Purpose: Financial toxicity (FT) adversely influences patient quality of life and is a barrier to clinical trial enrollment. Early-phase clinical trials (EPCTs) recruit patients who may have high baseline FT and require additional visits and procedures, potentially increasing FT.
Methods: In this prospective survey study, we sought to assess FT at baseline and after 2 months among patients with advanced solid malignancies participating in EPCTs.
Brillouin-scattering-based sensors are capable of measuring either the strain or the temperature along the length of an optical fiber in a distributed fashion through measurement of the Brillouin-frequency shift. The cross sensitivity of the frequency shift to these two parameters makes it impossible to differentiate between them by measurement of the frequency shift alone. We report on a new technique that permits the simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature to resolutions of +/-178 microepsilon and +/-3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe testing of a fiber-optic distributed-strain sensor attached to a simple structural member is reported. A Brillouin scattering-based sensor system was used to measure both tensile and compressive strains along the length of a cantilever beam subjected to various loads. The sensing fiber was attached to the beam in such a way that some sections experienced uniform strain, whereas others were subjected to a nonuniform strain distribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe characterization of the Brillouin-loss spectrum of single-mode fibers with very short (<10-ns) pulses has been studied. It was found that the Brillouin-loss signal intensity is linearly related to the duration of the pump pulse used to obtain the spectrum. In contrast with the uniform trend of the signal, three distinct behaviors were observed in the spectral linewidth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe strain measurement of a 1.65-m reinforced concrete beam by use of a distributed fiber strain sensor with a 50-cm spatial resolution and 5-cm readout resolution is reported. The strain-measurement accuracy is +/-15 microepsilon (microm/m) according to the system calibration in the laboratory environment with non-uniform-distributed strain and +/-5 microepsilon with uniform strain distribution.
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