(Di)lepton physics with ALICE

Physics perspectives with(di)lepton measurements with the ALICE detector at the LHC are reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on heavy flavor physics.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 18th International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions : Quark Matter 2005, Budapest, Hongrie, Ao\^{u}t 2005, submitted to Nuclear Physic

‘If the gas runs out, we are not going to sleep hungry’: Exploring household energy choices in India’s critically polluted coal belt

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Despite a range of initiatives to introduce cleaner fuels, a large proportion of poor people in India continue to rely on solid fuels for cooking and heating, with severe implications for personal and family health. This paper seeks to open up the various fuel-supply strategies that underpin domestic energy use in low-income settings to explain the unconventional solutions (jugaad) that households employ to bridge the gap between energy needs and supply of various fuels, including liquefied petroleum gas. We draw on long-term ethnographic engagements in four severely polluted low-income urban settlements in central India’s coal belt to investigate how communities, and primarily women, ensure domestic energy provision. As households struggle to secure a range of potential fuels with different benefits and drawbacks, we outline the socio-cultural and economic processes that shape household energy decision-making. These highly uncertain processes take place within an institutional structure that offers some possibilities, but is overall too rigid to fit the lived realties of low-income residents. Although households commonly understand that there are negative health effects from solid-fuel smoke, pollution and health are only marginal considerations for households facing daily struggles to reduce expenses. We argue that understanding the everyday jugaad of household energy provision is crucial for the possibilities to shift away from fuels damaging to both human health and the environment

Suicide methods in Europe: a gender-specific analysis of countries participating in the "European Alliance Against Depression"

Objective: To identify the most frequent gener-specific suicide methods in Europe. Design: Proportions of seven predominant suicide methods utilised in 16 countries participating in the European Alliance Against Depression (EAAD)were reported in total and cross-nationally. Relative risk (RR)relating to suicide methods and gender was calculated. To group countries by pattern of suicide methods, hierarchical clustering was applied. Setting and participants: Data on suicide methods for 119 122 male and 41 338 female cases in 2000-4/5 from 16 EAAD countries, covering 52% of European population were obtained. Results: Hanging was the most prevalent suicide method among both males (54.3%) and females (35.6%). For males, hanging was followed by firearms (9.7%) and poisoning by drugs (8.6%); for females, by poisoning by drugs (24.7%)and jumping from a high place (14.5%). Only in Switzerland did hanging rank as second for males after firearms. Hanging ranked first among females in eight countries, poisoning by drugs in five and jumping from a high place in three. In all countries, males had a higher risk than females of using firearms and hanging and a lower risk of poisoning by drugs, drowning and jumping. Grouping showed that countries might be divided into five main groups among males; for females, grouping did not yield clear results. Conclusions: Research on suicide methods could lead to the development of gender-specific intervention strategies. Nevertheless, other approaches, such as better identification and treatment of mental disorders and the improvement of toxicological aid should be put in place

Sodium piperidine-1-carbodithio­ate dihydrate

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, Na+·C6H10NS2 −·2H2O, is composed of a sodium cation, a piperidine­dithio­carbamate anion which exhibits positional disorder, and two lattice water mol­ecules. The atoms of the piperidine ring are divided over two sites with occupancy factors of 0.554 (6) and 0.446 (6). In the crystal, the sodium cation (coordination number of 6) and the piperidine­dithio­carbamate anion are linked, forming an infinite two-dimensional network extending parallel to (001). O—H⋯S hydrogen bonds, involving the lattice water mol­ecules, also aid in stabilizing the crystal sructure

Protect the natives to combat the aliens: Could octopus vulgaris cuvier, 1797 be a natural agent for the control of the lionfish invasion in the mediterranean sea?

[No abstract available

Azimuthal Correlations in the Target Fragmentation Region of High Energy Nuclear Collisions

Results on the target mass dependence of proton and pion pseudorapidity distributions and of their azimuthal correlations in the target rapidity range $-1.73 \le \eta \le 1.32$ are presented. The data have been taken with the Plastic-Ball detector set-up for 4.9 GeV p + Au collisions at the Berkeley BEVALAC and for 200 $A\cdot$GeV/$c$ p-, O-, and S-induced reactions on different nuclei at the CERN-SPS. The yield of protons at backward rapidities is found to be proportional to the target mass. Although protons show a typical ``back-to-back'' correlations, a ``side-by-side'' correlation is observed for positive pions, which increases both with target mass and with impact parameter of a collision. The data can consistently be described by assuming strong rescattering phenomena including pion absorption effects in the entire excited target nucleus.Comment: 7 pages, figures included, complete postscript available at ftp://qgp.uni-muenster.de/pub/paper/azi-correlations.ps submitted to Phys. Lett.

The ALICE TPC, a large 3-dimensional tracking device with fast readout for ultra-high multiplicity events

The design, construction, and commissioning of the ALICE Time-Projection Chamber (TPC) is described. It is the main device for pattern recognition, tracking, and identification of charged particles in the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC. The TPC is cylindrical in shape with a volume close to 90 m^3 and is operated in a 0.5 T solenoidal magnetic field parallel to its axis. In this paper we describe in detail the design considerations for this detector for operation in the extreme multiplicity environment of central Pb--Pb collisions at LHC energy. The implementation of the resulting requirements into hardware (field cage, read-out chambers, electronics), infrastructure (gas and cooling system, laser-calibration system), and software led to many technical innovations which are described along with a presentation of all the major components of the detector, as currently realized. We also report on the performance achieved after completion of the first round of stand-alone calibration runs and demonstrate results close to those specified in the TPC Technical Design Report.Comment: 55 pages, 82 figure

Interferometry of Direct Photons in Central 280Pb+208Pb Collisions at 158A GeV

Two-particle correlations of direct photons were measured in central 208Pb+208Pb collisions at 158 AGeV. The invariant interferometric radii were extracted for 100<K_T<300 MeV/c and compared to radii extracted from charged pion correlations. The yield of soft direct photons, K_T<300 MeV/c, was extracted from the correlation strength and compared to theoretical calculations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Filling gaps via citizen science: Phyllorhiza punctata von Lendenfeld, 1884 (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa: Mastigiidae) in Cyprus (eastern Mediterranean Sea)

The Mediterranean Sea is one of the most heavily impacted areas by biological invasions worldwide, with over 650 non-indigenous species (NIS) reported as established in 2019. Information about the distribution of NIS in the basin is often fragmented or non-existent due to factors such as lack of finance, expertise, and appropriate surveillance systems. Citizen science might represent a reliable tool in monitoring the spread of NIS, being able to overcome the challenges of scientific monitoring. In the context of the citizen science project “Is it alien to you? Share it!!!”, we hereby first report the presence of the Australian spotted jellyfish Phyllorhiza punctata von Lendenfeld, 1884 in the marine waters of Cyprus and review its known distribution in the Mediterranean Sea. Although this taxon does not represent a direct threat to human health or tourism as it bears no painful sting, it already caused important ecological and economic damages in other regions of the world, and thus its further spread in Cypriot waters requires appropriate monitoring