Unitarity Triangle Fitter Results for CKM Angles

We present the status of the Unitarity Triangle analysis focused on the analyses connected to the CKM angles extraction. The angle values are found to be $\alpha = (90.6\pm 6.6)^{\circ}$, $\sin(2\beta) = 0.68\pm 0.023$, and $\gamma=(72.2\pm 9.2)^{\circ}$.Comment: Proceedings of CKM 2012, the 7th International Workshop on the CKM Unitarity Triangle, University of Cincinnati, USA, 28 September - 2 October 201

Inclusive Flavour Tagging Algorithm

Identifying the flavour of neutral $B$ mesons production is one of the most important components needed in the study of time-dependent $CP$ violation. The harsh environment of the Large Hadron Collider makes it particularly hard to succeed in this task. We present an inclusive flavour-tagging algorithm as an upgrade of the algorithms currently used by the LHCb experiment. Specifically, a probabilistic model which efficiently combines information from reconstructed vertices and tracks using machine learning is proposed. The algorithm does not use information about underlying physics process. It reduces the dependence on the performance of lower level identification capacities and thus increases the overall performance. The proposed inclusive flavour-tagging algorithm is applicable to tag the flavour of $B$ mesons in any proton-proton experiment.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, 17th International workshop on Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques in physics research (ACAT-2016

Squeezing-enhanced quantum key distribution over atmospheric channels

We propose the Gaussian continuous-variable quantum key distribution using squeezed states in the composite channels including atmospheric propagation with transmittance fluctuations. We show that adjustments of signal modulation and use of optimal feasible squeezing can be sufficient to significantly overcome the coherent-state protocol and drastically improve the performance of quantum key distribution in atmospheric channels, also in the presence of additional attenuating and noisy channels. Furthermore, we consider examples of atmospheric links of different lengths, and show that optimization of both squeezing and modulation is crucial for reduction of protocol downtime and increase of secure atmospheric channel distance. Our results demonstrate unexpected advantage of fragile squeezed states of light in the free-space quantum key distribution applicable in daylight and stable against atmospheric turbulence.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Pooled Association Tests for Rare Genetic Variants: A Review and Some New Results

In the search for genetic factors that are associated with complex heritable human traits, considerable attention is now being focused on rare variants that individually have small effects. In response, numerous recent papers have proposed testing strategies to assess association between a group of rare variants and a trait, with competing claims about the performance of various tests. The power of a given test in fact depends on the nature of any association and on the rareness of the variants in question. We review such tests within a general framework that covers a wide range of genetic models and types of data. We study the performance of specific tests through exact or asymptotic power formulas and through novel simulation studies of over 10,000 different models. The tests considered are also applied to real sequence data from the 1000 Genomes project and provided by the GAW17. We recommend a testing strategy, but our results show that power to detect association in plausible genetic scenarios is low for studies of medium size unless a high proportion of the chosen variants are causal. Consequently, considerable attention must be given to relevant biological information that can guide the selection of variants for testing.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-STS456 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org