The new ALEPH Silicon Vertex Detector

The ALEPH collaboration, in view of the importance of effective vertex detection for the Higgs boson search at LEP 2, decided to upgrade the previous vertex detector. Main changes were an increased length (±20 cm), a higher granularity for rφ view (50 µm), a new preamplifier (MX7 rad hard chip), a polymide (upilex) fan-out on z side to carry the signals from the strips to the front-end electronics outside the fiducial region reducing consequently the passive material in the central region by a factor of two. The detector, the running experience and its performance will be described

The new ALEPH Silicon Vertex Detector

The ALEPH collaboration, in view of the importance of effective vertex detection for the Higgs boson search at LEP 2, decided to upgrade the previous vertex detector. Main changes were an increased length (±20 cm), a higher granularity for rφ view (50 µm), a new preamplifier (MX7 rad hard chip), a polymide (upilex) fan-out on z side to carry the signals from the strips to the front-end electronics outside the fiducial region reducing consequently the passive material in the central region by a factor of two. The detector, the running experience and its performance will be described

Paleodistributions and Comparative Molecular Phylogeography of Leafcutter Ants (Atta spp.) Provide New Insight into the Origins of Amazonian Diversity

The evolutionary basis for high species diversity in tropical regions of the world remains unresolved. Much research has focused on the biogeography of speciation in the Amazon Basin, which harbors the greatest diversity of terrestrial life. The leading hypotheses on allopatric diversification of Amazonian taxa are the Pleistocene refugia, marine incursion, and riverine barrier hypotheses. Recent advances in the fields of phylogeography and species-distribution modeling permit a modern re-evaluation of these hypotheses. Our approach combines comparative, molecular phylogeographic analyses using mitochondrial DNA sequence data with paleodistribution modeling of species ranges at the last glacial maximum (LGM) to test these hypotheses for three co-distributed species of leafcutter ants (Atta spp.). The cumulative results of all tests reject every prediction of the riverine barrier hypothesis, but are unable to reject several predictions of the Pleistocene refugia and marine incursion hypotheses. Coalescent dating analyses suggest that population structure formed recently (Pleistocene-Pliocene), but are unable to reject the possibility that Miocene events may be responsible for structuring populations in two of the three species examined. The available data therefore suggest that either marine incursions in the Miocene or climate changes during the Pleistocene—or both—have shaped the population structure of the three species examined. Our results also reconceptualize the traditional Pleistocene refugia hypothesis, and offer a novel framework for future research into the area

Mentor Perceptions of the Value of a Fourth Year Research Project for Doctor of Pharmacy Students

Chicago State University College of Pharmacy introduced the capstone project in 2011 as a requirement of the Doctor of Pharmacy degree. The objectives of this study were to assess faculty perceptions of: 1) the value of research in the students’ success in a pharmacy degree programme; 2) the students’ level of preparedness to complete the project requirements; and 3) the students’ ability to complete research projects in their future career. A 35-item survey instrument was administered to 23 capstone mentors to elicit their perceptions regarding the programme and research as it relates to a pharmacy degree. Mentors agreed it was important for students to participate in (n = 15) and demonstrate excellence (n = 11) in research activities. Respondents (n = 12) indicated that students were not adequately prepared by the didactic curriculum and that additional preparation may be necessary to conduct research independently in the future

The new ALEPH silicon vertex detector

The ALEPH collaboration, in view of the importance of effective vertex detection for the Higgs boson search at LEP 2, decided to upgrade the previous vertex detector. Main changes were an increased length (+/- 20 cm), a higher granularity for r phi view (50 mu m), a new preamplifier (MX7 rad hard chip), a polymide (upilex) fan-out on z side to carry the signals from the strips to the front-end electronics outside the fiducial region reducing consequently the passive material in the central region by a factor of two. The detector, the running experience and its performance will be described. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Performance of the ALEPH upgraded silicon vertex detector

The ALEPH Vertex Detector (VDET) has been upgraded for the second phase of LEP running. The new version still uses double sided silicon strip detectors, fabricated with the same technology as the previous one, but the upgraded one is twice as long and has about half passive material in the tracking volume. Furthermore the readout electronics is now radiation hard (MX7-RH chips). An almost complete version of the upgraded VDET was installed in ALEPH during a three week LEP technical stop and took data in November 1995 during the LEP run at 130 GeV. The new detector worked well showing high signal over noise ratio and good efficiency. The point resolution measured during this run, using high momentum muons, 13 μm in the τ - φ view and 21 μm in the τ - z view, is dominated by the alignment precision, due to the low statistics available for this short LEP run. This result is however acceptable, since for lower momentum charged particle, the multiple scattering gives a significant contribution to the final impact parameter resolution. A better resolution has been achieved in the next run, when an initial period at the Z peak has been foreseen to calibrate and align the whole detector