A successful search for hidden Barbarians in the Watsonia asteroid family

Barbarians, so named after the prototype of this class (234) Barbara, are a rare class of asteroids exhibiting anomalous polarimetric properties. Their very distinctive feature is that they show negative polarization at relatively large phase-angles, where all 'normal' asteroids show positive polarization. The origin of the Barbarian phenomenon is unclear, but it seems to be correlated with the presence of anomalous abundances of spinel, a mineral usually associated with the so-called Calcium Aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) on meteorites. Since CAIs are samples of the oldest solid matter identified in our solar system, Barbarians are very interesting targets for investigations. Inspired by the fact that some of the few known Barbarians are members of, or very close to the dynamical family of Watsonia, we have checked whether this family is a major repository of Barbarians, in order to obtain some hints about their possible collisional origin. We have measured the linear polarization of a sample of nine asteroids which are members of the Watsonia family within the phase-angle range 17-21 DEG. We found that seven of them exhibit the peculiar Barbarian polarization signature, and we conclude that the Watsonia family is a repository of Barbarian asteroids. The new Barbarians identified in our analysis will be important to confirm the possible link between the Barbarian phenomenon and the presence of spinel on the surface.Comment: Accepted by MNRA

Efficient and realistic device modeling from atomic detail to the nanoscale

As semiconductor devices scale to new dimensions, the materials and designs become more dependent on atomic details. NEMO5 is a nanoelectronics modeling package designed for comprehending the critical multi-scale, multi-physics phenomena through efficient computational approaches and quantitatively modeling new generations of nanoelectronic devices as well as predicting novel device architectures and phenomena. This article seeks to provide updates on the current status of the tool and new functionality, including advances in quantum transport simulations and with materials such as metals, topological insulators, and piezoelectrics.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure

The Cellular and Physiological Basis for Lung Repair and Regeneration: Past, Present, and Future.

The respiratory system, which includes the trachea, airways, and distal alveoli, is a complex multi-cellular organ that intimately links with the cardiovascular system to accomplish gas exchange. In this review and as members of the NIH/NHLBI-supported Progenitor Cell Translational Consortium, we discuss key aspects of lung repair and regeneration. We focus on the cellular compositions within functional niches, cell-cell signaling in homeostatic health, the responses to injury, and new methods to study lung repair and regeneration. We also provide future directions for an improved understanding of the cell biology of the respiratory system, as well as new therapeutic avenues

Prenatal Vitamin D Supplementation and Child Respiratory Health: A Randomised Controlled Trial

PMCID: PMC3691177This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Oxygen Transport in Tissue Engineering Systems: Cartilage and Myocardium

Efficient transport of oxygen is one of the main requirements in tissue engineering systems in order to avoid cell death in the inner tissue regions and support uniform tissue regeneration. In this paper, we review approaches to design of tissue engineering systems with adequate oxygen delivery for cultivation of cartilage and myocardium, two distinctly different tissue types with respect to the tissue structure and oxygen requirements. Mathematical modeling was used to support experimental results and predict oxygen transport within the cultivated tissues and correlate it to the cell response and tissue properties

Occupant-centric miscellaneous electric loads prediction in buildings using state-of-the-art deep learning methods

Buildings have emerged as one of the dominant sectors when it comes to worldwide energy consumption. While a large portion of this consumption is due to the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) loads, a significant portion is contributed through the use of standard equipment, also known as Miscellaneous Electric Loads (MEL). It is necessary to understand the consumption patterns to optimize the MELs of the occupants using the building and conduct accurate forecasts for building energy management. One of the methods to achieve that purpose is the employment of Deep Learning (DL) methods. This study provides an analysis using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model as a baseline for predicting MELs. The predictions were conducted for a day-ahead and a week-ahead period. Furthermore, the results from the baseline model were then used in a comparative analysis with two other state-of-the-art DL models; Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU). The results from this study showed that both the Bi-LSTM and GRU models were significantly better than the LSTM model, especially when the prediction horizon was longer. The conclusions obtained can help implement these models in building energy management systems to draft strategic responses and schedules for more efficient energy usage.acceptedVersion© 2020. This is the authors’ accepted and refereed manuscript to the article. Locked until 14 May 2022 due to copyright restrictions. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Implementation of Partial Initial Commissioning During the Elaboration and Construction Phase

This paper describes how manual methods for partial initial commissioning can be implemented during the elaboration and construction phase. The main purpose is to reduce the risk of exceeding the time schedule and the budgets of the construction of the building(s). The paper breaks down the superior building process into parts that can be connected to definite continuous procedures: 1. Continuous collection of operational instructions and maintenance documentation to secure the quality of the delivered products and to be able to perform mechanical check. 2. Splitting up of systems to perform commissioning tests (mechanical and functional) on sub system to discover errors as soon as possible. 3. Database for structuring data to get useful reports to follow up the constructors at the construction site