LHC bounds on large extra dimensions

We derive new dominant bounds on the coefficient of the effective operator generated by tree-level graviton exchange in large extra dimensions from pp \rightarrow jj data at LHC: M_T > 2.1TeV (ATLAS after 3.1/pb of integrated luminosity), M_T > 3.4 TeV (CMS after 36/pb), MT > 3.2 TeV (ATLAS after 36/pb). We clarify the role of on-shell graviton exchange and compare the full graviton amplitude to ATLAS data, setting bounds on the fundamental quantum-gravity scale.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures. v2: updated with CMS data. v3: updated with ATLAS data at 36/pb; final published versio

For an interpretative reading of L’airone, from the art writings to the "Nouveau Roman"

Although Giorgio Bassani’s relation with the visual arts has often been discussed, his critics remain convinced that the writer’s artistic preferences have been irreversibly influenced by his mentors and, for what relates to painting, by Roberto Longhi e Giorgio Morandi in particular. While acknowledging the impact of Longhi e Morandi in the formation of Bassani’s imagery, this article looks at Bassani’s aesthetic itinerary, by focusing on L’airone as a watershed moment. Indeed, it is in this last great novel by Bassani that is possible to fully understand Bassani’s distance from the cultural universe of his previous works. Inspired by the aesthetic discourse advanced by the pictorial movement of the Realismo Esistenziale, as well as by the narrative experiments of the Nouveau Roman, Bassani depicts here an upside-down version of the Ferrara described in his first stories

Françoise Sagan

Parallèlement à la rédaction de ses deux premiers romans Bonjour Tristesse et Un certain sourire, Françoise Sagan écrit des carnets de voyage à la demande de l'éditeur en chef de la revue Elle. Sagan prend alors la route de l’Italie et visite Naples, Capri et Venise. Tout au long de ce parcours littéraire, elle revient sur un mythe créateur remontant à ses lectures de jeunesse, et en particulier aux Illuminations d’Arthur Rimbaud. En retraçant des dynamiques mélancoliques derrière l'insouciance saganesque, nous démontrons dans cet article que l’auteure s’écarte des programmes féministes de son époque, aussi bien que de l’opinion de ceux qui l’ont dépeinte comme une jeune fille superficielle et désabusée. Enfin, une lecture interprétative des trois carnets des voyages servira à établir un parallèle entre les textes de fiction de Sagan et sa psycho-biographie, démontrant aussi la persistance du texte-source de Rimbaud dans l’évolution de son imaginaire

Marguerite Yourcenar, from Japan to the Motherland: The Oceanic Lack and the Wave of Time

Marguerite Yourcenar’s reputation was built on philologically inspired novels featuring heroes of the Western tradition, such as the emperor Hadrian in Mémoires d’Hadrien and the partly invented figure of Zénon Ligre in L’Oeuvre au noir. Less known is Yourcenar’s interest in Japanese culture, which, far from being limited to her late travels, she cultivated from an early age by reading all genres of Japanese literature. Not only are Yourcenar’s Japonist writings undervalued, but they are normally treated by scholars as just another example of her universalism. In the existing scholarship on Yourcenar, short stories such as “Le dernier amour du prince Genghi,” in Nouvelles Orientales, as well as “Basho sur la route,” in Le tour de la prison, are often read as affirmation of her literary inclination to the philosophical aloofness of old age. Contrary to this interpretation, I will argue that Yourcenar’s passion for Japanese culture was propelled by her desire to expand her epistemological schemes, while finding coping strategies for the unaddressed lack of her mother. In other words, Yourcenar was not only describing cultural differences but internalizing Eastern ideas on memory, loss, and the decaying body that would allow her to reclaim her past. These ideas, as well as Yourcenar’s Japanese-inspired understanding of temporality and the afterlife, manifest themselves in her literary work in frequent images of rivers, sea waves, and tides with symbolic connotations

A Case Study of Alpine Lakes in the Mount Everest Region

Abstract This study presents satellite data and in situ measurements to estimate the concentration of suspended solids in high-altitude and remote lakes of the Himalayas. Suspended particulate matter (SPM) concentrations measured in 13 lakes to the south of Mount Everest (Nepal) in October 2008 and reflectance values of the Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR-2) onboard ALOS, acquired a few days after the fieldwork activities concluded, were combined to build a relationship (R2  =  0.921) for mapping SPM concentrations in lakes of the Mount Everest region. The satellite-derived SPM concentrations were compared with in situ data (R2  =  0.924) collected in the same period in 4 additional lakes, located to the north of Mount Everest (Tibet, China). The 13 water samples collected in lakes in Nepal were also used to investigate the absorption coefficients of particles ap(λ) and colored, dissolved organic matter aCDOM(λ), with the aim of parameterizing a bio-optical model. An accurate m..

Reconstructing Higgs boson properties from the LHC and Tevatron data

We perform a phenomenological fit to all ATLAS, CMS, CDF and D0 Higgs boson data available after Moriond 2012. We allow all Higgs boson branching fractions, its couplings to standard model particles, as well as to an hypothetical invisible sector to vary freely, and determine their current favourite values. The standard model Higgs boson with a mass 125 GeV correctly predicts the average observed rate and provides an acceptable global fit to data. However, better fits are obtained by non-standard scenarios that reproduce anomalies in the present data (more \gamma\gamma{} and less WW signals than expected), such as modified rates of loop processes or partial fermiophobia. We find that present data disfavours Higgs boson invisible decays. We consider implications for the standard model, for supersymmetric and fermiophobic Higgs bosons, for dark matter models, for warped extra-dimensions.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, references added, discussion clarified (e.g. fit to invisible width), fit to radion adde

Optical remote sensing of lakes: an overview on Lake Maggiore

Optical satellite remote sensing represents an opportunity to integrate traditional methods for assessing water quality of lakes: strengths of remote sensing methods are the good spatial and temporal coverage, the possibility to monitor many lakes simultaneously and the reduced costs. In this work we present an overview of optical remote sensing techniques applied to lake water monitoring. Then, examples of applications focused on lake Maggiore, the second largest lake in Italy are discussed by presenting the temporal trend of chlorophyll-a (chl-a), suspended particulate matter (SPM), coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM) and the z90 signal depth (the latter indicating the water depth from which 90% of the reflected light comes from) as estimated from the images acquired by the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) in the pelagic area of the lake from 2003 to 2011. Concerning the chl-a trend, the results are in agreement with the concentration values measured during field surveys, confirming the good status of lake Maggiore, although occasional events of water deterioration were observed (e.g., an average increase of chl-a concentration, with a decrease of transparency, as a consequence of an anomalous phytoplankton occurred in summer 2011). A series of MERIS-derived maps (summer period 2011) of the z90 signal are also analysed in order to show the spatial variability of lake waters, which on average were clearer in the central pelagic zones. We expect that the recently launched (e.g., Landsat-8) and the future satellite missions (e.g., Sentinel-3) carrying sensors with improved spectral and spatial resolution are going to lead to a larger use of remote sensing for the assessment and monitoring of water quality parameters, by also allowing further applications (e.g., classification of phytoplankton functional types) to be developed

The universal Higgs fit

We perform a state-of-the-art global fit to all Higgs data. We synthesise them into a 'universal' form, which allows to easily test any desired model. We apply the proposed methodology to extract from data the Higgs branching ratios, production cross sections, couplings and to analyse composite Higgs models, models with extra Higgs doublets, supersymmetry, extra particles in the loops, anomalous top couplings, invisible Higgs decay into Dark Matter. Best fit regions lie around the Standard Model predictions and are well approximated by our 'universal' fit. Latest data exclude the dilaton as an alternative to the Higgs, and disfavour fits with negative Yukawa couplings. We derive for the first time the SM Higgs boson mass from the measured rates, rather than from the peak positions, obtaining $M_h = 125.0 \pm 1.8$ GeV.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures. Version 2: updated including the Higgs results presented at the EPS-HEP 2013 conference. Version 3: updated including Higgs results presented up to the Moriond 2014 conference; final version to be published. Version 4: updated to summer 201

Intravitreal NGF administration counteracts retina degeneration after permanent carotid artery occlusion in rat

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The neurotrophin nerve growth factor (NGF) is produced by different cell types in the anterior and posterior eye, exerting a neuroprotective role in the adult life. The visual system is highly sensitive to NGF and the retina and optic nerve provides suitable subjects for the study of central nervous system degeneration. The model of bilateral carotid occlusion (two-vessel occlusion, 2VO) is a well-established model for chronic brain hypoperfusion leading to brain capillary pathology, to retina and optic nerve degeneration. In order to study if a single intravitreal injection of NGF protects the retina and the optic nerve from degeneration during systemic circulatory diseases, we investigated morphological and molecular changes occurring in the retina and optic nerve of adult rats at different time-points (8, 30 and 75 days) after bilateral carotid occlusion.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We demonstrated that a single intravitreal injection of NGF (5 μg/3 μl performed 24 hours after 2VO ligation) has a long-lasting protective effect on retina and optic nerve degeneration. NGF counteracts retinal ganglion cells degeneration by early affecting Bax/Bcl-2 balance- and <it>c-jun- </it>expression (at 8 days after 2VO). A single intravitreal NGF injection regulates the demyelination/remyelination balance after ischemic injury in the optic nerve toward remyelination (at 75 days after 2VO), as indicated by the MBP expression regulation, thus preventing optic nerve atrophy and ganglion cells degeneration. At 8 days, NGF does not modify 2VO-induced alteration in VEFG and related receptors mRNA expression.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The protective effect of exogenous NGF during this systemic circulatory disease seems to occur also by strengthening the effect of endogenous NGF, the synthesis of which is increased by vascular defect and also by the mechanical lesion associated with NGF or even vehicle intraocular delivery.</p

In vitro exposure to very low-level laser modifies expression level of extracellular matrix protein RNAs and mitochondria dynamics in mouse embryonic fibroblasts

BACKGROUND: Low-level lasers working at 633 or 670 nm and emitting extremely low power densities (Ultra Low Level Lasers - ULLL) exert an overall effect of photobiostimulation on cellular metabolism and energy balance. In previous studies, it was demonstrated that ULLL pulsed emission mode regulates neurite elongation in vitro and exerts protective action against oxidative stress. METHODS: In this study the action of ULLL supplied in both pulsed and continuous mode vs continuous LLL on fibroblast cultures (Mouse Embryonic Fibroblast-MEF) was tested, focusing on mitochondria network and the expression level of mRNA encoding for proteins involved in the cell-matrix adhesion. RESULTS: It was shown that ULLL at 670 nm, at extremely low average power output (0.21 mW/ cm(2)) and dose (4.3 mJ/ cm(2)), when dispensed in pulsed mode (PW), but not in continuous mode (CW) supplied at both at very low (0.21 mW/cm(2)) and low levels (500 mW/cm(2)), modifies mitochondria network dynamics, as well as expression level of mRNA encoding for selective matrix proteins in MEF, e.g. collagen type 1α1 and integrin α5. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that pulsatility, but not energy density, is crucial in regulating expression level of collagen I and integrin α5 in fibroblasts by ULLL