International Facility Research Articles

Models to predict the economic development impact of transportation projects: historical experience and new applications

Methods used for assessing economic impacts of proposed transportation projects have continually evolved over time. Whereas they once focused largely on the economic benefit of time and cost savings for travelers, they may now encompass broader factors such as accessibility roles in supply chains, labor market expansion, global trade growth, and their economic development implications. This broader view can be particularly important when considering transportation projects affecting network connectivity and activities of logistics centers, inter-modal terminals, and international gateway facilities. Using examples throughout history, a generalized description is developed of the range of access, reliability, quality and cost factors that can affect the nature of economic growth impacts of transportation projects. While the set of factors is consistent with both theory and research findings, there has been a significant shortfall in their coverage by applied computer analysis models used for transportation decision-making. This article critically examines the coverage of access impacts by various types of predictive economic impact models, and then describes new directions in applied models to assess transportation projects impacts on business productivity, growth and attraction. Finally, it outlines an analysis framework that is designed to facilitate use of improved modeling methods for assessing economic impacts of multi-modal transportation investment.

Channel Tunnel Rail Link section 2: St Pancras International station

St Pancras International station is the jewel in the crown of the £5·8 billion Channel Tunnel Rail Link project – now known as High Speed 1. It replaces Waterloo as home for the UK Eurostar service, which now arrives in continental Europe 15 minutes quicker thanks to completion of the final second section of the project. This paper describes its design and construction, which included a painstaking refurbishment and extension of the 140 year old Barlow-designed train shed as well as creation of new state-of-the-art international station facilities.

Present and future experiments with stored exotic nuclei at the FRS-ESR facility

High accuracy mass and lifetime measurements are performed with the combination of the in-flight separator FRS and the cooler-storage ring ESR at GSI. Exotic nuclei are produced via projectile fragmentation and fission at (400–900) MeV/u. This energy range is the basis for unique experimental conditions with bare and few-electron fragments and allows for the first time investigations for decay channels which are rare or strictly forbidden in neutral atoms. New experimental developments and data including the discovery of new isotopes are presented. The comparison of the experimental results with theoretical predictions indicates the potential for improvements of nuclear models. A new generation of experiments will be possible with the advent of the proposed international Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR).

Development of a silicon tracking and vertex detection system for the CBM experiment at FAIR

The compressed baryonic matter (CBM) experiment is a fixed-target heavy-ion spectrometer planned at the future international Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at GSI. The CBM research program will explore the phase diagram of Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) in the region of high baryon chemical potentials, in other words nuclear matter at extreme densities. Matter of such forms is believed to exist in the interior of neutron stars and in the cores of certain types of supernovae. In the laboratory, the dense nuclear medium is created in collisions of heavy-ion beams with nuclear targets. With beam intensities of up to 10 12 ions per pulse, beam energies up to 45 GeV/nucleon, and high availability the SIS-300 synchrotron of FAIR will offer unique opportunities for this research. The CBM detector will identify hadrons and leptons in nuclear collisions with up to 1000 charged particles at event rates up to 10 MHz. The experiment will be optimized in particular for the detection of rare probes, like hadronic decays of D mesons and leptonic decays of light vector mesons, that can yield information on the initial dense phase of the collisions. The challenge is to accomplish in this environment high-resolution charged particle tracking, momentum measurement and secondary vertex selection with a silicon tracking and vertex detection system, the central component of the CBM detector. The system requirements include a very low material budget, radiation tolerant sensors with high spatial resolution, and a fast readout compatible with high-level-only triggers. The paper discusses the concept of the silicon detection system, the optimization of its layout, and the R&D on micro-strip and pixel sensors as well as front-end electronics for the building blocks of the detector stations.

