R. Lisci

ADAM: A breathing phantom for lung SBRT quality assurance

PURPOSE Radiotherapy treatment of moving lesions is a challenging task in which different strategies can be used to adequately treat the tumor while sparing the surrounding tissue. The complexity of these strategies requires accurate and appropriate quality assurance tests. For this purpose, ADAM (Anthropomorphic Dynamic breAthing Model), a new phantom which simulates realistic patient breathing, was developed aiming to test the image quality and dose delivery in lung cancer treatments. MATERIALS AND METHODS ADAM reproduces a male torso complete with a moving anterior chest wall and internal parts. The phantoms external body is printed with a 3D printer using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Internal lungs, ribs, spinal cord, and lung tumor (LT) are made of materials that simulate human tissues. Driven by an Arduino programmable board, the lungs can move along linear or elliptical paths while the anterior chest wall moves up and down. Phantom features and usability, reproducibility of LT position in the phantom chest, internal and external motion repeatability and tumor-to-surface motion correlation were investigated. RESULTS Hounsfield Units of the employed materials demonstrates the phantom adequately simulates human tissues. Tests performed with the Synchrony system confirm ADAMs suitability for respiratory internal tracking. Reproducibility of the internal structure position is within 1mm as are internal and external motion repeatability. A strong positive correlation is found between the lung and chest wall positions (R2=0.999). CONCLUSIONS ADAM demonstrates to be suitable to be employed with gating and tracking devices used in the treatment of moving lesions.

Applications of the precision viticulture techniques in the Chianti district

The diffusion of precision viticulture approach in the last decade thanks to the new achievements and developed tools, have enabled new site-specific management possibilities. The aim of this study was the evaluation of proximal surveying for monitoring and to highlight the variability within vineyards. Specifically the study shows some results of ongoing trials that are aimed to define simplified tools and protocols reliable on farms in order to exploit grape variability and reduce the cost related to pest control. In this regard, the technological innovations comparable with precision agriculture are able to provide optimal solutions in order to achieve agricultural sustainable practices. To this end in order to evaluate the usefulness of proximal sensing a ground monitoring system equipped with two types of sensors to define vineyard features i.e. the plant vegetative vigour indexes (NDVI vigor index) and the canopy volumetry was implemented. This work was conducted in three experimental Sangiovese vineyards selected in the Chianti Classico DOCG area. Results obtained through the optical and ultrasonic sensors showed the utility of such systems as tools to improve grape knowledge and vine quality achievable by selective harvest and also through the pesticide calibration on the canopy features.