Implementation of the O(αt2)\mathcal{O}{\left(\alpha_t^2\right)} MSSM Higgs-mass corrections in FeynHiggs\tt{FeynHiggs}

We describe the implementation of the two-loop Higgs-mass corrections of $\mathcal{O}{\left(\alpha_t^2\right)}$ in the complex MSSM in $\tt{FeynHiggs}$. The program for the calculation is included in $\tt{FeynHiggs}$ and documented here in some detail such that it can be re-used as a template for similar calculations.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Experimental Evaluation of Cache-Related Preemption Delay Aware Timing Analysis

In the presence of caches, preemptive scheduling may incur a significant overhead referred to as cache-related preemption delay (CRPD). CRPD is caused by preempting tasks evicting cached memory blocks of preempted tasks, which have to be reloaded when the preempted tasks resume their execution. In this paper we experimentally evaluate state-of-the-art techniques to account for the CRPD during timing analysis. We find that purely synthetically-generated task sets may yield misleading conclusions regarding the relative precision of different CRPD analysis techniques and the impact of CRPD on schedulability in general. Based on task characterizations obtained by static worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis, we shed new light on the state of the art

The National park and ELC : a study in landscape, narrative and multifunctionality

I skuggan av Sveriges ratificering av europeiska landskapskonventionen (ELC) undersöks hur nationalparken, som har sina rötter i nationalromantiken, har uppdaterats till en modern tid med nya förutsättningar och krav på landskapet. Den en gång elitistiska skyddsformen har tvingats anpassa sig till en ny värdegrund när det kommer till landskap, hållbarhet, multifunktionalitet och delaktighet. Naturskydd påverkas av hur landskap uppfattas, och vem som bestämmer vilka värden i landskapet som är värdefulla samt hur de ska förvaltas. Turismen och statens gemensamma historia i naturskyddet spåras i Fulufjällets Nationalpark i norra Dalarna, en av de senaste svenska nationalparkerna, som utgör material för denna fallstudie. För första gången i Sverige används ett zoneringssystem som verktyg för att kunna bemöta olika intressen. Genom analys av narrativ och prioriteringar undersöks vad och vems agenda som ligger till grund för nationalparksbildandet. Fallstudien prövas mot ett teoretiskt ramverk som berör ämnen som landskap, perception, turism och ELC. Resultatet från fallstudien visar att orördhet och vildmark ingår i ett narrativ som genomsyrar i skötselplanen och marknadsföringen av nationalparken som turistmål. Zonindelningen används för att kunna separera olika intressen ifrån varandra, snarare än att skapa ett hållbart mångfunktionellt landskap där olika aktiviteter kan koexistera i samma rum. De internationellt institutionaliserade krav på orördhet som ligger i nationalparkens natur är svårförenliga med olika former av hållbart brukande.In the light of Swedens ratification of ELC, I study how the establishment of a national park in a mountainous region at the Norwegian border of Sweden has adapted to address a new moral authority concerning landscape focused on perception, sustainability, multifunctionality and participation. The national park legacy was once associated with elitism and had its roots in the national-romantics era in Sweden. This common heritage of national purpose and tourism in Swedish nature conservation is being traced in a modern establishment. For the first time in Sweden, the authorities implemented a zoning strategy to permit a wide range of activities in the area that compose the national park. In order to make sense of this landscape, I investigate how the different user groups are represented and given opportunity to claim in the landscape, and how the national park maintenance plan is narrated. My studies are made up by a literature study in the subject of landscape, perception, tourism, and the European Landscape convention, applied on a case study of Fulufjället National Park. The case is primarily an analysis of the maintenance plan published by the time of the opening of the national park. The maintenance plan is supplemented by a visitor-marketing strategy and other official documents relevant to the establishment in both Sweden and Norway. My results show that wilderness and pristine nature are key words involved in narrating how the area is perceived by both the authorities and in the visitor-market strategy: presumably because it attracts an urban target audience. The zoning strategy applied in the national park separates different usages of the landscape, rather than creating the sustainable multifunctional landscape sought after in the ELC. The internationally institutionalized demands for wilderness and pristine nature somehow make up an obstacle for developing a more user-integrative and multifunctional national park establishment

On static execution-time analysis

Proving timeliness is an integral part of the verification of safety-critical real-time systems. To this end, timing analysis computes upper bounds on the execution times of programs that execute on a given hardware platform. Modern hardware platforms commonly exhibit counter-intuitive timing behaviour: a locally slower execution can lead to a faster overall execution. Such behaviour challenges efficient timing analysis. In this work, we present and discuss a hardware design, the strictly in-order pipeline, that behaves monotonically w.r.t. the progress of a program's execution. Based on monotonicity, we prove the absence of the aforementioned counter-intuitive behaviour. At least since multi-core processors have emerged, timing analysis separates concerns by analysing different aspects of the system's timing behaviour individually. In this work, we validate the underlying assumption that a timing bound can be soundly composed from individual contributions. We show that even simple processors exhibit counter-intuitive behaviour - a locally slow execution can lead to an even slower overall execution - that impedes the soundness of the composition. We present the compositional base bound analysis that accounts for any such amplifying effects within its timing contribution. This enables a sound compositional analysis even for complex processors. Furthermore, we discuss hardware modifications that enable efficient compositional analyses.Echtzeitsysteme müssen unter allen Umständen beweisbar pünktlich arbeiten. Zum Beweis errechnet die Zeitanalyse obere Schranken der für die Ausführung von Programmen auf einer Hardware-Plattform benötigten Zeit. Moderne Hardware-Plattformen sind bekannt für unerwartetes Zeitverhalten bei dem eine lokale Verzögerung in einer global schnelleren Ausführung resultiert. Solches Zeitverhalten erschwert eine effiziente Analyse. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit diskutieren wir das Design eines Prozessors mit eingeschränkter Fließbandverarbeitung (strictly in-order pipeline), der sich bzgl. des Fortschritts einer Programmausführung monoton verhält. Wir beweisen, dass Monotonie das oben genannte unerwartete Zeitverhalten verhindert. Spätestens seit dem Einsatz von Mehrkernprozessoren besteht die Zeitanalyse aus einzelnen Teilanalysen welche nur bestimmte Aspekte des Zeitverhaltens betrachten. Eine zentrale Annahme ist hierbei, dass sich die Teilergebnisse zu einer korrekten Zeitschranke zusammensetzen lassen. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit zeigen wir, dass diese Annahme selbst für einfache Prozessoren ungültig ist, da eine lokale Verzögerung zu einer noch größeren globalen Verzögerung führen kann. Für bestehende Prozessoren entwickeln wir eine neuartige Teilanalyse, die solche verstärkenden Effekte berücksichtigt und somit eine korrekte Komposition von Teilergebnissen erlaubt. Für zukünftige Prozessoren beschreiben wir Modifikationen, die eine deutlich effizientere Zeitanalyse ermöglichen

The Role of Large Institutional Ownership on Goodwill Impairment under the SFAS 142 Regime

This paper examines the effect of large institutional owners on accounting for goodwill and its resulting impairment charges. Economies of scale predict stronger incentives for large institutional owners to engage in monitoring. Employing a multivariate linear probability model on a sample of U.S. companies with goodwill on their balance sheets during the period from 2009 to 2019, I find that the likelihood of an impairment is more strongly related to an expected impairment when the share of equity held by the firm’s largest institutional owners is higher. Results prove to be economically meaningful and are generally robust to different specifications. This evidence is consistent with the active monitor hypothesis by large shareholders to protect their significant investments. Keywords: Goodwill accounting; goodwill impairment; institutional ownership; ownership concentration; monitoring; FASB; SFAS 142.This paper examines the effect of large institutional owners on accounting for goodwill and its resulting impairment charges. Economies of scale predict stronger incentives for large institutional owners to engage in monitoring. Employing a multivariate linear probability model on a sample of U.S. companies with goodwill on their balance sheets during the period from 2009 to 2019, I find that the likelihood of an impairment is more strongly related to an expected impairment when the share of equity held by the firm’s largest institutional owners is higher. Results prove to be economically meaningful and are generally robust to different specifications. This evidence is consistent with the active monitor hypothesis by large shareholders to protect their significant investments. Keywords: Goodwill accounting; goodwill impairment; institutional ownership; ownership concentration; monitoring; FASB; SFAS 142

Successful internationalization of a franchise: learnings from Keller Williams Portugal

Theconceptual model based on existing literature describeshow franchises can successfully internationalize their business. To validate the model, the case ofthe real estate brokering franchise Keller Williams with a focus on Portugalis analyzed. The model hasthree main levels of success factors: country-specific context, organizational structure and quality, and partner choice and quality. Furthermore, values and governance mode and business model maturity are moderators. Qualitative interviews with the two Co-CEOs of KW Portugal and the COO of KW Worldwide are conducted, and the relevant information is used to analyze what made this franchise so successful, trying to validate the theoretical framework. Most of the factors can be validated and the conceptual model can be used as a high-level concept to understand how franchises can successfully internationalize their business

Small Open Reading Frames, Non-Coding RNAs and Repetitive Elements in Bradyrhizobium japonicum USDA 110

Small open reading frames (sORFs) and genes for non-coding RNAs are poorly investigated components of most genomes. Our analysis of 1391 ORFs recently annotated in the soybean symbiont Bradyrhizobium japonicum USDA 110 revealed that 78% of them contain less than 80 codons. Twenty-one of these sORFs are conserved in or outside Alphaproteobacteria and most of them are similar to genes found in transposable elements, in line with their broad distribution. Stabilizing selection was demonstrated for sORFs with proteomic evidence and bll1319_ISGA which is conserved at the nucleotide level in 16 alphaproteobacterial species, 79 species from other taxa and 49 other Proteobacteria. Further we used Northern blot hybridization to validate ten small RNAs (BjsR1 to BjsR10) belonging to new RNA families. We found that BjsR1 and BjsR3 have homologs outside the genus Bradyrhizobium, and BjsR5, BjsR6, BjsR7, and BjsR10 have up to four imperfect copies in Bradyrhizobium genomes. BjsR8, BjsR9, and BjsR10 are present exclusively in nodules, while the other sRNAs are also expressed in liquid cultures. We also found that the level of BjsR4 decreases after exposure to tellurite and iron, and this down-regulation contributes to survival under high iron conditions. Analysis of additional small RNAs overlapping with 3’-UTRs revealed two new repetitive elements named Br-REP1 and Br-REP2. These REP elements may play roles in the genomic plasticity and gene regulation and could be useful for strain identification by PCR-fingerprinting. Furthermore, we studied two potential toxin genes in the symbiotic island and confirmed toxicity of the yhaV homolog bll1687 but not of the newly annotated higB homolog blr0229_ISGA in E. coli. Finally, we revealed transcription interference resulting in an antisense RNA complementary to blr1853, a gene induced in symbiosis. The presented results expand our knowledge on sORFs, non-coding RNAs and repetitive elements in B. japonicum and related bacteria

Grundlagenuntersuchungen zur Wirkweise und Kontrolle von Katalysatoren in autokatalytischen Bädern zur Metallabscheidung

In this work, a flow cell for in-situ microgravimetrical and electrochemical investigationsis introduced and characterized. The well understood homogeneous diffusionboundary layer of a rotating disk electrode (RDE) is well suited for the study of electrochemicalprocesses, but the in-situ measurement of layer thickness is not possible.This parameter is important for the characterization of deposition processes and canbe measured with a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), but rotation for generating ahomogenous flow and diffusion boundary layer is hardly feasible. Instead, we builda combination of a flow cell with a QCM to allow the investigation of diffusioneffects on electrochemical metal deposition speed.For the flow cell design and optimization, the “Comsol Multiphysics“ software wasused to calculate flow conditions and concentration gradients at the electrode. Calculationresults were checked by measuring current limiting density values of theredox system Hexacyanoferrat II/III in our flow cell/QCM combinations and comparingthem to values obtained with an RDE.The main application of the experimental assembly is the characterization of theautocatalytic NiP-deposition. In this process, stabilizers are used to prevent the spontaneousdecomposition of the electrolyte. The inhibition of the deposition rate as afunction of stabilizer concentration and its dependence on flow conditions is examined.Lead and thiourea are used as stabilizers in this work.In the same experimental arrangement, the electrochemical dissolution potential ofthe previously deposited NiP-layer was measured in a variety of dissolution electrolytes.It was found that the NiP-layer's dissolution potential is influenced by the typeof stabilizer, its concentration and the flow conditions during the deposition step.After optimizing the dissolution electrolyte, the measurement of the dissolutionpotential allowed the estimation of the thiourea concentration in the depositionelectrolyte in a range between 0-0,5 ppm and >1 ppm.In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde eine Strömungszelle für insitu mikrogravimetrische Untersuchungen entwickelt und charakterisiert. Während sich an einer rotierenden Scheibenelektrode (RDE) ausbildende homogene Diffusionsgrenzschicht gut für die Charakterisierung von elektrochemischen Prozessen eignet, ist eine in situ Schichtendickenmessung nicht möglich. Dieser gerade für Messungen von Abscheidungsprozessen wichtige Parameter ist mit einer QCM gut messbar, hierbei ist aber die Erzeugung einer homogenen Diffusionsgrenzschicht durch Rotation nur schwer realisierbar. Die Kombination einer Strömungszelle mit der Quarzmikrowaage(QCM) erlaubt die Untersuchung transportabhängiger Metallabscheidungen bei gleichzeitiger insitu Messung der Schichtdickenänderung. Zur Optimierung der Strömungszelle wird die Simulationssoftware „Comsol Multiphysics“ verwendet. Mit Hilfe der Simulation werden unterschiedliche Strömungen und der Stoffumsatz der Elektrode berechnet. Zur Charakterisierung wird die Grenzstromdichte des Redoxsystem HexacyanoferratII/III an der RDE verwendet. Die Ergebnisse der QCM in der Strömungszelle werden jeweils mit den Simulationsergebnissen und den Versuchsergebnissen der RDE verglichen und ausgewertet. Als wichtigste technische Anwendung wird die autokatalytische Nickelphosphorabscheidunguntersucht. Stabilisatoren verhindern eine spontane Elektrolytzersetzung. Die Inhibierung der Abscheidegeschwindigkeit bei unterschiedlichen Stabilisatorkonzentrationen und Strömungsgeschwindigkeiten wird aufgezeigt. Als Stabilisatoren werden Blei und Thioharnstoff verwendet. Im gleichen Aufbau wird der Einfluss der Stabilisatorkonzentration auf dieabgeschiedene NiP-Schicht wird durch eine elektrochemische Auflösung untersucht. Das Auflösepotential der NiP-Schicht nimmt mit höherer Stabilisatorkonzentration im Abscheideelektrolyten ab. Durch Messung des Auflösepotentials können dieNiP-Schicht der hochphosphorhaltigen NiP-Schicht mit 11 Gew.-%, die mittelphosphorhaltige NiP-Schicht mit 7 Gew.-% Phosphor mit und ohne Schwefel unterschieden werden. Der Einfluss der Thioharnstoffkonzentration auf das Auflösepotential erlaubt die Abschätzung der Thioharnstoffkonzentration zwischen 0-0,5 ppmund >1 ppm

H3K56me3 is a novel, conserved heterochromatic mark that largely but not completely overlaps with H3K9me3 in both regulation and localization.

Histone lysine (K) methylation has been shown to play a fundamental role in modulating chromatin architecture and regulation of gene expression. Here we report on the identification of histone H3K56, located at the pivotal, nucleosome DNA entry/exit point, as a novel methylation site that is evolutionary conserved. We identify trimethylation of H3K56 (H3K56me3) as a modification that is present during all cell cycle phases, with the exception of S-phase, where it is underrepresented on chromatin. H3K56me3 is a novel heterochromatin mark, since it is enriched at pericentromeres but not telomeres and is thereby similar, but not identical, to the localization of H3K9me3 and H4K20me3. Possibly due to H3 sequence similarities, Suv39h enzymes, responsible for trimethylation of H3K9, also affect methylation of H3K56. Similarly, we demonstrate that trimethylation of H3K56 is removed by members of the JMJD2 family of demethylases that also target H3K9me3. Furthermore, we identify and characterize mouse mJmjd2E and its human homolog hKDM4L as novel, functionally active enzymes that catalyze the removal of two methyl groups from trimethylated H3K9 and K56. H3K56me3 is also found in C. elegans, where it co-localizes with H3K9me3 in most, but not all, tissues. Taken together, our findings raise interesting questions regarding how methylation of H3K9 and H3K56 is regulated in different organisms and their functional roles in heterochromatin formation and/or maintenance

Energy Assessment of Different Powertrain Options for Heavy-Duty Vehicles and Energy Implications of Autonomous Driving

Heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) are responsible for a significant amount of CO2 emissions in the transport sector. The share of these vehicles is still increasing in the European Union (EU); nevertheless, rigorous CO2 emission reduction schemes will apply in the near future. Different measures to decrease CO2 emissions are being already discussed, e.g., the electrification of the powertrain. Additionally, the impact of autonomous driving on energy consumption is being investigated. The most common types are fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs) and battery-only vehicles (BEVs). It is still unclear which type of powertrain will prevail in the future. Therefore, we developed a method to compare different powertrain options based on different scenarios in terms of primary energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and fuel costs. We compared the results with the internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV). The model includes a model for the climatization of the drivers cabin, which we used to investigate the impact of autonomous driving on energy consumption. It became clear that certain powertrains offer advantages for certain applications and that sensitivities exist with regard to primary energy and CO2 emissions. Overall, it became clear that electrified powertrains could reduce the CO2 emissions and the primary energy consumption of HDVs. Moreover, autonomous vehicles can save energy in most cases