Energy Integrated Ratio Analysis of the Anomalous Precession Frequency in the Fermilab Muon g-2 Experiment

The muon’s anomalous magnetic moment, aμ, provides a unique way for probing physics beyond the standard model experimentally as it gathers contributions from all the known and unknown forces and particles in nature. The theoretical prediction of aμ has been in greater than 3 σ tension with the experimental measurement since the results of the Muon g-2 Experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (E-821) were published in the early 2000s with a precision of 540 ppb. To settle this tension, the new Fermilab Muon g - 2 Experiment (E-989) is currently taking data with the aim of experimentally determining aμ with a final precision of 140 ppb. The determination of aμ involves measuring the magnetic field in which the muons undergo spin precession and the anomalous part of the spin precession frequency, ωa . We use a new reconstruction approach called the energy integrating method in which the total energy of the decay positrons deposited in the electromagnetic calorimeters is continuously recorded. This reconstruction method for the ωa analysis has different sensitivity to some of the major systematic biases compared to the traditional method which reconstructs individual positron events. Furthermore, we employ a ratio histogramming procedure that has reduced sensitivity to slow variations in the data. In this dissertation the muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab is described followed by a detailed discussion of the Run-2 and Run-3 precession frequency data analysis using the new energy integrating ratio histogramming method

Book review: Village ties: women, NGOs, and informal institutions in rural Bangladesh by Nayma Qayum

In Village Ties: Women, NGOs, and Informal Institutions in Rural Bangladesh, Nayma Qayum explores the role of non-governmental organisations in involving women in the political and development process in rural Bangladesh. This book contributes to scholarship that attends to ordinary people’s lived experiences to understand how marginalised communities solve political and social problems, finds Ritwika Patgiri. Village Ties: Women, NGOs, and Informal Institutions in Rural Bangladesh. Nayma Qayum. Rutgers University Press. 2021

Book review: The economic history of colonialism by Leigh Gardner and Tirthankar Roy

In The Economic History of Colonialism, Leigh Gardner and Tirthankar Roy offer a new historical account of the relationship between economic development and colonialism, showing how diverse processes of colonisation impacted on patterns of economic growth. Seeking to understand the roots of growth as well as poverty and inequality in formerly colonised nations as well as the origins of the environmental challenges we are facing in the current century, this book offers a nuanced study of the economic history of colonialism and its lasting legacies, finds Ritwika Patgiri. The Economic History of Colonialism. Leigh Gardner and Tirthankar Roy. Policy Press. 2021

India’s lockdown: why small businesses and the self-employed need help

As India’s economy continues to be locked-down, Rituparna Patgiri (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) and Ritwika Patgiri (South Asian University, India), review the state of the country’s economy and the place of small businesses and the self-employed within it during the coronavirus lockdown

Separation of distributed coordination and control for programming reliable robotics

A robot's code needs to sense the environment, control the hardware, and communicate with other robots. Current programming languages do not provide the necessary hardware platform-independent abstractions, and therefore, developing robot applications require detailed knowledge of signal processing, control, path planning, network protocols, and various platform-specific details. Further, porting applications across hardware platforms becomes tedious. With the aim of separating these hardware dependent and independent concerns, we have developed Koord: a domain specific language for distributed robotics. Koord abstracts platform-specific functions for sensing, communication, and low-level control. Koord makes the platform-independent control and coordination code portable and modularly verifiable. It raises the level of abstraction in programming by providing distributed shared memory for coordination and port interfaces for sensing and control. We have developed the formal executable semantics of Koord in the K framework. With this symbolic execution engine, we can identify proof obligations for gaining high assurance from Koord applications. Koord is deployed on CyPhyHouse---a toolchain that aims to provide programming, debugging, and deployment benefits for distributed mobile robotic applications. The modular, platform-independent middleware of CyPhyHouse implements these functionalities using standard algorithms for path planning (RRT), control (MPC), mutual exclusion, etc. A high-fidelity, scalable, multi-threaded simulator for Koord applications is developed to simulate the same application code for dozens of heterogeneous agents. The same compiled code can also be deployed on heterogeneous mobile platforms. This thesis outlines the design, implementation and formalization of the Koord language and the main components of CyPhyHouse that it is deployed on

Book review: Doing economics: what you should have learned in grad school – but didn’t by Marc F. Bellemare

In Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School – But Didn’t, Marc F. Bellemare offers a new guide to research economists to help equip them with the practical tools for ‘doing economics’. This book will be an excellent starting point for young students of economics who are thinking of pursuing a career in academia, writes Ritwika Patgiri. Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School – But Didn’t. Marc F. Bellemare. MIT Press. 2022