Asymmetry at LHC for an U(1)' anomalous extension of MSSM

The measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry at LHC could be an important instrument to pinpoint the features of extra neutral gauge particles obtained by an extension of the gauge symmetry group of the standard model. For definitiveness, in this work we consider an extension of the gauge group of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model by an extra anomalous U(1) gauge symmetry (MiAUMSSM). We focus on pp -> e+e- at LHC and use four different definitions of the asymmetry obtained implementing four different cuts on the directions and momenta of the final states of our process of interest. The calculations are performed without imposing constraints on the charges of the extra Z's of our model, since the anomaly is cancelled by a Green-Schwarz type mechanism. Our final result is a fit of our data with a polynomial in the charges from which to extract the values of the charges given the experimental result.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure

Affective norms for italian words in older adults: Age differences in ratings of valence, arousal and dominance

In line with the dimensional theory of emotional space, we developed affective norms for words rated in terms of valence, arousal and dominance in a group of older adults to complete the adaptation of the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) for Italian and to aid research on aging. Here, as in the original Italian ANEW database, participants evaluated valence, arousal, and dominance by means of the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) in a paper-and-pencil procedure. We observed high split-half reliabilities within the older sample and high correlations with the affective ratings of previous research, especially for valence, suggesting that there is large agreement among older adults within and across-languages. More importantly, we found high correlations between younger and older adults, showing that our data are generalizable across different ages. However, despite this across-ages accord, we obtained age-related differences on three affective dimensions for a great number of words. In particular, older adults rated as more arousing and more unpleasant a number of words that younger adults rated as moderately unpleasant and arousing in our previous affective norms. Moreover, older participants rated negative stimuli as more arousing and positive stimuli as less arousing than younger participants, thus leading to a less-curved distribution of ratings in the valence by arousal space. We also found more extreme ratings for older adults for the relationship between dominance and arousal: older adults gave lower dominance and higher arousal ratings for words rated by younger adults with middle dominance and arousal values. Together, these results suggest that our affective norms are reliable and can be confidently used to select words matched for the affective dimensions of valence, arousal and dominance across younger and older participants for future research in aging. Figure

Memory and comprehension deficits in spatial descriptions of children with non-verbal and reading disabilities

open4The present study investigated the difficulties encountered by children with non-verbal learning disability (NLD) and reading disability (RD) when processing spatial information derived from descriptions, based on the assumption that both groups should find it more difficult than matched controls, but for different reasons, i.e., due to a memory encoding difficulty in cases of RD and to spatial information comprehension problems in cases of NLD. Spatial descriptions from both survey and route perspectives were presented to 9-12-year-old children divided into three groups: NLD (N = 12); RD (N = 12), and typically developing controls (TD; N = 15); then participants completed a sentence verification task and a memory for locations task. The sentence verification task was presented in two conditions: in one the children could refer to the text while answering the questions (i.e., text present condition), and in the other the text was withdrawn (i.e., text absent condition). Results showed that the RD group benefited from the text present condition, but was impaired to the same extent as the NLD group in the text absent condition, suggesting that the NLD children's difficulty is due mainly to their poor comprehension of spatial descriptions, while the RD children's difficulty is due more to a memory encoding problem. These results are discussed in terms of their implications in the neuropsychological profiles of children with NLD or RD, and the processes involved in spatial descriptions.openIrene C. Mammarella;Chiara Meneghetti;Francesca Pazzaglia;Cesare CornoldiMammarella, IRENE CRISTINA; Meneghetti, Chiara; Pazzaglia, Francesca; Cornoldi, Cesar

Evaluation of machine vision techniques for use within flight control systems

In this thesis, two of the main technical limitations for a massive deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) have been considered.;The Aerial Refueling problem is analyzed in the first section. A solution based on the integration of \u27conventional\u27 GPS/INS and Machine Vision sensor is proposed with the purpose of measuring the relative distance between a refueling tanker and UAV. In this effort, comparisons between Point Matching (PM) algorithms and Pose Estimation (PE) algorithms have been developed in order to improve the performance of the Machine Vision sensor. A method of integration based on Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) between GPS/INS and Machine Vision system is also developed with the goal of reducing the tracking error in the \u27pre-contact\u27 to contact and refueling phases.;In the second section of the thesis the issue of Collision Identification (CI) is addressed. A proposed solution consists on the use of Optical Flow (OF) algorithms for the detection of possible collisions in the range of vision of a single camera. The effort includes a study of the performance of different Optical Flow algorithms in different scenarios as well as a method to compute the ideal optical flow with the aim of evaluating the algorithms. An analysis on the suitability for a future real time implementation is also performed for all the analyzed algorithms.;Results of the tests show that the Machine Vision technology can be used to improve the performance in the Aerial Refueling problem. In the Collision Identification problem, the Machine Vision has to be integrated with standard sensors in order to be used inside the Flight Control System