Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Searches for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Searches for supersymmetry (SUSY) are presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected in 2012 with the CMS detector at the LHC. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy (E-T(miss)). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with E-T(miss). The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric particles, and 95% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values

The heavy metal-responsive transcription factor-1 (MTF-1) is not required for neural differentiation.

The zinc finger transcription factor MTF-1 is essential for proper response to heavy metal load and other stress conditions in vertebrates, and also contributes to the maintenance of the cellular redox state. Target genes include metallothioneins (MT-I and MT-II) and gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase (gamma-GCS), an enzyme involved in glutathione biosynthesis. Although MTF-1 is expressed ubiquitously, the primary defect in null mutant mice is hepatocyte necrosis, which results in embryonic lethality around day E14 and prevents the analysis of delayed effects on other organs. To assess the impact of MTF-1 deficiency on the function of the mature central nervous system, we employed the neural grafting strategy. Neuroectodermal brain tissue obtained from transgenic mouse embryos at gestational day 12.5 was transplanted into the caudoputamen of adult wild-type mice. 33 days later, grafts derived from MTF-1 deficient mice consisted of fully differentiated neuroectodermal tissue and showed no differences to heterozygous control grafts. This indicates that MTF-1 is dispensable for the development and differentiation of the nervous system. Such transplants devoid of MTF-1 may provide a useful tool for the further investigation of the effect of cell stress, including oxidative stress