Background
. According to official statistics, the rate of occupational accidents (OAs) and fatal injuries in Russia decreased about 5-fold and 2-fold, respectively, from 1975 to 2010, but working ...conditions during this period had the opposite trend; for example, the number of people who work in unfavourable and hazardous conditions (particularly since 1991) has increased significantly.
Methods
. This review summarises the results of a search of the relevant peer-reviewed literature published in Russia and official statistics on OAs and occupational safety in Russia and the Russian Arctic in 1980-2010.
Results
. The occupational safety system in Russia has severely deteriorated in the last 2 decades, with legislators tending to promote the interests of industry and business, resulting in the neglect of occupational safety and violation of workers' rights. The majority of workers are employed in conditions that do not meet rules of safety and hygiene. More than 60% of OAs can be attributed to management practices - violation of safety regulations, poor organisation of work, deficiency of certified occupational safety specialists and inadequate personnel training. Research aimed at improving occupational safety and health is underfunded. There is evidence of widespread under-reporting of OAs, including fatal accidents. Three federal agencies are responsible for OAs recording; their data differ from each other as they use different methodologies. The rate of fatal OAs in Russia was 3-6 times higher than in Scandinavian countries and about 2 times higher compared to United States and Canada in 2001. In some Russian Arctic regions OAs levels are much higher.
Conclusions
. Urgent improvement of occupational health and safety across Russia, especially in the Arctic regions, is needed.
Two new ReBCO-CORC® based cable-in-conduit conductors (CICC) are developed by CERN in collaboration with ACT-Boulder. Both conductors feature a critical current of about 80 kA at 4.5 K and 12 T. One ...conductor is designed for operation in large detector magnets, while the other is aimed for application in fusion type magnets. The conductors use a six-around-one cable geometry with six flexible ReBCO CORC® strands twisted around a central tube. The fusion CICC is designed to be cooled by the internal forced flow of either helium gas or supercritical helium to cope with high heat loads in superconducting magnets in large fusion experimental reactors. In addition, the cable is enclosed by a stainless steel jacket to accommodate with the high level of Lorentz forces present in such magnets. Detector type magnets require stable, high-current conductors. Therefore, the detector CORC® CICC comprises an OFHC copper jacket with external conduction cooling, which is advantageous due to its simplicity. A 2.8 m long sample of each conductor is manufactured and prepared for testing in the Sultan facility at PSI Villigen. In the paper, the conductor design and assembly steps for both CORC® CICCs are highlighted.
Quench detection on superconducting bus bars and other devices with a low normal zone propagation velocity and low voltage build-up is quite difficult with conventional quench detection techniques. ...Currently, on ATLAS superconducting bus bar sections, superconducting quench detectors (SQD) are mounted to detect quench events. A first version of the SQD essentially consists of an insulated superconducting wire glued to a superconducting bus line or windings, which in the case of a quench rapidly builds up a relatively high resistance that can be easily and quietly detected. We now introduce a new generation of drastically improved SQDs. The new version makes the detection of quenches simpler, more reliable, and much faster. Instead of a superconducting wire, now a superconducting thin film is used. The layout of the sensor shows a meander like pattern that is etched out of a copper coated 25 μm thick film of Nb-Ti glued in between layers of Kapton. Since the sensor is now much smaller and thinner, it is easier to install and build up a high resistance with a much shorter response time. The design of the sensors is explained. The test results of the new sensors in a few variants in a calibration setup as well as when mounted on the windings surface of a magnet are reported.
•A new quench protection system: Coupling-Loss Induced Quench (CLIQ).•The CLIQ generates heat in a superconductor by introducing coupling losses.•Extensive testing on a Nb–Ti single-wire test ...solenoid magnet.•Key operating parameters are highlighted and optimized.•An alternative design is based on a CLIQ discharge through an external coil.
New-generation high-field superconducting magnets pose a challenge relating to the protection of the coil winding pack in the case of a quench. The high stored energy per unit volume calls for a very efficient quench detection and fast quench propagation in order to avoid damage due to overheating.
