Analytical calculation of the solid angle defined by a cylindrical detector and a point cosine source with orthogonal axes

We derive analytical expressions for the solid angle subtended by a right circular cylinder at a point source with cosine angular distribution in the case where the source and the cylinder axes are mutually orthogonal.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, Latex. Typos corrected. Accepted in Rad. Phys. Che

Short-term modulation of distal tubule fluid nitric oxide in vivo by loop NaCl reabsorption

Short-term modulation of distal tubule fluid nitric oxide in vivo by loop NaCl reabsorption.BackgroundIntrarenal nitric oxide (NO) production and signaling effects are influenced by NaCl loading. To gain further insight into NO mechanisms we determined whether rat distal tubular fluid (DTF) [NO] and collected NO may acutely change when NaCl loop delivery is altered.MethodsAn NO microelectrode was used to measure real-time DTF [NO] and DT-collected NO. With proximal flow blocked (open system), 150mmol/L NaCl, with and without 10−4 mol/L furosemide was perfused with measurement of loop [Cl] reabsorption. Using a closed system, DTF [NO] was also determined using several different loop perfusates.ResultsIn the open system, perfusion with 40 nL/min of 150mmol/L NaCl to which 10−4 mol/L furosemide was added, DT [NO] and DT-collected NO was approximately twice that measured with perfusion of 150mmol/L NaCl alone, while loop Cl reabsorption decreased by half. In the closed system, perfusion at 10 nL/min of 150mmol/L NaCl + furosemide 10−4 mol/L also induced a significant rise in DTF [NO] and collected NO. Perfusion of 10−3 mol/L S-methyl-L-thiocitrulline (SMTC) with 150mmol/L NaCl, induces a significant drop in DT [NO], but without a significant increase in collected NO. Furthermore, with addition of 10−3 mol/L SMTC to the 150mmol/L NaCl + 10−4 furosemide perfusate, the rise in DT [NO] was prevented. Analysis of covariance showed that flow changes within, or between all groups, had no significant additional effect.ConclusionIn both open and closed loop perfusion systems, 10−4 mol/L furosemide inhibition of NaCl transport stimulates net loop NO emission independent of flow; 10−3 mol/L SMTC + 150mmol/L NaCl reduces DT [NO], but not DT-collected NO. Short-term net NO emission from the entire loop, as collected in distal tubule fluid, increases with inhibition of loop NaCl transport

Intermediate to felsic middle crust in the accreted Talkeetna arc, the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island, Alaska : an analogue for low-velocity middle crust in modern arcs

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Tectonics 29 (2010): TC3001, doi:10.1029/2009TC002541.Seismic profiles of several modern arcs have identified thick, low-velocity midcrustal layers (Vp = 6.0–6.5 km/s) that are interpreted to represent intermediate to felsic plutonic crust. The presence of this silicic crust is surprising given the mafic composition of most primitive mantle melts and could have important implications for the chemical evolution and bulk composition of arcs. However, direct studies of the middle crust are limited by the restricted plutonic exposures in modern arcs. The accreted Talkeetna arc, south central Alaska, exposes a faulted crustal section from residual subarc mantle to subaerial volcanic rocks of a Jurassic intraoceanic arc and is an ideal place to study the intrusive middle crust. Previous research on the arc, which has provided insight into a range of arc processes, has principally focused on western exposures of the arc in the Chugach Mountains. We present new U-Pb zircon dates, radiogenic isotope data, and whole-rock geochemical analyses that provide the first high-precision data on large intermediate to felsic plutonic exposures on Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula. A single chemical abrasion–thermal ionization mass spectrometry analysis from the Afognak pluton yielded an age of 212.87 ± 0.19 Ma, indicating that the plutonic exposures on Kodiak Island represent the earliest preserved record of Talkeetna arc magmatism. Nine new dates from the extensive Jurassic batholith on the Alaska Peninsula range from 183.5 to 164.1 Ma and require a northward shift in the Talkeetna arc magmatic axis following initial emplacement of the Kodiak plutons, paralleling the development of arc magmatism in the Chugach and Talkeetna mountains. Radiogenic isotope data from the Alaska Peninsula and the Kodiak archipelago range from $\varepsilon$Nd(t) = 5.2 to 9.0 and 87Sr/86Srint = 0.703515 to 0.703947 and are similar to age-corrected data from modern intraoceanic arcs, suggesting that the evolved Alaska Peninsula plutons formed by extensive differentiation of arc basalts with little or no involvement of preexisting crustal material. The whole-rock geochemical data and calculated seismic velocities suggest that the Alaska Peninsula represents an analogue for the low-velocity middle crust observed in modern arcs. The continuous temporal record and extensive exposure of intermediate to felsic plutonic rocks in the Talkeetna arc indicate that evolved magmas are generated by repetitive or steady state processes and play a fundamental role in the growth and evolution of intraoceanic arcs

In-Datacenter Performance Analysis of a Tensor Processing Unit

Many architects believe that major improvements in cost-energy-performance must now come from domain-specific hardware. This paper evaluates a custom ASIC---called a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU)---deployed in datacenters since 2015 that accelerates the inference phase of neural networks (NN). The heart of the TPU is a 65,536 8-bit MAC matrix multiply unit that offers a peak throughput of 92 TeraOps/second (TOPS) and a large (28 MiB) software-managed on-chip memory. The TPU's deterministic execution model is a better match to the 99th-percentile response-time requirement of our NN applications than are the time-varying optimizations of CPUs and GPUs (caches, out-of-order execution, multithreading, multiprocessing, prefetching, ...) that help average throughput more than guaranteed latency. The lack of such features helps explain why, despite having myriad MACs and a big memory, the TPU is relatively small and low power. We compare the TPU to a server-class Intel Haswell CPU and an Nvidia K80 GPU, which are contemporaries deployed in the same datacenters. Our workload, written in the high-level TensorFlow framework, uses production NN applications (MLPs, CNNs, and LSTMs) that represent 95% of our datacenters' NN inference demand. Despite low utilization for some applications, the TPU is on average about 15X - 30X faster than its contemporary GPU or CPU, with TOPS/Watt about 30X - 80X higher. Moreover, using the GPU's GDDR5 memory in the TPU would triple achieved TOPS and raise TOPS/Watt to nearly 70X the GPU and 200X the CPU.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, 8 tables. To appear at the 44th International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA), Toronto, Canada, June 24-28, 201

High-Precision U-Pb Zircon Age Calibration of the Global Carboniferous Time Scale and Milankovitch Band Cyclicity in the Donets Basin, Eastern Ukraine

High-precision ID-TIMS U-Pb zircon ages for 12 interstratified tuffs and tonsteins are used to radiometrically calibrate the detailed lithostratigraphic, cyclostratigraphic, and biostratigraphic framework of the Carboniferous Donets Basin of eastern Europe. Chemical abrasion of zircons, use of the internationally calibrated EARTHTIME mixed U-Pb isotope dilution tracer, and improved mass spectrometry guided by detailed error analysis have resulted in an age resolution o

Argonne National Laboratory Reports

A precision built moveable endplate Geiger-Mueller counter was used to measure the absolute disintegration rate of a beta-emitting radioactive gas. A Geiger-Mueller counter used for measuring gaseous radioactivity has <100% counting efficiency owing to two factors: (1) ''end effect, '' due to decreased and distorted fields at the ends where wire-insulator joints are placed, and (2) ''wall effect, '' due to non-ionization by beta particles emitted near to and heading into the wall. The end effect was evaluated by making one end of the counter movable and measuring counting rates at a number of endplate positions. Much of the wall effect was calculated theoretically, based on known data for primary ionization of electrons as a function of energy and gas composition. Corrections were then made for the ''shakeoff'' effect in beta decay and for backscattering of electrons from the counter wall. Measurements and calculations were made for a sample of krypton-85 (beta energy, 0.67 MeV). The wall effect calculation is readily extendable to other beta energies