Simulated Annealing with min-cut and greedy perturbations

Custom integrated circuit design requires an ever increasing number of elements to be placed on a physical die. The process of searching for an optimal solution is NP-hard so heuristics are required to achieve satisfactory results under time constraints. Simulated Annealing is an algorithm which uses randomly generated perturbations to adjust a single solution. The effect of a generated perturbation is examined by a cost function which evaluates the solution. If the perturbation decreases the cost, it is accepted. If it increases the cost, it is accepted probabilistically. Such an approach allows the algorithm to avoid local minima and find satisfactory solutions. One problem faced by Simulated Annealing is that it can take a very large number of iterations to reach a desired result. Greedy perturbations use knowledge of the system to generate solutions which may be satisfactory after fewer iterations than non-greedy, however previous work has indicated that the exclusive use of greedy perturbations seems to result in a solution constrained to local minima. Min-cut is a procedure in which a graph is split into two pieces with the least interconnection possible between them. Using this with a placement problem helps to recognize components which belong to the same functional unit and thus enhance results of Simulated Annealing. The feasibility of this approach has been assessed. Hardware, through parallelization, can be used to increase the performance of algorithms by decreasing runtime. The possibility of increased performance motivated the exploration of the ability to model greedy perturbations in hardware. The use of greedy perturbations while avoiding local minima was also explored

Arylstibonic acids [H₈(RSb)₁₂O₂₈]; precursors to organometallic isopolyoxostibonates [Na₂H₉(RSb)₁₂O₃₀]-, (R = aryl).

Electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry shows that arylstibonic acids, RSbO₃H₂, give rise to oxo-bridged clusters derived from [H₈(RSb)₁₂O₂₈] which act as inorganic crown ligands towards Na+ cations; structure determination of one derivative revealed a cage-like anion [Na₂H₉(p-O₂NC₆H₄Sb)₁₂O₃₀.4H₂O]-

International policy cooperation: building a sound foundation

International economic relations ; International finance

Reducing the costs and risks of trading foreign exchange

Foreign exchange rates

One Change at a Time: Pop up Usability Testing

Library staff know the bizarre tricks and jargon we use to navigate our system and websites while our users continue to struggle and never get as adjusted. The University of Minnesota Libraries have committed to running monthly web usability tests in-house that illustrate the user\u27s perspective. These tests guide us in implementing changes to our system and websites. With little more than a spare computer, Skype, and a group of diligent and willing staff, we\u27ve been able to learn incredibly useful things about our web sites and applications. In this session, we\u27ll describe our process, some examples of evaluations we\u27ve run, what we\u27ve done with the information, lessons we\u27ve learned along the way, and we\u27ll show you how you too can run usability tests at your library

Survivors of Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Repair Face Barriers to Long-Term Follow-Up Care

BACKGROUND: Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) carries high morbidity and mortality, and survivors commonly have neurodevelopmental, gastrointestinal, and pulmonary sequela requiring multidisciplinary care well beyond repair. We predict that following hospitalization for repair, CDH survivors face many barriers to receiving future medical care. METHODS: A retrospective review was conducted of all living CDH patients between ages 0 to 12 years who underwent repair at Riley Hospital for Children (RHC) from 2010 through 2019. Follow-up status with specialty providers was reviewed, and all eligible families were contacted to complete a survey regarding various aspects of their child's care, including functional status, quality of life, and barriers to care. Bivariate analysis was applied to patient data (P < 0.05 was significant) and survey responses were analyzed qualitatively. RESULTS: After exclusions, 70 survivors were contacted. Thirty-three (47%) were deemed lost to follow up to specialist providers, and were similar to those who maintained follow-up with respect to defect severity type (A-D, P = 0.57), ECMO use (P = 0.35), number of affected organ systems (P = 0.36), and number of providers following after discharge (P = 0.33). Seventeen (24%) families completed the survey, of whom eight (47%) were deemed lost to follow up to specialist providers. Families reported distance and time constraints, access to CDH-specific information and care, access to CDH-specific resources, and access to healthcare as significant barriers to care. All respondents were interested in a multidisciplinary CDH clinic. CONCLUSIONS: CDH survivors require multidisciplinary care beyond initial repair, but attrition to follow-up after discharge is high. A multidisciplinary CDH clinic may address caregivers' perceived barriers

The bien r package: A tool to access the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database

There is an urgent need for largeâ scale botanical data to improve our understanding of community assembly, coexistence, biogeography, evolution, and many other fundamental biological processes. Understanding these processes is critical for predicting and handling humanâ biodiversity interactions and global change dynamics such as food and energy security, ecosystem services, climate change, and species invasions.The Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database comprises an unprecedented wealth of cleaned and standardised botanical data, containing roughly 81 million occurrence records from c. 375,000 species, c. 915,000 trait observations across 28 traits from c. 93,000 species, and coâ occurrence records from 110,000 ecological plots globally, as well as 100,000 range maps and 100 replicated phylogenies (each containing 81,274 species) for New World species. Here, we describe an r package that provides easy access to these data.The bien r package allows users to access the multiple types of data in the BIEN database. Functions in this package query the BIEN database by turning user inputs into optimised PostgreSQL functions. Function names follow a convention designed to make it easy to understand what each function does. We have also developed a protocol for providing customised citations and herbarium acknowledgements for data downloaded through the bien r package.The development of the BIEN database represents a significant achievement in biological data integration, cleaning and standardization. Likewise, the bien r package represents an important tool for open science that makes the BIEN database freely and easily accessible to everyone.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142458/1/mee312861_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142458/2/mee312861.pd

MLPerf Inference Benchmark

Machine-learning (ML) hardware and software system demand is burgeoning. Driven by ML applications, the number of different ML inference systems has exploded. Over 100 organizations are building ML inference chips, and the systems that incorporate existing models span at least three orders of magnitude in power consumption and five orders of magnitude in performance; they range from embedded devices to data-center solutions. Fueling the hardware are a dozen or more software frameworks and libraries. The myriad combinations of ML hardware and ML software make assessing ML-system performance in an architecture-neutral, representative, and reproducible manner challenging. There is a clear need for industry-wide standard ML benchmarking and evaluation criteria. MLPerf Inference answers that call. In this paper, we present our benchmarking method for evaluating ML inference systems. Driven by more than 30 organizations as well as more than 200 ML engineers and practitioners, MLPerf prescribes a set of rules and best practices to ensure comparability across systems with wildly differing architectures. The first call for submissions garnered more than 600 reproducible inference-performance measurements from 14 organizations, representing over 30 systems that showcase a wide range of capabilities. The submissions attest to the benchmark's flexibility and adaptability.Comment: ISCA 202

An intron variant of the GLI family zinc finger 3 (GLI3) gene differentiates resistance training-induced muscle fiber hypertrophy in younger men

We examined the association between genotype and resistance training-induced changes (12 wk) in dual x-ray energy absorptiometry (DXA)-derived lean soft tissue mass (LSTM) as well as muscle fiber cross-sectional area (fCSA; vastus lateralis; n = 109; age = 22 ± 2 y, BMI = 24.7 ± 3.1 kg/m2). Over 315 000 genetic polymorphisms were interrogated from muscle using DNA microarrays. First, a targeted investigation was performed where single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) identified from a systematic literature review were related to changes in LSTM and fCSA. Next, genome-wide association (GWA) studies were performed to reveal associations between novel SNP targets with pre- to post-training change scores in mean fCSA and LSTM. Our targeted investigation revealed no genotype-by-time interactions for 12 common polymorphisms regarding the change in mean fCSA or change in LSTM. Our first GWA study indicated no SNP were associated with the change in LSTM. However, the second GWA study indicated two SNP exceeded the significance level with the change in mean fCSA (P = 6.9 × 10–7 for rs4675569, 1.7 × 10–6 for rs10263647). While the former target is not annotated (chr2:205936846 (GRCh38.p12)), the latter target (chr7:41971865 (GRCh38.p12)) is an intron variant of the GLI Family Zinc Finger 3 (GLI3) gene. Follow-up analyses indicated fCSA increases were greater in the T/C and C/C GLI3 genotypes than the T/T GLI3 genotype (P \u3c.05). Data from the Auburn cohort also revealed participants with the T/C and C/C genotypes exhibited increases in satellite cell number with training (P \u3c.05), whereas T/T participants did not. Additionally, those with the T/C and C/C genotypes achieved myonuclear addition in response to training (P \u3c.05), whereas the T/T participants did not. In summary, this is the first GWA study to examine how polymorphisms associate with the change in hypertrophy measures following resistance training. Future studies are needed to determine if the GLI3 variant differentiates hypertrophic responses to resistance training given the potential link between this gene and satellite cell physiology