1,535 research outputs found
Quantifying Proton Fields for Midline Brain Tumors: A Benefit/Cost Analysis of Planning Objectives
Purpose:
We sought to quantify the optimum number of beams by using a midline sagittal arrangement for midline brain tumors when considering the competing demands of a high degree of target conformation and maximizing reduction of nontarget brain dose. The volume of nontarget brain tissue receiving between 5 and 20 Gy (V5-V20) was selected to measure "low-dose bath" to normal brain.
Materials and Methods:
An exploratory model was developed with 6 midline brain targets created by using spheres of 1-, 3-, and 5-cm diameters located in superficial and deep locations. For each, five 3-dimensional proton treatment plans with uniform beam scanning were generated by using 1 to 5 fields. Dose-volume histograms were analyzed to calculate conformation number and V5-V20. A benefit/cost analysis was performed to determine the marginal gain in conformation number and the marginal cost of V5-V20 for the addition of each field and hypothesize the optimum number of treatment fields. We tested our hypothesis by re-planning 10 actual patient tumors with the same technique to compare the averages of these 50 plans to our model.
Results:
Our model and validation cohort demonstrated the largest marginal benefit in target conformation and the lowest marginal cost in normal brain V5-V20 with the addition of a second proton field. The addition of a third field resulted in a relative marginal benefit in target conformation of just 3.9% but a relative marginal cost in V5-V20 of 78.7%. Normal brain absolute V5-V20 increased in a nearly linear fashion with each additional field.
Conclusions:
When treating midline brain lesions with 3-dimensional proton therapy in an array of midline sagittal beams, our model suggests the most appropriate number of fields is 2. There was little marginal benefit in target conformation and increasing cost of normal brain dose when increasing the number of fields beyond this
Building research capacity for evidence-informed tobacco control in Canada: a case description
Tobacco use remains the leading cause of death and disability in Canada. Insufficient research capacity can inhibit evidence-informed decision making for tobacco control. This paper outlines a Canadian project to build research capacity, defined as a community's ability to produce research that adequately informs practice, policy, and future research in a timely, practical manner. A key component is that individuals and teams within the community must mutually engage around common, collectively negotiated goals to address specific practices, policies or programs of research. An organizing framework, a set of activities to build strategic recruitment, productivity tools, and procedures for enhancing social capital are described. Actions are intended to facilitate better alignment between research and the priorities of policy developers and service providers, enhance the external validity of the work performed, and reduce the time required to inform policy and practice
Composition Operators and Endomorphisms
If is an inner function, then composition with induces an
endomorphism, , of that leaves
invariant. We investigate the structure of the
endomorphisms of and that implement
through the representations of and
in terms of multiplication operators on
and . Our analysis, which is based on work
of R. Rochberg and J. McDonald, will wind its way through the theory of
composition operators on spaces of analytic functions to recent work on Cuntz
families of isometries and Hilbert -modules
Biochemical Systematics of Notothenioid Fishes from Antarctica
Genetic variation at 30 protein-coding loci was examined in seven forms of notothenioid fishes from Antarctica. Multilocus heterozygosity varied from 0.018 to 0.078 across taxa. An analysis of the allozyme data revealed the probable existence of an unrecognized cryptic species within Trematomu5 bemacchii. Pagothenia borchgrevinki is as closely related to some species of Trematomus as are some species of Trematomus to each other. Speciation among the species of Trematomus and Pagothenia appears to have taken place primarily after the separation of Antarctica from Australia
Detection of High Energy Ionizing Radiation using Deeply Depleted Graphene-Oxide-Semiconductor Junctions
Graphene's linear bandstructure and two-dimensional density of states provide
an implicit advantage for sensing charge. Here, these advantages are leveraged
in a deeply depleted graphene-oxide-semiconductor (D2GOS) junction detector
architecture to sense carriers created by ionizing radiation. Specifically, the
room temperature response of the silicon-based D2GOS junction is analyzed
during irradiation with 20 MeV Si4+ ions. Detection was demonstrated for doses
ranging from 12-1200 ions with device functionality maintained with no
substantive degradation. To understand the device response, D2GOS pixels were
characterized post-irradiation via a combination of electrical
characterization, Raman spectroscopy, and photocurrent mapping. This combined
characterization methodology underscores the lack of discernible damage caused
by irradiation to the graphene while highlighting the nature of interactions
between the incident ions and the silicon absorber.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
The Simplicial Ricci Tensor
The Ricci tensor (Ric) is fundamental to Einstein's geometric theory of
gravitation. The 3-dimensional Ric of a spacelike surface vanishes at the
moment of time symmetry for vacuum spacetimes. The 4-dimensional Ric is the
Einstein tensor for such spacetimes. More recently the Ric was used by Hamilton
to define a non-linear, diffusive Ricci flow (RF) that was fundamental to
Perelman's proof of the Poincare conjecture. Analytic applications of RF can be
found in many fields including general relativity and mathematics. Numerically
it has been applied broadly to communication networks, medical physics,
computer design and more. In this paper, we use Regge calculus (RC) to provide
the first geometric discretization of the Ric. This result is fundamental for
higher-dimensional generalizations of discrete RF. We construct this tensor on
both the simplicial lattice and its dual and prove their equivalence. We show
that the Ric is an edge-based weighted average of deficit divided by an
edge-based weighted average of dual area -- an expression similar to the
vertex-based weighted average of the scalar curvature reported recently. We use
this Ric in a third and independent geometric derivation of the RC Einstein
tensor in arbitrary dimension.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure
Nitrogen fertilizer driven nitrous and nitric oxide production is decoupled from microbial genetic potential in low carbon, semi-arid soil
IntroductionNitrous oxide (N2O) emission from soil is a major concern due to its contribution to global climate change and its function as a loss mechanism of plant-available nitrogen (N) from the soil. This is especially true in intensive agricultural soils with high rates of N fertilizer application such as those on the semi-arid Southern High Plains, USA.MethodsThis study examined emissions of N2O, pore-space concentrations of N2O and nitric oxide (NO), soil chemical properties, water content, and the genetic potential for N cycling five years after conservation system and N management implementation.ResultsFor these semi-arid soils with low N, carbon, and water contents, large soil N2O emissions (up to 8 mL N2O-N m-2 day-1) are directly related to the application of N fertilizer which overwhelms the N2O reducing capacity of the soil. When this fertilizer N is depleted, N2O flux is either low, non-existent, or net-negative and has been observed as early as mid-season for preplant applied N fertilizer (-0.1 mL N2O-N m-2 day-1). Soil pore-space gas concentrations (N2O and NO) remained relatively constant across the growing season (average N2O: 0.78 µL N2O L-1 soil air; NO: 3.3 µL NO L-1 soil air, indicating a base-level of N-cycle activity, but was not directly related to surface emissions of N2O which decreased across the growing season. In addition, genetic potential for N cycle activities increased across the growing season simultaneously with stagnant/reduced N cycle activity. This reflects the difficulty in relating genetic potential to in-situ activity in field research.ConclusionIt is likely that in a nutrient and carbon-poor soil, such as the semi-arid agricultural soil in this study, the microbial processes associated with N cycling are mostly limited by inorganic-N and less directly related to genetic potential at the time of sampling
Corrigendum: Nitrogen fertilizer driven nitrous and nitric oxide production is decoupled from microbial genetic potential in low carbon, semi-arid soil
Reionization: Characteristic Scales, Topology and Observability
Recently the numerical simulations of the process of reionization of the
universe at z>6 have made a qualitative leap forward, reaching sufficient sizes
and dynamic range to determine the characteristic scales of this process. This
allowed making the first realistic predictions for a variety of observational
signatures. We discuss recent results from large-scale radiative transfer and
structure formation simulations on the observability of high-redshift Ly-alpha
sources. We also briefly discuss the dependence of the characteristic scales
and topology of the ionized and neutral patches on the reionization parameters.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures (4 in color), to appear in Astronomy and Space
Science special issue "Space Astronomy: The UV window to the Universe",
proceedings of 1st NUVA Conference ``Space Astronomy: The UV window to the
Universe'' in El Escorial (Spain
Extensibility of Human Asteroid Mission to Mars and Other Destinations
This paper will describe the benefits of execution of the Asteroid Redirect Mission as an early mission in deep space, demonstrating solar electric propulsion, deep space robotics, ground and on-board navigation, docking, and EVA. The paper will also discuss how staging in trans-lunar space and the elements associated with this mission are excellent building blocks for subsequent deep space missions to Mars or other destinations
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