Case Management: Using Harm Reduction with Chemically Addicted Clients

The research surrounding the outcomes of harm reduction is gaining momentum, and the awareness of the harm reduction philosophy is becoming more widespread among social workers. Providers who utilize harm reduction are often the people that work directly with the most disenfranchised people in our nation. These providers most often deal with clients who are chemically addicted. Current research indicates that harm reduction can be beneficial for the clients who use chemicals. This research project sought to collect information about the experiences of case managers who implement harm reduction. The case managers expressed that the utilization of harm reduction could be difficult at times because there is a need for more provider trainings on the model; and harm reduction could be hard to implement when working with professionals from cross-disciplinary fields and chemical health professionals from the abstinence-based community. However, case managers felt that implementing harm reduction supported their ability to create a meaningful relationship with their clients, and it also lowered their general stress level. The results of this research will be used to inform social service providers about the struggles and successes that some case managers who implement harm reduction experience when working with chemically addicted clients

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE

Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation

Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of the up and down type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements are derived in the context of a simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. These results significantly reduce the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of fermions.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Case Management: Using Harm Reduction with Chemically Addicted Clients

The research surrounding the outcomes of harm reduction is gaining momentum, and the awareness of the harm reduction philosophy is becoming more widespread among social workers. Providers who utilize harm reduction are often the people that work directly with the most disenfranchised people in our nation. These providers most often deal with clients who are chemically addicted. Current research indicates that harm reduction can be beneficial for the clients who use chemicals. This research project sought to collect information about the experiences of case managers who implement harm reduction. The case managers expressed that the utilization of harm reduction could be difficult at times because there is a need for more provider trainings on the model; and harm reduction could be hard to implement when working with professionals from cross-disciplinary fields and chemical health professionals from the abstinence-based community. However, case managers felt that implementing harm reduction supported their ability to create a meaningful relationship with their clients, and it also lowered their general stress level. The results of this research will be used to inform social service providers about the struggles and successes that some case managers who implement harm reduction experience when working with chemically addicted clients

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum