On 27 September, defence of research projects concluded the 3rd stage of the International Student Practice in the JINR University Centre. Senior-year students and postgraduates of the first year of education of universities of Belarus, Chile, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Serbia, and the RSA took part in the practice. As usual, the programme of the practice included lectures of leading specialists of the Institute’s laboratories, excursions to the JINR basic facilities, acquiantance with the Russian history and sights of Moscow. Students spent the bulk of the time working on their projects prepared by staff members of the UC, FLNP, LIT, BLTP, DLNP, LRB, and FLNR.

Participants of the Practice and their supervisors from the laboratories told what they discovered and how productive these three weeks were.

D. S. Belozerov (UC): I guide a practical course on electronics. At this stage, Aliaksei Shmarlouski (in the photo below) participated in it at this stage. He already knew major terms of electronics and electrical engineering, physical processes in the electrical circuit. It seemed like he was well-prepared and did not need this course. However, it covers a wide range of issues and provides a more profound knowledge of electrical circuits and electronic components. Our students get technical guides which I explain and of course, the whole course is aimed to make students work with their hands, open the electronics world in practice, create some devices useful for physical experiments.

Aliaksei created a DIY current tracer made of materials at hand (plexiglass, wires and a glue gun), which is installed in accelerators. We tested it, got some signals, and Aliaksei assembled fairly good intensifiers basing on the studied components.”

Aliaksei Shmarlouski (International Sakharov Environmental Institute of the BSU, Belarus): “I have chosen this project because I am keen on the technical issues, the way various physical facilities operate. I need to improve my level of knowledge, to the beginner’s one, roughly speaking. And I succeeded in it here. It is a good impetus to further development.”

“What are you specialized in?”

“Medical physics. In fact, I am supposed to work with accelerators and related issues. And there is a 100% possibility that I will have to do something by myself. Moreover, I am going to apply for work in a company that works on medical equipment dealing with radiation. So, learning about preliminary intensifiers is useful for me.”

Yu. S. Severyukhin (LRB): “We welcomed two students from Belarus and two Romanian students who had come for a longer practice. They took part in the experiment on the study of remote effects of proton influence on the brain and the visual analyzer of rodents. We managed to go through all the stages of research, from testing of animals with behavioural equipment to the autopsy, removing organs, sampling, colouring. They succeeded in colouring the slices of the eye retina and ocular tissues made by themselves. As students from Belarus (in the photo below) told us, they will be more respected after returning home because they had an experience of working with such devices and animals. They were happy to have an opportunity to come to Dubna and have practice in the UC. We are still working with students from Romania. They will advance a bit more: we will analyze particular morphometric features of tissues and organs and then possibly make a publication on this theme.

S. V. Sumnikov (FLNP): “Two Cuban students and two students from Serbia took part in our project. They were well-prepared as far as they had graduated from university and were going to take a post-graduate education. They knew the basics of the diffraction theory and other methods. We acquainted them with special methods used here, namely the X-ray diffraction and neutron radiation. The students were supposed to process the data acquired earlier as far as the reactor was not operating at that moment. They succeeded to perform this task, learned processing methods and special software and made reports. I believe that the acquired experience will help them in future scientific work, processing of experimental data acquired at our facilities or similar facilities in other countries.”

Andjela Mitrovic (Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Serbia; in the centre in the photo): “I came here to take part in the project on neutron diffraction. I analyzed the data using two special software programmes. We had a wonderful supervisor Sergey Sumnikov who explained how to work with these processing programmes. I hope to come back here in the future to see the operating reactor and get my own data for analyses.”

Amira Paez (Centre for Advanced Research, Cuba; the second on the right in the photo): “We have been here for just three weeks but we have learned so much! For example, how the Fourier diffractometer operates. We have visited the experimental hall of the reactor. We processed the data using various software, studied what changes can occur after a change in parameters, for example, the temperature. Our supervisor Sergey taught us all three weeks, we learned a lot and I hope to come here again to learn even more. We visited other JINR laboratories as well. Their staff members told us about their research, studies on nuclear physics were especially interesting.”

Carlos Palacios (Andrés Bello University, Santiago, Chile): “It is great that there is an opportunity to visit JINR. Students have a great choice of projects in the laboratories specialized in various fields but interrelated though, and this gave an opportunity to get the best image of research conducted here. I was engaged in the project on the study of the ROOT software package under the supervision of Olga Derenovskaya (LIT). It is very important to me because such knowledge will help me in my own research. Skills that I have gained here are necessary for the analyses of data in Chile. I also analyze raw data here acquired in the CBM experiment. I will be able to apply everything I have learned here to work on my dissertation.”

“I noticed that during the presentation of Russia at the “International Afternoon” you were one of a few people who recognized in the slides and named Mendeleev, Tolstoy and Gagarin. Are you keen on Russia?”

“One of my university professors was from the MSU, and supervisor of my dissertation is Sergey Kovalenko, a JINR staff member. It explains my interest in Russian culture and language.”

Olga Tarantina, JINR Weekly Newspaper
photos by Elena Puzynina