On supersymmetry breaking and the Dijkgraaf-Vafa conjecture

We investigate the Dijkgraaf-Vafa proposal when supersymmetry is broken. We consider U(N) SYM with chiral adjoint matter where the coupling constants in the tree-level superpotential are promoted to chiral spurions. The holomorphic part of the low-energy glueball superpotential can still be analyzed. We compute the holomorphic supersymmetry breaking contributions using methods of the geometry underlying the N=1 effective gauge theory viewed as a Whitham system. We also study the change in the effective glueball superpotential using perturbative supergraph techniques in the presence of spurions.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX; minor changes, one reference added, version to appear in JHE

Culture of human cell lines by a pathogen-inactivated human platelet lysate

Alternatives to the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) have been investigated to ensure xeno-free growth condition. In this study we evaluated the efficacy of human platelet lysate (PL) as a substitute of FBS for the in vitro culture of some human cell lines. PL was obtained by pools of pathogen inactivated human donor platelet (PLT) concentrates. Human leukemia cell lines (KG-1, K562, JURKAT, HL-60) and epithelial tumor cell lines (HeLa and MCF-7) were cultured with either FBS or PL. Changes in cell proliferation, viability, morphology, surface markers and cell cycle were evaluated for each cell line. Functional characteristics were analysed by drug sensitivity test and cytotoxicity assay. Our results demonstrated that PL can support growth and expansion of all cell lines, although the cells cultured in presence of PL experienced a less massive proliferation compared to those grown with FBS. We found a comparable percentage of viable specific marker-expressing cells in both conditions, confirming lineage fidelity in all cultures. Functionality assays showed that cells in both FBS- and PL-supported cultures maintained their normal responsiveness to adriamycin and NK cell-mediated lysis. Our findings indicate that PL is a feasible serum substitute for supporting growth and propagation of haematopoietic and epithelial cell lines with many advantages from a perspective of process standardization, ethicality and product safety

I terremoti e i maremoti dello Stretto di Messina dal mondo antico alla fine del XX secolo: descrizioni e parametri

Un excursus storico di oltre duemila anni sintetizza le conoscenze attestate da fonti scritte. Antiche testimonianze, annotazioni in codici medievali, ma anche dettagliate relazioni di epoca moderna e rilevazioni contemporanee consentono di delineare un quadro il più possibile completo della sismicità di quest’area, abitata fin dai tempi più remoti. Emergono diversi terremoti minori, alcuni dei quali quasi dimenticati, che tuttavia confermano un’immagine dell’attività sismica nell’area dello Stretto caratterizzata da eventi frequenti, ma dominata da rari terremoti catastrofici