Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

Anti-angiogenic tyrosine kinase inhibitors: what is their mechanism of action?

Tyrosine kinases are important cellular signaling proteins that have a variety of biological activities including cell proliferation and migration. Multiple kinases are involved in angiogenesis, including receptor tyrosine kinases such as the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor. Inhibition of angiogenic tyrosine kinases has been developed as a systemic treatment strategy for cancer. Three anti-angiogenic tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), sunitinib, sorafenib and pazopanib, with differential binding capacities to angiogenic kinases were recently approved for treatment of patients with advanced cancer (renal cell cancer, gastro-intestinal stromal tumors, and hepatocellular cancer). Many other anti-angiogenic TKIs are being studied in phase I-III clinical trials. In addition to their beneficial anti-tumor activity, clinical resistance and toxicities have also been observed with these agents. In this manuscript, we will give an overview of the design and development of anti-angiogenic TKIs. We describe their molecular structure and classification, their mechanism of action, and their inhibitory activity against specific kinase signaling pathways. In addition, we provide insight into what extent selective targeting of angiogenic kinases by TKIs may contribute to the clinically observed anti-tumor activity, resistance, and toxicity. We feel that it is of crucial importance to increase our understanding of the clinical mechanism of action of anti-angiogenic TKIs in order to further optimize their clinical efficacy

Measurement of the ratio of the inclusive 3-jet cross section to the inclusive 2-jet cross section in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV and first determination of the strong coupling constant in the TeV range

A measurement is presented of the ratio of the inclusive 3-jet cross section to the inclusive 2-jet cross section as a function of the average transverse momentum, , of the two leading jets in the event. The data sample was collected during 2011 at a proton-proton centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb(-1). The strong coupling constant at the scale of the Z boson mass is determined to be alpha(S)(M-Z) = 0.1148 +/- 0.0014 (exp.) +/- 0.0018 (PDF) +/- 0.0050 (theory), by comparing the ratio in the range 0.42 < 1.39 TeV to the predictions of perturbative QCD at next-to-leading order. This is the first determination of alpha(S)(M-Z) from measurements at momentum scales beyond 0.6 TeV. The predicted ratio depends only indirectly on the evolution of the parton distribution functions of the proton such that this measurement also serves as a test of the evolution of the strong coupling constant. No deviation from the expected behaviour is observed

Measurement of higher-order harmonic azimuthal anisotropy in PbPb collisions at root s(NN)=2.76 TeV

Measurements are presented by the CMS Collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the higher-order harmonic coefficients that describe the azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles emitted in root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV PbPb collisions. Expressed in terms of the Fourier components of the azimuthal distribution, the n = 3-6 harmonic coefficients are presented for charged particles as a function of their transverse momentum (0.3 < p(T) < 8.0 GeV/c), collision centrality (0%-70%), and pseudorapidity (|eta| < 2.0). The data are analyzed using the event plane, multiparticle cumulant, and Lee-Yang zeros methods, which provide different sensitivities to initial-state fluctuations. Taken together with earlier LHC measurements of elliptic flow (n = 2), the results on higher-order harmonic coefficients develop a more complete picture of the collective motion in high-energy heavy-ion collisions and shed light on the properties of the produced medium