109 research outputs found
Assessing housing quality and its impact on health, safety and sustainability
Background The adverse health and environmental
effects of poor housing quality are well established. A
central requirement for evidence-based policies and
programmes to improve housing standards is a valid,
reliable and practical way of measuring housing quality
that is supported by policy agencies, the housing sector,
researchers and the public.
Methods This paper provides guidance on the
development of housing quality-assessment tools that
link practical measures of housing conditions to their
effects on health, safety and sustainability, with
particular reference to tools developed in New Zealand
and England.
Results The authors describe how information on
housing quality can support individuals, agencies and the
private sector to make worthwhile improvements to the
health, safety and sustainability of housing. The
information gathered and the resultant tools developed
should be guided by the multiple purposes and end users
of this information. Other important issues outlined
include deciding on the scope, detailed content, practical
administration issues and how the information will be
analysed and summarised for its intended end users.
There are likely to be considerable benefits from
increased international collaboration and standardisation
of approaches to measuring housing hazards. At the
same time, these assessment approaches need to
consider local factors such as climate, geography,
culture, predominating building practices, important
housing-related health issues and existing building
codes.
Conclusions An effective housing quality-assessment
tool has a central role in supporting improvements to
housing. The issues discussed in this paper are designed
to motivate and assist the development of such tools
Real-time volumetric image reconstruction and 3D tumor localization based on a single x-ray projection image for lung cancer radiotherapy
Purpose: To develop an algorithm for real-time volumetric image
reconstruction and 3D tumor localization based on a single x-ray projection
image for lung cancer radiotherapy. Methods: Given a set of volumetric images
of a patient at N breathing phases as the training data, we perform deformable
image registration between a reference phase and the other N-1 phases,
resulting in N-1 deformation vector fields (DVFs). These DVFs can be
represented efficiently by a few eigenvectors and coefficients obtained from
principal component analysis (PCA). By varying the PCA coefficients, we can
generate new DVFs, which, when applied on the reference image, lead to new
volumetric images. We then can reconstruct a volumetric image from a single
projection image by optimizing the PCA coefficients such that its computed
projection matches the measured one. The 3D location of the tumor can be
derived by applying the inverted DVF on its position in the reference image.
Our algorithm was implemented on graphics processing units (GPUs) to achieve
real-time efficiency. We generated the training data using a realistic and
dynamic mathematical phantom with 10 breathing phases. The testing data were
360 cone beam projections corresponding to one gantry rotation, simulated using
the same phantom with a 50% increase in breathing amplitude. Results: The
average relative image intensity error of the reconstructed volumetric images
is 6.9% +/- 2.4%. The average 3D tumor localization error is 0.8 mm +/- 0.5 mm.
On an NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU card, the average computation time for
reconstructing a volumetric image from each projection is 0.24 seconds (range:
0.17 and 0.35 seconds). Conclusions: We have shown the feasibility of
reconstructing volumetric images and localizing tumor positions in 3D in near
real-time from a single x-ray image.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Medical Physics Lette
Evaluation of the benefits of vehicle safety technology: the MUNDS study
Real-world retrospective evaluation of the safety benefits of new integrated safety technologies is hampered by the lack of sufficient data to assess early reliable benefits. This MUNDS study set out to examine if a “prospective” case-control meta-analysis had the potential to provide more rapid and rigorous analyses of vehicle and infrastructure safety improvements. To examine the validity of the approach, an analysis of the effectiveness of ESC using a consistent analytic strategy across 6 European and Australasian databases was undertaken. It was hypothesised that the approach would be valid if the results of the MUNDS analysis were consistent with those published earlier (this would confirm the suitability of the MUNDS approach). The findings confirm the hypothesis and also found stronger and more robust findings across the range of crash-types, road conditions, vehicle sizes and speed zones than previous. The study recommends that while a number of limitations were identified with the findings that need be addressed in future research, the MUNDS approach nevertheless should be adopted widely for the benefit of all vehicle occupants
MUNDS: a new approach to evaluating safety technologies
Real-world evaluations of the safety benefits of
new integrated safety technologies are hampered by
the lack of sufficient data to assess early reliable
benefits. To address this, a new approach was
developed using a case-control, meta-analysis of
coordinated national police data from Australia,
Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK,
in assessing the benefits of Electronic Stability
Control (ESC). The results showed that singlevehicle
injury crash reductions varied between 21%
and 54%, dependent on the speed zone of the crash
and the road condition (significantly more effective
in wet/icy road conditions than dry roads). For
injury crashes involving more than one vehicle,
ESC was twice as effective preventing crashes in
high speed than lower speed zones. The findings
using this new approach were consistent with those
published by various equivalent individual studies,
bearing in mind their wider international scope in
terms of driving conditions and vehicle fleets
studied. It was concluded that this new approach
using a “prospective” meta-analysis method has the
potential to expedite the process of evaluating
emerging vehicle safety technologies that would
otherwise be subject to much greater delays before
sufficient evidence could be collected
Vehicle emissions and consumer information in car advertisements
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens
3D tumor localization through real-time volumetric x-ray imaging for lung cancer radiotherapy
Recently we have developed an algorithm for reconstructing volumetric images
and extracting 3D tumor motion information from a single x-ray projection. We
have demonstrated its feasibility using a digital respiratory phantom with
regular breathing patterns. In this work, we present a detailed description and
a comprehensive evaluation of the improved algorithm. The algorithm was
improved by incorporating respiratory motion prediction. The accuracy and
efficiency were then evaluated on 1) a digital respiratory phantom, 2) a
physical respiratory phantom, and 3) five lung cancer patients. These
evaluation cases include both regular and irregular breathing patterns that are
different from the training dataset. For the digital respiratory phantom with
regular and irregular breathing, the average 3D tumor localization error is
less than 1 mm. On an NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU card, the average computation time
for 3D tumor localization from each projection ranges between 0.19 and 0.26
seconds, for both regular and irregular breathing, which is about a 10%
improvement over previously reported results. For the physical respiratory
phantom, an average tumor localization error below 1 mm was achieved with an
average computation time of 0.13 and 0.16 seconds on the same GPU card, for
regular and irregular breathing, respectively. For the five lung cancer
patients, the average tumor localization error is below 2 mm in both the axial
and tangential directions. The average computation time on the same GPU card
ranges between 0.26 and 0.34 seconds
Evaluation of the benefits of vehicle safety technology: The MUNDS study
This paper was published in the journal, Accident Analysis and Prevention [© Elsevier Ltd.] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2013.02.027Real-world retrospective evaluation of the safety benefits of new integrated safety technologies is hampered by the lack of sufficient data to assess early reliable benefits. This MUNDS study set out to examine if a “prospective” case-control meta-analysis had the potential to provide more rapid and rigorous analyses of vehicle and infrastructure safety improvements. To examine the validity of the approach, an analysis of the effectiveness of ESC using a consistent analytic strategy across 6 European and Australasian databases was undertaken. It was hypothesised that the approach would be valid if the results of the MUNDS analysis were consistent with those published earlier (this would confirm the suitability of the MUNDS approach). The findings confirm the hypothesis and also found stronger and more robust findings across the range of crash-types, road conditions, vehicle sizes and speed zones than previous. The study recommends that while a number of limitations were identified with the findings that need be addressed in future research, the MUNDS approach nevertheless should be adopted widely for the benefit of all vehicle occupants
Medical physics challenges in clinical MR-guided radiotherapy
The integration of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for guidance in external beam radiotherapy has faced significant research and development efforts in recent years. The current availability of linear accelerators with an embedded MRI unit, providing volumetric imaging at excellent soft tissue contrast, is expected to provide novel possibilities in the implementation of image-guided adaptive radiotherapy (IGART) protocols. This study reviews open medical physics issues in MR-guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) implementation, with a focus on current approaches and on the potential for innovation in IGART.Daily imaging in MRgRT provides the ability to visualize the static anatomy, to capture internal tumor motion and to extract quantitative image features for treatment verification and monitoring. Those capabilities enable the use of treatment adaptation, with potential benefits in terms of personalized medicine. The use of online MRI requires dedicated efforts to perform accurate dose measurements and calculations, due to the presence of magnetic fields. Likewise, MRgRT requires dedicated quality assurance (QA) protocols for safe clinical implementation.Reaction to anatomical changes in MRgRT, as visualized on daily images, demands for treatment adaptation concepts, with stringent requirements in terms of fast and accurate validation before the treatment fraction can be delivered. This entails specific challenges in terms of treatment workflow optimization, QA, and verification of the expected delivered dose while the patient is in treatment position. Those challenges require specialized medical physics developments towards the aim of fully exploiting MRI capabilities. Conversely, the use of MRgRT allows for higher confidence in tumor targeting and organs-at-risk (OAR) sparing.The systematic use of MRgRT brings the possibility of leveraging IGART methods for the optimization of tumor targeting and quantitative treatment verification. Although several challenges exist, the intrinsic benefits of MRgRT will provide a deeper understanding of dose delivery effects on an individual basis, with the potential for further treatment personalization
Commissioning and quality assurance for VMAT delivery systems: An efficient time-resolved system using real-time EPID imaging.
PURPOSE: An ideal commissioning and quality assurance (QA) program for Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) delivery systems should assess the performance of each individual dynamic component as a function of gantry angle. Procedures within such a program should also be time-efficient, independent of the delivery system and be sensitive to all types of errors. The purpose of this work is to develop a system for automated time-resolved commissioning and QA of VMAT control systems which meets these criteria. METHODS: The procedures developed within this work rely solely on images obtained, using an electronic portal imaging device (EPID) without the presence of a phantom. During the delivery of specially designed VMAT test plans, EPID frames were acquired at 9.5 Hz, using a frame grabber. The set of test plans was developed to individually assess the performance of the dose delivery and multileaf collimator (MLC) control systems under varying levels of delivery complexities. An in-house software tool was developed to automatically extract features from the EPID images and evaluate the following characteristics as a function of gantry angle: dose delivery accuracy, dose rate constancy, beam profile constancy, gantry speed constancy, dynamic MLC positioning accuracy, MLC speed and acceleration constancy, and synchronization between gantry angle, MLC positioning and dose rate. Machine log files were also acquired during each delivery and subsequently compared to information extracted from EPID image frames. RESULTS: The largest difference between measured and planned dose at any gantry angle was 0.8% which correlated with rapid changes in dose rate and gantry speed. For all other test plans, the dose delivered was within 0.25% of the planned dose for all gantry angles. Profile constancy was not found to vary with gantry angle for tests where gantry speed and dose rate were constant, however, for tests with varying dose rate and gantry speed, segments with lower dose rate and higher gantry speed exhibited less profile stability. MLC positional accuracy was not observed to be dependent on the degree of interdigitation. MLC speed was measured for each individual leaf and slower leaf speeds were shown to be compensated for by lower dose rates. The test procedures were found to be sensitive to 1 mm systematic MLC errors, 1 mm random MLC errors, 0.4 mm MLC gap errors and synchronization errors between the MLC, dose rate and gantry angle controls systems of 1°. In general, parameters measured by both EPID and log files agreed with the plan, however, a greater average departure from the plan was evidenced by the EPID measurements. CONCLUSION: QA test plans and analysis methods have been developed to assess the performance of each dynamic component of VMAT deliveries individually and as a function of gantry angle. This methodology relies solely on time-resolved EPID imaging without the presence of a phantom and has been shown to be sensitive to a range of delivery errors. The procedures developed in this work are both comprehensive and time-efficient and can be used for streamlined commissioning and QA of VMAT delivery systems
Effectiveness of low speed autonomous emergency braking in real-world rear-end crashes
This study set out to evaluate the effectiveness of low speed autonomous emergency braking
(AEB) technology in current model passenger vehicles, based on real-world crash experience. The
Validating Vehicle Safety through Meta-Analysis (VVSMA) group comprising a collaboration of
government, industry consumer organisations and researchers, pooled data from a number of
countries using a standard analysis format and the established MUND approach. Induced exposure
methods were adopted to control for any extraneous effects. The findings showed a 38 percent overall
reduction in rear-end crashes for vehicles fitted with AEB compared to a comparison sample of similar
vehicles. There was no statistical evidence of any difference in effect between urban (≤60km/h) and
rural (>60km/h) speed zones. Areas requiring further research were identified and widespread
fitment through the vehicle fleet is recommended
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