The Bˉd→Kˉ∗0μ+μ−\bar{B}_d \to \bar{K}^{*0} \mu^+ \mu^- decay

In this paper the potential for the discovery of new physics in the exclusive decay $\bar{B}_d \to \bar{K}^{*0} \mu^+ \mu^-$ is discussed. Attention is paid to constructing observables which are protected from uncertainties in QCD form factors and at the same time observe the symmetries of the angular distribution. We discuss the sensitivity to new physics in the observables including the effect of CP-violating phases.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Third Workshop on Theory, Phenomenology and Experiments in Heavy Flavour Physics, Capri 201

The exclusive B to K*(to K pi) l+ l- decay: CP conserving observables

We study the K* polarization states in the exclusive 4-body B meson decay B to K* (to K pi) l+ l- in the low dilepton mass region working in the framework of QCDF. We review the construction of the CP conserving transverse and transverse/longitudinal observables AT2, AT3, and AT4. We focus here, on analyzing their behaviour at large recoil energy in presence of right-handed currents.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, invited talk at Flavianet Meeting, Kazimierz, Poland, July, 200

New observables in the decay mode anti-B --> anti-K*0 l+ l-

We discuss the large set of observables available from the angular distributions of the decay anti-B --> anti-K*0 l+ l-. We present a NLO analysis of all observables based on the QCD factorization approach in the low-dilepton mass region and an estimate of \Lambda/m_b corrections. Moreover, we discuss their sensitivity to new physics. We explore the experimental sensitivities at LHCb (10 fb^-1) and Super-LHCb (100 fb^-1) based on a full-angular fit method and explore the sensitivity to right handed currents. We also show that the previously discussed transversity amplitude A_T^(1) cannot be measured at the LHCb experiment or at future B factory experiments as it requires a measurement of the spin of the final state particles.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figures. Changes: Typos in (4.3) and (4.11) corrected, analysis, results and figures unchange

Use of Social Adaptability Index to Explain Self-Care and Diabetes Outcomes

Background: To examine whether the social adaptability index (SAI) alone or components of the index provide a better explanatory model for self-care and diabetes outcomes. Methods: Six hundred fifteen patients were recruited from two primary care settings. A series of multiple linear regression models were run to assess (1) associations between the SAI and diabetes self-care/outcomes, and (2) associations between individual SAI indicator variables and diabetes self-care/outcomes. Separate models were run for each self-care behavior and outcome. Two models were run for each dependent variable to compare associations with the SAI and components of the index. Results: The SAI has a significant association with the mental component of quality of life (0.23, p \u3c 0.01). In adjusted analyses, the SAI score did not have a significant association with any of the self-care behaviors. Individual components from the index had significant associations between self-care and multiple SAI indicator variables. Significant associations also exist between outcomes and the individual SAI indicators for education and employment. Conclusions: In this population, the SAI has low explanatory power and few significant associations with diabetes self-care/outcomes. While the use of a composite index to predict outcomes within a diabetes population would have high utility, particularly for clinical settings, this SAI lacks statistical and clinical significance in a representative diabetes population. Based on these results, the index does not provide a good model fit and masks the relationship of individual components to diabetes self-care and outcomes. These findings suggest that five items alone are not adequate to explain or predict outcomes for patients with type 2 diabetes

More Benefits of Semileptonic Rare B Decays at Low Recoil: CP Violation

We present a systematic analysis of the angular distribution of Bbar -> Kbar^\ast (-> Kbar pi) l^+ l^- decays with l = e, mu in the low recoil region (i.e. at high dilepton invariant masses of the order of the mass of the b-quark) to account model-independently for CP violation beyond the Standard Model, working to next-to-leading order QCD. From the employed heavy quark effective theory framework we identify the key CP observables with reduced hadronic uncertainties. Since some of the CP asymmetries are CP-odd they can be measured without B-flavour tagging. This is particularly beneficial for Bbar_s,B_s -> phi(-> K^+ K^-) l^+ l^- decays, which are not self-tagging, and we work out the corresponding time-integrated CP asymmetries. Presently available experimental constraints allow the proposed CP asymmetries to be sizeable, up to values of the order ~ 0.2, while the corresponding Standard Model values receive a strong parametric suppression at the level of O(10^-4). Furthermore, we work out the allowed ranges of the short-distance (Wilson) coefficients C_9,C_10 in the presence of CP violation beyond the Standard Model but no further Dirac structures. We find the Bbar_s -> mu^+ mu^- branching ratio to be below 9*10^-9 (at 95% CL). Possibilities to check the performance of the theoretical low recoil framework are pointed out.Comment: 18 pages, 3 fig.; 1 reference and comment on higher order effects added; EOS link fixed. Minor adjustments to Eqs 4.1-4.3 to match the (lower) q^2-cut as given in paper. Main results and conclusions unchanged; v3+v4: treatment of exp. uncert. in likelihood-function in EOS fixed and constraints from scan on C9,C10 updated (Fig 2,3 and Eqs 3.2,3.3). Main results and conclusions absolutely unchange

Complete Anatomy of B -> K*ll and its angular distribution

We present a complete and optimal set of observables for the exclusive 4-body B meson decay B -> K*(->K pi) l+l- in the low dilepton mass region, that contains a maximal number of clean observables. This basis of observables is built in a systematic way. We show that all the previously defined observables and any observable that one can construct, can be expressed as a function of this basis. This set of observables contains all the information that can be extracted from the angular distribution in the cleanest possible way. We provide explicit expressions for the full and the uniangular distributions in terms of this basis. The conclusions presented here can be easily extended to the large-q^2 region. We study the sensitivity of the observables to right-handed currents and scalars. Finally, we present for the first time all the symmetries of the full distribution including massive terms and scalar contributions.Comment: 37 pages, 12 Figures. Corrected typo in Eqs. (29) and (44). Results and conclusions unchange

Fitting parametric random effects models in very large data sets with application to VHA national data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>With the current focus on personalized medicine, patient/subject level inference is often of key interest in translational research. As a result, random effects models (REM) are becoming popular for patient level inference. However, for very large data sets that are characterized by large sample size, it can be difficult to fit REM using commonly available statistical software such as SAS since they require inordinate amounts of computer time and memory allocations beyond what are available preventing model convergence. For example, in a retrospective cohort study of over 800,000 Veterans with type 2 diabetes with longitudinal data over 5 years, fitting REM via generalized linear mixed modeling using currently available standard procedures in SAS (e.g. PROC GLIMMIX) was very difficult and same problems exist in Stata’s gllamm or R’s lme packages. Thus, this study proposes and assesses the performance of a meta regression approach and makes comparison with methods based on sampling of the full data.</p> <p>Data</p> <p>We use both simulated and real data from a national cohort of Veterans with type 2 diabetes (n=890,394) which was created by linking multiple patient and administrative files resulting in a cohort with longitudinal data collected over 5 years.</p> <p>Methods and results</p> <p>The outcome of interest was mean annual HbA1c measured over a 5 years period. Using this outcome, we compared parameter estimates from the proposed random effects meta regression (REMR) with estimates based on simple random sampling and VISN (Veterans Integrated Service Networks) based stratified sampling of the full data. Our results indicate that REMR provides parameter estimates that are less likely to be biased with tighter confidence intervals when the VISN level estimates are homogenous.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>When the interest is to fit REM in repeated measures data with very large sample size, REMR can be used as a good alternative. It leads to reasonable inference for both Gaussian and non-Gaussian responses if parameter estimates are homogeneous across VISNs.</p

Proposal to Search for Heavy Neutral Leptons at the SPS

A new fixed-target experiment at the CERN SPS accelerator is proposed that will use decays of charm mesons to search for Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs), which are right-handed partners of the Standard Model neutrinos. The existence of such particles is strongly motivated by theory, as they can simultaneously explain the baryon asymmetry of the Universe, account for the pattern of neutrino masses and oscillations and provide a Dark Matter candidate. Cosmological constraints on the properties of HNLs now indicate that the majority of the interesting parameter space for such particles was beyond the reach of the previous searches at the PS191, BEBC, CHARM, CCFR and NuTeV experiments. For HNLs with mass below 2 GeV, the proposed experiment will improve on the sensitivity of previous searches by four orders of magnitude and will cover a major fraction of the parameter space favoured by theoretical models. The experiment requires a 400 GeV proton beam from the SPS with a total of 2x10^20 protons on target, achievable within five years of data taking. The proposed detector will reconstruct exclusive HNL decays and measure the HNL mass. The apparatus is based on existing technologies and consists of a target, a hadron absorber, a muon shield, a decay volume and two magnetic spectrometers, each of which has a 0.5 Tm magnet, a calorimeter and a muon detector. The detector has a total length of about 100 m with a 5 m diameter. The complete experimental set-up could be accommodated in CERN's North Area. The discovery of a HNL would have a great impact on our understanding of nature and open a new area for future research