Exclusive Baryonic B Decays Circa 2005

The status of exclusive two-body and three-body baryonic B decays is reviewed. The threshold enhancement effect in the dibaryon invariant mass and the angular distributions in the dibaryon rest frame are stressed and explained. Weak radiative baryonic B decays mediated by the electromagnetic penguin process $b\to s\gamma$ are discussed. Puzzles with the correlation observed in $B^-\to p\bar pK^-$ decay and the unexpectedly large rate observed for $B\to\Lambda_c\bar\Lambda_cK$ are examined. The former may indicate that the $p\bar p$ system is produced through some intermediate states, while the latter implies the failure of naive factorization for $\Lambda\bar\Lambda K$ modes and may hint at the importance of final-state rescattering effects.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, talk presented at 3rd International Conference on Flavor Physics, Oct 3-8, 2005, National Central Univ. Chung-li, Taiwa

SNAP satellite focal plane development

The proposed SuperNova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP) mission will have a two-meter class telescope delivering diffraction-limited images to an instrumented 0.7 square degree field in the visible and near-infrared wavelength regime. The requirements for the instrument suite and the present configuration of the focal plane concept are presented. A two year R&D phase, largely supported by the Department of Energy, is just beginning. We describe the development activities that are taking place to advance our preparedness for mission proposal in the areas of detectors and electronics

Pseudovector components of the pion, pi^0 -> gamma gamma, and F_pi(q^2)

As a consequence of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking the pion Bethe-Salpeter amplitude necessarily contains terms proportional to gamma_5 gamma.P and gamma_5 gamma.k, where k is the relative and P the total momentum of the constituents. These terms are essential for the preservation of low energy theorems, such as the Gell-Mann--Oakes-Renner relation and those describing anomalous decays of the pion, and to obtaining an electromagnetic pion form factor that falls as 1/q^2 for large q^2, up to calculable ln(q^2)-corrections. In a simple model, which correlates low- and high-energy pion observables, we find q^2 F_pi(q^2) ~ 0.12 - 0.19 GeV^2 for q^2 >~10 GeV^2.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, REVTE

Pion Form Factor in the NLC QCD SR approach

We present results of a calculation of the electromagnetic pion form factor within a framework of QCD Sum Rules with nonlocal condensates and using a perturbative spectral density which includes \mathcal{O}(\alpha_s) contributions.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures (embedded). Talk presented by the second author at the Workshop on Physics of Fundamental Interactions, Institute of High Energy Physics, Protvino, Russia, 22--25 December 200

Active cooling control of the CLEO detector using a hydrocarbon coolant farm

We describe a novel approach to particle-detector cooling in which a modular farm of active coolant-control platforms provides independent and regulated heat removal from four recently upgraded subsystems of the CLEO detector: the ring-imaging Cherenkov detector, the drift chamber, the silicon vertex detector, and the beryllium beam pipe. We report on several aspects of the system: the suitability of using the aliphatic-hydrocarbon solvent PF(TM)-200IG as a heat-transfer fluid, the sensor elements and the mechanical design of the farm platforms, a control system that is founded upon a commercial programmable logic controller employed in industrial process-control applications, and a diagnostic system based on virtual instrumentation. We summarize the system's performance and point out the potential application of the design to future high-energy physics apparatus.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, 5 PostScript figures; version accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research

Does J/ψ→π+π−J/\psi \rightarrow \pi^{+} \pi^{-} fix the Electromagnetic Form Factor Fπ(t)F_{\pi}(t) at t=MJ/ψ2t=M_{J/\psi}^2?

We show that the $J/\psi \rightarrow \pi^{+} \pi^{-}$ decay is a reliable source of information for the electromagnetic form factor of the pion at $t=M_{J/\psi}^2=9.6 {\rm GeV}^2$ by using general arguments to estimate, or rather, put upper bounds on, the background processes that could spoil this extraction. We briefly comment on the significance of the resulting $F_{\pi}(M_{J/\psi}^2)$.Comment: 10 pages revtex manuscript, one figure--not included, U. of MD PP #94-00

Brokering intercultural relations in the rainbow nation: introducing intercultural marketing

This paper considers the role of marketing in building intercultural relations in superdiverse, post-colonial societies, using post-apartheid South Africa as a case study. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, we analyze South African advertising campaigns to determine how marketing brokers intercultural relations by legitimizing social meanings conveyed through nation-building ideologies and consumers’ lived experiences. We examine whether marketing outputs align with stages of Rainbow Nation-building strategies and types of consumers’ lived experiences of South Africa’s superdiversity. We then derive a conceptualization of intercultural marketing, which we characterize as an approach focused on brokering meanings of convivial intercultural engagement and collective development of societal welfare goals. We contribute to macromarketing theory, directing attention to the important brokering role marketing has, in bridging conceptions of reconciliatory social development held by public policy makers and by societies’ populations. By conceptualizing intercultural marketing, its goals and tools, we contribute to multiculturally-sensitive marketing research and practice advancement

New Constraints on Dispersive Form Factor Parameterizations from the Timelike Region

We generalize a recent model-independent form factor parameterization derived from rigorous dispersion relations to include constraints from data in the timelike region. These constraints dictate the convergence properties of the parameterization and appear as sum rules on the parameters. We further develop a new parameterization that takes into account finiteness and asymptotic conditions on the form factor, and use it to fit to the elastic \pi electromagnetic form factor. We find that the existing world sample of timelike data gives only loose bounds on the form factor in the spacelike region, but explain how the acquisition of additional timelike data or fits to other form factors are expected to give much better results. The same parameterization is seen to fit spacelike data extremely well.Comment: 24 pages, latex (revtex), 3 eps figure

Branching Ratio and CP Violation of B to pi pi Decays in Perturbative QCD Approach

We calculate the branching ratios and CP asymmetries for B^0 to pi^+pi^-, B^+ to pi^+pi^0 and B^0 to pi^0pi^0 decays, in a perturbative QCD approach. In this approach, we calculate non-factorizable and annihilation type contributions, in addition to the usual factorizable contributions. We found that the annihilation diagram contributions are not very small as previous argument. Our result is in agreement with the measured branching ratio of B to pi^+pi^- by CLEO collaboration. With a non-negligible contribution from annihilation diagrams and a large strong phase, we predict a large direct CP asymmetry in B^0 to pi^+pi^-, and pi^0pi^0, which can be tested by the current running B factories.Comment: Latex, 28 pages including 11 figures; added contents and figures, corrected typo

Person localization using sensor information fusion

Nowadays the incredible grow of mobile devices market led to the need for location-aware applications. However, sometimes person location is di cult to obtain, since most of these devices only have a GPS (Global Positioning System) chip to retrieve location. In order to sup- press this limitation and to provide location everywhere (even where a structured environment doesn't exist) a wearable inertial navigation sys- tem is proposed, which is a convenient way to track people in situations where other localization systems fail. The system combines pedestrian dead reckoning with GPS, using widely available, low-cost and low-power hardware components. The system innovation is the information fusion and the use of probabilistic methods to learn persons gait behavior to correct, in real-time, the drift errors given by the sensors.This work is part-funded by ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER- 028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012). Ricardo also acknowledge FCT for the support of his work through the PhD grant (SFRH/DB/70248/2010)