SEISMIC DAMAGE OF BELL TOWERS

some studies on towers after recent earthquake in Emilia Romagna (Italy

Charm Physics at CDF

The study of the charm quark continues to have wide interest as a possible avenue for the discovery of physics beyond the Standard Model and can as well be used as a tool for understanding the non-perturbative aspects of the strong interactions. Owning to the large production cross-section available at the Tevatron collider and to the flexibility of a trigger on fully hadronic final states, the CDF experiment, in a decade of successful operations, collected millions of charmed mesons decays which can be used to investigate the details of the physics of the production and decay processes of the charm quark. Here we present a brief collection of new CDF results on this subject.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Contribution to the proceedings for the XXVI Rencontres de Physique de la Vall\'ee d'Aoste, La Thuile 201

Charm mixing at LHCb

We report a measurement of the time-dependent ratio of $D^0\to K^+\pi^-$ to $D^0\to K^-\pi^+$ decay rates in $D^{*+}$-tagged events using 1.0\,fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity recorded by the LHCb experiment. We measure the mixing parameters $x'^2=(-0.9\pm1.3)\times10^{-4}$, $y'=(7.2\pm2.4)\times10^{-3}$ and the ratio of doubly-Cabibbo-suppressed to Cabibbo-favored decay rates $R_D=(3.52\pm0.15)\times10^{-3}$. The result excludes the no-mixing hypothesis with a probability corresponding to 9.1 standard deviations and represents the first observation of charm mixing from a single measurementComment: 5 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Proceedings of HCP 201

Phenomenological and Experimental Developments in Charm Physics: The WG7 Report from CKM 2016

We present an overview of recent developments in charm physics reported in the Working~Group~7 meetings of the CKM 2016 workshop. Progresses in experimental analysis and techniques were reported by LHCb, Belle, BABAR and BESIII along with projections for the future. Developments were also reported in the phenomenological extraction of both direct and indirect CP violation from data in two-, three- and four-body hadronic decays of the $D$ mesonic system.Comment: 12 pages. WG7 report for CKM 2016. PoS(CKM2016)02

A Deep Neural Network for Finger Counting and Numerosity Estimation

In this paper, we present neuro-robotics models with a deep artificial neural network capable of generating finger counting positions and number estimation. We first train the model in an unsupervised manner where each layer is treated as a Restricted Boltzmann Machine or an autoencoder. Such a model is further trained in a supervised way. This type of pretraining is tested on our baseline model and two methods of pre-training are compared. The network is extended to produce finger counting positions. The performance in number estimation of such an extended model is evaluated. We test the hypothesis if the subitizing process can be obtained by one single model used also for estimation of higher numerosities. The results confirm the importance of unsupervised training in our enumeration task and show some similarities to human behaviour in the case of subitizing

Where are your Manners? Sharing Best Community Practices in the Web 2.0

The Web 2.0 fosters the creation of communities by offering users a wide array of social software tools. While the success of these tools is based on their ability to support different interaction patterns among users by imposing as few limitations as possible, the communities they support are not free of rules (just think about the posting rules in a community forum or the editing rules in a thematic wiki). In this paper we propose a framework for the sharing of best community practices in the form of a (potentially rule-based) annotation layer that can be integrated with existing Web 2.0 community tools (with specific focus on wikis). This solution is characterized by minimal intrusiveness and plays nicely within the open spirit of the Web 2.0 by providing users with behavioral hints rather than by enforcing the strict adherence to a set of rules.Comment: ACM symposium on Applied Computing, Honolulu : \'Etats-Unis d'Am\'erique (2009

Quantum Phase-Slip Junction Under Microwave Irradiation

We consider the dynamics of a quantum phase-slip junction (QPSJ) -- a dual Josephson junction -- connected to a microwave source with frequency $\omega_\textrm{mw}$. With respect to an ordinary Josephson junction, a QPSJ can sustain dual Shapiro steps, consisting of well-defined current plateaus at multiple integers of $e \omega_\textrm{mw} / \pi$ in the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic. The experimental observation of these plateaus has been elusive up to now. We argue that thermal as well as quantum fluctuations can smear the I-V characteristic considerably. In order to understand these effects, we study a current-biased QPSJ under microwave irradiation and connected to an inductive and resistive environment. We find that the effect of these fluctuations are governed by the resistance of the environment and by the ratio of the phase-slip energy and the inductive energy. Our results are of interest for experiments aimed at the observation of dual Shapiro steps in QPSJ devices for the definition of a new quantum current standard.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciate

Three-dimensional advanced numerical approaches to the seismic soil and structural response analyses

A 3D non-linear finite element approach is developed to study the free-field seismic ground response and the soil-structure interaction (SSI) phenomena at the Lotung site (Taiwan) during the earthquake event occurred on May 20 1986. The site was extensively instrumented with down-hole and surface ac- celerometers, these latter located also on a 1/4–scale nuclear power plant containment structure. An advanced constitutive model is adopt- ed for simulating the soil behaviour, while a linear visco-elastic be- haviour is assumed for the structural model. The free-field and SSI analyses are carried out applying both the NS and EW horizontal components of the acceleration time history as recorded at the depth of 47 m b.g.l. The predicted ground response re- sults are in fair agreement with the recorded motion at depth and at the surface. The dynamic response of structure is well captured for this specific seismic event, thus confirming the validity of the numerical approach

On the possible secondary component of the order parameter observed in London penetration depth measurements

We discuss the effect of a secondary component of the superconducting order parameter on the superfluid density in the cuprates. If we assume a main $d_{x^2-y^2}$ gap, the most stable realization of a mixed order parameter has a time-reversal breaking $d_{x^2-y^2}+ \imath d_{xy}$ symmetry. In this state the nodes are removed and the temperature dependence of the superfluid density changes from the linear behavior of a pure d-wave to a more rounded shape at low temperature. The latter is compatible with the behavior experimentally observed in the in-plane magnetic field penetration depth of optimally doped $La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_2$ and $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta}$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.