OBJECTIVE To evaluate the analgesic effect of CT-guided microinvasive intervention on refractory carcinous pain. METHODS A total of 23 patients with poor response to drug therapy for carcinous pain were selected: 6 patients underwent CT-guided neurolytic celiac plexus block (NCPB), 5 patients underwent CT-guided(125)I implantation and 12 patients underwent combined CT-guided NCPB and CT-guide...

We present a method for improving the delivery efficiency of VMAT by extending the recently published VMAT treatment planning algorithm vmerge to automatically generate optimal partial-arc plans. A high-quality initial plan is created by solving a convex multicriteria optimization problem using 180 equi-spaced beams. This initial plan is used to form a set of dose constraints, and a set of part...

A new form of LFSR reseedingg that provides higher encodingg efficiency andd hence greater reductionn inn test dataa storage requirements is described. Previous forms of LFSR reseedingg have beenn static (i.e., test generationn is stoppedd andd the seedd is loadedd at one time) andd have requiredd full reseedingg (i.e., n=r bits are usedd for ann r-bit LFSR). The new form of LFSR reseedingg pro...

Partial shading is an unavoidable condition which significantly reduces the efficiency and stability of a photovoltaic (PV) system. When partial shading occurs the system has multiple-peak output power characteristics. In order to track the global maximum power point (GMPP) within an appropriate period a reliable technique is required. Conventional techniques such as hill climbing and perturbat...

In this paper we examine the robustness properties of a specific type of orientation in the context of efficiency measurement using partial frontiers. This so called unconditional hyperbolic α-quantile estimator of efficiency has been recently studied by Wheelock and Wilson (2008) and can be seen as an extension of the in-put/output methodology of partial frontiers that was introduced by Aragon...

in the present article, we focus on the numerical approximation of stochastic partial differential equations of itˆo type with space-time white noise process, in particular, parabolic equations. for each case of additive andmultiplicative noise, the numerical solution of stochastic diffusion equations is approximated using two stochastic finite difference schemes and the stability and consisten...

We studied the effect of ocean acidification (OA) on a coastal North Sea plankton community in a long-term mesocosm CO2-enrichment experiment (BIOACID II long-term mesocosm study). From March to July 2013, 10 mesocosms of 19 m length with a volume of 47.5 to 55.9 m3 were deployed in the Gullmar Fjord, Sweden. CO2 concentrations were enriched in five mesocosms to reach average CO2 partial pressu...

the gas-assisted gravity drainage (gagd) process is designed and practiced based on gravitydrainage idea and uses the advantage of density difference between injected co2 and reservoir oil.in this work, one of iran western oilfields was selected as a case study and a sector model wassimulated based on its rock and fluid properties. the pressure of co2 gas injection was close to themmp of the oi...

The effect of the volume flow rate of the heat transfer fluid (air) on the thermal parameters of the solar air collector with a single air pass without using fins under the absorbing plate have been investigated experimentally and theoretically. We use a new design of solar air collector which aims to optimize these parameters in the region cited above. Our solar air collector was realized at t...