Search for fermiophobic Higgs bosons in final states with photons at LEP 2

Higgs boson production with subsequent decay to photons was searched for in the data collected by the DELPHI detector at centre-of-mass energies between 183 GeV and 209 GeV, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of nearly 650 pb^{-1}. No evidence for a signal was found, and limits were set on h0Z0 and h0A0 production with h0 decay to photons. These results were used to exclude regions in the parameter space of fermiophobic scenarios of Two Higgs Doublet Models.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.

The Welles of loneliness: Sumner Welles and the creation of American foreign policy

This thesis examines the intersection of the personal and professional lives of former Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles. It argues that Welles sexuality had a formative influence on his worldview and, hence, his career as a policymaker, his place in the Roosevelt administration, and his legacy in U.S. political and diplomatic history. Using sexuality as a lens through which to view his career, this thesis provides fresh interpretations of the major events in Welles’ career while offering new insights into the contradictions, ambiguities, and continuities in Welles’ thinking and behaviour. Welles’ sexuality permeated his entire life. It impacted the trajectory of his career, shaped his personality, and altered the dynamics of his worldview. Beginning with formative experiences that positioned Welles as an outsider, Welles’ upbringing and sexuality conditioned him with unique characteristics and beliefs that shaped his professional life. These characteristics were manifested in three ways: an aversion to military solutions to diplomatic problems, a belief in paternalistic idealism toward the world outside the U.S., and the development of a close political bond with a fellow outsider to conventional masculinity, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Through a close reading of Welles’ papers, documents from his formative years, accounts by his contemporaries, and a consideration of the broader political and societal context in which he operated, this thesis shows how examining Welles’ personal life is crucial to understanding his impact on American foreign policy. This thesis is not a straight diplomatic history. Its primary focus is on Welles as an individual and how he embodied the intersection between sexuality, power, and diplomacy. It directly engages with the existing historiography about Welles by challenging the portrayals of his sexuality as aberrant and incidental. That said, while the components of personality and sexuality are fundamental to this thesis’ argument, this thesis does not argue Welles’ sexuality is the sole or allencompassing criterion by which his career can be understood. Rather, this thesis highlights the salience of sexuality alongside more traditional metrics of ideology, politics, culture, and power, in order to provide a richer understanding of Welles’ contributions to the political and diplomatic history of the U.S., particularly with regards to Latin America, World War Two, and the internal politics of the Roosevelt administration. More broadly, it expands the scope of analysis for historians studying foreign policy and diplomacy by demonstrating how sexuality shapes the attributes and outlook of foreign policy decision makers

Cryptographic Securities Exchanges

While transparency in financial markets should enhance liquidity, its exploitation by unethical and parasitic traders discourages others from fully embracing disclosure of their own information. Traders exploit both the private information in upstairs markets used to trade large orders outside traditional exchanges and the public information present in exchanges’ quoted limit order books. Using homomorphic cryptographic protocols, market designers can create “partially transparent” markets in which every matched trade is provably correct and only beneficial information is revealed. In a cryptographic securities exchange, market operators can hide information to prevent its exploitation, and still prove facts about the hidden information such as bid/ask spread or market depth.Engineering and Applied Science

On model-independent searches for direct CP violation in multi-body decays

Techniques for performing model-independent searches for direct CP violation in three and four-body decays are discussed. Comments on the performance and the optimisation of a binned chisquare approach and an unbinned approach, known as the energy test, are made. The use of the energy test in the presence of background is also studied. The selection and treatment of the coordinates used to describe the phase-space of the decay are discussed. The conventional model-independent techniques, which test for P-even CP violation, are modified to create a new approach for testing for P-odd CP violation. An implementation of the energy test using GPUs is described

Achieving Trust without Disclosure: Dark Pools and a Role for Secrecy-Preserving Verification

Can an exchange be “dark,” so that orders are not displayed, while simultaneously trustworthy, so that the execution of trades and flow of information occur as promised? SEC actions against dark pools suggest cause for concern, and regulators seem to be moving towards requiring more disclosure. Yet there is a clear tension: trading order information is widely exploited. Therefore, institutional investors have a strong interest in keeping pre-trade information about large trades hidden. Secrecy-preserving proofs of correctness can be used to build trust without revealing unnecessary information. By performing operations on obfuscated representations of orders (perhaps encrypted or otherwise hidden), a zero knowledge proof can be provided, allowing anyone to verify correctness of trades. Crucially, this can be done without revealing any information beyond this correctness. This technology can be usefully applied to construct provably trustworthy dark pools. Additional practical protocols relax the definition of “zero knowledge" to reveal limited information, providing necessary transparency for efficient market operation while limiting information that can be exploited by observers. Coupled with Trusted Computing hardware, these protocols can provide an excellent balance of practicality with secrecyEngineering and Applied Science

Acetarsol Suppositories: Effective Treatment for Refractory Proctitis in a Cohort of Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

BACKGROUND: Management of proctitis refractory to conventional therapies presents a common clinical problem. The use of acetarsol suppositories, which are derived from organic arsenic, was first described in 1965. Data concerning clinical efficacy and tolerability are very limited. AIM: To examine the efficacy of acetarsol suppositories for the treatment of refractory proctitis. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed on patients with inflammatory bowel disease treated with acetarsol suppositories between 2008 and 2014 at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Clinical response was defined as resolution of symptoms back to baseline at the time of next clinic review. RESULTS: Thirty-nine patients were prescribed acetarsol suppositories between March 2008 and July 2014 (29 patients with ulcerative colitis, nine with Crohn's disease, and one with indeterminate colitis). Thirty-eight were included for analysis. The standard dose of acetarsol was 250 mg twice daily per rectum for 4 weeks. Clinical response was observed in 26 patients (68%). Of the 11 patients who had endoscopic assessment before and after treatment, nine (82%) showed endoscopic improvement and five (45%) were in complete remission (Wilcoxon signed-rank test p = 0.006). One patient developed a macular skin rash 1 week after commencing acetarsol, which resolved within 4 weeks of drug cessation. CONCLUSION: Acetarsol was effective for two out of every three patients with refractory proctitis. This cohort had failed a broad range of topical and systemic treatments, including anti-TNFα therapy. Clinical efficacy was reflected in significant endoscopic improvement. Adverse effects of acetarsol were rare

Solubility tests and the peripheral blood film method for screening for sickle cell disease: A cost benefit analysis

Objective. To determine the cost benefit of screening for sickle-cell disease among infants at district health centres in Uganda using sickling, solubility tests and the peripheral blood film method. Methods. Pilot screening services were established at district health centres. Cost benefit analysis (CBA) was performed in four scenarios: A1 – where there are no sickle-cell screening services at district health centres and all children are referred either to Mulago tertiary referral hospital or A2 – a regional hospital for haemoglobin (Hb) electrophoresis; B1 – when there are screening services at district health centres, only positive samples are taken either to Mulago Hospital or B2 – the regional hospital for confirmation using haemoglobin electrophoresis. Calculations were done in Uganda shillings (USh). Results. Initial operational costs were high for all scenarios but variably reduced in the subsequent years. Scenarios A1 and A2 were very sensitive compared with B1 and B2. Scenario A1 had the highest screening costs in the subsequent years, costing over 62 000 USh per test in both eastern and western Uganda. Scenario B2 was sensitive and cheaper when using the sickling test, but was expensive and insensitive when using the solubility test and more insensitive though cheaper when using the peripheral blood film method. Conclusions and recommendation. Screening children in Mulago hospital using haemoglobin electrophoresis (A1) was very expensive although it was sensitive. Screening the children at four health centres using the sickling method and confirming positive samples at a regional hospital (B2) was both cheap and sensitive and is therefore recommended