All-Optical Reinforcement Learning in Solitonic X-Junctions

L'etologia ha dimostrato che gruppi di animali o colonie possono eseguire calcoli complessi distribuendo semplici processi decisionali ai membri del gruppo. Ad esempio, le colonie di formiche possono ottimizzare le traiettorie verso il cibo eseguendo sia un rinforzo (o una cancellazione) delle tracce di feromone sia spostarsi da una traiettoria ad un'altra con feromone più forte. Questa procedura delle formiche possono essere implementati in un hardware fotonico per riprodurre l'elaborazione del segnale stigmergico. Presentiamo qui innovative giunzioni a X completamente integrate realizzate utilizzando guide d'onda solitoniche in grado di fornire entrambi i processi decisionali delle formiche. Le giunzioni a X proposte possono passare da comportamenti simmetrici (50/50) ad asimmetrici (80/20) utilizzando feedback ottici, cancellando i canali di uscita inutilizzati o rinforzando quelli usati.Ethology has shown that animal groups or colonies can perform complex calculation distributing simple decision-making processes to the group members. For example ant colonies can optimize the trajectories towards the food by performing both a reinforcement (or a cancellation) of the pheromone traces and a switch from one path to another with stronger pheromone. Such ant's processes can be implemented in a photonic hardware to reproduce stigmergic signal processing. We present innovative, completely integrated X-junctions realized using solitonic waveguides which can provide both ant's decision-making processes. The proposed X-junctions can switch from symmetric (50/50) to asymmetric behaviors (80/20) using optical feedbacks, vanishing unused output channels or reinforcing the used ones

Characterization and cloning of fasciclin I and fasciclin II glycoproteins in the grasshopper

Monoclonal antibodies were previously used to identify two glycoproteins, called fasciclin I and II (70 and 95 kDa, respectively), which are expressed on different subsets of axon fascicles in the grasshopper (Schistocerca americana) embryo. Here the monoclonal antibodies were used to purify these two membrane-associated glycoproteins for further characterization. Fasciclin II appears to be an integral membrane protein, where fasciclin I is an extrinsic membrane protein. The amino acid sequences of the amino terminus and fragments of both proteins were determined. Using synthetic oligonucleotide probes and antibody screening, we isolated genomic and cDNA clones. Partial DNA sequences of these clones indicate that they encode fasciclins I and II

The groupoidal analogue Theta~ to Joyal's category Theta is a test category

We introduce the groupoidal analogue \tilde\Theta to Joyal's cell category \Theta and we prove that \tilde\Theta is a strict test category in the sense of Grothendieck. This implies that presheaves on \tilde\Theta model homotopy types in a canonical way. We also prove that the canonical functor from \Theta to \tilde\Theta is aspherical, again in the sense of Grothendieck. This allows us to compare weak equivalences of presheaves on \tilde\Theta to weak equivalences of presheaves on \Theta. Our proofs apply to other categories analogous to \Theta.Comment: 41 pages, v2: references added, Remark 7.3 added, v3: metadata update

Electro dynamic model of eddy currents in EU DEMO TF coil casing during major plasma disruption

The conceptual design of the EU DEMO reactor is currently ongoing within the EUROfusion consortium. Many different fault transients must be considered and carefully analyzed in the design phase; one of the most severe is the major plasma disruption (MPD), which causes several drawbacks on the magnet system. During a disruption, the plasma current decreases extremely fast, causing a fast variation of the magnetic field, which in turn induces an electric field. In presence of conductive materials, e.g., coil casing and vacuum vessel (VV), the electric field induces large eddy currents which deposit power by Joule effect. The conductive regions are tightly coupled on different timescales through the magnetic field induced by the eddy currents: the eddy currents in the VV influence the magnetic field evolution in the TF coil casing, thus affecting the power deposition in the latter. The aim of this work is the evaluation of the power deposited within the TF coil casing during a major plasma disruption due to eddy currents. The power deposition has been evaluated by means of the 3D-FOX, a finite element (FE) tool developed at Politecnico di Torino. The computed power deposition is used as input to the thermal-hydraulic (TH) simulation, performed with the 4C code, with the aim of assessing the erosion of the temperature margin given by MPD

Confound modelling in UK Biobank brain imaging

© 2020 Dealing with confounds is an essential step in large cohort studies to address problems such as unexplained variance and spurious correlations. UK Biobank is a powerful resource for studying associations between imaging and non-imaging measures such as lifestyle factors and health outcomes, in part because of the large subject numbers. However, the resulting high statistical power also raises the sensitivity to confound effects, which therefore have to be carefully considered. In this work we describe a set of possible confounds (including non-linear effects and interactions that researchers may wish to consider for their studies using such data). We include descriptions of how we can estimate the confounds, and study the extent to which each of these confounds affects the data, and the spurious correlations that may arise if they are not controlled. Finally, we discuss several issues that future studies should consider when dealing with confounds

A novel dimethylformamide (DMF) free bar-cast method to deposit organolead perovskite thin films with improved stability

We report a solvent-free approach to synthesizing organolead perovskites by using solid state reactions to coat perovskite crystals onto Al2O3 or TiO2 nanoparticles followed by addition of terpineol affording perovskite inks. We have bar cast these inks to produce photoactive perovskite thin films which are significantly more stable to humidity than solution-processed films. This new method also avoids the use of toxic DMF solvent

Non-negative data-driven mapping of structural connections with application to the neonatal brain

Mapping connections in the neonatal brain can provide insight into the crucial early stages of neurodevelopment that shape brain organisation and lay the foundations for cognition and behaviour. Diffusion MRI and tractography provide unique opportunities for such explorations, through estimation of white matter bundles and brain connectivity. Atlas-based tractography protocols, i.e. a priori defined sets of masks and logical operations in a template space, have been commonly used in the adult brain to drive such explorations. However, rapid growth and maturation of the brain during early development make it challenging to ensure correspondence and validity of such atlas-based tractography approaches in the developing brain. An alternative can be provided by data-driven methods, which do not depend on predefined regions of interest. Here, we develop a novel data-driven framework to extract white matter bundles and their associated grey matter networks from neonatal tractography data, based on non-negative matrix factorisation that is inherently suited to the non-negative nature of structural connectivity data. We also develop a non-negative dual regression framework to map group-level components to individual subjects. Using in-silico simulations, we evaluate the accuracy of our approach in extracting connectivity components and compare with an alternative data-driven method, independent component analysis. We apply non-negative matrix factorisation to whole-brain connectivity obtained from publicly available datasets from the Developing Human Connectome Project, yielding grey matter components and their corresponding white matter bundles. We assess the validity and interpretability of these components against traditional tractography results and grey matter networks obtained from resting-state fMRI in the same subjects. We subsequently use them to generate a parcellation of the neonatal cortex using data from 323 new-born babies and we assess the robustness and reproducibility of this connectivity-driven parcellation