21 research outputs found
NNLO Logarithmic Expansions and High Precision Determinations of the QCD background at the LHC: The case of the Z resonance
New methods of solutions of the DGLAP equation and their implementation
through NNLO in QCD are briefly reviewed. We organize the perturbative
expansion that describes in -space the evolved parton distributions in terms
of scale invariant functions, which are determined recursively, and logarithms
of the ratio of the running couplings at the initial and final evolution
scales. Resummed solutions are constructed within the same approach and involve
logarithms of more complex functions, which are given in the non-singlet case.
Differences in the evolution schemes are shown to be numerically sizeable and
intrinsic to perturbation theory. We illustrate these points in the case of
Drell-Yan lepton pair production near the Z resonance, analysis that can be
extended to searches of extra . We show that the reduction of the
NNLO cross section compared to the NLO prediction may be attributed to the NNLO
evolution.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Talk given at QCD@work 2007, Martina Franca,
Italy, 16-20 June 2007. To be published in the American Institute of Physics
(AIP) conference proceeding
What These Findings Tell Us. Reply to Kelly et al. What Do These Findings Tell Us? Comment on âTinella et al. Cognitive Efficiency and Fitness-to-Drive along the Lifespan: The Mediation Effect of Visuospatial Transformations. Brain Sci. 2021, 11, 1028â
The study of the contribution of spatial transformation skills to driving behavior is a
research topic substantiated by scarce evidence. In previous studies, we found that mental rotation
and perspective-taking skills have an influence on performance in driving tasks by conveying the
distal effects of the general cognitive efficiency on the execution of driving maneuvers. Studies have
provided evidence on the relevance of the cognitive processes of encoding, imagined rotation, and
spatial orientation in the accuracy of both the vehicle management during stressful driving situations
and the acquisition of visual information on the traffic scenario. Results can find applications in both
the training and the assessment of fitness to drive, as well as in the study of interaction between
the drivers and in-vehicle devices. The lack of cross-validations in path analysis models cannot be
assumed, a priori, to be capitalizing on chance and as an example of bad science. The non-replicability
of a study should be demonstrated before it is proclaimed. The purpose of this reply was to address
the questions raised by Kelly et al. (2022)âthat is, âDo these results seem replicable?â and âHow do
these results advance our understanding of brain function and/or human behavior?ââby providing
additional information on the study in question
A real-world retrospective, observational study of first-line pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy for metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer with PD-L1 tumor proportion score < 50% (PEMBROREAL)
IntroductionThe phase III Keynote-189 trial established a first-line treatment combining pembrolizumab with pemetrexed and platinum as a standard treatment for patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without known EGFR and ALK driver mutations and independent of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression. However, in Italy, eligibility for the National Health Service payment program is limited to patients with PD-L1 <50%. The PEMBROREAL study assesses the real-world effectiveness and safety of pembrolizumab in patients eligible for the National Health Service payment program.MethodsPEMBROREAL is a retrospective, observational study on patients with NSCLC who started pembrolizumab combined with pemetrexed and platinum within the reimbursability time window, considered as December 2019 to December 2020. The primary endpoints were to assess progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS; using the KaplanâMeier method), response to therapy, and tolerability.ResultsUntil February 2022, 279 patients (median follow-up: 19.7 months) have been observed. The median PFS was 8.0 months (95% confidence interval: 6.5â9.2). OS was not reached, but we can estimate a 12- to 24-month survival rate for the combined treatment: 66.1% and 52.5%, respectively. PD-L1 expression and Eastern Cooperative Group (ECOG) Performance Status were both associated with PFS and OS. Overall, only 44.4% of patients reported an adverse event, whereas toxicity led to a 5.4% discontinuation rate.ConclusionThe results of the PEMBROREAL study have shown that the combined treatment of pembrolizumab with pemetrexed and platinum is effective for metastatic non-squamous NSCLC, even for patients with PD-L1 levels below 50%, despite the differences in patient demographics and pathological features compared to the Keynote-189 study. The adverse events reported during the study were more typical of chemotherapy treatment rather than immunotherapy, and physicians were able to manage them easily
Energy Resolution Performance of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter
The energy resolution performance of the CMS lead tungstate crystal electromagnetic calorimeter is presented. Measurements were made with an electron beam using a fully equipped supermodule of the calorimeter barrel. Results are given both for electrons incident on the centre of crystals and for electrons distributed uniformly over the calorimeter surface. The electron energy is reconstructed in matrices of 3 times 3 or 5 times 5 crystals centred on the crystal containing the maximum energy. Corrections for variations in the shower containment are applied in the case of uniform incidence. The resolution measured is consistent with the design goals
Cognitive Efficiency and Fitness-to-Drive along the Lifespan: The Mediation Effect of Visuospatial Transformations
The way people represent and transform visuospatial information affects everyday activities including driving behavior. Mental rotation and perspective taking have recently been found to predict cognitive prerequisites for fitness-to-drive (FtD). We argue that the relationship between general cognitive status and FtD is mediated by spatial transformation skills. Here, we investigated the performance in the Mental Rotation Test (MRT) and the Perspective-Taking Test (PT) of 175 male active drivers (aged from 18 to 91 years), by administering the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to measure their global cognitive functioning. All participants were submitted to a computerized driving assessment measuring resilience of attention (DT), reaction speed (RS), motor speed (MS), and perceptual speed (ATAVT). Significant results were found for the effect of global cognitive functioning on perceptual speed through the full mediation of both mental rotation and perspective-taking skills. The indirect effect of global cognitive functioning through mental rotation was only found to significantly predict resilience of attention whereas the indirect effect mediated by perspective taking only was found to significantly predict perceptual speed. Finally, the negative effect of age was found on each driving measure. Results presented here, which are limited to male drivers, suggest that general cognitive efficiency is linked to spatial mental transformation skills and, in turn, to driving-related cognitive tasks, contributing to fitness-to-drive in the lifespan
Performance of CMS ECAL Very Front End Electronics
We report the results of tests of 12880 Very Front End (VFE) readout cards for the barrel of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter. A thorough test sequence was applied to each card including power-on test, burn-in and final calibration. Cards failing the tests were at the few per mille level. The results prove the very high quality of the VFE cards
The Drives for Driving Simulation: A Scientometric Analysis and a Selective Review of Reviews on Simulated Driving Research
Driving behaviors and fitness to drive have been assessed over time using different tools: standardized neuropsychological, on-road and driving simulation testing. Nowadays, the great variability of topics related to driving simulation has elicited a high number of reviews. The present work aims to perform a scientometric analysis on driving simulation reviews and to propose a selective review of reviews focusing on relevant aspects related to validity and fidelity. A scientometric analysis of driving simulation reviews published from 1988 to 2019 was conducted. Bibliographic data from 298 reviews were extracted from Scopus and WoS. Performance analysis was conducted to investigate most prolific Countries, Journals, Institutes and Authors. A cluster analysis on authors' keywords was performed to identify relevant associations between different research topics. Based on the reviews extracted from cluster analysis, a selective review of reviews was conducted to answer questions regarding validity, fidelity and critical issues. United States and Germany are the first two Countries for number of driving simulation reviews. United States is the leading Country with 5 Institutes in the top-ten. Top Authors wrote from 3 to 7 reviews each and belong to Institutes located in North America and Europe. Cluster analysis identified three clusters and eight keywords. The selective review of reviews showed a substantial agreement for supporting validity of driving simulation with respect to neuropsychological and on-road testing, while for fidelity with respect to real-world driving experience a blurred representation emerged. The most relevant critical issues were the a) lack of a common set of standards, b) phenomenon of simulation sickness, c) need for psychometric properties, lack of studies investigating d) predictive validity with respect to collision rates and e) ecological validity. Driving simulation represents a cross-cutting topic in scientific literature on driving, and there are several evidences for considering it as a valid alternative to neuropsychological and on-road testing. Further research efforts could be aimed at establishing a consensus statement for protocols assessing fitness to drive, in order to (a) use standardized systems, (b) compare systematically driving simulators with regard to their validity and fidelity, and (c) employ shared criteria for conducting studies in a given sub-topic
Transverse-Momentum and Pseudorapidity Distributions of Charged Hadrons in pp Collisions at âs=7 TeV
Charged-hadron transverse-momentum and pseudorapidity distributions in proton-proton collisions at âs=7ââTeV are measured with the inner tracking system of the CMS detector at the LHC. The charged-hadron yield is obtained by counting the number of reconstructed hits, hit pairs, and fully reconstructed charged-particle tracks. The combination of the three methods gives a charged-particle multiplicity per unit of pseudorapidity dNch/dη||η|<0.5=5.78±0.01(stat)±0.23(syst) for non-single-diffractive events, higher than predicted by commonly used models. The relative increase in charged-particle multiplicity from âs=0.9 to 7 TeV is [66.1±1.0(stat)±4.2(syst)]%. The mean transverse momentum is measured to be 0.545±0.005(stat)±0.015(syst)ââGeV/c. The results are compared with similar measurements at lower energies