151 research outputs found
Framing the FRAM: A literature review on the functional resonance analysis method
The development of the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) has been motivated by the perceived limitations of fundamentally deterministic and probabilistic approaches to understand complex systems’ behaviour. Congruent with the principles of Resilience Engineering, over recent years the FRAM has been progressively developed in scientific terms, and increasingly adopted in industrial environments with reportedly successful results. Nevertheless, a wide literature review focused on the method is currently lacking. On these premises, this paper aims to summarise all available published research in English about FRAM. More than 1700 documents from multiple scientific repositories were reviewed through a protocol based on the PRISMA review technique. The paper aims to uncover a number of characteristics of the FRAM research, both in terms of the method's application and of the authors contributing to its development. The systematic analysis explores the method in terms of its methodological aspects, application domains, and enhancements in qualitative and quantitative terms, as well as proposing potential future research directions
Determination of the muon charge sign with the dipolar spectrometers of the OPERA experiment
The OPERA long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiment has observed the
direct appearance of in the CNGS beam. Two large muon
magnetic spectrometers are used to identify muons produced in the
leptonic decay and in interactions by measuring their charge and
momentum. Besides the kinematic analysis of the decays, background
resulting from the decay of charmed particles produced in
interactions is reduced by efficiently identifying the muon track. A new method
for the charge sign determination has been applied, via a weighted angular
matching of the straight track-segments reconstructed in the different parts of
the dipole magnets. Results obtained for Monte Carlo and real data are
presented. Comparison with a method where no matching is used shows a
significant reduction of up to 40\% of the fraction of wrongly determined
charges.Comment: 10 pages. Improvements in the tex
Limits on muon-neutrino to tau-neutrino oscillations induced by a sterile neutrino state obtained by OPERA at the CNGS beam
The OPERA experiment, exposed to the CERN to Gran Sasso beam,
collected data from 2008 to 2012. Four oscillated Charged Current
interaction candidates have been detected in appearance mode, which are
consistent with oscillations at the atmospheric within the "standard" three-neutrino framework. In this paper, the OPERA
appearance results are used to derive limits on the mixing
parameters of a massive sterile neutrino.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures; reference to Planck result updated in the
Introduction. Submitted to JHE
A concentration-dependent endocytic trap and sink mechanism converts Bmper from an activator to an inhibitor of Bmp signaling
Bmper, which is orthologous to Drosophila melanogaster crossveinless 2, is a secreted factor that regulates Bmp activity in a tissue- and stage-dependent manner. Both pro- and anti-Bmp activities have been postulated for Bmper, although the molecular mechanisms through which Bmper affects Bmp signaling are unclear. In this paper, we demonstrate that as molar concentrations of Bmper exceed Bmp4, Bmper dynamically switches from an activator to an inhibitor of Bmp4 signaling. Inhibition of Bmp4 through a novel endocytic trap-and-sink mechanism leads to the efficient degradation of Bmper and Bmp4 by the lysosome. Bmper-mediated internalization of Bmp4 reduces the duration and magnitude of Bmp4-dependent Smad signaling. We also determined that Noggin and Gremlin, but not Chordin, trigger endocytosis of Bmps. This endocytic transport pathway expands the extracellular roles of selective Bmp modulators to include intracellular regulation. This dosage-dependent molecular switch resolves discordances among studies that examine how Bmper regulates Bmp activity and has broad implications for Bmp signal regulation by secreted mediators
Observation of nu_tau appearance in the CNGS beam with the OPERA experiment
The OPERA experiment is searching for nu_mu -> nu_tau oscillations in
appearance mode i.e. via the direct detection of tau leptons in nu_tau charged
current interactions. The evidence of nu_mu -> nu_tau appearance has been
previously reported with three nu_tau candidate events using a sub-sample of
data from the 2008-2012 runs. We report here a fourth nu_tau candidate event,
with the tau decaying into a hadron, found after adding the 2012 run events
without any muon in the final state to the data sample. Given the number of
analysed events and the low background, nu_mu -> nu_tau oscillations are
established with a significance of 4.2sigma.Comment: Submitted to Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP
Evidence for appearance in the CNGS neutrino beam with the OPERA experiment
The OPERA experiment is designed to search for oscillations in appearance mode i.e. through the direct observation
of the lepton in charged current interactions. The
experiment has taken data for five years, since 2008, with the CERN Neutrino to
Gran Sasso beam. Previously, two candidates with a decaying
into hadrons were observed in a sub-sample of data of the 2008-2011 runs. Here
we report the observation of a third candidate in the
decay channel coming from the analysis of a sub-sample of the
2012 run. Taking into account the estimated background, the absence of
oscillations is excluded at the 3.4
level.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 table
Latest results of the OPERA experiment on nu-tau appearance in the CNGS neutrino beam
OPERA is a long-baseline experiment designed to search for νμ → ντ oscillations in appearance mode. It was based at the INFN Gran Sasso laboratory (LNGS) and took data from 2008 to 2012 with the CNGS neutrino beam from CERN. After the discovery of ντ appearance in 2015, with 5.1σ significance, the criteria to select ντ candidates have been extended and a multivariate approach has been used for events identification. In this way the statistical uncertainty in the measurement of the oscillation parameters and of ντ properties has been improved. Results are reported
Determination of a time-shift in the OPERA set-up using high energy horizontal muons in the LVD and OPERA detectors
The purpose of this work is to report the measurement of a time-shift in the
OPERA set-up in a totally independent way from Time Of Flight (TOF)
measurements of CNGS neutrino events. The LVD and OPERA experiments are both
installed in the same laboratory: LNGS. The relative position of the two
detectors, separated by an average distance of ~ 160 m, allows the use of very
high energy horizontal muons to cross-calibrate the timing systems of the two
detectors, using a TOF technique which is totally independent from TOF of CNGS
neutrino events. Indeed, the OPERA-LVD direction lies along the so-called
"Teramo anomaly", a region in the Gran Sasso massif where LVD has established,
many years ago, the existence of an anomaly in the mountain structure, which
exhibits a low m. w. e. thickness for horizontal directions. The "abundant"
high-energy horizontal muons (nearly 100 per year) going through LVD and OPERA
exist because of this anomaly in the mountain orography. The total live time of
the data in coincidence correspond to 1200 days from mid 2007 until March 2012.
The time coincidence study of LVD and OPERA detectors is based on 306 cosmic
horizontal muon events and shows the existence of a negative time shift in the
OPERA set-up of the order of deltaT(AB) = - (73 \pm 9) ns when two calendar
periods, A and B, are compared. This result shows a systematic effect in the
OPERA timing system from August 2008 until December 2011. The size of the
effect is comparable with the neutrino velocity excess recently measured by
OPERA. It is probably interesting not to forget that with the MRPC technology
developed by the ALICE Bologna group the TOF world record accuracy of 20 ps was
reached. That technology can be implemented at LNGS for a high precision
determination of TOF with the CNGS neutrino beams of an order of magnitude
smaller than the value of the OPERA systematic effect
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