First Results from the HDMS experiment in the Final Setup

The Heidelberg Dark Matter Search (HDMS) is an experiment designed for the search for WIMP dark matter. It is using a special configuration of Ge detectors, to efficiently reduce the background in the low-energy region below 100 keV. After one year of running the HDMS detector prototype in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory, the inner crystal of the detector has been replaced with a HPGe crystal of enriched $^{73}$Ge. The final setup started data taking in Gran Sasso in August 2000. The performance and the first results of the measurement with the final setup are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, revtex, 7 figures, Home Page of Heidelberg Non-Accelerator Particle Physics Group: http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/non_acc

Cleaning up the stack: Evaluating a clean cooking fuel stacking intervention in urban Kenya

There are a growing number of market-based providers of clean cooking solutions in sub-Saharan Africa that rely on use customer fuel sales to subsidise upfront cost of equipment. These business models can widen access to clean cooking but are undermined by the continued use of polluting fuels, known as “fuel stacking”, which limits provider revenues whilst perpetuating the negative impacts of cooking with traditional fuels. This study aimed to design and test a fuel stacking intervention with commercial pay-as-you-go LPG customers in Kisumu, Kenya. It consisted of three main phases: developing and testing a survey tool for diagnosing drivers of stacking (n = 99); using an intervention design framework (the Behaviour Change Wheel) to design an intervention consisting of the bundled provision of a pressure cooker, chapati pan and training; and testing the intervention in a small (n = 19) pre-post study. There was high uptake of the intervention, with the pans being used by all participants on roughly two-fifths of days. Target foods were cooked more frequently on LPG in the intervention phase, resulting in a significant increase in PAYG LPG use and an insignificant decrease in charcoal use. A third of participants stopped cooking with charcoal altogether, but some residual charcoal usage continued amongst the remainder. The results show that targeted stacking interventions can simultaneously promote sustained use of clean fuels and dis-adoption of polluting ones, resulting in commercial gains for clean cooking fuel providers. This could address the wicked problem of fuel stacking and accelerate progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 7

Critical sets of nonlinear Sturm-Liouville operators of Ambrosetti-Prodi type

The critical set C of the operator F:H^2_D([0,pi]) -> L^2([0,pi]) defined by F(u)=-u''+f(u) is studied. Here X:=H^2_D([0,pi]) stands for the set of functions that satisfy the Dirichlet boundary conditions and whose derivatives are in L^2([0,pi]). For generic nonlinearities f, C=\cup C_k decomposes into manifolds of codimension 1 in X. If f''0, the set C_j is shown to be non-empty if, and only if, -j^2 (the j-th eigenvalue of u -> u'') is in the range of f'. The critical components C_k are (topological) hyperplanes.Comment: 6 pages, no figure

Mense e personale addetto alle cucine: valutazione dei rischi occupazionali

The aim of the study is to evaluate the occupational risks among food service workers and cooks. During the occupational risks assessment the following risk factors must be evaluated: musculoskeletal disorders, chemical risk (cleaning kitchen work surface, dishes, utensils ecc.) biological risk (contact with foods or biological agents) cancerogenic risk (by baking smoke inhalation), and psycho-social stress. In this study the preventive measures and protective equipment to prevent health hazards for these workers have been evaluated (i.e. aspiration hood, adapted ventilation, chosen of less harmful methods of baking, ecc.). In particular the performance of rigid behavioural norms and hygienic procedures is very important for cooks and food service workers to reduce the risk of occupational infections

Development of a Li2MoO4 scintillating bolometer for low background physics

We present the performance of a 33 g Li2MoO4 crystal working as a scintillating bolometer. The crystal was tested for more than 400 h in a dilution refrigerator installed in the underground laboratory of Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (Italy). This compound shows promising features in the frame of neutron detection, dark matter search (solar axions) and neutrinoless double-beta decay physics. Low temperature scintillating properties were investigated by means of different alpha, beta/gamma and neutron sources, and for the first time the Light Yield for different types of interacting particle is estimated. The detector shows great ability of tagging fast neutron interactions and high intrinsic radiopurity levels (< 90 \muBq/kg for 238-U and < 110 \muBq/kg for 232-Th).Comment: revised versio

Highly sensitive gamma-spectrometers of GERDA for material screening: Part I

The GERDA experiment aims to search for the neutrinoless double beta-decay of 76Ge and possibly for other rare processes. The sensitivity of the first phase is envisioned to be more than one order of magnitude better than in previous neutrinoless double beta-decay experiments. This implies that materials with ultra-low radioactive contamination need to be used for the construction of the detector and its shielding. Therefore the requirements on material screening include high-sensitivity low-background detection techniques and long measurement times. In this article, an overview of material-screening laboratories available to the GERDA collaboration is given, with emphasis on the gamma-spectrometry. Additionally, results of an intercomparison of the evaluation accuracy in these laboratories are presented.Comment: Featured in: Proceedings of the XIV International Baksan School "Particles and Cosmology" Baksan Valley, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, April 16-21,2007. INR RAS, Moscow 2008. ISBN 978-5-94274-055-9, pp. 228-232; (5 pages, 0 figures

Analysing the Outcomes of the Forestry Sector on the Sustainable Development Goals for Rural Communities: A Case Study of Cabrero, Chile

The forestry sector will play a key role in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The forestry sector is a pillar of many countries’ economies, including Chile. Despite the many economic benefits of the sector for the country, its contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is not clear, especially for rural communities that co-exist with the sector. This study therefore aimed to identify the impacts of the sector on the sustainable development of rural communities in a Chilean commune, Cabrero, and link these impacts to the SDGs. Based on a mixed-method approach that considers key stakeholders perspectives, the paper finds that the forestry sector has multiple and complex impacts on sustainable development, with both positive and negatives outcomes for rural communities, generating synergies and trade-offs with all of the 17 SDGs. It concludes that while companies play a key role in delivering the 2030 Agenda, the achievement of the SDGs will require collaboration amongst people, government and the private sector to understand and support the delivery of a forestry sector that contributes to the sustainable development of communities in Cabrero and, more generally, in Chile

Reducing the impact of radioactivity on quantum circuits in a deep-underground facility

As quantum coherence times of superconducting circuits have increased from nanoseconds to hundreds of microseconds, they are currently one of the leading platforms for quantum information processing. However, coherence needs to further improve by orders of magnitude to reduce the prohibitive hardware overhead of current error correction schemes. Reaching this goal hinges on reducing the density of broken Cooper pairs, so-called quasiparticles. Here, we show that environmental radioactivity is a significant source of nonequilibrium quasiparticles. Moreover, ionizing radiation introduces time-correlated quasiparticle bursts in resonators on the same chip, further complicating quantum error correction. Operating in a deep-underground lead-shielded cryostat decreases the quasiparticle burst rate by a factor fifty and reduces dissipation up to a factor four, showcasing the importance of radiation abatement in future solid-state quantum hardware