Search for gravitational radiation from intermediate mass black hole binaries in data from the second LIGO-Virgo joint science run

This paper reports on an unmodeled, all-sky search for gravitational waves from merging intermediate mass black hole binaries (IMBHB). The search was performed on data from the second joint science run of the LIGO and Virgo detectors (July 2009-October 2010) and was sensitive to IMBHBs with a range up to similar to 200 Mpc, averaged over the possible sky positions and inclinations of the binaries with respect to the line of sight. No significant candidate was found. Upper limits on the coalescence-rate density of nonspinning IMBHBs with total masses between 100 and 450 M-circle dot and mass ratios between 0.25 and 1 were placed by combining this analysis with an analogous search performed on data from the first LIGO-Virgo joint science run (November 2005-October 2007). The most stringent limit was set for systems consisting of two 88 M-circle dot black holes and is equal to 0.12 Mpc(-3) Myr(-1) at the 90% confidence level. This paper also presents the first estimate, for the case of an unmodeled analysis, of the impact on the search range of IMBHB spin configurations: the visible volume for IMBHBs with nonspinning components is roughly doubled for a population of IMBHBs with spins aligned with the binary's orbital angular momentum and uniformly distributed in the dimensionless spin parameter up to 0.8, whereas an analogous population with antialigned spins decreases the visible volume by similar to 20%.

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-p(T) spectrum from proton-proton collisions at root s=8 TeV

The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7 fb-1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale.

Search for WW gamma and WZ gamma production and constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Multimessenger search for sources of gravitational waves and high-energy neutrinos: Initial results for LIGO-Virgo and IceCube

We report the results of a multimessenger search for coincident signals from the LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave observatories and the partially completed IceCube high-energy neutrino detector, including periods of joint operation between 2007-2010. These include parts of the 2005-2007 run and the 2009-2010 run for LIGO-Virgo, and IceCube's observation periods with 22, 59 and 79 strings. We find no significant coincident events, and use the search results to derive upper limits on the rate of joint sources for a range of source emission parameters. For the optimistic assumption of gravitational-wave emission energy of 10(-2) M(circle dot)c(2) at similar to 150 Hz with similar to 60 ms duration, and high-energy neutrino emission of 1051 erg comparable to the isotropic gamma-ray energy of gamma-ray bursts, we limit the source rate below 1.6 x 10(-2) Mpc(-3) yr(-1). We also examine how combining information from gravitational waves and neutrinos will aid discovery in the advanced gravitational-wave detector era.

Search for supersymmetry with razor variables in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for invisible decays of Higgs bosons in the vector boson fusion and associated ZH production modes

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Harmony Search applied for Support Vector Machines Training Optimization

Since the beginning, some pattern recognition techniques have faced the problem of high computational burden for dataset learning. Among the most widely used techniques, we may highlight Support Vector Machines (SVM), which have obtained very promising results for data classification. However, this classifier requires an expensive training phase, which is dominated by a parameter optimization that aims to make SVM less prone to errors over the training set. In this paper, we model the problem of finding such parameters as a metaheuristic-based optimization task, which is performed through Harmony Search (HS) and some of its variants. The experimental results have showen the robustness of HS-based approaches for such task in comparison against with an exhaustive (grid) search, and also a Particle Swarm Optimization-based implementation.

Resolução do problema de carregamento e descarregamento de contêineres em terminais portuários via Beam Search

One problem that has been happening frequently in port terminals is the poor planning of the loading and unloading of containers. The reason of this problem is the lack of an efficient method that provides the best means of these operations. The main goal of this work is, to implement a method that provides the best ways to perform the loading and unloading of containers, at each port and thus bring a great saving for these terminals, since the number of moves is directly proportional to cost. To carry out this program was used the idea that the containers are placed in vertical stacks, where the access can be done only by the top of the stack, so the ship was treated as an matrix and to fill it, two rules were created for loading and two for unloading. To obtain the best sequence of rules was used Beam Search method, which is an enumeration type implicit method that analyzes only the best solution of the tree generated. Thus, the program developed in the Java language, provides the best way to perform the loading and unloading ports and the way as the ship leaves each port using a graphical interface

Atribuição de turmas para professores via Beam Search em Java

In the universities, before the start of each school year, is held the distribution of classes among available teachers. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the maximum workweek for each teacher and their preferences for each discipline, to prevent a teacher to give lessons in two separate locations at the same time and to avoid some teachers to become overloaded while others with large clearance. This process, manually performed, is time consuming and does not allow the visualization of other combinations of assignment of teachers to classes, besides being liable to error. This work aims to develop a decision support tool for the problem of assigning teachers to classes in college. The project encompasses the development of a computer program using the concepts of object orientation and a tree search algorithm of a combinatorial nature called Beam Search. The programming language used is Java and the program has a graphical interface for entering and manipulating data of the problem. Once obtained the schedule data of classes and teachers is possible, by means of the tool, perform various simulations and manual adjustments to achieve the final result. It is an efficient method of class scheduling, considering the speed of task execution and the fact that it generates only feasible results

Caracterização genética de populações de Caryocar brasiliense Cambess. e Jatropha curcas L., espécies potenciais na produção de biodiesel

Pós-graduação em Agronomia - FEIS

A história da didática no Instituto de Educação Leônidas do Amaral Vieira - Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo (1953-1975)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Pressupostos epistemológicos e a experimentação no ensino de Química: o caso de Lavoisier

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Efficacy of a perceptual and visual-motor skill intervention program for students with dyslexia

Purpose: To verify the efficacy of a perceptual and visual-motor skill intervention program for students with dyslexia. Methods: The participants were 20 students from third to fifth grade of a public elementary school in Marília, São Paulo, aged from 8 years to 11 years and 11 months, distributed into the following groups: Group I (GI; 10 students with developmental dyslexia) and Group II (GII; 10 students with good academic performance). A perceptual and visual-motor intervention program was applied, which comprised exercises for visual-motor coordination, visual discrimination, visual memory, visual-spatial relationship, shape constancy, sequential memory, visual figure-ground coordination, and visual closure. In pre- and post-testing situations, both groups were submitted to the Test of Visual-Perceptual Skills (TVPS-3), and the quality of handwriting was analyzed using the Dysgraphia Scale. Results: The analyzed statistical results showed that both groups of students had dysgraphia in pretesting situation. In visual perceptual skills, GI presented a lower performance compared to GII, as well as in the quality of writing. After undergoing the intervention program, GI increased the average of correct answers in TVPS-3 and improved the quality of handwriting. Conclusion: The developed intervention program proved appropriate for being applied to students with dyslexia, and showed positive effects because it provided improved visual perception skills and quality of writing for students with developmental dyslexia.

Hemoglobin I-Philadelphia [alpha 16 (A14) LYS→GLU] heterozygote among blood donors from Brazil

We describe a heterozygous case of Hb I-Philadelphia [alpha 16 (A14) LYS-->GLU] in a blood donor from the Acre State Blood Bank, in the Brazilian Amazon region. We confirmed the mutation by electrophoretic and chromatographic methods and by DNA sequencing. A literature search showed that this is the first description of this alpha globin mutant in a Brazilian Caucasian group. We also emphasize the importance of the hemoglobin study in blood donors for the purpose of the genetic counseling and quality assurance of the blood to be transfused. Screening tests for hemoglobin mutants are also important for gathering anthropological information about the Brazilian population.

Formação continuada: dialogando com os professores que atuam no ensino infantil e fundamental (Ciclo I) da rede municipal de Bauru/SP

Currently, we can observe a significant increase in the disappointment of the world population about education, which raised doubts about the current school system and resulted in a forced increase of interest in an education reconstruction. The investigation process of this research based itself in the qualitative exploratory approach, since it allows the interpretation of the reality of the investigated environment, and it is concern about the process and not the quantification of data. Five professionals who work for the prefecture in the city of Bauru participated in this study and they graduated in the third module of the continuing education of the department of physical education from UNESP/Bauru, which occur in the second semester of 2010. The purpose of the present study was to identify the reasons why teachers who work for the prefecture in the city of Bauru look for the continuing education in physical education and explore their expectations and perception about the course. Considering the analysis presented in this study, we can observe that the search for continuing education based itself in issues such as: the confusion that exists between theory and practice, where the teachers exemplifies that, after their initial education, theory was not consistent with the real needs of their pedagogical practice; the entry of students younger and younger in the infant and fundamental education; the search for contents that answer the needs of psychomotor development of children between 2 and 5 years old and, at the same time, contents for the inclusion of children with special needs; as well as political pedagogical issues. Even though the reasons presented in this research for the teachers to justify the search for the continuing education in physical education were of distinct natures, at the end we observed that the teachers had their expectations fulfilled, demonstrating that the course of continuing education can be a space of dialog...