Management-Employee Buyouts in Hungary and Poland

This paper is part of a project whic began in December 1994 and consists of research focusing on legal and institutional aspects of privatization as well as the courses and outcomes of privatization processes under way in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The specific issue this paper focuses on is management-employee buyouts in Hungary and Poland.management-employee buyouts, transition, Poland, Hungary

Omnidirectional underwater surveying and telepresence

Exploratory dives are traditionally the first step for marine scientists to acquire information on a previously unknown area of scientific interest. Manned submersibles have been the platform of choice for such exploration, as they allow a high level of environmental perception by the scientist on-board, and the ability to take informed decisions on what to explore next. However, manned submersibles have extremely high operation costs and provide very limited bottom time. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) can partially address these two issues, but have operational and cost constraints that restrict their usage. This paper discusses new capabilities to assist scientists operating lightweight hybrid remotely operated vehicles (HROV) in exploratory missions of mapping and surveying. The new capabilities, under development within the Spanish National project OMNIUS, provide a new layer of autonomy for HROVs by exploring three key concepts: Omni-directional optical sensing for collaborative immersive exploration, Proximity safety awareness and Online mapping during mission time.Peer Reviewe

Noise-based logic: Binary, multi-valued, or fuzzy, with optional superposition of logic states

A new type of deterministic (non-probabilistic) computer logic system inspired by the stochasticity of brain signals is shown. The distinct values are represented by independent stochastic processes: independent voltage (or current) noises. The orthogonality of these processes provides a natural way to construct binary or multi-valued logic circuitry with arbitrary number N of logic values by using analog circuitry. Moreover, the logic values on a single wire can be made a (weighted) superposition of the N distinct logic values. Fuzzy logic is also naturally represented by a two-component superposition within the binary case (N=2). Error propagation and accumulation are suppressed. Other relevant advantages are reduced energy dissipation and leakage current problems, and robustness against circuit noise and background noises such as 1/f, Johnson, shot and crosstalk noise. Variability problems are also nonexistent because the logic value is an AC signal. A similar logic system can be built with orthogonal sinusoidal signals (different frequency or orthogonal phase) however that has an extra 1/N type slowdown compared to the noise-based logic system with increasing number of N furthermore it is less robust against time delay effects than the noise-based counterpart.Comment: Accepted for publication by Physics Letters A, on December 23, 200

Catheter ablation or medical therapy to delay progression of atrial fibrillation : The randomized controlled atrial fibrillation progression trial (ATTEST)

Funding Information: This work was supported by Biosense Webster, Inc. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology.Aims: Delay of progression from paroxysmal to persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) is an important measure of long-term success of AF treatment. However, published data on the impact of catheter ablation on AF progression are limited. This study evaluates whether radiofrequency (RF) catheter ablation delays the progression of AF compared with antiarrhythmic drug (AAD) treatment using current AF management guidelines. Methods: This prospective, randomized, controlled, two-arm, open-label trial was conducted at 29 hospitals and medical centres across 13 countries. Patients were randomized 1: 1 to RF ablation or AAD treatment. The primary endpoint was the rate of persistent AF/atrial tachycardia (AT) at 3 years. Results: After early study termination following slow enrolment, 255 (79%) of the planned 322 patients were enrolled (RF ablation, n = 128, AAD, n = 127); 36% of patients in the RF ablation group and 41% in the AAD group completed 3 years of follow-up. For the primary endpoint, the Kaplan-Meier estimate of the rate of persistent AF/AT at 3 years was significantly lower with RF ablation [2.4% (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.6-9.4%)] than with AAD therapy [17.5% (95% CI, 10.7-27.9%); one-sided P = 0.0009]. Patients ≥65 years were ∼4 times more likely to progress to persistent AF/AT than patients <65 years, suggesting RF ablation can delay disease progression [hazard ratio: 3.87 (95% CI, 0.88-17.00); P = 0.0727]. Primary adverse events were reported for eight patients in the RF ablation group. Conclusions: Radiofrequency ablation is superior to guideline-directed AAD therapy in delaying the progression from paroxysmal to persistent AF.publishersversionPeer reviewe

Crosstalk between Medulloblastoma Cells and Endothelium Triggers a Strong Chemotactic Signal Recruiting T Lymphocytes to the Tumor Microenvironment

Cancer cells can live and grow if they succeed in creating a favorable niche that often includes elements from the immune system. While T lymphocytes play an important role in the host response to tumor growth, the mechanism of their trafficking to the tumor remains poorly understood. We show here that T lymphocytes consistently infiltrate the primary brain cancer, medulloblastoma. We demonstrate, both in vitro and in vivo, that these T lymphocytes are attracted to tumor deposits only after the tumor cells have interacted with tumor vascular endothelium. Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor (MIF)” is the key chemokine molecule secreted by tumor cells which induces the tumor vascular endothelial cells to secrete the potent T lymphocyte attractant “Regulated upon Activation, Normal T-cell Expressed, and Secreted (RANTES).” This in turn creates a chemotactic gradient for RANTES-receptor bearing T lymphocytes. Manipulation of this pathway could have important therapeutic implications

Report on the sixth blind test of organic crystal structure prediction methods.

The sixth blind test of organic crystal structure prediction (CSP) methods has been held, with five target systems: a small nearly rigid molecule, a polymorphic former drug candidate, a chloride salt hydrate, a co-crystal and a bulky flexible molecule. This blind test has seen substantial growth in the number of participants, with the broad range of prediction methods giving a unique insight into the state of the art in the field. Significant progress has been seen in treating flexible molecules, usage of hierarchical approaches to ranking structures, the application of density-functional approximations, and the establishment of new workflows and `best practices' for performing CSP calculations. All of the targets, apart from a single potentially disordered Z' = 2 polymorph of the drug candidate, were predicted by at least one submission. Despite many remaining challenges, it is clear that CSP methods are becoming more applicable to a wider range of real systems, including salts, hydrates and larger flexible molecules. The results also highlight the potential for CSP calculations to complement and augment experimental studies of organic solid forms.The organisers and participants are very grateful to the crystallographers who supplied the candidate structures: Dr. Peter Horton (XXII), Dr. Brian Samas (XXIII), Prof. Bruce Foxman (XXIV), and Prof. Kraig Wheeler (XXV and XXVI). We are also grateful to Dr. Emma Sharp and colleagues at Johnson Matthey (Pharmorphix) for the polymorph screening of XXVI, as well as numerous colleagues at the CCDC for assistance in organising the blind test. Submission 2: We acknowledge Dr. Oliver Korb for numerous useful discussions. Submission 3: The Day group acknowledge the use of the IRIDIS High Performance Computing Facility, and associated support services at the University of Southampton, in the completion of this work. We acknowledge funding from the EPSRC (grants EP/J01110X/1 and EP/K018132/1) and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC through grant agreements n. 307358 (ERC-stG- 2012-ANGLE) and n. 321156 (ERC-AG-PE5-ROBOT). Submission 4: I am grateful to Mikhail Kuzminskii for calculations of molecular structures on Gaussian 98 program in the Institute of Organic Chemistry RAS. The Russian Foundation for Basic Research is acknowledged for financial support (14-03-01091). Submission 5: Toine Schreurs provided computer facilities and assistance. I am grateful to Matthew Habgood at AWE company for providing a travel grant. Submission 6: We would like to acknowledge support of this work by GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Vertex. Submission 7: The research was financially supported by the VIDI Research Program 700.10.427, which is financed by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and the European Research Council (ERC-2010-StG, grant agreement n. 259510-KISMOL). We acknowledge the support of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM). Supercomputer facilities were provided by the National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF). Submission 8: Computer resources were provided by the Center for High Performance Computing at the University of Utah and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), supported by NSF grant number ACI-1053575. MBF and GIP acknowledge the support from the University of Buenos Aires and the Argentinian Research Council. Submission 9: We thank Dr. Bouke van Eijck for his valuable advice on our predicted structure of XXV. We thank the promotion office for TUT programs on advanced simulation engineering (ADSIM), the leading program for training brain information architects (BRAIN), and the information and media center (IMC) at Toyohashi University of Technology for the use of the TUT supercomputer systems and application software. We also thank the ACCMS at Kyoto University for the use of their supercomputer. In addition, we wish to thank financial supports from Conflex Corp. and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Submission 12: We thank Leslie Leiserowitz from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Geoffrey Hutchinson from the University of Pittsburgh for helpful discussions. We thank Adam Scovel at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) for technical support. Work at Tulane University was funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents Award # LEQSF(2014-17)-RD-A-10 “Toward Crystal Engineering from First Principles”, by the NSF award # EPS-1003897 “The Louisiana Alliance for Simulation-Guided Materials Applications (LA-SiGMA)”, and by the Tulane Committee on Research Summer Fellowship. Work at the Technical University of Munich was supported by the Solar Technologies Go Hybrid initiative of the State of Bavaria, Germany. Computer time was provided by the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. Submission 13: This work would not have been possible without funding from Khalifa University’s College of Engineering. I would like to acknowledge Prof. Robert Bennell and Prof. Bayan Sharif for supporting me in acquiring the resources needed to carry out this research. Dr. Louise Price is thanked for her guidance on the use of DMACRYS and NEIGHCRYS during the course of this research. She is also thanked for useful discussions and numerous e-mail exchanges concerning the blind test. Prof. Sarah Price is acknowledged for her support and guidance over many years and for providing access to DMACRYS and NEIGHCRYS. Submission 15: The work was supported by the United Kingdom’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (EP/J003840/1, EP/J014958/1) and was made possible through access to computational resources and support from the High Performance Computing Cluster at Imperial College London. We are grateful to Professor Sarah L. Price for supplying the DMACRYS code for use within CrystalOptimizer, and to her and her research group for support with DMACRYS and feedback on CrystalPredictor and CrystalOptimizer. Submission 16: R. J. N. acknowledges financial support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the U.K. [EP/J017639/1]. R. J. N. and C. J. P. acknowledge use of the Archer facilities of the U.K.’s national high-performance computing service (for which access was obtained via the UKCP consortium [EP/K014560/1]). C. J. P. also acknowledges a Leadership Fellowship Grant [EP/K013688/1]. B. M. acknowledges Robinson College, Cambridge, and the Cambridge Philosophical Society for a Henslow Research Fellowship. Submission 17: The work at the University of Delaware was supported by the Army Research Office under Grant W911NF-13-1- 0387 and by the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. The work at the University of Silesia was supported by the Polish National Science Centre Grant No. DEC-2012/05/B/ST4/00086. Submission 18: We would like to thank Constantinos Pantelides, Claire Adjiman and Isaac Sugden of Imperial College for their support of our use of CrystalPredictor and CrystalOptimizer in this and Submission 19. The CSP work of the group is supported by EPSRC, though grant ESPRC EP/K039229/1, and Eli Lilly. The PhD students support: RKH by a joint UCL Max-Planck Society Magdeburg Impact studentship, REW by a UCL Impact studentship; LI by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre and the M3S Centre for Doctoral Training (EPSRC EP/G036675/1). Submission 19: The potential generation work at the University of Delaware was supported by the Army Research Office under Grant W911NF-13-1-0387 and by the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. Submission 20: The work at New York University was supported, in part, by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Office under contract/grant number W911NF-13-1-0387 (MET and LV) and, in part, by the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) program of the National Science Foundation under Award Number DMR-1420073 (MET and ES). The work at the University of Delaware was supported by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Office under contract/grant number W911NF-13-1- 0387 and by the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. Submission 21: We thank the National Science Foundation (DMR-1231586), the Government of Russian Federation (Grant No. 14.A12.31.0003), the Foreign Talents Introduction and Academic Exchange Program (No. B08040) and the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 14-43-00052, base organization Photochemistry Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Calculations were performed on the Rurik supercomputer at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Submission 22: The computational results presented have been achieved in part using the Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC). Submission 24: The potential generation work at the University of Delaware was supported by the Army Research Office under Grant W911NF-13-1-0387 and by the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. Submission 25: J.H. and A.T. acknowledge the support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under the program DFG-SPP 1807. H-Y.K., R.A.D., and R.C. acknowledge support from the Department of Energy (DOE) under Grant Nos. DE-SC0008626. This research used resources of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility at Argonne National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DEAC02-05CH11231. Additional computational resources were provided by the Terascale Infrastructure for Groundbreaking Research in Science and Engineering (TIGRESS) High Performance Computing Center and Visualization Laboratory at Princeton University.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S2052520616007447

Report on the sixth blind test of organic crystal-structure prediction methods

The sixth blind test of organic crystal-structure prediction (CSP) methods has been held, with five target systems: a small nearly rigid molecule, a polymorphic former drug candidate, a chloride salt hydrate, a co-crystal, and a bulky flexible molecule. This blind test has seen substantial growth in the number of submissions, with the broad range of prediction methods giving a unique insight into the state of the art in the field. Significant progress has been seen in treating flexible molecules, usage of hierarchical approaches to ranking structures, the application of density-functional approximations, and the establishment of new workflows and "best practices" for performing CSP calculations. All of the targets, apart from a single potentially disordered Z` = 2 polymorph of the drug candidate, were predicted by at least one submission. Despite many remaining challenges, it is clear that CSP methods are becoming more applicable to a wider range of real systems, including salts, hydrates and larger flexible molecules. The results also highlight the potential for CSP calculations to complement and augment experimental studies of organic solid forms

Mechanical design of the optical modules intended for IceCube-Gen2

IceCube-Gen2 is an expansion of the IceCube neutrino observatory at the South Pole that aims to increase the sensitivity to high-energy neutrinos by an order of magnitude. To this end, about 10,000 new optical modules will be installed, instrumenting a fiducial volume of about 8 km3. Two newly developed optical module types increase IceCube’s current sensitivity per module by a factor of three by integrating 16 and 18 newly developed four-inch PMTs in specially designed 12.5-inch diameter pressure vessels. Both designs use conical silicone gel pads to optically couple the PMTs to the pressure vessel to increase photon collection efficiency. The outside portion of gel pads are pre-cast onto each PMT prior to integration, while the interiors are filled and cast after the PMT assemblies are installed in the pressure vessel via a pushing mechanism. This paper presents both the mechanical design, as well as the performance of prototype modules at high pressure (70 MPa) and low temperature (−40∘C), characteristic of the environment inside the South Pole ice

The next generation neutrino telescope: IceCube-Gen2

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic-kilometer-scale neutrino detector at the geographic South Pole, has reached a number of milestones in the field of neutrino astrophysics: the discovery of a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux, the temporal and directional correlation of neutrinos with a flaring blazar, and a steady emission of neutrinos from the direction of an active galaxy of a Seyfert II type and the Milky Way. The next generation neutrino telescope, IceCube-Gen2, currently under development, will consist of three essential components: an array of about 10,000 optical sensors, embedded within approximately 8 cubic kilometers of ice, for detecting neutrinos with energies of TeV and above, with a sensitivity five times greater than that of IceCube; a surface array with scintillation panels and radio antennas targeting air showers; and buried radio antennas distributed over an area of more than 400 square kilometers to significantly enhance the sensitivity of detecting neutrino sources beyond EeV. This contribution describes the design and status of IceCube-Gen2 and discusses the expected sensitivity from the simulations of the optical, surface, and radio components