Firedrake Rathgeber, Florian; Ham, David A.; Mitchell, Lawrence ...
ACM transactions on mathematical software,
01/2017, Volume:
43, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Firedrake is a new tool for automating the numerical solution of partial differential equations. Firedrake adopts the domain-specific language for the finite element method of the FEniCS project, but ...with a pure Python runtime-only implementation centered on the composition of several existing and new abstractions for particular aspects of scientific computing. The result is a more complete separation of concerns that eases the incorporation of separate contributions from computer scientists, numerical analysts, and application specialists. These contributions may add functionality or improve performance.
Firedrake benefits from automatically applying new optimizations. This includes factorizing mixed function spaces, transforming and vectorizing inner loops, and intrinsically supporting block matrix operations. Importantly, Firedrake presents a simple public API for escaping the UFL abstraction. This allows users to implement common operations that fall outside of pure variational formulations, such as flux limiters.
This review aims to outline the most up-to-date knowledge of pancreatic adenocarcinoma risk, diagnostics, treatment and outcomes, while identifying gaps that aim to stimulate further research in this ...understudied malignancy. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is a lethal condition with a rising incidence, predicted to become the second leading cause of cancer death in some regions. It often presents at an advanced stage, which contributes to poor five-year survival rates of 2%-9%, ranking firmly last amongst all cancer sites in terms of prognostic outcomes for patients. Better understanding of the risk factors and symptoms associated with this disease is essential to inform both health professionals and the general population of potential preventive and/or early detection measures. The identification of high-risk patients who could benefit from screening to detect pre-malignant conditions such as pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia, intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms and mucinous cystic neoplasms is urgently required, however an acceptable screening test has yet to be identified. The management of pancreatic adenocarcinoma is evolving, with the introduction of new surgical techniques and medical therapies such as laparoscopic techniques and neo-adjuvant chemoradiotherapy, however this has only led to modest improvements in outcomes. The identification of novel biomarkers is desirable to move towards a precision medicine era, where pancreatic cancer therapy can be tailored to the individual patient, while unnecessary treatments that have negative consequences on quality of life could be prevented for others. Research efforts must also focus on the development of new agents and delivery systems. Overall, considerable progress is required to reduce the burden associated with pancreatic cancer. Recent, renewed efforts to fund large consortia and research into pancreatic adenocarcinoma are welcomed, but further streams will be necessary to facilitate the momentum needed to bring breakthroughs seen for other cancer sites.
Summary On the eve of the 2012 summer Olympic Games, the first Lancet Series on physical activity established that physical inactivity was a global pandemic, and global public health action was ...urgently needed. The present paper summarises progress on the topics covered in the first Series. In the past 4 years, more countries have been monitoring the prevalence of physical inactivity, although evidence of any improvements in prevalence is still scarce. According to emerging evidence on brain health, physical inactivity accounts for about 3·8% of cases of dementia worldwide. An increase in research on the correlates of physical activity in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) is providing a better evidence base for development of context-relevant interventions. A finding specific to LMICs was that physical inactivity was higher in urban ( vs rural) residents, which is a cause for concern because of the global trends toward urbanisation. A small but increasing number of intervention studies from LMICs provide initial evidence that community-based interventions can be effective. Although about 80% of countries reported having national physical activity policies or plans, such policies were operational in only about 56% of countries. There are important barriers to policy implementation that must be overcome before progress in increasing physical activity can be expected. Despite signs of progress, efforts to improve physical activity surveillance, research, capacity for intervention, and policy implementation are needed, especially among LMICs.
Robotics faces a long-standing obstacle in which the speed of the vision system’s scene understanding is insufficient, impeding the robot’s ability to perform agile tasks. Consequently, robots must ...often rely on interpolation and extrapolation of the vision data to accomplish tasks in a timely and effective manner. One of the primary reasons for these delays is the analog-to-digital conversion that occurs on a per-pixel basis across the image sensor, along with the transfer of pixel-intensity information to the host device. This results in significant delays and power consumption in modern visual processing pipelines. The SCAMP-5—a general-purpose Focal-plane Sensor-processor array (FPSP)—used in this research performs computations in the analog domain prior to analog-to-digital conversion. By extracting features from the image on the focal plane, the amount of data that needs to be digitised and transferred is reduced. This allows for a high frame rate and low energy consumption for the SCAMP-5. The focus of our work is on localising the camera within the scene, which is crucial for scene understanding and for any downstream robotics tasks. We present a localisation system that utilise the FPSP in two parts. First, a 6-DoF odometry system is introduced, which efficiently estimates its position against a known marker at over 400 FPS. Second, our work is extended to implement BIT-VO—6-DoF visual odometry system which operates under an unknown natural environment at 300 FPS.
Two dimensional atomically thin crystals of graphene and its insulating isomorph hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) are promising materials for spintronic applications. While graphene is an ideal medium ...for long distance spin transport, h-BN is an insulating tunnel barrier that has potential for efficient spin polarized tunneling from ferromagnets. Here, we demonstrate the spin filtering effect in cobalt|few layer h-BN|graphene junctions leading to a large negative spin polarization in graphene at room temperature. Through nonlocal pure spin transport and Hanle precession measurements performed on devices with different interface barrier conditions, we associate the negative spin polarization with high resistance few layer h-BN|ferromagnet contacts. Detailed bias and gate dependent measurements reinforce the robustness of the effect in our devices. These spintronic effects in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures hold promise for future spin based logic and memory applications.
Physical activity can improve cognitive and mental health, but the underlying mechanisms have not been established.
To present a conceptual model explaining the mechanisms for the effect of physical ...activity on cognitive and mental health in young people and to conduct a systematic review of the evidence.
Six electronic databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Ovid Medline, SportDiscus, and Embase) were used.
School-, home-, or community-based physical activity intervention or laboratory-based exercise interventions were assessed. Studies were eligible if they reported statistical analyses of changes in the following: (1) cognition or mental health; and (2) neurobiological, psychosocial, and behavioral mechanisms.
Data relating to methods, assessment period, participant characteristics, intervention type, setting, and facilitator/delivery were extracted.
Twenty-five articles reporting results from 22 studies were included. Mechanisms studied were neurobiological (6 studies), psychosocial (18 studies), and behavioral (2 studies). Significant changes in at least 1 potential neurobiological mechanism were reported in 5 studies, and significant effects for at least 1 cognitive outcome were also found in 5 studies. One of 2 studies reported a significant effect for self-regulation, but neither study reported a significant impact on mental health.
Small number of studies and high levels of study heterogeneity.
The strongest evidence was found for improvements in physical self-perceptions, which accompanied enhanced self-esteem in the majority of studies measuring these outcomes. Few studies examined neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms, and we were unable to draw conclusions regarding their role in enhancing cognitive and mental health.
The spin Hall angle (SHA) is a measure of the efficiency with which a transverse spin current is generated from a charge current by the spin-orbit coupling and disorder in the spin Hall effect (SHE). ...In a study of the SHE for a Pt|Py (Py=Ni_{80}Fe_{20}) bilayer using a first-principles scattering approach, we find a SHA that increases monotonically with temperature and is proportional to the resistivity for bulk Pt. By decomposing the room temperature SHE and inverse SHE currents into bulk and interface terms, we discover a giant interface SHA that dominates the total inverse SHE current with potentially major consequences for applications.
The conventional view of inflation in the Roman world, based on evidence from Roman Egypt, is that prices were steady from the middle of the first century AD until around AD 274, other than a ...doubling of prices between AD 160 and 190. By a quantitative treatment of the data for all available prices, and indicators of prices, this paper shows that this picture is broadly correct for wheat, but that prices for other goods increased throughout the period from AD 160 to 270. This pattern suggests that there were two co-existing market sectors. One for wheat, where prices appear to have been impacted by state action, and another where other commodities were left to find their own market level within a relatively free market.
There is increasing awareness that a broad range of gastrointestinal diseases, and some systemic diseases, are characterized by failure of the mucosal barrier. Bovine colostrum is a complex ...biological fluid replete with growth factors, nutrients, hormones, and paracrine factors which have a range of properties likely to contribute to mucosal healing in a wide range of infective, inflammatory, and injury conditions. In this review, we describe the anatomy and physiology of the intestinal barrier and how it may fail. We survey selected diseases in which disordered barrier function contributes to disease pathogenesis or progression, and review the evidence for or against efficacy of bovine colostrum in management. These disorders include enteropathy due to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), necrotizing enterocolitis, infectious diarrhea, intestinal failure, and damage due to cancer therapy. In animal models, bovine colostrum benefits NSAID enteropathy, IBD, and intestinal failure. In human trials, there is substantial evidence of efficacy of bovine colostrum in inflammatory bowel disease and in infectious diarrhea. Given the robust scientific rationale for using bovine colostrum as a promoter of mucosal healing, further work is needed to define its role in therapy.
Approximately 25% of the world's children aged <5 years have stunted growth, which is associated with increased mortality, cognitive dysfunction, and loss of productivity. Reducing by 40% the number ...of stunted children is a global target for 2030. The pathogenesis of stunting is poorly understood. Prenatal and postnatal nutritional deficits and enteric and systemic infections clearly contribute, but recent findings implicate a central role for environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), a generalized disturbance of small intestinal structure and function found at a high prevalence in children living under unsanitary conditions. Mechanisms contributing to growth failure in EED include intestinal leakiness and heightened permeability, gut inflammation, dysbiosis and bacterial translocation, systemic inflammation, and nutrient malabsorption. Because EED has multiple causal pathways, approaches to manage it need to be multifaceted. Potential interventions to tackle EED include: (1) reduction of exposure to feces and contact with animals through programs such as improved water, sanitation, and hygiene; (2) breastfeeding and enhanced dietary diversity; (3) probiotics and prebiotics; (4) nutrient supplements, including zinc, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and amino acids; (5) antiinflammatory agents such as 5-aminosalicyclic acid; and (6) antibiotics in the context of acute malnutrition and infection. Better understanding of the underlying causes of EED and development of noninvasive, practical, simple, and affordable point-of-care diagnostic tools remain key gaps. "Omics" technologies (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) and stable isotope techniques (eg,
C breath tests) targeted at children and their intestinal microbiota will enhance our ability to successfully identify, manage, and prevent this disorder.
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