1. |
- Bruzzi, M, et al.
(author)
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Radiation-hard semiconductor detectors for SuperLHC
- 2005
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In: Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research. Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors, and Associated Equipment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-5087 .- 0168-9002. ; 541:1-2, s. 189-201
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An option of increasing the luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN to 1035 cm-2 s-1 has been envisaged to extend the physics reach of the machine. An efficient tracking down to a few centimetres from the interaction point will be required to exploit the physics potential of the upgraded LHC. As a consequence, the semiconductor detectors close to the interaction region will receive severe doses of fast hadron irradiation and the inner tracker detectors will need to survive fast hadron fluences of up to above 1016cm-2. The CERN-RD50 project "Development of Radiation Hard Semiconductor Devices for Very High Luminosity Colliders" has been established in 2002 to explore detector materials and technologies that will allow to operate devices up to, or beyond, this limit. The strategies followed by RD50 to enhance the radiation tolerance include the development of new or defect engineered detector materials (SiC, GaN, Czochralski and epitaxial silicon, oxygen enriched Float Zone silicon), the improvement of present detector designs and the understanding of the microscopic defects causing the degradation of the irradiated detectors. The latest advancements within the RD50 collaboration on radiation hard semiconductor detectors will be reviewed and discussed in this work.
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3. |
- Aghion, S., et al.
(author)
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A moiré deflectometer for antimatter
- 2014
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In: Nature Communications. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2041-1723. ; 5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The precise measurement of forces is one way to obtain deep insight into the fundamental interactions present in nature. In the context of neutral antimatter, the gravitational interaction is of high interest, potentially revealing new forces that violate the weak equivalence principle. Here we report on a successful extension of a tool from atom optics—the moiré deflectometer—for a measurement of the acceleration of slow antiprotons. The setup consists of two identical transmission gratings and a spatially resolving emulsion detector for antiproton annihilations. Absolute referencing of the observed antimatter pattern with a photon pattern experiencing no deflection allows the direct inference of forces present. The concept is also straightforwardly applicable to antihydrogen measurements as pursued by the AEgIS collaboration. The combination of these very different techniques from high energy and atomic physics opens a very promising route to the direct detection of the gravitational acceleration of neutral antimatter.
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4. |
- Ariga, T., et al.
(author)
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Measuring GBAR with emulsion detector
- 2014
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In: International Journal of Modern Physics, Conference Series. - : World Scientific. - 2010-1945. ; 30
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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5. |
- Bottinelli, Arianna, et al.
(author)
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Influence of homology and node age on the growth of protein-protein interaction networks
- 2012
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In: Physical Review E. Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics. - 1539-3755 .- 1550-2376. ; 86:4, s. 041919-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Proteins participating in a protein-protein interaction network can be grouped into homology classes following their common ancestry. Proteins added to the network correspond to genes added to the classes, so the dynamics of the two objects are intrinsically linked. Here we first introduce a statistical model describing the joint growth of the network and the partitioning of nodes into classes, which is studied through a combined mean-field and simulation approach. We then employ this unified framework to address the specific issue of the age dependence of protein interactions through the definition of three different node wiring or divergence schemes. A comparison with empirical data indicates that an age-dependent divergence move is necessary in order to reproduce the basic topological observables together with the age correlation between interacting nodes visible in empirical data. We also discuss the possibility of nontrivial joint partition and topology observables.
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6. |
- Graham, Emily B., et al.
(author)
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Microbes as Engines of Ecosystem Function : When Does Community Structure Enhance Predictions of Ecosystem Processes?
- 2016
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In: Frontiers in Microbiology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-302X. ; 7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Microorganisms are vital in mediating the earth's biogeochemical cycles; yet, despite our rapidly increasing ability to explore complex environmental microbial communities, the relationship between microbial community structure and ecosystem processes remains poorly understood. Here, we address a fundamental and unanswered question in microbial ecology: 'When do we need to understand microbial community structure to accurately predict function?' We present a statistical analysis investigating the value of environmental data and microbial community structure independently and in combination for explaining rates of carbon and nitrogen cycling processes within 82 global datasets. Environmental variables were the strongest predictors of process rates but left 44% of variation unexplained on average, suggesting the potential for microbial data to increase model accuracy. Although only 29% of our datasets were significantly improved by adding information on microbial community structure, we observed improvement in models of processes mediated by narrow phylogenetic guilds via functional gene data, and conversely, improvement in models of facultative microbial processes via community diversity metrics. Our results also suggest that microbial diversity can strengthen predictions of respiration rates beyond microbial biomass parameters, as 53% of models were improved by incorporating both sets of predictors compared to 35% by microbial biomass alone. Our analysis represents the first comprehensive analysis of research examining links between microbial community structure and ecosystem function. Taken together, our results indicate that a greater understanding of microbial communities informed by ecological principles may enhance our ability to predict ecosystem process rates relative to assessments based on environmental variables and microbial physiology.
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7. |
- Uribe-Convers, S., et al.
