Searching for magnetic monopoles trapped in accelerator material at the Large Hadron Collider

If produced in high energy particle collisions at the LHC, magnetic monopoles could stop in material surrounding the interaction points. Obsolete parts of the beam pipe near the CMS interaction region, which were exposed to the products of pp and heavy ion collisions, were analysed using a SQUID-based magnetometer. The purpose of this work is to quantify the performance of the magnetometer in the context of a monopole search using a small set of samples of accelerator material ahead of the 2013 shutdown.Comment: 11 page

Counter-intuitive evaporation in nanofluids droplets due to stick-slip nature

We experimentally investigate the evaporation characteristics of a sessile ethanol droplet containing Al$_2$O$_3$ and Cu nanoparticles of sizes 25 nm and 75 nm on a heated substrate using shadowgraphy and infrared imaging techniques. Our results demonstrate that the droplet contact line dynamics resulting from the presence of various nanoparticles plays a dominant role in the evaporation process. This is in contrast to the widely-held assumption that the enhanced evaporation rate observed in sessile nanofluid droplets is due to the higher thermal conductivity of the added nanoparticles. We observe that even though the thermal conductivity of Al$_2$O$_3$ is an order of magnitude lower than that of Cu, droplets containing 25 nm-sized Al$_2$O$_3$ exhibit pinned contact line dynamics and evaporate much more rapidly than droplets containing Cu nanoparticles of both sizes and 75 nm Al$_2$O$_3$ nanoparticles that exhibit stick-slip behaviour. We also found that the droplets with different nanoparticles display distinct thermal patterns due to the difference in contact line behaviour, which alters the heat transfer inside the droplets. We establish this counter-intuitive observation by analysing the temporal variations of the perimeter, free surface area, and deposition patterns on the substrate.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, Journal-Langmui

Services and support for mothers and newborn babies in vulnerable situations: A study of eight European jurisdictions

European countries have a legal obligation to provide services to vulnerable families, and children must not be removed from their parents’ care unless no other viable measures are available. This paper examines whether and how eight jurisdictions provide necessary support and services to families with newborn babies who are considered to be at risk in the child protection system. The data consist of all judgments (n = 216) concerning care orders for 220 newborns for periods ranging from one to several years. The analysis shows that services are provided in an overall majority of the cases but with distinct differences between jurisdictions. These differences are not due to the type of child protection system. Furthermore, we cannot ascertain whether service provision follows parental problems, or identify similarities due to the special case of newborns. We conclude that there are huge knowledge gaps regarding both service provision and the effects of services.publishedVersio

Sustainability of community-owned mini-grids: Evidence from India

open access journalBackground: Community-owned Solar Mini-Grids (SMGs) are increasingly promoted to provide communities access to reliable electricity, empowering local actors as they become active stakeholders in projects. However, early failures and difficulties in building local capacity have raised questions regarding their long-term sustainability and ability to be replicated to provide socio-economic benefits to the communities. This study assesses the sustainability of 24 community-owned SMGs in India operating over extensive periods of time using a novel scoring framework using mixed methods to derive its conclusions. Results: The study found that institutional, financial and technical capacities, central for the SMG’s long-term sustainability, could be achieved through community engagement from early stages, if communities are allowed freedom to develop governance procedures while at the same time clarifying roles and responsibilities. This creates strong sense of ownership that is key for effective and inclusive governance. User satisfaction, ensured through provision of usable supply in line with users’ expectations, motivates actors to make regular payments, thus leading to economic sustenance. While social and environmental benefits were observed, energy consumption and engagement in productive activities remained marginal. Conclusions: The study reports an example of community-owned SMG model that has been replicated sustainably over many cases, overcoming key challenges related to appropriate financial and technical management and producing positive social impact. Low engagement in productive activities was more a factor of the local socio-cultural contexts, rather than limited paying capacities of the users. To increase energy utilization and create environments for sustainable rural living the study recommends implementation of systems that link energy with other rural development needs such as agriculture or water provision. The study also recommends more use of qualitative and quantitative data for impact analysis to ensure that conclusions are generalizable and provide rich contextual explanations for the observed phenomena

First-principles determination of the phonon-point defect scattering and thermal transport due to fission products in ThO2

This work presents the first principles calculations of the lattice thermal conductivity degradation due to point defects in thorium dioxide using an alternative solution of the Pierels-Boltzmann transport equation. We have used the non-perturbative Green's function methodology to compute the phonon point defect scattering rates that consider the local distortion around the point defect, including the mass difference changes, interatomic force constants and structural relaxation near the point defects. The point defects considered in the work include the vacancy of thorium and oxygen, substitution of helium, krypton, zirconium, iodine, xenon, in the thorium site, and the three different configuration of the Schottky defects. The results of the phonon-defect scattering rate reveals that among the considered intrinsic defects, the thorium vacancy and helium substitution in the thorium site scatter the phonon most due to substantial changes in the force constant and structural distortions. The scattering of phonons due to the substitutional defects unveils that the zirconium atom scatters phonons the least, followed by xenon, iodine, krypton, and helium. This is contrary to the intuition that the scattering strength follows HeTh > KrTh > ZrTh > ITh > XeTh based on the mass difference. This striking difference in the zirconium phonon scattering is due to the local chemical environment changes. Zirconium is an electropositive element with valency similar to thorium and, therefore, can bond with the oxygen atoms, thus creating less force constant variance compared to iodine, an electronegative element, noble gas helium, xenon, and krypton. These results can serve as the benchmark for the analytical models and help the engineering-scale modeling effort for nuclear design.Comment: 10 page

Iodine status during pregnancy in India and related neonatal and infant outcomes

Objective: To document iodine status in Indian pregnancies, associations with maternal diet and demographics, and offspring developmental measures. Design: Longitudinal study following mothers through pregnancy and offspring up to 24 months. Setting: Rural health-care centre (Vadu) and urban antenatal clinic (Pune) in the Maharashtra region of India. Subjects: Pregnant mothers at 17 (n 132) and 34 weeks’ (n 151) gestation and their infants from birth to the age of 24 months. Results: Median urinary iodine concentration (UIC) was 203 and 211 μg/l at 17 and 34 weeks of pregnancy, respectively (range 26–800 μg/l). Using the UIC distribution adjusted for within-person variation, extreme UIC quartiles were compared for predictors and outcomes. There was no correlation between UIC at 17 and 34 weeks, but 24 % of those with UIC in the lowest quartile at 17 weeks had UIC in the same lowest quartile at 34 weeks. Maternal educational, socio-economic status and milk products consumption (frequency) were different between the lowest and highest quartile of UIC at 34 weeks. Selected offspring developmental outcomes differed between the lowest and highest UIC quartiles (abdominal circumference at 24 months, subscapular and triceps skinfolds at 12 and 24 months). However, UIC was only a weak predictor of subscapular skinfold at 12 months and of triceps skinfold at 24 months. Conclusions: Median UIC in this pregnant population suggested adequate dietary provision at both gestational stages studied. Occasional high results found in spot samples may indicate intermittent consumption of iodine-rich foods. Maternal UIC had limited influence on offspring developmental outcomes

Users opinion about synthetic, bio- and nano-biopesticides

As authors, we would like to convey our sincere thanks to Department of Chemistry, Govt. V.Y.T. PG. Autonomous College, Durg, for their valuable technical support given in this project. We would like to express our earnest thanks Dr. Poonrathi (Chief Medical Officer in charge - Kodai Govt. Hospital), Dr. Tamilselvan (Junior doctor- Krishnagiri Govt. Medical Health Unit), Ms. N.V. Ratana (Department of Agriculture – Telangana), Dr. Thirupurasundari (Dietician – USA), Ms. Tan (Organic Activist – KL), and Ms. Krithika Lakshmi (HR – Advisor, KL) for their valuable comments, timely advice, and suggestions. We also would like to thank all participants for devoting their precious time by helping us in this survey. We would like to share our humble gratitude to Dr. R. Senthil Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, Madras Christian College (Autonomous), Chennai, for his timely help and advice for statistical evaluation. SACC is grateful to Fundaç ão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal for Scientific Employment Stimulus-Institutional Call (CEEC-INST/00102/2018) and to the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry - LAQV financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UIDP/5006/2020). The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Govt. V. Y. T. PG Autonomous College, Durg (protocol code IEC/GVYTPGACI 19 /DURG. Date- 30/10/2021) for studies involving humans. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The AuthorsWith a growing global population, the demand for food, clothing and shelter became crucial for sustaining life. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic/endemic, along with the threat of other endemics, posed significant challenges in ensuring the delivery of nutritionally rich food. To address this, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the ban of some highly toxic chemical pesticides. Excessive consumption and exposure to pesticides possibly contributed to a decline in the human immunity levels making our fight against the pandemics more difficult and challenging. During the lockdown COVID-19 crisis, we conducted a survey to gather insights from farm landers (FLs), garden lovers (GLs), domestic front users (DFUs) predominantly from India, but also from other regions worldwide. The survey aimed at better understanding the usage of pesticides, both chemicals (CPs), bio-pesticides (BPs) or both, and their global utilization. A statistical survey with seven rudimentary sections was designed to receive the inputs (elementary inputs, awareness and perception, pesticide utility, health, ecology, and alternatives for safer trials) with fairness and care. The data was statistically analyzed within each group of population, revealing significant variations within the groups. Our study indicated that FLs (44.7 %) predominantly used BPs, GLs (18.8 %) relied on CPs, while DFUs (100.0 %) used a combination of both without any specific intention. Correlation analysis, given by R (correlation coefficient) and p (probability of obtaining an equal or more extreme effect than the found considering the null hypothesis as true) values revealed the existence of a positive and significant relationship between the selected variables, such as level of education (LOE) and gender, with the adoption of new alternatives (2loglikelihood = 64.743, with χ2 = 128.4, degrees of freedom (df) = 24, p<*0.05, **0.01, and *** 0.001) through multinomial regression analysis, indicating the fitness of the model. Likewise, our study primarily focused on exploring the insights for the development of nano-biopesticides, as improved alternatives to the existing solutions.publishersversionpublishe