Tecolote: An object-oriented framework for physics development

The authors describe a C++ physics development environment, called the Tecolote Framework, which allows model developers to work more efficiently and accurately. This Framework contains a variety of meshes, operators, and parallel fields, as well as an input/output (I/O) subsystem and graphics capabilities. Model developers can inherit Tecolote`s generic model interface and use the Framework`s high-level field and operator components to write parallel physics equations. New Tecolote models are easily registered with the Framework, and they can be built and called directly from the input file, which greatly expedites model installation. In the process of developing an extensible and robust framework, they have found appealing solutions to some of the serious problems they encounter when parallelizing and extending the older codes. They also discuss memory and performance issues for a large hydrodynamics application built in this Framework

Irregular behaviour of class numbers and Euler-Kronecker constants of cyclotomic fields: the log log log devil at play

Kummer (1851) and, many years later, Ihara (2005) both posed conjectures on invariants related to the cyclotomic field $\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)$ with $q$ a prime. Kummer's conjecture concerns the asymptotic behaviour of the first factor of the class number of $\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)$ and Ihara's the positivity of the Euler-Kronecker constant of $\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)$ (the ratio of the constant and the residue of the Laurent series of the Dedekind zeta function $\zeta_{\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)}(s)$ at $s=1$). If certain standard conjectures in analytic number theory hold true, then one can show that both conjectures are true for a set of primes of natural density 1, but false in general. Responsible for this are irregularities in the distribution of the primes. With this survey we hope to convince the reader that the apparently dissimilar mathematical objects studied by Kummer and Ihara actually display a very similar behaviour.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, survey, to appear in `Irregularities in the Distribution of Prime Numbers - Research Inspired by Maier's Matrix Method', Eds. J. Pintz and M. Th. Rassia

Factorizing monolithic applications

The Blanca project is part of the US Department of Energy`s (DOE) Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI), which focuses on Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship through the large-scale simulation of multi-physics, multi-dimensional problems. Blanca is the only Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)-based ASCI project that is written entirely in C++. Tecolote, a new framework used in developing Blanca physics codes, provides an infrastructure for gluing together any number of components; this framework is then used to create applications that encompass a wide variety of physics models, numerical solution options, and underlying data storage schemes. The advantage of this approach is that only the essential components for the given model need be activated at runtime. Tecolote has been designed for code re-use and to isolate the computer science mechanics from the physics aspects as much as possible -- allowing physics model developers to write algorithms in a style quite similar to the underlying physics equations that govern the computational physics. This paper describes the advantages of component architectures and contrasts the Tecolote framework with Microsoft`s OLE and Apple`s OpenDoc. An actual factorization of a traditional monolithic application into its basic components is also described

Real-World Evaluation of the Feasibility, Acceptability and Safety of a Remote, Self-Management Parkinson’s Disease Care Pathway: A Healthcare Improvement Initiative

Background: There is significant unmet need for effective and efficiently delivered care for people with Parkinson’s disease (PwP). We undertook a service improvement initiative to co-develop and implement a new care pathway, Home Based Care (HBC), based on supported self-management, remote monitoring and the ability to trigger a healthcare contact when needed. Objective: To evaluate feasibility, acceptability and safety of Home Based Care. Methods: We evaluated data from the first 100 patients on HBC for 6 months. Patient monitoring, performed at baseline and 6-monthly, comprised motor (MDS-UPDRS II and accelerometer), non-motor (NMSQ, PDSS-2, HADS) and quality of life (PDQ) measures. Care quality was audited against Parkinson’s UK national audit standards. Process measures captured feasibility. Acceptability was assessed using a mixed-methods approach comprising questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Results: Between October 2019 and January 2021, 108 PwP were enrolled onto HBC, with data from 100 being available at 6 months. Over 90% of all questionnaires were returned, 97% were complete or had < 3 missing items. Reporting and communications occurred within agreed timeframes. Compared with baseline, after 6m on HBC, PD symptoms were stable; more PwP felt listened to (90% vs. 79%) and able to seek help (79% vs. 68%). HBC met 93% of national audit criteria. Key themes from the interviews included autonomy and empowerment. Conclusions: We have demonstrated acceptability, feasibility and safety of our novel remotely delivered Parkinson’s care pathway. Ensuring scalability will widen its reach and realize its benefits for underserved communities, enabling formal comparisons with standard care and cost-effectiveness evaluation

Assessment of the Linkages and Leakages in a Cloud-Based Computing Collaboration among Construction Stakeholders

