Crystal-field mediated electronic transitions of EuS up to 35 GPa

An advanced experimental and theoretical model to explain the correlation between the electronic and local structure of Eu2+ in two different environments within a same compound, EuS, is presented. EuX monochalcogenides (X: O, S, Se, Te) exhibit anomalies in all their properties around 14 GPa with a semiconductor to metal transition. Although it is known that these changes are related to the 4f75d0 → 4f65d1 electronic transition, no consistent model of the pressure-induced modifications of the electronic structure currently exists. We show, by optical and x-ray absorption spectroscopy, and by ab initio calculations up to 35 GPa, that the pressure evolution of the crystal field plays a major role in triggering the observed electronic transitions from semiconductor to the half-metal and finally to the metallic state

Interventions to improve immigrant health. A scoping review.

Background: Disparities in health between immigrants and their host populations have been described across countries and continents. Hence, interventions for improving health targeting general populations are not necessarily effective for immigrants. Aims: To conduct a systematic search of the literature evaluating health interventions for immigrants; to map the characteristics of identified studies including range of interventions, immigrant populations and their host countries, clinical areas targeted and reported evaluations, challenges and limitations of the interventions identified. Following the results, to develop recommendations for research in the field. Methods: A scoping review approach was chosen to provide an overview of the type, extent and quantity of research available. Studies were included if they empirically evaluated health interventions targeting immigrants and/or their descendants, included a control group, and were published in English (PubMed and Embase from 1990 to 2015). Results: Most of the 83 studies included were conducted in the USA, encompassed few immigrant groups and used a randomized controlled trial (RCT) or cluster RCT design. Most interventions addressed chronic and non-communicable diseases and attendance at cancer screening services, used individual targeted approaches, targeted adult women and recruited participants from health centres. Outcome measures were often subjective, with the exception of interventions for cardiovascular risk and diabetes. Generally, authors claimed that interventions were beneficial, despite a number of reported limitations. Conclusions: Recommendations for enhancing interventions to improve immigrant health are provided to help researchers, funders and health care commissioners when deciding upon the scope, nature and design of future research in this area

Near-field interference map due to a dipolar emission near the edge of a monocrystalline gold platelet

Point source excitation and point detection in the near-field provides new perspective to study the near-field optical phenomena of plasmonic nanostructures. Using the automated dual-tip scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM), we have measured the optical near-field response of a dipolar emission near the edge of a monocrystalline gold platelet. The image dipole method was used to analytically calculate the interference pattern due to surface plasmon polaritons excited at the position of aperture tip and those reflected from edges of the gold platelet. The near-field enhancement was observed on the edges of the gold platelet. Our results verify that automated dual-tip SNOM is an intriguing technique for quantum plasmonic studies where deterministic coupling of quantum emitters and the detection of the near-field enhancement are of great interest

Differences in temperature sensitivity and drought recovery between natural stands and plantations of conifers are species-specific

Forests are being impacted by climate and land-use changes which have altered their productivity and growth. Understanding how tree growth responds to climate in natural and planted stands may provide valuable information to prepare management in sight of climate change. Plantations are expected to show higher sensitivity to climate and lower post-drought resilience than natural stands, due to their lower compositional and structural diversity. We reconstructed and compared the radial growth of six conifers with contrasting ecological and climatic niches (Abies pinsapo, Cedrus atlantica, Pinus sylvestris, Pinus nigra, Pinus pinea, Pinus pinaster) in natural and planted stands subjected to seasonal drought in 40 sites. We quantified the relationships between individual growth variability and climate variables (temperature, precipitation and the SPEI drought index), as well as post-drought resilience. Elevated precipitation during the previous autumn-winter and current spring to early summer enhanced growth in both natural and planted stands of all species. Temperature effects on growth were less consistent: only plantations of A. pinsapo, C. atlantica, P. nigra, P. pinea, P. sylvetris and a natural stand of P. nigra showed negative impacts of summer temperature on growth. Drought reduced growth of all species in both plantations and natural stands, with variations in the temporal scale of the response. Drought constrained growth more severely in natural stands than in plantations of C. atlantica, P. pinaster and P. nigra, whereas the inverse pattern was found for A. pinsapo. Resilience to drought varied between species: natural stands of A. pinsapo, C. atlantica and P. pinaster recovered faster than plantations, while P. pinea plantations recovered faster than natural stands. Overall, plantations did not consistently show a higher sensitivity to climate and a lower capacity to recover after drought. Therefore, plantations are potential tools for mitigating climate warming. © 2021 The AuthorsThis study was supported by project FORMAL ( RTI2018-096884-B-C31 ) from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities . GS-B was supported by a Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness Postdoctoral grant ( IJC2019-040571-I ; FEDER funds)

Reproducibility of parallel preconditioned conjugate gradient in hybrid programming environments

[EN] The Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient method is often employed for the solution of linear systems of equations arising in numerical simulations of physical phenomena. While being widely used, the solver is also known for its lack of accuracy while computing the residual. In this article, we propose two algorithmic solutions that originate from the ExBLAS project to enhance the accuracy of the solver as well as to ensure its reproducibility in a hybrid MPI + OpenMP tasks programming environment. One is based on ExBLAS and preserves every bit of information until the final rounding, while the other relies upon floating-point expansions and, hence, expands the intermediate precision. Instead of converting the entire solver into its ExBLAS-related implementation, we identify those parts that violate reproducibility/non-associativity, secure them, and combine this with the sequential executions. These algorithmic strategies are reinforced with programmability suggestions to assure deterministic executions. Finally, we verify these approaches on two modern HPC systems: both versions deliver reproducible number of iterations, residuals, direct errors, and vector-solutions for the overhead of less than 37.7% on 768 cores.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was partially supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research, innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement via the Robust project No. 842528 as well as the Project HPC-EUROPA3 (INFRAIA-2016-1-730897), with the support of the H2020 EC RIA Programme; in particular, the author gratefully acknowledges the support of Vicenc comma Beltran and the computer resources and technical support provided by BSC. The researchers from Universitat Jaume I (UJI) and Universitat Polit ' ecnica de Valencia (UPV) were supported by MINECO project TIN2017-82972-R. Maria Barreda was also supported by the POSDOC-A/2017/11 project from the Universitat Jaume I.Iakymchuk, R.; Barreda Vayá, M.; Graillat, S.; Aliaga, JI.; Quintana Ortí, ES. (2020). Reproducibility of parallel preconditioned conjugate gradient in hybrid programming environments. International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications. 34(5):502-518. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094342020932650S502518345Aliaga, J. I., Barreda, M., Flegar, G., Bollhöfer, M., & Quintana-Ortí, E. S. (2017). Communication in task-parallel ILU-preconditioned CG solvers using MPI + OmpSs. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 29(21), e4280. doi:10.1002/cpe.4280Bailey, D. H. (2013). 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Parallel Computing, 49, 83-97. doi:10.1016/j.parco.2015.09.001Dekker, T. J. (1971). A floating-point technique for extending the available precision. Numerische Mathematik, 18(3), 224-242. doi:10.1007/bf01397083Demmel, J., & Hong Diep Nguyen. (2013). Fast Reproducible Floating-Point Summation. 2013 IEEE 21st Symposium on Computer Arithmetic. doi:10.1109/arith.2013.9Demmel, J., & Nguyen, H. D. (2015). Parallel Reproducible Summation. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 64(7), 2060-2070. doi:10.1109/tc.2014.2345391Dongarra, J. J., Du Croz, J., Hammarling, S., & Duff, I. S. (1990). A set of level 3 basic linear algebra subprograms. ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, 16(1), 1-17. doi:10.1145/77626.79170Fousse, L., Hanrot, G., Lefèvre, V., Pélissier, P., & Zimmermann, P. (2007). MPFR. ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, 33(2), 13. doi:10.1145/1236463.1236468Hida, Y., Li, X. S., & Bailey, D. H. (s. f.). Algorithms for quad-double precision floating point arithmetic. Proceedings 15th IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic. ARITH-15 2001. doi:10.1109/arith.2001.930115Hunold, S., & Carpen-Amarie, A. (2016). Reproducible MPI Benchmarking is Still Not as Easy as You Think. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 27(12), 3617-3630. doi:10.1109/tpds.2016.2539167IEEE Computer Society (2008) IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic. Piscataway: IEEE Standard, pp. 754–2008.Kulisch, U., & Snyder, V. (2010). The exact dot product as basic tool for long interval arithmetic. Computing, 91(3), 307-313. doi:10.1007/s00607-010-0127-7Kulisch, U. (2013). Computer Arithmetic and Validity. doi:10.1515/9783110301793Lawson, C. L., Hanson, R. J., Kincaid, D. R., & Krogh, F. T. (1979). Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms for Fortran Usage. ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, 5(3), 308-323. doi:10.1145/355841.355847Lutz, D. R., & Hinds, C. N. (2017). High-Precision Anchored Accumulators for Reproducible Floating-Point Summation. 2017 IEEE 24th Symposium on Computer Arithmetic (ARITH). doi:10.1109/arith.2017.20Mukunoki, D., Ogita, T., & Ozaki, K. (2020). Reproducible BLAS Routines with Tunable Accuracy Using Ozaki Scheme for Many-Core Architectures. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 516-527. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-43229-4_44Nguyen, H. D., & Demmel, J. (2015). Reproducible Tall-Skinny QR. 2015 IEEE 22nd Symposium on Computer Arithmetic. doi:10.1109/arith.2015.28Ogita, T., Rump, S. M., & Oishi, S. (2005). Accurate Sum and Dot Product. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, 26(6), 1955-1988. doi:10.1137/030601818Ozaki, K., Ogita, T., Oishi, S., & Rump, S. M. (2011). Error-free transformations of matrix multiplication by using fast routines of matrix multiplication and its applications. Numerical Algorithms, 59(1), 95-118. doi:10.1007/s11075-011-9478-1Priest, D. M. (s. f.). Algorithms for arbitrary precision floating point arithmetic. [1991] Proceedings 10th IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic. doi:10.1109/arith.1991.145549Rump, S. M., Ogita, T., & Oishi, S. (2008). Accurate Floating-Point Summation Part I: Faithful Rounding. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, 31(1), 189-224. doi:10.1137/050645671Rump, S. M., Ogita, T., & Oishi, S. (2009). Accurate Floating-Point Summation Part II: Sign, K-Fold Faithful and Rounding to Nearest. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, 31(2), 1269-1302. doi:10.1137/07068816xRump, S. M., Ogita, T., & Oishi, S. (2010). Fast high precision summation. Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications, IEICE, 1(1), 2-24. doi:10.1587/nolta.1.2Saad, Y. (2003). Iterative Methods for Sparse Linear Systems. doi:10.1137/1.9780898718003Wiesenberger, M., Einkemmer, L., Held, M., Gutierrez-Milla, A., Sáez, X., & Iakymchuk, R. (2019). Reproducibility, accuracy and performance of the Feltor code and library on parallel computer architectures. Computer Physics Communications, 238, 145-156. doi:10.1016/j.cpc.2018.12.00

Improved catalytic activity of ruthenium–arene complexes in the reduction of NAD+

A series of neutral Ru-II half-sandwich complexes of the type [(eta(6)-arene)Ru(N,N')Cl] where the arene is para-cymene (p-cym), hexamethylbenzene (hmb), biphenyl (bip), or benzene (bn) and N,N' is N-(2-aminoethyl) -4-(trifluoromethyl)benzenesulfonamide (TfEn), N-(2-aminoethyl)-4-toluenesulfonamide (TsEn), or N-(2-aminoethyl)-methylenesulfonamide (MsEn) were synthesized and characterized. X-ray crystal structures of [(p-cym)Ru(MsEn)Cl] (1), [(hmb)Ru(TsEn)Cl] (5), [(hmb)Ru(TfEn)Cl] (6), [(bip)Ru(MsEn)Cl] (7), and [(bip)Ru(TsEn)Cl] (8) have been determined. The complexes can regioselectively catalyze the transfer hydrogenation of NAD(+) to give 1,4-NADH in the presence of formate. The turnover frequencies (TOF) when the arene is varied decrease in the order bn > bip > p-cym > hmb for complexes with the same N,N' chelating ligand. The TOF decreased with variation in the N,N' chelating ligand in the order TfEn > TsEn > MsEn for a given arene. [(bn)Ru(TfEn)Cl] (12) was the most active, with a TOP of 10.4 h(-1). The effects of NAD(+) and formate concentration on the reaction rates were determined for [(p-cym)Ru(TsEn)Cl] (2). Isotope studies implicated the formation of [(arene)Ru(N,N')(H)] as the rate-limiting step. The coordination of formate and subsequent CO2 elimination to generate the hydride were modeled computationally by density functional theory (DFT). CO2 elimination occurs via a two-step process with the coordinated formate first twisting to present its hydrogen toward the metal center. The computed barriers for CO2 release for arene = benzene follow the order MsEn > TsEn > TfEn, and for the Ms En system the barrier followed bn < hmb, both consistent with the observed rates. The effect of methanol on transfer hydrogenation rates in aqueous solution was investigated. A study of pH dependence of the reaction in D2O gave the optimum pH* as 7.2 with a TOF of 1.58 h(-1) for 2. The series of compounds reported here show an improvement in the catalytic activity by an order of magnitude compared to the ethylenediamine analogues

Mid Campanian-Lower Maastrichtian magnetostratigraphy of the James Ross Basin, Antarctica: Chronostratigraphical implications

The James Ross Basin, in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, exposes which is probably the world thickest and most complete Late Cretaceous sedimentary succession of southern high latitudes. Despite its very good exposures and varied and abundant fossil fauna, precise chronological determination of its infill is still lacking. We report results from a magnetostratigraphic study on shelfal sedimentary rocks of the Marambio Group, southeastern James Ross Basin, Antarctica. The succession studied covers a ~1,200 m-thick stratigraphic interval within the Hamilton Point, Sanctuary Cliffs and Karlsen Cliffs Members of the Snow Hill Island Formation, the Haslum Crag Formation, and the lower López de Bertodano Formation. The basic chronological reference framework is given by ammonite assemblages, which indicate a Late Campanian – Early Maastrichtian age for the studied units. Magnetostratigraphic samples were obtained from five partial sections located on James Ross and Snow Hill islands, the results from which agree partially with this previous biostratigraphical framework. Seven geomagnetic polarity reversals are identified in this work, allowing to identify the Chron C32/C33 boundary in Ammonite Assemblage 8-1, confirming the Late Campanian age of the Hamilton Point Member. However, the identification of the Chron C32/C31 boundary in Ammonite Assemblage 8-2 assigns the base of the Sanctuary Cliffs Member to the early Maastrichtian, which differs from the Late Campanian age previously assigned by ammonite biostratigraphy. This magnetostratigraphy spans ~14 Ma of sedimentary succession and together with previous partial magnetostratigraphies on Early-Mid Campanian and Middle Maastrichtian to Danian columns permits a complete and continuous record of the Late Cretaceous distal deposits of the James Ross Basin. This provides the required chronological resolution to solve the intra-basin and global correlation problems of the Late Cretaceous in the Southern Hemisphere in general and in the Weddellian province in particular, given by endemism and diachronic extinctions on invertebrate fossils, including ammonites. The new chronostratigraphic scheme allowed us to calculate sediment accumulation rates for almost the entire Late Cretaceous infill of the distal James Ross Basin (the Marambio Group), showing a monotonous accumulation for more than 8 Myr during the upper Campanian and a dramatic increase during the early Maastrichtian, controlled by tectonic and/or eustatic causes.Fil: Milanese, Florencia Nidia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Olivero, Eduardo Bernardo. Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas; ArgentinaFil: Raffi, María Eugenia. Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas; ArgentinaFil: Franceschinis, Pablo Reinaldo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Gallo, Leandro César. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Skinner, Steven M.. California State University; Estados UnidosFil: Mitchell, Ross N.. California Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Kirschvink, Joseph L.. California Institute of Technology; Estados Unidos. Tokyo Institute of Technology; JapónFil: Rapalini, Augusto Ernesto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires; Argentin

The involvement of tau in nucleolar transcription and the stress response

Tau is known for its pathological role in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other tauopathies. Tau is found in many subcellular compartments such as the cytosol and the nucleus. Although its normal role in microtubule binding is well established, its nuclear role is still unclear. Here, we reveal that tau localises to the nucleolus in undifferentiated and differentiated neuroblastoma cells (SHSY5Y), where it associates with TIP5, a key player in heterochromatin stability and ribosomal DNA (rDNA) transcriptional repression. Immunogold labelling on human brain sample confirms the physiological relevance of this finding by showing tau within the nucleolus colocalises with TIP5. Depletion of tau results in an increase in rDNA transcription with an associated decrease in heterochromatin and DNA methylation, suggesting that under normal conditions tau is involved in silencing of the rDNA. Cellular stress induced by glutamate causes nucleolar stress associated with the redistribution of nucleolar non-phosphorylated tau, in a similar manner to fibrillarin, and nuclear upsurge of phosphorylated tau (Thr231) which doesn’t colocalise with fibrillarin or nucleolar tau. This suggests that stress may impact on different nuclear tau species. In addition to involvement in rDNA transcription, nucleolar non-phosphorylated tau also undergoes stress-induced redistribution similar to many nucleolar protein