\eta - \eta' Mixing -- From Electromagnetic Transitions to Weak Decays of Charm and Beauty Hadrons (presented at Hadron 2011)

It has been realized for a long time that knowing the \eta and \eta' wave functions in terms of quark and gluon components probes our understanding of non-perturbative QCD dynamics. Great effort has been given to this challenge -- yet no clear picture has emerged even with the most recent KLOE data. We point out which measurements would be most helpful in arriving at a more definite conclusion. A better knowledge of these wave functions will significantly help to disentangle the weight of different decay subprocesses in semi-leptonic decays of D^+, D_s^+ and B^+ mesons. The resulting insights will be instrumental in treating even non-leptonic B transitions involving $\eta$ and $\eta^{\prime}$ and their CP asymmetries; thus they can sharpen the case for or against New Physics intervening there.Comment: Prepared for HADRON 201

Fertility preservation in ovarian tumours

A considerable number of patients with a cancer diagnosis are of childbearing age and have not satisfied their desire for a family. Despite ovarian cancer (OC) usually occurring in older patients, 3%–14% are diagnosed at a fertile age with the overall 5-year survival rate being 91.2% in women ≤44 years of age when it is found at 1A–B stage. In this scenario, testing the safety and the efficacy of fertility sparing strategies in OC patients is very important overall in terms of quality of life. Unfortunately, the lack of randomised trials to validate conservative approaches does not guarantee the safety of fertility preservation strategies. However, evidence-based data from descriptive series suggest that in selected cases, the preservation of the uterus and at least one part of the ovary does not lead to a high risk of relapse. This conservative surgery helps to maintain organ function, giving patients of childbearing age the possibility to preserve their fertility. We hereby analysed the main evidence from the international literature on this topic in order to highlight the selected criteria for conservative management of OC patients, including healthy BRCA mutations carriers

Palliation of complex cardiac anomalies with subaortic obstruction: New operative approach

AbstractThe modified Fontan operation for complex cardiac anomalies associated with subaortic obstruction entails a high surgical risk. It is likely that ventricular hypertrophy secondary to chronic pressure overload plays a significant role. This problem was approached with a new type of palliative operation comprising both a proximal pulmonary artery to ascending aorta anastomosis and a bidirectional cavopulmonary anastomosis.This operation was performed in six children ranging in age from 26 to 63 months. There was one intraoperative death due to hemorrhage. In one patient, a pulmonary to aorta conduit caused compression of the right coronary artery; the problem was solved by lengthening the conduit with a second period of cardiopulmonary bypass.The five survivors experienced an uneventful postoperative course. Repeat cardiac catheterization in these five patients showed low pressure in the cavopulmonary system (mean 10 mm Hg), absence of a gradient at rest between the systemic ventricle and aorta and fair arterial oxygenation (mean 82%). A technetium-99m perfusion lung scan visualized a slight prevalence of pulmonary blood flow ipsilateral to the shunt in three cases, whereas in one case preferential flow to the right lung was associated with a narrowing at the site of the cavopulmonary anastomosis. Mild hypoperfusion of the anterior pulmonary segments was observed in two cases.Both pressure and volume overload are abolished with this procedure and a satisfactory oxygenation is provided. Low venous pressure in the coronary, hepatic and renal areas as well as the short bypass time may explain the smoothness of the postoperative course in our patients. It is conceivable that oxygenation can be improved by a modified Fontan operation at a lower operative risk than is obtained with a single stage procedure because of regression of ventricular hypertrophy. Long-term follow-up indicates the value of this operation as a form of definitive palliation

Search for dark matter and other new phenomena in events with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum using the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fbâ1at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected in 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are required to have at least one jet with a transverse momentum above 250 GeV and no leptons (e or μ). Several signal regions are considered with increasing requirements on the missing transverse momentum above 250 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model predictions. The results are translated into exclusion limits in models with pair-produced weakly interacting dark-matter candidates, large extra spatial dimensions, and supersymmetric particles in several compressed scenarios.[Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in the four-lepton channel in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The final ATLAS Run 1 measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in the decay channel H → ZZ∗ → l+l-l'+l'-, where l, l' = e or μ, are presented. These measurements were performed using pp collision data corresponding to integrated luminosities of 4.5 and 20.3 fb-1 at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, respectively, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The H → ZZ∗ → 4l signal is observed with a significance of 8.1 standard deviations, with an expectation of 6.2 standard deviations, at mH = 125.36 GeV, the combined ATLAS measurement of the Higgs boson mass from the H → γγ and H → ZZ∗ → 4l channels. The production rate relative to the Standard Model expectation, the signal strength, is measured in four different production categories in the H → ZZ∗ → 4l channel. The measured signal strength, at this mass, and with all categories combined, is 1.44+0.40-0.33. The signal strength for Higgs boson production in gluon fusion or in association with tt or bb pairs is found to be 1.7+0.5-0.4, while the signal strength for vector-boson fusion combined with WH/ZH associated production is found to be 0.3+1.6-0.9

Immunotherapy in endometrial cancer: new scenarios on the horizon

This extensive review summarizes clinical evidence on immunotherapy and targeted therapy currently available for endometrial cancer (EC) and reports the results of the clinical trials and ongoing studies. The research was carried out collecting preclinical and clinical findings using keywords such as immune environment, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, programmed death-1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression, immune checkpoint inhibitors, anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies and others’ on PubMed. Finally, we looked for the ongoing immunotherapy trials on ClinicalTrials.gov. EC is the fourth most common malignancy in women in developed countries. Despite medical and surgical treatments, survival has not improved in the last decade and death rates have increased for uterine cancer in women. Therefore, identification of clinically significant prognostic risk factors and formulation of new rational therapeutic regimens have great significance for enhancing the survival rate and improving the outcome in patients with advanced or metastatic disease. The identification of genetic alterations, including somatic mutations and microsatellite instability, and the definition of intracellular signaling pathways alterations that have a major role in in tumorigenesis is leading to the development of new therapeutic options for immunotherapy and targeted therapy

Efficacy and toxicity of bevacizumab in recurrent ovarian disease: an update meta-analysis on phase III trials

Background: To analyze the efficacy and toxicity of bevacizumab on survival outcomes in recurrent ovarian cancer. Results: Bevacizumab was associated with significant improvement of PFS and OS compared with standard treatment with HRs of 0.53 (95% CI 0.44 - 0.63; p < 0.00001) and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.77 to 0.99; p = 0.03), respectively. Bevacizumab increased the incidence of G3/G4 hypertension (RR 19.01, 95% CI 7.77 - 46.55; p < 0.00001), proteinuria (RR 17.31, 95% CI 5.42 - 55.25; p < 0.00001), arterial thromboembolic events (ATE) (RR 4.99, 95% CI 1.29 - 19.27; p = 0.02) and bleeding (RR 3.14, 95% CI 1.35 - 7.32; p = 0.008). Materials and Methods: Three randomized phase III trials representing 1502 patients were identified. Pooled hazard ratio (HR), odd ratio (OR), risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using fixed or random effects model. Conclusions: Adding bevacizumab to standard chemotherapy improved ORR, PFS and OS, and it had a higher, but manageable, incidence of toxicities graded 3 to 4

Transcriptomic and genomic analysis provides new insights in molecular and genetic processes involved in zucchini ZYMV tolerance

Cucurbita pepo is highly susceptible to Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV) and the resistance found in several wild species cannot be considered as complete or broad-spectrum resistance. In this study, a source of tolerance introgressed in C. pepo (381e) from C. moschata, in True French (TF) background, was investigated 12 days post-inoculation (DPI) at transcriptomic and genomic levels

HKUST-1-Doped High-Resolution Volume Holographic Gratings

We report on transmission holographic gratings doped with metal organic frameworks (MOFs). As a first attempt, we focused on MOF-199, also known as HKUST-1, which is an efficient adsorbent of VOCs. HKUST-1 is not soluble in the pre-polymerized holographic mixture. For this reason, samples containing HKUST-1 show high light scattering. In this work, the recording of HKUST-1-doped one-dimensional transmission phase gratings is demonstrated. The optical properties of the recorded structures, such as diffraction efficiency and average refractive index changes, are reported by using angular analysis measurements. A first attempt to demonstrate the possibility of using the doped gratings as sensors is also reported