The ISM Code and the ISPS Code: A critical legal analysis of two SOLAS regimes

Within the comprehensive body of law encompassed by the International Convention on Safety of Life at Sea, 1974 (SOLAS), there are two regimes that are topical and outstanding in the current maritime milieu. These are the international safety management and the international ship and port facility regimes, both characterized by two codes serving as the centre of gravity of each, namely, the ISM Code and the ISPS Code, respectively. In this article the concept of the code as a legal instrument is perused following which a critical legal analysis is carried out of the two above-mentioned Codes, including their backgrounds, the evolutionary process culminating into the regimes and their interrelationships. Several anomalies and inadequacies in the two regimes are identified but in the final analysis it is concluded that both instruments are salutary additions to the body of convention law generated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). They will undoubtedly influence the continuing development of international law in the field of maritime safety and security.

Cape Town, a Secondary Global City in a Developing Country

In recent years, the concept of the global city has become an important expression primarily used to characterise Western cities that have become key nodes for headquarter functions, financial services, information processing, and other activities that have been undertaken to announce their influence as world leaders. However, this paper parallels recent academic moves to look beyond the North and concludes that global cities also exist in the South. It further introduces Cape Town as a contemporary example of one such city that is becoming more worldly in both appearance and outlook. The city's position as an up-and-coming global city can be accredited to a range of comparative advantages and strategic interventions including successful rejuvenation strategies, gentrification of certain neighbourhoods, a rising number of foreign visitors, and the construction of a world-class international convention facility. While it may not be a top-ranked competitor, Cape Town does display global city characteristics such as a growing aggressiveness on the part of urban planners and development practitioners in foreign investment attraction, strategic marketing campaigns, and the hosting of high-profile events that provide valuable lessons for aspiring secondary global cities.

ALMA capabilities for observations of spectral line emission

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) (The Enhanced Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (known as ALMA) is an international astronomy facility. ALMA is a partnership between North America, Europe, and Japan/Taiwan, in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, and is funded in Europe by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Spain, in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), and in Japan by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) in cooperation with the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Japan/Taiwan by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), and on behalf of Europe by ESO) combines large collecting area and location on a high dry site to provide it with unparalleled potential for sensitive millimeter/submillimeter spectral line observations. Its wide frequency coverage, superb receivers and flexible spectrometer will ensure that its potential is met. Since the 1999 meeting on ALMA Science (Wootten, ASP Conf. Ser. 235, 2001), the ALMA team has substantially enhanced its capability for line observations. ALMA’s sensitivity increased when Japan joined the project, bringing the 16 antennas of the Atacama Compcat Array (ACA), equivalent to eight additional 12 m telescopes. The first four receiver cartridges for the baseline ALMA (Japan’s entry has brought two additional bands to ALMA’s receiver retinue) have been accepted, with performance above the already-challenging specifications. ALMA’s flexibility has increased with the enhancement of the baseline correlator with additional channels and flexibility, and with the addition of a separate correlator for the ACA. As an example of the increased flexibility, ALMA is now capable of multi-spectral-region and multi-resolution modes. With the former, one might observe e.g. four separate transitions anywhere within a 2 GHz band with a high resolution bandwidth. With the latter, one might simultaneously observe with low spectral resolution over a wide bandwidth and with high spectral resolution over a narrow bandwidth; this mode could be useful for observations of pressure-broadened lines with narrow cores, for example. Several science examples illustrate ALMA’s potential for transforming millimeter and submillimeter astronomy.

High energy density physics problems related to liquid jet lithium target for Super-FRS fast extraction scheme

The new international facility for antiproton and ion research (FAIR), at Darmstadt, Germany, will accelerate beams of all stable isotopes from protons up to uranium with unprecedented intensities (of the order of 1012 ions per spill). Planned future experiments include production of exotic nuclei by fragmentation/fission of projectile ions of different species with energies up to 1.5 GeV/u at the proposed super conducting fragment separator, Super-FRS. In such experiments, the production target must survive multiple irradiations over an extended period of time, which in case of such beam intensities is highly questionable. Previous work showed that with full intensity of the uranium beam, a solid graphite target will be destroyed after being irradiated once, unless the beam focal spot is made very large that will result in extremely poor transmission and resolution of the secondary isotopes. An alternative to a solid target could be a windowless liquid jet target. We have carried out three-dimensional numerical simulations to study the problem of target heating and propagation of pressure in a liquid Li target. These first calculations have shown that a liquid lithium target may survive the full uranium beam intensity for a reasonable size focal spot.

Atomic physics with highly-charged ions at the future FAIR facility: A status report

The key features of the future international accelerator Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) offer a range of new and challenging opportunities for atomic physics research in the realm of highly-charged heavy ions and exotic nuclei. Centred on use of FAIR, the Stored Particle Atomic Physics Research Collaboration (SPARC), organized in working groups, has been formed. A short report on the tasks and activities of the various SPARC working groups, devoted to the realization of experimental equipments and set-ups required to reach the physics goals is given.

CHARMONIUM AND EXOTIC HADRONS AT PANDA

Recently GSI presented the plans for a major new international research facility, called FAIR. A key feature of this new facility will be the delivery of intense, high-quality secondary beams which embody the production of antiprotons. For the antiproton beams a High Energy Storage Ring (HESR) is comprised. The design luminosity is 2·1032 cm -2 s -1. Experiments will take place at an internal target. The rich spectroscopy program on exotic hadrons with antiproton beams is presented.

The Impact of Malaria Control on Perceptions of Tourists and Tourism Operators Concerning Malaria Prevalence in KwaZulu‐Natal, 1999/2000 Versus 2002/2003

Although the regional approach to malaria control between South Africa, Swaziland, and Mozambique has significantly decreased malaria risk in the Lubombo corridor, many facility owners' and tourists' malaria risk perception has remained unchanged. A large percentage are still unaware of the extensive malaria control efforts in the region and subsequent malaria reductions in the Lubombo corridor. A questionnaire-based follow-up survey was carried out in northern KwaZulu-Natal in the 1999/2000 and 2002/2003 malaria seasons. Tourists and tourist facility owners/managers were interviewed on their perceptions pertaining to malaria risk. In the 1999/2000 malaria season, 18% of tourist facilities in northern KwaZulu-Natal were in areas where 5 to 25 malaria cases per 1,000 population were recorded, and 68% were in areas where <5 malaria cases per 1,000 population were recorded. A major reduction in malaria cases was achieved by the end of the 2002/2003 malaria season. None (0%) of the tourist facilities were in areas where 5 to 25 malaria cases per 1,000 population were recorded, and 98% were in areas where malaria cases were lower than five cases per 1,000 population. The survey of local and international tourists and tourist facility operators in northern KwaZulu-Natal revealed that there was a discrepancy between perceived and actual malaria risk. The perceived malaria risk among both local and international tourists and facility operators needs to be addressed by distributing updated malaria risk information on an annual basis.

Prospects of nuclear structure at the future GSI accelerators

The accelerator complex FAIR (International Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) will provide a unique combination of accelerators and storage rings for a multidisciplinary scientific program. The FAIR accelerator complex constitutes a substantial extension of the present GSI systems and will use the existing accelerators after several upgrades as an injector. This new facility comprises as an integral part a next-generation rare-isotope beam facility based on the production and separation of secondary beams produced by fragmentation or fission of energetic high-intensity primary ion beams. An advanced experimental program including new and unique concepts promises a new quality in investigations of nuclei far away from stability. A brief overview on the facility is presented with emphasis on the radioactive-beam facility. The experimental program and its related instrumentation is discussed briefly.

Containment of Polioviruses After Eradication and OPV Cessation: Characterizing Risks to Improve Management

The goal of the World Health Organization is to stop routine use of oral poliovirus vaccine shortly after interruption of wild poliovirus transmission. A key component of this goal is to minimize the risk of reintroduction by destruction of polioviruses except in an absolute minimum number of facilities that serve essential functions and implement effective containment. Effective containment begins with a complete facility risk assessment. This article focuses on characterizing the risks of exposure to polioviruses from the essential vaccine production, quality control, and international reference and research facilities that remain. We consider the potential exposure pathways that might lead to a poliovirus reintroduction, including para-occupational exposures and releases to the environment, and review the literature to provide available estimates and a qualitative assessment of containment risks. Minimizing the risk of poliovirus transmission from a poliovirus facility to increasingly susceptible communities is a crucial and ongoing effort requiring understanding and actively managing the potential exposure pathways.

The Toulouse pulsed magnet facility

The ‘Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Pulsés’ (LNCMP) is an international user facility providing access to pulsed magnetic fields up to and beyond 60 T. The laboratory disposes of 10 magnet stations equipped with long-pulse magnets operating in the 35–60 T range and a short-pulse system reaching magnetic fields in excess of 70 T. The experimental infrastructure includes various high and low-temperature systems ranging from ordinary flow-type cryostats to dilution refrigerators reaching 50 mK, as well as different types of high-pressure cells. Experimental techniques include magnetization, transport, luminescence, IR-spectroscopy and polarimetry. The LNCMP pursues an extensive in-house research program focussing on all technological and scientific aspects of pulsed magnetic fields. Recent technical developments include the implementation of 60 T rapid-cooling coils, an 80 T prototype, a pulsed dipole magnet for optical investigations of dilute matter and a transportable horizontal access magnet for small angle x-ray scattering experiments. Scientific activities cover a variety of domains, including correlated electron systems, magnetism, semiconductors and nanoscience.

The ALMA correlator

Aims. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is an international astronomy facility to be used for detecting and imaging all types of astronomical sources at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths at a 5000-m elevation site in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Our main aims are: describe the correlator sub-system which is that part of the ALMA system that combines the signal from up to 64 remote individual radio antennas and forms them into a single instrument; emphasize the high spectral resolution and the configuration flexibility available with the ALMA correlator. Methods. The main digital signal processing features and a block diagram of the correlator being constructed for the ALMA radio astronomy observatory are presented. Tables of observing modes and spectral resolutions offered by the correlator system are given together with some examples of multi-resolution spectral modes. Results. The correlator is delivered by quadrants and the first quadrant is being tested while most of the other printed circuit cards required by the system have been produced. In its final version the ALMA correlator will process the outputs of up to 64 antennas using an instantaneous bandwidth of 8 GHz in each of two polarizations per antenna. In the frequency division mode, unrivalled spectral flexibility together with very high resolution (3.8 kHz) and up to 8192 spectral points are achieved. In the time division mode high time resolution is available with minimum data dump rates of 16 ms for all cross-products.

RHIC’s future looks bright

Bertram Schwarzschild’s Issues and Events piece on the National Research Council’s report Revealing the Hidden Nature of Space and Time (Physics Today, June 2006, page 26) states, “Fermilab’s Tevatron is unlikely to outlive the decade. Neither is the PEP-II asymmetric electron–positron collider at SLAC nor the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory.”Placing RHIC in this context is odd since the NRC report nowhere mentions it. RHIC is funded by the Office of Nuclear Physics in the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, not by the Office of High Energy Physics, for which the NRC committee was charged with recommending priorities for the next 15 years.More important, the notion that RHIC is “unlikely to outlive the decade” is misbegotten. The scientific impact of RHIC has been outstanding; its discovery of the “perfect liquid” of quarks and gluons was named the number-one physics story of 2005 by the American Institute of Physics publication Physics News Update and garnered media coverage around the world.Brookhaven National Laboratory is currently working with the Office of Nuclear Physics to implement for RHIC a strategy for the period 2006–11 aimed at a 10-fold luminosity upgrade and detector upgrades. This strategy will place RHIC at the forefront of research in high-temperature quantum chromodynamics (QCD) for at least another 10 years. Furthermore, RHIC is the first and only hadron collider with the ability to accelerate, store, and collide polarized protons at energies up to 500 GeV in the center-of-mass frame. It therefore provides unique opportunities to study the spin content of the nucleon—a program that also will extend into the next decade.Beyond that is the prospect of using RHIC as the basis for a polarized electron-ion collider, an option for an international next-generation facility for the study of QCD. That option will be discussed by the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee in 2007 as it develops its long-range plan for the field. If longevity is based on compelling science to be done, such a QCD facility—with ion–ion, proton–ion, polarized proton–proton, polarized electron–proton, and electron–ion collisions at high energy—would likely outlive the next decade.© 2006 American Institute of Physics.

