First Beam Commissioning of the 400 MHz LHC RF System

Hardware commissioning of the LHC RF system was successfully completed in time for first beams in LHC in September 2008. All cavities ware conditioned to nominal field, power systems tested and all Low level synchronization systems, cavity controllers and beam control electronics were tested and calibrated. Beam was successfully captured in ring 2, cavities phased, and a number of initial measurements made. These results are presented and tests and preparation for colliding beams in 2009 are outlined

Emerging Infectious Disease leads to Rapid Population Decline of Common British Birds

Emerging infectious diseases are increasingly cited as threats to wildlife, livestock and humans alike. They can threaten geographically isolated or critically endangered wildlife populations; however, relatively few studies have clearly demonstrated the extent to which emerging diseases can impact populations of common wildlife species. Here, we report the impact of an emerging protozoal disease on British populations of greenfinch Carduelis chloris and chaffinch Fringilla coelebs, two of the most common birds in Britain. Morphological and molecular analyses showed this to be due to Trichomonas gallinae. Trichomonosis emerged as a novel fatal disease of finches in Britain in 2005 and rapidly became epidemic within greenfinch, and to a lesser extent chaffinch, populations in 2006. By 2007, breeding populations of greenfinches and chaffinches in the geographic region of highest disease incidence had decreased by 35% and 21% respectively, representing mortality in excess of half a million birds. In contrast, declines were less pronounced or absent in these species in regions where the disease was found in intermediate or low incidence. Also, populations of dunnock Prunella modularis, which similarly feeds in gardens, but in which T. gallinae was rarely recorded, did not decline. This is the first trichomonosis epidemic reported in the scientific literature to negatively impact populations of free-ranging non-columbiform species, and such levels of mortality and decline due to an emerging infectious disease are unprecedented in British wild bird populations. This disease emergence event demonstrates the potential for a protozoan parasite to jump avian host taxonomic groups with dramatic effect over a short time period

Copper (I) selenocyanate (CuSeCN) as a novel hole-transport layer for transistors, organic solar cells, and light-emitting diodes

The synthesis and characterization of copper (I) selenocyanate (CuSeCN) and its application as a solution-processable hole-transport layer (HTL) material in transistors, organic light-emitting diodes, and solar cells are reported. Density-functional theory calculations combined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are used to elucidate the electronic band structure, density of states, and microstructure of CuSeCN. Solution-processed layers are found to be nanocrystalline and optically transparent ( > 94%), due to the large bandgap of ≥3.1 eV, with a valence band maximum located at -5.1 eV. Hole-transport analysis performed using field-effect measurements confirms the p-type character of CuSeCN yielding a hole mobility of 0.002 cm 2 V -1 s -1 . When CuSeCN is incorporated as the HTL material in organic light-emitting diodes and organic solar cells, the resulting devices exhibit comparable or improved performance to control devices based on commercially available poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate as the HTL. This is the first report on the semiconducting character of CuSeCN and it highlights the tremendous potential for further developments in the area of metal pseudohalides

Nitrogen and Carbon Isotopic Dynamics of Subarctic Soils and Plants in Southern Yukon Territory and its Implications for Paleoecological and Paleodietary Studies

We examine here the carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions of bulk soils (8 topsoil and 7 subsoils, including two soil profiles) and five different plant parts of 79 C3 plants from two main functional groups: herbs and shrubs/subshrubs, from 18 different locations in grasslands of southern Yukon Territory, Canada (eastern shoreline of Kluane Lake and Whitehorse area). The Kluane Lake region in particular has been identified previously as an analogue for Late Pleistocene eastern Beringia. All topsoils have higher average total nitrogen δ15N and organic carbon δ13C than plants from the same sites with a positive shift occurring with depth in two soil profiles analyzed. All plants analyzed have an average whole plant δ13C of −27.5 ± 1.2 ‰ and foliar δ13C of ±28.0 ± 1.3 ‰, and average whole plant δ15N of −0.3 ± 2.2 ‰ and foliar δ15N of ±0.6 ± 2.7 ‰. Plants analyzed here showed relatively smaller variability in δ13C than δ15N. Their average δ13C after suitable corrections for the Suess effect should be suitable as baseline for interpreting diets of Late Pleistocene herbivores that lived in eastern Beringia. Water availability, nitrogen availability, spacial differences and intra-plant variability are important controls on δ15N of herbaceous plants in the study area. The wider range of δ15N, the more numerous factors that affect nitrogen isotopic composition and their likely differences in the past, however, limit use of the modern N isotopic baseline for vegetation in paleodietary models for such ecosystems. That said, the positive correlation between foliar δ15N and N content shown for the modern plants could support use of plant δ15N as an index for plant N content and therefore forage quality. The modern N isotopic baseline cannot be applied directly to the past, but it is prerequisite to future efforts to detect shifts in N cycling and forage quality since the Late Pleistocene through comparison with fossil plants from the same region

HE-LHC: The High-Energy Large Hadron Collider – Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report Volume 4

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (EPPSU), the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched as a world-wide international collaboration hosted by CERN. The FCC study covered an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee), the corresponding 100 km tunnel infrastructure, as well as the physics opportunities of these two colliders, and a high-energy LHC, based on FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the third volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the hadron collider FCC-hh. It summarizes the FCC-hh physics discovery opportunities, presents the FCC-hh accelerator design, performance reach, and staged operation plan, discusses the underlying technologies, the civil engineering and technical infrastructure, and also sketches a possible implementation. Combining ingredients from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-luminosity LHC upgrade and adding novel technologies and approaches, the FCC-hh design aims at significantly extending the energy frontier to 100 TeV. Its unprecedented centre-of-mass collision energy will make the FCC-hh a unique instrument to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, offering great direct sensitivity to new physics and discoveries

Development and application of monoclonal antibodies for in situ detection of indigenous bacterial strains in aquatic ecosystems.

Strain-specific monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) were developed for three different bacterial isolates obtained from a freshwater environment (Lake Plusssee) in the spring of 1990. The three isolates, which were identified by molecular methods, were as follows: Cytophaga johnsonae PX62, Comamonas acidovorans PX54, and Aeromonas hydrophila PU7718. These strains represented three species that were detected in high abundance during a set of mesocosm experiments in Lake Plusssee by the direct analysis of low-molecular-weight RNAs from bacterioplankton. We developed one MAb each for the bacterial isolates PX54 and PU7718 that did not show any cross-reactivity with other bacterial strains by immunofluorescence microscopy. Each MAb recognized the general lipopolysaccharide fraction of the homologous strain. These MAbs were tested successfully for their ability to be used for the in situ detection and counting of bacteria in lake water by immunofluorescence microscopy. During the spring of 1993, A. hydrophila PU7718 showed a depth distribution in Lake Plusssee with a pronounced maximum abundance at 6 m, whereas Comamonas acidovorans PX54 showed a depth distribution with a maximum abundance at the surface. The application of these MAbs to the freshwater samples enabled us to determine the cell morphologies and microhabitats of these strains within their natural environment. The presence of as many as 8,000 cells of these strains per ml in their original habitats 3 years after their initial isolation demonstrated the persistence of individual strains of heterotrophic bacteria over long time spans in pelagic habitats