On-line cone beam CT image guidance for vocal cord tumor targeting

Background and purpose: We are developing a technique for highly focused vocal cord irradiation in early glottic carcinoma to optimally treat a target volume confined to a single cord. This technique, in contrast with the conventional methods, aims at sparing the healthy vocal cord. As such a technique requires sub-mm daily targeting accuracy to be effective, we investigate the accuracy achievable with on-line kV-cone beam CT (CBCT) corrections. Materials and methods: CBCT scans were obtained in 10 early glottic cancer patients in each treatment fraction. The grey value registration available in X-ray volume imaging (XVI) software (Elekta, Synergy) was applied to a volume of interest encompassing the thyroid cartilage. After application of the thus derived corrections, residue displacements with respect to the planning CT scan were measured at clearly identifiable relevant landmarks. The intra- and inter-observer variations were also measured. Results: While before correction the systematic displacements of the vocal cords were as large as 2.4 ± 3.3 mm (cranial-caudal population mean ± SD Σ), daily CBCT registration and correction reduced these values to less than 0.2 ± 0.5 mm in all directions. Random positioning errors (SD σ) were reduced to less than 1 mm. Correcting only for translations and not for rotations did not appreciably affect this accuracy. The residue random displacements partly stem from intra-observer variations (SD = 0.2-0.6 mm). Conclusion: The use of CBCT for daily image guidance in combination with standard mask fixation reduced systematic and random set-up errors of the vocal cords to <1 mm prior to the delivery of each fraction dose. Thus, this facilitates the high targeting precision required for a single vocal cord irradiation. © 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Post-Conflict Performance, Film and Visual Arts:Cities of Memory

This book examines how contemporary theatre, performance, film and the visual arts respond to the post-conflict condition. The contents of the volume focus on a range of post-conflict cities, encouraging interdisciplinary discussion on the role of the arts and its relation to issues of testimony, witnessing, forgetting, representation, healing, reconciliation, agency, and metaphor. Contributors include: Thomas Elsaesser, Jane Taylor, Marvin Carlson, Rob Stone, Laurel Borisenko, Katarzyna Puzon, Miriam Paeslack, Emma Grey, Paula Blair, Zoran Poposki, Marija Todorova, Elena Carduro, and Paul Devlin.

Perceptual Watermarking for Discrete Shearlet Transform

This paper presents a new perceptual watermarking model for Discrete Shearlet transform (DST). DST provides the optimal representation [10] of the image features based on multi-resolution and multi-directional analysis. This property can be exploited on for watermark embedding to achieve the watermarking imperceptibility by introducing the human visual system using Chou’s model. In this model, a spatial JND profile is adapted to fit the sub-band structure. The combination of DST and the Just-Noticeable Distortion (JND) profile improves the levels of robustness against certain attacks while minimizing the distortion; by assigning a visibility threshold of distortion to each DST sub-band coefficient in the case of grey scale image watermarking.

A Zoologist with a Taste for the Past: The Earl of Cranbrook’s Contribution to Zooarchaeological Research in Southeast Asia

The Earl of Cranbrook (V) (then Lord Medway) was fi rst introduced to archaeological research in 1958 when he participated in excavations at the Niah Caves, Sarawak Borneo. In that same year he published a paper entitled ‘Food bone in Niah Cave excavations (-1958)’ in the Sarawak Museum Journal. Unbeknownst to him at the time, his individual and intuitive research was on a par with, if not methodologically ahead of, burgeoning studies in the fi eld of zooarchaeology that were taking place at leading academic institutions in Europe and the United States. This paper recounts and lauds the signifi cant contributions the Earl of Cranbrook has made to the establishment and furtherance of a discipline over more than 50 years. 

A new statistical framework for the quantification of covariate associations with species distributions

Identifying processes that shape species geographical ranges is a prerequisite for understanding environmental change. Currently, species distribution modelling methods do not offer credible statistical tests of the relative influence of climate factors and typically ignore other processes (e.g. biotic interactions and dispersal limitation). We use a hierarchical model fitted with Markov Chain Monte Carlo to combine ecologically plausible niche structures using regression splines to describe unimodal but potentially skewed response terms. We apply spatially explicit error terms that account for (and may help identify) missing variables. Using three example distributions of European bird species, we map model results to show sensitivity to change in each covariate. We show that the overall strength of climatic association differs between species and that each species has considerable spatial variation in both the strength of the climatic association and the sensitivity to climate change. Our methods are widely applicable to many species distribution modelling problems and enable accurate assessment of the statistical importance of biotic and abiotic influences on distributions.

Empowering Human Services Organizations to Embrace Evidence-informed Practice: International Best Practices

Human service organizations are increasingly using knowledge as a mechanism for implementing change. Knowledge emerging from many sources that may include academic publications, grey literature, and service user and practitioner wisdom contributes toward informing best practice. The question is: how do we harness this knowledge to make practice more effective? This paper synthesizes the lessons learned from eight international organizations that have made a commitment to knowledge mobilization as an important priority in their mission and operation. The paper provides a conceptual model, tools and resources to help human services organizations create strategies for building, enhancing or sustaining their knowledge mobilization efforts. The paper describes a flexible blueprint for human service organizations to leverage knowledge mobilization efforts at all levels of service delivery.

Unmasking the ‘Elderly Mystique’: why it is time to make the personal political in ageing research

This article uses feminist scholarship to investigate ‘the elderly mystique’ – which contends that the potential of old age is masked by a set of false beliefs about ageing (i.e. ageism) which permeate social, economic and political life (Cohen, 1988).
The article presents a theoretical model which explores the extent to which institutionalised ageism shapes the trajectory of life after 60. The hypothesis under-pinning the model is simple: The challenge for ageing societies is not the average age of a given population but, rather, how age is used to structure economic, social and political life. An inter-disciplinary framework is used to examine how biological facts about ageing are used to segregate older from younger people, giving older people the status of “other”; economically through retirement, politically through assumptions about ‘the grey vote’ and socially through ageist stereotyping in the media and through denial and ridicule of the sexuality of older people. Each domain is informed by the achievements of feminist theory and research on sexism and how its successes and failures can inform critical investigations of ageism.
The paper recognises the role of ageism in de-politicising the lived experience of ageing. The paper concludes that feminist scholarship, particularly work by feminists in their seventies, eighties and nineties has much to offer in terms of re-framing gerontology as an emancipatory project for current and future cohorts of older people.

Rationale for and implementation of age-neutral HRM in divergent institutional contexts–examples from Britain and Germany

Owing to demographic change as well as international and national pressures,
organisations will have to abandon oftentimes prevalent youth-centric HRM practices in favour of age-neutral HRM that is inclusive of the entire workforce, regardless of age. In order to do so, organisations turn to ‘best practice’ guides. These, however, do not tend to differentiate recommendations by country and/or sector. Based on research in eight case study organisations in the chemical, steel and retail sectors as well as in public schools in Germany and Britain, this chapter argues that the rationale for and the implementation of age-neutral HRM practices differ by national institutional and sectoral context as well as by the relative influence of social partners. Hence, organisations planning to implement age-neutral HRM should take organisational, institutional and sectoral peculiarities into account when doing so.

Energy and environmental forensic analysis for public buildings.

This paper outlines a forensic method for analysing the energy, environmental and comfort performance of a building. The method has been applied to a recently developed event space in an Irish public building, which was evaluated using on-site field studies, data analysis, building simulation and occupant surveying. The method allows for consideration of both the technological and anthropological aspects of the building in use and for the identification of unsustainable operational practice and emerging problems. The forensic analysis identified energy savings of up to 50%, enabling a more sustainable, lower-energy operational future for the building. The building forensic analysis method presented in this paper is now planned for use in other public and commercial buildings.