The development of Monte Carlo techniques for the verification of radiotherapy treatments

Radiotherapy is a cancer treatment modality in which a dose of ionising radiation is delivered to a tumour. The accurate calculation of the dose to the patient is very important in the design of an effective therapeutic strategy. This study aimed to systematically examine the accuracy of the radiotherapy dose calculations performed by clinical treatment planning systems by comparison againstMonte Carlo simulations of the treatment delivery. A suite of software tools known as MCDTK (Monte Carlo DICOM ToolKit) was developed for this purpose, and is capable of: • Importing DICOM-format radiotherapy treatment plans and producing Monte Carlo simulation input files (allowing simple simulation of complex treatments), and calibrating the results; • Analysing the predicted doses of and deviations between the Monte Carlo simulation results and treatment planning system calculations in regions of interest (tumours and organs-at-risk) and generating dose-volume histograms, so that conformity with dose prescriptions can be evaluated. The code has been tested against various treatment planning systems, linear acceleratormodels and treatment complexities. Six clinical head and neck cancer treatments were simulated and the results analysed using this software. The deviations were greatest where the treatment volume encompassed tissues on both sides of an air cavity. This was likely due to the method the planning system used to model low density media.

Tensor query expansion : a cognitively motivated relevance model

In information retrieval, a user's query is often not a complete representation of their real information need. The user's information need is a cognitive construction, however the use of cognitive models to perform query expansion have had little study. In this paper, we present a cognitively motivated query expansion technique that uses semantic features for use in ad hoc retrieval. This model is evaluated against a state-of-the-art query expansion technique. The results show our approach provides significant improvements in retrieval effectiveness for the TREC data sets tested.

Multicultural training experiences as predictors of psychology students’ cultural competence

The psychologists in the western world, including Australia, are required to be culturally competent due to the cultural diversity of these societies. Previous studies conducted in North America and Europe have found multicultural teaching, clinical experience with culturally diverse clients, and discussion of multicultural counselling issues in supervision to be related to the practitioner’s cultural competency. The present study examined factors contributing to trainee psychologists’ perceived level of cultural competence. It was hypothesised that multicultural teaching, clinical experience and supervision would be related to students’ level of cultural competence. One hundred and twenty seven postgraduate clinical psychology students completed an online survey battery that included demographic information, a social desirability measure, and the Multicultural Mental Health Awareness Scale (Khawaja, Gomez & Turner, 2009). This hypothesis was partially supported. Clinical experience and supervision focusing on multicultural issues were found to be related to participants’ perceived cultural competence, however, multicultural teaching was not. These results provide insight into how universities around Australia can facilitate future psychologists’ competence in working with clients from different cultural backgrounds.

Jams, jelly beans and the fruits of passion - art book (26 Pages)

Statement: Jams, Jelly Beans and the Fruits of Passion Let us search, instead, for an epistemology of practice implicit in the artistic, intuitive processes which some practitioners do bring to situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflict. (Schön 1983, p40) Game On was born out of the idea of creative community; finding, networking, supporting and inspiring the people behind the face of an industry, those in the mist of the machine and those intending to join. We understood this moment to be a pivotal opportunity to nurture a new emerging form of game making, in an era of change, where the old industry models were proving to be unsustainable. As soon as we started putting people into a room under pressure, to make something in 48hrs, a whole pile of evolutionary creative responses emerged. People refashioned their craft in a moment of intense creativity that demanded different ways of working, an adaptive approach to the craft of making games – small – fast – indie. An event like the 48hrs forces participants’ attention onto the process as much as the outcome. As one game industry professional taking part in a challenge for the first time observed: there are three paths in the genesis from idea to finished work: the path that focuses on mechanics; the path that focuses on team structure and roles, and the path that focuses on the idea, the spirit – and the more successful teams put the spirit of the work first and foremost. The spirit drives the adaptation, it becomes improvisation. As Schön says: “Improvisation consists on varying, combining and recombining a set of figures within the schema which bounds and gives coherence to the performance.” (1983, p55). This improvisational approach is all about those making the games: the people and the principles of their creative process. This documentation evidences the intensity of their passion, determination and the shit that they are prepared to put themselves through to achieve their goal – to win a cup full of jellybeans and make a working game in 48hrs. 48hr is a project where, on all levels, analogue meets digital. This concept was further explored through the documentation process. All of these pictures were taken with a 1945 Leica III camera. The use of this classic, film-based camera, gives the images a granularity and depth, this older slower technology exposes the very human moments of digital creativity. ____________________________ Schön, D. A. 1983, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, Basic Books, New York

The Fifth 48 Hour Game Making Challenge (2011)

The 48-hour game making challenge started out in 2007 as a creative community event. We have run this event each year since and seen over 120 games made. 2011 was the most remarkable in that each of the 20 teams made a playable game – the shape of the challenge has changed …. We have invested in the process of reflective practice & action research, with the event being part of a sweep of programs that inform this research, with each year giving us fresh insights into both the creative practice and essential concerns, process and trends of the independent games industry creative community, which we then respond to within our curatorial development of the subsequent programming. The 2011 48-hour challenge research project focused on the people and the site. We were specifically interested in the manner in which the community occupied the creative space.

Everything is political

Everything is Political Ben Eltham, Kieran Lord, Jeff Brand, Truna. Chair: Daniel Golding Videogames don’t exist in isolation. They are part of artistic, cultural, and political spheres – even if some would much rather they weren’t. This panel takes a look at the way videogames are used as political tools and how we as developers and critics can better engage with that, and perhaps wrestle some of the conversation back into our hands.

That one piece of advice - microlecture

Programme: In these microlectures, developers, educators, critics, and artists give you the one piece of advice that they hold above all others. That one piece of advice: It's about the passion: Excerpt: Shades of madness - Creativity - Passion: There is something very important to observe about an industry that engages in these intense weekends. The monolithic Hollywood model is not viable, we need to scaffold the next gen of game designers, foster the passion, provide opportunity, CHANGE the model – not just dress it in new clothes

Journeys with friends

Journeys with Friends Truna aka J. Turner, Giselle Rosman and Matt Ditton Panel Session description: We are no longer an industry (alone) we are a sector. Where the model once consisted of industry making games, we now see the rise of a cultural sector playing in the game space – industry, indies (for whatever that distinction implies) artists (another odd distinction), individuals and well … everyone and their mums. This evolution has an affect – on audiences and who they are, what they expect and want, and how they understand the purpose and language of these “digital game forms’; how we talk about our worlds and the kinds of issues that are raised; on what we create and how we create it and on our communities and who we are. This evolution has an affect on how these works are understood within the wider social context and how we present this understanding to the next generation of makers and players. We can see the potential of this evolution from industry to sector in the rise of the Australian indie. We can see the potential fractures created by this evolution in the new voices that ask questions about diversity and social justice. And yet, we still see a ‘solution’ type reaction to the current changing state of our sector which announces the monolithic, Fordist model as desirable (albeit in smaller form) – with the subsequent ramifications for ‘training’ and production of local talent. Experts talk about a mismatch of graduate skills and industry needs, insufficient linkages between industry and education providers and the need to explore opportunity for the now passing model in new spaces such as adver-games and serious games. Head counts of Australian industry don’t recognise trans media producers as being part of their purview or opportunity, they don’t count the rise of the cultural playful game inspired creative works as one of thier team. Such perspectives are indeed relevant to the Australian Games Industry, but what about the emerging Australian Games Sector? How do we enable a future in such a space? This emerging sector is perhaps best represented by Melbourne’s Freeplay audience: a heady mix of indie developers, players, artists, critical thinkers and industry. Such audiences are no longer content with an ‘industry’ alone; they are the community who already see themselves as an important, vibrant cultural sector. Part of the discussion presented here seeks to identify and understand the resources, primarily in the context of community and educational opportunities, available to the evolving sector now relying more on the creative processes. This creative process and community building is already visibly growing within the context of smaller development studios, often involving more multiskilling production methodologies where the definition of ‘game’ clearly evolves beyond the traditional one.

Process mining manifesto

Process mining techniques are able to extract knowledge from event logs commonly available in today’s information systems. These techniques provide new means to discover, monitor, and improve processes in a variety of application domains. There are two main drivers for the growing interest in process mining. On the one hand, more and more events are being recorded, thus, providing detailed information about the history of processes. On the other hand, there is a need to improve and support business processes in competitive and rapidly changing environments. This manifesto is created by the IEEE Task Force on Process Mining and aims to promote the topic of process mining. Moreover, by defining a set of guiding principles and listing important challenges, this manifesto hopes to serve as a guide for software developers, scientists, consultants, business managers, and end-users. The goal is to increase the maturity of process mining as a new tool to improve the (re)design, control, and support of operational business processes.

Labouring for leisure? Achieving work-life balance through compressed working weeks

Flexible work practices spreading work times across the entire week have reduced the time to engage in leisure activities and for some have compounded the problem of a lack of defined break between work weeks. This study examines time spent outside of the workplace through a multiple case study of working time and leisure in the construction industry. A framework of synchronous leisure is used to examine the interplay of work and non-work arrangements. The effects of changing work arrangements to deliver a longer break between working weeks and the consequent impact on leisure activities are analysed. Interviews and focus groups across four construction sites revealed that while leisure is important to relieve fatigue and overwork, a work schedule allowing a long break between working weeks, specifically on a weekend, enables workers to achieve synchronous time, particularly with family, and improves work-life balance satisfaction. It was found that a well-defined break across a weekend also offers the opportunity to synchronize schedules with others to spend time away on short breaks.

An exploration of feature detector performance in the thermal-infrared modality

Thermal-infrared images have superior statistical properties compared with visible-spectrum images in many low-light or no-light scenarios. However, a detailed understanding of feature detector performance in the thermal modality lags behind that of the visible modality. To address this, the first comprehensive study on feature detector performance on thermal-infrared images is conducted. A dataset is presented which explores a total of ten different environments with a range of statistical properties. An investigation is conducted into the effects of several digital and physical image transformations on detector repeatability in these environments. The effect of non-uniformity noise, unique to the thermal modality, is analyzed. The accumulation of sensor non-uniformities beyond the minimum possible level was found to have only a small negative effect. A limiting of feature counts was found to improve the repeatability performance of several detectors. Most other image transformations had predictable effects on feature stability. The best-performing detector varied considerably depending on the nature of the scene and the test.

Graph rigidity for near-coplanar structure from motion

Recent algorithms for monocular motion capture (MoCap) estimate weak-perspective camera matrices between images using a small subset of approximately-rigid points on the human body (i.e. the torso and hip). A problem with this approach, however, is that these points are often close to coplanar, causing canonical linear factorisation algorithms for rigid structure from motion (SFM) to become extremely sensitive to noise. In this paper, we propose an alternative solution to weak-perspective SFM based on a convex relaxation of graph rigidity. We demonstrate the success of our algorithm on both synthetic and real world data, allowing for much improved solutions to marker less MoCap problems on human bodies. Finally, we propose an approach to solve the two-fold ambiguity over bone direction using a k-nearest neighbour kernel density estimator.

Face recognition across pose on video using eigen light-fields

We propose an approach to employ eigen light-fields for face recognition across pose on video. Faces of a subject are collected from video frames and combined based on the pose to obtain a set of probe light-fields. These probe data are then projected to the principal subspace of the eigen light-fields within which the classification takes place. We modify the original light-field projection and found that it is more robust in the proposed system. Evaluation on VidTIMIT dataset has demonstrated that the eigen light-fields method is able to take advantage of multiple observations contained in the video.