The ISOLDE facility at CERN delivers the largest range of low-energy radioactive beams, exploited by several detector systems to investigate nuclear properties from the stable isotopes to the very ...exotic systems close to the neutron or proton drip lines. These studies can largely benefit from the use of a high-resolution fragment separator. To achieve this goal, an innovative spectrometer based on a compact superconducting (SC) ring, the Isolde Superconducting Recoil Separator (ISRS), is being studied. The ring will operate as an isochronous non-scaling fixed-field alternating-gradient (FFAG) system based on Canted-Cosine-Theta (CCT) magnets. These multifunction magnets have two alternating-gradient quadrupoles nested inside an outer dipole. According to preliminary beam dynamics studies, the dipole will need to generate a maximum field of 2.2 T. A maximum quadrupole gradient of approximately 14 T/m will guarantee orbit stability for heavy ions with a maximum kinetic energy of 10 MeV/u. Fine tuning of the CCT magnets and the FFAG optics will provide very large solid angles > 100 msr and momentum acceptances Δp/p > 20%. In this paper we present, the magnet designs and their optimisation. A cost-effective active stray field superconducting coil shield design has been introduced to be able to remove approximate 4000 kg of iron yoke and the complexity of building a tightly curved yoke.
Global change drivers are imposing novel conditions on Earth's ecosystems at an unprecedented rate. Among them, biological invasions and climate change are of critical concern. It is generally ...thought that strictly asexual populations will be more susceptible to rapid environmental alterations due to their lack of genetic variability and, thus, of adaptive responses. In this study, we evaluated the persistence of a widely distributed asexual lineage of the alfalfa race of the pea aphid,
along a latitudinal transect of approximately 600 km in central Chile after facing environmental change for a decade. Based on microsatellite markers, we found an almost total replacement of the original aphid superclone by a new variant. Considering the unprecedented warming that this region has experienced in recent years, we experimentally evaluated the reproductive performance of these two
lineages at different thermal regimes. The new variant exhibits higher rates of population increase at warmer temperatures, and computer simulations employing a representative temperature dataset suggest that it might competitively displace the original superclone. These results support the idea of a superclone turnover mediated by differential reproductive performance under changing temperatures.
The success of biological invasions ultimately relies on phenotypic traits of the invasive species. Aphids, which include many important pests worldwide, may have been successful invading new ...environments partly because they can maximize reproductive output by becoming parthenogenetic and losing the sexual phase of their reproductive cycle. However, invasive populations of aphids invading wide ranges can face contrasting environmental conditions and requiring different phenotypic strategies. Besides transitions in their reproductive cycle, it is only partially known which phenotypic traits might be associated to the invasion success of aphid populations in extended novel ranges. Here, we used four genotypes of the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum from two localities in Chile to test for phenotypic specialization that might explain their establishment and spread in habitats exhibiting contrasting environmental conditions. We show that lineages living at a higher latitude with low temperatures show, in addition to facultative sexual reproduction, smaller body sizes, lower metabolic rates and a higher tolerance to the cold than the obligate asexual lineages living in a mild weather, at the expense of fecundity. Conversely, at higher temperatures only asexual lineages were found, which exhibit larger body sizes, higher reproductive outputs and consequently enhanced demographic ability. As a result, in conjunction with the reproductive mode, lineage specialization in physiological and life-history traits could be taken into account as an important strategy for populations of pea aphid to effectively invade extended novel ranges comprising different climatic conditions.
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•The success of biological invasions relies on phenotypic traits of invader species.•Pea aphid invading wide ranges can face contrasting environmental conditions.•specialization in phenotypic traits could explain pea aphid invasiveness
The new generation of nuclear physics detectors that used to study nuclear reactions is considering the use of digital pulse shape analysis techniques (DPSA) to obtain the (A,Z) values of the ...reaction products impinging in solid state detectors. This technique can be an important tool for selecting the relevant reaction channels at the HYDE (HYbrid DEtector ball array) silicon array foreseen for the Low Energy Branch of the FAIR facility (Darmstadt, Germany). In this work we study the feasibility of using artificial neural networks (ANNs) for particle identification with silicon detectors. Multilayer Perceptron networks were trained and tested with recent experimental data, showing excellent identification capabilities with signals of several isotopes ranging from 12C up to 84Kr, yielding higher discrimination rates than any other previously reported.
Outcome of intermediate risk rectal cancer may be improved by the addition of oxaliplatin during 5-fluoruracil concomitant neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. The purpose of this study is to analyze the ...main clinical results of the ACCORD12 trial (NCT00227747) in rectal cancer after 5 years of follow-up.
Inclusion criteria were as follows: rectal adenocarcinoma accessible to digital examination staged T3-T4 Nx M0 (or T2 Nx distal anterior rectum). Two neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy regimens were randomized: CAP45 (RT 45 Gy + capecitabine) and CAPOX50 (RT 50 Gy + capecitabine and oxaliplatin). Main end point was sterilization of the operative specimen. Acute and late toxicities were prospectively analyzed with dedicated questionnaires.
Between November 2005 and July 2008, 598 patients were included in the trial. After a median follow-up of 60.2 months, there was no difference between treatment arms in multivariate analysis either for disease-free survival or overall survival (OS) P = 0.9, hazard ratio (HR)=1.02; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.76–1.36 andP = 0.3, HR = 0.87; 95% CI, 0.66–1.15, respectively. There was also no difference of local control in univariate analysis (P = 0.7, HR = 0.92; 95% CI, 0.51–1.66). Late toxicities were acceptable with 1.6% G3 anal incontinence, and <1% G3 diarrhea, G3 rectal bleeding, G3 stenosis, G3–4 pain, G3 urinary incontinence, G3 urinary retention and G3 skeletal toxicity. There was a slight increase of erectile dysfunction over time with a 63% rate of erectile dysfunction at 5 years. There was no significant statistical difference for these toxicities between treatment arms.
The CAPOX50 regimen did not improve local control, disease-free survival and overall survival in the ACCORD12 trial. Late toxicities did not differ between treatment arms.
The measurement of the 7Be(d,3He)6Li* transfer cross section at 5 MeV/u is carried out. The population of the 2.186 MeV excited state of 6Li in this reaction channel is observed for the first time. ...The experimental angular distributions have been analyzed in the finite range DWBA and coupled-channel frameworks. The effect of the 7Be(d,3He)6Li reaction on both the 6Li and 7Li abundances are investigated at the relevant big-bang nucleosynthesis energies. The excitation function is calculated by TALYS and normalized to the experimental data. The S factor of the (d,3He) channel from the present work is about 50% lower than existing data at nearby energies. At big-bang energies, the S factor is about three orders of magnitude smaller than that of the (d,p) channel. The (d,3He) reaction rate is found to have a less than 0.1% effect on the 6,7Li abundances.
The elastic and inelastic scattering of 7Be from 12C have been measured at an incident energy of 35 MeV. The inelastic scattering leading to the 4.439 MeV excited state of 12C has been measured for ...the first time. The experimental data cover an angular range of θcm = 15∘-120∘. Optical model analyses were carried out with Woods-Saxon and double-folding potential using the density dependent M3Y (DDM3Y) effective interaction. The microscopic analysis of the elastic data indicates breakup channel coupling effect. A coupled-channel analysis of the inelastic scattering, based on collective form factors, shows that mutual excitation of both 7Be and 12C is significantly smaller than the single excitation of 12C. The larger deformation length obtained from the DWBA analysis could be explained by including the excitation of 7Be in a coupled-channel analysis. The breakup cross section of 7Be is estimated to be less than 10% of the reaction cross section. The intrinsic deformation length obtained for the 12C⁎ (4.439 MeV) state is δ2 = 1.37 fm. The total reaction cross section deduced from the analysis agrees very well with Wong's calculations for similar weakly bound light nuclei on 12C target.
In this paper we describe a compact and large solid-angle silicon array, the GLObal ReactIon Array (GLORIA), designed to study direct nuclear reactions induced by exotic nuclei at energies close to ...the Coulomb barrier. The detector array consists of six particle-telescopes arranged in a very close geometry around a 30° rotated-target system, allowing for the measurement of reaction fragments in a continuous angular range from 15° to 165° (Lab). GLORIA has been used for first time at the SPIRAL/GANIL facility at Caen (France) to study the scattering of the system 8He+208Pb at the collision energies of 16 and 22MeV.
The nuclei below lead but with more than 126 neutrons are crucial to an understanding of the astrophysical r process in producing nuclei heavier than A∼190. Despite their importance, the structure ...and properties of these nuclei remain experimentally untested as they are difficult to produce in nuclear reactions with stable beams. In a first exploration of the shell structure of this region, neutron excitations in ^{207}Hg have been probed using the neutron-adding (d,p) reaction in inverse kinematics. The radioactive beam of ^{206}Hg was delivered to the new ISOLDE Solenoidal Spectrometer at an energy above the Coulomb barrier. The spectroscopy of ^{207}Hg marks a first step in improving our understanding of the relevant structural properties of nuclei involved in a key part of the path of the r process.
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