Monte Carlo feasibility study of orthogonal bremsstrahlung beams for improved radiation therapy imaging
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The basic characteristics of orthogonal bremsstrahlung beams are studied and the feasibility of improved contrast imaging with such a beam is evaluated. In the context of this work, orthogonal bremsstrahlung beams represent the component of the bremsstrahlung distribution perpendicular to the electron beam impinging on an accelerator target. The BEAMnrc Monte Carlo code was used to study target characteristics, energy spectra and relative fluences of orthogonal beams to optimize target design. The reliability of the simulations was verified by comparing our results with benchmark experiments. Using the results of the Monte Carlo optimization, the targets with various materials and a collimator were designed and built. The primary pencil electron beam from the research port of a Varian Clinac-18 accelerator striking on Al, Pb and C targets was used to create orthogonal beams. For these beams, diagnostic image contrast was tested by placing simple Lucite objects in the path of the beams and comparing image contrast obtained in the orthogonal direction to the one obtained in the forward direction. The simulations for various target materials and various primary electron energies showed that a width of 80% of the continuous-slowing-down approximation range (RCSDA) is sufficient to remove electron contamination in the orthogonal direction. The photon fluence of the orthogonal beam for high Z targets is larger compared to low Z targets, i.e. by a factor of 20 for W compared to Be. For a 6 MeV electron beam, the mean energy for low Z targets is calculated to be 320 keV for Al and 150 keV for Be, and for a high Z target like Pb to be 980 keV. For irradiation times of 1.2 s in an electron mode of the linac, the contrast of diagnostic images created with orthogonal beams from the Al target is superior to that in the forward direction. The image contrast and the beam profile of the bremsstrahlung beams were also studied. Both the Monte Carlo study and experiment showed an improvement of the contrast for lower Z target materials. This study confirms the feasibility, both in terms of intensity and image contrast, of orthogonal bremsstrahlung beams for radiation therapy imaging.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".