An experiment to search for light sterile neutrinos is conducted at a reactor with a thermal power of 2.8 GW located at the Hanbit nuclear power complex. The search is done with a detector consisting ...of a ton of Gd-loaded liquid scintillator in a tendon gallery approximately 24 m from the reactor core. The measured antineutrino event rate is 1976 per day with a signal to background ratio of about 22. The shape of the antineutrino energy spectrum obtained from the eight-month data-taking period is compared with a hypothesis of oscillations due to active-sterile antineutrino mixing. No strong evidence of 3+1 neutrino oscillation is found. An excess around the 5 MeV prompt energy range is observed as seen in existing longer-baseline experiments. The mixing parameter sin^{2}2θ_{14} is limited up to less than 0.1 for Δm_{41}^{2} ranging from 0.2 to 2.3 eV^{2} with a 90% confidence level.
The RENO experiment has observed the disappearance of reactor electron antineutrinos, consistent with neutrino oscillations, with a significance of 4.9 standard deviations. Antineutrinos from six 2.8 ... GW(th) reactors at the Yonggwang Nuclear Power Plant in Korea, are detected by two identical detectors located at 294 and 1383 m, respectively, from the reactor array center. In the 229 d data-taking period between 11 August 2011 and 26 March 2012, the far (near) detector observed 17102 (154088) electron antineutrino candidate events with a background fraction of 5.5% (2.7%). The ratio of observed to expected numbers of antineutrinos in the far detector is 0.920±0.009(stat)±0.014(syst). From this deficit, we determine sin(2)2θ(13)=0.113±0.013(stat)±0.019(syst) based on a rate-only analysis.
We analyzed the incidence and risk factors for ocular GVHD in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) in Korea. In this retrospective, noncomparative, ...observational study, 635 subjects were included who had at least 2 years of follow-up ophthalmological examinations after allo-HSCT from 2009 to 2012 at Seoul St Mary's Hospital, Seoul, Korea. The mean duration between allo-HSCT and onset of ocular GVHD was 225.5±194.3 days. The adjusted incidence for acute ocular GVHD was 1.33% and that for chronic GVHD was 33.33%. In the multivariate analysis, preexisting diabetes mellitus (odds ratio (OR): 4.22, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.66-10.72), repeated allo-HSCT (OR: 29.10, 95% CI: 1.02-8.28) and the number of organs that chronically developed GVHD by stage I (OR: 14.63, 95% CI: 9.81-21.84) increased risk of ocular GVHD. Careful monitoring of ocular GVHD is needed in patients with chronic GVHD in multiple organs and preexisting diabetes.
The Korea Invisible Mass Search (KIMS) collaboration has developed low-background NaI(Tl) crystals that are suitable for the direct detection of WIMP dark matter. Building on experience accumulated ...during the KIMS-CsI programs, the KIMS-NaI experiment will consist of a 200 kg NaI(Tl) crystal array surrounded by layers of shielding structures and will be operated at the Yangyang underground laboratory. The goal is to provide an unambiguous test of the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signature. Measurements of six prototype crystals show progress in the reduction of internal contamination from radioisotopes. Based on our understanding of these measurements, we expect to achieve a background level in the final detector configuration that is less than 1 count/day/keV/kg for recoil energies around 2 keV. The annual modulation sensitivity for the KIMS-NaI experiment shows that an unambiguous 7
σ
test of the DAMA/LIBRA signature would be possible with a 600 kg year exposure with this system.
•The wavelet based neural network was employed for long lead time flow forecasting.•A new index was proposed to quantify the phase error when evaluating model results.•A novel block bootstrap method ...was proposed for quantifying prediction uncertainty.
Streamflow forecasting, especially the long lead-time forecasting, is still a very challenging task in hydrologic modeling. This could be due to the fact that the forecast accuracy measured in terms of both the amplitude and phase or temporal errors and the forecast precision/reliability quantified in terms of the uncertainty significantly deteriorate with the increase of the lead-time. In the model performance evaluation, the conventional error metrics, which primarily quantify the amplitude error and do not explicitly account for the phase error, have been commonly adopted. For the long lead-time forecasting, the wavelet based neural network (WNN) among a variety of advanced soft computing methods has been shown to be promising in the literature. This paper presented and compared WNN and artificial neural network (ANN), both of which were combined with the ensemble method using block bootstrap sampling (BB), in terms of the forecast accuracy and precision at various lead-times on the Bow River, Alberta, Canada. Apart from conventional model performance metrics, a new index, called percent volumetric error, was proposed, especially for quantifying the phase error. The uncertainty metrics including percentage of coverage and average width were used to evaluate the precision of the modeling approaches. The results obtained demonstrate that the WNN-BB consistently outperforms the ANN-BB in both the categories of the forecast accuracy and precision, especially in the long lead-time forecasting. The findings strongly suggest that the WNN-BB is a robust modeling approach for streamflow forecasting and thus would aid in flood management.
We present new constraints on the dark matter-induced annual modulation signal using 1.7 years of COSINE-100 data with a total exposure of 97.7 kg yr. The COSINE-100 experiment, consisting of 106 kg ...of NaI(Tl) target material, is designed to carry out a model-independent test of DAMA/LIBRA's claim of WIMP discovery by searching for the same annual modulation signal using the same NaI(Tl) target. The crystal data show a 2.7 cpd/kg/keV background rate on average in the 2-6 keV energy region of interest. Using a χ-squared minimization method we observe best fit values for modulation amplitude and phase of 0.0092±0.0067 cpd/kg/keV and 127.2±45.9 d, respectively.
Early detection of histamine in foodstuffs/beverages could be useful in preventing various diseases. In this work, we have prepared a free-standing hybrid mat based on manganese cobalt ...(2-methylimodazole)–metal organic frameworks (Mn-Co(2-MeIm)MOF) and carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and explored as a non-enzymatic electrochemical sensor for determining the freshness of fish and bananas based on histamine estimation. As-developed hybrid mat possesses high porosity with a large specific surface area and excellent hydrophilicity those allow easy access of analyte molecules to the redox-active metal sites of MOF. Furthermore, the multiple functional groups of the MOF matrix can act as active adsorption sites for catalysis. The Mn-Co(2-MeIm)MOF@CNF mat-modified GC electrode demonstrated excellent electrocatalytic activities toward the oxidation of histamine under acidic conditions (pH = 5.0) with a faster electron transfer kinetics and superior fouling resistance. The Co(2-MeIm)MOF@CNF/GCE sensor exhibited a wide linear range from 10 to 1500 µM with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 89.6 nM and a high sensitivity of 107.3 µA mM
−1
cm
−2
. Importantly, as-developed Nb(BTC)MOF@CNF/GCE sensor is enabled to detect histamine in fish and banana samples stored for different periods of time, which thus indicates its practical viability as analytical histamine detector.
A
bstract
Limits on the cross section for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) elastic scattering on nuclei in NaI(Tl) detectors at the Yangyang Underground Laboratory are obtained from a ...2967.4 kg·day data exposure. The nuclei recoiling from the scattering process are identified by the pulse shape of the scintillation light signals that they produce. The data are consistent with a no nuclear-recoil hypothesis, and WIMP-mass-dependent 90% confidence-level upper-limits are set on WIMP-nuclei elastic scattering cross sections. These limits partially exclude the DAMA/LIBRA allowed region for WIMP-sodium interactions with the same NaI(Tl) target material. The 90% confidence level upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section is 3.26×10
−4
pb for a WIMP mass of 10 GeV/c
2
.