Electronic Tracker Research Articles

SND@LHC: the scattering and neutrino detector at the LHC

SND@LHC is a compact and stand-alone experiment designed to perform measurements with neutrinos produced at the LHC in the pseudo-rapidity region of 7.2 < η < 8.4. The experiment is located 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point, in the TI18 tunnel. The detector is composed of a hybrid system based on an 830 kg target made of tungsten plates, interleaved with emulsion and electronic trackers, also acting as an electromagnetic calorimeter, and followed by a hadronic calorimeter and a muon identification system. The detector is able to distinguish interactions of all three neutrino flavours, which allows probing the physics of heavy flavour production at the LHC in the very forward region. This region is of particular interest for future circular colliders and for very high energy astrophysical neutrino experiments. The detector is also able to search for the scattering of Feebly Interacting Particles. In its first phase, the detector is ready to operate throughout LHC Run 3 and collect a total of 250 fb-1.

High-energy extension of the gamma-ray band observable with an electron-tracking Compton camera

Although the MeV gamma-ray band is a promising energy-band window in astrophysics, the current situation of MeV gamma-ray astronomy significantly lags behind those of the other energy bands in angular resolution and sensitivity. An electron-tracking Compton camera (ETCC), a next-generation MeV detector, is expected to revolutionize the situation. An ETCC tracks each Compton-recoil electron with a gaseous electron tracker and determines the incoming direction of each gamma-ray photon; thus, it has a strong background rejection power and yields a better angular resolution than classical Compton cameras. Here, we study ETCC events in which the Compton-recoil electrons do not deposit all energies to the electron tracker but escape and hit the surrounding pixel scintillator array (PSA). The PSA provides additional information on the electron-recoil direction, which enables us to improve significantly the angular resolution. We developed an analysis method for this untapped class of events and applied it to laboratory and simulation data. We found that the energy spectrum obtained from the simulation agreed with that of the actual data within a factor of 1.2. We then evaluated the detector performance using the simulation data. The angular resolution for the new-class events was found to be twice as good as in the previous study at the energy range 1.0–2.0 MeV, where both analyses overlap. We also found that the total effective area is dominated by the contribution of the double-hit events above an energy of 1.5 MeV. Notably, applying this new method extends the sensitive energy range with the ETCC from 0.2–2.1 MeV in the previous studies to up to 3.5 MeV. Adjusting the PSA dynamic range should improve the sensitivity in even higher energy gamma-rays. The development of this new analysis method would pave the way for future observations by ETCC to fill the MeV-band sensitivity gap in astronomy.

SND@LHC: A New Experiment in Neutrino Physics at the LHC

The SND@LHC detector experiment is located at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), about 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point. The detector is designed to measure, for the first time ever, high-energy neutrinos produced at the LHC in the pseudorapidity region of 7.2&lt;η&lt;8.4, which is inaccessible to other LHC experiments. The detector comprises a hybrid system that incorporates multiple components. The detector includes a 830 kg target composed of tungsten plates arranged in alternating layers with nuclear emulsion and electronic trackers: this arrangement functions as an electromagnetic calorimeter. Following the electromagnetic calorimeter, there is a hadronic calorimeter and a muon identification system. The detector possesses the ability to differentiate interactions involving all three neutrino flavours, enabling investigations into the physics of heavy flavour production in the forward region. This research is particularly significant for future circular colliders and high-energy astrophysical neutrino experiments. Furthermore, the detector has the ability to search for the scattering of Feebly Interacting Particles. The detector started operating during the LHC Run 3, and it collected a total of ∼39 fb−1 in 2022. The detector aims to collect approximately 250 fb−1 in the whole of Run 3.

Current and Optimal Practices in Childhood Asthma Monitoring Among Multiple International Stakeholders

Childhood asthma control largely depends on rigorous and regular monitoring. Although various clinical parameters, biomarkers, and patient-reported outcomes are helpful for monitoring purposes, there is no consensus on the minimum and/or optimal set of parameters and their relative priority. To assess actual and perceived optimal childhood asthma monitoring practices used globally. This international, multistakeholder survey study surveyed health care professionals and clinical academics with a professional interest in and exposure to childhood asthma between April 12 and September 3, 2021, to test for differences between the frequency that different techniques are actually used in practice vs optimal practice, between-group differences, and differences across medical settings and country economies. Outcomes were frequency of duration of asthma monitoring visits as well as actual and perceived optimal use and importance of monitoring tools and domains. A total of 1319 participants with expertise in childhood asthma from 88 countries completed the survey. Participants included 1228 health care professionals with a balanced distribution across different care settings (305 [22.7%] primary care, 401 [29.9%] secondary, and 522 [38.9%] tertiary care) and 91 researchers. Children with mild to moderate asthma attended regular monitoring visits at a median (IQR) of 5.0 (2.5-8.0) months, with visits lasting a median (IQR) of 25 (15-25) minutes, whereas severe asthma required more frequent visits (median [IQR], 2.5 [1.0-2.5] months; median [IQR] duration, 25 [25-35] minutes). Monitoring of symptoms and control, adherence, comorbidities, lung function, medication adverse effects, and allergy were considered to be very high or high priority by more than 75% of the respondents. Different patterns emerged when assessing differences between actual and perceived optimal use of monitoring tools. For some tools, current and optimal practices did not differ much (eg, spirometry), whereas in others, there was considerable space for improvement (eg, standardized control and adherence tests). The largest gap was observed for between-visit monitoring with electronic trackers, apps, and smart devices. Differences across country economies, care settings, and medical specialties were modest. These survey results suggest that pediatric asthma monitoring is performed generally homogeneously worldwide, in most cases following evidence-based standards. Wider use of standardized instruments and the intensification of continuous between-visit monitoring, supported by electronic devices, is needed for further improvement of disease outcomes. The results of this survey, in conjunction with the available evidence base, can inform recommendations toward further optimization.

The Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN

SND@LHC (Scattering Neutrino Detector at the Large Hadron Collider) is a compact and stand-alone experiment to perform measurements with neutrinos produced in the LHC in a hitherto unexplored pseudorapidity region of 7.2 &lt; η &lt; 8.6. The experiment is located in the Tl18 (Target line 18) LHC tunnel, 480 m downstream of the ATLAS detector interaction point. The SND@LHC detector is composed of a hybrid system based on an 800 kg target mass of tungsten plates, interleaved with emulsion and electronic trackers, followed downstream by a muon system. This configuration allows us to distinguish all three neutrino flavors, opening a unique opportunity to probe the physics of heavy flavor production in the LHC in a region that is not accessible to the ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and FASER experiments. The detector concept is also well suited to searching for feebly interacting particles via signatures of scattering in the detector target. The first phase of the experiment has been carried out during the ongoing LHC Run 3, and the first data of the LHC Run3 commissioning period are being processed and analyzed.

Anomaly detection in wearable location trackers for child safety

Child Location trackers are widely available devices but the ability of these trackers to detect outlying incidents remain untapped. The main goal of this research is to incorporate anomaly detection in wearable child location trackers using machine learning, with a primary focus on unsupervised outlier detection techniques. Therefore, a low powered gyroscope-enabled electronic tracker using Low Drop Out (LDO) converters was fabricated as a building block for the software/hardware integration. Common unsupervised techniques were adopted for experimentation including the Local Outlier Factor (LOF), the k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN) Global Anomaly Score and the Histogram-based Outlier Score (HBOS). The results obtained show that LOF performs well in detecting local outliers as well as identifying new patterns to prevent false alarms, however, the paths to the newly identified locations bring about false alarms. The kNN Global Outlier Score is only capable of detecting global outliers where k is greater than 15. HBOS, on the other hand, performs better than the kNN Global Outlier Score but is unable to learn new locations that become part of the normal pattern. The proposed model is a potential candidate for an outlier detection system for combating child loss and kidnapping cases, thereby ensuring child safety globally.

