Quantum Correlated D Decays at SuperB

We present the prospects for studying quantum correlated charm decays at the ψ(3770) using 0.5-1.0 ab^(-1) of data at SuperB. The impact of studying such double tagged decays upon measurements in other charm environments will be discussed

B lifetime measurements with exclusively reconstructed B decays

Data collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC are used to study the lifetime of the B0 and B+ mesons. The data sample consists of 7.4 fb-1 collected near the Y(4S) resonance. B0 and B+ mesons are fully reconstructed in several exclusive hadronic decay modes to charm and charmonium final states. The B lifetime are determined from the flight length difference between the two B mesons. The preliminary measurements of the lifetimes are tau_{B0} = 1.506 +/- 0.052 (stat) +/- 0.029 (syst) ps tau_{B+} = 1.602 +/- 0.049 (stat) +/- 0.035 (syst) ps and of their ratio is tau_{B+}/tau_{B0} = 1.065 +/- 0.044 (stat) +/- 0.021 (syst).Comment: 4 pages, 2 postscript figues, submitted to DPF200

Robust And Optimal Opportunistic Scheduling For Downlink 2-Flow Network Coding With Varying Channel Quality and Rate Adaptation

This paper considers the downlink traffic from a base station to two different clients. When assuming infinite backlog, it is known that inter-session network coding (INC) can significantly increase the throughput of each flow. However, the corresponding scheduling solution (when assuming dynamic arrivals instead and requiring bounded delay) is still nascent. For the 2-flow downlink scenario, we propose the first opportunistic INC + scheduling solution that is provably optimal for time-varying channels, i.e., the corresponding stability region matches the optimal Shannon capacity. Specifically, we first introduce a new binary INC operation, which is distinctly different from the traditional wisdom of XORing two overheard packets. We then develop a queue-length-based scheduling scheme, which, with the help of the new INC operation, can robustly and optimally adapt to time-varying channel quality. We then show that the proposed algorithm can be easily extended for rate adaptation and it again robustly achieves the optimal throughput. A byproduct of our results is a scheduling scheme for stochastic processing networks (SPNs) with random departure, which relaxes the assumption of deterministic departure in the existing results. The new SPN scheduler could thus further broaden the applications of SPN scheduling to other real-world scenarios

Automated Analysis of Multi-View Software Architectures

Software architectures usually are comprised of different views for capturing static, runtime, and deployment aspects. What is currently missing, however, are formal validation and verification techniques of multi-view architecture in very early phases of the software development lifecycle. The main contribution of this paper therefore is the construction of a single formal model (in Promela) for certain stylized, and widely used, multi-view architectures by suitably interpreting and fusing sub-models from different UML diagrams. Possible counter-examples produced by model checking are fed back as test scenarios for debugging the multi-view architectural model. We have implemented this algorithm as a plug-in for the Enterprise Architect development tool, and successfully used SPIN model checking for debugging some industrial architectural multi-view models by identifying a number of undesirable corner cases.Comment: Timestamping research work conducted under the fortiss Eigenforschung projec

Giant Magnetoresistive Biosensors for Time-Domain Magnetorelaxometry: A Theoretical Investigation and Progress Toward an Immunoassay.

Magnetorelaxometry (MRX) is a promising new biosensing technique for point-of-care diagnostics. Historically, magnetic sensors have been primarily used to monitor the stray field of magnetic nanoparticles bound to analytes of interest for immunoassays and flow cytometers. In MRX, the magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are first magnetized and then the temporal response is monitored after removing the magnetic field. This new sensing modality is insensitive to the magnetic field homogeneity making it more amenable to low-power portable applications. In this work, we systematically investigated time-domain MRX by measuring the signal dependence on the applied field, magnetization time, and magnetic core size. The extracted characteristic times varied for different magnetic MNPs, exhibiting unique magnetic signatures. We also measured the signal contribution based on the MNP location and correlated the coverage with measured signal amplitude. Lastly, we demonstrated, for the first time, a GMR-based time-domain MRX bioassay. This approach validates the feasibility of immunoassays using GMR-based MRX and provides an alternative platform for point-of-care diagnostics

Competition and Oligopoly: A Case of UK Grocery Retailing

In this paper we develop a model of Bertrand price competition with uncertainty as to the number of bidders. The auction models predict retail price dispersion as an observable feature of price discrimination. The implications of the auction models are tested using a logit model on primary data. Some simulations of the logit model further enrich and capture critical states of chain-store rivalry. The findings show that consumer characteristics define type of store choice and that an auction model of price competition with uncertainty is an appropriate way to model retail grocery competition.