Using b-tagging to enhance the SUSY reach of the CERN Large Hadron Collider

Assuming that supersymmetry is realized with parameters in the hyperbolic branch/focus point (HB/FP) region of the minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) model, we show that by searching for multijet + missing E_T events with tagged b jets the reach of experiments at the LHC may be extended by as much as 20% from current projections. The reason for this is that gluino decays to third generation quarks are enhanced because the lightest neutralino has substantial higgsino components. Although we were motivated to perform this analysis because the HB/FP region is compatible with the recent determination of the relic density of cold dark matter, our considerations may well have a wider applicability since decays of gluinos to third generation quarks are favoured in a wide variety of models.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur

Perils of Hollywood Whitewashing?: A review of \u27Ghost in the Shell\u27 movie

\u27Ghost in the Shell\u27 was first produced as a Japanese animated film in 1995. The movie and its sequels established a cult status due to the philosophical depth in portraying the posthuman condition. It was remade as a live action Hollywood film in 2017; and this version failed at the box office. One reason had to be the “whitewashing” issue – that the female protagonist was played by a white actress in the Hollywood movie, rather than a Japanese character as in the original anime. This review essay critically discusses issues of whitewashing, racial ‘identity’, the shifting identity of the ‘cyborg’, and the constitutive tension between the human and the machine

Programmatic and Territorial Coherence: The Nationalization of Electoral Politics in Brazil in Comparative Perspective

The dynamics of electoral politics in contemporary Latin America have changed considerably since the democratic transition period of the 1980s and 1990s. Some established parties have collapsed, even while parties on the Left and Right that proved less competitive in these early elections managed over time to expand support and increase their representation in national legislatures. How were they able to do so? The key to answering this question lies in their capacity to nationalize their support base by building a programme-based elite with mass linkages. The Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) in Brazil has been among the most successful parties in drawing a nationwide swing of support. However, the principal arguments in the literature on party nationalization cannot account for such an equalizing swing of support because they mostly focus on variations between countries, not between parties. Hence it is important to take into account both elite and mass electoral preferences. For a party to succeed in nationalizing its support base, the left–right stances of individual politicians and supporters should be as collectively coherent along national issues between electoral districts as they would be within each district. This thesis develops this argument by focusing on the PT in Brazil. The empirical analysis draws on a series of elite and mass public opinion surveys conducted between 1997 and 2014

Bounds on Scalar Leptoquarks from Z Physics

We analyse the constraints on scalar leptoquarks coming from radiative corrections to $Z$ physics. We perform a global fitting to the LEP data including the contributions of the most general effective Lagrangian for scalar leptoquarks, which exhibits the $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ gauge invariance. We show that the bounds on leptoquarks that couple to the top quark are much stronger than the ones obtained from low energy experiments.Comment: RevTeX 3.0, 26 pages, 4 postscript figures included as uufil

From Social Marketing to Societal Perversion: History of Hometown Tax in Japan

This paper considers social marketing from a critical perspective. The paper traces the history of the donation system named ‘hometown tax’ that the Japanese government introduced to promote local revitalization of relatively marginal communities. Owing to the lavish reciprocal gifts to “donors” by the administrators of these communities, the system resulted in a quasi-market that allowed donors to avoid paying taxes and to receive special benefits. Our analysis reveals the divergence of the intents and effects of this social marketing intervention. The findings indicate that during social marketing attempts to carry out effective and well-intentioned interventions, which social marketing research has always advocated, societal perversions may occur sometimes. This is owing to the neoliberal governmentality, which is behind such interventions, and which causes unintended actions and consequences that distract from the ideal social good, even when interventions are formulated and launched with laudable intentions. This paper indicates the critical issues that social marketing should address and provides a reflective viewpoint on social marketing. It points to pitfalls and problems in effective interventions for individual behavioral change and social change

Signals for New Spin-1 Resonances in Electroweak Gauge Boson Pair Production at the LHC

The mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) will be directly scrutinized soon at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We analyze the LHC potential to look for new vector bosons associated with the EWSB sector. We present a possible model independent approach to search for these new spin--1 resonances. We show that the analyses of the processes pp --> l^+ l^- Emiss_T, l^\pm j j Emiss_T, l^\pm l^+ l^- Emiss_T, and l^+ l^- j j (with l=e or \mu and j=jet) have a large reach at the LHC and can lead to the discovery or exclusion of many EWSB scenarios such as Higgsless models.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure