4,799 research outputs found
Development of a Detector Control System for the ATLAS Pixel Detector
The innermost part of the ATLAS experiment will be a pixel detector
containing around 1750 individual detector modules. A detector control system
(DCS) is required to handle thousands of I/O channels with varying
characteristics. The main building blocks of the pixel DCS are the cooling
system, the power supplies and the thermal interlock system, responsible for
the ultimate safety of the pixel sensors. The ATLAS Embedded Local Monitor
Board (ELMB), a multi purpose front end I/O system with a CAN interface, is
foreseen for several monitoring and control tasks. The Supervisory, Control And
Data Acquisition (SCADA) system will use PVSS, a commercial software product
chosen for the CERN LHC experiments. We report on the status of the different
building blocks of the ATLAS pixel DCS.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, ICALEPCS 200
High daily energy expenditure of incubating shorebirds on High Arctic tundra: a circumpolar study
1. Given the allometric scaling of thermoregulatory capacity in birds, and the cold and exposed Arctic environment, it was predicted that Arctic-breeding shorebirds should incur high costs during incubation. Using doubly labelled water (DLW), daily energy expenditure (DEE) during incubation was measured in eight shorebird species weighing between 29 and 142 g at various sites in the Eurasian and Canadian High Arctic. The results are compared with a compilation of similar data for birds at lower latitudes.
2. There was a significant positive correlation between species average DEE and body mass (DEE (kJ dayâ1) = 28·12 BM (g)^0·524, r^2 = 0·90). The slopes of the allometric regression lines for DEE on body mass of tundra-breeding birds and lower latitude species (a sample mostly of passerines but including several shorebirds) are similar (0·548 vs 0·545). DEE is about 50% higher in birds on the tundra than in temperate breeding areas.
3. Data for radiomarked Red Knots for which the time budgets during DLW measurements were known, indicated that foraging away from the nest on open tundra is almost twice as costly as incubating a four-egg clutch.
4. During the incubation phase in the High Arctic, tundra-breeding shorebirds appear to incur among the highest DEE levels of any time of the year. The rates of energy expenditure measured here are among the highest reported in the literature so far, reaching inferred ceilings of sustainable energy turnover rates.
Particles as probes for complex plasmas in front of biased surfaces
An interesting aspect in the research of complex (dusty) plasmas is the
experimental study of the interaction of micro-particles with the surrounding
plasma for diagnostic purposes. Local electric fields can be determined from
the behaviour of particles in the plasma, e.g. particles may serve as
electrostatic probes. Since in many cases of applications in plasma technology
it is of great interest to describe the electric field conditions in front of
floating or biased surfaces, the confinement and behaviour of test particles is
studied in front of floating walls inserted into a plasma as well as in front
of additionally biased surfaces. For the latter case, the behaviour of
particles in front of an adaptive electrode, which allows for an efficient
confinement and manipulation of the grains, has been experimentally studied in
dependence on the discharge parameters and on different bias conditions of the
electrode. The effect of the partially biased surface (dc, rf) on the charged
micro-particles has been investigated by particle falling experiments. In
addition to the experiments we also investigate the particle behaviour
numerically by molecular dynamics, in combination with a fluid and
particle-in-cell description of the plasma.Comment: 39 pages, 16 figures, submitted to New J. Phy
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