Measurements Should Generate Value, Rather than Data,

Success factors for measurement programs as identified in the literature typically focus on the `internals' of the measurement program: incremental implementation, support from management, a well-planned metrics framework, and so on. However, for a measurement program to be successful within its larger organizational context, it has to generate value for the organization. This implies that attention should also be given to the proper mapping of some identifiable organizational problem onto the measurement program, as well as the translation back of measurement results to organizational actions. In this paper, we present a generic process model for measurement-based improvement, which does cover the latter issues as well. We describe a number of common uses for measurement programs in software organizations, from which we derive additional `external' success factors. In addition, we propose a number of activities that organizations can use to implement value-generating measurement programs

Frequency Tracking and Parameter Estimation for Robust Quantum State-Estimation

In this paper we consider the problem of tracking the state of a quantum system via a continuous measurement. If the system Hamiltonian is known precisely, this merely requires integrating the appropriate stochastic master equation. However, even a small error in the assumed Hamiltonian can render this approach useless. The natural answer to this problem is to include the parameters of the Hamiltonian as part of the estimation problem, and the full Bayesian solution to this task provides a state-estimate that is robust against uncertainties. However, this approach requires considerable computational overhead. Here we consider a single qubit in which the Hamiltonian contains a single unknown parameter. We show that classical frequency estimation techniques greatly reduce the computational overhead associated with Bayesian estimation and provide accurate estimates for the qubit frequencyComment: 6 figures, 13 page

Resolving the A_{FB}^b puzzle in an extra dimensional model with an extended gauge structure

It is notorious that, contrary to all other precision electroweak data, the forward-backward asymmetry for b quarks $A_{FB}^b$ measured in Z decays at LEP1 is nearly three standard deviations away from the predicted value in the Standard Model; significant deviations also occur in measurements of the asymmetry off the Z pole. We show that these discrepancies can be resolved in a variant of the Randall-Sundrum extra-dimensional model in which the gauge structure is extended to $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R \times U(1)_X$ to allow for relatively light Kaluza-Klein excitations of the gauge bosons. In this scenario, the fermions are localized differently along the extra dimension, in order to generate the fermion mass hierarchies, so that the electroweak interactions for the heavy third generation fermions are naturally different from the light fermion ones. We show that the mixing between the Z boson with the Kaluza-Klein excitations allows to explain the $A_{FB}^b$ anomaly without affecting (and even improving) the agreement of the other precision observables, including the $Z \to bb$ partial decay width, with experimental data. Some implications of this scenario for the ILC are summarized.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure

The Role of Ejecta in the Small Crater Populations on the Mid-Sized Saturnian Satellites

We find evidence that crater ejecta play an important role in the small crater populations on the Saturnian satellites, and more broadly, on cratered surfaces throughout the Solar System. We measure crater populations in Cassini images of Enceladus, Rhea, and Mimas, focusing on image data with scales less than 500 m/pixel. We use recent updates to crater scaling laws and their constants to estimate the amount of mass ejected in three different velocity ranges: (i) greater than escape velocity, (ii) less than escape velocity and faster than the minimum velocity required to make a secondary crater (v_min), and (iii) velocities less than v_min. Although the vast majority of mass on each satellite is ejected at speeds less than v_min, our calculations demonstrate that the differences in mass available in the other two categories should lead to observable differences in the small crater populations; the predictions are borne out by the measurements we have made to date. Rhea, Tethys, and Dione have sufficient surface gravities to retain ejecta moving fast enough to make secondary crater populations. The smaller satellites, such as Enceladus but especially Mimas, are expected to have little or no traditional secondary populations because their escape velocities are near the threshold velocity necessary to make a secondary crater. Our work clarifies why the Galilean satellites have extensive secondary crater populations relative to the Saturnian satellites. The presence, extent, and sizes of sesquinary craters (craters formed by ejecta that escape into temporary orbits around Saturn before re-impacting the surface) is not yet well understood. Finally, our work provides further evidence for a "shallow" size-frequency distribution (slope index of ~2 for a differential power-law) for comets a few km diameter and smaller. [slightly abbreviated]Comment: Submitted to Icarus. 77 double-spaced pages, including 25 figures and 5 table

