512 research outputs found
A new subspecies of Pulmonaria officinalis (Boraginaceae) from the southern Alps
No full textAstuti, Giovanni, Cristofolini, Giovanni, Peruzzi, Lorenzo, Pupillo, Paolo (2014): A new subspecies of Pulmonaria officinalis (Boraginaceae) from the southern Alps. Phytotaxa 186 (3): 148-157, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.186.3.3, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.186.3.
INTEFF_TOTEM Project: magneTron sputtering cyclOtron TargEt Manufacturing
No full textINTEFF_TOTEM is a Proof-of-Concept project in the
framework of “Innovazione tecnologica dalla fisica
fondamentale” (INTEFF) program promoted by INFN
Technology Transfer Committee (CNTT). This project is
funded by the Ministry of Economic Development (MISE)
for a period of 18 months and started on February 2021.
The project aims to enhance the INFN patent
no. WO 2019/053570 “Method for obtaining a solid target
for radiopharmaceuticals production”, developed within the
framework of the LARAMED project at LNL. A
technological R&D program to improve the deposition
efficiency of some materials (e.g., Cr, ZnO) on different
substrates (metal and non-metal) with Magnetron Sputtering
(MS) technique is planned. The goal is to limit, as much as
technically achievable, the losses of the starting material,
thus making this technique also attractive for the expensive
isotopically enriched materials, typically used to
manufacture cyclotron solid targets for the production of
medical radionuclides. The current estimated Technology
Readiness Level (TRL) of this patent is 4. At the end of the
project, to evaluate the developed technology, some targets
will be irradiated with the proton beam of the medical
cyclotron available at the S. Cuore Don Calabria Hospital
(SCDCH) in Negrar, (VR). With such a planned
improvement, we expect to achieve a TRL of 6. Moreover,
a technological development of another INFN patent held
by LARAMED group (no. WO 2019/220224 A1, “A
method and a target for the production of 67Cu”) is strictly
related to this project. The manufacturing of the first step
towards the realization of a ZnO multilayer target for 67Cu
production with a high energy cyclotron (e.g., the BEST 70p
at LNL) is foreseen using both MS and Spark Plasma
Sintering (SPS) techniques. The INTEFF_TOTEM project
is carried out in the framework of the LARAMED target
development activities [1] and in collaboration with the
Servizio Tecnologia delle Superfici e Superconduttività at
the LNL
Improvement in the Yttrium Solid Target Deposition via Magnetron Sputtering for Zirconium-89 Production
No full textMagnetron sputtering (MS) technique as a new approach
for medical radioisotope production has been under
investigation by different research groups in the last decade.
In case of Zr-89 radioisotope production it was shown that
MS technique can be used for Yttrium solid target
production. In previous report [1] it was demonstrated the
possibility of Yttrium disks production of 60-70 μm
thickness and its upgrade in terms of purity [2].
Our further research idea was to develop a process of thick
targets deposition (at least 150 μm), maintaining low stress
level and high adhesion. To reach such goal it was decided
to decrease the distance between magnetron and sample
holder from 7 to 4 cm. Essentially it must lead to deposition
rate rising, but also may create issues with stress and
uniformity.
To perform the target production with new deposition
setup it was done stress tests and deposition rate
measurements. In addition, for the first time it was
performed also the uniformity measurement.
