Neuromuscular Diseases Affect Number Representation and Processing: An Exploratory Study.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) both are rare genetic neuromuscular diseases with progressive loss of motor ability. The neuromotor developmental course of those diseases is well documented. In contrast, there is only little evidence about characteristics of general and specific cognitive development.

Prediction of child and adolescent outcomes with broadband and narrowband dimensions of internalizing and externalizing behavior using the child and adolescent version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a frequently used screening instrument for behavioral problems in children and adolescents. There is an ongoing controversy-not only in educational research-regarding the factor structure of the SDQ. Research results speak for a 3-factor as well as a 5-factor structure.

Comparison of a multileaf collimator tracking system and a robotic treatment couch tracking system for organ motion compensation during radiotherapy.

Purpose: One limitation of accurate dose delivery in radiotherapy is intrafractional movement of the tumor or the entire patient which may lead to an underdosage of the target tissue or an overdosage of adjacent organs at risk. In order to compensate for this movement, different techniques have been developed. In this study the tracking performances of a multileaf collimator (MLC) tracking system and a robotic treatment couch tracking system were compared under equal conditions.

Control of a HexaPOD treatment couch for robot-assisted radiotherapy.

Moving tumors, for example in the vicinity of the lungs, pose a challenging problem in radiotherapy, as healthy tissue should not be irradiated. Apart from gating approaches, one standard method is to irradiate the complete volume within which a tumor moves plus a safety margin containing a considerable volume of healthy tissue. This work deals with a system for tumor motion compensation using the HexaPOD® robotic treatment couch (Medical Intelligence GmbH, Schwabmünchen, Germany).

The subjective experience of committed errors and the Discrepancy-Attribution hypothesis.

In routine sequential behavior, we sometimes become aware of having committed an error. However, often we do not. Here, we investigated the processes underlying conscious error detection within a typing paradigm.

Dosimetric evaluation of intrafractional tumor motion by means of a robot driven phantom.

Purpose: The aim of the work was to investigate the influence of intrafractional tumor motion to the accumulated (absorbed) dose. The accumulated dose was determined by means of calculations and measurements with a robot driven motion phantom.

Methods: Different motion scenarios and compensation techniques were realized in a phantom study to investigate the influence of motion on image acquisition, dose calculation, and dose measurement.

Semi-robotic 6 degree of freedom positioning for intracranial high precision radiotherapy; first phantom and clinical results.

Background: To introduce a novel method of patient positioning for high precision intracranial radiotherapy.

Methods: An infrared(IR)-array, reproducibly attached to the patient via a vacuum-mouthpiece(vMP) and connected to the table via a 6 degree-of-freedom(DoF) mechanical arm serves as positioning and fixation system. After IR-based manual prepositioning to rough treatment position and fixation of the mechanical arm, a cone-beam CT(CBCT) is performed.

Influence of continuous table motion on patient breathing patterns.

Purpose: To investigate the influence of continuous table motion on patient breathing patterns for compensation of moving targets by a robotic treatment couch.

Methods And Materials: Fifteen volunteers were placed on a robotic treatment couch, and the couch was moved on different breathing-correlated and -uncorrelated trajectories. External abdominal breathing motion of the patients was measured using an infrared camera system.

Investigation of the usability of conebeam CT data sets for dose calculation.

Background: To investigate the feasibility and accuracy of dose calculation in cone beam CT (CBCT) data sets.

Methods: Kilovoltage CBCT images were acquired with the Elekta XVI system, CT studies generated with a conventional multi-slice CT scanner (Siemens Somatom Sensation Open) served as reference images. Material specific volumes of interest (VOI) were defined for commercial CT Phantoms (CATPhan and Gammex RMI) and CT values were evaluated in CT and CBCT images.

Tumor tracking and motion compensation with an adaptive tumor tracking system (ATTS): system description and prototype testing.

A novel system for real-time tumor tracking and motion compensation with a robotic HexaPOD treatment couch is described. The approach is based on continuous tracking of the tumor motion in portal images without implanted fiducial markers, using the therapeutic megavoltage beam, and tracking of abdominal breathing motion with optical markers. Based on the two independently acquired data sets the table movements for motion compensation are calculated.

Measurement of output factors for small photon beams.

A variety of detectors and procedures for the measurement of small field output factors are discussed in the current literature. Different detectors with or without corrections are recommended. Correction factors are often derived by Monte Carlo methods, where the bias due to approximations in the model is difficult to judge.

Positioning accuracy of cone-beam computed tomography in combination with a HexaPOD robot treatment table.

Purpose: To scrutinize the positioning accuracy and reproducibility of a commercial hexapod robot treatment table (HRTT) in combination with a commercial cone-beam computed tomography system for image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT).

Methods And Materials: The mechanical stability of the X-ray volume imaging (XVI) system was tested in terms of reproducibility and with a focus on the moveable parts, i.e.

Three-dimensional spatial modelling of the correlation between abdominal motion and lung tumour motion with breathing.

The aim of this research was to investigate whether a spatial correlation could be found between an external 3-D respiratory signal and the tumour trajectory. The respiratory signal was obtained by tracking the abdominal movement and the tumour trajectory was obtained by automatically determining the tumour position in a series of portal images. Three different models, based on Systems Identification, are presented to model the correlation using a 1-D respiratory signal, a 3-D respiratory signal and a 3-D respiratory signal together with previously determined tumour positions.