Conductive Cooling of SDD and SSD Front-End Chips for ALICE

We present analysis, technology developments and test results of the heat drain system of the SDD and SSD front-end electronics for the ALICE Inner Tracker System (ITS). Application of super thermoconductive carbon fibre thin plates provides a practical solution for the development of miniature motherboards for the FEE chips situated inside the sensitive ITS volume. Unidirectional carbon fibre motherboards of 160 -300 micron thickness ensure the mounting of the FEE chips and an efficient heat sink to the cooling arteries. Thermal conductivity up to 1.3 times better than copper is achieved while preserving a negligible multiple scattering contribution by the material (less than 0.15 percent of X/Xo)

Determination of reproductive properties of virulent and vaccine classical swine fever virus strains in primary and continuous cell cultures

Classical swine  fever  (CSF) is a highly dangerous porcine disease. CSF outbreaks are annually notified in several countries. Despite the availability of specific prevention tools, the disease spread risk still persists both at country level and at world level. Hence, the disease surveillance and eradication require highly sensitive methods for early diagnosis of the infection and for tests for the virus circulation in the environment.  Development of up-to-date  diagnostic methods is based on well-established  virus cultivation system; therefore, CSF virus reproduction enhancement,  tests of new cell lines without  endogenous  contamination  for their possible use are still of current importance. The said study was aimed at testing of primary and continuous cell cultures for their susceptibility to classical swine fever virus (vaccine virus strains and some field virus isolates recovered in the Russian Federation) and detection of the virus reproduction dynamics with real-time polymerase chain reaction with fluorescent hybridization probes used for detection. Virus replication intensity in primary and continuous cell cultures was also analyzed. The CSF virus was found incapable of replicating in some cell cultures without  its preliminary adaptation.  Primary porcine and lamb testicle cell cultures grown in minimal essential medium supplemented  with 10% normal CSFV-negative porcine serum instead  of fetal bovine serum were shown to be useful for the virus accumulation, both for vaccine strains and field isolates. Cultivation parameters and optimal minimal essential medium composition contributing to the 4–10-fold  increase in the virus accumulation  both in primary and continuous  cell cultures were determined

Flow cytometry sorting of cells infected with African swine fever virus

The African swine fever panzootic  is continuing  to spread,  and the number  of affected countries and material losses are increasing. In particular, India, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Greece and Bhutan joined the list of ASF infected countries in 2020–2021. The disease control is hindered  by the lack of commercially available and effective vaccines, which, in its turn, is attributable  to the insufficient knowledge of ASF pathogenesis  and immune defense against the disease. The use of attenuated virus variants enables a thorough  investigation of the factors influencing the virulence of African swine fever virus and the immune  response  to it. This involves the use of naturally attenuated virus variants, as well as of the variants attenuated by a long-term passaging of the virus in cell cultures. However, virulence heterogeneity characteristic of the ASF virus population, necessitates  the additional selection of infected cells for the virus cloning. Conventional culture-based techniques for virus particle cloning are rather time- and labour-consuming;  it is therefore appropriate  to use flow cytometry cell sorting for the selection and cloning of virus infected cells with a view of selecting  homologous  virus lineages.  The paper  presents  the results of sorting  of African green  monkey kidney cells (CV-1) and porcine bone marrow cells infected with African swine fever virus; the cells were sorted into the 96-well culture plates using a MoFlo  Astrios   EQ cell sorter in order to isolate a population of the virus originating from one infected cell. After the single cell sorting of the infected cell cultures into the 96-well plates, ASF positive cell detection  rates in the plate wells were 30% for porcine bone marrow cells and 20% for CV-1

Analytical hierarchy process as a tool supporting a decision-making for assessment of the risk of transboundary infectious animal disease introduction to the Russian Federation and previously disease-free territories

The livestock industry is increasingly taking its place in the economy of the Russian Federation. Its export potential is actively growing. Already, up to 10% of agricultural products are exported to foreign markets. The demand for food steadily increases during crises, which in turn increases the role of the veterinary service, whose tasks include protecting the country’s territory from the introduction of infectious diseases of animals from foreign countries; implementation of measures to prevent and eliminate infectious and other diseases in agricultural, domestic, zoo and other animals, fur-bearing animals, birds, fish and bees, as well as the implementation of plans of the regional veterinary service in the field of animal husbandry. The article assesses the validity of the possibilities and use of modern methods of analyzing and predicting the spread of animal morbidity, identifying cause-and-effect relationships and the extent of the spread of particularly dangerous animal diseases. The authors propose to consider the possibility of using the mathematical method of hierarchy analysis as a scientifically sound decisionmaking support tool when assessing the risk of introducing trans-border infectious animal diseases into previously prosperous territories of the Russian Federation. This approach can be used in the process of choosing the most appropriate alternative from several risk assessment options. The Hierarchy Analysis Method (MAI) is a mathematical tool for a qualitative systematic approach to solving decision-making problems. This method was developed by the American scientist Thomas Lewis Saati in 1970, since then it has been actively developing and widely used in practice. The hierarchy analysis method can be used not only to compare objects, but also to solve more complex management and forecasting tasks

African swine fever in the Primorsky Krai: disease situation and molecular and biological properties of the isolate recovered from a wild boar long bone

It is necessary to continue the analysis of the situation and molecular and biological properties of the current African swine fever virus isolates, recovered in the Russian border territories to cover the following tasks: eradication of African swine fever; development of effective disease surveillance and control programs; search for promising genome markers for the vaccine development; implementation of the differentiation strategy between vaccinated and non-vaccinated animals; and clustering of the isolates. The post-hoc analysis of some ASF epidemiological data and comparative genetic analysis of isolates circulating in the Far East Federal District suggested the agent introduction and spread routes, as well as the seasonality of the infection occurrence in the Primorsky Krai. It was established, that two ASFV subgenotypes (IGR-I и IGR-II), differentiated by intergenic region I73R/I329L, circulated in the region under study during the first months post infection. Analysis of biological properties of ASFV/Primorsky 19/WB-6723 isolate recovered from the long bone of a dead wild boar in the Primorsky Krai suggested that the isolate is highly virulent, able to cause peracute to subacute disease and up to 100% mortality among infected animals. The incubation period and duration of the disease course in experimentally infected pigs were 4–6 and 3–5 days post infection, respectively. The ASFV genome was detected in blood samples collected from infected pigs on 5–8 days post infection by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Specific antibodies in blood samples were not detected. The need in further research of molecular and biological properties of current ASFV isolates was reaffirmed. To prevent the continuation of the epizooty and deterioration of the current situation the approaches to the disease surveillance and control need to be modified

Techniques of blood sampling for detection of African swine fever virus in wild boar and domestic pigs in the field conditions

It is thought that due to the high virulence of the African swine fever virus its circulation in the Russian Federation is accompanied by a low seroprevalence. However taking into account a long-term ASF unfavourable situation, the introduction of the virus into the wild boar population, and the occurrence of attenuated viral variants, the significance of serological testing aimed at the detection of viral antibodies is increasing. To collect field samples of biological material from animals for molecular genetic, virological, and serological tests, filter paper, as well as swabs, can be used. The specificity and sensitivity of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay when testing blood absorbed by filter paper are worse than those shown when testing sera, but they allow effective detection of African swine fever virus antibodies. It was demonstrated that blood absorbed on filter paper can be used for the immunoblot analysis, but the optimum performance could be achieved when the immunoperoxidase technique in combination with samples, taken by swabs was used. When comparing results of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay performed on sera collected from domestic pigs (infected with ASFV isolates Antonovo 07/14 and Sobinka 07/15), and blood from ear veins absorbed on filter paper the sensitivity was 88.9%, specificity – 90.6%. However, the use of the immunoperoxidase technique for testing blood from swabs showed 100% coincidence with ELISA, while testing of sera with immunoperoxidase technique was superior to ELISA in sensitivity. This means blood sampling using swabs may be recommended for tests after proper validation. This technique can be especially useful for collecting data about infected wild boars because effective eradication strategies are impossible without such data

Pion emission from the T2K replica target: method, results and application

The T2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan needs precise predictions of the initial neutrino flux. The highest precision can be reached based on detailed measurements of hadron emission from the same target as used by T2K exposed to a proton beam of the same kinetic energy of 30 GeV. The corresponding data were recorded in 2007-2010 by the NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS using a replica of the T2K graphite target. In this paper details of the experiment, data taking, data analysis method and results from the 2007 pilot run are presented. Furthermore, the application of the NA61/SHINE measurements to the predictions of the T2K initial neutrino flux is described and discussed.Comment: updated version as published by NIM

Measurement of negatively charged pion spectra in inelastic p+p interactions at plabp_{lab} = 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c

We present experimental results on inclusive spectra and mean multiplicities of negatively charged pions produced in inelastic p+p interactions at incident projectile momenta of 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c ($\sqrt{s} =$ 6.3, 7.7, 8.8, 12.3 and 17.3 GeV, respectively). The measurements were performed using the large acceptance NA61/SHINE hadron spectrometer at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron. Two-dimensional spectra are determined in terms of rapidity and transverse momentum. Their properties such as the width of rapidity distributions and the inverse slope parameter of transverse mass spectra are extracted and their collision energy dependences are presented. The results on inelastic p+p interactions are compared with the corresponding data on central Pb+Pb collisions measured by the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS. The results presented in this paper are part of the NA61/SHINE ion program devoted to the study of the properties of the onset of deconfinement and search for the critical point of strongly interacting matter. They are required for interpretation of results on nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions.Comment: Numerical results available at: https://edms.cern.ch/document/1314605 Updates in v3: Updated version, as accepted for publicatio

Measurements of π±\pi^\pm, K±K^\pm, KS0K^0_S, Λ\Lambda and proton production in proton-carbon interactions at 31 GeV/cc with the NA61/SHINE spectrometer at the CERN SPS

Measurements of hadron production in p+C interactions at 31 GeV/c are performed using the NA61/ SHINE spectrometer at the CERN SPS. The analysis is based on the full set of data collected in 2009 using a graphite target with a thickness of 4% of a nuclear interaction length. Inelastic and production cross sections as well as spectra of $\pi^\pm$, $K^\pm$, p, $K^0_S$ and $\Lambda$ are measured with high precision. These measurements are essential for improved calculations of the initial neutrino fluxes in the T2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan. A comparison of the NA61/SHINE measurements with predictions of several hadroproduction models is presented.Comment: v1 corresponds to the preprint CERN-PH-EP-2015-278; v2 matches the final published versio

Multiplicity and transverse momentum fluctuations in inelastic proton-proton interactions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron

Measurements of multiplicity and transverse momentum fluctuations of charged particles were performed in inelastic p+p interactions at 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c beam momentum. Results for the scaled variance of the multiplicity distribution and for three strongly intensive measures of multiplicity and transverse momentum fluctuations \$\Delta[P_{T},N]\$, \$\Sigma[P_{T},N]\$ and \$\Phi_{p_T}\$ are presented. For the first time the results on fluctuations are fully corrected for experimental biases. The results on multiplicity and transverse momentum fluctuations significantly deviate from expectations for the independent particle production. They also depend on charges of selected hadrons. The string-resonance Monte Carlo models EPOS and UrQMD do not describe the data. The scaled variance of multiplicity fluctuations is significantly higher in inelastic p+p interactions than in central Pb+Pb collisions measured by NA49 at the same energy per nucleon. This is in qualitative disagreement with the predictions of the Wounded Nucleon Model. Within the statistical framework the enhanced multiplicity fluctuations in inelastic p+p interactions can be interpreted as due to event-by-event fluctuations of the fireball energy and/or volume.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figure