Measurements of Rare B Decays at BABAR

We present the results of searches for rare B meson decays. The measurements use all or part of a data sample of about 88 million $\Upsilon(4S)\to B{\bar B}$ decays collected between 1999 and 2002 with the \babar detector at the PEP-II asymmetric energy B Factory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. We study a variety of decays dominated by electromagnetic, electroweak and gluonic penguin transitions, and report measurements of branching fractions and other quantities of interest.Comment: Invited talk at the 2002 SLAC Summer Institute Topical Conference (SSI02-TTh06); 28 pages, 16 figures; Correct minor typographical errors and include central results (where available) for analyses which report upper limit

Why Brexit could hit productivity in the UK

UK economic performance has been poor since the vote to leave the EU in June 2016, but has not been the catastrophe that many predicted. Nicholas Bloom (Stanford - on left) and Paul Mizen (Nottingham University) draw four results from the evidence gathered in the new Decision Maker Panel survey of around 2,500 businesses in the UK. While most firms expect a ..

The Agricultural Research System of the Philippines: A Reconnaissance Report

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Trapped factors and China’s impact on global growth

When China’s accession to the WTO exposed European firms to import competition, they responded by increasing their investment in innovation. This response was stronger in industries and firms where factors of production were less mobile. Motivated by this evidence, we incorporate “trapped factors” at the micro level into a general equilibrium model of product-cycle trade and growth. In a calibrated version of the model that starts with a baseline growth rate of 2%, trade integration between the OECD and low-wage countries can increase the steady-state growth rate to 2.4% per year. Factors that are trapped at a firm by an unexpected change in trade policy do not change this long-run growth rate, but in the medium run, they could have a noticeable effect on aggregate growth. Simulations of the model show that in the first decade after liberalization, growth jumps to 2.7% per year and that trapped factors account for almost all of the 0.3% = 2.7% − 2.4% increase above the steady state growth rate

Loss of AND-34/BCAR3 Expression in Mice Results in Rupture of the Adult Lens

PURPOSE. AND-34/BCAR3 (Breast Cancer Anti-Estrogen Resistance 3) associates with the focal adhesion adaptor protein, p130CAS/BCAR1. Expression of AND-34 regulates epithelial cell growth pattern, motility, and growth factor dependence. We sought to establish the effects of the loss of AND-34 expression in a mammalian organism. METHODS. AND-34−/− mice were generated by homologous recombination. Histopathology, in situ hybridization, and western blotting were performed on murine tissues. RESULTS. Western analyses confirmed total loss of expression in AND-34−/− splenic lymphocytes. Mice lacking AND-34 are fertile and have normal longevity. While AND-34 is widely expressed in wild type mice, histologic analysis of multiple organs in AND-34−/− mice is unremarkable and analyses of lymphocyte development show no overt changes. A small percentage of AND-34−/− mice show distinctive small white eye lesions resulting from the migration of ruptured cortical lens tissue into the anterior chamber. Following initial vacuolization and liquefaction of the lens cortex first observed at postnatal day three, posterior lens rupture occurs in all AND-34−/− mice, beginning as early as three weeks and seen in all mice at three months. Western blot analysis and in situ hybridization confirmed the presence of AND-34 RNA and protein in lens epithelial cells, particularly at the lens equator. Prior data link AND-34 expression to the activation of Akt signaling. While Akt Ser 473 phosphorylation was readily detectable in AND-34+/+ lens epithelial cells, it was markedly reduced in the AND-34−/− lens epithelium. Basal levels of p130Cas phosphorylation were higher in AND-34+/+ than in AND-34−/− lens epithelium. CONCLUSIONS. These results demonstrate the loss of AND-34 dysregulates focal adhesion complex signaling in lens epithelial cells and suggest that AND-34-mediated signaling is required for maintenance of the structural integrity of the adult ocular lens.National Institutes of Health (RO1 CA114094); Logica Foundatio

Varieties of social cognition

Recent actions. KEYWORDS: implicit social work Influence within cognition, unconsciousness psychology demonstrates is cognition, corroborated that implicit unconscious by strong measures, empirical cognition priming, evidence, plays automaticity, a but central unconscious consciousness role in the states judgments are difficult and actions to verify. of We individuals. discuss procedures We distinguish aimed between at providing two basic conclusive types evidence unconscious of state social unconsciousness, cognition: unconsciousness and apply them of the to influences recent empirical on judgments findings. and actions, and unconscious of the mental states (i.e., attitudes and feelings) that give rise to judgments After reading words related to stereotypes of the elderly, such as “Florida ” and “wrinkle, ” people tend to walk more slowly (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996). Being subliminally exposed to pictures of African American males makes people hostile, and thinking about professors improves their performance at Trivial Pursuit (Bargh et al., 1996; Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998). People are more likely to mistakenly judge a male to be famous, and an African American to be a criminal (Banaji & Bhaskar, 2000; Banaji & Greenwald, 1995; Payne, 2001). Based on these and other similarly dramatic findings, we and many other psychologists have come to agree with Bargh and Chartrand (1999), who proposed that: “... most of a person’s everyday life is determined not by their conscious intentions and deliberate choices but by mental processes that are put into motion by features of the environment and that operate outside of conscious awarenes

Methane observations from the Greenhouse Gases Observing SATellite: Comparison to ground‐based TCCON data and model calculations

We report new short-wave infrared (SWIR) column retrievals of atmospheric methane (X_(CH4)) from the Japanese Greenhouse Gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) and compare observed spatial and temporal variations with correlative ground-based measurements from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) and with the global 3-D GEOS-Chem chemistry transport model. GOSAT X_(CH4) retrievals are compared with daily TCCON observations at six sites between April 2009 and July 2010 (Bialystok, Park Falls, Lamont, Orleans, Darwin and Wollongong). GOSAT reproduces the site-dependent seasonal cycles as observed by TCCON with correlations typically between 0.5 and 0.7 with an estimated single-sounding precision between 0.4–0.8%. We find a latitudinal-dependent difference between the X_(CH4) retrievals from GOSAT and TCCON which ranges from 17.9 ppb at the most northerly site (Bialystok) to −14.6 ppb at the site with the lowest latitude (Darwin). We estimate that the mean smoothing error difference included in the GOSAT to TCCON comparisons can account for 15.7 to 17.4 ppb for the northerly sites and for 1.1 ppb at the lowest latitude site. The GOSAT X_(CH4) retrievals agree well with the GEOS-Chem model on annual (August 2009 – July 2010) and monthly timescales, capturing over 80% of the zonal variability. Differences between model and observed X_(CH4) are found over key source regions such as Southeast Asia and central Africa which will be further investigated using a formal inverse model analysis

A comparison of methodologies for the non-invasive characterisation of commercial Li-ion cells

Lithium-ion cells currently power almost all electronic devices and power tools; they are a key enabling technology for electric vehicles and are increasingly considered to be the technology of choice for grid storage. In line with this increased applicability, there is also an increase in the development of new commercial lithium-ion cell technologies that incorporate innovative functional components (electrode material compositions and electrolyte formulations) and designs, leading to a diverse range of performance characteristics. The uniqueness of each technology in-turn gives rise to unique evolutions of cell performance as the cell degrades because of usage. Non-destructively measuring and subsequently tracking the evolution of lithium-ion cell characteristics is valuable for both industrial engineers and academic researchers. To proceed in this regard, stakeholders have often devised their own procedures for characterising lithium-ion cells, typically without considering unification, comparability or compatibility. This makes the comparison of technologies complicated. This comprehensive review for the first time has analysed and discusses the various international standards and regulations for the characterisation and electrical testing of lithium-ion cells, specifically for high-power automotive and grid applications

Large-Scale Controls of Methanogenesis Inferred from Methane and Gravity Spaceborne Data

Wetlands are the largest individual source of methane (CH_4), but the magnitude and distribution of this source are poorly understood on continental scales. We isolated the wetland and rice paddy contributions to spaceborne CH_4 measurements over 2003–2005 using satellite observations of gravity anomalies, a proxy for water-table depth Γ, and surface temperature analyses T_S. We find that tropical and higher-latitude CH_4 variations are largely described by Γ and T_S variations, respectively. Our work suggests that tropical wetlands contribute 52 to 58% of global emissions, with the remainder coming from the extra-tropics, 2% of which is from Arctic latitudes. We estimate a 7% rise in wetland CH_4 emissions over 2003–2007, due to warming of mid-latitude and Arctic wetland regions, which we find is consistent with recent changes in atmospheric CH_4

Sensitivity of double resonance alignment magnetometers

We present an experimental study of the intrinsic magnetometric sensitivity of an optical/rf-frequency double resonance magnetometer in which linearly polarized laser light is used in the optical pumping and detection processes. We show that a semi-empirical model of the magnetometer can be used to describe the magnetic resonance spectra. Then, we present an efficient method to predict the optimum operating point of the magnetometer, i.e., the light power and rf Rabi frequency providing maximum magnetometric sensitivity. Finally, we apply the method to investigate the evolution of the optimum operating point with temperature. The method is very efficient to determine relaxation rates and thus allowed us to determine the three collisional disalignment cross sections for the components of the alignment tensor. Both first and second harmonic signals from the magnetometer are considered and compared