Measurement of VZ production cross sections in Z -> bb decay channels in pp collisions at 8 TeV

We present a measurement of the WZ and ZZ production cross sections in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV in final states where one Z boson decays to b-tagged jets, while the other gauge boson, either W or Z, is detected through its leptonic decay. The results are based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 18.9 /fb collected with the CMS detector at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: LHCP 2014 Proceedin

Anthropology and Ethnicity: From Herder to Hermeneutics

For a long time, the central focus of anthropology has been on the study of the so-called traditional societies. However, with the transformation of those societies into ethnicized groups within state systems, anthropologists have had to rethink their concepts, theories, and methods. They have had to deal with, among others things, issues of cultural difference, cultural boundaries, and cultural movements. This article looks retrospectively at certain changes that have taken place in anthropology especially with regard to the study of ethnicity

Affect, Identity, and Ethnicity: Towards a Social-Psychological Mode of Ethnic Attainment

Since the days of Shils and Geertz it has been common to refer to ethnicity as a bond, a tie, or an attachment. Shils used the term tie in the title of his seminal 1957 article to refer to a set of social relationships, including what he called civil, kinship, sacred, and primordial. The primordial tie was notable for the ineffable significance which social actors attribute to it and to the relationship which it engenders: the attachment [is] not merely to the other ... as a person, but as a possessor of certain especially \u27significant relational\u27 qualities, which could only be described as primordial. The attachment ... is not just a function of interaction. ^1 Subsequently Geertz developed the notion of ethnic attachment as an affect and identity, or better yet, an affect-centered identity. The intention, often quite explicit, of these thinkers and the many who followed them was to emphasize the emotional quality of ethnicity as an explanation of its persistence and power. At the same time, as an emotional and not rational phenomenon, ethnicity was expected to decline and disappear under the onslaught of modern rationalizing social forces. This essay returns to the issue of ethnicity as an affective relationship. It will argue that affect is indeed a critical element in ethnicity but that the theoretical treatment of ethnic affect has tended to be counterproductive

Acylsulfonamide safety-catch linker : promise and limitations for solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis

Safety-catch linkers are useful for solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis as they are orthogonal to many common protective groups. A new acylsulfonamide safety-catch linker was designed, synthesized and employed during glycosylations using an automated carbohydrate synthesizer. The analysis of the cleavage products revealed shortcomings for oligosaccharide synthesis

BIOTECHNOLOGY--DIVERSIFICATION, AND THE FOOD INDUSTRY

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Odyssey: a semi-automated pipeline for phasing, imputation, and analysis of genome-wide genetic data

BACKGROUND: Genome imputation, admixture resolution and genome-wide association analyses are timely and computationally intensive processes with many composite and requisite steps. Analysis time increases further when building and installing the run programs required for these analyses. For scientists that may not be as versed in programing language, but want to perform these operations hands on, there is a lengthy learning curve to utilize the vast number of programs available for these analyses. RESULTS: In an effort to streamline the entire process with easy-to-use steps for scientists working with big data, the Odyssey pipeline was developed. Odyssey is a simplified, efficient, semi-automated genome-wide imputation and analysis pipeline, which prepares raw genetic data, performs pre-imputation quality control, phasing, imputation, post-imputation quality control, population stratification analysis, and genome-wide association with statistical data analysis, including result visualization. Odyssey is a pipeline that integrates programs such as PLINK, SHAPEIT, Eagle, IMPUTE, Minimac, and several R packages, to create a seamless, easy-to-use, and modular workflow controlled via a single user-friendly configuration file. Odyssey was built with compatibility in mind, and thus utilizes the Singularity container solution, which can be run on Linux, MacOS, and Windows platforms. It is also easily scalable from a simple desktop to a High-Performance System (HPS). CONCLUSION: Odyssey facilitates efficient and fast genome-wide association analysis automation and can go from raw genetic data to genome: phenome association visualization and analyses results in 3-8 h on average, depending on the input data, choice of programs within the pipeline and available computer resources. Odyssey was built to be flexible, portable, compatible, scalable, and easy to setup. Biologists less familiar with programing can now work hands on with their own big data using this easy-to-use pipeline

Uncovering new strong dynamics via topological interactions at the 100 TeV collider

In models of composite Higgs dynamics new composite pseudoscalars can interact with the Higgs and electroweak gauge bosons via anomalous interactions, stemming from the topological sector of the underlying theory. We show that a future 100 TeV proton-proton collider (FCC-pp) will be able to test this important sector and thus shed light on the strong dynamics which generates the Higgs and other composite states. To elucidate our results we focus on the topological interactions of a minimal composite Higgs model with a fermionic ultraviolet completion, based on the coset $\text{SU}(4)/\text{Sp}(4)$. We suggest the strategy to test these interactions at the FCC-pp and analyse the expected reach.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures. Matches published versio

The Economic transmission of fiscal policy shocks from Western to Eastern Europe

This paper studies the transmission of a foreign fiscal policy shock (assumed to be generated in Germany) to key macroeconomic variables in five Central and Eastern European economies (CEE-5). We use quarterly data from 1995 to 2009 and estimate an open economy structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model identified by imposing reasonable restrictions on contemporaneous responses in the system. Our model is able to identify well-known episodes of fiscal policy action in the countries under review. We find that a foreign fiscal shock affects domestic fiscal variables and vice versa, highlighting the importance of cross-country coordination of fiscal policies within the EU. All the CEE-5 respond to a fiscal expansion abroad with fiscal easing at home (more strongly on the public spending than on the revenue side). We find negative cross-border fiscal spillovers for Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, while in Poland and Hungary, output reacts positively to a fiscal expansion in Germany. For domestic fiscal shocks, which we also explore, we find Keynesian responses in Hungary and Slovakia, while non-Keynesian responses are present in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia. Our results imply that “one-size-fits-all” policy recommendations would be too simplistic for the CEE-5; a deeper understanding of the reasons for cross-country differences in response to fiscal shocks is required to be able to provide adequate information to policymakers in these countries.fiscal policy; cross-border spillovers; fiscal multiplier; foreign shock; structural vector autoregression; Central and Eastern Europe; Germany

aa-theorem at large NfN_f

We determine the Jack and Osborn a-function and related metric for gauge-fermion theories to leading order in the large number of fermions and to all orders in the gauge coupling, demonstrating that the strong a-theorem is violated for the minimal choice of the a-function.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures - references updated, typos correcte