On the Evolution, Numbers, and Characteristics of Close-Binary Supersoft Sources

The ability to perform detailed evolutionary calculations is essential to the development of a well-defined and testable binary model. Unfortunately, traditional evolutionary calculations cannot be used to follow a significant fraction of possible close-binary supersoft sources (CBSSs). It is therefore important to examine the input physics carefully, to be sure that all relevant and potentially important physical processes are included. In this paper we continue a line of research begun last year, and explore the role that winds are expected to play in the evolution of CBSSs. We find that at least a subset of the systems that seemed to be candidates for common envelope evolution may survive, if radiation emitted by white dwarf drives winds from the system. We study the effects of winds on the binary evolution of CBSSs, and compute the number and characteristics of CBSSs expected to be presently active in galaxies such as our own or M31.Comment: 13 pages; figures included in 0.33 M postscript file; in Supersoft X-ray Sources, ed. J. Greiner (Springer-Verlag: Berlin) (1996

Current and innovative pharmacological options to treat typical and atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Trigeminal neuralgia is a representative neuropathic facial pain condition, characterised by unilateral paroxysmal pain in the distribution territory of one or more divisions of the trigeminal nerve, triggered by innocuous stimuli. A subgroup of patients with trigeminal neuralgia [TN (previously defined as atypical TN)] also suffer from concomitant continuous pain, i.e. a background pain between the paroxysmal attacks. The aim of this review is to provide current, evidence-based, knowledge about the pharmacological treatment of typical and atypical TN, with a specific focus on drugs in development. We searched for relevant papers within PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the Clinical Trials database (ClinicalTrials.gov), taking into account publications up to February 2018. Two authors independently selected studies for inclusions, data extraction, and bias assessment. Carbamazepine and oxcarbazepine are the first-choice drugs for paroxysmal pain. When sodium channel blockers cannot reach full dosage because of side effects, an add-on treatment with lamotrigine or baclofen should be considered. In patients with atypical TN, both gabapentin and antidepressants are expected to be efficacious and should be tried as an add-on to oxcarbazepine or carbamazepine. Although carbamazepine and oxcarbazepine are effective in virtually the totality of patients, they are responsible for side effects causing withdrawal from treatment in an important percentage of cases. A new, better tolerated, Nav1.7 selective state-dependent, sodium channel blocker (vixotrigine) is under development. Future trials testing the effect of combination therapy in patients with TN are needed, especially in patients with concomitant continuous pain and in TN secondary to multiple sclerosis

FPGA based remote code integrity verification of programs in distributed embedded systems

The explosive growth of networked embedded systems has made ubiquitous and pervasive computing a reality. However, there are still a number of new challenges to its widespread adoption that include scalability, availability, and, especially, security of software. Among the different challenges in software security, the problem of remote-code integrity verification is still waiting for efficient solutions. This paper proposes the use of reconfigurable computing to build a consistent architecture for generation of attestations (proofs) of code integrity for an executing program as well as to deliver them to the designated verification entity. Remote dynamic update of reconfigurable devices is also exploited to increase the complexity of mounting attacks in a real-word environment. The proposed solution perfectly fits embedded devices that are nowadays commonly equipped with reconfigurable hardware components that are exploited to solve different computational problems

A FPGA-Based Reconfigurable Software Architecture for Highly Dependable Systems

Nowadays, systems-on-chip are commonly equipped with reconfigurable hardware. The use of hybrid architectures based on a mixture of general purpose processors and reconfigurable components has gained importance across the scientific community allowing a significant improvement of computational performance. Along with the demand for performance, the great sensitivity of reconfigurable hardware devices to physical defects lead to the request of highly dependable and fault tolerant systems. This paper proposes an FPGA-based reconfigurable software architecture able to abstract the underlying hardware platform giving an homogeneous view of it. The abstraction mechanism is used to implement fault tolerance mechanisms with a minimum impact on the system performanc

Blending of light in gravitational microlensing events

When there is more than one source of light along the line of sight to a gravitationally lensed object, the characteristics of the observed light curve are influenced by the presence of the light that is not lensed. In this paper we develop a formalism to quantify the associated effects. We find it useful to introduce the concept of a ``blended Einstein radius" and an ``effective Einstein radius", to describe the probability that a mass will serve as a lens, or that a source will be lensed in an observable way. These considerations lead to generic predictions about the results of gravitational microlensing experiments. One example is that the optical depth for the lensing of giants is greater than that for the lensing of main sequence stars; for any given population of sources and lenses this effect can be quantified. We test and sharpen these predictions by performing a series of Monte Carlo simulations. We also outline general methods to (1) test whether specific events which fail to be fit by point-mass light curves are viable candidates for blended events, (2) use the effects of blending to learn more about the lensing event than would be possible if there were no blending, and (3) include the effects of blending when inferring properties of underlying populations through the statistical study of lensing events