Non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear programming:a survey

A wide range of problems arising in practical applications can be formulated as Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs (MINLPs). For the case in which the objective and constraint functions are convex, some quite effective exact and heuristic algorithms are available. When nonconvexities are present, however, things become much more difficult, since then even the continuous relaxation is a global optimisation problem. We survey the literature on non-convex MINLP, discussing applications, algorithms and software. Special attention is paid to the case in which the objective and constraint functions are quadratic

First measurement of the left-right asymmetry in Z boson production

We present the first measurement of the left-right cross-section asymmetry (A(LR)) in Z-boson production observed at the SLAC Linear Collider. In 1992 the SLD detector recorded 10 224 Z events produced by the collision of longitudinally polarized electrons with an unpolarized positron beam at a center-of-mass energy of 91.55 GeV. The average electron beam polarization during the run was (22.4 +/- 0.6)%. We measure A(LR) to be 0.100 +/- 0.044 (stat.) +/- 0.004 (syst.), which determines the effective weak mixing angle to be sin2 theta(W)eff = 0.2378 +/- 0.0056 (stat.) +/- 0.0005 (syst.)