Preliminary results of Resistive Plate Chambers operated with eco-friendly gas mixtures for application in the CMS experiment

The operations of Resistive Plate Chambers in LHC experiments require Fluorine based (F-based) gases for optimal performance. Recent European regulations demand the use of environmentally unfriendly F-based gases to be limited or banned. In view of the CMS experiment upgrade, several tests are ongoing to measure the performance of the detector with these new ecological gas mixtures, in terms of efficiency, streamer probability, induced charge and time resolution. Prototype chambers with readout pads and with the standard CMS electronic setup are under test. In this paper preliminary results on performance of RPCs operated with a potential eco-friendly gas candidate 1,3,3,3-Tetrafluoropropene, commercially known as HFO-1234ze, with CO2 and CF3I based gas mixtures are presented and discussed for the possible application in the CMS experiment.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1505.0164

Contextualizing Statelessness in the Indian Legal Framework: Illegal Immigration in Assam

With the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the indispensable question regarding the legal status of individuals who would be excluded from the final version arises. This paper critically analyzes the legal framework that addresses and governs statelessness, by taking into consideration, both the domestic laws, and the international treaties which India is a party to, and argues that the contemporary legal system does not address the issue of statelessness effectively and requires an overhaul. The lack of a comprehensive legislative policy to address statelessness will prevent uniformity in the expulsion methods that is employed by the state. In the light of forced deportation and the subsequent expulsion, this paper highlights the significance of formulating a uniform policy that operates on established humanitarian principles that does not vary from one instance to another

Framework for assessing sustainability levels in Belgium agricultural systems - SAFE

Sustainability is now regarded as a crucial property of agricultural systems and its evaluation has become a main challenge for scientists, policy makers and farmers. In the last decade, different sets of indicators have been designed both at national and international levels. Meanwhile, more practical environmental impact assessment (EIA) tools have been developed at the farm level . However, none of these indicator sets can be used at both levels. Further, most of these initiatives focus only on environmental aspects of sustainability and do not take socio-economic aspects into consideration. Indicator selection does not always fit in a consistent and comprehensive framework, although there is a strong need to integrate sustainability indicators in order to facilitate comparison and assessment. Finally, few of these works relate to Belgian agriculture, which up til now lacked a tool for assessing the sustainability of its farms. This project aims at providing a framework for assessing sustainability levels in Belgian agricultural systems (SAFE) that overcomes the deficiencies mentioned above. This is achieved by: 1. Considering the concept of agricultural sustainability in a holistic manner – SAFE accounts for all three pillars of sustainability (environmental, economic & social). 2. Developing (a) a consistent approach for defining sustainability principles and criteria and (b) a core list of sustainability indicators identified through a standardized selection procedure. The ‘SAFE selection procedure’ is a flexible scientific process that builts on knowledge and experience of numerous experts. 3. Ensuring that the tool remains as easy as possible to interpret and thus to use, thanks to the integration procedure of sustainability indicators and the graphic expression of the results. 4. Building on a generic methodology. Though the set of selected indicators presented in this report is specific to the Belgian agricultural context, the method developed for the construction of the SAFE tool can be transferred for assessing sustainability levels in other geographical (Europe, world, …) and sectorial contexts. In particular, principles and criteria defined in SAFE have a universal value. 5. Taking action at three spatial levels, depending on the scale of application: (1) parcel (2) farm or (3) watershed for surface water-related issues, landscape/ecosystem for some soil and biodiversity related issues, and administrative units (region, state) for some environmental as well as for some socio-economic issues

Framework for assessing sustainability levels in Belgium agricultural systems - SAFE

Sustainability is now regarded as a crucial property of agricultural systems and its evaluation has become a main challenge for scientists, policy makers and farmers. In the last decade, different sets of indicators have been designed both at national and international levels. Meanwhile, more practical environmental impact assessment (EIA) tools have been developed at the farm level . However, none of these indicator sets can be used at both levels. Further, most of these initiatives focus only on environmental aspects of sustainability and do not take socio-economic aspects into consideration. Indicator selection does not always fit in a consistent and comprehensive framework, although there is a strong need to integrate sustainability indicators in order to facilitate comparison and assessment. Finally, few of these works relate to Belgian agriculture, which up til now lacked a tool for assessing the sustainability of its farms. This project aims at providing a framework for assessing sustainability levels in Belgian agricultural systems (SAFE) that overcomes the deficiencies mentioned above. This is achieved by: 1. Considering the concept of agricultural sustainability in a holistic manner – SAFE accounts for all three pillars of sustainability (environmental, economic & social). 2. Developing (a) a consistent approach for defining sustainability principles and criteria and (b) a core list of sustainability indicators identified through a standardized selection procedure. The ‘SAFE selection procedure’ is a flexible scientific process that builts on knowledge and experience of numerous experts. 3. Ensuring that the tool remains as easy as possible to interpret and thus to use, thanks to the integration procedure of sustainability indicators and the graphic expression of the results. 4. Building on a generic methodology. Though the set of selected indicators presented in this report is specific to the Belgian agricultural context, the method developed for the construction of the SAFE tool can be transferred for assessing sustainability levels in other geographical (Europe, world, …) and sectorial contexts. In particular, principles and criteria defined in SAFE have a universal value. 5. Taking action at three spatial levels, depending on the scale of application: (1) parcel (2) farm or (3) watershed for surface water-related issues, landscape/ecosystem for some soil and biodiversity related issues, and administrative units (region, state) for some environmental as well as for some socio-economic issues

Performance of a Large-Area GEM Detector Prototype for the Upgrade of the CMS Muon Endcap System

Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) technology is being considered for the forward muon upgrade of the CMS experiment in Phase 2 of the CERN LHC. Its first implementation is planned for the GE1/1 system in the $1.5 < \mid\eta\mid < 2.2$ region of the muon endcap mainly to control muon level-1 trigger rates after the second long LHC shutdown. A GE1/1 triple-GEM detector is read out by 3,072 radial strips with 455 $\mu$rad pitch arranged in eight $\eta$-sectors. We assembled a full-size GE1/1 prototype of 1m length at Florida Tech and tested it in 20-120 GeV hadron beams at Fermilab using Ar/CO$_{2}$ 70:30 and the RD51 scalable readout system. Four small GEM detectors with 2-D readout and an average measured azimuthal resolution of 36 $\mu$rad provided precise reference tracks. Construction of this largest GEM detector built to-date is described. Strip cluster parameters, detection efficiency, and spatial resolution are studied with position and high voltage scans. The plateau detection efficiency is [97.1 $\pm$ 0.2 (stat)]\%. The azimuthal resolution is found to be [123.5 $\pm$ 1.6 (stat)] $\mu$rad when operating in the center of the efficiency plateau and using full pulse height information. The resolution can be slightly improved by $\sim$ 10 $\mu$rad when correcting for the bias due to discrete readout strips. The CMS upgrade design calls for readout electronics with binary hit output. When strip clusters are formed correspondingly without charge-weighting and with fixed hit thresholds, a position resolution of [136.8 $\pm$ 2.5 stat] $\mu$rad is measured, consistent with the expected resolution of strip-pitch/$\sqrt{12}$ = 131.3 $\mu$rad. Other $\eta$-sectors of the detector show similar response and performance.Comment: 8 pages, 32 figures, submitted to Proc. 2014 IEEE Nucl. Sci. Symposium, Seattle, WA, reference adde

Efficacy of Artesunate + Sulfamethoxypyrazine/Pyrimethamine versus Praziquantel in the Treatment of Schistosoma haematobium in Children

BACKGROUND:This study was conducted to determine the efficacy of the antimalarial artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) artesunate +sulfamethoxypyrazine/pyrimethamine (As+SMP), administered in doses used for malaria, to treat Schistosoma haematobium in school aged children. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:The study was conducted in Djalakorodji, a peri-urban area of Bamako, Mali, using a double blind setup in which As+SMP was compared with praziquantel (PZQ). Urine samples were examined for Schistosoma haematobium on days -1, 0, 28 and 29. Detection of haematuria, and haematological and biochemical exams were conducted on day 0 and day 28. Clinical exams were performed on days 0, 1, 2, and 28. A total of 800 children were included in the trial. The cure rate obtained without viability testing was 43.9% in the As+SMP group versus 53% in the PZQ group (Chi(2) = 6.44, p = 0.011). Egg reduction rates were 95.6% with PZQ in comparison with 92.8% with As+SMP, p = 0.096. The proportion of participants who experienced adverse events related to the medication was 0.5% (2/400) in As+SMP treated children compared to 2.3% (9/399) in the PZQ group (p = 0.033). Abdominal pain and vomiting were the most frequent adverse events in both treatment arms. All adverse events were categorized as mild. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:The study demonstrates that PZQ was more effective than As+SMP for treating Schistosoma haematobium. However, the safety and tolerability profile of As+SMP was similar to that seen with PZQ. Our findings suggest that further investigations seem justifiable to determine the dose/efficacy/safety pattern of As+SMP in the treatment of Schistosoma infections. TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00510159

Web-based monitoring tools for Resistive Plate Chambers in the CMS experiment at CERN

The Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) are used in the CMS experiment at the trigger level and also in the standard offline muon reconstruction. In order to guarantee the quality of the data collected and to monitor online the detector performance, a set of tools has been developed in CMS which is heavily used in the RPC system. The Web-based monitoring (WBM) is a set of java servlets that allows users to check the performance of the hardware during data taking, providing distributions and history plots of all the parameters. The functionalities of the RPC WBM monitoring tools are presented along with studies of the detector performance as a function of growing luminosity and environmental conditions that are tracked over time

Development and performance of Triple-GEM detectors for the upgrade of the muon system of the CMS experiment

The CMS Collaboration is evaluating GEM detectors for the upgrade of the muon system. This contribution will focus on the R&D performed on chambers design features and will discuss the performance of the upgraded detector

Radiation background with the CMS RPCs at the LHC

The Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) are employed in the CMS Experiment at the LHC as dedicated trigger system both in the barrel and in the endcap. This article presents results of the radiation background measurements performed with the 2011 and 2012 proton-proton collision data collected by CMS. Emphasis is given to the measurements of the background distribution inside the RPCs. The expected background rates during the future running of the LHC are estimated both from extrapolated measurements and from simulation

A novel application of Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors in MPGD

We present a novel application of Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors in the construction and characterisation of Micro Pattern Gaseous Detector (MPGD), with particular attention to the realisation of the largest triple (Gas electron Multiplier) GEM chambers so far operated, the GE1/1 chambers of the CMS experiment at LHC. The GE1/1 CMS project consists of 144 GEM chambers of about 0.5 m2 active area each, employing three GEM foils per chamber, to be installed in the forward region of the CMS endcap during the long shutdown of LHC in 2108-2019. The large active area of each GE1/1 chamber consists of GEM foils that are mechanically stretched in order to secure their flatness and the consequent uniform performance of the GE1/1 chamber across its whole active surface. So far FBGs have been used in high energy physics mainly as high precision positioning and re-positioning sensors and as low cost, easy to mount, low space consuming temperature sensors. FBGs are also commonly used for very precise strain measurements in material studies. In this work we present a novel use of FBGs as flatness and mechanical tensioning sensors applied to the wide GEM foils of the GE1/1 chambers. A network of FBG sensors have been used to determine the optimal mechanical tension applied and to characterise the mechanical tension that should be applied to the foils. We discuss the results of the test done on a full-sized GE1/1 final prototype, the studies done to fully characterise the GEM material, how this information was used to define a standard assembly procedure and possible future developments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, presented by Luigi Benussi at MPGD 2015 (Trieste, Italy). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1512.0848