Simulated Annealing of the Radionuclide Distribution

Introduction

At this point in the calibration process you should have completed all of the tasks described in the Central Axis Measurements section.

In this section of the tutorial we will modify the initial PS model that assumed a uniform distribution of patch-source strength over the surface of the plaque to instead create a nonuniform distribution of source strength which better reproduces the near-surface measurements provided on BEBIG protocol sheet 2.

This will be accomplished by first entering the surface measurement data and then launching a simulated annealing process which iteratively redistributes source strength amongst the patches with the objective of reducing the RMS % error between the calculated and measured dose at the near-surface measurement points.

COC474ProtocolSurfaceData

The BEBIG protocol sheet 2 of near-surface measurments. The measurements highlighted in yellow, pink and blue are the ones that will be entered in the BEBIG Surface Measurements tab. The measurements highlighted in purple will NOT be used.


Set annealing parameters
  • In the BEBIG calibration window, click the Surface Measurements tab.
  • The picture of the plaque should match the protocol sheet orientation. If not, rotate the picture (click the Rotate button) to match the sheet.
  • In the Meas. height text field, enter the height above the concave surface of the plaque of the BEBIG surface measurements. By default, this height is 1 mm from the surface of the plaque, and is representative of retina dose.
  • From the protocol sheet the chord diameter of the 3rd ring (that corresponds to the blue tinted PS outermost ring) is defined as 22.7 mm for this plaque. If it is not already the default value, enter this value into the Outermost ring diameter text field. The outermost ring of point overlays should move to the edge of the plaque, at or slightly beyond the surface patches, as illustrated by the red arrow in the figure to the right.
  • Click the Autofill button to calculate the chord diameters of the innermost and middle rings, or enter values manually. The rings are assumed to be equiangularly spaced across the curved face of the plaque. The autofill function will calculate the angle subtended by the outermost ring and from that derive the angles and diameters of the innermost and middle rings. In this case the diameters are calculated to be 9.01 and 16.9 mm respectively.
    AutofillCorner
  • The patch lower limit is the minimum fraction that a patch can decrease to, in this example no patch can be reduced to less than 0.20 (20%) of its original (uniform distribution) strength.
  • The patch upper limit is the maximum fraction that a patch can increase to, in this example no patch can exceed twice its original strength.
  • Start with 150 iterations of the surface annealing process in random order.

The Surface Measurements tab.

COC474ProtocolDiameter

COC474Surface1

COC474Surface1b

Enter surface measurements
  • The picture of the plaque should match the protocol sheet orientation. If not, rotate the picture (click the Rotate button) to match the sheet.
  • In the Show group click the Meas. (% center) button.
  • In the Picture group enable Show meas. pts and Label meas. pts by clicking the checkboxes as necessary.
  • Click the Enable nonuniform activity checkbox to enable the Solve button.
  • Enter the central, and 3 rings of surface measurements (tinted white, yellow, pink and blue in the figure above) from the protocol sheet into the simulated annealing control point fields as illustrated.
  • Near-surface measurements that are not directly above the silver surface of the plaque (tinted purple in the figure above) can not be used for simulated annealing, so the outermost ring from the protocol sheet (values of 1, 2 etc...) in this example are not used or entered.
  • Fill in all remaining simulated annealing control points for which measurements are not provided by estimating the value, provided those points are above the plaque surface. The Autofill button will interpolate values for you.
  • In this figure, the near-surface measurement points from the BEBIG protocol sheet are overlayed onto their corresponding data entry fields. Only the measurements that are highlighted in yellow, pink and blue are to be entered. Measurements beyond the edge of the plaque, highlighted in purple, corresponding to the most distal ring of the protocol sheet are not used by PS. Any PS data entry fields for which measurements are not provided on the protocol sheet MUST be estimated, for example, by interpolating between the surrounding measured points, and may optionally be set to zero if they are outside the plaque perimeter or are not over a portion of the plaque where radionuclide is deposited except for optic nerve notches.
  • Note:For this plaque I chose to override the BEBIG measurement of 33 in the yellow ring at 9 o'clock. This measurement was obtained in a region of steep gradient at the head of the deep notch and its value will influence the interpolation of surface annealing values within the yellow ring surrounding the center of the plaque. Instead, I substituted the average of the adjacent yellow ring measurements (91.5) as a better estimate of surface strength (for annealing purposes) at the periphery of the yellow ring. The pink ring estimates along the edge of the notch were set at 90. In the future these estimates could be replaced by actual measurements from BEBIG.
  • To perform the simulated annealing, PS calculates a control point (the hundreds of small black cubes and text in figure to right) 1 mm above the center of each patch source (illustrated as hexagons) and angularly interpolates normalized dose rate target values from the measured data points (the larger blue cubes with larger text labels in the figure).
COC474Surface2a
COC474Surface2b
COC474SynthesiszedPoints

Anneal
    • Optionally, click the Distribute Activity Uniformly button to clear any previous solution.
    • Set the annealing order to Random.
    • Click the Solve button to redistribute the radionuclide strength via a surface annealing process. A progress window will appear.
    • Optionally, repeat the Solve button until the surface RMS error no longer decreases.
    • You can follow the annealing process by observing the brightness of the patches which vary as a function of their source strength.
    • Note the final RMS error.

    • You may optionally experiment between the From center and random annealing orders by repeating the step above using the From center setting instead of Random.
    • Proceed to manual fine-tuning of the central axis calibration.
    • If you attempt to reproduce this example, your RMS error may vary slightly because the simulated annealing order involves some randomness.
    • The poor central axis fit seen in the dose profile window will be corrected in the next step by manually fine-tuning the central axis calibration.
COC474SurfaceSolve

COC474Calibration4

COC474DoseProfile4