Postural stress and risk conditions in manual load handling of Chilean industrial workers

Introduction: Although, there is a current regulatory framework for optimal manual handling of loads to preserve health conditions in the industrial sector, technical assessment and the use of certain instruments are still required for the diagnosis of occupational hazards. This study aimed to identify the occupational hazards associated with manual load handling in industry workers and estimate those resulting from postural stress. Methods:  Fifty-two (52) industry workers took part in this cross-sectional study. All participants were evaluated using the Manual Handling Guide and the Reba assessment tool.  Subjects were characterized, and risks associated with different tasks were detected. Results: 59.6% of workers were between 18 and 45 years old. Lifting, lowering, and transporting loads activities had a repetitive task risk of 94%, exceeding the weight limit in 85.7% of cases. Pushing and pulling activities, mostly showed a working postural risk of 82% and a high perception of initial effort (Borg> 8). Reba score warned to intervene immediately in both types of tasks. Conclusion: Risk from the manual handling of loads found in this study constitutes an alert that suggests reviewing compliance with the current regulation, as well as effective use of working pauses and the improvement of strategies to minimize physical efforts used by workers

Minimal spontaneously broken hidden sector and its impact on Higgs boson physics at the Large Hadron Collider

We have studied a hidden sector of the SM with spontaneous symmetry breaking that opens many different scenarios for Higgs physics. We have shown that this hidden sector can affect the SM Higgs detection. In some speci c regimes it is still possible to detect the Higgs; in other scenarios the hidden sector would completely eclipse it

A tidally induced global corrugation pattern in an external disk galaxy similar to the milky way

We study the two-dimensional (2D) line-of-sight velocity (Vlos) field of the low-inclination, late-type galaxy VV304a. The resulting 2D kinematic map reveals a global, coherent, and extended perturbation that is likely associated with a recent interaction with the massive companion VV304b. We use multiband imaging and a suite of test-particle simulations to quantify the plausible strength of in-plane flows due to nonaxisymmetric perturbations and show that the observed velocity flows are much too large to be driven either by a spiral structure or by a bar. We use fully cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to characterize the contribution from in- and off-plane velocity flows to the Vlos field of recently interacting galaxy pairs like the VV304 system. We show that, for recently perturbed low-inclination galactic disks, the structure of the residual velocity field, after subtraction of an axisymmetric rotation model, can be dominated by vertical flows. Our results indicate that the Vlos perturbations in VV304a are consistent with a corrugation pattern. Its Vlos map suggests the presence of a structure similar to the Monoceros ring seen in the Milky Way. Our study highlights the possibility of addressing important questions regarding the nature and origin of vertical perturbations by measuring the line-of-sight velocities in low-inclination nearby galaxies

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde

Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment - Detector, Trigger and Physics

A detailed study is presented of the expected performance of the ATLAS detector. The reconstruction of tracks, leptons, photons, missing energy and jets is investigated, together with the performance of b-tagging and the trigger. The physics potential for a variety of interesting physics processes, within the Standard Model and beyond, is examined. The study comprises a series of notes based on simulations of the detector and physics processes, with particular emphasis given to the data expected from the first years of operation of the LHC at CERN

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30

Hunt for new phenomena using large jet multiplicities and missing transverse momentum with ATLAS in 4.7 fb−1 of √s=7 TeV proton-proton collisions

Results are presented of a search for new particles decaying to large numbers of jets in association with missing transverse momentum, using 4.7 fb−1 of pp collision data at s√=7TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in 2011. The event selection requires missing transverse momentum, no isolated electrons or muons, and from ≥6 to ≥9 jets. No evidence is found for physics beyond the Standard Model. The results are interpreted in the context of a MSUGRA/CMSSM supersymmetric model, where, for large universal scalar mass m 0, gluino masses smaller than 840 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level, extending previously published limits. Within a simplified model containing only a gluino octet and a neutralino, gluino masses smaller than 870 GeV are similarly excluded for neutralino masses below 100 GeV