Nan-O-Style – experiments and arts

In this project, high school students (aged 16-17) tested various protocols of experiments in nanotechnology and evaluated them whether such experiments could also be performed by middle school students (aged 11-15) or even elementary school students (aged 6-10). Protocols pre-selected and provided by the instructing team consisting of Sciencetainment and the Department of Biosciences, University of Salzburg were applied. Laboratory techniques such as thin-layer chromatography, measuring the contact angle by high-resolution 3D microscopy and analyzing and constructing surface layers represented some of the experiments performed. Moreover, students produced short video clips and images and designed photo-collages out of microscopic and electron microscopic pictures. Hence, the school students acquired a number of soft skills during this special science day

CASKS (Computer Analysis of Storage casKS): A microcomputer based analysis system for storage cask design review. User`s manual to Version 1b (including program reference)

CASKS (Computer Analysis of Storage casKS) is a microcomputer-based system of computer programs and databases developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for evaluating safety analysis reports on spent-fuel storage casks. The bulk of the complete program and this user`s manual are based upon the SCANS (Shipping Cask ANalysis System) program previously developed at LLNL. A number of enhancements and improvements were added to the original SCANS program to meet requirements unique to storage casks. CASKS is an easy-to-use system that calculates global response of storage casks to impact loads, pressure loads and thermal conditions. This provides reviewers with a tool for an independent check on analyses submitted by licensees. CASKS is based on microcomputers compatible with the IBM-PC family of computers. The system is composed of a series of menus, input programs, cask analysis programs, and output display programs. All data is entered through fill-in-the-blank input screens that contain descriptive data requests

Iron oxide and water paste rheology and its effect on low adhesion in the wheel/rail interface

The “wet-rail” phenomenon results in low adhesion between wheel and rail throughout the year, occurring transiently on a slightly wet, or drying railhead. It has been previously proposed that it is caused by a mixture of iron oxides and small amounts of water (from dew or precipitation) on the railhead that form a friction reducing paste. This paper outlines a novel combination of rheology, modelling and experimental work using a twin disc test rig to determine how the rheology of this iron oxide paste affects adhesion. The yield strength of different types of iron oxides, along with solid oxide fraction of the friction reducing paste, was assessed and used as an input into an “adhesion model” for assessing water and oxide suspensions. The rheological and modelling results were compared against very low adhesion recorded in twin disc experimental validation when simulating the wet-rail phenomenon

Mental health care for irregular migrants in Europe: Barriers and how they are overcome

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

10-kJ Status and 100-kJ Future for NIF PetaWatt Technology

We discuss the status of the NIF ARC, an 8-beam 10-kJ class high-energy petawatt laser, and the future upgrade path of this and similar systems to 100-kJ-class with coherent phasing of multiple apertures

Clear-PEM: A PET imaging system dedicated to breast cancer diagnostics

The Clear-PEM scanner for positron emission mammography under development is described. The detector is based on pixelized LYSO crystals optically coupled to avalanche photodiodes and readout by a fast low-noise electronic system. A dedicated digital trigger (TGR) and data acquisition (DAQ) system is used for on-line selection of coincidence events with high efficiency, large bandwidth and small dead-time. A specialized gantry allows to perform exams of the breast and of the axilla. In this paper we present results of the measurement of detector modules that integrate the system under construction as well as the imaging performance estimated from Monte Carlo simulated data.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TJM-4M942B5-D/1/e8aea93baa1aeae3538ea200a5a5466

Virgo calibration and reconstruction of the gravitational wave strain during VSR1

Virgo is a kilometer-length interferometer for gravitational waves detection located near Pisa. Its first science run, VSR1, occured from May to October 2007. The aims of the calibration are to measure the detector sensitivity and to reconstruct the time series of the gravitational wave strain h(t). The absolute length calibration is based on an original non-linear reconstruction of the differential arm length variations in free swinging Michelson configurations. It uses the laser wavelength as length standard. This method is used to calibrate the frequency dependent response of the Virgo mirror actuators and derive the detector in-loop response and sensitivity within ~5%. The principle of the strain reconstruction is highlighted and the h(t) systematic errors are estimated. A photon calibrator is used to check the sign of h(t). The reconstructed h(t) during VSR1 is valid from 10 Hz up to 10 kHz with systematic errors estimated to 6% in amplitude. The phase error is estimated to be 70 mrad below 1.9 kHz and 6 micro-seconds above.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, proceedings of Amaldi 8 conference, to be published in Journal of Physics Conference Series (JPCS). Second release: correct typo

Sensitivity to Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescences Achieved during LIGO's Fifth and Virgo's First Science Run

We summarize the sensitivity achieved by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors for compact binary coalescence (CBC) searches during LIGO's fifth science run and Virgo's first science run. We present noise spectral density curves for each of the four detectors that operated during these science runs which are representative of the typical performance achieved by the detectors for CBC searches. These spectra are intended for release to the public as a summary of detector performance for CBC searches during these science runs.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Directional limits on persistent gravitational waves using LIGO S5 science data

The gravitational-wave (GW) sky may include nearby pointlike sources as well as astrophysical and cosmological stochastic backgrounds. Since the relative strength and angular distribution of the many possible sources of GWs are not well constrained, searches for GW signals must be performed in a model-independent way. To that end we perform two directional searches for persistent GWs using data from the LIGO S5 science run: one optimized for pointlike sources and one for arbitrary extended sources. The latter result is the first of its kind. Finding no evidence to support the detection of GWs, we present 90% confidence level (CL) upper-limit maps of GW strain power with typical values between 2-20x10^-50 strain^2 Hz^-1 and 5-35x10^-49 strain^2 Hz^-1 sr^-1 for pointlike and extended sources respectively. The limits on pointlike sources constitute a factor of 30 improvement over the previous best limits. We also set 90% CL limits on the narrow-band root-mean-square GW strain from interesting targets including Sco X-1, SN1987A and the Galactic Center as low as ~7x10^-25 in the most sensitive frequency range near 160 Hz. These limits are the most constraining to date and constitute a factor of 5 improvement over the previous best limits.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure