5,780 research outputs found
Organizational energy: A behavioral analysis of human and organizational factors in manufacturing
This paper seeks to explore the behavior and embodied energy involved in the decision-making of information technology/information systems (IT/IS) investments using a case within a small- to medium-sized manufacturing firm. By analyzing decision making within a given case context, this paper describes the nature of the investment through the lens of behavioral economics, causality, input-output (IO) equilibrium, and the general notion of depletion of executive energy function. To explore the interplay between these elements, the authors structure the case context via a morphological field in order to construct a fuzzy cognitive map of decision-making relationships relating to the multidimensional and nonquantifiable problems of IT/IS investment evaluation. Noting the significance of inputs and outputs relating to the investment decision within the case, the authors assess these cognitive interrelationships through the lens of the Leontief IO energy equilibrium model. Subsequently, the authors suggest, through an embodied energy audit, that all such management decisions are susceptible to decision fatigue (so-called 'ego depletion'). The findings of this paper highlight pertinent cognitive and IO paths of the investment decision-making process that will allow others making similar types of investments to learn from and draw parallels from such processes
Top-antitop pair hadroproduction in association with a heavy boson at the NLO QCD accuracy + Parton Shower
The PowHel framework allows to make predictions of total and differential
cross-sections of multiparticle hadroproduction processes at both NLO QCD
accuracy and NLO QCD matched to Parton Shower, on the basis of the interface
between the POWHEG-BOX and HELAC-NLO codes. It has already been applied to
study several processes involving a top-antitop pair in association with a
third particle or hadronic jet. Our most recent predictions concern
top-antitop-V hadroproduction (with V = W or Z), at both parton and hadron
level, by considering different decay channels (hadronic and leptonic) of the
heavy particles. In particular, we show the results of our phenomenological
analyses under the same system of cuts also recently adopted by the CMS
collaboration at LHC.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of TOP 2012 - 5th International
Workshop on Top Quark Physics, September 16 - 21 2012, Winchester, U
t tbar W and t tbar Z Hadroproduction at NLO accuracy in QCD with Parton Shower and Hadronization effects
We present theoretical predictions for the hadroproduction of t tbar W+, t
tbar W- and t tbar Z at LHC as obtained by matching numerical computations at
NLO accuracy in QCD with Shower Monte Carlo programs. The calculation is
performed by PowHel, relying on the POWHEG-BOX framework, that allows for the
matching between the fixed order computation, with input of matrix elements
produced by the HELAC-NLO collection of event generators, and the Parton Shower
evolution, followed by hadronization and hadron decays as described by PYTHIA
and HERWIG. We focus on the dilepton and trilepton decay channels, studied
recently by the CMS Collaboration.Comment: 21 pages 12 figure
Z0 - boson production in association with a top anti-top pair at NLO accuracy with parton shower effects
We present predictions for the production cross section of a Standard Model
Z0-boson in association with a top-antitop pair at the next-to-leading order
accuracy in QCD, matched with shower Monte Carlo programs to evolve the system
down to the hadronization energy scale. We adopt a framework based on three
well established numerical codes, namely the POWHEG-BOX, used for computing the
cross section, HELAC-NLO, which generates all necessary input matrix elements,
and finally a parton shower program, such as PYTHIA or HERWIG, which allows for
including t-quark and Z0-boson decays at the leading order accuracy and
generates shower emissions, hadronization and hadron decays.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; found and corrected a bug in the
phenomenological analysis, just affecting Fig.4 - 5 that turn out to change
slightly with respect to our previous version and the cross-section values
after all cuts. Conclusions qualitatively unchange
Tracking Users across the Web via TLS Session Resumption
User tracking on the Internet can come in various forms, e.g., via cookies or
by fingerprinting web browsers. A technique that got less attention so far is
user tracking based on TLS and specifically based on the TLS session resumption
mechanism. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first that investigate the
applicability of TLS session resumption for user tracking. For that, we
evaluated the configuration of 48 popular browsers and one million of the most
popular websites. Moreover, we present a so-called prolongation attack, which
allows extending the tracking period beyond the lifetime of the session
resumption mechanism. To show that under the observed browser configurations
tracking via TLS session resumptions is feasible, we also looked into DNS data
to understand the longest consecutive tracking period for a user by a
particular website. Our results indicate that with the standard setting of the
session resumption lifetime in many current browsers, the average user can be
tracked for up to eight days. With a session resumption lifetime of seven days,
as recommended upper limit in the draft for TLS version 1.3, 65% of all users
in our dataset can be tracked permanently.Comment: 11 page
Measurement of Intraspinal Pressure After Spinal Cord Injury: Technical Note from the Injured Spinal Cord Pressure Evaluation Study.
Intracranial pressure (ICP) is routinely measured in patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). We describe a novel technique that allowed us to monitor intraspinal pressure (ISP) at the injury site in 14 patients who had severe acute traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI), analogous to monitoring ICP after brain injury. A Codman probe was inserted subdurally to measure the pressure of the injured spinal cord compressed against the surrounding dura. Our key finding is that it is feasible and safe to monitor ISP for up to a week in patients after TSCI, starting within 72 h of the injury. With practice, probe insertion and calibration take less than 10 min. The ISP signal characteristics after TSCI were similar to the ICP signal characteristics recorded after TBI. Importantly, there were no associated complications. Future studies are required to determine whether reducing ISP improves neurological outcome after severe TSCI
Privacy Leakage of Physical Activity Levels in Wireless Embedded Wearable Systems
International audienceWith the ubiquity of sensing technologies in our personal spaces, the protection of our privacy and the confidentiality of sensitive data becomes a major concern. In this paper, we focus on wearable embedded systems that communicate data periodically over the wireless medium. In this context, we demonstrate that private information about the physical activity levels of the wearer can leak to an eavesdropper through the physical layer. Indeed, we show that the physical activity levels strongly correlate with changes in the wireless channel that can be captured by measuring the signal strength of the eavesdropped frames. We practically validate this correlation in several scenarios in a real residential environment, using data collected by our prototype wearable accelerometer-based sensor. Lastly, we propose a privacy enhancement algorithm that mitigates the leakage of this private information
Feynman rules for the rational part of the Electroweak 1-loop amplitudes
We present the complete set of Feynman rules producing the rational terms of
kind R_2 needed to perform any 1-loop calculation in the Electroweak Standard
Model. Our results are given both in the 't Hooft-Veltman and in the Four
Dimensional Helicity regularization schemes. We also verified, by using both
the 't Hooft-Feynman gauge and the Background Field Method, a huge set of Ward
identities -up to 4-points- for the complete rational part of the Electroweak
amplitudes. This provides a stringent check of our results and, as a
by-product, an explicit test of the gauge invariance of the Four Dimensional
Helicity regularization scheme in the complete Standard Model at 1-loop. The
formulae presented in this paper provide the last missing piece for completely
automatizing, in the framework of the OPP method, the 1-loop calculations in
the SU(3) X SU(2) X U(1) Standard Model.Comment: Many thanks to Huasheng Shao for having recomputed, independently of
us, all of the effective vertices. Thanks to his help and by
comparing with an independent computation we performed in a general
gauge, we could fix, in the present version, the following formulae: the
vertex in Eq. (3.6), the vertex in Eq. (3.8),
Eqs (3.16), (3.17) and (3.18
Prediction and evaluation of nonlinear site response with potentially liquefiable layers in the area of Nafplion (Peloponnesus, Greece) for a repeat of historical earthquakes
We examine the possible non-linear behaviour of potentially liquefiable layers at selected sites located within the expansion area of the town of Nafplion, East Peloponnese, Greece. Input motion is computed for three scenario earthquakes, selected on the basis of historical seismicity data, using a stochastic strong ground motion simulation technique, which takes into account the finite dimensions of the earthquake sources. Site-specific ground acceleration synthetics and soil profiles are then used to evaluate the liquefaction potential at the sites of interest. The activation scenario of the Iria fault, which is the closest one to Nafplion (<i>M</i>=6.4), is found to be the most hazardous in terms of liquefaction initiation. In this scenario almost all the examined sites exhibit liquefaction features at depths of 6–12 m. For scenario earthquakes at two more distant seismic sources (Epidaurus fault – <i>M</i>6.3; Xylokastro fault – <i>M</i>6.7) strong ground motion amplification phenomena by the shallow soft soil layer are expected to be observed
Numerical Evaluation of Six-Photon Amplitudes
We apply the recently proposed amplitude reduction at the integrand level
method, to the computation of the scattering process 2 photons -> 4 photons,
including the case of a massive fermion loop. We also present several
improvements of the method, including a general strategy to reconstruct the
rational part of any one-loop amplitude and the treatment of vanishing
Gram-determinants.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. Version accepted for publication in JHE
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