• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.317-325
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• 2012

The Varian PORTALVISION (Varian Medical Systems, US) shows significant overresponses as the off-center distance increases compared to the predicted dose. In order to correct the dose discrepancy, the off-axis correction is applied to VARIAN iX linear accelerators. The portal dose for $38{\times}28cm^2$ open field is acquired for 6 MV, 15 MV photon beams and also are predicted by PDIP algorithm under the same condition of the portal dose acquisition. The off-axis correction is applied by modifying the $40{\times}40cm^2$ diagonal beam profile data which is used for the beam profile calibration. The ratios between predicted dose and measured dose is modeled as a function of off-axis distance with the $4^{th}$ polynomial and is applied to the $40{\times}40cm^2$ diagonal beam profile data as the weight to correct measured dose by EPID detector. The discrepancy between measured dose and predicted dose is reduced from $4.17{\pm}2.76$ CU to $0.18{\pm}0.8$ CU for 6 MV photon beam and from $3.23{\pm}2.59$ CU to $0.04{\pm}0.85$ CU for 15 MV photon beam. The passing rate of gamma analysis for the pyramid fluence patten with the 4%, 4 mm criteria is improved from 98.7% to 99.1% for 6 MV photon beam, from 99.8% to 99.9% for 15 MV photon beam. IMRT QA is also performed for randomly selected Head and Neck and Prostate IMRT plans after applying the off-axis correction. The gamma passing rare is improved by 3% on average, for Head and Neck cases: $94.7{\pm}3.2%$ to $98.2{\pm}1.4%$, for Prostate cases: $95.5{\pm}2.6%$, $98.4{\pm}1.8%$. The gamma analysis criteria is 3%, 3 mm with 10% threshold. It is considered that the off-axis correction might be an effective and easily adaptable means for correcting the discrepancy between measured dose and predicted dose for IMRT QA using EPID in clinic.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.264-270
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• 2014

This study developed a portable respiratory training device to improve breathing stability, which is an important element in using the CyberKnife Synchrony respiratory tracking device, one of the typical Stereotactic Radiation Therapy (SRT) devices. It produced an interface for users to be able to select one of two displays, a graph type and a bar type, supported an auditory system that helps them expect next respiration by improving a sense of rhythm of their respiratory period, and provided comfortable respiratory inducement. By targeting 5 applicants and applying individual respiratory period detected through a self-developed program, it acquired signal data of 'guide respiration' that induces breathing through signal data gained from 'free respiration' and an auditory system, and evaluated the usability by comparing deviation average values of respiratory period and respiratory amplitude. It could be identified that respiratory period decreased $55.74{\pm}0.14%$ compared to free respiration, and respiratory amplitude decreased $28.12{\pm}0.10%$ compared to free respiration, which confirmed the consistency and stability of respiratory. SBRT, developed based on these results, using the portable respiratory training device, for liver cancer or lung cancer, is evaluated to be able to help reduce delayed treatment time due to respiratory instability and improve treatment accuracy, and if it could be applied to developing respiratory training applications targeting an android-based portable device in the future, even use convenience and economic efficiency are expected.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.233-241
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• 2014

The aim of this study is to develop a new software tool for 3D dose verification using $PRESAGE^{REU}$ Gel dosimeter. The tool included following functions: importing 3D doses from treatment planning systems (TPS), importing 3D optical density (OD), converting ODs to doses, 3D registration between two volumetric data by translational and rotational transformations, and evaluation with 3D gamma index. To acquire correlation between ODs and doses, CT images of a $PRESAGE^{REU}$ Gel with cylindrical shape was acquired, and a volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plan was designed to give radiation doses from 1 Gy to 6 Gy to six disk-shaped virtual targets along z-axis. After the VMAT plan was delivered to the targets, 3D OD data were reconstructed from 512 projection data from $Vista^{TM}$ optical CT scanner (Modus Medical Devices Inc, Canada) per every 2 hours after irradiation. A curve for converting ODs to doses was derived by comparing TPS dose profile to OD profile along z-axis, and the 3D OD data were converted to the absorbed doses using the curve. Supra-linearity was observed between doses and ODs, and the ODs were decayed about 60% per 24 hours depending on their magnitudes. Measured doses from the $PRESAGE^{REU}$ Gel were well agreed with the TPS doses at central region, but large under-doses were observed at peripheral region at the cylindrical geometry. Gamma passing rate for 3D doses was 70.36% under the gamma criteria of 3% of dose difference and 3 mm of distance to agreement. The low passing rate was resulted from the mismatching of the refractive index between the PRESAGE gel and oil bath in the optical CT scanner. In conclusion, the developed software was useful for 3D dose verification from PRESAGE gel dosimetry, but further improvement of the Gel dosimetry system were required.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.298-303
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• 2014

