A Unified Approach for Taxonomy-based Technology Forecasting

For decision makers and researchers working in a technical domain, understanding the state of their area of interest is of the highest importance. For this reason, we consider in this chapter, a novel framework for Web-based technology forecasting using bibliometrics (i.e. the analysis of information from trends and patterns of scientific publications). The proposed framework consists of a few conceptual stages based on a data acquisition process from bibliographic online repositories: extraction of domainrelevant keywords, the generation of taxonomy of the research field of interests and the development of early growth indicators which helps to find interesting technologies in their first phase of development. To provide a concrete application domain for developing and testing our tools, we conducted a case study in the field of renewable energy and in particular one of its subfields: Waste-to-Energy (W2E). The results on this particular research domain confirm the benefit of our approach

The Many Faces of Protein–Protein Interactions: A Compendium of Interface Geometry

A systematic classification of protein–protein interfaces is a valuable resource for understanding the principles of molecular recognition and for modelling protein complexes. Here, we present a classification of domain interfaces according to their geometry. Our new algorithm uses a hybrid approach of both sequential and structural features. The accuracy is evaluated on a hand-curated dataset of 416 interfaces. Our hybrid procedure achieves 83% precision and 95% recall, which improves the earlier sequence-based method by 5% on both terms. We classify virtually all domain interfaces of known structure, which results in nearly 6,000 distinct types of interfaces. In 40% of the cases, the interacting domain families associate in multiple orientations, suggesting that all the possible binding orientations need to be explored for modelling multidomain proteins and protein complexes. In general, hub proteins are shown to use distinct surface regions (multiple faces) for interactions with different partners. Our classification provides a convenient framework to query genuine gene fusion, which conserves binding orientation in both fused and separate forms. The result suggests that the binding orientations are not conserved in at least one-third of the gene fusion cases detected by a conventional sequence similarity search. We show that any evolutionary analysis on interfaces can be skewed by multiple binding orientations and multiple interaction partners. The taxonomic distribution of interface types suggests that ancient interfaces common to the three major kingdoms of life are enriched by symmetric homodimers. The classification results are online at http://www.scoppi.org

Electronically highly cubic conditions for Ru in alpha-RuCl3

We studied the local Ru 4d electronic structure of alpha-RuCl3 by means of polarization dependent x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the Ru-L2,3 edges. We observed a vanishingly small linear dichroism indicating that electronically the Ru 4d local symmetry is highly cubic. Using full multiplet cluster calculations we were able to reproduce the spectra excellently and to extract that the trigonal splitting of the t2g orbitals is -12 $\pm10$ meV, i.e. negligible as compared to the Ru 4d spin-orbit coupling constant. Consistent with our magnetic circular dichroism measurements, we found that the ratio of the orbital and spin moments is 2.0, the value expected for a Jeff = 1/2 ground state. We have thus shown that as far as the Ru 4d local properties are concerned, alpha-RuCl3 is an ideal candidate for the realization of Kitaev physics

Stationary Properties of a Randomly Driven Ising Ferromagnet

We consider the behavior of an Ising ferromagnet obeying the Glauber dynamics under the influence of a fast switching, random external field. Analytic results for the stationary state are presented in mean-field approximation, exhibiting a novel type of first order phase transition related to dynamic freezing. Monte Carlo simulations performed on a quadratic lattice indicate that many features of the mean field theory may survive the presence of fluctuations.Comment: 5 pages in RevTex format, 7 eps/ps figures, send comments to "mailto:[email protected]", submitted to PR

Performance and quality of service of data and video movement over a 100 Gbps testbed

AbstractDigital instruments and simulations are creating an ever-increasing amount of data. The need for institutions to acquire these data and transfer them for analysis, visualization, and archiving is growing as well. In parallel, networking technology is evolving, but at a much slower rate than our ability to create and store data. Single fiber 100 Gbps networking solutions have recently been deployed as national infrastructure. This article describes our experiences with data movement and video conferencing across a networking testbed, using the first commercially available single fiber 100 Gbps technology. The testbed is unique in its ability to be configured for a total length of 60, 200, or 400 km, allowing for tests with varying network latency. We performed low-level TCP tests and were able to use more than 99.9% of the theoretical available bandwidth with minimal tuning efforts. We used the Lustre file system to simulate how end users would interact with a remote file system over such a high performance link. We were able to use 94.4% of the theoretical available bandwidth with a standard file system benchmark, essentially saturating the wide area network. Finally, we performed tests with H.323 video conferencing hardware and quality of service (QoS) settings, showing that the link can reliably carry a full high-definition stream. Overall, we demonstrated the practicality of 100 Gbps networking and Lustre as excellent tools for data management

Relative efforts of countries to conserve world’s megafauna

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to variation among countries in contributions to conservation. As a first step, we developed a Megafauna Conservation Index (MCI) that assesses the spatial, ecological and financial contributions of 152 nations towards conservation of the world’s terrestrial megafauna. We chose megafauna because they are particularly valuable in economic, ecological and societal terms, and are challenging and expensive to conserve. We categorised these 152 countries as being above- or below-average performers based on whether their contribution to megafauna conservation was higher or lower than the global mean; ‘major’ performers or underperformers were those whose contribution exceeded 1 SD over or under the mean, respectively. Ninety percent of countries in North/Central America and 70% of countries in Africa were classified as major or above-average performers, while approximately one-quarter of countries in Asia (25%) and Europe (21%) were identified as major underperformers. We present our index to emphasize the need for measuring conservation performance, to help nations identify how best they could improve their efforts, and to present a starting point for the development of more robust and inclusive measures (noting how the IUCN Red List evolved over time). Our analysis points to three approaches that countries could adopt to improve their contribution to global megafauna conservation, depending on their circumstances: 1) upgrading or expanding their domestic protected area networks, with a particular emphasis on conserving large carnivore and herbivore habitat, 2) increase funding for conservation at home or abroad, or 3) ‘rewilding’ their landscapes. Once revised and perfected, we recommend publishing regular conservation rankings in the popular media to recognise major-performers, foster healthy pride and competition among nations, and identify ways for governments to improve their performance

ECFA Detector R&D Panel, Review Report

Two special calorimeters are foreseen for the instrumentation of the very forward region of an ILC or CLIC detector; a luminometer (LumiCal) designed to measure the rate of low angle Bhabha scattering events with a precision better than 10$^{-3}$ at the ILC and 10$^{-2}$ at CLIC, and a low polar-angle calorimeter (BeamCal). The latter will be hit by a large amount of beamstrahlung remnants. The intensity and the spatial shape of these depositions will provide a fast luminosity estimate, as well as determination of beam parameters. The sensors of this calorimeter must be radiation-hard. Both devices will improve the e.m. hermeticity of the detector in the search for new particles. Finely segmented and very compact electromagnetic calorimeters will match these requirements. Due to the high occupancy, fast front-end electronics will be needed. Monte Carlo studies were performed to investigate the impact of beam-beam interactions and physics background processes on the luminosity measurement, and of beamstrahlung on the performance of BeamCal, as well as to optimise the design of both calorimeters. Dedicated sensors, front-end and ADC ASICs have been designed for the ILC and prototypes are available. Prototypes of sensor planes fully assembled with readout electronics have been studied in electron beams.Comment: 61 pages, 51 figure