The Micro Slit Gas Detector

We describe the first tests with a new proportional gas detector. Its geometry consists in slits opened in a copper metallized kapton foil with 30 micron anode strips suspended in these openings. In this way the multiplication process is similar to a standard MSGC. The fundamental difference is the absence of an insulating substrate around the anode. Also the material budget is significantly reduced, and the problems related to charging-up or polarization are removed. Ageing properties of this detector are under study.Comment: 13 pages tex file, 10 figures ep

Combining Internet Monitoring Processes, Packaging and Isotopic Analyses to Determine The Market Structure: Example of Gamma Butyrolactone

The Internet is becoming more and more popular among drug users. The use of websites and forums to obtain illicit drugs and relevant information about the means of consumption is a growing phenomenon mainly for new synthetic drugs. Gamma Butyrolactone (GBL), a chemical precursor of Gamma Hydroxy Butyric acid (GHB), is used as a "club drug" and also in drug facilitated sexual assaults. Its market takes place mainly on the Internet through online websites but the structure of the market remains unknown. This research aims to combine digital, physical and chemical information to help understand the distribution routes and the structure of the GBL market. Based on an Internet monitoring process, thirty-nine websites selling GBL, mainly in the Netherlands, were detected between January 2010 and December 2011. Seventeen websites were categorized into six groups based on digital traces (e.g. IP addresses and contact information). In parallel, twenty-five bulk GBL specimens were purchased from sixteen websites for packaging comparisons and carbon isotopic measurements. Packaging information showed a high correlation with digital data confirming the links previously established whereas chemical information revealed undetected links and provided complementary information. Indeed, while digital and packaging data give relevant information about the retailers, the supply routes and the distribution close to the consumer, the carbon isotopic data provides upstream information about the production level and in particular the synthesis pathways and the chemical precursors. A three-level structured market has been thereby identified with a production level mainly located in China and in Germany, an online distribution level mainly hosted in the Netherlands and the customers who order on the Internet

Cauchy-perturbative matching revisited: tests in spherical symmetry

During the last few years progress has been made on several fronts making it possible to revisit Cauchy-perturbative matching (CPM) in numerical relativity in a more robust and accurate way. This paper is the first in a series where we plan to analyze CPM in the light of these new results. Here we start by testing high-order summation-by-parts operators, penalty boundaries and contraint-preserving boundary conditions applied to CPM in a setting that is simple enough to study all the ingredients in great detail: Einstein's equations in spherical symmetry, describing a black hole coupled to a massless scalar field. We show that with the techniques described above, the errors introduced by Cauchy-perturbative matching are very small, and that very long term and accurate CPM evolutions can be achieved. Our tests include the accretion and ring-down phase of a Schwarzschild black hole with CPM, where we find that the discrete evolution introduces, with a low spatial resolution of \Delta r = M/10, an error of 0.3% after an evolution time of 1,000,000 M. For a black hole of solar mass, this corresponds to approximately 5 s, and is therefore at the lower end of timescales discussed e.g. in the collapsar model of gamma-ray burst engines. (abridged)Comment: 14 pages, 20 figure

Classification of coffee beans by GC-C-IRMS, GC-MS, and 1H-NMR

In a previous work using 1H-NMR we reported encouraging steps towards the construction of a robust expert system for the discrimination of coffees from Colombia versus nearby countries (Brazil and Peru), to assist the recent protected geographical indication granted to Colombian coffee in 2007.This system relies on fingerprints acquired on a 400MHz magnet and is thus well suited for small scale random screening of samples obtained at resellers or coffee shops. However, this approach cannot easily be implemented at harbour's installations, due to the elevated operational costs of cryogenic magnets. This limitation implies shipping the samples to the NMR laboratory, making the overall approach slower and thereby more expensive and less attractive for large scale screening at harbours. In this work, we report on our attempt to obtain comparable classification results using alternative techniques that have been reported promising as an alternative toNMR: GC-MS andGC-C-IRMS.Although statistically significant information could be obtained by all threemethods, the results showthat the quality of the classifiers dependsmainly on the number of variables included in the analysis; hence NMR provides an advantage since more molecules are detected to obtain a model with better predictions

Interaction of Eu-isotopes with saponite as a component of the engineered barrier

Bentonite is accepted as the best clay material in the engineered barrier of deep geological repositories (DGRs) for radioactive waste disposal. In recent years, the interactions between a wide range of rare-earth (REE) cations and smectites have been studied. A combined study of stable europium and radioactive isotopes is reported here. Saponite was subjected to hydrothermal reactions with stable and radioactive (152Eu) europium ions under subcritical conditions. The structural changes of saponite were evaluated by XRD and SEM. The effect of temperature and reaction time on the changes was quantified by measuring 152Eu through gamma spectrometry. The reaction between europium and saponite was a first-order reaction. The presence of Eu in the precipitate in an amount much higher than the cation exchange capacity of saponite confirmed participation of chemical reactions or surface adsorption in the europium immobilization, even at temperatures as low as 150°C. The reaction rate constant indicated that an 8- to 9-month period was needed for the completion, without significant changes, of the europium/saponite chemical reaction under the subcritical conditions of 200°C and 350°C.Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino 300/PC08/3-01.1Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica CTQ2010-1487

PEDESTRIAN PATHFINDING in URBAN ENVIRONMENTS: PRELIMINARY RESULTS

With the rise of urban population, many initiatives are focused upon the smart city concept, in which mobility of citizens arises as one of the main components. Updated and detailed spatial information of outdoor environments is needed to accurate path planning for pedestrians, especially for people with reduced mobility, in which physical barriers should be considered. This work presents a methodology to use point clouds to direct path planning. The starting point is a classified point cloud in which ground elements have been previously classified as roads, sidewalks, crosswalks, curbs and stairs. The remaining points compose the obstacle class. The methodology starts by individualizing ground elements and simplifying them into representative points, which are used as nodes in the graph creation. The region of influence of obstacles is used to refine the graph. Edges of the graph are weighted according to distance between nodes and according to their accessibility for wheelchairs. As a result, we obtain a very accurate graph representing the as-built environment. The methodology has been tested in a couple of real case studies and Dijkstra algorithm was used to pathfinding. The resulting paths represent the optimal according to motor skills and safety

Development and operation of a pixel segmented liquid-filled linear array for radiotherapy quality assurance

A liquid isooctane (C$_{8}$H$_{18}$) filled ionization linear array for radiotherapy quality assurance has been designed, built and tested. The detector consists of 128 pixels, each of them with an area of 1.7 mm $\times$ 1.7 mm and a gap of 0.5 mm. The small pixel size makes the detector ideal for high gradient beam profiles like those present in Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) and radiosurgery. As read-out electronics we use the X-Ray Data Acquisition System (XDAS) with the Xchip developed by the CCLRC. Studies concerning the collection efficiency dependence on the polarization voltage and on the dose rate have been made in order to optimize the device operation. In the first tests we have studied dose rate and energy dependences, and signal reproducibility. Dose rate dependence was found lower than 2.5 % up to 5 Gy min$^{-1}$, and energy dependence lower than 2.1 % up to 20 cm depth in solid water. Output factors and penumbras for several rectangular fields have been measured with the linear array and were compared with the results obtained with a 0.125 cm$^{3}$ air ionization chamber and radiographic film, respectively. Finally, we have acquired profiles for an IMRT field and for a virtual wedge. These profiles have also been compared with radiographic film measurements. All the comparisons show a good correspondence. Signal reproducibility was within a 2% during the test period (around three months). The device has proved its capability to verify on-line therapy beams with good spatial resolution and signal to noise ratio.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures Submitted to Phys. Med. Bio

The action of obestatin in skeletal muscle repair: stem cell expansion, muscle growth, and microenvironment remodeling

The development of therapeutic strategies for skeletal muscle diseases, such as physical injuries and myopathies, depends on the knowledge of regulatory signals that control the myogenic process. The obestatin/GPR39 system operates as an autocrine signal in the regulation of skeletal myogenesis. Using a mouse model of skeletal muscle regeneration after injury and several cellular strategies, we explored the potential use of obestatin as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of trauma-induced muscle injuries. Our results evidenced that the overexpression of the preproghrelin, and thus obestatin, and GPR39 in skeletal muscle increased regeneration after muscle injury. More importantly, the intramuscular injection of obestatin significantly enhanced muscle regeneration by simulating satellite stem cell expansion as well as myofiber hypertrophy through a kinase hierarchy. Added to the myogenic action, the obestatin administration resulted in an increased expression of VEGF/VEGFR2 and the consequent microvascularization, with no effect on collagen deposition in skeletal muscle. Furthermore, the potential inhibition of myostatin during obestatin treatment might contribute to its myogenic action improving muscle growth and regeneration. Taken together, our data demonstrate successful improvement of muscle regeneration, indicating obestatin is a potential therapeutic agent for skeletal muscle injury and would benefit other myopathies related to muscle regeneration

Testing outer boundary treatments for the Einstein equations

Various methods of treating outer boundaries in numerical relativity are compared using a simple test problem: a Schwarzschild black hole with an outgoing gravitational wave perturbation. Numerical solutions computed using different boundary treatments are compared to a `reference' numerical solution obtained by placing the outer boundary at a very large radius. For each boundary treatment, the full solutions including constraint violations and extracted gravitational waves are compared to those of the reference solution, thereby assessing the reflections caused by the artificial boundary. These tests use a first-order generalized harmonic formulation of the Einstein equations. Constraint-preserving boundary conditions for this system are reviewed, and an improved boundary condition on the gauge degrees of freedom is presented. Alternate boundary conditions evaluated here include freezing the incoming characteristic fields, Sommerfeld boundary conditions, and the constraint-preserving boundary conditions of Kreiss and Winicour. Rather different approaches to boundary treatments, such as sponge layers and spatial compactification, are also tested. Overall the best treatment found here combines boundary conditions that preserve the constraints, freeze the Newman-Penrose scalar Psi_0, and control gauge reflections.Comment: Modified to agree with version accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Gra