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We present a fully active-controlled He-Ne ring laser gyroscope operating in square cavity having a side length of 1.35 m. The apparatus is designed to provide a very low mechanical and thermal drift of the ring cavity geometry and is conceived to be operative in two different orientations of the laser plane, in order to detect rotations around the vertical or the horizontal direction. Since June 2010, the system is active inside the Virgo interferometer central area with the aim of performing high-sensitivity measurements of environmental rotational noise. So far, continuous unattended operation of the gyroscope has been longer than 30 days. The main characteristics of the laser, the active remote-controlled stabilization systems and the data acquisition techniques are presented. An offline data processing, supported by a simple model of the sensor, is shown to improve the effective long-term stability. A rotational sensitivity at the level of $10^{-8}~\mathrm{rad}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ below 1 Hz, very close to the required specification for the improvement of the Virgo suspension control system, is demonstrated for the configuration where the laser plane is horizontal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the construction of the silicon microstrip detectors for the Tracker of the CMS experiment, two different substrate choices were investigated: A high-resistivity (6 k cm) substrate with (111) crystalorientation and a low-resistivity (2k cm) one with (100) crystalorientation. The interstrip and backplane capacitances were measured before and after the exposure to radiation in a range of strip pitches from 60 μm to 240 μm and for values of the width-over-pitch ratio between 0.1 and 0.5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The breakdown performance of CMS barrelmodule prototype detectors and test devices with single and multi-guard structures were studied before and after neutron irradiation up to 2·10 1 MeV equivalent neutrons. Before irradiation avalanche breakdown occurred at the guard ring implant edges. We measured 100-300 V higher breakdown voltage values for the devices with multi-guard than for devices with single-guard ring. After irradiation and type inversion the breakdown was smoother than before irradiation and the breakdown voltage value increased to 500-600 V for most of the devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the silicon microstrip tracker of the CMS experiment at the future LHC. The silicon tracker consists of a barrel part with 5 layers and two endcaps with 10 disks each. About 6500 modules will have to be built, each one carrying two daisy-chained silicon sensors and their front-end electronics. The modules have been designed to be as simple and robust as possible. Radiation damage in the silicon sensors is minimized by cooling the whole system down to -10°C. Safe operation after heavy irradiation will be possible due to the high-voltage capability of the sensors. We expect the sensors to have a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 at the end of 10years of LHC running, which still gives an efficiency of almost 100%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activation of K-ras gene by point mutations, a common finding in lung adenocarcinomas, has been suggested to decrease patient survival. We investigated 109 lung adenocarcinomas, mostly small, peripheral, stage I tumours (81/109) for presence of K-ras gene mutations at codons 12 and 13. Mutations were detected by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis of specific sequences amplified by polymerase chain reaction from DNA extracted from archival pathological material. Thirty-three of 109 (30.3%) tumours showed mutations at codon 12 (28/33, 84.8%) or 13 (5/33, 15.2%) of the gene. Mutations and type of nucleotide substitutions were differently distributed among cytological subtypes, being more prevalent among less differentiated (G2 and G3) tumours and among bronchial than bronchiolo-alveolar type adenocarcinomas. Survival analysis showed an adverse effect of K-ras mutation on survival, restricted to stage I tumours. Median survival for 81 stage I patients was 30 months for non-mutated tumours versus 20 months for mutated tumours (p = 0.016). Multivariate analysis showed that age of patient (p = 0.001) and K-ras mutation status (p = 0.04) were the only independent factors influencing survival significantly. These data strengthen the hypothesis that K-ras gene mutations may be useful in identifying a subgroup of patients with poor outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]