Simulation Application for the LHCb Experiment

We describe the LHCb detector simulation application (Gauss) based on the Geant4 toolkit. The application is built using the Gaudi software framework, which is used for all event-processing applications in the LHCb experiment. The existence of an underlying framework allows several common basic services such as persistency, interactivity, as well as detector geometry description or particle data to be shared between simulation, reconstruction and analysis applications. The main benefits of such common services are coherence between different event-processing stages as well as reduced development effort. The interfacing to Geant4 toolkit is realized through a facade (GiGa) which minimizes the coupling to the simulation engine and provides a set of abstract interfaces for configuration and event-by-event communication. The Gauss application is composed of three main blocks, i.e. event generation, detector response simulation and digitization which reflect the different stages performed during the simulation job. We describe the overall design as well as the details of Gauss application with a special emphasis on the configuration and control of the underlying simulation engine. We also briefly mention the validation strategy and the planing for the LHCb experiment simulation.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 6 pages, LaTeX, 9 eps figures. PSN TUMT00

Efectos de las políticas de formación a desempleados

Mientras el gasto en políticas activas de empleo ha crecido significativamente durante los últimos años en España, la efectividad de estas políticas dista de ser suficientemente conocida. Esta investigación parte de la idea de que estas medidas no suponen beneficios indiscutibles, como se ha demostrado a través de diversos trabajos realizados en otros países, y analiza los efectos de una de las actividades más importantes, la formación a personas desempleadas. El artículo refleja los resultados de una investigación aplicada en una comunidad autónoma española, realizada a partir de una evaluación de los demandantes de un programa voluntario de formación. Los efectos estimados son positivos en el corto y el medio plazo, aunque modestos, en relación con el acceso al empleo y con el tiempo trabajado, mientras que no se observan efectos significativos sobre la situación laboral ni sobre los ingresos. Estos resultados son coincidentes con las investigaciones realizadas en otros países.desempleo, evaluación de políticas activas de mercado

X-Ray Reflectivity of Fibonacci Multilayers

We have numerically computed the reflectivity of X-ray incident normally onto Fibonacci multilayers, and compared the results with those obtained in periodic approximant multilayers. The constituent layers are of low and high refractive indices with the same thickness. Whereas reflectivity of periodic approximant multilayers changes only slightly with increasing the number of layers, Fibonacci multilayers present a completely different behaviour. In particular, we have found a highly-fragmented and self-similar reflectivity pattern in Fibonacci systems. The behaviour of the fragmentation pattern on increasing the number of layers is quantitatively described using multifractal techniques. The paper ends with a brief discussion on possible practical applications of our results in the design of new X-ray devices.Comment: 8 pages, REVTeX 3.0, 3 figures available upon request from [email protected]. To appear in Physics Letters

Identifying Land Use Options for Networked Māori Owned Land Blocks to Deliver on Collective Aspirations in New Zealand

Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) have many opportunities and challenges to realise the potential provided by their whenua (land), wai (water) and tangata (people) to deliver to their goals and aspirations. The challenges are old and new, including environmental constraints, governance, geographic isolation, fragmented land ownership, access to finance, and lack of appropriate skills, knowledge, and networks. Extension programmes aimed at the general primary production sector have failed to attract or retain any or many Māori participants. Landowner to landowner learning built around landowner aspirations along with collective action has the potential to inform an extension approach of relevance to Māori. Shared knowledge and scale can enable the realisation of opportunities from networked primary production assets and people. A programme of work “Māori Agribusiness Extension (MABX)” is being undertaken where clusters, a grouping of Māori-owned land blocks or agribusinesses willing to collaborate or collectivise towards a common goal or agreed outcomes, are formed to enable collective learning to build confidence to implement land use change and support decision making. This paper describes the extension model being used and gives an example of one cluster

Drivers of Human‒wildlife interactions in a co-existence area: a case study of the Ngorongoro conservation area, Tanzania

Communities in Africa bordering national parks or protected areas commonly overlap with wildlife. However, it is unclear to what degree such overlaps result in interactions with wildlife. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) was designated a multiple land-use conservation area in 1959. Maasai and Datoga pastoralists and Hadzabe hunter-gatherers reside with protected wildlife in NCA. The study was carried out in four Maasai villages within the NCA, including Kayapus, Endulen, Meshili, and Nainokanoka. A cross-sectional study was used to assess drivers of human‒wildlife interactions using questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions, and field visits. A total of 396 households participated in the survey. The collected data were analysed using qualitative data analysis techniques and descriptive statistics such as frequencies and means. The habitat, which comprises water, pasture, shelter, and space, accounted for 100% of interactions, indicating that it is the primary driver of human‒wildlife conflict. Other driving factors for human‒wildlife interactions are the increase in wildlife, collections of firewood, domestic animals kept, and influence of community sleeping arrangements, searching for traditional medicines, and killing of lions for ritual purposes or defense. Large household sizes (36 family members) coupled with climate change have also driven and fuelled human‒wildlife interactions. Challenges identified as threatening human‒wildlife co-existence are injuries, deaths, disease transmission, and destruction of property. To mitigate human‒wildlife conflicts, the following are recommended: the increase in boarding schools coupled with the increase in enrolment of students in boarding schools or providing reliable transport, distribution of tap water, increasing food assistance to the community living in poverty, controlling population increase through reallocation the population in other areas, introducing zero-grazing, using biogas, discouraging community sleeping arrangements, i.e., humans with calves in the same house, improving record-keeping of the wildlife attacks, provisional dissemination of research findings to the community