A Measurement of Small Scale Structure in the 2.2 < z < 4.2 Lyman-alpha Forest

The amplitude of fluctuations in the Ly-a forest on small spatial scales is sensitive to the temperature of the IGM and its spatial fluctuations. The temperature of the IGM and its spatial variations contain important information about hydrogen and helium reionization. We present a new measurement of the small-scale structure in the Ly-a forest from 40 high resolution, high signal-to-noise, VLT spectra at z=2.2-4.2. We convolve each Ly-a forest spectrum with a suitably chosen wavelet filter, which allows us to extract the amount of small-scale structure in the forest as a function of position across each spectrum. We compare these measurements with high resolution hydrodynamic simulations of the Ly-a forest which track more than 2 billion particles. This comparison suggests that the IGM temperature close to the cosmic mean density (T_0) peaks near z=3.4, at which point it is greater than 20,000 K at 2-sigma confidence. The temperature at lower redshift is consistent with the fall-off expected from adiabatic cooling ($T_0 \propto (1+z)^2$), after the peak temperature is reached near z=3.4. At z=4.2 our results favor a temperature of T_0 = 15-20,000 K. However, owing mostly to uncertainties in the mean transmitted flux at this redshift, a cooler IGM model with T_0 = 10,000 K is only disfavored at the 2-sigma level here, although such cool IGM models are strongly discrepant with the z ~ 3-3.4 measurement. We do not detect large spatial fluctuations in the IGM temperature at any redshift covered by our data set. The simplest interpretation of our measurements is that HeII reionization completes sometime near z ~ 3.4, although statistical uncertainties are still large [Abridged].Comment: Submitted to ApJ. Best printed in colo

Testing the Halo Model Against the SDSS Photometric Survey

We present halo model predictions for the expected angular clustering and associated errors from the completed Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometric galaxy sample. These results are used to constrain halo model parameters under the assumption of a fixed LCDM cosmology using standard Fisher matrix techniques. Given the ability of the five-color SDSS photometry to separate galaxies into sub-populations by intrinsic color, we also use extensions of the standard halo model formalism to calculate the expected clustering of red and blue galaxy sub-populations as a further test of the galaxy evolution included in the semi-analytic methods for populating dark matter halos with galaxies. The extremely small sample variance and Poisson errors from the completed SDSS survey should result in very impressive constraints (~1-10%) on the halo model parameters for a simple magnitude-limited sample and should provide an extremely useful check on the behavior of current and future N-body simulations and semi-analytic techniques. We also show that similar constraints are possible using a narrow selection function, as would be possible using photometric redshifts, without making linear assumptions regarding the evolution of the underlying power spectra. In both cases, we explore the effects of uncertainty in the selection function on the resulting constraints and the degeneracies between various combinations of parameters.Comment: 16 pages, 17 figure

Correlated Resource Models of Internet End Hosts

Understanding and modelling resources of Internet end hosts is essential for the design of desktop software and Internet-distributed applications. In this paper we develop a correlated resource model of Internet end hosts based on real trace data taken from the SETI@home project. This data covers a 5-year period with statistics for 2.7 million hosts. The resource model is based on statistical analysis of host computational power, memory, and storage as well as how these resources change over time and the correlations between them. We find that resources with few discrete values (core count, memory) are well modeled by exponential laws governing the change of relative resource quantities over time. Resources with a continuous range of values are well modeled with either correlated normal distributions (processor speed for integer operations and floating point operations) or log-normal distributions (available disk space). We validate and show the utility of the models by applying them to a resource allocation problem for Internet-distributed applications, and demonstrate their value over other models. We also make our trace data and tool for automatically generating realistic Internet end hosts publicly available