Die Überlieferungstradition von Aphorismen "vom Freund und dem Geliebten" des Ramon Llull in deutscher Sprache im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert

Summary: Since the beginning of the 20th century, a new interest has arisen in the Catalan encyclopedist Ramon Llull, who lived at the turn of the 14th century. This new interest has become manifest in a new critical edition of his works and in editions of his novels and the mystical verses of the lover and the beloved that were translated into several European languages. The new academic interest also resulted in the foundation of institutes at the universities of Barcelona and Freiburg. This study aims to show that there have been German translations of the Aphorisms of the lover and the beloved since the middle of the 18th century that have been almost entirely neglected by scholars dealing with Ramon Llull. Translations of fragments of the above-mentioned work were done by Gerhard Tersteegen (1697–1769) and Gotthard Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten (1758–1818); the first complete translation by a roman-catholic priest in Bavaria, Nikolaus Casseder (1767–1823), dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. [Keywords: Llull, Tersteegen, Kosegarten, Casseder, Llibre d’amic e amat

Proton Radiography for a Small-Animal Irradiation Platform Based on a Miniaturized Timepix Detector

Pre-treatment proton radiography and computed tomography can improve precision of proton therapy. A compact imaging setup for small-animal proton radiography, based on a miniaturized Timepix detector is presented along with results from proof-of-concept experiments. The MiniPIX detector was placed behind a µ-CT calibration phantom with 10 different tissue-equivalent inserts. The intensity of the 70 MeV proton beam was adjusted such that pixel signal clusters from individual protons on the detector could be resolved. Analysis and event filtering on various cluster properties were used to suppress unwanted events. The energy deposition of the selected clusters was converted to water-equivalent thickness (WET) of the traversed material using a conversion curve based on Monte Carlo simulations and measured clusters of protons after traversing PMMA slabs of known thickness. Despite a systematic underestimation of up to 3%, retrieved WET values are in good agreement with ground truth values from literature. The achieved spatial resolution ranges from 0.3 to 0.7 mm for phantom-detector-distances of 1 to 5 cm. Applicability to living animals is currently limited by the relatively long acquisition time of up to 20 minutes per radiography. This obstacle can however be overcome with the latest detector generation Timepix3, allowing to handle higher particle rates and thus requiring shorter irradiation times

Optimization and performance study of a proton CT system for pre-clinical small animal imaging

Proton computed tomography (pCT) promises to reduce or even eliminate range uncertainties inherent in the conversion of Hounsfield units into relative stopping power (RSP) for proton therapy treatment planning. This is of particular interest for proton irradiation studies in animal models due to the high precision required and uncertainties in tissue properties. We propose a dedicated single-particle tracking pCT system consisting of low material budget floating strips Micromegas detectors for tracking and a segmented time-projection-chamber with vertical Mylar absorbers, functioning as a range telescope. Based on Monte Carlo simulations of a realistic in silico beam and detector implementation, a geometrical optimization of the system components was conducted to safeguard an ideal operation close to intrinsic performance limits at 75 MeV. Moreover, the overall imaging capabilities relevant for pre-clinical proton therapy treatment planning were evaluated for a mouse model. In order to minimize extrinsic uncertainties in the estimated proton trajectories, a spacing of the two tracking planes of at least 7 cm is required in both tracking detectors. Additionally, novel in-house developed and produced aluminum-based readout electrodes promise superior performance with around 3mm-1 spatial resolution due to the reduced material budget. Concerning the range telescope, an absorber thickness within 500 µm to 750 µm was found to yield the best compromise between water-equivalent path length resolution and complexity of the detector instrumentation, still providing sub-0.5% RSP accuracy. The optimized detector configuration enables better than 2% range accuracy for proton therapy treatment planning in pre-clinical data sets. This work outlines the potential of pCT for small animal imaging. The performance of the proposed and optimized system provides superior treatment planning accuracy compared to conventional X-ray CT. Thus, pCT can play an important role in translational and pre-clinical cancer research

Fabrication and characterization of a multimodal 3D printed mouse phantom for ionoacoustic quality assurance in image-guided pre-clinical proton radiation research

Objective. Image guidance and precise irradiation are fundamental to ensure the reliability of small animal oncology studies. Accurate positioning of the animal and the in-beam monitoring of the delivered radio-therapeutic treatment necessitate several imaging modalities. In the particular context of proton therapy with a pulsed beam, information on the delivered dose can be retrieved by monitoring the thermoacoustic waves resulting from the brief and local energy deposition induced by a proton beam (ionoacoustics). The objective of this work was to fabricate a multimodal phantom (x-ray, proton, ultrasound, and ionoacoustics) allowing for sufficient imaging contrast for all the modalities. Approach. The phantom anatomical parts were extracted from mouse computed tomography scans and printed using polylactic acid (organs) and a granite/polylactic acid composite (skeleton). The anatomical pieces were encapsulated in silicone rubber to ensure long term stability. The phantom was imaged using x-ray cone-beam computed tomography, proton radiography, ultrasound imaging, and monitoring of a 20 MeV pulsed proton beam using ionoacoustics. Main results. The anatomical parts could be visualized in all the imaging modalities validating the phantom capability to be used for multimodal imaging. Ultrasound images were simulated from the x-ray cone-beam computed tomography and co-registered with ultrasound images obtained before the phantom irradiation and low-resolution ultrasound images of the mouse phantom in the irradiation position, co-registered with ionoacoustic measurements. The latter confirmed the irradiation of a tumor surrogate for which the reconstructed range was found to be in reasonable agreement with the expectation. Significance. This study reports on a realistic small animal phantom which can be used to investigate ionoacoustic range (or dose) verification together with ultrasound, x-ray, and proton imaging. The co-registration between ionoacoustic reconstructions of the impinging proton beam and x-ray imaging is assessed for the first time in a pre-clinical scenario