147 research outputs found
European strategy on AI: Are we truly fostering social good?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already part of our daily lives and is playing a key role in defining the economic and social shape of the future. In 2018, the European Commission introduced its AI strategy able to compete in the next years with world powers such as China and US, but relying on the respect of European values and fundamental rights. As a result, most of the Member States have published their own National Strategy with the aim to work on a coordinated plan for Europe. In this paper, we present an ongoing study on how European countries are approaching the field of Artificial Intelligence, with its promises and risks, through the lens of their national AI strategies. In particular, we aim to investigate how European countries are investing in AI and to what extent the stated plans can contribute to the benefit of the whole society. This paper reports the main findings of a qualitative analysis of the investment plans reported in 15 European National Strategie
A hardware implementation of Region-of-Interest selection in LAr-TPC for data reduction and triggering
Large Liquid Argon TPC detectors in the range of multikton mass for neutrino
and astroparticle physics require the extraction and treatment of signals from
some 105 wires. In order to enlarge the throughtput of the DAQ system an
on-line lossless data compression has been realized reducing almost a factor 4
the data flow. Moreover a trigger system based on a new efficient on-line
identification algorithm of wire hits was studied, implemented on the actual
ICARUS digital read- out boards and fully tested on the ICARINO LAr-TPC
facility operated at LNL INFN Laboratory with cosmic-rays. Capability to
trigger isolated low energy events down to 1 MeV visible energy was also
demonstrated.Comment: 26 pages, 26 Figure; to be submitted to JINS
A local trigger system for the large LAr-TPC detector
A special dedicated double-rebinning algorithm has been successfully developed in order to extract the physical hit signal from the TPC wires. This solution has been implemented on digital boards, allowing to realize a local trigger able to identify even localized low-energy small events
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Analyzing the changing landscape of the Covid-19 vaccine debate on Twitter
The issue of vaccine hesitancy has posed a significant challenge during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it increases the risk of undermining public health interventions aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. While the swift development of vaccines represents a remarkable scientific achievement, it has also contributed to skepticism and apprehension among some populations. Against this backdrop, the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine by the European Medicines Agency further exacerbated an already contentious debate around vaccine safety. This paper examines the Twitter discourse surrounding Covid-19 vaccines, focusing on the temporal and geographical dimensions of the discussion. Using over a year’s worth of data, we study the public debate in five countries (Germany, France, UK, Italy, and the USA), revealing differences in the interaction structure and in the production volume of questionable and reliable sources. Topic modeling highlights variations in the perspectives of reliable and questionable sources, but some similarities across nations. Also, we quantify the effect of vaccine announcement and suspension, finding that only the former had a significant impact in all countries. Finally, we analyze the evolution of the communities in the interaction network, revealing a relatively stable scenario with a few considerable shifts between communities with different levels of reliability. Our results suggest that major external events can be associated with changes in the online debate in terms of content production and interaction patterns. However, despite the AZ suspension, we do not observe any noticeable changes in the production and consumption of misinformation related to Covid-19 vaccines
Underground operation of the ICARUS T600 LAr-TPC: first results
Open questions are still present in fundamental Physics and Cosmology, like
the nature of Dark Matter, the matter-antimatter asymmetry and the validity of
the particle interaction Standard Model. Addressing these questions requires a
new generation of massive particle detectors exploring the subatomic and
astrophysical worlds. ICARUS T600 is the first large mass (760 ton) example of
a novel detector generation able to combine the imaging capabilities of the old
famous "bubble chamber" with an excellent energy measurement in huge electronic
detectors. ICARUS T600 now operates at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory,
studying cosmic rays, neutrino oscillation and proton decay. Physical
potentialities of this novel telescope are presented through few examples of
neutrino interactions reconstructed with unprecedented details. Detector design
and early operation are also reported.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to Jins
A search for the analogue to Cherenkov radiation by high energy neutrinos at superluminal speeds in ICARUS
The OPERA collaboration has claimed evidence of superluminal {\nu}{_\mu}
propagation between CERN and the LNGS. Cohen and Glashow argued that such
neutrinos should lose energy by producing photons and e+e- pairs, through Z0
mediated processes analogous to Cherenkov radiation. In terms of the parameter
delta=(v^2_nu-v^2_c)/v^2_c, the OPERA result implies delta = 5 x 10^-5. For
this value of \delta a very significant deformation of the neutrino energy
spectrum and an abundant production of photons and e+e- pairs should be
observed at LNGS. We present an analysis based on the 2010 and part of the 2011
data sets from the ICARUS experiment, located at Gran Sasso National Laboratory
and using the same neutrino beam from CERN. We find that the rates and
deposited energy distributions of neutrino events in ICARUS agree with the
expectations for an unperturbed spectrum of the CERN neutrino beam. Our results
therefore refute a superluminal interpretation of the OPERA result according to
the Cohen and Glashow prediction for a weak current analog to Cherenkov
radiation. In particular no superluminal Cherenkov like e+e- pair or gamma
emission event has been directly observed inside the fiducial volume of the
"bubble chamber like" ICARUS TPC-LAr detector, setting the much stricter limit
of delta < 2.5 10^-8 at the 90% confidence level, comparable with the one due
to the observations from the SN1987A.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure
Experimental search for the LSND anomaly with the ICARUS detector in the CNGS neutrino beam
We report an early result from the ICARUS experiment on the search for nu_mu
to nu_e signal due to the LSND anomaly. The search was performed with the
ICARUS T600 detector located at the Gran Sasso Laboratory, receiving CNGS
neutrinos from CERN at an average energy of about 20 GeV, after a flight path
of about 730 km. The LSND anomaly would manifest as an excess of nu_e events,
characterized by a fast energy oscillation averaging approximately to
sin^2(1.27 Dm^2_new L/ E_nu) = 1/2. The present analysis is based on 1091
neutrino events, which are about 50% of the ICARUS data collected in 2010-2011.
Two clear nu_e events have been found, compared with the expectation of 3.7 +/-
0.6 events from conventional sources. Within the range of our observations,
this result is compatible with the absence of a LSND anomaly. At 90% and 99%
confidence levels the limits of 3.4 and 7.3 events corresponding to oscillation
probabilities of 5.4 10^-3 and 1.1 10^-2 are set respectively. The result
strongly limits the window of open options for the LSND anomaly to a narrow
region around (Dm^2, sin^2(2 theta))_new = (0.5 eV^2, 0.005), where there is an
overall agreement (90% CL) between the present ICARUS limit, the published
limits of KARMEN and the published positive signals of LSND and MiniBooNE
Collaborations.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Precision measurement of the neutrino velocity with the ICARUS detector in the CNGS beam
During May 2012, the CERN-CNGS neutrino beam has been operated for two weeks
for a total of 1.8 10^17 pot in bunched mode, with a 3 ns narrow width proton
beam bunches, separated by 100 ns. This tightly bunched beam structure allows a
very accurate time of flight measurement of neutrinos from CERN to LNGS on an
event-by-event basis. Both the ICARUS-T600 PMT-DAQ and the CERN-LNGS timing
synchronization have been substantially improved for this campaign, taking
ad-vantage of additional independent GPS receivers, both at CERN and LNGS as
well as of the deployment of the "White Rabbit" protocol both at CERN and LNGS.
The ICARUS-T600 detector has collected 25 beam-associated events; the
corresponding time of flight has been accurately evaluated, using all different
time synchronization paths. The measured neutrino time of flight is compatible
with the arrival of all events with speed equivalent to the one of light: the
difference between the expected value based on the speed of light and the
measured value is tof_c - tof_nu = (0.10 \pm 0.67stat. \pm 2.39syst.) ns. This
result is in agreement with the value previously reported by the ICARUS
collaboration, tof_c - tof_nu = (0.3 \pm 4.9stat. \pm 9.0syst.) ns, but with
improved statistical and systematic errors.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, 1 tabl
The LBNO long-baseline oscillation sensitivities with two conventional neutrino beams at different baselines
The proposed Long Baseline Neutrino Observatory (LBNO) initially consists of
kton liquid double phase TPC complemented by a magnetised iron
calorimeter, to be installed at the Pyh\"asalmi mine, at a distance of 2300 km
from CERN. The conventional neutrino beam is produced by 400 GeV protons
accelerated at the SPS accelerator delivering 700 kW of power. The long
baseline provides a unique opportunity to study neutrino flavour oscillations
over their 1st and 2nd oscillation maxima exploring the behaviour, and
distinguishing effects arising from and matter. In this paper we
show how this comprehensive physics case can be further enhanced and
complemented if a neutrino beam produced at the Protvino IHEP accelerator
complex, at a distance of 1160 km, and with modest power of 450 kW is aimed
towards the same far detectors. We show that the coupling of two independent
sub-MW conventional neutrino and antineutrino beams at different baselines from
CERN and Protvino will allow to measure CP violation in the leptonic sector at
a confidence level of at least for 50\% of the true values of
with a 20 kton detector. With a far detector of 70 kton, the
combination allows a sensitivity for 75\% of the true values of
after 10 years of running. Running two independent neutrino
beams, each at a power below 1 MW, is more within today's state of the art than
the long-term operation of a new single high-energy multi-MW facility, which
has several technical challenges and will likely require a learning curve.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figure
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