Radiative Penguin Decays at the B Factories

An overview of the measurements of b->s\gamma, b->d\gamma and b->sll penguin transitions at the B Factories is presented.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the "Flavor Physics & CP Violation Conference, Vancouver, 2006". 6 pages, 6 figures. (Revisions move two figure for better alignment, fix a typo in one of the references and add one theory reference.

Fourth Family Neutrinos and the Higgs Boson

We evaluate the LHC discovery potential for the fourth family Standard Model neutrinos in the process $pp\to Z/h\to\nu_{4}{\bar{\nu}_{4}}\to W\mu W\mu$. We show that, depending on their masses, the simultaneous discovery of both the Higgs boson and the heavy neutrinos is probable at early stages of LHC operation. Results are presented for both Majorana and Dirac type fourth family neutrinos.Comment: 12 pages, uses axodraw.sty, v2: includes typo fixes, improved analysis, v4: minor modifications in response to the JHEP refere

Possible Single Resonant Production of the Fourth Generation Charged Leptons at γe\gamma e Colliders

Single resonant productions of the fourth standard model generation charged lepton via anomalous interactions at gamma e colliders based on future linear e^+ e^- colliders with 500 GeV and 1 TeV center of mass energies are studied. Signatures of $\gamma e\to \ell_4\to e\gamma$ and $\gamma e\to \ell_4\to eZ$ anomalous processes followed by the hadronic and leptonic decay of the Z boson and corresponding standard model backgrounds are discussed in details. The lowest necessary luminosities to observe these processes and the achievable values of the anomalous coupling strengths are determined.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 4 table

Fermions with non-SM Couplings at ATLAS

ATLAS search potential for heavy quarks and neutrinos with non-SM-like decays are presented. In particular, heavy isosinglet quarks from E6GUT and heavy Majorana neutrinos from LRSM models are discussed

Optimal univariate expectations under high and persistent inflation: New evidence from Turkey

The poor performance of sticky-price models with rational expectations in explaining the inflationary inertia in the US economy constitutes the basis for sticky-price models of near-rational expectations in the recent literature. However, previous studies on inflationary inertia in Turkey not only lack a model of nominal stickiness but also do not try to explain inflation persistence by expectations. Even though, there exists evidence for persistent inflation in Turkey as confirmed by earlier studies, and other studies provide evidence that expectations are neither perfectly rational nor purely adaptive, there is no attempt to link this near-rational behavior to inflationary inertia. Given this gap, this paper, therefore, tests empirically a sticky-price model under the assumption of near-rational expectations on two different inflation episodes in the Turkish economy. The near-rational expectations as described by optimal univariate expectations where agents use information on past inflation optimally while data on other variables are ignored, not only fit the data for both periods but also are not subject to Lucas critique. Alternatively, near-rational expectations are assumed to be backward looking. This alternative scenario shows that optimal univariate expectations perform even better during relatively higher inflation periods. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Improving Performance of Agents by Activity Partitioning

There is growing interest in software agents that provide a variety of services to humans, other agents, and third party software applications. Some of these agents are engaged in hundreds of activities at any given time point. In such cases, agents may try to examine a set A of activities and leverage commonalities between them in order to reduce their load. We call this activity merging. Unfortunately, in most application domains, activity merging turns out to be NP-complete. Thus, for each application domain, there is an integer k (which varies from domain to domain) such that activity merging can merge up to k activities while satisfying the application's performance expectations. In this paper, we consider the problem of what to do when the set of activities exceeds k. Our approach partitions A into disjoint sets A1 union A2 union ... union An such that each Ai contains at most k activities in it (thus the activities in each Ai can be merged using a merging algorithm). When creating such partitions, we would like to ensure that the activities inside each Ai share a lot of commonality, so that merging yields a lot of savings. In this paper, we propose two optimal algorithms (based on the A* algorithm and the branch and bound paradigm), as well as numerous greedy algorithms to solve the problem. We have implemented these algorithms and conducted detailed experiments. The results point out which algorithms are most appropriate for scaling agent performance. UMIACS-TR-2002-9

Neural network-based image reconstruction in swept-source optical coherence tomography using undersampled spectral data

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a widely used non-invasive biomedical imaging modality that can rapidly provide volumetric images of samples. Here, we present a deep learning-based image reconstruction framework that can generate swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) images using undersampled spectral data, without any spatial aliasing artifacts. This neural network-based image reconstruction does not require any hardware changes to the optical set-up and can be easily integrated with existing swept-source or spectral domain OCT systems to reduce the amount of raw spectral data to be acquired. To show the efficacy of this framework, we trained and blindly tested a deep neural network using mouse embryo samples imaged by an SS-OCT system. Using 2-fold undersampled spectral data (i.e., 640 spectral points per A-line), the trained neural network can blindly reconstruct 512 A-lines in ~6.73 ms using a desktop computer, removing spatial aliasing artifacts due to spectral undersampling, also presenting a very good match to the images of the same samples, reconstructed using the full spectral OCT data (i.e., 1280 spectral points per A-line). We also successfully demonstrate that this framework can be further extended to process 3x undersampled spectral data per A-line, with some performance degradation in the reconstructed image quality compared to 2x spectral undersampling. This deep learning-enabled image reconstruction approach can be broadly used in various forms of spectral domain OCT systems, helping to increase their imaging speed without sacrificing image resolution and signal-to-noise ratio.Comment: 20 Pages, 7 Figures, 1 Tabl

Warm perineal compresses during the second stage of labor for reducing perineal trauma: A meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE: Perineal trauma may have a negative impact on women's lives as it has been associated with perineal pain, urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was to evaluate the effectiveness of warm compresses during the second stage of labor in reducing perineal trauma. METHODS: Electronic databases were searched from inception of each database to May 2019. Inclusion criteria were randomized trials comparing warm compresses (i.e. intervention group) with no warm compresses (i.e. control group) during the second stage of labor. Types of participants included pregnant women planning to have a spontaneous vaginal birth at term with a singleton in a cephalic presentation. The primary outcome was the incidence of intact perineum. Meta-analysis was performed using the Cochrane Collaboration methodology with results being reported as relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: Seven trials, including 2103 participants, were included in this meta-analysis. Women assigned to the intervention group received warm compresses made from clean washcloths or perineal pads immersed in warm tap water. These were held against the woman's perineum during and in between pushes in second stage. Warm compresses usually started when the baby's head began to distend the perineum or when there was active fetal descent in the second stage of labor. We found a higher rate of intact perineum in the intervention group compared to the control group (22.4% vs 15.4%; RR 1.46, 95% CI 1.22 to 1.74); a lower rate of third degree tears (1.9% vs 5.0%; RR 0.38, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.64), fourth degree tears (0.0% vs 0.9%; RR 0.11, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.86) third and fourth degree tears combined (1.9% vs 5.8%; RR 0.34, 95% CI 0.20 to 0.56) and episiotomy (10.4% vs 17.1%; RR 0.61, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.74). CONCLUSION: Warm compresses applied during the second stage of labor increase the incidence of intact perineum and lower the risk of episiotomy and severe perineal trauma