Automatic malfunction diagnosis by on-line expert system for underground mobile machines

International audienceIn many Underground workings, either for mineral production or for creating lines of communicauon, mobile machines have to operate under conditions that are very difficult for personnel and equipment. Problems such as excessive dust, rock falls, high temperature and humidity, or the presence of an explosive atmosphere are not uncommon. Today, it is possible to monitor such machinery from a surface Station, in real time, using a highiy reliable digital transmission System (developed by INERIS), at distances of up to 10 km from the working. Similarly, difficulties arising from in-situ maintenance have led to the development of an on-line malfunction diagnosis System that can detect such malfunction and halt Operation by a conditionnal programmed stop. The Software has been developed using Expert System techniques with GENESIA l (EdF-STERIA) and the hardware is compatible with IBM PC-AT. On-line communication is under JBUS protocol. Full analysis (data acquisition - processing - Output) takes 20 seconds. The system can be intemipted at any moment to obtain correct Status of Operation

DNA-inspired Scheme for Building the Energy Profile of HPC Systems

International audienceEnergy usage is becoming a challenge for the design of next generation large scale distributed systems. This paper explores an inno- vative approach of profiling such systems. It proposes a DNA-like solution without making any assumptions on the running applications and used hardware. This profiling based on internal counters usage and energy monitoring allows to isolate specific phases during the execution and enables some energy consumption control and energy usage prediction. First experimental validations of the system modeling are presented and analyzed

Beyond CPU Frequency Scaling for a Fine-grained Energy Control of HPC Systems

International audienceModern high performance computing subsystems (HPC) - including processor, network, memory, and IO - are provided with power management mechanisms. These include dynamic speed scaling and dynamic resource sleeping. Understanding the behavioral patterns of high performance computing systems at runtime can lead to a multitude of optimization opportunities including controlling and limiting their energy usage. In this paper, we present a general purpose methodology for optimizing energy performance of HPC systems consid- ering processor, disk and network. We rely on the concept of execution vector along with a partial phase recognition technique for on-the-fly dynamic management without any a priori knowledge of the workload. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our management policy under two real-life workloads. Experimental results show that our management policy in comparison with baseline unmanaged execution saves up to 24% of energy with less than 4% performance overhead for our real-life workloads

Energy efficiency in HPC with and without knowledge of applications and services

International audienceThe constant demand of raw performance in high performance computing often leads to high performance systems' over-provisioning which in turn can result in a colossal energy waste due to workload/application variation over time. Proposing energy efficient solutions in the context of large scale HPC is a real unavoidable challenge. This paper explores two alternative approaches (with or without knowledge of applications and services) dealing with the same goal: reducing the energy usage of large scale infrastructures which support HPC applications. This article describes the first approach "with knowledge of applications and services'' which enables users to choose the less consuming implementation of services. Based on the energy consumption estimation of the different implementations (protocols) for each service, this approach is validated on the case of fault tolerance service in HPC. The approach "without knowledge'' allows some intelligent framework to observe the life of HPC systems and proposes some energy reduction schemes. This framework automatically estimates the energy consumption of the HPC system in order to apply power saving schemes. Both approaches are experimentally evaluated and analyzed in terms of energy efficiency

Evaluation of Different Types of Stimuli in a ERP-Based Brain-Computer Interface Speller under RSVP.

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) is currently one of the most suitable gaze-independent paradigms to control a visual brain-computer interface based on event related potentials (ERP-BCI) by patients with a lack of ocular motility. However, gaze-independent paradigms have not been studied as closely as gaze-dependent ones in reference to the type of stimuli presented. Under gaze-dependent paradigms, faces have been shown to be the most appropriate stimuli, especially when they are red. Therefore, the aim of the present work is to evaluate whether these results of the color of faces as visual stimuli also has an impact on ERP-BCI performance under the RSVP paradigm. In this preliminary study, six participants tested the ERP-BCI under RSVP using four different conditions for a speller application: letters, blue faces, red faces, and green faces. These preliminary results showed non-significant differences in accuracy or information transfer rate. The present work therefore shows that, unlike under gaze-dependent paradigms, the stimulus type has no impact on the performance of an ERP-BCI under RSVP. This finding should be considered in future ERP-BCI proposals aimed at users who need gaze-independent systems.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Evaluation of voriconazole anti-Acanthamoeba polyphaga in vitro activity, rat cornea penetration and efficacy against experimental rat Acanthamoeba keratitis

International audienceBackground: Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) is a sight-threatening infectious disease. Its effective and safe medical therapy remains highly debated. Recently, voriconazole, a monotriazole with noted in vitro activity against a large variety of fungi, has been successfully used both topically and systemically to treat human AK cases.Objectives: To measure anti-Acanthamoeba polyphaga in vitro activity, anti-rat AK efficiency and rat cornea penetration of eye-drop and oral voriconazole.Methods: A. polyphaga was maintained in axenic cultures. In vitro, amoebicidal and cysticidal activities of voriconazole were measured using an XTT assay. AK lesions of Sprague Dawley rats were scored from grade 0 to grade 3. For 21 days, from day 7 post-infection, voriconazole (1% solution) eye drops were instilled or voriconazole was administered by gavage (60 mg/kg/day). After killing, superficial corneal epithelium scrapings were cultured and analysed by PCR, and eye-globe histology was performed. Cornea and plasma concentrations were determined using 2D HPLC separation and tandem MS.Results: In vitro, voriconazole inhibited trophozoite proliferation with an IC50 value of 0.02 mg/L and an IC90 value of 2.86 mg/L; no cysticidal effect was found. In AK rats, eye drops reduced clinical worsening from day 7 to day 14 post-infection and oral voriconazole was not effective. Voriconazole cornea concentrations were directly dependent on the frequency of eye-drop instillations, which resulted in lower plasma concentrations, whilst oral voriconazole resulted in lower cornea concentrations.Conclusions: Present data underline the need for high-frequency eye-drop instillation regimens for efficient AK therapy

In Antisynthetase Syndrome, ACPA Are Associated With Severe and Erosive Arthritis: An Overlapping Rheumatoid Arthritis and Antisynthetase Syndrome

International audienceAbstract: Anticitrullinated peptide/protein antibodies (ACPA), which are highly specific for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), may be found in some patients with other systemic autoimmune diseases. The clinical significance of ACPA in patients with antisynthetase syndrome (ASS), a systemic disease characterized by the association of myositis, interstitial lung disease, polyarthralgia, and/or polyarthritis, has not yet been evaluated with regard to phenotype, prognosis, and response to treatment. ACPA-positive ASS patients were first identified among a French multicenter registry of patients with ASS. Additionally, all French rheumatology and internal medicine practitioners registered on the Club Rhumatismes et Inflammation web site were asked to report their observations of ASS patients with ACPA. The 17 collected patients were retrospectively studied using a standardized questionnaire and compared with 34 unselected ACPA-negative ASS patients in a case–control study. All ACPA-positive ASS patients suffered from arthritis versus 41% in the control group (P 7-year mean follow-up, extra-articular outcomes and survival were not different. ACPA-positive ASS patients showed an overlapping RA–ASS syndrome, were at high risk of refractory erosive arthritis, and might experience ASS flare when treated with antitumor necrosis factor drugs. In contrast, other biologics such as anti-CD20 mAb were effective in this context, without worsening systemic involvements

Trials

BACKGROUND: Postoperative upper gastrointestinal fistula (PUGIF) is a devastating complication, leading to high mortality (reaching up to 80%), increased length of hospital stay, reduced health-related quality of life and increased health costs. Nutritional support is a key component of therapy in such cases, which is related to the high prevalence of malnutrition. In the prophylactic setting, enteral nutrition (EN) is associated with a shorter hospital stay, a lower incidence of severe infectious complications, lower severity of complications and decreased cost compared to total parenteral nutrition (TPN) following major upper gastrointestinal (GI) surgery. There is little evidence available for the curative setting after fistula occurrence. We hypothesize that EN increases the 30-day fistula closure rate in PUGIF, allowing better health-related quality of life without increasing the morbidity or mortality. METHODS/DESIGN: The NUTRILEAK trial is a multicenter, randomized, parallel-group, open-label phase III trial to assess the efficacy of EN (the experimental group) compared with TPN (the control group) in patients with PUGIF. The primary objective of the study is to compare EN versus TPN in the treatment of PUGIF (after esophagogastric resection including bariatric surgery, duodenojejunal resection or pancreatic resection with digestive tract violation) in terms of the 30-day fistula closure rate. Secondary objectives are to evaluate the 6-month postrandomization fistula closure rate, time of first fistula closure (in days), the medical- and surgical treatment-related complication rate at 6 months after randomization, the fistula-related complication rate at 6 months after randomization, the type and severity of early (30 days after randomization) and late fistula-related complications (over 30 days after randomization), 30-day and 6-month postrandomization mortality rate, nutritional status at day 30, day 60, day 90 and day 180 postrandomization, the mean length of hospital stay, the patient's health-related quality of life (by self-assessment questionnaire), oral feeding time and direct costs of treatment. A total of 321 patients will be enrolled. DISCUSSION: The two nutritional supports are already used in daily practice, but most surgeons are reluctant to use the enteral route in case of PUGIF. This study will be the first randomized trial testing the role of EN versus TPN in PUGIF. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03742752. Registered on 14 November 2018.This research program is funded by the French Ministry of Health through Programme Hospitalier de Recherche Clinique 2016

Enabling planetary science across light-years. Ariel Definition Study Report

Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve, by surveying a diverse sample of about 1000 extrasolar planets, simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structures of hundreds of transiting exoplanets, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. The payload consists of an off-axis Cassegrain telescope (primary mirror 1100 mm x 730 mm ellipse) and two separate instruments (FGS and AIRS) covering simultaneously 0.5-7.8 micron spectral range. The satellite is best placed into an L2 orbit to maximise the thermal stability and the field of regard. The payload module is passively cooled via a series of V-Groove radiators; the detectors for the AIRS are the only items that require active cooling via an active Ne JT cooler. The Ariel payload is developed by a consortium of more than 50 institutes from 16 ESA countries, which include the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and a NASA contribution