2,652 research outputs found
Phenomenological studies in QCD resummation
We study applications of QCD soft-gluon resummations to electroweak
annihilation cross sections. We focus on a formalism that allows to resum
logarithmic corrections arising near partonic threshold and at small transverse
momentum simultaneously.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, 3 figures as eps files. Talk presented by W.
Vogelsang at the "XVI International Conference on Particles and Nuclei
(PaNic02)", Osaka, Japan, September 200
Imaging Features of Pediatric Pentastomiasis Infection: a Case Report
We report here a case of pentastomiasis infection in a 3-year-old girl who had high fever, abdominal pain, abdominal tension and anemia. Ultrasound scanning of the abdomen revealed disseminated hyperechoic nodules in the liver and a small amount of ascites. Abdominal MRI showed marked hepatomegaly with disseminated miliary nodules of high signal intensity throughout the hepatic parenchyma on T2-weighted images; retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy and disseminated miliary nodules on the peritoneum were also noted. Chest CT showed scattered small hyperdense nodules on both sides of the lungs. The laparoscopy demonstrated diffuse white nodules on the liver surface and the peritoneum. After the small intestinal wall and peritoneal biopsy, histological examination revealed parenchymal tubercles containing several larvae of pentastomids and a large amount of inflammatory cell infiltration around them. The pathological diagnosis was parasitic granuloma from pentastomiasis infection
Corticotrophin-Releasing Factor Modulates Cerebellar Purkinje Cells Simple Spike Activity in Vivo in Mice
Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) is a major neuromodulator that modulates cerebellar neuronal activity via CRF receptors during stress responses. In the cerebellar cortex, CRF dose-dependently increases the simple spike (SS) firing rate of Purkinje cells (PCs), while the synaptic mechanisms of this are still unclear. We here investigated the effect of CRF on the spontaneous SS activity of cerebellar PCs in urethane-anesthetized mice by in vivo electrophysiological recording and pharmacological methods. Cell-attached recordings from PCs showed that micro-application of CRF in cerebellar cortical molecular layer induced a dose-dependent increase in SS firing rate in the absence of GABAA receptor activity. The CRF-induced increase in SS firing rate was completely blocked by a nonselective CRF receptor antagonist, α-helical CRF-(9–14). Nevertheless, application of either a selective CRF-R1 antagonist, BMS-763534 (BMS, 200 nM) or a selective CRF-R2 antagonist, antisauvagine-30 (200 nM) significantly attenuated, but failed to abolished the CRF-induced increase in PCs SS firing rate. In vivo whole-cell patch-clamp recordings from PCs showed that molecular layer application of CRF significantly increased the frequency, but not amplitude, of miniature postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs). The CRF-induced increase in the frequency of mEPSCs was abolished by a CRF-R2 antagonist, as well as protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitors. These results suggested that CRF acted on presynaptic CRF-R2 of cerebellar PCs resulting in an increase of glutamate release through PKA signaling pathway, which contributed to modulation of the cerebellar PCs outputs in Vivo in mice
Chronic Ethanol Consumption Impairs the Tactile-Evoked Long-Term Depression at Cerebellar Molecular Layer Interneuron-Purkinje Cell Synapses in vivo in Mice
The cerebellum is sensitive to ethanol (EtOH) consumption. Chronic EtOH consumption impairs motor learning by modulating the cerebellar circuitry synaptic transmission and long-term plasticity. Under in vitro conditions, acute EtOH inhibits both parallel fiber (PF) and climbing fiber (CF) long-term depression (LTD). However, thus far it has not been investigated how chronic EtOH consumption affects sensory stimulation-evoked LTD at the molecular layer interneurons (MLIs) to the Purkinje cell (PC) synapses (MLI-PC LTD) in the cerebellar cortex of living animals. In this study, we investigated the effect of chronic EtOH consumption on facial stimulation-evoked MLI-PC LTD, using an electrophysiological technique as well as pharmacological methods, in urethane-anesthetized mice. Our results showed that facial stimulation induced MLI–PC LTD in the control mice, but it could not be induced in mice with chronic EtOH consumption (0.8 g/kg; 28 days). Blocking the cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptor activity with AM-251, prevented MLI-PC LTD in the control mice, but revealed a nitric oxide (NO)-dependent long-term potentiation (LTP) of MLI–PC synaptic transmission (MLI-PC LTP) in the EtOH consumption mice. Notably, with the application of a NO donor, S-nitroso-N-Acetyl-D, L-penicillamine (SNAP) alone prevented the induction of MLI–PC LTD, but a mixture of SNAP and AM-251 revealed an MLI-PC LTP in control mice. In contrast, inhibiting NO synthase (NOS) revealed the facial stimulation-induced MLI-PC LTD in EtOH consumption mice. These results indicate that long-term EtOH consumption can impair the sensory stimulation-induced MLI–PC LTD via the activation of a NO signaling pathway in the cerebellar cortex in vivo in mice. Our results suggest that the chronic EtOH exposure causes a deficit in the cerebellar motor learning function and may be involved in the impaired MLI–PC GABAergic synaptic plasticity
Joint Resummation for Higgs Production
We study the application of the joint resummation formalism to Higgs
production via gluon-gluon fusion at the LHC, defining inverse transforms by
analytic continuation. We work at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We find
that at low Q_T the resummed Higgs Q_T distributions are comparable in the
joint and pure-Q_T formalisms, with relatively small influence from threshold
enhancement in this range. We find a modest (about ten percent) decrease in the
inclusive cross section, relative to pure threshold resummation.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures as eps file
Differential Cross Section for Higgs Boson Production Including All-Orders Soft Gluon Resummation
The transverse momentum distribution is computed for inclusive Higgs
boson production at the energy of the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We focus on
the dominant gluon-gluon subprocess in perturbative quantum chromodynamics and
incorporate contributions from the quark-gluon and quark-antiquark channels.
Using an impact-parameter -space formalism, we include all-orders
resummation of large logarithms associated with emission of soft gluons. Our
resummed results merge smoothly at large with the fixed-order
expectations in perturbative quantum chromodynamics, as they should, with no
need for a matching procedure. They show a high degree of stability with
respect to variation of parameters associated with the non-perturbative input
at low . We provide distributions for Higgs boson masses
from to 200 GeV. The average transverse momentum at zero rapidity
grows approximately linearly with mass of the Higgs boson over the range ~GeV. We provide analogous results
for boson production, for which we compute GeV. The
harder transverse momentum distribution for the Higgs boson arises because
there is more soft gluon radiation in Higgs boson production than in
production.Comment: 42 pages, latex, 26 figures. All figures replaced. Some changes in
wording. Published in Phys. Rev. D67, 034026 (2003
Physics Opportunities of a Fixed-Target Experiment using the LHC Beams
We outline the many physics opportunities offered by a multi-purpose
fixed-target experiment using the LHC proton and Pb beams extracted by a bent
crystal. In a proton run with the LHC 7-TeV beam, one can analyze pp, pd and pA
collisions at sqrt(s_NN)~115 GeV and even higher using the Fermi motion in a
nuclear target. In a Pb run with a 2.76 TeV-per-nucleon beam, sqrt(s_NN) is as
high as 72 GeV. Bent crystals can be used to extract about 5x10^8 protons/s;
the integrated luminosity over a year reaches 0.5fb-1 on a typical 1 cm-long
target without species limitation. Such an extraction mode does not alter the
performance of the collider experiments at the LHC. By instrumenting the
target-rapidity region, gluon and heavy-quark proton and neutron PDFs can be
accessed at large x and even at x larger than 1 in the nuclear case. Single
diffractive physics and, for the first time, the large negative-xF domain can
be accessed. The nuclear target-species versatility provides a unique
opportunity to study nuclear matter vs. the features of the hot and dense
matter formed in heavy-ion collisions, which can be studied in PbA collisions
over the full range of target-rapidity domain with a large variety of nuclei.
