introduction: the important of comparing performance of hospitals using hospital indicators, has been made the necessary of utilizing of the application model inevitable. this study aimed to compare hospital performance key indicators simultaneity. methods: in this descriptive cross sectional and retrospective study, 31 hospitals of isfahan university of medical sciences were evaluated in 2007....

background: intraoperative radiation therapy (iort) technique is used to treat a surgically exposed tumor or tumor bed in the treatment of locally advanced intraabdominal, retroperitoneal, pelvic, thoracic, breast and soft tissue tumors. one way to perform iort is to use an existing linac and modify the treatment head using an applicator system. in this study the objectives were to design, and ...

Bayesian experimental design (BED) is a framework for the optimization of diagnostics basing on probability theory. In this work it is applied to the design of a multichannel interferometer at the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator experiment. BED offers the possibility to compare diverse designs quantitatively, which will be shown for beam-line designs resulting from different plasma configurations. ...

Accelerator target/beam stop concepts able to withstand the thermal shock induced by intense, undiluted beams are being assessed in this study. Such conditions normally push target materials beyond their limits leading to limited useful life. A number of ingenious options have been attempted to help reduce the level of stress generated. Attention is paid to a very promising option that calls fo...

Brachytherapy may play a role as boost irradiation to the tumour bed after external beam irradiation of the whole breast or may be used in selected cases as a sole radiation modality after conservative surgery. For tumours not amenable to primary conservative surgery, treated with initial systemic treatment and / or external beam irradiation, a conservative approach including brachytherapy boos...

PURPOSE The paper considers the fractionation problem in intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT). Conventionally, IMPT fields are optimized independently of the fractionation scheme. In this work, we discuss the simultaneous optimization of fractionation scheme and pencil beam intensities. METHODS This is performed by allowing for distinct pencil beam intensities in each fraction, which are...

This paper describes the design and deployment of a transportable test bed for a short pulse optical augmentation (OA) system to detect optical directors of potential threats in amphibious operations. The use of a short pulse duration allows discrimination of retroreflections from natural sources such as rock formations and vegetation. The test bed has been fielded in experiments on ground rang...

Recent research suggests that the resurgence of bed bugs in the U.S. has occurred at an alarming rate. Assumptions have been made that socioeconomic status is not associated with the prevalence of bed bug infestations. Little information is available at the local level, however, about the prevalence of bed bugs in private homes. The authors' pilot study aimed to identify prevalence, knowledge, ...

In this paper, free vibration analysis of a polymer-based nano-composite beam reinforced by boron-nitride nanotubes and subjected on elastic foundation, is studied. Smooth and defect-free nanotubes with uniform and directly- orientated in matrix are intended. Also, nanotubes’ distribution in the thickness direction of beam is regarded as a uniform distribution of the three different targeted on...