A Perspective from Ontario Tech University Industrial Research Chairs on 20 Years of Capacity Building in Health Physics and Radiation Science.

ABSTRACT: Ontario Tech University (University of Ontario Institute of Technology) is one of Canada's newest universities, having been incorporated in 2002. In 20 y, the University has increased enrollment from a few hundred students to over 10,000. The University was designed to be "market driven" and as such offered courses that had high market demand. The Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science was one of the first faculties to be established at the University, with the intent to fill a gap between personnel that were retiring out of the nuclear industry and the dearth of nuclear engineers and health physicists being educated in Canada. As such, the University established unique programs in both nuclear engineering and health physics/radiation science with strong input from industry stakeholders. This paper will discuss the evolution of the Health Physics and Radiation Science program at Ontario Tech from the teaching and capacity building perspective, and it provides insight regarding health physics and radiation science research at Ontario Tech under the industrial research chair program.

Artificial intelligence model GPT4 narrowly fails simulated radiological protection exam.

This study assesses the efficacy of Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPT) published by OpenAI in the specialised domains of radiological protection and health physics. Utilising a set of 1064 surrogate questions designed to mimic a health physics certification exam, we evaluated the models' ability to accurately respond to questions across five knowledge domains. Our results indicated that neither model met the 67% passing threshold, with GPT-3.5 achieving a 45.3% weighted average and GPT-4 attaining 61.7%. Despite GPT-4's significant parameter increase and multimodal capabilities, it demonstrated superior performance in all categories yet still fell short of a passing score. The study's methodology involved a simple, standardised prompting strategy without employing prompt engineering or in-context learning, which are known to potentially enhance performance. The analysis revealed that GPT-3.5 formatted answers more correctly, despite GPT-4's higher overall accuracy. The findings suggest that while GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 show promise in handling domain-specific content, their application in the field of radiological protection should be approached with caution, emphasising the need for human oversight and verification.

Soil surface roughness impacts the risk arising from a hypothetical urban radiological dispersive device activation.

This study considers a deliberate hypothetical release of radioactive material over an inhabited urban zone. The event is initiated by the activation of a radiological dispersion device. The main threat is the deposition of radioactive material onto the soil's surface. The radiation represents the threat-defining risks, which depend on the main variables, i.e. soil surface roughness, sex, age of the exposed individuals and the moment of the release (day or nighttime). This study aims to evaluate the effect of soil surface roughness on the radiological risk. The simulation was performed by an analytical method using the HotSpot Health Physics code within the first 100 h. The results found relevant elements that allow for differentiating consequences as a function of the time of release (whether daytime or nighttime), thus allowing decision-makers to be supported with a little more detail about the situation, although in a critical initial phase.

Development of DynamicMC for PHITS Monte Carlo package.

Previously, we have developed DynamicMC for modeling relative movement of Oak Ridge National Laboratory phantom in a radiation field for the Monte Carlo N-Particle package (Health Physics. 2023,124(4):301-309). Using this software, three-dimensional dose distributions in a phantom irradiated by a certain mono-energetic (Mono E) source can be deduced through its graphical user interface. In this study, we extended DynamicMC to be used in combination with the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) by providing it with a higher flexibility for dynamic movement for an anthropomorphic phantom. For this purpose, we implemented four new functions into the software, which are (1) to generate not only Mono E sources but also those having an energy spectrum of an arbitrary radioisotope (2) to calculate the absorbed doses for several radiologically important organs (3) to automatically average the calculated absorbed doses along the path of the phantom and (4) to generate user-defined slab shielding materials. The first and third items utilize the PHITS-specific modalities named radioisotope-source and sumtally functions, respectively. The computational cost and complexity can be dramatically reduced with these features. We anticipate that the present work and the developed open-source tools will be in the interest of nuclear radiation physics community for research and teaching purposes.

The AAPM/ASTRO 2023 Core Physics Curriculum for Radiation Oncology Residents.

PURPOSE: The American Association of Physicists in Medicine Radiation Oncology Medical Physics Education Subcommittee (ROMPES) has updated the radiation oncology physics core curriculum for medical residents in the radiation oncology specialty. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Thirteen physicists from the United States and Canada involved in radiation oncology resident education were recruited to ROMPES. The group included doctorates and master's of physicists with a range of clinical or academic roles. Radiation oncology physician and resident representatives were also consulted in the development of this curriculum. In addition to modernizing the material to include new technology, the updated curriculum is consistent with the format of the American Board of Radiology Physics Study Guide Working Group to promote concordance between current resident educational guidelines and examination preparation guidelines. RESULTS: The revised core curriculum recommends 56 hours of didactic education like the 2015 curriculum but was restructured to provide resident education that facilitates best clinical practice and scientific advancement in radiation oncology. The reference list, glossary, and practical modules were reviewed and updated to include recent literature and clinical practice examples. CONCLUSIONS: ROMPES has updated the core physics curriculum for radiation oncology residents. In addition to providing a comprehensive curriculum to promote best practice for radiation oncology practitioners, the updated curriculum aligns with recommendations from the American Board of Radiology Physics Study Guide Working Group. New technology has been integrated into the curriculum. The updated curriculum provides a framework to appropriately cover the educational topics for radiation oncology residents in preparation for their subsequent career development.