High-power test results of a 3 GHz single-cell cavity

Compact, reliable and little consuming accelerators are required for the treatment of tumours with ions. TERA proposes the "cyclinac", composed of a high-frequency, fast-cycling linac which boosts the energy of the particles previously accelerated in a cyclotron. The dimensions of the linac can be reduced if high gradients are used. TERA initiated a high-gradient test program to understand the operational limit of such structures. The program foresees the design, prototyping and high-power test of several high-gradient structures operating at 3 and 5.7 GHz. The high-power tests of the 3 GHz single-cell cavity were completed in Winter 2012. The maximum BDR threshold measured for Emax of 170 MV/m and RF pulses of 2.5 \mu s was 3 x 10-6 bpp/m

Affinity and selectivity of plant proteins for red wine components relevant to color and aroma traits

The effects of fining with various plant proteins were assessed on Aglianico red wine, using both the young wine and wine aged for twelve and twenty-four months, and including wine unfined or fined with gelatin as controls. Color traits and fining efficiency were considered, along with the content of various types of phenolics and of aroma-related compounds of either varietal or fermentative origin. All agents had comparable fining efficiency, although with distinct kinetics, and had similar effects on wine color. Individual plant proteins and enzymatic hydrolyzates differed in their ability to interact with some anthocyanins, with specific proanthocyanidins complexes, and with some aroma components of fermentative origin. Changes in varietal aroma components upon fining were very limited or absent. Effects of all the fining agents tested in this study on the anthocyanidin components were most noticeable in young red wine, and decreased markedly with increasing wine ageing

Effect of dietary administration of oil extract from rosemary on reproductive efficiency in boars

A decrease in reproductive performance in boars during and immediately after hot summer weather has been previously reported (Park and Yi, 2002). High temperature causes germ-cell destruction and results in a temporary decrease in sperm production and fertility. The increase of metabolic activity following thermic stress matches with a higher production of free radicals that impairs cells, such as spermatozoa, particularly rich in polyunsatured fatty acids and poor in antioxidants systems

Inversion of electrical conductivity data with Tikhonov regularization approach: some considerations

Electromagnetic induction measurements, which are generally used to determine lateral variations of apparent electrical conductivity, can provide quantitative estimates of the subsurface conductivity at different depths. Quantitative inference about the Earth's interior from experimental data is, however, an ill-posed problem. Using the generalised McNeill's theory for the EM38 ground conductivity meter, we generated synthetic apparent conductivity curves (input data vector) simulating measurements at different heights above the soil surface. The electrical conductivity profile (the Earth model) was then estimated solving a least squares problem with Tikhonov regularization optimised with a projected conjugate gradient algorithm. Although the Tikhonov approach improves the conditioning of the resulting linear system, profile reconstruction can be surprisingly far from the desired true one. On the contrary, the projected conjugate gradient provided the best solution without any explicit regularization ( a= 0) of the objective function of the least squares problem. Also, if the initial guess belongs to the image of the system matrix, Im(A), we found that it provides a unique solution in the same subspace Im(A)

SoK: A Unified Data Model for Smart Contract Vulnerability Taxonomies

Modern blockchains support the execution of application-level code in the form of smart contracts, allowing developers to devise complex Distributed Applications (DApps). Smart contracts are typically written in high-level languages, such as Solidity, and after deployment on the blockchain, their code is executed in a distributed way in response to transactions or calls from other smart contracts. As a common piece of software, smart contracts are susceptible to vulnerabilities, posing security threats to DApps and their users. The community has already made many different proposals involving taxonomies related to smart contract vulnerabilities. In this paper, we try to systematize such proposals, evaluating their common traits and main discrepancies. A major limitation emerging from our analysis is the lack of a proper formalization of such taxonomies, making hard their adoption within, e.g., tools and disfavoring their improvement over time as a community-driven effort. We thus introduce a novel data model that clearly defines the key entities and relationships relevant to smart contract vulnerabilities. We then show how our data model and its preliminary instantiation can effectively support several valuable use cases, such as interactive exploration of the taxonomy, integration with security frameworks for effective tool orchestration, and statistical analysis for performing longitudinal studies

Lab-on-Chip for Testing Myelotoxic Effect of Drugs and Chemicals

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.In the last twenty years, one of the main goals in the drug discovery field has been the development of reliable in vitro models. In particular, in 2006 the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) has approved the Colony forming Unit-Granulocytes-Macrophages (CFU-GM) test, which is the first and currently unique test applied to evaluate the myelotoxicity of xenobiotics in vitro. The present work aimed at miniaturizing this in vitro assay by developing and validating a Lab-on-Chip (LoC) platform consisting of a high number of bioreactor chambers with screening capabilities in a high-throughput regime

Noise reduction in muon tomography for detecting high density objects

The muon tomography technique, based on multiple Coulomb scattering of cosmic ray muons, has been proposed as a tool to detect the presence of high density objects inside closed volumes. In this paper a new and innovative method is presented to handle the density fluctuations (noise) of reconstructed images, a well known problem of this technique. The effectiveness of our method is evaluated using experimental data obtained with a muon tomography prototype located at the Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL) of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). The results reported in this paper, obtained with real cosmic ray data, show that with appropriate image filtering and muon momentum classification, the muon tomography technique can detect high density materials, such as lead, albeit surrounded by light or medium density material, in short times. A comparison with algorithms published in literature is also presented

Limits on the low energy antinucleon-nucleus annihilations from the Heisenberg principle

We show that the quantum uncertainty principle puts some limits on the effectiveness of the antinucleon-nucleus annihilation at very low energies. This is caused by the fact that the realization a very effective short-distance reaction process implies information on the relative distance of the reacting particles. Some quantitative predictions are possible on this ground, including the approximate A-independence of antinucleon-nucleus annihilation rates.Comment: 10 pages, no figure

History of dating violence and the association with late adolescent health

BACKGROUND: The present investigation expands upon prior studies by examining the relationship between health in late adolescence and the experience of physical/sexual and non-physical dating violence victimization, including dating violence types that are relevant to today’s adolescents (e.g., harassment via email and text messaging). We examined the relationship between physical/sexual and non-physical dating violence victimization from age 13 to 19 and health in late adolescence/early adulthood. METHODS: The sample comprised 585 subjects (ages 18 to 21; mean age, 19.8, SD = 1.0) recruited from The Ohio State University who completed an online survey to assess: 1) current health (depression, disordered eating, binge drinking, smoking, and frequent sexual behavior); and 2) dating violence victimization from age 13 to 19 (retrospectively assessed using eight questions covering physical, sexual, and non-physical abuse, including technology-related abuse involving stalking/harassment via text messaging and email). Multivariable models compared health indicators in never-exposed subjects to those exposed to physical/sexual or non-physical dating violence only. The multivariable models were adjusted for age and other non-dating abuse victimization (bullying; punched, kicked, choked by a parent/guardian; touched in a sexual place, forced to touch someone sexually). RESULTS: In adjusted analyses, compared to non-exposed females, females with physical/sexual dating violence victimization were at increased risk of smoking (prevalence ratio = 3.95); depressive symptoms (down/hopeless, PR = 2.00; lost interest, PR = 1.79); eating disorders (using diet aids, PR = 1.98; fasting, PR = 4.71; vomiting to lose weight, PR = 4.33); and frequent sexual behavior (5+ intercourse and oral sex partners, PR = 2.49, PR = 2.02; having anal sex, PR = 2.82). Compared to non-exposed females, females with non-physical dating violence only were at increased risk of smoking (PR = 3.61), depressive symptoms (down/hopeless, PR = 1.41; lost interest, PR = 1.36), eating disorders (fasting, PR = 3.37; vomiting, PR = 2.66), having 5+ intercourse partners (PR = 2.20), and having anal sex (PR = 2.18). For males, no health differences were observed for those experiencing physical/sexual dating violence compared to those who did not. Compared to non-exposed males, males with non-physical dating violence only were at increased risk of smoking (PR = 3.91) and disordered eating (fasting, using diet aids, vomiting, PR = 2.93). CONCLUSIONS: For females, more pronounced adverse health was observed for those exposed to physical/sexual versus non-physical dating violence. For both females and males, non-physical dating violence victimization contributed to poor health