Search

In this work, authors have presented a design and implementation of the Time Lock Wallet. ThisTimelock model n This is done by using Blockchain Technology. The main goal behind time-locked walletsis to lock themoney for a specific amount of time. After the stated date has passed, only the designated person/beneficiary may take money out of the wallet.

Our objective was to report the prospective results of mucosal sparing radiation therapy in human papillomavirus-related oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma.From March 2016 through May 2019, patients were enrolled in this institutional review board-approved prospective cohort study at a multisite institution. Inclusion criteria included p16+ American Joint Committee on Cancer seventh edition pathologic T1 or T2, N1 to N3, and M0 oropharyngeal cancers. Proton therapy (PT) was delivered to at-risk nodal regions, excluding the primary mucosal site. Secondary to insurance denial for PT, intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) was allowed. European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Head and Neck Module and Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System surveys (quality of life [QOL]) and modified barium swallowing impairment profiles (MBSImP) were obtained at baseline before radiation therapy, then 3 and 12 months after radiation therapy. Kaplan-Meier estimates were calculated for time-to-event clinical outcomes, and repeated measures mixed models were used to explore changes in QOL over time. A comparison of QOL and swallowing outcomes with standard-of-care treatment was analyzed.There were 61 evaluable patients with a median follow-up of 38 months (range, 10-64); 44 (72%) were treated with PT and 17 (28%) were treated with IMRT. The 2-year local control, locoregional control, distant metastasis-free survival, and overall survival were 98%, 97%, 98%, and 100%, respectively. There were 6 grade ≥3 events related to treatment. Two IMRT patients required percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube placement during treatment secondary to significant nausea due to dysgeusia. Patients noted significant QOL improvement over time in the pain, swallowing, speech, social eating, social contact, mouth opening, and use of pain medication domains (all P.02). The MBSImP overall severity score as well as oral and pharyngeal impairment scores showed stability with no significant change over time. For the 44 patients treated with PT, the mean D95 to the primary target was 10.7 Gy (standard deviation = 12.5 Gy).Mucosal sparing radiation is well tolerated in select resected human papillomavirus-related oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma with a low risk of recurrence at the mucosal primary site, a low rate of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube placement, and few radiation-related grade ≥3 adverse events.

IntroductionOrgan-at-risk segmentation for head and neck cancer radiation therapy is a complex and time-consuming process (requiring up to 42 individual structure, and may delay start of treatment or even limit access to function-preserving care. Feasibility of using a deep learning (DL) based autosegmentation model to reduce contouring time without compromising contour accuracy is assessed through a blinded randomized trial of radiation oncologists (ROs) using retrospective, de-identified patient data.MethodsTwo head and neck expert ROs used dedicated time to create gold standard (GS) contours on computed tomography (CT) images. 445 CTs were used to train a custom 3D U-Net DL model covering 42 organs-at-risk, with an additional 20 CTs were held out for the randomized trial. For each held-out patient dataset, one of the eight participant ROs was randomly allocated to review and revise the contours produced by the DL model, while another reviewed contours produced by a medical dosimetry assistant (MDA), both blinded to their origin. Time required for MDAs and ROs to contour was recorded, and the unrevised DL contours, as well as the RO-revised contours by the MDAs and DL model were compared to the GS for that patient.ResultsMean time for initial MDA contouring was 2.3 hours (range 1.6-3.8 hours) and RO-revision took 1.1 hours (range, 0.4-4.4 hours), compared to 0.7 hours (range 0.1-2.0 hours) for the RO-revisions to DL contours. Total time reduced by 76% (95%-Confidence Interval: 65%-88%) and RO-revision time reduced by 35% (95%-CI,-39%-91%). All geometric and dosimetric metrics computed, agreement with GS was equivalent or significantly greater (pConclusionDL autosegmentation demonstrated significant time-savings for organ-at-risk contouring while improving agreement with the institutional GS, indicating comparable accuracy of DL model. Integration into the clinical practice with a prospective evaluation is currently underway.

