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The European Commission published in 2015 “Energy Union Strategy” to make energy production safer, more sustainable, competitive, and economical. To allow citizens of a community to cooperate to consume and exchange renewable energy they produce, the use of blockchain technology seems natural. In this note, we will start from a concrete case study to see what the technological challenges (and not only) are to be overcome. Furthermore, in the last sections, it will be shown how the creation of the IT infrastructure necessary for the exchange of energy produced can also be used for other purposes. That is according to the smart city paradigm to create a community able to make the most of the touristic, environmental, and social resources of the territory in which it lives.

A possible Dark Matter model postulates that it interacts with Standard Model particles only through a massive photon-like vector particle, called dark photon or A’. The PADME experiment at the DAΦNE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) of the INFN Frascati National Laboratory (LNF) is designed to detect dark photons produced in positron on fixed target annihilations decaying to dark matter (e + e- -+ γA’) by measuring the final state missing mass. The data acquisitison (DAQ) system of the experiment, based on a set of 29 CAEN V1732 switched capacitor ADC boards, collects data from O(1000) channels and is controlled by the Trigger and Timing System (TTS), centered on a programmable board, specially developed by the INFN - Roma Tre group. This board, based on the AVNET MicroZed SoM equipped with the Xilinx Zynq-7020 SoC, receives external control signals and triggers to provide a stable phase-aligned clock, trigger and synchronization commands to the DAQ system, and to provide detailed time-stamp information of the accepted triggers to the offline analysis. The control signals produced by the main board are then sent to the DAQ system via four distribution boards. The main board FPGA logic, programmed at INFN - LNF, implements the functionalities to produce the common trigger and the control signals for the experiment and the user-controlled configuration of the board. In this paper, we present the technical details of the TTS board and the development of its firmware, and describe the deployment of the board during the first data acquisition period of the PADME experiment.

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a medium baseline reactor neutrino experiment under construction in Kaiping, Jiangmen, in Southern China. The main detector consists of a transparent sphere containing 20,000 tons of liquid scintillator, surrounded by approximately 17,000 photomultiplier tubes. The information delivered by 20 PMT stations is digitized continuously and aggregated at the RMU level. The main RMU task is to provide 20 input optical links at 0.5 Gbps and 1 optical output running at 10 Gbps. A White Rabbit controller is implemented on the the RMU in order to synchronize all links and to guarantee fixed latency traffic. In this contribution we describe the full RMU hardware and software architecture.

The KLOE2 experiment is operating at the Dafnee e- collider, designed to reach an instantaneous luminosity of 2*10$^{\mathbf {32}} \mathbf {cm} ^{\mathbf {-2}} \mathbf {s} ^{\mathbf {-1}}$ at the $\Phi $ resonance. Secondary vertex displacement are of paramount importance for the measurement of the CP violation in the kaon system. The most relevant detector to identify and reconstrut particles in the final state is the Drift Chamber. After 20 years of operation the front-end electronics of the detector is obsolete. Moreover the drift chamber electronics is based on an ASIC production line which was discontinued. New TDCs (Time to Digital Converter) have to be built whose architecture is based on the newest FPGAs present on the market. In this paper we describe the architecture, the performance of the new TDCs and their FPGA based front-end data acquistition. The new electronics has already been installed in the experiment.

The Belle2 experiment will operate at the SuperKEKB e+e- collider, designed to reach an instantaneous luminosity of 8*1035 cm-1 s-1 at the Y(4S) resonance. Semi-leptonic b decays and b-decays with a K long meson in the final state are of paramount importance in addressing the physics goal of Belle2. The most relevant detector to identify and reconstrut Klong and muons is KLM. To keep the pace with the high throughput the experiment front-end data acquisition system has been upgraded. In this paper we describe the KLM front-end architecture, its upgrade and performance.

The above-mentioned measurements, on crystals, photodetectors and optical couplings, performed at INFN and ENEA laboratories and irradiation facilities, represent a thorough study of options, that will allow the optimal solution for the upgrade of the Belle II end cap calorimeter to be found. © 2014 IEEE.

KLOE-2 at the e+e− DAφNE φ-factory is the main experiment of the INFN Frascati National Laboratories (LNF) and is the first high-energy experiment using the GEM technology with a cylindrical geometry, a novel idea that was developed at LNF exploiting the kapton properties to build a light and compact tracking system. Four concentric cylindrical triple-GEM detectors, for a total material budget below 2% of the radiation length X 0 , are inserted around the interaction region and before the inner wall of the pre-existing KLOE Drift Chamber, at distances from 130 mm to 205 mm. For this project, state-of-the-art solutions have been expressly developed or tuned: single-mask GEM etching, multi-layer XV patterned readout circuit, PEEK spacer grid, GASTONE front-end board, a custom 64-channel ASIC with digital output, and the Global Interface Board for data collection, with a configurable FPGA architecture and Gigabit Ethernet. The dedicated XV strips patterned readout allows space coordinates to be reconstructed. Alignment and calibration of a cylindrical GEM detector was never done before and represents one of the challenging activities of the experiment. During 2015 both KLOE-2 and DAPHNE successfully demonstrated the feasibility of a long term acquisition program with the first data taking campaign, started in November 2014 and ended in July 2015 with 1 fb−1 integrated luminosity. The second new data taking campaign started in September 2015 and KLOE-2 is presently taking data. The Inner Tracker detector operation, calibration and performance will be presented. Preliminary results obtained with cosmic-ray muons and Bhabha scattering events are within expectations for the Inner Tracker resolution.

Users of computer systems wish to keep their personal data safe, updated, fair and accessible by other terminals, like personal computers, smart phones, portable consoles and PDAs. To perform these activities, one technology has become popular in our daily lives: data synchronization. Companies that provide this kind of service must do it with the greatest availability possible since their clients need their data to be available whenever they want to access it, and their customers in the legal field must avoid financial losses through SLA contract breaches. This paper presents hierarchical models for evaluating the availability of a data synchronization server infrastructure. The results show an availability of 98.82% for the proposed architecture, which means an annual downtime of 103 hours, this is more than 4 days of unavailability, where users cannot perform data synchronization.

The Data Acquisition System (DAQ) and the Front-End electronics for an array of Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KTDs) are described. KTDs are superconductive detectors, in which electrons are organized in Cooper pairs. Any incident radiation could break such pairs generating quasi-particles, whose effect is increasing the inductance of the detector. Electrically, any KID is equivalent to a parallel RLC resonant circuit. An array of N KTDs is composed of N pixels, each one resonating on its own frequency. A feed line passes close to each KID and delivers a unique Stimulus signal containing all the resonant frequencies. If one of the KTDs was hit by some radiation, its inductance would change and the corresponding sine component in the readout signal would have its intensity reduced and its phase shifted. The DAQ system we developed is a hardware/software co-design, based on state machines and a Microprocessor embedded into an FPGA. A commercial DAC/ADC board is used to interface the FPGA to the analog environment of the array of KTDs. The DAQ system generates a Stimulus signal for an array of up to 128 KTDs, by creating and adding up 128 sinusoids parted by one MHz. The Stimulus is in the form of a Look-Up Table and it is provided to the DAC device. The analog signal generated is up-mixed with a 3 GHz carrier wave and it then travels through the KIDs array. The read-out signal from the detector is down-mixed with respect to the 3 GHz sine wave and it is read back by the ADC device. The microprocessor stores the read out data via a PCI bus into an external disk. It also elaborates the Fast Fourier Transform of the acquired read out signal: this allows to extrapolate which KID interacted and the energy of the impinging radiation. Simulations and tests have been performed successfully and experimental results are presented.

A processor-based Data Acquisition System (DAQ) for an array of Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs) is described. KIDs are superconductive bolometers, in which any incident radiation could change the inductance of the detector. An array of N KIDs is composed of N detectors, each one resonating on its own frequency. A feed-line passes close to each KID and delivers a unique Stimulus signal containing all the resonant frequencies. If one of the KID detects some radiation, its sinusoidal component in the readout signal would have its intensity reduced and its phase shifted. The DAQ system we developed is based on several state machines and a microprocessor embedded into an FPGA and a DAC/ADC board. The system generates a Stimulus signal for an array of 128 KIDs, by producing and adding up 128 sinusoids parted by one MHz. The Stimulus is in the form of a Look-Up Table, and it is provided to the DAC device that sends it through the KIDs array. It is then read back by the ADC device. The microprocessor stores the read back data via a PCI bus into a disk. It also elaborates the Fast Fourier Transforms of both the Stimulus and the acquired data: this allows to extrapolate which KID interacted and the energy of the impinging radiation. Tests have been performed with success and experimental results will be presented.

