Study of the performance of the NA62 Small-Angle Calorimeter at the DAΦ\PhiNE Linac

The measurement of $BR(K^+\to\pi^+\nu\bar{\nu})$ with 10% precision by the NA62 experiment requires extreme background suppression. The Small Angle Calorimeter aims to provide an efficient veto for photons flying at angles down to zero with respect to the kaon flight direction. The initial prototype was upgraded and tested at the Beam Test Facility of the DA$\Phi$NE Linac at Frascati. The energy resolution and the efficiency were measured and are presented.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Landrace added value and accessibility in Europe: what a collection of case studies tells us

In the actual climate change scenario, in situ conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture can significantly contribute broadening the diversity of our food system as well as increasing its resilience; nevertheless, landrace cultivation has been dramatically reduced in the last decades all over Europe. One of the most effective approaches to counteract the loss of landrace diversity in situ is facilitating its use. Aims of this study were to (i) describe how in situ maintenance of landraces occurs in different agro-environmental conditions in Europe and (ii) identify the main factors influencing landrace added values and accessibility as means to increase their adoption by new farmers. To the purpose, a collection of 95 case studies of both garden and open field landraces maintained in situ was analysed. A first description was obtained by classifying the information into 18 purposely defined categories. Data on landraces added values and accessibility were further transformed into weighted variables; the derived quantitative scores were then used as dependent variables in univariate and multivariate analyses. Results showed that farmers alone are still the main actors maintaining landraces in situ across different European biogeographical regions, mainly carrying out their activity under organic or low-input conditions, often in marginal areas. Results of the multivariate analysis showed that (i) type of actor involved in the multiplication, (ii) the main use of the product and (iii) presence of promotion actions significantly affect garden landraces added value and accessibility; presence of promotion actions was the only factor affecting added value of open field entries. Evidence arising from this work can contribute to the establishment of a fruitful ground of discussion for future European policies and strategies to protect and increase landrace use

Time over threshold in the presence of noise

The time over threshold is a widely used quantity to describe signals from various detectors in particle physics. Its electronics implementation is straightforward and in this paper we present the studies of its behavior in the presence of noise. A unique comb-like structure was identified in the data for a first time and was explained and modeled successfully. The effects of that structure on the efficiency and resolution are also discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

GEANT4-based full simulation of the PADME experiment at the DAΦNE BTF

A possible solution to the dark matter problem postulates that dark particles can interact with Standard Model particles only through a new force mediated by a “portal”. If the new force has a U(1) gauge structure, the “portal” is a massive photon-like vector particle, called dark photon or A′. The PADME experiment at the DAΦNE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) in Frascati is designed to detect dark photons produced in positron on fixed target annihilations decaying to dark matter (e+e-→γA′) by measuring the final state missing mass. The experiment will be composed of a thin active diamond target where a 550 MeV positron beam will impinge to produce e+e- annihilation events. The surviving beam will be deflected with a magnet while the photons produced in the annihilation will be measured by a calorimeter composed of BGO crystals. To reject the background from Bremsstrahlung gamma production, a set of segmented plastic scintillator vetoes will be used to detect positrons exiting the target with an energy lower than that of the beam, while a fast small angle calorimeter will be used to reject the e+e-→γγ(γ) background. To optimize the experimental layout in terms of signal acceptance and background rejection, the full layout of the experiment was modelled with the GEANT4 simulation package. In this paper we will describe the details of the simulation and report on the results obtained with the software

Sex-Specific Effects of Prenatal Stress on Bdnf Expression in Response to an Acute Challenge in Rats : a Role for Gadd45β

Exposure to early adversities represents a major risk factor for psychiatric disorders. We have previously shown that exposure to prenatal stress (PNS) in rats alters the developmental expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (Bdnf) with a specific temporal profile. However, exposure to early-life stress is known to alter the ability to cope with challenging events later in life, which may contribute to the enhanced vulnerability to stress-related disorders. Since Bdnf is also an important player for activity-dependent plasticity, we investigated whether the exposure to PNS in rats could alter Bdnf responsiveness to an acute challenge at adulthood. We found that exposure to PNS produces significant changes in Bdnf responsiveness with brain region- and gender-specific selectivity. Indeed, exposure to an acute stress upregulates Bdnf expression in the prefrontal cortex, but not in the hippocampus, of control animals. Moreover, such modulatory activity is selectively impaired in PNS female rats, an effect that was associated with changes in the modulation of the DNA demethylase Gadd45\u3b2. Our results suggest that exposure to PNS may reprogram gene transcription through epigenetic mechanisms reducing the ability to cope under adverse conditions, a trait that is disrupted in psychiatric diseases

Investigating the genetic basis of salt-tolerance in common bean: a genome-wide association study at the early vegetative stage

