HERO (High Energy Ray Observatory) optimization and current status

The High-Energy Ray Observatory (HERO) is a space experiment based on a heavy ionization calorimeter for direct study of cosmic rays. The effective geometrical factor of the apparatus varies from 12 to 60 m$^2$sr for protons depending on the weight of the calorimeter from 10 to 70 tons. During the exposure for $\sim$5 years this mission will make it possible to measure energy spectra of all abundant cosmic ray nuclei in the knee region ($\sim$3 PeV) with individual resolution of charges with energy resolution better than 30\% and provide useful information to solve the puzzle of the cosmic ray knee origin. HERO mission will make it also possible to measure energy spectra of cosmic rays nuclei for energies 1-1000 TeV with very high precision and energy resolution (up to 3\% for calorimeter 70 tons) and study the fine structure of the spectra. The planned experiment launch is no earlier than 2029.Comment: LaTeX,25 pages, 19 figure

SegmATRon: Embodied Adaptive Semantic Segmentation for Indoor Environment

This paper presents an adaptive transformer model named SegmATRon for embodied image semantic segmentation. Its distinctive feature is the adaptation of model weights during inference on several images using a hybrid multicomponent loss function. We studied this model on datasets collected in the photorealistic Habitat and the synthetic AI2-THOR Simulators. We showed that obtaining additional images using the agent's actions in an indoor environment can improve the quality of semantic segmentation. The code of the proposed approach and datasets are publicly available at https://github.com/wingrune/SegmATRon.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

“Smart” transport and logistics complex as a factor of sustainable development of the region (on the example of the Volgograd region)

At the present stage of social development, which is forming a new high-tech world system with all its challenges and problems, it is necessary to provide all participants in social and economic relations with a single and convenient environment for interaction, to improve the level and quality of life, and to ensure sustainable development. «Smart city» technologies, and their further extrapolation to the scale of a regional entity – a «smart region» – make it possible to ensure sustainable development for all residents of the region and consumers of municipal and regional services – citizens, public and business organizations, as well as government. Due to the constant development of the transport industry and new opportunities for the transportation of passengers and goods, it is interesting to study the transport and logistics segment of the «smart region». It explains the relevance and practical significance of this study, which presents a theoretical and methodological substantiation of the formation of a «smart» transport and logistics complex with its positioning as a factor of sustainable development of the region, on the example of the Volgograd region. This approach is original, has a high degree of reliability, the ability to build and verify the forecast of the socio-economic development of the region. The developed model in the study represents the authors' vision of the development of the transport and logistics complex of the Volgograd region in the future, defines short, medium and long-term priorities, goals and objectives, proposes the main directions of development, mechanisms for achieving the set goals and objectives, taking into account the achieved level and identified problems. The results of approbation prove the expediency of its use in the development and scientific substantiation of the strategy of socio-economic development at the regional level

The influence of social support on risk of acute cardiovascular diseases in female population aged 25–64 in Russia

Objective. To study the prevalence of social support (SS) and its influence on the relative risk (RR) of myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke in the female population aged 25–64 in Russia. Materials and methods. Under the third screening of the WHO “MONICA-psychosocial” programme, a random representative sample of women aged 25–64 (n=870) were surveyed in Novosibirsk. SS was measured according to the methods of the Berkman–Sym test [indices of close contacts (ICC) and index of social network (SNI)]. From 1995 to 2010, women were followed for 16 years to observe the incidence of MI and stroke. Results. The prevalence of low levels of ICC and SNI in women aged 25–64 was 57.1 and 77.7%, respectively. Low levels of ICC and SNI were associated with poor self-rated health and awareness about their health, adverse behavioural habits, high job strain and family stress. Rates of MI and stroke development were higher in married women with low ICC and SNI who were being in class “hard manual work”. Over a 16-year study period, the RR of MI in women with low ICC compared to those with high ICC was 4.9 times higher, and the risk of stroke was 4.1 times higher. Low level of SNI increased MI risk in 2.9 times, risk of stroke in 2.7 times. Conclusions. Majority of women aged 25–64 years in Russia have low social support which is associated with poor self-rated health, low awareness about the health that increases the risk of MI and stroke in 2.7–4.9 times in groups of “married” and “hard physical work”

Oxidation Of Adenosine And Inosine: The Chemistry Of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydropurines, Purine Iminoquinones, And Purine Quinones As Observed By Ultrafast Spectroscopy

