Acoustic sensor to measure snowdrift and wind velocity for avalanche forecasting

A new mathematical model of slushflow dynamics is developed. A slushflow is treated as a two-layer flow. The lower layer consists of pure liquid phase (water) and the upper layer is a floating water saturated snow (slush). The equations of mass and impulse conservation for each layer are written. These equations include an interaction and mass exchange between the layers and between the water or slush layer and snow cover. The model equations were integrated numerically according to a developed for PC program. Series of numerical experiments for uniform slope were carried out. The structure and dynamics of slushflow were investigated. The dependencies of depths, velocities of flow and front coordinates of the upper and the lower layers on the parameters of the model are established. These parameters are the coefficient of snow entrainment, the coefficient of dry friction, the coefficients of turbulent friction, the discharge of water feeding at the rear end of flow, the snow cover thickness and the slope angle. An effect of exhaustion of the water layer is revealed. This effect is due to fast water absorption by entrained masses of snow

Design of the new proton synchrotron booster absorber scraper (PSBAS) in the framework of the large hadron collider injection upgrade (LIU) project

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Injector Upgrade (LIU) Project at CERN calls for increasing beam intensity for the LHC accelerator chain. Some machine components will not survive the new beam characteristics and need to be rebuilt for the new challenging scenario. This is particularly true for beam intercepting devices (BIDs) such as dumps, collimators, and absorber/scrapers, which are directly exposed to beam impacts. In this context, this work summarizes conceptual design studies on the new Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB) Absorber/Scraper (PSBAS), a device aimed at cleaning the beam halo at the very early stage of the PSB acceleration. This paper outlines the steps performed to fulfill the component design requirements. It discusses thermomechanical effects as a consequence of the beam-matter collisions, simulated with the FLUKA Monte Carlo code and ANSYS® finite element software; and the impedance minimization study performed to prevent beam instabilities and to reduce RF-heating on the device

A high resolution cavity BPM for the CLIC Test Facility

In frame of the development of a high resolution BPM system for the CLIC Main Linac we present the design of a cavity BPM prototype. It consists of a waveguide loaded dipole mode resonator and a monopole mode reference cavity, both operating at 15 GHz, to be compatible with the bunch frequencies at the CLIC Test Facility. Requirements, design concept, numerical analysis, and practical considerations are discussed.Comment: 5 pp. 14th Beam Instrumentation Workshop (BIW10) 2-6 May 2010. Santa Fe, New Mexic

The electron accelerator for the AWAKE experiment at CERN

The AWAKE collaboration prepares a proton driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment using the SPS beam at CERN. A long proton bunch extracted from the SPS interacts with a high power laser and a 10 m long rubidium vapour plasma cell to create strong wakefields allowing sustained electron acceleration. The electron bunch to probe these wakefields is supplied by a 20 MeV electron accelerator. The electron accelerator consists of an RF-gun and a short booster structure. This electron source should provide beams with intensities between 0.1 and 1 nC, bunch lengths between 0.3 and 3 ps and an emittance of the order of 2 mm mrad. The wide range of parameters should cope with the uncertainties and future prospects of the planned experiments. The layout of the electron accelerator, its instrumentation and beam dynamics simulations are presented

A Night of Quintets

Program listing performers and works performed

Long-term striatal overexpression of GDNF selectively downregulates tyrosine hydroxylase in the intact nigrostriatal dopamine system.

Sustained neurotrophic factor treatment in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease is likely to affect both degenerating and intact neurons. To investigate the effect of long-term glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) overexpression on intact nigrostriatal dopamine neurons, we injected a recombinant lentiviral vector encoding GDNF, or green fluorescent protein, in the right striatum of young adult rats. Thirteen months after viral injection GDNF levels were 4.5 ng/mg tissue in the striatum and 0.9 ng/mg in the substantia nigra as measured by ELISA, representing a 25-100-fold increase above control vector- or nontransduced tissue. GDNF overexpression significantly reduced tyrosine hydroxylase mRNA levels (by 39-72%) in the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area neurons, and the optical density of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive innervation in the striatum was reduced by 25-52% with the most prominent reductions appearing caudally. No significant reduction was seen in striatal vesicular monoamine transporter 2-immunoreactivity or [3H]mazindole binding autoradiography to dopamine uptake sites, two other presynaptic markers in dopamine axon terminals. The striatal D1 and D2 receptor binding as determined by [3H]SCH23390 and [3H]spiperone binding, respectively, was unaltered relative to the intact side in both treatment groups. Preproenkephalin mRNA levels in postsynaptic striatal neurons, which increase upon removal of striatal dopamine, were also unaffected by the GDNF treatment. Taken together our findings indicate that sustained GDNF administration to intact nigrostriatal dopamine neurons selectively reduces tyrosine hydroxylase expression, without altering striatal dopamine transmission to the extent that compensatory changes in several other components related to dopamine storage and signalling occur

The magnetic model of the LHC in the early phase of beam commissioning

The relation between field and current in each family of the Large Hadron Collider magnets is modelled with a set of empirical equations (FiDeL) whose free parameters are fit on magnetic measurements. They take into account residual magnetization, persistent currents, hysteresis, saturation, decay and snapback during initial part of the ramp. Here we give a first summary of the reconstruction of the magnetic field properties based on the beam observables (orbit, tune, coupling, chromaticity) and a comparison with the expectations. The most critical issues for the machine performance in terms of knowledge of the relation magnetic field vs current are pointed out.peer-reviewe

Methamphetamine-Induced Dopamine-Independent Alterations in Striatal Gene Expression in the 6-Hydroxydopamine Hemiparkinsonian Rats

Unilateral injections of 6-hydroxydopamine into the medial forebrain bundle are used extensively as a model of Parkinson's disease. The present experiments sought to identify genes that were affected in the dopamine (DA)–denervated striatum after 6-hydroxydopamine-induced destruction of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathway in the rat. We also examined whether a single injection of methamphetamine (METH) (2.5 mg/kg) known to cause changes in gene expression in the normally DA-innervated striatum could still influence striatal gene expression in the absence of DA. Unilateral injections of 6-hydroxydopamine into the medial forebrain bundle resulted in METH-induced rotational behaviors ipsilateral to the lesioned side and total striatal DA depletion on the lesioned side. This injection also caused decrease in striatal serotonin (5-HT) and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) levels. DA depletion was associated with increases in 5-HIAA/5-HT ratios that were potentiated by the METH injection. Microarray analyses revealed changes (± 1.7-fold, p<0.025) in the expression of 67 genes on the lesioned side in comparison to the intact side of the saline-treated hemiparkinsonian animals. These include follistatin, neuromedin U, and tachykinin 2 which were up-regulated. METH administration caused increases in the expression of c-fos, Egr1, and Nor-1 on the intact side. On the DA-depleted side, METH administration also increased the expression of 61 genes including Pdgf-d and Cox-2. There were METH-induced changes in 16 genes that were common in the DA-innervated and DA-depleted sides. These include c-fos and Nor-1 which show greater changes on the normal DA side. Thus, the present study documents, for the first time, that METH mediated DA-independent changes in the levels of transcripts of several genes in the DA-denervated striatum. Our results also implicate 5-HT as a potential player in these METH-induced alterations in gene expression because the METH injection also caused significant increases in 5-HIAA/5-HT ratios on the DA-depleted side

The ATLAS TRT electronics

The ATLAS inner detector consists of three sub-systems: the pixel detector spanning the radius range 4cm-20cm, the semiconductor tracker at radii from 30 to 52 cm, and the transition radiation tracker (TRT), tracking from 56 to 107 cm. The TRT provides a combination of continuous tracking with many projective measurements based on individual drift tubes (or straws) and of electron identification based on transition radiation from fibres or foils interleaved between the straws themselves. This paper describes the on and off detector electronics for the TRT as well as the TRT portion of the data acquisition (DAQ) system