375 research outputs found
The case for the development and use of "ecologically valid" measures of executive function in experimental and clinical neuropsychology
This article considers the scientific process whereby new and better clinical tests of executive function might be developed, and what form they might take. We argue that many of the traditional tests of executive function most commonly in use (e.g., the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test; Stroop) are adaptations of procedures that emerged almost coincidentally from conceptual and experimental frameworks far removed from those currently in favour, and that the prolongation of their use has been encouraged by a sustained period of concentration on “construct-driven” experimentation in neuropsychology. This resulted from the special theoretical demands made by the field of executive function, but was not a necessary consequence, and may not even have been a useful one. Whilst useful, these tests may not therefore be optimal for their purpose. We consider as an alternative approach a function-led development programme which in principle could yield tasks better suited to the concerns of the clinician because of the transparency afforded by increased “representativeness” and “generalisability.” We further argue that the requirement of such a programme to represent the interaction between the individual and situational context might also provide useful constraints for purely experimental investigations. We provide an example of such a programme with reference to the Multiple Errands and Six Element tests
Photon and Z induced heavy charged lepton pair production at a hadron supercollider
We investigate the pair production of charged heavy leptons via
photon-induced processes at the proposed CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Using effective photon and Z approximations, rates are given for
production due to fusion and fusion for the cases of
inelastic, elastic and semi-elastic collisions. These are compared with
the corresponding rates for production via the gluon fusion and Drell-Yan
mechanisms. Various and differential luminosities
for collisions are also presented.Comment: 22 pages, RevTex 3.0, 6 uuencoded and compressed postscript figures
included. Reference to one paper changed from the original preprint number to
the published version. Everything else unchange
Standard Model Higgs-Boson Branching Ratios with Uncertainties
We present an update of the branching ratios for Higgs-boson decays in the
Standard Model. We list results for all relevant branching ratios together with
corresponding uncertainties resulting from input parameters and missing
higher-order corrections. As sources of parametric uncertainties we include the
masses of the charm, bottom, and top quarks as well as the QCD coupling
constant. We compare our results with other predictions in the literature.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures, contribution to LHC Higgs Cross Section Working
Group https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LHCPhysics/CrossSections,
theoretical uncertainties for H->\mu\mu{} added, version to appear in
European Physical Journal
Flavor changing single top quark production channels at e^+e^- colliders in the effective Lagrangian description
We perform a global analysis of the sensitivity of LEP2 and e^+e^- colliders
with a c.m. energy in the range 500 - 2000 GeV to new flavor-changing single
top quark production in the effective Lagrangian approach. The processes
considered are sensitive to new flavor-changing effective vertices such as Ztc,
htc, four-Fermi tcee contact terms as well as a right-handed Wtb coupling. We
show that e^+ e^- colliders are most sensitive to the physics responsible for
the contact tcee vertices. For example, it is found that the recent data from
the 189 GeV LEP2 run can be used to rule out any new flavor physics that can
generate these four-Fermi operators up to energy scales of \Lambda > 0.7 - 1.4
TeV, depending on the type of the four-Fermi interaction. We also show that a
corresponding limit of \Lambda > 1.3 - 2.5 and \Lambda > 17 - 27 TeV can be
reached at the future 200 GeV LEP2 run and a 1000 GeV e^+e^- collider,
respectively. We note that these limits are much stronger than the typical
limits which can be placed on flavor diagonal four-Fermi couplings. Similar
results hold for \mu^+\mu^- colliders and for tu(bar) associated production.
Finally we briefly comment on the necessity of measuring all flavor-changing
effective vertices as they can be produced by different types of heavy physics.Comment: 34 pages, plain latex, 7 figures embadded in the text using epsfig.
Added new references and discussions regarding their relevance to the paper.
Added more comments on the comparison between flavor-changing and
flavor-diagonal contact terms and on the importance of measuring the Ztc
verte
Isolating a light Higgs boson from the di-photon background at the LHC
We compute the QCD corrections to the gluon fusion subprocess gg to gamma
gamma, which forms an important component of the background to the search for a
light Higgs boson at the LHC. We study the dependence of the improved pp to
gamma gamma X background calculation on the factorization and renormalization
scales, on various choices for photon isolation cuts, and on the rapidities of
the photons. We also investigate ways to enhance the statistical significance
of the Higgs signal in the di-photon channel.Comment: Additional reference included, 17 pages, 16 figure files, revte
Determinacy analysis for logic programs using mode and type information
We propose an analysis for detecting procedures and goals
that are deterministic (i.e. that produce at most one solution), or predicates whose clause tests are mutually exclusive (which implies that at most one of their clauses will succeed) even if they are not deterministic (because they cali other predicates that can produce more than one solution). Applications of such determinacy information include detecting programming errors, performing certain high-level program transformations for improving search efñciency, optimizing low level code generation and parallel execution, and estimating tighter upper bounds on the computational costs of goals and data sizes, which can be used for program debugging, resource consumption and granularity control, etc. We have implemented the analysis and integrated it in the CiaoPP system, which also infers automatically the mode and type information that our analysis takes as input. Experiments performed on this implementation show that the analysis is fairly accurate and efncient
LHC sensitivity to the resonance spectrum of a minimal strongly interacting electroweak symmetry breaking sector
We present a unified analysis of the two main production processes of vector
boson pairs at the LHC, VV-fusion and qqbar annihilation, in a minimal strongly
interacting electroweak symmetry breaking sector. Using a unitarized
electroweak chiral Lagrangian formalism and modeling the final V_L V_L strong
rescattering effects by a form factor, we describe qqbar annihilation processes
in terms of the two chiral parameters that govern elastic V_L V_L scattering.
Depending on the values of these two chiral parameters, the unitarized
amplitudes may present resonant enhancements in different angular
momentum-isospin channels. Scanning this two parameter space, we generate the
general resonance spectrum of a minimal strongly interacting electroweak
symmetry breaking sector and determine the regions that can be probed at the
LHC.Comment: Final version to appear in Phys. Rev. D, including a more detailed
exposition and a few more references. Conclusions and results unchanged. 14
pages, 5 figure
The impact of working memory load on task execution and online plan adjustment during multitasking in a virtual environment
Three experiments investigated the impact of working memory load on online plan adjustment during a test of multitasking in young, nonexpert, adult participants. Multitasking was assessed using the Edinburgh Virtual Errands Test (EVET). Participants were asked to memorize either good or poor plans for performing multiple errands and were assessed both on task completion and on the extent to which they modified their plans during EVET performance. EVET was performed twice, with and without a secondary task loading a component of working memory. In Experiment 1, articulatory suppression was used to load the phonological loop. In Experiment 2, oral random generation was used to load executive functions. In Experiment 3, spatial working memory was loaded with an auditory spatial localization task. EVET performance for both good- and poor-planning groups was disrupted by random generation and sound localization, but not by articulatory suppression. Additionally, people given a poor plan were able to overcome this initial disadvantage by modifying their plans online. It was concluded that, in addition to executive functions, multiple errands performance draws heavily on spatial, but not verbal, working memory resources but can be successfully completed on the basis of modifying plans online, despite a secondary task load
Searching for Higgs : From LEP towards LHC
After a brief introduction to the theoretical basis of the Higgs mechanism
for generating the masses of elementary particles, the experimental searches
for Higgs particles will be summarized, from bounds at LEP to inferences for
LHC. The report will focus on the Standard Model, though some central results
on extended Higgs systems, as conjectured for example in supersymmetric
theories, will also be recapitulated. Alternative scenarios based on
spontaneous symmetry breaking by novel strong interactions are adumbrated at
the theoretical level.Comment: Added reference
Model-independent analysis of Higgs spin and CP properties in the process
In this paper we investigate methods to study the Higgs coupling.
The spin and CP properties of a Higgs boson are analysed in a model-independent
way in its associated production with a pair in high-energy
collisions. We study the prospects of establishing the CP quantum numbers of
the Higgs boson in the CP-conserving case as well as those of determining the
CP-mixing if CP is violated. We explore in this analysis the combined use of
the total cross section and its energy dependence, the polarisation asymmetry
of the top quark and the up-down asymmetry of the antitop with respect to the
top-electron plane. We find that combining all three observables remarkably
reduces the error on the determination of the CP properties of the Higgs Yukawa
coupling. Furthermore, the top polarisation asymmetry and the ratio of cross
sections at different collider energies are shown to be sensitive to the spin
of the particle produced in association with the top quark pair
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