Optical properties of metal nanoparticles with arbitrary shapes

We have studied the optical properties of metallic nanoparticles with arbitrary shape. We performed theoretical calculations of the absorption, extinction and scattering efficiencies, which can be directly compared with experiments, using the Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA). In this work, the main features in the optical spectra have been investigated depending of the geometry and size of the nanoparticles. The origin of the optical spectra are discussed in terms of the size, shape and material properties of each nanoparticle, showing that a nanoparticle can be distinguish by its optical signature.Comment: 19 pages + 8 figure

Performance Characterization of a Solenoid-type Gas Valve for the H−H^{-} Magnetron Source at FNAL

The magnetron-style $H^{-}$ ion sources currently in operation at Fermilab use piezoelectric gas valves to function. This kind of gas valve is sensitive to small changes in ambient temperature, which affect the stability and performance of the ion source. This motivates the need to find an alternative way of feeding H2 gas into the source. A solenoid-type gas valve has been characterized in a dedicated off-line test stand to assess the feasibility of its use in the operational ion sources. $H^{-}$ ion beams have been extracted at 35 keV using this valve. In this study, the performance of the solenoid gas valve has been characterized measuring the beam current output of the magnetron source with respect to the voltage and pulse width of the signal applied to the gas valve.Comment: 4 pp. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1701.0175

Implementation of Design Changes Towards a More Reliable, Hands-off Magnetron Ion Source

As the main $H^{-}$ ion source for the accelerator complex, magnetron ion sources have been used at Fermilab since the 1970s. At the offline test stand, new R&D is carried out to develop and upgrade the present magnetron-type sources of $H^{-}$ ions of up to 80 mA and 35 keV beam energy in the context of the Proton Improvement Plan. The aim of this plan is to provide high-power proton beams for the experiments at FNAL. In order to reduce the amount of tuning and monitoring of these ion sources, a new electronic system consisting of a current-regulated arc discharge modulator allow the ion source to run at a constant arc current for improved beam output and operation. A solenoid-type gas valve feeds $H_{2}$ gas into the source precisely and independently of ambient temperature. This summary will cover several studies and design changes that have been tested and will eventually be implemented on the operational magnetron sources at Fermilab. Innovative results for this type of ion source include cathode geometries, solenoid gas valves, current controlled arc pulser, cesium boiler redesign, gas mixtures of hydrogen and nitrogen, and duty factor reduction, with the aim to improve source lifetime, stability, and reducing the amount of tuning needed. In this summary, I will highlight the advances made in ion sources at Fermilab and will outline the directions of the continuing R&D effort.Comment: 4 pp. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1701.0175

નિરાંત મહારાજઃ જીવન અને કવન - એક અધ્યયન

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Improvements on the Stability and Operation of a Magnetron H- Ion Source

The magnetron H- ion sources developed in the 1970s currently in operation at Fermilab provide beam to the rest of the accelerator complex. A series of modifications to these sources have been tested in a dedicated offline test stand with the aim of improving different operational issues. The solenoid type gas valve was tested as an alternative to the piezoelectric gas valve in order to avoid its temperature dependence. A new cesium oven was designed and tested in order to avoid glass pieces that were present with the previous oven, improve thermal insulation and fine tune its temperature. A current-regulated arc modulator was developed to run the ion source at a constant arc current, providing very stable beam outputs during operations. In order to reduce beam noise, the addition of small amounts of N2 gas was explored, as well as testing different cathode shapes with increasing plasma volume. This paper summarizes the studies and modifications done in the source over the last three years with the aim of improving its stability, reliability and overall performance.Comment: 8 pages, 19 figure

A novel integrative risk index of papillary thyroid cancer progression combining genomic alterations and clinical factors.

Although the majority of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is indolent, a subset of PTC behaves aggressively despite the best available treatment. A major clinical challenge is to reliably distinguish early on between those patients who need aggressive treatment from those who do not. Using a large cohort of PTC samples obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we analyzed the association between disease progression and multiple forms of genomic data, such as transcriptome, somatic mutations, and somatic copy number alterations, and found that genes related to FOXM1 signaling pathway were significantly associated with PTC progression. Integrative genomic modeling was performed, controlling for demographic and clinical characteristics, which included patient age, gender, TNM stages, histological subtypes, and history of other malignancy, using a leave-one-out elastic net model and 10-fold cross validation. For each subject, the model from the remaining subjects was used to determine the risk index, defined as a linear combination of the clinical and genomic variables from the elastic net model, and the stability of the risk index distribution was assessed through 2,000 bootstrap resampling. We developed a novel approach to combine genomic alterations and patient-related clinical factors that delineates the subset of patients who have more aggressive disease from those whose tumors are indolent and likely will require less aggressive treatment and surveillance (p = 4.62 × 10-10, log-rank test). Our results suggest that risk index modeling that combines genomic alterations with current staging systems provides an opportunity for more effective anticipation of disease prognosis and therefore enhanced precision management of PTC