This one-day course is intended to give an overview of the interaction of directly and indirectly ionizing radiation with matter. The course will cover the basic interaction mechanisms of photons in the energy range 1 keV to 100 MeV, which include photoelectric absorption, coherent and incoherent scattering, and pair-production. Also covered will be neutron absorption and scattering interactions below 20 MeV including radiative capture, fission and other absorption interactions, and elastic and inelastic scattering. The interactions of charged particles will also be considered including both collisional and radiative energy loss mechanisms.

The basic concepts of phase space will be presented and the common radiation field quantities of intensity, flux density, fluence, current vector, and interaction rate density will be defined. Basic models for radiation calculations relevant to radiation detection, shielding, and dosimetry will be presented. Information on sources of radiation also will be reviewed.

In order to address practical issues, some of the many resources for data such as cross sections, response functions, and energies and yields of secondary particles will be identified. These resources include web sites, reports, journals, and books. A basic understanding of calculus and physics is assumed. The course should be useful as an introduction for scientists and engineers unfamiliar with radiation interactions and as a supplement to those who have familiarity with some forms of radiation but not all.

Dr. William L. Dunn is Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at Kansas State University (KSU). Dr. Dunn received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, both in Nuclear Engineering, from North Carolina State University. Bill spent over twenty years in contract research, fourteen as President of Quantum Research Services, Inc., prior to joining the faculty at KSU in 2002. His research has focused primarily on industrial radiation applications but he has also worked in radiation shielding, detection, transport, and dosimetry. Dr. Dunn is a Councilor of the International Society of Radiation Physics, is on the editorial board of the journal Applied Radiation and Isotopes, and is Chair of the Organizing Committee for the Workshop on Use of Monte Carlo Techniques for Design and Analysis of Radiation Detectors, to be held in September 2006 in Coimbra, Portugal.

Dr. Richard Hugtenburg is with the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is involved in a variety of research and teaching activities. His research interests include experimental and atomic physics (especially low-energy photon interaction effects), radiobiology, nuclear weapons exposure simulation, and Monte Carlo methods for radiation transport calculations including Markov Chain Monte Carlo. Dr. Hugtenburg is familiar with several of the general-purpose Monte Carlo radiation transport codes such as MCNP, EGSnrc, and PENELOPE. Dr. Hugtenburg also is involved in clinical activities using ionizing radiation.
 

This one day course will cover the application of nuclear science generally and radiation detection methods specifically in the area of homeland security. This course is intended primarily for those who have some familiarity with nuclear science and radiation detection and would like to better understand homeland security applications and the science and technology issues unique to them. This course will therefore focus on relevant scientific concepts and technology development and deployment issues. The course will touch on, but not focus on, existing commercial instruments and systems deployed for homeland security applications. Prospective students with a general physics or engineering background but little preparation in the area of nuclear science are welcome but are very strongly encouraged to study the book Radiation Detection and Measurement (3’rd Edition, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2000) by Professor Glenn Knoll prior to the course.

The course will start by defining what is meant by homeland security and discuss the general areas in which nuclear science expertise and technology comes into play for homeland security applications. A discussion of the operational environments typically encountered along with specific examples will be provided. A generic discussion of threat classes and their associated measurement methods will be given. The course will describe the basic classes of gamma-ray and neutron detection instrumentation considered for deployment and help students understand how decisions are made with respect to their use. The critical topic of “backgrounds” will be described including both natural radiation background and naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM). Approaches for data collection, analysis, and decision-making for various applied scenarios will be discussed. The role of advanced materials development, particularly the development of room temperature high resolution gamma ray spectrometers, in aiding homeland security applications will be described. The application of a variety of advanced radiation detection methods including imaging, collimation, pulse shape discrimination, and alternative signatures will be covered. Active methods and their role in homeland security will be described.
 

Dr. Anthony Peurrung has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Rice University and a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley. His research has entailed contributions to a variety of fields within fundamental and applied physics including fluid mechanics, plasma physics, medical physics, separations science, environmental remediation, nuclear physics, and radiation detection methods and applications. Since 1994, Anthony has worked in the National Security Directorate of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as a staff scientist, technical group manager, and currently is the director of the Physical and Chemical Sciences Division. His research interests include such topics as special nuclear material detection and characterization and fundamental advances in the areas of neutron detection and spectrometry. Anthony is a long standing member of the DOE’s Radiation Detection Panel and held the senior non-federal leadership role representing the DOE laboratory complex during the standup of DHS’s radiological/nuclear countermeasures science and technology program.

