A Real-time Image Reconstruction System for Particle Treatment Planning Using Proton Computed Tomography (pCT)

Proton computed tomography (pCT) is a novel medical imaging modality for mapping the distribution of proton relative stopping power (RSP) in medical objects of interest. Compared to conventional X-ray computed tomography, where range uncertainty margins are around 3.5%, pCT has the potential to provide more accurate measurements to within 1%. This improved efficiency will be beneficial to proton-therapy planning and pre-treatment verification. A prototype pCT imaging device has recently been developed capable of rapidly acquiring low-dose proton radiographs of head-sized objects. We have also developed an advanced, fast image reconstruction software based on distributed computing that utilizes parallel processors and graphical processing units. The combination of fast data acquisition and fast image reconstruction will enable the availability of RSP images within minutes for use in clinical settings. The performance of our image reconstruction software has been evaluated using data collected by the prototype pCT scanner from several phantoms.Comment: Paper presented at Conference on the Application of Accelerators in Research and Industry, CAARI 2016, 30 October to 4 November 2016, Ft. Worth, TX, US

Inversion and the Third Sex: Gender Variance and Queer Expression in Anti-Suffrage Rhetoric

In the early decades of the 20th century, critics of the women’s suffrage movement commonly denounced their opponents’ perceived disregard for the gendered norms of the era. Given the clear delineation of rights provided to either sex at that time, any expansion of women’s liberties meant an incursion into what was seen as a predominantly masculine realm. Countless arguments put forth by anti-suffragists suggested a complete breakdown of what is today contextualized as a predominantly cisgender, heterosexual society. Simultaneously, the development of psychology and sexology as fields of study lent moralizing voices a highly pathologized foundation upon which to build their arguments. The anti-suffrage movement, whether by intention or not, integrated the frameworks of homosexuality and gender expression established by these fields of study into their media and public statements. The result was a campaign which effectively attacked not only the women’s movement, but all forms of gender variance. Further, the notion of androgyny put forth by the movement reflected a misogynistic hostility toward feminine expression, seen most notably in the popular caricature of the effeminate man. In spite of all this, these socially conservative voices provide a somewhat ironic counterpoint to modern critics of LGBTQ+ rights and gender theory. As the strict gender norms of the Victorian era began to break down, non-binary theory emerged as the primary method of understanding gender transgressions both large and small

A Time Series Analysis of Air Pollution and Preterm Birth in Pennsylvania, 1997–2001

Preterm delivery can lead to serious infant health outcomes, including death and lifelong disability. Small increases in preterm delivery risk in relation to spatial gradients of air pollution have been reported, but previous studies may have controlled inadequately for individual factors. Using a time-series analysis, which eliminates potential confounding by individual risk factors that do not change over short periods of time, we investigated the effect of ambient outdoor particulate matter with diameter ≤10 μm (PM(10)) and sulfur dioxide on risk for preterm delivery. Daily counts of preterm births were obtained from birth records in four Pennsylvania counties from 1997 through 2001. We observed increased risk for preterm delivery with exposure to average PM(10) and SO(2) in the 6 weeks before birth [respectively, relative risk (RR) = 1.07; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.98–1.18 per 50 μg/m(3) increase; RR = 1.15; 95% CI, 1.00–1. 32 per 15 ppb increase], adjusting for long-term preterm delivery trends, co-pollutants, and offsetting by the number of gestations at risk. We also examined lags up to 7 days before the birth and found an acute effect of exposure to PM(10) 2 days and 5 days before birth (respectively, RR = 1.10; 95% CI, 1.00–1.21; RR = 1.07; 95% CI, 0.98–1.18) and SO(2) 3 days before birth (RR = 1.07; 95% CI, 0.99–1.15), adjusting for covariates, including temperature, dew point temperature, and day of the week. The results from this time-series analysis, which provides evidence of an increase in preterm birth risk with exposure to PM(10) and SO(2), are consistent with prior investigations of spatial contrasts

“Feminists Leap Year Vol. 2:” The Portrayals of Gender in Early 20th Century Postcards

The “Feminists Leap Year Vol. 2” binder of the David P. Campbell Postcard Collection contains postcards reflecting women in empowered, vulnerable, pitiful, and satirical situations. They appear in scenes of public activism, romance, and the once-mythologized American frontier. The postcards arranged by Dr. Campbell under the banner of “Feminist” reflect the stereotypes, themes, and gendered images that have remained attached to the feminist movement from its emergence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to its incarnation in the twenty-first century. Postcard images demonstrate the intersectionality of gender and feminism by juxtaposing postcards satirizing women as masculine or domestically negligent and women as commanding or powerful. Their selection highlights not just America’s self-image through the twentieth century in terms of feminism, gender, and the western frontier, but also our modern understanding of this past. The David P. Campbell Postcard Collection, searchable at postcard.uakron.edu, is a key collection of the CCHP’s Institute for Human Science and Culture

Interview with Melissa Pankuch

Melissa Pankuch, a single mother on welfare, explains her family history, how she came to be on welfare, her job history, and her devotion to her daughter. She talks about \u27welfare addicts\u27, self-esteem, and stereotypes in a small town.https://digital.kenyon.edu/lt_interviews/1033/thumbnail.jp

Algorithmic Music Composition

Cieľom tejto práce je tvorba systému schopného generovať gitarové stopy. Tento problém pozostáva z dvoch hlavných častí: získanie trénovacieho datasetu a trénovanie vhodného deep learning modelu. Prvá časť tohto problému bola vyriešená sériou skriptov, ktoré vyfiltrovali a transformovali sadu skladieb s viacerými hudobnými nástrojmi z Guitar Pro formátu na sadu gitarových stôp vo formáte pianoroll. Druhá časť problému bola vyriešená natrénovaním niekoľkých konvolučných a rekurentných neurónových sietí na vytvorenom datasete gitarových stôp. Gitarové stopy generované týmito sieťami boli navzájom porovnané a ohodnotené. Hoci vygenerované stopy nie sú veľmi harmonické a príjemné na vypočutie, ukázujú, že konvolučné siete sú vhodnejšie na generovanie polyfónnej hudby v porovnaní s inými typmi neurónových sietí.The goal of this thesis is to create a system, which is able to generate guitar tracks. This problem consists of two main parts: acquisition of a training dataset and training of a suitable deep learning model. The first part of the problem was solved by series of scripts which filter and transform a set of songs with many instruments in Guitar Pro format to a set of guitar tracks in pianoroll format. The second part of the problem was solved by training a few convolutional and recurrent neural networks on the created dataset of guitar tracks. Guitar tracks generated by these networks were compared to each other and evaluated. Although, the generated tracks are not very harmonic and pleasing to the ear, they show that convolutional networks are more suitable for generation of polyphonic music than other types of neural networks.

Manuka-type honeys can eradicate biofilms produced by Staphylococcus aureus strains with different biofilm-forming abilities

Chronic wounds are a major global health problem. Their management is difficult and costly, and the development of antibiotic resistance by both planktonic and biofilm-associated bacteria necessitates the use of alternative wound treatments. Honey is now being revisited as an alternative treatment due to its broad-spectrum antibacterial activity and the inability of bacteria to develop resistance to it. Many previous antibacterial studies have used honeys that are not well characterized, even in terms of quantifying the levels of the major antibacterial components present, making it difficult to build an evidence base for the efficacy of honey as an antibiofilm agent in chronic wound treatment. Here we show that a range of well-characterized New Zealand manuka-type honeys, in which two principle antibacterial components, methylglyoxal and hydrogen peroxide, were quantified, can eradicate biofilms of a range of Staphylococcus aureus strains that differ widely in their biofilm-forming abilities. Using crystal violet and viability assays, along with confocal laser scanning imaging, we demonstrate that in all S. aureus strains, including methicillin-resistant strains, the manuka-type honeys showed significantly higher anti-biofilm activity than clover honey and an isotonic sugar solution.We observed higher anti-biofilm activity as the proportion of manuka-derived honey, and thus methylglyoxal, in a honey blend increased. However, methylglyoxal on its own, or with sugar, was not able to effectively eradicate S. aureus biofilms.We also demonstrate that honey was able to penetrate through the biofilm matrix and kill the embedded cells in some cases. As has been reported for antibiotics, sub-inhibitory concentrations of honey improved biofilm formation by some S. aureus strains, however, biofilm cell suspensions recovered after honey treatment did not develop resistance towards manukatype honeys. New Zealand manuka-type honeys, at the concentrations they can be applied in wound dressings are highly active in both preventing S. aureus biofilm formation and in their eradication, and do not result in bacteria becoming resistant. Methylglyoxal requires other components in manuka-type honeys for this antibiofilm activity. Our findings support the use of well-defined manuka-type honeys as a topical anti-biofilm treatment for the effective management of wound healing. © 2014 Lu et al

Occult Intraamniotic Infection at the Time of Midtrimester Genetic Amniocentesis: A Reassessment

Objective: The objective of this study was to reevaluate the incidence of occult early midtrimester intraamniotic infection in asymptomatic patients at the time of genetic amniocentesis

Upright to supine image registration and contour propagation for thoracic patients

A renewed interest in upright therapy is currently driven by the availability of upright positioning and imaging systems. Aside from reduced cost, upright positioning possibly provides clinical advantages. The comparison between upright and supine particle therapy treatments can be biased through multiple variables, such as differences in the target contouring on the two CTs. We present a method for upright and supine CT registration and structures propagation, and the investigation of an AI-based contouring tool for upright images. Six paired 4DCTs from Proton Therapy Collaboration Group registry were available from the Northwestern Medicine Proton Centre. Deformable image registration (DIR) is challenged by the different patient anatomy between postures, causing artefacts in the warped images. To achieve high quality contour propagation, we propose the construction of a region of interest covering the ribcage volume to overcome this problem. As no target contour ground truth was available, the registration quality analysis (QA) was performed on lung structures, for which dice score coefficient (DSC) and average Hausdorff distance (AHD) is reported. The TotalSegmentator tool, trained on supine dataset, was applied on upright images, verified against lung structures and used as additional comparison for contour propagation. The TotalSegmentator QA results in a maximum AHD of 2mm and a minimum DSC of 0.94. An average AHD of 1.5mm and 1.6mm, and an average DSC of 0.95 and 0.94 were obtained comparing the propagated volumes to manually contoured and AI structures, respectively. All AHD values are smaller than the CT slice distances. The developed framework allows for target propagation between upright and supine images, defining the first step to compare upright and supine therapy of thoracic patients and enabling the application of image fusion techniques in the upright therapy field