On the physics and technology of gaseous particle detectors

Despite an already long and fruitful history, gaseous elementary-particle detectors remain today an important mainstay of high-energy and nuclear physics experiments and of radiation detection in general. In here we briefly describe some of the gaseous detector's main technologies and applications, along with some unsolved gas-discharge physics aspects of practical relevance.Comment: Submitted to Plasma Sources in Science and Technolog

Dataset associated with "Artefactual depiction of predator–prey trophic linkages in global soils"

This database contains results from an exploratory literature search (carried out over May-July 2020) to detect the trophic linkages that departed from an initial set of 36 common soil-dwelling invertebrate taxa (i.e., in the capacity of either predator or prey items). It consists of a non-exhaustive list of macro-, meso- and micro-fauna which did not necessarily include all common soil fauna (e.g., Amphipoda). For each literature record, we logged the resource and consumer organisms for each trophic linkage. For generalist (i.e., polyphagous) predators that foraged within/on soil substrates, we logged all trophic linkages that were outlined in each literature record (i.e., involving other organisms beyond the initial set of 36 taxa). Taxa were identified either at the taxonomic hierarchy of phylum, sub-class or order and comprised a diverse set of common, globally-distributed soil-foraging biota.Soil invertebrates contribute to multiple ecosystem services, including pest control, nutrient cycling, and soil structural regulation, yet trophic interactions that determine their diversity and activity in soils remain critically understudied. Here, we systematically review literature (1966–2020) on feeding habits of soil arthropods and macrofauna and summarize empirically studied predator–prey linkages across ecosystem types, geographies and taxa. Out of 522 unique predators and 372 prey organisms (constituting 1947 predator–prey linkages), the vast majority (> 75%) are only covered in a single study. We report a mean of just 3.0 ± 4.7 documented linkages per organism, with pronounced taxonomic biases. In general, model organisms and crop pests (generally Insecta) are well-studied, while important soil-dwelling predators, fungivores and detritivores (e.g., Collembola, Chilopoda and Malacostraca) remain largely ignored. We argue that broader food-web based research approaches, considering multiple linkages per organism and targeting neglected taxa, are needed to inform science-driven management of soil communities and associated ecosystem services

A Comparative Numerical Study on GEM, MHSP and MSGC

In this work, we have tried to develop a detailed understanding of the physical processes occurring in those variants of Micro Pattern Gas Detectors (MPGDs) that share micro hole and micro strip geometry, like GEM, MHSP and MSGC etc. Some of the important and fundamental characteristics of these detectors such as gain, transparency, efficiency and their operational dependence on different device parameters have been estimated following detailed numerical simulation of the detector dynamics. We have used a relatively new simulation framework developed especially for the MPGDs that combines packages such as GARFIELD, neBEM, MAGBOLTZ and HEED. The results compare closely with the available experimental data. This suggests the efficacy of the framework to model the intricacies of these micro-structured detectors in addition to providing insight into their inherent complex dynamical processes