Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

Shrinking a large dataset to identify variables associated with increased risk of Plasmodium falciparum infection in Western Kenya

Large datasets are often not amenable to analysis using traditional single-step approaches. Here, our general objective was to apply imputation techniques, principal component analysis (PCA), elastic net and generalized linear models to a large dataset in a systematic approach to extract the most meaningful predictors for a health outcome. We extracted predictors for Plasmodium falciparum infection, from a large covariate dataset while facing limited numbers of observations, using data from the People, Animals, and their Zoonoses (PAZ) project to demonstrate these techniques: data collected from 415 homesteads in western Kenya, contained over 1500 variables that describe the health, environment, and social factors of the humans, livestock, and the homesteads in which they reside. The wide, sparse dataset was simplified to 42 predictors of P. falciparum malaria infection and wealth rankings were produced for all homesteads. The 42 predictors make biological sense and are supported by previous studies. This systematic data-mining approach we used would make many large datasets more manageable and informative for decision-making processes and health policy prioritization

On the Yao-Yao partition theorem

The Yao-Yao partition theorem states that given a probability measure on an affine space of dimension n having a density which is continuous and bounded away from 0, it is possible to partition the space into 2^n regions of equal measure in such a way that every affine hyperplane avoids at least one of the regions. We give a constructive proof of this result and extend it to slightly more general measures.Comment: 10 pages, file might be slightly different from the published versio

Magnetic domain evolution in permalloy mesoscopic dots

Permalloy (Ni80Fe20) squares (30 nm thick and w mu m wide; 1 less than or equal to w less than or equal to 200 mu m) and circular disks (30 nm thick and r mu m diameter; 1 less than or equal to r less than or equal to 200 mu m) prepared on a GaAs (100) substrate were observed in both their demagnetized and remanent states by magnetic force microscopy (MFM) associated with non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM). The squares (2 less than or equal to w mu m) exhibited conventional closure domains and the corner plays a very important role in creating new walls. The circular disks, on the other hand, formed either vortex domain (5 less than or equal to r less than or equal to 20 mu m) or multi-domain (50 less than or equal to r mu m) states, The magnetization rotation is observed by MFM to change according to the size and shape of the elements, The MFM observations are supported by micromagnetic calculations which confirm the effect of the corner on the domain wall formation