Status of Salerno Laboratory (Measurements in Nuclear Emulsion)

A report on the analysis work in the Salerno Emulsion Laboratory is presented. It is related to the search for nu_mu->nu_tau oscillations in CHORUS experiment, the calibrations in the WANF (West Area Neutrino Facility) at Cern and tests and preparation for new experiments.Comment: Proc. The First International Workshop of Nuclear Emulsion Techniques (12-24 June 1998, Nagoya, Japan), 15 pages, 11 figure

Differential expression of cyclooxygenases in hypertrophic scar and keloid tissues

Hypertrophic scar (HS) and keloid (KL) are two forms of an abnormal cutaneous scarring process, mainly characterized by excessive extracellular matrix deposition and fibroblast proliferation. Despite the increased understanding of the molecular and cellular events leading to HS and KL, the pathogenesis of these lesions remains poorly understood. A pivotal role in the formation of abnormal scars has been ascribed to transforming growth factor-β, whose activity appears to be mediated through a link with pathways acting via cyclooxygenases (COX-1 and COX-2). To date, there is no report on the in vivo expression of COX-1 and COX-2 in human HS and KL tissues. Therefore, using immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis, we investigated 36 cases of KL, 32 cases of HS, and 25 cases of normal skin in order to define the localization and distribution of COX-1 and COX-2 in the tissues of these scar lesions and the overlying epidermis. The results mainly show the following: (a) a significant overexpression of COX-1 in HS tissues and the overlying epidermis as compared with normal skin and KL tissues and (b) a significant overexpression of COX-2 in KL tissue and the overlying epidermis in contrast to normal skin and HS tissues. Our data support the hypothesis that both COXs are involved in the pathogenesis of scar lesions in different ways and, particularly, COX-1 in the formation of HS and COX-2 in the formation of KL. In addition, the overexpression of COX-1 and COX-2 in the epidermis overlying HS and KL tissues, respectively, underlines the importance of epithelial- mesenchymal interactions in the pathogenesis of scar lesion

Search for spontaneous muon emission from lead nuclei

We describe a possible search for muonic radioactivity from lead nuclei using the base elements ("bricks" composed by lead and nuclear emulsion sheets) of the long-baseline OPERA neutrino experiment. We present the results of a Monte Carlo simulation concerning the expected event topologies and estimates of the background events. Using few bricks, we could reach a good sensitivity level.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Bioactive evaluation and application of different formulations of the natural colorant curcumin (E100) in a hydrophilic matrix (yogurt)

Curcumin (E100) is a natural colorant that, besides conferring color, has bioactivity, serving as an alternative to some artificial colorants. As a hydrophobic colorant, its modification/compatibilization with the aqueous medium is required to improve stability and enable its application in hydrophilic food matrices. Herein, different formulations of curcumin (curcumin powder: PC, water-dispersible curcumin: DC: and nanoencapsulated curcumin: NC) were evaluated as yogurt colorants. PC showed the strongest bioactivity in all assays (EC50 values: 63±2 to 7.9±0.1 μg.mL-1; GI50 values: 48±1 to 17±1 μg.mL-1 and MIC values: 0.0625 to 0.5 mg.mL-1), which might indicate that DC and NC reduce the short-term accessibility to curcumin. The tested curcumin formulations produced yogurts with different appearance, specifically associated with their color parameters, besides presenting slight changes in nutritional composition and free sugars and fatty acids profiles. The water compatible formulations (DC and NC) showed advantages over hydrophobic (PC) having a wider industrial utilization.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Prospect for Charge Current Neutrino Interactions Measurements at the CERN-PS

Tensions in several phenomenological models grew with experimental results on neutrino/antineutrino oscillations at Short-Baseline (SBL) and with the recent, carefully recomputed, antineutrino fluxes from nuclear reactors. At a refurbished SBL CERN-PS facility an experiment aimed to address the open issues has been proposed [1], based on the technology of imaging in ultra-pure cryogenic Liquid Argon (LAr). Motivated by this scenario a detailed study of the physics case was performed. We tackled specific physics models and we optimized the neutrino beam through a full simulation. Experimental aspects not fully covered by the LAr detection, i.e. the measurements of the lepton charge on event-by-event basis and their energy over a wide range, were also investigated. Indeed the muon leptons from Charged Current (CC) (anti-)neutrino interactions play an important role in disentangling different phenomenological scenarios provided their charge state is determined. Also, the study of muon appearance/disappearance can benefit of the large statistics of CC muon events from the primary neutrino beam. Results of our study are reported in detail in this proposal. We aim to design, construct and install two Spectrometers at "NEAR" and "FAR" sites of the SBL CERN-PS, compatible with the already proposed LAr detectors. Profiting of the large mass of the two Spectrometers their stand-alone performances have also been exploited.Comment: 70 pages, 38 figures. Proposal submitted to SPS-C, CER

Electron/pion separation with an Emulsion Cloud Chamber by using a Neural Network

We have studied the performance of a new algorithm for electron/pion separation in an Emulsion Cloud Chamber (ECC) made of lead and nuclear emulsion films. The software for separation consists of two parts: a shower reconstruction algorithm and a Neural Network that assigns to each reconstructed shower the probability to be an electron or a pion. The performance has been studied for the ECC of the OPERA experiment [1]. The $e/\pi$ separation algorithm has been optimized by using a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of the ECC and tested on real data taken at CERN (pion beams) and at DESY (electron beams). The algorithm allows to achieve a 90% electron identification efficiency with a pion misidentification smaller than 1% for energies higher than 2 GeV

Determination of the muon charge sign with the dipolar spectrometers of the OPERA experiment

The OPERA long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiment has observed the direct appearance of $\nu_\tau$ in the CNGS $\nu_\mu$ beam. Two large muon magnetic spectrometers are used to identify muons produced in the $\tau$ leptonic decay and in $\nu_\mu^{CC}$ interactions by measuring their charge and momentum. Besides the kinematic analysis of the $\tau$ decays, background resulting from the decay of charmed particles produced in $\nu_\mu^{CC}$ interactions is reduced by efficiently identifying the muon track. A new method for the charge sign determination has been applied, via a weighted angular matching of the straight track-segments reconstructed in the different parts of the dipole magnets. Results obtained for Monte Carlo and real data are presented. Comparison with a method where no matching is used shows a significant reduction of up to 40\% of the fraction of wrongly determined charges.Comment: 10 pages. Improvements in the tex

Observation of nu_tau appearance in the CNGS beam with the OPERA experiment

The OPERA experiment is searching for nu_mu -> nu_tau oscillations in appearance mode i.e. via the direct detection of tau leptons in nu_tau charged current interactions. The evidence of nu_mu -> nu_tau appearance has been previously reported with three nu_tau candidate events using a sub-sample of data from the 2008-2012 runs. We report here a fourth nu_tau candidate event, with the tau decaying into a hadron, found after adding the 2012 run events without any muon in the final state to the data sample. Given the number of analysed events and the low background, nu_mu -> nu_tau oscillations are established with a significance of 4.2sigma.Comment: Submitted to Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP