Rapidity Gaps Between Jets

An excess of events with a rapidity gap between jets, over what would be expected from non-diffractive processes, has been observed at HERA. A process based on a perturbative QCD calculation of colour singlet exchange has been added to HERWIG. With this addition, HERWIG is able to describe the number of events with a gap between jets over the number without a gap. This gap fraction is predicted to rise at large rapidity intervals between jets which would only be visible if the detector coverage were increased.Comment: 5 pages including 3 figures. To appear in the conference proceedings of the Workshop "Future Physics at HERA

Theater Education and Emerging Technologies

Theater educators need compelling arguments for including the use of emerging technologies in the secondary theater classroom. The research documents the current uses of emerging technologies in the secondary theater classroom and contrasts the uses of traditional theater technologies with the uses of emerging technologies. Interviews with theater professionals identify current issues and practices in the theater community regarding the usage of technology. A telephone survey of theater teachers reveals patterns of technology use in the Seattle School District. The research concludes that theater teachers have many tools at their disposal to teach students the processes of artistic problem solving and the tools of technology are one of those very compelling and powerful tools

Political Beliefs, Region of Residence, and Openness to Firearm Means Safety Measures to Prevent Suicide

Firearms account for approximately half of all suicides in the US and are highly lethal, widely available, and popular; thus, firearms are an ideal candidate for targeted means safety interventions. However, despite their value as a suicide prevention tool, firearm means safety strategies are not widely utilized, possibly due to factors which impede openness to their use. This study examined the relationship between region, political beliefs, and openness to firearm means safety in a sample of 300 American firearm owners. Overall, firearm owners were more willing to engage in means safety for others than for themselves and to store firearms safely than to temporarily remove them from the home. Social policy views and region were significantly associated with openness to firearm means safety measures, however, economic policy views were not. This study provides further context for the development and implementation of efficacious means safety measures capable of overcoming potential barriers to their use

The Theory of the Nucleon Spin

I discuss two topics of current interest in the study of the spin structure of the nucleon. First, I discuss whether there is a sum rule for the components of the nucleon's angular moments. Second, I discuss the measurement of the nucleon's transversity distribution in light of recent results reported by the HERMES collaboration at DESY.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX using rspublic.cls and BoxedEPS macros; as submitted to Phil Trans A of the Royal Society for forthcoming volume: The Quark Structure of Matter; email correspondence to [email protected]

HZTool and Rivet: Toolkit and Framework for the Comparison of Simulated Final States and Data at Colliders

A common problem in particle physics is the requirement to reproduce comparisons between data and theory when the theory is a (general purpose) Monte Carlo simulation and the data are measurements of final state observables in high energy collisions. The complexity of the experiments, the obervables and the models all contribute to making this a highly non-trivial task. We describe an existing library of Fortran routines, HZTool, which enables, for each measurement of interest, a comparable prediction to be produced from any given Monte Carlo generator. The HZTool library is being maintained by CEDAR, with subroutines for various measurements contributed by a number of authors within and outside the CEDAR collaboration. We also describe the outline design and current status of a replacement for HZTool, to be called Rivet (Robust Independent Validation of Experiment and Theory). This will use an object-oriented design, implemented in C++, together with standard interfaces (such as HepMC and AIDA) to make the new framework more flexible and extensible than the Fortran HZTool.Comment: Contribution to CHEP06 conferenc

Data Note: National Day and Employment Service Trends in MR/DD Agencies

In FY2004, 22% of individuals receiving day supports from state mental retardation or developmental disability (MR/DD) agencies participated in integrated employment while 56.5% of individuals were supported in facility-based settings. While the data demonstrate a continued decrease in the percent of people served in facility-based settings (from 60% in 1999 to 57% in 2004), it also suggests a slight decrease in the percent served in integrated employment (from 25.5% in 1999 to 22% in 2004)

HepForge: A lightweight development environment for HEP software

Setting up the infrastructure to manage a software project can become a task as significant writing the software itself. A variety of useful open source tools are available, such as Web-based viewers for version control systems, "wikis" for collaborative discussions and bug-tracking systems, but their use in high-energy physics, outside large collaborations, is insubstantial. Understandably, physicists would rather do physics than configure project management tools. We introduce the CEDAR HepForge system, which provides a lightweight development environment for HEP software. Services available as part of HepForge include the above-mentioned tools as well as mailing lists, shell accounts, archiving of releases and low-maintenance Web space. HepForge also exists to promote best-practice software development methods and to provide a central repository for re-usable HEP software and phenomenology codes.Comment: 3 pages, 0 figures. To be published in proceedings of CHEP06. Refers to the HepForge facility at http://hepforge.cedar.ac.u

Effect of lysolecithin on the oxygen uptake of tumour cells, polymorphonuclear leucocytes, lymphocytes and macrophages in vitro.

LYSOLECITHN has been widely studied as a surface-active haemolytic agent (Robinson, 1961) and has been implicated in immune haemolysis (Fischer, 1964), in hypersensitivity reactions (Middleton and Phillips, 1963, 1964), and in the delayed stage of the increase of vascular permeability in inflammation (Cotran and Majno, 1964). Fischer (1964) found that the oxygen uptake (Q02) of tumour cells was reduced by small concentrations of "lysolecithin ", while micro and macrophages responded by an increase Of Q02 and phagocytic activity. We felt that this observation should be confirmed, because it could form the basis of a therapeutic method of increasing the radiosensitivity of tumours by raising the oxygen tension (PO2), and from the theoretical aspect might clarify differences between the cell membranes of tumour and of normal cells. Moreover, Fischer's experiments are open to criticism. His cell suspension was stirred by a moving mercury seal and this could have produced cell damage from mercury poisoning. Also he treated his cell suspensions not with lysolecithin, but with complement plus a specific antibod