The medical physics revolution continues: the next 60 years

Air was first liquefied in 1877. Since then, the cooling power has been harnessed for many applications that have impacted science and society.

In this webinar a review of the applications that cryogenics has enabled will be presented. From gas liquefaction to the use of cryocoolers in applications such as MRI scans, particle detectors, accelerators or fusion technology.

Looking to the future of cryogenics, quantum-computing promises vastly increased computational power via the use of novel materials. Superconducting and cryogenic technologies offer cleaner, more efficient transport and power networks.

Learn about the rationale and workflow for modifying radiation therapy treatments while the patient is on the table using Real-time On-table Adaptive Radiotherapy. Clinicians from hospitals in Amsterdam and St. Louis, MO will discuss their methodologies and clinical outcomes with the MRIdian® Linac system.

MRI-Guided ROAR™ - Real-time On-table Adaptive Radiotherapy represents a new paradigm in the treatment of cancer, providing clinicians with the ability to improve targeting precision and thus deliver higher, and potentially more effective, radiation doses.

• Learn how clinicians are adapting the radiation dose in real-time and watching every change/motion near the tumour with high contrast, soft-tissue imaging
• Understand the clinical workflow of real-time, on-table adaptive radiotherapy
• Hear examples of how MR Image-Guided Radiotherapy allows for personalized radiation therapy treatments and opportunistic dose escalation or de-escalation to avoid toxicity

1. Introduction with motivation to the best kind of insulation for cryogenic applications
2. Heat transfer mechanisms
3. Description of MLI
4. Heat transfer calculation
5. Special influences on insulation performance like contact pressure, layer density, T-junctions
6. Examples

An introductory guide to the health and safety considerations required when using cryogenic equipment. The presentation will be based on the recently published fifth edition of the BCC cryogenic safety manual, will look at the legislation in place, and highlight some of the more significant hazards associated with cryogenics. The underlying theme will be a focus on reducing risks.

- IOP journals/Open Access new launches
- Why publish at all?
- Choosing your journal
- Writing your paper
- Top 10 tips for getting published
- Peer review process
- Publication ethics
- Post-acceptance
- Post-publication
- Access to IOP journals

Duration: 45 minutes
Questions at the end: 15 minutes

There has been, until now, no compelling evidence for biology beyond the confines of our own planet. And yet, people who investigate this topic feel confident that – within two decades – we will trip across life forms that are not, and never have been, earthlings. Why are they so optimistic that we will soon find some cosmic confrères, and what might be the implications of such a discovery?

If you are interested in using simulation to enhance the development of a microfluidic device, then tune into this webinar with Robyn Pritchard from The Technology Partnership (TTP).

Cell sorting is a staple of many cell biology labs. The current gold standard, fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), is limited to processing roughly 10,000 cells per second to avoid irreparable damage. For many new advances in cell therapy (e.g., autologous T-cell therapy for cancer), throughput of up to a billion cells in a few hours is essential. TTP set out to break through the current limit by developing a novel microfluidic cell sorter.

In this webinar, Robyn will discuss how TTP used the COMSOL Multiphysics® software to design and invent the world’s smallest ultrafast microfluidic cell sorter, where the key discovery was the inertial vortex. Robyn will also show how TTP's simulations correspond to reality with their fully working microfluidic chip.

The webinar will include a live demonstration and conclude with a Q&A session.

A new class of radiation devices is emerging that has the potential to transform how cancer is treated through more precise tumour targeting and the adaptation of treatment every time. High-field MR-linac technology integrates the power of state-of-the-art MR imaging with precision radiation technology. It can deliver precisely targeted radiation doses while simultaneously capturing the highest-quality MR images, which will allow clinicians to visualize both tumours and the surrounding healthy tissue at any time during radiation delivery, and adapt the treatment accordingly.

During this webinar, clinical experts will share their experience with a novel high-field MR-linac. The speakers are currently utilizing this new technology and will present their latest work on the imaging studies that have been undertaken prior to clinical introduction. This work will support the new and rapidly emerging area of MR radiation therapy (MR/RT).

High-field MR-linac devices based on diagnostic-standard MRI technology will offer many avenues for exploring improvements in radiotherapy, such as shorter treatment regimens or targeted adaptation of the treatment in real time. Also, by integrating precision radiation and MRI technologies, high-field MRI capabilities can be optimally explored to help bring personalized cancer care to radiation therapy.

Elekta MR-linac is work in progress and not available for sale

HDR skin brachytherapy can bring added value to any brachytherapy program. Join Dr Michael Kasper and physicist Zoubir Ouhib from the Lynn Cancer Institute to learn more about how to start or add a skin program the right way. Topics will include the necessary equipment, key team members and the general considerations critical to program success.

Tomotherapy planning was added into RayStation software in December 2016 as part of the V6 release. This addition allows a seamless planning approach for centers with helical Tomotherapy combined with conventional linacs. For the first time ever, all planning can be done within one treatment planning system. RayStation’s advanced planning modules such as Multicriteria Optimization are well suited for Tomotherapy planning and will be shown. Finally, there are some unique features to the Tomotheraphy optimization that will be described by our in-house expert.

