A new compact neutron spectrometer

A new compact neutron spectrometer has been designed, developed and characterized. The detector is based on EJ299-33 plastic scintillator coupled to silicon photomultipliers, and a digital implementation of pulse shape discrimination is used to separate events associated with neutrons from those associated with gamma-rays. The spectrometer is suitable over the neutron energy range 1 – 100 MeV, and the development illustrated with measurements made using an Am-Be radioisotopic source, a D-T sealed tube neutron generator and quasi-monoenergetic neutron beams produced using the iThemba LABS cyclotron. A segmented variation of the spectrometer is capable of providing directional information through the comparison of count rates between scintillator cells

Towards Invisible Eye Tracking with Lens-Coupled Lateral Photodetectors

A novel low-power and easy to integrate sensing configuration for wearable eye tracking is presented. Within the context of infrared oculography based on individual photosensors, we proposed to couple a set of photodetectors to the lateral edges of a standard lens, acting as waveguide for the IR light, instead of directing them towards the eyeball. This allows to embed the detectors in the rim, thus being fully hidden in the eyewear, invisible to the user and robustly integrated with the glasses. A preliminary setup with four photodiodes whose signals are processed by an agile two-layer neural network was realized and characterized. Here we demonstrate both experimentally and by means of simulations the feasibility of this patent-pending approach. Detected maps of light patterns respond to different impinging light orientations. An angular resolution of about 5 degrees is achieved with only 4 individual photodetectors coupled to a thick rectangular glass lens. A larger number of detectors would provide better resolutions. The parameters of ray-tracing simulations were first adjusted to match the experimental data from a simplified geometry. Then, simulations were used to estimate the expected signals with an eye model, paving the way to a promising outlook. The combination of hardware and software solutions here presented aims at addressing the trade-off between power consumption and angular resolution in the estimation of the direction of gaze which is crucial for pervasive eye tracking

Special Topics in Information Technology

This open access book presents outstanding doctoral dissertations in Information Technology from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Information Technology has always been highly interdisciplinary, as many aspects have to be considered in IT systems. The doctoral studies program in IT at Politecnico di Milano emphasizes this interdisciplinary nature, which is becoming more and more important in recent technological advances, in collaborative projects, and in the education of young researchers. Accordingly, the focus of advanced research is on pursuing a rigorous approach to specific research topics starting from a broad background in various areas of Information Technology, especially Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics, Systems and Control, and Telecommunications. Each year, more than 50 PhDs graduate from the program. This book gathers the outcomes of the best theses defended in 2021-22 and selected for the IT PhD Award. Each of the authors provides a chapter summarizing his/her findings, including an introduction, description of methods, main achievements and future work on the topic. Hence, the book provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest research trends in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano, presented in an easy-to-read format that will also appeal to non-specialists

Special Topics in Information Technology

This open access book presents outstanding doctoral dissertations in Information Technology from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Information Technology has always been highly interdisciplinary, as many aspects have to be considered in IT systems. The doctoral studies program in IT at Politecnico di Milano emphasizes this interdisciplinary nature, which is becoming more and more important in recent technological advances, in collaborative projects, and in the education of young researchers. Accordingly, the focus of advanced research is on pursuing a rigorous approach to specific research topics starting from a broad background in various areas of Information Technology, especially Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics, Systems and Control, and Telecommunications. Each year, more than 50 PhDs graduate from the program. This book gathers the outcomes of the best theses defended in 2021-22 and selected for the IT PhD Award. Each of the authors provides a chapter summarizing his/her findings, including an introduction, description of methods, main achievements and future work on the topic. Hence, the book provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest research trends in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano, presented in an easy-to-read format that will also appeal to non-specialists

Design, Simulations and Development of a Miniature Detector System for Radiation Monitoring on Satellites

Space environment is particularly harsh for human activity and human assets. As human activity expands rapidly into space, it becomes ever more urgent to monitor the space environment in situ and in real time. This thesis aims to study a low re-source, miniature detector system to be employed on the satellites to monitor the in-situ space environment particularly for the hazard high energy particles. The vision is that every satellite even at small scale can afford to carry one such detector sys-tem. The core technology used in the detector system is scintillator + SiPM. The scintillator is a mature and traditional radiation detector and the SiPM is the latest generation of photon detector, which rapidly replaces the role of traditional PMT. Development of such detector system requires knowledge over space environment, detector material and geometry, electronics, data processing and more. This thesis tries to have a as complete coverage as possible to demonstrate the flow and the structure of such development. The thesis closely couples the theoretical knowledge to engineering realization. A detector system prototype for pioneering study is fully built and tested from end to end. This serves as the first stepping stone for the path to the full-scale space instrument

Mu2e Technical Design Report

The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will search for charged lepton flavor violation via the coherent conversion process mu- N --> e- N with a sensitivity approximately four orders of magnitude better than the current world's best limits for this process. The experiment's sensitivity offers discovery potential over a wide array of new physics models and probes mass scales well beyond the reach of the LHC. We describe herein the preliminary design of the proposed Mu2e experiment. This document was created in partial fulfillment of the requirements necessary to obtain DOE CD-2 approval.Comment: compressed file, 888 pages, 621 figures, 126 tables; full resolution available at http://mu2e.fnal.gov; corrected typo in background summary, Table 3.

Online learning of physics during a pandemic: A report from an academic experience in Italy

The arrival of the Sars-Cov II has opened a new window on teaching physics in academia. Frontal lectures have left space for online teaching, teachers have been faced with a new way of spreading knowledge, adapting contents and modalities of their courses. Students have faced up with a new way of learning physics, which relies on free access to materials and their informatics knowledge. We decided to investigate how online didactics has influenced students’ assessments, motivation, and satisfaction in learning physics during the pandemic in 2020. The research has involved bachelor (n = 53) and master (n = 27) students of the Physics Department at the University of Cagliari (N = 80, 47 male; 33 female). The MANOVA supported significant mean differences about gender and university level with higher values for girls and master students in almost all variables investigated. The path analysis showed that student-student, student-teacher interaction, and the organization of the courses significantly influenced satisfaction and motivation in learning physics. The results of this study can be used to improve the standards of teaching in physics at the University of Cagliar

Sensitivity of NEXT-100 detector to neutrinoless double beta decay

Nesta tese estúdiase a sensibilidade do detector NEXT-100 á desintegración dobre beta sen neutrinos. Existe un gran interese na busca desta desintegración xa que podería respostar preguntas fundamentais en física de neutrinos. O detector constitúe a terceira fase do experimento NEXT, colaboración na que se desenrolou esta tese. A continuación inclúese un resumo de cada un dos capítulos nos que se divide a tese. Comézase introducindo o marco teórico e experimental nas seccións Física de neutrinos, A busca da desintegración dobre beta sen neutrinos e O experimento NEXT. Posteriormente descríbense a parte principal do análise da tese en Simulación do detector, Procesamento de datos e Sensibilidade do detector NEXT-100