Monitored Drift Tube chambers (MDT) are the precision tracking detectors in the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). From simulations of the LHC operating conditions, the count rate in the inner barrel chamber of the muon spectrometer is expected to reach 500 Hz/cm(2) and can be ten times higher in the luminosity upgrade under discussion (SLHC). A degradation of' the performances of drift tube chambers after extended operation in high-rate environment is usually caused by the formation of deposits on the anode wire. To study MDTs aging, three bundles of short tubes equipped like a final MDT chamber were irradiated in different periods with neutrons and photons using the TAPIRO nuclear reactor and the CALLIOPE gamma facility at the ENEA-Casaccia Research Center (Italy). The MDT performances with respect to accumulated dose were studied with cosmic rays and results on drift and tracking properties are presented.

Cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropies calls for extreme precision measurement of photon energy in the range of 70 to 900 GHz. Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KID) are able to reduce the effects of the radiative noise. In this paper we describe the Front-End electronics architecture we adopted for the Data Acquisition System of a Kinetic Inductance Detector.

The KLOE2 experiment has been approved. Its data taking is going to start early next year. In order to pursue its physics program the KLOE2 collaboration has built two new detectors: the Inner Tracker (IT) and the QCALT. Their inclusion in the experiment has triggered the need to upgrade the data acquisition system (daq), initially conceived for the KLOE experiment. In this paper we describe the main characteristics of the new data acquisition system.

The construction of the KLOE-2 Inner Tracker, foreseen as upgrade of the tracking system of the experiment at the e+e- Φ-factory DA NE at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF), has started in mid 2011. KLOE-2 is the first experiment using the GEM technology with a cylindrical geometry, developed at LNF by the Inner Tracker group and within the RD51 Collaboration as one of the key activities. Three layers of the Inner Tracker have been completed and the construction of the fourth and last layer has started. The production's procedure will be reported together with the first results obtained with 5.9 keY X-rays and cosmic-ray muons collected at LNF Inner Tracker test stand.

The SuperB flagship project has recently been approved by INFN director's board. The experiment will be built on a e+e− collider which will deliver about 100 a−1 barn in 5 years with a peak luminosity in the range of 1036 cm−2s−1. Luminosity and trigger rates are 100 times higher than the ones achieved at PEP-II at SLAC for the Babar experiment. Exploiting the measured rates from Babar we can expect when running at 1036 cm−2s−1 : 50 kHz Bhabha, 25 kHz beam background, 25 kHz physics. The trigger must therefore cope with a maximum rate in the range of 150 kHz with an event size of the order of 75 kBytes. A maximum of 70 ns per event dead time is therefore tolerable in order to achieve a maximum event loss of about 1%. As in Babar the most important detectors taking part to the trigger decision will be the Drift Chamber and the electromagnetic calorimeter. This is a real challenge since both the Barrel Calorimeter (CsI Tl doped) and the Drift Chamber are rather slow detectors. In this presentation we review the Babar trigger architecture: its baseline design and the one presently envisaged for SuperB are compared, highlighting the improvements needed to fulfill the research program.

The construction and design process of a highresolution time-interval measuring system implemented in a SRAM-based FPGA device is discussed in this paper. The TDC can increase the precision on the measurement by interpolating time within the system clock cycle. A two step phase interpolation has been constructed, one based on the phase information delivered by the VIRTEX-5 Digital Clock Manager (DCM) and thus providing a fine time, a second level phase interpolation was based on carry lines thus delivering an hyper fine time measurement. We have designed and built a PCB hosting a Virtex-5 Xilinx FPGA. The board we have designed provides 7 TDC channels. The number of channels turns out to be limited by the number of input connectors inserted on the board and not on the code density on the FPGA. The range is in principle slightly longer than 1 day (127941 sec), but our tests are preliminary and have been made on intervals less than 20 μsec. In this range we have measured a resolution which is better than 55 psec for the time interval on a single channel in single and multi-hit mode.

The Muon Spectrometer of the ATLAS experiment is based on regular arrays of 3 cm diameter high pressure drift tubes (MDT) in a toroidal magnetic field with an associated bending power of about 3 and 5 Tm (barrel and endcap). The gas composition (93%Ar -7%CO 2 ) and gain (2×104), chosen in order to limit aging effects, make the drift response function slow and highly non linear. A test beam setup, with a small MDT chamber and a high resolution silicon strip telescope, was organised at the Cern H8 high energy muon beam with the goal of measuring the drift properties of both the standard ATLAS gas mixture and of alternative, faster gas mixtures, typically based on CF 4 , in view of a possible use at SLHC or elsewhere. We describe the analysis of the test beam data and show the first, preliminary, results and their comparison with the expectations of the simulation.

