Latest News

Niels Kuster d'Arsonval Award Winner for 2012

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 +0200

The Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS) website has announced that Niels Kuster, Director of IT'IS Foundation and Professor of the ETH Zurich has been selected to receive the distinguished d'Arsonval Award, the highest scientific recognition of the Society. The award selection criteria are very strict and only a few eminent scientists have received this award over the history of BEMS.

Niels will accept the award and deliver his accompanying lecture at the next annual meeting of the Society in Brisbane, Australia in June.

LINK ON BEMS WEBSITE

NIEHS Systems at IITRI Updated

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

During the last few weeks, Dr. Myles Capstick from IT'IS (see photo, 2nd from the left) has updated the NIEHS system located at IITRI in Chicago, USA for higher power, and recalibrated all sensors after the pilot and pre-chronic studies were completed last year. Myles, the project leader responsible for the exposure system, has designed, manufactured, and installed the 21 reverberation chambers during the years 2005–2006 and has maintained them since then.

The 3rd party reevaluation of the system's performance was carried out during the week of April 23–27, before the chronic study is due to commence in June, by the NIST experts Drs Galen Koepke (1st from the right), John Ladbury (2nd from the right) and William Young (1st from the left). Niels Kuster (3rd from the left) briefly joined the team together with Dave McCormick (of IITRI) and Michael Wyde (of NIEHS) to discuss the coming 2.5 years' technical needs.

IT'IS Paper Most Cited of PMB from the Last 2 Years (2010–2012)

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

IT'IS's Virtual Family paper became the most cited paper of the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology (PMB) from the last 2 years,

The Virtual Family—Development of Surface-Based Anatomical Models of Two Adults and Two Children for Dosimetric Simulations

Andreas Christ, Wolfgang Kainz, Eckhart G. Hahn, Katharina Honegger, Marcel Zefferer, Esra Neufeld, Wolfgang Rascher, Rolf Janka, Werner Bautz, Ji Chen, Berthold Kiefer, Peter Schmitt, Hans-Peter Hollenbach, Jianxiang Shen, Michael Oberle, Dominik Szczerba, Anthony Kam, Joshua W. Guag and Niels Kuster

Physics in Medicine and Biology, Volume 55, pp. N23–N38, January 2010

According to Scopus (April 12, 2012) the Virtual Family paper was top in the 10 most-cited papers of PMB from the last 2 years, and was cited a total of 70 times.

MOST CITED PMB PAPER 2010–2012

NIS-Monitoring Schweiz: Eine Konzept- und Machbarkeitsstudie

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

G. Dürrenberger, A. Bürgi, J. Fröhlich, N. Kuster, M. Röösli, P. Frei, S. Kühn, O. Lauer, and J. Baumann
BAFU, Sektion NIS, 3003 Bern, Switzerland, February 2012

The IT'IS Foundation participated in a study mandated by the Swiss authorities to develop the concept of monitoring the typical exposure of the Swiss population to non-ionizing radiation (NIR). In particular the following 4 monitoring activities have been found economically and technically feasible. Two have been assigned first priority:

1) The repeated location based (microcompartment based) assessment of the exposure in typical human environments and the measurement of the exposure on predefined routes within those environments. This approach delivers information on technological trends, composition of exposure sources (with the exception of close to body sources).

2) Large-scale numerical models of the human exposure from large installations such as power lines, train infrastructure, mobile communication base stations. This approach allows a region-wide evaluation of exposure from large installation and can be linked and validated with information from existing spot monitoring installations.

Of second priority are:

3) Personal exposimetry, i.e., the assessment of the personal exposure (using exposimeters) of a representative sample. This apprach can be regarded as the gold standard as it determines the exposure in realistic scenarios. However, the method is technically challenging and costly and, in addition, close-to-body sources cannot be included in such a study.

4) The assessment of exposure from personal (close-to-body) devices. In this report a concept for a monitoring of close-to-body sources has been developed, which is the first of its kind worldwide. However, it is expected that due the complexity of the subject a relatively high effort will be required for the implementation.

The scientific impact of the report can be summarized as:

The presented study is one of the first studies to assess the feasibility and develop implementation strategies for a monitoring of human exposure to NIR. The concepts have been developed and classified with respect to technical and economical feasibly. The developed concept for close-to-body sources is the first that allows the monitoring of the exposure from this group of devices in the human population.

DOWNLOAD REPORT (15MB)

Nikoloski (2011) Thesis

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0200

Neviana Nikoloski, “EMF Risk Assessment: Exposure Assessment and Specialized Exposure Setups,” PhD Thesis, Swiss Federal Insititute of Technology, Thesis No. 19939, Zurich, 2011, online March 2012

DOWNLOAD ABSTRACT

Virtual Family Models Presented as a Key Topic by the U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

On February 6, 2012 the National Modeling and Simulation Coalition (NMSC), an American organization whose goal is to promote the utilization and development of modeling and simulations in manufacturing, defense, medicine, energy, transportation, education, and other areas, held their inaugural congress. The opening presentation by the keynote speaker Aneesh Chopra, assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Chief Technology Officer, presented the Virtual Family as part of a key topic: the Virtual Physiological Patient.

The Virtual Family and Virtual Classroom models are already used by more than 250 research groups worldwide in various areas, mainly to evaluate the safety of emerging technologies or to assess the influence of various parameters on the absorption of electromagnetic waves. The integration of the Virtual Family models in the inaugural event of this new coalition demonstrates the growing demand for such high-quality anatomical models, a significant field of research of the IT'IS Foundation.

NMSC WEBSITE

Children and Adults Exposed to Low Frequency Magnetic Fields at the ICNIRP Reference Levels: Theoretical Assessment of the Induced Electric Fields

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Jurriaan F. Bakker, Maarten M. Paulides, Esra Neufeld, Andreas Christ, Xi Lin Chen, Niels Kuster and Gerard van Rhoon, Physics in Medicine and Biology, Volume 57, Number 7, pp. 1815–1829, April 2012, online March 13

Recently, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has issued revised guidelines on the exposure of the human body to low frequency electric and magnetic fields. While the rationale for the definition of the basic restrictions has remained the same — nerve stimulation and induction of phosphenes — the induced electric field averaged over a volume of 2×2×2mm³ has been defined as a new metric for the basic restrictions. Moreover, the new guidelines provide recommendations to minimize the impact of numerical artifacts (stair-casing errors) when assessing the exposure using anatomical computer models of the human body.

The objective of this study is to show whether the electric fields induced in adults and children remain below the basic restrictions for exposure at the reference levels. The exposure was evaluated using the scalar potential finite element method implemented in SEMCAD X to calculate the induced fields in six child and two adult models of the Virtual Population exposed to a homogeneous magnetic field at three different polarizations covering a frequency range from 1Hz to 100kHz.

The scientific and technical impact of the study can be summarized as:

The basic restrictions on the induced electric fields are not exceeded for the evaluated anatomies and postures at the reference levels for the general public. At occupational exposure, the basic restrictions for peripheral nerve stimulation can be exceeded by >50%. For other postures, the induced fields are expected to be even larger.
The results determined according the new recommendations by the ICNIRP depend on mesh resolution, segmentation (tissue volume) and therefore cannot be used to universally determine compliance of sources or exposure situations. Revisions of the recommendations are suggested.

DOWNLOAD ARTICLE

Exposure System to Study Hypotheses of ELF and RF Electromagnetic Field Interactions of Mobile Phones With the Central Nervous System

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Manuel Murbach, Maria Christopoulou, Pedro Crespo-Valero, Peter Achermann and Niels Kuster, Bioelectromagnetics, 7pp., online ahead of print February 13, 2012

Our paper describes a novel optimized exposure system to investigate the response to extremely low frequency (ELF) and radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic field exposures in terms of brain function. The system can provide the same exposure of the lateral cerebral cortex at two different RF frequencies (900 and 2140 MHz) but with different exposure levels at subcortical structures, and also allows uniform ELF magnetic field exposure of the brain. The RF modulation and ELF signal are obtained by a freely programmable arbitrary signal generator allowing the simulation of a wide range of worst-case exposure scenarios, including those emitted by wireless devices. Very high peak-to-average ratios can be achieved in order to allow pulsed and intermittent exposure schemes.

The scientific and technical impact of the study can be summarized as:

Flexible exposure system for hypotheses-driven research on effects of ELF & RF electromagnetic fields on brain functions
Support of double-blinded protocols and of a wide range of modulation & ELF signals with large peak-to-average ratios
Rigorous dosimetry provided that includes functional subregions of the brain in the Talairach space

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Parallelization of the FDTD Method Based on the Open Computing Language and the Message Passing Interface

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Tomasz P. Stefanski, Nicolas Chavannes, and Niels Kuster, in Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Volume 54, Issue 3, pp. 785–789, March 2012, online January 20

A novel approach for parallelization of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method based on open computing language (OpenCL) and the Message Passing Interface (MPI) is presented. Because of the portability of OpenCL, the developed code targets not only distributed shared memory computer clusters based on multicore central processing units but also clusters accelerated by graphics processing units. Subsequently, this article shows the results of numerical tests to evaluate the hybrid MPI-OpenCL FDTD solver in electromagnetic simulations.

The scientific and technical impact of the study can be summarized as:

A parallel programming model for the FDTD method was developed based on the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and the Open Computing Language (OpenCL).
Due to the portability of OpenCL, the developed code targets not only distributed shared memory computer clusters based on multi-core central processing units (CPUs), but also clusters accelerated by graphics processing units (GPUs).
Results of numerical tests are presented showing efficiency and portability of the hybrid MPI-OpenCL FDTD solver in electromagnetic simulations.
A single cluster node accelerated by four GPUs delivered almost three times the speed in comparison to four nodes executing the code on multi-core CPUs. This shows the advantage of multi-GPU acceleration of the FDTD method in comparison to the code execution on small CPU based clusters.

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Patient-Specific Simulations and Measurements of the Magneto-Hemodynamic Effect in Human Primary Vessels

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Adamos Kyriakou, Esra Neufeld, Dominik Szczerba, Wolfgang Kainz, Roger Luechinger, Sebastien Kozerke, Robert McGregor and Niels Kuster, Physiological Measurement, Volume 33, Issue 2, pp. 117–130, February 2012, published online January 6

The objective of this study was to determine whether the magneto-hemodynamic (MHD) response in a person exposed to the static magnetic field (B0) of a 3T MRI magnet can be used as a diagnostic marker of vascular blood flow. MHD is the surface potential change resulting from the interaction between a strong magnetic field and charged particles in the blood. Blood flow simulations were performed based on boundary conditions derived from MRI flow measurements. The surface potential changes induced over time were obtained from simulations using a specific and thoroughly validated low-frequency electromagnetic solver, and were compared to signals measured with and ECG device. Simulations were performed on the whole-body model of a volunteer. Measurements and simulations results were in excellent agreement for all major signal characteristics. The MHD signal showed strong location dependence with highly variable yet reproducibly measurable characteristics. Additional investigations are necessary to assess its efficacy as a biomarker.

The scientific and technical impact of the study can be summarized as:

A simulation platform to study MHD responses was developed and validated. It comprises segmentation and meshing functionalities, flow and EM solvers, and methods to extract patient-specific information about required boundary conditions from image data
The MHD signal was calculated through whole-body simulations and successfully compared to measurements
The main signal characteristics showed strong position dependence and variance
Further investigations are necessary to demonstrate if MHD can be practically used as a biomarker

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Latest News

Niels Kuster d'Arsonval Award Winner for 2012

NIEHS Systems at IITRI Updated

IT'IS Paper Most Cited of PMB from the Last 2 Years (2010–2012)

NIS-Monitoring Schweiz: Eine Konzept- und Machbarkeitsstudie

G. Dürrenberger, A. Bürgi, J. Fröhlich, N. Kuster, M. Röösli, P. Frei, S. Kühn, O. Lauer, and J. BaumannBAFU, Sektion NIS, 3003 Bern, Switzerland, February 2012

Nikoloski (2011) Thesis

Neviana Nikoloski, “EMF Risk Assessment: Exposure Assessment and Specialized Exposure Setups,” PhD Thesis, Swiss Federal Insititute of Technology, Thesis No. 19939, Zurich, 2011, online March 2012

Virtual Family Models Presented as a Key Topic by the U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Children and Adults Exposed to Low Frequency Magnetic Fields at the ICNIRP Reference Levels: Theoretical Assessment of the Induced Electric Fields

Jurriaan F. Bakker, Maarten M. Paulides, Esra Neufeld, Andreas Christ, Xi Lin Chen, Niels Kuster and Gerard van Rhoon, Physics in Medicine and Biology, Volume 57, Number 7, pp. 1815–1829, April 2012, online March 13

Exposure System to Study Hypotheses of ELF and RF Electromagnetic Field Interactions of Mobile Phones With the Central Nervous System

Manuel Murbach, Maria Christopoulou, Pedro Crespo-Valero, Peter Achermann and Niels Kuster, Bioelectromagnetics, 7pp., online ahead of print February 13, 2012

Parallelization of the FDTD Method Based on the Open Computing Language and the Message Passing Interface

Tomasz P. Stefanski, Nicolas Chavannes, and Niels Kuster, in Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Volume 54, Issue 3, pp. 785–789, March 2012, online January 20

Patient-Specific Simulations and Measurements of the Magneto-Hemodynamic Effect in Human Primary Vessels

Adamos Kyriakou, Esra Neufeld, Dominik Szczerba, Wolfgang Kainz, Roger Luechinger, Sebastien Kozerke, Robert McGregor and Niels Kuster, Physiological Measurement, Volume 33, Issue 2, pp. 117–130, February 2012, published online January 6

G. Dürrenberger, A. Bürgi, J. Fröhlich, N. Kuster, M. Röösli, P. Frei, S. Kühn, O. Lauer, and J. Baumann
BAFU, Sektion NIS, 3003 Bern, Switzerland, February 2012