A Swarm of Bs

New physics signals containing five or more b-tagged jets, but without MET or leptons, could realistically be sitting within the current 8 TeV LHC data set without receiving meaningful constraints from any of the existing LHC searches at either ATLAS or CMS. This work provides several examples of simple, motivated models that yield final states containing many b-jets. To study the potential for uncovering new physics in these high b-jet multiplicity channels, this paper focuses on a natural supersymmetry scenario where each of the pair-produced stops decays to an on-shell chargino, which subsequently decays via an MFV-motivated, R-parity violating coupling. This gives rise to an eight-jet final state containing six b-quarks. Although no public measurements exist, estimates indicate that the standard model backgrounds in high b-jet multiplicity channels should be very small. To circumvent the background uncertainty, an asymmetric method is presented that utilizes two different techniques to conservatively exclude or to discover new physics in high b-jet multiplicity final states.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, journal versio

Asthma management: an ecosocial framework for disparity research

Background: Asthma management disparities (AMD) between African and White Americans are significant and alarming. Various determinants have been suggested by research frameworks that affect the unfair distribution of resources for asthma management to groups who are more or less advantaged socially. Ecosocial models organize determinants into individual/family, healthcare, community, and sociocultural levels. Multilevel interventions can affect AMD through simultaneous actions on different levels and pathways between determinants. Objective: Provide a comprehensive summary of the known determinants of AMD. Method: Peer reviewed research frameworks of AMD from 1998-2009 were retrieved from PubMed/ Web of Science databases using (“Socioeconomic Factors”[Mesh] OR (“Healthcare Disparities”[Mesh] OR “Health Status Disparities”[Mesh])) AND “Asthma”[Mesh] AND “African Americans”[Mesh] OR “Ethnic Groups”[Mesh]). Abstracts assessed for a focus on AMD, and determinants. Articles were analyzed for ecosocial levels and determinants. Results: 13 research frameworks described 34 determinants. Compared to other levels, Individual/family levels had the most emphasis, and frameworks using healthcare and community levels were the most narrow in focus. Stress, poverty, violence/crime, quality of care, healthcare access, and indoor air quality were well described determinants. Conclusions: Multilevel investigations should include those well described determinants of AMD and increase knowledge of pathway interactions between healthcare and community levels

Methodologies for the Automatic Location of Academic and Educational Texts on the Internet

Traditionally online databases of web resources have been compiled by a human editor, or though the submissions of authors or interested parties. Considerable resources are needed to maintain a constant level of input and relevance in the face of increasing material quantity and quality, and much of what is in databases is of an ephemeral nature. These pressures dictate that many databases stagnate after an initial period of enthusiastic data entry. The solution to this problem would seem to be the automatic harvesting of resources, however, this process necessitates the automatic classification of resources as ‘appropriate’ to a given database, a problem only solved by complex text content analysis. This paper outlines the component methodologies necessary to construct such an automated harvesting system, including a number of novel approaches. In particular this paper looks at the specific problems of automatically identifying academic research work and Higher Education pedagogic materials. Where appropriate, experimental data is presented from searches in the field of Geography as well as the Earth and Environmental Sciences. In addition, appropriate software is reviewed where it exists, and future directions are outlined

Bionanomaterials from plant viruses

Plant virus capsids have emerged as useful biotemplates for material synthesis. All plant virus capsids are assembled with high-precision, three-dimensional structures providing nanoscale architectures that are highly monodisperse, can be produced in large quantities and that cannot replicate in mammalian cells (so are safe). Such exceptional characteristics make plant viruses strong candidates for application as biotemplates for novel and new material synthesis

Information Rich 3D Computer Modeling of Urban Environments

We are living in an increasingly information rich society. Geographical Information Systems now allow us to precisely tag information to specific features, objects and locations. The Internet is enabling much of this information to be accessed by a whole spectrum of users. At CASA we are attempting to push this technology towards a three-dimensional GIS, that works across the Internet and can represent significant chunks of a large city. We believe that the range of possible uses for such technology is diverse, although we feel that urban planning is an area that can benefit greatly. An opportunity to push this “planning technology” arose when CASA won a tender from Hackney Council to develop a dynamic website for community participation in the process of regenerating the Woodberry Down Estate. This is a run down part of northeast London that is undergoing a major redevelopment. CASA has developed a system that not only informs the local residents about the redevelopment process but it also enables them to use dynamic visualisations of the “before and after effects” of different plans, and then to discuss and vote on the variety of options

Trace-scaling automorphisms of certain stable AF algebras

Trace scaling automorphisms of stable AF algebras with dimension group totally ordered are outer conjugate if the scaling factors are the same (not equal to one). This is an adaptation of a similar result for the AFD type II_infty factor by Connes and extends the previous result for stable UHF algebras.Comment: 12 pages, late

Templated mineralization by charge-modified cowpea mosaic virus

Templated mineralization of virus particles provides routes to narrowly dispersed nanoparticles that are not readily prepared by other means. The templated mineralization of metal or metal oxide on the external surface of wild-type cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV), a plant virus, is facilitated by increasing the external surface negative charge. This is achieved by the chemical modification of surface lysine groups by succinic anhydride. Hence, for example, treatment of charge-modified CPMV succinamate with a 1:2 mixture of iron(II) and iron(III) salts, followed by raising the pH to 10.2, led to the formation of narrowly dispersed, CPMV-templated, magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles