Barriers for the reduction of transport due to the EXB drift in magnetized plasmas

We consider a 1 1/2degrees of freedom Hamiltonian dynamical system, which models the chaotic dynamics of charged test-particles in a turbulent electric field, across the confining magnetic field in controlled thermonuclear fusion devices. The external electric field E = \nabla\bigvee is modeled by a phenomenological potential V and the magnetic field B is considered uniform. It is shown that, by introducing a small additive control term to the external electric field, it is possible to create a transport barrier for this dynamical system. The robustness of this control method is also investigated. This theoretical study indicates that alternative transport barriers can be triggered without requiring a control action on the device scale as in present Internal Transport Barriers (ITB).Comment: 1

ORB5: a global electromagnetic gyrokinetic code using the PIC approach in toroidal geometry

This paper presents the current state of the global gyrokinetic code ORB5 as an update of the previous reference [Jolliet et al., Comp. Phys. Commun. 177 409 (2007)]. The ORB5 code solves the electromagnetic Vlasov-Maxwell system of equations using a PIC scheme and also includes collisions and strong flows. The code assumes multiple gyrokinetic ion species at all wavelengths for the polarization density and drift-kinetic electrons. Variants of the physical model can be selected for electrons such as assuming an adiabatic response or a ``hybrid'' model in which passing electrons are assumed adiabatic and trapped electrons are drift-kinetic. A Fourier filter as well as various control variates and noise reduction techniques enable simulations with good signal-to-noise ratios at a limited numerical cost. They are completed with different momentum and zonal flow-conserving heat sources allowing for temperature-gradient and flux-driven simulations. The code, which runs on both CPUs and GPUs, is well benchmarked against other similar codes and analytical predictions, and shows good scalability up to thousands of nodes

Global turbulence features across marginality and non-local pedestal-core interactions

Spatially non-local aspects of turbulent transport in tokamak plasmas are examined with global gyrokinetic simulations using the ORB5 code. Inspired by very accurate measurements in the TCV tokamak in L-mode, we initialise plasma profiles with constant logarithmic gradients in the core and constant linear gradients in the 'pedestal' ($\rho \in [0.8,\,1]$). The main finding is that transport in the core is strongly affected by the presence of pedestal gradients. This non-local pedestal-core coupling appears to be correlated with the appearance of repetitive avalanches that propagate across both pedestal and core regions. Below a certain threshold value in pedestal gradient, no well-defined frequency is found for avalanches. Above this threshold, a well-defined frequency shows up, which roughly matches that of the local geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) frequency near the plasma edge and is thus well below the local GAM frequency in the core: this behaviour is very similar to the global coherent mode structure observed in TCV. Above this threshold in pedestal gradient, the core transport increases sharply: there is therefore a non-locality in marginality. The probability density functions (PDFs) of density, temperature, temperature gradient and potential are found to have nearly Gaussian distributions, whereas the heat flux can have, in the presence of avalanches, a more or less strongly positively skewed PDF, which could be fitted by a log-normal distribution. The skewness of the heat flux is found to be radially and non-locally dependent: its value in the plasma core critically depends on the presence of gradients in the pedestal. The relation flux versus gradient is examined in detail. The local instantaneous flux versus gradient relation shows a hysteresis behaviour during an avalanche but no clear correlation, unlike the flux and zonal flow (ZF) shearing rate, which are anti-correlated: flux is higher when shearing rate is lower. This leads to corrugated time-averaged radial profiles of transport, heat and temperature gradient, with heat diffusivity having local maxima where the ZF shearing rate goes to zero and temperature gradient has local minima. Finally, we show how the flux versus gradient relation can be analysed locally for series of simulations with different averaged gradients

Thyroid cancer risk in Belarus among children and adolescents exposed to radioiodine after the Chornobyl accident

BACKGROUND: Previous studies showed an increased risk of thyroid cancer among children and adolescents exposed to radioactive iodines released after the Chornobyl (Chernobyl) accident, but the effects of screening, iodine deficiency, age at exposure and other factors on the dose-response are poorly understood. METHODS: We screened 11 970 individuals in Belarus aged 18 years or younger at the time of the accident who had estimated (131)I thyroid doses based on individual thyroid activity measurements and dosimetric data from questionnaires. The excess odds ratio per gray (EOR/Gy) was modelled using linear and linear-exponential functions. RESULTS: For thyroid doses \u3c5 \u3eGy, the dose-response was linear (n=85; EOR/Gy=2.15, 95% confidence interval: 0.81-5.47), but at higher doses the excess risk fell. The EOR/Gy was significantly increased among those with prior or screening-detected diffuse goiter, and larger for men than women, and for persons exposed before age 5 than those exposed between 5 and 18 years, although not statistically significant. A somewhat higher EOR/Gy was estimated for validated pre-screening cases. CONCLUSION: 10-15 years after the Chornobyl accident, thyroid cancer risk was significantly increased among individuals exposed to fallout as children or adolescents, but the risk appeared to be lower than in other Chornobyl studies and studies of childhood external irradiation

Gene rearrangement and Chernobyl related thyroid cancers

The increase in thyroid carcinoma post-Chernobyl has been largely confined to a specific subtype of papillary carcinoma (solid/follicular). This subtype is observed predominantly in children under 10 in unirradiated populations, but maintains a high frequency in those aged 10–15 from those areas exposed to fallout from the Chernobyl accident. The aim of this study was to link morphology with molecular biology. We examined 106 papillary carcinomas from children under the age of 15 at operation. All were examined for rearrangements of the RET oncogene by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR); a subset of these cases were also examined for mutations of the three ras oncogenes, exon 10 of the thyroid stimulating hormone receptor, associated more usually with a follicular rather than papillary morphology, and exons 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the p53 gene, commonly involved in undifferentiated thyroid carcinoma. Rearrangements of the RET oncogene were found in 44% of papillary carcinomas in which we studied fresh material; none of the tumours examined showed mutation in any of the other genes. The two rearrangements resulting from inversion of part of chromosome 10 (PTC1 and PTC3) accounted for the majority of RET rearrangements identified, with PTC1 being associated with papillary carcinomas of the classic and diffuse sclerosing variants and PTC3 with the solid/follicular variant. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Absence of a specific radiation signature in post-Chernobyl thyroid cancers

Thyroid cancers have been the main medical consequence of the Chernobyl accident. On the basis of their pathological features and of the fact that a large proportion of them demonstrate RET-PTC translocations, these cancers are considered as similar to classical sporadic papillary carcinomas, although molecular alterations differ between both tumours. We analysed gene expression in post-Chernobyl cancers, sporadic papillary carcinomas and compared to autonomous adenomas used as controls. Unsupervised clustering of these data did not distinguish between the cancers, but separates both cancers from adenomas. No gene signature separating sporadic from post-Chernobyl PTC (chPTC) could be found using supervised and unsupervised classification methods although such a signature is demonstrated for cancers and adenomas. Furthermore, we demonstrate that pooled RNA from sporadic and chPTC are as strongly correlated as two independent sporadic PTC pools, one from Europe, one from the US involving patients not exposed to Chernobyl radiations. This result relies on cDNA and Affymetrix microarrays. Thus, platform-specific artifacts are controlled for. Our findings suggest the absence of a radiation fingerprint in the chPTC and support the concept that post-Chernobyl cancer data, for which the cancer-causing event and its date are known, are a unique source of information to study naturally occurring papillary carcinomas

BRAFV600E mutation is highly prevalent in thyroid carcinomas in the young population in Fukushima: a different oncogenic profile from Chernobyl

After the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the thyroid ultrasound screening program for children aged 0-18 at the time of the accident was started from October 2011. The prevalence of thyroid carcinomas in that population has appeared to be very high (84 cases per 296,253). To clarify the pathogenesis, we investigated the presence of driver mutations in these tumours. 61 classic papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTCs), two follicular variant PTCs, four cribriform-morular variant PTCs and one poorly-differentiated thyroid carcinoma were analysed. We detected BRAF V600E in 43 cases (63.2%), RET/PTC1 in six (8.8%), RET/PTC3 in one (1.5%) and ETV6/NTRK3 in four (5.9%). Among classic and follicular variant PTCs, BRAF V600E was significantly associated with the smaller size. The genetic pattern was completely different from post-Chernobyl PTCs, suggesting non-radiogenic etiology of these cancers. This is the first study demonstrating the oncogene profile in the thyroid cancers discovered by large mass screening, which probably reflects genetic status of all sporadic and latent tumours in the young Japanese population. It is assumed that BRAF V600E may not confer growth advantage on paediatric PTCs, and many of these cases grow slowly, suggesting that additional factors may be important for tumour progression in paediatric PTCs