1,904 research outputs found
Evaluating the effects of bilingual traffic signs on driver performance and safety
Variable Message Signs (VMS) can provide immediate and relevant information to road users and bilingual VMS can provide great flexibility in countries where a significant proportion of the population speak an alternative language to the majority. The study reported here evaluates the effect of various bilingual VMS configurations on driver behaviour and safety. The aim of the study was to determine whether or not the visual distraction associated with bilingual VMS signs of different configurations (length, complexity) impacted on driving performance. A driving simulator was used to allow full control over the scenarios, road environment and sign configuration and both longitudinal and lateral driver performance was assessed. Drivers were able to read one and two-line monolingual signs and two-line bilingual signs without disruption to their driving behaviour. However, drivers significantly reduced their speed in order to read four-line monolingual and four-line bilingual signs, accompanied by an increase in headway to the vehicle in front. This implies that drivers are possibly reading the irrelevant text on the bilingual sign and various methods for reducing this effect are discussed
Modelling the nucleon wave function from soft and hard processes
Current light-cone wave functions for the nucleon are unsatisfactory since
they are in conflict with the data of the nucleon's Dirac form factor at large
momentum transfer. Therefore, we attempt a determination of a new wave function
respecting theoretical ideas on its parameterization and satisfying the
following constraints: It should provide a soft Feynman contribution to the
proton's form factor in agreement with data; it should be consistent with
current parameterizations of the valence quark distribution functions and
lastly it should provide an acceptable value for the \jp \to N \bar N decay
width. The latter process is calculated within the modified perturbative
approach to hard exclusive reactions. A simultaneous fit to the three sets of
data leads to a wave function whose -dependent part, the distribution
amplitude, shows the same type of asymmetry as those distribution amplitudes
constrained by QCD sum rules. The asymmetry is however much more moderate as in
those amplitudes. Our distribution amplitude resembles the asymptotic one in
shape but the position of the maximum is somewhat shifted.Comment: 32 pages RevTex + PS-file with 5 figures in uu-encoded, compressed
fil
The search for transient astrophysical neutrino emission with IceCube-DeepCore
We present the results of a search for astrophysical sources of brief transient neutrino emission using IceCube and DeepCore data acquired between 2012 May 15 and 2013 April 30. While the search methods employed in this analysis are similar to those used in previous IceCube point source searches, the data set being examined consists of a sample of predominantly sub-TeV muon-neutrinos from the Northern Sky (-5 degrees < delta < 90 degrees) obtained through a novel event selection method. This search represents a first attempt by IceCube to identify astrophysical neutrino sources in this relatively unexplored energy range. The reconstructed direction and time of arrival of neutrino events are used to search for any significant self-correlation in the data set. The data revealed no significant source of transient neutrino emission. This result has been used to construct limits at timescales ranging from roughly 1 s to 10 days for generic soft-spectra transients. We also present limits on a specific model of neutrino emission from soft jets in core-collapse supernovae
Electromagnetic N- transition form factors in a covariant quark-diquark model
The electromagnetic N- transition form factors are calculated in the
framework of a formally covariant constituent diquark model. As a spin-3/2
particle the is assumed to be a bound state of a quark and an
axial-vector diquark. The wave function is obtained from a diquark-quark
Salpeter equation with an instantaneous quark exchange potential. The three
transition form factors are calculated for momentum transfers squared from the
pseudothreshold up to . The magnetic form
factor is in qualitative agreement with experiment. We find very interesting
results for the ratios E2/M1 and C2/M1.Comment: 16 pp, RevTeX, 7 figs, uses eps
Forward-Backward Asymmetry in Top Quark Production in ppbar Collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV
Reconstructable final state kinematics and charge assignment in the reaction
ppbar->ttbar allows tests of discrete strong interaction symmetries at high
energy. We define frame dependent forward-backward asymmetries for the outgoing
top quark in both the ppbar and ttbar rest frames, correct for experimental
distortions, and derive values at the parton-level. Using 1.9/fb of ppbar
collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV recorded with the CDF II detector at the
Fermilab Tevatron, we measure forward-backward top quark production asymmetries