(author)
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Phylogenetic relationships of Burmeistera (Campanulaceae: Lobelioideae): Combining whole plastome with targeted loci data in a recent radiation
- 2017
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In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. - : Elsevier BV. - 1055-7903. ; 107, s. 551-563
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The field of molecular systematics has benefited greatly with the advent of high-throughput sequencing (HTS), making large genomic datasets commonplace. However, a large number of targeted Sanger sequences produced by many studies over the last two decades are publicly available and should not be overlooked. In this study, we elucidate the phylogenetic relationships of the plant genus Burmeistera (Campanulaceae: Lobelioideae), while investigating how to best combine targeted Sanger loci with FITS data. We sequence, annotate, and analyze complete to nearly complete plastomes for a subset of the genus. We then combine these data with a much larger taxonomic dataset for which only Sanger sequences are available, making this the most comprehensively sampled study in the genus to date. We show that using a phylogeny inferred from the species with plastome data as a topological constraint for the larger dataset increases the resolution of our data and produces a more robust evolutionary hypothesis for the group. We then use the resulting phylogeny to study the evolution of morphological traits thought to be important in Burmeistera, and assess their usefulness in the current taxonomic classification of the genus. The main morphological character used to delimit subgeneric sections, the presence or absence of hairs on the apex of the two ventral anthers, shows a complex evolutionary history with many changes in the tree, suggesting that this character should not be used for taxonomic classification. Although it is too soon to propose a new subgeneric classification for Burmeistera, our results highlight some morphological traits shared by whole clades that could potentially be used in future taxonomic work. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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8. |
- Rotondo, P., et al.
(author)
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Dicke Simulators with Emergent Collective Quantum Computational Abilities
- 2015
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In: Physical Review Letters. - 1079-7114 .- 0031-9007. ; 114:14, s. 143601-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Using an approach inspired from spin glasses, we show that the multimode disordered Dicke model is equivalent to a quantum Hopfield network. We propose variational ground states for the system at zero temperature, which we conjecture to be exact in the thermodynamic limit. These ground states contain the information on the disordered qubit-photon couplings. These results lead to two intriguing physical implications. First, once the qubit-photon couplings can be engineered, it should be possible to build scalable pattern-storing systems whose dynamics is governed by quantum laws. Second, we argue with an example of how such Dicke quantum simulators might be used as a solver of "hard" combinatorial optimization problems.
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9. |
- Schifano, R., et al.
(author)
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Electrical and optical characterization of 4H-SiC diodes for particle detection
- 2005
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In: Journal of Applied Physics. - : AIP Publishing. - 0021-8979 .- 1089-7550. ; 97:10, s. 103539-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The electronic and optical properties of several (medium to high quality) 4H-SiC epitaxial sensors for particle detection have been studied. The samples are n -doped Schottky diodes with different nitrogen concentrations (6× 1013 cm-3 -5× 1015 cm-3) and thicknesses (20-40 µm). A full electrical and optical characterization has been performed by capacitance versus voltage measurements and near-band-edge low-temperature photoluminescence. The effective doping along the epilayer and the depletion width have been determined and data are consistent with the charge collection efficiency characterization performed with a minimum ionizing ? -source. All the investigated samples exhibit a 100% collection efficiency. In particular, the best samples yield a highly reproducible signal, well separated from the pedestal. Photoluminescence results show a linear relationship between the effective doping and the ratio of nitrogen-bound excitonic emission (Q0) and free excitonic line (I76), in agreement with a previous work on 4H-SiC with a higher doping concentration [I. G. Ivanov, C. Hallin, A. Henry, O. Kordina, and E. Janzn, J. Appl. Phys. 80, 3504 (1996)]. Moreover we show that the dependence of the major spectral features as a function of the penetration depth of the exciting laser beam can quantitatively provide information on substrate contribution to the photoluminescence. In conclusion, we bring evidence that a detailed characterization of SiC-based detectors, by all optical techniques, yields an accurate value for the net doping and gives a qualitative information on the epilayer thickness prior to any electrical wafer tests. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.
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10. |
- Yue, J. X., et al.
(author)
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Contrasting evolutionary genome dynamics between domesticated and wild yeasts
- 2017
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 49:6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Structural rearrangements have long been recognized as an important source of genetic variation, with implications in phenotypic diversity and disease, yet their detailed evolutionary dynamics remain elusive. Here we use long-read sequencing to generate end-to-end genome assemblies for 12 strains representing major subpopulations of the partially domesticated yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its wild relative Saccharomyces paradoxus. These population-level high-quality genomes with comprehensive annotation enable precise definition of chromosomal boundaries between cores and subtelomeres and a high-resolution view of evolutionary genome dynamics. In chromosomal cores, S. paradoxus shows faster accumulation of balanced rearrangements (inversions, reciprocal translocations and transpositions), whereas S. cerevisiae accumulates unbalanced rearrangements (novel insertions, deletions and duplications) more rapidly. In subtelomeres, both species show extensive interchromosomal reshuffling, with a higher tempo in S. cerevisiae. Such striking contrasts between wild and domesticated yeasts are likely to reflect the influence of human activities on structural genome evolution.
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