In this study, we examine the trends and types of incidents frequently occur during radiation therapy by using the data from the radiation oncology safety information system (ROSIS), according to discovery method explores the development direction of future research accident cause factor control method. This study was carried out analysis of incident data in ROSIS nearly 1163 cases in last 11 years from 2003 to 2013. We categorized into treatment methods, found the time, discoverer of occupations and finding ways to analyze the data. Then, we calculate the percentage and the classification for each item. About 1163 cases of incident cases including the near miss cases, external radiation therapy, brachytherapy and other were 97%, 2% and 1%. In the case was improperly planned dose delivery was 44% (497 cases) which 429 cases (86%) was found before 3 fractions and 13 cases were found after 11 fractions. The investigation was found to be distributed in various a found times. Approximately 42% of found time was during treatment and 29% of patients were found the problem during inspection chart. Occupation to discover the most radiation accidents was the radiation therapist (53%) who works in treatment room. Among 1163 incidence cases, 24% cases were found the accident before the treatment, therefore most of accident were found after of during the treatment (70%, 813 cases). This trend is acquired through ROSIS analysis, is expected to be not significantly different in the case of Korea, so it is necessary more diverse and systematic research for the prevention and early detection by using the ROSIS data.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.253-258
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to evaluate and analyze the relationship between the external radiation dose reconstruction which is transmitted from the patient who receives radiation treatment through electronic portal imaging device (EPID) and the internal dose derived from the Monte Carlo simulation. As a comparative analysis of the two cases, it is performed to provide a basic indicator for similar studies. The geometric information of the experiment and that of the radiation source were entered into Monte Carlo n-particle (MCNPX) which is the computer simulation tool and to derive the EPID images, a tally card in MCNPX was used for visualizing and the imaging of the dose information. We set to source to surface distance (SSD) 100 cm for internal measurement and EPID. And the water phantom was set to be 100 cm of the source to surface distance (SSD) for the internal measurement and EPID was set to 90 cm of SSD which is 10 cm below. The internal dose was collected from the water phantom by using mesh tally function in MCNPX, accumulated dose data was acquired by four-portal beam exposures. At the same time, after getting the dose which had been passed through water phantom, dose reconstruction was performed using back-projection method. In order to analyze about two cases, we compared the penetrated dose by calibration of itself with the absorbed one. We also evaluated the reconstructed dose using EPID and partially accumulated (overlapped) dose in water phantom by four-portal beam exposures. The sum dose data of two cases were calculated as each 3.4580 MeV/g (absorbed dose in water) and 3.4354 MeV/g (EPID reconstruction). The result of sum dose match from two cases shows good agreement with 0.6536% dose error.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2009

Purpose : Although it's been known for half a century that unique structures have evolved in the cerebellum and they then became greatly enlarged in the human brain, the function of these structures still remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to assess cerebellar activation during motor, sensory, word generation, listening comprehension, and working memory tasks with using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Materials and Methods : Eleven healthy right-handed subjects (Male: female, 6:5, mean age: 27.4years) were imaged on a Siemens 1.5T scanner. Whole brain functional maps were acquired using BOLD EPI sequences in the axial plane. Each paradigm consisted of five epochs of activation vs. the control condition. The activation tasks consisted of left finger complex movement, sensory stimulation of the left hand, word generation, listening comprehension, and working memory tasks. The reference function was a boxcar waveform. The activation maps were thresholded at p = 0.001. SPM 5 evaluated the activated areas and responses within the cerebellum. Results : Cerebellar activation was observed on motor task, word generation task, and working memory task. There were 949 activated areas and the mean fitted and adjusted response was 0.68 during the motor task. There were 319 activated areas and the mean fitted and adjusted response was 0.15 during the word generation task. There were 330 activated areas and the mean fitted and adjusted response was 0.26 during the working memory task. Conclusion : Our results suggest that the cerebellum is involved in a variety of functional tasks, including motor, word generation, and working memory tasks. However, during the motor task, the cerebellum showed a large activated area and a high response. Cerebellar function can be evaluated by fMRI.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.31-39
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• 2009

Purpose : This study proposes the keyhole method in order to improve the time resolution of the proton resonance frequency(PRF) MR temperature monitoring technique. The values of Root Mean Square (RMS) error of measured temperature value and Signal-to-Noise Ratio(SNR) obtained from the keyhole and full phase encoded temperature images were compared. Materials and Methods : The PRF method combined with GRE sequence was used to get MR temperature images using a clinical 1.5T MR scanner. It was conducted on the tissue-mimic 2% agarose gel phantom and swine's hock tissue. A MR compatible coaxial slot antenna driven by microwave power generator at 2.45GHz was used to heat the object in the magnetic bore for 5 minutes followed by a sequential acquisition of MR raw data during 10 minutes of cooling period. The acquired raw data were transferred to PC after then the keyhole images were reconstructed by taking the central part of K-space data with 128, 64, 32 and 16 phase encoding lines while the remaining peripheral parts were taken from the 1st reference raw data. The RMS errors were compared with the 256 full encoded self-reference temperature image while the SNR values were compared with the zero filling images. Results : As phase encoding number at the center part on the keyhole temperature images decreased to 128, 64, 32 and 16, the RMS errors of the measured temperature increased to 0.538, 0.712, 0.768 and 0.845$^{\circ}C$, meanwhile SNR values were maintained as the phase encoding number of keyhole part is reduced. Conclusion : This study shows that the keyhole technique is successfully applied to temperature monitoring procedure to increases the temporal resolution by standardizing the matrix size, thus maintained the SNR values. In future, it is expected to implement the MR real time thermal imaging using keyhole method which is able to reduce the scan time with minimal thermal variations.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2009

Purpose : We sought to evaluate enhancement of plaque with gadolinium-based contrast agent by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in comparison with histopathology, namely lipid-rich and macrophage-rich components that were two representative characteristics of plaque vulnerability using atherosclerotic rabbit aorta in order to determine which histopathologic component is relevant to the enhancement. Materials and Methods : New Zealand white rabbit (n=4, weight 3.0 to 3.5 kg, all male) was used for animal model of atherosclerosis. Atherosclerotic aortic lesions were induced by high-cholesterol diet and double balloon injury. T1-weight axial images were acquired before and after gadolinium-based contrast agent using a 3-T MRI. MR images and the matched histopathological sections (n=35) were divided into 4 quadrants or 3 (n=130). Enhancement ratio (ER, ER=SIpost/SIpre) on MRI was calculated for each quadrant and compared with histopathology in regard to lipid-rich and macrophage-rich areas. Results : Lipid-rich quadrants were 72 and fibrous quadrants were 58. The number of quadrants which had macrophage-rich areas was 105 and that of quadrants which did not have macrophage-rich areas was 25. ER was significantly higher in lipid-rich quadrants than in fibrous quadrants (mean ER 2.25c$\pm$0.41 vs. 2.72$\pm$0.65, p=0.013). ER poorly correlated with macrophage-rich areas when lipid-component was controlled (correlation coefficient -0.203, p=0.236). Conclusion : Lipid-rich plaques showed stronger enhancement than fibrous plaques using a standard gadolinium-based extracellular contrast agent. Macrophage infiltration did not correlate with degree of enhancement. Further study is warranted that account for optimal time of imaging after contrast injection using various plaque models from early to advanced stages and all possible parameters associated with contrast enhancement.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.357-363
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• 2010

In this study, we investigated the geologic structure of the basement and overlying sediments of the construction site of the dinosaur egg fossil museum in Hwasung, Gyeonggi Province through refraction seismology, drilling, and downward seismic velocity measurements in the drill holes. The construction site ($350{\times}750\;m^2$) is located in the reclaimed area south of Sihwa Lake, Gojeong-ri. About 6,950 m of seismic refraction data consisting of 11 lines were acquired using a sledge hammer source. Drilling to the basement was performed at five sites. Sediment samples from drilling were analysed for grain-size distribution and age dating. At two drill holes, seismic velocity was measured with depth using a hammer as a seismic source. The geological structure of the study area consists of, from top to bottom, a tidal flat layer (5 ~ 12 m thick), a weathered soil layer (2 ~ 8 m thick), and the basement. The basement is interpreted as Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that tend to be shallow eastward. The volume of the tidal flat sediments and weathered soil in the study area is estimated as $1.4{\times}10^6\;m^3$, weighing $3.5{\times}10^6$ tons. The rate of sea level rise since 8,000 yrs BP is estimated to be 0.1 ~ 0.15 cm/yr.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.171-182
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• 2018

We performed the seismic field data processing using an open-source software (Madagascar) to verify if it is applicable to processing of field data, which has low signal-to-noise ratio and high uncertainties in velocities. The Madagascar, based on Python, is usually supposed to be better in the development of processing technologies due to its capabilities of multidimensional data analysis and reproducibility. However, this open-source software has not been widely used so far for field data processing because of complicated interfaces and data structure system. To verify the effectiveness of the Madagascar software on field data, we applied it to a typical seismic data processing flow including data loading, geometry build-up, F-K filter, predictive deconvolution, velocity analysis, normal moveout correction, stack, and migration. The field data for the test were acquired in Gunsan Basin, Yellow Sea using a streamer consisting of 480 channels and 4 arrays of air-guns. The results at all processing step are compared with those processed with Landmark's ProMAX (SeisSpace R5000) which is a commercial processing software. Madagascar shows relatively high efficiencies in data IO and management as well as reproducibility. Additionally, it shows quick and exact calculations in some automated procedures such as stacking velocity analysis. There were no remarkable differences in the results after applying the signal enhancement flows of both software. For the deeper part of the substructure image, however, the commercial software shows better results than the open-source software. This is simply because the commercial software has various flows for de-multiple and provides interactive processing environments for delicate processing works compared to Madagascar. Considering that many researchers around the world are developing various data processing algorithms for Madagascar, we can expect that the open-source software such as Madagascar can be widely used for commercial-level processing with the strength of expandability, cost effectiveness and reproducibility.