Raman spectroscopy and confocal Raman microscopy have already proved to be essential characterization tools in many areas of advanced research, with a number of these applications extending into industry. As time moves on, new applications that are not addressed by existing technologies arise. Indeed, at the nanoscale, materials exhibit different properties than at the macro level, often quite dramatically different. The characterization of nanomaterials naturally requires imaging techniques with resolution at the same scale or better, so that local property variations can be discerned and defects properly detected; only with this understanding can the material properties be engineered to meet the performance requirements of next-generation devices.

In this webinar, HORIBA Scientific, the world leader in micro and nanoRaman spectroscopy, will present new nano-imaging capabilities. Tip-enhanced optical spectroscopies (TEOS) such as TERS (tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy) and TEPL (tip-enhanced photoluminescence) provide a unique capability for the characterization of diverse 0, 1 and 2D materials. We will demonstrate the power and importance of the cross-correlation of nanoscale hyperspectal imaging with data from other scanning-probe techniques such as topography, surface potential, conductivity and photocurrent. We will also discuss how we have extended this technique to other nano-materials as well as semiconducting nanostructures and bio-materials.

If you want to learn how to simulate the thermoelectric effect in the COMSOL Multiphysics® software, then tune into this webinar.

The thermoelectric effect, which involves the reversible conversion between heat and electricity, is a phenomenon that is used in both heating and cooling applications. The effect is often used in devices such as thermal sensors, energy harvesters and Peltier coolers.

In this webinar you will learn how to model the coupled phenomenon in COMSOL Multiphysics®. We will discuss the basic theory for heat transfer and electric currents as well as highlight how to account for the Peltier, Seebeck and Thomson effects. During a live demonstration these effects will be combined in a single model.

This webinar includes a Q&A session during which you can ask questions.

Peer review is one of the most critical components of high-quality scientific publishing. It impacts on the timeliness, accuracy and clarity of research findings that—if published—will be accessible and visible to everyone for years to come.

At its best, the peer-review process establishes whether the work makes a genuine and valuable contribution to the literature, and can remove errors and help authors to better explain their results and the significance of their work to the broad audience who may read the final journal article. At its worst, however, inadequate or superficial peer review can allow substandard work or poorly explained research to be published, which is to the detriment of the scientific enterprise. In addition, the peer-review process can also impede the publication of high-quality work through unnecessary delays or personal bias.

The goal of this webinar is to address best practices for reviewing a journal manuscript and address some of the challenges and pitfalls that frequently crop up during the peer review process. This webinar is aimed at those new to serving as a referee for a scientific journal – whether that be more generally, within the field of medical physics, or for Physics in Medicine & Biology specifically.

Treating advanced-stage cervical cancer can be difficult without the right tools. Dr Matthew Biagioli will discuss a new option for reaching beyond the current constraints with the Venezia applicator for reproducible results and seamless integration into your current workflow.

Respiratory rate (RR) is a key physiological parameter that is used in a range of clinical settings for diagnosis and prognosis. Despite its importance, it is usually measured by hand. Over the past 50 years many techniques have been developed to estimate RR from two widely acquired physiological signals: the electrocardiogram (ECG) and the pulse oximetry signal (photoplethysmogram (PPG)). Although these techniques have been the subject of much research, they have not yet been widely integrated into clinical practice. This webinar will provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in estimating RR from the ECG and PPG. It is intended to equip researchers with the knowledge and tools to translate this promising technology into patient benefit.

Plan Explorer provides a new paradigm in treatment planning. This talk goes through the underlying algorithms, explains how to use the system, gives examples of plan configurations and provides an outlook into future developments of this feature found within the RayStation treatment planning software.

Astrophysics of Red Supergiants is the first book of its kind devoted to our current knowledge of red supergiant stars, a key evolutionary phase that is critical to our larger understanding of massive stars. It is also the first to publish in the exciting new partnership with the American Astronomical Society and IOP ebooks.

Please join us for this 45 minute webinar with Dr Emily Levesque as she gives an overview of her book and answers your questions in a live Q&A.

This webinar is recommended viewing for a range of experience levels, from graduate students up to senior researchers.

Generally speaking, physicists still find that computing with paper and pencil is in most cases simpler than computing with a Computer Algebra System (CAS). Although that is true in some cases, the working paradigm is changing: developments in CAS, and particularly recent ones in the Maple system, have resulted in the implementation of most of the mathematical objects and mathematics used in theoretical physics computations, and have dramatically approximated the notation used in the computer to the one used with paper and pencil, diminishing the learning gap and computer-syntax distraction to a strict minimum. In this talk, the Physics project at Maplesoft will be presented and the resulting Physics package will be illustrated through simple problems in classical field theory, quantum mechanics and general relativity, and through tackling the computations of some recent Physical Review papers in those areas.