The full LEP-1 data set collected with the ALEPH detector at the Z pole during 1991-1995 is analysed in order to measure the ? decay branching fractions. The analysis follows the global method used in the published study based on 1991-1993 data, but several improvements are introduced, especially concerning the treatment of photons and ?0's. Extensive systematic studies are performed, in order to match the large statistics of the data sample corresponding to over 300 000 measured and identified ? decays. Branching fractions are obtained for the two leptonic channels and 11 hadronic channels defined by their respective numbers of charged particles and ?0's. Using previously published ALEPH results on final states with charged and neutral kaons, corrections are applied to the hadronic channels to derive branching ratios for exclusive final states without kaons. Thus the analyses of the full LEP-1 ALEPH data are combined to yield a complete description of ? decays, encompassing 22 non-strange and 11 strange hadronic modes. Some physics implications of the results are given, in particular related to universality in the leptonic charged weak current, isospin invariance in a 1 decays, and the separation of vector and axial-vector components of the total hadronic rate. Finally, spectral functions are determined for the dominant hadronic modes and updates are given for several analyses. These include: tests of isospin invariance between the weak charged and electromagnetic hadronic currents, fits of the ? resonance lineshape, and a QCD analysis of the non-strange hadronic decays using spectral moments, yielding the value ?s(m? 2) 0.340 ± 0.005exp ± 0.014th. The evolution to the Z mass scale yields ?s(MZ 2) = 0.1209 ± 0.0018. This value agrees well with the direct determination from the Z width and provides the most accurate test to date of asymptotic freedom in the QCD gauge theory. © 2005 by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The four LEP collaborations, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have searched for the neutral Higgs bosons which are predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). The data of the four collaborations are statistically combined and examined for their consistency with the background hypothesis and with a possible Higgs boson signal. The combined LEP data show no significant excess of events which would indicate the production of Higgs bosons. The search results are used to set upper bounds on the cross-sections of various Higgs-like event topologies. The results are interpreted within the MSSM in a number of "benchmark" models, including CP-conserving and CP-violating scenarios. These interpretations lead in all cases to large exclusions in the MSSM parameter space. Absolute limits are set on the parameter tan β and, in some scenarios, on the masses of neutral Higgs bosons.

The fragmentation of b quarks into B mesons is studied with four million hadronic Z decays collected by the ALEPH experiment during the years 1991-1995. A semi-exclusive reconstruction of B --> lvD((*)) decays is performed, by combining lepton candidates with fully reconstructed D((*)) mesons while the neutrino energy is estimated from the missing energy of the event. The mean value of x(B)(wd), the energy of the weakly-decaying B meson normalised to the beam energy, is found to be (x(B)(wd)) = 0.716 +/- 0.006 (stat) +/- 0.006 (syst), using a model-independent method; the corresponding value for the energy of the leading B meson is (x(B)(L)) = 0.736 +/- 0.006 (stat) +/- 0.006 (syst). The reconstructed spectra are compared with different fragmentation models. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V

A search has been performed for the Standard Model Higgs boson in the data sample collected with the ALEPH detector at LEP, at centre-of-mass energies up to 209 GeV. An excess of 3 sigma beyond the background expectation is found, consistent with the production of the Higgs boson with a mass near 114 GeV/c(2). Much of this excess is seen in the four-jet analyses, where three high purity events are selected. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

A search for charginos nearly mass degenerate with the lightest neutralino is performed with the data collected by the ALEPH detector at LEP, at centre-ofmass energies between 189 and 209 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 628 pb −1 . The analysis is based on the detection of isolated and energetic initial state radiation photons, produced in association with chargino pairs whose decay products have little visible energy. The number of candidate events observed is in agreement with that expected from Standard Model background sources. These results are combined with those of other direct searches for charginos, and a lower limit of 88 GeV/c 2 at 95% confidence level is derived for the chargino mass in the case of heavy sfermions, irrespective of the chargino-neutralino mass difference.

The polarization of Λ baryons from Z decays is studied with the Aleph apparatus. Evidence of longitudinal polarization of s quarks from Z decay is observed for the first time. The measured longitudinal Λ polarization isPΛL = -0.32 +/- 0.07 for z = p/pbeam > 0.3. This agrees with the prediction of -0.39 +/- 0.08 from the standard model and the constituent quark model, where the error is due to uncertainties in the mechanism for Λ production. The observed Λ polarization is diluted with respect to the primary s quark polarization by Λ baryons without a primary s quark. Measurements of the Λ forward-backward asymmetry and of the correlation between back-to-back ΛΛ pairs are used to check this dilution. In addition the transverse Λ polarization is measured. An indication of transverse polarization, more than two standard deviations away from zero, is found along the normal to the plane defined by the thrust axis and the Λ direction

a b s t r a c tWe propose a computer-aided detection (CAD) system which can detect small-sized (from 3 mm) pulmonary nodules in spiral CT scans. A pulmonary nodule is a small lesion in the lungs, round-shaped (parenchymal nodule) or worm-shaped (juxtapleural nodule). Both kinds of lesions have a radiodensity greater than lung parenchyma, thus appearing white on the images. Lung nodules might indicate a lung cancer and their early stage detection arguably improves the patient survival rate. CT is considered to be the most accurate imaging modality for nodule detection. However, the large amount of data per examination makes the full analysis difficult, leading to omission of nodules by the radiologist. We developed an advanced computerized method for the automatic detection of internal and juxtapleural nodules on low-dose and thin-slice lung CT scan. This method consists of an initial selection of nodule candidates list, the segmentation of each candidate nodule and the classification of the features computed for each segmented nodule candidate.The presented CAD system is aimed to reduce the number of omissions and to decrease the radiologist scan examination time. Our system locates with the same scheme both internal and juxtapleural nodules. For a correct volume segmentation of the lung parenchyma, the system uses a Region Growing (RG) algorithm and an opening process for including the juxtapleural nodules. The segmentation and the extraction of the suspected nodular lesions from CT images by a lung CAD system constitutes a hard task. In order to solve this key problem, we use a new Stable 3D Mass-Spring Model (MSM) combined with a spline curves reconstruction process. Our model represents concurrently the characteristic gray value range, the directed contour information as well as shape knowledge, which leads to a much more robust and efficient segmentation process. For distinguishing the real nodules among nodule candidates, an additional classification step is applied; furthermore, a neural network is applied to reduce the false positives (FPs) after a doublethreshold cut. The system performance was tested on a set of 84 scans made available by the Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) annotated by four expert radiologists. The detection rate of the system is 97% with 6.1 FPs/CT. A reduction to 2.5 FPs/CT is achieved at 88% sensitivity. We presented a new 3D segmentation technique for lung nodules in CT datasets, using deformable MSMs. The result is a efficient segmentation process able to converge, identifying the shape of the generic ROI, after a few iterations. Our suitable results show that the use of the 3D AC model and the feature analysis based FPs reduction process constitutes an accurate approach to the segmentation and the classification of lung nodules.

A search for charged Higgs bosons produced in pairs is performed with data collected at centre-of-mass energies ranging from 189 to 209 GeV by ALEPH at LEP, corresponding to a total luminosity of 629 pb −1 . The three final states τ + ν τ τ −ν τ , csτ −ν τ and cssc are considered. No evidence for a signal is found and lower limits are set on the mass m H ± as a function of the branching fraction B(H + → τ + ν τ ). In the framework of a two-Higgs-doublet model, and assuming B(H + → τ + ν τ )+B(H + → cs)=1, charged Higgs bosons with masses below 79.3 GeV/c 2 are excluded at 95% confidence level independently of the branching ratios.--------------- * )