2,873 research outputs found
Probing equilibrium glass flow up to exapoise viscosities
Glasses are out-of-equilibrium systems aging under the crystallization
threat. During ordinary glass formation, the atomic diffusion slows down
rendering its experimental investigation impractically long, to the extent that
a timescale divergence is taken for granted by many. We circumvent here these
limitations, taking advantage of a wide family of glasses rapidly obtained by
physical vapor deposition directly into the solid state, endowed with different
"ages" rivaling those reached by standard cooling and waiting for millennia.
Isothermally probing the mechanical response of each of these glasses, we infer
a correspondence with viscosity along the equilibrium line, up to exapoise
values. We find a dependence of the elastic modulus on the glass age, which,
traced back to temperature steepness index of the viscosity, tears down one of
the cornerstones of several glass transition theories: the dynamical
divergence. Critically, our results suggest that the conventional wisdom
picture of a glass ceasing to flow at finite temperature could be wrong.Comment: 4 figures and 1 supplementary figur
Engineering a static verification tool for GPU kernels
We report on practical experiences over the last 2.5 years related to the engineering of GPUVerify, a static verification tool for OpenCL and CUDA GPU kernels, plotting the progress of GPUVerify from a prototype to a fully functional and relatively efficient analysis tool. Our hope is that this experience report will serve the verification community by helping to inform future tooling efforts. © 2014 Springer International Publishing
Wong-Zakai approximation of solutions to reflecting stochastic differential equations on domains in Euclidean spaces II
The strong convergence of Wong-Zakai approximations of the solution to the
reflecting stochastic differential equations was studied in [2]. We continue
the study and prove the strong convergence under weaker assumptions on the
domain.Comment: To appear in "Stochastic Analysis and Applications 2014-In Honour of
Terry Lyons", Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistic
Stiction, Adhesion Energy and the Casimir Effect in Micromechanical Systems
We measure the adhesion energy of gold using a micromachined doubly-clamped
beam. The stress and stiffness of the beam are characterized by measuring the
spectrum of mechanical vibrations and the deflection due to an external force.
To determine the adhesion energy we induce stiction between the beam and a
nearby surface by capillary forces. Subsequent analysis yields a value J/m that is a factor of approximately six smaller than predicted
by idealized theory. This discrepancy may be resolved with revised models that
include surface roughness and the effect of adsorbed monolayers intervening
between the contacting surfaces in these mesoscopic structures.Comment: RevTex, 4 pages, 4 eps figure
Biotic and Abiotic Drivers of Topsoil Organic Carbon Concentration in Drylands Have Similar Effects at Regional and Global Scales
Drylands contain 25% of the world’s soil organic carbon (SOC), which is controlled by many factors, both abiotic and biotic. Thus, understanding how these factors control SOC concentration can help to design more sustainable land-use practices in drylands
aiming to foster and preserve SOC storage, something particularly important to fight ongoing global warming. We use two independent, largescale databases with contrasting geographic coverage (236 sites in global drylands and 185 sites in Patagonia, Argentina) to evaluate the relative importance of abiotic (precipitation, temperature and soil texture) and biotic (primary productivity)
factors as drivers of SOC concentration in drylands at global and regional scales. We found that biotic and abiotic factors had similar effects on SOC concentration across regional and global scales: Maximum temperature and sand content had negative effects, while precipitation and plant productivity exerted positive effects. Our findings provide empirical evidence that increases in temperature
and reductions in rainfall, as forecasted by climatic models in many drylands worldwide, promote declines in SOC both directly and indirectly via the reduction in plant productivity. This has important implications for the conservation of drylands under climate change; land management should seek to enhance plant productivity as a tool to offset the negative impact of climate change on SOC storage and on associated ecosystem services.Estación Experimental Agropecuaria BarilocheFil: Gaitan, Juan Jose. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Suelos; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Luján. Departamento de Tecnología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Maestre, Fernando T. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología. Departamento de Biología y Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica; EspañaFil: Bran, Donaldo Eduardo. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Buono, Gustavo Gabriel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Chubut; ArgentinaFil: Dougill, Andrew J. University of Leeds. School of Earth and Environment; Reino UnidoFil: Garcia Martinez, Guillermo Carlos. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Esquel; ArgentinaFil: Ferrante, Daniela. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; ArgentinaFil: Guuroh, Reginald Tang. CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana; GhanaFil: Linstadter, Anja. University of Cologne. Botanical Institute; AlemaniaFil: Massara Paletto, Virginia. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Chubut; ArgentinaFil: Thomas, Andrew David. Aberystwyth University. Department of Geography and Earth Sciences; Reino UnidoFil: Oliva, Gabriel Esteban. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentin
Ambiguous figures and the content of experience
Representationalism is the position that the phenomenal character of an experience is either identical with, or supervenes on, the content of that experience. Many representationalists hold that the relevant content of experience is nonconceptual. I propose a counterexample to this form of representationalism that arises from the phenomenon of Gestalt switching, which occurs when viewing ambiguous figures. First, I argue that one does not need to appeal to the conceptual content of experience or to judgements to account for Gestalt switching. I then argue that experiences of certain ambiguous figures are problematic because they have different phenomenal characters but that no difference in the nonconceptual content of these experiences can be identified. I consider three solutions to this problem that have been proposed by both philosophers and psychologists and conclude that none can account for all the ambiguous figures that pose the problem. I conclude that the onus is on representationalists to specify the relevant difference in content or to abandon their position
Software Model Checking with Explicit Scheduler and Symbolic Threads
In many practical application domains, the software is organized into a set
of threads, whose activation is exclusive and controlled by a cooperative
scheduling policy: threads execute, without any interruption, until they either
terminate or yield the control explicitly to the scheduler. The formal
verification of such software poses significant challenges. On the one side,
each thread may have infinite state space, and might call for abstraction. On
the other side, the scheduling policy is often important for correctness, and
an approach based on abstracting the scheduler may result in loss of precision
and false positives. Unfortunately, the translation of the problem into a
purely sequential software model checking problem turns out to be highly
inefficient for the available technologies. We propose a software model
checking technique that exploits the intrinsic structure of these programs.
Each thread is translated into a separate sequential program and explored
symbolically with lazy abstraction, while the overall verification is
orchestrated by the direct execution of the scheduler. The approach is
optimized by filtering the exploration of the scheduler with the integration of
partial-order reduction. The technique, called ESST (Explicit Scheduler,
Symbolic Threads) has been implemented and experimentally evaluated on a
significant set of benchmarks. The results demonstrate that ESST technique is
way more effective than software model checking applied to the sequentialized
programs, and that partial-order reduction can lead to further performance
improvements.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in journal of logical
methods in computer scienc
Extensive Spectroscopy and Photometry of the Type IIP Supernova 2013ej
We present extensive optical (, , and open CCD) and
near-infrared () photometry for the very nearby Type IIP SN ~2013ej
extending from +1 to +461 days after shock breakout, estimated to be MJD
. Substantial time series ultraviolet and optical spectroscopy
obtained from +8 to +135 days are also presented. Considering well-observed SNe
IIP from the literature, we derive bolometric calibrations from
and unfiltered measurements that potentially reach 2\% precision with a
color-dependent correction. We observe moderately strong Si II
as early as +8 days. The photospheric velocity () is
determined by modeling the spectra in the vicinity of Fe II
whenever observed, and interpolating at photometric epochs based on a
semianalytic method. This gives km s at +50
days. We also observe spectral homogeneity of ultraviolet spectra at +10--12
days for SNe IIP, while variations are evident a week after explosion. Using
the expanding photosphere method, from combined analysis of SN 2013ej and SN
2002ap, we estimate the distance to the host galaxy to be
Mpc, consistent with distance estimates from other methods. Photometric and
spectroscopic analysis during the plateau phase, which we estimated to be
days long, yields an explosion energy of
ergs, a final pre-explosion progenitor mass of ~M and a
radius of ~R. We observe a broken exponential profile beyond
+120 days, with a break point at + days. Measurements beyond this
break time yield a Ni mass of ~M.Comment: 29 pages, 23 figures, 15 tables, Published in The Astrophisical
Journa
Enhanced inverse bremsstrahlung heating rates in a strong laser field
Test particle studies of electron scattering on ions, in an oscillatory
electromagnetic field have shown that standard theoretical assumptions of small
angle collisions and phase independent orbits are incorrect for electron
trajectories with drift velocities smaller than quiver velocity amplitude. This
leads to significant enhancement of the electron energy gain and the inverse
bremsstrahlung heating rate in strong laser fields. Nonlinear processes such as
Coulomb focusing and correlated collisions of electrons being brought back to
the same ion by the oscillatory field are responsible for large angle, head-on
scattering processes. The statistical importance of these trajectories has been
examined for mono-energetic beam-like, Maxwellian and highly anisotropic
electron distribution functions. A new scaling of the inverse bremsstrahlung
heating rate with drift velocity and laser intensity is discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure
Lung cancer surgery in octogenarians: a meta-analysis of predictors for postoperative complications
Background: Recently, several reports had focused on the feasibility of lung cancer surgery in octogenarians,
describing encouraging short and long-term survival. However, the postoperative complication rate remains
high. Some papers analyzed the role of potential predictors of post-operative complications, showing
discordant results. We aimed at systematically assessing the evidence on risk factors for post-operative
complications in octogenarians undergoing lung cancer surgery.
Methods: Literature search was performed through PubMed and MEDLINE using the terms “lung
cancer”, “non-small cell lung cancer” or “lung cancer surgery” combined with “octogenarian” or “80 years”.
Last search was performed on 03/2021. Inclusion criteria were: clinical studies involving octogenarians
undergoing lung cancer surgery between 1990 and 2020; studies explicitly appraising risk factors for postoperative
complications and providing adjusted risk effect estimates. Studies that did not explicitly investigate
predictors of postoperative complications and papers published in other language than English were not
included. Risk of bias was assessed using the Quality in Prognostic Factor Studies (QUIPS) tool. More than
20 potential predictors were screened, finally limiting the inferential analysis to the six most frequently
reported: performance status (PS), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), type of resection, surgical
approach, history of tobacco abuse and male gender. Adjusted P values from individual studies were pooled
with the Fisher method. A pooled 2-tailed P value ≤0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: A final set of 13 cohort studies, including 2,596 patients, was considered. Effect estimates were
reported for PS by 6 studies (46%), for FEV1 by 10 (77%), for type of resection by 11 (85%), for surgical
approach by 4 (31%), for history of tobacco abuse by 6 (46%), and for male gender by 8 (62%). After
inferential analysis with the Fisher method, a significant association with post-operative complications was
found for PS (P=0.004), major resections (P=0.002) and open approach (P=0.007); male gender showed only
a borderline trend (P=0.053). Preoperative FEV1 (P=0.109) and history of tobacco abuse (P=0.399) were not
associated with increased postoperative complications.
Conclusions: Lung cancer surgery in octogenarian patients represent a viable and useful treatment.
According to our analysis, patients should be carefully selected considering that a good preoperative PS is
associated with a lower rate of postoperative complications. Similarly, thoracoscopic approach and sublobar
resection should be preferred in octogenarian patients if technically and oncologically sound. Interestingly,
impaired lung function was not significantly associated to post-operative complications
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