Development of a CO2CO_2 cooling prototype for the CBM Silicon Tracking System

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) frequently occurs during childhood and adolescence with long-term neuropsychological and behavioral effects. Greater personal awareness of injury is associated with better outcomes. However, personal awareness is often assessed using ratings obtained from family members or significant others. Surprisingly, the accuracy of family-ratings compared with self-ratings has not been well studied in the TBI population. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine self versus family-ratings of frontal dysfunction and secondly, the association between self/family reported frontal dysfunction and measured executive function outcomes. A total of 60 participants, approximately 10 years post-TBI, comprised 3 groups including; moderate/severe TBI (N=26; mean age 22.9, SD=3.0), mild TBI (N=20; mean age, 21.7, SD=2.7), and control (N=14: mean age, 21.6, SD=3.7). Neuropsychological testing was used to obtain domain scores for executive function and working memory/attention for each participant, and nominated family members and participants with TBI were asked to complete the Frontal Systems Behaviour Scale (FrSBe), consisting of three sub-scales; apathy, disinhibition, and executive dysfunction. Using the FrSBe there was no significant difference between the groups in executive function score, but the moderate/severe and mild groups had significantly lower working memory/attention scores compared with the control group (p<0.05). Repeated measures analysis of variance showed higher self-ratings on all sub-scales compared with family in each group (p<0.05). Scores on executive function and working memory/attention domains correlated with self, but not family reported executive dysfunction. Self-rated executive dysfunction explained 36% of the variance in executive function (p<0.001). While agreement between self-rated and family-rated total FrSBe scores was significant in all groups (p<0.001), our results showed that self-ratings were of higher predictive utility for executive functioning compared with family ratings. Further, at 10 years post-TBI, patients show greater awareness of deficits compared with family who rate consistently closer to the normal functioning range

Challenges in QCD matter physics - The Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 (sqrt(s_NN) = 2.7 - 4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials (mu_B > 500 MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation-of-state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2022, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Published in European Physical Journal

Епідеміологічна характеристика гепатиту С, Епштейн-Барр вірусної інфекції та їх поєднаних форм у Полтавському регіоні

Сьогодні не піддається сумніву той факт, що реальна розповсюдженість інфекції, спричиненої вірусом гепатиту С (ВГС), значно перевищує дані офіційної статистики. Останніми роками доводять можливість посилення реплікації ВГС Епштейн-Барр вірусом (ЕБВ), виявляють особливості перебігу ВГС-інфекції при коінфікуванні ЕБВ, тому мікст-форми цих інфекцій активно вивчаються. Метою нашого дослідження було з’ясувати реальну поширеність інфекцій , спричинених ВГС, ЕБВ та їх поєднаних форм серед населення Полтавської області. Отримані дані свідчать про значну поширеність як ВГС, так і ЕБВ-інфекції, що обумовлює доцільність вивчення їх поєднаних форм з метою удосконалення лікувально-діагностичної тактики

A Custom Probe Station for Microstrip Detector Quality Assurance of the CBM Experiment

The double-sided silicon microstrip sensors with 58µm pitch are the main building blocks of the Silicon Tracking System (STS) — the central detector of the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) Experiment. The STS will employ about 1200 such sensors arranged on eight traking stations. Electrical characterization of the sensors is necessary to ensure their compliance with the specifications. For this purpuse a custom probe station is being developed at Tuebingen University. One of the main requirements is a high accuracy and a repeatability better than 1 µm to allow an automatic, succesive positioning on all 1024 pads of a sensor, as well as a positioning range in accordance with the size of STS sensors. The probe station is controlled via dedicated software developed at Tuebingen University. It allows to inspect the required ~10% of the sensors on the series production stage with characterization time 4-5 hours per one double-sided sensor. The construction of the probe station and first measurements are discussed in this paper

Production cross section of Λ- and Λ-hyperons in proton-nucleus interactions at 920 GeV on carbon, titanium and tungsten targets

Inclusive cross section for the production of Λ - and Λ -hyperons in proton-nucleus interactions at 920 GeV on carbon, titanium and tungsten targets are investigated. Differential cross sections as a function of Feynman-x ( F x ) and transverse momentum square ( 2 t p ) were studied. The atomic mass number (A) dependence of total production cross sections in negative F x region ( 0,12 0 F − << x ) are presented