Online Assessment of Value Preferences by Paired Comparisons:Paper presented at the 14th European Conference on Personality, July 16-20, 2008, Tartu, Estonia

The importance of personal values has usually been investigated by ranking or by rating procedures. We used an alternative approach in a series of online studies: Subjects received a total of 45 graded paired comparison tasks. On each trial, two of the ten value types proposed by Schwartz (1992) were presented. Subjects were asked to indicate the degree to which one value type is more important than the other. To validate this approach, the resulting importance scores were correlated with scores from an online version of Schwartz' Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ). In addition, structural analyses, including a "weak-confirmatory" MDS approach, were conducted to examine whether and to what extent data from the paired comparison task match Schwartz' assumptions about the structure of human values. The central findings of these analyses are presented

Computerized Paired Comparison of Values (CPCV): Cross-Cultural Evidence for the Validity of an Alternative Form of Measuring Value Preferences:Revised and extended paper presented at the IACCP 21st International Congress, July 17-21 2012, Stellenbosch, South Africa

We developed a new instrument for assessing value preferences by paired comparisons, the Computerized Paired Comparisons of Values (CPCV). Information about this instrument is presented, together with validation data from Germany, Brazil, Spain, and Israel. Altogether 1097 subjects received a 45 graded paired comparisons task. On each trial, two of the ten basic values proposed by Schwartz (1992) were presented. Subjects indicated the degree to which one basic value is more important than the other. Importance scores were analyzed together with scores based on Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-40). Multitrait-Multimethod-Analyses were accomplished for each country. In addition, correlations between the CPCV- and PVQ-scores and the 10-Item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) were computed for the German, Spanish, and the Israeli samples. The results of these analyses corroborate the validity of our paired comparisons approach across countries. The advantages of paired com-parisons over rating and ranking procedures for assessing values in cross cultural research are discussed

A Catalog of the Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays Recorded During Phase I of Operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory

International audienceA catalog containing details of the highest-energy cosmic rays recorded through the detection of extensive air-showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory is presented with the aim of opening the data to detailed examination. Descriptions of the 100 showers created by the highest-energy particles recorded between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2020 are given for cosmic rays that have energies in the range 78 EeV to 166 EeV. Details are also given of a further nine very-energetic events that have been used in the calibration procedure adopted to determine the energy of each primary. A sky plot of the arrival directions of the most energetic particles is shown. No interpretations of the data are offered

A Catalog of the Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays Recorded During Phase I of Operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory

International audienceA catalog containing details of the highest-energy cosmic rays recorded through the detection of extensive air-showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory is presented with the aim of opening the data to detailed examination. Descriptions of the 100 showers created by the highest-energy particles recorded between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2020 are given for cosmic rays that have energies in the range 78 EeV to 166 EeV. Details are also given of a further nine very-energetic events that have been used in the calibration procedure adopted to determine the energy of each primary. A sky plot of the arrival directions of the most energetic particles is shown. No interpretations of the data are offered

A Catalog of the Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays Recorded During Phase I of Operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory

A catalog containing details of the highest-energy cosmic rays recorded through the detection of extensive air-showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory is presented with the aim of opening the data to detailed examination. Descriptions of the 100 showers created by the highest-energy particles recorded between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2020 are given for cosmic rays that have energies in the range 78 EeV to 166 EeV. Details are also given of a further nine very-energetic events that have been used in the calibration procedure adopted to determine the energy of each primary. A sky plot of the arrival directions of the most energetic particles is shown. No interpretations of the data are offered

Search for Ultra-high-energy Photons from Gravitational Wave Sources with the Pierre Auger Observatory

International audienceA search for time-directional coincidences of ultra-high-energy (UHE) photons above 10 EeV with gravitational wave (GW) events from the LIGO/Virgo runs O1 to O3 is conducted with the Pierre Auger Observatory. Due to the distinctive properties of photon interactions and to the background expected from hadronic showers, a subset of the most interesting GW events is selected based on their localization quality and distance. Time periods of 1000 s around and 1 day after the GW events are analyzed. No coincidences are observed. Upper limits on the UHE photon fluence from a GW event are derived that are typically at ∼7 MeV cm$^{−2}$ (time period 1000 s) and ∼35 MeV cm$^{−2}$ (time period 1 day). Due to the proximity of the binary neutron star merger GW170817, the energy of the source transferred into UHE photons above 40 EeV is constrained to be less than 20% of its total GW energy. These are the first limits on UHE photons from GW sources

A Search for Ultra-high-energy Neutrinos from TXS 0506+056 Using the Pierre Auger Observatory

International audienceResults of a search for ultra-high-energy neutrinos with the Pierre Auger Observatory from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 are presented. They were obtained as part of the follow-up that stemmed from the detection of high-energy neutrinos and gamma rays with IceCube, Fermi-LAT, MAGIC, and other detectors of electromagnetic radiation in several bands. The Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to neutrinos in the energy range from 100 PeV to 100 EeV and in the zenith-angle range from θ = 60° to θ = 95°, where the zenith angle is measured from the vertical direction. No neutrinos from the direction of TXS 0506+056 have been found. The results were analyzed in three periods: one of 6 months around the detection of IceCube-170922 A, coinciding with a flare period of TXS 0506+056, a second one of 110 days during which the IceCube collaboration found an excess of 13 neutrinos from a direction compatible with TXS 0506+056, and a third one from 2004 January 1 up to 2018 August 31, over which the Pierre Auger Observatory has been taking data. The sensitivity of the Observatory is addressed for different spectral indices by considering the fluxes that would induce a single expected event during the observation period. For indices compatible with those measured by the IceCube collaboration the expected number of neutrinos at the Observatory is well below one. Spectral indices as hard as 1.5 would have to apply in this energy range to expect a single event to have been detected

Design and implementation of the AMIGA embedded system for data acquisition

International audienceThe Auger Muon Infill Ground Array (AMIGA) is part of the AugerPrime upgrade of the Pierre Auger Observatory. It consists of particle counters buried 2.3 m underground next to the water-Cherenkov stations that form the 23.5 km2 large infilled array. The reduced distance between detectors in this denser area allows the lowering of the energy threshold for primary cosmic ray reconstruction down to about 1017 eV. At the depth of 2.3 m the electromagnetic component of cosmic ray showers is almost entirely absorbed so that the buried scintillators provide an independent and direct measurement of the air showers muon content. This work describes the design and implementation of the AMIGA embedded system, which provides centralized control, data acquisition and environment monitoring to its detectors. The presented system was firstly tested in the engineering array phase ended in 2017, and lately selected as the final design to be installed in all new detectors of the production phase. The system was proven to be robust and reliable and has worked in a stable manner since its first deployment