Magnetic granularity study of Fe(Se,Te) on coated conductor templates

Iron-based superconductors might be promising for high field applications due to their decent superconducting transition temperature Tc, high upper critical field and low anisotropy. However, similar to cuprates the materials suffer from the detrimental effect of large angle grain boundaries reducing significantly the critical current density J c. Therefore, a coated conductor technology must be applied to solve this issue using highly textured templates based either on the ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) or the rolling assisted biaxial textured substrates (RABiTS) approach. The main aim of this thesis was to apply such templates and to study the correlation between the microstructure and the current transport on a local scale in epitaxial Fe(Se,Te) layers deposited on such tapes as well as on single crystals. Therefore, thin films were grown by pulsed laser deposition and studied in detail afterwards including a local texture analysis with high-resolution electron back scattering diffraction (EBSD) as well as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to identify the local defect structure. Simultaneously, the current transport was investigated globally by magnetization measurements and on a local scale by scanning Hall probe microscopy (SHPM). X-ray diffraction studies showed a clear epitaxial relationship and a high texture quality for thin films on all templates. However, misoriented grains were observed for higher deposition rates and film thicknesses. The Tc reached values of up to 21 K on CaF2 single crystals and 18 K on metal templates, respectively. The J c determined from magnetization loops showed values above 2 MA cm−2 and 1 MA cm−2 at 2 K in self-field on single crystals and IBAD based templates, respectively, whereas the global J c for films on RABiTS templates was one magnitude lower. Detailed TEM studies revealed smooth layers on all templates with minor defects for films on single crystals, but pronounced grain boundaries for layers on metallic templates. Unfortunately, EBSD measurements on the grown films showed a low indexing rate prohibiting the analysis of the grain boundary network. In contrast, SHPM proved a homogeneous magnetization profile for Fe(Se,Te) films on singe crystals and IBAD templates, whereas a distinct magnetic granularity was observe on RABiTS tapes. Detailed TEM studies in combination with transmission Kikuchi diffraction pattern revealed a strong dependence of the film growth on the out-of-plane orientation of the Ni-W grains. In general, the local SHPM studies revealed a similar dependence of superconductivity on granularity for Fe(Se,Te) as previously observed for YBCO

SIM-PIPE DryRunner: An approach for testing container-based big data pipelines and generating simulation data

Big data pipelines are becoming increasingly vital in a wide range of data intensive application domains such as digital healthcare, telecommunication, and manufacturing for efficiently processing data. Data pipelines in such domains are complex and dynamic and involve a number of data processing steps that are deployed on heterogeneous computing resources under the realm of the Edge-Cloud paradigm. The processes of testing and simulating big data pipelines on heterogeneous resources need to be able to accurately represent this complexity. However, since big data processing is heavily resource-intensive, it makes testing and simulation based on historical execution data impractical. In this paper, we introduce the SIM - PIPE Dry Runner approach - a dry run approach that deploys a big data pipeline step by step in an isolated environment and executes it with sample data; this approach could be used for testing big data pipelines and realising practical simulations using existing simulators.acceptedVersio

Effect of Silver Doping on the Superconducting and Structural Properties of YBCO Films Grown by PLD on Different Templates

We report the local structural and superconducting properties of undoped and Ag-doped YBa2Cu3O6+x (YBCO) films with a thickness of up to 1 µm prepared by pulsed laser deposition on SrTiO3 (STO) single crystals and on ion-beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) and rolling-assisted biaxially textured substrate (RABiTS)-based metal templates. X-ray diffraction demonstrates the high crystalline quality of the films on both single crystalline substrates and metal-based templates, respectively. Although there was only a slight decrease in Tc of up to 1.5 K for the Ag-doped YBCO films on all substrates, we found significant changes in their transport characteristics. The effect of the silver doping mainly depended on the concentration of silver, the type of substrate, and the temperature and magnetic field. In general, the greatest improvement in Jc over a wide range of magnetic fields and temperatures was observed for the 5%Ag-doped YBCO films on STO substrates, showing a significant increase compared to undoped films. Furthermore, a slight Jc improvement was observed for the 2%Ag-doped YBCO films on the RABiTS templates at temperatures below 65 K, whereas Jc decreased for the Ag-doped films on IBAD-MgO-based templates compared to undoped YBCO films. Using detailed electron microscopy studies, small changes in the local microstructure of the Ag-doped YBCO films were revealed; however, no clear correlation was found with the transport properties of the films

Variability and plus tree selection in Swietenia macrophylla from Kerala, South India

Big leaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla, King) is a valuable Neotropic timber species. It is the first extensively traded timber species to be listed in Appendix II of the CITES in 2002. The tree was introduced to India in 1795 and Kerala in 1872. The present study aimed at selecting plus trees of Swietenia macrophylla and evaluating their genetic variability. Forty-five plus trees were selected from 593 candidate trees spread over fifteen locations in Kerala based on baseline regression of trunk volume to crown volume, followed by scoring for qualitative characters. The clean bole height, GBH, crown width, crown volume and wood density of CPTs ranged from 6 to 13.4 m, 0.75 to 2.00 m, 8 to 15 m, 7 to 16 m and 21 to 23 mm, respectively. The plus trees were grouped into five clusters based on their quantitative and qualitative characters. Clustering was independent of the geographical location indicating a lack of development of any land races in the species

B-mode and Doppler ultrasound features of mammary neoplasms and their comparison with normal mammary glands in dogs

Canine mammary neoplasms are naturally occurring non-homogenous group of tumours with many resemblances to human breast cancer. In female dogs mammary tumours are of great clinical relevance due to the high prevalence and mortality rate, which varies according to the histopathological classification and clinical stage. The aim of the study was to compare the ultrasonographic features of the normal mammary gland with benign and malignant mammary neoplasms in dogs, through assessed by B-mode and Doppler mode ultrasonography. Ultrasonographic examination of seven normal mammary glands along with six benign and 12 malignant mammary neoplasms were performed. Among the parameters evaluated by B-Mode ultrasonography, significant differences were found (p < 0.01) in the tumour margin and invasiveness of neoplasms, where malignant tumours were invasive with uncircumscribed margin. Significant difference was also found in the presence of posterior acoustic enhancement (p<0.05) between benign and malignant mammary neoplasms. Elevated peak systolic velocity of blood flow within the tumour vessels in malignant mammary neoplasm was the only feature assessed with Doppler mode having significant difference

Treatment effect of switching from intravenous to subcutaneous C1-inhibitor for prevention of hereditary angioedema attacks: COMPACT subgroup findings

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Transgenic Mice for Intersectional Targeting of Neural Sensors and Effectors with High Specificity and Performance

SummaryAn increasingly powerful approach for studying brain circuits relies on targeting genetically encoded sensors and effectors to specific cell types. However, current approaches for this are still limited in functionality and specificity. Here we utilize several intersectional strategies to generate multiple transgenic mouse lines expressing high levels of novel genetic tools with high specificity. We developed driver and double reporter mouse lines and viral vectors using the Cre/Flp and Cre/Dre double recombinase systems and established a new, retargetable genomic locus, TIGRE, which allowed the generation of a large set of Cre/tTA-dependent reporter lines expressing fluorescent proteins, genetically encoded calcium, voltage, or glutamate indicators, and optogenetic effectors, all at substantially higher levels than before. High functionality was shown in example mouse lines for GCaMP6, YCX2.60, VSFP Butterfly 1.2, and Jaws. These novel transgenic lines greatly expand the ability to monitor and manipulate neuronal activities with increased specificity.Video Abstrac

A Survey of New Temperature-Sensitive, Embryonic-Lethal Mutations in C. elegans: 24 Alleles of Thirteen Genes

To study essential maternal gene requirements in the early C. elegans embryo, we have screened for temperature-sensitive, embryonic lethal mutations in an effort to bypass essential zygotic requirements for such genes during larval and adult germline development. With conditional alleles, multiple essential requirements can be examined by shifting at different times from the permissive temperature of 15°C to the restrictive temperature of 26°C. Here we describe 24 conditional mutations that affect 13 different loci and report the identity of the gene mutations responsible for the conditional lethality in 22 of the mutants. All but four are mis-sense mutations, with two mutations affecting splice sites, another creating an in-frame deletion, and one creating a premature stop codon. Almost all of the mis-sense mutations affect residues conserved in orthologs, and thus may be useful for engineering conditional mutations in other organisms. We find that 62% of the mutants display additional phenotypes when shifted to the restrictive temperature as L1 larvae, in addition to causing embryonic lethality after L4 upshifts. Remarkably, we also found that 13 out of the 24 mutations appear to be fast-acting, making them particularly useful for careful dissection of multiple essential requirements. Our findings highlight the value of C. elegans for identifying useful temperature-sensitive mutations in essential genes, and provide new insights into the requirements for some of the affected loci