Our proposed research is about designing and analysis of H shape microstrip patch antenna. Operating frequency of H shape micro strip antenna is 5 Ghz. The design and simulation are done in High-frequency structure simulator (HFSS) software with FR4 substrate. According to its real application, shape, and the type the H- shape microstrip antenna is designed. The size of the antenna is calculated by its length, width. Then the H-shape is stimulated for the radiation parameters obtained through optimizing and matching to meet the requirement. The parameter of antenna such as Return Loss, Gain, VSWR are measured. Keywords: Return Loss, Gain, VSWR.

In today’s fast moving world as the demand of the internet is increasing with this cyber-attacks are also increasing and Phishing is one the most common cyberattack among them. Taking a user’s personal information such as credit card numbers, login details, confidential info, and so on through illegitimate activities of using the internet without the user’s knowledge and using it for blackmailing, debiting money from the user’s account, or any other purpose with the wrong intentions is known as phishing. In phishing attack, a phisher or attacker pretends to be masquerade as a known person or organization to the user and sends the mails or messages which contains malicious links in them and these malicious links contains harmful software’s or viruses which steals the user’s computer data, financial data, login credentials such as User ID and passwords, credit card details, etc. Phishing is the most common and dangerous cyberattack which is growing in the today’s world. Nowadays phishers are working smartly they are using the new techniques for creating the malicious links and embeds them in the emails and messages and sends it to the user which looks similar to the trusted mail or message to the user and as soon as the user clicks on the malicious link it redirects the user to the malicious webpage or runs the harmful software in the backend while the user is reading the email or message and takes over the соntrоl оf the user’s соmрuter аnd steаls аll dаtа оf the user’s соmрuter. Due to a speedy development inside the digital commerce generation, the usage of credit playing cards has dramatically extended. In view that credit card is the most popular mode of fee, the number of fraud instances related to it is also rising. As a result, in order to prevent these frauds, we need an excellent fraud detection system that can detect them correctly. We created the idea of credit card frauds in this paper, and we used a variety of device learning methods on an unbalanced dataset, including logistic regression, naivebayes, and random wooden area with ensemble classifiers using the boosting approach. An in-depth analysis of the existing and proposed models for credit card fraud detection has been completed, as well as a comparison of these tactics. So one of a kind classification models are applied to the statistics and the model performance is evaluated on the basis of quantitative measurements which include accuracy, precision, recollect, f1 score, confusion matrix. The realization of out observe explains the first class classifier via schooling and trying out using supervised strategies that offers better answer. KEYWORDS: phishing, credit card, cyberattack, malicious, detection, webpage.

Purpose/Objectives: Proton therapy is under investigation in breast cancer as a strategy to reduce heart and lung exposure, which is associated with late cardiopulmonary adverse events and secondary malignancy. To date, studies investigating postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) with protons have used conventional fractionation. We hypothesized that condensing treatment to 15 fractions would be safe based on evidence that breast cancer is more sensitive to higher dose fractions than surrounding normal tissues. Materials/Methods: We conducted a randomized non-inferiority phase II trial comparing conventional and hypofractionated proton PMRT with primary endpoint of 24-month complication rate (defined as grade 3 or higher late adverse events using CTCAE, v 4.0 and/or unplanned surgical intervention in patients undergoing mastectomy with reconstruction). With a 10% non-inferiority margin the study ensured 80% power and had a one sided-type I error rate of 0.05. Cardiotoxicity was assessed with serial transthoracic conventional and 2-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE). Eligibility included age ≥ 18 years with non-inflammatory breast cancer resected by mastectomy with indications for PMRT. Assignment of treatments was balanced with respect to immediate breast reconstruction (IBR). Conventional fractionation group received 50 Gy in 25 fractions of 2 Gy, and hypofractionation group received 40.05 Gy in 15 fractions of 2.67 Gy (RBE 1.1). Target volume included the chest wall and axillary, supraclavicular, and internal mammary lymph nodes. All patients were treated with multi-field optimized pencil beam scanning (intensity modulated proton therapy). Results: Between 2016 and 2018, 82 patients were enrolled and randomized (41 conventional, 41 hypofractionation). Median patient age was 52 years. 32.9% were staged T3-T4 and 79.3% node positive at diagnosis. 57 of 82 patients (69.5%) elected IBR. The median mean heart dose was 0.49 Gy and the median ipsilateral lung volume receiving 40% of prescription or greater (V40%) was 13.6%. No significant changes on conventional or 2D-STE at end-of-treatment or 3-month follow-up compared to baseline were observed. The rate of ≥ grade 2 acute dermatitis was lower with hypofractionation (44% vs 15%, p = 0.006). Other ≥ grade 2 acute adverse events including esophagitis (0 vs 5%), infection (5% vs 2.4%) and skin hyperpigmentation (7.3% vs 4.8%) were not significantly different between the two arms. With a median follow-up of 38.3 months, the 24-month complication rate was conventional 14.6% vs hypofractionation 17.1% (absolute difference 2.4%, p=0.17, 95% CI [-, 15.7%]). In patients with IBR, 6 of 28 (21.4%) conventional and 7 of 29 (24.1%) hypofractionated patients developed complications (p =0.80). There was no significant difference in 3-year disease-free survival between the conventional (89.4%; 95% CI 80.0 – 99.8%) and hypofractionated (92.4%, 95% CI 84.5 – 100.0%) arms (p = 0.91). One local recurrence occurred in the hypofractionated arm simultaneous with regional and distant relapse. The remaining 6 recurrences were isolated distant events. Conclusions: Proton PMRT provided excellent locoregional control and normal tissue sparing. There were no subclinical echocardiographic changes indicative of radiation-induced cardiac dysfunction. Hypofractionation resulted in comparable disease control, tolerability and reconstruction outcomes as conventional fractionation. Although non-inferiority of hypofractionation could not be established based on the upper bound of the 95% confidence interval for complication rate being greater than 10%, both conventional and hypofractionation may be considered appropriate regimens for ongoing phase 3 randomized trials comparing photon and proton radiotherapy. Citation Format: Robert Mutter, Sharmila Giri, Briant Fruth, Nicholas Remmes, Aman Anand, Kathryn Ruddy, Hector Villarraga, Sebastian Santos Patarroyo, Elizabeth Yan, Kenneth Merrell, Lisa McGee, Tamara Vern-Gross, Bradley Stish, Robert Gao, Judy C. Boughey, Sean Park, Kimberly Corbin, Carlos Vargas. Phase II randomized trial of conventional versus hypofractionated post-mastectomy proton radiotherapy [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr GS4-05.

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) is up to date the most popular and commercially most successful conductive polymer. It is being used not only for antistatic, anti...

It is common knowledge that molecular energy level offsets of a type II heterojunction formed at the donor–acceptor interface are considered to be the driving force for photoinduced charge transfer in organic solar cells. Usually, these offsets – present between molecular energy levels of the donor and acceptor – are obtained via cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements of organic semiconductors cast in a film or dissolved in solution. Simply transferring such determined energy levels from solution or film of single materials to blend films may be obviously limited and not be possible in full generality. Herein, we report various cases of material combinations in which novel non-fullerene acceptors did not yield successful charge transfer, although energy levels obtained by CV on constituting single materials indicate a type II heterojunction. Whilst the integer charge transfer (ICT) model provides one explanation for a relative rise of molecular energy levels of acceptors, further details and other cases have not been studied so far in great detail. By applying energy-resolved electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (ER-EIS) on several donor–acceptor combinations, a Fano-like resonance feature associated with a distinctive molecular energy level of the acceptor as well as various relative molecular energy level shifts of different kinds could be observed. By analyzing ER-EIS and absorption spectra, not only the exciton binding energy within single materials could be determined, but also the commonly unknown binding energy of the CT state with regard to the joint density of states (jDOS) of the effective semiconductor. The latter is defined by transitions between the highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO) of the donor and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMO) of the acceptor. Using this technique among others, we identified cases in which charge generation may occur either via uphill or by downhill processes between the charge transfer exciton and the electronic gap of the effective semiconductor. Exceptionally high CT-exciton binding energies and thus low charge generation yields were obtained for a case in which the donor and acceptor yielded a too intimate blend morphology, indicating π–π stacking as a potential cause for unfavorable molecular energy level alignment.

