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

Haematological and infectious complications associated with the treatment of patients with congenital cardiac disease: consensus definitions from the Multi-Societal Database Committee for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease

A complication is an event or occurrence that is associated with a disease or a healthcare intervention, is a departure from the desired course of events, and may cause, or be associated with, suboptimal outcome. A complication does not necessarily represent a breech in the standard of care that constitutes medical negligence or medical malpractice. An operative or procedural complication is any complication, regardless of cause, occurring (1) within 30 days after surgery or intervention in or out of the hospital, or (2) after 30 days during the same hospitalization subsequent to the operation or intervention. Operative and procedural complications include both intraoperative/intraprocedural complications and postoperative/postprocedural complications in this time interval. The MultiSocietal Database Committee for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease has set forth a comprehensive list of complications associated with the treatment of patients with congenital cardiac disease, related to cardiac, pulmonary, renal, haematological, infectious, neurological, gastrointestinal, and endocrinal systems, as well as those related to the management of anaesthesia and perfusion, and the transplantation of thoracic organs. The objective of this manuscript is to examine the definitions of operative morbidity as they relate specifically to the haematological system and to infectious complications. These specific definitions and terms will be used to track morbidity associated with surgical and transcatheter interventions and other forms of therapy in a common language across many separate databases. The MultiSocietal Database Committee for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease has prepared and defined a near-exhaustive list of haematological and infectious complications. Within each subgroup, complications are presented in alphabetical order. Clinicians caring for patients with congenital cardiac disease will be able to use this list for databases, quality improvement initiatives, reporting of complications, and comparing strategies for treatmen

Precision measurements of Linear Scattering Density using Muon Tomography

We demonstrate that muon tomography can be used to precisely measure the properties of various materials. The materials which have been considered have been extracted from an experimental blast furnace, including carbon (coke) and iron oxides, for which measurements of the linear scattering density relative to the mass density have been performed with an absolute precision of 10%. We report the procedures that are used in order to obtain such precision, and a discussion is presented to address the expected performance of the technique when applied to heavier materials. The results we obtain do not depend on the specific type of material considered and therefore they can be extended to any application.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

The effect of moisture on cellulose nanocrystals intended as a high gas barrier coating on flexible packaging materials

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) exhibit outstanding gas barrier properties, which supports their use as a biobased and biodegradable barrier coating on flexible food packaging materials. As highly hydrophilic biopolymers, however, CNCs have a strong sensitivity to water that can be detrimental to applications with fresh foods and in moist conditions due to the loss of barrier properties. In this work, the oxygen and water vapor permeability of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films coated with CNCs obtained from cotton linters were measured at varying levels of relative humidity, both in adsorption and desorption, and from these data, the diffusion and solubility coefficients were estimated. Therefore, the characterization of CNCs was aimed at understanding the fundamentals of the water-CNCs interaction and proposing counteractions. The CNCs' moisture absorption and desorption isotherms at 25 \uc2\ub0C were collected in the range of relative humidity 0-97% using different techniques and analyzed through GAB (Guggenheim-Anderson-de Boer) and Oswin models. The effects of moisture on the water status, following the freezable water index, and on the crystal structure of CNCs were investigated by Differential Scanning Calorimetry and by X-ray Powder Diffraction, respectively. These findings point to the opportunity of coupling CNCs with hydrophobic layers in order to boost their capabilities as barrier packaging materials

Search for GeV Gamma-ray Counterparts of Gravitational Wave Events by CALET

We present results on searches for gamma-ray counterparts of the LIGO/Virgo gravitational-wave events using CALorimetric Electron Telescope ({\sl CALET}) observations. The main instrument of {\sl CALET}, CALorimeter (CAL), observes gamma-rays from $\sim1$ GeV up to 10 TeV with a field of view of nearly 2 sr. In addition, the {\sl CALET} gamma-ray burst monitor (CGBM) views $\sim$3 sr and $\sim2\pi$ sr of the sky in the 7 keV -- 1 MeV and the 40 keV -- 20 MeV bands, respectively, by using two different crystal scintillators. The {\sl CALET} observations on the International Space Station started in October 2015, and here we report analyses of events associated with the following gravitational wave events: GW151226, GW170104, GW170608, GW170814 and GW170817. Although only upper limits on gamma-ray emission are obtained, they correspond to a luminosity of $10^{49}\sim10^{53}$ erg s$^{-1}$ in the GeV energy band depending on the distance and the assumed time duration of each event, which is approximately the order of luminosity of typical short gamma-ray bursts. This implies there will be a favorable opportunity to detect high-energy gamma-ray emission in further observations if additional gravitational wave events with favorable geometry will occur within our field-of-view. We also show the sensitivity of {\sl CALET} for gamma-ray transient events which is the order of $10^{-7}$~erg\,cm$^{-2}$\,s$^{-1}$ for an observation of 100~s duration.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa