The Role of Higher Twist in Determining Polarized Parton Densities from DIS data

Different methods to extract the polarized parton densities from the world polarized DIS data are considered. The higher twist corrections $h^N(x)/Q^2$ to the spin dependent proton and neutron $g_1$ structure functions are found to be non-negligible and important in the QCD analysis of the present experimental data. Their role in determining the polarized parton densities in the framework of the different approaches is discussed.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the Spin2004 Symposium, Trieste, 11-16 Oct 200

Narrative Health Communication and Behavior Change: The Influence of Exemplars in the News on Intention to Quit Smoking.

This study investigated psychological mechanisms underlying the effect of narrative health communication on behavioral intention. Specifically, the study examined how exemplification in news about successful smoking cessation affects recipients\u27 narrative engagement, thereby changing their intention to quit smoking. Nationally representative samples of U.S. adult smokers participated in 2 experiments. The results from the 2 experiments consistently showed that smokers reading a news article with an exemplar experienced greater narrative engagement compared to those reading an article without an exemplar. Those who reported more engagement were in turn more likely to report greater smoking cessation intentions

Relativistic effects in the processes of heavy quark fragmentation

In the framework based on the quasipotential method and relativistic quark model a new covariant expression for the heavy quark fragmentation amplitude to fragment into the pseudoscalar and vector S-wave heavy mesons is obtained. It contains all possible relativistic corrections including the terms connected with the transformation law of the bound state wave function to the reference frame of the moving meson. Relativistic corrections of order {\bf p}^2/m^2 to the heavy quark fragmentation distributions into (\bar c c), (\bar b c) and (\bar b b) states are calculated as functions of the longitudinal momentum fraction z and the transverse momentum p_T relative to the jet axis.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Can the polarization of the strange quarks in the proton be positive ?

Recently, the HERMES Collaboration at DESY, using a leading order QCD analysis of their data on semi-inclusive deep inelastic production of charged hadrons, reported a marginally positive polarization for the strange quarks in the proton. We argue that a non-negative polarization is almost impossible.Comment: 6 pages, latex, minor changes in the discussion after Eq. (9

Exploring the proton spin structure

Understanding the spin structure of the proton is one of the main challenges in hadronic physics. While the concepts of spin and orbital angular momentum are pretty clear in the context of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the generalization of these concepts to quantum field theory encounters serious difficulties. It is however possible to define meaningful decompositions of the proton spin that are (in principle) measurable. We propose a summary of the present situation including recent developments and prospects of future developments.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, contribution to the proceedings of the DAE-BRNS High Energy Physics Symposium 2014, Dec 8-12, Guwahati, Indi