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When the scientific dataset evolves or is reused in workflows creating derived datasets, the integrity of the dataset with its metadata information, including provenance, needs to be securely preserved while providing assurances that they are not accidentally or maliciously altered during the process. Providing a secure method to efficiently share and verify the data as well as metadata is essential for the reuse of the scientific data. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Open Science Chain (OSC) utilizes consortium blockchain to provide a cyberinfrastructure solution to maintain integrity of the provenance metadata for published datasets and provides a way to perform independent verification of the dataset while promoting reuse and reproducibility. The NSF- and National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Neuroscience Gateway (NSG) provides a freely available web portal that allows neuroscience researchers to execute computational data analysis pipeline on high performance computing resources. Combined, the OSC and NSG platforms form an efficient, integrated framework to automatically and securely preserve and verify the integrity of the artifacts used in research workflows while using the NSG platform. This paper presents the results of the first study that integrates OSC–NSG frameworks to track the provenance of neurophysiological signal data analysis to study brain network dynamics using the Neuro-Integrative Connectivity tool, which is deployed in the NSG platform.

Database URL: https://www.opensciencechain.org.

We measure the 3D kinematic structures of the young stars within the central 0.5 pc of our Galactic Center using the 10 m telescopes of the W. M. Keck Observatory over a time span of 25 yr. Using high-precision measurements of positions on the sky and proper motions and radial velocities from new observations and the literature, we constrain the orbital parameters for each young star. Our results show two statistically significant substructures: a clockwise stellar disk with 18 candidate stars, as has been proposed before, but with an improved disk membership; and a second, almost edge-on plane of 10 candidate stars oriented east–west on the sky that includes at least one IRS 13 star. We estimate the eccentricity distribution of each substructure and find that the clockwise disk has 〈e〉 = 0.39 and the edge-on plane has 〈e〉 = 0.68. We also perform simulations of each disk/plane with incompleteness and spatially variable extinction to search for asymmetry. Our results show that the clockwise stellar disk is consistent with a uniform azimuthal distribution within the disk. The edge-on plane has an asymmetry that cannot be explained by variable extinction or incompleteness in the field. The orientation, asymmetric stellar distribution, and high eccentricity of the edge-on plane members suggest that this structure may be a stream associated with the IRS 13 group. The complex dynamical structure of the young nuclear cluster indicates that the star formation process involved complex gas structures and dynamics and is inconsistent with a single massive gaseous disk.

The production yields of the Σ(1385)^±and Ξ(1530)⁰resonances are measured in pp collisions at$$ \sqrt{s} $$$\sqrt{s}$= 13 TeV with ALICE. The measurements are performed as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity ⟨dN_ch/dη⟩, which is related to the energy density produced in the collision. The results include transverse momentum (p_T) distributions,p_T-integrated yields, mean transverse momenta of Σ(1385)^±and Ξ(1530)⁰, as well as ratios of thep_T-integrated resonance yields relative to yields of other hadron species. The Σ(1385)^±/π^±and Ξ(1530)⁰/π^±yield ratios are consistent with the trend of the enhancement of strangeness production from low to high multiplicity pp collisions, which was previously observed for strange and multi-strange baryons. The yield ratio between the measured resonances and the long-lived baryons with the same strangeness content exhibits a hint of a mild increasing trend at low multiplicity, despite too large uncertainties to exclude the flat behaviour. The results are compared with predictions from models such as EPOS-LHC and PYTHIA 8 with Rope shoving. The latter provides the best description of the multiplicity dependence of the Σ(1385)^±and Ξ(1530)⁰production in pp collisions at$$ \sqrt{s} $$$\sqrt{s}$= 13 TeV.

Measurements of inclusive charged-particle jet production in pp and p-Pb collisions at center-of-mass energy per nucleon-nucleon collision$$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} $$$\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$= 5.02 TeV and the corresponding nuclear modification factor$$ {R}_{\textrm{pPb}}^{\textrm{ch}\ \textrm{jet}} $$$R_{\mathrm{pPb}}^{\mathrm{ch}\mathrm{jet}}$are presented, using data collected with the ALICE detector at the LHC. Jets are reconstructed in the central rapidity region |η_jet|<0.5 from charged particles using the anti-k_Talgorithm with resolution parametersR= 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4. Thep_T-differential inclusive production cross section of charged-particle jets, as well as the corresponding cross section ratios, are reported for pp and p-Pb collisions in the transverse momentum range 10<$$ {p}_{\textrm{T},\textrm{jet}}^{\textrm{ch}} $$$p_{T,\mathrm{jet}}^{\mathrm{ch}}$<140 GeV/cand 10<$$ {p}_{\textrm{T},\textrm{jet}}^{\textrm{ch}} $$$p_{T,\mathrm{jet}}^{\mathrm{ch}}$<160 GeV/c, respectively, together with the nuclear modification factor$$ {R}_{\textrm{pPb}}^{\textrm{ch}\ \textrm{jet}} $$$R_{\mathrm{pPb}}^{\mathrm{ch}\mathrm{jet}}$in the range 10<$$ {p}_{\textrm{T},\textrm{jet}}^{\textrm{ch}} $$$p_{T,\mathrm{jet}}^{\mathrm{ch}}$<140 GeV/c. The analysis extends thep_Trange of the previously-reported charged-particle jet measurements by the ALICE Collaboration. The nuclear modification factor is found to be consistent with one and independent of the jet resolution parameter with the improved precision of this study, indicating that the possible influence of cold nuclear matter effects on the production cross section of charged-particle jets in p-Pb collisions at$$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} $$$\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$= 5.02 TeV is smaller than the current precision. The obtained results are in agreement with other minimum bias jet measurements available for RHIC and LHC energies, and are well reproduced by the NLO perturbative QCD Powhegcalculations with parton shower provided by Pythia8 as well as by Jetscapesimulations.

Results on the transverse spherocity dependence of light-flavor particle production (π, K, p,ϕ, K^*0,$$ {\textrm{K}}_{\textrm{S}}^0 $$$K_S^0$, Λ, Ξ) at midrapidity in high-multiplicity pp collisions at$$ \sqrt{s} $$$\sqrt{s}$= 13 TeV were obtained with the ALICE apparatus. The transverse spherocity estimator$$ \left({S}_{\textrm{O}}^{p_{\textrm{T}}=1}\right) $$$\left(S_O^{p_T=1}\right)$categorizes events by their azimuthal topology. Utilizing narrow selections on$$ {S}_{\textrm{O}}^{p_{\textrm{T}}=1} $$$S_O^{p_T=1}$, it is possible to contrast particle production in collisions dominated by many soft initial interactions with that observed in collisions dominated by one or more hard scatterings. Results are reported for two multiplicity estimators covering different pseudorapidity regions. The$$ {S}_{\textrm{O}}^{p_{\textrm{T}}=1} $$$S_O^{p_T=1}$estimator is found to effectively constrain the hardness of the events when the midrapidity (|η| < 0.8) estimator is used.

The production rates of strange particles are found to be slightly higher for soft isotropic topologies, and severely suppressed in hard jet-like topologies. These effects are more pronounced for hadrons with larger mass and strangeness content, and observed when the topological selection is done within a narrow multiplicity interval. This demonstrates that an important aspect of the universal scaling of strangeness enhancement with final-state multiplicity is that high-multiplicity collisions are dominated by soft, isotropic processes. On the contrary, strangeness production in events with jet-like processes is significantly reduced.

The results presented in this article are compared with several QCD-inspired Monte Carlo event generators. Models that incorporate a two-component phenomenology, either through mechanisms accounting for string density, or thermal production, are able to describe the observed strangeness enhancement as a function of$$ {S}_{\textrm{O}}^{p_{\textrm{T}}=1} $$$S_O^{p_T=1}$.

The ALICE Collaboration reports a search for jet quenching effects in high-multiplicity (HM) proton-proton collisions at$$ \sqrt{s} $$$\sqrt{s}$= 13 TeV, using the semi-inclusive azimuthal-difference distribution ∆φof charged-particle jets recoiling from a high transverse momentum (high-p_T,trig) trigger hadron. Jet quenching may broaden the ∆φdistribution measured in HM events compared to that in minimum bias (MB) events. The measurement employs ap_T,trig-differential observable for data-driven suppression of the contribution of multiple partonic interactions, which is the dominant background. While azimuthal broadening is indeed observed in HM compared to MB events, similar broadening for HM events is observed for simulations based on the PYTHIA 8 Monte Carlo generator, which does not incorporate jet quenching. Detailed analysis of these data and simulations show that the azimuthal broadening is due to bias of the HM selection towards events with multiple jets in the final state. The identification of this bias has implications for all jet quenching searches where selection is made on the event activity.

$K^{+}{K}^{-}$pairs may be produced in photonuclear collisions, either from the decays of photoproduced$\varphi (1020)$mesons or directly as nonresonant$K^{+}{K}^{-}$pairs. Measurements of$K^{+}{K}^{-}$photoproduction probe the couplings between the$\varphi (1020)$and charged kaons with photons and nuclear targets. The kaon-proton scattering occurs at energies far above those available elsewhere. We present the first measurement of coherent photoproduction of$K^{+}{K}^{-}$pairs on lead ions in ultraperipheral collisions using the ALICE detector, including the first investigation of direct$K^{+}{K}^{-}$production. There is significant$K^{+}{K}^{-}$production at low transverse momentum, consistent with coherent photoproduction on lead targets. In the mass range$1.1<M_{KK}<1.4\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$above the$\varphi (1020)$resonance, for rapidity$|y_{KK}|<0.8$and$p_{T,KK}<0.1\mathrm{GeV}/c$, the measured coherent photoproduction cross section is$\mathrm{d}\sigma /\mathrm{d}y=3.37\pm 0.61(\text{stat})\pm 0.15(\mathrm{syst})\mathrm{mb}$. The center-of-mass energy per nucleon of the photon-nucleus (Pb) system$W_{\gamma \mathrm{Pb},n}$ranges from 33 to 188 GeV, far higher than previous measurements on heavy-nucleus targets. The cross section is larger than expected for$\varphi (1020)$photoproduction alone. The mass spectrum is fit to a cocktail consisting of$\varphi (1020)$decays, direct$K^{+}{K}^{-}$photoproduction, and interference between the two. The confidence regions for the amplitude and relative phase angle for direct$K^{+}{K}^{-}$photoproduction are presented.