As a result of the work a new batch of the Yttrium solid
target (Y-5) was produced and send for further irradiation at
the Hospital Sacro Cuore in Negrar
La sinistra non comunista a Vicenza dalla Liberazione ai primi anni sessanta (1945-1962)
No full text
Anemonoides ×lipsiensis comb. nov. (Ranunculaceae), new for the Italian flora
No full textThe hybrid Anemonoides nemorosa × A. ranunculoides is recorded for the first time in Italy at the southern periphery of Bologna (N Italy, Emilia-Romagna). Its status is supported by both morphological features and chromosome number (2n = 31). For this taxon, a new nomenclatural combination is proposed
SOCRATES. Developing and Evaluating a Fine-Tuned ChatGPT Model for Accessible Mental Health Intervention
No full textGenerative artificial intelligence is reshaping mental health care, offering scalable, personalized, and empathetic support. This is not a new discussion—more than a decade ago, Cristea et al. showed that users perceived both human and chatbot therapists as equally human-like, highlighting a shift in therapeutic interaction paradigms
Effective Theory and Breakdown of Conformal Symmetry in a Long-Range Quantum Chain
No full textWe deal with the problem of studying the symmetries and the effective theories of long-range models around their critical points. A prominent issue is to determine whether they possess (or not) conformal symmetry (CS) at criticality and how the presence of CS depends on the range of the interactions. To have a model, both simple to treat and interesting, where to investigate these questions, we focus on the Kitaev chain with long-range pairings decaying with distance as power-law with exponent alpha. This is a quadratic solvable model, yet displaying non-trivial quantum phase transitions. Two critical lines are found, occurring respectively at a positive and a negative chemical potential. Focusing first on the critical line at positive chemical potential, by means of a renormalization group approach we derive its effective theory close to criticality. Our main result is that the effective action is the sum of two terms: a Dirac action S-D, found in the short-range Ising universality class, and an "anomalous" CS breaking term SAN. While SD originates from low-energy excitations in the spectrum, SAN originates from the higher energy modes where singularities develop, due to the long-range nature of the model. At criticality SAN flows to zero for alpha > 2, while for alpha < 2 it dominates and determines the breakdown of the CS. Out of criticality SAN breaks, in the considered approximation, the effective Lorentz invariance (ELI) for every finite alpha. As alpha increases such ELI breakdown becomes less and less pronounced and in the short-range limit alpha -> infinity the ELI is restored. In order to test the validity of the determined effective theory, we compared the two-fermion static correlation functions and the von Neumann entropy obtained from them with the ones calculated on the lattice, finding agreement. These results explain two observed features characteristic of long-range models, the hybrid decay of static correlation functions within gapped phases and the area-law violation for the von Neumann entropy. The proposed scenario is expected to hold in other long-range models displaying quasiparticle excitations in ballistic regime. From the effective theory one can also see that new phases emerge for alpha < 1. Finally we show that at every finite a the critical exponents, defined as for the short-range (alpha -> infinity) model, are not altered. This also shows that the long-range paired Kitaev chain provides an example of a long-range model in which the value of a where the CS is broken does not coincide with the value at which the critical exponents start to differ from the ones of the corresponding short-range model. At variance, for the second critical line, having negative chemical potential, only SAN (So) is present for 1 < alpha < 2 (for alpha > 2). Close to this line, where the minimum of the spectrum coincides with the momentum where singularities develop, the critical exponents change where CS is broken. © 2016 Elsevier Inc
LARAMED Facility Status Report
No full textAlbeit the unexpected pandemic situation due to COVID19 has severely limited the working activities at LNL since
March 2020 for the rest of year, advances in setting up the
new LARAMED research facility, as well as the installation
of plants dedicated to related laboratories, have anyway
continued, although at a lower swiftness, following the
scheduled program. The LARAMED (LAboratory of
RAdioisotopes for MEDicine) facility indeed aims at
becoming an international research center, now being
established at LNL in the framework of SPES project, which
will be dedicated not only to perform fundamental nuclear
physics studies but also to seek for innovative applications
of nuclear physics to medicine [1]. The LARAMED facility,
will make use of the high-performance BEST 70p proton
cyclotron (35-70 MeV, up to 750 μA) already installed and
commissioned in the central underground vault of SPES
building, to focus research on novel radionuclides that could
play a key role in improving approaches in patients'
treatment and clinical research purposes. Moreover, to seek
alternative, accelerator-driven, nuclear reaction routes, for
both conventional and novel radionuclides currently
unavailable, by exploring new routes with dedicated nuclear
cross section measurements [2]. In parallel with the
construction of the research infrastructure (including
irradiation bunkers as well as radiochemistry and targets
production laboratories with dedicated equipment), which
has reached a good level of completion but anyway yet to
become fully operational, the LARAMED team is being
involved since years (in the framework of INFN
CSN3/CSN5-funded experimental programs) in different
cyclotron-driven production research lines of either
conventional or emerging radionuclides, as well as in R&D
on related technological aspects. Details on both the past
activities carried by the LARAMED group and the status of
current research lines, may be found, either in former
editions of Annual Report, or in other contributions
submitted to this Annual Report. What follows is a concise
update report on the achievements held in the last year about
the construction of primary infrastructure
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