PERIODICAL TITLE:
IEEE Transactions on Ionizing Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences (TIRPMS)
PROJECTED LAUNCH YEAR:
2 nd half of 2015
PERIODICAL TENTATIVE SCOPE :
The scope of content published within the IEEE Transactions on Ionising Radiation and Plasma Medical
Sciences matches one of the main current areas of activity and field of interest (FOI) of the Nuclear and Plasma
Sciences Society. Article subjects will include different technology and applications areas covered by nuclear and plasma based medical sciences. These areas include radiation detectors, imaging system design and performance, therapy related system design and performance, image reconstruction and analysis, data analysis and processing, image guided therapy, dosimetry and associated radiation/plasma biological tissue interactions for medical applications, therapy optimization protocols, clinical/preclinical evaluation of proof of concept .
Furthermore, the journal will offer educational material such as technical/clinical review papers covering the above subjects of interest, publish contributions on educational activities, conference news, book reviews, and a calendar of important events.
PERIODICAL SPONSORSHIP WITH PERCENTAGES:
Financial: Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (100%?), others?
Technical: Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (xx%), others?
PERIODICAL TENTATIVE NEED:
The objective of the proposed journal is to allow regrouping within a unique journal the publication activities related to the application of nuclear and plasma sciences within the medical field. Within this context both imaging and therapy domains will be covered from the development of detector components and radiation/plasma sources through to the construction of complete imaging systems and treatment devices, including associated software developments and proof of concept clinical evaluation studies. The newly proposed journal aims at combining the larger and well established field of ionizing radiation medical applications with the upcoming plasma medical sciences domain providing a unique venue for the publication of ionizing radiation and plasma based medical sciences. Another strong motivation for the proposed journal is the substantial number of publications related to the well-established ionizing radiation medical sciences field outside current IEEE journals, mostly related to the absence of a journal dedicated to medical applications within these specific fields of interest. Therefore the proposed journal has the ambition of regrouping most of these publications, currently split amongst multiple different journals mostly within the field of applied medical physics associated to national medical physics organisations, journals affiliated to the different relevant medical specialities and a small fraction to current non-specialized NPSS technical journals (TPS and TNS). Finally, the specialized scope of the proposed journal will facilitate Pubmed indexing which will have a major impact in its future success.
COMMENTS:
Please indicate if there is anything unusual about this publication: N/A
DATE/TIME 15/07/2014

Scope (categories)
The following themes represent a non-exhaustive list of main scopes and areas of interest for the proposed
TIRPMS. For each of these main scopes a more detailed list of sub-topics will be provided:
1. Ionising Radiation Detectors for medical applications
1(a). Radiation detectors for ionizing radiation applied to medicine; including but not limited to radiation therapy, nuclear medicine, radiology, auto-radiography and detectors used to assist in surgery
1(b). Scintillators with potential applications in medical imaging devices; discovery through to detector configuration and/or final medical application
1(c). Semiconductors, ceramics and other emerging materials with potential applications in medical imaging devices; discovery to detector configuration to final medical application
1(d). Phototubes, including PSPMTs, APDs, SiPMs and other photodetector technology; initial testing to incorporation and evaluation in detectors and imaging systems.
2. Clinical and pre-clinical imaging systems design and performance
2(a). New nuclear imaging devices, hardware/software improvements in existing devices
2(b). Multimodality devices (ex. PET/CT, PET/SPECT, PET/MRI, SPECT/MRI, PET/Optical)
2(c). x-ray CT devices, including new detectors, radiation sources, standalone or as part of multi-modal imaging systems
2(d). Nuclear Electronics, and data acquisition system components (NIM, CAMAC, Fastbus...), control systems for complex detector configurations including hardware and software; includes use of ASICS and FPGAs as applied to medical imaging
2(e). High resolution imaging of radioactivity in vitro
2(f). Any ionising radiation based interventional imaging device, including intra-operative imaging devices for interventional procedures and devices used for guiding radiotherapy treatment
2(g). Imaging devices for monitoring dose in photon, proton, ion/carbon therapy
2(h). Monte Carlo and other simulation methods to assist in the design of imaging devices and understanding of performance of these devices
2(i). Applications of synchrotron radiation in medical imaging
2(j). Non-medical imaging technologies (e.g. Compton telescope) with potential application to medical imaging
2(k). Evaluation of imaging devices, techniques to integrate modalities, and applications of multimodality imaging

