Making Scientific Applications Portable: Software Containers and Package Managers

Scientific workflows for high-performance computing (HPC) are becoming increasingly complex. Developing a way to simplify these workflows could save many hours for both HPC users and developers, potentially eliminating any time spent managing software dependencies and experiment set-up. To accomplish this, we propose using two programs together: Docker and Spack. Docker is a container platform and Spack is a package manager designed specifically for HPC. In this paper, we show how Docker and Spack can be used to containerize the extreme-scale Scientific Software Development Kit (xSDK). Doing this makes the xSDK far more accessible to non-computer scientists and lowers time spent by developers on dependency management. Implementing a system such as this on a large scale could change the functioning of the HPC industry

A Survey of the Literature Dealing with the Calcium-Phosphorus Metabolism of Normal Children

The purpose of this study is to collect and organize all data available to the investigator on the subject of calcium and phosphorus requirements for normal children. Since it is the business of nutrition to maintain health and prevent disorders, leaving the cure of disorders to the medical profession, this study deals with the calcium and phosphorus metabolism of normal children and avoids going into the pathological phases, taking up rickets and tetany only in so far as prevention is concerned. If this study has any value it lies in the fact that the findings of investigators seem to be scattered throughout a great many books and scientific journals, and it was thought that the collection and organization of these findings would serve as useful purpose in making this research more readily available to nutrition students. The bibliography for the study was made up from references given by such recognized authorities and sources as Sherman, McLester, Starling, Lusk, Van Slyke and Peters, Bogert, Rose, Child Development Abstracts, British Nutrition Abstracts, and Chemical Abstracts. From this bibliography were chosen those books and articles which seemed to the writer to be most promising as to reliability, amount of information, and variety of information. Part of the work has of necessity been adapted to children from experiments on adults. The importance of calcium and phosphorus in the diet of little children is emphasized by Sherman as follows: The effect of an insufficient intake of calcium is natural more serious with growing than with full grown animals. The young need more calcium because during growth and development the body in increasing not only the amount but the percentage of calcium which it contains. *** growing children whose height, weight, and appearance are normal may have a calcium-poor condition of the body*** Since this is largely a matter of the deposition of calcium phosphate in the developing bones, the phosphorus content of the body tends to remain low when the calcium is low and to rise to normal with the calcium when the calcium content of the food is increased

Let the Monsters Out of the Closet: Overt Queer Depictions in Hollywood Horror Films

According to Harry M. Benshoff in his book Monsters in the Closet, Hollywood has a long history of demonizing queer people in horror films with what he refers to as the “monster queer.” The monster queer can be read as a key fixture of most horror narratives as a destabilizing force to heteronormative society which must be vanquished. As a gay man and avid horror enthusiast, I find myself drawn to overt (rather than connotative) examples of monster queers, from Norman Bates to Buffalo Bill to Megan Fox’s Jennifer Check. I seek to analyze Hollywood horror films for the value they may pose to queer audiences. While adolescent males comprise the target demographic of most horror films, I question why queer viewers may be drawn to the horror genre and whether examples of transgressive monster queers exist. Ultimately, I advocate for a departure from the connotative “closet mentality” of queer depictions in horror, where identities beyond the heteronormative remain unspecified to shield mass audiences from queer themes. Suggestive queer elements charge viewers themselves to fill in the gaps left by narrative ellipses, creating a bigoted feedback loop which subconsciously equates queer identity with monstrous acts. Overt depictions of queerness, however, mean themes cannot be ignored or misinterpreted to the same extent as connotative ones

Sustained intraocular pressure reduction throughout the day with travoprost ophthalmic solution 0.004%

Harvey B Dubiner1, Robert Noecker21Clayton Eye Center, Morrow, GA; 2Ophthalmic Consultants of Connecticut, Fairfield, CT, USABackground: The purpose of this study was to characterize intraocular pressure (IOP) reduction throughout the day with travoprost ophthalmic solution 0.004% dosed once daily in the evening.Methods: The results of seven published, randomized clinical trials including at least one arm in which travoprost 0.004% was dosed once daily in the evening were integrated. Means (and standard deviations) of mean baseline and on-treatment IOP, as well as mean IOP reduction and mean percent IOP reduction at 0800, 1000, and 1600 hours at weeks 2 and 12 were calculated.Results: From a mean baseline IOP ranging from 25.0 to 27.2 mmHg, mean IOP on treatment ranged from 17.4 to 18.8 mmHg across all visits and time points. Mean IOP reductions from baseline ranged from 7.6 to 8.4 mmHg across visits and time points, representing a mean IOP reduction of 30%. Results of the safety analysis were consistent with the results from the individual studies for travoprost ophthalmic solution 0.004%, with ocular hyperemia being the most common side effect.Conclusion: Travoprost 0.004% dosed once daily in the evening provides sustained IOP reduction throughout the 24-hour dosing interval in subjects with ocular hypertension or open-angle glaucoma. No reduction of IOP-lowering efficacy was observed at the 1600-hour time point which approached the end of the dosing interval.Keywords: travoprost ophthalmic solution 0.004%, intraocular pressure reductio

SM Kaluza-Klein Excitations and Electroweak Precision Tests

We consider a minimal extension to higher dimensions of the Standard Model, having one compactified dimension, and we study its experimental tests in terms of electroweak data. We discuss tests from high-energy data at the $Z$-pole, and low-energy tests, notably from atomic parity violation data. This measurement combined with neutrino scattering data strongly restricts the allowed region of the model parameters. Furthermore this region is incompatible at 95% CL with the restrictions from high-energy experiments. Of course a global fit to all data is possible but the $\chi^2_{\rm min}$ for degree of freedom is unpleasantly large.Comment: LaTex, 14 pages, 2 figures. More refs. and one comment about the validity of our results for any number of extra dimensions adde