0000000000304635
AUTHOR
G Punzi
showing 16 related works from this author
Limits on neutral Higgs boson production in the forward region in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV
2013
Limits on the cross-section times branching fraction for neutral Higgs bosons, produced in p p collisions at root s = 7 TeV, and decaying to two tau leptons with pseudorapidities between 2.0 and 4.5, are presented. The result is based on a dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb(-1), collected with the LHCb detector. Candidates are identified by reconstructing final states with two muons, a muon and an electron, a muon and a hadron, or an electron and a hadron. A model independent upper limit at the 95% confidence level is set on a neutral Higgs boson cross-section times branching fraction. It varies from 8.6 pb for a Higgs boson mass of 90 GeV to 0.7 pb for a Higgs bos…
Evolution of transmitted HIV-1 drug resistance in HIV-1-infected patients in Italy from 2000 to 2010
2012
Prevalence and predictors of transmitted drug resistance (TDR), defined as the presence of at least one WHO surveillance drug resistance mutation (SDRM), were investigated in antiretroviral-naïve HIV-1-infected patients, with a genotypic resistance test (GRT) performed ≤6months before starting cART between 2000 and 2010. 3163 HIV-1 sequences were selected (69% subtype B). Overall, the prevalence of TDR was 12% (13.2% subtype B, 9% non-B). TDR significantly declined overall and for the single drug classes. Older age independently predicted increased odds of TDR, whereas a more recent GRT, a higher HIV-RNA and C vs. B subtype predicted lower odds of TDR. © 2012 The Authors. Clinical Microbiol…
Higgs boson studies at the Tevatron
2013
We combine searches by the CDF and D0 Collaborations for the standard model Higgs boson with mass in the range 90-200 GeV/c2 produced in the gluon-gluon fusion, WH, ZH, tt̄H, and vector boson fusion processes, and decaying in the H→bb̄, H→W+W-, H→ZZ, H→τ+τ-, and H→γγ modes. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of up to 10 fb-1 and were collected at the Fermilab Tevatron in pp̄ collisions at √s=1.96 TeV. The searches are also interpreted in the context of fermiophobic and fourth generation models. We observe a significant excess of events in the mass range between 115 and 140 GeV/c2. The local significance corresponds to 3.0 standard deviations at mH=125 GeV/c2, consistent with the…
Genotypic resistance profiles associated with virological failure to darunavir-containing regimens: a cross-sectional analysis.
2012
Introduction: This study aimed at defining protease (PR) resistance mutations associated with darunavir (DRV) failure and PR resistance evolution at DRV failure in a large database of treatment-experienced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients. Results: Overall, 1,104 patients were included: 118 (10.7%) failed at a median observation time of 16 months. The mean number of PR mutations at baseline was 2.7, but it was higher in patients who subsequently failed DRV. In addition, the number of PR mutations increased at failure. The increase in the mean number of mutations was completely related to mutations considered to be associated with DRV resistance following the indications of the ma…
Rules-based HIV-1 genotypic resistance interpretation systems predict 8 week and 24 week virological antiretroviral treatment outcome and benefit fro…
2009
