The publishers of Physics in Medicine and Biology (PMB), IOP Publishing, in association with the journal owners, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM), jointly award an annual prize for the 'best' paper published in PMB during the previous year.

The procedure for deciding the winner has been made as thorough as possible, to try to ensure that an outstanding paper wins the prize. We started off with a shortlist of the 10 research papers published in 2008 which were rated the best based on the referees' quality assessments. Following the submission of a short 'case for winning' document by each of the shortlisted authors, an IPEM college of jurors of the status of FIPEM assessed and rated these 10 papers in order to choose a winner, which was then endorsed by the Editorial Board.

It was a close run thing between the top two papers this year. The Board feel that we have a very worthy winner, but that the runner-up also deserves to be commended. We have much pleasure in advising the readers of PMB that the 2008 Roberts Prize is awarded to J P Schlomka et al for their paper on multi-energy CT. The runners-up are C Wang et al for their paper on arc therapy.

1) Experimental feasibility of multi-energy photon-counting K-edge imaging in pre-clinical computed tomography
J P Schlomka, E Roessl, R Dorscheid, S Dill, G Martens, T Istel, C Bäumer, C Herrmann, R~Steadman, G Zeitler, A Livne and R Proksa
2008 Phys. Med. Biol. 53 4031–47

2) Arc-modulated radiation therapy (AMRT): a single-arc form of intensity-modulated arc therapy
C Wang, S Luan, G Tang, D Z Chen, M A Earl and C X Yu
2008 Phys. Med. Biol. 53 6291–303

Our congratulations go to these authors. Of course all of the shortlisted papers were of great merit, and the full top-10 is listed below (in alphabetical order).

Steve Webb
Editor-in-Chief

Simon Harris
Publisher

Cho S, Ahn S, Li Q and Leahy R M 2008 Analytical properties of time-of-flight PET data Phys. Med. Biol. 53 2809–21

Hamann M, Aldridge M, Dickson J, Endozo R, Lozhkin K and Hutton B F 2008 Evaluation of a low-dose/slow-rotating SPECT-CT system Phys. Med. Biol. 53 2495–508

Kim E, Bowsher J, Thomas A S, Sakhalkar H, Dewhirst M and Oldham M 2008 Improving the quantitative accuracy of optical-emission computed tomography by incorporating an attenuation correction: application to HIF1 imaging Phys. Med. Biol. 53 5371–83

Kimstrand P, Traneus E, AhnesjBöumer A and Tilly N 2008 Parametrization and application of scatter kernels for modelling scanned proton beam collimator scatter dose Phys. Med. Biol. 53 3405–29

Kyriakou Y, Lapp R M, Hillebrand L, Ertel D and Kalender W A 2008 Simultaneous misalignment correction for approximate circular cone-beam computed tomography Phys. Med. Biol. 53 6267–89

Schlomka J P, Roessl E, Dorscheid R, Dill S, Martens G, Istel T, Bäumer C, Herrmann C, Steadman R, Zeitler~G, Livne A and Proksa R 2008 Experimental feasibility of multi-energy photon-counting K-edge imaging in pre-clinical computed tomography Phys. Med. Biol. 53 4031–47

Serduc R, van de Looij Y, Francony G, Verdonck O, van der Sanden B, Laissue J, Farion R, Bräuer-Krisch~E, Siegbahn E A, Bravin A, Prezado Y, Segebarth C, Rémy C and Lahrech H 2008 Characterization and quantification of cerebral edema induced by synchrotron x-ray microbeam radiation therapy Phys. Med. Biol. 53 1153–66

Vignal C, Boumans T, Montcel B, Ramstein S, Verhoye M, Van Audekerke J, Mathevon N, Van der Linden A and Mottin S 2008 Measuring brain hemodynamic changes in a songbird: responses to hypercapnia measured with functional MRI and near-infrared spectroscopy Phys. Med. Biol. 53 2457–70

Wang C, Luan S, Tang G, Chen D Z, Earl M A and Yu C X 2008 Arc-modulated radiation therapy (AMRT): a single-arc form of intensity-modulated arc therapy Phys. Med. Biol. 53 6291–303

Wunderlich A and Noo F 2008 Image covariance and lesion detectability in direct fan-beam x-ray computed tomography Phys. Med. Biol. 53 2471–93

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