Low energy neutrino scattering measurements at future Spallation Source facilities

In the future several Spallation Source facilities will be available worldwide. Spallation Sources produce large amount of neutrinos from decay-at-rest muons and thus can be well adapted to accommodate state-of-the-art neutrino experiments. In this paper low energy neutrino scattering experiments that can be performed at such facilities are reviewed. Estimation of expected event rates are given for several nuclei, electrons and protons at a detector located close to the source. A neutrino program at Spallation Sources comprises neutrino-nucleus cross section measurements relevant for neutrino and core-collapse supernova physics, electroweak tests and lepton-flavor violation searches.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 5 table

Evaluation of equilibrium moisture content in ligno-cellulosic residues of olive culture

The use of ligno-cellulosic residuals from agriculture as means for renewable energy production is well known; nonetheless significant problems still exist on development of bioenergy value chains. Moisture content and hygroscopicity are among these problems. Higher moisture content of the biomass means lower calorific value and higher perishability, hence storage difficulties. For this reason it is important to evaluate how the moisture content of the material varies while it is stored and how the calorific value of the feedstock is affected by it. The purpose of this study is to determine the variation of moisture content and its influence on lower calorific value (LCV) of four types of solid residual biomass: oven dried chipped olive tree trimmings, milled olive pomace; oven dried olive tree trimmings and fresh olive tree trimmings. Moisture content of the samples is calculated by means of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) according to standard CEN/TS 14774-2:2004, while the LCVs are calculated by means of a calorimeter, following standard UNI EN 14918:2010. All the biomass samples were left to reach equilibrium moisture content (EMC) in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. Two different phases were analyzed with respect to moisture uptake rates: 1) fast moisture uptake rate phase (first four hours of exposure) and 2) slow moisture uptake rate, (the days following the first four hours of exposure). Samples experiencing fast moisture uptake rate, during the first four hours of exposure, were kept in a monitored ambient at T=22 \ub1 1oC and RH=59 \ub1 2%, while samples exposed to slow moisture uptake rate were kept in a climatic chamber at three different set of temperature and humidity controlled environment simulating the climatic conditions in different periods of the year in Enna province: 10oC - 80% RH (winter), 15oC - 70% RH (spring/autumn) and 20oC - 55% RH, (summer). The results obtained show that the olive pruning chips (0.425 mm to 1.00 mm and 1.00 mm to 2.00 mm particle size ranges) stored in a heap in a controlled climatic chamber require approximately 20 days to reach EMC. Depending on the particle size range EMCs reach the values of 6.2 and 7.5% by weight in the "summer" condition, 14.3% and 16.9% in "spring/autumn" condition, 24.1% and 28.2% in "winter" condition. Moisture is absorbed gradually over time and results show that in the first four hours, the dry sample exposed to ambient condition (T=22 \ub1 1 oC and RH=59 \ub1 2%) reaches a moisture content between 0.75 and 0.96% of its weight; the LCV at equilibrium is evaluated between 18, 576 J\u2022odg-1 and 18, 793 J\u2022odg-1, the higher value related to the bigger particle size range examined. Pomace heap under the same experimental set up and time period, reaches an equilibrium moisture content of 8.5% and 9.7% (summer conditions), 19.2% and 22.0% (spring/autumn condition) and between 30.9% and 34.1% (winter condition). Olive pomace accumulates moisture relatively faster than olive trimmings as dry sample recovers about 1.61% to 1.97% of moisture in the first four hours of exposure. The LCV at equilibrium is determined between 20, 145 J\u2022odg-1 and 20, 436 J\u2022odg-1. Pruning dried samples reach an EMC equal to 6.1% in approximately 25 days, with a LCV equal to18, 921 J\u2022odg-1 \ub1 1.9%. Heaps of fresh prunings reach an EMC of 8.2% in approximately 20 days; LCV of the feedstock is 19, 356 J\u2022odg-1\ub1 1.6%.\ua92006-2014 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved

Active Brownian Motion Tunable by Light

Active Brownian particles are capable of taking up energy from their environment and converting it into directed motion; examples range from chemotactic cells and bacteria to artificial micro-swimmers. We have recently demonstrated that Janus particles, i.e. gold-capped colloidal spheres, suspended in a critical binary liquid mixture perform active Brownian motion when illuminated by light. In this article, we investigate in some more details their swimming mechanism leading to active Brownian motion. We show that the illumination-borne heating induces a local asymmetric demixing of the binary mixture generating a spatial chemical concentration gradient, which is responsible for the particle's self-diffusiophoretic motion. We study this effect as a function of the functionalization of the gold cap, the particle size and the illumination intensity: the functionalization determines what component of the binary mixture is preferentially adsorbed at the cap and the swimming direction (towards or away from the cap); the particle size determines the rotational diffusion and, therefore, the random reorientation of the particle; and the intensity tunes the strength of the heating and, therefore, of the motion. Finally, we harness this dependence of the swimming strength on the illumination intensity to investigate the behaviour of a micro-swimmer in a spatial light gradient, where its swimming properties are space-dependent

FORMA and BEFORE: Expanding applications of optical tweezers

We introduce two methods based on statistical inference to calibrate optical tweezers. Both outperform well-established methods and cover a broader application field, including non-conservative force fields and out of equilibrium systems

Molecular adaptation to calsequestrin 2 (CASQ2) point mutations leading to catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT): comparative analysis of R33Q and D307H mutants

Homozygous calsequestrin 2 (CASQ2) point mutations leads to catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia: a common pathogenetic feature appears to be the drastic reduction of mutant CASQ2 in spite of normal transcription. Comparative biochemical analysis of R33Q and D307H knock in mutant mice identifies different pathogenetic mechanisms for CASQ2 degradation and different molecular adaptive mechanisms. In particular, each CASQ2 point mutation evokes specific adaptive cellular and molecular processes in each of the four adaptive pathways investigated. Thus, similar clinical phenotypes and identical cellular mechanism for cardiac arrhythmia might imply different molecular adaptive mechanisms

Neutrino-nucleus interaction rates at a low-energy beta-beam facility

We compute the neutrino detection rates to be expected at a low-energy beta-beam facility. We consider various nuclei as neutrino detectors and compare the case of a small versus large storage ring.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Microscopic description of Coulomb and nuclear excitation of multiphonon states in 40^{40}Ca + 40^{40}Ca collisions

We calculate the inelastic scattering cross sections to populate one- and two-phonon states in heavy ion collisions with both Coulomb and nuclear excitations. Starting from a microscopic approach based on RPA, we go beyond it in order to treat anharmonicities and non-linear terms in the exciting field. These anharmonicities and non-linearities are shown to have important effects on the cross sections both in the low energy part of the spectrum and in the energy region of the Double Giant Quadrupole Resonance. By properly introducing an optical potential the inelastic cross section is calculated semiclassically by integrating the excitation probability over all impact parameters. A satisfactory agreement with the experimental results is obtained.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, revtex, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Salt-regulating hormones in young normotensive obese subjects. Effects of saline load.

To investigate whether the response of salt-regulating hormones to volume expansion is impaired in obese subjects, we assessed the effects of saline load (0.25 mL/kg.min.120 min) in 9 young, healthy, normotensive obese subjects (body mass index, > 30 kg/m2) and in 10 lean control subjects (body mass index, < 25 kg/m2) matched for age, gender, height, and mean blood pressure. Hematocrit, plasma renin activity (PRA), plasma aldosterone (PA), atrial natriuretic factor (ANF), and urinary sodium excretion (UNaV) were evaluated. Saline load increased ANF levels significantly (P < .001) in lean subjects at both 60 and 120 minutes, whereas they decreased in obese subjects. Such decreases became significant (P < .01) at 120 minutes. Suppression of PRA and PA by saline load were more marked in lean than obese subjects. Hematocrit decreased in both groups, and UNaV increased more in lean than obese subjects during saline load. Comparisons of percent changes in ANF, PRA, and PA after saline load showed that the responses of lean and obese subjects were significantly different (P < .001 for ANF at both 60 and 120 minutes; P < .05 for PRA and PA at both 60 and 120 minutes). In conclusion, the lack of ANF response and the reduced suppression of PRA and PA to saline load indicate a dysfunction of these systems in obese subjects. This alteration may be involved in the higher susceptibility of obese subjects to developing hypertension

What's on your plate? Collecting multimodal data to understand commensal behavior

Eating is a fundamental part of human life and is, more than anything, a social activity. A new field, known as Computational Commensality has been created to computationally address various social aspects of food and eating. This paper illustrates a study on remote dining we conducted online in May 2021. To better understand this phenomenon, known as Digital Commensality, we recorded 11 pairs of friends sharing a meal online through a videoconferencing app. In the videos, participants consume a plate of pasta while chatting with a friend or a family member. After the remote dinner, participants were asked to fill in the Digital Commensality questionnaire, a validated questionnaire assessing the effects of remote commensal experiences, and provide their opinions on the shortcomings of currently available technologies. Besides presenting the study, the paper introduces the first Digital Commensality Data-set, containing videos, facial landmarks, quantitative and qualitative responses. After surveying multimodal data-sets and corpora that we could exploit to understand commensal behavior, we comment on the feasibility of using remote meals as a source to build data-sets to investigate commensal behavior. Finally, we explore possible future research directions emerging from our results