Narrating Friendship: The reciprocal relationship between J.B. Childers and myself

For the past ten months I have explored the life of a deceased artist named Joseph Barley J.B. Childers. In the graduate catalog Gregory Volk summarizes Childers as, an alienated Korean War Veteran, who took up painting as a refuge from his troubles, and who also doesn\u27t exist. Childers who is naturally right-handed, painted everything left-handed because of a war wound, and so Engelmann, who is left-handed, painted with his right hand, which is quite a limitation. Of course, there\u27s more to the story than that and the writings that follow will explain many of my reasons for pursuing this project

Epidemic failure detection and consensus for extreme parallelism

Future extreme-scale high-performance computing systems will be required to work under frequent component failures. The MPI Forum’s User Level Failure Mitigation proposal has introduced an operation, MPI Comm shrink, to synchronize the alive processes on the list of failed processes, so that applications can continue to execute even in the presence of failures by adopting algorithm-based fault tolerance techniques. This MPI Comm shrink operation requires a failure detection and consensus algorithm. This paper presents three novel failure detection and consensus algorithms using Gossiping. Stochastic pinging is used to quickly detect failures during the execution of the algorithm, failures are then disseminated to all the fault-free processes in the system and consensus on the failures is detected using the three consensus techniques. The proposed algorithms were implemented and tested using the Extreme-scale Simulator. The results show that the stochastic pinging detects all the failures in the system. In all the algorithms, the number of Gossip cycles to achieve global consensus scales logarithmically with system size. The second algorithm also shows better scalability in terms of memory and network bandwidth usage and a perfect synchronization in achieving global consensus. The third approach is a three-phase distributed failure detection and consensus algorithm and provides consistency guarantees even in very large and extreme-scale systems while at the same time being memory and bandwidth efficient

Intravascular tissue factor initiates coagulation via circulating microvesicles and platelets

Although tissue factor (TF), the principial initiator of physiological coagulation and pathological thrombosis, has recently been proposed to be present in human blood, the functional significance and location of the intravascular TF is unknown. In the plasma portion of blood, we found TF to be mainly associated with circulating microvesicles. By cell sorting with the specific marker CD42b, platelet-derived microvesicles were identified as a major location of the plasma TF. This was confirmed by the presence of full-length TF in microvesicles acutely shedded from the activated platelets. TF was observed to be stored in the α-granules and the open canalicular system of resting platelets and to be exposed on the cell surface after platelet activation. Functional competence of the blood-based TF was enabled when the microvesicles and platelets adhered to neutrophils, as mediated by P-selectin and neutrophil counterreceptor (PSGL-1, CD18 integrins) interactions. Moreover, neutrophil-secreted oxygen radical species supported the intravascular TF activity. The pools of platelet and microvesicle TF contributed additively and to a comparable extent to the overall blood TF activity, indicating a substantial participation of the microvesicle TF. Our results introduce a new concept of TF-mediated coagulation crucially dependent on TF associated with microvesicles and activated platelets, which principally enables the entire coagulation system to proceed on a restricted cell surface

Improving THz Quality-of-Transmission with Systematic RLNC and Auxiliary Channels

In this paper, we propose a novel solution that can improve the quality of THz transmission with systematic random linear network coding (sRLNC) and a low-bitrate auxiliary channel. To minimize complexity of channel coding, we complement a generic low complexity FEC code by a low complexity sRLNC. To increase the overall throughput of THz transmission, we propose to send the native data and coding redundancy in parallel over 2 differently configured THz channels, i.e., over 1 high bit rate main channel and 1 low bit rate low error rate auxiliary channel. The results show, that the main THz channel supported by low bit rate auxiliary channel can use a higher level modulation format and sent over longer distances with a higher throughput.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted at IEEE ICC'20 Workshop - TeraCo

Optimierung von Druckbehältern unterschiedlicher Geometrien und Werkstoffe

Einleitung Moderne Simulations- und Berechnungsmethoden, wie beispielsweise die Finite-Elemente-Methode (FEM), erlauben dem Konstrukteur bereits in einer relativ frühen Phase des Entwicklungsprozesses die wesentlichen Eigenschaften des Produktes virtuell am Computer zu analysieren. Die Ergebnisse dieser Berechnungen können anschließend zur zielgerichteten Verbesserung ausgewählter Produkteigenschaften genutzt werden. Der Aufwand für die Optimierung ist dabei in erster Linie von der Komplexität des Produktes abhängig. Produkte, bei welchen die mathematischen Zusammenhänge zwischen den Ein- und Ausgangsparametern bekannt ist, lassen sich oftmals recht einfach analytisch optimieren. Bei komplexen Produkten oder einer großen Anzahl an Einflussparametern lassen sich diese Zusammenhänge in vielen Fällen nicht herleiten, so dass die Optimierung bisher meist nach dem Trial and Error-Verfahren erfolgte. Diese heuristische Vorgehensweise führt durch eine hohe Anzahl an notwendigen Iterationsschleifen zu einem extremen Anstieg der Zeit und der Kosten, wobei die Wiederholungsrate des Entwicklungsprozessschrittes in hohem Maße von der Erfahrung und dem vorhandenen Wissen des Konstrukteurs abhängig ist. Der Einsatz von wissenschaftlichen Optimierungsverfahren, wie beispielsweise der Topologieoptimierung, ermöglicht eine zielgerichtete und weitestgehend automatisierbare Optimierung von komplexen Produkten. Die hohe Komplexität des Produktes ist dabei oftmals nicht auf den ersten Blick ersichtlich. Beispielsweise gestaltet sich die Gewichtsoptimierung von Druckbehältern mit nicht rotationsymmetrischen Querschnitten aufgrund der komplexen Spannungsverläufe schwierig. Grundsätzlich wird bei Leichtbaukonstruktionen versucht, die zur Verfügung stehende Werkstofffestigkeit in den gegebenen Sicherheitsgrenzen voll auszuschöpfen. Hierfür ist es notwendig, die Materialverteilung an dem Kraftverlauf anzupassen. Bei einem mehrachsigen Spannungszustand, wie er bei den Druckbehältern mit komplexen Geometrien vorliegt, bestehen zwischen der Materialverteilung und den Spannungsverläufen über die Geometrie komplexe Zusammenhänge, so dass für die optimale Materialverteilung keine allgemeingültige triviale Lösung existiert

Herausforderungen klassischer Maschinenelemente im nicht-elektrischen Explosionsschutz

Der Umgang mit brennbaren Stoffen erfordert ein hohes Maß an Sicherheit und Aufmerksamkeit. Auf diese Anforderungen wird selbst in alltäglichen Situationen wie beispielsweise bei der Nutzung eines Gaskochers- und -grills hingewiesen. Fehler in der Handhabung können zu schwerwiegenden Folgen führen. Jedoch ist der Einsatz von brennbaren Stoffen in industriellen Prozessen und Produktionen notwendig. Unter definierten Bedingungen kann dabei der brennbare Stoff mit dem Sauerstoff aus der Luft eine explosionsfähige Atmosphäre bilden, die durch eine Zündquelle entzündet werden kann. Die Folge ist „eine plötzliche Oxidations- oder Zerfallsreaktion mit Anstieg der Temperatur, des Druckes oder beider gleichzeitig“ (ISO 8421 1987), eine Explosion. Durch Explosionen werden Menschen, Maschinen und Umwelt gefährdet. Die Zündquellen werden durch unterschiedlichste Ursachen bedingt. Am 07. Februar 2008 verursachte ein heiß gelaufenes Lager eine Explosion in einer Zuckerraffinerie, die 14 Menschen das Leben kostete (CSB 2009). Durch den Einsatz des Explosionsschutzes sollen solche Katastrophen und Unfälle verhindert werden. Dieses Gebiet der Sicherheitstechnik wird dabei in den elektrischen und nicht-elektrischen Explosionsschutz unterschieden. Im Rahmen des nicht-elektrischen Explosionsschutzes werden Geräte und Baugruppen betrachtet, die ihre Funktion mechanisch erfüllen (ISO 80079-36 2016). Essenzielle Komponenten sind dabei die klassischen Maschinenelemente wie Lager, Riemen oder Kupplungen. Diese Bauteile müssen alleinstehend und in Kombination die Anforderungen einer explosionsschutzgerechten Auslegung erfüllen. Diese Bedingung kann jedoch eine Herausforderung darstellen

Unsupervised Meta-Analysis on Diverse Gene Expression Datasets Allows Insight into Gene Function and Regulation

Over the past years, microarray databases have increased rapidly in size. While they offer a wealth of data, it remains challenging to integrate data arising from different studies. Here we propose an unsupervised approach of a large-scale meta-analysis on Arabidopsis thaliana whole genome expression datasets to gain additional insights into the function and regulation of genes. Applying kernel principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering, we found three major groups of experimental contrasts sharing a common biological trait. Genes associated to two of these clusters are known to play an important role in indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) mediated plant growth and development or pathogen defense. Novel functions could be assigned to genes including a cluster of serine/threonine kinases that carry two uncharacterized domains (DUF26) in their receptor part implicated in host defense. With the approach shown here, hidden interrelations between genes regulated under different conditions can be unraveled

Diel and seasonal methane dynamics in the shallow and turbulent Wadden Sea

The Wadden Sea is a coastal system along the fringe of the land–sea borders of Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. The Wadden Sea is extremely productive and influenced by strong variations in physical and biological forcing factors that act on timescales of hours to seasons. Productive coastal seas are known to dominate the ocean's methane emission to the atmosphere, but knowledge of controls and temporal variations in methane dynamics in these vastly dynamic systems is scarce. Here we address this knowledge gap by measuring methane inventories and methanotrophic activity at a temporal resolution of 1 h over a period of 2 d, repeatedly during four successive seasons in the central Dutch Wadden Sea. We found that methane dynamics varied between colder and warmer seasons, with generally higher water column methane concentrations and methanotrophic activity in the warmer seasons. The efflux of methane to the atmosphere was, on the other hand, lower in the warmer seasons because of lower wind speeds. On a diel scale, tides controlled methanotrophic activity, which increased ∼40 % at low tide compared to high tide. We estimate that methane oxidizing bacteria reduce the methane budget of the Dutch Wadden Sea by only 2 %, while escapes to the atmosphere and are flushed out into the open North Sea at ebb tide. Our findings indicate that tides play a key role in controlling methane dynamics and methanotrophic activity and highlight the importance of high-resolution and repeated sampling strategies to resolve methane dynamics in fast-changing coastal systems

Vertical aerosol distribution in the southern hemispheric midlatitudes as observed with lidar in Punta Arenas, Chile (53.2° and 70.9° W), during ALPACA

Within this publication, lidar observations of the vertical aerosol distribution above Punta Arenas, Chile (53.2 S and 70.9 W), which have been performed with the Raman lidar PollyXT from December 2009 to April 2010, are presented. Pristine marine aerosol conditions related to the prevailing westerly circulation dominated the measurements. Lofted aerosol layers could only be observed eight times during the whole measurement period. Two case studies are presented showing long-range transport of smoke from biomass burning in Australia and regionally transported dust from the Patagonian Desert, respectively. The aerosol sources are identified by trajectory analyses with the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) and FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model (FLEXPART). However, seven of the eight analysed cases with lofted layers show an aerosol optical thickness of less than 0.05. From the lidar observations, a mean planetary boundary layer (PBL) top height of 1150 350m was determined. An analysis of particle backscatter coefficients confirms that the majority of the aerosol is attributed to the PBL, while the free troposphere is characterized by a very low background aerosol concentration. The ground-based lidar observations at 532 and 1064 nm are supplemented by the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) Sun photometers and the space-borne Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) aboard the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO). The averaged aerosol optical thickness (AOT) determined by CALIOP was 0:02 0:01 in Punta Arenas from 2009 to 2010. © Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

Effect of Experimental Thyrotoxicosis onto Blood Coagulation: A Proteomics Study

Background: Hyperthyroidism is known to induce a hypercoagulable state. It stimulates plasma levels of procoagulative factors and reduces fibrinolytic activity. So far most of the data have been derived from patients with endogenous hyperthyroidism with a wide variability in the underlying pathogenesis and severity of the disease. Objectives: In this study we experimentally induced thyrotoxicosis in healthy volunteers to explore the effects of thyroxine excess on the plasma proteome. Using a shotgun proteomics approach, the abundance of plasma proteins was monitored before, during and after thyrotoxicosis. Methods: Sixteen healthy male subjects were sampled at baseline, 4 and 8 weeks under 250 µg/day thyroxine p.o., as well as 4 and 8 weeks after stopping the application. Plasma proteins were analyzed after depletion of 6 high-abundance proteins (MARS6) by LC-ESI-MS/MS mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometric raw data were processed using a label-free, intensity-based workflow. Subsequently, the linear dependence between protein abundances and fT4 levels were calculated using a Pearson correlation. Results: All subjects developed biochemical thyrotoxicosis, and this effect was reversed within the first 4 weeks of follow-up. None of the volunteers noticed any subjective symptoms. Levels of 10 proteins involved in the coagulation cascade specifically correlated with fT4, supporting an influence of thyroid hormone levels on blood coagulation even at nonpathological levels. Conclusions: The results suggest that experimental thyrotoxicosis exerts selective and specific thyroxine-induced effects on coagulation markers. Our study design allows assessment of thyroid hormone effects on plasma protein levels without secondary effects of other diseases or therapies