Displaying publications 61 - 80 of 191 in total

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  1. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, Erö J, et al.
    Eur Phys J C Part Fields, 2021;81(4):378.
    PMID: 34727142 DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09014-x
    The rate for Higgs ( H ) bosons production in association with either one ( t H ) or two ( t t ¯ H ) top quarks is measured in final states containing multiple electrons, muons, or tau leptons decaying to hadrons and a neutrino, using proton-proton collisions recorded at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV by the CMS experiment. The analyzed data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb - 1 . The analysis is aimed at events that contain H → W W , H → τ τ , or H → Z Z decays and each of the top quark(s) decays either to lepton+jets or all-jet channels. Sensitivity to signal is maximized by including ten signatures in the analysis, depending on the lepton multiplicity. The separation among t H , t t ¯ H , and the backgrounds is enhanced through machine-learning techniques and matrix-element methods. The measured production rates for the t t ¯ H and t H signals correspond to 0.92 ± 0.19 (stat) - 0.13 + 0.17 (syst) and 5.7 ± 2.7 (stat) ± 3.0 (syst) of their respective standard model (SM) expectations. The corresponding observed (expected) significance amounts to 4.7 (5.2) standard deviations for t t ¯ H , and to 1.4 (0.3) for t H production. Assuming that the Higgs boson coupling to the tau lepton is equal in strength to its expectation in the SM, the coupling y t of the Higgs boson to the top quark divided by its SM expectation, κ t = y t / y t SM , is constrained to be within - 0.9 < κ t < - 0.7 or 0.7 < κ t < 1.1 , at 95% confidence level. This result is the most sensitive measurement of the t t ¯ H production rate to date.
  2. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, Erö J, et al.
    Eur Phys J C Part Fields, 2021;81(8):688.
    PMID: 34780582 DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09348-6
    A search is presented for a heavy vector resonance decaying into a Z boson and the standard model Higgs boson, where the Z boson is identified through its leptonic decays to electrons, muons, or neutrinos, and the Higgs boson is identified through its hadronic decays. The search is performed in a Lorentz-boosted regime and is based on data collected from 2016 to 2018 at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb - 1 . Upper limits are derived on the production of a narrow heavy resonance Z ' , and a mass below 3.5 and 3.7 Te is excluded at 95% confidence level in models where the heavy vector boson couples predominantly to fermions and to bosons, respectively. These are the most stringent limits placed on the Heavy Vector Triplet Z ' model to date. If the heavy vector boson couples exclusively to standard model bosons, upper limits on the product of the cross section and branching fraction are set between 23 and 0.3 fb for a Z ' mass between 0.8 and 4.6 Te , respectively. This is the first limit set on a heavy vector boson coupling exclusively to standard model bosons in its production and decay.
  3. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Andrejkovic JW, Bergauer T, Chatterjee S, et al.
    Eur Phys J C Part Fields, 2021;81(8):723.
    PMID: 34780581 DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09472-3
    A search for charged Higgs bosons produced in vector boson fusion processes and decaying into vector bosons, using proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV at the LHC, is reported. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb - 1 collected with the CMS detector. Events are selected by requiring two or three electrons or muons, moderate missing transverse momentum, and two jets with a large rapidity separation and a large dijet mass. No excess of events with respect to the standard model background predictions is observed. Model independent upper limits at 95% confidence level are reported on the product of the cross section and branching fraction for vector boson fusion production of charged Higgs bosons as a function of mass, from 200 to 3000 GeV . The results are interpreted in the context of the Georgi-Machacek model.
  4. Sun X, Chen W, Dai W, Xin H, Rahmand K, Wang Y, et al.
    J Ethnopharmacol, 2020 Dec 05;263:112897.
    PMID: 32620264 DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2020.112897
    ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Piper sarmentosum Roxb. (Piperaceae) is a traditional medicinal plant widely distributed in India, Malaysia, Thailand, and the southeastern coastal areas of China including Fujian, Guangdong, and Guizhou. It has been used for centuries for the treatment of wind-cold cough, fever, rheumatism arthralgia, diarrhea dysentery, postpartum foot swelling, stomachache, toothache, diabetes, and traumatic injury.

    AIMS OF THE REVIEW: To critically anayze the literature for the botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology, toxicity, and clinical trials of P. sarmentosum in order to provide a scientific consensus for further research and discovery of potential candidate drugs.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: The contents of this review were sourced from electronic databases including PubMed, SciFinder, Web of Science, Science Direct, Elsevier, Google Scholar, Chinese Knowledge On frastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, Chinese Scientific and Technological Periodical Database (VIP), Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), Cochrane Controlled register of Clinical Trials, Clinical Trials. gov, and Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. Chinese medicine books published over the years were used to elucidate the traditional uses of P. sarmentosum and additional information was also collected from Yao Zhi website (https://db.yaozh.com/).

    RESULTS: Phytochemical analyses of the chemical constituents of P. sarmentosum include essential oil, alkaloids, flavonoids, lignans, and steroids. The literature supports the ethnomedicinal uses of P. sarmentosum for the treatment of cold, gastritis, and rheumatoid joint pain, and further confirms its relatively new pharmacological activities, including anti-inflammatory, antineoplastic, and antipyretic activities. Other biological roles such as anti-osteoporosis, antibacterial, antidepressant, anti-atherosclerotic, and hypoglycemic activities have also been reported. However, the methodologies employed in individual studies are limited.

    CONCLUSIONS: There is convincing evidence from both in vitro and in vivo studies supporting the traditional use of P. sarmentosum and it is imperative that natural bioactive compounds are examined further. More efforts should be focused on the pharmacodynamic constituents of P. sarmentosum to provide practical basis for quality control, and additional studies are needed to understand the mechanism of their action. Further studies on the comprehensive evaluation of medicinal quality and understandings of serum chemistry, multi-target network pharmacology, and molecular docking technology of P. sarmentosum are of great importance and should be considered.

  5. Cao H, Wu X, Syed-Hassan SSA, Zhang S, Mood SH, Milan YJ, et al.
    Bioresour Technol, 2020 Dec;318:124063.
    PMID: 32905948 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.124063
    Biochar modified with calcium source is acted as an effective adsorbent for phosphorous recovery. In this research, eggshell is used as a low-cost and environmentally friendly calcium source to replace chemical reagents such as CaCO3, Ca(OH)2 and CaCl2 used in the modified biochar production. Biochar derived from rape straw and modified with eggshell shows prominent phosphorous adsorption performance (e.g., equilibrium adsorption amount, 109.7 mg/g). The kinetic and isotherm analysis demonstrate that chemical adsorption process is performed as the main controlled step for the modified biochar adsorption, and the phosphate adsorption process is composed of both monolayer adsorption and multi-layer adsorption. Moreover, it is found from the physicochemical structures comparison before and after phosphate adsorption that Ca-P precipitation, hydrogen bonding and electrostatic attraction are identified as main adsorption mechanisms. In addition, the adsorbed phosphates are mainly distributed inside the space with pore sizes of 15-50 nm.
  6. Wu X, Zhang S, Lai J, Lu H, Sun Y, Guan W
    Exp Clin Transplant, 2020 12;18(7):823-831.
    PMID: 33349209 DOI: 10.6002/ect.2020.0108
    OBJECTIVES: Liver fibrosis is inevitable in the healing process of liver injury. Liver fibrosis will develop into liver cirrhosis unless the damaging factors are removed. This study investigated the potential therapy of Bama pig adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells in a carbon tetrachloride-induced liver fibrosis Institute of Cancer Research strain mice model.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells were injected intravenously into the tails of mice of the Institute of Cancer Research strain that had been treated with carbon tetrachloride for 4 weeks. Survival rate, migration, and proliferation of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells in the liver were observed by histochemistry, fluorescent labeling, and serological detection.

    RESULTS: At 1, 2, and 3 weeks after adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cell injection, liver fibrosis was significantly ameliorated. The injected adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells had hepatic differentiation potential in vivo, and the survival rate of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells declined over time.

    CONCLUSIONS: The findings in this study confirmed that adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells derived from the Bama pig can be used in the treatment of liver fibrosis, and the grafted adipose-derived mesenchy-mal stem cells can migrate, survive, and differentiate into hepatic cells in vivo.

  7. Jerome JTJ, Mercier F, Mudgal CS, Arenas-Prat J, Vinagre G, Goorens CK, et al.
    J Hand Microsurg, 2020 Dec;12(3):135-162.
    PMID: 33408440 DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1713964
    With a lot of uncertainty, unclear, and frequently changing management protocols, COVID-19 has significantly impacted the orthopaedic surgical practice during this pandemic crisis. Surgeons around the world needed closed introspection, contemplation, and prospective consensual recommendations for safe surgical practice and prevention of viral contamination. One hundred orthopaedic surgeons from 50 countries were sent a Google online form with a questionnaire explicating protocols for admission, surgeries, discharge, follow-up, relevant information affecting their surgical practices, difficulties faced, and many more important issues that happened during and after the lockdown. Ten surgeons critically construed and interpreted the data to form rationale guidelines and recommendations. Of the total, hand and microsurgery surgeons (52%), trauma surgeons (32%), joint replacement surgeons (20%), and arthroscopy surgeons (14%) actively participated in the survey. Surgeons from national public health care/government college hospitals (44%) and private/semiprivate practitioners (54%) were involved in the study. Countries had lockdown started as early as January 3, 2020 with the implementation of partial or complete lifting of lockdown in few countries while writing this article. Surgeons (58%) did not stop their surgical practice or clinics but preferred only emergency cases during the lockdown. Most of the surgeons (49%) had three-fourths reduction in their total patients turn-up and the remaining cases were managed by conservative (54%) methods. There was a 50 to 75% reduction in the number of surgeries. Surgeons did perform emergency procedures without COVID-19 tests but preferred reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR; 77%) and computed tomography (CT) scan chest (12%) tests for all elective surgical cases. Open fracture and emergency procedures (60%) and distal radius (55%) fractures were the most commonly performed surgeries. Surgeons preferred full personal protection equipment kits (69%) with a respirator (N95/FFP3), but in the case of unavailability, they used surgical masks and normal gowns. Regional/local anesthesia (70%) remained their choice for surgery to prevent the aerosolized risk of contaminations. Essential surgical follow-up with limited persons and visits was encouraged by 70% of the surgeons, whereas teleconsultation and telerehabilitation by 30% of the surgeons. Despite the protective equipment, one-third of the surgeons were afraid of getting infected and 56% feared of infecting their near and dear ones. Orthopaedic surgeons in private practice did face 50 to 75% financial loss and have to furlough 25% staff and 50% paramedical persons. Orthopaedics meetings were cancelled, and virtual meetings have become the preferred mode of sharing the knowledge and experiences avoiding human contacts. Staying at home, reading, and writing manuscripts became more interesting and an interesting lifestyle change is seen among the surgeons. Unanimously and without any doubt all accepted the fact that COVID-19 pandemic has reached an unprecedented level where personal hygiene, hand washing, social distancing, and safe surgical practices are the viable antidotes, and they have all slowly integrated these practices into their lives. Strict adherence to local authority recommendations and guidelines, uniform and standardized norms for admission, inpatient, and discharge, mandatory RT-PCR tests before surgery and in selective cases with CT scan chest, optimizing and regularizing the surgeries, avoiding and delaying nonemergency surgeries and follow-up protocols, use of teleconsultations cautiously, and working in close association with the World Health Organization and national health care systems will provide a conducive and safe working environment for orthopaedic surgeons and their fraternity and also will prevent the resurgence of COVID-19.
  8. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 Nov 27;125(22):222001.
    PMID: 33315428 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.222001
    Ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions recreate in the laboratory the thermodynamical conditions prevailing in the early universe up to 10^{-6}  sec, thereby allowing the study of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter with deconfined partons. The top quark, the heaviest elementary particle known, is accessible in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN LHC, and constitutes a novel probe of the QGP. Here, we report the first evidence for the production of top quarks in nucleus-nucleus collisions, using lead-lead collision data at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment. Two methods are used to measure the cross section for top quark pair production (σ_{tt[over ¯]}) via the selection of charged leptons (electrons or muons) and bottom quarks. One method relies on the leptonic information alone, and the second one exploits, in addition, the presence of bottom quarks. The measured cross sections, σ_{tt[over ¯]}=2.54_{-0.74}^{+0.84} and 2.03_{-0.64}^{+0.71}  μb, respectively, are compatible with expectations from scaled proton-proton data and QCD predictions.
  9. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 Oct 09;125(15):152001.
    PMID: 33095627 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.152001
    Using a data sample of proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=13  TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140  fb^{-1} collected by the CMS experiment in 2016-2018, the B_{s}^{0}→X(3872)ϕ decay is observed. Decays into J/ψπ^{+}π^{-} and K^{+}K^{-} are used to reconstruct, respectively, the X(3872) and ϕ. The ratio of the product of branching fractions B[B_{s}^{0}→X(3872)ϕ]B[X(3872)→J/ψπ^{+}π^{-}] to the product B[B_{s}^{0}→ψ(2S)ϕ]B[ψ(2S)→J/ψπ^{+}π^{-}] is measured to be [2.21±0.29(stat)±0.17(syst)]%. The ratio B[B_{s}^{0}→X(3872)ϕ]/B[B^{0}→X(3872)K^{0}] is found to be consistent with one, while the ratio B[B_{s}^{0}→X(3872)ϕ]/B[B^{+}→X(3872)K^{+}] is two times smaller. This suggests a difference in the production dynamics of the X(3872) in B^{0} and B_{s}^{0} meson decays compared to B^{+}. The reported observation may shed new light on the nature of the X(3872) particle.
  10. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 Oct 09;125(15):151802.
    PMID: 33095594 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.151802
    The first observation is reported of the combined production of three massive gauge bosons (VVV with V=W, Z) in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The analysis is based on a data sample recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137  fb^{-1}. The searches for individual WWW, WWZ, WZZ, and ZZZ production are performed in final states with three, four, five, and six leptons (electrons or muons), or with two same-sign leptons plus one or two jets. The observed (expected) significance of the combined VVV production signal is 5.7 (5.9) standard deviations and the corresponding measured cross section relative to the standard model prediction is 1.02_{-0.23}^{+0.26}. The significances of the individual WWW and WWZ production are 3.3 and 3.4 standard deviations, respectively. Measured production cross sections for the individual triboson processes are also reported.
  11. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Asilar E, Bergauer T, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 Sep 04;125(10):102001.
    PMID: 32955327 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.102001
    The first study of charm quark diffusion with respect to the jet axis in heavy ion collisions is presented. The measurement is performed using jets with p_{T}^{jet}>60  GeV/c and D^{0} mesons with p_{T}^{D}>4  GeV/c in lead-lead (Pb-Pb) and proton-proton (pp) collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02  TeV, recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC. The radial distribution of D^{0} mesons with respect to the jet axis is sensitive to the production mechanisms of the meson, as well as to the energy loss and diffusion processes undergone by its parent parton inside the strongly interacting medium produced in Pb-Pb collisions. When compared to Monte Carlo event generators, the radial distribution in pp collisions is found to be well described by pythia, while the slope of the distribution predicted by sherpa is steeper than that of the data. In Pb-Pb collisions, compared to the pp results, the D^{0} meson distribution for 4
  12. Gou Z, Ma NL, Zhang W, Lei Z, Su Y, Sun C, et al.
    Environ Res, 2020 09;188:109829.
    PMID: 32798948 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109829
    Intensive studies have been performed on the improvement of bioethanol production by transformation of lignocellulose biomass. In this study, the digestibility of corn stover was dramatically improved by using laccase immobilized on Cu2+ modified recyclable magnetite nanoparticles, Fe3O4-NH2. After digestion, the laccase was efficiently separated from slurry. The degradation rate of lignin reached 40.76%, and the subsequent cellulose conversion rate 38.37% for 72 h at 35 °C with cellulase at 50 U g-1 of corn stover. Compared to those of free and inactivated mode, the immobilized laccase pre-treatment increased subsequent cellulose conversion rates by 23.98% and 23.34%, respectively. Moreover, the reusability of immobilized laccase activity remained 50% after 6 cycles. The storage and thermal stability of the fixed laccase enhanced by 70% and 24.1% compared to those of free laccase at 65 °C, pH 4.5, respectively. At pH 10.5, it exhibited 16.3% more activities than its free mode at 35 °C. Our study provides a new avenue for improving the production of bioethanol with immobilized laccase for delignification using corn stover as the starting material.
  13. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 Aug 07;125(6):061801.
    PMID: 32845700 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.061801
    The first observation of the tt[over ¯]H process in a single Higgs boson decay channel with the full reconstruction of the final state (H→γγ) is presented, with a significance of 6.6 standard deviations (σ). The CP structure of Higgs boson couplings to fermions is measured, resulting in an exclusion of the pure CP-odd structure of the top Yukawa coupling at 3.2σ. The measurements are based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt[s]=13  TeV collected by the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137  fb^{-1}. The cross section times branching fraction of the tt[over ¯]H process is measured to be σ_{tt[over ¯]H}B_{γγ}=1.56_{-0.32}^{+0.34}  fb, which is compatible with the standard model prediction of 1.13_{-0.11}^{+0.08}  fb. The fractional contribution of the CP-odd component is measured to be f_{CP}^{Htt}=0.00±0.33.
  14. Zhang S, Wang W, Sawhney JPS, Krittayaphong R, Kim HS, Nhan VT, et al.
    Int J Cardiol, 2020 07 01;310:16-22.
    PMID: 32192746 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2020.01.008
    BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular diseases account for approximately half of all deaths in Asia. The present analysis aimed to evaluate characteristics, antithrombotic management patterns (AMPs), and outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who underwent in-hospital percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and survived to hospital discharge, using data from the EPICOR Asia registry (NCT01361386).

    METHODS: Two-year post-discharge follow-up data were analyzed from 8757 ACS PCI patients from EPICOR Asia (218 centers, eight countries). Major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE; death, non-fatal myocardial infarction [MI], non-fatal ischemic stroke), PCI characteristics, and AMPs were recorded. For MACE, time - to - event was analyzed using Cox regression.

    RESULTS: Primary PCI was performed in 62.0% of ST-segment elevation MI (STEMI), 38.7% of non-STEMI (NSTEMI), and 24.2% of unstable angina (UA) patients. At 12 months, 88.1% of patients were on dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT), with no differences by index event. Most (61.5%) still received DAPT at 2 years. Two-year incidences of mortality, composite MACE, and bleeding were 3.6%, 6.2%, and 6.6%, respectively. Risk of death and MACE was increased with STEMI and NSTEMI vs. UA. Patients from East Asia showed lower mortality and more bleeding vs. Southeast Asia/India.

    CONCLUSIONS: Many patients in EPICOR Asia underwent PCI and received DAPT up to 2 years post-discharge. These real-world findings improve our understanding of AMP impact on outcomes in Asian patients with ACS undergoing PCI.

  15. Huang Y, Liu S, Zhang J, Syed-Hassan SSA, Hu X, Sun H, et al.
    Bioresour Technol, 2020 Jul;307:123192.
    PMID: 32220819 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.123192
    This study investigated the interactions between volatile and char during biomass pyrolysis at 400 °C, employing a β-5 lignin dimer and amino-modified graphitized carbon nanotube (CNT-NH2) as their models, respectively. The results demonstrated that both -NH2 and its carrier (CNT) facilitated the conversion of the β-5 dimer, which significantly increased from 9.7% (blank run), to 61.6% (with CNT), and to 96.6% (with CNT-NH2). CNT mainly favored the breakage of C-O bond in the feedstock to produce dimers with a yield of 55.5%, while CNT-NH2 promoted the cleavage of both C-O and C-C bonds to yield monomers with a yield up to 63.4%. Such significant changes in the pyrolysis behaviors of the β-5 lignin dimer after the introduction of CNT-NH2 were considered to be mainly caused by hydrogen-bond formations between -NH2 and the dimeric feedstock/products, in addition to the π-π stacking between CNT and aromatic rings.
  16. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Bergauer T, Brandstetter J, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 May 22;124(20):202001.
    PMID: 32501048 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.202001
    A measurement is reported of the jet mass distribution in hadronic decays of boosted top quarks produced in pp collisions at sqrt[s]=13  TeV. The data were collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35.9  fb^{-1}. The measurement is performed in the lepton+jets channel of tt[over ¯] events, where the lepton is an electron or muon. The products of the hadronic top quark decay t→bW→bqq[over ¯]^{'} are reconstructed as a single jet with transverse momentum larger than 400 GeV. The tt[over ¯] cross section as a function of the jet mass is unfolded at the particle level and used to extract a value of the top quark mass of 172.6±2.5  GeV. A novel jet reconstruction technique is used for the first time at the LHC, which improves the precision by a factor of 3 relative to an earlier measurement. This highlights the potential of measurements using boosted top quarks, where the new technique will enable future precision measurements.
  17. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 Apr 24;124(16):162002.
    PMID: 32383915 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.162002
    The polarizations of promptly produced χ_{c1} and χ_{c2} mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=8  TeV. The χ_{c} states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_{c}→J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e^{+}e^{-}, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_{c2} to χ_{c1} yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ→μ^{+}μ^{-} decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum.
  18. Zhang W, Jiang B, Zeng M, Duan Y, Wu Z, Wu Y, et al.
    J Virol, 2020 04 16;94(9).
    PMID: 32075929 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01850-19