The polarization of hydrogen and nuclear targets allows an ambitious spin
program, including measurements of the QCD lensing effects which underlie the
Sivers single-spin asymmetry, the study of transversity distributions and
possibly of polarized PDFs. We also emphasize the potential offered by pA
ultra-peripheral collisions where the nucleus target A is used as a coherent
photon source, mimicking photoproduction processes in ep collisions. Finally,
we note that W and Z bosons can be produced and detected in a fixed-target
experiment and in their threshold domain for the first time, providing new ways
to probe the partonic content of the proton and the nucleus.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, 5 tables. Comments are welcom
Detection of BRCA1, BRCA2, and ATM Alterations in Matched Tumor Tissue and Circulating Tumor DNA in Patients with Prostate Cancer Screened in PROfound.
PURPOSE: Not all patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) have sufficient tumor tissue available for multigene molecular testing. Furthermore, samples may fail because of difficulties within the testing procedure. Optimization of screening techniques may reduce failure rates; however, a need remains for additional testing methods to detect cancers with alterations in homologous recombination repair genes. We evaluated the utility of plasma-derived circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in identifying deleterious BRCA1, BRCA2 (BRCA), and ATM alterations in screened patients with mCRPC from the phase III PROfound study. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Tumor tissue samples were sequenced prospectively at Foundation Medicine, Inc. (FMI) using an investigational next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay based on FoundationOne®Liquid to inform trial eligibility. Matched ctDNA samples were retrospectively sequenced at FMI, using an investigational assay based on FoundationOne®Liquid CDx. RESULTS: 81% (503/619) of ctDNA samples yielded an NGS result, of which 491 had a tumor tissue result. BRCA and ATM status in tissue compared with ctDNA showed 81% positive percentage agreement and 92% negative percentage agreement, using tissue as reference. At variant-subtype level, using tissue as reference, concordance was high for nonsense (93%), splice (87%), and frameshift (86%) alterations but lower for large rearrangements (63%) and homozygous deletions (27%), with low ctDNA fraction being a limiting factor. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate that ctDNA can greatly complement tissue testing in identifying patients with mCRPC and BRCA or ATM alterations who are potentially suitable for receiving targeted PARP inhibitor treatments, particularly patients with no or insufficient tissue for genomic analyses
Transverse Polarisation of Quarks in Hadrons
We review the present state of knowledge regarding the transverse
polarisation (or transversity) distributions of quarks. After some generalities
on transverse polarisation, we formally define the transversity distributions
within the framework of a classification of all leading-twist distribution
functions. We describe the QCD evolution of transversity at leading and
next-to-leading order. A comprehensive treatment of non-perturbative
calculations of transversity distributions (within the framework of quark
models, lattice QCD and QCD sum rules) is presented. The phenomenology of
transversity (in particular, in Drell-Yan processes and semi-inclusive
leptoproduction) is discussed in some detail. Finally, the prospects for future
measurements are outlined.Comment: small changes, references added, as finally published in Physics
Report
Joint resummation in electroweak boson production
We present a phenomenological application of the joint resummation formalism
to electroweak annihilation processes at measured boson momentum Q_T. This
formalism simultaneously resums at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy large
threshold and recoil corrections to partonic scattering. We invert the impact
parameter transform using a previously described analytic continuation
procedure. This leads to a well-defined, resummed perturbative cross section
for all nonzero Q_T, which can be compared to resummation carried out directly
in Q_T space. From the structure of the resummed expressions, we also determine
the form of nonperturbative corrections to the cross section and implement
these into our analysis. We obtain a good description of the transverse
momentum distribution of Z bosons produced at the Tevatron collider.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures as eps files. Some additions to earlier
version, this version as published in Phys. Rev. D66 (2002) 01401
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