Embedded Software of the KM3NeT Central Logic Board

The KM3NeT Collaboration is building and operating two deep sea neutrino telescopes at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The telescopes consist of latices of photomultiplier tubes housed in pressure-resistant glass spheres, called digital optical modules and arranged in vertical detection units. The two main scientific goals are the determination of the neutrino mass ordering and the discovery and observation of high-energy neutrino sources in the Universe. Neutrinos are detected via the Cherenkov light, which is induced by charged particles originated in neutrino interactions. The photomultiplier tubes convert the Cherenkov light into electrical signals that are acquired and timestamped by the acquisition electronics. Each optical module houses the acquisition electronics for collecting and timestamping the photomultiplier signals with one nanosecond accuracy. Once finished, the two telescopes will have installed more than six thousand optical acquisition nodes, completing one of the more complex networks in the world in terms of operation and synchronization. The embedded software running in the acquisition nodes has been designed to provide a framework that will operate with different hardware versions and functionalities. The hardware will not be accessible once in operation, which complicates the embedded software architecture. The embedded software provides a set of tools to facilitate remote manageability of the deployed hardware, including safe reconfiguration of the firmware. This paper presents the architecture and the techniques, methods and implementation of the embedded software running in the acquisition nodes of the KM3NeT neutrino telescopes

Psychological profiles of school shooters: positive directions and one big wrong turn.

A wave of school shooting in the mid to late 1990s led to great interest in attempts to “profile” school shooters with an eye both on identifying imminent perpetrators and preventing further incidents. Given that school shootings are generally rare, and many perpetrators are killed during their crimes, the availability of school shooters for research is obviously limited. Not surprisingly, initial profiles of school shooters were arguably of limited value. Although school shooting incidents, particularly by minors, have declined, some evidence has emerged to elucidate the psychological elements of school shooting incidents. School shooting incidents may follow extreme versions of etiological pathways seen for less extreme youth violence, and youthful school shooters appear more similar than different to adult perpetrators of mass shootings. The quest to understanding school shootings has led to several wrong turns, most notably the quixotic desire by politicians, advocates and some scholars to link both school shootings and less extreme youth violence to playing violent video games, despite considerable and increasing evidence to the contrary