Reactive multilayer synthesis of hard ceramic foils and films

Disclosed is method for synthesizing hard ceramic materials such as carbides, borides and aluminides, particularly in the form of coatings provided on another material so as to improve the wear and abrasion performance of machine tools, for example. Method involves the sputter deposition of alternating layers of reactive metals with layers of carbon, boron, or aluminum and the subsequent reaction of the multilayered structure to produce a dense crystalline ceramic. The material can be coated on a substrate or formed as a foil which can be coiled as a tape for later use

An accurate assignment test for extremely low-coverage whole-genome sequence data.

Genomic assignment tests can provide important diagnostic biological characteristics, such as population of origin or ecotype. Yet, assignment tests often rely on moderate- to high-coverage sequence data that can be difficult to obtain for fields such as molecular ecology and ancient DNA. We have developed a novel approach that efficiently assigns biologically relevant information (i.e., population identity or structural variants such as inversions) in extremely low-coverage sequence data. First, we generate databases from existing reference data using a subset of diagnostic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with a biological characteristic. Low-coverage alignment files are subsequently compared to these databases to ascertain allelic state, yielding a joint probability for each association. To assess the efficacy of this approach, we assigned haplotypes and population identity in Heliconius butterflies, Atlantic herring, and Atlantic cod using chromosomal inversion sites and whole-genome data. We scored both modern and ancient specimens, including the first whole-genome sequence data recovered from ancient Atlantic herring bones. The method accurately assigns biological characteristics, including population membership, using extremely low-coverage data (as low as 0.0001x) based on genome-wide SNPs. This approach will therefore increase the number of samples in evolutionary, ecological and archaeological research for which relevant biological information can be obtained

Construction, assembly and tests of the ATLAS electromagnetic barrel calorimeter

The construction and assembly of the two half barrels of the ATLAS central electromagnetic calorimeter and their insertion into the barrel cryostat are described. The results of the qualification tests of the calorimeter before installation in the LHC ATLAS pit are given

Performance of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter end-cap module 0

The construction and beam test results of the ATLAS electromagnetic end-cap calorimeter pre-production module 0 are presented. The stochastic term of the energy resolution is between 10% GeV^1/2 and 12.5% GeV^1/2 over the full pseudorapidity range. Position and angular resolutions are found to be in agreement with simulation. A global constant term of 0.6% is obtained in the pseudorapidity range 2.5 eta 3.2 (inner wheel)

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Formation of cubic boron-nitride by the reactive sputter deposition of boron

Boron-nitride films are synthesized by RF magnetron sputtering boron targets where the deposition parameters of gas pressure, flow and composition are varied along with substrate temperature and applied bias. The films are analyzed using Auger electron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, nanoindentation, Raman spectroscopy and x-ray absorption spectroscopy. These techniques provide characterization of film composition, crystalline structure, hardness and chemical bonding, respectively. Reactive, rf-sputtering process parameters are established which lead to the growth of crystalline BN phases. The deposition of stable and adherent boron nitride coatings consisting of the cubic phase requires 400 `C substrate heating and the application of a 300 V negative bias

Human-environment interactions in the Mesolithic – the case of site Paliwodzizna 29, a lakeside site in central Poland

Human-environmental relations before agriculture can be revealed at archaeological sites through multi-method palaeoenvironmental studies, particularly at sites which have both dryland and wetland areas. Paliwodzizna 29 is such as site, being a series of pits and hearths at the edge of Lake Grodno in Central Poland. A combination of faunal analysis, lithostratigraphy, pollen, diaspores, charcoal and sedaDNA from the site revealed seasonal collecting-type occupation based on the catching of pike (a superfood) in the spring in the early Mesolithic, but a different foraging-type pattern of occupation probably in the summer in the late Mesolithic. Subtle human impacts on the local environment are also seen, including probably burning of some woodland and reed-beds as well as localized soil erosion. This analysis reveals the potential of both such sites, and the combined methodology, for the testing of theoretical models of human mobility and activities in the Mesolithic

Ancient DNA sequence quality is independent of fish bone weight

The field of ancient DNA (aDNA) typically uses between 50 and 200 mg of minimum input weight of bone material for the extraction of DNA from archaeological remains. While laboratory and analysis techniques have focused on improved efficiency of extracting useable sequence data from older and poorer quality remains, bone material input requirements have rarely been critically evaluated. Here, we present the aDNA analysis of 121 size-constrained Atlantic herring remains – weighing between <10 and 70 mg – that were individually sequenced to explore the capacity of successful aDNA retrieval from small archaeological remains. We statistically evaluate the relationship between bone weight and several response variables, including library success, endogenous DNA content, and library complexity, i.e., the number of unique molecules that are obtained. Remarkably, we find no relationship between bone weight and library success, levels of endogenous DNA, or library complexity. Our results imply that – at least in the case of fish bone – even minute bones can yield positive results and that the presumed minimum sample size required should be re-evaluated. Archaeological site, instead of bone size, is the primary driver of DNA sequence quality. Our work expands the number of specimens considered suitable for aDNA analyses, and therefore facilitates efforts to minimize the destructive impact of aDNA research and mediate some of the ethical concerns surrounding destructive analysis.publishedVersio