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High-performance cluster-jet targets are ideally suited and applied since years in hadron and laser plasma physics. Therefore, the forthcoming MAGIX experiment at the future energy recovering electron accelerator MESA will use a cluster-jet target to perform high precision measurements on electron scattering experiments, i.e., determination of the proton radius. For this purpose, a cluster-jet target was designed, built up and set successfully into operation at the University of M\"unster considering the requirements of the experimental setup of MAGIX. The details on these requirements, calculations to their realization, e.g., on the nozzle geometry and stagnation conditions of the target gas, their technical implementation and the features of the target which make the target a powerful state-of-the-art target, are highlighted in this publication. Furthermore, the measured and analysed jet beam characteristics from this target using a Mach Zehnder interferometer are presented and discussed. These are of highest interest for the final design of the complete experimental setup of MAGIX. Moreover, first measurements from commissioning beam times performed with the target installed at the already running MAinzer MIkrotron will be presented., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth. A

In this paper, a novel carbon capture and utilization process is proposed. It is based on using a fraction of the captured carbon dioxide to produce sodium bicarbonate, a widely used product in the chemical and food industries. The process couples the Dry Carbonate process for carbon dioxide capture with sodium bicarbonate production. Raw material is trona or sodium sesquicarbonate dehydrate, which is a relatively abundant mineral composed by approximately 46% sodium carbonate and 35% sodium bicarbonate by weight. In the process, trona is firstly converted into sodium carbonate in a fluidized bed reactor operated at 180–200 °C and 1 bar. Heat required in the fluidized bed reactor for decomposing trona can be supplied by renewable sources such as low/medium temperature solar energy or biomass. A fraction of the sodium carbonate generated is recirculated for carbon dioxide capture by means of the dry carbonate process. The rest is converted to sodium bicarbonate in a carbonating tower through the reaction with carbon dioxide and water. After separation of sodium bicarbonate and other salts from water, the sodium bicarbonate produced is suitable for direct sale. The use of renewable sources for supplying the energy required at the sorbent regenerator and for trona decomposition yields a near-zero carbon dioxide emissions global system. As case of study, carbon dioxide capture coupled to sodium bicarbonate production has been analysed for a 15 MW el coal fired power plant. Heat required in the carbon capture process penalizes the global system efficiency by a 10.2%, which is reduced just to the electricity parasitic consumption for solids transport and carbon dioxide compression (∼3%) if renewable energy sources are integrated. From an economic perspective, the penalty in electricity consumption is fully compensated by the new by-product sales. Taking into account the reduction of electricity sales and current prices of trona and sodium bicarbonate a return of investment is obtained in the range between 3 and 8.7 years with an internal rate of return over 12%. These values improve the current forecast of any other carbon capture and storage process up to date, which suggests a high interest of the proposed conceptual integration specially for regions where trona is widely available.

A continuous cryogenic hydrogen cluster-jet target has been developed for laser-plasma interaction studies, in particular as a source for the acceleration of protons. Major advantages of the cluster-jet target are the compatibility with pulsed high repetition lasers and the absence of debris. The cluster-jet target was characterized using the Mie-scattering technique allowing to determine the cluster size and to compare it with an empirical prediction. In addition, an estimation of the cluster beam density was performed. The system was implemented at the high power laser system ARCTURUS and first successful measurements show the acceleration of protons after irradiation by high intensity laser pulses with a repetition rate of five Hertz., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

Epidemiological data suggest that the risk of ethanol-associated cardiovascular disease is greater in men than in women. This study investigates the mechanisms underlying gender-specific vascular effects elicited by chronic ethanol consumption in rats.Vascular reactivity experiments using standard muscle bath procedures were performed on isolated thoracic aortae from rats. mRNA and protein for inducible NO synthase (iNOS) and for endothelial NOS (eNOS) was assessed by RT-PCR or western blotting, respectively.In male rats, chronic ethanol consumption enhanced phenylephrine-induced contraction in both endothelium-intact and denuded aortic rings. However, in female rats, chronic ethanol consumption enhanced phenylephrine-induced contraction only in endothelium denuded aortic rings. After pre-incubation of endothelium-intact rings with L-NAME, both male and female ethanol-treated rats showed larger phenylephrine-induced contractions in aortic rings, compared to the control group. Acetylcholine-induced relaxation was not affected by ethanol consumption. The effects of ethanol on responses to phenylephrine were similar in ovariectomized (OVX) and intact (non-OVX) female rats. In the presence of aminoguanidine, but not 7-nitroindazole, the contractions to phenylephrine in rings from ethanol-treated female rats were greater than that found in control tissues in the presence of the inhibitors. mRNA levels for eNOS and iNOS were not altered by ethanol consumption. Ethanol intake reduced eNOS protein levels and increased iNOS protein levels in aorta from female rats.Gender differences in the vascular effects elicited by chronic ethanol consumption were not related to ovarian hormones but seemed to involve the upregulation of iNOS.

An advanced technique for a two-dimensional real time visualization of cluster beams in vacuum as well as of the overlap volume of cluster beams with particle accelerator beams is presented. The detection system consists of an array of microchannel plates (MCP) in combination with a phosphor screen which is read out by a CCD camera. This setup together with the ionization of a cluster beam by an electron or ion beam allows for spatial resolved investigations of the cluster beam position, size, and intensity. Moreover, since electrically uncharged clusters remain undetected, the operation in an internal beam experiment opens the way to monitor the overlap region and thus the position and size of an accelerator beam crossing an originally electrically neutral cluster jet. The observed intensity distribution of the recorded image is directly proportional to the convolution of the spatial ion beam and cluster beam intensities and is by this a direct measure of the two-dimensional luminosity distribution. This information can directly be used for the reconstruction of vertex positions as well as for an input for numerical simulations of the reaction zone. The spatial resolution of the images are dominated by the granularity of the complete MCP device and was found to be in the order of \sigma~100 \mu m., Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth. A

Autosomal dominant lateral temporal epilepsy (ADTLE) is an inherited epileptic syndrome characterized by ictal auditory symptoms or aphasia, negative MRI findings, and relatively benign evolution. Mutations responsible for ADLTE have been found in the LGI1 gene. The functions of the Lgi1 protein apparently are mediated by interactions with members of the ADAM protein family: it binds the postsynaptic receptor ADAM22 to regulate glutamate-AMPA currents at excitatory synapses and also the ADAM23 receptor to promote neurite outgrowth in vitro and dendritic arborization in vivo. Because alteration of each of these neuronal mechanisms may underlie ADLTE, ADAM22 and ADAM23 are candidate genes for this syndrome. In a previous work, we excluded a major role of ADAM22 in the aetiology of ADLTE. Here, we performed linkage analysis between microsatellite markers within or flanking the ADAM23 gene and ADLTE in 13 Italian families. The results exclude ADAM23 as major causative gene for ADLTE.