A new protection system called Coupling-Loss Induced Quench (CLIQ) was recently developed and tested at CERN. This method provokes a fast change in the magnet transport current by means of a capacitive discharge. The resulting change in the local magnetic field induces inter-filament and inter-strand coupling losses which heat up the superconductor and eventually initiate a quench in a large fraction of the coil winding pack.
The method is extensively tested on a Nb–Ti single-wire test solenoid magnet in the CERN Cryogenic Laboratory in order to assess its performance, optimize its operating parameters, and study new electrical configurations. Each parameter is thoroughly analyzed and its impact on the quench efficiency highlighted.
Furthermore, an alternative method is also considered, based on a CLIQ discharge through a resistive coil magnetically coupled with the solenoid but external to it. Due to the strong coupling between the external coil and the magnet, the oscillating current in the external coil changes the magnetic field in the solenoid strands and thus generates coupling losses in the strands. Although for a given charging voltage this configuration usually yields poorer quench performance than a standard CLIQ discharge, it has the advantage of being electrically insulated from the solenoid coil, and thus it can work with much higher voltage.
Culturing of bone marrow cells in serum-free RPMI-1640 medium led to a decrease in the rate of DNA biosynthesis. Addition of HDL or their main protein component apolipoprotein A-I to the culture ...medium dose-dependently increased the rate of 3H-thymidine incorporation into DNA. The maximum stimulation was achieved at HDL concentration of 80 μg/ml and apolipoprotein A-I concentration of 20 μg/ml. To identify the target-cells of apolipoprotein A-I, we used thymidine analogue 5-ethynyl-2’-deoxyuridine (EdU) that incorporates into cell DNA at the stage of replicative DNA synthesis (S phase) and can be detected by fluorescence microscopy. In bone marrow cell culture, apolipoprotein A-I stimulates the proliferation of monocyte (monoblasts, promonocytes) and granulocyte (myeloblasts, promyelocytes) progenitor cells, as well as bone marrow stromal cells.
Objectives
. The general aim was to assess the pattern and trend in cancer mortality among the indigenous people of coastal Chukotka during the period 1961-1990.
Methods
. All cases of cancer deaths ...of indigenous residents of the Chukotsky district in the north-easternmost coast of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug were copied from personal death certificates. There were a total of 219 cancer deaths during the study period. The average annual number of cases, percent, crude, and age-standardized cancer mortality rates (ASMR) per 100,000 among men and women for all sites combined and selected sites were calculated. Data were aggregated into six 5-year periods to assess temporal trends. Direct age-standardization was performed with the Segi-Doll world standard population used by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Results
. The indigenous Chukchi and Eskimo people living in Chukotsky district were at higher risk of death from cancer during the 30-year period between 1961 and 1990, with ASMR among men twice that of Russia, and among women 3.5 times higher. The excess can be attributed to the extremely high mortality from oesophageal cancer and lung cancer.
Conclusions
. The indigenous people of coastal Chukotka were at very high risk of death from cancer relative to the Russian population nationally. The mortality data from this study correspond to the pattern of incidence reported among other indigenous people of the Russian Arctic. Little information is available since 1990, and the feasibility of ethnic-specific health data is now severely limited.
The Future Circular Collider (FCC) study includes the design of the detector magnets for the FCC-ee+ (electron-positron) collider, requiring a 2 T solenoid for particle spectrometry, and for the ...FCC-hh (proton-proton) collider, with a 4 T detector solenoid. For both solenoids and their cryostats, CERN is developing an innovative and challenging design in which the solenoids are positioned inside the calorimeters, directly surrounding the inner tracker. For this purpose, the cryostats must be optimized to have maximum radiation transparency. They are structured as a sandwich of thinnest possible metallic shells for achieving vacuum tightness, supported by layers of low density and highly radiation transparent insulation material, still providing sufficient mechanical resistance and low thermal conductivity. In this respect, thermal and mechanical analysis of innovative insulation materials are currently being carried out. The first material of interest, Cryogel® Z, is shaped as a flexible composite blanket, which combines silica aerogel with reinforcing fibers and a density of 160 kg/m3. It allows a 4 m bore, 6 m long FCC-ee+ detector solenoid cryostat with a total thickness of 250 mm. CERN has investigated the compression of Cryogel® Z under 1 bar equivalent mechanical load and its thermal conductivity between 10 K and room temperature, as well as the critical phenomena of thermal shrinkage and outgassing. We present the test results, as a first overview on the material.
IAXO, the new International AXion Observatory, will feature the most ambitious detector for solar axions to date. Axions are hypothetical particles that were postulated to solve one of the puzzles ...arising in the standard model of particle physics, namely the strong CP (charge conjugation and parity) problem. This detector aims at achieving a sensitivity to the coupling between axions and photons of one order of magnitude beyond the limits of the current detector, the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST). IAXO is equivalent to combining roughly 20000 CAST detectors into a single apparatus. The IAXO detector relies on a high-magnetic-field distributed over a very large volume to convert solar axions to detectable X-ray photons. Inspired by the ATLAS barrel and end-cap toroids, a large superconducting toroid is being designed. The toroid comprises eight, 1-m-wide and 21-m-long racetrack coils. The assembled toroid is sized 5.2 m in diameter and 25 m in length and its mass is about 250 tons. The useful field in the bores is 2.5 T while the peak magnetic field in the windings is 5.4 T. At the operational current of 12 kA the stored energy is 500 MJ. The racetrack type of coils are wound with a reinforced aluminum stabilized NbTi/Cu cable and are conduction cooled. The coils optimization is briefly described as well as new concepts for cryostat, cold mass, supporting structure, and the sun tracking system. Materials selection and sizing, conductor, thermal loads, the cryogenics system, and the electrical system are described. Lastly, quench simulations are reported to demonstrate the system's safe quench protection scheme.
Culturing of bone marrow cells in serum-free RPMI-1640 medium for 24 h was accompanied by a decrease in the rate of 3H-thymidine incorporation into DNA. Addition of native apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) ...or plasma LDL and HDL to the culture medium increased this parameter. In contrast to native apoA-I, its modified form decelerated DNA synthesis in bone marrow cells. A similar inhibitory effect of modified protein was observed in cultures of human embryonic kidney cells (HEK293) and in rapidly proliferating mouse macrophage cell line ANA-1. The only exclusion was human myeloid cell line U937: neither native nor modified apoA-I affected DNA synthesis in these cells. Thus, the regulatory effects of apoA-I are tissue-specific; this protein can produce either stimulatory or inhibitory effect on DNA biosynthesis in cells depending on its conformation.
The food- and waterborne disease situation in Russia requires special attention. Poor quality of centralized water supplies and sewage systems, biological and chemical contamination of drinking ...water, as well as contamination of food products, promote widespread infectious diseases, significantly exceeding nationwide rates in the population living in the two-thirds of Russian northern territories.
The general aim was to assess the levels of food- and waterborne diseases in selected regions of Russian Arctic, Siberia and the Far East (for the period 2000-2011), and to compare disease levels among regions and with national levels in Russia.
This study is the first comparative assessment of the morbidity in these fields of the population of 18 selected regions of Russian Arctic, Siberia and the Far East, using official statistical sources. The incidences of infectious and parasitic food- and waterborne diseases among the general population (including indigenous peoples) have been analyzed in selected regions (per 100,000 of population, averaged for 2000-2011).
Among compulsory registered infectious and parasitic diseases, there were high rates and widespread incidences in selected regions of shigellosis, yersiniosis, hepatitis A, tularaemia, giardiasis, enterobiasis, ascariasis, diphyllobothriasis, opistorchiasis, echinococcosis and trichinellosis.
Incidences of infectious and parasitic food- and waterborne diseases in the general population of selected regions of the Russian Arctic, Siberia and the Far East (2000-2011) are alarmingly high. Parallel solutions must be on the agenda, including improvement of sanitary conditions of cities and settlements in the regions, modernization of the water supply and of the sewage system. Provision and monitoring of the quality of the drinking water, a reform of the general healthcare system and the epidemiological surveillance (including gender-divided statistics), enhancement of laboratory diagnostics and the introduction of preventive actions are urgently needed.
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