"Hollow cathode" gun optics

The generation of an electron beam by a hollow cathode gun in a cusp magnetic field is discussed. Such a gun is proposed for an electron cooling device without toroids. In a section with a homogeneous magnetic field, this beam experiences a disturbance region near the axis where the electron temperature becomes higher. The main purpose of the article is to define conditions for generating the beam so as to restrict the extent of this region as much as possible. It is shown that a state with a virtual cathode in the vicinity of the zero magnetic field point is the most suitable for this aim. The experimental and essential analytical results are presented

Stochastic Analysis of Self-Sustainability in Peer-Assisted VoDSystems

Abstract—We consider a peer-assisted Video-on-demand system, in which video distribution is supported both by peers caching the whole video and by peers concurrently downloading it. We propose a stochastic fluid framework that allows to characterize the additional bandwidth requested from the servers to satisfy all users watching a given video. We obtain analytical upper bounds to the server bandwidth needed in the case in which users download the video content sequentially. We also present a methodology to obtain exact solutions for special cases of peer upload bandwidth distribution. Our bounds permit to tightly characterize the performance of peer-assisted VoD systems as the number of users increases, for both sequential and nonsequential delivery schemes. In particular, we rigorously prove that the simple sequential scheme is asymptotically optimal both in the bandwidth surplus and in the bandwidth deficit mode, and that peer-assisted systems become totally self-sustaining in the surplus mode as the number of users grows large. I

The OLYMPUS Internal Hydrogen Target

An internal hydrogen target system was developed for the OLYMPUS experiment at DESY, in Hamburg, Germany. The target consisted of a long, thin-walled, tubular cell within an aluminum scattering chamber. Hydrogen entered at the center of the cell and exited through the ends, where it was removed from the beamline by a multistage pumping system. A cryogenic coldhead cooled the target cell to counteract heating from the beam and increase the density of hydrogen in the target. A fixed collimator protected the cell from synchrotron radiation and the beam halo. A series of wakefield suppressors reduced heating from beam wakefields. The target system was installed within the DORIS storage ring and was successfully operated during the course of the OLYMPUS experiment in 2012. Information on the design, fabrication, and performance of the target system is reported.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figure

Energy-Aware Base Stations: The Effect of Planning, Management, and Femto Layers

We compare the performance of three base station management schemes on three different network topologies. In addition, we explore the effect of offloading traffic to heterogeneous femtocell layer upon energy savings taking into account the increase of base station switch-off time intervals. Fairness between mobile operator and femtocell owners is maintained since current femtocell technologies present flat power consumption curves with respect to served traffic. We model two different user-to-femtocell association rules in order to capture realistic and maximum gains from the heterogeneous network. To provide accurate findings and a holistic overview of the techniques, we explore a real urban district where channel estimations and power control are modeled using deterministic algorithms. Finally, we explore energy efficiency metrics that capture savings in the mobile network operator, the required watts per user and watts per bitrate. It is found that the newly established pseudo distributed management scheme is the most preferable solution for practical implementations and together with the femotcell layer the network can handle dynamic load control that is regarded as the basic element of future demand response programs

Peer-assisted VoD Systems: An Efficient Modeling Framework

We analyze a peer-assisted Video-on-Demand (VoD) system in which users contribute their upload bandwidth to the redistribution of a video that they are downloading or that they have cached locally. Our target is to characterize the additional bandwidth that servers must supply to immediately satisfy all requests to watch a given video. We develop an approximate fluid model to compute the required server bandwidth in the sequential delivery case, as well as in controlled nonsequential swarms. Our approach is able to capture several stochastic effects related to peer churn, upload bandwidth heterogeneity, and nonstationary traffic conditions, which have not been documented or analyzed before. Finally, we provide important hints for the design of efficient peer-assisted VoD systems under server capacity constraints

The LHCspin project

The LHCspin project aims to bring both unpolarized and polarized physics at the LHC through the installation of a gaseous fixed target at the upstream end of the LHCb detector. The forward geometry of the LHCb spectrometer (2 < η < 5) is perfectly suited for the reconstruction of particles produced in fixed-target collisions. The fixed-target configuration, with center-of-mass energies ranging from √sNN = 72 GeV in collisions with Pb beams to √s = 115 GeV in pp interactions, allows to cover a wide backward center-of-mass rapidity region, corresponding to the poorly explored high x-Bjorken and high x-Feynman regimes. The project has several ambitious goals regarding heavy-ion physics and new-era quantitative searches in QCD through the study of the nucleon's internal dynamics in terms of both quarks and gluons degrees of freedom. In particular, the use of transversely polarized H and D targets will allow to study the quarks TMDs in pp collisions at unique kinematic conditions. Furthermore, being LHCb specifically designed for heavy-flavor physics, final states with c- or b-quarks (e.g. inclusive quarkonia production) will be efficiently reconstructed, thus providing, among other fundamental measurememnts, access to the so-far unknown gluons TMDs. The status of the project is presented along with a selection of physics opportunities

Age- and sex-related variations in platelet count in Italy: a proposal of reference ranges based on 40987 subjects' data

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Although several studies demonstrated that platelet count is higher in women, decreases with age, and is influenced by genetic background, most clinical laboratories still use the reference interval 150-400×10(9) platelets/L for all subjects. The present study was to identify age- and sex-specific reference intervals for platelet count. METHODS: We analysed electronic records of subjects enrolled in three population-based studies that investigated inhabitants of seven Italian areas including six geographic isolates. After exclusion of patients with malignancies, liver diseases, or inherited thrombocytopenias, which could affect platelet count, reference intervals were estimated from 40,987 subjects with the non parametric method computing the 2.5° and 97.5° percentiles. RESULTS: Platelet count was similar in men and women until the age of 14, but subsequently women had steadily more platelets than men. The number of platelets decreases quickly in childhood, stabilizes in adulthood, and further decreases in oldness. The final result of this phenomenon is that platelet count in old age was reduced by 35% in men and by 25% in women compared with early infancy. Based on these findings, we estimated reference intervals for platelet count ×10(9)/L in children (176-452), adult men (141-362), adult women (156-405), old men (122-350) and, old women (140-379). Moreover, we calculated an extended reference interval that takes into account the differences in platelet count observed in different geographic areas. CONCLUSIONS: The age-, sex-, and origin-related variability of platelet count is very wide, and the patient-adapted reference intervals we propose change the thresholds for diagnosing both thrombocytopenia and thrombocytosis in Italy

Rapid detection of intestinal carriage of Klebsiella pneumoniae producing KPC carbapenemase during an outbreak

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