On 16 May, Stage 1 of the International Student Practice organised by the JINR University Centre started at JINR. 22 trainees – students and young scientists from universities and research centres of the Arab Republic of Egypt – came to Dubna for three weeks. During the first week of the Practice, they listened to lectures on the research conducted at JINR and the main facilities of the Institute, visited VBLHEP, FLNR, FLNP, DLNP, and MLIT. In addition, they learned more about the history of Russia and went sightseeing in Moscow.
For two weeks, participants from Egypt worked in the laboratories on scientific projects. On 02 June, they gave presentations on the results of the work performed. Head of the International Cooperation Department Otilia-Ana Culicov welcomed the participants of the Practice. She noted that cooperation with Egypt is important for JINR. The co-supervisor of ISP Prof Mona El-Naa also addressed the audience and thanked her colleagues from JINR for their efforts.
Head of the VBLHEP Hadron Physics Group Elena Kokoulina:
– One of the students – Yara Shousha – took part in our project “Soft photons at U-70 and Nuclotron”. She proved to be very serious, meticulous, and responsible, trying to get to the heart of things. Our project is devoted to modeling the registration of soft photons using a calorimeter. We offered her to choose between two types of calorimeters: “spaghetti” and “sandwich”, which we also call “shashlik”. She chose the latter. We taught Yara how to work in the Root system and introduced her to the operation of such extremely useful software as Geant4. We would like Yara to come to JINR and continue studying more at a more profound level to get new results. I think this internship was useful for her.
Supervisor of the project “Neutron activation analysis and related analytical techniques in environmental and life sciences” Inga Zinicovscaia (FLNP):
– Our students Sabah and Islam were very lucky, because both of them carried out environmental research on bioremediation. Islam used inorganic sorbents, while Sabah was focused on biological purification methods. One of the areas of research in our sector is sewage water treatment using different types of sorbents. Therefore, by getting into our sector, Sabah and Islam “hit the spot”, so to speak. We gave them a series of lectures, told them more about the theoretical models that we use; certain knowledge they had already had. This allowed them to start working on the experiments right away. In two weeks they managed to conduct experiments and make calculations, the results of which they presented today. Next, we have a stage of processing and interpreting these data, and we plan to publish the results in the form of a scientific article. The students will be among the co-authors of the paper, as they both personally participated in the experiments and in the calculations that we carried out. They are already preparing a draft of this article. Islam and Sabah are interested in further collaboration. I think it will be a great start for our future cooperation. I hope that this work will be continued.
Islam Gomaa:
– I work at the British University in Cairo, developing sorbent materials that absorb pollutants and heavy metals. I came to JINR to learn more about neutron activation analysis and its application for water purification, since I know little about this field. I would like to deepen my knowledge in this area.
Sabah Atrees:
– I participated in this project to gain new knowledge in the field of neutron activation analysis, as well as in life sciences. I worked mainly with water purification, so I was conducting the ICP-OES spectrometry. We obtained sorbents that adsorbed toxic elements from the environment. Colleagues from the NAA FLNP sector helped me a lot. The practice was intensive, I acquired knowledge that I will use in my future research. I liked Dubna a lot, it is a wonderful quiet city.
Co-supervisor of the project “Сrystal and magnetic structure of advanced oxide materials: neutron diffraction studies” Bulat Bakirov (FLNP):
– Four students took part in our project. They were all very motivated. Two of them had a background in this field, so we studied subtle aspects of our work with them. The other two did not have any previous experience, but they were interested. We told them about the neutron diffraction method as a whole: how the spectra are processed, how to get information of interest to us from this data, and obtained parameters of the crystal and magnetic structure of the compound. We prepared the presentation on all the results achieved on the last day. We only had two weeks to practice, and I think we gave the students as much as we could in that time.
Romisaa Gamal:
– I am a junior researcher working at the Faculty of Engineering and Technology of the Future University. In our project “Nuclear and related analytical techniques in archaeological and ecological studies” in the NAA group based on the IREN Facility at FLNP we used neutron activation analysis for research in the field of ecology and archaeology. Thanks to Dr Wael Badawy I gained a lot of knowledge in this field new to me. I will use this knowledge in the future, because I want to start a PhD course and hope to come here to prepare my PhD thesis. I really enjoyed Dubna. It is a quiet, peaceful city with an atmosphere good for thinking and doing scientific work. Many talented people live here. Moscow is a big city, it has its own charm, its own interesting places.
Fouad Ismail Agwany:
– I am a researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of Menoufia University. I also learned about research using the NAA method in the field of ecology and archaeology for the first time, working on a project under the supervision of scientists Dr Andrei Dmitriev and Dr Wael Badawy. In a very short time spent working with the NAA group, we gained a lot of knowledge, from the theory to the application of NAA. We learned how to process data and how to use special programmes. Our group supervisors supported us and provided us with all the necessary materials for work. I hope to join this research group in the future. I liked Dubna, the citizens are very friendly. Hopefully, I will come here again.