Purpose To understand how verification computed tomography-quality assurance (CT-QA) scans influenced clinical decision-making to replan patients with head and neck cancer and identify predictors for replanning to guide intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) clinical practice. Patients and Methods We performed a quality-improvement study by prospectively collecting data on 160 consecutive patients with head and neck cancer treated using spot-scanning IMPT who underwent weekly verification CT-QA scans. Kaplan-Meier estimates were used to determine the cumulative probability of a replan by week. Predictors for replanning were determined with univariate (UVA) and multivariate (MVA) Cox model hazard ratios (HRs). Logistic regression was used to determine odds ratios (ORs). P Results Of the 160 patients, 79 (49.4%) had verification CT-QA scans, which prompted a replan. The cumulative probability of a replan by week 1 was 13.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 8.82-18.9), week 2, 25.0% (95% CI, 18.0-31.4), week 3, 33.1% (95% CI, 25.4-40.0), week 4, 45.6% (95% CI, 37.3-52.8), and week 5 and 6, 49.4% (95% CI, 41.0-56.6). Predictors for replanning were sinonasal disease site (UVA: HR, 1.82, P = .04; MVA: HR, 3.64, P = .03), advanced stage disease (UVA: HR, 4.68, P 60 Gy equivalent (GyE; relative biologic effectiveness, 1.1) (UVA: HR, 1.99, P Conclusions Weekly verification CT-QA scans frequently influenced clinical decision-making to replan. Additional studies that evaluate the practice of monitoring IMPT-treated patients with weekly CT-QA scans and whether that improves clinical outcomes are warranted.

et al., Large datasets are now ubiquitous as technology enables higher-throughput experiments, but rarely can a research field truly benefit from the research data generated due to inconsistent formatting, undocumented storage or improper dissemination. Here we extract all the meaningful device data from peer-reviewed papers on metal-halide perovskite solar cells published so far and make them available in a database. We collect data from over 42,400 photovoltaic devices with up to 100 parameters per device. We then develop open-source and accessible procedures to analyse the data, providing examples of insights that can be gleaned from the analysis of a large dataset. The database, graphics and analysis tools are made available to the community and will continue to evolve as an open-source initiative. This approach of extensively capturing the progress of an entire field, including sorting, interactive exploration and graphical representation of the data, will be applicable to many fields in materials science, engineering and biosciences., Open access funding provided by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH., The core funding of the project has been received from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 787289. We acknowledge the following sources for individual funding. Cambridge India Ramanujan Scholarship, China Scholarship Council, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), EPSRC (grant no. EP/S009213/1), European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant no. 764787, EU Project ‘MAESTRO’), (grant no. 756962, ERC Project ‘HYPERION’), (grant no. 764047, EU Project ‘ESPResSo’ and grant no. 850937), GCRF/EPSRC SUNRISE (EP/P032591/1), German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), HyPerFORME, NanoMatFutur (grant no. 03XP0091). PEROSEED (ZT-0024), Helmholtz Energy Materials Foundry, The Helmholtz Innovation Laboratory HySPRINT. BMBF (grant nos. 03SF0540, 03SF0557A), HyPerCells graduate school, Helmholtz Association, Helmholtz International Research School (HI-SCORE), the Erasmus programme (CDT-PV, grant no. EP/L01551X/1), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement nos. 841386, 795079 and 840751), Royal Society University Research Fellowship (grant no. UF150033). SNaPSHoTs (BMBF), SPARC II, German Research Foundation (DFG, grant no. SPP2196), The National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 51872014), the Recruitment Programme of Global Experts, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the ‘111’ project (grant no. B17002), the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) agreement no. DE-EE0008551, the Colombia Scientific Programme in the framework of the call Ecosistema Cientifíco (Contract no. FP44842-218-2018), the committee for the development of research (CODI) of the Universidad de Antioquia (grant no. 2017-16000), Spanish MINECO (Severo Ochoa programme, grant no. SEV‐2015‐0522), the Swedish research council (VR, grant no. 2019-05591) and the Swedish Energy Agency (grant no. 2020-005194).

This document reports the design of a retrospective study to validate the clinical acceptability of a deep-learning-based model for the autosegmentation of organs-at-risk (OARs) for use in radiotherapy treatment planning for head & neck (H&N) cancer patients.

Current–voltage ( IV) characterization is the most fundamental measurement performed on solar cells. This measurement is commonly used to extract basic solar cell parameters, such as open circuit voltage, short circuit current density, fill factor, and power conversion efficiency. We were able to obtain a fast tool to find defective behavior using Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis simulations and generate an understanding of which device property can create such defective behaviors by analyzing the second derivative of IV curves.

People who are impaired with speaking and hearing abilities use sign language for communication between them, but it is a tough task for them to communicate with the outside world. Through this paper, we are proposing a system to convert Indian Sigh Language (ISL), American Sign Language (ISL) and British Sign Language (BSL) hand gestures to a textual format of the respective language as well as convert text in to their preferable Sign language. In this paper, we are capturing ISL, ASL, BSL gestures through a web camera. The streaming video of hand gestures is then sliced to distinct images to match the finger orientation to the corresponding alphabets. Finger orientations as features of the hand gestures in terms of angles made by fingers, numbers of fingers completely open, semi-open, fully closed, finger axis verticals or horizontal and recognition of each finger are prepossessed and required for gesture recognition. Implementation is done for alphabets uses single hand and results are explained. After prepossessing the hand part of the sliced frame in the form of masked image is projected to the extraction of features from the image frame. To classify different gestures we used SVM (Support Vector Machine), CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) for further testing the probable gesture and recording the accuracies of each algorithm. Implementation is done over our own regular ISL, BSL, ASL data-set made by us only, using the web camera of our laptops. Our Experimental results depict that our proposed work and methodology can work on different backgrounds like a background consist of different objects or may have some sort of color background etc. For text to sign conversion we create a video which tells respective text into sign language.

As everyone is eye witnessing the enormous growth rate in huge amounts of data in our day-to-day life. And due to this much increase in data and networking, there also comes the gateway of E-world into the frame. E-world is there in association of Internet technology wherein everything is digitized and accessible on tips. Online marketing has grown the use of net banking and scenario is folding toward Internet services. This abundance of data and information puts additional number to the buyer in executing tasks online. The product recommendation tools and techniques are in use today to deduce the extra amount of burden from the user and also recommend and present them with the specific product they are searching for. Product recommendation from a user perspective has two major uses which are to buy the exact commodity they want or they can have look over other similar products that they may like and buy. This thing also increases the sales and marketing of other products as well. The most popular techniques for this product recommendation is collaborative filtering, use of if-then statement (i.e., association rule), and process of using data mining algorithms to extract information directly from the Web (i.e., WebMining).

Clinical enthusiasm for proton therapy (PT) is high, with an exponential increase in the number of centers offering treatment. Attraction for this charged particle therapy modality stems from the favorable proton dose distribution, with low radiation dose absorption on entry and maximum radiation deposition at the Bragg peak. The current clinical convention is to use a fixed relative biological effectiveness (RBE) value of 1.1 in order to correct the physical dose relative to photon therapy (i.e., proton radiation is 10% more biologically effective then photon radiation). In recent years, concerns about the potential side effects of PT have emerged. Various studies and review articles have sought to better quantify the RBE of PT and shine some light on the complexity of this problem. Reduction in biologic hot spots of non-target tissue is paramount in proton radiation therapy (RT) planning as the primary benefit of proton RT is a reduction in organ at risk (OAR) irradiation. New and emerging clinical data is in support of variable proton biological effectiveness and demonstrate late toxicity, presumably associated with high biological dose, to OAR. Overall, PT has promise to treat many cancer sites with similar efficacy as conventional RT but with fewer acute and late toxicities. However, further knowledge of biologic effective dose and its impact on both cancer and adjacent OAR is paramount for effective and safe treatment of patients with PT.

Proton beam therapy (PBT) is a state-of-the-art radiotherapy treatment approach that uses focused proton beams for tumor ablation. A key advantage of this approach over conventional photon radiotherapy (XRT) is the unique dose deposition characteristic of protons, which results in superior healthy tissue sparing. This results in fewer unwanted side effects and improved outcomes for patients. Currently available dosimeters are intrinsic, complex, and expensive and are not routinely used to determine the dose delivered to the tumor. Here, we report a hydrogel-based plasmonic nanosensor for detecting clinical doses used in conventional and hyperfractionated proton beam radiotherapy. In this nanosensor, gold ions, encapsulated in a hydrogel, are reduced to gold nanoparticles following irradiation with proton beams. Formation of gold nanoparticles renders a color change to the originally colorless hydrogel. The intensity of the color can be used to calibrate the hydrogel nanosensor in order to quantify different radiation doses employed during proton treatment. The potential of this nanosensor for clinical translation was demonstrated using an anthropomorphic phantom mimicking a clinical radiotherapy session. The simplicity of fabrication, detection range in the fractionated radiotherapy regime, and ease of detection with translational potential makes this a first-in-kind plasmonic colorimetric nanosensor for applications in clinical proton beam therapy.

Monte Carlo (MC) simulation has been used to generate commissioning data for the beam modeling of treatment planning system (TPS). We have developed a method called radial projection (RP) for postprocessing of MC‐simulation‐generated data. We used the RP method to reduce the statistical uncertainty of the lateral profile of proton pencil beams with axial symmetry. The RP method takes advantage of the axial symmetry of dose distribution to use the mean value of multiple independent scores as the representative score. Using the mean as the representative value rather than any individual score results in substantial reduction in statistical uncertainty. Herein, we present the concept and step‐by‐step implementation of the RP method, as well as show the advantage of the RP method over conventional measurement methods for generating lateral profile. Lateral profiles generated by both methods were compared to demonstrate the uncertainty reduction qualitatively, and standard error comparison was performed to demonstrate the reduction quantitatively. The comparisons showed that statistical uncertainty was reduced substantially by the RP method. Using the RP method to postprocess MC data, the corresponding MC simulation time was reduced by a factor of 10 without quality reduction in the generated result from the MC data. We concluded that the RP method is an effective technique to increase MC simulation efficiency for generating lateral profiles for axially symmetric pencil beams.

There are millions of schools around the globe but only a small portion of them use software for managing their resources. In the era of internet only few of these education providing schools provide software parents and child. A majority of schools ERP(Enterprise Resource Management) system is not equipped with a lot of functionality and features. The payment gateway feature which enable the end customers(parents) to pay through the school ERP interface is missing. We are to perform an analysis on why schools do not have these interface and also why parents hesitate to pay through these platforms. We are to provide an ERP solution which solves most of these issues.

Purpose: To find an efficient method to configure the proton fluence for a commercial proton pencil beam scanning (PBS) treatment planning system (TPS). Methods: An in-water dose kernel was developed to mimic the dose kernel of the pencil beam convolution superposition algorithm, which is part of the commercial proton beam therapy planning software, eclipse™ (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA). The field size factor (FSF) was calculated based on the spot profile reconstructed by the in-house dose kernel. The workflow of using FSFs to find the desirable proton fluence is presented. The in-house derived spot profile and FSF were validated by a direct comparison with those calculated by the eclipse TPS. The validation included 420 comparisons of the FSFs from 14 proton energies, various field sizes from 2 to 20 cm and various depths from 20% to 80% of proton range. Results: The relative in-water lateral profiles between the in-house calculation and the eclipse TPS agree very well even at the level of 10−4. The FSFs between the in-house calculation and the eclipse TPS also agree well. The maximum deviation is within 0.5%, and the standard deviation is less than 0.1%. Conclusions: The authors’ method significantly reduced the time to find the desirable proton fluences of the clinical energies. The method is extensively validated and can be applied to any proton centers using PBS and the eclipse TPS.

The aim of this paper is to develop a lightweight wall climbing robot which is based on the soft-robotics concept. This approach uses the pneumatic system for the locomotion purpose of the robot. The robot is a prototype for inspection applications aboard the pipe inspections both inside and outside the pipe. From recent studies, we came across the pneumatic actuators which actuate when pressurized i.e. when a particular amount of air is pumped in. These actuators can be considered as a single degree of freedom (DOF), as they have just a single bending side. In this project, we have used three such kinds of actuators which act as the 3 (DOF). The robot design and initial experimental results are presented including the stress and strain calculation.

The dose response for films exposed to clinical x-ray beams is not linear and a calibration curve based on absorbed dose can be used to account for this effect. However for proton dosimetry the dose response of films exhibits an additional dependence because of the variation of the linear energy transfer (LET) as the protons penetrate matter. In the present study, we hypothesized that the dose response for EBT2 films can be mathematically described as a bimolecular chemical reaction. Furthermore, we have shown that the LET effect can be incorporated in the dose-response curve. A set of EBT2 films was exposed to pristine 161.6 MeV proton beams. The films were exposed to doses ranging from 0.93 to 14.82 Gy at a depth of 2 cm in water. The procedure was repeated with one film exposed to a lower energy beam (85.6 MeV). We also computed the LET and dose to water in the sensitive layer of the films with a validated Monte Carlo system, taking into account the film construction (polyester, adhesive and sensitive layers). The bimolecular model was able to accurately fit the experimental data with a correlation factor of 0.9998, and the LET correction factor was determined and incorporated into the dose-response function. We also concluded that the film orientation is important when determining the LET correction factor because of the asymmetric construction of the film.

Although Bortfeld's analytical formula is useful for describing Bragg curves, measured data can deviate from the values predicted by the model. Thus, we sought to determine the parameters of a closed analytical expression of multiple Bragg curves for scanning proton pencil beams using a simultaneous optimization algorithm and to determine the minimum number of energies that need to be measured in treatment planning so that complete Bragg curves required by the treatment planning system (TPS) can be accurately predicted. We modified Bortfeld's original analytical expression of Bragg curves to accurately describe the dose deposition resulting from secondary particles. The parameters of the modified analytical expression were expressed as the parabolic cylinder function of the ranges of the proton pencil beams in water. Thirty-nine discrete Bragg curves were measured in our center using a PTW Bragg Peak chamber during acceptance and commission of the scanning beam proton delivery system. The coefficients of parabolic function were fitted by applying a simultaneous optimization algorithm to seven measured curves. The required Bragg curves for 45 energies in the TPS were calculated using our parameterized analytical expression. Finally, the 10 cm width of spread-out Bragg peaks (SOBPs) of beams with maximum energies of 221.8 and 121.2 MeV were then calculated in the TPS and compared with measured data. Compared with Bortfeld's original formula, our modified formula improved fitting of the measured depth dose curves at depths around three-quarters of the maximum range and in the beam entrance region. The parabolic function described the relationship between the parameters of the analytic expression of different energies. The predicted Bragg curves based on the parameters fitted using the seven measured curves accurately described the Bragg curves of proton pencil beams of 45 energies configured in our TPS. When we used the calculated Bragg curves as the input to TPS, the standard deviations of the measured and calculated data points along the 10 cm SOBPs created with proton pencil beams with maximum energies of 221.8 and 121.2 MeV were 1.19% and 1.18%, respectively, using curves predicted by the algorithm generated from the seven measured curves. Our method would be a valuable tool to analyze measured Bragg curves without the need for time-consuming measurements and correctly describe multiple Bragg curves using a closed analytical expression.

Roll and spray coating methods have been employed for the fabrication of highly oxidation resistant transparent and conducting electrodes (TCEs) by a simple solution process using crackle lithography technique. We have spray-coated a crackle paint-based precursor to produce highly interconnected crackle network on PET roll mounted on a roll coater with web speed of 0.6 m/min. Ag TCE with a transmittance of 78% and sheet resistance of ∼20 Ω/□ was derived by spraying Ag precursor ink over the crackle template followed by lift-off and annealing under ambient conditions. The Ag wire mesh was stable toward bending and sonication tests but prone to oxidation in air. When electrolessly coated with Pd, its robustness toward harsh oxidation conditions was enhanced. A low-cost transparent electrode has also been realized by using only small amounts of Ag as seed layer and growing Cu wire mesh by electroless method. Thus, made Ag/Cu meshes are found to be highly stable for more than a year even under ambient atmosphere.

An inter-comparison planning study between photon beam therapy (IMRT) and scanning proton beam therapy (SPBT) for squamous cell carcinoma of the anus (SCCA) is presented. SPBT plans offer significant reduction (>50%, P=0.008) in doses to small bowel, and bone marrow thereby offering the potential to reduce bowel and hemotoxicities.

A gas-sensing probe has been investigated that involves the use of microwave resonant circuitry to detect frequency shifts/Q-changes in a resonant microwave cavity caused by absorption of chemical/biological agents onto carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Tests were made with single walled (SWNTs) to determine maximum selectivity of the probe. The ultimate goal is to accumulate a battery of test data for selected gases to establish a comprehensive inventory of potential gases that can be sensed with the apparatus. Additionally, it is anticipated that this work will result in a significant simplification of the design of the probe as well as the determination of an optimum frequency for probing with the cavity. Data presented in this work is offered as a demonstration of the feasibility of the instrument to detect non-toxic gases. As development continues, the device should be able to detect a wider range of gases including airborne toxins. Particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) was used to characterize the impurities within the SWNTS to better understand the nature of the coupling of the microwave with the nanostructured material and ultimately to determine how impurities affect the sensitivity of the probe.

Summary: Proton beam radiotherapy (PBR) has gained acceptance for the treatment of breast cancer because of unique beam characteristics that allow superior dose distributions with optimal dose to the target and limited collateral damage to adjacent normal tissue, especially to the heart and lungs. To determine the compatibility of breast tissue expanders (TEs) with PBR, we evaluated the structural and dosimetric properties of 2 ex vivo models: 1 model with internal struts and another model without an internal structure. Although the struts appeared to have minimal impact, we found that the metal TE port alters PBR dynamics, which may increase proton beam range uncertainty. Therefore, submuscular TE placement may be preferable to subcutaneous TE placement to reduce the interaction of the TE and proton beam. This will reduce range uncertainty and allow for more ideal radiation dose distribution.

Photo-stimulable phosphor computed radiography (CR) has characteristics that allow the output to be manipulated by both radiation and optical light. The authors have developed a method that uses these characteristics to carry out radiation field and light field coincidence quality assurance on linear accelerators.CR detectors from Kodak were used outside their cassettes to measure both radiation and light field edges from a Varian linear accelerator. The CR detector was first exposed to a radiation field and then to a slightly smaller light field. The light impinged on the detector's latent image, removing to an extent the portion exposed to the light field. The detector was then digitally scanned. A MATLAB-based algorithm was developed to automatically analyze the images and determine the edges of the light and radiation fields, the vector between the field centers, and the crosshair center. Radiographic film was also used as a control to confirm the radiation field size.Analysis showed a high degree of repeatability with the proposed method. Results between the proposed method and radiographic film showed excellent agreement of the radiation field. The effect of varying monitor units and light exposure time was tested and found to be very small. Radiation and light field sizes were determined with an uncertainty of less than 1 mm, and light and crosshair centers were determined within 0.1 mm.A new method was developed to digitally determine the radiation and light field size using CR photo-stimulable phosphor plates. The method is quick and reproducible, allowing for the streamlined and robust assessment of light and radiation field coincidence, with no observer interpretation needed.

Dose distributions calculated with the fast dose calculator (FDC), a track repeating-algorithm for proton therapy, have been validated versus dose measurements in water for scanning proton beams at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Proton Therapy Center in Houston. The dose calculated with FDC, at the position of the measured points for depth and lateral profiles, was compared to the measurements with a gamma-index analysis. It was found that 99.9% and 99.5% of the measured points had a gamma-index value smaller than unity for the 3%/3 mm and 2%/2 mm dose/distance agreement criteria, respectively.