Design and Performance of the mDOM Mainboard for the IceCube Upgrade

About 400 mDOMs (multi-PMT Digital Optical Modules) will be deployed as part of the IceCube Upgrade Project. The mDOM’s high pressure-resistant glass sphere houses 24 PMTs, 3 cameras, 10 flasher LEDs and various sensors. The mDOM mainboard design was challenging due to the limited available volume and demanding engineering requirements, like the maximum overall power consumption, a minimum trigger threshold of 0.2 photoelectrons (PE), the dynamic range and the linearity requirements. Another challenge was the FPGA firmware design, dealing with about 35 Gbit/s of continuous ADC data from the digitization of the 24 PMT channels, the control of a high speed dynamic buffer and the discriminator output sampling rate of about 1GSPS. High-speed sampling of each of the discriminator outputs at ~1 GSPS improves the leading-edge time resolution for the PMT waveforms. An MCU (microcontroller unit) coordinates the data taking, the data exchange with the surface and the sensor readout. Both the FPGA firmware and MCU software can be updated remotely. After discussing the main hardware blocks and the analog frontend (AFE) design, test results will be shown, covering especially the AFE performance. Additionally, the functionality of various sensors and modules will be evaluated

A socio-economic characterization of Tuscan Archipelago’s artisanal fisheries: Status quo, challenges and new business opportunities

14 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, supplementary material https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsma.2023.103275.-- Data Availability: Data will be made available on requestArtisanal fisheries in the Mediterranean are suffering from a decades-long crisis, and urgent interventions are needed to reverse this trend. Despite the increasingly recognized importance of the human dimension of fisheries, socio-economic data on Mediterranean artisanal fisheries are lacking. To address this shortage, this paper offers a socio-economic snapshot of artisanal fisheries operating in the Tuscan Archipelago (GSA 9). Information was collected through semi-structured interviews based on an opportunistic + snowball sampling strategy, with questionnaires reviewed by a panel of 10 experts following the Delphi technique. Information was gathered on fishers, fishing activities, gears, seasonality, catches of alien and thermophilic species, commercial destination of the catch and fishers’ opinions on the main challenges and opportunities in the sector. The results show an artisanal fishing sector facing severe crisis, reduced catches, conflicts with the recreational sector, scarce renewal of both human and technical capital, as well as a general reluctance to explore new business pathways. Yet, many fishers recognized the need for change and showed some early attempts to diversify their sea-related income sources. However, a high discrepancy was observed between the desire and the actual implementation of strategies to strengthen livelihoods and diversify. Efforts are needed to remove the obstacles that prevent the amelioration of artisanal fishers’ businesses and the exploration of new opportunities for managing, protecting and adequately valorizing local marine resources. This goal could be achieved through the establishment of synergies between the fishing and tourism sectors, if the socio-ecological sustainability of artisanal fisheries is sought, both in the Tuscan Archipelago and at other sitesThis study has received financial support from the FutureMARES project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 869300With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S)Peer reviewe