A new tool based on faecal stanols can distinguish specific mammalian species in modern and past environments

Publisher PD

Status of the light ion source developments at CEA/Saclay

ACC NIMInternational audienceSILHI (High Intensity Light Ion Source) is an ECR ion source producing high intensity proton ordeuteron beams at 95 keV. It is now installed in the IPHI site building, on the CEA/Saclay center. IPHI is a frontend demonstrator of high power accelerator. The source regularly delivers more than 130 mA protons in CWmode and already produced more than 170 mA deuterons in pulsed mode at nominal energy. The last beamcharacterisations, including emittance measurements, space charge compensation analysis and diagnosticimprovements, will be reported. Taking into account the SILHI experience, new developments are in progress tobuild and test a 5 mA deuteron source working in CW mode. This new source will also operate at 2.45 GHz andpermanent magnets will provide the magnetic configuration. This source, of which the design will be discussed,will have to fit in with the SPIRAL 2 accelerator developed at GANIL to produce Radioactive Ion Beams. TheH- test stand status is briefly presented here and detailed in companion papers.This work is partly supported by the European Commission under contract n°: HPRI-CT-2001-50021

Analysis of Leachate, fatty acids and Mineralogy Following the Discovery of a Homicide Grave: Potential Implications for Police Led Open Area Ground Searches for Burials

Police and law enforcement ‘open area ground searches’ may take place in a variety of geographical settings and over large tracts of land to locate unmarked graves, drugs, weapons, firearms and other items related to homicide, organised crime and terrorism. Reconnaissance techniques that can reduce substantially the search area bring benefits in terms of time, resources and detectability. Leachate and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) may be potentially generated at a homicide grave. The migration and detectability of the organic compounds and leachate are dependent on several factors, such as the geology, geomorphology and hydrogeology of the burial site, and circumstances of the burial (e.g. was the deceased wrapped in plastic, which could have impeded leachate and flows of organic compounds). A shallow, unmarked, homicide grave was detected, located and recovered with the police at a remote location in Northern Europe. This grave contained the body of a victim who had been buried more than a decade earlier. Following the recovery of the body soil samples were collected using a 30mm diameter soil auger and transferred into 40 ml, glass vials containing a screw cap and a polypropylene septa. The soil samples were taken up to 0.75mbgl at and beneath the floor of the grave, along strike (slope) of the grave, up to 100 m downslope and 75 m upslope. A control sample was also collected at approximately 250 m from the grave, at a higher elevation and in an area of similar geology, but which could not have been influenced by the grave’s contents. The geology comprised strong, well-jointed, coarse grained, feldspathic sandstones of Namurian age, overlain by Periglacial deposits and organic peat soils. The leachate, organics and mineralogy were analysed and results compared to the equivalent control sample. Experimental techniques were developed to extract anions and bio-amines from the soil samples. The data showed elevated levels of putrescine, at nearly 150 ppb at the grave, downslope and for several meters upslope at localities where detector dogs had showed an ‘interest’ before the grave was discovered. The mineralogical analysis, using integrated automated mineralogy and petrology (QEMSCAN), detected the presence of calcite (at an abundance of less than 1%) in the soil profile beneath the grave. No calcite was detected using automated analysis in any of the other samples analysed. The texture of the calcite as imaged using scanning electron microscopy indicates that it is likely to be diagenetic in origin, precipitated within the soil profile rather than being detrital in origin. Calcite was not detected by XRD in any of the samples analysed, although this could be due to its low level of abundance. Additionally, the organic analysis detected the presence of elevated stanols at the grave site and downslope. The preliminary results are interesting and further research is required to test whether this approach can be reliably applied operationally to open area searches for burials

Calibration of the low-energy channel Thomson parabola of the LMJ-PETAL diagnostic SEPAGE with protons and carbon ions

The SEPAGE diagnostic will detect charged particles (electrons, protons, and ions) accelerated in the interaction of the PETAL (PETawatt Aquitaine Laser) laser with its targets on the LMJ (Laser MegaJoule)-PETAL laser facility. SEPAGE will be equipped with a proton-radiography front detector and two Thomson parabolas (TP), corresponding to different ranges of the particle energy spectra: Above 0.1 MeV for electrons and protons in the low-energy channel, with a separation capability between protons and 12C6+ up to 20 MeV proton energy and above 8 MeV for the high-energy channel, with a separation capability between protons and 12C6+ up to 200 MeV proton kinetic energy. This paper presents the calibration of the SEPAGE's low-energy channel TP at the Tandem facility of Orsay (France) with proton beams between 3 and 22 MeV and carbon-ion beams from 5.8 to 84 MeV. The magnetic and electric fields' integrals were determined with an accuracy of 10-3 by combining the deflections measured at different energies with different target thicknesses and materials, providing different in-target energy losses of the beam particles and hence different detected energies for given beam energies