The effect of surface relaxation and internal gradients on the SNR is evaluated. In addition, the dependency of the fiber density and fiber radius on the diffusion properties is investigated

How to scan polymer gels with MRI?

The absorbed radiation dose fixated in a polymer gel dosimeter can be read out by several methods such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), optical CT, X-ray CT and ultrasound with MRI being the first method that was explored. Although MRI was considered as an elegant scanning technique, readily available in most hospitals, it was later found that using a non-optimized imaging protocol may result in unacceptable deviations in the obtained dose distribution. Although most medical physicists have an understanding of the basic principles of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the optimization of quantitative imaging sequences and protocols is often perceived as the work of MRI experts. In this paper, we aim at providing the reader with some easy guidelines in how to obtain reliable quantitative MRI maps