The Level 0 Trigger Decision Unit for the LHCb experiment

The Level 0 Decision Unit (L0DU) is one of the main components of the first trigger level (named level 0) of the LHCb experiment. This 16 layers custom board receives data from the calorimeter, muon and pile-up sub-triggers and computes the level 0 decision, reducing the rate from 40MHz to 1MHz. The processing is implemented in FPGA using a 40MHz synchronous pipelined architecture. The L0DU algorithm is fully configured via the Experiment Control System without any firmware reprogramming. An overall L0DU latency of less than 450ns has been achieved. The board was installed in the experimental area in April 2007 and since then has played a major role in the commissioning of the experiment

Attitude Determination from Single-Antenna Carrier-Phase Measurements

A model of carrier phase measurement (as carried out by a satellite navigation receiver) is formulated based on electromagnetic theory. The model shows that the phase of the open-circuit voltage induced in the receiver antenna with respect to a local oscillator (in the receiver) depends on the relative orientation of the receiving and transmitting antennas. The model shows that using a {\it single} receiving antenna, and making carrier phase measurements to seven satellites, the 3-axis attitude of a user platform (in addition to its position and time) can be computed relative to an initial point. This measurement model can also be used to create high-fidelity satellite signal simulators that take into account the effect of platform rotation as well as translation.Comment: 12 pages, and one figure. Published in J. Appl. Phys. vol. 91, No. 7, April 1, 200

Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen 3A protein regulates CDKN2B transcription via interaction with MIZ-1

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen 3 family of protein is critical for the EBV-induced primary B-cell growth transformation process. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen we identified 22 novel cellular partners of the EBNA3s. Most importantly, among the newly identified partners, five are known to play direct and important roles in transcriptional regulation. Of these, the Myc-interacting zinc finger protein-1 (MIZ-1) is a transcription factor initially characterized as a binding partner of MYC. MIZ-1 activates the transcription of a number of target genes including the cell cycle inhibitor CDKN2B. Focusing on the EBNA3A/MIZ-1 interaction we demonstrate that binding occurs in EBV-infected cells expressing both proteins at endogenous physiological levels and that in the presence of EBNA3A, a significant fraction of MIZ-1 translocates from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. Moreover, we show that a trimeric complex composed of a MIZ-1 recognition DNA element, MIZ-1 and EBNA3A can be formed, and that interaction of MIZ-1 with nucleophosmin (NPM), one of its coactivator, is prevented by EBNA3A. Finally, we show that, in the presence of EBNA3A, expression of the MIZ-1 target gene, CDKN2B, is downregulated and repressive H3K27 marks are established on its promoter region suggesting that EBNA3A directly counteracts the growth inhibitory action of MIZ-1

Level 0 trigger decision unit for the LHCb experiment

The Level-0 Decision Unit (L0DU) is the central part of the first trigger level of the LHCb detector. The L0DU receives information from the Calorimeter, Muon and Pile-Up sub-triggers, with fixed latencies, at 40 MHz via 24 high speed optical fiber links running at 1.6 Gb/s. The L0DU performs simple physics algorithm to compute the decision in order to reduce the data flow down to 1 MHz for the next trigger level and a L0Block is constructed. The processing is implemented in FPGA using a 40 MHz synchronous pipelined architecture. The algorithm can be easily configured with the Experiment Control System (ECS) without FPGA reprogramming. The L0DU is a 16 layer custom board