Using FPGAs to prototype a self-timed floating point co-processor

Journal ArticleSelf- timed circuits offer advantages over their synchronously clocked counterparts in a number of situations. However, self-timed design techniques are not widely used at present for a variety of reasons. One reason for the lack of experimentation with self-timed systems is the lack of commercially available parts to support this style of design. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) offer an excellent alternative for the rapid development of novel system designs provided suitable circuit structures can be implemented. This paper describes a self-timed floating point co-processor built using a combination of Actel Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and semi-custom CMOS chips. This co-processor implements IEEE standard single precision floating point operations on 32-bit values. The control is completely self-timed. Data moves between parts of the circuit according to local constraints only: there is no global clock or global control circuit

Limitations of the forced heirship de lege lata and de lege ferenda

Slovenska ureditev nujnega dedovanja je kljub velikim družbenim spremembam v zadnjih štirih desetletjih ostala skorajda nespremenjena, zaradi česar se, tako kot tudi ponekod drugod po Evropi, pojavljajo težnje po spremembah tega področja, da bi normativno urejenost uskladili z dejanskimi potrebami in aktualno vrednostno podstatjo družbe. Zapustnik lahko načeloma prosto razpolaga s svojim premoženjem, pri tem pa je močno omejen z institutom nujnega dedovanja, ki mu onemogoča razpolagati z določenim delom njegovega premoženja in zagotavlja določenim zapustnikovim bližnjim določen delež na njegovem premoženju tudi proti njegovi volji, če ti bližnji niso dedno nevredni ali razdedinjeni. Ne glede na to ima zapustnik možnost izključiti nujne dediče od dedovanja z razdedinjenjem, vendar morajo biti pri tem izpolnjeni (izrecno določeni) pogoji, ki jih sodišča ozko razlagajo. Zaradi navedenih omejitev razpolaganja s premoženjem za primer smrti so nekateri zapustniki našli izhod v obligacijskih pogodbah z dednopravnimi učinki, ki jih uporabijo, ker želijo obiti kogentna pravila o nujnem dedovanju. Primerljive pravne ureditve kažejo na tendenco sprememb v smeri zmanjševanja višine nujnega deleža, oženja kroga nujnih dedičev ter širjenja možnosti razdedinjenja, vse z namenom večanja zapustnikove svobode razpolaganja s premoženjem, kar bi lahko smiselno podobno de lege ferenda uredila tudi Slovenija.Despite major social changes in the past forty years, the Slovenian regulation of the forced heirship remained almost unchanged. Like in some other European countries this has led to desires to changes in this field and appeals for adjustment of the normative regulation to the actual needs and current value system of the society. In principle deceased has his estate at his free disposal, but he is severely limited with the institute of the forced heirship, which disables him from free disposal of a part of his estate. As well the forced heirship provides a part of the deceased’s estate to the certain deceased\u27s relatives against his will, if these relatives are not unworthy to inherit or are nor disinherited. Despite the abovementioned, the deceased has a possibility to exclude the forced heirs from the inheritance with the disinheritance. However, certain conditions, expressly provided by the law and restrictively interpreted by the court, must be met. Due to abovementioned limitations of the disposal with the estate mortis causa some deceased found an exit in contractual obligations with certain inheritance effects, which they use when they want to avoid the peremptory norms of the forced heirship. Comparable law systems show a tendency of changes in direction of the diminution of the forced share, shortening the number of the forced heirs and expansion of the disinheritance’s conditions. All aiming for the extension of the deceased\u27s freedom of the disposal with his estate. This should be in similar manner de lege ferenda regulated in Slovenia

Haplotype-aware graph indexes

The variation graph toolkit (VG) represents genetic variation as a graph. Each path in the graph is a potential haplotype, though most paths are unlikely recombinations of true haplotypes. We augment the VG model with haplotype information to identify which paths are more likely to be correct. For this purpose, we develop a scalable implementation of the graph extension of the positional Burrows-Wheeler transform. We demonstrate the scalability of the new implementation by indexing the 1000 Genomes Project haplotypes. We also develop an algorithm for simplifying variation graphs for k-mer indexing without losing any k-mers in the haplotypes

Haplotype-aware graph indexes.

MOTIVATION: The variation graph toolkit (VG) represents genetic variation as a graph. Although each path in the graph is a potential haplotype, most paths are non-biological, unlikely recombinations of true haplotypes. RESULTS: We augment the VG model with haplotype information to identify which paths are more likely to exist in nature. For this purpose, we develop a scalable implementation of the graph extension of the positional Burrows-Wheeler transform. We demonstrate the scalability of the new implementation by building a whole-genome index of the 5008 haplotypes of the 1000 Genomes Project, and an index of all 108 070 Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine Freeze 5 chromosome 17 haplotypes. We also develop an algorithm for simplifying variation graphs for k-mer indexing without losing any k-mers in the haplotypes. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Our software is available at https://github.com/vgteam/vg, https://github.com/jltsiren/gbwt and https://github.com/jltsiren/gcsa2. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

PEEK: A Large Dataset of Learner Engagement with Educational Videos

Educational recommenders have received much less attention in comparison to e-commerce and entertainment-related recommenders, even though efficient intelligent tutors have great potential to improve learning gains. One of the main challenges in advancing this research direction is the scarcity of large, publicly available datasets. In this work, we release a large, novel dataset of learners engaging with educational videos in-the-wild. The dataset, named Personalised Educational Engagement with Knowledge Topics PEEK, is the first publicly available dataset of this nature. The video lectures have been associated with Wikipedia concepts related to the material of the lecture, thus providing a humanly intuitive taxonomy. We believe that granular learner engagement signals in unison with rich content representations will pave the way to building powerful personalization algorithms that will revolutionise educational and informational recommendation systems. Towards this goal, we 1) construct a novel dataset from a popular video lecture repository, 2) identify a set of benchmark algorithms to model engagement, and 3) run extensive experimentation on the PEEK dataset to demonstrate its value. Our experiments with the dataset show promise in building powerful informational recommender systems. The dataset and the support code is available publicly

ANO1 (TMEM16A) in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC)

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has one of the worst survival rates of all cancers. ANO1 (TMEM16A) is a recently identified Ca(2+)-activated Cl(−) channel (CaCC) that is upregulated in several tumors. Although ANO1 was subject to extensive studies in the recent years, its pathophysiological function has only been poorly understood. The aim of the present study is to establish the significance of ANO1 in PDAC behavior and demarcate its roles in PDAC from those of the volume-regulated anion channel (VRAC). We performed qPCR and Western blot measurements on different PDAC cell lines (Panc-1, Mia PaCa 2, Capan-1, AsPC-1, BxPC-3) and compared the results to those obtained in a human pancreatic ductal epithelium (HPDE) cell line. All cancer cell lines showed an upregulation of ANO1 on mRNA and protein levels. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings identified large Ca(2+) and voltage-dependent Cl(−) currents in PDAC cells. Using siRNA knockdown of ANO1 and three ANO1 inhibitors (T16A(inh)-A01, CaCC(inh)-A01, and NS3728), we found that ANO1 is the main constituent of CaCC current in PDAC cells. We further characterized these three inhibitors and found that they had unspecific effects on the free intracellular calcium concentration. Functional studies on PDAC behavior showed that surprisingly inhibition of ANO1 did not influence cellular proliferation. On the other hand, we found ANO1 channel to be pivotal in PDAC cell migration as assessed in wound healing experiments. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00424-014-1598-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Impact of colorectal cancer screening on cancer-specific mortality in Europe: A systematic review

Background: Populations differ with respect to their cancer risk and screening preferences, which may influence the performance of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening programs. This review aims to

The evolution of the cosmic molecular gas density

One of the last missing pieces in the puzzle of galaxy formation and evolution through cosmic history is a detailed picture of the role of the cold gas supply in the star-formation process. Cold gas is the fuel for star formation, and thus regulates the buildup of stellar mass, both through the amount of material present through a galaxy's gas mass fraction, and through the efficiency at which it is converted to stars. Over the last decade, important progress has been made in understanding the relative importance of these two factors along with the role of feedback, and the first measurements of the volume density of cold gas out to redshift 4, (the "cold gas history of the Universe") has been obtained. To match the precision of measurements of the star formation and black-hole accretion histories over the coming decades, a two orders of magnitude improvement in molecular line survey speeds is required compared to what is possible with current facilities. Possible pathways towards such large gains include significant upgrades to current facilities like ALMA by 2030 (and beyond), and eventually the construction of a new generation of radio-to-millimeter wavelength facilities, such as the next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) concept.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, Science White paper submitted to Astro2020 Decadal Surve