The uniqueness of the construction industry can be understood in the large volumes of information in terms of paper works, processes, and communication disseminated daily. The voluminous information requires close coordination which cloud based systems offer. The aim of this research is to assess the linkages and leakages in a cloud-based computing collaboration among construction stakeholders. A purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the participants of the study. A questionnaire based instrument was distributed to eighty (80) construction stakeholder in Lagos State, Nigeria. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS v.21. Statistical tools such as frequencies, stacked bars, mean scores, factor analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used in the study. The result of the study revealed that construction stakeholders rarely utilize cloud-based technologies for their construction processes. Construction professionals that access cloud based technologies, do so with their smart mobile phones, laptops, and tablet. The study classified the leakages that exist in the use of cloud-based technologies as securitybased factors, cloud-based infrastructure factors, and cloud-based benefits deficiency based factors. In conclusion, the study revealed that the linkages in the use of cloudbased technologies include knowledge sharing, remote access of back-office activities and engendering collaboration among construction stakeholders. It was recommended that construction stakeholders should leverage on the benefits cloud-based technologies has to offer in today’s competitive economy. Construction stakeholdersshould be adequately informed on the available cloud-based computing technologies and the additions it can bring into the construction process. Cloud computing technology vendors should improve on the security and privacy features of the platform for adequate protection of building data

What Difference Does Quantity Make? On the Epistemology of Big Data Biology

publication-status: Acceptedtypes: ArticleIs Big Data science a whole new way of doing research? And what difference does data quantity make to knowledge production strategies and their outputs? I argue that the novelty of Big Data science does not lie in the sheer quantity of data involved, but rather in (1) the prominence and status acquired by data as commodity and recognised output, both within and outside of the scientific community and (2) the methods, infrastructures, technologies, skills and knowledge developed to handle data. These developments generate the impression that data-intensive research is a new mode of doing science, with its own epistemology and norms. To assess this claim, one needs to consider the ways in which data are actually disseminated and used to generate knowledge. Accordingly, this article reviews the development of sophisticated ways to disseminate, integrate and re-use data acquired on model organisms over the last three decades of work in experimental biology. I focus on online databases as prominent infrastructures set up to organise and interpret such data and examine the wealth and diversity of expertise, resources and conceptual scaffolding that such databases draw upon. This illuminates some of the conditions under which Big Data needs to be curated to support processes of discovery across biological subfields, which in turn highlights the difficulties caused by the lack of adequate curation for the vast majority of data in the life sciences. In closing, I reflect on the difference that data quantity is making to contemporary biology, the methodological and epistemic challenges of identifying and analysing data given these developments, and the opportunities and worries associated with Big Data discourse and methods.Economic and Social Research CouncilES/F028180/1Leverhulme TrustRPG-2013-153European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013ERC grant agreement number 335925

Tecolote: An Object-Oriented Framework for Hydrodynamics Physics

Tecolote is an object-oriented framework for both developing and accessing a variety of hydrodynamics models. It is written in C++, and is in turn built on another framework - Parallel Object-Oriented Methods and Applications (POOMA). The Tecolote framework is meant to provide modules (or building blocks) to put together hydrodynamics applications that can encompass a wide variety of physics models, numerical solution options, and underlying data storage schemes, although with only those modules activated at runtime that are necessary. Tecolote has been designed to separate physics from computer science, as much as humanly possible. The POOMA framework provides fields in C++ to Tecolote that are analogous to Fortran-9O-like arrays in the way that they are used, but that, in addition, have underlying load balancing, message passing, and a special scheme for compact data storage. The POOMA fields can also have unique meshes associated with them that can allow more options than just the normal regularly-spaced Cartesian mesh. They also permit one-, two, and three-dimensions to be immediately accessible to the code developer and code user

Affective practices, care and bioscience: a study of two laboratories

Scientific knowledge-making is not just a matter of experiments, modelling and fieldwork. It also involves affective, embodied and material practices (Wetherell 2012) which can be understood together as 'matters of care' (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011). In this paper we explore how affect spans and connects material, subjective and organisational practices, focusing in particular on the patterns of care we encountered in an observational study of two bioscience laboratories. We explore the preferred emotional subjectivities of each lab and their relation to material practice. We go on to consider flows and clots in the circulation of affect and their relation to care through an exploration of belonging and humour in the labs. We show how being a successful scientist or group of researchers involves a careful choreography of affect in relation to materials, colleagues and others to produce scientific results, subjects and workplaces. We end by considering how thinking with care troubles dominant constructions of scientific practice, successful scientific selves and collectives