Dr. Eric Smith is a staff scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, working in the area of applied radiation detection. His primary research areas of interest are modeling and simulation of homeland/national security scenarios, multi-coincidence trace radionuclide detection techniques, and next-generation radiation sensor technologies. Eric is active in DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office R&D and assessment programs, and is a technical advisor to the US Customs and Border Protection’s Radiation Portal Monitor program. Eric has also served as PNNL’s representative to DOE’s Nonproliferation Research and Engineering Radiation Detection Panel. Prior to joining PNNL in 2001, he was a staff member at Argonne National Laboratory and led projects in nondestructive assay and waste characterization. Eric received a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Oregon State University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear and Radiological Sciences from the University of Michigan.
 

This one-day course is intended to introduce physicists and detector specialists to the fundamentals of integrated circuit front end design. The class begins with a discussion of low-noise signal processing and semiconductor devices and then delves into the details of implementing practical circuits in modern CMOS technology. A basic knowledge of detectors and electronics is assumed.

Course Outline

1. Pulse Processing Fundamentals
- Signal formation in detectors
- Noise and gain mechanisms
- Pulse processing for amplitude and timing extraction

2. Semiconductor Technology for Integrated Circuit Front Ends
- Operation and characteristics of MOS and bipolar transistors
- Sub-micron CMOS and BICMOS technology
- Feature size scaling
- Radiation effects and reliability
- Mixed-signal circuits

3. Analog circuit design
- The IC design process and CAD tools
- Foundry access, multiproject services
- Building blocks for the analog channel: charge-sensitive and pulse-shaping amplifiers, baseline stabilizers, peak detectors, track/hold, multiplexers, output stages
- Analog-to-digital and time-to-digital converters (ADC and TDC)

4. Packaging and Interconnect

5. Application examples

Course registration fee includes lunch and refreshments, a copy of the lecture notes, and a certificate of completion.

Veljko Radeka, Senior Scientist and Head of Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National laboratory. His interests have been in scientific instruments, radiation detectors, noise and signal processing, and low noise electronics. He authored or co-authored about 170 publications. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of APS.

Paul O’Connor is associate Head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He has a Ph.D. degree in solid-state physics from Brown University and worked from 1980-1990 at AT&T Bell Laboratories prior to joining BNL. His research interests are in the field of instrumentation systems for radiation detection, particularly low noise analog CMOS front-end circuits. He is author and co-author of about 50 publications and has been an IEEE member since 1980.

Giovanni Anelli received a M.S. degree from the Polytechnic of Milan (Italy) in 1997 and a Ph.D. degree from the Polytechnic of Grenoble (France) in 2000, both in electronic engineering. He has been working in the Microelectronics Group at CERN since 1998. His research interests deal with radiation effects on submicron CMOS technologies and with the design of low-noise low-power analog and mixed signal VLSI circuits for High-Energy Physics applications. Dr. Anelli is author and co-author of more than 50 publications and is an IEEE senior member.

 

This course is intended as an introduction to fundamental concepts of Molecular Biology presented from a consistent point of view, that of an "information-driven" field. In this context, the revolution that has taken place during the last decade in genetics and molecular biology can be traced back to the development of techniques that enabled scientists to manipulate and analyze genetic material. These approaches, together with new data-gathering technologies such as genomics, proteomics and imaging have a significant potential for translation into medically relevant knowledge. The success of this endeavor depends largely on the creation of an interactive, inter-disciplinary scientific culture in which experts in engineering, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science join biologists to ensure the efficient integration of new technologies. Opportunities for such inter-disciplinary interactions will be emphasized during the Molecular Biology course.

Course Outline:

Part 1: Nucleic Acids and the Synthesis of Macromolecules

• DNA Replication and Repair

• From DNA to RNA to Protein

• Gene Regulation
   

Part 2: The Cell

• Biomembranes, Subcellular Organization of Eukaryotic Cells, Membrane transport Mechanisms

• Cell Signaling

• Regulation of Cell Division and Cell Death

Part 3: Molecular Biology Techniques

• DNA Engineering, Gene Replacement, Transgenic Animals, RNA interference

• Recombinant Antibody Technology

• Large scale analyses of gene and protein expression (DNA Microarrays, Proteomics and an Introduction to Systems Biology)

Dr. Radu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical & Molecular Pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Radu received his M.D. degree in Romania and then conducted post-doctoral research at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and at UCLA. Dr. Radu’s research interest involves two areas: the first is directed towards applying molecular imaging approaches such as Positron Emission Tomography to monitor immune responses in autoimmune disorders, as well as in cancer. A significant focus of this work is development of novel PET imaging probes specific for activated lymphocytes and of non-immunogenic PET reporter gene systems for in vivo cell-tracking studies. The second area involves studying the immunoregulatory roles of novel proton-sensing G protein-coupled receptors during physiological and pathological conditions characterized by alterations of the extracellular acid-base equilibrium.
 

This course will survey the state of the art in gamma-ray detectors for PET and SPECT, with a discussion of emerging technologies as well as traditional semiconductor and scintillator devices. The course will begin with a discussion of detector physics, cover signal generation, analog and digital pulse processing techniques, triggering, and acquisition strategies. Considerable emphasis will be placed on statistical characterization of the detectors and on optimal estimation methods that take the statistical properties into account. Lecture topics will include:

• Survey of technologies for gamma-ray detection
• Detector requirements for SPECT and PET
• State of the art in scintillation detectors
• State of the art in semiconductor detectors
• Statistical modeling and estimation methods
• Event triggering and coincidence techniques
• Data acquisition systems
• Examples of applications

Dr. Furenlid was educated at the University of Arizona and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently Research Professor at the University of Arizona and associate director of the Center for Gamma-ray Imaging, with appointments in the Department of Radiology and the College of Optical Sciences. He was a staff scientist at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory. His major research area is the development and application of detectors, electronics, and systems for biomedical imaging.

Dr. Barrett was educated at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, MIT and Harvard. He is currently a Regents Professor at the University of Arizona, with appointments in the College of Optical Sciences, the Dept. of Radiology and the programs in Applied Mathematics and Biomedical Engineering. He is director of the Center for Gamma-ray Imaging and a fellow of the IEEE. In collaboration with Kyle J. Myers, he has written a book entitled Foundations of Image Science, which in 2006 was awarded the First Biennial J. W. Goodman Book Writing Award from OSA and SPIE.

Dr. Lewellen was educated at Occidental College and the University of Washington. He is currently a Professor at the University of Washington, with appointments in the Department of Radiology (School of Medicine) and Electrical Engineering. He is director of the Nuclear Medicine Physics Group and a senior member of the IEEE. His major research is in the development of electronics and detector systems for SPECT and PET.

 

Translational research strives to bridge our fundamental understanding of biological principles with clinical practice. Preclinical imaging provides a set of powerful tools that hold the promise to facilitate this translation from basic science to improved patient diagnostics and therapeutics. This course will introduce the attendees to the detectors and other technologies used in preclinical small animal imaging, with focus in high resolution PET, optical bioluminescence and x-ray CT. Special emphasis will be given to practical problems in the design of and use of new imaging systems dedicated for particular applications.

Course outline:

The first part of this course will introduce attendees to the concept of molecular imaging probes and their use in preclinical and clinical imaging. Specific applications with emphasis on cancer will be discussed in some detail. Different types of probes based on radiopharmaceuticals and bioluminescence optical signaling will be discussed with emphasis on their inherent characteristics of signal generation, signal propagation in tissues and background levels.

The second part of this course will discuss the instrumentation technology for the design of small animal PET/SPECT, bioluminescence and x-ray CT imaging systems, with emphasis on the issues of sensitivity, radiation dosimetry and spatial resolution limits. Other novel technologies used in preclinical imaging research will also be introduced and discussed.

The third part of this course will discuss practical aspects of imaging experiments, including experimental design and data analysis. Special emphasis will be given to animal handling; including anesthesia, temperature monitoring and control, pathogen control, blood sampling and experiment reproducibility for multimodality imaging. Image and data analysis will be discussed, with emphasis on the types of measurements derived from the image data and factors that influence these measurements.

Dr. Chatziioannou is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical & Molecular Pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He also is a member of the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging and the Institute for Molecular Medicine. He received his B.S. degree in Physics from the University of Athens, Greece and his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Physics from the University of California at Los Angeles. His current research interests are in the development of instrumentation for dedicated small animal imaging systems and other preclinical imaging technologies. He is especially interested in multimodality approaches for quantitative imaging including x-ray micro computed tomography, microPET and optical imaging. Dr. Chatziioannou has authored or coauthored more than 50 journal articles, reviews and book chapters. In addition, he has been invited to speak at many national and international symposia.

Dr. Stout is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical and Medical Pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and is a member of the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging. He received his B.S. degree in Biology from the University of California at Irvine and his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Physics from the University of California at Los Angeles. His current research interests focus on designing multimodality molecular imaging centers and the methods, equipment and educational training needed to create and operate the Crump molecular imaging center at UCLA. Dr. Stout has authored or coauthored over 25 papers and has frequently presented invited talks and training seminars worldwide.

Dr. Yuan-Chuan Tai is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He received his B.S. in Physics from National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan, M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington and Ph.D. in Biomedical Physics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Tai developed the "pseudo-pinhole PET" geometry and holds a patent on the zoom-in imaging techniques for PET. His current research interests include the development of high-resolution PET technologies for animal and human applications, as well as multi-modality small animal imaging techniques.
 

This full-day course is intended to introduce the fundamentals of image quality in medical imaging to engineers and physicists with no experience in this field. The class begins with a short overview of the principles of image quality with an emphasis on the statistical nature of this topic. We then present an in-depth description of the stochastic properties of objects and images relevant to medical imaging, including representations for random objects, noise properties of imaging systems, and models for the statistics of reconstructed data sets. Basic units on image quality for classification and estimation tasks follow. The afternoon will include presentations on psychophysical experimental methods and approaches to the analysis of the resulting data from human observers as well as methods for computation of model observer performance. Finally, applications to nuclear medicine, including experimental results from a range of investigators and institutions, will be presented. A copy of Foundations of Image Science, by H.H. Barrett and K.J. Myers, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004, is included in the course tuition.

Organizers:

Matthew A. Kupinski, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Optical Sciences and Radiology at the University of Arizona. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2000 and joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in 2002. He has published numerous papers and book chapters on image quality and image science. His research interests include observer models, ideal-observer computations, and imaging hardware optimization.

Kyle J. Myers, Ph.D., received a bachelors degree in Mathematics and Physics from Occidental College in 1980, and a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona in 1985. Following a post-doc at the University of Arizona, she worked in the research labs of Corning Inc. Since 1987 she has worked for the Center for Devices and Radiological Health of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where she is currently the Director of the NIBIB/CDRH Laboratory for the Assessment of Medical Imaging Systems. Along with Harrison H. Barrett, she is the coauthor of Foundations of Imaging Science, published in 2004 and winner of the First Biennial J.W. Goodman Book Writing Award from OSA and SPIE.

Instructors:

Harrison H. Barrett, Ph.D., was educated at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, MIT and Harvard. He is currently a Regents Professor at the University of Arizona, with appointments in the College of Optical Sciences, the Dept. of Radiology and the programs in Applied Mathematics and Biomedical Engineering. He is director of the Center for Gamma-ray Imaging and a fellow of the IEEE. In collaboration with Kyle J. Myers, he has written a book entitled Foundations of Image Science, which in 2006 was awarded the First Biennial J. W. Goodman Book Writing Award from OSA and SPIE.

Brandon D. Gallas, Ph.D., is a mathematician at the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health, working in the NIBIB/CDRH Laboratory for the Assessment of Medical Imaging Systems. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2001. His research and regulatory work focuses on two broad areas: assessing reader performance and evaluating image quality. He has a wealth of experience running psychophysics experiments and has developed estimates of the uncertainty in the resulting performance estimates. In the field of image quality, he has advanced the field's ability for efficiently estimating the ideal linear observer.

Eric C. Frey, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Division of Medical Imaging Physics in the Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. From 1988-2002 he was a postdoctoral fellow and then on the faculty in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major research interests are in SPECT image reconstruction with compensation for image degrading factors, dual isotope imaging, quantitative imaging for targeted radionuclide therapy dosimetry, evaluation and optimization of imaging systems and reconstruction algorithms, and reconstruction and instrumentation