Hemisphere Mixing: a Fully Data-Driven Model of QCD Multijet Backgrounds for LHC Searches

A novel method is proposed here to precisely model the multi-dimensional features of QCD multi-jet events in hadron collisions. The method relies on the schematization of high-pT QCD processes as 2->2 reactions made complex by sub-leading effects. The construction of libraries of hemispheres from experimental data and the definition of a suitable nearest-neighbor-based association map allow for the generation of artificial events that reproduce with surprising accuracy the kinematics of the QCD component of original data, while remaining insensitive to small signal contaminations. The method is succinctly described and its performance is tested in the case of the search for the hh->bbbb process at the LHC.Comment: 4 pages plus header, 1 figure, proceedings of EPS 2017 Venic

Vector bundles on the projective line and finite domination of chain complexes

Finitely dominated chain complexes over a Laurent polynomial ring in one indeterminate are characterised by vanishing of their Novikov homology. We present an algebro-geometric approach to this result, based on extension of chain complexes to sheaves on the projective line. We also discuss the K-theoretical obstruction to extension.Comment: v1: 11 page

The initial investigation of the design and energy sharing algorithm using two-ways communication mechanism for Swarm Robotic System

Swarm Robotics (SR) is a new field of study that is mainly concerned with con-trolling and coordinating a multiple small robots. SR has several key characteristics that make it a preferable choice for a variety of tasks. The characteristics include lower cost, easiness to program, scalability of tasks and fault tolerance. The robustness from fault tolerance in SR comes from having a group of small robots working on the same task and thus enabling them to tolerate the loss of a few members of the swarm as the other members can still continue with the mission. However it has shown that continuous failure of members of a swarm such as those due to low energy have a significant impact on the overall performance of the swarm. In addition, the possibility of completion of the task is also dependent on the percentage of the swarm falling out of the group due insufficient energy. Some of the work that has been proposed by the researchers is by adding a charging station or a removable charger. However, these techniques have their own limitations. Therefore a work on having the robot(s) to charger themselves without the help of the charging station or a removable charger is proposed. But the work is only proven successful in simulation without a proper design and testing in a real robots scenario. This paper is therefore will describe our initial investigation on the design and the implementation of energy sharing algorithm using two-ways robotic swarm communication mechanism with NRF2401

Reviews and syntheses: Systematic Earth observations for use in terrestrial carbon cycle data assimilation systems

The global carbon cycle is an important component of the Earth system and it interacts with the hydrology, energy and nutrient cycles as well as ecosystem dynamics. A better understanding of the global carbon cycle is required for improved projections of climate change including corresponding changes in water and food resources and for the verification of measures to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. An improved understanding of the carbon cycle can be achieved by data assimilation systems, which integrate observations relevant to the carbon cycle into coupled carbon, water, energy and nutrient models. Hence, the ingredients for such systems are a carbon cycle model, an algorithm for the assimilation and systematic and well error-characterised observations relevant to the carbon cycle. Relevant observations for assimilation include various in situ measurements in the atmosphere (e.g. concentrations of CO2 and other gases) and on land (e.g. fluxes of carbon water and energy, carbon stocks) as well as remote sensing observations (e.g. atmospheric composition, vegetation and surface properties). We briefly review the different existing data assimilation techniques and contrast them to model benchmarking and evaluation efforts (which also rely on observations). A common requirement for all assimilation techniques is a full description of the observational data properties. Uncertainty estimates of the observations are as important as the observations themselves because they similarly determine the outcome of such assimilation systems. Hence, this article reviews the requirements of data assimilation systems on observations and provides a non-exhaustive overview of current observations and their uncertainties for use in terrestrial carbon cycle data assimilation. We report on progress since the review of model-data synthesis in terrestrial carbon observations by Raupach et al.(2005), emphasising the rapid advance in relevant space-based observations

Ant colony optimisation and local search for bin-packing and cutting stock problems

The Bin Packing Problem and the Cutting Stock Problem are two related classes of NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. Exact solution methods can only be used for very small instances, so for real-world problems, we have to rely on heuristic methods. In recent years, researchers have started to apply evolutionary approaches to these problems, including Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Programming. In the work presented here, we used an ant colony optimization (ACO) approach to solve both Bin Packing and Cutting Stock Problems. We present a pure ACO approach, as well as an ACO approach augmented with a simple but very effective local search algorithm. It is shown that the pure ACO approach can compete with existing evolutionary methods, whereas the hybrid approach can outperform the best-known hybrid evolutionary solution methods for certain problem classes. The hybrid ACO approach is also shown to require different parameter values from the pure ACO approach and to give a more robust performance across different problems with a single set of parameter values. The local search algorithm is also run with random restarts and shown to perform significantly worse than when combined with ACO

CD24 signalling through macrophage Siglec-10 is a target for cancer immunotherapy.

Ovarian cancer and triple-negative breast cancer are among the most lethal diseases affecting women, with few targeted therapies and high rates of metastasis. Cancer cells are capable of evading clearance by macrophages through the overexpression of anti-phagocytic surface proteins called 'don't eat me' signals-including CD471, programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)2 and the beta-2 microglobulin subunit of the major histocompatibility class I complex (B2M)3. Monoclonal antibodies that antagonize the interaction of 'don't eat me' signals with their macrophage-expressed receptors have demonstrated therapeutic potential in several cancers4,5. However, variability in the magnitude and durability of the response to these agents has suggested the presence of additional, as yet unknown 'don't eat me' signals. Here we show that CD24 can be the dominant innate immune checkpoint in ovarian cancer and breast cancer, and is a promising target for cancer immunotherapy. We demonstrate a role for tumour-expressed CD24 in promoting immune evasion through its interaction with the inhibitory receptor sialic-acid-binding Ig-like lectin 10 (Siglec-10), which is expressed by tumour-associated macrophages. We find that many tumours overexpress CD24 and that tumour-associated macrophages express high levels of Siglec-10. Genetic ablation of either CD24 or Siglec-10, as well as blockade of the CD24-Siglec-10 interaction using monoclonal antibodies, robustly augment the phagocytosis of all CD24-expressing human tumours that we tested. Genetic ablation and therapeutic blockade of CD24 resulted in a macrophage-dependent reduction of tumour growth in vivo and an increase in survival time. These data reveal CD24 as a highly expressed, anti-phagocytic signal in several cancers and demonstrate the therapeutic potential for CD24 blockade in cancer immunotherapy

Parallel formation of differently sized groups in a robotic swarm

Swarm robotics is a branch of collective robotics focused on the study of relatively large groups of robots with limited sensing and communication capabilities. One of the main benefits of such systems is their potential for parallelism. To achieve parallelism in real-world scenarios, it is important to be able to split the swarm into appropriately sized groups for different concurrent tasks

A CARING INTERPRETATION OF NONPROFIT AND THIRD SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS

The paper aims to present care morality as a normative stakeholder approach for advancing meaningful conceptions and interpretations of the responsibility principle in nonprofit and third sector organizations. The language and method of care, with their focus on both dialogue and the reciprocal strengthening of interpersonal relationships as a primary means of moral deliberation, prove to be sound and defensible for enhancing proper justifications of the legitimacy of stakeholder and ‘organization-stakeholder’ relationships in European third sector environments. A reasoned review of the main literature on caring offers new insights and suggestions to conceive of nonprofit and third sector organizations as ideal ‘architectures of care’ that might simultaneously enhance the effectiveness and moral quality of public service provision in local communities. The validity of our arguments is circumscribed to membership-based nonprofit and third sector organizations (voluntary organizations and social enterprises); assets-based organizations (foundations) are not addressed

A caring interpretation of stakeholder management for the social enterprise. Evidence from a regional survey of micro social co-operatives in the Italian welfare mix

The stakeholder literature on the social enterprise is still a nascent and largely under investigated field of knowledge. This literature is characterized by the existence of two persistently divergent theorizings, broadly, the ‘corporate’ and the ‘socio-political’ approach. We assume that the reason of this divergence lies in the absence of proper moral justifications underpinning the notion of stakeholder legitimacy, which results in devaluations and misinterpretations of the normative foundations of stakeholder management. In order to bridge this gap, we propose to conceive of the two theorizings as if they were empirical streams of research of a common normative framework of stakeholder thought. A special focus is given to the feminist theory, and, especially, to the ‘ethics of care’ (Gilligan 1982, Noddings 1984, 1999; Held, 2003), as meaningful moral grounding for advancing descriptions and managerial interpretations of the particular nature and functions of firm-stakeholder relationships in social enterprises. To the purpose, we draw from the specialized literature on caring both insights and criteria of an ideal architecture of firm as ‘caring organization’ (Liedtka, 1996) in order to offer an operationally meaningful conceptualization of how social enterprises might simultaneously enhance both the effectiveness and the moral quality of stakeholder management. Then, we test these assumptions on a regional survey of micro social co-operatives in the Italian welfare mix. Findings reveal that the caring for attribute of ‘proximity’ shaping firm-stakeholder relationships offers a lot of useful insights to conceive of caring as suitable moral grounding for a common stakeholder theorizing of social enterprise

Triple product asymmetries in K, D_(s) and B_(s) decays

One distinguishes between "true" CP violating triple product (TP) asymmetries which require no strong phases and "fake" asymmetries which are due to strong phases but require no CP violation. So far a single true TP asymmetry has been measured in $K_L\to \pi^+\pi^- e^+e^-$. A general discussion is presented for T-odd TP asymmetries in four-body decays. It is shown that TP asymmetries vanish for two identical and kinematically indistinguishable particles in the final state. Two examples are $D^0\to K^-\pi^+\pi^-\pi^+$ and $D^+\to K^-\pi^+\pi^+\pi^0$. A non-zero TP asymmetry can be expected when non-trivial kinematic correlations exist, as in the decay $K_L \to e^+ e^- e^+ e^-$. Triple product asymmetries measured in charmed particle decays indicate an interesting pattern of final-state interactions. We reiterate a discussion of TP asymmetries in $B$ meson decays to two vector mesons each decaying to a pseudoscalar pair, extending results to decays where one vector meson decays into a lepton pair. We derive expressions for time-dependent TP asymmetries for neutral B decays to flavorless states in terms of the neutral $B$ mass difference $\Delta m$ and the width-difference $\Delta\Gamma$. Time-integrated true CP violating asymmetries, measurable for untagged $B_s$ decays, are shown to be suppressed by neither $\Gamma_s/\Delta m_s$ nor $\Delta\Gamma_s/\Gamma_s$ if transversity amplitudes for CP-even and CP-odd states involve different weak phases. In contrast, fake asymmetries require flavor tagging and are suppressed by the former ratio when time-integrated. We apply our results to $B\to K^*\phi$ and $B_s\to\phi\phi$ data and suggest an application for $B_s\to J/\psi\phi$.Comment: minor corrections, submitted to Phys. Rev.