A Non-Scaling FFAG Gantry Design for the PAMELA Project

A gantry is re­quired for the PAMELA pro­ject using non-scal­ing Fixed Field Al­ter­nat­ing Gra­di­ent (NS-FFAG) mag­nets. The NS-FFAG prin­ci­ple of­fers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a gantry much small­er, lighter and cheap­er than con­ven­tion­al de­signs, with the added abil­i­ty to ac­cept a wide range of fast chang­ing en­er­gies. This paper will build on pre­vi­ous work to in­ves­ti­gate a de­sign which could be used for the PAMELA pro­ject

An FFAG Transport Line for the PAMELA Project

The PAMELA project to design an accelerator for hadron therapy using non-scaling Fixed Field Alternating Gradient (NS-FFAG) magnets requires a transport line and gantry to take the beam to the patient. The NS-FFAG principle offers the possibility of a gantry much smaller, lighter and cheaper than conventional designs, with the added ability to accept a wide range of fast changing energies. This paper will build on previous work to investigate a transport line which could be used for the PAMELA project. The design is presented along with a study and optimisation of its acceptance

Human Resource Flexibility as a Mediating Variable Between High Performance Work Systems and Performance

Much of the human resource management literature has demonstrated the impact of high performance work systems (HPWS) on organizational performance. A new generation of studies is emerging in this literature that recommends the inclusion of mediating variables between HPWS and organizational performance. The increasing rate of dynamism in competitive environments suggests that measures of employee adaptability should be included as a mechanism that may explain the relevance of HPWS to firm competitiveness. On a sample of 226 Spanish firms, the study’s results confirm that HPWS influences performance through its impact on the firm’s human resource (HR) flexibility

The Public Repository of Xenografts enables discovery and randomized phase II-like trials in mice

More than 90% of drugs with preclinical activity fail in human trials, largely due to insufficient efficacy. We hypothesized that adequately powered trials of patient-derived xenografts (PDX) in mice could efficiently define therapeutic activity across heterogeneous tumors. To address this hypothesis, we established a large, publicly available repository of well-characterized leukemia and lymphoma PDXs that undergo orthotopic engraftment, called the Public Repository of Xenografts (PRoXe). PRoXe includes all de-identified information relevant to the primary specimens and the PDXs derived from them. Using this repository, we demonstrate that large studies of acute leukemia PDXs that mimic human randomized clinical trials can characterize drug efficacy and generate transcriptional, functional, and proteomic biomarkers in both treatment-naive and relapsed/refractory disease

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM

The PyZgoubi framework and the simulation of dynamic aperture in fixed-field alternating-gradient accelerators

AbstractWe present PyZgoubi, a framework that has been developed based on the tracking engine Zgoubi to model, optimise and visualise the dynamics in particle accelerators, especially fixed-field alternating-gradient (FFAG) accelerators. We show that PyZgoubi abstracts Zgoubi by wrapping it in an easy-to-use Python framework in order to allow simple construction, parameterisation, visualisation and optimisation of FFAG accelerator lattices. Its object oriented design gives it the flexibility and extensibility required for current novel FFAG design. We apply PyZgoubi to two example FFAGs; this includes determining the dynamic aperture of the PAMELA medical FFAG in the presence of magnet misalignments, and illustrating how PyZgoubi may be used to optimise FFAGs. We also discuss a robust definition of dynamic aperture in an FFAG and show its implementation in PyZgoubi

Studies for the PRISM FFAG Ring for the Next Generation Muon to Electron Conversion Experiment

High intensity and high quality muon beams are needed for next generation lepton flavour violation experiments. Such beams can be produced by sending a short proton pulse to a pion production target, capturing the pions and performing RF phase rotation on the resulting muon beam in an FFAG ring. Such a solution was proposed for the PRISM project and this paper summarizes its current status. In particular the PRISM task force was created to address the accelerator and detector issues that need to be solved in order to realise the PRISM experiment. Alternative designs for the PRISM FFAG ring are discussed and their performance compared. The injection/extraction systems and matching to the solenoid channels upstream and downstream of the FFAG ring are presented. The future direction for the study will be outlined

Status of the PRISM FFAG Design for the Next Generation Muon-to-Electron Conversion Experiment

The PRISM Task Force continues to study high intensity and high quality muon beams needed for next generation lepton flavour violation experiments. In the PRISM case such beams have been proposed to be produced by sending a short proton pulse to a pion production target, capturing pions and performing RF phase rotation on the resulting muon beam in an FFAG ring. This paper summarizes the current status of the PRISM design obtained by the Task Force. In particular various designs for the PRISM FFAG ring are discussed and their performance compared to the baseline one, the injection/extraction systems and matching to the solenoid channels upstream and downstream of the FFAG ring are presented. The feasibility of the construction of the PRISM system is discussed

PAMELA Overview : design goals and principles

The PAMELA (Particle Accelerator for MEdicaL Applications) project is to design an accelerator for proton and light ion therapy using non-scaling Fixed Field Alternating Gradient (FFAG) accelerators, as part of the CONFORM project, which is also constructing the EMMA electron model of a non-scaling FFAG at Daresbury. This paper presents an overview of the PAMELA design, and a discussion of the design goals and the principles used to arrive at a preliminary specification of the accelerator