Solar neutrinos, SNO and SNOLAB

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is a 1000 tonne heavy water Cherenkov detector situated 2 km underground in INCO's Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. In the first two phases of the project reported to date, the charged current reaction on deuterium has been used to measure the flux and energy spectrum of solar electron neutrinos and the neutral current reaction has been used to measure the total flux of active neutrinos. Clear evidence of neutrino flavour change has been observed and the total active flux is found to be in agreement with solar model calculations. The experimental third phase with an array of neutron detectors is in progress. The expansion of the underground laboratory to create an international facility known as SNOLAB will be completed in 2007. A number of international experiments for the future detection of lower energy solar neutrinos, geo-neutrinos, dark matter and double beta decay are described.

Mortality among Radiation Workers at Rocketdyne (Atomics International), 1948–1999

A retrospective cohort mortality study was conducted of workers engaged in nuclear technology development and employed for at least 6 months at Rocketdyne (Atomics International) facilities in California, 1948-1999. Lifetime occupational doses were derived from company records and linkages with national dosimetry data sets. International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) biokinetic models were used to estimate radiation doses to 16 organs or tissues after the intake of radionuclides. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) compared the observed numbers of deaths with those expected in the general population of California. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate dose-response trends over categories of cumulative radiation dose, combining external and internal organ-specific doses. There were 5,801 radiation workers, including 2,232 monitored for radionuclide intakes. The mean dose from external radiation was 13.5 mSv (maximum 1 Sv); the mean lung dose from external and internal radiation combined was 19.0 mSv (maximum 3.6 Sv). Vital status was determined for 97.6% of the workers of whom 25.3% (n = 1,468) had died. The average period of observation was 27.9 years. All cancers taken together (SMR 0.93; 95% CI 0.84-1.02) and all leukemia excluding chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) (SMR 1.21; 95% CI 0.69-1.97) were not significantly elevated. No SMR was significantly increased for any cancer or for any other cause of death. The Cox regression analyses revealed no significant dose-response trends for any cancer. For all cancers excluding leukemia, the RR at 100 mSv was estimated as 1.00 (95% CI 0.81-1.24), and for all leukemia excluding CLL it was 1.34 (95% CI 0.73-2.45). The nonsignificant increase in leukemia (excluding CLL) was in accord with expectation from other radiation studies, but a similar nonsignificant increase in CLL (a malignancy not found to be associated with radiation) tempers a causal interpretation. Radiation exposure has not caused a detectable increase in cancer deaths in this population, but results are limited by small numbers and relatively low career doses.

Radiation Resistant Quadrupole Magnet for the Super-FRS at FAIR

The planned new international accelerator facility FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research, ) at GSI will provide primary beams of all projectiles up to uranium with energies up to 1.5 GeV/u for nuclear structure physics. The maximum intensities of these projectile beams will be (1-3) 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">12</sup> /s, leading to a maximum beam power of 58 kW. 10-20% of the primary beam will react in a high-power production target at the entrance of the Super-FRS (Super-conducting Fragment Separator, ). The Super-FRS is a large-acceptance two-stage fragment separator which will provide spatially separated isotopic beams of exotic nuclei. The non-reacting primary beam will be dumped at dedicated beam catchers, located at well defined places in the first part of the Super-FRS. The target area as well as the beam dump area is in high fluxes of high-energy particles, mainly neutrons and protons. Since magnetic elements located in these areas have to be reliably operated for the lifetime of the facility (~20 years) their design has to be radiation resistant. Presently we consider building the magnet coils using MIC (Mineral Insulation Cable) technology. In this paper we present radiation issues, magnet specification, and possible magnetic designs of the first quadrupole magnet placed 1 m downstream of the production target

Ports in a Storm

In many parts of the world, shipping-related emissions have already exceeded or are expected to soon exceed those from land-based sources. Shipping emissions can be reduced substantially by using some of the same technologies being applied to land-based sources, including cleaner engines and fuels, exhaust control methods, and operational modifications. Various ports are testing the feasibility of these mechanisms with varying degrees of success. What is perhaps most greatly needed is expedited creation of better regulations at all levels, from the International Maritime Organization to port city authorities.