ATLAS SM VH(bb) Run-2 Search

The Higgs boson discovered at the LHC in 2012 has been observed coupling directly to $W$ and $Z$ bosons and to $\tau$ leptons, and indirectly to top quarks. In order to probe whether it is indeed the particle predicted by the Standard Model, direct couplings of the Higgs boson to quarks must also be measured. The Higgs boson decays most often to a pair of bottom quarks (with a branching ratio of 58%). When the Higgs boson is produced alone in gluon-gluon fusion, the signal in this decay mode is overwhelmed by the regular multi-jet background. By requiring the Higgs boson to be produced in association with a vector boson $V$ ($W$ or $Z$), which is further required to decay leptonically, data events can be selected using charged-lepton or missing transverse energy triggers. The Tevatron experiments presented combined results showing evidence for the $VH(b\bar{b})$ process at a significance level of about 3 standard deviations, while the combined LHC results from Run-1 data show a 2.6 standard deviation evidence for the $H\rightarrow b\bar{b}$ decay mode. In this poster, the ATLAS $VH(b\bar{b})$ search using Run-2 data is summarised.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings for the 38th International Conference on High Energy Physics, Chicago, IL, USA, 03 - 10 Aug 2016, http://cds.cern.ch/record/223160

Combined upper limit on Standard Model Higgs boson production at CDF

The Higgs boson is the only elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model (SM) that has neither been confirmed nor refuted. The CDF collaboration has performed SM Higgs searches in many channels using p\pbar collisions at a centre-of-mass energy \sqrt{s}=1.96\tev. We present the latest combined Higgs boson search at CDF. Since the previous year's combination, the sensitivity is increased through the addition of new channels, the improvement of existing channels and the addition of new data samples. We also use the latest parton distribution functions and $gg \rightarrow H$ theoretical cross sections when modelling the signal event yields. Using integrated luminosities of up to 8.2 \invfb, we observe a good agreement between data and the background prediction. Since we do not see a Higgs boson excess, we set 95% CL upper limits on the Higgs boson cross section in the range between 100 and 200 \gevcc, with 5 \gevcc increments. The observed (expected) limits for a 115 and a 165 \gevcc Higgs boson are 1.55 (1.49) and 0.75 (0.79) $\times$ SM, respectively. Since last year, the Higgs boson excluded range by CDF is extended to 156.5 - 173.7 and 100 - 104.5 \gevcc.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, proceeding for the EPS 2011 CDF Standard Model Higgs Combination, accepted for publication in the journal Proceedings of Scienc

FUNCTIONAL BARRIERS IN IASI URBAN AREA

The forced industrialisation of cities resulted in the construction of giant sites in outlying areas. December 1989 triggered the decline of industrial activities, wich could not be sustained any longer. Gradually, industrial halls have been abandoned, turning into ghosts of past glory, „black spots” that visually pollute the city’s image. The article highlitghts the tendency of these abandoned spaces to become true functional barriers. Occupying large spaces, the former industrial units are a barrier to communication (moving obstacle) and for the development of certain areas. Perceveid as dangerous places, with a low security level, the problem of abandoned areas would be a subject for the terriorial marketing strategies. in this regard, putting into value the results of a field survey, the article studies the perception of the urban brownfields, applied for Ia?i as a case study.industrial zone, functional barrier, communication, perception, image.

Development of models for predicting Torsade de Pointes cardiac arrhythmias using perceptron neural networks

Blockage of some ion channels and in particular, the hERG cardiac potassium channel delays cardiac repolarization and can induce arrhythmia. In some cases it leads to a potentially life-threatening arrhythmia known as Torsade de Pointes (TdP). Therefore recognizing drugs with TdP risk is essential. Candidate drugs that are determined not to cause cardiac ion channel blockage are more likely to pass successfully through clinical phases II and III trials (and preclinical work) and not be withdrawn even later from the marketplace due to cardiotoxic effects. The objective of the present study is to develop an SAR model that can be used as an early screen for torsadogenic (causing TdP arrhythmias) potential in drug candidates. The method is performed using descriptors comprised of atomic NMR chemical shifts and corresponding interatomic distances which are combined into a 3D abstract space matrix. The method is called 3D-SDAR (3 dimensional spectral data-activity relationship) and can be interrogated to identify molecular features responsible for the activity, which can in turn yield simplified hERG toxicophores. A dataset of 55 hERG potassium channel inhibitors collected from Kramer et al. consisting of 32 drugs with TdP risk and 23 with no TdP risk was used for training the 3D-SDAR model.An ANN model with multilayer perceptron was used to define collinearities among the independent 3D-SDAR features. A composite model from 200 random iterations with 25% of the molecules in each case yielded the following figures of merit: training, 99.2 %; internal test sets, 66.7%; external (blind validation) test set, 68.4%. In the external test set, 70.3% of positive TdP drugs were correctly predicted. Moreover, toxicophores were generated from TdP drugs. A 3D-SDAR was successfully used to build a predictive model for drug-induced torsadogenic and non-torsadogenic drugs.Comment: Accepted for publication in BMC Bioinformatics (Springer) July 201