First Observation of the MeV Gamma-Ray Universe with Bijective Imaging Spectroscopy Using the Electron-tracking Compton Telescope on Board SMILE-2+

MeV gamma-rays provide a unique window for the direct measurement of line emissions from radioisotopes, but observations have made little significant progress since COMPTEL on board the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory (CGRO). To observe celestial objects in this band, we are developing an electron-tracking Compton camera (ETCC) that realizes both bijective imaging spectroscopy and efficient background reduction gleaned from the recoil-electron track information. The energy spectrum of the observation target can then be obtained by a simple ON–OFF method using a correctly defined point-spread function on the celestial sphere. The performance of celestial object observations was validated on the second balloon SMILE-2+ , on which an ETCC with a gaseous electron tracker was installed that had a volume of 30 × 30 × 30 cm3. Gamma-rays from the Crab Nebula were detected with a significance of 4.0σ in the energy range 0.15–2.1 MeV with a live time of 5.1 hr, as expected before launch. Additionally, the light curve clarified an enhancement of gamma-ray events generated in the Galactic center region, indicating that a significant proportion of the final remaining events are cosmic gamma-rays. Independently, the observed intensity and time variation were consistent with the prelaunch estimates except in the Galactic center region. The estimates were based on the total background of extragalactic diffuse, atmospheric, and instrumental gamma-rays after accounting for the variations in the atmospheric depth and rigidity during the level flight. The Crab results and light curve strongly support our understanding of both the detection sensitivity and the background in real observations. This work promises significant advances in MeV gamma-ray astronomy.

A proposed high voltage distribution system for Mu2e electron tracker

This paper reports on the design and construction of a High Voltage Distribution System (HVDS) for a “Smart Switch” developed to provide high voltage (HV) to a series of stacked straw detector planes in the Mu2e Electron Tracking Detector (ETD). Each plane is composed of three 120 deg. Crescent-shaped panels, and each panel is composed of 96 straw tubes. The HVDS provides HV on-off, current monitoring, recording, and crowbar for over-current protection. The inter-communication system is based on TCP/IP. The HVDS supplies HV with long term stability, and accurately monitors the applied voltage and currents.

Effects of One-a-Day Foot Patrols on Hot Spots of Serious Violence and Crime Harm: a Randomised Crossover Trial

Research QuestionDoes one foot patrol per day (15–20 min) conducted in serious violence harm spots reduce street-visible crime harm and frequency relative to no foot patrol in the same hot spots, and if so by how much?DataWe identified 20 hot spots of 150m2 each on the basis of community violence defined as serious assaults, robbery, and drug dealing in the Southend-on-Sea area of Essex Police, with boundaries geo-fenced to collect GPS measures of foot patrol presence generated by hand-held electronic trackers issued to officers directed to perform patrols. All street-visible crimes were counted for each of the 90 days of the experiment in each hot spot.MethodsDaily random assignment of each hot spot to either control or treatment conditions (N = 90 X 20 = 1800 place-days) prescribed 720 place-days to receive extra patrols by Operational Support Group officers, which were compared to 1080 place-days with no extra patrols, using an intent-to-treat design, with 98% compliance with assigned treatments. Independent measures of other police presence in the area were tracked by the force-wide GPS telematics measures. All crimes were coded with the Cambridge Crime Harm Index for their CHI value.FindingsThe 20 harm spots comprised just 2.6% of the geographical area of the Southend-on-Sea area, with 41% of all its Cambridge CHI crime harm in the year preceding the experiment. Background patrol presence was about 2 min per day on control days and 1 min per treatment day. Crime harm scores for serious community violence were 88.5% lower on experimental days with extra patrols (mean = 1.07 CHI per treatment place-day) than without it (mean = 9.30 CHI per control place-day). Crime harm scores for all street-visible offences were 35.6% lower on treatment days (mean = 7.94 CHI per treatment place-day) than control days (mean = 12.33 CHI per control place-day), while the mean count of all street-visible offences was 31% lower on treatment days (mean count = 0.09 crimes per treatment place-day) than on control days (mean count = 0.13 crimes per control place-day). The estimated effect of the 720 days with 15-min patrols was to prevent crimes with recommended imprisonment of 3161 days, or 8.66 years.ConclusionThe use of two-officer foot patrol can be highly effective at preventing serious violence in street-visible settings in small areas in which such violence is heavily concentrated.

Make it Trackable: An Instant Magnetic Tracking System With Coil-Free Tiny Trackers

Ambient intelligence aims to actualize the environment that sense and utilize information around us without making us perceive the underlying systems. This work extends this concept by allowing us to track the movement and orientation of people and objects instantly. The proposed system can sense and let us know, for example, who met or talked to each other frequently, to whom s/he is often facing in the meeting, what stuffs people often use, where the person left his/her belongings, etc. Such information will help the system to understand the behavior patterns of each person and consequently can support and improve the personal life of users and even their mutual relationship. This article proposes an instant indoor magnetic tracking system that enables us to track the movement and orientation of people and objects by only attaching tiny electronic trackers to them. The size of the prototyped tracker is only 25.4mm $\times25.4$ mm $\times10.0$ mm, and hence it can be readily attached to almost anything and immediately activated. Evaluation results show that the proposed system applies to both room-scale tracking and tabletop scale tracking with 6 DoF (Degrees of Freedom).

'Digital pills' for mental diseases: an ethical and social analysis of the issues behind the concept.

Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration has given a landmark approval to the very first digital pill with a sensor embedded in the inside. These are complex systems that include a drug and an electronic tracker that is activated when the patient takes the pill. Accordingly, they might be an excellent tool for monitoring and potentially improving patients’ adherence to prescriptions. This would serve well to avoid unnecessary healthcare costs and reduce the anxiety of patients and their relatives. However, digital pills might also diminish patient autonomy, reduce privacy, or promote inadequate use of pharmaceutical resources. This article is aimed at contributing to adequate use of this new tool by showing the main ethical and social issues they involve and proposing measures meant to address them. Finally, we conclude by defending the idea that these new systems should be seen as means of complementing traditional strategies to promote adherence to treatment, and not as substitutes.

399-P: Nurse-Driven Intervention Using Real-Time Data to Improve Hypoglycemia Rates in a Respiratory Care Unit

Background: Hypoglycemia is a known cause of morbidity and mortality in the hospital setting. Nursing initiated interventions to reduce hypoglycemia rates have rarely been reported. Methods: At our institution, hypoglycemia rate is defined as the percentage of patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) with one or more blood glucose (BG) &amp;lt; 70mg/dl after 24 hours of admission. Nursing units are given monthly hypoglycemia rates, retrospectively. An electronic hypoglycemia tracker tool was developed for hypoglycemia monitoring. This tool prompted nursing staff on the Respiratory Care Unit (RCU) to assess for causes of hypoglycemia. This study was a unit based quality improvement project. Results: RCU’s baseline monthly hypoglycemia rates before intervention were: 23%, 38%, and 25% in January-March 2019, respectively. Hypoglycemia tracker results after 1 month of use demonstrated that &amp;gt; 50% of hypoglycemia occurrences were preceded by BG &amp;lt; 100mg/dl before becoming overtly hypoglycemic. Staff nurses accessed real-time data using the inpatient diabetes dashboard, beginning in April 2018, to assess BG trends on RCU patients currently admitted. Patients deemed at risk for hypoglycemia had the provider notified to intervene with reduced insulin dosage or another intervention if appropriate. Three months after intervention, monthly hypoglycemia rates decreased to 0%, 4% and 7% in April- June 2019, respectively. The RCU has been able to sustain improvement with an average hypoglycemia rate April-December 2019 of 9%. Conclusion: Causes of hypoglycemia in the hospital setting need to be assessed in order to determine successful prevention strategies. Tools, like hypoglycemia tracker tool, has helped units assess the causes of hypoglycemia so that some events can be prevented. Traditionally providers are tasked with managing DM in the hospital. This quality improvement project showed that nurses can have an impact on preventing hypoglycemia. Disclosure A. Hasse: None. R. Schulman: None. T. Calder: None.

Birds of the Oceans and Waterways

Birds of the Oceans and Waterways

Resource Planning in Glaucoma: A Tool to Evaluate Glaucoma Service Capacity

ABSTRACTBackground: The National Patient Safety Agency (2009) publication advising timely follow-up of patients with established glaucoma followed several reported instances of visual loss due to postponed appointments and patients lost to follow-up. The Royal College of Ophthalmologists Quality Standards Development Group stated that all hospital appointments should occur within 15% of the intended follow-up period.Aim: To determine whether:1. Glaucoma follow-up appointments at a teaching hospital occur within the requested time2. Appointments are requested at appropriate intervals based on the NICE Guidelines3. The capacity of the glaucoma service is adequateMethods: A two-part audit was undertaken of 98 and 99 consecutive patients respectively attending specialist glaucoma clinics. In the first part, the reasons for delayed appointments were recorded. In the second part the requested follow-up was compared with NICE guidelines where applicable. Based on the findings, changes were implemented and a re-audit of 100 patients was carried out. Results: The initial audit found that although clinical decisions regarding follow-up intervals were 100% compliant with NICE guidelines where applicable, 24% of appointments were delayed beyond 15% of the requested period, due to administrative errors and inadequate capacity, leading to significant clinical deterioration in two patients. Following the introduction of an electronic appointment tracker and increased clinical capacity created by extra clinics and clinicians, the re-audit found a marked decrease in the percentage of appointments being delayed (9%). Conclusions: This audit is a useful tool to evaluate glaucoma service provision, assist in resource planning for the service and bring about change in a non-confrontational way. It can be widely applied and adapted for use in other medical specialities.

Interventions to improve adherence to inhaled steroids for asthma.

Interventions to improve adherence to inhaled steroids for asthma.

Search for charmed hadrons in the OPERA experiment

The OPERA experiment was designed to study muon neutrino to tau neutrino oscillations in appearance mode, using the CERN to Gran Sasso (CNGS) high energy neutrino beam 730 km far from the source. From 2008 to 2012, CNGS neutrinos interactions were recorded in the OPERA detector, which includes target units made of lead plates alternated with emulsion films and electronic tracker planes. The on-going analysis is aimed at the detection of short-lived particle decays occurring over distances of the order of 1 mm from the neutrino interaction point. It has allowed identifying charmed hadrons together with the tau lepton decay candidates that have established vμ → vτ oscillations with a significance of 4.2 σ. The procedure applied in OPERA to detect short-lived particle decays and its application to the search for charmed hadrons will be discussed here in detail.

The OPERA Experiment and Recent Results

OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus) is a long-baseline neutrino experiment, designed to perform the first direct detection of νμ → ντ oscillation in appearance mode. The OPERA detector is placed in the CNGS long baseline νμ beam, 732 km away from the neutrino source. The detector, consisting of a modular target made of lead - nuclear emulsion units complemented by electronic trackers and muon spectrometers, has been conceived to select ντ charged current interactions through the observation of the outcoming tau leptons and their subsequent decays. Runs with CNGS neutrinos were carried out from 2008 to 2012. In this paper results on νμ → ντ oscillations with background estimation and statistical significance are reported.

