A 233 km Tunnel for Lepton and Hadron Colliders

A decade ago, a cost analysis was conducted to bore a 233 km circumference Very Large Hadron Collider (VLHC) tunnel passing through Fermilab. Here we outline implementations of $e^+e^-$, $p \bar{p}$, and $\mu^+ \mu^-$ collider rings in this tunnel using recent technological innovations. The 240 and 500 GeV $e^+e^-$ colliders employ Crab Waist Crossings, ultra low emittance damped bunches, short vertical IP focal lengths, superconducting RF, and low coercivity, grain oriented silicon steel/concrete dipoles. Some details are also provided for a high luminosity 240 GeV $e^+ e^-$ collider and 1.75 TeV muon accelerator in a Fermilab site filler tunnel. The 40 TeV $p \bar{p}$ collider uses the high intensity Fermilab $\bar{p}$ source, exploits high cross sections for $p \bar{p}$ production of high mass states, and uses 2 Tesla ultra low carbon steel/YBCO superconducting magnets run with liquid neon. The 35 TeV muon ring ramps the 2 Tesla superconducting magnets at 9 Hz every 0.4 seconds, uses 250 GV of superconducting RF to accelerate muons from 1.75 to 17.5 TeV in 63 orbits with 71% survival, and mitigates neutrino radiation with phase shifting, roller coaster motion in a FODO lattice.Comment: LaTex, 6 pages, 1 figure, Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop, Austin, TX, 10-15 June 201

Semantic Memory Functional MRI and Cognitive Function After Exercise Intervention in Mild Cognitive Impairment

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is associated with early memory loss, Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) neuropathology, inefficient or ineffective neural processing, and increased risk for AD. Unfortunately, treatments aimed at improving clinical symptoms or markers of brain function generally have been of limited value. Physical exercise is often recommended for people diagnosed with MCI, primarily because of its widely reported cognitive benefits in healthy older adults. However, it is unknown if exercise actually benefits brain function during memory retrieval in MCI. Here, we examined the effects of exercise training on semantic memory activation during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Seventeen MCI participants and 18 cognitively intact controls, similar in sex, age, education, genetic risk, and medication use, volunteered for a 12-week exercise intervention consisting of supervised treadmill walking at a moderate intensity. Both MCI and control participants significantly increased their cardiorespiratory fitness by approximately 10% on a treadmill exercise test. Before and after the exercise intervention, participants completed an fMRI famous name discrimination task and a neuropsychological battery, Performance on Trial 1 of a list-learning task significantly improved in the MCI participants. Eleven brain regions activated during the semantic memory task showed a significant decrease in activation intensity following the intervention that was similar between groups (p-values ranged 0.048 to 0.0001). These findings suggest exercise may improve neural efficiency during semantic memory retrieval in MCI and cognitively intact older adults, and may lead to improvement in cognitive function. Clinical trials are needed to determine if exercise is effective to delay conversion to AD

Synesthesia for manual alphabet letters and numeral signs in second-language users of signed languages

Many synesthetes experience colors when viewing letters or digits. We document, for the first time, an analogous phenomenon among users of signed languages who showed color synesthesia for fingerspelled letters and signed numerals. Four synesthetes experienced colors when they viewed manual letters and numerals (in two cases, colors were subjectively projected on to the hands). There was a correspondence between the colors experienced for written graphemes and their manual counterparts, suggesting that the development of these two types of synesthesia is interdependent despite the fact that these systems are superficially distinct and rely on different perceptual recognition mechanisms in the brain

Dynamical percolation on general trees

H\"aggstr\"om, Peres, and Steif (1997) have introduced a dynamical version of percolation on a graph $G$. When $G$ is a tree they derived a necessary and sufficient condition for percolation to exist at some time $t$. In the case that $G$ is a spherically symmetric tree, H\"aggstr\"om, Peres, and Steif (1997) derived a necessary and sufficient condition for percolation to exist at some time $t$ in a given target set $D$. The main result of the present paper is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of percolation, at some time $t\in D$, in the case that the underlying tree is not necessary spherically symmetric. This answers a question of Yuval Peres (personal communication). We present also a formula for the Hausdorff dimension of the set of exceptional times of percolation.Comment: 24 pages; to appear in Probability Theory and Related Field

Controls on trace metal authigenic enrichment in reducing sediments: insights from modern oxygen-deficient settings

Any effort to reconstruct Earth history using variations in authigenic enrichments of redox-sensitive and biogeochemically important trace metals must rest on a fundamental understanding of their modern oceanic and sedimentary geochemistry. Further, unravelling the multiple controls on sedimentary enrichments requires a multi-element approach. Of the range of metals studied, most is known about the behavior of Fe, Mn, and Mo. In this study, we compare the authigenic enrichment patterns of these elements with a group whose behavior is not as well defined (Cd, Cu, Zn, and Ni) in three oxygen-poor settings: the Black Sea, the Cariaco Basin (Venezuela), and the Peru Margin. These three settings span a range of biogeochemical environments, allowing us to isolate the different controls on sedimentary enrichment. Our approach, relying on the covariation of elemental enrichment factors [EF, defined for element X as: EFX = (X/Al)sample/(X/Al)lithogenic], has previously been applied to Mo and U to elucidate paleoenvironmental information on, for example, benthic redox conditions, the particulate shuttle, and the evolution of water mass chemistry. We find two key controls on trace metal enrichment. First, the concentration of an element in the lithogenic background sediment (used in calculating EFX) controls the magnitude of potential enrichment. Maximum enrichment factors of 376 and 800 are calculated for Mo (∼1 ppm in detrital sediments) and Cd (∼0.3 ppm), respectively, compared to values not greater than 17 in any setting for the other five metals (∼45 ppm to ∼4.5 wt.% in detrital sediments). Second, there is a relationship between the aqueous concentration of the element in overlying seawater and its degree of enrichment in the sediment. We further identify four important processes for delivery of trace metals to the sediment. These are: (1) cellular uptake (especially important for Zn and Cd), (2) interaction/co-precipitation with sulfide (Mo, Cu, and Cd), (3) passive scavenging via the traditional particulate shuttle (Mo, Ni, and Cu), and (4) an association with the benthic Fe redox shuttle (Mn, Ni). Finally, we summarize the oceanic mass balance of Cd and Mo and place the first constraints on the contribution of reducing sediments to the oceanic mass balance of Cu, Zn, and Ni. We show that reducing sediments are the ultimate repository for up to half the total output flux of these elements from the oceanic dissolved pool

Circadian influences on the habenula and their potential contribution to neuropsychiatric disorders

The neural circadian system consists of the master circadian clock in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) communicating time of day cues to the rest of the body including other brain areas that also rhythmically express circadian clock genes. Over the past 16 years, evidence has emerged to indicate that the habenula of the epithalamus is a candidate extra-SCN circadian oscillator. When isolated from the SCN, the habenula sustains rhythms in clock gene expression and neuronal activity, with the lateral habenula expressing more robust rhythms than the adjacent medial habenula. The lateral habenula is responsive to putative SCN output factors as well as light information conveyed to the perihabenula area. Neuronal activity in the lateral habenula is altered in depression and intriguingly disruptions in circadian rhythms can elevate risk of developing mental health disorders including depression. In this review, we will principally focus on how circadian and light signals affect the lateral habenula and evaluate the possibility that alteration in these influences contribute to mental health disorders