Performance of novel VUV-sensitive Silicon Photo-Multipliers for nEXO

Liquid xenon time projection chambers are promising detectors to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0$\nu \beta \beta$), due to their response uniformity, monolithic sensitive volume, scalability to large target masses, and suitability for extremely low background operations. The nEXO collaboration has designed a tonne-scale time projection chamber that aims to search for 0$\nu \beta \beta$ of \ce{^{136}Xe} with projected half-life sensitivity of $1.35\times 10^{28}$~yr. To reach this sensitivity, the design goal for nEXO is $\leq$1\% energy resolution at the decay $Q$-value ($2458.07\pm 0.31$~keV). Reaching this resolution requires the efficient collection of both the ionization and scintillation produced in the detector. The nEXO design employs Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPMs) to detect the vacuum ultra-violet, 175 nm scintillation light of liquid xenon. This paper reports on the characterization of the newest vacuum ultra-violet sensitive Fondazione Bruno Kessler VUVHD3 SiPMs specifically designed for nEXO, as well as new measurements on new test samples of previously characterised Hamamatsu VUV4 Multi Pixel Photon Counters (MPPCs). Various SiPM and MPPC parameters, such as dark noise, gain, direct crosstalk, correlated avalanches and photon detection efficiency were measured as a function of the applied over voltage and wavelength at liquid xenon temperature (163~K). The results from this study are used to provide updated estimates of the achievable energy resolution at the decay $Q$-value for the nEXO design

Sound of well-being – choir singing as an intervention to improve well-being among employees in two Norwegian county hospitals

Objective: Interventions promoting a healthy psychosocial work environment are common, yet little is known about participation and effectiveness of such measures. The aim of this study was to describe differences between participants and nonparticipants in the Sound of Wellbeing (SOW) initiative, including a variety of demographic characteristics, perceived work environment, psychological factors and self-perceived health. The study also compared the participants' and non-participants' retrospective perception of change in the psychosocial work environment and their health during the project period.Methods: In this cultural organizational-level intervention, employees in two county hospitals participated as singers with different hospital departments forming their own choir. The majority of employees (1431 employees; 57.4%) completed a survey questionnaire after the intervention, of which 426 (29.8%) had participated.Results: We analysed the differences between participants and non-participants on several descriptive characteristics, personality, engagement, commitment, general health and demand-control-support, as well as their self-perceived change in some of these variables. Lower participation was found among men, employees above 62 and below 38 years of age, part-time employees, university-educated workers and health care workers. Furthermore, we found more engagement, organizational commitment and self-reported positive change with regard to psychosocial work environment and global health in participants compared to non-participants.Conclusions: The intervention showed promising results for incorporating cultural activities in the work environment, but further investigation of the effectiveness of organizational-level interventions using a pre-post design is needed.</p