Acoustic effectiveness of pulpit reflector in churches

Since the 12th century, pulpits and pulpit reflectors (canopies) were widely used in churches. This paper studies the acoustic effectiveness of such devices based on in site measurements (STI and D50) in four (unoccupied) churches with pulpits with and without the canopy. The pulpit reflector can remove the late reflection resulting from a high ceiling and makes possible to improve the listening conditions at medium distance from the pulpit. The pulpit reflector effectiveness decreases and becomes even unfavourable when the height of the ceiling drops (h < 10 m) and when the distance to the speaker increases. The absolute variations of speech intelligibility ratings are generally rather weak (average STI variation from +0.01 to -0.03), but can increase in the presence of an assembly

Jules Horowitz Reactor Operation Plan 2040 – JHOP2040

JHOP2040 project will deliver a European level strategy addressing resourcing, financing and organisational factors for the most effective way of utilising the Euratom access rights to the forthcoming Jules Horowitz Material Test Reactor (JHR). JHOP2040 is being carried out by a consortium gathering ten partners representing the European partners involved in building the JHR. The project includes an International Scientific Advisory Group and Support Group consisting of external experts in research facility operations, non-European JHR consortium members as well as representatives from Euratom members states, which are not partners in the JHR consortium

An upper limit to the photon fraction in cosmic rays above 10^19 eV from the Pierre Auger Observatory

An upper limit of 16% (at 95% c.l.) is derived for the photon fraction in cosmic rays with energies above 10^19 eV, based on observations of the depth of shower maximum performed with the hybrid detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory. This is the first such limit on photons obtained by observing the fluorescence light profile of air showers. This upper limit confirms and improves on previous results from the Haverah Park and AGASA surface arrays. Additional data recorded with the Auger surface detectors for a subset of the event sample, support the conclusion that a photon origin of the observed events is not favoured

The effect of the geomagnetic field on cosmic ray energy estimates and large scale anisotropy searches on data from the Pierre Auger Observatory

We present a comprehensive study of the influence of the geomagnetic field on the energy estimation of extensive air showers with a zenith angle smaller than $60^\circ$, detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory. The geomagnetic field induces an azimuthal modulation of the estimated energy of cosmic rays up to the ~2% level at large zenith angles. We present a method to account for this modulation of the reconstructed energy. We analyse the effect of the modulation on large scale anisotropy searches in the arrival direction distributions of cosmic rays. At a given energy, the geomagnetic effect is shown to induce a pseudo-dipolar pattern at the percent level in the declination distribution that needs to be accounted for.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figure

Production of He-4 and (4) in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV at the LHC

Results on the production of He-4 and (4) nuclei in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S = 2.76 TeV in the rapidity range vertical bar y vertical bar <1, using the ALICE detector, are presented in this paper. The rapidity densities corresponding to 0-10% central events are found to be dN/dy4(He) = (0.8 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.3 (syst)) x 10(-6) and dN/dy4 = (1.1 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.2 (syst)) x 10(-6), respectively. This is in agreement with the statistical thermal model expectation assuming the same chemical freeze-out temperature (T-chem = 156 MeV) as for light hadrons. The measured ratio of (4)/He-4 is 1.4 +/- 0.8 (stat) +/- 0.5 (syst). (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe