Abstract: The immune system should constitute a strong selective pressure promoting viral genetic diversity and evolution. However, HIV shows lower sequence variability at T-cell epitopes than elsewhere in the genome, in contrast with other human RNA viruses. Here, we propose that epitope conservation is a consequence of the particular interactions established between HIV and the immune system. On one hand, epitope recognition triggers an anti-HIV response mediated by cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs), but on the other hand, activation of CD4(+) helper T lymphocytes (T-H cells) promotes HIV replication. Mathematical modeling of these opposite selective forces revealed that selection at the intrapatient level can promote either T-cell epitope conservation or escape. We predict greater conservation for epitopes contributing significantly to total immune activation levels (immunodominance), and when T-H cell infection is concomitant to epitope recognition (transinfection). We suggest that HIV-driven immune activation in the lymph nodes during the chronic stage of the disease may offer a favorable scenario for epitope conservation. Our results also support the view that some pathogens draw benefits from the immune response and suggest that vaccination strategies based on conserved T-H epitopes may be counterproductive.

Abstract: A new class of modified theories of gravity, consisting of the superposition of the metric Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian with an f(R) term constructed a la Palatini was proposed recently. The dynamically equivalent scalar-tensor representation of the model was also formulated, and it was shown that even if the scalar field is very light, the theory passes the Solar System observational constraints. Therefore the model predicts the existence of a long-range scalar field, modifying the cosmological and galactic dynamics. An explicit model that passes the local tests and leads to cosmic acceleration was also obtained. In the present work, it is shown that the theory can be also formulated in terms of the quantity X equivalent to kappa T-2 + R, where T and R are the traces of the stress-energy and Ricci tensors, respectively. The variable X represents the deviation with respect to the field equation trace of general relativity. The cosmological applications of this hybrid metric-Palatini gravitational theory are also explored, and cosmological solutions coming from the scalar-tensor representation of f(X)-gravity are presented. Criteria to obtain cosmic acceleration are discussed and the field equations are analyzed as a dynamical system. Several classes of dynamical cosmological solutions, depending on the functional form of the effective scalar field potential, describing both accelerating and decelerating Universes are explicitly obtained. Furthermore, the cosmological perturbation equations are derived and applied to uncover the nature of the propagating scalar degree of freedom and the signatures these models predict in the large-scale structure.

Abstract: We present a strategy to extract the position of the two Lambda(1405) poles from experimental photoproduction data measured recently at different energies in the gamma p -> K+pi(0)Sigma(0) reaction at Jefferson Laboratory. By means of a chiral dynamics motivated potential with free parameters, we solve the Bethe-Salpeter equation in the coupled channels (K) over barN and pi Sigma in isospin I = 0 and parametrize the amplitude for the photonuclear reaction in terms of a linear combination of the pi Sigma -> pi Sigma and (K) over barN -> pi Sigma scattering amplitudes in I = 0, with a different linear combination for each energy. Good fits to the data are obtained with some sets of parameters, by means of which one can also predict the cross section for the K- p -> pi(0)Sigma(0) reaction. These later results help us decide among the possible solutions. The result is that the different solutions lead to two poles similar to those found in the chiral unitary approach. With the best result we find the two Lambda(1405) poles at 1385 – 68i MeV and 1419 – 22i MeV.

Abstract: The first LHC results seem to disfavor, from the point of view of naturalness, any constrained MSSM realization with universal conditions at the SUSY-breaking scale. A more motivated scenario is given by split-family SUSY, in which the first two generations of squarks are heavy, compatible with a U(2)(3) flavor symmetry. We consider this flavor symmetry to be broken at a very high scale and study the consequences at low energies through its RGE evolution. Initial conditions compatible with a split scenario are found, and the preservation of correlations from minimal U(2)(3) breaking are checked. The various chiral operators in Delta F = 2 processes are analyzed, and we show that, due to LHC gluino bounds, the (LL)(RR) operators cannot always be neglected. Finally, we also study a possible extension of the U(2)(3) model compatible with the lepton sector.

Abstract: We present the first unquenched, continuum limit, lattice QCD results for the matrix elements of the operators describing neutral kaon oscillations in extensions of the Standard Model. Owing to the accuracy of our calculation on Delta S = 2 weak Hamiltonian matrix elements, we are able to provide a refined Unitarity Triangle analysis improving the bounds coming from model independent constraints on New Physics. In our non-perturbative computation we use a combination of N-f = 2 maximally twisted sea quarks and Osterwalder-Seiler valence quarks in order to achieve both O(a)-improvement and continuum-like renormalization properties for the relevant four-fermion operators. The calculation of the renormalization constants has been performed non-perturbatively in the RI-MOM scheme. Based on simulations at four values of the lattice spacing and a number of quark masses we have extrapolated/interpolated our results to the continuum limit and physical light/strange quark masses.