Charge density functional plus UU calculation of lacunar spinel GaM4_4Se8_8 (M = Nb, Mo, Ta, and W)

Charge density functional plus $U$ calculations are carried out to examine the validity of molecular $J_\text{eff}$=1/2 and 3/2 state in lacunar spinel GaM$_4$X$_8$ (M = Nb, Mo, Ta, and W). With LDA (spin-unpolarized local density approximation)$+U$, which has recently been suggested as the more desirable choice than LSDA (local spin density approximation)$+U$, we examine the band structure in comparison with the previous prediction based on the spin-polarized version of functional and with the prototypical $J_\text{eff}$=1/2 material Sr$_2$IrO$_4$. It is found that the previously suggested $J_\text{eff}$=1/2 and 3/2 band characters remain valid still in LDA$+U$ calculations while the use of charge-only density causes some minor differences. Our result provides the further support for the novel molecular $J_\text{eff}$ state in this series of materials, which can hopefully motivate the future exploration toward its verification and the further search for new functionalities

Processing SPARQL queries with regular expressions in RDF databases

Background: As the Resource Description Framework (RDF) data model is widely used for modeling and sharing a lot of online bioinformatics resources such as Uniprot (dev.isb-sib.ch/projects/uniprot-rdf) or Bio2RDF (bio2rdf.org), SPARQL - a W3C recommendation query for RDF databases - has become an important query language for querying the bioinformatics knowledge bases. Moreover, due to the diversity of users' requests for extracting information from the RDF data as well as the lack of users' knowledge about the exact value of each fact in the RDF databases, it is desirable to use the SPARQL query with regular expression patterns for querying the RDF data. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no work that efficiently supports regular expression processing in SPARQL over RDF databases. Most of the existing techniques for processing regular expressions are designed for querying a text corpus, or only for supporting the matching over the paths in an RDF graph. Results: In this paper, we propose a novel framework for supporting regular expression processing in SPARQL query. Our contributions can be summarized as follows. 1) We propose an efficient framework for processing SPARQL queries with regular expression patterns in RDF databases. 2) We propose a cost model in order to adapt the proposed framework in the existing query optimizers. 3) We build a prototype for the proposed framework in C++ and conduct extensive experiments demonstrating the efficiency and effectiveness of our technique. Conclusions: Experiments with a full-blown RDF engine show that our framework outperforms the existing ones by up to two orders of magnitude in processing SPARQL queries with regular expression patterns.X113sciescopu

The effect of various design codes and dynamic magnification on buildings with torsional irregularity

Seismic provisions have utilized design eccentricities to reduce planar irregularities in lateral stiffness of buildings. In calculating a design eccentricity, the torsional amplification factor may be applied either to accidental eccentricity or to both inherent and accidental eccentricities according to design codes. In this paper, different code provisions and their impact on torsional responses of buildings are investigated using example buildings with various aspect ratios and inherent eccentricities. It was found that the design eccentricity in KBC-2009 using torsional amplification factor for only accidental eccentricity reflects the dynamic magnification more accurately than that in KBC-2006 using this factor for both inherent and accidental eccentricity. And dynamic magnification of a torsionally imbalanced building is affected by the size of seismic design force of response spectrum analysis than design eccentricity of equivalent static analysis in KBC-2009. In other words, design eccentricity including torsional amplification factor in KBC-2009 do not reflect the dynamic magnification accurately

Inhibition of methane and natural gas hydrate formation by altering the structure of water with amino acids

Natural gas hydrates are solid hydrogen-bonded water crystals containing small molecular gases. The amount of natural gas stored as hydrates in permafrost and ocean sediments is twice that of all other fossil fuels combined. However, hydrate blockages also hinder oil/gas pipeline transportation, and, despite their huge potential as energy sources, our insufficient understanding of hydrates has limited their extraction. Here, we report how the presence of amino acids in water induces changes in its structure and thus interrupts the formation of methane and natural gas hydrates. The perturbation of the structure of water by amino acids and the resulting selective inhibition of hydrate cage formation were observed directly. A strong correlation was found between the inhibition efficiencies of amino acids and their physicochemical properties, which demonstrates the importance of their direct interactions with water and the resulting dissolution environment. The inhibition of methane and natural gas hydrate formation by amino acids has the potential to be highly beneficial in practical applications such as hydrate exploitation, oil/gas transportation, and flow assurance. Further, the interactions between amino acids and water are essential to the equilibria and dynamics of many physical, chemical, biological, and environmental processes.11Ysciescopu

In situ-prepared composite materials of PEDOT: PSS buffer layer-metal nanoparticles and their application to organic solar cells

We report an enhancement in the efficiency of organic solar cells via the incorporation of gold (Au) or silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) in the hole-transporting buffer layer of poly(3,4- ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), which was formed on an indium tin oxide (ITO) surface by the spin-coating of PEDOT:PSS-Au or Ag NPs composite solution. The composite solution was synthesized by a simple in situ preparation method which involved the reduction of chloroauric acid (HAuCl4) or silver nitrate (AgNO3) with sodium borohydride (NaBH4) solution in the presence of aqueous PEDOT:PSS media. The NPs were well dispersed in the PEDOT:PSS media and showed a characteristic absorption peak due to the surface plasmon resonance effect. Organic solar cells with the structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS-Au, Ag NPs/poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PC61BM)/LiF/Al exhibited an 8% improvement in their power conversion efficiency mainly due to the enlarged surface roughness of the PEDOT:PSS, which lead to an improvement in the charge collection and ultimately improvements in the short-circuit current density and fill factor. © 2012 Woo et al.1

Efficient Privacy Preserving Logistic Regression Inference and Training

Recently, privacy-preserving logistic regression techniques on distributed data among several data owners drew attention in terms of their applicability in federated learning environment. Many of them have been built upon cryptographic primitives such as secure multiparty computations(MPC) and homomorphic encryptions(HE) to protect the privacy of data. The secure multiparty computation provides fast and secure unit operations for arithmetic and bit operations but they often does not scale with large data well enough due to large computation cost and communication overhead. From recent works, many HE primitives provide their operations in a batch sense so that the technique can be an appropriate choice in a big data environment. However computationally expensive operations such as ciphertext slot rotation or refreshment(so called bootstrapping) and large public key size are hurdles that hamper widespread of the technique in the industry-level environment. In this paper, we provide a new hybrid approach of a privacy-preserving logistic regression training and a inference, which utilizes both MPC and HE techniques to provide efficient and scalable solution while minimizing needs of key management and complexity of computation in encrypted state. Utilizing batch sense properties of HE, we present a method to securely compute multiplications of vectors and matrices using one HE multiplication, compared to the naive approach which requires linear number of multiplications regarding to the size of input data. We also show how we used a 2-party additive secret sharing scheme to control noises of expensive HE operations such as bootstrapping efficiently

Delayed Colon Perforation after Palliative Treatment for Rectal Carcinoma with Bare Rectal Stent: A Case Report

In order to relieve mechanical obstruction caused by rectal carcinoma, a bare rectal stent was inserted in the sigmoid colon of a 70-year-old female. The procedure was successful, and for one month the patient made good progress. She then complained of abdominal pain, however, and plain radiographs of the chest and abdomen revealed the presence of free gas in the subdiaphragmatic area. Surgical findings showed that a spur at the proximal end of the bare rectal stent had penetrated the rectal mucosal wall. After placing a bare rectal stent for the palliative treatment of colorectal carcinoma, close follow-up to detect possible perforation of the bowel wall is necessary