    Duck Tembusu virus (DTMUV), which is similar to other mosquito-borne flaviviruses that replicate well in most mammalian cells, is an emerging pathogenic flavivirus that has caused epidemics in egg-laying and breeding waterfowl. Immune organ defects and neurological dysfunction are the main clinical symptoms of DTMUV infection. Preinfection with DTMUV makes the virus impervious to later interferon (IFN) treatment, revealing that DTMUV has evolved some strategies to defend against host IFN-dependent antiviral responses. Immune inhibition was further confirmed by screening for DTMUV-encoded proteins, which suggested that NS2A significantly inhibited IFN-β and IFN-stimulated response element (ISRE) promoter activity in a dose-dependent manner and facilitated reinfection with duck plague virus (DPV). DTMUV NS2A was able to inhibit duck retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I)-, and melanoma differentiation-associated gene 5 (MDA5)-, mitochondrial-localized adaptor molecules (MAVS)-, stimulator of interferon genes (STING)-, and TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1)-induced IFN-β transcription, but not duck TBK1- and interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF7)-mediated effective phases of IFN response. Furthermore, we found that NS2A competed with duTBK1 in binding to duck STING (duSTING), impaired duSTING-duSTING binding, and reduced duTBK1 phosphorylation, leading to the subsequent inhibition of IFN production. Importantly, we first identified that the W164A, Y167A, and S361A mutations in duSTING significantly impaired the NS2A-duSTING interaction, which is important for NS2A-induced IFN-β inhibition. Hence, our data demonstrated that DTMUV NS2A disrupts duSTING-dependent antiviral cellular defenses by binding with duSTING, which provides a novel mechanism by which DTMUV subverts host innate immune responses. The potential interaction sites between NS2A and duSTING may be the targets of future novel antiviral therapies and vaccine development.IMPORTANCE Flavivirus infections are transmitted through mosquitos or ticks and lead to significant morbidity and mortality worldwide with a spectrum of manifestations. Infection with an emerging flavivirus, DTMUV, manifests with clinical symptoms that include lesions of the immune organs and neurological dysfunction, leading to heavy egg drop and causing serious harm to the duck industry in China, Thailand, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian countries. Mosquito cells, bird cells, and mammalian cell lines are all susceptible to DTMUV infection. An in vivo study revealed that BALB/c mice and Kunming mice were susceptible to DTMUV after intracerebral inoculation. Moreover, there are no reports about DTMUV-related human disease, but antibodies against DTMUV and viral RNA were detected in serum samples of duck industry workers. This information implies that DTMUV has expanded its host range and may pose a threat to mammalian health. However, the pathogenesis of DTMUV is largely unclear. Our results show that NS2A strongly blocks the STING-induced signal transduction cascade by binding with STING, which subsequently blocks STING-STING binding and TBK1 phosphorylation. More importantly, the W164, Y167, or S361 residues in duSTING were identified as important interaction sites between STING and NS2A that are vital for NS2A-induced IFN production and effective phases of IFN response. Uncovering the mechanism by which DTMUV NS2A inhibits IFN in the cells of its natural hosts, ducks, will help us understand the role of NS2A in DTMUV pathogenicity.
  19. Sirunyan AM, Tumasyan A, Adam W, Ambrogi F, Bergauer T, Dragicevic M, et al.
    Phys Rev Lett, 2020 Apr 03;124(13):131802.
    PMID: 32302170 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.131802
    A search is presented for a narrow resonance decaying to a pair of oppositely charged muons using sqrt[s]=13  TeV proton-proton collision data recorded at the LHC. In the 45-75 and 110-200 GeV resonance mass ranges, the search is based on conventional triggering and event reconstruction techniques. In the 11.5-45 GeV mass range, the search uses data collected with dimuon triggers with low transverse momentum thresholds, recorded at high rate by storing a reduced amount of trigger-level information. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of 137 and 96.6  fb^{-1} for conventional and high-rate triggering, respectively. No significant resonant peaks are observed in the probed mass ranges. The search sets the most stringent constraints to date on a dark photon in the ∼30-75 and 110-200 GeV mass ranges.
  20. Zhang S, Ching CK, Huang D, Liu YB, Rodriguez-Guerrero DA, Hussin A, et al.
    Heart Rhythm, 2020 03;17(3):468-475.
    PMID: 31561030 DOI: 10.1016/j.hrthm.2019.09.023
    BACKGROUND: Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are underutilized in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The Improve SCA Study is the largest prospective study to evaluate the benefit of ICD therapy in underrepresented geographies. This analysis reports the primary objective of the study.

    OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study was to determine whether patients with primary prevention (PP) indications with specific risk factors (1.5PP: syncope, nonsustained ventricular tachycardia, premature ventricular contractions >10/h, and low ventricular ejection fraction <25%) are at a similar risk of life-threatening arrhythmias as patients with secondary prevention (SP) indications and to evaluate all-cause mortality rates in 1.5PP patients with and without devices.

    METHODS: A total of 3889 patients were included in the analysis to evaluate ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation therapy and mortality rates. Patients were stratified as SP (n = 1193) and patients with PP indications. The PP cohort was divided into 1.5PP patients (n = 1913) and those without any 1.5PP criteria (n = 783). The decision to undergo ICD implantation was left to the patient and/or physician. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to compute hazard ratios.

    RESULTS: Patients had predominantly nonischemic cardiomyopathy. The rate of ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation in 1.5PP patients was not equivalent (within 30%) to that in patients with SP indications (hazard ratio 0.47; 95% confidence interval 0.38-0.57) but was higher than that in PP patients without any 1.5PP criteria (hazard ratio 0.67; 95% confidence interval 0.46-0.97) (P = .03). There was a 49% relative risk reduction in all-cause mortality in ICD implanted 1.5PP patients. In addition, the number needed to treat to save 1 life over 3 years was 10.0 in the 1.5PP cohort vs 40.0 in PP patients without any 1.5PP criteria.

    CONCLUSION: These data corroborate the mortality benefit of ICD therapy and support extension to a selected PP population from underrepresented geographies.

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