Records of beach morphologic change and concurrent hydrodynamic forcing are needed to understand how coastlines in different environments change over time. This submission contains data for the period 2006 to 2021, for two contrasting macrotidal environments in southwest England: (i) cross-shore dominated, dissipative, sandy Perranporth Beach, Cornwall; and (ii) longshore-dominated, reflective gravel beaches within Start Bay, Devon. Data comprise monthly to annual beach profile surveys, annual merged topo-bathymetries, in addition to observed and numerically modelled wave and water levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe global COVID-19 pandemic has seen extended lockdowns, isolation periods and travel restrictions across many countries around the world since early 2020. Some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, closed their international borders in early 2020 preventing researchers travelling to other parts of the world. To facilitate the exposure of our students' work, and for them to meet international researchers, as well as foster a sense of coastal community, we started a zoominar series (seminars via Zoom) in April 2020.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImproved understanding of how our coasts will evolve over a range of time scales (years-decades) is critical for effective and sustainable management of coastal infrastructure. A robust knowledge of the spatial, directional and temporal variability of the inshore wave climate is required to predict future coastal evolution and hence vulnerability. However, the variability of the inshore directional wave climate has received little attention, and an improved understanding could drive development of skillful seasonal or decadal forecasts of coastal response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Radiation treatment planning for head and neck cancer is a complex process with much variability; automated treatment planning is a promising option to improve plan quality and efficiency. This study compared radiation plans generated from a fully automated radiation treatment planning system to plans generated manually that had been clinically approved and delivered.
Methods And Materials: The study cohort consisted of 50 patients treated by a specialized head and neck cancer team at a tertiary care center.
Purpose: To develop a deep learning model that generates consistent, high-quality lymph node clinical target volumes (CTV) contours for head and neck cancer (HNC) patients, as an integral part of a fully automated radiation treatment planning workflow.
Methods And Materials: Computed tomography (CT) scans from 71 HNC patients were retrospectively collected and split into training (n = 51), cross-validation (n = 10), and test (n = 10) data sets. All had target volume delineations covering lymph node levels Ia through V (Ia-V), Ib through V (Ib-V), II through IV (II-IV), and retropharyngeal (RP) nodes, which were previously approved by a radiation oncologist specializing in HNC.
Introduction: Re-irradiation (re-RT) for locoregionally recurrent esophageal and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer and de novo esophageal + GEJ cancer arising in-field after a course of prior radiation poses considerable treatment challenges given the sensitivity of surrounding organs at risk (OARs). Guidelines for treatment of this presentation are not well established. Pencil-beam scanning (PBS) proton therapy has the ability to decrease radiation dose to OARs relative to photon plans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Inadequate delivery of nutrition in critically ill patients has been shown to have adverse outcomes. A surgical trauma intensive care unit provides unique challenges to enteral feeds. Although volume-based feeding protocols, like Enhanced Protein-Energy Provision via the Enteral Route Feeding Protocol (PEP uP), have been successfully used in medical intensive care patients, data are sparse on its safety and efficacy in a surgical intensive care unit population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To develop a head and neck normal structures autocontouring tool that could be used to automatically detect the errors in autocontours from a clinically validated autocontouring tool.
Methods: An autocontouring tool based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) was developed for 16 normal structures of the head and neck and tested to identify the contour errors from a clinically validated multiatlas-based autocontouring system (MACS). The computed tomography (CT) scans and clinical contours from 3495 patients were semiautomatically curated and used to train and validate the CNN-based autocontouring tool.
A theoretical approach, in which the rotational degrees of freedom are treated quantum mechanically while translational degrees of freedom classically or semiclassically, is applied to calculate the total and final-state specific cross sections for the reaction H + H → H( v, j) + e in the range of low collision energies ( E = 1-754 meV). The calculated cross sections agree well with the existing experimental and theoretical results. Results are also presented for the inverse dissociative attachment process: H( v, j) + e → H + H.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The purpose of this study was to validate a fully automatic treatment planning system for conventional radiotherapy of cervical cancer. This system was developed to mitigate staff shortages in low-resource clinics.
Methods: In collaboration with hospitals in South Africa and the United States, we have developed the Radiation Planning Assistant (RPA), which includes algorithms for automating every step of planning: delineating the body contour, detecting the marked isocenter, designing the treatment-beam apertures, and optimizing the beam weights to minimize dose heterogeneity.
Accurate clinical target volume (CTV) delineation is essential to ensure proper tumor coverage in radiation therapy. This is a particularly difficult task for head-and-neck cancer patients where detailed knowledge of the pathways of microscopic tumor spread is necessary. This paper proposes a solution to auto-segment these volumes in oropharyngeal cancer patients using a two-channel 3D U-Net architecture.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose We assessed automated contouring of normal structures for patients with head-and-neck cancer (HNC) using a multiatlas deformable-image-registration algorithm to better provide a fully automated radiation treatment planning solution for low- and middle-income countries, provide quantitative analysis, and determine acceptability worldwide. Methods Autocontours of eight normal structures (brain, brainstem, cochleae, eyes, lungs, mandible, parotid glands, and spinal cord) from 128 patients with HNC were retrospectively scored by a dedicated HNC radiation oncologist. Contours from a 10-patient subset were evaluated by five additional radiation oncologists from international partner institutions, and interphysician variability was assessed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Radiation Planning Assistant (RPA) is a system developed for the fully automated creation of radiotherapy treatment plans, including volume-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans for patients with head/neck cancer and 4-field box plans for patients with cervical cancer. It is a combination of specially developed in-house software that uses an application programming interface to communicate with a commercial radiotherapy treatment planning system. It also interfaces with a commercial secondary dose verification software.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Automating and standardizing the contouring of clinical target volumes (CTVs) can reduce interphysician variability, which is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in head and neck radiation therapy. In addition to using uniform margin expansions to auto-delineate high-risk CTVs, very little work has been performed to provide patient- and disease-specific high-risk CTVs. The aim of the present study was to develop a deep neural network for the auto-delineation of high-risk CTVs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Surg Case Rep
February 2018
Tailgut cysts are benign retrorectal embryological remnants, often found incidentally or when evaluating a patient for pelvic symptoms. Transanal minimally invasive surgery (TAMIS) offers patients a low morbidity surgical approach for resection of a variety of low rectal lesions. This is a case report of resection of a tailgut cyst using TAMIS, including images and description of the steps of the procedure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: More than 6,500 megavoltage teletherapy units are needed worldwide, many in low-resource settings. Cobalt-60 units or linear accelerators (linacs) can fill this need. We have evaluated machine performance on the basis of patient throughput to provide insight into machine viability under various conditions in such a way that conclusions can be generalized to a vast array of clinical scenarios.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnhealthy eating is a major risk factor for chronic disease. However, many current strategies to promote healthy eating are not sustainable over the longer-term. More cost-effective wide-reaching initiatives are urgently needed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo investigate the inter- and intra-fraction motion associated with the use of a low-cost tape immobilization technique as an alternative to thermoplastic immobilization masks for whole-brain treatments. The results of this study may be of interest to clinical staff with severely limited resources (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRadiotherapy in a seated position may be indicated for patients who are unable to lie on the treatment couch for the duration of treatment, in scenarios where a seated treatment position provides superior anatomical positioning and dose distributions, or for a low-cost system designed using a fixed treatment beam and rotating seated patient. In this study, we report a novel treatment chair that was constructed to allow for three-dimensional imaging and treatment delivery while ensuring robust immobilization, providing reproducibility equivalent to that in the traditional supine position. Five patients undergoing radiation treatment for head-and-neck cancers were enrolled and were setup in the chair, with immobilization devices created, and then imaged with orthogonal X-rays in a scenario that mimicked radiation treatments (without treatment delivery).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA simple model potential is proposed to describe the dynamical barrier in the mean interaction potential at small distances between the reactants in S(D) + HD(Σ, v = 0, j = 0) reaction. The statistical theory of collision complex formation and complex decay is applied to calculate the total reaction cross sections and the cross sections for SH and SD productions in the range of low collision energies E = (0.4-60) meV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci
September 2015
We have designed a method for immobilizing the subjects of small-animal studies using a study group-specific 3D-printed immobilizer that significantly reduces interfraction rotational variation. A cone-beam CT scan acquired from a single specimen in a study group was used to create a 3D-printed immobilizer that can be used for all specimens in the same study group. 3D printing allows for the incorporation of study-specific features into the immobilizer design, including geometries suitable for use in MR and CT scanners, holders for fiducial markers, and anesthesia nose cones of various sizes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvans calcaneal osteotomy remains a cornerstone in the correction of the flexible flatfoot. Although multiple techniques have been used to maintain the length of the lateral column, a low profile wedge locking plate was recently introduced as an alternative to the traditional tricortical allograft wedge. We hypothesized that the wedge locking plate would better maintain the mid-calcaneal length compared with the tricortical allograft wedge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA statistical treatment is presented of reactive collisions involving N(+) ions in the (3)Pja state with H2, D2, and HD molecules in rotation level j of the ground vibration state, leading to either the reaction products H + NH(+), D + ND(+), and D + NH(+) or H + ND(+). Unlike previous theoretical work, the fine-structure states of the N(+) ions are treated on an equal footing with other internal motions. The calculated cross sections for a given ion energy are averaged over a thermal distribution of initial fine-structure states of N(+) for a temperature of 300 K and over a thermal distribution of both the internal rotation states and translation energy of H2, D2, and HD for temperatures of 305 and 105 K in order to facilitate a comparison with experiment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNed Tijdschr Tandheelkd
January 2014
It is well known that the dental occlusion can influence the activity of the masticatory muscles. However, a simple, reproducable and predictable relationship has not yet been found. Due to variability between different subjects, the use of absolute electromyographic values is unlikely to help dentists with the diagnostics of temporomandibular disfunction and the possible relationship with the occlusion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStatistical theory based on a mean isotropic potential deduced from a full potential energy surface is applied to the complex-forming, reactive H(+) + H(2) system in the interval of collision energies E(c) = 10(-3) to 0.5 eV. We present expressions for the reaction probabilities that incorporate the full permutation symmetry of the protons and compare our results with other statistical models and full quantum mechanical approaches that take account this symmetry correctly, approximately, or erroneously for the exchange rearrangement mechanism of the reaction.
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