Enhancing patient safety with an electronic results checking system in a large HIV outpatient service

To establish whether an automated electronic tracker system for reporting blood results would expedite clinician review of abnormal results in HIV-positive outpatients and to pilot the use of this system in routine clinical practice. An outpatient service in central London providing specialist HIV-related care to 3900 HIV positive patients. A comparison of the time taken from sampling to identification and clinician review of abnormal blood results for biochemical tests between the original paper-based checking system and an automated electronic system during a 3-week pilot. Of 513 patients undergoing one or more blood tests, 296 (57%) had one or more biochemical abnormalities identified by electronic checking system. Out of 371 biochemical abnormalities, 307 (82.7%) were identified simultaneously by the paper-based system. Of the 307, 33 (10.7%) were classified as urgent, 130 (42.3%) as non-urgent and 144 (46.9%) as not clinically significant. The median interval between sampling and receipt of results was 1 (interquartile range 1-2) vs 4 days ( interquartile range 3-5), P <0.0001; clinician review 3 (interquartile range 1-4) vs 3 days (interquartile range 3-6), P<0.037; and review of non-urgent abnormalities by the regular clinician 2 (interquartile range 1-4) vs 10 days ( interquartile range 9-12), P=0.136, for electronic and paper-based systems respectively. Seven (11%) of the missing paper-based system results were classified as urgent. The electronic system missed three abnormalities as a result of a software processing error which was subsequently corrected. The electronic tracker system allows faster identification of biochemical abnormalities and allowed faster review of these results by clinicians. The pilot study allowed for a software error to be identified and corrected before full implementation. The system has since integrated successfully into routine clinical practice.

Recent results of the OPERA experiment

OPERA is a long baseline neutrino experiment aiming at the first direct observation of the tau neutrino appearance in an almost pure muon neutrino beam. The detector, installed in the hall C of the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, 730 km away from the beam source, is a hybrid apparatus combining nuclear emulsion based detector units together with electronic trackers. Furthermore two spectrometers are used in order to reconstruct charge and momentum of penetrating muon particles. In the first 4 years of data taking OPERA collected 14.2×1019 protons on target (p.o.t.) and 13377 neutrino interactions. In this paper the status of the analysis will be presented together with the oscillation search results.

OBSERVATION OF DIFFUSE COSMIC AND ATMOSPHERIC GAMMA RAYS AT BALLOON ALTITUDES WITH AN ELECTRON-TRACKING COMPTON CAMERA

We observed diffuse cosmic and atmospheric gamma rays at balloon altitudes with the Sub-MeV gamma-ray Imaging Loaded-on-balloon Experiment I (SMILE-I) as the first step toward a future all-sky survey with a high sensitivity. SMILE-I employed an electron-tracking Compton camera comprised of a gaseous electron tracker as a Compton-scattering target and a scintillation camera as an absorber. The balloon carrying the SMILE-I detector was launched from the Sanriku Balloon Center of the Institute of Space and Astronomical Science/Japan Space Exploration Agency on September 1, 2006, and the flight lasted for 6.8 hr, including level flight for 4.1 hr at an altitude of 32-35 km. During the level flight, we successfully detected 420 downward gamma rays between 100 keV and 1 MeV at zenith angles below 60 degrees. To obtain the flux of diffuse cosmic gamma rays, we first simulated their scattering in the atmosphere using Geant4, and for gamma rays detected at an atmospheric depth of 7.0 g cm-2, we found that 50% and 21% of the gamma rays at energies of 150 keV and 1 MeV, respectively, were scattered in the atmosphere prior to reaching the detector. Moreover, by using Geant4 simulations and the QinetiQ atmospheric radiation model, we estimated that the detected events consisted of diffuse cosmic and atmospheric gamma rays (79%), secondary photons produced in the instrument through the interaction between cosmic rays and materials surrounding the detector (19%), and other particles (2%). The obtained growth curve was comparable to Ling's model, and the fluxes of diffuse cosmic and atmospheric gamma rays were consistent with the results of previous experiments. The expected detection sensitivity of a future SMILE experiment measuring gamma rays between 150 keV and 20 MeV was estimated from our SMILE-I results and was found to be ten times better than that of other experiments at around 1 MeV.