Salinity poses a significant challenge to global crop productivity, affecting approximately 20% of cultivated and 33% of irrigated farmland, and this issue is on the rise. Negative impact of salinity on plant development and metabolism leads to physiological and morphological alterations mainly due to high ion concentration in tissues and the reduced water and nutrients uptake. Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), a staple food crop accounting for a substantial portion of consumed grain legumes worldwide, is highly susceptible to salt stress resulting in noticeable reduction in dry matter gain in roots and shoots even at low salt concentrations. In this study we screened a common bean panel of diversity encompassing 192 homozygous genotypes for salt tolerance at seedling stage. Phenotypic data were leveraged to identify genomic regions involved in salt stress tolerance in the species through GWAS. We detected seven significant associations between shoot dry weight and SNP markers. The candidate genes, in linkage with the regions associated to salt tolerance or harbouring the detected SNP, showed strong homology with genes known to be involved in salt tolerance in Arabidopsis. Our findings provide valuable insights onto the genetic control of salt tolerance in common bean and represent a first contribution to address the challenge of salinity-induced yield losses in this species and poses the ground to eventually breed salt tolerant common bean varieties

Terroir is a key driver of seed-associated microbial assemblages

Seeds have evolved in association with diverse microbial assemblages that may influence plant growth and health. However, little is known about the composition of seed-associated microbial assemblages and the ecological processes shaping their structures. In this work, we monitored the relative influence of the host genotypes and terroir on the structure of the seed microbiota through metabarcoding analysis of different microbial assemblages associated to five different bean cultivars harvested in two distinct farms. Overall, few bacterial and fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were conserved across all seed samples. The lack of shared OTUs between samples is explained by a significant effect of the farm site on the structure of microbial assemblage, which explained 12.2% and 39.7% of variance in bacterial and fungal diversity across samples. This site-specific effect is reflected by the significant enrichment of 70 OTUs in Brittany and 88 OTUs in Luxembourg that lead to differences in co-occurrence patterns. In contrast, variance in microbial assemblage structure was not explained by host genotype. Altogether, these results suggest that seed-associated microbial assemblage is determined by niche-based processes and that the terroir is a key driver of these selective forces

Performance of the PADME calorimeter prototype at the DAΦ\PhiNE BTF

The PADME experiment at the DA$\Phi$NE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) aims at searching for invisible decays of the dark photon by measuring the final state missing mass in the process $e^+e^- \to \gamma+ A'$, with $A'$ undetected. The measurement requires the determination of the 4-momentum of the recoil photon, performed using a homogeneous, highly segmented BGO crystals calorimeter. We report the results of the test of a 5$\times$5 crystals prototype performed with an electron beam at the BTF in July 2016

Drafting a prioritized checklist of Crop Wild Relatives and Wild Harvested Plants of Italy: problems and solutions

The National checklists of Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) and Wild Harvested Plants (WHP) are the basic tools for the development of in situ and ex situ conservation strategies of plant genetic resources. Here we discuss the methodologies and the prioritization process we previously used in the preparation of the prioritized checklist of CWR and WHP for Italy. The starting point were the most up-to-date Italian checklists of native and alien flora with their updates used as a nomenclatural and distributive source of data. Sardinia and Sicily were kept separate from peninsular Italy to perform detailed analyses focused on the taxa of the two major islands. The origin, the endemic status, cultivation, economic importance, uses, gene pool or taxon group, and the Red List status information were added. The WHP status was attributed to all the taxa with known direct uses. A qualitative approach was adopted in the prioritization process, the main criteria used were: 1) the inclusion of wild relative taxa of crops listed in Annex I of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) and/or by the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for cultivated areas and yield in the last 5 years; 2) the threatened taxa occurring in national or global Red lists; 3) the endemism. This prioritization process generated 102 taxa as most in need of specific protection and /or monitoring measures, 57 taxa requiring monitoring because of their restricted distribution although not requiring specific protection measures and 735 taxa not requiring any specific protection. However, different prioritization processes could have been applied to the Italian checklists yielding different results. Here we discuss the matter

A prototype large-angle photon veto detector for the P326 experiment at CERN

The P326 experiment at the CERN SPS has been proposed with the purpose of measuring the branching ratio for the decay K^+ \to \pi^+ \nu \bar{\nu} to within 10%. The photon veto system must provide a rejection factor of 10^8 for \pi^0 decays. We have explored two designs for the large-angle veto detectors, one based on scintillating tiles and the other using scintillating fibers. We have constructed a prototype module based on the fiber solution and evaluated its performance using low-energy electron beams from the Frascati Beam-Test Facility. For comparison, we have also tested a tile prototype constructed for the CKM experiment, as well as lead-glass modules from the OPAL electromagnetic barrel calorimeter. We present results on the linearity, energy resolution, and time resolution obtained with the fiber prototype, and compare the detection efficiency for electrons obtained with all three instruments.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables. Presented at the 2007 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Honolulu HI, USA, 28 October - 3 November 200