A fast - Monte Carlo toolkit on GPU for treatment plan dose recalculation in proton therapy

In the context of the particle therapy a crucial role is played by Treatment Planning Systems (TPSs), tools aimed to compute and optimize the tratment plan. Nowadays one of the major issues related to the TPS in particle therapy is the large CPU time needed. We developed a software toolkit (FRED) for reducing dose recalculation time by exploiting Graphics Processing Units (GPU) hardware. Thanks to their high parallelization capability, GPUs significantly reduce the computation time, up to factor 100 respect to a standard CPU running software. The transport of proton beams in the patient is accurately described through Monte Carlo methods. Physical processes reproduced are: Multiple Coulomb Scattering, energy straggling and nuclear interactions of protons with the main nuclei composing the biological tissues. FRED toolkit does not rely on the water equivalent translation of tissues, but exploits the Computed Tomography anatomical information by reconstructing and simulating the atomic composition of each crossed tissue. FRED can be used as an efficient tool for dose recalculation, on the day of the treatment. In fact it can provide in about one minute on standard hardware the dose map obtained combining the treatment plan, earlier computed by the TPS, and the current patient anatomic arrangement

Multimodal Corpus Analysis of Subtitling: The Case of Non-standard Varieties

This article proposes a new methodology for multimodal corpus analysis. It does so by particularly focusing on the issue of the translation of non-standard language varieties. This new methodology, which is significantly influenced by the work of Iedema (2003) , Jimenez Hurtado and Soler Gallego (2013) , Pastra (2008) and Ramos Pinto (2018) , is capable of identifying the modes and resources at play and the relations identified between them, as well as how such relations participate in the construction of the non-standard varieties’ communicative meaning. It also accounts for the impact of the introduction of subtitles on preserving, cancelling or modifying the intermodal relations identified in the source text and, consequently, the diegetic functions they support; that is, the function they assume in the fictional world of the film. In this regard, the methodology assumes a clear translational perspective

The multidisciplinary role of cultural management: A look for communication as management tool and key-activity

The purpose of this article is to explore the communication as tool and key-activity, within the scope of multidisciplinary character of cultural management and cultural equipment’s multimensionality. It's a hybrid study - conceptual and empirical - and exploratory, based on literature review and illustrated with descriptive analysis from data collected by 573 questionnaires regarding a specific event. Was followed a mixed methodology – qualitative and quantitative - and an interpretative paradigm. Were pulled out 3 conclusions: 1) The first one is the awareness need by the cultural management for an adoption of multidisciplinary posture, lined up by the multidimensional nature of cultural equipment’s and the organizational environment, in a purpose to match public expectations; 2) The second one is the need of comprehend the communication as tool and key-activity to engender culture value in both organizational environments: inside and outside; 3) The third, due questionnaire application, resides in the mass-media advantage over digitals, for public fund. This article: a) provides inputs for an interterritorial plan creation; b) contribute for the discussion about ideologic construction of professional category, instrands of thought building about its functions and concerns; c) increase communication importance as key-activity; d) highlight the power of media in cultural events; e) contributes to sign the need for a multidisciplinary training for cultural managers. The article value resides in reinforce the discussion for a new vision about the action ray of the cultural manager, supported in the connection between the equipment’s dimensions and the multidisciplinary posture.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A GPU-based survey for millisecond radio transients using ARTEMIS

Astrophysical radio transients are excellent probes of extreme physical processes originating from compact sources within our Galaxy and beyond. Radio frequency signals emitted from these objects provide a means to study the intervening medium through which they travel. Next generation radio telescopes are designed to explore the vast unexplored parameter space of high time resolution astronomy, but require High Performance Computing (HPC) solutions to process the enormous volumes of data that are produced by these telescopes. We have developed a combined software /hardware solution (code named ARTEMIS) for real-time searches for millisecond radio transients, which uses GPU technology to remove interstellar dispersion and detect millisecond radio bursts from astronomical sources in real-time. Here we present an introduction to ARTEMIS. We give a brief overview of the software pipeline, then focus specifically on the intricacies of performing incoherent de-dispersion. We present results from two brute-force algorithms. The first is a GPU based algorithm, designed to exploit the L1 cache of the NVIDIA Fermi GPU. Our second algorithm is CPU based and exploits the new AVX units in Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures. To appear in the proceedings of ADASS XXI, ed. P.Ballester and D.Egret, ASP Conf. Se

The 20 February 2010 Madeira flash-floods: synoptic analysis and extreme rainfall assessment

This study aims to characterise the rainfall exceptionality and the meteorological context of the 20 February 2010 flash-floods in Madeira (Portugal). Daily and hourly precipitation records from the available rain-gauge station networks are evaluated in order to reconstitute the temporal evolution of the rainstorm, as its geographic incidence, contributing to understand the flash-flood dynamics and the type and spatial distribution of the associated impacts. The exceptionality of the rainstorm is further confirmed by the return period associated with the daily precipitation registered at the two long-term record stations, with 146.9 mm observed in the city of Funchal and 333.8 mm on the mountain top, corresponding to an estimated return period of approximately 290 yr and 90 yr, respectively. Furthermore, the synoptic associated situation responsible for the flash-floods is analysed using different sources of information, e.g., weather charts, reanalysis data, Meteosat images and radiosounding data, with the focus on two main issues: (1) the dynamical conditions that promoted such anomalous humidity availability over the Madeira region on 20 February 2010 and (2) the uplift mechanism that induced deep convection activity

Multi-scale analysis of lung computed tomography images

A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of lung internal nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical Computed Tomography (CT) images was developed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 project. The three modules of our lung CAD system, a segmentation algorithm for lung internal region identification, a multi-scale dot-enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a multi-scale neural technique for false positive finding reduction, are described. The results obtained on a dataset of low-dose and thin-slice CT scans are shown in terms of free response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curves and discussed.Comment: 18 pages, 12 low-resolution figure