5,907 research outputs found
The Chemokine CCL2 Mediates the Seizure-enhancing Effects of Systemic Inflammation
Epilepsy is a chronic disorder characterized by spontaneous recurrent seizures. Brain inflammation is increasingly recognized as a critical factor for seizure precipitation, but the molecular mediators of such proconvulsant effects are only partly understood. The chemokine CCL2 is one of the most elevated inflammatory mediators in patients with pharmacoresistent epilepsy, but its contribution to seizure generation remains unexplored. Here, we show, for the first time, a crucial role for CCL2 and its receptor CCR2 in seizure control. We imposed a systemic inflammatory challenge via lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration in mice with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. We found that LPS dramatically increased seizure frequency and upregulated the expression of many inflammatory proteins, including CCL2. To test the proconvulsant role of CCL2, we administered systemically either a CCL2 transcription inhibitor (bindarit) or a selective antagonist of the CCR2 receptor (RS102895). We found that interference with CCL2 signaling potently suppressed LPS-induced seizures. Intracerebral administration of anti-CCL2 antibodies also abrogated LPS-mediated seizure enhancement in chronically epileptic animals. Our results reveal that CCL2 is a key mediator in the molecular pathways that link peripheral inflammation with neuronal hyperexcitability
Synapses as therapeutic targets for autism spectrum disorders: an international symposium held in Pavia on july 4th, 2014
New progresses into the molecular and cellular mechanisms of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have been discussed in 1 day international symposium held in Pavia (Italy) on July 4th, 2014 entitled “synapses as therapeutic targets for autism spectrum disorders” (satellite of the FENS Forum for Neuroscience, Milan, 2014). In particular, world experts in the field have highlighted how animal models of ASDs have greatly advanced our understanding of the molecular pathways involved in synaptic dysfunction leading sometimes to “synaptic clinical trials” in children. © 2014 Curatolo, Ben-Ari, Bozzi, Catania, D’Angelo, Mapelli, Oberman, Rosenmund and Cherubini
Heavy-quark mass effects in Higgs boson production at the LHC
We study the impact of heavy-quark masses in Higgs boson production through
gluon fusion at the LHC. We extend previous computations of the fully
differential cross section and of the transverse momentum spectrum of the Higgs
boson by taking into account the finite top- and bottom-quark masses up to
O(alpha_S^3). We also discuss the issues arising when the heavy-quark mass is
much smaller than the Higgs mass. Our results are implemented in updated
versions of the HNNLO and HRes numerical programs.Comment: Minor modifications, results unchanged. Discussion on uncertainties
added. Version published on JHE
Top-mass effects in differential Higgs production through gluon fusion at order \alpha_s^4
Effects from a finite top quark mass on differential distributions in the
Higgs+jet production cross section through gluon fusion are studied at
next-to-leading order in the strong coupling, i.e. . Terms
formally subleading in are calculated, and their influence on the
transverse momentum and rapidity distribution of the Higgs boson are evaluated.
We find that, for the differential K-factor, the heavy-top limit is valid at
the 2-3% level as long as the transverse momentum of the Higgs remains below
about 150 GeV.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figure
Testing the gaugino AMSB model at the Tevatron via slepton pair production
Gaugino AMSB models-- wherein scalar and trilinear soft SUSY breaking terms
are suppressed at the GUT scale while gaugino masses adopt the AMSB form--
yield a characteristic SUSY particle mass spectrum with light sleptons along
with a nearly degenerate wino-like lightest neutralino and quasi-stable
chargino. The left- sleptons and sneutrinos can be pair produced at
sufficiently high rates to yield observable signals at the Fermilab Tevatron.
We calculate the rate for isolated single and dilepton plus missing energy
signals, along with the presence of one or two highly ionizing chargino tracks.
We find that Tevatron experiments should be able to probe gravitino masses into
the ~55 TeV range for inoAMSB models, which corresponds to a reach in gluino
mass of over 1100 GeV.Comment: 14 pages including 6 .eps figure
Text Line Segmentation of Historical Documents: a Survey
There is a huge amount of historical documents in libraries and in various
National Archives that have not been exploited electronically. Although
automatic reading of complete pages remains, in most cases, a long-term
objective, tasks such as word spotting, text/image alignment, authentication
and extraction of specific fields are in use today. For all these tasks, a
major step is document segmentation into text lines. Because of the low quality
and the complexity of these documents (background noise, artifacts due to
aging, interfering lines),automatic text line segmentation remains an open
research field. The objective of this paper is to present a survey of existing
methods, developed during the last decade, and dedicated to documents of
historical interest.Comment: 25 pages, submitted version, To appear in International Journal on
Document Analysis and Recognition, On line version available at
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k2813176280456k3
kt - factorization and CCFM - the solution for describing the hadronic final states - everywhere ?
The basic ideas of kt-factorization and CCFM parton evolution is discussed.
The unintegrated gluon densities, obtained from CCFM fits to the proton
structure function data at HERA are used to predict hadronic final state cross
sections like jet production at HERA, but also comparisons with recent
measurements of heavy quark production at the Tevatron are presented. Finally,
the kt-factorization approach is applied to Higgs production at high energy
hadron hadron colliders and the transverse momentum spectrum of Higgs
production at the LHC is calculated.Comment: to be published in MPLA, replaced with new reference
Factorization and NNLL Resummation for Higgs Production with a Jet Veto
Using methods of effective field theory, we derive the first all-order
factorization theorem for the Higgs-boson production cross section with a jet
veto, imposed by means of a standard sequential recombination jet algorithm.
Like in the case of small-q_T resummation in Drell-Yan and Higgs production,
the factorization is affected by a collinear anomaly. Our analysis provides the
basis for a systematic resummation of large logarithms log(m_H/p_T^veto) beyond
leading-logarithmic order. Specifically, we present predictions for the
resummed jet-veto cross section and efficiency at next-to-next-to-leading
logarithmic order. Our results have important implications for Higgs-boson
searches at the LHC, where a jet veto is required to suppress background
events.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures; v2: published version; note added in proo
Many faces of low mass neutralino dark matter in the unconstrained MSSM, LHC data and new signals
If all strongly interacting sparticles (the squarks and the gluinos) in an
unconstrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) are heavier than the
corresponding mass lower limits in the minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) model,
obtained by the current LHC experiments, then the existing data allow a variety
of electroweak (EW) sectors with light sparticles yielding dark matter (DM)
relic density allowed by the WMAP data. Some of the sparticles may lie just
above the existing lower bounds from LEP and lead to many novel DM producing
mechanisms not common in mSUGRA. This is illustrated by revisiting the above
squark-gluino mass limits obtained by the ATLAS Collaboration, with an
unconstrained EW sector with masses not correlated with the strong sector.
Using their selection criteria and the corresponding cross section limits, we
find at the generator level using Pythia, that the changes in the mass limits,
if any, are by at most 10-12% in most scenarios. In some cases, however, the
relaxation of the gluino mass limits are larger (). If a subset of
the strongly interacting sparticles in an unconstrained MSSM are within the
reach of the LHC, then signals sensitive to the EW sector may be obtained. This
is illustrated by simulating the \etslash, , and \etslash signals in i) the light stop scenario and ii) the light
stop-gluino scenario with various light EW sectors allowed by the WMAP data.
Some of the more general models may be realized with non-universal scalar and
gaugino masses.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figure, references added, minor changes in text, to
appear in JHE
Higgs boson enhancement effects on squark-pair production at the LHC
We study the Higgs boson effects on third-generation squark-pair production
in proton-proton collision at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), including
\Stop \Stop^*, \Stop\Sbot^*, and \Sbot \Sbot^*. We found that substantial
enhancement can be obtained through s-channel exchanges of Higgs bosons at
large , at which the enhancement mainly comes from , , and initial states. We compute the complete set of electroweak
(EW) contributions to all production channels. This completes previous
computations in the literature. We found that the EW contributions can be
significant and can reach up to 25% in more general scenarios and at the
resonance of the heavy Higgs boson. The size of Higgs enhancement is comparable
or even higher than the PDF uncertainties and so must be included in any
reliable analysis. A full analytical computation of all the EW contributions is
presented.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl
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