The LHC Logging Service: Capturing, storing and using time-series data for the world's largest scientific instrument

CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, is well underway in building the most powerful particle accelerator called LHC (Large Hadron Collider), which will probe deeper into matter than ever before. This circular 27-km long superconducting installation is extremely complex, and its functioning has to be closely monitored. The LHC Logging service is aimed to satisfy the requirement of capturing and storing of any relevant piece of information to track its variation over time. Web-deployed tools have been developed to visualize, correlate and export the data into dedicated off-line analysis tools. The quality of the data, the manageability of the service and the overall system performance are key factors for the service. Oracle technology has been used extensively to support this mission-critical service, which has proven already to be useful during the commissioning phase of individual subsystems of the LHC. The architecture, design and implementation of the LHC Logging service, based on Oracle Database, Application Servers and the Enterprise Manager, are described in this paper

The LSA Database to Drive the Accelerator Settings

The LHC Software Architecture (LSA), used to operate the particle accelerators at CERN, is dependent on an on-line database to manage both high and low level parameter settings, including their evolution over time. Accelerator optics models, control sequences, reference values, are amongst the other entities being managed within the database. The LSA database can be considered as being located between the operators and the accelerators; therefore performance, availability, and security of the service as well as data integrity are paramount. To meet these requirements the LSA database model has been carefully developed, all database access is tightly controlled and instrumented, business logic is implemented within the database, and there is a semi-automatic integration with other key accelerator databases. Currently 8.6 million settings for some 40 thousand devices of the LEIR, SPS, and LHC accelerators are being effectively managed

On-Change Publishing of Database Resident Control System Data

The CERN accelerator control system is largely data driven, based on a distributed Oracle® database architecture. Many application programs depend on the latest values of key pieces of information such as beam mode and accelerator mode. Rather than taking the non-scalable approach of polling the database for the latest values, the CERN control system addresses this requirement by making use of the Oracle Advanced Queuing – an implementation based on JMS (Java Message Service) – to publish data changes throughout the control system via the CERN Controls Middleware (CMW). This paper describes the architecture of the system, the implementation choices and the experience so far

Percolation of Immobile Domains in Supercooled Thin Polymeric Films

We present an analysis of heterogeneous dynamics in molecular dynamics simulations of a thin polymeric film, supported by an absorbing structured surface. Near the glass transition "immobile" domains occur throughout the film, yet the probability of their occurrence decreasing with larger distance from the surface. Still, enough immobile domains are located near the free surface to cause them to percolate in the direction perpendicular to surface, at a temperature near the glass transition temperature. This result is in agreement with a recent theoretical model of glass transition

Emotional, cognitive and behavioral self-regulation in forensic psychiatric patients:Changes over time and associations with childhood trauma, identity and personality pathology

The construct of self-regulation is of particular interest to the forensic psychiatric practice due to its associations with both clinical and criminal outcomes, as well as recidivism. However, research on different components of self-regulation within forensic psychiatric practice is rare. The current study aimed to gain knowledge on the construct of self-regulation in a sample of forensic psychiatric patients (N = 94). Firstly, by investigating change of emotional, behavioral and cognitive self-regulation over the course of 12 months in state-mandated care in a treatment facility. Secondly, by looking at the associations between these three elements of self-regulation and childhood trauma, identity dysfunction and personality pathology. Repeated measures ANOVA showed little to no difference in average self-regulation over time (only for behavioral regulation), and rank-order stability was relatively high in most cases. Path analysis showed that: emotion regulation was associated with all outcomes; behavioral regulation with all except childhood trauma and detachment; and cognitive regulation only with antagonism and negative affectivity. Findings suggest short-term changes are unlikely and indicate relative importance of emotional, and to some extent behavioral regulation for clinical practice. However, due to sample size restrictions, interpretations should be made with caution

Development of an Open-GIS decision aid system for ecological and economical management of surface and groundwater resources in the Bistrita River Basin (Romania)

International audienceThe Bistrita River Basin (a length of 283 km, a surface of 7039 km2, a mean discharge of 65 m3/s) is one of the most important tributary of the Siret River, which is the second major affluent of the Danube River. Heavily influenced by hydraulic management and highly polluted by agricultural and urban activities in some stretches, the Bistrita river has been studied in the framework of the Diminish Project (LIFE03 ENV/ RO/000539), funded by the Life Environment Program. The project aims to support the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive and to combat the nutrient pollution by developing an integrated, on-line, GIS-based support system for the management of the water quality in relation with human activities, using socio-economical analysis, at the scale of the river catchments. Based on modeling approaches the decisional system allows to predict which strategy will lead to the most effective reduction of nutrient concentrations within the Bistrita hydrological network and of nutrient loads transported by the Siret River into the Danube. The consequences of the nutrient pollution are discussed for two basin areas, from two points of view: i) the effects of point and diffuse pollution for surface and groundwater, on the basis of the basin response to the changing pressures over the river catchments (industrial, rural, urban, agricultural changes), ii) the economical valuation of environmental costs and cost-effectiveness of the measures, that can be proposed from socio-economic scenarios, for reaching the "good ecological status" of this river

Accelerator Data Foundation : How it all fits together

Since 2003, a coherent data management approach was envisaged for the needs of installing, commissioning, operating and maintaining the LHC. Data repositories in the distinct domains of physical equipment, installed components, controls configuration and operational data have been established to cater for these different aspects. The interdependencies between the domains have been implemented as a distributed database. This approach, based on a very wide data foundation, has been used for the LHC and is being extended to the CERN accelerator complex