76 research outputs found
A global distributed storage architecture
NSA architects and planners have come to realize that to gain the maximum benefit from, and keep pace with, emerging technologies, we must move to a radically different computing architecture. The compute complex of the future will be a distributed heterogeneous environment, where, to a much greater extent than today, network-based services are invoked to obtain resources. Among the rewards of implementing the services-based view are that it insulates the user from much of the complexity of our multi-platform, networked, computer and storage environment and hides its diverse underlying implementation details. In this paper, we will describe one of the fundamental services being built in our envisioned infrastructure; a global, distributed archive with near-real-time access characteristics. Our approach for adapting mass storage services to this infrastructure will become clear as the service is discussed
Short Term and Long Term Bioacoustic Monitoring of the Marine Environment. Results from NEMO ONDE Experiment and Way Ahead.
The INFN NEMO-OνDE (Ocean Noise Detection Experiment) station, deployed on the seafloor at 2000 m depth 25 km offshore Catania (Sicily, Italy) in year 2005, was designed to continuously transmit broad-band acoustic data through optical cables to the INFN lab located in the port of Catania. It was operational until November 2006, when it was replaced by other experimental equipment. During the operational period, 5 minutes of recording (4 hydrophones, 45 kHz bandwidth, 96 kHz sampling rate at 24 bits resolution) were taken every hour. The experiment provided long-term data on the underwater noise and an unique opportunity to study the acoustic emissions of marine mammals living in, or transiting through the area east of Sicily. The recordings revealed a more frequent and consistent presence of sperm whales than previously believed
NEMO-SN1 (Western Ionian Sea, off Eastern Sicily): Example of architecture of a cabled observatory
NEMO-SN1, located in the central Mediterranean Sea, Western Ionian Sea, off Eastern Sicily Island (Southern Italy) at 2100 m water depth, 25 km from the harbour of the city of Catania, is a prototype of a cabled deep-sea multiparameter observatory and the first operating with real-time data transmission in Europe since 2005. NEMO-SN1 is also the first-established node of EMSO (European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observatory, http://emso-eu.org), one of the incoming European large-scale research infrastructure included since 2006 in the Roadmap of the ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, http://cordis.europa.eu/esfri/roadmap.htm),
which will specifically address long-term monitoring of environmental processes related to Marine Ecosystems, Climate
Change and Geo-hazards. NEMO-SN1 has been deployed and developed over the last decade thanks to Italian resources and to the EC project ESONET-NoE (European Seas Observatory
NETwork - Network of Excellence, 2007-2011) that funded the LIDO-DM (Listening to the Deep Ocean - Demonstration Mission) and a technological interoperability test
(http://www.esonet-emso.org/esonet-noe/). NEMO-SN1 is performing geophysical and environmental long-term monitoring by acquiring seismological, geomagnetic, gravimetric, accelerometric, physico-oceanographic, hydro-acoustic, bioacoustic
measurements specifically related to earthquakes and tsunamis generation and ambient noise characterisation in term
of marine mammal sounds, environmental and anthropogenic sources. A further main feature of NEMO-SN1 is to be an important test-site for the construction of KM3NeT (Kilometre-Cube Underwater Neutrino Telescope, http://www.km3net.org/), another large-scale research infrastructure included in the ESFRI Roadmap constituted by a large volume neutrino telescope. The description of the observatory and the most recent data acquired will be presented and framed in the general objectives of EMSO.PublishedTokio, 5-8 April 20114.4. Scenari e mitigazione del rischio ambientale4.6. Oceanografia operativa per la valutazione dei rischi in aree marinerestricte
High-Energy Neutrino Astronomy
Kilometer-scale neutrino detectors such as IceCube are discovery instruments
covering nuclear and particle physics, cosmology and astronomy. Examples of
their multidisciplinary missions include the search for the particle nature of
dark matter and for additional small dimensions of space. In the end, their
conceptual design is very much anchored to the observational fact that Nature
accelerates protons and photons to energies in excess of and
eV, respectively. The cosmic ray connection sets the scale of cosmic
neutrino fluxes. In this context, we discuss the first results of the completed
AMANDA detector and the reach of its extension, IceCube. Similar experiments
are under construction in the Mediterranean. Neutrino astronomy is also
expanding in new directions with efforts to detect air showers, acoustic and
radio signals initiated by super-EeV neutrinos.Comment: 9 pages, Latex2e, uses ws-procs975x65standard.sty (included), 4
postscript figures. To appear in Proceedings of Thinking, Observing, and
Mining the Universe, Sorrento, Italy, September 200
Role of EEG background activity, seizure burden and MRI in predicting neurodevelopmental outcome in full-term infants with hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy in the era of therapeutic hypothermia
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role of EEG background activity, electrographic seizure burden, and MRI in predicting neurodevelopmental outcome in infants with hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) in the era of therapeutic hypothermia. METHODS: Twenty-six full-term infants with HIE (September 2011-September 2012), who had video-EEG monitoring during the first 72 h, an MRI performed within the first two weeks and neurodevelopmental assessment at two years were evaluated. EEG background activity at age 24, 36 and 48 h, seizure burden, and severity of brain injury on MRI, were compared and related to neurodevelopmental outcome. RESULTS: EEG background activity was significantly associated with neurodevelopmental outcome at 36 h (p = 0.009) and 48 h after birth (p = 0.029) and with severity of brain injury on MRI at 36 h (p = 0.002) and 48 h (p = 0.018). All infants with a high seizure burden and moderate-severe injury on MRI had an abnormal outcome. The positive predictive value (PPV) of EEG for abnormal outcome was 100% at 36 h and 48 h and the negative predictive value (NPV) was 75% at 36 h and 69% at 48 h. The PPV of MRI was 100% and the NPV 85%. The PPV of seizure burden was 78% and the NPV 71%. CONCLUSION: Severely abnormal EEG background activity at 36 h and 48 h after birth was associated with severe injury on MRI and abnormal neurodevelopmental outcome. High seizure burden was only associated with abnormal outcome in combination with moderate-severe injury on MRI
The Little Review on Leptogenesis
This is a brief review on the scenario of baryogenesis through leptogenesis.
Leptogenesis is an appealing scenario that may relate the observed baryon
asymmetry in the Universe to the low-energy neutrino data. In this review talk,
particular emphasis is put on recent developments on the field, such as the
flavourdynamics of leptogenesis and resonant leptogenesis near the electroweak
phase transition. It is illustrated how these recent developments enable the
modelling of phenomenologically predictive scenarios that can directly be
tested at the LHC and indirectly in low-energy experiments of lepton-number and
lepton-flavour violation.Comment: 15 pages, based on a plenary presentation given at the DISCRETE'08
Symposium, 11-16 December 2008, Valencia, Spai
S4 Flavor Symmetry and Fermion Masses: Towards a Grand Unified theory of Flavor
Pursuing a bottom-up approach to explore which flavor symmetry could serve as
an explanation of the observed fermion masses and mixings, we discuss an
extension of the standard model (SM) where the flavor structure for both quarks
and leptons is determined by a spontaneously broken S4 and the requirement that
its particle content is embeddable simultaneously into the conventional SO(10)
grand unified theory (GUT) and a continuous flavor symmetry G_f like SO(3)_f or
SU(3)_f. We explicitly provide the Yukawa and the Higgs sector of the model and
show its viability in two numerical examples which arise as small deviations
from rank one matrices. In the first case, the corresponding mass matrix is
democratic and in the second one only its 2-3 block is non-vanishing. We
demonstrate that the Higgs potential allows for the appropriate vacuum
expectation value (VEV) configurations in both cases, if CP is conserved. For
the first case, the chosen Yukawa couplings can be made natural by invoking an
auxiliary Z2 symmetry. The numerical study we perform shows that the best-fit
values for the lepton mixing angles theta_12 and theta_23 can be accommodated
for normal neutrino mass hierarchy. The results for the quark mixing angles
turn out to be too small. Furthermore the CP-violating phase delta can only be
reproduced correctly in one of the examples. The small mixing angle values are
likely to be brought into the experimentally allowed ranges by including
radiative corrections. Interestingly, due to the S4 symmetry the mass matrix of
the right-handed neutrinos is proportional to the unit matrix.Comment: 27 pages, published version with minor change
NEMO-SN1 Abyssal Cabled Observatory in the Western Ionian Sea
The “NEutrino Mediterranean Observatory - Submarine Network 1” (NEMO-SN1) seafloor observatory is located in the central
Mediterranean Sea, Western Ionian Sea, off Eastern Sicily (Southern Italy) at 2100 m water depth, 25 km from the harbour of the city of Catania. It is a prototype of a cabled deep-sea multiparameter observatory and the first one operating with real-time data transmission in Europe since 2005. NEMO-SN1 is also the first-established node of the “European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory” (EMSO, http://www.emso-eu.org), one of the incoming European large-scale research infrastructures included in the Roadmap of the “European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures” (ESFRI, http://cordis.europa.eu/esfri/roadmap.htm)
since 2006. EMSO will specifically address long-term monitoring of environmental processes related to Marine Ecosystems, Climate Change and Geo-hazards. NEMO-SN1 has been deployed and developed over the last decade thanks to Italian funding and to the EC project “European Seas Observatory NETwork - Network of Excellence” (ESONET-NoE, 2007-2011) that funded the “Listening to the Deep Ocean - Demonstration Mission” (LIDO-DM) and a technological interoperability test (http://www.esonet-emso.org/). NEMOSN1 is performing geophysical and environmental long-term monitoring by acquiring seismological, geomagnetic, gravimetric, accelerometric, physico-oceanographic, hydroacoustic, bio-acoustic measurements. Scientific objectives include studying seismic signals,
tsunami generation and warnings, its hydroacoustic precursors, and ambient noise characterisation in terms of marine mammal sounds, environmental and anthropogenic sources. NEMO-SN1 is also an important test-site for the construction of the “Kilometre-Cube Underwater Neutrino Telescope” (KM3NeT, http://www.km3net.org/), another large-scale research infrastructure included in the ESFRI Roadmap based on a large volume neutrino telescope. The description of the observatory and its most recent implementations is presented. On 9th June, 2012 NEMO-SN1 was successfully deployed and is working in real-time.Published358 - 3741.8. Osservazioni di geofisica ambientaleJCR Journalrestricte
High sensitivity GEM experiment on double beta decay of 76-Ge
The GEM project is designed for the next generation 2 beta decay experiments
with 76-Ge. One ton of ''naked'' HP Ge detectors (natural at the first GEM-I
phase and enriched in 76-Ge to 86% at the second GEM-II stage) are operating in
super-high purity liquid nitrogen contained in the Cu vacuum cryostat (sphere
with diameter 5 m). The latest is placed in the water shield. Monte Carlo
simulation evidently shows that sensitivity of the experiment (in terms of the
T1/2 limit for neutrinoless 2 beta decay) is 10^27 yr with natural HP Ge
crystals and 10^28 yr with enriched ones. These bounds corresponds to the
restrictions on the neutrino mass less than 0.05 eV and 0.015 eV with natural
and enriched detectors, respectively. Besides, the GEM-I set up could advance
the current best limits on the existence of neutralinos - as dark matter
candidates - by three order of magnitudes, and at the same time would be able
to identify unambiguously the dark matter signal by detection of its seasonal
modulation.Comment: LaTeX, 20 pages, 4 figure
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