Design Modifications and Platform Implementation Procedures for Supporting Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration of FPGA Applications

Dynamic partial reconfiguration of FPGAs allows systems to autonomously alter sections of their design during runtime based on the state of the system. This functionality provides size, weight, and power benefits that are useful in extreme environments such as space. Therefore, NASA has requested research into the feasibility of using a commercial off-the-shelf software flow to convert a static HDL design to support partial reconfiguration. This project presents an analysis of this conversion process using the Xilinx Partial Reconfiguration Flow to convert the static design for the ITU G.729 Voice Decoder. This paper explores the design modifications that must be made to allow for partial reconfiguration. Furthermore, an in-depth description of how to set up the hardware platform to support the HDL application is provided. Finally, timing and size data are presented and analyzed to empirically show the benefits and limitations of using dynamic partial reconfiguration

NITROGEN CYCLING AND CONTROLS ON DENITRIFICATION IN MESOHALINE SEDIMENTS OF CHESAPEAKE BAY

Nitrogen is a key nutrient in the eutrophication of coastal and estuarine systems. In shallow water systems, sediment recycling can be an important source of nutrients for phytoplankton growth. The balance between nitrogen recycling and denitrification regulates the importance of sediments as a nitrogen source. To assess controls on denitrification, we conducted intensive seasonal measurements of sediment water exchange and denitrification using sediment core incubations. Peak rates of denitrification were observed in fall and spring (>100 μmol N-N m-2 h) followed by a decrease to 10 μmol N m-2 h in summer. Although denitrification rates were stimulated by labile organic carbon additions from the water column, the overall efficiency of the process sharply declined as temperature increased and bottom water O2 declined. Macrofauna activity was shown to enhance sediment transport of O2 by >5 fold, increase organic matter decomposition and maintain a high rate of denitrification efficiency

Allogeneic Mesenchymal Stem Cell Treatment Induces Specific Alloantibodies in Horses

Background. It is unknown whether horses that receive allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) injections develop specific humoral immune response. Our goal was to develop and validate a flow cytometric MSC crossmatch procedure and to determine if horses that received allogeneic MSCs in a clinical setting developed measurable antibodies following MSC administration. Methods. Serum was collected from a total of 19 horses enrolled in 3 different research projects. Horses in the 3 studies all received unmatched allogeneic MSCs. Bone marrow (BM) or adipose tissue derived MSCs (ad-MSCs) were administered via intravenous, intra-arterial, intratendon, or intraocular routes. Anti-MSCs and anti-bovine serum albumin antibodies were detected via flow cytometry and ELISA, respectively. Results. Overall, anti-MSC antibodies were detected in 37% of the horses. The majority of horses (89%) were positive for anti-bovine serum albumin (BSA) antibodies prior to and after MSC injection. Finally, there was no correlation between the amount of anti-BSA antibody and the development of anti-MSC antibodies. Conclusion. Anti allo-MSC antibody development was common; however, the significance of these antibodies is unknown. There was no correlation between either the presence or absence of antibodies and the percent antibody binding to MSCs and any adverse reaction to a MSC injection

Quantitative proteomics reveals new insights into calcium-mediated resistance mechanisms in Aspergillus flavus against the antifungal protein PgAFP in cheese

The ability of Aspergillus flavus to produce aflatoxins in dairy products presents a potential hazard. The antifungal protein PgAFP from Penicillium chrysogenum inhibits various foodborne toxigenic fungi, including Aspergillus flavus. However, PgAFP did not inhibit A. flavus growth in cheese, which was related to the associated cation content. CaCl2 increased A. flavus permeability and prevented PgAFP-mediated inhibition in potato dextrose broth (PDB). PgAFP did not elicit any additional increase in permeability of CaCl2-incubated A. flavus. Furthermore, PgAFP did not alter metabolic capability, chitin deposition, or hyphal viability of A. flavus grown with CaCl2. Comparative proteomic analysis after PgAFP treatment of A. flavus in calcium-enriched PDB revealed increased abundance of 125 proteins, including oxidative stress-related proteins, as determined by label-free mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics. Seventy proteins were found at lower abundance, with most involved in metabolic pathways and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. These changes do not support the blockage of potential PgAFP receptors in A. flavus by calcium as the main cause of the protective role. A. flavus resistance appears to be mediated by calcineurin, G-protein, and γ-glutamyltranspeptidase that combat oxidative stress and impede apoptosis. These findings could serve to design strategies to improve PgAFP activity against aflatoxigenic moulds in dairy products

Solar angular momentum loss over the past several millennia

The Sun and Sun-like stars lose angular momentum to their magnetized stellar winds. This braking torque is coupled to the stellar magnetic field, such that changes in the strength and/or geometry of the field modifies the efficiency of this process. Since the space age, we have been able to directly measure solar wind properties using in situ spacecraft. Furthermore, indirect proxies such as sunspot number, geomagnetic indices, and cosmogenic radionuclides, constrain the variation of solar wind properties on centennial and millennial timescales. We use near-Earth measurements of the solar wind plasma and magnetic field to calculate the torque on the Sun throughout the space age. Then, reconstructions of the solar open magnetic flux are used to estimate the time-varying braking torque during the last nine millennia. We assume a relationship for the solar mass-loss rate based on observations during the space age which, due to the weak dependence of the torque on mass-loss rate, does not strongly affect our predicted torque. The average torque during the last nine millennia is found to be 2.2 × 1030 erg, which is comparable to the average value from the last two decades. Our data set includes grand minima (such as the Maunder Minimum), and maxima in solar activity, where the torque varies from ~1 to 5 × 1030 erg (averaged on decadal timescales), respectively. We find no evidence for any secular variation of the torque on timescales of less than 9000 yr

Fast parallel skew and prefix‐doubling suffix array construction on the GPU

Suffix arrays are fundamental full-text index data structures of importance to a broad spectrum of applications in such fields as bioinformatics, Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT)-based lossless data compression, and information retrieval. In this work, we propose and implement two massively parallel approaches on the GPU based on two classes of suffix array construction algorithms. The first, parallel skew, makes algorithmic improvements to the previous work of Deo and Keely to achieve a speedup of 1.45x over their work. The second, a hybrid skew and prefix-doubling implementation, is the first of its kind on the GPU and achieves a speedup of 2.3–4.4x over Osipov’s prefix-doubling and 2.4–7.9x over our skew implementation on large datasets. Our implementations rely on two efficient parallel primitives, a merge and a segmented sort. We theoretically analyze the two formulations of suffix array construction algorithms and show performance comparisons on a large variety of practical inputs. We conclude that, with the novel use of our efficient segmented sort, prefix-doubling is more competitive than skew on the GPU. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods in our implementations of the Burrows-Wheeler transform and in a parallel FM-index for pattern searching. This is the submitted version of the paper

Functional Investigation of Iron-Responsive Microsomal Proteins, including MirC, in Aspergillus fumigatus

The functionality of many microsome-associated proteins which exhibit altered abundance in response to iron limitation in Aspergillus fumigatus is unknown. Here, we generate and characterize eight gene deletion strains, and of most significance reveal that MirC (AFUA_2G05730) contributes to the maintenance of intracellular siderophore [ferricrocin (FC)] levels, augments conidiation, confers protection against oxidative stress, exhibits an intracellular localization and contributes to fungal virulence in the Galleria mellonella animal model system. FC levels were unaffected following deletion of all other genes encoding microsome-associated proteins. MirC does not appear to play a role in either siderophore export from, or uptake into, A. fumigatus. Label-free quantitative proteomic analysis unexpectedly revealed increased abundance of siderophore biosynthetic enzymes. In addition, increased expression of hapX (7.2 and 13.8-fold at 48 and 72 h, respectively; p < 0.001) was observed in ΔmirC compared to wild-type under iron-replete conditions by qRT-PCR. This was complemented by significantly elevated extracellular triacetylfusarinine C (TAFC; p < 0.01) and fusarinine C (FSC; p < 0.05) siderophore secretion. We conclude that MirC plays an important role in FC biosynthesis and contributes to the maintenance of iron homeostasis in A. fumigatus

Cognitive load and mixed strategies: On brains and minimax

It is well-known that laboratory subjects often do not play mixed strategy equilibrium games according to the equilibrium predictions. In particular, subjects often mix with the incorrect proportions and their actions often exhibit serial correlation. However, little is known about the role of cognition in these observations. We conduct an experiment where subjects play a repeated hide and seek game against a computer opponent programmed to play either a strategy that can be exploited by the subject (a naive strategy) or designed to exploit suboptimal play of the subject (an exploitative strategy). The subjects play with either fewer available cognitive resources (under a high cognitive load) or with more available cognitive resources (under a low cognitive load). While we observe that subjects do not mix in the predicted proportions and their actions exhibit serial correlation, we do not find strong evidence these are related to their available cognitive resources. This suggests that the standard laboratory results on mixed strategies are not associated with the availability of cognitive resources. Surprisingly, we find evidence that subjects under a high load earn more than subjects under a low load. However, we also find that subjects under a low cognitive load exhibit a greater rate of increase in earnings across rounds than subjects under a high load

Cognitive load and mixed strategies: On brains and minimax

It is well-known that laboratory subjects often do not play mixed strategy equilibrium games according to the equilibrium predictions. In particular, subjects often mix with the incorrect proportions and their actions often exhibit serial correlation. However, little is known about the role of cognition in these observations. We conduct an experiment where subjects play a repeated hide and seek game against a computer opponent programmed to play either a strategy that can be exploited by the subject (a naive strategy) or designed to exploit suboptimal play of the subject (an exploitative strategy). The subjects play with either fewer available cognitive resources (under a high cognitive load) or with more available cognitive resources (under a low cognitive load). While we observe that subjects do not mix in the predicted proportions and their actions exhibit serial correlation, we do not find strong evidence these are related to their available cognitive resources. This suggests that the standard laboratory results on mixed strategies are not associated with the availability of cognitive resources. Surprisingly, we find evidence that subjects under a high load earn more than subjects under a low load. However, we also find that subjects under a low cognitive load exhibit a greater rate of increase in earnings across rounds than subjects under a high load