Objectives: To test retrospectively the ability of four freely available rules-based expert systems to predict short- and medium-term virological outcome following an antiretroviral treatment switch in pre-treated HIV-1 patients. Methods: The HIV-1 genotype interpretation systems (GISs) HIVdb, ANRS, Rega and AntiRetroScan were tested for their accuracy in predicting response to highly active antiretroviral therapy using 8 week (n = 765) and 24 week (n = 634) follow-up standardized treatment change episodes extracted from the Italian Antiretroviral Resistance Cohort Analysis (ARCA) database. A genotypic sensitivity score (GSS) was derived for each genotype-treatment pair for the different GI…
Detection of drug resistance mutations at low plasma HIV-1 RNA load in a European multicentre cohort study
2011
Background and objectives: Guidelines indicate a plasma HIV-1 RNA load of 500-1000 copies/mL as the minimal threshold for antiretroviral drug resistance testing. Resistance testing at lower viral load levels may be useful to guide timely treatment switches, although data on the clinical utility of this remain limited. We report here the influence of viral load levels on the probability of detecting drug resistance mutations (DRMs) and other mutations by routine genotypic testing in a large multicentre European cohort, with a focus on tests performed at a viral load <1000 copies/mL. Methods: A total of 16511 HIV-1 reverse transcriptase and protease sequences from 11492 treatment-experienced …
A novel methodology for large-scale phylogeny partition
2011
Understanding the determinants of virus transmission is a fundamental step for effective design of screening and intervention strategies to control viral epidemics. Phylogenetic analysis can be a valid approach for the identification of transmission chains, and very-large data sets can be analysed through parallel computation. Here we propose and validate a new methodology for the partition of large-scale phylogenies and the inference of transmission clusters. This approach, on the basis of a depth-first search algorithm, conjugates the evaluation of node reliability, tree topology and patristic distance analysis. The method has been applied to identify transmission clusters of a phylogeny …
Search for CP violation in D (+/-) -> (KSK +/-)-K-0 and D-s(+/-) -> K-S(0)pi(+/-) decays
2014
A search for \CP violation in Cabibbo-suppressed $D^{\pm}\rightarrow K^0_{\mathrm{S}} K^{\pm}$ and $D^{\pm}_{s}\rightarrow K^0_{\mathrm{S}} \pi^{\pm}$ decays is performed using $pp$ collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3~fb$^{-1}$, recorded by the LHCb experiment. The individual $CP$-violating asymmetries are measured to be \begin{eqnarray*} \mathcal{A}_{CP}^{D^{\pm}\rightarrow K^0_{\mathrm{S}} K^{\pm}} & = & (+0.03 \pm 0.17 \pm 0.14) \% \mathcal{A}_{CP}^{D^{\pm}_{s}\rightarrow K^0_{\mathrm{S}} \pi^{\pm}} & = & (+0.38 \pm 0.46 \pm 0.17) \%, \end{eqnarray*} assuming that $CP$ violation in the Cabibbo-favoured decays is negligible. A combination of the measured asymmet…
Declining Prevalence of HIV-1 Drug Resistance in Antiretroviral Treatment-exposed Individuals in Western Europe
2013
HIV-1 drug resistance represents a major obstacle to infection and disease control. This retrospective study analyzes trends and determinants of resistance in antiretroviral treatment (ART)-exposed individuals across 7 countries in Europe. Of 20 323 cases, 80% carried at least one resistance mutation: these declined from 81% in 1997 to 71% in 2008. Predicted extensive 3-class resistance was rare (3.2% considering the cumulative genotype) and peaked at 4.5% in 2005, decreasing thereafter. The proportion of cases exhausting available drug options dropped from 32% in 2000 to 1% in 2008. Reduced risk of resistance over calendar years was confirmed by multivariable analysis. © 2013 The Author.
Measurement of polarization amplitudes and CP asymmetries in B 0 → Φk *(892)0
2014
An angular analysis of the decay $B^0 \to \phi K^*(892)^0$ is reported based on a $pp$ collision data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb$^{-1}$, collected at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV with the LHCb detector. The P-wave amplitudes and phases are measured with a greater precision than by previous experiments, and confirm about equal amounts of longitudinal and transverse polarization. The S-wave $K^+ \pi^-$ and $K^+K^-$ contributions are taken into account and found to be significant. A comparison of the $B^0 \to \phi K^*(892)^0$ and $\bar{B}^0 \to \phi \bar{K}^*(892)^0$ results shows no evidence for direct CP violation in the rate asymmetry, in th…
Antiretroviral genotypic resistance in plasma RNA and whole blood DNA in HIV-1 infected patients failing HAART
2008
The extent to which HIV-1 proviral DNA mutations cause clinically relevant antiretroviral resistance is still controversial. Paired plasma HIV-1 RNA and whole blood DNA were compared in patients failing HAART to investigate if the additional knowledge of archived mutations could improve the selection of potentially active drugs. Seventy-three HIV-1-infected patients with first/second HAART failure were studied before starting a new regimen based on RNA genotyping. Follow-up data after a 12-week therapy were available. DNA genotyping was retrospectively performed on stored whole blood samples and mutational profiles were compared to those from RNA. The mean number of IAS pol mutations was si…
Low Rate of Virological Failure and Maintenance of Susceptibility to HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors with First-Line Lopinavir/Ritonavir-Based Antiretrovir…
2010
Protease inhibitor (PI)-resistant HIV-1 has hardly ever been detected at failed boosted PI-based first-line antiretroviral regimens in clinical trials. However, this phenomenon has not been investigated in clinical practice. To address this gap, data from patients starting a first-line lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/rtv)-based therapy with available baseline HIV-1 RNA load, a viral genotype and follow-up viral load after 3 and 6 months of treatment were extracted from the Italian Antiretroviral Resistance Cohort Analysis (ARCA) observational database. Based on survival analysis, 39 (7.1%) and 43 (7.8%) of the 548 examined patient cases had an HIV-1 RNA >500 and >50 copies/ml, respectively, after …
Angular analysis of charged and neutral B → Kμ + μ − decays
2014
The angular distributions of the rare decays B → K+µ+µ- and B0 → K0 <inf>a</inf>Sμ+μ- are studied with data corresponding to 3 fb-1 of integrated luminosity, collected in proton-proton collisions at 7 and 8TeV centre-of-mass energies with the LHCb detector. The angular distribution is described by two parameters, FH and the forward-backward asymmetry of the dimuon system AFB, which are determined in bins of the dimuon mass squared. The parameter F<inf>H</inf> is a measure of the contribution from (pseudo)scalar and tensor amplitudes to the decay width. The measurements of A<inf>FB</inf> and F<inf>H</inf> reported here are the most precise to d…
Combination of measurements of the top-quark pair production cross section from the Tevatron Collider
2014
We combine six measurements of the inclusive top-quark pair (tt̄) production cross section (σtt̄) from data collected with the CDF and D0 detectors at the Fermilab Tevatron with proton-antiproton collisions at s=1.96TeV. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of up to 8.8fb-1. We obtain a value of σtt̄=7.60±0.41pb for a top-quark mass of mt=172.5GeV. The contributions to the uncertainty are 0.20 pb from statistical sources, 0.29 pb from systematic sources, and 0.21 pb from the uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The result is in good agreement with the standard model expectation of 7.35-0.33+0.28pb at next-to-next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to leading logarithms in pert…
No pol mutation is associated independently with the lack of immune recovery in patients infected with HIV and failing antiretroviral therapy
2011
An investigation was undertaken to determine whether specific pol mutations hinder long-term immune recovery regardless of virological response. In total, 826 patients with >50 HIV RNA copies/ml, who underwent genotypic resistance testing between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2003 after >3 years of antiretroviral treatment, and were followed up for >3 years after genotypic resistance testing, were analyzed retrospectively. The outcome of the study was the lack of immune recovery after >3 years of follow-up, defined as a slope by linear regression 50 copies/ml divided by the number of HIV RNA measurements during follow-up. Logistic regression was used for univariable and multivariable analy…
Measurement of the B-0 -> K*(0) e(+) e(-) branching fraction at low dilepton mass
2013
The branching fraction of the rare decay B-0 -> K*(0) e(+) e(-) in the dilepton mass region from 30 to 1000 MeV/c(2) has been measured by the LHCb experiment, using pp collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb(-1), at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The decay mode B-0 -> J/psi (e(+) e(-)) K*(0) is utilized as a normalization channel. The branching fraction B(B-0 -> K*(0) e(+) e(-)) is measured to be B(B-0 -> K*(0) e(+) e(-))(30-1000 MeV/c2) = (3.1(-0.8)(-0.3)(+0.9)(+0.2) +/- 0.2) x 10(-7) where the fi rst error is statistical, the second is systematic, and the third comes from the uncertainties on the B-0 -> J/K*(0) and J/psi -> e(+) e(-) branching fractions.