In this paper we describe the realization and performances of an high granularity calorimeter. The calorimeter is a spaghetti like calorimeter built with lead and scintillating fibers. The lead foils are 0.5 mm thick shaped with grooves to accommodate the scintillating fibers. A single prototype has been built. The read-out is through photomultipliers (pmts) located on both sides of the module with a 4.2x4.2 cm2 granularity per single pmt. One side of the calorimeter has been equipped with the new R8900 Hamamatsu pmts with 16 anodes. On this side the light has been driven using mini light guides from the calorimeter surface to the multi anode surface. On the opposite side a read-out based on standard single anode pmts and light guides has been implemented. The signal from the pmts has been amplified and split. The split signal has been delivered to analog digital converters and to a discrimination system followed by the time to digital converters to record the time of the charge deposition. A dedicated electronic was also built to use the split signal in order to assert a trigger signal. In this paper we describe the calorimeter construction and show cosmic ray and test beam results.

We exposed a prototype of the high-sampling lead-scintillating fiber KLOE calorimeter to neutron beam of 21, 46, and 174 MeV, provided by the The Svedberg Laboratory (TSL), Uppsala, to study its neutron detection efficiency. This has been found larger than what what expected considering the scintillator thickness of the KLOE prototype only.We checked the reliability of our method, measuring also the neutron detection efficiency of a 5 cm thick NE110 scintillator. Our results prove the existence of a contribution from passive material to neutron detection efficiency, in a high-sampling calorimeter configuration. The origin of the efficiency enhancement has been studied using the FLUKA Monte Carlo code. We present the TSL beam test results and the reasons for such enhancement, which allows to develop compact, inexpensive, fast, and highly efficient neutron counters.

In the past years, precise measurements of time intervals have been realized using methods such as time- stretching, Vernier and delay line. In this paper, we present two high-resolution time-interval measuring system implemented in a SRAM-based FPGA device. The two methods ought to be used for time interpolation within the system clock cycle. In the first method, dedicated carry lines are used to perform fine time measurement, while in the second one a differential tapped delay line is used. In this paper we compare the two architectures and show their performance in terms of stability and resolution.

Monitored drift tubes chambers (MDT) are the precision tracking detectors in the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS experiment. During normal operation the muon trigger is based on dedicated trigger chambers (RPC) also responsible for measuring the coordinate along the MDT tubes (second coordinate). A new method has been developed for tracking particles through the MDT chambers which can work without any external trigger information or using only a part of it. This study was conceived to exploit tracking capabilities under non standard operation of the detector: commissioning during ATLAS installation; MDT used as standalone detectors. Another interesting possibility is the measurement of the second coordinate, describe the results obtained with cosmic rays data at the MDT test stand facility in Roma Tre and with the H8 Test Beam experimental setup at the CERN SPS accelerator.

The VME64x standard defines a double edge source synchronous block transfer (2eSST) capable to sustain a data transfer rate up to 320 MByte/s on the VMEbus. This level of performance is achieved by double edge clocking a 64-bit bus with bursts of data strobe pulses. The switching activity of such a wide bus on a shared backplane challenges the signal integrity and the data transfer reliability. The Bus-Invert is a well known coding technique developed to lower the peak power dissipation in I/O busses by decreasing their switching activity. It has been originally proposed for lowering the power consumption of CMOS VLSI devices and so reducing the on-chip line coupling and noise. In this paper we discuss how the Bus-Invert coding can be applied to improve the 2eSST performance. A custom designed board-set has been used to characterize jitter, noise and power consumption with different data patterns, coding schemes and bus loading conditions. The hardware overheads introduced by the encoding algorithm is discussed in the view of deployments in low-latency, real-time applications.

Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) is a technology that assigns to the users of an optical network specific wavelengths or "colors" and mixes them in a single strand of fiber. Heterogeneous data is transmitted simultaneously across lanes of light, which are demuxed at the receiving end and delivered to the clients. Instead of deploying more fibers or increasing the data transfer rate, the bandwidth of an optical link can scale by adding more wavelengths to the system. DWDM has been pioneered for applications in long-haul telecom networks, requiring bulky, sophisticated and custom instrumentations. Nowadays, most of the main components are available off-the-shelf as compact and reliable devices, making it possible to use this technology in real-time environments like data acquisition systems for high energy physics experiments. However, interfacing to DWDM components faces up to complex timing issues, protocol options and a brave new blend of optics and electronics. In this paper we present our tests of the AGERE'S Translight CA16, a DWDM transponder capable of full-duplex optical operations at 2.48 Gbit/s (OC-48). In order to evaluate different design strategies, we have interfaced the transponder to a parallel bit error rate tester. The results are discussed In the view of a future integration of the transponder with an FPGA-based controller aimed at real-time applications.