Medical imaging is the principal method for noninvasively obtaining anatomic and physiologic information about the human body. Imaging has experienced a quantum leap in technology and clinical applications over the past 25 years. This leap includes x-ray computed tomography (CT); emission computed tomography (SPECT and PET); magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS), including fun...

Medical physicists face a trade-off when planning oncology radiotherapy treatments. The dosimetrist must deliver sufficient dose to kill the diseased tissue while managing the risk of a variety of possible toxicities that may arise from damage to normal tissue. In attempting to address this trade-off, many questions naturally arise. Are there critical sections within organs that should be spare...

The graphics processing unit (GPU) has emerged as a competitive platform for computing massively parallel problems. Many computing applications in medical physics can be formulated as data-parallel tasks that exploit the capabilities of the GPU for reducing processing times. The authors review the basic principles of GPU computing as well as the main performance optimization techniques, and sur...

should be concise and no longer than 225 words. Body may or may not be divided into Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, depending on the length and nature of the paper. Introductory remarks should indicate clearly the significance of the work presented. References may be indicated in the text and listed in the reference list in whatever style the author prefers, but we ...

On occasion of its 50th anniversary, the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) from now on is going to celebrate annually an International Day of Medical Physics for which the 7th November, the birthday of Marie Sklodowska Curie, a most exceptional character in science at all and a pioneer of medical physics, has been chosen. This article briefly outlines her outstanding persona...

This issue's editorial is an invited commentary authored by Per H. Halvorsen.* It discusses an essential question for clinically practicing medical physicists: How are external factors likely to change the way we practice our profession in the next decade? The topic is both timely and essential, as the AAPM is actively engaged in developing guidance on many related aspects. This editorial sets ...

September 30 of this year marks the last time that a medical physicist seeking certification by the American Board of Radiology may apply for the examination without having completed an accredited clinical training program. The apparent imbalance between individuals seeking such clinical training and the number of available positions in accredited clinical residency programs has been the subjec...

PURPOSE To describe and mathematically validate the superiorization methodology, which is a recently developed heuristic approach to optimization, and to discuss its applicability to medical physics problem formulations that specify the desired solution (of physically given or otherwise obtained constraints) by an optimization criterion. METHODS The superiorization methodology is presented as...

Recent articles in US newspapers(1-4) have increased the awareness of the public to the potential dangers of incorrect delivery of medical radiation. In response, many of the leading organizations representing users of medical radiation have joined to identify and address the common issues that could substantially improve the safety and quality of the use of medical radiation. I have invited Dr...

One of my favorite authors is Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, who writes, among other topics, about the globalization of our 21st century economy. His most recent book, That Used to be Us (That used to be us: how America fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2011), which he co-authored with Michael Mandelbaum...