Significant primary tumor volume loss occurs early during radiotherapy for locally advanced NSCLC. Greater relative tumor volume loss during treatment correlates with improved disease control and overall survival. Thus, kV-CBCT has potential to be used as a practical prognostic imaging marker.

Abstract-This paper presents the conceptual design and testing of a bio-inspired locomotion system activated through ionic-type conducting polymer actuators, which can operate both in dry and wet environments. The locomotion system is proposed for a mini autonomous crawling device for applications typified by pipe inspection, search, inspection and data gathering in confined spaces, which require mini-robotic systems. The locomotion system is based on the cilia, which has a simple planar bending motion. This type of motion can be provided by bending-type polymer actuators (one-end fixed and the other-end free cantilever beam). The actuators mounted on a printed circuit board and powered according to a gait design similar to the motion of biological cilia create the legged locomotion system. As the actuators require a low electric power and have a small foot-print (no sophisticated electronics and any transmission mechanisms), they are especially suitable to establish wireless autonomous minirobotic systems. The design methodology presented in this paper is offered as a guide to establish functional devices based on bio-inspiration and conducting polymer actuators. The successful testing of the propulsion concept in the prototype demonstrates that conducting polymer actuators, when engineered properly, can be used to build functional devices.

fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractAll oil and gas well stimulation processes, and particularly hydraulic fracturing, require a poststimulation flow period to prepare the well for long-term production. Operators and service companies have begun to recognize this as one of the most critical times in the life of the well. Intensive management of the flowback and evaluation of the available performance information during flowback can yield significant improvement in the well's long-term performance. That information also provides the basis for improving future stimulation and well management strategies. For example, excessive flowback rates are known to cause proppant flowback or fracture collapse in a fracture stimulated well. Postponement of flowback after the stimulation and shut-ins once production is established do impact future performance.Proper data collection and interpretation provide the ability to interpret the characteristics of the placed fracture and the impact and management of various flowback procedures. Specifically, it is possible to assess the conductivity of the proppant bed, its propagated length and the impact of on-set to multiphase flow. If the flowback and data collection are properly conducted, the early data will also contain information about the characteristics of the reservoir and fracture. With this in mind, the types of data, acquisition and interpretation methods are shown for three field examples.

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