Oxidative damage to purine nucleic acid bases proceeds through quinoidal intermediates derived from their corresponding 8-oxo-7,8-dihydropurine bases. Oxidation studies of 8-oxo-7,8-dihyroadenosine and 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroinosine indicate that these quinoidal species can produce stable cross links with a wide variety of nucleophiles in the 2-positions of the purines. An azide precursor for the adenosine iminoquinone has been synthesized and applied in ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopic studies. Thus, the adenosine iminoquinone can be observed directly, and its susceptibility to nudeophilic attack with various nucleophiles as well as the stability of the resulting cross linked species have been evaluated Finally, these observations indicate that this azide might be a very useful photoaffurity labeling agent, because the reactive intermediate, adenosine iminoquinone, is such a good mimic for the universal purine base adenosine

Gradual Optimization Learning for Conformational Energy Minimization

Molecular conformation optimization is crucial to computer-aided drug discovery and materials design. Traditional energy minimization techniques rely on iterative optimization methods that use molecular forces calculated by a physical simulator (oracle) as anti-gradients. However, this is a computationally expensive approach that requires many interactions with a physical simulator. One way to accelerate this procedure is to replace the physical simulator with a neural network. Despite recent progress in neural networks for molecular conformation energy prediction, such models are prone to distribution shift, leading to inaccurate energy minimization. We find that the quality of energy minimization with neural networks can be improved by providing optimization trajectories as additional training data. Still, it takes around $5 \times 10^5$ additional conformations to match the physical simulator's optimization quality. In this work, we present the Gradual Optimization Learning Framework (GOLF) for energy minimization with neural networks that significantly reduces the required additional data. The framework consists of an efficient data-collecting scheme and an external optimizer. The external optimizer utilizes gradients from the energy prediction model to generate optimization trajectories, and the data-collecting scheme selects additional training data to be processed by the physical simulator. Our results demonstrate that the neural network trained with GOLF performs on par with the oracle on a benchmark of diverse drug-like molecules using $50$x less additional data.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Recommended reading list of early publications on atomic layer deposition-Outcome of the "Virtual Project on the History of ALD"

Atomic layer deposition (ALD), a gas-phase thin film deposition technique based on repeated, self-terminating gas-solid reactions, has become the method of choice in semiconductor manufacturing and many other technological areas for depositing thin conformal inorganic material layers for various applications. ALD has been discovered and developed independently, at least twice, under different names: atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) and molecular layering. ALE, dating back to 1974 in Finland, has been commonly known as the origin of ALD, while work done since the 1960s in the Soviet Union under the name "molecular layering" (and sometimes other names) has remained much less known. The virtual project on the history of ALD (VPHA) is a volunteer-based effort with open participation, set up to make the early days of ALD more transparent. In VPHA, started in July 2013, the target is to list, read and comment on all early ALD academic and patent literature up to 1986. VPHA has resulted in two essays and several presentations at international conferences. This paper, based on a poster presentation at the 16th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition in Dublin, Ireland, 2016, presents a recommended reading list of early ALD publications, created collectively by the VPHA participants through voting. The list contains 22 publications from Finland, Japan, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States. Up to now, a balanced overview regarding the early history of ALD has been missing; the current list is an attempt to remedy this deficiency. (C) 2016 Author(s).Peer reviewe

Improved functionalization of oleic acid-coated iron oxide nanoparticles for biomedical applications

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles can providemultiple benefits for biomedical applications in aqueous environments such asmagnetic separation or magnetic resonance imaging. To increase the colloidal stability and allow subsequent reactions, the introduction of hydrophilic functional groups onto the particles’ surface is essential. During this process, the original coating is exchanged by preferably covalently bonded ligands such as trialkoxysilanes. The duration of the silane exchange reaction, which commonly takes more than 24 h, is an important drawback for this approach. In this paper, we present a novel method, which introduces ultrasonication as an energy source to dramatically accelerate this process, resulting in high-quality waterdispersible nanoparticles around 10 nmin size. To prove the generic character, different functional groups were introduced on the surface including polyethylene glycol chains, carboxylic acid, amine, and thiol groups. Their colloidal stability in various aqueous buffer solutions as well as human plasma and serum was investigated to allow implementation in biomedical and sensing applications.status: publishe

Global maps of soil temperature

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km2 resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world\u27s major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (−0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications