The role of surface chemical reactivity in the stability of electronic nanodevices based on two-dimensional materials "beyond graphene" and topological insulators

Here, we examine the influence of surface chemical reactivity toward ambient gases on the performance of nanodevices based on two-dimensional materials "beyond graphene" and novel topological phases of matter. While surface oxidation in ambient conditions was observed for silicene and phosphorene with subsequent reduction of the mobility of charge carriers, nanodevices with active channels of indium selenide, bismuth chalcogenides and transition-metal dichalcogenides are stable in air. However, air-exposed indium selenide suffers of p-type doping due to water decomposition on Se vacancies, whereas the low mobility of charge carriers in transition-metal dichalcogenides increases the response time of nanodevices. Conversely, bismuth chalcogenides require a control of crystalline quality, which could represent a serious hurdle for up scaling

Depletion of Nonlinearity in Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence: Insights from Analysis and Simulations

We build on recent developments in the study of fluid turbulence [Gibbon \textit{et al.} Nonlinearity 27, 2605 (2014)] to define suitably scaled, order-$m$ moments, $D_m^{\pm}$, of $\omega^\pm= \omega \pm j$, where $\omega$ and $j$ are, respectively, the vorticity and current density in three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). We show by mathematical analysis, for unit magnetic Prandtl number $P_M$, how these moments can be used to identify three possible regimes for solutions of the MHD equations; these regimes are specified by inequalities for $D_m^{\pm}$ and $D_1^{\pm}$. We then compare our mathematical results with those from our direct numerical simulations (DNSs) and thus demonstrate that 3D MHD turbulence is like its fluid-turbulence counterpart insofar as all solutions, which we have investigated, remain in \textit{only one of these regimes}; this regime has depleted nonlinearity. We examine the implications of our results for the exponents $q^{\pm}$ that characterize the power-law dependences of the energy spectra $\mathcal{E}^{\pm}(k)$ on the wave number $k$, in the inertial range of scales. We also comment on (a) the generalization of our results to the case $P_M \neq 1$ and (b) the relation between $D_m^{\pm}$ and the order-$m$ moments of gradients of hydrodynamic fields, which are used in characterizing intermittency in turbulent flows.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Statistical Reliability Estimation of Microprocessor-Based Systems

What is the probability that the execution state of a given microprocessor running a given application is correct, in a certain working environment with a given soft-error rate? Trying to answer this question using fault injection can be very expensive and time consuming. This paper proposes the baseline for a new methodology, based on microprocessor error probability profiling, that aims at estimating fault injection results without the need of a typical fault injection setup. The proposed methodology is based on two main ideas: a one-time fault-injection analysis of the microprocessor architecture to characterize the probability of successful execution of each of its instructions in presence of a soft-error, and a static and very fast analysis of the control and data flow of the target software application to compute its probability of success. The presented work goes beyond the dependability evaluation problem; it also has the potential to become the backbone for new tools able to help engineers to choose the best hardware and software architecture to structurally maximize the probability of a correct execution of the target softwar

Analysis of cancellation in two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

A signed measure analysis of two-dimensional intermittent magnetohydrodynamic turbulence is presented. This kind of analysis is performed to characterize the scaling behavior of the sign-oscillating flow structures, and their geometrical properties. In particular, it is observed that cancellations between positive and negative contributions of the field inside structures, are inhibited for scales smaller than the Taylor microscale, and stop near the dissipative scale. Moreover, from a simple geometrical argument, the relationship between the cancellation exponent and the typical fractal dimension of the structures in the flow is obtained.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures (3 .jpg not included in the latex file

Using multi-level Petri nets models to simulate microbiota resistance to antibiotics

The spread of antibiotic resistance is a growing problem known to be caused by antibiotic usage itself. This problem can be analyzed at different levels. Antibiotic administration policies and practices affect the societal system, which is made by human individuals and by their relations. Individuals developing resistance interact with each other and with the environment while receiving antibiotic treatments moving the problem at a different level of analysis. Each individual can be further see as a meta-organism together with his associated microbiotas, which prove to have a prominent role in the resistance spreading dynamics. Eventually, in each microbiota, population dynamics and vertical or horizontal transfer events implement cellular and molecular mechanisms for resistance spreading and possibly for its prevention. Using the Nets-within-nets formalism, in this work we model the relation between different antibiotic administration protocols and resistance spread dynamics both at the human population and at the single microbiota level

Decay laws for three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

Decay laws for three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence are obtained from high-resolution numerical simulations using up to 512^3 modes...

Impact of COVID-19 on emergency department use among home care recipients

BACKGROUND: The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on Emergency Department (ED) was remarkable throughout Europe. We focused upon ED utilization among integrated home care (IHC) recipients comparing ED between pandemic period with pre-pandemic (February -December 2020 and 2019, respectively) in Piedmont, Italy. METHODS: A retrospective observational study was conducted. All recipients of IHC during the two periods studied were enrolled and all ED visits that occurred among IHC recipients were accounted for. Several variables related to IHC admission, reason of ED visits and demographic characteristics were collected. The average of ED visits in pre-pandemic and pandemic periods were calculated. Analyses were stratified by all variables. RESULTS: Patients enrolled were 11968 in 2019 and 8938 in 2020. In 2019, 3573 patients had at least one ED visit and 1668 patients in 2020. Number of ED visits was 5503 in 2019 and 2197 in 2020. The average of ED visits in 2020 has reduced in comparison with 2019 (0.464 C.I. [0.44-0.489] and 0.24 C.I. [0.227-0.252], p < 0.001 in 2019 and 2020 respectively). This reduction is regardless of sex, age, duration of IHC, presence of a non-family caregiver or reason for ED visits, except for abdominal pain, cardiac rhythm alteration and gynaecological symptoms. The averages of ED visits were significantly lower for IHC recipients with neoplasm (0.549 C.I. [0.513-0.585] and 0.328 C.I. [0.298-0.358], p < 0.001, and with low level of emergency (1.77 C.I. [1.662-1.877] and 1.397 C.I. [1.348-1.447], p < 0.036), but an increase in mortality rate was not registered. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed a reduction of ED visits among integrated home care recipients in pandemic period in comparison with pre-pandemic period. If the reduction can be the consequence of an unprepared health service that needs of necessary changes in its organization, these results suggest a great potential of the home care system to reduce the use of the hospital especially for low-risk conditions. KEY MESSAGES: • The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed health services of all European Countries. A reduced utilization of ED has been shown by literature, especially during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. • We showed a reduction in IHC recipients and a great decrease in ED visits among IHC patients in 2020 versus 2019, mainly in oncological patients, while an increase in mortality rate was not reported

Current-sheet formation in incompressible electron magnetohydrodynamics

The nonlinear dynamics of axisymmetric, as well as helical, frozen-in vortex structures is investigated by the Hamiltonian method in the framework of ideal incompressible electron magnetohydrodynamics. For description of current-sheet formation from a smooth initial magnetic field, local and nonlocal nonlinear approximations are introduced and partially analyzed that are generalizations of the previously known exactly solvable local model neglecting electron inertia. Finally, estimations are made that predict finite-time singularity formation for a class of hydrodynamic models intermediate between that local model and the Eulerian hydrodynamics.Comment: REVTEX4, 5 pages, no figures. Introduction rewritten, new material and references adde

ReNE: A Cytoscape Plugin for Regulatory Network Enhancement

One of the biggest challenges in the study of biological regulatory mechanisms is the integration, modeling, and analysis of the complex interactions which take place in biological networks. Despite post transcriptional regulatory elements (i.e., miRNAs) are widely investigated in current research, their usage and visualization in biological networks is very limited. Regulatory networks are commonly limited to gene entities. To integrate networks with post transcriptional regulatory data, researchers are therefore forced to manually resort to specific third party databases. In this context, we introduce ReNE, a Cytoscape 3.x plugin designed to automatically enrich a standard gene-based regulatory network with more detailed transcriptional, post transcriptional, and translational data, resulting in an enhanced network that more precisely models the actual biological regulatory mechanisms. ReNE can automatically import a network layout from the Reactome or KEGG repositories, or work with custom pathways described using a standard OWL/XML data format that the Cytoscape import procedure accepts. Moreover, ReNE allows researchers to merge multiple pathways coming from different sources. The merged network structure is normalized to guarantee a consistent and uniform description of the network nodes and edges and to enrich all integrated data with additional annotations retrieved from genome-wide databases like NCBI, thus producing a pathway fully manageable through the Cytoscape environment. The normalized network is then analyzed to include missing transcription factors, miRNAs, and proteins. The resulting enhanced network is still a fully functional Cytoscape network where each regulatory element (transcription factor, miRNA, gene, protein) and regulatory mechanism (up-regulation/down-regulation) is clearly visually identifiable, thus enabling a better visual understanding of its role and the effect in the network behavior. The enhanced network produced by ReNE is exportable in multiple formats for further analysis via third party applications. ReNE can be freely installed from the Cytoscape App Store (http://apps.cytoscape.org/apps/rene) and the full source code is freely available for download through a SVN repository accessible at http://www.sysbio.polito.it/tools_svn/Bi​oInformatics/Rene/releases/. ReNE enhances a network by only integrating data from public repositories, without any inference or prediction. The reliability of the introduced interactions only depends on the reliability of the source data, which is out of control of ReNe developers