Contraints on radiative dark-matter decay from the cosmic microwave background

If dark matter decays to electromagnetically-interacting particles, it can inject energy into the baryonic gas and thus affect the processes of recombination and reionization. This leaves an imprint on the cosmic microwave background (CMB): the large-scale polarization is enhanced, and the small-scale temperature fluctuation is damped. We use the WMAP three-year data combined with galaxy surveys to constrain radiatively decaying dark matter. Our new limits to the dark-matter decay width are about ten times stronger than previous limits. For dark-matter lifetimes that exceed the age of the Universe, a limit of $\zeta \Gamma_{\chi} < 1.7 \times 10^{-25} s^{-1}$ (95% CL) is derived, where $\zeta$ is the efficiency of converting decay energy into ionization energy. Limits for lifetimes short compared with the age of the Universe are also derived. We forecast improvements expected from the Planck satellite.Comment: replaced with version published on PR

Top quark spin and HtbHtb interaction in charged Higgs and top quark associated production at LHC

We study the charged Higgs production at LHC via its associated production with top quark. The kinematic cuts are optimized to suppress the background processes so that the reconstruction of the charged Higgs and top quark is possible. The angular distributions with respect to top quark spin are explored to study the $Htb$ interaction at LHC.Comment: 10 pages,5 figures, to appear in PR

Risk Intelligence: Making Profit from Uncertainty in Data Processing System

In extreme scale data processing systems, fault tolerance is an essential and indispensable part. Proactive fault tolerance scheme (such as the speculative execution in MapReduce framework) is introduced to dramatically improve the response time of job executions when the failure becomes a norm rather than an exception. Efficient proactive fault tolerance schemes require precise knowledge on the task executions, which has been an open challenge for decades. To well address the issue, in this paper we design and implement RiskI, a profile-based prediction algorithm in conjunction with a riskaware task assignment algorithm, to accelerate task executions, taking the uncertainty nature of tasks into account. Our design demonstrates that the nature uncertainty brings not only great challenges, but also new opportunities. With a careful design, we can benefit from such uncertainties. We implement the idea in Hadoop 0.21.0 systems and the experimental results show that, compared with the traditional LATE algorithm, the response time can be improved by 46% with the same system throughput

Handling Attrition in Longitudinal Studies: The Case for Refreshment Samples

Panel studies typically suffer from attrition, which reduces sample size and can result in biased inferences. It is impossible to know whether or not the attrition causes bias from the observed panel data alone. Refreshment samples - new, randomly sampled respondents given the questionnaire at the same time as a subsequent wave of the panel - offer information that can be used to diagnose and adjust for bias due to attrition. We review and bolster the case for the use of refreshment samples in panel studies. We include examples of both a fully Bayesian approach for analyzing the concatenated panel and refreshment data, and a multiple imputation approach for analyzing only the original panel. For the latter, we document a positive bias in the usual multiple imputation variance estimator. We present models appropriate for three waves and two refreshment samples, including nonterminal attrition. We illustrate the three-wave analysis using the 2007-2008 Associated Press-Yahoo! News Election Poll.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-STS414 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Closed-loop control of complex networks : A trade-off between time and energy

W. L. is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grants No. 11322111 and No. 61773125). Y.-Z. S. is supported by the NSFC (Grant No. 61403393). Y.-C. L. acknowledges support from the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship program sponsored by the Basic Research Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and funded by the Office of Naval Research through Grant No. N00014-16-1-2828. Y.-Z. S. and S.-Y. L. contributed equally to this work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Performance Evaluation of Heat Transfer Enhancement in Plate-fin Heat Exchangers with Offset Strip Fins

AbstractGenerally, the Offset Strip Fin (OSF) in a plate-fin heat exchanger provides a greater heat transfer coefficient than plain plate-fin, but it also leads to an increase in flow friction. A new parameter, called relative entropy generation distribution factor, Ψ*, is proposed to evaluate the thermodynamic advantages of OSFs. This parameter presents a ratio of relative changes of entropy generation. The relative effects of the geometrical parameters α, γ and δ are discussed. The results show that there exist the optimum values of α and γ at a certain flow condition, which obviously maximize the degree of the heat transfer enhancement of OSFs