Uncovering Natural Supersymmetry via the interplay between the LHC and direct Dark Matter detection

We have explored Natural Supersymmetry (NSUSY) scenarios with low values of the μ parameter which are characterised by higgsino-like Dark Matter (DM) and compressed spectra for the lightest MSSM particles, χ10, χ20 and χ1±. This scenario could be probed via monojet signatures, but as the signal-to-background ratio (S/B) is low we demonstrate that the 8 TeV LHC cannot obtain limits on the DM mass beyond those of LEP2. On the other hand, we have found, for the 13 TeV run of the LHC, that by optimising kinematical cuts we can bring the S/B ratio up to the 5(3)% level which would allow the exclusion of the DM mass up to 200(250) GeV respectively, significantly extending LEP2 limits. Moreover, we have found that LUX/XENON1T and LHC do play very complementary roles in exploring the parameter space of NSUSY, as the LHC has the capability to access regions where DM is quasi-degenerate with other higgsinos, which are challenging for direct detection experiments

Discovery of ultrapotent broadly neutralizing antibodies from SARS-CoV-2 elite neutralizers

A fraction of COVID-19 convalescent individuals mount a potent antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 with cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-1. To uncover their humoral response in detail, we performed single B cell analysis from 10 SARS-CoV-2 elite neutralizers. We isolated and analyzed 126 monoclonal antibodies, many of which were sarbecovirus cross-reactive, with some displaying merbecovirus-and embecovirus-reactivity. Several isolated broadly neutralizing antibodies were effective against B.1.1.7, B.1.351, B.1.429, B.1.617, and B.1.617.2 variants and 19 prominent potential escape sites. Furthermore, assembly of 716,806 SARSCoV-2 sequences predicted emerging escape variants, which were also effectively neutralized. One of these broadly neutralizing potent antibodies, R40-1G8, is a IGHV3-53 RBD-class-1 antibody. Remarkably, cryo-EM analysis revealed that R40-1G8 has a flexible binding mode, targeting both upand downconformations of the RBD. Given the threat of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, we demonstrate that elite neutralizers are a valuable source for isolating ultrapotent antibody candidates to prevent and treat SARS-CoV-2 infection

The INTERSPEECH 2018 computational paralinguistics challenge:atypical & self-assessed affect, crying & heart beats

Abstract The INTERSPEECH 2018 Computational Paralinguistics Challenge addresses four different problems for the first time in a research competition under well-defined conditions: In the Atypical Affect Sub-Challenge, four basic emotions annotated in the speech of handicapped subjects have to be classified; in the Self-Assessed Affect Sub-Challenge, valence scores given by the speakers themselves are used for a three-class classification problem; in the Crying Sub-Challenge, three types of infant vocalisations have to be told apart; and in the Heart Beats Sub-Challenge, three different types of heart beats have to be determined. We describe the Sub-Challenges, their conditions and baseline feature extraction and classifiers, which include data-learnt (supervised) feature representations by end-to-end learning, the ‘usual’ ComParE and BoAW features and deep unsupervised representation learning using the AUDEEP toolkit for the first time in the challenge series

The long non-coding RNA HOTAIRM1 promotes tumor aggressiveness and radiotherapy resistance in glioblastoma

Glioblastoma is the most common malignant primary brain tumor. To date, clinically relevant biomarkers are restricted to isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) gene 1 or 2 mutations and O6-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter methylation. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to contribute to glioblastoma pathogenesis and could potentially serve as novel biomarkers. The clinical significance of HOXA Transcript Antisense RNA, Myeloid-Specific 1 (HOTAIRM1) was determined by analyzing HOTAIRM1 in multiple glioblastoma gene expression data sets for associations with prognosis, as well as, IDH mutation and MGMT promoter methylation status. Finally, the role of HOTAIRM1 in glioblastoma biology and radiotherapy resistance was characterized in vitro and in vivo. We identified HOTAIRM1 as a candidate lncRNA whose up-regulation is significantly associated with shorter survival of glioblastoma patients, independent from IDH mutation and MGMT promoter methylation. Glioblastoma cell line models uniformly showed reduced cell viability, decreased invasive growth and diminished colony formation capacity upon HOTAIRM1 down-regulation. Integrated proteogenomic analyses revealed impaired mitochondrial function and determination of reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels confirmed increased ROS levels upon HOTAIRM1 knock-down. HOTAIRM1 knock-down decreased expression of transglutaminase 2 (TGM2), a candidate protein implicated in mitochondrial function, and knock-down of TGM2 mimicked the phenotype of HOTAIRM1 down-regulation in glioblastoma cells. Moreover, HOTAIRM1 modulates radiosensitivity of glioblastoma cells both in vitro and in vivo. Our data support a role for HOTAIRM1 as a driver of biological aggressiveness, radioresistance and poor outcome in glioblastoma. Targeting HOTAIRM1 may be a promising new therapeutic approach

SEARCH FOR HEAVY CHARGED SCALARS IN Z0 DECAYS

Using a sample of Z0's corresponding to about 12 000 events, we have searched for the production of charged scalars, primarily charged Higgs particles, decaying into c̄scs̄, τν+jets, and τντν. The average detection efficiency is 20%. No candidate was found in the leptonic modes. Masses in the range up to 30-36 GeV/c2 are excluded, extending the mass domain covered by previous e+e- machines.0SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe