An ultra-light cylindrical GEM detector as inner tracker at KLOE-2

Abstract We are developing a low-mass, fully cylindrical and dead-zone-free GEM detector as inner tracker for the KLOE experiment upgrade at the DA Φ NE Φ factory. The inner tracker will be composed of five concentric layers of cylindrical triple-GEM detectors (C-GEM), completely realized with very thin polyimide foils. The final result is a very light detector: only 0.2% of X 0 per layer inside the active area. We successfully built and tested with an X-ray gun a small-size prototype operated in current mode with an Ar/CO 2 = 70 / 30 gas mixture. The very positive results obtained with the prototype open the way for a completely new and competitive category of ultra-light fully sensitive vertex detectors for high-energy physics experiments

Physically impossible?

Halfway between the experiment and the focus group, between the quiz and a game, we have experienced a new format to "focus" on sustainability and the fundamental laws of thermodynamics and its principles. Concepts as reversibility, efficiency and entropy, are then "visualized" by the participants, showing the relations with the economic value, waste, the energetics budget and raw material costs are explained from a different point of view, proving the physical limits to the economic growth and the environmental exploitation

Preliminary results of an aging test of RPC chambers for the LHCb Muon System

The preliminary results of an aging test performed at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility on a single--gap RPC prototype developed for the LHCb Muon System are presented. The results are based on an accumulated charge density of 0.42 C/cm^2, corresponding to about 4 years of LHCb running at the highest background rate. We observe a rise in the dark current and noise measured with source off. The current drawn with source on steadily decreased, possibly indicating an increase of resistivity of the chamber plates. The performance of the chamber, studied with a muon beam under several photon flux values, is found to still fulfill the LHCb operation requirements.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, presented at RPC2001, VIth Workshop on Resistive Plate Chambers and Related Detectors, November 26-27 2001, Coimbra, Portuga

First results from an aging test of a prototype RPC for the LHCb Muon System

Recent results of an aging test performed at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility on a single--gap RPC prototype developed for the LHCb Muon System are presented. The results are based on an accumulated charge of about 0.45 C/cm$^2$, corresponding to about 4 years of LHCb running at the highest background rate. The performance of the chamber has been studied under several photon flux values exploiting a muon beam. A degradation of the rate capability above 1 kHz/cm$^2$ is observed, which can be correlated to a sizeable increase of resistivity of the chamber plates. An increase of the chamber dark current is also observed. The chamber performance is found to fulfill the LHCb operation requirements.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, presented at the International Workshop on Aging Phenomena in Gaseous Detectors'', DESY-Hamburg (Germany), October 200

Ultrasound delivery of Surface Enhanced InfraRed Absorption active gold-nanoprobes into fibroblast cells: a biological study via Synchrotron-based InfraRed microanalysis at single cell level

Ultrasound (US) induced transient membrane permeabilisation has emerged as a hugely promising tool for the delivery of exogenous vectors through the cytoplasmic membrane, paving the way to the design of novel anticancer strategies by targeting functional nanomaterials to specific biological sites. An essential step towards this end is the detailed recognition of suitably marked nanoparticles in sonoporated cells and the investigation of the potential related biological effects. By taking advantage of Synchrotron Radiation fourier transform infrared micro-spectroscopy (SR-microftiR) in providing highly sensitive analysis at the single cell level, we studied the internalisation of a nanoprobe within fibroblasts (NIH-3T3) promoted by low-intensity US. To this aim we employed 20 nm gold nanoparticles conjugated with the IR marker 4-aminothiophenol. The significant Surface Enhanced Infrared Absorption provided by the nanoprobes, with an absorbance increase up to two orders of magnitude, allowed us to efficiently recognise their inclusion within cells. Notably, the selective and stable SR- microftiR detection from single cells that have internalised the nanoprobe exhibited clear changes in both shape and intensity of the spectral profile, highlighting the occurrence of biological effects. Flow cytometry, immunofluorescence and murine cytokinesis-block micronucleus assays confirmed the presence of slight but significant cytotoxic and genotoxic events associated with the US-nanoprobe combined treatments. our results can provide novel hints towards US and nanomedicine combined strategies for cell spectral imaging as well as drug delivery-based therapies