2(l). Methodologies and metrics for measurement and evaluation of imaging performance; includes standardization of measurement techniques (e.g. NEMA)
3. Image reconstruction methods and data correction techniques
3(a). 3D Image reconstruction algorithms (analytical and iterative) for radiation based medical devices in nuclear medicine (PET, SPECT) and radiology (CT), including multimodality imaging devices (PET/CT,
SPECT/CT, PET/MR, SPECT/MR)
3(b). Data correction techniques (e.g. attenuation, scatter, randoms) keyed to medical applications in nuclear medicine
3(c). Reconstruction algorithms and techniques making use of multi-modality imaging (ex. anatomical priors driven PET image reconstruction using CT/MR information) and new detector technologies (ex. spectral CT)
3(d). Multi-dimensional reconstruction algorithms, accounting for patient motion compensation and/or tracer/contrast agent pharmacokinetics using dynamic image acquisitions.
3(e). Novel approaches for accelerated reconstruction using hybrid architectures (CPUs/GPUs), parallel processing (MPI, multi-threading), sparse sampling, etc.
3(f). Performance assessment methodologies specific to image reconstruction
4. Quantitative imaging techniques, image and signal processing
4(a). Image analysis related to ionizing radiation medical images, including image registration, partial volume correction, image segmentation, patient motion estimation
4(b). Physiological modeling using dynamic imaging protocols and/or physiological signals in ionizing radiation medical imaging
4(c). Parametric imaging through tracer/contrast agent pharmacokinetic modeling in nuclear and CT imaging; quantitative biomarker extraction techniques from single or multiple time point nuclear and
CT images
4(d). Multimodality imaging software developments using at least one or more ionizing radiation imaging devices (systems such as PET/CT, SPECT/CT, PET/MR, SPECT/MR, PET/OP)
4(e). Methodologies for assessing image analysis algorithms specific to ionizing radiation medical images
5. Therapy related system design, treatment protocols, software developments
5(a). Hardware/software developments for photon, proton, carbon, ion radiotherapy treatment systems;
5(b). Hardware/software developments for plasma based treatment protocols

5(c). Combination of radiation based imaging devices and therapy systems (ex. radiotherapy); associated hardware and software developments
5(d). Adaptive radiation and plasma therapy protocols and associated software developments; image guided radiation and plasma therapy protocols and associated software developments
6. Dosimetry and radiation/plasma-biological interactions for radiation and plasma medical applications
6(a). Analytical and Monte Carlo based dosimetry software for ionizing radiation and plasma based therapy applications
6(b). Incorporation of multi-scale physiological processes and ionizing radiation/plasma biological tissue interactions (physics models, plasma-cell and plasma-tissue interactions) for ionizing radiation and plasma based therapy applications
7. Simulations for imaging and therapy applications
7(a). Analytical and Monte Carlo based software developments for ionizing radiation and plasma based medical imaging and therapy applications
7(b). Simulation studies for optimization and overall performance assessment of hardware components associated with ionizing radiation and plasma medical imaging and therapy applications
7(c). Simulation studies for optimization and overall performance assessment of complete ionizing radiation and plasma medical imaging and therapy systems
7(d). Simulation studies for optimization of image acquisitions protocols with ionizing radiation medical imaging devices
7(e). Simulation studies for optimization of treatment protocols for ionizing radiation and plasma therapy planning purposes, including multi-scale patient specific physiological processes modeling
7(f). Simulation studies for optimization and performance assessment of software developments associated with ionizing radiation and plasma medical imaging and therapy applications
8. Clinical/preclinical evaluation studies (proof of concept)
8(a). Studies allowing the proof of concept evaluation in all of the developments (hardware and software) covered in the scopes of this journal (see sections above)
8(b). State of the art in clinical and preclinical use of ionizing radiation and plasma medical imaging and therapy applications