4,059 research outputs found
HEP in Greek Classes
The HEP Inquiry learning resources created over the last four years by the European outreach projects are reviewed. The resources are mostly addressed to high school students and the purpose is to ignite their interest on science. In addition, at the University of Athens for the last four years we have been using the HYPATIA online event analysis tool as a lab course for fourth year undergraduate physics students, majoring in HEP. Each year 40–50 students highly appreciated the course, since they get a direct involvement in the actual toplevel research. Up to now, the course was limited to visual inspection of a few tens of ATLAS events. Recently we have enriched the course with additional analysis exercises, which involve large samples of events. The students, through a user friendly interface can analyze the samples (both signal and background ones) and optimize the cut selection in order to search for the Higgs decay H □ 4 leptons. Recently ATLAS released 1/fb of data, so starting now the students analyse real data
The position of the mental foramen in dentate and edentulous mandibles: clinical and surgical relevance
Background: The knowledge of the exact location of the mental foramen (MF) in dentate and edentulous mandibles is clinically important when constructing complete dentures, performing anaesthetic block of the lower-anterior teeth area and intervening in the MF nearby area. In edentulous mandibles, the bone resorption after teeth loss makes the mental nerve (MN) prone to damage due to the extreme location of the MF very close to the alveolar crest (AC). Chronic compression on the MN may result in pain in the area of MN distribution (ipsilateral face and cheek area) and numbness at the lower lip. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the exact position of the MF, calculating the distances MF-superior border of the AC and MF-inferior border of the mandible (IBM) in dentate and edentulous mandibles.
Materials and methods: One hundred and two (36 edentulous and 66 dentate) adult dry Greek mandibles were studied.
Results: In 9 out of 36 edentulous mandibles (25%), the MF was found nearby the AC, while in 27 edentulous mandibles (75%), the MF was located at an average distance 6.4 mm from the AC and 12.6 mm from the IBM. In 38 out of 66 dentate mandibles (57.6%), the MF was located at an average distance 13.6 mm from the AC and 15.2 mm from the IBM. The dental status significantly affected (p = 0.001) the distances MF-AC and MF-IBM. Side symmetry was observed for both dentate and edentulous mandibles (p = 0.39 and p = 0.45).
Conclusions: The MF is an important landmark and its location needs to be considered prior to dental implants placement in order to avoid the MN injury and related complications. The position of MF is altered in edentulous mandibles compared with the dentate ones. The MF is a symmetric structure in Greeks
Synthesis, Characterization, and Biological Studies of Organotin(IV) Derivatives with o- or p-hydroxybenzoic Acids
Organotin(IV) complexes with o- or p-hydroxybenzoic acids (o-H2BZA or p-H2BZA) of formulae [R2Sn(HL)2] (where H2L = o-H2BZA and R = Me- (1), n-Bu- (2)); [R3Sn(HL)] (where H2L = o-H2BZA and R = n-Bu- (3), Ph- (4) or H2L = p-H2BZA and R = n-Bu- (5), Ph- (6)) were synthesized by reacting a methanolic solution of di- and triorganotin(IV) compounds with an aqueous solution of the ligand (o-H2BZA or p-H2BZA) containing equimolar amounts of potassium hydroxide. The complexes were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, Far-IR, TGA-DTA, FT-Raman, Mössbauer spectroscopy, 1H, 119Sn-NMR, UV/Vis spectroscopy, and Mass spectroscopy. The X-ray crystal structures of complexes 1 and 2 have also been determined. Finally, the influence of these complexes 1–6 upon the catalytic peroxidation of linoleic acid to hydroperoxylinoleic acid by the enzyme lipoxygenase (LOX) was kinetically studied and the results showed that triorganotin(IV) complex 6 has the lowest IC50 value. Also complexes 1–6 were studied for their in vitro cytotoxicity against sarcoma cancer cells (mesenchymal tissue) from the Wistar rat, and the results showed that the complexes have high activity against these cell lines with triphenyltin((IV) complex 4 to be the most active one
J/Psi Suppression in Heavy Ion Collisions at the CERN SPS
We reexamine the production of J/Psi and other charmonium states for a
variety of target-projectile choices at the SPS. For this study we use a newly
constructed cascade code LUCIFER II, which yields acceptable descriptions of
both hard and soft processes, specifically Drell-Yan and hidden charm
production, and soft energy loss and meson production, at the SPS. Glauber
calculations of other authors are redone, and compared directly to the cascade
results. The modeling of the charmonium states differs from that of earlier
workers in its unified treatment of the hidden charm meson spectrum, which is
introduced from the outset as a set of coupled states. The result is a
description of the NA38 and NA50 data in terms of a conventional hadronic
picture. The apparently anomalous suppression found in the most massive Pb+Pb
system arises from three sources: destruction in the initial nucleon-nucleon
cascade, use of coupled channels to exploit the larger breakup in the less
bound Chi and Psi' states, and comover interaction in the final low energy
phase.Comment: 36 pages (15 figures
Examination of direct-photon and pion production in proton-nucleon collisions
We present a study of inclusive direct-photon and pion production in hadronic
interactions, focusing on a comparison of the ratio of gamma/pi0 yields with
