Verifcation of dose calculations in a heterogeneous phantom using PRIMO

Treballs Finals de Grau de Física, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2018, Tutor: José M. Fernández-VareaTreatment planning systems (TPSs) are routinely used in radiotherapy to calculate the monitor units (MU) required to deposit a certain amount of energy per unit mass in the patient and the dose distribution in it due to their high calculation speed. To reduce calculation time, TPSs adopt several approximations which are optimized for low atomic number materials such as those found in the human body. These approximations may lead to substantial deviations between calculated and measured dose in the presence of heterogeneities. In the present TFG we employ Monte Carlo simulations to study these discrepancies and verify the TPS calculations. The program used is PRIMO, which is based on the penelope code system

The Determinants of Energy Efficiency Investments in the U.S.

This paper analyses decisions on energy efficiency (EE) investments by small and medium manufacturing enterprises in the U.S. which have received assessment from the Department of Energy (DoE). The results confirm the importance of payback time and investment costs as the main determining factors in deciding whether to invest in energy efficiency. This behaviour is mantained over time. Such investment recommendations are frequently not implemented even though they apparently entail major advantages and give rise to considerable energy savings. The data show results which are compatible with a series of elementary valuation processes (limited by the availability of information), far removed from other, more academically ambitious methods such as Net Present Value (NPV) and the Real Options (RO) method. The paper analyses the impact of the physical situation of firms in line with their geographical locations in different US states, and changes over time from 1984 to 2008, i.e. 25 years of information. Finally, the paper examines the different levels of effectiveness of participating centres in getting firms to decide to make the investments proposed. EE investment decisions are analysed here using Logit models whose parameters are calibrated on the basis of the information held in the Industrial Assessment Centres (IAC) database. The results shed some light on impact assessment and suggest various policies for promoting investment in EE.Energy efficiency, energy assessments, energy policies

The DICER Model: Methodological Issues and Initial Results

This paper introduces DICER, a model for the integrated assessment of climate – economy interactions within an optimal growth framework developed based on the structure of the DICE2007 model. We present the methodological differences introduced so far in DICER and some preliminary results of its deterministic version. We observe interesting results in comparison to other IAMs, such as (i) lower peak temperatures; (ii) radiative forcing differences; (iii) differences in control rates; and (iv) sensitivity of results to parameters such as climate sensitivity. A further innovation of this work has been to account for uncertainty and risk through an application of option pricing. The method allows for a simple representation of the risks through measures of volatility in the damages and abatement costs and shows that taking these factors into account lowers maximum mean temperatures by about 0.5oC. We also present some methodological issues that need to be dealt with in the near future in DICER.Climate change, Integrated Impact Assessment Model (IAM), damage function

The Determinants of Energy Efficiency Investments in the U.S.

31 p.This paper analyses decisions on energy efficiency (EE) investments by small and medium manufacturing enterprises in the U.S. which have received assessment from the Department of Energy (DoE). The results confirm the importance of payback time and investment costs as the main determining factors in deciding whether to invest in energy efficiency. This behaviour is mantained over time. Such investment recommendations are frequently not implemented even though they apparently entail major advantages and give rise to considerable energy savings. The data show results which are compatible with a series of elementary valuation processes (limited by the availability of information), far removed from other, more academically ambitious methods such as Net Present Value (NPV) and the Real Options (RO) method. The paper analyses the impact of the physical situation of firms in line with their geographical locations in different US states, and changes over time from 1984 to 2008, i.e. 25 years of information. Finally, the paper examines the different levels of effectiveness of participating centres in getting firms to decide to make the investments proposed. EE investment decisions are analysed here using Logit models whose parameters are calibrated on the basis of the information held in the Industrial Assessment Centres (IAC) database. The results shed some light on impact assessment and suggest various policies for promoting investment in EE

Magnetic Resonance Microimaging of a Swine Infarcted Heart: Performing Cardiac Virtual Histologies

The high fidelity reconstruction of compressed and low-resolution magnetic resonance (MR) data is essential for simultaneously improving patient care, accuracy in diagnosis and quality in clinical research. Sponsored by the Royal Society through the Newton Mobility Grant Scheme, a half-day workshop on reconstruction schemes for MR data was held on the 17th of August 2016 to discuss new ideas from related research fields that could be useful to overcome the shortcomings of the conventional reconstruction methods that have been evaluated up to date. Participants were 21 university students, computer scientists, image analysts, engineers and physicists from institutions from 6 different countries. This presentation shows an example of graphic interface unit suitable for presenting and analysing MR data and combining it with other medical imaging modalities

The Health Impacts of Climate Change: A Study of Cholera in Tanzania

Increased temperatures and changes in patterns of rainfall as a result of climate change are widely recognized to entail serious consequences for human health, including the risk of diarrheal diseases. Indeed, there is strong evidence that temperature and rainfall patterns affect the disease pattern. This paper presents the first study that links the incidence of cholera to environmental and socioeconomic factors and uses that relationship to predict how climate change will affect the incidence of cholera. Specifically, the paper integrates historical data on temperature and rainfall with the burden of disease from cholera in Tanzania, and uses socioeconomic data to control for impacts of general development on the risk of cholera. Based on these results we estimate the number and costs of additional cholera cases and deaths that can be attributed to climate change by year 2030 in Tanzania. The analyses are based on primary data collected from the Ministry of Health, Tanzania, and the Tanzania Meteorological Agency. The result shows a significant relationship between cholera cases and temperature and predicts an increase in the initial risk ratio for cholera in Tanzania in the range of 23 to 51 percent for a 1 degree Celsius increase in annual mean temperature. The cost of reactive adaptation to cholera attributed to climate change impacts by year 2030 in Tanzania is projected to be in the range of 0.02 to 0.09 percent of GDP for the lower and upper bounds respectively. Total costs, including loss of lives are estimated in the range of 1.4 to 7.8 percent of GDP by year 2030. Lastly, costs of additional cholera cases and deaths attributed to climate change impacts in Tanzania by the year 2030 largely exceed the costs of preventive measures such as household chlorination.Available at http://www.bc3research.or

Willingness to pay for mortality risk reduction due to air pollution: a case study from Brazil

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The Health Impacts of Climate Change: A Study of Cholera in Tanzania

27 p.Increased temperatures and changes in patterns of rainfall as a result of climate change are widely recognized to entail serious consequences for human health, including the risk of diarrheal diseases. Indeed, there is strong evidence that temperature and rainfall patterns affect the disease pattern. This paper presents the first study that links the incidence of cholera to environmental and socioeconomic factors and uses that relationship to predict how climate change will affect the incidence of cholera. Specifically, the paper integrates historical data on temperature and rainfall with the burden of disease from cholera in Tanzania, and uses socioeconomic data to control for impacts of general development on the risk of cholera. Based on these results we estimate the number and costs of additional cholera cases and deaths that can be attributed to climate change by year 2030 in Tanzania. The analyses are based on primary data collected from the Ministry of Health, Tanzania, and the Tanzania Meteorological Agency. The result shows a significant relationship between cholera cases and temperature and predicts an increase in the initial risk ratio for cholera in Tanzania in the range of 23 to 51 percent for a 1 degree Celsius increase in annual mean temperature. The cost of reactive adaptation to cholera attributed to climate change impacts by year 2030 in Tanzania is projected to be in the range of 0.02 to 0.09 percent of GDP for the lower and upper bounds respectively. Total costs, including loss of lives are estimated in the range of 1.4 to 7.8 percent of GDP by year 2030. Lastly, costs of additional cholera cases and deaths attributed to climate change impacts in Tanzania by the year 2030 largely exceed the costs of preventive measures such as household chlorination

The characteristic‐based‐split procedure: an efficient and accurate algorithm for fluid problems

In 1995 the two senior authors of the present paper introduced a new algorithm designed to replace the Taylor–Galerkin (or Lax–Wendroff) methods, used by them so far in the solution of compressible flow problems. The new algorithm was applicable to a wide variety of situations, including fully incompressible flows and shallow water equations, as well as supersonic and hypersonic situations, and has proved to be always at least as accurate as other algorithms currently used. The algorithm is based on the solution of conservation equations of fluid mechanics to avoid any possibility of spurious solutions that may otherwise result. The main aspect of the procedure is to split the equations into two parts, (1) a part that is a set of simple scalar equations of convective–diffusion type for which it is well known that the characteristic Galerkin procedure yields an optimal solution; and (2) the part where the equations are self‐adjoint and therefore discretized optimally by the Galerkin procedure. It is possible to solve both the first and second parts of the system explicitly, retaining there the time step limitations of the Taylor–Galerkin procedure. But it is also possible to use semi‐implicit processes where in the first part we use a much bigger time step generally governed by the Peclet number of the system while the second part is solved implicitly and is unconditionally stable. It turns out that the characteristic‐based‐split (CBS) process allows equal interpolation to be used for all system variables without difficulties when the incompressible or nearly incompressible stage is reached. It is hoped that the paper will help to make the algorithm more widely available and understood by the profession and that its advantages can be widely realised