Radiation Hardness Studies in a CCD with High-Speed Column Parallel Readout

Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) have been successfully used in several high energy physics experiments over the past two decades. Their high spatial resolution and thin sensitive layers make them an excellent tool for studying short-lived particles. The Linear Collider Flavour Identification (LCFI) collaboration is developing Column-Parallel CCDs (CPCCDs) for the vertex detector of the International Linear Collider (ILC). The CPCCDs can be read out many times faster than standard CCDs, significantly increasing their operating speed. The results of detailed simulations of the charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) of a prototype CPCCD are reported and studies of the influence of gate voltage on the CTI described. The effects of bulk radiation damage on the CTI of a CPCCD are studied by simulating the effects of two electron trap levels, 0.17 and 0.44 eV, at different concentrations and operating temperatures. The dependence of the CTI on different occupancy levels (percentage of hit pixels) and readout frequencies is also studied. The optimal operating temperature for the CPCCD, where the effects of the charge trapping are at a minimum, is found to be about 230 K for the range of readout speeds proposed for the ILC. The results of the full simulation have been compared with a simple analytic model.Comment: 3 pages, 6 figures; presented at IEEE'07, ALCPG'07, ICATPP'0

Evaluation of a communication skills program for first-year medical students at the University of Toronto

Abstract Background Effective doctor-patient communication has been linked to numerous benefits for both patient and physician. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the University of Toronto's Therapeutic Communication Program (TCom) at improving first-year medical students' communication skills. Methods Data were collected during the 1996/97, 1997/98, 1998/99 and 1999/00 academic years. The study used a repeated measures design with a waiting list control group: students were randomly assigned to groups starting the educational intervention in either September (N = 38) or February (N = 41), with the latter being used as a control for the former. Communication skills were assessed at the pre- and post-intervention times and at the end of the academic year from the perspectives of student, standardized patient and external rater. Results Only the external rater, using an instrument designed to assess the students' empathy based on their written responses, showed a time × group interaction effect (p = 0.039), thereby partially supporting the hypothesis that TCom improved the students' communication skills. Students rated themselves less positively after participation in the program (p = 0.038), suggesting that self-evaluation was an ineffective measure of actual performance or that the program helped them learn to more accurately assess their abilities. Conclusion The lack of strong findings may be partly due to the study's small sample sizes. Further research at other medical or professional schools could assess the effectiveness of similar courses on students' communication skills and on other capacities that were not measured in this study, such as their understanding of and comfort with patients, their management of the doctor-patient relationship, and their ability to give and receive feedback

Elastic scattering and fusion of 9Be+208Pb: Density function dependence of the double folding renormalization

Elastic scattering angular distributions of the weakly bound 9Be projectile from 208Pb have been measured for 11 beam energies ranging from 38 to 75 MeV . Analysis was carried out with the optical model, employing a double folded microscopic real potential with four different 9Be density functions. The surface strengths of the interaction potentials were consistent and all exhibited a threshold anomaly. However, the renormalization factor required to obtain an optimum fit to the data varied significantly depending upon which 9Be density function was used, cautioning that conclusions about the effect of breakup should not be based solely upon the value of this factor. Fusion cross sections predicted from these potentials were extracted using a barrier penetration model. Comparison with recently published experimental data suggests that the flux removed from complete fusion by breakup is balanced by the flux redirected into the partial fusion channel

A multi-instrument study of flux transfer event structure

We present simultaneous measurements at high temporal resolution of flux transfer events (FTEs) earthward of the magnetopause using four instruments on the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers (AMPTE) UKS spacecraft. The seven events in our study are distributed in local time from early dawn to midafternoon over a GSM latitude range of ∼40°, from 24°N to 17°S. A multilayered structure is revealed with systematic behavior in fields and charged particle populations. The plasma pressure varies in anticorrelation with the field pressure, the total pressure in general exceeding that of the surrounding medium. While it is not the prime concern of this paper to discuss the validity of models proposed for FTEs, the new, detailed experimental results it contains make it clear that the Russell-Elphic [1978] model needs, at the very least, more detailed development