Chiral Fermions and Quadratic Divergences

In an approach towards naturalness without supersymmetry, renormalization properties of nonsupersymmetric abelian quiver gauge theories are studied. In the construction based on cyclic groups Z_p the gauge group is U(N)^p, the fermions are all in bifundamentals and the construction allows scalars in adjoints and bifundamentals. Only models without adjoint scalars, however, exhibit both chiral fermions and the absence of one-loop quadratic divergences in the scalar propagator.Comment: 11 page

Return on interactivity: The impact of online agents on newcomer adjustment

As service offerings grow in both range and complexity, how service providers and their customers interact is becoming increasingly important. In response to the challenge of optimizing these interactions, companies have introduced sophisticated online "socialization agents," whose purpose is to help new customers more effectively adjust to and function within the service environment. The objective of these online agents, or virtual employees, is to help customers evaluate new or unfamiliar service offerings, as well as help companies achieve greater levels of service delivery and financial performance. To investigate this, the authors analyze the process by which online agents help both new and current customers adjust to and function within new, unfamiliar, or complex service contexts. They examine the impact of an online agent on account performance in the banking industry. They find that both interaction style and content of the online agent significantly influence the newcomer adjustment process over time, which in turn influences firm-level performance

Environmental and workplace contamination in the semiconductor industry: implications for future health of the workforce and community.

The semiconductor industry has been an enormous worldwide growth industry. At the heart of computer and other electronic technological advances, the environment in and around these manufacturing facilities has not been scrutinized to fully detail the health effects to the workers and the community from such exposures. Hazard identification in this industry leads to the conclusion that there are many sources of potential exposure to chemicals including arsenic, solvents, photoactive polymers and other materials. As the size of the semiconductor work force expands, the potential for adverse health effects, ranging from transient irritant symptoms to reproductive effects and cancer, must be determined and control measures instituted. Risk assessments need to be effected for areas where these facilities conduct manufacturing. The predominance of women in the manufacturing areas requires evaluating the exposures to reproductive hazards and outcomes. Arsenic exposures must also be evaluated and minimized, especially for maintenance workers; evaluation for lung and skin cancers is also appropriate

A Data Driven Approach to Profile Potential SARS-CoV-2 Drug Interactions Using TylerADE

We use a data driven approach on a cleaned adverse drug reaction database to determine the reaction severity of several covid-19 drug combinations currently under investigation. We further examine their safety for vulnerable populations such as individuals 65 years and older. Our key findings include 1. hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine are associated with increased adverse drug event severity versus other drug combinations already not recommended by NIH treatment guidelines, 2. hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin are associated with lower adverse drug event severity among older populations, 3. lopinavir/ritonavir had lower adverse reaction severity among toddlers and 4. the combination of azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine and tocilizumab is safer than its component drugs. While our approach does not consider drug efficacy, it can help prioritize clinical trials for drug combinations by focusing on those with the lowest reaction severity and thus increase potential treatment options for covid-19 patients

Binary Cosmic Strings

The properties of cosmic strings have been investigated in detail for their implications in early-universe cosmology. Although many variations of the basic structure have been discovered, with implications for both the microscopic and macroscopic properties of cosmic strings, the cylindrical symmetry of the short-distance structure of the string is generally unaffected. In this paper we describe some mechanisms leading to an asymmetric structure of the string core, giving the defects a quasi-two-dimensional character. We also begin to investigate the consequences of this internal structure for the microscopic and macroscopic physics.Comment: 19 pages; uses harvmac (not included

Cosmic Background Radiation Temperature Anisotropy: Position of First Doppler Peak

The purpose of the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) experiments is to measure the temperature anisotropy via the autocorrelation function. The partial wave $l_1$ corresponding to the first Doppler peak caused by baryon-photon oscillations at the surface of last scattering depends on the present density $\Omega_0$ and the cosmological constant contribution $\Omega_{\Lambda}$. We discuss this dependence on the basis of perspicuous figures.Comment: 16 pages LaTeX including four figure

CMB with Quintessence: Analytic Approach and CMBFAST

A particular kind of quintessence is considered, with equation of motion $p_Q/\rho_Q = -1$, corresponding to a cosmological term with time-dependence $\Lambda(t) = \Lambda(t_0) (R(t_0)/R(t))^{P}$ which we examine initially for $0 \leq P < 3$. Energy conservation is imposed, as is consistency with big-bang nucleosynthesis, and the range of allowed $P$ is thereby much restricted to $0 \leq P < 0.2$. The position of the first Doppler peak is computed analytically and the result combined with analysis of high-Z supernovae to find how values of $\Omega_m$ and $\Omega_{\Lambda}$ depend on $P$. Some comparison is made to the CMBFAST public code.Comment: 13 pp LaTeX and 7 postscript figure

Magnetic Monopoles in String Theory

Magnetic monopole solutions to heterotic string theory are discussed in toroidal compactifications to four spacetime dimensions. Particular emphasis is placed on the relation to previously studied fivebrane solutions in ten dimensions and on the possibility of constructing exact monopole solutions related to symmetric fivebranes.Comment: 24 pages (Corrected title

Real Special Geometry

We give a coordinate-free description of real manifolds occurring in certain four dimensional supergravity theories with antisymmetric tensor fields. The relevance of the linear multiplets in the compactification of string and five-brane theories is also discussed.Comment: 10 pgs (TeX with Harvmac), CERN-TH.7211/94, UCLA/94/TEP/14, POLFIS-TH.01/9