Magisterarbeit--Aachen, 2005.

Zugl.: Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Magisterarbeit, 2005

Zugl.: Marburg, Univ., Diss., 2005

No description available.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

This thesis presents a literature review and data from individual interviews conducted with a total of 20 men in Southern Ontario and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The objective of this qualitative study was to identify what these men consider to be their main health problems, and what they consider to be the main health problems of Canadian men in general. In addition, this study explored the ways in which the men understand health and the particular health problems they experienced. Several general trends emerged in the data. Respondents described health in both physical and mental terms. They associated physical health predominantly with lifestyle in the form of adequate activity/exercise, diet, and balance of activities. Mental health was associated with state of mind. Insofar as respondents worried about their health, they were concerned about developing physical health problems such as prostate and testicular cancer. However, the day-to-day problems that they actually experienced were low level mental health problems such as stress and tiredness. Data analysis revealed a broader underlying theme of control. In particular, respondents' explanations of health reflected their ability to control the onset of many health problems by living a healthy lifestyle. Yet, social structural influences, specifically work and gender roles, did not always afford these men control over health-related problems such as stress. Respondents explained the health of Canadian men in terms of lifestyle (reflecting control over health), and by unknown etiology (reflecting lack of control over diseases such as cancer). Review of the research findings identifies gaps in research and offers suggestions for further studies. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

none

No description available.

The primary objective of this research was to develop and implement a new approach to on-line adaptive radiation therapy (ART) in which daily imaging, plan adaptation and radiation delivery are temporally integrated and performed concurrently. The advantages of this approach are: reduction of treatment time compared to conventional on-line ART; ability to perform a complete plan re-optimization with minimal extension of treatment time; ability to detect and correct for intra-fractional patient motion. This work was motivated by an initial study which compared four radiosurgery techniques. This study was the first quantitative analysis of the correlation between patient anatomy and the quality of treatment plans produced by different radiosurgery techniques. A number of different relationships, both qualitative and quantitative, were discovered between patient anatomy and dosimetric parameters for different techniques. The results were used to successfully predetermine the optimal radiosurgery technique based on patient anatomy. The first step in developing a new approach to on-line ART involved accelerating plan adaptation (re-optimization) using direct aperture optimization (DAO). A series of techniques for adapting the original treatment plan to correct for the deterioration of dose distribution quality caused by the anatomical deformations were investigated. Through modification of the DAO algorithm the optimization search space was reduced and the plan adaptation was significantly accelerated. Next, a new approach to on-line ART was proposed and investigated, in which accelerated plan adaptation and radiation delivery were integrated together and performed concurrently. A fundamental advantage of this approach is that most of the plan re-optimization was performed during radiation delivery, so the time spent adapting the original plan did not significantly increase the overall treatment time. Finally, daily imaging, accelerated plan adaptation and radiation delivery were all temporally integrated using an integrated Linac/Cone Beam CT system. Intra-fractional patient images were used to successfully re-optimize the original treatment plan in near real-time to account for anatomy deformations. This thesis concludes that integration of daily imaging, plan adaptation and radiation delivery for near real-time ART is both feasible and advantageous. With further advances in related technologies, it promises to become a part of clinical practice in the near future.