SLAC - Redwood Room 6 March 2006

1. Geant4 North American Medical Users Organization - G4NAMU SLAC - Redwood Room 6 March 2006 http://geant4.slac.stanford.edu/g4namu/ G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

2. Introductory Information • Emergency Information • Networking • Agenda • Introduction to G4NAMU G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

3. Exits and Emergency Assembly Point We are Here G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

4. Welcome to Earthquake Country • Be aware of exits in your building • Speaker will indicate locations for this meeting • Fire or other emergency evacuation • Follow building residents out of building to the assembly area • Earthquake • Remain in building: Duck, cover, and hold position until shaking stops • Evacuate building to assembly area outside (follow others) • Stay away from windows, downed power lines • In the event of an emergency • Dial 9-911 from a SLAC phone; or • Dial 911 from your cellular phone • Provide SLAC address (2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA; cross street Saga Lane) and your building/room number. G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

5. Networking • Security • Anyone near the wireless access points could sniff the network and anyone with a laptop configured for wireless can connect to the visitor network. • To protect any information you send across the network (especially passwords) you should use appropriate encryption technology such as SSH, SSL, or one-time password authentication. • Recommended Settings and Information • Wireless adapter card: 802.11b or 802.11g • Network configuration:DHCP • SSID: Set to visitor or to allow any value • Network Type: Set to infrastructure • Open access: No WEP, no data encryption, no registration or authentication • Some Problem Areas To Avoid • Bridging must be turned off or disabled • for WXP see Network Connections, right click on the wireless adapter.Check for bridging. • Do not set the Network Type to Ad hoc • for WXP see Network Connections,right click on wireless adapter>Properties>Wireless Networks tab>Advanced.Select Access point (infrastructure) networks only • Mac laptops - Turn off AirPort setting • System Preferences>Network> Show: AirPort.Ensure thatAllow this computer to create networks is not checked G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

6. Agenda (morning) G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

7. Agenda (afternoon) G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

8. Coffee Breaks and Lunches • Because we have charged no registration fee, we are unable to provide coffee or lunches, but breaks have been made long enough to allow you to take a short walk to get it yourself. • SLAC Cafeteria across the main lawn • Starbucks, Erik’s Deli, Castillo’s Mexican and other restaurants a 5 minute walk down Sand Hill Road to the Sharon Heights shopping center • Coffee Breaks are 30 minutes • Lunch Breaks are an hour and a half G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

9. Geant4 Experts in Attendance Today • The following Geant4 experts are in attendance today, and mostof them will be available throughout the week. They would be very happy to discuss any individual questions that you might have. • Makoto Asai - Run , Event, Detector Response, Geometry • Tsukasa Aso - Detector Response, Scoring, Biasing • Sebastien Incerti - Low Energy EM • Tatsumi Koi - Hadronics • Wilko Kroeger - Installation • Michel Maire - Standard EM • Joseph Perl - Visualization • Takashi Sasaki - Tracking • Jane Tinslay - Visualization, Biasing • Dennis Wright - Hadronics, Documentation G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

10. Introduction to G4NAMU G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

11. Geant4 North American Medical Users Organization - G4NAMU Launched in May of 2005 to provide a meeting place for the rapidly growing Geant4 medical user community of North America • Bring this community together to share issues and advice, to develop regional collaboration and to communicate as a group to the Geant4 developers. • Current membership includes 70 members from 32 institutions throughout Canada and the United States http://geant4.slac.stanford.edu/g4namu/ G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

12. Membership • G4NAMU's current membership includes 70 members from 32 institutions throughout Canada and the United States. • Current subscribers to the mailing list (page 1 of 3): • SLAC: Joseph Perl, Makoto Asai, Jeremy McCormick, Dennis Wright, Abner Soffer • Harvard & Mass General: Harald Paganetti, Xing-Qi Lu , Christina Jarlskog, Joao Seco • UCSF: Bruce Faddegon, Inder Daftari, Philippe Després • ULaval: Jean-François Carrier, Luc Beaulieu, Louis Archambault, Vincent Hubert Tremblay • CHUQ: Luc Gingras • UPenn: Steven Avery , Dickson Goulart, Jim McDonough • Stanford: Todd Pawlicki, Gary Luxton, Lei Xing • Louisiana State University: Blair Smith • Fox Chase: Charlie Ma, Jiajin Fan, Jinsheng Li • (continued on next slide…) G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

13. Membership (continued) • Current subscribers to the mailing list (continued): • McGill: Emily Poon, Frank Verhaegen, Jan Seuntjens • Triumf: Peter Gumplinger, Frederick Jones • Memorial Sloan-Kettering: C. Ross Schmidtlein, Assen Kirov, Sadek Nehmeh, Christopher Danford • Johns Hopkins: Ben Tsui, Jingyan Xu, Eric Frey, Mikhail Shilov, Yong Du • University of Arkansas: Hongyu Jiang, Xuejun Weng, Yulong Yan • Jefferson Lab: Paul Gueye, Stan Majewski, Mark Smith, David Hamlette,Michael Epps, Marion MacCormic • Advanced Laser Light Source: Jean-Claude Kieffer, Jean-Philippe Moreau • University of Wisconsin – Madison: Hazim A Jaradat • INRS: Francois Vidal, Sylvain Fourmaux, Ludovic Lecherbourg, Rémy Toth • Université de Sherbrooke: Daniel Houde • (continued on next slide…) G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

14. Membership (continued) • Current subscribers to the mailing list (continued): • University of Alberta: Robert Fedosejev, Craig Unick • Walter Reed Army Medical Center: Dan Fry • Texas A&M: Yong Chen • University of Washington: Ruth Schmitz • Hopital Maisonneuve-Rosemont: Brigitte Reniers • University of Minnesota: Lihong Qin • Xoft Inc.: Steve Axelrod • Rensselaer Polytechnic: Bryan Bednarz • Giorgia Tech: Ioannis Sechopoulos • University of Arizona: Don Wilson • EXELAR Medical Corp & Rush Univ: Gocha Khelashvili • University of Florida: Yuxin Feng G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

15. G4NAMU within the World Geant4 Collaboration • Of course all Geant4 users are part of a world wide community. • Medical Applications forum and other user forums are available for discussion and exchange, as well as other Geant4 workshops and meetings. • But regional efforts also have a role. • In Europe, many efforts have been organized, particularly through Maria Grazia Pia of INFN • In Japan, many efforts has been organized through Takashi Sasaki of KEK (including carbon beams, parallel computing) • In North America, there has been no similar effort at regional organization G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

16. G4NAMU as Regional Voice • G4NAMU can serve as voice of the North American Geant4 Medical User community • Organize regional workshops or tutorials • Foster nearby collaborations • Speak with a collective voice to regional funding agencies • Meet regional certification needs • Last year the American Nuclear Society (ANS) recognized the formation of a Computational Medical Physics Working Group (CMPWG). CMPWG will be hosted by three divisions of ANS - Mathematics and Computations (M&C), Biology and Medicine (BMD), Radiation Protection and Shielding (RPSD). • CMPWG has become involved in benchmarking codes for Medical Physics applications. G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

17. How Does G4NAMU Work • We've agreed to use a mailing list. • geant4-namu@slac.stanford.edu • The list is lightly moderated just to maintain focus and prevent spam. • To join the list, send mail to perl@slac.stanford.edu. • We will have periodic meetings and will try, as we have today, to take advantage of existing meetings. • We can go beyond this: • Provide workshops or tutorials • Develop additional Geant4 examples • Certify certain parts of the code for use in our communities • Collect requirements for Geant4 developers G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

18. First In-Person Meeting • Side meeting at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) at Seattle in July 2005. • Strong interest (over 40 attendees) • Organized by • Steven Avery - University of Pennsylvania • Paul Gueye - Hampton University/JLAB • Harald Paganetti - Harvard/ Massachusetts General • Joseph Perl - SLAC • Many next step suggested at the meeting (see following page). • Notes at: http://geant4.slac.stanford.edu/g4namu/aapm2005 • Strong interest in medical tutorials in US: • Geant4 Tutorial with Medical, Space and High Energy examples to be held at SLAC March 7-11 2006 • G4NAMU side meeting to be either March 6 or March 12. • Another tutorial to be held at JLab, Virginia, late April or May 2006 G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

19. Some Next Steps • Improve communication between Geant4 developers and the medical physics community. • Collect requirements for Geant4 developers. • Validation: • Clarify what studies have been done, what results have been found, what studies still need to be done. • Perform additional beam tests as needed. • Compare cross sections used by Geant4 with those used by other MC codes in Medicine. • Calculation speed: • Understand issues. • Suggest and validate variance reduction methods. • Create additional medical examples. • Continue discussion on the mailing list. Invite additional colleagues to the list. • Maintain Relationships with Relevant North American Professional Organizations: • ANS Computational Medical Physics Working Group (CMPWG). They have asked Harald Paganetti to represent Geant4. • AAPM Task Group No. 105: "Guidance report on clinical implementation of the Monte Carlo method in external beam radiation therapy treatment planning.” • Work on ways to improve funding for Geant4 medical work in North America. G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl

20. Some Next Steps • Develop the G4NAMU web site: • Should answer question: Why would I use Geant4 for medical physics? • Clarify which physics lists are recommended for which medical problems. • Provide a medical physicist's overview of each Geant4 release's release notes. I.e., what should a medical physicist know about this new release. • Collect references to papers. • For those papers that are publicly available, include actual copies of the papers. • For those papers that are restricted by subscriber permissions, include abstract and then link to actual publication (which not all viewers will be able to actually read). • Show Geant4 results in three sections: • Where is Geant4 known to give good results? Link to appropriate publications. • Where is Geant4 known to give poor results? Link to appropriate publications. Include discussion known problems and of what is planned to improve these issues. • Where are Geant4 results unknown? I.e., what additional tests do we know we need to perform? • Show member names by work area. • Paul Gueye has created a newer version of the web site, soon to be unveiled. • Hold tutorials aimed at medical users. • This week here at SLAC • Jefferson Lab, May 22-26, 2006, registration to open later this week • Smaller tutorials annually as part of AAPM annual meeting G4NAMU Meeting J. Perl