Lepton mixing and seesaw mechanism

In the context of a typical model for fermion mass matrices, possibly based on the horizontal U(2) symmetry, we explore the effect of the type II seesaw mechanism on lepton mixings. We find that the combined contribution of type I and type II terms is able to explain the large but not maximal 1-2 mixing and the near maximal 2-3 mixing, while the 1-3 mixing angle is predicted to be small.Comment: 7 pages RevTex4. Revise: comment and reference adde

Seesaw and leptogenesis: a triangular ansatz

A triangular ansatz for the seesaw mechanism and baryogenesis via leptogenesis is explored. In a basis where both the charged lepton and the Majorana mass matrix are diagonal, the Dirac mass matrix can generally be written as the product of a unitary times a triangular matrix. We assume the unitary matrix to be the identity and then an upper triangular Dirac matrix. Constraints from bilarge lepton mixing and leptogenesis are studied.Comment: 6 pages, revised and correcte

External and internal triggers of cell death in yeast

In recent years, yeast was confirmed as a useful eukaryotic model system to decipher the complex mechanisms and networks occurring in higher eukaryotes, particularly in mammalian cells, in physiological as well in pathological conditions. This article focuses attention on the contribution of yeast in the study of a very complex scenario, because of the number and interconnection of pathways, represented by cell death. Yeast, although it is a unicellular organism, possesses the basal machinery of different kinds of cell death occurring in higher eukaryotes, i.e., apoptosis, regulated necrosis and autophagy. Here we report the current knowledge concerning the yeast orthologs of main mammalian cell death regulators and executors, the role of organelles and compartments, and the cellular phenotypes observed in the different forms of cell death in response to external and internal triggers. Thanks to the ease of genetic manipulation of this microorganism, yeast strains expressing human genes that promote or counteract cell death, onset of tumors and neurodegenerative diseases have been constructed. The effects on yeast cells of some of these genes are also presented