An analytic model to calculate Voxel S-Values for 177^{177}Lu

Objective: $^{177}$Lu is one of the most employed isotopes in targeted radionuclide therapies and theranostics, and 3D internal dosimetry for such procedures has great importance. Voxel S-Values (VSVs) approach is widely used for this purpose, but VSVs are available for a limited number of voxel dimensions. The aim of this work is to develop an analytic model for the calculation of $^{177}$Lu-VSVs in any cubic voxelized geometry of practical interest. Approach: Monte Carlo (MC) simulations were implemented with the toolkit GAMOS to evaluate VSVs in voxelized geometries of soft tissue from a source of $^{177}$Lu homogeneously distributed in the central voxel. Nine geometric setups, containing 15x15x15 cubic voxels of sides l ranging from 2 mm to 6 mm, in steps of 0.5 mm, were considered. For each l, the VSVs computed as a function of the "normalized radius", Rn = R/l (with R = distance from the center of the source voxel), were fitted with a parametric function. The dependencies of the parameters as a function of l were then fitted with appropriate functions, in order to implement the model for deducing $^{177}$Lu-VSVs for any l within the aforementioned range. Main results: The MC-derived VSVs were satisfactorily compared with literature data for validation, and the VSVs computed with the analytic model agree with the MC ones within 2\% for Rn $\leq$ 2 and within 6\% for Rn > 2. Significance: The proposed model enables the easy and fast calculation, with a simple spreadsheet, of $^{177}$Lu-VSVs in any cubic voxelized geometry of practical interest, avoiding the necessity of implementing ad-hoc MC simulations to estimate VSVs for specific voxel dimensions not available in literature data.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, first round review in "Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express

18^{18}F-PSMA-1007 salivary gland dosimetry: Comparison between different methods for dose calculation and assessment of inter- and intra-patient variability

Dosimetry of salivary glands (SGs) is usually implemented using simplified calculation approaches and approximated geometries. Our aims were to compare different dosimetry methods to calculate SGs absorbed doses (ADs) following 18F-PSMA-1007 injection, and to assess the AD variation across patients and single SG components. Five patients with prostate cancer recurrence underwent PET/CT acquisitions of the head and neck, 0.5, 2 and 4 hours after 18F-PSMA-1007 injection. Parotid and submandibular glands were segmented on CT to derive SGs volumes and masses, while PETs were used to derive Time-Integrated Activity Coefficients. Average ADs to single SG components or total SG (tSG) were calculated with the following methods: i) direct Monte Carlo (MC) simulation with GATE/GEANT4; ii) spherical model (SM) of OLINDA/EXM 2.1, adopting either patient-specific or standard ICRP89 organ masses (SMstd); iii) ellipsoidal model (EM); iv) MIRD approach with organ S-factors from OLINDA/EXM 2.1 and OpenDose collaboration, with or without contribution from cross irradiation originating outside the SGs. The maximum percent AD difference across SG components ({\delta}max) and across patients ({\Delta}max) were calculated. Compared to MC, ADs to single SG components were significantly underestimated by all methods (average relative differences between -14.5% and -30.4%). Using MC, SM and EM, {\delta}max were never below 25% (up to 113%). {\delta}max up to 702% were obtained with SMstd. Concerning tSG, results within 10% of the MC were obtained only if cross irradiation from the remainder of the body or from the remainder of the head was accounted for. The {\Delta}max ranged between 58% and 78% across patients. Specific masses of single SG components should always be considered given their large intra- and inter- patient variability.Comment: 33 pages, 3 figures, sumbitted to "Physics in Medicine & Biology

Design of a Novel Long-Reach Cable-Driven Hyper-Redundant Snake-like Manipulator for Inspection and Maintenance

Robotic inspection and maintenance are gaining importance due to the number of different scenarios in which robots can operate. The use of robotic systems to accomplish such tasks has deep implications in terms of safety for human workers and can significantly extend the life of infrastructures and industrial facilities. In this context, long-reach cable-driven hyper-redundant robots can be employed to inspect areas that are difficult to reach and hazardous environments such as tanks and vessels. This paper presents a novel long-reach cable-driven hyper-redundant robot called SLIM (Snake-Like manipulator for Inspection and Maintenance). SLIM consists of a robotic arm, a pan and tilt mechanism as end-effector, and an actuation box that can rotate and around which the arm can wrap. The robot has a total of 15 degrees of freedom and, therefore, for the task of positioning the tool centre point in a bi-dimensional Cartesian space with a specific attitude, it has 10 degrees of redundancy. The robot is designed to operate in harsh environments and high temperatures and can deploy itself up to about 4.8 m. This paper presents the requirements that drove the design of the robot, the main aspects of the mechanical and electronic systems, the control strategy, and the results of preliminary experimental tests performed with a physical prototype to evaluate the robot performances

Disease-specific and general health-related quality of life in newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients: The Pros-IT CNR study

Background: The National Research Council (CNR) prostate cancer monitoring project in Italy (Pros-IT CNR) is an observational, prospective, ongoing, multicentre study aiming to monitor a sample of Italian males diagnosed as new cases of prostate cancer. The present study aims to present data on the quality of life at time prostate cancer is diagnosed. Methods: One thousand seven hundred five patients were enrolled. Quality of life is evaluated at the time cancer was diagnosed and at subsequent assessments via the Italian version of the University of California Los Angeles-Prostate Cancer Index (UCLA-PCI) and the Short Form Health Survey (SF-12). Results: At diagnosis, lower scores on the physical component of the SF-12 were associated to older ages, obesity and the presence of 3+ moderate/severe comorbidities. Lower scores on the mental component were associated to younger ages, the presence of 3+ moderate/severe comorbidities and a T-score higher than one. Urinary and bowel functions according to UCLA-PCI were generally good. Almost 5% of the sample reported using at least one safety pad daily to control urinary loss; less than 3% reported moderate/severe problems attributable to bowel functions, and sexual function was a moderate/severe problem for 26.7%. Diabetes, 3+ moderate/severe comorbidities, T2 or T3-T4 categories and a Gleason score of eight or more were significantly associated with lower sexual function scores at diagnosis. Conclusions: Data collected by the Pros-IT CNR study have clarified the baseline status of newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients. A comprehensive assessment of quality of life will allow to objectively evaluate outcomes of different profile of care

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Bose-Einstein correlations of charged hadrons in proton-proton collisions at s\sqrt s = 13 TeV

Bose-Einstein correlations of charged hadrons are measured over a broad multiplicity range, from a few particles up to about 250 reconstructed charged hadrons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. The results are based on data collected using the CMS detector at the LHC during runs with a special low-pileup configuration. Three analysis techniques with different degrees of dependence on simulations are used to remove the non-Bose-Einstein background from the correlation functions. All three methods give consistent results. The measured lengths of homogeneity are studied as functions of particle multiplicity as well as average pair transverse momentum and mass. The results are compared with data from both CMS and ATLAS at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV, as well as with theoretical predictions.[graphic not available: see fulltext]Bose-Einstein correlations of charged hadrons are measured over a broad multiplicity range, from a few particles up to about 250 reconstructed charged hadrons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV. The results are based on data collected using the CMS detector at the LHC during runs with a special low-pileup configuration. Three analysis techniques with different degrees of dependence on simulations are used to remove the non-Bose-Einstein background from the correlation functions. All three methods give consistent results. The measured lengths of homogeneity are studied as functions of particle multiplicity as well as average pair transverse momentum and mass. The results are compared with data from both CMS and ATLAS at $\sqrt{s} =$ 7 TeV, as well as with theoretical predictions

An embedding technique to determine ττ backgrounds in proton-proton collision data

An embedding technique is presented to estimate standard model tau tau backgrounds from data with minimal simulation input. In the data, the muons are removed from reconstructed mu mu events and replaced with simulated tau leptons with the same kinematic properties. In this way, a set of hybrid events is obtained that does not rely on simulation except for the decay of the tau leptons. The challenges in describing the underlying event or the production of associated jets in the simulation are avoided. The technique described in this paper was developed for CMS. Its validation and the inherent uncertainties are also discussed. The demonstration of the performance of the technique is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by CMS in 2017 at root s = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 41.5 fb(-1).Peer reviewe

Measurement of the top quark mass using charged particles in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

Peer reviewe

Measurement of t(t)over-bar normalised multi-differential cross sections in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV, and simultaneous determination of the strong coupling strength, top quark pole mass, and parton distribution functions

Peer reviewe