Beam-beam effects in the high-pile-up tests of the LHC

Investigating the beam-beam limit in the LHC is of great importance, since identifying its source is crucial for the luminosity optimization scenario. Several experiments were carried out to search for this limit and check whether it is dominated by the head-on (HO) or the long-range (LR) interactions. In this paper only the HO collision effects will be considered, tracking the evolution of the maximum tune shift achieved during the dedicated machine developments and the special high pile-up fills.Comment: 7 pages, contribution to the ICFA Mini-Workshop on Beam-Beam Effects in Hadron Colliders, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, 18-22 Mar 201

Guiding Ebola Patients to Suitable Health Facilities: An SMS-based Approach

We propose to utilize mobile phone technology as a vehicle for people to report their symptoms and to receive immediate feedback about the health services readily available, and for predicting spatial disease outbreak risk. Once symptoms are extracted from the patients text message, they undergo complex classification, pattern matching and prediction to recommend the nearest suitable health service. The added benefit of this approach is that it enables health care facilities to anticipate arrival of new potential Ebola cases

The Effect Of Face Threat Mitigation On Instructor Credibility And Student Motivation In The Absence Of Instructor Nonverbal Immediacy

Many years of communication research have shown that an increase in immediacy has been a major factor that affects students‘ perceptions of instructor credibility which in turn affects, both students‘ cognitive and affective learning, student state motivation and a variety of other positive outcomes. However, in order for immediacy to be effective, instructor and student must be in the same location at the same time. With the recent push toward on-line classes, what can we find to act like immediacy in a text based format? This research suggests that face threat mitigation can be used in a text-based environment, to achieve the pro-social goals of instructor credibility and student state motivation to the same extent as it does when coupled with immediacy. This study is a replication of a study done by Witt and Kerssen-Griep (2012). In the original study face threat mitigation (FTM) was coupled with instructor nonverbal immediacy (NVI) and they examined the impact these factors had on instructor credibility (i.e., competence, character, and caring) and student state motivation in a video simulated feedback situation. This study surveyed 218 undergraduate students in an introductory communication course. Students were randomly assigned to read hypothetical scenarios in which FTM was manipulated in a manner similar to Witt and Kerssen-Griep‘s study. They responded to three scales. The current study removed the instructor by using a simulated electronic feedback correspondence. Results of a MANCOVA and four separate ANOVAs were similar to those of the original findings. FTM was found to have a significant positive relationship with instructor credibility (i.e., competence, character, and caring) and student state motivation

Financial Crises and Government Regulation

In the midst of turmoil, regulation is “a rule or directive made and maintained by an authority” to maintain order. More often than not, the authoritative figure that imposes and upholds regulatory standards, following its introduction to the specific industry or firm, is the government of the respective country or region. However, politicians, like the rest of us, are unable to predict when a crisis will occur and what appropriate regulation should be imposed to prevent that crisis. Thus, an inevitable concern with regulation is the fact that it is unable to thwart an unforeseeable future crisis but is instead a preventative measure in response to a previous event. As is the case with crises before and after the Financial Crisis of 2008, the imposition of new laws like Dodd-Frank and others were enacted following the destructive effects of each crisis. Unfortunately, financial crises are seemingly inevitable, as people are ultimately self-interested and continue to find loopholes in the laws of the financial system to create incredible profits by unlawful means. Currently the Foreign Exchange Market is facing this very issue in its own crisis as people within the industry are consistently taking advantage of a lack of regulatory infrastructure to make money. What regulations will be imposed remains to be seen. In this paper I will compare the factors that caused each respective crisis and determine what can be learned from the financial crisis and its resulting regulations that applies to the Foreign Exchange Market crisis