Eziopatogenesi virale (HCV) nel determinismo dell'aborto ricorrente (ripetuto ed abituale)

L’aborto ricorrente può essere definito come la presenza di due (aborto ripetuto) o più aborti (aborto abituale) di tipo consecutivo. Diverse condizioni possono essere individuate come fattori eziopatogenetici di aborto ricorrente; tuttavia, circa la metà dei casi rimane ancora senza causa apparente (aborto “sine causa”).Nel nostro studio sono state inserite 350 donne in stato di gravidanza con storia clinica di aborto ricorrente, le quali sono state studiate in riferimento all’infezione da HCV. Delle 350 donne esaminate, 65 (18,6%) sono risultate positive per tale infezione. In particolare, 53 (81%) hanno presentato una positività della viremia compresa tra 105 e 106 copie/ml; mentre, le restanti 12 (19%) hanno evidenziato una positività della viremia > 106 copie/ml. Pertanto, l’interessamento del prodotto del concepimento da parte dell’HCV potrebbe essere suggestivo di un significativo aspetto eziopatogenetico nel determinismo dell’aborto ricorrente

ATLAS RPC Quality Assurance results at INFN Lecce

The main results of the quality assurance tests performed on the Resistive Plate Chamber used by the ATLAS experiment at LHC as muon trigger chambers are reported and discussed. Since July 2004, about 270 RPC units has been certified at INFN Lecce site and delivered to CERN, for being integrated in the final muon station of the ATLAS barrel region. We show the key RPC characteristics which qualify the performance of this detector technology as muon trigger chamber in the harsh LHC enviroments. These are dark current, chamber efficiency, noise rate, gas volume tomography, and gas leakage.Comment: Comments: 6 pages, 1 table, 9 figures Proceedings of XXV Physics in Collision-Prague, Czech Republic, 6-9 July 200

The Air Microwave Yield (AMY) experiment - A laboratory measurement of the microwave emission from extensive air showers

The AMY experiment aims to measure the microwave bremsstrahlung radiation (MBR) emitted by air-showers secondary electrons accelerating in collisions with neutral molecules of the atmosphere. The measurements are performed using a beam of 510 MeV electrons at the Beam Test Facility (BTF) of Frascati INFN National Laboratories. The goal of the AMY experiment is to measure in laboratory conditions the yield and the spectrum of the GHz emission in the frequency range between 1 and 20 GHz. The final purpose is to characterise the process to be used in a next generation detectors of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. A description of the experimental setup and the first results are presented.Comment: 3 pages -- EPS-HEP'13 European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics (July, 18-24, 2013) at Stockholm, Swede

Ageing test of the ATLAS RPCs at X5-GIF

An ageing test of three ATLAS production RPC stations is in course at X5-GIF, the CERN irradiation facility. The chamber efficiencies are monitored using cosmic rays triggered by a scintillator hodoscope. Higher statistics measurements are made when the X5 muon beam is available. We report here the measurements of the efficiency versus operating voltage at different source intensities, up to a maximum counting rate of about 700Hz/cm^2. We describe the performance of the chambers during the test up to an overall ageing of 4 ATLAS equivalent years corresponding to an integrated charge of 0.12C/cm^2, including a safety factor of 5.Comment: 4 pages. Presented at the VII Workshop on Resistive Plate Chambers and Related Detectors; Clermont-Ferrand October 20th-22nd, 200

ATLAS RPC Cosmic Ray Teststand at INFN Lecce

We describe the design and functionality of the cosmic ray teststand built at INFN Lecce for ATLAS RPC quality control assurance.Comment: XXIV Physics in Collisions Conference (PIC04), Boston, USA, June 2004, 3 pages, LaTex, 2 eps figures. MONP0

Measuring the hadronic cross section via radiative return

Recently it has been demonstrated that particle factories, such as DAPHNE and PEP-II, operating at fixed center-of-mass energies, are able to measure hadronic cross sections as a function of the hadronic system energy using the raditive return. This paper is an experimental overview of the progress in this aera. Preliminary results from KLOE for the process e+e- -> \rho \gamma -> \pi+\pi-\gamma and a fit to the pion form factor are presented. Some first results from the BABAR collaboration are also shown.Comment: Invited talk presented at RADCOR/Loops and Legs 2002, Kloster Banz/Germany, September 8-13 2002, 6 pages, 2 Figures; v1: references added, typos correcte

COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses XIII: Time delays and 9-yr optical monitoring of the lensed quasar RX J1131-1231

We present the results from nine years of optically monitoring the gravitationally lensed z=0.658 quasar RX J1131-1231. The R-band light curves of the four individual images of the quasar were obtained using deconvolution photometry for a total of 707 epochs. Several sharp quasar variability features strongly constrain the time delays between the quasar images. Using three different numerical techniques, we measure these delays for all possible pairs of quasar images while always processing the four light curves simultaneously. For all three methods, the delays between the three close images A, B, and C are compatible with being 0, while we measure the delay of image D to be 91 days, with a fractional uncertainty of 1.5% (1 sigma), including systematic errors. Our analysis of random and systematic errors accounts in a realistic way for the observed quasar variability, fluctuating microlensing magnification over a broad range of temporal scales, noise properties, and seasonal gaps. Finally, we find that our time-delay measurement methods yield compatible results when applied to subsets of the data.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, minor additions to the text only, techniques and results remain unchanged, A&A in pres

Measurement of hadronic cross section and preliminary results on the pion form factor using the radiative return at DAPHNE

In the fixed energy environment of the $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider DA$\Phi$NE, KLOE can measure the cross section of the process $e^{+}e^{-} \to$ hadrons as a function of the hadronic system energy using the radiative return. At energies below 1 GeV, $e^{+}e^{-} \to \rho \to \pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ is the dominating hadronic process. We report here on the status of the analysis for the e^{+}e^{-} \to \ppg channel, which allows to obtain a preliminary measurement of the pion form factor using an integrated luminosity of $\sim73 pb^{-1}$.Comment: Invited talk at the Seventh International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics (TAU02-WE07), Santa Cruz, Ca, USA, Sept 2002, 9 pages, LaTeX, 9 eps figure

Measurement of the branching fraction for the decay KS --> pi e nu

We present a measurement of the branching ratio BR(KS --> pi e nu) performed using the KLOE detector. KS mesons are produced in the reaction e+ e- --> phi --> KS KL at the DAFNE collider. In a sample of about 5 million KS-tagged events we find 624 +- 30 semileptonic KS decays. Normalizing to the KS --> pi+ pi- count in the same data sample, we obtain BR(KS --> pi e nu) = (6.91 +- 0.37) 10^-4, in agreement with the Standard Model expectation.Comment: 9 pages, 5 Encapsulated Postscript figures. Submitted to Phys. Lett.

Study of the Decay phi --> eta pi0 gamma with the KLOE detector

In a sample of 5.3x10^7 phi-decays observed with the KLOE detector at the Frascati phi-factory Dafne we find 605 eta pi0 gamma events with eta --> gamma\gamma and 197 eta pi0 gamma events with eta --> pi+ pi- pi0. The decay phi --> eta pi0 gamma is dominated by the process phi --> a0 gamma. From a fit to the eta pi0 mass spectrum we find BR(phi --> ao(980) gamma)= (7.4 +- 0.7)x10^-5.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys.Lett.