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  1. Interactive textbooks generate big data through student reading participation, including animations, question sets, and auto-graded homework. Animations are multi-step, dynamic visuals with text captions. By dividing new content into smaller chunks of information, student engagement is expected to be high, which aligns with tenets of cognitive load theory. Specifically, students’ clicks are recorded and measure usage, completion, and view time per step and for entire animations. Animation usage data from an interactive textbook for a chemical engineering course in Material and Energy Balances accounts for 60,000 animation views across 140+ unique animations. Data collected across five cohorts between 2016 and 2020 used various metrics to capture animation usage including watch and re-watch rates as well as the length of animation views. Variations in view rate and time were examined across content, parsed by book chapter, and five animation characterizations (Concept, Derivation, Figures and Plots, Physical World, and Spreadsheets). Important findings include: 1) Animation views were at or above 100% for all chapters and cohorts, 2) Median view time varies from 22 s (2-step) to 59 s (6-step) - a reasonable attention span for students and cognitive load, 3) Median view time for animations characterized as Derivation was the longest (40 s) compared to Physical World animations, which resulted in the shortest time (20 s). 
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  2. null (Ed.)
    Faculty often utilize homework problems as a means to help students practice problem solving. Recently, with textbook solutions manuals being freely available online, students are prone to copying/cheating, which can severely limit improvements in problem solving. One hypothesis is that YouTube problems could serve as alternatives to textbook problems to significantly reduce cheating and promote better problem solving. YouTube problems are student-written problems that were inspired by events in a video publicly available online. While our previous studies have showcased positive attitudes related to engineering, high engagement, and rigor of the YouTube problems, the current study examines a subset of problems related to one major course topic, namely vapor-liquid equilibrium. The cohorts include engineering students from a public university who were assigned homework problems as part of a material and energy balance course. Two constructs were explored: problem solving and perception of problem difficulty. The study adopted an established and validated rubric to quantify performance in relevant stages of problem solving, including problem identification, representation, organization, calculation, solution completion, and solution accuracy. While problem solving can be influenced by perception of problem difficulty, the widely used NASA Task Load Index was adopted to measure the problem rigor. This paper will compare textbook and YouTube problem with respect to overall problem-solving ability as well as in each stage of problem solving. Furthermore, we will investigate whether disparities exist in students’ perceptions when solving vapor-liquid equilibrium problems. 
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  3. null (Ed.)
    Complex problem-solving is a vital skill prevalent to thrive in the workforce along with creativity and conceptual thinking. Homework problems allow engineering students to practice problem solving, and writing new problems can be a creative process for students. Our previous research found that implementing alternative, student-written homework problems, referred to as YouTube problems, led to better learning attitudes. YouTube problems are course related; homework-quality problems generated by reverse engineering publicly available videos. Comparing learning experiences of students solving YouTube versus Textbook problems is the focus of the current study. Impacts of solving YouTube problems are examined based on perception of difficulty as well as students’ problem-solving skills displayed by students. To enable testing, students were assigned one textbook and three YouTube problems. Perception of problem difficulty across problems was examined using the NASA Task Load Index. Additionally, problem solving aptitudes while solving homework problems was assessed using a previously validated rubric called PROCESS: Problem definition, Representing the problem, Organizing the information, Calculations, Solution completion, and Solution accuracy. A new case study compares Textbook and YouTube problems related to reacting systems with recycle, which is one of the most difficult course concepts. A correlation between problem rigor and problem solving was found. 
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  4. Free, publicly-accessible full text available September 1, 2026
  5. This paper presents a search for massive, charged, long-lived particles with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider using an integrated luminosity of $$140~fb^{−1}$$ of proton-proton collisions at $$\sqrt{s}=13$$~TeV. These particles are expected to move significantly slower than the speed of light. In this paper, two signal regions provide complementary sensitivity. In one region, events are selected with at least one charged-particle track with high transverse momentum, large specific ionisation measured in the pixel detector, and time of flight to the hadronic calorimeter inconsistent with the speed of light. In the other region, events are selected with at least two tracks of opposite charge which both have a high transverse momentum and an anomalously large specific ionisation. The search is sensitive to particles with lifetimes greater than about 3 ns with masses ranging from 200 GeV to 3 TeV. The results are interpreted to set constraints on the supersymmetric pair production of long-lived R-hadrons, charginos and staus, with mass limits extending beyond those from previous searches in broad ranges of lifetime 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available July 1, 2026
  6. This report presents a comprehensive collection of searches for new physics performed by the ATLAS Collaboration during the Run~2 period of data taking at the Large Hadron Collider, from 2015 to 2018, corresponding to about 140~$$^{-1}$$ of $$\sqrt{s}=13$$~TeV proton--proton collision data. These searches cover a variety of beyond-the-standard model topics such as dark matter candidates, new vector bosons, hidden-sector particles, leptoquarks, or vector-like quarks, among others. Searches for supersymmetric particles or extended Higgs sectors are explicitly excluded as these are the subject of separate reports by the Collaboration. For each topic, the most relevant searches are described, focusing on their importance and sensitivity and, when appropriate, highlighting the experimental techniques employed. In addition to the description of each analysis, complementary searches are compared, and the overall sensitivity of the ATLAS experiment to each type of new physics is discussed. Summary plots and statistical combinations of multiple searches are included whenever possible. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 22, 2026
  7. Top-quark pair production is observed in lead–lead ( Pb + Pb ) collisions at s NN = 5.02 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider with the ATLAS detector. The data sample was recorded in 2015 and 2018, amounting to an integrated luminosity of 1.9 nb 1 . Events with exactly one electron and one muon and at least two jets are selected. Top-quark pair production is measured with an observed (expected) significance of 5.0 (4.1) standard deviations. The measured top-quark pair production cross section is σ t t ¯ = 3.6 0.9 + 1.0 ( stat ) 0.5 + 0.8 ( syst ) μ b , with a total relative uncertainty of 31%, and is consistent with theoretical predictions using a range of different nuclear parton distribution functions. The observation of this process consolidates the evidence of the existence of all quark flavors in the preequilibrium stage of the quark-gluon plasma at very high energy densities, similar to the conditions present in the early Universe. © 2025 CERN, for the ATLAS Collaboration2025CERN 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2026
  8. A<sc>bstract</sc> A study of the Higgs boson decaying into bottom quarks (H→$$ b\overline{b} $$ b b ¯ ) and charm quarks (H→$$ c\overline{c} $$ c c ¯ ) is performed, in the associated production channel of the Higgs boson with aWorZboson, using 140 fb−1of proton-proton collision data at$$ \sqrt{s} $$ s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector. The individual production ofWHandZHwithH→$$ b\overline{b} $$ b b ¯ is established with observed (expected) significances of 5.3 (5.5) and 4.9 (5.6) standard deviations, respectively. Differential cross-section measurements of the gauge boson transverse momentum within the simplified template cross-section framework are performed in a total of 13 kinematical fiducial regions. The search for theH→$$ c\overline{c} $$ c c ¯ decay yields an observed (expected) upper limit at 95% confidence level of 11.5 (10.6) times the Standard Model prediction. The results are also used to set constraints on the charm coupling modifier, resulting in|κc| <4.2 at 95% confidence level. Combining theH→$$ b\overline{b} $$ b b ¯ andH→$$ c\overline{c} $$ c c ¯ measurements constrains the absolute value of the ratio of Higgs-charm and Higgs-bottom coupling modifiers (|κcb|) to be less than 3.6 at 95% confidence level. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2026
  9. The ATLAS experiment has developed extensive software and distributed computing systems for Run 3 of the LHC. These systems are described in detail, including software infrastructure and workflows, distributed data and workload management, database infrastructure, and validation. The use of these systems to prepare the data for physics analysis and assess its quality are described, along with the software tools used for data analysis itself. An outlook for the development of these projects towards Run 4 is also provided. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available March 6, 2026
  10. A<sc>bstract</sc> Differential measurements of Higgs boson production in theτ-lepton-pair decay channel are presented in the gluon fusion, vector-boson fusion (VBF),VHand$$ t\overline{t}H $$ t t ¯ H associated production modes, with particular focus on the VBF production mode. The data used to perform the measurements correspond to 140 fb−1of proton-proton collisions collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Two methods are used to perform the measurements: theSimplified Template Cross-Section(STXS) approach and anUnfolded Fiducial Differentialmeasurement considering only the VBF phase space. For the STXS measurement, events are categorized by their production mode and kinematic properties such as the Higgs boson’s transverse momentum ($$ {p}_{\textrm{T}}^{\textrm{H}} $$ p T H ), the number of jets produced in association with the Higgs boson, or the invariant mass of the two leading jets (mjj). For the VBF production mode, the ratio of the measured cross-section to the Standard Model prediction formjj> 1.5 TeV and$$ {p}_{\textrm{T}}^{\textrm{H}} $$ p T H > 200 GeV ($$ {p}_{\textrm{T}}^{\textrm{H}} $$ p T H < 200 GeV) is$$ {1.29}_{-0.34}^{+0.39} $$ 1.29 0.34 + 0.39 ($$ {0.12}_{-0.33}^{+0.34} $$ 0.12 0.33 + 0.34 ). This is the first VBF measurement for the higher-$$ {p}_{\textrm{T}}^{\textrm{H}} $$ p T H criteria, and the most precise for the lower-$$ {p}_{\textrm{T}}^{\textrm{H}} $$ p T H criteria. Thefiducialcross-section measurements, which only consider the kinematic properties of the event, are performed as functions of variables characterizing the VBF topology, such as the signed ∆ϕjjbetween the two leading jets. The measurements have a precision of 30%–50% and agree well with the Standard Model predictions. These results are interpreted in the SMEFT framework, and place the strongest constraints to date on the CP-odd Wilson coefficient$$ {c}_{H\overset{\sim }{W}} $$ c H W ~
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available March 1, 2026