New results from an extensive aging test on bakelite Resistive Plate Chambers

We present recent results of an extensive aging test, performed at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility on two single--gap RPC prototypes, developed for the LHCb Muon System. With a method based on a model describing the behaviour of an RPC under high particle flux conditions, we have periodically measured the electrode resistance R of the two RPC prototypes over three years: we observe a large spontaneous increase of R with time, from the initial value of about 2 MOhm to more than 250 MOhm. A corresponding degradation of the RPC rate capabilities, from more than 3 kHz/cm2 to less than 0.15 kHz/cm2 is also found.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, presented at Siena 2002, 8th Topical Seminar on Innovative Particle and Radiation Detectors 21-24 October 2002, Siena, Ital

Assembling patchy plasmonic nanoparticles with aggregation-dependent antibacterial activity

We realise an antibacterial nanomaterial based on the self-limited assembly of patchy plasmonic colloids, obtained by adsorption of lysozyme to gold nanoparticles. The possibility of selecting the size of the assemblies within several hundred nanometres allows for tuning their optical response in a wide range of frequencies from visible to near infrared. We also demonstrate an aggregation-dependent modulation of the catalytic activity, which results in an enhancement of the antibacterial performances for assemblies of the proper size. The gained overall control on structure, optical properties and biological activity of such nanomaterial paves the way for the development of novel antibacterial nanozymes with promising applications in treating multi drug resistant bacteria

Dysfunction of the magnocellular stream in Alzheimer's disease evaluated by pattern electroretinograms and visual evoked potentials

Background: Visuo-spatial disturbances could represent a clinical feature of early stage Alzheimer's disease (AD). The magnocellular (M) pathway has anatomo-physiological characteristic which make it more suitable for detecting form, motion and depth compared with parvocellular one (P). Objective: Aim of our study was to evaluate specific visual subsystem involvement in a group of AD patients, recording isoluminant chromatic and luminance pattern electroretinograms and pattern visual evoked potentials. Material and methods: data were obtained from 15 AD patients (9 females and 6 males, mean age \ub1 1SD: 77.6 \ub1 4.01 years) not yet undergoing any treatment, and from 10 age-matched healthy controls. Diagnosis of probable AD was clinically and neuroradiologically established. PERGs were recorded monocularly in response to equiluminant red-green (R-G), blue-yellow (B-Y) and luminance yellow-black (Y-Bk) horizontal square gratings of 0.3. c/deg and 90% contrast, reversed at 1. Hz. VEPs were recorded in response to full-field (14 deg) equiluminant chromatic R-G, B-Y and luminance Y-Bk sinusoidal gratings of 2. c/deg, presented in onset (300. ms)-offset (700. ms) mode, at the contrast levels of 90%. Results: All data were retrieved in terms of peak-amplitude and latency and assessed using the Student's t-test for paired data. Temporal differences of PERGs and VEPs, evoked by Y-Bk grating in AD patients compared with controls, suggest a specific impairment of the magnocellular stream. Conclusions: Our study support the hypothesis that the impairment of the PERGs and VEPs arising from the magnocellular streams of visual processing may indicate a primary dysfunction of the M-pathways in AD

High-resolution tracking in a GEM-Emulsion detector

SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) is a beam dump experiment proposed at the CERN SPS aiming at the observation of long lived particles very weakly coupled with ordinary matter mostly produced in the decay of charmed hadrons. The beam dump facility of SHiP is also a copious factory of neutrinos of all three kinds and therefore a dedicated neutrino detector is foreseen in the SHiP apparatus. The neutrino detector exploits the Emulsion Cloud Chamber technique with a modular structure, alternating walls of target units and planes of electronic detectors providing the time stamp to the event. GEM detectors are one of the possible choices for this task. This paper reports the results of the first exposure to a muon beam at CERN of a new hybrid chamber, obtained by coupling a GEM chamber and an emulsion detector. Thanks to the micrometric accuracy of the emulsion detector, the position resolution of the GEM chamber as a function of the particle inclination was evaluated in two configurations, with and without the magnetic fiel