The LHCb trigger and data acquisition system

The LHCb experiment is the most recently approved of the 4 experiments under construction at CERNs LHC accelerator. It is a special purpose experiment designed to precisely measure the CP violation parameters in the B-B system. Triggering poses special problems since the interesting events containing B-mesons are immersed in a large background of inelastic p-p reactions. We therefore decided to implement a 4 level triggering scheme. The LHCb Data Acquisition (DAQ) system will have to cope with an average trigger rate of ~40 kHz, after two levels of hardware triggers, and an average event size of ~100 kB. Thus an event-building network which can sustain an average bandwidth of 4 GB/s is required. A powerful software trigger farm will have to be installed to reduce the rate from the 40 kHz to ~100 Hz of events written to permanent storage. In this paper we outline the general architecture of the Trigger and DAQ system and the readout protocols we plan to implement. First results of simulations of the behavior of the event- building network implementations under the expected traffic patterns are presented. (8 refs)

High-temperature phase transitions in SrBi_2Ta_2O_9 film: a study by THz spectroscopy

Time-domain THz transmission experiment was performed on a $\rm SrBi_2Ta_2O_9$ film deposited on sapphire substrate. Temperatures between 300 and 923 K were investigated and complex permittivity spectra of the film were determined. The lowest frequency optic phonon near 28 cm$^{-1}$ reveals a slow monotonic decrease in frequency on heating with no significant anomaly near the phase transitions. We show that the dielectric anomaly near the ferroelectric phase transition can be explained by slowing down of a relaxational mode, observed in the THz spectra. A second harmonic generation signal observed in a single crystal confirms a loss of center of symmetry in the ferroelectric phase and a presence of polar clusters in the intermediate ferroelastic phase.Comment: subm. to J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

Localization and Absorption of Light in 2D Composite Metal-Dielectric Films at the Percolation Threshold

We study in this paper the localization of light and the dielectric properties of thin metal-dielectric composites at the percolation threshold and around a resonant frequency where the conductivities of the two components are of the same order. In particular, the effect of the loss in metallic components are examined. To this end, such systems are modelized as random $L-C$ networks, and the local field distribution as well as the effective conductivity are determined by using two different methods for comparison: an exact resolution of Kirchoff equations, and a real space renormalization group method. The latter method is found to give the general behavior of the effective conductivity but fails to determine the local field distribution. It is also found that the localization still persists for vanishing losses. This result seems to be in agreement with the anomalous absorption observed experimentally for such systems.Comment: 14 page latex, 3 ps figures. submitte

Real-world clinical experience in the Connect® chronic lymphocytic leukaemia registry: a prospective cohort study of 1494 patients across 199 US centres.

The clinical course of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is heterogeneous, and treatment options vary considerably. The Connect® CLL registry is a multicentre, prospective observational cohort study that provides a real-world perspective on the management of, and outcomes for, patients with CLL. Between 2010 and 2014, 1494 patients with CLL and that initiated therapy, were enrolled from 199 centres throughout the USA (179 community-, 17 academic-, and 3 government-based centres). Patients were grouped by line of therapy at enrolment (LOT). We describe the clinical and demographic characteristics of, and practice patterns for, patients with CLL enrolled in this treatment registry, providing patient-level observational data that represent real-world experiences in the USA. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analyses were performed on 49·3% of patients at enrolment. The most common genetic abnormalities detected by FISH were del(13q) and trisomy 12 (45·7% and 20·8%, respectively). Differences in disease characteristics and comorbidities were observed between patients enrolled in LOT1 and combined LOT2/≥3 cohorts. Important trends observed include the infrequent use of genetic prognostic testing, and differences in patient characteristics for patients receiving chemoimmunotherapy combinations. These data represent experiences of patients with CLL in the USA, which may inform treatment decisions in everyday practice

Experimental evidence of stochastic resonance without tuning due to non Gaussian noises

In order to test theoretical predictions, we have studied the phenomenon of stochastic resonance in an electronic experimental system driven by white non Gaussian noise. In agreement with the theoretical predictions our main findings are: an enhancement of the sensibility of the system together with a remarkable widening of the response (robustness). This implies that even a single resonant unit can reach a marked reduction in the need of noise tuning.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure