Is the New Resonance Spin 0 or 2? Taking a Step Forward in the Higgs Boson Discovery

The observation of a new boson of mass \sim 125\gev at the CERN LHC may finally have revealed the existence of a Higgs boson. Now we have the opportunity to scrutinize its properties, determining its quantum numbers and couplings to the standard model particles, in order to confirm or not its discovery. We show that by the end of the 8 TeV run, combining the entire data sets of ATLAS and CMS, it will be possible to discriminate between the following discovery alternatives: a scalar $J^P=0^+$ or a tensor $J^P=2^+$ particle with minimal couplings to photons, at a $5\sigma$ statistical confidence level at least, using only diphotons events. Our results are based on the calculation of a center-edge asymmetry measure of the reconstructed {\it sPlot} scattering polar angle of the diphotons. The results based on asymmetries are shown to be rather robust against systematic uncertainties with comparable discrimination power to a log likelihood ratio statistic.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. References added, minor typos correcte

Scale-free memory model for multiagent reinforcement learning. Mean field approximation and rock-paper-scissors dynamics

A continuous time model for multiagent systems governed by reinforcement learning with scale-free memory is developed. The agents are assumed to act independently of one another in optimizing their choice of possible actions via trial-and-error search. To gain awareness about the action value the agents accumulate in their memory the rewards obtained from taking a specific action at each moment of time. The contribution of the rewards in the past to the agent current perception of action value is described by an integral operator with a power-law kernel. Finally a fractional differential equation governing the system dynamics is obtained. The agents are considered to interact with one another implicitly via the reward of one agent depending on the choice of the other agents. The pairwise interaction model is adopted to describe this effect. As a specific example of systems with non-transitive interactions, a two agent and three agent systems of the rock-paper-scissors type are analyzed in detail, including the stability analysis and numerical simulation. Scale-free memory is demonstrated to cause complex dynamics of the systems at hand. In particular, it is shown that there can be simultaneously two modes of the system instability undergoing subcritical and supercritical bifurcation, with the latter one exhibiting anomalous oscillations with the amplitude and period growing with time. Besides, the instability onset via this supercritical mode may be regarded as "altruism self-organization". For the three agent system the instability dynamics is found to be rather irregular and can be composed of alternate fragments of oscillations different in their properties.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figur

A data-driven method of pile-up correction for the substructure of massive jets

We describe a method to measure and subtract the incoherent component of energy flow arising from multiple interactions from jet shape/substructure observables of ultra-massive jets. The amount subtracted is a function of the jet shape variable of interest and not a universal property. Such a correction is expected to significantly reduce any bias in the corresponding distributions generated by the presence of multiple interactions, and to improve measurement resolution. Since in our method the correction is obtained from the data, it is not subject to uncertainties coming from the use of theoretical calculations and/or Monte Carlo event generators. We derive our correction method for the jet mass, angularity and planar flow. We find these corrections to be in good agreement with data on massive jets observed by the CDF collaboration. Finally, we comment on the linkage with the concept of jet area and jet mass area.Comment: 7 pages and 3 figures, minor correction

Evolutionary instability of Zero Determinant strategies demonstrates that winning isn't everything

Zero Determinant (ZD) strategies are a new class of probabilistic and conditional strategies that are able to unilaterally set the expected payoff of an opponent in iterated plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma irrespective of the opponent's strategy, or else to set the ratio between a ZD player's and their opponent's expected payoff. Here we show that while ZD strategies are weakly dominant, they are not evolutionarily stable and will instead evolve into less coercive strategies. We show that ZD strategies with an informational advantage over other players that allows them to recognize other ZD strategies can be evolutionarily stable (and able to exploit other players). However, such an advantage is bound to be short-lived as opposing strategies evolve to counteract the recognition.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. Change in title (again!) to comply with Nature Communications requirements. To appear in Nature Communication

Health care services for older people in COVID-19 pandemic times – a Nordic comparison

Objective: To explore the Nordic municipal health and care services’ ability to promote principal goals within care for older people during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design and setting: Two surveys were conducted among managers of municipal health care services for older adults in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden; the first around 6 months into the pandemic (survey 1), and the second around 12 months later (survey 2). Data were analysed through descriptive statistics, and multiple regression (OLS).Subjects: 1470 (survey 1, 2020) and 745 (survey 2, 2021) managers. 32 % in home care, 51 % in nursing homes, 17 % combined. Results: In all countries the pandemic seems to have had more negative impact on eldercare services’ ability to promote an active and social life, than on the ability to promote or enhance older people’s mental and physical health. The regression analysis indicates that different factors influence the ability to promote these goals. Managers within nursing homes reported reduced ability to promote mental and physical health and an active social life to a significantly lower degree than managers of home care. The effect of three prevention strategies (lock down, testing, and/or organisational change), were explored. Organisational change (reorganize staff and practice, restrict use of substitutes) tended to impact the units’ ability to promote a social life in a positive direction, while lock down (areas, buffets etc) tended to impact both the ability to promote mental/physical health and a social life in a negative direction. Conclusion: Measures that can improve opportunities for an active and social life during a pandemic should have high priority, particularily within home-based care.Objective: To explore the Nordic municipal health and care services’ ability to promote principal goals within care for older people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design and setting: Two surveys were conducted among managers of municipal health care services for older people in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden; the first around 6 months into the pandemic (survey 1), and the second around 12 months later (survey 2). Data were analysed through descriptive statistics, and multiple regression (OLS). Subjects: 1470 (survey 1, 2020) and 745 (survey 2, 2021) managers. 32% in home care, 51% in nursing homes, 17% combined. Results: In all countries the pandemic seems to have had more negative impact on eldercare services’ ability to promote an active and social life, than on the ability to promote or enhance older people’s mental and physical health. The regression analysis indicates that different factors influence the ability to promote these goals. Managers within nursing homes reported reduced ability to promote mental and physical health and an active social life to a significantly lower degree than managers of home care. The effect of three prevention strategies (lock down, testing, and/or organisational change), were explored. Organisational change (reorganize staff and practice, restrict use of substitutes) tended to impact the units’ ability to promote a social life in a positive direction, while lock down (areas, buffets etc) tended to impact both the ability to promote mental/physical health and a social life in a negative direction. Conclusion: Measures that can improve opportunities for an active and social life during a pandemic should have high priority, particularily within home care.</p

Mobility promotes and jeopardizes biodiversity in rock-paper-scissors games

Biodiversity is essential to the viability of ecological systems. Species diversity in ecosystems is promoted by cyclic, non-hierarchical interactions among competing populations. Such non-transitive relations lead to an evolution with central features represented by the `rock-paper-scissors' game, where rock crushes scissors, scissors cut paper, and paper wraps rock. In combination with spatial dispersal of static populations, this type of competition results in the stable coexistence of all species and the long-term maintenance of biodiversity. However, population mobility is a central feature of real ecosystems: animals migrate, bacteria run and tumble. Here, we observe a critical influence of mobility on species diversity. When mobility exceeds a certain value, biodiversity is jeopardized and lost. In contrast, below this critical threshold all subpopulations coexist and an entanglement of travelling spiral waves forms in the course of temporal evolution. We establish that this phenomenon is robust, it does not depend on the details of cyclic competition or spatial environment. These findings have important implications for maintenance and evolution of ecological systems and are relevant for the formation and propagation of patterns in excitable media, such as chemical kinetics or epidemic outbreaks.Comment: Final submitted version; the printed version can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature06095 Supplementary movies are available at http://www.theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de/lsfrey/images_content/movie1.AVI and http://www.theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de/lsfrey/images_content/movie2.AV

Integrating Health and Social Services in Finland: Regional Approaches and Governance Models

Introduction: The study explores regional approaches to integrated care, focusing on regions with regular municipality-based and integrated unified health and social care administration. The aim is to describe a governance approach that supports care integration in the regions. Methods: The study draws on analysis of integrated care governance using an extensive collection of administrative documents (n = 176) on regional health and social services within 20 specialised care authorities. The document data were supplemented with interviews of national health and social system evaluation officers. In our analysis, we used deductive content analysis and identified conceptual approaches of social and health care integration according to elements of integrated care governance. Results: Overall, integrated care governance was relatively well advanced. All regional authorities had established at least some preconditions for integrated governance. The stage of integration varied in the different elements of integrated care governance. The regions with unified integrated administrations enabled the more advanced models of integrated care. Conclusions: Various models for cooperation between regional health and social care authorities have emerged in the regions to identify good integrated care practices. The study suggests that the applied theoretical framework and presented elements of integrated care governance can be used to monitor development of care integration

Determination of the Jet Energy Scale at the Collider Detector at Fermilab

A precise determination of the energy scale of jets at the Collider Detector at Fermilab at the Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ collider is described. Jets are used in many analyses to estimate the energies of partons resulting from the underlying physics process. Several correction factors are developed to estimate the original parton energy from the observed jet energy in the calorimeter. The jet energy response is compared between data and Monte Carlo simulation for various physics processes, and systematic uncertainties on the jet energy scale are determined. For jets with transverse momenta above 50 GeV the jet energy scale is determined with a 3% systematic uncertainty

Sociobiological Control of Plasmid copy number

Background:&#xd;&#xa;All known mechanisms and genes responsible for the regulation of plasmid replication lie with the plasmid rather than the chromosome. It is possible therefore that there can be copy-up mutants. Copy-up mutants will have within host selective advantage. This would eventually result into instability of bacteria-plasmid association. In spite of this possibility low copy number plasmids appear to exist stably in host populations. We examined this paradox using a computer simulation model.&#xd;&#xa;&#xd;&#xa;Model:&#xd;&#xa;Our multilevel selection model assumes a wild type with tightly regulated replication to ensure low copy number. A mutant with slightly relaxed replication regulation can act as a &#x201c;cheater&#x201d; or &#x201c;selfish&#x201d; plasmid and can enjoy a greater within-host-fitness. However the host of a cheater plasmid has to pay a greater cost. As a result, in host level competition, host cell with low copy number plasmid has a greater fitness. Furthermore, another mutant that has lost the genes required for conjugation was introduced in the model. The non-conjugal mutant was assumed to undergo conjugal transfer in the presence of another conjugal plasmid in the host cell.&#xd;&#xa;&#xd;&#xa;Results:&#xd;&#xa;The simulatons showed that if the cost of carrying a plasmid was low, the copy-up mutant could drive the wild type to extinction or very low frequencies. Consequently, another mutant with a higher copy number could invade the first invader. This process could result into an increasing copy number. However above a certain copy number within-host selection was overcompensated by host level selection leading to a rock-paper-scissor (RPS) like situation. The RPS situation allowed the coexistence of high and low copy number plasmids. The non-conjugal &#x201c;hypercheaters&#x201d; could further arrest the copy numbers to a substantially lower level.&#xd;&#xa;&#xd;&#xa;Conclusions:&#xd;&#xa;These sociobiological interactions might explain the stability of copy numbers better than molecular mechanisms of replication regulation alone

Jet Substructure at the Tevatron and LHC: New results, new tools, new benchmarks

In this report we review recent theoretical progress and the latest experimental results in jet substructure from the Tevatron and the LHC. We review the status of and outlook for calculation and simulation tools for studying jet substructure. Following up on the report of the Boost 2010 workshop, we present a new set of benchmark comparisons of substructure techniques, focusing on the set of variables and grooming methods that are collectively known as "top taggers". To facilitate further exploration, we have attempted to collect, harmonise, and publish software implementations of these techniques.Comment: 53 pages, 17 figures. L. Asquith, S. Rappoccio, C. K. Vermilion, editors; v2: minor edits from journal revision