Data-parallel agent-based microscopic road network simulation using graphics processing units

Road network microsimulation is computationally expensive, and existing state of the art commercial tools use task parallelism and coarse-grained data-parallelism for multi-core processors to achieve improved levels of performance. An alternative is to use Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and fine-grained data parallelism. This paper describes a GPU accelerated agent based microsimulation model of a road network transport system. The performance for a procedurally generated grid network is evaluated against that of an equivalent multi-core CPU simulation. In order to utilise GPU architectures effectively the paper describes an approach for graph traversal of neighbouring information which is vital to providing high levels of computational performance. The graph traversal approach has been integrated within a GPU agent based simulation framework as a generalised message traversal technique for graph-based communication. Speed-ups of up to 43 ×  are demonstrated with increased performance scaling behaviour. Simulation of over half a million vehicles and nearly two million detectors at a rate of 25 ×  faster than real-time is obtained on a single GPU

Polyploidy in the Olive Complex (Olea europaea): Evidence from Flow Cytometry and Nuclear Microsatellite Analyses

Background Phylogenetic and phylogeographic investigations have been previously performed to study the evolution of the olive tree complex (Olea europaea). A particularly high genomic diversity has been found in north-west Africa. However, to date no exhaustive study has been addressed to infer putative polyploidization events and their evolutionary significance in the diversification of the olive tree and its relatives. Methods Representatives of the six olive subspecies were investigated using (a) flow cytometry to estimate genome content, and (b) six highly variable nuclear microsatellites to assess the presence of multiple alleles at co-dominant loci. In addition, nine individuals from a controlled cross between two individuals of O. europaea subsp. maroccana were characterized with microsatellites to check for chromosome inheritance. Key Results Based on flow cytometry and genetic analyses, strong evidence for polyploidy was obtained in subspp. cerasiformis (tetraploid) and maroccana (hexaploid), whereas the other subspecies appeared to be diploids. Agreement between flow cytometry and genetic analyses gives an alternative approach to chromosome counting to determine ploidy level of trees. Lastly, abnormalities in chromosomes inheritance leading to aneuploid formation were revealed using microsatellite analyses in the offspring from the controlled cross in subsp. maroccana. Conclusions This study constitutes the first report for multiple polyploidy in olive tree relatives. Formation of tetraploids and hexaploids may have played a major role in the diversification of the olive complex in north-west Africa. The fact that polyploidy is found in narrow endemic subspecies from Madeira (subsp. cerasiformis) and the Agadir Mountains (subsp. maroccana) suggests that polyploidization has been favoured to overcome inbreeding depression. Lastly, based on previous phylogenetic analyses, we hypothesize that subsp. cerasiformis resulted from hybridization between ancestors of subspp. guanchica and europae

Content of nitrate and nitrite in commercial and self-made beetroot juices and the effect of storage temperature

File replaced (docx to pdf) on 25.7.23 by NK (LDS)Popularity of beetroot juice (BJ) is growing due to its high inorganic nitrate content (NO₃) and its potential physiological benefits. However, the content of NO₃ is not indicated in most commercial BJs and it can be affected by seasonal changes and storage conditions. This study analyzed the content of NO₃ and nitrite (NO₂) in five and two commercial and self-made BJs, respectively, that were purchased in the summer and winter periods. The effect of storage temperature (20°C, 4°C, and −20°C) and pH was also analyzed. In nonconcentrated BJs, the NO₃ content was 34 ± 20% (p = .075) in the winter than in the summer. NO₃ was fully degraded in self-made BJ after 3 days at 20°C. This effect was attenuated by 78% and 82% when it was kept at 4°C and −20°C, respectively. The addition of lemon juice (5%) to self-made BJ was another useful approach to avoid NO₃ degradation for 3 days when it was kept at 20°C. Regarding NO₂, self-made BJ had higher concentration (0.097 ± 0.01 mg/mL) compared to commercial BJs (<0.1 mg/mL; p = .001). The pH of self-made BJ was higher (6.3 ± 0.1) compared to commercial BJs (4.5 ± 0.3; p = .001). These results suggest that the content of NO₃ in nonconcentrated BJs can substantially differ across the year and this is an important factor to take into account when recommending BJs to promote some of its potential physiological benefits

Renormalization Group Evolution of Dirac Neutrino Masses

There are good reasons why neutrinos could be Majorana particles, but there exist also a number of very good reasons why neutrinos could have Dirac masses. The latter option deserves more attention and we derive therefore analytic expressions describing the renormalization group evolution of mixing angles and of the CP phase for Dirac neutrinos. Radiative corrections to leptonic mixings are in this case enhanced compared to the quark mixings because the hierarchy of neutrino masses is milder and because the mixing angles are larger. The renormalization group effects are compared to the precision of current and future neutrino experiments. We find that, in the MSSM framework, radiative corrections of the mixing angles are for large \tan\beta comparable to the precision of future experiments.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures; error in eq. 8 corrected, references adde

Supersymmetric D-term Inflation, Reheating and Affleck-Dine Baryogenesis

The phenomenology of supersymmetric models of inflation, where the inflationary vacuum energy is dominated by D-terms of a U(1), is investigated. Particular attention is paid to the questions of how to arrange for sufficient e-folds of inflation to occur, what kind of thermal history is expected after the end of inflation, and how to implement successful baryogenesis. Such models are argued to require a more restrictive symmetry structure than previously thought. In particular, it is non-trivial that the decays of the fields driving D-inflation can reheat the universe in such a way as to avoid the strong gravitino production constraints. We also show how the initial conditions for Affleck-Dine baryogenesis can arise in these models and that the simplest flat directions along which baryon number is generated can often be ruled out by the constraints coming from decoherence of the condensate in a hot environment. At the end, we find that successful reheating and baryogenesis can take place in a large subset of D-inflationary models.Comment: 23 pages LaTe

Dynamical properties of liquid Al near melting. An orbital-free molecular dynamics study

The static and dynamic structure of liquid Al is studied using the orbital free ab-initio molecular dynamics method. Two thermodynamic states along the coexistence line are considered, namely T = 943 K and 1323 K for which X-ray and neutron scattering data are available. A new kinetic energy functional, which fulfills a number of physically relevant conditions is employed, along with a local first principles pseudopotential. In addition to a comparison with experiment, we also compare our ab-initio results with those obtained from conventional molecular dynamics simulations using effective interionic pair potentials derived from second order pseudopotential perturbation theory.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables, submitted to PR

Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment and mu -> e gamma in B-L Model with Inverse Seesaw

We study the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, a_\mu, and lepton flavor violating decay \mu -> e \gamma in TeV scale B-L extension of the Standard Model (SM) with inverse seesaw mechanism. We show that the B-L contributions to a_\mu are severely constrained, therefore the SM contribution remains intact. We also emphasize that the current experimental limit of BR(\mu -> e \gamma) can be satisfied for a wide range of parameter space and it can be within the reach of MEG experiment.Comment: 10 pages, 4 Figure

Two-Stage Inflation in Supergravity

We investigate the viability of a two-stage inflationary scenario in the context of supergravity, so as to resolve the problem of initial conditions for hybrid inflation. We allow for non-renormalizable terms in the superpotential and consider the most general form of the Kahler potential and the gauge kinetic function. We construct a model with two stages of inflation, the first driven by D-term and the second by F-term energy density. The viability of this scenario depends on the non-minimal terms in the Kahler potential, for which we derive the necessary constraints.Comment: 25 pages, LaTeX file, 2 figures in eps format, minor corrections to the tex

The nutraceutical antihypertensive action of C-phycocyanin in chronic kidney disease is related to the prevention of endothelial dysfunction

C-phycocyanin (CPC) is an antihypertensive that is not still wholly pharmacologically described. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether CPC counteracts endothelial dysfunction as an antihypertensive mechanism in rats with 5/6 nephrectomy (NFx) as a chronic kidney disease (CKD) model. Twenty-four male Wistar rats were divided into four groups: sham control, sham-treated with CPC (100 mg/Kg/d), NFx, and NFx treated with CPC. Blood pressure was measured each week, and renal function evaluated at the end of the treatment. Afterward, animals were euthanized, and their thoracic aortas were analyzed for endothelium functional test, oxidative stress, and NO production. 5/6 Nephrectomy caused hypertension increasing lipid peroxidation and ROS production, overexpression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), reduction in the first-line antioxidant enzymes activities, and reduced-glutathione (GSH) with a down-expression of eNOS. The vasomotor response reduced endothelium-dependent vasodilation in aorta segments exposed to acetylcholine and sodium nitroprusside. However, the treatment with CPC prevented hypertension by reducing oxidative stress, NO system disturbance, and endothelial dysfunction. The CPC treatment did not prevent CKD-caused disturbance in the antioxidant enzymes activities. Therefore, CPC exhibited an antihypertensive activity while avoiding endothelial dysfunction