2,688 research outputs found
McRunjob: A High Energy Physics Workflow Planner for Grid Production Processing
McRunjob is a powerful grid workflow manager used to manage the generation of
large numbers of production processing jobs in High Energy Physics. In use at
both the DZero and CMS experiments, McRunjob has been used to manage large
Monte Carlo production processing since 1999 and is being extended to uses in
regular production processing for analysis and reconstruction. Described at
CHEP 2001, McRunjob converts core metadata into jobs submittable in a variety
of environments. The powerful core metadata description language includes
methods for converting the metadata into persistent forms, job descriptions,
multi-step workflows, and data provenance information. The language features
allow for structure in the metadata by including full expressions, namespaces,
functional dependencies, site specific parameters in a grid environment, and
ontological definitions. It also has simple control structures for
parallelization of large jobs. McRunjob features a modular design which allows
for easy expansion to new job description languages or new application level
tasks.Comment: CHEP 2003 serial number TUCT00
First-Principles Study of the Thermal Properties of Zr2C and Zr2CO
First-principles calculations of lattice thermal conductivities and thermodynamic properties of Zr2C and Zr2CO were performed using the quasi-harmonic approximation. Oxygen in the lattice gives Zr2CO higher bonding strength than Zr2C. Thus, the mechanical properties of Zr2C are enhanced when the vacancies in its crystal structure are filled with oxygen. Among the critical parameters that determine the lattice thermal conductivity, Zr2C has significantly higher Grüneisen parameters, thus Zr2C has lower lattice thermal conductivity than Zr2CO. In addition, Zr2CO has a higher heat capacity and thermal expansion coefficient than Zr2C at most temperatures. These results indicate that the addition of oxygen has increased the stiffness and thermal conductivity of zirconium carbide that contains a large fraction of carbon vacancies due to the filling of vacancies in the Zr2C lattice and the formation of Zr–O bonds
Early respiratory viral infections in infants with cystic fibrosis
This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Background
Viral infections contribute to morbidity in cystic fibrosis (CF), but the impact of respiratory viruses on the development of airway disease is poorly understood.
Methods
Infants with CF identified by newborn screening were enrolled prior to 4 months of age to participate in a prospective observational study at 4 centers. Clinical data were collected at clinic visits and weekly phone calls. Multiplex PCR assays were performed on nasopharyngeal swabs to detect respiratory viruses during routine visits and when symptomatic. Participants underwent bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and a subset underwent pulmonary function testing. We present findings through 8.5 months of life.
Results
Seventy infants were enrolled, mean age 3.1 ± 0.8 months. Rhinovirus was the most prevalent virus (66%), followed by parainfluenza (19%), and coronavirus (16%). Participants had a median of 1.5 viral positive swabs (range 0–10). Past viral infection was associated with elevated neutrophil concentrations and bacterial isolates in BAL fluid, including recovery of classic CF bacterial pathogens. When antibiotics were prescribed for respiratory-related indications, viruses were identified in 52% of those instances.
Conclusions
Early viral infections were associated with greater neutrophilic inflammation and bacterial pathogens. Early viral infections appear to contribute to initiation of lower airway inflammation in infants with CF. Antibiotics were commonly prescribed in the setting of a viral infection. Future investigations examining longitudinal relationships between viral infections, airway microbiome, and antibiotic use will allow us to elucidate the interplay between these factors in young children with CF
Land-Use Legacies Are Important Determinants of Lake Eutrophication in the Anthropocene
Background: A hallmark of the latter half of the 20 th century is the widespread, rapid intensification of a variety of anthropogenically-driven environmental changes—a ‘‘Great Acceleration.’ ’ While there is evidence of a Great Acceleration in a variety of factors known to be linked to water quality degradation, such as conversion of land to agriculture and intensification of fertilizer use, it is not known whether there has been a similar acceleration of freshwater eutrophication. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using quantitative reconstructions of diatom-inferred total phosphorus (DI-TP) as a proxy for lake trophic state, we synthesized results from 67 paleolimnological studies from across Europe and North America to evaluate whether most lakes showed a pattern of eutrophication with time and whether this trend was accelerated after 1945 CE, indicative of a Great Acceleration. We found that European lakes have experienced widespread increases in DI-TP over the 20 th century and that 33 % of these lakes show patterns consistent with a post-1945 CE Great Acceleration. In North America, the proportion of lakes that increased in DI-TP over time is much lower and only 9 % exhibited a Great Acceleration of eutrophication. Conclusions/Significance: The longer and more widespread history of anthropogenic influence in Europe, the leading cause for the relatively pervasive freshwater eutrophication, provides an important cautionary tale; our current path of intensive agriculture around the world may lead to an acceleration of eutrophication in downstream lakes that could tak
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Frontal brain asymmetry, childhood maltreatment, and low-grade inflammation at midlife
Frontal EEG asymmetry is thought to reflect variations in affective style, such that greater relative right frontal activity at rest predicts enhanced emotional responding to threatening or negative stimuli, and risk of depression and anxiety disorders. A diathesis-stress model has been proposed to explain how this neuro-affective style might predispose to psychopathology, with greater right frontal activity being a vulnerability factor especially under stressful conditions. Less is known about the extent to which greater relative right frontal activity at rest might be associated with or be a diathesis for deleterious physical health outcomes. The present study examined the association between resting frontal EEG asymmetry and systemic, low-grade inflammation and tested the diathesis-stress model by examining whether childhood maltreatment exposure interacts with resting frontal asymmetry in explaining inflammation. Resting EEG, serum inflammatory biomarkers (interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, and fibrinogen) and self-reported psychological measures were available for 314 middle-aged adults (age M = 55.3 years, SD = 11.2, 55.7% female). Analyses supported the diathesis-stress model and revealed that resting frontal EEG asymmetry was significantly associated with inflammation, but only in individuals who had experienced moderate to severe levels of childhood maltreatment. These findings suggest that, in the context of severe adversity, a trait-like tendency towards greater relative right prefrontal activity may predispose to low-grade inflammation, a risk factor for conditions with inflammatory underpinnings such as coronary heart disease
Rayleigh-Ritz Calculation of Effective Potential Far From Equilibrium
We demonstrate the utility of a Rayleigh-Ritz scheme recently proposed to
compute the nonequilibrium effective potential nonperturbatively in a strong
noise regime far from equilibrium. A simple Kramers model of an ionic conductor
is used to illustrate the efficiency of the method.Comment: 4 pages, Latex (Version 2.09), 2 figures (Postscript),
tar+gzip+uuencoded. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
The CMS Integration Grid Testbed
The CMS Integration Grid Testbed (IGT) comprises USCMS Tier-1 and Tier-2
hardware at the following sites: the California Institute of Technology, Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of California at San Diego, and
the University of Florida at Gainesville. The IGT runs jobs using the Globus
Toolkit with a DAGMan and Condor-G front end. The virtual organization (VO) is
managed using VO management scripts from the European Data Grid (EDG). Gridwide
monitoring is accomplished using local tools such as Ganglia interfaced into
the Globus Metadata Directory Service (MDS) and the agent based Mona Lisa.
Domain specific software is packaged and installed using the Distrib ution
After Release (DAR) tool of CMS, while middleware under the auspices of the
Virtual Data Toolkit (VDT) is distributed using Pacman. During a continuo us
two month span in Fall of 2002, over 1 million official CMS GEANT based Monte
Carlo events were generated and returned to CERN for analysis while being
demonstrated at SC2002. In this paper, we describe the process that led to one
of the world's first continuously available, functioning grids.Comment: CHEP 2003 MOCT01
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