FuncADL: Functional Analysis Description Language

The traditional approach in HEP analysis software is to loop over every event and every object via the ROOT framework. This method follows an imperative paradigm, in which the code is tied to the storage format and steps of execution. A more desirable strategy would be to implement a declarative language, such that the storage medium and execution are not included in the abstraction model. This will become increasingly important to managing the large dataset collected by the LHC and the HL-LHC. A new analysis description language (ADL) inspired by functional programming, FuncADL, was developed using Python as a host language. The expressiveness of this language was tested by implementing example analysis tasks designed to benchmark the functionality of ADLs. Many simple selections are expressible in a declarative way with FuncADL, which can be used as an interface to retrieve filtered data. Some limitations were identified, but the design of the language allows for future extensions to add missing features. FuncADL is part of a suite of analysis software tools being developed by the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics (IRIS-HEP). These tools will be available to develop highly scalable physics analyses for the LHC.Comment: 7 pages. Submitted to vCHEP 202

Tackling unemployment, supporting business and developing careers

The issue of unemployment remains high on the political agenda. However, there is evidence that employers can be wary of employing people who are out of work. Employer practice is key, both in terms of providing employment opportunities to job seekers, and in providing space for low-skilled people to develop their skills and cement their attachment to the labour market. This report discusses the role of career guidance in mediating between job seekers and employers to allow both to achieve their objectives.The issue of unemployment remains high on the political agenda. However, there is evidence that employers can be wary of employing people who are out of work. Employer practice is key, both in terms of providing employment opportunities to job seekers, and in providing space for low-skilled people to develop their skills and cement their attachment to the labour market. This report discusses the role of career guidance in mediating between job seekers and employers to allow both to achieve their objectives

Events leading up to a legal action by the Canada Census Committee and the current status of that action

Since early 1998 concerned individuals from across Canada and elsewhere have campaigned to regain public access to Canada’s Historic Census records after 1901. 235 years of Census records up to 1901 had been, and currently are, publicly available for genealogical or historical research. Clauses in the Access to Information and Privacy Acts, and Privacy Regulations make specific provision for public access of information collected through Census or Survey to “any person or body” for purposes of research. The only restriction to that access is that 92 years must have passed since the information was collected

Panel Discussion: Knowledge Management in Organizations: Issues, Problems and Directions for Research and Practice

Knowledge Management is currently recognized as the central challenge facing organizations today. As we move into the information economy, the basis of competition shifts from physical assets to intangible assets and the ability of firms to coordinate and leverage the deployment of intellectual capital of the firm become the central determinants of firm performance. This panel will discuss different facets of the phenomenon and suggest directions for IS research in the area

Soil organic carbon, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), and soil structural stability as affected by previous and current land-use

While soil microbial ecology, soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil physical quality are widely understood to be interrelated — the underlying drivers of emergent properties, from land management to biochemistry, are hotly debated. Biological binding agents, microbial exudates, or ‘extracellular polymeric substances’ (EPS) in soil are now receiving increased attention due to several of the existing methodological challenges having been overcome. We applied a recently developed approach to quantify soil EPS, as extracellular protein and extracellular polysaccharide, on the well-characterised soils of the Highfield Experiment, Rothamsted Research, UK. Our aim was to investigate the links between agricultural land use, SOC, transient binding agents known as EPS, and their impacts on soil physical quality (given by mean weight diameter of water stable aggregates; MWD). We compared the legacy effects from long-term previous land-uses (unfertilised grassland, fertilised arable, and fallow) which were established >50 years prior to investigation, crossed with the same current land-uses established for a duration of only 2.5 years prior to sampling. Continuously fallow and grassland soils represented the poorest and greatest states of structural integrity, respectively. Total SOC and %N were found to be affected by both previous and current land-uses, while extractable EPS and MWD were driven primarily by the current land-use. Land-use change between these two extremes (fallow→grass; grass→fallow) resulted in smaller SOC differences (64% increase or 37% loss) compared to MWD (125% increase or 78% loss). SOC concentration correlated well to MWD (adjusted R2 = 0.72) but the high SOC content from previous grassland was not found to contribute directly to the current stability (p < 0.05). Our work thus supports the view that certain distinct components of SOC, rather than the total pool, have disproportionately important effects on a soil’s structural stability. EPS-protein was more closely related to aggregate stability than EPS-polysaccharide (p values of 0.002 and 0.027, respectively), and ranking soils with the 5 highest concentrations of EPS-protein to their corresponding orders of stability (MWD) resulted in a perfect match. We confirmed that both EPS-protein and EPS-polysaccharide were transient fractions: supporting the founding models for aggregate formation. We suggest that management of transient binding agents such as EPS —as opposed to simply increasing the total SOC content— may be a more feasible strategy to improve soil structural integrity and help achieve environmental objectives

Improving Outpatient Diabetes Care

More than 20% of patients in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) have diabetes; therefore, disseminating “best practices” in outpatient diabetes care is paramount. The authors’ goal was to identify such practices and the factors associated with their development. First, a national VHA diabetes registry with 2008 data identified clinical performance based on the percentage of patients with an A1c \u3e9%. Facilities (n = 140) and community-based outpatient clinics (n = 582) were included and stratified into high, mid, and low performers. Semistructured telephone interviews (31) and site visits (5) were conducted. Low performers cited lack of teamwork between physicians and nurses and inadequate time to prepare. Better performing sites reported supportive clinical teams sharing work, time for non-face-to-face care, and innovative practices to address local needs. A knowledge management model informed our process. Notable differences between performance levels exist. “Best practices” will be disseminated across the VHA as the VHA Patient-Centered Medical Home model is implemented

Analysis Description Languages for the LHC

An analysis description language is a domain specific language capable of describing the contents of an LHC analysis in a standard and unambiguous way, independent of any computing framework. It is designed for use by anyone with an interest in, and knowledge of, LHC physics, i.e., experimentalists, phenomenologists and other enthusiasts. Adopting analysis description languages would bring numerous benefits for the LHC experimental and phenomenological communities ranging from analysis preservation beyond the lifetimes of experiments or analysis software to facilitating the abstraction, design, visualization, validation, combination, reproduction, interpretation and overall communication of the analysis contents. Here, we introduce the analysis description language concept and summarize the current efforts ongoing to develop such languages and tools to use them in LHC analyses.Comment: Accepted contribution to the proceedings of The 8th Annual Conference on Large Hadron Collider Physics, LHCP2020, 25-30 May, 2020, onlin