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History of physics research and physics education: The case of the first electron charge measurement
Get PDFThe historical case-study of Thomson’s discovery of electron (1897), of the first Thomson’s ion charge measurements (1897–1899) and of Millikan experiments of the elementary charge (1907–1911) is here discussed with the goal of stressing its possible physics education significance
Promoting the learning of modern and contemporary physics in high schools in informal and non-formal contexts
Get PDFIn this paper, we introduce active learning strategies developed by the Educational Division of the Physics Department of the University of Cagliari to promote the learning of modern and contemporary physics (e.g., general relativity, particle physics, cosmology, and related topics) in high schools in informal and nonformal contexts. We discuss their features and potential role in facilitating science and physics instruction by integrating pedagogical theory and education research. We illustrate our theoretical framework and the methodologies we implemented to design specific educational strategies —and the evaluation of their effectiveness— to improve motivation, curiosity, and interest in modern and contemporary physics, as well as bring these topics more extensively to high schools. Finally, examples of the proposed educational activities are presented and their implications in informal and non-formal contexts are discussed
Muon radiography for the safety and safeguarding of nuclear material
Get PDFMuon radiography is an imaging technology based on the detection of muons of cosmic origin. Muons are able to penetrate deeply into matter and are a free source available 24h. They can be used for security and safeguards in the management of nuclear material. An example is the inspection of heavily shielded containers, such as nuclear fuel storage casks, to verify their contents in case of loss of continuity of knowledge or to image their contents if it is unknown. Muons can also be applied for subsurface investigation, providing a competitive or alternative methodology to classical prospecting methods. They can be used to study the geologic conditions of a deposit area (before construction and over time), to map empty underground structures (tunnels, shafts) or to monitor any unauthorized excavations for illegal access. This article will give a brief review of the state of the art, with some key examples
Cutting-edge R&D activities of CIRTEN in support of the Technology Park annexed to the Italian National Repository of radioactive waste
Get PDFR&D activities taking place at the institutions belonging to Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Ricerca TEcnologica Nucleare are here presented and discussed. A special focus is on Technology Park annexed to the Italian National Repository of radioactive waste
Using Graph Neural Networks to improve jet flavour-tagging and its modeling for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC
Get PDFGraph Neural Networks (GNNs) are machine-learning algorithms
particularly suitable for modeling data with complex topological correlations. In this communication, their application to jet flavour-tagging for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. A new GNN algorithm to identify jets containing heavy-flavour hadrons by representing them as graphs of tracks and silicon hits is illustrated. The performance of the modern flavour-tagging algorithms poses challenges when applied on simulated events containing multiple jets, as they reduce the statistical precision of the simulated samples. To overcome this, a GNNbased technique that increases the statistical power of the samples by weighting events based on their likelihood of containing flavour-tagged jets is described
Year-round study of the optical properties of airborne dust in Antarctica
Get PDFI report experimental results obtained from OPTAIR, a multidisciplinary project to study the optical properties of airborne particles at Concordia Station, on the East Antarctic plateau, with the aim to assess the relationship
among the optical properties of dust suspended in air and deposited on ground by the snow. A permanent instrument based on the Single-Particle Extinction and Scattering (SPES) method specifically designed and realized has been installed in November 2018 and continuously produces time-resolved data, providing several optical properties for each particle. The aim is to feed the models describing radiation
transfer through the Earth’s atmosphere, an open issue for what concerns the effects of dust. Data show evidence of important changes of the optical properties of dust
across the year, with a relevant fraction of particles accumulated during short bursts lasting a few hours. This shows the need of time resolved information about the
optical properties of dust to infer the effective impact of dust on radiative transfer
Relazione sulla ricerca e l’innovazione in Italia : analisi e dati di politica della scienza e della tecnologia
No full textL’obiettivo della Relazione, giunta alla sua quarta edizione, è fornire
informazioni e dati sulla scienza, la tecnologia e l’innovazione, anche attraverso
confronti internazionali, presentando specifici studi di caso e privilegiando analisi
quantitative. La Relazione, elaborata da un gruppo di lavoro del DSU del CNR, oltre
all’aggiornamento di alcuni tra i più significativi indicatori che forniscono un quadro
quantitativo della situazione sulla scienza, la tecnologia e l’innovazione, approfondisce i
temi del finanziamento competitivo per la Ricerca & Sviluppo “basato su progetto,
dell’impatto delle esperienze internazionali sui percorsi di carriera dei dottorati di
ricerca, della specializzazione brevettuale del nostro paese e del trasferimento
tecnologico anche con una comparazione internazionale e, in ultimo, della fiducia della
società nella scienza
Advancing international cooperation in disaster response: the “Center for Disaster, Forensic, and Biometric Sciences”
Get PDFIn our interconnected world, crises and disasters rarely confine themselves to national borders, often affecting citizens from multiple countries. Furthermore, when a major catastrophe strikes, a single country may lack the necessary resources to handle the consequences. Complicating matters, the incident itself may have severely damaged or destroyed emergency infrastructures, making response and recovery a formidable challenge.
Mass disaster (MD) involving many victims requires multinational collaboration, utilising a common forensic language and a unified system for gathering, sharing, and comparing data and information. Recognizing the importance of a cooperative approach to disaster management, the “European Centre for Disaster Medicine” has recently formed a dedicated Work Group aimed to establish a specialised centre, known as the “Center for Disaster, Forensic, and Biometric Sciences”, focusing on developing standards and guidelines for the handling of forensic activities in emergencies, disasters, and terrorist attacks. This paper aims to outline the origins, objectives, purposes, and participating bodies of this new entity
Development of an advanced modular setup for the on beam characterization of oriented crystals
Get PDFRecently, the particle physics community has put an increasing effort in developing radiation detectors and equipment based on oriented crystals. A key feature that distinguishes an oriented crystal from the ordinary matter is the reduction of the radiation length (X0) seen by electrons, positrons and photons crossing the lattice along one of its symmetry axes. This effect has been experimentally observed only in the last few decades and with samples limited in number, composition and length. In order to characterize a variety of oriented crystals with a standardized procedure, the STORM Collaboration has developed an advanced modular setup, which allows to study the features of any crystal sample with both electron (or
positron) and photon beams. This contribution describes the key elements of this setup, namely silicon strip tracking detectors, plastic scintillators, Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) coupled to the crystal under test, a photon calorimeter and an electromagnetic spectrometer
The FOOT experiment: A first measurement of nuclear fragmentation cross section for hadrontherapy
Get PDFThe FOOT experiment has been conceived with the main aim of measuring double differential fragmentation cross sections of light fragments (Z<10) in the energy range between 100MeV/u and 800MeV/u, typical for hadrontherapy and space radioprotection applications. The results will overcome the lack of experimental data in order to improve the Treatment Planning Systems in hadrontherapy treatments and to enhance the accuracy of risk-assessment models for space radioprotection. In this paper, the analysis strategy for the measurement of elemental and angular differential cross sections is shown, focusing on data acquired at GSI in 2021 with a 400MeV/u 16O beam impinging a graphite (C) target. A Monte Carlo closure test is introduced in order to verify the reliability of the aforementioned procedure