CMS conditions data access using FroNTier

The CMS experiment at the LHC has established an infrastructure using the FroNTier framework to deliver conditions (i.e. calibration, alignment, etc.) data to processing clients worldwide. FroNTier is a simple web service approach providing client HTTP access to a central database service. The system for CMS has been developed to work with POOL which provides object relational mapping between the C++ clients and various database technologies. Because of the read only nature of the data, Squid proxy caching servers are maintained near clients and these caches provide high performance data access. Several features have been developed to make the system meet the needs of CMS including careful attention to cache coherency with the central database, and low latency loading required for the operation of the online High Level Trigger. The ease of deployment, stability of operation, and high performance make the FroNTier approach well suited to the GRID environment being used for CMS offline, as well as for the online environment used by the CMS High Level Trigger (HLT). The use of standard software, such as Squid and various monitoring tools, make the system reliable, highly configurable and easily maintained. We describe the architecture, software, deployment, performance, monitoring and overall operational experience for the system

The Impact of Writing Supports on Secondary World History Students

Over the last decade, a movement has developed for Social Studies classrooms to move away from rote memorization to teaching historical skills. In an age of major questions about public education and its role in society, it is important as ever for Social Studies to redefine itself. However, many students struggle with reading and writing, both fundamental skills. Students cite a lack of confidence, embarrassment, and ‘not liking writing,’ as reasons for difficulties. This means finding ways to make writing a meaningful process is important. Additionally, teachers cite their lack of confidence in teaching writing, making finding effective supports essential. The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of structured supports for writing assignments in a Secondary World History classroom. This quasi-experimental study will use in-class activities to see how certain structured supports and scaffolding strategies can improve outcomes for students in their writing and content comprehension. This study will be conducted in a ninth grade World History classroom that is a yearlong course. The research will be undertaken in the spring of 2023. Two classes of students will be asked to complete writing assignments. Student outcomes will be measured with a pre-writing assignment and a writing assignment at the end of the learning segment. A journal will be kept, noting student attitudes, and success levels. A pre-and post-research survey will be administered to gauge their perception of the writing supports and how the writing assignment helped them better understand the content

Contextual Constraint Modeling in Grid Application Workflows

This paper introduces a new mechanism for specifying constraints in distributed workflows. By introducing constraints in a contextual form, it is shown how different people and groups within collaborative communities can cooperatively constrain workflows. A comparison with existing state-of-the-art workflow systems is made. These ideas are explored in practice with an illustrative example from High Energy Physics.

Measurement of charged-particle multiplicities in gluon and quark jets in p(p)over-bar collisions at root s=1.8 TeV

We report the first largely model independent measurement of charged particle multiplicities in quark and gluon jets, N-q and N-g, produced at the Fermilab Tevatron in p (p) over bar collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 1.8 TeV and recorded by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. The measurements are made for jets with average energies of 41 and 53 GeV by counting charged particle tracks in cones with opening angles of θ(c)=0.28, 0.36, and 0.47 rad around the jet axis. The corresponding jet hardness Q=E-jetθ(c) varies in the range from 12 to 25 GeV. At Q=19.2 GeV, the ratio of multiplicities r=N-g/N-q is found to be 1.64± 0.17, where statistical and systematic uncertainties are added in quadrature. The results are in agreement with resummed perturbative QCD calculations