Results from cosmics and first LHC beam with the ALICE HMPID detector

The ALICE HMPID (High Momentum Particle IDentification) detector has been designed to identify charged pions and kaons in the range 1 < p < 3 GeV/c and protons in the range 1.5 < p < 5 GeV/c. It consists of seven identical proximity focusing RICH (Ring Imaging Cherenkov) counters, covering in total 11 m2, which exploit large area MWPC equipped with CsI photocathodes for Cherenkov light imaging emitted in a liquid C6F14 radiator. The ALICE detector has been widely commissioned using cosmics and LHC beam from December 2007 until October 2008. During the cosmics data taking the HMPID detector collected a large set of data, using mainly the trigger provided by the TOF detector. We present here preliminary results of detector alignment using TPC tracking. The HMPID could be operated in a stable way, at a safe HV setting, also during LHC beam injection and circulation tests, when a very large occupancy (up to 50%) was achieved. Resulting gain mapping and overall detector performance will also be discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennessee.

ALICE pp physics programme

The physics programme of the ALICE experiment at CERN-LHC comprises besides studies of high-energy heavy-ion collisions measurements of proton-proton interactions at unprecedented energies, too. This paper focuses on the global event characterisation in terms of the multiplicity distribution of charged hadrons and mean transverse momentum. These bulk observables become accessible because the detector features excellent track reconstruction, especially at low transverse momenta. The measurement of strange hadrons is of particular interest since the strange-particle phase-space was found to be suppressed beyond canonical reduction at lower center-of-mass energies and the production mechanism of soft particles is not yet fully understood. Here we benefit in particular from particle identification down to very low transverse momentum, i.e. 100 - 300 MeV/c, giving access to spectra and integrated yields of identified hadrons. Equipped with these features, ALICE will play a complementary role w.r.t. other LHC experiments. New interest in the soft part of pp collisions arose recently and new insights in the physics of the underlying event are expected from both, theory and experiment.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, proceedings of XLVII International Winter Meeting on Nuclear Physics, Bormio (Italy

It makes sense to vote in elections if you think one candidate will lead to greater prosperity.

Despite the importance of national elections, many Americans see little value in voting. Tsjalle van der Burg, Lara Carminati and Celeste Wilderom use economic theory to argue that the potential benefits of voting always outweigh the costs to an individual. They write that while the likelihood that any one vote might make a difference is very small, if a voter feels that their candidate is better for the country’s national income over the next four years, that potential benefit will outweigh any cost of voting

Physics of the ALICE Experiment

A short description of the ALICE detector at CERN is given. The experiment is aiming to study the properties of the quark-gluon plasma by means of a whole set of probes that can be subdivided into three classes: soft, heavy-flavour and high-Pt probes. Each of the classes is illustrated by a few typical examples.Comment: Proceedings of the 41st Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and high energy hadronic interactions, La Thuile, Italy, 18-25 March 200

Particle Identification with the ALICE detector at the LHC

ALICE is the LHC experiment dedicated to the study of Heavy-Ion collisions. Many observables related to the properties of the medium created in such collisions rely on the excellent capabilities of the detector in terms of Particle Identification (PID) of particles. In the following, the various PID techniques used for the different ALICE analyses will be described. Focus will be given to the detectors' performance, and selected results will be presented on pp data collected at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and PbPb collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV.Comment: Proceeding of the Conference: Physics at LHC 2012, 3-9 June 201

Case report: Personalized transcatheter approach to mid-aortic syndrome by in vitro simulation on a 3-dimensional printed model

An 8-year-old girl, diagnosed with mid-aortic syndrome (MAS) at the age of 2 months and under antihypertensive therapy, presented with severe systemic hypertension (&gt;200/120 mmHg). Computed tomography (CT) examination revealed aortic aneurysm between severe stenoses at pre- and infra-renal segments, and occlusion of principal splanchnic arteries with peripheral collateral revascularization. Based on CT imaging, preoperative three-dimensional (3D) anatomy was reconstructed to assess aortic dimensions and a dedicated in vitro planning platform was designed to investigate the feasibility of a stenting procedure under fluoroscopic guidance. The in vitro system was designed to incorporate a translucent flexible 3D-printed patient-specific model filled with saline. A covered 8-zig 45-mm-long Cheatham-Platinum (CP) stent and a bare 8-zig, 34-mm-long CP stent were implanted with partial overlap to treat the stenoses (global peak-to-peak pressure gradient &gt; 60 mmHg), excluding the aneurysm and avoiding risk of renal arteries occlusion. Percutaneous procedure was successfully performed with no residual pressure gradient and exactly replicating the strategy tested in vitro. Also, as investigated on the 3D-printed model, additional angioplasty was feasible across the frames of the stent to improve bilateral renal flow. Postoperative systemic pressure significantly reduced (130/70 mmHg) as well as dosage of antihypertensive therapy. This is the first report demonstrating the use of a 3D-printed model to effectively plan percutaneous intervention in a complex pediatric MAS case: taking full advantage of the combined use of a patient-specific 3D model and a dedicated in vitro platform, feasibility of the stenting procedure was successfully tested during pre-procedural assessment. Hence, use of patient-specific 3D-printed models and in vitro dedicated platforms is encouraged to assist pre-procedural planning and personalize treatment, thus enhancing intervention success

Parallelizable Microfluidic Resistive On-Line Detector of Micrometric Aggregates of Biopharmaceutical Antibodies

A microfluidic device based on the differential measurement of the ionic resistance of a micropore for detection of aggregates of antibodies in biopharmaceutical downstream process is presented. The main novelty of this contribution regards the experimental demonstration that, despite the poor solidness of proteins, their aggregates, in their standard production buffer, can be electrically detected down to 2.4 μm diameter with sub-ms transit time (flow rate of 5 μl/min). Thanks to the simple PDMS fluidic fabrication, compact DC readout circuit and convenient use of the same metallic silver tubing for both electrical and fluidic interconnection, the device can be straightforwardly parallelized in tens of units, thus combining single micrometric sensitivity with larger flow rates (>100 μl/min), suitable for in-line installation in pharmaceutical plants

HEP@Home - A distributed computing system based on BOINC

Project SETI@HOME has proven to be one of the biggest successes of distributed computing during the last years. With a quite simple approach SETI manages to process large volumes of data using a vast amount of distributed computer power. To extend the generic usage of this kind of distributed computing tools, BOINC is being developed. In this paper we propose HEP@HOME, a BOINC version tailored to the specific requirements of the High Energy Physics (HEP) community. The HEP@HOME will be able to process large amounts of data using virtually unlimited computing power, as BOINC does, and it should be able to work according to HEP specifications. In HEP the amounts of data to be analyzed or reconstructed are of central importance. Therefore, one of the design principles of this tool is to avoid data transfer. This will allow scientists to run their analysis applications and taking advantage of a large number of CPUs. This tool also satisfies other important requirements in HEP, namely, security, fault-tolerance and monitoring.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses CHEP2004.cls, submitted to CHEP200

Impact of DOI in a clinical SPECT/MRI system:asimulation study

A novel SPECT/MRI scanner has been modelled and tested here using Monte Carlo simulation software, SIMIND. The INSERT SPECT/MRI system faces challenges with event reconstruction due to photon depth of interaction. The novel SPECT system is subject to parallax errors due to its crystal size and slit aperture collimator. We present a simple measure of the DOI errors through SIMIND experiments; by modelling the DOI layers we are able to improve the reconstruction of projection data in the INSERT scanner. A set of capillary phantoms are simulated to explore the impact of DOI on the resolution of the scanner and establish corrections in the system's reconstruction