expectations from next-to-leading order perturbative QCD (NLO pQCD). We also
examine the impact of a phenomenological model involving k_T smearing (which
approximates effects of additional soft-gluon emission) on absolute predictions
for photon and pion production and their ratio.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures. Minor changes in wording and in figure
Binding Conformation of 2-Oxoamide Inhibitors to Group IVA Cytosolic Phospholipase A2 Determined by Molecular Docking Combined with Molecular Dynamics
The group IVA cytosolic phospholipase A2 (GIVA
cPLA2) plays a central role in inflammation. Long chain 2-oxoamides
constitute a class of potent GIVA cPLA2 inhibitors that exhibit potent in
vivo anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity. We have now gained
insight into the binding of 2-oxoamide inhibitors in the GIVA cPLA2
active site through a combination of molecular docking calculations
and molecular dynamics simulations. Recently, the location of the
2-oxoamide inhibitor AX007 within the active site of the GIVA cPLA2
was determined using a combination of deuterium exchange mass
spectrometry followed by molecular dynamics simulations. After the
optimization of the AX007-GIVA cPLA2 complex using the docking
algorithm Surflex-Dock, a series of additional 2-oxoamide inhibitors
have been docked in the enzyme active site. The calculated binding
affinity presents a good statistical correlation with the experimental
inhibitory activity (r
2 = 0.76, N = 11). A molecular dynamics simulation of the docking complex of the most active compound has
revealed persistent interactions of the inhibitor with the enzyme active site and proves the stability of the docking complex and
the validity of the binding suggested by the docking calculations. The combination of molecular docking calculations and
molecular dynamics simulations is useful in defining the binding of small-molecule inhibitors and provides a valuable tool for the
design of new compounds with improved inhibitory activity against GIVA cPLA2
Hadroproduction and Polarization of Charmonium
In the limit of heavy quark mass, the production cross section and
polarization of quarkonia can be calculated in perturbative QCD. We study the
-averaged production of charmonium states in collisions at
fixed target energies. The data on the relative production rates of \jp and
is found to disagree with leading twist QCD. The polarization of the
\jp indicates that the discrepancy is not due to poorly known parton
distributions nor to the size of higher order effects (-factors). Rather,
the disagreement suggests important higher twist corrections, as has been
surmised earlier from the nuclear target -dependence of the production cross
section.Comment: 19 page
Determination of the b quark mass at the M_Z scale with the DELPHI detector at LEP
An experimental study of the normalized three-jet rate of b quark events with
respect to light quarks events (light= \ell \equiv u,d,s) has been performed
using the CAMBRIDGE and DURHAM jet algorithms. The data used were collected by
the DELPHI experiment at LEP on the Z peak from 1994 to 2000. The results are
found to agree with theoretical predictions treating mass corrections at
next-to-leading order. Measurements of the b quark mass have also been
performed for both the b pole mass: M_b and the b running mass: m_b(M_Z). Data
are found to be better described when using the running mass. The measurement
yields: m_b(M_Z) = 2.85 +/- 0.18 (stat) +/- 0.13 (exp) +/- 0.19 (had) +/- 0.12
(theo) GeV/c^2 for the CAMBRIDGE algorithm. This result is the most precise
measurement of the b mass derived from a high energy process. When compared to
other b mass determinations by experiments at lower energy scales, this value
agrees with the prediction of Quantum Chromodynamics for the energy evolution
of the running mass. The mass measurement is equivalent to a test of the
flavour independence of the strong coupling constant with an accuracy of 7
permil.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.
Bottomonium and Drell-Yan production in p-A collisions at 450 GeV
The NA50 Collaboration has measured heavy-quarkonium production in p-A
collisions at 450 GeV incident energy (sqrt(s) = 29.1 GeV). We report here
results on the production of the Upsilon states and of high-mass Drell-Yan muon
pairs (m > 6 GeV). The cross-section at midrapidity and the A-dependence of the
measured yields are determined and compared with the results of other
fixed-target experiments and with the available theoretical estimates. Finally,
we also address some issues concerning the transverse momentum distributions of
the measured dimuons.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Phys. Lett.
Measurement and Interpretation of Fermion-Pair Production at LEP energies above the Z Resonance
This paper presents DELPHI measurements and interpretations of
cross-sections, forward-backward asymmetries, and angular distributions, for
the e+e- -> ffbar process for centre-of-mass energies above the Z resonance,
from sqrt(s) ~ 130 - 207 GeV at the LEP collider. The measurements are
consistent with the predictions of the Standard Model and are used to study a
variety of models including the S-Matrix ansatz for e+e- -> ffbar scattering
and several models which include physics beyond the Standard Model: the
exchange of Z' bosons, contact interactions between fermions, the exchange of
gravitons in large extra dimensions and the exchange of sneutrino in R-parity
violating supersymmetry.Comment: 79 pages, 16 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.
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