A strengths-based case management service for people with serious mental illness in Israel: A randomized controlled trial

Case management services for people with serious mental illness are generally found to be effective, but controlled and randomized studies assessing such services are scarce. The aim of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of a new strengths-based case management (SBCM) service in Israel, using a randomized controlled approach. The sample consisted of 1276 individuals with serious mental illness, who consume psychiatric rehabilitation services (PRS) in the community, and were randomly assigned to receive or not to receive the SBCM service in addition to treatment-as-usual PRS. Quality of life, goal setting and attainment, unmet needs, self-efficacy, interpersonal relationships, symptom severity, and service utilization were assessed by clients at onset and after 20 months. Results show that SBCM participants improved in self-efficacy, unmet needs, and general quality of life, and set more goals than the control group. SBCM participants also consumed fewer services at follow-up. Results suggest that SBCM services are effective in helping individuals with serious mental illness set personal goals and use PRS in a better and more focused manner

Characterisation of the muon beams for the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment

A novel single-particle technique to measure emittance has been developed and used to characterise seventeen different muon beams for the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE). The muon beams, whose mean momenta vary from 171 to 281 MeV/c, have emittances of approximately 1.2–2.3 π mm-rad horizontally and 0.6–1.0 π mm-rad vertically, a horizontal dispersion of 90–190 mm and momentum spreads of about 25 MeV/c. There is reasonable agreement between the measured parameters of the beams and the results of simulations. The beams are found to meet the requirements of MICE

Optimized Two-Baseline Beta-Beam Experiment

We propose a realistic Beta-Beam experiment with four source ions and two baselines for the best possible sensitivity to theta_{13}, CP violation and mass hierarchy. Neutrinos from 18Ne and 6He with Lorentz boost gamma=350 are detected in a 500 kton water Cerenkov detector at a distance L=650 km (first oscillation peak) from the source. Neutrinos from 8B and 8Li are detected in a 50 kton magnetized iron detector at a distance L=7000 km (magic baseline) from the source. Since the decay ring requires a tilt angle of 34.5 degrees to send the beam to the magic baseline, the far end of the ring has a maximum depth of d=2132 m for magnetic field strength of 8.3 T, if one demands that the fraction of ions that decay along the straight sections of the racetrack geometry decay ring (called livetime) is 0.3. We alleviate this problem by proposing to trade reduction of the livetime of the decay ring with the increase in the boost factor of the ions, such that the number of events at the detector remains almost the same. This allows to substantially reduce the maximum depth of the decay ring at the far end, without significantly compromising the sensitivity of the experiment to the oscillation parameters. We take 8B and 8Li with gamma=390 and 656 respectively, as these are the largest possible boost factors possible with the envisaged upgrades of the SPS at CERN. This allows us to reduce d of the decay ring by a factor of 1.7 for 8.3 T magnetic field. Increase of magnetic field to 15 T would further reduce d to 738 m only. We study the sensitivity reach of this two baseline two storage ring Beta-Beam experiment, and compare it with the corresponding reach of the other proposed facilities.Comment: 17 pages, 3 eps figures. Minor changes, matches version accepted in JHE

MICE: The muon ionization cooling experiment. Step I: First measurement of emittance with particle physics detectors

Copyright @ 2011 APSThe Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is a strategic R&D project intended to demonstrate the only practical solution to providing high brilliance beams necessary for a neutrino factory or muon collider. MICE is under development at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the United Kingdom. It comprises a dedicated beamline to generate a range of input muon emittances and momenta, with time-of-flight and Cherenkov detectors to ensure a pure muon beam. The emittance of the incoming beam will be measured in the upstream magnetic spectrometer with a scintillating fiber tracker. A cooling cell will then follow, alternating energy loss in Liquid Hydrogen (LH2) absorbers to RF cavity acceleration. A second spectrometer, identical to the first, and a second muon identification system will measure the outgoing emittance. In the 2010 run at RAL the muon beamline and most detectors were fully commissioned and a first measurement of the emittance of the muon beam with particle physics (time-of-flight) detectors was performed. The analysis of these data was recently completed and is discussed in this paper. Future steps for MICE, where beam emittance and emittance reduction (cooling) are to be measured with greater accuracy, are also presented.This work was supported by NSF grant PHY-0842798

Interim Design Report

The International Design Study for the Neutrino Factory (the IDS-NF) was established by the community at the ninth "International Workshop on Neutrino Factories, super-beams, and beta- beams" which was held in Okayama in August 2007. The IDS-NF mandate is to deliver the Reference Design Report (RDR) for the facility on the timescale of 2012/13. In addition, the mandate for the study [3] requires an Interim Design Report to be delivered midway through the project as a step on the way to the RDR. This document, the IDR, has two functions: it marks the point in the IDS-NF at which the emphasis turns to the engineering studies required to deliver the RDR and it documents baseline concepts for the accelerator complex, the neutrino detectors, and the instrumentation systems. The IDS-NF is, in essence, a site-independent study. Example sites, CERN, FNAL, and RAL, have been identified to allow site-specific issues to be addressed in the cost analysis that will be presented in the RDR. The choice of example sites should not be interpreted as implying a preferred choice of site for the facility

Electron-muon ranger: performance in the MICE muon beam

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will perform a detailed study of ionization cooling to evaluate the feasibility of the technique. To carry out this program, MICE requires an efficient particle-identification (PID) system to identify muons. The Electron-Muon Ranger (EMR) is a fully-active tracking-calorimeter that forms part of the PID system and tags muons that traverse the cooling channel without decaying. The detector is capable of identifying electrons with an efficiency of 98.6%, providing a purity for the MICE beam that exceeds 99.8%. The EMR also proved to be a powerful tool for the reconstruction of muon momenta in the range 100–280 MeV/c

Electron-muon ranger: performance in the MICE muon beam

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will perform a detailed study of ionization cooling to evaluate the feasibility of the technique. To carry out this program, MICE requires an efficient particle-identification (PID) system to identify muons. The Electron-Muon Ranger (EMR) is a fully-active tracking-calorimeter that forms part of the PID system and tags muons that traverse the cooling channel without decaying. The detector is capable of identifying electrons with an efficiency of 98.6%, providing a purity for the MICE beam that exceeds 99.8%. The EMR also proved to be a powerful tool for the reconstruction of muon momenta in the range 100–280 MeV/c