Measurement of the tt¯ cross section in the lepton-plus-jets channel in CMS

The Large Hadron Collider will produce top quark pairs copiously, which will permit to perform a rich top quark physics program. We describe plans for the measurement of the top quark pair cross section in the lepton-plus-jets channel at a center-of-mass energy of 10TeV using an integrated luminosity of about 20 inverse picobarn. The selected events contain one muon or one electron and at least four jets in the final state. We present methods to select the top quark pair events, to measure the t¯t cross section and to estimate the W/Z production and QCD multijet background in a data-driven way. The statistical and the main systematical uncertainties are also estimated

El castell de Palafolls. Evolució històrica d'una fortalesa medieval

Treballs Finals de Grau Arqueologia, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2019-2020, Tutor: Maria Soler[cat] El castell de Palafolls té els seus orígens en al segle X i la seva ocupació s'allarga fins el segle XVI, tot i que en aquest darrer moment ja ha perdut part de la importància que el va caracteritzar. Durant aquests set-cents anys d'història, l'edifici va patint modificacions per tal d'adaptar-se a les innovacions poliorcètiques i a les seves funcions que van variant al llarg del temps. En aquest treball, es documentarà de manera inèdita, mitjançant un estudi de paraments i una interpretació de l'espai, quines reformes, construccions i ampliacions corresponen a cadascun dels períodes de la història de la fortificació. Per completar aquesta tasca, el treball inclou un apartat centrat en la configuració d'un projecte arqueològic, el qual té com a objectiu, a partir de la proposta d'excavacions i prospecció, resoldre els interrogants que puguin haver sorgit en el procés de registre de les estructures documentades i de les seves reformes.[eng] The Palafolls’ castle has its origins in the tenth century and its occupation lasts until the sixteenth century, although at this last moment the castle has lost some of the importance that characterized it. During these seven hundred years of history, the building has undergone modifications in order to adapt to polyorcetic innovations and its functions, which vary over time. In this project, it will be documented in an unpublished way, through the study of facings and an interpretation of the space, which reforms, constructions and extensions correspond to each one of the periods of the history of the fortification. To complete this task, the project includes a section focused on the configuration of an archaeological project, which aims, from the proposal of excavations and prospecting, to solve any questions that may have arisen in the registration process of the different structures documented and his changes

CMS Monte Carlo production in the WLCG computing Grid

Monte Carlo production in CMS has received a major boost in performance and scale since the past CHEP06 conference. The production system has been re-engineered in order to incorporate the experience gained in running the previous system and to integrate production with the new CMS event data model, data management system and data processing framework. The system is interfaced to the two major computing Grids used by CMS, the LHC Computing Grid (LCG) and the Open Science Grid (OSG). Operational experience and integration aspects of the new CMS Monte Carlo production system is presented together with an analysis of production statistics. The new system automatically handles job submission, resource monitoring, job queuing, job distribution according to the available resources, data merging, registration of data into the data bookkeeping, data location, data transfer and placement systems. Compared to the previous production system automation, reliability and performance have been considerably improved. A more efficient use of computing resources and a better handling of the inherent Grid unreliability have resulted in an increase of production scale by about an order of magnitude, capable of running in parallel at the order of ten thousand jobs and yielding more than two million events per day

IgE antibody repertoire in nasal secretions of children and adults with seasonal allergic rhinitis: a molecular analysis

Background: There is growing interest both in testing IgE in nasal secretions (NS) and in molecular diagnosis of seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR). Yet, the reliability of nasal IgE detection with the newest molecular assays has never been assessed in a large cohort of pollen allergic patients. Objective: To investigate with microarray technology and compare the repertoires of specific IgE (sIgE) antibodies in NS and sera of a large population of children and adults with SAR. Methods: Nasal secretions were collected with an absorbent device (Merocel 2000®, Medtronic) and a minimal dilution procedure from 90 children and 71 adults with SAR. Total IgE (tIgE) (ImmunoCAP, Thermo Fisher Scientific (TFS)) and sIgE antibodies against 112 allergen molecules (ISAC-112, TFS) were measured in NS and serum. Results: Nasal sIgE was detectable in 68.3% of the patients. The detected nasal sIgE antibodies recognized airborne (88%), vegetable (10%), and animal food or other (<1%) allergen molecules. The prevalence and average levels of sIgE in NS and serum were highly interrelated at population level. A positive nasal sIgE antibody to a given molecule predicted the detection of the same antibody in the patient's serum with a specificity of 99.7% and a sensitivity of 40%. Conclusions: The concentration of sIgE is much lower in nasal secretions than in the serum. sIgE assays with very high analytical sensitivity and sampling methods with minimal dilution will be therefore needed to validate nasal secretions as alternative to serum in testing the sIgE repertoire

Heterogeneous validity of daily data on symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis recorded by patients using the e-diary AllergyMonitor®

Background: Patient-generated symptom and medication scores are essential for diagnostic and therapeutic decisions in seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR). Previous studies have shown solid consistencies between different scores at population level in real-life data and trials. For clinicians, the evaluation of individual data quality over time is essential to decide whether to rely on these data in clinical decision-making. Objective: To analyze the consistency of different symptom (SS) and symptom medication scores (SMSs) at individual level in two study cohorts with different characteristics and explore individual patient trajectories over time. Methods: Within the pilot phase of the @IT.2020 project on diagnostic synergy of mobile health and molecular IgE assessment in patients with SAR, we analyzed data of 101 children and 93 adults with SAR and instructed them to record their symptoms and medication intake daily via the mobile app AllergyMonitor®. We then assessed the correlation between different SMS and a visual analogue scale (VAS) on the impact of allergy symptoms on daily life at population and individual level. Results: At population level, the Rhinoconjunctivitis total symptom score (RTSS) correlated better with VAS than the combined symptom and medication score (CSMS). At individual level, consistency among RTSS and VAS was highly heterogeneous and unrelated to disease severity or adherence to recording. Similar heterogeneity was observed for CSMS and VAS. Conclusions: The correlation of clinical information provided by different disease severity scores based on data collected via electronic diaries (e-diaries), is sufficient at population level, but broadly heterogeneous for individual patients. Consistency of the recorded data must be examined for each patient before remotely collected information is used for clinical decision making

Performance of photon reconstruction and identification with the CMS detector in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

A description is provided of the performance of the CMS detector for photon reconstruction and identification in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV at the CERN LHC. Details are given on the reconstruction of photons from energy deposits in the electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) and the extraction of photon energy estimates. The reconstruction of electron tracks from photons that convert to electrons in the CMS tracker is also described, as is the optimization of the photon energy reconstruction and its accurate modelling in simulation, in the analysis of the Higgs boson decay into two photons. In the barrel section of the ECAL, an energy resolution of about 1% is achieved for unconverted or late-converting photons from Hγγ decays. Different photon identification methods are discussed and their corresponding selection efficiencies in data are compared with those found in simulated events

Measurement of masses in the [Formula: see text] system by kinematic endpoints in pp collisions at [Formula: see text].

A simultaneous measurement of the top-quark, W-boson, and neutrino masses is reported for [Formula: see text] events selected in the dilepton final state from a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb-1 collected by the CMS experiment in pp collisions at [Formula: see text]. The analysis is based on endpoint determinations in kinematic distributions. When the neutrino and W-boson masses are constrained to their world-average values, a top-quark mass value of [Formula: see text] is obtained. When such constraints are not used, the three particle masses are obtained in a simultaneous fit. In this unconstrained mode the study serves as a test of mass determination methods that may be used in beyond standard model physics scenarios where several masses in a decay chain may be unknown and undetected particles lead to underconstrained kinematics