874 research outputs found
funcX: A Federated Function Serving Fabric for Science
Exploding data volumes and velocities, new computational methods and
platforms, and ubiquitous connectivity demand new approaches to computation in
the sciences. These new approaches must enable computation to be mobile, so
that, for example, it can occur near data, be triggered by events (e.g.,
arrival of new data), be offloaded to specialized accelerators, or run remotely
where resources are available. They also require new design approaches in which
monolithic applications can be decomposed into smaller components, that may in
turn be executed separately and on the most suitable resources. To address
these needs we present funcX---a distributed function as a service (FaaS)
platform that enables flexible, scalable, and high performance remote function
execution. funcX's endpoint software can transform existing clouds, clusters,
and supercomputers into function serving systems, while funcX's cloud-hosted
service provides transparent, secure, and reliable function execution across a
federated ecosystem of endpoints. We motivate the need for funcX with several
scientific case studies, present our prototype design and implementation, show
optimizations that deliver throughput in excess of 1 million functions per
second, and demonstrate, via experiments on two supercomputers, that funcX can
scale to more than more than 130000 concurrent workers.Comment: Accepted to ACM Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and
Distributed Computing (HPDC 2020). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap
with arXiv:1908.0490
NLO vector boson production with light jets
In this contribution we present recent progress in the computation of
next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections for the production of an
electroweak vector boson in association with jets at hadron colliders. We focus
on results obtained using the virtual matrix element library BLACKHAT in
conjunction with SHERPA, focusing on results relevant to understanding the
background to top production.Comment: 4+2 epsilon pages, Submitted for the proceedings of TOP2011 - 4th
International Workshop on Top Quark Physics, 25-30th September 2011, Sant
Feliu de Guixols, Spai
Numerical Evaluation of Six-Photon Amplitudes
We apply the recently proposed amplitude reduction at the integrand level
method, to the computation of the scattering process 2 photons -> 4 photons,
including the case of a massive fermion loop. We also present several
improvements of the method, including a general strategy to reconstruct the
rational part of any one-loop amplitude and the treatment of vanishing
Gram-determinants.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. Version accepted for publication in JHE
A feasibility randomised controlled trial of the New Orleans intervention of infant mental health: a study protocol
Child maltreatment is associated with life-long social, physical, and mental health problems. Intervening early to provide maltreated children with safe, nurturing care can improve outcomes. The need for prompt decisions about permanent placement (i.e., regarding adoption or return home) is internationally recognised. However, a recent Glasgow audit showed that many maltreated children “revolve” between birth families and foster carers. This paper describes the protocol of the first exploratory randomised controlled trial of a mental health intervention aimed at improving placement permanency decisions for maltreated children. This trial compares an infant's mental health intervention with the new enhanced service as usual for maltreated children entering care in Glasgow. As both are new services, the trial is being conducted from a position of equipoise. The outcome assessment covers various fields of a child’s neurodevelopment to identify problems in any ESSENCE domain. The feasibility, reliability, and developmental appropriateness of all outcome measures are examined. Additionally, the potential for linkage with routinely collected data on health and social care and, in the future, education is explored. The results will inform a definitive randomised controlled trial that could potentially lead to long lasting benefits for the Scottish population and which may be applicable to other areas of the world
From Trees to Loops and Back
We argue that generic one-loop scattering amplitudes in supersymmetric
Yang-Mills theories can be computed equivalently with MHV diagrams or with
Feynman diagrams. We first present a general proof of the covariance of
one-loop non-MHV amplitudes obtained from MHV diagrams. This proof relies only
on the local character in Minkowski space of MHV vertices and on an application
of the Feynman Tree Theorem. We then show that the discontinuities of one-loop
scattering amplitudes computed with MHV diagrams are precisely the same as
those computed with standard methods. Furthermore, we analyse collinear limits
and soft limits of generic non-MHV amplitudes in supersymmetric Yang-Mills
theories with one-loop MHV diagrams. In particular, we find a simple explicit
derivation of the universal one-loop splitting functions in supersymmetric
Yang-Mills theories to all orders in the dimensional regularisation parameter,
which is in complete agreement with known results. Finally, we present concrete
and illustrative applications of Feynman's Tree Theorem to one-loop MHV
diagrams as well as to one-loop Feynman diagrams.Comment: 52 pages, 17 figures. Some typos in Appendix A correcte
SUSY Ward identities for multi-gluon helicity amplitudes with massive quarks
We use supersymmetric Ward identities to relate multi-gluon helicity
amplitudes involving a pair of massive quarks to amplitudes with massive
scalars. This allows to use the recent results for scalar amplitudes with an
arbitrary number of gluons obtained by on-shell recursion relations to obtain
scattering amplitudes involving top quarks.Comment: 22 pages, references adde
Left-Handed W Bosons at the LHC
The production of W bosons in association with jets is an important
background to new physics at the LHC. Events in which the W carries large
transverse momentum and decays leptonically lead to large missing energy and
are of particular importance. We show that the left-handed nature of the W
coupling, combined with valence quark domination at a pp machine, leads to a
large left-handed polarization for both W^+ and W^- bosons at large transverse
momenta. The polarization fractions are very stable with respect to QCD
corrections. The leptonic decay of the W bosons translates the common
left-handed polarization into a strong asymmetry in transverse momentum
distributions between positrons and electrons, and between neutrinos and
anti-neutrinos (missing transverse energy). Such asymmetries may provide an
effective experimental handle on separating W + jets from top quark production,
which exhibits very little asymmetry due to C invariance, and from various
types of new physics.Comment: 32 pages, revtex, 17 figures, 3 tables, v2 minor corrections to ME+PS
results, no changes to conclusions, added reference
Fate and transport of volatile organic compounds in glacial till and groundwater at an industrial site in Northern Ireland
Volatile organic compound (VOC) contamination of subsurface geological material and groundwater was discovered on the Nortel Monkstown industrial site, Belfast, Northern Ireland. The objectives of this study were to (1) investigate the characteristics of the geological material and its influences on contaminated groundwater flow across the site using borehole logs and hydrological evaluations, and (2) identify the contaminants and examine their distribution in the subsurface geological material and groundwater using chemical analysis. This report focuses on the eastern car park (ECP) which was a former storage area associated with trichloroethene (TCE) degreasing operations. This is where the greatest amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particularly TCE, were detected. The study site is on a complex deposit of clayey glacial till with discontinuous coarser grained lenses, mainly silts, sands and gravel, which occur at 0.45-7.82 m below ground level (bgl). The lenses overall form an elongated formation that acts as a small unconfined shallow aquifer. There is a continuous low permeable stiff clayey till layer beneath the lenses that performs as an aquitard to the groundwater. Highest concentrations of VOCs, mainly TCE, in the geological material and groundwater are in these coarser lenses at similar to 4.5-7 m bgl. Highest TCE measurements at 390,000 mu g L-1 for groundwater and at 39,000 mu g kg(-1) at 5.7 m for geological material were in borehole GA19 in the coarse lens zone. It is assumed that TCE gained entrance to the subsurface near this borehole where the clayey till was thin to absent above coarse lenses which provided little retardation to the vertical migration of this dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) into the groundwater. However, TCE is present in low concentrations in the geological material overlying the coarse lens zone. Additionally, VOCs appear to be associated with poorly drained layers and in peat < 3.0 m bgl in the ECP. Some indication of natural attenuation as VOCs degradation products vinyl chloride (VC) and dichloromethane (DCM) also occur on the site
Recursion relations, Helicity Amplitudes and Dimensional Regularization
Using the method of on-shell recursion relations we compute tree level
amplitudes including D-dimensional scalars and fermions. These tree level
amplitudes are needed for calculations of one-loop amplitudes in QCD involving
external quarks and gluons.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures, clarifications adde
MHV Techniques for QED Processes
Significant progress has been made in the past year in developing new `MHV'
techniques for calculating multiparticle scattering amplitudes in Yang-Mills
gauge theories. Most of the work so far has focussed on applications to Quantum
Chromodynamics, both at tree and one-loop level. We show how such techniques
can also be applied to abelian theories such as QED, by studying the simplest
tree-level multiparticle process, e^+e^- to n \gamma. We compare explicit
results for up to n=5 photons using both the Cachazo, Svrcek and Witten `MHV
rules' and the related Britto-Cachazo-Feng `recursion relation' approaches with
those using traditional spinor techniques.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. References adde
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