Qualitative telephone interviews: Strategies for success

The use of the telephone in qualitative interviews is discouraged by traditionalists who view it as an inferior data collection instrument. However these claims have not been supported by empirical evidence and qualitative researchers who have used and compared the telephone to the face-to-face mode of interviewing present a different story. This study attempts to build on the limited existing research comparing the issues involved and the data collected using the telephone and face-to-face interview modes. The study evaluates the criticisms of traditionalists in the light of existing research. The study then presents the observations of the researcher based on a research project that involved 43 telephone, 1 Skype and 6 face-to-face interviews. These observations as well as the limited prior research are used to develop strategies for the effective use telephone interviews in qualitative research. The study concludes that for certain studies the telephone if used with the strategies recommended here provides qualitative researchers with a sound data collection instrument

Higgs properties measurements using the four lepton decay channel

The measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson are presented in the H$\rightarrow$ZZ$\rightarrow$4$\ell$ ($\ell$=e,$\mu$) decay channel using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC. The signal-strength modifier $\mu$, defined as the production cross section of the Higgs boson times its branching fraction to four leptons relative to the standard model expectation, is measured to be $\mu=1.05^{+0.19}_{-0.17}$ at $m_{\mathrm{H}}=125.09~\mathrm{GeV}$. Constraints are set on the strength modifiers for the main Higgs boson production modes. The mass is measured to be $m_{\mathrm{H}}=125.26 \pm 0.21~\mathrm{GeV}$ and the width is constrained using on-shell production to be $\Gamma_{\mathrm{H}}<1.10~\mathrm{GeV}$, at $95\%$ CL. The fiducial cross section is measured to be $2.90^{+0.48}_{-0.44}({\rm stat.})^{+0.27}_{-0.22}({\rm sys.})~{\mathrm{fb}}$, which is compatible with the standard model prediction of $2.72\pm0.14~{\mathrm{fb}}$.Comment: Presented at LHCP201

Effective Caching for the Secure Content Distribution in Information-Centric Networking

The secure distribution of protected content requires consumer authentication and involves the conventional method of end-to-end encryption. However, in information-centric networking (ICN) the end-to-end encryption makes the content caching ineffective since encrypted content stored in a cache is useless for any consumer except those who know the encryption key. For effective caching of encrypted content in ICN, we propose a novel scheme, called the Secure Distribution of Protected Content (SDPC). SDPC ensures that only authenticated consumers can access the content. The SDPC is a lightweight authentication and key distribution protocol; it allows consumer nodes to verify the originality of the published article by using a symmetric key encryption. The security of the SDPC was proved with BAN logic and Scyther tool verification.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, 2018 IEEE 87th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC Spring