Radiation Hardness and Linearity Studies of CVD Diamonds

We report on the behavior of CVD diamonds under intense electromagnetic radiation and on the response of the detector to high density of deposited energy. Diamonds have been found to remain unaffected after doses of 10 MGy of MeV-range photons and the diamond response to energy depositions of up to 250 GeV/cm^3 has been found to be linear to better than 2 %. These observations make diamond an attractive detector material for a calorimeter in the very forward region of the detector proposed for TESLA.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures; Proceeding for the topical Seminar on Innovative Particle and Radiation Detectors Siena, 21-24 October 2002; to appear in Nucl.Phys. B (Proceedings Supplement

Electromagnetic Radiation Hardness of Diamond Detectors

The behavior of artificially grown CVD diamond films under intense electromagnetic radiation has been studied. The properties of irradiated diamond samples have been investigated using the method of thermally stimulated current and by studying their charge collection properties. Diamonds have been found to remain unaffected after doses of 6.8 MGy of 10 keV photons and 10 MGy of MeV-range photons. This observation makes diamond an attractive detector material for a calorimeter in the very forward region of the proposed TESLA detector.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure

Architectural assessment of mass storage systems at GSFC

The topics are presented in viewgraph form and include the following: system functionality; characteristics; data sources; hardware/software systems; and performance assessments

Head movement differs for positive and negative emotions in video recordings of sitting individuals

Individuals tend to approach positive stimuli and avoid negative stimuli. Furthermore, emotions influence whether individuals freeze or move more. These two kinds of motivated behavior refer to the approach/avoidance behavior and behavioral freezing/activation. Previous studies examined (e.g., using forced platforms) whether individuals' behavior depends on stimulus' valence; however, the results were mixed. Thus, we aimed to test whether emotions' effects on spontaneous whole-body behavior of standing individuals also occur in the seated position. We used a computer vision method to measure the head sway in video recordings that offers ease of use, replicability, and unobtrusiveness for the seated research participant. We analyzed behavior recorded in the laboratory during emotion manipulations across five studies totaling 932 participants. We observed that individuals leaned more forward and moved more when watching positive stimuli than when watching negative stimuli. However, individuals did not behave differently when watching positive or negative stimuli than in the neutral condition. Our results indicate that head movements extracted from seated individuals' video recordings can be useful in detecting robust differences in emotional behavior (positive vs. negative emotions)

Characterization and Modeling of Non-Uniform Charge Collection in CVD Diamond Pixel Detectors

A pixel detector with a CVD diamond sensor has been studied in a 180 GeV/c pion beam. The charge collection properties of the diamond sensor were studied as a function of the track position, which was measured with a silicon microstrip telescope. Non-uniformities were observed on a length scale comparable to the diamond crystallites size. In some regions of the sensor, the charge drift appears to have a component parallel to the sensor surface (i.e., normal to the applied electric field) resulting in systematic residuals between the track position and the hits position as large as 40 $\mu$m. A numerical simulation of the charge drift in polycrystalline diamond was developed to compute the signal induced on the electrodes by the electrons and holes released by the passing particles. The simulation takes into account the crystallite structure, non-uniform trapping across the sensor, diffusion and polarization effects. It is in qualitative agreement with the data. Additional lateral electric field components result from the non-uniform trapping of charges in the bulk. These provide a good explanation for the large residuals observed.Comment: Accepted by Nucl. Instr. and Met

The Effect of a Non-Gaussian Random Loading on High-Cycle Fatigue of a Thermally Post-Buckled Structure

High-cycle fatigue of an elastic-plastic beam structure under the combined action of thermal and high-intensity non-Gaussian acoustic loadings is considered. Such loadings can be highly damaging when snap-through motion occurs between thermally post-buckled equilibria. The simulated non-Gaussian loadings investigated have a range of skewness and kurtosis typical of turbulent boundary layer pressure fluctuations in the vicinity of forward facing steps. Further, the duration and steadiness of high excursion peaks is comparable to that found in such turbulent boundary layer data. Response and fatigue life estimates are found to be insensitive to the loading distribution, with the minor exception of cases involving plastic deformation. In contrast, the fatigue life estimate was found to be highly affected by a different type of non-Gaussian loading having bursts of high excursion peaks

Description of Supernova Data in Conformal Cosmology without Cosmological Constant

We consider cosmological consequences of a conformal invariant formulation of Einstein's General Relativity where instead of the scale factor of the spatial metrics in the action functional a massless scalar (dilaton) field occurs which scales all masses including the Planck mass. Instead of the expansion of the universe we get the Hoyle-Narlikar type of mass evolution, where the temperature history of the universe is replaced by the mass history. We show that this conformal invariant cosmological model gives a satisfactory description of the new supernova Ia data for the effective magnitude - redshift relation without a cosmological constant and make a prediction for the high-redshift behavior which deviates from that of standard cosmology for $z>1.7$.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, includes discussion of SN1997ff, text revise

Multizentrische, randomisierte Phase IIb Studie zur Untersuchung der Effektivität und Sicherheit von subkutanen Etonogestrel-Implantaten in Kombination mit intramuskulären Testosterondecanoat Injektionen zur hormonellen männlichen Kontrazeption

Multizentrische Phase IIb Studie zur Untersuchung der Effektivität von subkutanen Etonogestrelimplantaten(ENG) mit intramuskulären Testosterondecanoatinjektionen(TD) zur hormonellen männlichen Kontrazeption. Ziel einer hormonellen Kontrazeption ist die Suppression der Spermatogenese. Die Studie überprüft die Wirkung von ENG und TD auf Spermatogenese, Testosteron und LH-/FSH-Sekretion über 48 Wochen. Es gab 3 Gruppen, Gruppe A: 400mgTD alle 4 Wochen, B: 400mgTD/6 Wochen und C 600mgTD/6 Wochen. In allen Probanden wurden LH/FSH-Sekretion und Spermatogenese effektiv supprimiert, Gruppe A erreichte zu 100% eine Azoospermie, B zu 33,3%, C zu 66,6%, alle Werte waren <1 Mill/ml. Die Testosteronspiegel lagen im Studienverlauf im Normbereich. Es traten Gewichtszunahme, RR-Anstieg und Lipidveränderungen auf. Alle Parameter waren in der Nachuntersuchungsphase normal. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Kombination ENG/TD eine aussichtsreiche Methode einer männlichen hormonellen Kontrazeption darstellt

Bogoliubov's Integrals of Motion in Quantum Cosmology and Gravity

Quantum Cosmology and Gravity are formulated here as the primary and secondary quantizations of the energy constraints by analogy with the historical formulation of quantum field theory. New fact is that both the Universe and its matter are created from stable vacuum obtained by the Bogoliubov-type transformation just as it is in the theory of quantum superfluid liquid. Such the Quantum Gravity gives us possibility to explain topical problems of cosmology by the cosmological creation of universes and particles from vacuum.Comment: 12 pages, Proceedings of the II International Conference on Superintegrable Systems in Classical and Quantum Mechanics, Dubna, Russia, June 27 - July 1, 2005 (will be published in Yadernaya Fizika, 2006