Extreme rays of the (N,k)(N, k)-Schur Cone

We discuss several partial results towards proving Dennis White's conjecture on the extreme rays of the $(N,2)$-Schur cone. We are interested in which vectors are extreme in the cone generated by all products of Schur functions of partitions with $k$ or fewer parts. For the case where $k =2$, White conjectured that the extreme rays are obtained by excluding a certain family of "bad pairs," and proved a special case of the conjecture using Farkas' Lemma. We present an alternate proof of the special case, in addition to showing more infinite families of extreme rays and reducing White's conjecture to two simpler conjectures.Comment: This paper has been withdrawn by the authors due to a misinterpretation of the generalized Littlewood-Richardson rule in several proof

Indicateurs de dégradation physique des sols dans le Nord de la Côte d’Ivoire: Cas de Boundiali et Ferkessédougou

En vue d’inventorier quelques indicateurs de la dégradation physique des sols dans le Nord de la Côte d’Ivoire, différents segments topographiques, de haut versant (HV), mi versant (MV) et bas versant (BV) ont été considérés sur des toposéquences implantées, à Boundiali (Guinguereni), bassin versant de la Bagoué et à Ferkessédougou (Nabankaha), bassin versant du Bandama. Des échantillons de sols ont été prélevés dans des fosses pédologiques ouvertes sur des sites des cultures et de jachères de courte durée en HV, à MV et en BV. Les descriptions morpho pédologiques et analyses physiques réalisées indiquent que le surpâturage et la mise en culture des terres amenuisent la couverture végétale ainsi que le taux de matière organique. Les sols observés ont une texture majoritairement sablo–argilo–limoneuse (30% d’argile) avec une faible imprégnation humifère. Les valeurs de densité apparente (da) qui varient de 0,67 à 1,49 g.cm-3, indiquent une compaction des sols cultivés en mi et bas de versant, avec une perméabilité médiocre (13 à 17 mm.h-1). Des corrélations significatives (r ± 0,70 à 0,95) observées entre l’infiltration, le taux de matière organique, la densité apparente et l’humidité témoignent que la compaction est à l’origine de l’augmentation de la densité apparente des sols, de la diminution de la conductivité hydraulique et donc de leur dégradation physique.Mots-clés: dégradation physique, compaction, indicateurs, Boundiali, Ferkessédougou, Côte d’Ivoire. Physical indicators of soil degradation in northern Côte d'Ivoire: Case of Boundiali and FerkessédougouTo perform the monitoring of some physical indicators of degradation in northern Côte d'Ivoire, different topographic segments, at the upper slope (HV), middle slope (MV) and lower slope (BV) were considered on implanted toposequences at Boundiali (Guinguereni), the watershed of Bagoue and at Ferkessédougou (Nabankaha), the watershed of Bandama. Soil samples were taken from soil pits open on sites of crops and short fallow at HV, MV and BV. Morpho pedological descriptions and physical analyzes indicate that overgrazing and cultivation of land deteriorate vegetation cover and the organic matter content. The observed soils are predominantly sandy clayey loam texture (30% clay with low humus impregnation). The bulk density values (da), ranging from 0.67 to 1.49 g.cm-3, indicates that soil compaction grown in middle and lower slope, with poor permeability (13-17 mm.h-1). Significant correlations (r ± 0.70 to 0.95) observed between infiltration, organic matter rates, bulk density and moisture show that the compaction is at the origin of the increase of the soil bulk density, the reduction of the hydraulic conductivity and thus their physical degradation.Keywords: physical degradation, compaction, indicators, Boundiali, Ferkessedougou, Côte d‟Ivoire

Design of 100 GHz-class Mach-Zehnder modulators in a generic indium phosphide platform

We propose a push-pull electrode design for a Mach-Zehnder modulator in a generic indium phosphide platform. We calculate the frequency response of the modulator for a range of mask design parameters. We propose the design parameters for a 50Ω, velocity matched MZM with 95GHz bandwidth

Caractérisation agromorphologique d’une nouvelle génération d’hybrides de cocotiers grands (cocos nucifera l.) En côte d’ivoire

Pour répondre aux préoccupations des producteurs désireux de grosses noix, des hybrides améliorés de cocotier grands ont été créés. Le présent travail analyse quelques paramètres agromorphologiques de ces hybrides de cocotiers. Trois hybrides de cocotier Grands x Grands sont comparés à un témoin PB121 amélioré (PB121+) en examinant les paramètres de production et les composantes de la noix à travers l’analyse de variance complétée par le test de Newman et Keuls. Les résultats montrent que les hybrides Grands x Grands améliorés produisent des noix plus grosses (2,96 ± 0,56 dm3 à 3,29 ± 0,83 dm3) et plus lourdes (1084,3 ± 120,12 g à 1147 ± 27,52 g) que le croisement témoin PB121 amélioré (2,48 ±0,53 dm3 et 999,81 ± 85,54 g). Les grosses noix des hybrides Grands x Grands améliorés sont également plus riches en albumen (396,25 ± 37,08 g à 430,72 ± 39 g) que celles produites par le PB121 amélioré (353,31 ± 27,46 g). Parmi les hybrides de cocotiers Grands améliorés, c’est le Grand des îles Rennell croisé avec le Grand Ouest Africain (GRL+ x GOA+) qui présente le rendement en nombre de noix le plus élevé (127 ± 33 noix arbre-1an-1) qui est statistiquement égal à celui du PB121+. Les autres croisements de cocotiers Grands fournissent un rendement en nombre de noix (91 ± 35 à 95 ± 34 noix arbre -1 an-1) inférieur au témoin PB121+(136 ± 41 noix arbre-1an-1). L’hybride GRL+ x GOA+ est donc à conseiller aux opérateurs qui préfèrent les grosses noix riches en coprah et en huile à partir de l’albumen.Mots-clés : Cocos nucifera L., grosses noix, hybride Grand, production.In order to provide big coconut seed required by some farmers, tall improved hybrids were developed. This work analyzes some agromorphological parameters of these coconut hybrids. Three tall x tall coconut hybrids were compared to the controlled material PB121+ using yield parameters and nut components through analysis of variance completed by Newman and Keuls test. The results showed that the tall x tall improved hybrids yield bigger (from 2.96 ± 0.56 dm3 to 3.29 ± 0.83 dm3) and heavier nuts (from 1084.3 ± 120.12 g to 1147 ± 27.52 g) than those from PB121+ (2.48 ±0.53 dm3 and 999.81 ± 85.54 g). The big nuts of the tall x tall improved hybrids contain more kernels (from 396.25 ± 37.08 g to 430.72 ± 39 g) than those from PB121+ (353.31 ± 27.46 g). Within the tall x tall hybrids, Rennell Island Tall crossed with West African Tall (GRL+ x GOA+) is the bigger yielder of nuts (127 ± 33 nuts tree-1 year-1), with the same statistical level with the PB121+. The other tall hybrids (from 91 ± 35 to 95 ± 34 nuts tree -1 year-1) yield less nuts than the controlled material PB121+ (136 ± 41 nuts tree-1year-1). So the GRL+ x GOA+ is the tall hybrid which has to be advised to farmers and actors who prefer big coconut with high content copra and oil from kernel

Hearing Loss in Patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma after Chemotherapy and Radiation

In light of the possible adverse effects of radiation on hearing, we conducted a study to evaluate the long-term sensorineural hearing status following radiotherapy (RT) in patients suffering from nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Audiologic examinations were performed at regular intervals before and after RT. We also analyzed the effects of age, chemotherapy, pre-RT hearing status, and post-RT otitis media with effusion (OME) on post-RT hearing change. A total of 150 patients (261 ears) were enrolled in this study and followed up for a mean of 43.8 months. After RT, 8.9-28.8% of ears had at least a 10 dB loss in bone conduction threshold at speech frequency, which was defined as an average of hearing threshold at 0.5 kHz, 1 kHz, and 2 kHz, while the percentage was 18-34.2% at 4 kHz. Patient age was related to these changes at speech frequency, and the presence of post-RT OME was related to significant loss at both speech frequency and 4 kHz. Pre-RT hearing status and chemotherapy did not influence hearing change. To sum up, sensorineural hearing loss began as early as after completion of RT. Early changes may be transient, but the effect of radiation on hearing tended to be chronic and progressive

NAS-LID: Efficient Neural Architecture Search with Local Intrinsic Dimension

One-shot neural architecture search (NAS) substantially improves the search efficiency by training one supernet to estimate the performance of every possible child architecture (i.e., subnet). However, the inconsistency of characteristics among subnets incurs serious interference in the optimization, resulting in poor performance ranking correlation of subnets. Subsequent explorations decompose supernet weights via a particular criterion, e.g., gradient matching, to reduce the interference; yet they suffer from huge computational cost and low space separability. In this work, we propose a lightweight and effective local intrinsic dimension (LID)-based method NAS-LID. NAS-LID evaluates the geometrical properties of architectures by calculating the low-cost LID features layer-by-layer, and the similarity characterized by LID enjoys better separability compared with gradients, which thus effectively reduces the interference among subnets. Extensive experiments on NASBench-201 indicate that NAS-LID achieves superior performance with better efficiency. Specifically, compared to the gradient-driven method, NAS-LID can save up to 86% of GPU memory overhead when searching on NASBench-201. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of NAS-LID on ProxylessNAS and OFA spaces. Source code: https://github.com/marsggbo/NAS-LID.Comment: Accepted by AAAI2023, AutoML, NA

Cerebral Radionecrosis with Cystic Degeneration Following Radiotherapy for Nasal Cavity Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Case Report

A 31-year-old man with nasal cavity squamous cell carcinoma was treated in our hospital with two courses of radiotherapy (120 Gy total dose) followed by surgical tumor resection. Three years after the last irradiation, he developed seizures as well as changes in behavior and consciousness. Medical therapy with diphenylhydantoin (Dilantin(r)) terminated the seizures. Dysphagia, unsteady gait, and right-side limb weakness developed 37 months after the onset of seizures. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a large, cystic mass in the left temporal lobe with left to right midline shift. Following craniotomy with decompression of the cystic mass, the patient improved clinically. No malignant cells were found in the specimen. No further progression of neurologic symptoms was noted after a 1-year follow-up. Cerebral radionecrosis is an uncommon late complication of radiotherapy and needs to be differentiated from tumor recurrence or metastasis if the irradiation field covers the cerebral region in patients with head and neck malignancies