in the ppbar and ttbar rest frames of A_{FB,pp} = 0.17 +- 0.08 and A_{FB,tt} =
0.24 +- 0.14.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.Lett, corrected references
and change of tex
Studying the Underlying Event in Drell-Yan and High Transverse Momentum Jet Production at the Tevatron
We study the underlying event in proton-antiproton collisions by examining
the behavior of charged particles (transverse momentum pT > 0.5 GeV/c,
pseudorapidity |\eta| < 1) produced in association with large transverse
momentum jets (~2.2 fb-1) or with Drell-Yan lepton-pairs (~2.7 fb-1) in the
Z-boson mass region (70 < M(pair) < 110 GeV/c2) as measured by CDF at 1.96 TeV
center-of-mass energy. We use the direction of the lepton-pair (in Drell-Yan
production) or the leading jet (in high-pT jet production) in each event to
define three regions of \eta-\phi space; toward, away, and transverse, where
\phi is the azimuthal scattering angle. For Drell-Yan production (excluding the
leptons) both the toward and transverse regions are very sensitive to the
underlying event. In high-pT jet production the transverse region is very
sensitive to the underlying event and is separated into a MAX and MIN
transverse region, which helps separate the hard component (initial and
final-state radiation) from the beam-beam remnant and multiple parton
interaction components of the scattering. The data are corrected to the
particle level to remove detector effects and are then compared with several
QCD Monte-Carlo models. The goal of this analysis is to provide data that can
be used to test and improve the QCD Monte-Carlo models of the underlying event
that are used to simulate hadron-hadron collisions.Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.
Precision measurement of the top quark mass from dilepton events at CDF II
We report a measurement of the top quark mass, M_t, in the dilepton decay
channel of
using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of p\bar{p} collisions collected
with the CDF II detector. We apply a method that convolutes a leading-order
matrix element with detector resolution functions to form event-by-event
likelihoods; we have enhanced the leading-order description to describe the
effects of initial-state radiation. The joint likelihood is the product of the
likelihoods from 78 candidate events in this sample, which yields a measurement
of M_{t} = 164.5 \pm 3.9(\textrm{stat.}) \pm 3.9(\textrm{syst.})
\mathrm{GeV}/c^2, the most precise measurement of M_t in the dilepton channel.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, version includes changes made prior to
publication by journa
Measurement of the Ratios of Branching Fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) and B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi)
Using 355 pb^-1 of data collected by the CDF II detector in \ppbar collisions
at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron, we study the fully
reconstructed hadronic decays B -> D pi and B -> D pi pi pi. We present the
first measurement of the ratio of branching fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) /
B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) = 1.05 pm 0.10 (stat) pm 0.22 (syst). We also update our
measurement of B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi) to 1.13 pm 0.08 (stat) pm 0.23
(syst) improving the statistical uncertainty by more than a factor of two. We
find B(Bs -> Ds pi) = [3.8 pm 0.3 (stat) pm 1.3 (syst)] \times 10^{-3} and B(Bs
-> Ds pi pi pi) = [8.4 pm 0.8 (stat) pm 3.2 (syst)] \times 10^{-3}.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
Cross Section Measurements of High- Dilepton Final-State Processes Using a Global Fitting Method
We present a new method for studying high- dilepton events
(, , ) and simultaneously
extracting the production cross sections of , , and p\bar{p} \to \ztt at a center-of-mass energy of TeV. We perform a likelihood fit to the dilepton data in a parameter
space defined by the missing transverse energy and the number of jets in the
event. Our results, which use of data recorded with the CDF
II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, are pb, pb, and
\sigma(\ztt) =291^{+50}_{-46} pb.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, to be submitted to PRD-R
Measurement of the Lambda_b Lifetime in Lambda_b --> J/psi Lambda0 in p-pbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV
We report a measurement of the Lambda_b lifetime in the exclusive decay
Lambda_b --> J/psi Lambda0 in p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV using an
integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of data collected by the CDF II detector
at the Fermilab Tevatron. Using fully reconstructed decays, we measure
tau(Lambda_b) = 1.593 ^{+0.083}_{-0.078} (stat.) +- 0.033 (syst.) ps. This is
the single most precise measurement of tau(Lambda_b) and is 3.2 sigma higher
than the current world average.Comment: 7 Pages, 2 Figures, 1 Table. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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