The evolution of O2-producing cyanobacteria that use water as terminal reductant transformed Earth's atmosphere to one suitable for the evolution of aerobic metabolism and complex life. The ...innovation of water oxidation freed photosynthesis to invade new environments and visibly changed the face of the Earth. We offer a new hypothesis for how this process evolved, which identifies two critical roles for carbon dioxide in the Archean period. First, we present a thermodynamic analysis showing that bicarbonate (formed by dissolution of CO2) is a more efficient alternative substrate than water for O2 production by oxygenic phototrophs. This analysis clarifies the origin of the long debated "bicarbonate effect" on photosynthetic O2 production. We propose that bicarbonate was the thermodynamically preferred reductant before water in the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis. Second, we have examined the speciation of manganese(II) and bicarbonate in water, and find that they form Mn-bicarbonate clusters as the major species under conditions that model the chemistry of the Archean sea. These clusters have been found to be highly efficient precursors for the assembly of the tetramanganese-oxide core of the water-oxidizing enzyme during biogenesis. We show that these clusters can be oxidized at electrochemical potentials that are accessible to anoxygenic phototrophs and thus the most likely building blocks for assembly of the first O2 evolving photoreaction center, most likely originating from green nonsulfur bacteria before the evolution of cyanobacteria.
In this paper we propose a distributed architecture to provide machine learning practitioners with a set of tools and cloud services that cover the whole machine learning development cycle: ranging ...from the models creation, training, validation and testing to the models serving as a service, sharing and publication. In such respect, the DEEP-Hybrid-DataCloud framework allows transparent access to existing e-Infrastructures, effectively exploiting distributed resources for the most compute-intensive tasks coming from the machine learning development cycle. Moreover, it provides scientists with a set of Cloud-oriented services to make their models publicly available, by adopting a serverless architecture and a DevOps approach, allowing an easy share, publish and deploy of the developed models.
Nanostructured near-IR antireflective layer was produced on a GaAs slab surface by direct femtosecond laser fabrication of a surface diffraction grating. The single nanostructured layer on the GaAs ...slab reduces its total reflection at the wavelength λ ≈ 2.5 μm by 42 %, in agreement with the second-order approximation of the effective medium theory, with negligible increase of its absorbance.
This final article about the CHOOZ experiment presents a complete description of the \(\bar{\nu}_e\) source and detector, the calibration methods and stability checks, the event reconstruction ...procedures and the Monte Carlo simulation. The data analysis, systematic effects and the methods used to reach our conclusions are fully discussed. Some new remarks are presented on the deduction of the confidence limits and on the correct treatment of systematic errors.
Initial results are presented from CHOOZ
1
The CHOOZ experiment is named after the new nuclear power station operated by Électricité de France (EdF) near the village of Chooz in the Ardennes region ...of France.
1
, a long-baseline reactor-neutrino vacuum-oscillation experiment. The data reported here were taken during the period March to October 1997, when the two reactors ran at combined power levels varying from zero to values approaching their full rated power of 8.5
GW
(thermal). Electron antineutrinos from the reactors were detected by a liquid scintillation calorimeter located at a distance of about 1
km
. The detector was constructed in a tunnel protected from cosmic rays by a 300
MWE
rock overburden. This massive shielding strongly reduced potentially troublesome backgrounds due to cosmic-ray muons, leading to a background rate of about one event per day, more than an order of magnitude smaller than the observed neutrino signal. From the statistical agreement between detected and expected neutrino event rates, we find (at 90% confidence level) no evidence for neutrino oscillations in the
ν
e
disappearance mode for the parameter region given approximately by
Δm
2>0.9
10
−3
eV
2
for maximum mixing and sin
22
θ>0.18 for large
Δm
2.
Deep learning has been postulated as a solution for numerous problems in different branches of science. Given the resource-intensive nature of these models, they often need to be executed on ...specialized hardware such graphical processing units (GPUs) in a distributed manner. In the academic field, researchers get access to this kind of resources through High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters. This kind of infrastructures make the training of these models difficult due to their multi-user nature and limited user permission. In addition, different HPC clusters may possess different peculiarities that can entangle the research cycle (e.g., libraries dependencies). In this paper we develop a workflow and methodology for the distributed training of deep learning models in HPC clusters which provides researchers with a series of novel advantages. It relies on udocker as containerization tool and on Horovod as library for the distribution of the models across multiple GPUs. udocker does not need any special permission, allowing researchers to run the entire workflow without relying on any administrator. Horovod ensures the efficient distribution of the training independently of the deep learning framework used. Additionally, due to containerization and specific features of the workflow, it provides researchers with a cluster-agnostic way of running their models. The experiments carried out show that the workflow offers good scalability in the distributed training of the models and that it easily adapts to different clusters.
We present new results based on the entire CHOOZ (The CHOOZ experiment is named after the new nuclear power station operated by Électricité de France (EdF) near the village of Chooz in the Ardennes ...region of France) data sample. We find (at 90% confidence level) no evidence for neutrino oscillations in the
ν
̄
e
disappearance mode, for the parameter region given by approximately
δm
2>7·10
−4
eV
2
for maximum mixing, and sin
22
θ=0.10 for large
δm
2. Lower sensitivity results, based only on the comparison of the positron spectra from the two different-distance nuclear reactors, are also presented; these are independent of the absolute normalization of the
ν
̄
e
flux, the cross section, the number of target protons and the detector efficiencies.
Abstract
Dependences of a cryogenic slab radio-frequency discharge CO laser output power on a distance between mirrors of a hybrid negative-branch waveguide-unstable resonator were experimentally ...studied. The maximum output power was observed at the resonator length longer than the one calculated by taking into account the mirrors radii of curvature. Optimization of the resonator length made it possible to get the output power increase up to 20%–25%. The results obtained can be used for designing not only slab laser systems with hybrid waveguide-unstable resonators, but also for high-power lasers with full-sized negative-branch unstable ones.
The paper considers how cullet of different particle-size distribution affects the concrete strength. Experiments have proven that large-particle cullet (1.25 cm or larger) could be used as an ...aggregate; the concrete strength will be on par with those of ordinary natural/crushed sand concrete. The paper proves the feasibility of injecting highly dispersed silica fume in combination with effective polycarboxylate-based superplasticizers in cullet-based concrete mixtures. Highly dispersed silica fume will positively affect the strength characteristics of concrete, as silica fume in cement rock reacts with Са (ОН)2, which is released upon the hydration of the clinker minerals С3S and С2S; the reaction produces very strong compounds. Concretes containing up to 30% silica fume in combination with a superplasticizer will feature very high early strength. Use of strong aggregates with a 30% cullet content can produce strong concretes; after steamed, a concrete containing silica fume and polycarboxylate-based superplasticizer will reach 90% of the graded strength. Cement-rock microstructure studies show that the polymer component of the STACHEMENT 2280 superplasticizer will gradually transcend from the glass grains to the cement rock. The interface between the polymer-coated glass grains and the cement rock is blurred and barely present. This strengthens the glass-rock adhesion and improves the concrete strength. This is why cullet is recommended for use in the production of curb stones.
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