Graduate School in Physics and Astrophysics ------------------------------------------- ANNUAL REPORT ------------------------------------------- Fill with a text editor (without TAB or formatting) Repeat fields for each course as necessary. ------------------------------------------- name: Elke Schmitt email: schmitt@to.infn.it ciclo: XXIV year completed (1,2 or 3): 3 supervisor: Cristiana Peroni ------------------------------------------- GRADUATE SCHOOL COURSES (only completed courses, with examination passed in the year) code: - course from SNTI (Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze della Natura e Tecnologie Innovative) title: Writing English *** teacher: S. Clark hours: 18 (November 2011) code: - course from SNTI (Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze della Natura e Tecnologie Innovative) title: Relazione tra l'ambiente della ricerca e l'impresa *** teacher: C. CAVALLERO hours: 16 (November 2011) ------------------------------------------- COURSES FROM OTHER GRADUATE SCHOOLS (only completed courses, with examination passed in the year) school: - title: - teacher: - hours: - ------------------------------------------- UNDERGRADUATE COURSES (Laurea Magistrale) (only completed courses, with examination passed in the year) title: - teacher: - hours: - ------------------------------------------- SUMMER SCHOOLS, INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS (only those attended in the current year) title: XXI GIORNATE DI STUDIO sui RIVELATORI, Scuola F. Bonaudi place: Torino, Italy webpage: http://www.gsr.unito.it/ days: 4 (May 2011) talk or poster (Y/N): N ------------------------------------------- CONFERENCES, WORKSHOP (only those attended in the current year) title: XLIX International Winter meeting on Nuclear Physics place: Bormio, Italy webpage: http://www.bormiomeeting.com days: 5 (January 2011) talk or poster (Y/N): Y refereed publication/conference proceeding: Y title: INFN TPS full collaboration meeting with referees from INFN group V and representative from IBA place: Frascati, Italy webpage: http://totlxl.to.infn.it/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page days: 2 (June 2011) talk or poster (Y/N): Y title: INFN TPS & IBA & Cenaero meeting for optimisation task (integration of optimisation methods in TPS dose kernel, cost function with derivates) place: Charlerois, Belgium webpage: http://www.to.infn.it/it/tps http://www.cenaero.be/ http://www.iba-worldwide.com/gateway days: 1 (March 2011) talk or poster (Y/N): N title: INFN TPS & IBA Gate meeting for achievement of the first TPS milestone (forward planning) place: Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium webpage: http://www.to.infn.it/it/tps http://www.iba-worldwide.com/gateway days: 2 (March 2011) talk or poster (Y/N): Y ------------------------------------------- VISITS AND STAGES (only those done in the current year) institution: - place: - starting date: - days: - --------------------------------------------------- Research activity/Publications in the current year (max characters 2500) BE AWARE: research activity and Pubs are not evaluated as didactic credits, but are requested to trace the PhD students' career Research: My work of the third and last year 2011 was mainly concentrated on the studies and the development of the physical and radiobiological beam model with the transfer function approach and only minimal on the biological dose optimisation. A summary of the work done in 2009/2010 (beam model and dose optimisation) has been presented at the "XLIX International Winter meeting on Nuclear Physics" January 2011 in Bormio, Italy. The first part of the work in 2011 was the test of the longitudinal beam model for the physical dose (also for not measured energies) on carbon ion simulations, as it was done already last year for available proton data. In addition, the method has been also tested for the biological dose (also for not measured energies) on the same carbon ion simulations. This was important as for the proton data no test for the biological dose is possible as no full 3-D nozzle beam in water is available (only longitudinal depth dose measurements but the transverse part is in air). The results are good and were presented at the "full INFN TPS collaboration meeting" June 2011 in Frascati, Italy (with referees) and at the "INFN IBA gate meeting for the achievement of the first TPS milestone (forward planning)" March 2011 in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. --> A longitudinal 1-D beam model (transfer function approach) prototype in Matlab has been finished and tested. The second part of the work in 2011 was the analysis of the transverse physical dose of available proton data (here for the beam optics only in air, has to be reconstructed for scattering in water) and carbon ion simulations. This was used for the development of a fast first version of the transverse beam model, using a basic Gaussian shape, as we needed a working 3-D physical dose engine prototype until the "INFN IBA second milestone meeting (inverse planning)" September 2011 in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. The basic test results for this model for the physical dose are good, but it might be not flexible enough and also it gives no possibility to model the biological dose. Therefore the development of a transverse beam model using the more elaborated transfer function approach is planned for the future. Due to memory restrictions this needs most probably a working C++ TPS kernel and can not be tested with Matlab. --> A transverse 2-D beam model (Gaussian approach) prototype in Matlab has been finished and tested. --> The integration of this two parts into a 3-D beam model in Matlab has been finished and tested with good results. This model, with the values determined from the analysis, was used by my INFN Torino colleagues to implement a first C++ TPS dose engine prototype to be applied on clinical example cases as requested for the "INFN IBA second milestone meeting (inverse planning)" September 2011 in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Publications: F. Bourhaleb, A. Attili, G. Russo, E. Schmitt, R. Cirio, S. Giordanengo, F. Marchetto, V. Monaco, C. Peroni, R. Sacchi: “Biological Modeling of the Beam Delivery Line Components for Active Scan Irradiation Technique in Heavy-Ion Radiotherapy” Med. Phys. 36, issue 6, p. 2639 (2009) doi:10.1118/1.3182000 G. Russo, A. Attili, F. Bourhaleb, F. Marchetto, C. Peroni, E. Schmitt, D. Bertrand: “Analysis of the reliability of the Local Effect Model for the use in carbon ion treatment planning systems” Journal of Radiation Protection Dosimetry 143, 497-502 (2011) doi: 10.1093/rpd/ncq407 E. Schmitt, A. Attili, G. Russo, F. Marchetto, V. Monaco, C. Peroni: “Treatment Planning System (TPS) for Carbon Ion Therapy: The INFN TPS project” accepted for the refereed "conference proceedings of the XLIX International Winter Meeting on Nuclear Physics" Bormio (2011), so far published online on http://pos.sissa.it/cgi-bin/reader/conf.cgi?confid=135 or pos.sissa.it/archive/conferences/135/008/Bormio%202011_008.pdf