Measurements of properties of the Higgs-like Particle at 125 GeV by the CMS collaboration

CMS results on the measurement of properties of the Higgs-like particle discovered last summer with a mass near 126 GeV are presented. The results are based on a data samples corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 5.1 fb-1 at 7 TeV and up to 19.6 fb-1 at 8 TeV in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. Five decay modes are studied: gamma-gamma, ZZ, WW, tau-tau and bb. The event yields obtained by different analyses targeting specific decay modes and production mechanisms are consistent with those expected for the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson. The mass of the new boson is measured to be 125.7 +- 0.4 GeV. The best-fit signal strength for all channels combined, expressed in units of the SM Higgs boson cross section, is 0.80 +- 0.14 at the measured mass. A discussion on the consistency of the couplings and the spin-parity properties of the observed boson with those predicted for the SM Higgs boson is presented, updated with the most recent results. No significant deviations are found

Functional Characterization of Non-Coding RNAs in the Mammalian Retina

Long non-coding RNAs (IncRNAs) are emerging as regulators of a number of basic cellular pathways. Several IncRNAs are selectively expressed in the developing retina, although little is known about their functional role in this tissue. During my PhD thesis I characterized the expression pattern of three retinal-lncRNAs, namely Six3os, Otx2os and Vax2os in the developing mouse retina. Opposite Strand (OS) transcripts are transcribed in the opposite direction of protein-coding genes, in this case Six3, Otx2 and Vax2, respectively. Furthermore, I performed a comprehensive functional study for Vax2os1, the most abundant transcript from the Vax2os cluster, whose expression is restricted to the mouse ventral retina. I demonstrated that misexpression of Vax2os1, both in vitro and in vivo, determines cell cycle alterations in photoreceptor progenitor cells. In particular, the overexpression of Vax2os1 in the developing postnatal mouse retina caused an impaired cell cycle progression of photoreceptor progenitors toward their final committed fate and a consequent delay of their differentiation processes. At later developmental stages, this perturbation was accompanied by an increase of apoptotic events in the photoreceptor cell layer, in comparison with control retinas, without affecting the proper cell layering in the adult retina. Similar results were observed in mouse photoreceptor-derived 661W cells in which Vax2os1 overexpression resulted in an impairment of the cell cycle progression rate and cell differentiation. Based on these results, I conclude that Vax2os1 seems to ensure proper control of the cell cycle progression of photoreceptor progenitor cells in the ventral retina. Therefore, I propose Vax2os1 as the first example of IncRNA that acts as a cell cycle regulator in the mammalian retina during development

Study of deposition of YBa2Cu3O7-x on cubic zirconia

Films of YBa2Cu3O7-x were grown on (100) cubic zirconia with 8 percent yttria by laser ablation from sintered targets of YBa2Cu3O7-x. The temperature of the zirconia substrate during growth was varied between 700 and 780 C. The atmosphere during growth was 170 mtorr of O2. The films were subsequently slowly cooled in-situ in 1 atm of O2. The best films were c-axis aligned and had a transition temperature of 87.7 K. The superconducting transition temperature and the X-ray diffraction analysis is reported as a function of the substrate temperature and of the angle between the laser beam and the target's normal