Convergent, Parallel and Correlated Evolution of Trophic Morphologies in the Subfamily Schizothoracinae from the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Delin; Chao, Yan; Guo, Songchang; Zhao, Lanying; Li, Taiping; Wei, Fulei; Zhao, Xinquan

2012-01-01

Schizothoracine fishes distributed in the water system of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau (QTP) and adjacent areas are characterized by being highly adaptive to the cold and hypoxic environment of the plateau, as well as by a high degree of diversity in trophic morphology due to resource polymorphisms. Although convergent and parallel evolution are prevalent in the organisms of the QTP, it remains unknown whether similar evolutionary patterns have occurred in the schizothoracine fishes. Here, we constructed for the first time a tentative molecular phylogeny of the schizothoracine fishes based on the complete sequences of the cytochrome b gene. We employed this molecular phylogenetic framework to examine the evolution of trophic morphologies. We used Pagel's maximum likelihood method to estimate the evolutionary associations of trophic morphologies and food resource use. Our results showed that the molecular and published morphological phylogenies of Schizothoracinae are partially incongruent with respect to some intergeneric relationships. The phylogenetic results revealed that four character states of five trophic morphologies and of food resource use evolved at least twice during the diversification of the subfamily. State transitions are the result of evolutionary patterns including either convergence or parallelism or both. Furthermore, our analyses indicate that some characters of trophic morphologies in the Schizothoracinae have undergone correlated evolution, which are somewhat correlated with different food resource uses. Collectively, our results reveal new examples of convergent and parallel evolution in the organisms of the QTP. The adaptation to different trophic niches through the modification of trophic morphologies and feeding behaviour as found in the schizothoracine fishes may account for the formation and maintenance of the high degree of diversity and radiations in fish communities endemic to QTP. PMID:22470515

Creationism in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

For decades, the creationist movement was primarily situated in the United States. Then, in the 1970s, American creationists found their ideas welcomed abroad, first in Australia and New Zealand, then in Korea, India, South Africa, Brazil, and elsewhere—including Europe, where creationism plays...... the teaching of creationism as a scientific discipline on an equal footing with the theory of evolution." Creationism in Europe offers a discerning introduction to the cultural history of modern Europe, the variety of worldviews in Europe, and the interplay of science and religion in a global context...

Parallel Evolution of Copy-Number Variation across Continents in Drosophila melanogaster

Science.gov (United States)

Schrider, Daniel R.; Hahn, Matthew W.; Begun, David J.

2016-01-01

Genetic differentiation across populations that is maintained in the presence of gene flow is a hallmark of spatially varying selection. In Drosophila melanogaster, the latitudinal clines across the eastern coasts of Australia and North America appear to be examples of this type of selection, with recent studies showing that a substantial portion of the D. melanogaster genome exhibits allele frequency differentiation with respect to latitude on both continents. As of yet there has been no genome-wide examination of differentiated copy-number variants (CNVs) in these geographic regions, despite their potential importance for phenotypic variation in Drosophila and other taxa. Here, we present an analysis of geographic variation in CNVs in D. melanogaster. We also present the first genomic analysis of geographic variation for copy-number variation in the sister species, D. simulans, in order to investigate patterns of parallel evolution in these close relatives. In D. melanogaster we find hundreds of CNVs, many of which show parallel patterns of geographic variation on both continents, lending support to the idea that they are influenced by spatially varying selection. These findings support the idea that polymorphic CNVs contribute to local adaptation in D. melanogaster. In contrast, we find very few CNVs in D. simulans that are geographically differentiated in parallel on both continents, consistent with earlier work suggesting that clinal patterns are weaker in this species. PMID:26809315

An anthropologist in parallel structure

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Noelle Molé Liston

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The essay examines the parallels between Molé Liston’s studies on labor and precarity in Italy and the United States’ anthropology job market. Probing the way economic shift reshaped the field of anthropology of Europe in the late 2000s, the piece explores how the neoliberalization of the American academy increased the value in studying the hardships and daily lives of non-western populations in Europe.

Darwin's concepts in a test tube: parallels between organismal and in vitro evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Díaz Arenas, Carolina; Lehman, Niles

2009-02-01

The evolutionary process as imagined by Darwin 150 years ago is evident not only in nature but also in the manner in which naked nucleic acids and proteins experience the "survival of the fittest" in the test tube during in vitro evolution. This review highlights some of the most apparent evolutionary patterns, such as directional selection, purifying selection, disruptive selection, and iterative evolution (recurrence), and draws parallels between what happens in the wild with whole organisms and what happens in the lab with molecules. Advances in molecular selection techniques, particularly with catalytic RNAs and DNAs, have accelerated in the last 20 years to the point where soon any sort of complex differential hereditary event that one can ascribe to natural populations will be observable in molecular populations, and exploitation of these events can even lead to practical applications in some cases.

Mixed-time parallel evolution in multiple quantum NMR experiments: sensitivity and resolution enhancement in heteronuclear NMR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ying Jinfa; Chill, Jordan H.; Louis, John M.; Bax, Ad

2007-01-01

A new strategy is demonstrated that simultaneously enhances sensitivity and resolution in three- or higher-dimensional heteronuclear multiple quantum NMR experiments. The approach, referred to as mixed-time parallel evolution (MT-PARE), utilizes evolution of chemical shifts of the spins participating in the multiple quantum coherence in parallel, thereby reducing signal losses relative to sequential evolution. The signal in a given PARE dimension, t 1 , is of a non-decaying constant-time nature for a duration that depends on the length of t 2 , and vice versa, prior to the onset of conventional exponential decay. Line shape simulations for the 1 H- 15 N PARE indicate that this strategy significantly enhances both sensitivity and resolution in the indirect 1 H dimension, and that the unusual signal decay profile results in acceptable line shapes. Incorporation of the MT-PARE approach into a 3D HMQC-NOESY experiment for measurement of H N -H N NOEs in KcsA in SDS micelles at 50 o C was found to increase the experimental sensitivity by a factor of 1.7±0.3 with a concomitant resolution increase in the indirectly detected 1 H dimension. The method is also demonstrated for a situation in which homonuclear 13 C- 13 C decoupling is required while measuring weak H3'-2'OH NOEs in an RNA oligomer

Rapid parallel evolution overcomes global honey bee parasite.

Science.gov (United States)

Oddie, Melissa; Büchler, Ralph; Dahle, Bjørn; Kovacic, Marin; Le Conte, Yves; Locke, Barbara; de Miranda, Joachim R; Mondet, Fanny; Neumann, Peter

2018-05-16

In eusocial insect colonies nestmates cooperate to combat parasites, a trait called social immunity. However, social immunity failed for Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) when the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor switched hosts from Eastern honey bees (Apis cerana). This mite has since become the most severe threat to A. mellifera world-wide. Despite this, some isolated A. mellifera populations are known to survive infestations by means of natural selection, largely by supressing mite reproduction, but the underlying mechanisms of this are poorly understood. Here, we show that a cost-effective social immunity mechanism has evolved rapidly and independently in four naturally V. destructor-surviving A. mellifera populations. Worker bees of all four 'surviving' populations uncapped/recapped worker brood cells more frequently and targeted mite-infested cells more effectively than workers in local susceptible colonies. Direct experiments confirmed the ability of uncapping/recapping to reduce mite reproductive success without sacrificing nestmates. Our results provide striking evidence that honey bees can overcome exotic parasites with simple qualitative and quantitative adaptive shifts in behaviour. Due to rapid, parallel evolution in four host populations this appears to be a key mechanism explaining survival of mite infested colonies.

Making sense of Islamic creationism in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Hameed, Salman

2015-05-01

Islamic creationism has been noted as a serious concern in Europe. There have been reports of boycotts of university evolution lectures and, in one extreme case, even a threat of violence. While religious objections are indeed at play in some cases, our understanding of the rise of Islamic creationism should also take into account socioeconomic disparities and its impact on education for Muslim minorities in Europe. Furthermore, the broader narrative of rejection of evolution in Europe, for some Muslims, may be bound up in reactions to the secular culture and in the formation of their own minority religious identity. On the other hand, the stories of Muslim rejection of evolution in media end up reinforcing the stereotype of Muslims as "outsiders" and a threat to the European education system. A nuanced understanding of this dynamic may benefit those who support both the propagation of good science and favor cultural pluralism. © The Author(s) 2014.

Silencing, positive selection and parallel evolution: busy history of primate cytochromes C.

Science.gov (United States)

Pierron, Denis; Opazo, Juan C; Heiske, Margit; Papper, Zack; Uddin, Monica; Chand, Gopi; Wildman, Derek E; Romero, Roberto; Goodman, Morris; Grossman, Lawrence I

2011-01-01

Cytochrome c (cyt c) participates in two crucial cellular processes, energy production and apoptosis, and unsurprisingly is a highly conserved protein. However, previous studies have reported for the primate lineage (i) loss of the paralogous testis isoform, (ii) an acceleration and then a deceleration of the amino acid replacement rate of the cyt c somatic isoform, and (iii) atypical biochemical behavior of human cyt c. To gain insight into the cause of these major evolutionary events, we have retraced the history of cyt c loci among primates. For testis cyt c, all primate sequences examined carry the same nonsense mutation, which suggests that silencing occurred before the primates diversified. For somatic cyt c, maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses yielded the same tree topology. The evolutionary analyses show that a fast accumulation of non-synonymous mutations (suggesting positive selection) occurred specifically on the anthropoid lineage root and then continued in parallel on the early catarrhini and platyrrhini stems. Analysis of evolutionary changes using the 3D structure suggests they are focused on the respiratory chain rather than on apoptosis or other cyt c functions. In agreement with previous biochemical studies, our results suggest that silencing of the cyt c testis isoform could be linked with the decrease of primate reproduction rate. Finally, the evolution of cyt c in the two sister anthropoid groups leads us to propose that somatic cyt c evolution may be related both to COX evolution and to the convergent brain and body mass enlargement in these two anthropoid clades.

Silencing, positive selection and parallel evolution: busy history of primate cytochromes C.

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Denis Pierron

Full Text Available Cytochrome c (cyt c participates in two crucial cellular processes, energy production and apoptosis, and unsurprisingly is a highly conserved protein. However, previous studies have reported for the primate lineage (i loss of the paralogous testis isoform, (ii an acceleration and then a deceleration of the amino acid replacement rate of the cyt c somatic isoform, and (iii atypical biochemical behavior of human cyt c. To gain insight into the cause of these major evolutionary events, we have retraced the history of cyt c loci among primates. For testis cyt c, all primate sequences examined carry the same nonsense mutation, which suggests that silencing occurred before the primates diversified. For somatic cyt c, maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses yielded the same tree topology. The evolutionary analyses show that a fast accumulation of non-synonymous mutations (suggesting positive selection occurred specifically on the anthropoid lineage root and then continued in parallel on the early catarrhini and platyrrhini stems. Analysis of evolutionary changes using the 3D structure suggests they are focused on the respiratory chain rather than on apoptosis or other cyt c functions. In agreement with previous biochemical studies, our results suggest that silencing of the cyt c testis isoform could be linked with the decrease of primate reproduction rate. Finally, the evolution of cyt c in the two sister anthropoid groups leads us to propose that somatic cyt c evolution may be related both to COX evolution and to the convergent brain and body mass enlargement in these two anthropoid clades.

PARALLEL EVOLUTION OF QUASI-SEPARATRIX LAYERS AND ACTIVE REGION UPFLOWS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mandrini, C. H.; Cristiani, G. D.; Nuevo, F. A.; Vásquez, A. M. [Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio (IAFE), UBA-CONICET, CC. 67, Suc. 28 Buenos Aires, 1428 (Argentina); Baker, D.; Driel-Gesztelyi, L. van [UCL-Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT (United Kingdom); Démoulin, P.; Pick, M. [Observatoire de Paris, LESIA, UMR 8109 (CNRS), F-92195 Meudon Principal Cedex (France); Vargas Domínguez, S. [Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá (Colombia)

2015-08-10

Persistent plasma upflows were observed with Hinode’s EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) at the edges of active region (AR) 10978 as it crossed the solar disk. We analyze the evolution of the photospheric magnetic and velocity fields of the AR, model its coronal magnetic field, and compute the location of magnetic null-points and quasi-sepratrix layers (QSLs) searching for the origin of EIS upflows. Magnetic reconnection at the computed null points cannot explain all of the observed EIS upflow regions. However, EIS upflows and QSLs are found to evolve in parallel, both temporarily and spatially. Sections of two sets of QSLs, called outer and inner, are found associated to EIS upflow streams having different characteristics. The reconnection process in the outer QSLs is forced by a large-scale photospheric flow pattern, which is present in the AR for several days. We propose a scenario in which upflows are observed, provided that a large enough asymmetry in plasma pressure exists between the pre-reconnection loops and lasts as long as a photospheric forcing is at work. A similar mechanism operates in the inner QSLs; in this case, it is forced by the emergence and evolution of the bipoles between the two main AR polarities. Our findings provide strong support for the results from previous individual case studies investigating the role of magnetic reconnection at QSLs as the origin of the upflowing plasma. Furthermore, we propose that persistent reconnection along QSLs does not only drive the EIS upflows, but is also responsible for the continuous metric radio noise-storm observed in AR 10978 along its disk transit by the Nançay Radio Heliograph.

Parallel evolution of TCP and B-class genes in Commelinaceae flower bilateral symmetry

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Preston Jill C

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Flower bilateral symmetry (zygomorphy has evolved multiple times independently across angiosperms and is correlated with increased pollinator specialization and speciation rates. Functional and expression analyses in distantly related core eudicots and monocots implicate independent recruitment of class II TCP genes in the evolution of flower bilateral symmetry. Furthermore, available evidence suggests that monocot flower bilateral symmetry might also have evolved through changes in B-class homeotic MADS-box gene function. Methods In order to test the non-exclusive hypotheses that changes in TCP and B-class gene developmental function underlie flower symmetry evolution in the monocot family Commelinaceae, we compared expression patterns of teosinte branched1 (TB1-like, DEFICIENS (DEF-like, and GLOBOSA (GLO-like genes in morphologically distinct bilaterally symmetrical flowers of Commelina communis and Commelina dianthifolia, and radially symmetrical flowers of Tradescantia pallida. Results Expression data demonstrate that TB1-like genes are asymmetrically expressed in tepals of bilaterally symmetrical Commelina, but not radially symmetrical Tradescantia, flowers. Furthermore, DEF-like genes are expressed in showy inner tepals, staminodes and stamens of all three species, but not in the distinct outer tepal-like ventral inner tepals of C. communis. Conclusions Together with other studies, these data suggest parallel recruitment of TB1-like genes in the independent evolution of flower bilateral symmetry at early stages of Commelina flower development, and the later stage homeotic transformation of C. communis inner tepals into outer tepals through the loss of DEF-like gene expression.

Evolution of democracy in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Oberoi, Mukesh K.

The emphasis of this thesis is to build an intuitive and robust GIS (Geographic Information systems) Tool which will give a survey on the evolution of democracy in European countries. The user can know about the evolution of the democratic histories of these countries by just clicking on them on the map. The information is provided in separate HTML pages which will give information about start of revolution, transition to democracy, current legislature, women's status in the country etc. There are two separate web pages for each country- one shows the detailed explanation on how democracy evolved in diff. countries and another page contains a timeline which holds key events of the evolution. The tool has been developed in JAVA. For the European map MOJO (Map Objects Java Objects) is used. MOJO is developed by ESRI. The major features shown on the European map were designed using MOJO. MOJO made it easy to incorporate the statistical data with these features. The user interface, as well as the language was intentionally kept simple and easy to use, to broaden the potential audience. To keep the user engaged, key aspects are explained using HTML pages. The idea is that users can view the timeline to get a quick overview and can go through the other html page to learn about things in more detail.

Improvement of remote monitoring on water quality in a subtropical reservoir by incorporating grammatical evolution with parallel genetic algorithms into satellite imagery.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Li; Tan, Chih-Hung; Kao, Shuh-Ji; Wang, Tai-Sheng

2008-01-01

Parallel GEGA was constructed by incorporating grammatical evolution (GE) into the parallel genetic algorithm (GA) to improve reservoir water quality monitoring based on remote sensing images. A cruise was conducted to ground-truth chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration longitudinally along the Feitsui Reservoir, the primary water supply for Taipei City in Taiwan. Empirical functions with multiple spectral parameters from the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) data were constructed. The GE, an evolutionary automatic programming type system, automatically discovers complex nonlinear mathematical relationships among observed Chl-a concentrations and remote-sensed imageries. A GA was used afterward with GE to optimize the appropriate function type. Various parallel subpopulations were processed to enhance search efficiency during the optimization procedure with GA. Compared with a traditional linear multiple regression (LMR), the performance of parallel GEGA was found to be better than that of the traditional LMR model with lower estimating errors.

A software for parameter optimization with Differential Evolution Entirely Parallel method

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Konstantin Kozlov

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Summary. Differential Evolution Entirely Parallel (DEEP package is a software for finding unknown real and integer parameters in dynamical models of biological processes by minimizing one or even several objective functions that measure the deviation of model solution from data. Numerical solutions provided by the most efficient global optimization methods are often problem-specific and cannot be easily adapted to other tasks. In contrast, DEEP allows a user to describe both mathematical model and objective function in any programming language, such as R, Octave or Python and others. Being implemented in C, DEEP demonstrates as good performance as the top three methods from CEC-2014 (Competition on evolutionary computation benchmark and was successfully applied to several biological problems. Availability. DEEP method is an open source and free software distributed under the terms of GPL licence version 3. The sources are available at http://deepmethod.sourceforge.net/ and binary packages for Fedora GNU/Linux are provided for RPM package manager at https://build.opensuse.org/project/repositories/home:mackoel:compbio.

Europa etnică O analiză a analogiilor şi contrastelor între Orient şi Occident (Ethnic Europe. An Analysis of the Analogies and Contrasts Between East and West

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Andreea ZAMFIRA

2013-11-01

Full Text Available This article aims at examining two types of similarities and dissimilarities between Central-Eastern Europe and Western Europe – similarities and dissimilarities that scientific literature put forward as analysis grid for the ethnic phenomenon. Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Spain are the main cases that we discuss within this article. For comparing them, several aspects are taken into consideration: the ethnogenesis or the formation process of ethnic minorities and of ethno-cultural identities; the evolution of the interethnic relations, of the relations between the “host” or “adoptive” State and the sub-national communities; the identity patterns and the ones of political representation today. The author’s leading conclusion is that the arguments one can generally use for constructing parallel monographs are not persuasive enough for sustaining a rigid separation between the two Europes.

Badlands: A parallel basin and landscape dynamics model

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T. Salles

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Over more than three decades, a number of numerical landscape evolution models (LEMs have been developed to study the combined effects of climate, sea-level, tectonics and sediments on Earth surface dynamics. Most of them are written in efficient programming languages, but often cannot be used on parallel architectures. Here, I present a LEM which ports a common core of accepted physical principles governing landscape evolution into a distributed memory parallel environment. Badlands (acronym for BAsin anD LANdscape DynamicS is an open-source, flexible, TIN-based landscape evolution model, built to simulate topography development at various space and time scales.

Land cover fire proneness in Europe

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Mario Gonzalez Pereira

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Aim of study: This study aims to identify and characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by forest fires in Europe. The characterization of the fuels is an important issue of the fire regime in each specific ecosystem while, on the other hand, fire is an important disturbance for global vegetation dynamics.Area of study: Southern European countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece.Material and Methods: Corine Land Cover maps for 2000 and 2006 (CLC2000, CLC2006 and burned area (BA perimeters, from 2000 to 2013 in Europe are combined to access the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by wild fires using descriptive statistics and Geographical Information System (GIS techniques.Main results: The spatial and temporal distribution of BA perimeters, vegetation and burnt vegetation by wild fires was performed and different statistics were obtained for Mediterranean and entire Europe, confirming the usefulness of the proposed land cover system. A fire proneness index is proposed to assess the fire selectivity of land cover classes. The index allowed to quantify and to compare the propensity of vegetation classes and countries to fire.Research highlights: The usefulness and efficiency of the land cover classification scheme and fire proneness index. The differences between northern Europe and southern Europe and among the Mediterranean region in what concerns to vegetation cover, fire incidence, area burnt in land cover classes and fire proneness between classes for the different countries.Keywords: Fire proneness; Mixed forests; Land cover/land use; Fire regime; Europe; GIS; Corine land cover. 

Parallel evolution of tetrodotoxin resistance in three voltage-gated sodium channel genes in the garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis.

Science.gov (United States)

McGlothlin, Joel W; Chuckalovcak, John P; Janes, Daniel E; Edwards, Scott V; Feldman, Chris R; Brodie, Edmund D; Pfrender, Michael E; Brodie, Edmund D

2014-11-01

Members of a gene family expressed in a single species often experience common selection pressures. Consequently, the molecular basis of complex adaptations may be expected to involve parallel evolutionary changes in multiple paralogs. Here, we use bacterial artificial chromosome library scans to investigate the evolution of the voltage-gated sodium channel (Nav) family in the garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis, a predator of highly toxic Taricha newts. Newts possess tetrodotoxin (TTX), which blocks Nav's, arresting action potentials in nerves and muscle. Some Thamnophis populations have evolved resistance to extremely high levels of TTX. Previous work has identified amino acid sites in the skeletal muscle sodium channel Nav1.4 that confer resistance to TTX and vary across populations. We identify parallel evolution of TTX resistance in two additional Nav paralogs, Nav1.6 and 1.7, which are known to be expressed in the peripheral nervous system and should thus be exposed to ingested TTX. Each paralog contains at least one TTX-resistant substitution identical to a substitution previously identified in Nav1.4. These sites are fixed across populations, suggesting that the resistant peripheral nerves antedate resistant muscle. In contrast, three sodium channels expressed solely in the central nervous system (Nav1.1-1.3) showed no evidence of TTX resistance, consistent with protection from toxins by the blood-brain barrier. We also report the exon-intron structure of six Nav paralogs, the first such analysis for snake genes. Our results demonstrate that the molecular basis of adaptation may be both repeatable across members of a gene family and predictable based on functional considerations. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Massively parallel Fokker-Planck code ALLAp

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Batishcheva, A.A.; Krasheninnikov, S.I.; Craddock, G.G.; Djordjevic, V.

1996-01-01

The recently developed for workstations Fokker-Planck code ALLA simulates the temporal evolution of 1V, 2V and 1D2V collisional edge plasmas. In this work we present the results of code parallelization on the CRI T3D massively parallel platform (ALLAp version). Simultaneously we benchmark the 1D2V parallel vesion against an analytic self-similar solution of the collisional kinetic equation. This test is not trivial as it demands a very strong spatial temperature and density variation within the simulation domain. (orig.)

Convergent Evolution of Hemoglobin Function in High-Altitude Andean Waterfowl Involves Limited Parallelism at the Molecular Sequence Level.

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Chandrasekhar Natarajan

2015-12-01

Full Text Available A fundamental question in evolutionary genetics concerns the extent to which adaptive phenotypic convergence is attributable to convergent or parallel changes at the molecular sequence level. Here we report a comparative analysis of hemoglobin (Hb function in eight phylogenetically replicated pairs of high- and low-altitude waterfowl taxa to test for convergence in the oxygenation properties of Hb, and to assess the extent to which convergence in biochemical phenotype is attributable to repeated amino acid replacements. Functional experiments on native Hb variants and protein engineering experiments based on site-directed mutagenesis revealed the phenotypic effects of specific amino acid replacements that were responsible for convergent increases in Hb-O2 affinity in multiple high-altitude taxa. In six of the eight taxon pairs, high-altitude taxa evolved derived increases in Hb-O2 affinity that were caused by a combination of unique replacements, parallel replacements (involving identical-by-state variants with independent mutational origins in different lineages, and collateral replacements (involving shared, identical-by-descent variants derived via introgressive hybridization. In genome scans of nucleotide differentiation involving high- and low-altitude populations of three separate species, function-altering amino acid polymorphisms in the globin genes emerged as highly significant outliers, providing independent evidence for adaptive divergence in Hb function. The experimental results demonstrate that convergent changes in protein function can occur through multiple historical paths, and can involve multiple possible mutations. Most cases of convergence in Hb function did not involve parallel substitutions and most parallel substitutions did not affect Hb-O2 affinity, indicating that the repeatability of phenotypic evolution does not require parallelism at the molecular level.

HARMONIZED EUROPE OR EUROPEAN HARMONY?

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Cosmin Marinescu

2007-07-01

Full Text Available Recent evolutions in Europe raise questions on the viability of the present economic and social model that defines the European construction project. In this paper, the author will try to explain the viability of institutional European model that sticks between free market mechanisms and protectionism. The main challenge for the EU is about the possibility to bring together the institutional convergence and the welfare for all Europeans. This is the result of the view, still dominant, of European politics elite, according to which institutional harmonization is the solution of a more dynamic and prosper Europe. But, economic realities convince us that, more and more, a harmonized, standardized Europe is not necessarily identical with a Europe of harmony and social cooperation. If „development through integration” seems to be harmonization through „institutional transplant”, how could then be the European model one sufficiently wide open to market, which creates the prosperity so long waited for by new member countries?

Parallel evolution under chemotherapy pressure in 29 breast cancer cell lines results in dissimilar mechanisms of resistance.

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Bálint Tegze

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Developing chemotherapy resistant cell lines can help to identify markers of resistance. Instead of using a panel of highly heterogeneous cell lines, we assumed that truly robust and convergent pattern of resistance can be identified in multiple parallel engineered derivatives of only a few parental cell lines. METHODS: Parallel cell populations were initiated for two breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 and these were treated independently for 18 months with doxorubicin or paclitaxel. IC50 values against 4 chemotherapy agents were determined to measure cross-resistance. Chromosomal instability and karyotypic changes were determined by cytogenetics. TaqMan RT-PCR measurements were performed for resistance-candidate genes. Pgp activity was measured by FACS. RESULTS: All together 16 doxorubicin- and 13 paclitaxel-treated cell lines were developed showing 2-46 fold and 3-28 fold increase in resistance, respectively. The RT-PCR and FACS analyses confirmed changes in tubulin isofom composition, TOP2A and MVP expression and activity of transport pumps (ABCB1, ABCG2. Cytogenetics showed less chromosomes but more structural aberrations in the resistant cells. CONCLUSION: We surpassed previous studies by parallel developing a massive number of cell lines to investigate chemoresistance. While the heterogeneity caused evolution of multiple resistant clones with different resistance characteristics, the activation of only a few mechanisms were sufficient in one cell line to achieve resistance.

An Integrated Analysis of Changes in Water Stress in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henrichs, T.; Lehner, B.; Alcamo, J.

2002-01-01

Future changes in water availability with climate change and changes in water use due to socio-economic development are to occur in parallel. In an integrated analysis we bring together these aspects of global change in a consistent manner, and analyse the water stress situation in Europe. We find...... that today high water stress exists in one-fifth of European river basin area. Under a scenario projection, increases in water use throughout Eastern Europe are accompanied by decreases in water availability in most of Southern Europe--combining these trends leads to a marked increase in water stress...

Molecular and morphological systematics of the Ellisellidae (Coelenterata: Octocorallia): Parallel evolution in a globally distributed family of octocorals

KAUST Repository

Bilewitch, Jaret P.

2014-04-01

The octocorals of the Ellisellidae constitute a diverse and widely distributed family with subdivisions into genera based on colonial growth forms. Branching patterns are repeated in several genera and congeners often display region-specific variations in a given growth form. We examined the systematic patterns of ellisellid genera and the evolution of branching form diversity using molecular phylogenetic and ancestral morphological reconstructions. Six of eight included genera were found to be polyphyletic due to biogeographical incompatibility with current taxonomic assignments and the creation of at least six new genera plus several reassignments among existing genera is necessary. Phylogenetic patterns of diversification of colony branching morphology displayed a similar transformation order in each of the two primary ellisellid clades, with a sea fan form estimated as the most-probable common ancestor with likely origins in the Indo-Pacific region. The observed parallelism in evolution indicates the existence of a constraint on the genetic elements determining ellisellid colonial morphology. However, the lack of correspondence between levels of genetic divergence and morphological diversity among genera suggests that future octocoral studies should focus on the role of changes in gene regulation in the evolution of branching patterns. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.

Molecular and morphological systematics of the Ellisellidae (Coelenterata: Octocorallia): Parallel evolution in a globally distributed family of octocorals

KAUST Repository

Bilewitch, Jaret P.; Ekins, Merrick; Hooper, John; Degnan, Sandie M.

2014-01-01

The octocorals of the Ellisellidae constitute a diverse and widely distributed family with subdivisions into genera based on colonial growth forms. Branching patterns are repeated in several genera and congeners often display region-specific variations in a given growth form. We examined the systematic patterns of ellisellid genera and the evolution of branching form diversity using molecular phylogenetic and ancestral morphological reconstructions. Six of eight included genera were found to be polyphyletic due to biogeographical incompatibility with current taxonomic assignments and the creation of at least six new genera plus several reassignments among existing genera is necessary. Phylogenetic patterns of diversification of colony branching morphology displayed a similar transformation order in each of the two primary ellisellid clades, with a sea fan form estimated as the most-probable common ancestor with likely origins in the Indo-Pacific region. The observed parallelism in evolution indicates the existence of a constraint on the genetic elements determining ellisellid colonial morphology. However, the lack of correspondence between levels of genetic divergence and morphological diversity among genera suggests that future octocoral studies should focus on the role of changes in gene regulation in the evolution of branching patterns. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.

Parallel kinematics type, kinematics, and optimal design

CERN Document Server

Liu, Xin-Jun

2014-01-01

Parallel Kinematics- Type, Kinematics, and Optimal Design presents the results of 15 year's research on parallel mechanisms and parallel kinematics machines. This book covers the systematic classification of parallel mechanisms (PMs) as well as providing a large number of mechanical architectures of PMs available for use in practical applications. It focuses on the kinematic design of parallel robots. One successful application of parallel mechanisms in the field of machine tools, which is also called parallel kinematics machines, has been the emerging trend in advanced machine tools. The book describes not only the main aspects and important topics in parallel kinematics, but also references novel concepts and approaches, i.e. type synthesis based on evolution, performance evaluation and optimization based on screw theory, singularity model taking into account motion and force transmissibility, and others.   This book is intended for researchers, scientists, engineers and postgraduates or above with interes...

Mammal body size evolution in North America and Europe over 20 Myr: similar trends generated by different processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Shan; Eronen, Jussi T; Janis, Christine M; Saarinen, Juha J; Silvestro, Daniele; Fritz, Susanne A

2017-02-22

Because body size interacts with many fundamental biological properties of a species, body size evolution can be an essential component of the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Here we investigate how body size evolution can be linked to the clade-specific diversification dynamics in different geographical regions. We analyse an extensive body size dataset of Neogene large herbivores (covering approx. 50% of the 970 species in the orders Artiodactyla and Perissodactyla) in Europe and North America in a Bayesian framework. We reconstruct the temporal patterns of body size in each order on each continent independently, and find significant increases of minimum size in three of the continental assemblages (except European perissodactyls), suggesting an active selection for larger bodies. Assessment of trait-correlated birth-death models indicates that the common trend of body size increase is generated by different processes in different clades and regions. Larger-bodied artiodactyl species on both continents tend to have higher origination rates, and both clades in North America show strong links between large bodies and low extinction rate. Collectively, our results suggest a strong role of species selection and perhaps of higher-taxon sorting in driving body size evolution, and highlight the value of investigating evolutionary processes in a biogeographic context. © 2017 The Author(s).

Argentina's experience with parallel exchange markets: 1981-1990

OpenAIRE

Steven B. Kamin

1991-01-01

This paper surveys the development and operation of the parallel exchange market in Argentina during the 1980s, and evaluates its impact upon macroeconomic performance and policy. The historical evolution of Argentina's exchange market policies is reviewed in order to understand the government's motives for imposing exchange controls. The parallel exchange market engendered by these controls is then analyzed, and econometric methods are used to evaluate the behavior of the parallel exchange r...

Parallel evolution of a type IV secretion system in radiating lineages of the host-restricted bacterial pathogen Bartonella.

Science.gov (United States)

Engel, Philipp; Salzburger, Walter; Liesch, Marius; Chang, Chao-Chin; Maruyama, Soichi; Lanz, Christa; Calteau, Alexandra; Lajus, Aurélie; Médigue, Claudine; Schuster, Stephan C; Dehio, Christoph

2011-02-10

Adaptive radiation is the rapid origination of multiple species from a single ancestor as the result of concurrent adaptation to disparate environments. This fundamental evolutionary process is considered to be responsible for the genesis of a great portion of the diversity of life. Bacteria have evolved enormous biological diversity by exploiting an exceptional range of environments, yet diversification of bacteria via adaptive radiation has been documented in a few cases only and the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. Here we show a compelling example of adaptive radiation in pathogenic bacteria and reveal their genetic basis. Our evolutionary genomic analyses of the α-proteobacterial genus Bartonella uncover two parallel adaptive radiations within these host-restricted mammalian pathogens. We identify a horizontally-acquired protein secretion system, which has evolved to target specific bacterial effector proteins into host cells as the evolutionary key innovation triggering these parallel adaptive radiations. We show that the functional versatility and adaptive potential of the VirB type IV secretion system (T4SS), and thereby translocated Bartonella effector proteins (Beps), evolved in parallel in the two lineages prior to their radiations. Independent chromosomal fixation of the virB operon and consecutive rounds of lineage-specific bep gene duplications followed by their functional diversification characterize these parallel evolutionary trajectories. Whereas most Beps maintained their ancestral domain constitution, strikingly, a novel type of effector protein emerged convergently in both lineages. This resulted in similar arrays of host cell-targeted effector proteins in the two lineages of Bartonella as the basis of their independent radiation. The parallel molecular evolution of the VirB/Bep system displays a striking example of a key innovation involved in independent adaptive processes and the emergence of bacterial pathogens

Evolution of External Consultant Involvement in Human Resource Management in Eastern Europe (1990-2007

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

József Poór

2015-03-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to analyze the evolution of Human Resources (HR consulting in transitional economies of Eastern Europe (EE from the political changes till the economic crisis (2008. This article provides insights into the specific socio-economic environment and HR practice of the region.  Following Markham's model (1999 we analyze specific characteristics of four typical ways of external consultant involvement: informative-becnhmarking, design, change and organizational learning consulting.  in this region. In general, before the political changes at the end of the 1980's, in most EE countries , consulting service was redendered by sector  research institutes, controlled by the state or by the different minsitries. Consulting approach in EE countries  were predominant similar to the school of scientific management. HR consulting hardly existed that time. Since changes in the regime's consulting linked to privatization, firm restructuring, and development has been developing significantly in all countries of the region. HR consulting underwent a significant development in the region.

Curious parallels and curious connections--phylogenetic thinking in biology and historical linguistics.

Science.gov (United States)

Atkinson, Quentin D; Gray, Russell D

2005-08-01

In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin observed "curious parallels" between the processes of biological and linguistic evolution. These parallels mean that evolutionary biologists and historical linguists seek answers to similar questions and face similar problems. As a result, the theory and methodology of the two disciplines have evolved in remarkably similar ways. In addition to Darwin's curious parallels of process, there are a number of equally curious parallels and connections between the development of methods in biology and historical linguistics. Here we briefly review the parallels between biological and linguistic evolution and contrast the historical development of phylogenetic methods in the two disciplines. We then look at a number of recent studies that have applied phylogenetic methods to language data and outline some current problems shared by the two fields.

The security of energy supplies in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vuillemin, Francois

2002-01-01

As an attempt occurred against a French oil tanker in the Persian Gulf (in 2002), and showed that security of oil supplies is not only related to oil shock or to political environment such as the Cold War, this article discusses issues of security for European energy supplies. It first addresses the situation and the evolution of energy needs and resources in the World and in Europe: predictions of evolution of consumption and production, major role of fossil fuels in the European consumption. It discusses the outage risks: the supply security can be analysed with respect to consumption per sector, per usage or per energy product, and Europe must face three major risks (no more hydrocarbon resources at a reasonable cost, economic risk due to market volatility, geopolitical risk). The next part discusses the perspective of a European strategy. It identifies several elements of choice for Europe in terms of energy demand management, of opening up to competition of electricity and gas markets. It discusses European ambitions in terms of supply security: need of a community framework, actual propositions of a directive for oil and gas

Parallel programming with Easy Java Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Esquembre, F.; Christian, W.; Belloni, M.

2018-01-01

Nearly all of today's processors are multicore, and ideally programming and algorithm development utilizing the entire processor should be introduced early in the computational physics curriculum. Parallel programming is often not introduced because it requires a new programming environment and uses constructs that are unfamiliar to many teachers. We describe how we decrease the barrier to parallel programming by using a java-based programming environment to treat problems in the usual undergraduate curriculum. We use the easy java simulations programming and authoring tool to create the program's graphical user interface together with objects based on those developed by Kaminsky [Building Parallel Programs (Course Technology, Boston, 2010)] to handle common parallel programming tasks. Shared-memory parallel implementations of physics problems, such as time evolution of the Schrödinger equation, are available as source code and as ready-to-run programs from the AAPT-ComPADRE digital library.

Parallel and convergent evolution of the dim-light vision gene RH1 in bats (Order: Chiroptera).

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Yong-Yi; Liu, Jie; Irwin, David M; Zhang, Ya-Ping

2010-01-21

Rhodopsin, encoded by the gene Rhodopsin (RH1), is extremely sensitive to light, and is responsible for dim-light vision. Bats are nocturnal mammals that inhabit poor light environments. Megabats (Old-World fruit bats) generally have well-developed eyes, while microbats (insectivorous bats) have developed echolocation and in general their eyes were degraded, however, dramatic differences in the eyes, and their reliance on vision, exist in this group. In this study, we examined the rod opsin gene (RH1), and compared its evolution to that of two cone opsin genes (SWS1 and M/LWS). While phylogenetic reconstruction with the cone opsin genes SWS1 and M/LWS generated a species tree in accord with expectations, the RH1 gene tree united Pteropodidae (Old-World fruit bats) and Yangochiroptera, with very high bootstrap values, suggesting the possibility of convergent evolution. The hypothesis of convergent evolution was further supported when nonsynonymous sites or amino acid sequences were used to construct phylogenies. Reconstructed RH1 sequences at internal nodes of the bat species phylogeny showed that: (1) Old-World fruit bats share an amino acid change (S270G) with the tomb bat; (2) Miniopterus share two amino acid changes (V104I, M183L) with Rhinolophoidea; (3) the amino acid replacement I123V occurred independently on four branches, and the replacements L99M, L266V and I286V occurred each on two branches. The multiple parallel amino acid replacements that occurred in the evolution of bat RH1 suggest the possibility of multiple convergences of their ecological specialization (i.e., various photic environments) during adaptation for the nocturnal lifestyle, and suggest that further attention is needed on the study of the ecology and behavior of bats.

2010-2014: A Comparative Evolution of Sustainability Reporting and Its Assurance in Europe and the U.S.A.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tînjală Diana-Maria

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The concept of sustainability has evolved to encompass environmental, social and governance issues regarding corporate behaviour. For the last few years, stakeholders have begun putting pressure on companies to report on sustainability issues. Several national and international regulations and standards have been adopted to guide companies in their reporting. To ensure the accuracy and comparability of non-financial data needed for the stakeholders' decision making process, there is an increasing preference for the external assurance of sustainability reporting. The internationally recognized CSR report assurance standards are the International Standard on Assurance Engagements, ISAE 3000, and AccountAbility's AA1000 Assurance Standard (AA1000AS. This study focuses on the evolution of corporate sustainability reporting, using two non-financial indicators: ESG reporting, and Assurance of ESG reporting. The data for the study is based on content analysis of both CSR reports and corporate websites, courtesy of Sustainalytics. We assessed the evolution of the two indicators from June 2010 to February 2014, for 50 listed European companies and 50 American ones. The comparative approach illustrates the different evolutions of sustainability in Europe and the USA, emphasising the need for stronger regulations and guidelines in the USA, similar to those already implemented in European Countries. For the selected time period, US companies are shown to be worse reporters than European ones, having a negligible number of reports externally verified.

Creationism in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blancke, Stefaan; Hjermitslev, Hans Henrik; Braeckman, Johan

2013-01-01

which material is missing from the literature (the “gaps”) and signal which gaps we think should first be filled. Third, on the basis of a forthcoming international historical study, we outline the possible factors that affect the popularity of creationism in Europe (the “prospects”). We also sketch how...... a sustained study of European creationism can contribute to other research domains such as the study of cultural evolution and the relation between science and religion....

Patient education in Europe: united differences.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Visser, S.; Deccache, A.; Bensing, J.

2001-01-01

This issue of Patient Education and Counseling presents the state of the art of patient education in several European countries. It is based on papers presented at a meeting in Paris on the evolution and development of patient education in western, central and eastern Europe (May 1999). Also patient

Patient education in Europe: united differences

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Visser, Adriaan; Deccache, A.; Bensing, J.

2001-01-01

This issue of Patient Education and Counseling presents the state of the art of patient education in several European countries. It is based on papers presented at a meeting in Paris on the evolution and development of patient education in western, central and eastern Europe (May 1999). Also

Myxomatosis in Australia and Europe: a model for emerging infectious diseases.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerr, Peter J

2012-03-01

Myxoma virus is a poxvirus naturally found in two American leporid (rabbit) species (Sylvilagus brasiliensis and Sylvilagus bachmani) in which it causes an innocuous localised cutaneous fibroma. However, in European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) the same virus causes the lethal disseminated disease myxomatosis. The introduction of myxoma virus into the European rabbit population in Australia in 1950 initiated the best known example of what happens when a novel pathogen jumps into a completely naïve new mammalian host species. The short generation time of the rabbit and their vast numbers in Australia meant evolution could be studied in real time. The carefully documented emergence of attenuated strains of virus that were more effectively transmitted by the mosquito vector and the subsequent selection of rabbits with genetic resistance to myxomatosis is the paradigm for pathogen virulence and host-pathogen coevolution. This natural experiment was repeated with the release of a separate strain of myxoma virus in France in 1952. The subsequent spread of the virus throughout Europe and its coevolution with the rabbit essentially paralleled what occurred in Australia. Detailed molecular studies on myxoma virus have dissected the role of virulence genes in the pathogenesis of myxomatosis and when combined with genomic data and reverse genetics should in future enable the understanding of the molecular evolution of the virus as it adapted to its new host. This review describes the natural history and evolution of myxoma virus together with the molecular biology and experimental pathogenesis studies that are informing our understanding of evolution of emerging diseases. Crown Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On long-term evolution of seasonal precipitation in southwestern Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Valero

1996-09-01

Full Text Available Annual cycles in long time series of precipitation from sixteen southwest European observatories have been analysed using complex demodulation. The stations have been clustered into two distinct regions and a hybrid one. They are referred to as the southwestern Europe precipitation Atlantic regime (SEPAR and the southwestern Europe precipitation Mediterranean regime (SEPMER, with the hybrid regime referred to in terms of the mean amplitude ratios between semiannual and annual rainfall components. Some evidence of linking between seasonal cycle harmonic amplitudes and the zonal circulation has been found for SEPAR stations and a more obscured relationship for the SEPMER region. Within the SEPAR region the strength of the relationship is diminished towards the north. A trend analysis of the amplitudes against time since 1920 has also been carried out and the results reveal a divergent pattern in trends between annual and semiannual component amplitudes for the SEPAR region. In fact, both an increasing annual-amplitude trend and a decreasing semiannual-amplitude trend are observed, in each case statistically significant. The fact that the seasonal cycle variability of rainfall in southwestern Europe becomes more sensitive southwards to changes in atmospheric zonal circulation over the North Atlantic might, in our opinion, be related to the swing of the circumpolar vortex.

Parallel Evolution of a Type IV Secretion System in Radiating Lineages of the Host-Restricted Bacterial Pathogen Bartonella

Science.gov (United States)

Engel, Philipp; Salzburger, Walter; Liesch, Marius; Chang, Chao-Chin; Maruyama, Soichi; Lanz, Christa; Calteau, Alexandra; Lajus, Aurélie; Médigue, Claudine; Schuster, Stephan C.; Dehio, Christoph

2011-01-01

Adaptive radiation is the rapid origination of multiple species from a single ancestor as the result of concurrent adaptation to disparate environments. This fundamental evolutionary process is considered to be responsible for the genesis of a great portion of the diversity of life. Bacteria have evolved enormous biological diversity by exploiting an exceptional range of environments, yet diversification of bacteria via adaptive radiation has been documented in a few cases only and the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. Here we show a compelling example of adaptive radiation in pathogenic bacteria and reveal their genetic basis. Our evolutionary genomic analyses of the α-proteobacterial genus Bartonella uncover two parallel adaptive radiations within these host-restricted mammalian pathogens. We identify a horizontally-acquired protein secretion system, which has evolved to target specific bacterial effector proteins into host cells as the evolutionary key innovation triggering these parallel adaptive radiations. We show that the functional versatility and adaptive potential of the VirB type IV secretion system (T4SS), and thereby translocated Bartonella effector proteins (Beps), evolved in parallel in the two lineages prior to their radiations. Independent chromosomal fixation of the virB operon and consecutive rounds of lineage-specific bep gene duplications followed by their functional diversification characterize these parallel evolutionary trajectories. Whereas most Beps maintained their ancestral domain constitution, strikingly, a novel type of effector protein emerged convergently in both lineages. This resulted in similar arrays of host cell-targeted effector proteins in the two lineages of Bartonella as the basis of their independent radiation. The parallel molecular evolution of the VirB/Bep system displays a striking example of a key innovation involved in independent adaptive processes and the emergence of bacterial pathogens

Parallel evolution of a type IV secretion system in radiating lineages of the host-restricted bacterial pathogen Bartonella.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philipp Engel

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Adaptive radiation is the rapid origination of multiple species from a single ancestor as the result of concurrent adaptation to disparate environments. This fundamental evolutionary process is considered to be responsible for the genesis of a great portion of the diversity of life. Bacteria have evolved enormous biological diversity by exploiting an exceptional range of environments, yet diversification of bacteria via adaptive radiation has been documented in a few cases only and the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. Here we show a compelling example of adaptive radiation in pathogenic bacteria and reveal their genetic basis. Our evolutionary genomic analyses of the α-proteobacterial genus Bartonella uncover two parallel adaptive radiations within these host-restricted mammalian pathogens. We identify a horizontally-acquired protein secretion system, which has evolved to target specific bacterial effector proteins into host cells as the evolutionary key innovation triggering these parallel adaptive radiations. We show that the functional versatility and adaptive potential of the VirB type IV secretion system (T4SS, and thereby translocated Bartonella effector proteins (Beps, evolved in parallel in the two lineages prior to their radiations. Independent chromosomal fixation of the virB operon and consecutive rounds of lineage-specific bep gene duplications followed by their functional diversification characterize these parallel evolutionary trajectories. Whereas most Beps maintained their ancestral domain constitution, strikingly, a novel type of effector protein emerged convergently in both lineages. This resulted in similar arrays of host cell-targeted effector proteins in the two lineages of Bartonella as the basis of their independent radiation. The parallel molecular evolution of the VirB/Bep system displays a striking example of a key innovation involved in independent adaptive processes and the emergence of bacterial

Identification of Novel Betaherpesviruses in Iberian Bats Reveals Parallel Evolution.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Pozo

Full Text Available A thorough search for bat herpesviruses was carried out in oropharyngeal samples taken from most of the bat species present in the Iberian Peninsula from the Vespertilionidae, Miniopteridae, Molossidae and Rhinolophidae families, in addition to a colony of captive fruit bats from the Pteropodidae family. By using two degenerate consensus PCR methods targeting two conserved genes, distinct and previously unrecognized bat-hosted herpesviruses were identified for the most of the tested species. All together a total of 42 potentially novel bat herpesviruses were partially characterized. Thirty-two of them were tentatively assigned to the Betaherpesvirinae subfamily while the remaining 10 were allocated into the Gammaherpesvirinae subfamily. Significant diversity was observed among the novel sequences when compared with type herpesvirus species of the ICTV-approved genera. The inferred phylogenetic relationships showed that most of the betaherpesviruses sequences fell into a well-supported unique monophyletic clade and support the recognition of a new betaherpesvirus genus. This clade is subdivided into three major clades, corresponding to the families of bats studied. This supports the hypothesis of a species-specific parallel evolution process between the potentially new betaherpesviruses and their bat hosts. Interestingly, two of the betaherpesviruses' sequences detected in rhinolophid bats clustered together apart from the rest, closely related to viruses that belong to the Roseolovirus genus. This suggests a putative third roseolo lineage. On the contrary, no phylogenetic structure was detected among several potentially novel bat-hosted gammaherpesviruses found in the study. Remarkably, all of the possible novel bat herpesviruses described in this study are linked to a unique bat species.

Identification of Novel Betaherpesviruses in Iberian Bats Reveals Parallel Evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Pozo, Francisco; Juste, Javier; Vázquez-Morón, Sonia; Aznar-López, Carolina; Ibáñez, Carlos; Garin, Inazio; Aihartza, Joxerra; Casas, Inmaculada; Tenorio, Antonio; Echevarría, Juan Emilio

2016-01-01

A thorough search for bat herpesviruses was carried out in oropharyngeal samples taken from most of the bat species present in the Iberian Peninsula from the Vespertilionidae, Miniopteridae, Molossidae and Rhinolophidae families, in addition to a colony of captive fruit bats from the Pteropodidae family. By using two degenerate consensus PCR methods targeting two conserved genes, distinct and previously unrecognized bat-hosted herpesviruses were identified for the most of the tested species. All together a total of 42 potentially novel bat herpesviruses were partially characterized. Thirty-two of them were tentatively assigned to the Betaherpesvirinae subfamily while the remaining 10 were allocated into the Gammaherpesvirinae subfamily. Significant diversity was observed among the novel sequences when compared with type herpesvirus species of the ICTV-approved genera. The inferred phylogenetic relationships showed that most of the betaherpesviruses sequences fell into a well-supported unique monophyletic clade and support the recognition of a new betaherpesvirus genus. This clade is subdivided into three major clades, corresponding to the families of bats studied. This supports the hypothesis of a species-specific parallel evolution process between the potentially new betaherpesviruses and their bat hosts. Interestingly, two of the betaherpesviruses' sequences detected in rhinolophid bats clustered together apart from the rest, closely related to viruses that belong to the Roseolovirus genus. This suggests a putative third roseolo lineage. On the contrary, no phylogenetic structure was detected among several potentially novel bat-hosted gammaherpesviruses found in the study. Remarkably, all of the possible novel bat herpesviruses described in this study are linked to a unique bat species.

The Voltage-Gated Potassium Channel Subfamily KQT Member 4 (KCNQ4) Displays Parallel Evolution in Echolocating Bats

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Yang; Han, Naijian; Franchini, Lucía F.; Xu, Huihui; Pisciottano, Francisco; Elgoyhen, Ana Belén; Rajan, Koilmani Emmanuvel; Zhang, Shuyi

2012-01-01

Bats are the only mammals that use highly developed laryngeal echolocation, a sensory mechanism based on the ability to emit laryngeal sounds and interpret the returning echoes to identify objects. Although this capability allows bats to orientate and hunt in complete darkness, endowing them with great survival advantages, the genetic bases underlying the evolution of bat echolocation are still largely unknown. Echolocation requires high-frequency hearing that in mammals is largely dependent on somatic electromotility of outer hair cells. Then, understanding the molecular evolution of outer hair cell genes might help to unravel the evolutionary history of echolocation. In this work, we analyzed the molecular evolution of two key outer hair cell genes: the voltage-gated potassium channel gene KCNQ4 and CHRNA10, the gene encoding the α10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit. We reconstructed the phylogeny of bats based on KCNQ4 and CHRNA10 protein and nucleotide sequences. A phylogenetic tree built using KCNQ4 amino acid sequences showed that two paraphyletic clades of laryngeal echolocating bats grouped together, with eight shared substitutions among particular lineages. In addition, our analyses indicated that two of these parallel substitutions, M388I and P406S, were probably fixed under positive selection and could have had a strong functional impact on KCNQ4. Moreover, our results indicated that KCNQ4 evolved under positive selection in the ancestral lineage leading to mammals, suggesting that this gene might have been important for the evolution of mammalian hearing. On the other hand, we found that CHRNA10, a gene that evolved adaptively in the mammalian lineage, was under strong purifying selection in bats. Thus, the CHRNA10 amino acid tree did not show echolocating bat monophyly and reproduced the bat species tree. These results suggest that only a subset of hearing genes could underlie the evolution of echolocation. The present work continues to

Renewables in Europe: The Wind Energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Puente, Francisco

2000-01-01

The paper describes the experience of Europe in the economical aspects of renewable energy sources including generation costs and the evolution of costs per kW installed. Also describes how to apply this experience in Central America considering aspects of demand and supply of energy and diagnoses the potential of projects with renewable energy

Migration Process Evolution in Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carmen Tudorache

2006-08-01

Full Text Available The migration phenomenon has always existed, fluctuating by the historic context, the economic, political, social and demographic disparities between the Central and East European countries and the EU Member States, the interdependencies between the origin and receiving countries and the European integration process evolutions. In the European Union, an integrated and inclusive approach of the migration issue is necessary. But a common policy on migration rests an ambitious objective. A common approach of the economic migration management and the harmonization of the migration policies of the Member States represented a challenge for the European Union and will become urgent in the future, especially due to the demographic ageing.

Experience in implementing projects in Eastern Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weichard, A.; Bauer, I.; Rieck, R.; Ziehm, R.

2007-01-01

The article covers the present projects and activities in Eastern Europe of Nukem Technologies GmbH. The company's East European business began in 1973 in the field of uranium trading. After difficult negotiations in the period of the ''cold war'' it became possible to enter into an agreement with the Soviet foreign trade organization, Techsnabexport, about purchases of uranium for Western nuclear power plants. In the course of Nukem's realignment in the late 1980s, the focus was shifted more and more to the possibility of exporting into other countries the technologies developed and proven in Germany. This included countries in Eastern Europe. The situation changed abruptly with the political opening of Eastern Europe. A large potential market opened to Nukem as a supplier of technologies and plants for waste treatment and, later, the wider area of decommissioning. The partners in Eastern Europe were interested in proven, modern solutions. The ensuing success was also due to the fact that Nukem, in the early nineties, hired specialists from the new German federal states who had studied in the Soviet Union and were familiar with Russian technology, language, and culture. Soliciting analogous projects in the countries of Eastern Europe other than the former Soviet Union was begun in a parallel process. Very soon it turned out that also the interim storage of spent fuel elements constituted a potential market. (orig.)

Evolution of Parallel Spindles Like genes in plants and highlight of unique domain architecture#

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Consiglio Federica M

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Polyploidy has long been recognized as playing an important role in plant evolution. In flowering plants, the major route of polyploidization is suggested to be sexual through gametes with somatic chromosome number (2n. Parallel Spindle1 gene in Arabidopsis thaliana (AtPS1 was recently demonstrated to control spindle orientation in the 2nd division of meiosis and, when mutated, to induce 2n pollen. Interestingly, AtPS1 encodes a protein with a FHA domain and PINc domain putatively involved in RNA decay (i.e. Nonsense Mediated mRNA Decay. In potato, 2n pollen depending on parallel spindles was described long time ago but the responsible gene has never been isolated. The knowledge derived from AtPS1 as well as the availability of genome sequences makes it possible to isolate potato PSLike (PSL and to highlight the evolution of PSL family in plants. Results Our work leading to the first characterization of PSLs in potato showed a greater PSL complexity in this species respect to Arabidopsis thaliana. Indeed, a genomic PSL locus and seven cDNAs affected by alternative splicing have been cloned. In addition, the occurrence of at least two other PSL loci in potato was suggested by the sequence comparison of alternatively spliced transcripts. Phylogenetic analysis on 20 Viridaeplantae showed the wide distribution of PSLs throughout the species and the occurrence of multiple copies only in potato and soybean. The analysis of PSLFHA and PSLPINc domains evidenced that, in terms of secondary structure, a major degree of variability occurred in PINc domain respect to FHA. In terms of specific active sites, both domains showed diversification among plant species that could be related to a functional diversification among PSL genes. In addition, some specific active sites were strongly conserved among plants as supported by sequence alignment and by evidence of negative selection evaluated as difference between non-synonymous and

Towards a regional electricity market in Southeast Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ichord, R.F. Jr.

2002-01-01

Historical evolution of the region's electric power policy is overviewed. The regional characteristics of Southern Europe's electric power market are summarized. The reform indicators of the region's electricity markets are discussed. The status of privatization is presented. Factors in developing regional electricity market are considered. (R.P.)

Plutonium isotopes in the atmosphere of Central Europe: Isotopic composition and time evolution vs. circulation factors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kierepko, Renata, E-mail: Renata.Kierepko@ifj.edu.pl [Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow (Poland); Mietelski, Jerzy W. [Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow (Poland); Ustrnul, Zbigniew [Jagiellonian University, Krakow (Poland); Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, National Research Institute, Krakow (Poland); Anczkiewicz, Robert [Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow (Poland); Wershofen, Herbert [Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig (Germany); Holgye, Zoltan [National Radiation Protection Institute, Prague (Czech Republic); Kapała, Jacek [Medical University of Bialystok (Poland); Isajenko, Krzysztof [Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw (Poland)

2016-11-01

This paper reports evidence of Pu isotopes in the lower part of the troposphere of Central Europe. The data were obtained based on atmospheric aerosol fraction samples collected from four places in three countries (participating in the informal European network known as the Ring of Five (Ro5)) forming a cell with a surface area of about 200,000 km{sup 2}. We compared our original data sets from Krakow (Poland, 1990–2007) and Bialystok (Poland, 1991–2007) with the results from two other locations, Prague (Czech Republic; 1997–2004) and Braunschweig (Germany; 1990–2003) to find time evolution of the Pu isotopes. The levels of the activity concentration for {sup 238}Pu and for {sup (239} {sup +} {sup 240)}Pu were estimated to be a few and some tens of nBq m{sup −} {sup 3}, respectively. However, we also noted some results were much higher (even about 70 times higher) than the average concentration of {sup 238}Pu in the atmosphere. The achieved complex data sets were used to test a new approach to the problem of solving mixing isotopic traces from various sources (here up to three) in one sample. Results of our model, supported by mesoscale atmospheric circulation parameters, suggest that Pu from nuclear weapon accidents or tests and nuclear burnt-up fuel are present in the air. - Highlights: • Evidence of Pu isotopes in the lower part of the troposphere of Central Europe • The effective annual doses associated with Pu inhalation • New approach to the problem of solving mixed Pu origins in one sample (3SM) • Relationship between Pu isotopes activity concentration and circulation factors.

Parallel or convergent evolution in human population genomic data revealed by genotype networks.

Science.gov (United States)

R Vahdati, Ali; Wagner, Andreas

2016-08-02

Genotype networks are representations of genetic variation data that are complementary to phylogenetic trees. A genotype network is a graph whose nodes are genotypes (DNA sequences) with the same broadly defined phenotype. Two nodes are connected if they differ in some minimal way, e.g., in a single nucleotide. We analyze human genome variation data from the 1,000 genomes project, and construct haploid genotype (haplotype) networks for 12,235 protein coding genes. The structure of these networks varies widely among genes, indicating different patterns of variation despite a shared evolutionary history. We focus on those genes whose genotype networks show many cycles, which can indicate homoplasy, i.e., parallel or convergent evolution, on the sequence level. For 42 genes, the observed number of cycles is so large that it cannot be explained by either chance homoplasy or recombination. When analyzing possible explanations, we discovered evidence for positive selection in 21 of these genes and, in addition, a potential role for constrained variation and purifying selection. Balancing selection plays at most a small role. The 42 genes with excess cycles are enriched in functions related to immunity and response to pathogens. Genotype networks are representations of genetic variation data that can help understand unusual patterns of genomic variation.

Parallel evolution of the glycogen synthase 1 (muscle) gene Gys1 between Old World and New World fruit bats (Order: Chiroptera).

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Lu; Shen, Bin; Irwin, David M; Zhang, Shuyi

2014-10-01

Glycogen synthase, which catalyzes the synthesis of glycogen, is especially important for Old World (Pteropodidae) and New World (Phyllostomidae) fruit bats that ingest high-carbohydrate diets. Glycogen synthase 1, encoded by the Gys1 gene, is the glycogen synthase isozyme that functions in muscles. To determine whether Gys1 has undergone adaptive evolution in bats with carbohydrate-rich diets, in comparison to insect-eating sister bat taxa, we sequenced the coding region of the Gys1 gene from 10 species of bats, including two Old World fruit bats (Pteropodidae) and a New World fruit bat (Phyllostomidae). Our results show no evidence for positive selection in the Gys1 coding sequence on the ancestral Old World and the New World Artibeus lituratus branches. Tests for convergent evolution indicated convergence of the sequences and one parallel amino acid substitution (T395A) was detected on these branches, which was likely driven by natural selection.

Review of interactions between climate policy and energy safety in Europe (ELIPSE project) - Final report, December 2012

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guivarch, Celine; Rozenberg, Julie; Vogt-Schilb, Adrien; Monjon, Stephanie

2013-01-01

The ELIPSE project is a better understanding of the consequences of ambitious energy policies for a secure energy in Europe. It is based on a choice of indicators for a secure energy which are related to availability and diversification, energy dependence and efficiency, energy cost for the society, and acceptability. Four RCP (representative concentration pathways) scenarios are selected. Their results are discussed, notably in terms of evolution of emissions, of evolution of the carbon tax, of carbon-tax variability, of GDP growth according to scenarios with or without climate policy, of primary energy supply with or without climate policy, of oil supply in Europe and oil prices with or without climate policy. The authors discuss the perspectives of evolution of energy security in Europe on the short, medium or long term, and the influence of different factors. They discuss the development and spreading of low carbon technologies (renewable energies, carbon capture and storage, electric vehicles)

From Rio 1992 to Rio 2012. Twenty years of negotiations on climate: for which result? Which role for Europe? Which futures?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dahan, Amy; Aykut, Stefan C.

2012-01-01

In a first part, the authors propose an overview of the history of the process of negotiations on climate, recall its framework and operation modalities (governance by the United Nations, operation of climate institutions), and outline geopolitical evolutions and significant landmarks (notably the Copenhagen conference). They also question the present credibility of negotiations on climate. Then, they focus on Europe as a major actor of this history, recall the different steps by which Europe gained a peculiar leadership status (Europe as an actor of international negotiations, relationship between climate and European building, evolution of the European ambition). Thirdly, by drawing some lessons from the 2012 Rio Conference, they give an overview of deadlocks, blocks and opportunities on the way to resolve the problem, not only within the United Nations framework but also at different scales. They notably discuss the evolution towards a large energy transition, and the position of Europe in front of commitments with respect to climate

Evolution of the Water Vapor Plume over Eastern Europe during Summer 2010 Atmospheric Blocking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergei A. Sitnov

2014-01-01

Full Text Available We present an analysis of water vapor (WV plume evolution over Eastern Europe (EE during atmospheric blocking in the summer of 2010, carried out on the basis of satellite (MODIS and MLS instruments, aerological, and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. The obtained results show that the development of blocking was accompanied by the development of a positive anomaly of total column water vapor (TCWV content over the northern part of EE. Local TCWV content from 28 July to 6 August 2010 reached 3.35 cm, a value that exceeded by 3.3 times its content before the block. The surplus of WV was mainly conditioned by the advection of WV due to transfer of moist air from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea into northern EE and also due to increased evaporation from the surface enriched with water due to increased temperature and wind. We hypothesize that the influx of latent heat in the block area can contribute to the energy supply of the blocking anticyclone and prolong the existence of block. Strong humidification of the troposphere and some dehumidification of the lower stratosphere during the block were accompanied by warming of the troposphere and cooling of the lower stratosphere.

Evolution of a minimal parallel programming model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lusk, Ewing; Butler, Ralph; Pieper, Steven C.

2017-01-01

Here, we take a historical approach to our presentation of self-scheduled task parallelism, a programming model with its origins in early irregular and nondeterministic computations encountered in automated theorem proving and logic programming. We show how an extremely simple task model has evolved into a system, asynchronous dynamic load balancing (ADLB), and a scalable implementation capable of supporting sophisticated applications on today’s (and tomorrow’s) largest supercomputers; and we illustrate the use of ADLB with a Green’s function Monte Carlo application, a modern, mature nuclear physics code in production use. Our lesson is that by surrendering a certain amount of generality and thus applicability, a minimal programming model (in terms of its basic concepts and the size of its application programmer interface) can achieve extreme scalability without introducing complexity.

e-SKILLS AND ICT Professionalism. Fostering the ICT Profession in Europe. Final Report 2012.

OpenAIRE

McLaughlin, Stephen; Sherry, Martin; Carcary, Marian; O'Brien, Conor

2012-01-01

This research project, launched by the European Commission Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry as part of the European Commission’s on-going e-skills agenda is aimed at helping to mature the ICT profession within Europe. This objective of maturing the ICT profession is not unique to Europe: indeed, the project reflects parallel efforts to mature the ICT profession in other parts of the world, such as TechAmerica in United States and ITA in Japan. This current project is aimed a...

Which energy policy for Europe? A proposal for a new starting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Touscoz, J.

1986-01-01

It is desirable that, for every country in the world, the oil prices evolution should be regular and gradual, without unexpected or brutal up and down movements. It is necessary for Europe to develop a common energetic policy (oil, gas, coal, nuclear, new and renewable energies) in order to reduce or control the energy consumption, encourage the international cooperation, sustain the research programs, etc... The juridical, institutional and financial means are examined for this purpose in Europe Economic Community [fr

Evolution, religions and global Bioethics

OpenAIRE

Perbal, Laurence

2007-01-01

Creationist theories are still present in the United States and in Europe. The Darwinian theory of evolution is often considered as the starting point of important debates between religions and evolutionists. In this paper, we are principally interested in evolutionary creationism (or theistic evolutionism). The existence of a divine design in nature, the spiritual status of human beings and the emergence of human species as the purpose of evolution are some of those debates. The post-Darwini...

Rapid evolution and spread of carbapenemases among Enterobacteriaceae in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Cantón, R; Akóva, M; Carmeli, Y; Giske, C G; Glupczynski, Y; Gniadkowski, M; Livermore, D M; Miriagou, V; Naas, T; Rossolini, G M; Samuelsen, Ø; Seifert, H; Woodford, N; Nordmann, P

2012-05-01

Plasmid-acquired carbapenemases in Enterobacteriaceae, which were first discovered in Europe in the 1990s, are now increasingly being identified at an alarming rate. Although their hydrolysis spectrum may vary, they hydrolyse most β-lactams, including carbapenems. They are mostly of the KPC, VIM, NDM and OXA-48 types. Their prevalence in Europe as reported in 2011 varies significantly from high (Greece and Italy) to low (Nordic countries). The types of carbapenemase vary among countries, partially depending on the cultural/population exchange relationship between the European countries and the possible reservoirs of each carbapenemase. Carbapenemase producers are mainly identified among Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli, and still mostly in hospital settings and rarely in the community. Although important nosocomial outbreaks with carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae have been extensively reported, many new cases are still related to importation from a foreign country. Rapid identification of colonized or infected patients and screening of carriers is possible, and will probably be effective for prevention of a scenario of endemicity, as now reported for extended-spectrum β-lactamase (mainly CTX-M) producers in all European countries. © 2012 The Authors. Clinical Microbiology and Infection © 2012 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

East Asian SO2 pollution plume over Europe – Part 2: Evolution and potential impact

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Stohl

2009-07-01

Full Text Available We report on the first observation-based case study of an aged East Asian anthropogenic SO2 pollution plume over Europe. Our airborne measurements in that plume detected highly elevated SO2 mole fractions (up to 900 pmol/mol between about 5000 and 7000 m altitude. Here, we focus on investigations of the origin, dispersion, evolution, conversion, and potential impact of the observed excess SO2. In particular, we investigate SO2 conversion to gas-phase sulfuric acid and sulfuric acid aerosols. Our FLEXPART and LAGRANTO model simulations, along with additional trace gas measurements, suggest that the plume originated from East Asian fossil fuel combustion sources and, 8–7 days prior to its arrival over Europe, ascended over the coast region of central East Asia to 9000 m altitude, probably in a cyclonic system with an associated warm conveyor belt. During this initial plume ascent a substantial fraction of the initially available SO2 must have escaped from removal by cloud processes. Hereafter, while mostly descending slowly, the plume experienced advection across the North Pacific, North America and the North Atlantic. During its upper troposphere travel, clouds were absent in and above the plume and OH-induced gas-phase conversion of SO2 to gas-phase sulfuric acid (GSA was operative, followed by GSA nucleation and condensation leading to sulfuric acid aerosol formation and growth. Our AEROFOR model simulations indicate that numerous large sulfuric acid aerosol particles were formed, which at least tempora-rily, caused substantial horizontal visibility degradation, and which have the potential to act as water vapor condensation nuclei in liquid water cloud formation, already at water vapor supersaturations as low as about 0.1%. Our AEROFOR model simulations also indicate that those fossil fuel combustion generated soot particles, which have survived cloud induced removal during the initial plume ascent, have experienced extensive H2SO4/H2O

Collective Landmarks for Deep Time: A New Tool for Evolution Education

Science.gov (United States)

Delgado, Cesar

2014-01-01

Evolution is a fundamental, organising concept in biology, yet there is widespread resistance to evolution among US students and there are rising creationist challenges in Europe. Resistance to evolution is linked to lack of understanding of the age of the Earth. An understanding of deep time is thus essential for effective biology education.…

Neglected diseases amid wealth in the United States and Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Hotez, Peter

2009-01-01

Neglected tropical diseases are not exclusive to low-income countries. In the United States, such infections account for a sizable but largely hidden disease burden among minority populations living in poverty and among people of African descent in particular. Similar infections also occur in Europe. As efforts to control neglected tropical diseases expand throughout Africa, parallel efforts should also target poor and forgotten people in wealthy nations.

Multi-trait evolution of farmer varieties of bread wheat after cultivation in contrasting organic farming systems in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Dawson, J C; Serpolay, E; Giuliano, S; Schermann, N; Galic, N; Chable, V; Goldringer, I

2012-03-01

Because of the lack of varieties for organic agriculture, associations of organic farmers in several European countries have begun cultivating landraces and historic varieties, effectively practicing in situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity. To promote agrobiodiversity conservation, a special list for "conservation varieties" was implemented in 2008 by the EU because for any exchange and marketing of seeds in the EU, a variety must be registered in an official catalog. Our study aimed at improving knowledge on the phenotypic diversity and evolution of such varieties when cultivated on organic farms in Europe, in order to better define their specific characteristics and the implications for the registration process. We assessed multi-trait phenotypic evolution in eight European landraces and historic varieties of bread wheat and in two pureline variety checks, each grown by eight organic farmers over 2 years and then evaluated in a common garden experiment at an organic research farm. Measurements on each farmer's version of each variety included several standard evaluation criteria for assessing distinctness, uniformity and stability for variety registration. Significant phenotypic differentiation was found among farmers' versions of each variety. Some varieties showed considerable variation among versions while others showed fewer phenotypic changes, even in comparison to the two checks. Although farmers' variety would not satisfy uniformity or stability criteria as defined in the catalog evaluation requirements, each variety remained distinct when assessed using multivariate analysis. The amount of differentiation may be related to the initial genetic diversity within landraces and historic varieties.

Phylogeographic history of grey wolves in Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dykyy Ihor

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background While it is generally accepted that patterns of intra-specific genetic differentiation are substantially affected by glacial history, population genetic processes occurring during Pleistocene glaciations are still poorly understood. In this study, we address the question of the genetic consequences of Pleistocene glaciations for European grey wolves. Combining our data with data from published studies, we analysed phylogenetic relationships and geographic distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplotypes for 947 contemporary European wolves. We also compared the contemporary wolf sequences with published sequences of 24 ancient European wolves. Results We found that haplotypes representing two haplogroups, 1 and 2, overlap geographically, but substantially differ in frequency between populations from south-western and eastern Europe. A comparison between haplotypes from Europe and other continents showed that both haplogroups are spread throughout Eurasia, while only haplogroup 1 occurs in contemporary North American wolves. All ancient wolf samples from western Europe that dated from between 44,000 and 1,200 years B.P. belonged to haplogroup 2, suggesting the long-term predominance of this haplogroup in this region. Moreover, a comparison of current and past frequencies and distributions of the two haplogroups in Europe suggested that haplogroup 2 became outnumbered by haplogroup 1 during the last several thousand years. Conclusions Parallel haplogroup replacement, with haplogroup 2 being totally replaced by haplogroup 1, has been reported for North American grey wolves. Taking into account the similarity of diets reported for the late Pleistocene wolves from Europe and North America, the correspondence between these haplogroup frequency changes may suggest that they were associated with ecological changes occurring after the Last Glacial Maximum.

Patient education in Europe: united differences.

OpenAIRE

Visser, S.; Deccache, A.; Bensing, J.

2001-01-01

This issue of Patient Education and Counseling presents the state of the art of patient education in several European countries. It is based on papers presented at a meeting in Paris on the evolution and development of patient education in western, central and eastern Europe (May 1999). Also patient education in the US is presented in this issue. Patient education is defined as all the educational activities directed to patients, including aspects of therapeutic education, health education an...

Challenges of Green Logistics in Southeast Europe

OpenAIRE

Beškovnik, Bojan; Jakomin, Livio

2010-01-01

This paper describes the trends towards green logistics in global aspect and challenges of adopting green logistics in the region of Southeast Europe. Modern logistics with supply chain management is experiencing a period of important evolution. From reversible logistics, we came to green logistics, which is a wider concept of environmentally friendly thinking. Reverse logistics includes processes of movements and transportation of waste from users to recycling plants; meanwhile, green logist...

Experimental evolution and the dynamics of adaptation and genome evolution in microbial populations.

Science.gov (United States)

Lenski, Richard E

2017-10-01

Evolution is an on-going process, and it can be studied experimentally in organisms with rapid generations. My team has maintained 12 populations of Escherichia coli in a simple laboratory environment for >25 years and 60 000 generations. We have quantified the dynamics of adaptation by natural selection, seen some of the populations diverge into stably coexisting ecotypes, described changes in the bacteria's mutation rate, observed the new ability to exploit a previously untapped carbon source, characterized the dynamics of genome evolution and used parallel evolution to identify the genetic targets of selection. I discuss what the future might hold for this particular experiment, briefly highlight some other microbial evolution experiments and suggest how the fields of experimental evolution and microbial ecology might intersect going forward.

Population structure and cultural geography of a folktale in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, Robert M.; Greenhill, Simon J.; Atkinson, Quentin D.

2013-01-01

Despite a burgeoning science of cultural evolution, relatively little work has focused on the population structure of human cultural variation. By contrast, studies in human population genetics use a suite of tools to quantify and analyse spatial and temporal patterns of genetic variation within and between populations. Human genetic diversity can be explained largely as a result of migration and drift giving rise to gradual genetic clines, together with some discontinuities arising from geographical and cultural barriers to gene flow. Here, we adapt theory and methods from population genetics to quantify the influence of geography and ethnolinguistic boundaries on the distribution of 700 variants of a folktale in 31 European ethnolinguistic populations. We find that geographical distance and ethnolinguistic affiliation exert significant independent effects on folktale diversity and that variation between populations supports a clustering concordant with European geography. This pattern of geographical clines and clusters parallels the pattern of human genetic diversity in Europe, although the effects of geographical distance and ethnolinguistic boundaries are stronger for folktales than genes. Our findings highlight the importance of geography and population boundaries in models of human cultural variation and point to key similarities and differences between evolutionary processes operating on human genes and culture. PMID:23390109

Modeling and forecasting office investment markets in Central and Eastern Europe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoefmans, M.P.; Janssen, I.I.; Chorus, C.G.

2008-01-01

Property markets in Central and Eastern Europe experienced turbulent developments since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing abolition of communism in the Central and Eastern European region. This paper examines the evolution of office investment markets in Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, and

Europe of electricity. An historical perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bouttes, Jean-Paul; DASSA, Francois

2016-11-01

The authors propose a perspective on the history of electricity in Europe which notably illustrates both similarities and differences between models and policies in European countries. In a first part, they address the early years of electricity development, between 1880 and 1920, which drove the whole European society and economy. They analyse this success as based on three main issues: a common vision of the role of electricity in the society (a symbol of progress and modernity), a collective work on the technical and economic reality (a community of scientists and engineers working on technological breakthroughs), and propositions regarding institutions and the activity organisation (a common industrial model elaborated by contractors-managers of the electricity sector and proposed to governments). In a second part, the authors address the following period (1920-1980) which is characterized by a diversity of models for the electricity sectors and systems. They highlight the background of these differences, propose a focus on the three main European countries (France, Germany, Great-Britain), and discuss the relationship between this diversity of organisation modes and imageries. The next part addresses the Europe of electricity since the 1980's. The authors outline its technical characteristic, the adoption of a top-down approach since the 1990's, and the lack of consistency in these evolutions, and draw some lessons from the building up of a Europe of electricity since the 1990's. The authors finally question and comment how to build up the Europe of energy again

Parallel computing solution of Boltzmann neutron transport equation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ansah-Narh, T.

2010-01-01

The focus of the research was on developing parallel computing algorithm for solving Eigen-values of the Boltzmam Neutron Transport Equation (BNTE) in a slab geometry using multi-grid approach. In response to the problem of slow execution of serial computing when solving large problems, such as BNTE, the study was focused on the design of parallel computing systems which was an evolution of serial computing that used multiple processing elements simultaneously to solve complex physical and mathematical problems. Finite element method (FEM) was used for the spatial discretization scheme, while angular discretization was accomplished by expanding the angular dependence in terms of Legendre polynomials. The eigenvalues representing the multiplication factors in the BNTE were determined by the power method. MATLAB Compiler Version 4.1 (R2009a) was used to compile the MATLAB codes of BNTE. The implemented parallel algorithms were enabled with matlabpool, a Parallel Computing Toolbox function. The option UseParallel was set to 'always' and the default value of the option was 'never'. When those conditions held, the solvers computed estimated gradients in parallel. The parallel computing system was used to handle all the bottlenecks in the matrix generated from the finite element scheme and each domain of the power method generated. The parallel algorithm was implemented on a Symmetric Multi Processor (SMP) cluster machine, which had Intel 32 bit quad-core x 86 processors. Convergence rates and timings for the algorithm on the SMP cluster machine were obtained. Numerical experiments indicated the designed parallel algorithm could reach perfect speedup and had good stability and scalability. (au)

On the baseline evolution of automobile fuel economy in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zachariadis, Theodoros

2006-01-01

'Business as usual' scenarios in long-term energy forecasts are crucial for scenario-based policy analyses. This article focuses on fuel economy of passenger cars and light trucks, a long-disputed issue with serious implications for worldwide energy use and CO 2 emissions. The current status in Europe is explained and future developments are analysed with the aid of historical data of the last three decades from the United States and Europe. As a result of this analysis, fuel economy values are proposed for use as assumptions in baseline energy/transport scenarios in the 15 'old' European Union Member States. Proposed values are given for new gasoline and diesel cars and for the years 2010, 2020 and 2030. The increasing discrepancy between vehicle fuel consumption measured under test conditions and that in the real world is also considered. One main conclusion is that the European Commission's voluntary agreement with the automobile industry should not be assumed to fully achieve its target under baseline conditions, nor should it be regarded as a major stimulus for autonomous vehicle efficiency improvements after 2010. A second conclusion is that three very recent studies enjoying authority across the EU tend to be overly optimistic as regards the technical progress for conventional and alternative vehicle propulsion technologies under 'business as usual' conditions

Europe of electricity and gas - Actors, markets, regulations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grand, Emmanuelle; Veyrenc, Thomas; Chevalier, Jean-Marie

2011-01-01

In about 20 years, radical transformations have deeply changed the electricity and natural gas sectors in Europe. Liberalization, deregulation and Europeanization have been the key words of a flood of change which is still going on today. With time, new issues have appeared: climate change, security of supplies, fossil fuels exhaustion, promotion of renewable energy sources have become part of energy policies. This book tackles this reconfiguration face on and offers some tools to understand the present day complexity of the electricity and gas sector in Europe. Using several schemes and taking into consideration the most recent data, it combines theory and practice to explain the evolutions in progress. It put them into perspective in a synthetic and pedagogical way with several concrete examples

The genetic architecture of parallel armor plate reduction in threespine sticklebacks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pamela F Colosimo

2004-05-01

Full Text Available How many genetic changes control the evolution of new traits in natural populations? Are the same genetic changes seen in cases of parallel evolution? Despite long-standing interest in these questions, they have been difficult to address, particularly in vertebrates. We have analyzed the genetic basis of natural variation in three different aspects of the skeletal armor of threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus: the pattern, number, and size of the bony lateral plates. A few chromosomal regions can account for variation in all three aspects of the lateral plates, with one major locus contributing to most of the variation in lateral plate pattern and number. Genetic mapping and allelic complementation experiments show that the same major locus is responsible for the parallel evolution of armor plate reduction in two widely separated populations. These results suggest that a small number of genetic changes can produce major skeletal alterations in natural populations and that the same major locus is used repeatedly when similar traits evolve in different locations.

Public Administration and Public Management Research in Europe: Traditions and Trends

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ongaro, E.; Thiel, S. van; Massey, A.; Pierre, J.; Wollmann, H.; Ongaro, E.; Thiel, S. van

2018-01-01

The chapter reviews the evolution of the state of the art of research in public administration and management in Europe since WWII. It argues that a pan-European community has developed, flanking and in many respects integrating the distinct national communities that characterised the field till the

The evolution and consolidation of the timeshare industry in a developing economy: The South African experience

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wayde R. Pandy

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The timeshare industry is one of most under-researched aspects of tourism accommodation. Within existing scholarship most writings pertain to industry development and challenges in the USA and Europe. This paper provides an examination of the evolution and consolidation of the timeshare industry in South Africa from the 1980s to the present-day. The South African timeshare industry is revealed as one of the most mature in the international timeshare economy. Historically, the industry confronted parallel challenges to those in developed countries in respect of adapting the product to local conditions and confronting a tarnished image from the impact of unscrupulous developers. Currently the South African timeshare sector faces different challenges including service management and consumer dissatisfaction, marginalization within the tourism economy, and the need to address the emerging Black middle class market.

Geographical aspects of exploitation of nuclear energy in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kurucova, S.

2007-05-01

The topic of exploitation of nuclear energy is becoming increasingly actual in the present time in connection with frequently discussed question of 'renaissance of nuclear energetics'. The work is aimed at research of geographical aspects of exploitation of nuclear energy for military and civil purposes on the territory of Europe. The base of work represents the analysis of theoretical aspects of research of energy, mainly of nuclear energy. The work examines the historical development of exploitation of nuclear energy since its discovery, through development of military nuclear industry in Europe, big attention is paid to spreading of nuclear energetics on the territory of Europe from its beginnings up to the present time. The main part of the work represents the analysis of the present situation of exploitation of nuclear energy for civil purposes in Europe. The attention is paid to so-called nuclear fuel cycle as complex chain of several reciprocally interconnected operations of nuclear fuel treatment. The monitoring of spatial relations among individual countries within their nuclear fuel cycles is emphasised. The analysis of historical development and of the present state of nuclear energetics finished up in the outline of the perspectives of its further development in Europe. The analysis of the tendencies of evolution of world energetic economy mentions on the trend of growth of energy consumption in the world and Europe, as well as on the important position of nuclear energy in the structure of energy sources. Summary in English language is included. (author)

The Transformation of Cyavana: A Case Study in Narrative Evolution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emily West

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The assessment of possible genetic relationships between pairs of proposed narrative parallels currently relies on subjective conventional wisdom-based criteria. This essay presents an attempt at categorizing patterns of narrative evolution through the comparison of variants of orally-composed, fixed-text Sanskrit tales. Systematic examination of the changes that took place over the developmental arc of _The Tale of Cyavana_ offers a number of insights that may be applied to the understanding of the evolution of oral narratives in general. An evidence-based exposition of the principles that govern the process of narrative evolution could provide more accurate diagnostic tools for evaluating narrative parallels.

Evolution of electricity prices for households in Western Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cruciani, Michel

2011-11-01

The author reports a study of the evolution of electricity prices in the housing sector since the 1990's in the 15 countries who were then members of the European Union (Germany, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom, Finland, France and Greece). In a first part, he discusses trends and proposes some comparisons which show that the electricity price has been remaining almost steady for 15 years, and has much less increased that those of gas and oil products. He notices a rather large discrepancy between the 15 countries (a comparison takes taxes into account, and comparison is made with tax included or excluded). The second part proposes an analysis of the evolutions and influences of national energy policies for each country

Regulatory Competition and the Evolution of Closely Held Business Forms in Europe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

McCahery, J.A.; Vermeulen, E.P.M.

2001-01-01

Close corporations have become the preferred vehicle for small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. While scholars have debated the advantages of close corporation statutes for more than a decade, some who favor reform suggest that lawmakers devise new business organization statutes that are more

Linguistics: evolution and language change.

Science.gov (United States)

Bowern, Claire

2015-01-05

Linguists have long identified sound changes that occur in parallel. Now novel research shows how Bayesian modeling can capture complex concerted changes, revealing how evolution of sounds proceeds. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rapid sequencing of the bamboo mitochondrial genome using Illumina technology and parallel episodic evolution of organelle genomes in grasses.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Peng-Fei; Guo, Zhen-Hua; Li, De-Zhu

2012-01-01

Compared to their counterparts in animals, the mitochondrial (mt) genomes of angiosperms exhibit a number of unique features. However, unravelling their evolution is hindered by the few completed genomes, of which are essentially Sanger sequenced. While next-generation sequencing technologies have revolutionized chloroplast genome sequencing, they are just beginning to be applied to angiosperm mt genomes. Chloroplast genomes of grasses (Poaceae) have undergone episodic evolution and the evolutionary rate was suggested to be correlated between chloroplast and mt genomes in Poaceae. It is interesting to investigate whether correlated rate change also occurred in grass mt genomes as expected under lineage effects. A time-calibrated phylogenetic tree is needed to examine rate change. We determined a largely completed mt genome from a bamboo, Ferrocalamus rimosivaginus (Poaceae), through Illumina sequencing of total DNA. With combination of de novo and reference-guided assembly, 39.5-fold coverage Illumina reads were finally assembled into scaffolds totalling 432,839 bp. The assembled genome contains nearly the same genes as the completed mt genomes in Poaceae. For examining evolutionary rate in grass mt genomes, we reconstructed a phylogenetic tree including 22 taxa based on 31 mt genes. The topology of the well-resolved tree was almost identical to that inferred from chloroplast genome with only minor difference. The inconsistency possibly derived from long branch attraction in mtDNA tree. By calculating absolute substitution rates, we found significant rate change (∼4-fold) in mt genome before and after the diversification of Poaceae both in synonymous and nonsynonymous terms. Furthermore, the rate change was correlated with that of chloroplast genomes in grasses. Our result demonstrates that it is a rapid and efficient approach to obtain angiosperm mt genome sequences using Illumina sequencing technology. The parallel episodic evolution of mt and chloroplast

Parallel sites implicate functional convergence of the hearing gene prestin among echolocating mammals.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhen; Qi, Fei-Yan; Zhou, Xin; Ren, Hai-Qing; Shi, Peng

2014-09-01

Echolocation is a sensory system whereby certain mammals navigate and forage using sound waves, usually in environments where visibility is limited. Curiously, echolocation has evolved independently in bats and whales, which occupy entirely different environments. Based on this phenotypic convergence, recent studies identified several echolocation-related genes with parallel sites at the protein sequence level among different echolocating mammals, and among these, prestin seems the most promising. Although previous studies analyzed the evolutionary mechanism of prestin, the functional roles of the parallel sites in the evolution of mammalian echolocation are not clear. By functional assays, we show that a key parameter of prestin function, 1/α, is increased in all echolocating mammals and that the N7T parallel substitution accounted for this functional convergence. Moreover, another parameter, V1/2, was shifted toward the depolarization direction in a toothed whale, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and a constant-frequency (CF) bat, the Stoliczka's trident bat (Aselliscus stoliczkanus). The parallel site of I384T between toothed whales and CF bats was responsible for this functional convergence. Furthermore, the two parameters (1/α and V1/2) were correlated with mammalian high-frequency hearing, suggesting that the convergent changes of the prestin function in echolocating mammals may play important roles in mammalian echolocation. To our knowledge, these findings present the functional patterns of echolocation-related genes in echolocating mammals for the first time and rigorously demonstrate adaptive parallel evolution at the protein sequence level, paving the way to insights into the molecular mechanism underlying mammalian echolocation. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Sectoral panorama: the electric power sector in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mons, L.

2003-10-01

This study takes stock on the main european markets to help the electric power companies in their decisions and investments. The first part presents the electric power sector structure in Europe. The second part is devoted to the market evolution for the different european markets (german, french, british, italian and spanish) with an analysis of the retail prices, the competition and the evolution perspectives. The third part presents the highlights in the electric power sector between 2001 and the middle of 2003. The enterprises management and strategies are presented in the fourth part. In the last part the document analyzes the financial performances of the sector and the electric power companies. (A.L.B.)

U-Pb dating on zircons for the la Borie eclogite (Haut-Allier, France) and consequences for the pre-Variscan evolution of the Western Europe

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ducrot, J.; Lancelot, J.R. (Montpellier-2 Univ., 44 (France). Lab. de Geochimie-Isotopique); Marchand, J. (Nantes Univ., 34 (France). Lab. de Petrologie et Minerologie)

1983-03-01

A crystallization age of 432sub(-10)/sup +20/Ma has been determined for the 'La Borie' eclogite (Haut-Allier, France), by U-Pb dating on zircons. This age is yielded by the upper intercept with the Concordia curve. In agreement with recent dates obtained in the southern part of the Massif Central, in Brittany and in Vendee, these data indicate that the high-pressure/high-temperature-metamorphic phase representative of the pre-Variscan evolution of the western Europe, took place at the Silurian/Ordovician boundary. This high-pressure/high-temperature metamorphism could be significant of subduction processes more or less synchronous, preceeding the main continental collision responsible of the Variscan belt.

U-Pb dating on zircons for the la Borie eclogite (Haut-Allier, France) and consequences for the pre-Variscan evolution of the Western Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ducrot, J.; Lancelot, J.R.; Marchand, J.

1983-01-01

A crystallization age of 432sub(-10) +20 Ma has been determined for the 'La Borie' eclogite (Haut-Allier, France), by U-Pb dating on zircons. This age is yielded by the upper intercept with the Concordia curve. In agreement with recent dates obtained in the southern part of the Massif Central, in Brittany and in Vendee, these data indicate that the high-pressure/high-temperature-metamorphic phase representative of the pre-Variscan evolution of the western Europe, took place at the Silurian/Ordovician boundary. This high-pressure/high-temperature metamorphism could be significant of subduction processes more or less synchronous, preceeding the main continental collision responsible of the Variscan belt. (s.s.). (orig.)

Parallel computing in plasma physics: Nonlinear instabilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pohn, E.; Kamelander, G.; Shoucri, M.

2000-01-01

A Vlasov-Poisson-system is used for studying the time evolution of the charge-separation at a spatial one- as well as a two-dimensional plasma-edge. Ions are advanced in time using the Vlasov-equation. The whole three-dimensional velocity-space is considered leading to very time-consuming four-resp. five-dimensional fully kinetic simulations. In the 1D simulations electrons are assumed to behave adiabatic, i.e. they are Boltzmann-distributed, leading to a nonlinear Poisson-equation. In the 2D simulations a gyro-kinetic approximation is used for the electrons. The plasma is assumed to be initially neutral. The simulations are performed at an equidistant grid. A constant time-step is used for advancing the density-distribution function in time. The time-evolution of the distribution function is performed using a splitting scheme. Each dimension (x, y, υ x , υ y , υ z ) of the phase-space is advanced in time separately. The value of the distribution function for the next time is calculated from the value of an - in general - interstitial point at the present time (fractional shift). One-dimensional cubic-spline interpolation is used for calculating the interstitial function values. After the fractional shifts are performed for each dimension of the phase-space, a whole time-step for advancing the distribution function is finished. Afterwards the charge density is calculated, the Poisson-equation is solved and the electric field is calculated before the next time-step is performed. The fractional shift method sketched above was parallelized for p processors as follows. Considering first the shifts in y-direction, a proper parallelization strategy is to split the grid into p disjoint υ z -slices, which are sub-grids, each containing a different 1/p-th part of the υ z range but the whole range of all other dimensions. Each processor is responsible for performing the y-shifts on a different slice, which can be done in parallel without any communication between

Musical emotions: Functions, origins, evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Perlovsky, Leonid

2010-03-01

Theories of music origins and the role of musical emotions in the mind are reviewed. Most existing theories contradict each other, and cannot explain mechanisms or roles of musical emotions in workings of the mind, nor evolutionary reasons for music origins. Music seems to be an enigma. Nevertheless, a synthesis of cognitive science and mathematical models of the mind has been proposed describing a fundamental role of music in the functioning and evolution of the mind, consciousness, and cultures. The review considers ancient theories of music as well as contemporary theories advanced by leading authors in this field. It addresses one hypothesis that promises to unify the field and proposes a theory of musical origin based on a fundamental role of music in cognition and evolution of consciousness and culture. We consider a split in the vocalizations of proto-humans into two types: one less emotional and more concretely-semantic, evolving into language, and the other preserving emotional connections along with semantic ambiguity, evolving into music. The proposed hypothesis departs from other theories in considering specific mechanisms of the mind-brain, which required the evolution of music parallel with the evolution of cultures and languages. Arguments are reviewed that the evolution of language toward becoming the semantically powerful tool of today required emancipation from emotional encumbrances. The opposite, no less powerful mechanisms required a compensatory evolution of music toward more differentiated and refined emotionality. The need for refined music in the process of cultural evolution is grounded in fundamental mechanisms of the mind. This is why today's human mind and cultures cannot exist without today's music. The reviewed hypothesis gives a basis for future analysis of why different evolutionary paths of languages were paralleled by different evolutionary paths of music. Approaches toward experimental verification of this hypothesis in

WEALTH TAX WITHIN EUROPE IN THE CONTEXT OF A POSSIBLE IMPLEMENTATION IN ROMANIA– THE EXISTING WEALTH TAX AND ITS DECLINE IN EUROPE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

LUMINIŢA RISTEA

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to focus our attention on the conceptualbasis upon which the wealth tax system may be implemented in Romania taking intoconsideration former and actual presence of wealth tax within Europe. The idea of increasingthe taxable basis based on imposing the wealth constitutes one of the most important debatetopics on the agenda of the Romanian Parliament and Government and also within specialists’theoretical approaches. The vast range of such approaches and further solutions is to beanalysed in the global context of direct taxation in Europe and worldwide and particularlyrelevant for the complexity of the problem is the evolution of wealth tax during the last decadesand also the very important context of moving corporate main offices in countries with moreadvantageous systems of taxation.

Local and Nonlocal Parallel Heat Transport in General Magnetic Fields

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Castillo-Negrete, D. del; Chacon, L.

2011-01-01

A novel approach for the study of parallel transport in magnetized plasmas is presented. The method avoids numerical pollution issues of grid-based formulations and applies to integrable and chaotic magnetic fields with local or nonlocal parallel closures. In weakly chaotic fields, the method gives the fractal structure of the devil's staircase radial temperature profile. In fully chaotic fields, the temperature exhibits self-similar spatiotemporal evolution with a stretched-exponential scaling function for local closures and an algebraically decaying one for nonlocal closures. It is shown that, for both closures, the effective radial heat transport is incompatible with the quasilinear diffusion model.

The Russian strategy of gas export: Europe against Asia?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Locatelli, C.

2005-01-01

Can we say that today's gas strategy of Russia is the continuation of the one implemented by the former USSR? Three factors have to be taken into consideration: the liberalization of the European gas market is a major stake with lot of constraints but also lot of opportunities. This deregulation may lead to sensible evolutions of the organization of Russia's gas industry since the question of gas supply costs has to face the competition that should develop in the European market. Also, the possible integration of some Central and Eastern Europe countries to the European Union, which are important transit ways for the Russian gas exports towards Western Europe, but which are also markets where Gazprom has been the quasi-exclusive gas supplier so far. Finally, Europe is no longer the only goal of Russian gas exports: Gazprom clearly shows its will of defining a global export strategy. With about 40% of the world gas reserves, Russia definitely has a master card to play on the international energy markets. (J.S.)

A Parallel Genetic Algorithm for Automated Electronic Circuit Design

Science.gov (United States)

Long, Jason D.; Colombano, Silvano P.; Haith, Gary L.; Stassinopoulos, Dimitris

2000-01-01

Parallelized versions of genetic algorithms (GAs) are popular primarily for three reasons: the GA is an inherently parallel algorithm, typical GA applications are very compute intensive, and powerful computing platforms, especially Beowulf-style computing clusters, are becoming more affordable and easier to implement. In addition, the low communication bandwidth required allows the use of inexpensive networking hardware such as standard office ethernet. In this paper we describe a parallel GA and its use in automated high-level circuit design. Genetic algorithms are a type of trial-and-error search technique that are guided by principles of Darwinian evolution. Just as the genetic material of two living organisms can intermix to produce offspring that are better adapted to their environment, GAs expose genetic material, frequently strings of 1s and Os, to the forces of artificial evolution: selection, mutation, recombination, etc. GAs start with a pool of randomly-generated candidate solutions which are then tested and scored with respect to their utility. Solutions are then bred by probabilistically selecting high quality parents and recombining their genetic representations to produce offspring solutions. Offspring are typically subjected to a small amount of random mutation. After a pool of offspring is produced, this process iterates until a satisfactory solution is found or an iteration limit is reached. Genetic algorithms have been applied to a wide variety of problems in many fields, including chemistry, biology, and many engineering disciplines. There are many styles of parallelism used in implementing parallel GAs. One such method is called the master-slave or processor farm approach. In this technique, slave nodes are used solely to compute fitness evaluations (the most time consuming part). The master processor collects fitness scores from the nodes and performs the genetic operators (selection, reproduction, variation, etc.). Because of dependency

The evolution of concepts of vestibular peripheral information processing: toward the dynamic, adaptive, parallel processing macular model

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, Muriel D.

2003-01-01

In a letter to Robert Hooke, written on 5 February, 1675, Isaac Newton wrote "If I have seen further than certain other men it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." In his context, Newton was referring to the work of Galileo and Kepler, who preceded him. However, every field has its own giants, those men and women who went before us and, often with few tools at their disposal, uncovered the facts that enabled later researchers to advance knowledge in a particular area. This review traces the history of the evolution of views from early giants in the field of vestibular research to modern concepts of vestibular organ organization and function. Emphasis will be placed on the mammalian maculae as peripheral processors of linear accelerations acting on the head. This review shows that early, correct findings were sometimes unfortunately disregarded, impeding later investigations into the structure and function of the vestibular organs. The central themes are that the macular organs are highly complex, dynamic, adaptive, distributed parallel processors of information, and that historical references can help us to understand our own place in advancing knowledge about their complicated structure and functions.

Spatio-temporal seasonal drought patterns in Europe from 1950 to 2015

Science.gov (United States)

Spinoni, Jonathan; Naumann, Gustavo; Vogt, Jürgen

2016-04-01

Drought is one of the natural disasters with severe impacts in Europe, not only in areas which frequently experience water scarcity such as the Mediterranean, but also in temperate or continental climates such as Central and Eastern Europe and even in cold regions such as Scandinavia and Iceland. In this study the spatio-temporal patterns of seasonal meteorological droughts in Europe between 1950 and 2015 are investigated using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Since the focus is on the analysis of seasonal drought trends, indicators were calculated for 3 monthly accumulation periods. The input variables of precipitation and temperature were derived from E-OBS grids (v11-v12) at a spatial resolution of 0.25°x0.25°. Seasonal trends of drought frequency and severity were analyzed for moderate (SPI or SPEI 2.0) events during the periods 1950-2015 and 1981-2015. For the moderate events, results of the SPI analysis (precipitation driven) demonstrate a significant tendency towards less frequent and severe droughts in Northern Europe and Russia, especially in winter and spring; oppositely, an increasing trend is visible in Southern Europe, mainly in spring and summer. According to the SPEI analysis (precipitation and temperature driven) Northern Europe shows wetting patterns, while Southern and Eastern Europe show a more remarkable drying tendency, especially in summer and autumn for drought frequency and in every season for drought severity. The evolution towards drier conditions is more relevant from 1981 onwards, both in terms of frequency and severity. This is especially true for Central Europe in spring, for the Mediterranean in summer, and for Eastern Europe in autumn. Extreme events follow similar patterns, but in autumn no spatially coherent trend can be found.

A novel role for Mc1r in the parallel evolution of depigmentation in independent populations of the cavefish Astyanax mexicanus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joshua B Gross

2009-01-01

Full Text Available The evolution of degenerate characteristics remains a poorly understood phenomenon. Only recently has the identification of mutations underlying regressive phenotypes become accessible through the use of genetic analyses. Focusing on the Mexican cave tetra Astyanax mexicanus, we describe, here, an analysis of the brown mutation, which was first described in the literature nearly 40 years ago. This phenotype causes reduced melanin content, decreased melanophore number, and brownish eyes in convergent cave forms of A. mexicanus. Crosses demonstrate non-complementation of the brown phenotype in F(2 individuals derived from two independent cave populations: Pachón and the linked Yerbaniz and Japonés caves, indicating the same locus is responsible for reduced pigmentation in these fish. While the brown mutant phenotype arose prior to the fixation of albinism in Pachón cave individuals, it is unclear whether the brown mutation arose before or after the fixation of albinism in the linked Yerbaniz/Japonés caves. Using a QTL approach combined with sequence and functional analyses, we have discovered that two distinct genetic alterations in the coding sequence of the gene Mc1r cause reduced pigmentation associated with the brown mutant phenotype in these caves. Our analysis identifies a novel role for Mc1r in the evolution of degenerative phenotypes in blind Mexican cavefish. Further, the brown phenotype has arisen independently in geographically separate caves, mediated through different mutations of the same gene. This example of parallelism indicates that certain genes are frequent targets of mutation in the repeated evolution of regressive phenotypes in cave-adapted species.

Towards physical principles of biological evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Katsnelson, Mikhail I.; Wolf, Yuri I.; Koonin, Eugene V.

2018-03-01

Biological systems reach organizational complexity that far exceeds the complexity of any known inanimate objects. Biological entities undoubtedly obey the laws of quantum physics and statistical mechanics. However, is modern physics sufficient to adequately describe, model and explain the evolution of biological complexity? Detailed parallels have been drawn between statistical thermodynamics and the population-genetic theory of biological evolution. Based on these parallels, we outline new perspectives on biological innovation and major transitions in evolution, and introduce a biological equivalent of thermodynamic potential that reflects the innovation propensity of an evolving population. Deep analogies have been suggested to also exist between the properties of biological entities and processes, and those of frustrated states in physics, such as glasses. Such systems are characterized by frustration whereby local state with minimal free energy conflict with the global minimum, resulting in ‘emergent phenomena’. We extend such analogies by examining frustration-type phenomena, such as conflicts between different levels of selection, in biological evolution. These frustration effects appear to drive the evolution of biological complexity. We further address evolution in multidimensional fitness landscapes from the point of view of percolation theory and suggest that percolation at level above the critical threshold dictates the tree-like evolution of complex organisms. Taken together, these multiple connections between fundamental processes in physics and biology imply that construction of a meaningful physical theory of biological evolution might not be a futile effort. However, it is unrealistic to expect that such a theory can be created in one scoop; if it ever comes to being, this can only happen through integration of multiple physical models of evolutionary processes. Furthermore, the existing framework of theoretical physics is unlikely to suffice

A Parallel Genetic Algorithm for Automated Electronic Circuit Design

Science.gov (United States)

Lohn, Jason D.; Colombano, Silvano P.; Haith, Gary L.; Stassinopoulos, Dimitris; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

We describe a parallel genetic algorithm (GA) that automatically generates circuit designs using evolutionary search. A circuit-construction programming language is introduced and we show how evolution can generate practical analog circuit designs. Our system allows circuit size (number of devices), circuit topology, and device values to be evolved. We present experimental results as applied to analog filter and amplifier design tasks.

Modelling and parallel calculation of a kinetic boundary layer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perlat, Jean Philippe

1998-01-01

This research thesis aims at addressing reliability and cost issues in the calculation by numeric simulation of flows in transition regime. The first step has been to reduce calculation cost and memory space for the Monte Carlo method which is known to provide performance and reliability for rarefied regimes. Vector and parallel computers allow this objective to be reached. Here, a MIMD (multiple instructions, multiple data) machine has been used which implements parallel calculation at different levels of parallelization. Parallelization procedures have been adapted, and results showed that parallelization by calculation domain decomposition was far more efficient. Due to reliability issue related to the statistic feature of Monte Carlo methods, a new deterministic model was necessary to simulate gas molecules in transition regime. New models and hyperbolic systems have therefore been studied. One is chosen which allows thermodynamic values (density, average velocity, temperature, deformation tensor, heat flow) present in Navier-Stokes equations to be determined, and the equations of evolution of thermodynamic values are described for the mono-atomic case. Numerical resolution of is reported. A kinetic scheme is developed which complies with the structure of all systems, and which naturally expresses boundary conditions. The validation of the obtained 14 moment-based model is performed on shock problems and on Couette flows [fr

Teaching and Learning: Highlighting the Parallels between Education and Participatory Evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Vanden Berk, Eric J.; Cassata, Jennifer Coyne; Moye, Melinda J.; Yarbrough, Donald B.; Siddens, Stephanie K.

As an evaluation team trained in educational psychology and committed to participatory evaluation and its evolution, the researchers have found the parallel between evaluator-stakeholder roles in the participatory evaluation process and educator-student roles in educational psychology theory to be important. One advantage then is that the theories…

Suggestion, persuasion and work: Psychotherapies in communist Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Marks, Sarah

2018-01-01

This article traces what recent research and primary sources tell us about psychotherapy in Communist Europe, and how it survived both underground and above the surface. In particular, I will elaborate on the psychotherapeutic techniques that were popular across the different countries and language cultures of the Soviet sphere, with a particular focus upon the Cold War period. This article examines the literature on the mixed fortunes of psychoanalysis and group therapies in the region. More specifically, it focuses upon the therapeutic modalities such as work therapy, suggestion and rational therapy, which gained particular popularity in the Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The latter two approaches had striking similarities with parallel developments in behavioural and cognitive therapies in the West. In part, this was because clinicians on both sides of the 'iron curtain' drew upon shared European traditions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, this article argues that in the Soviet sphere, those promoting these approaches appropriated socialist thought as a source of inspiration and justification, or at the very least, as a convenient political shield.

Parallel Framework for Dimensionality Reduction of Large-Scale Datasets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sai Kiranmayee Samudrala

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Dimensionality reduction refers to a set of mathematical techniques used to reduce complexity of the original high-dimensional data, while preserving its selected properties. Improvements in simulation strategies and experimental data collection methods are resulting in a deluge of heterogeneous and high-dimensional data, which often makes dimensionality reduction the only viable way to gain qualitative and quantitative understanding of the data. However, existing dimensionality reduction software often does not scale to datasets arising in real-life applications, which may consist of thousands of points with millions of dimensions. In this paper, we propose a parallel framework for dimensionality reduction of large-scale data. We identify key components underlying the spectral dimensionality reduction techniques, and propose their efficient parallel implementation. We show that the resulting framework can be used to process datasets consisting of millions of points when executed on a 16,000-core cluster, which is beyond the reach of currently available methods. To further demonstrate applicability of our framework we perform dimensionality reduction of 75,000 images representing morphology evolution during manufacturing of organic solar cells in order to identify how processing parameters affect morphology evolution.

A PARALLEL MONTE CARLO CODE FOR SIMULATING COLLISIONAL N-BODY SYSTEMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pattabiraman, Bharath; Umbreit, Stefan; Liao, Wei-keng; Choudhary, Alok; Kalogera, Vassiliki; Memik, Gokhan; Rasio, Frederic A.

2013-01-01

We present a new parallel code for computing the dynamical evolution of collisional N-body systems with up to N ∼ 10 7 particles. Our code is based on the Hénon Monte Carlo method for solving the Fokker-Planck equation, and makes assumptions of spherical symmetry and dynamical equilibrium. The principal algorithmic developments involve optimizing data structures and the introduction of a parallel random number generation scheme as well as a parallel sorting algorithm required to find nearest neighbors for interactions and to compute the gravitational potential. The new algorithms we introduce along with our choice of decomposition scheme minimize communication costs and ensure optimal distribution of data and workload among the processing units. Our implementation uses the Message Passing Interface library for communication, which makes it portable to many different supercomputing architectures. We validate the code by calculating the evolution of clusters with initial Plummer distribution functions up to core collapse with the number of stars, N, spanning three orders of magnitude from 10 5 to 10 7 . We find that our results are in good agreement with self-similar core-collapse solutions, and the core-collapse times generally agree with expectations from the literature. Also, we observe good total energy conservation, within ∼ 5 , 128 for N = 10 6 and 256 for N = 10 7 . The runtime reaches saturation with the addition of processors beyond these limits, which is a characteristic of the parallel sorting algorithm. The resulting maximum speedups we achieve are approximately 60×, 100×, and 220×, respectively.

Postcolonial Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

How has European identity been shaped through its colonial empires? Does this history of imperialism influence the conceptualisation of Europe in the contemporary globalised world? How has coloniality shaped geopolitical differences within Europe? What does this mean for the future of Europe......? Postcolonial Europe: Comparative Reflections after the Empires brings together scholars from across disciplines to rethink European colonialism in the light of its vanishing empires and the rise of new global power structures. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the postcolonial European legacy the book...... argues that the commonly used nation-centric approach does not effectively capture the overlap between different colonial and postcolonial experiences across Europe....

High rates of gene flow by pollen and seed in oak populations across Europe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gerber, S.; Chadoeuf, J.; Gugerli, F.; Lascoux, M.; Buiteveld, J.; Cottrell, J.; Dounavi, A.; Fineschi, S.; Forrest, L.; Fogelqvist, J.; Goicoechea, P.G.; Jensen, J.S.; Salvini, D.; Vendramin, G.G.; Kremer, A.

2014-01-01

Gene flow is a key factor in the evolution of species, influencing effective population size, hybridisation and local adaptation. We analysed local gene flow in eight stands of white oak (mostly Quercus petraea and Q. robur, but also Q. pubescens and Q. faginea) distributed across Europe. Adult

Study on parallel-channel asymmetry in supercritical flow instability experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xiong Ting; Yu Junchong; Yan Xiao; Huang Yanping; Xiao Zejun; Huang Shanfang

2013-01-01

Due to the urgent need for experimental study on supercritical water flow instability, the parallel-channel asymmetry which determines the feasibility of such experiments was studied with the experimental and numerical results in parallel dual channel. The evolution of flow rates in the experiments was analyzed, and the steady-state characteristics as well as transient characteristics of the system were obtained by self-developed numerical code. The results show that the asymmetry of the parallel dual channel would reduce the feasibility of experiments. The asymmetry of flow rates is aroused by geometrical asymmetry. Due to the property variation characteristics of supercritical water, the flow rate asymmetry is enlarged while rising beyond the pseudo critical point. The extent of flow rate asymmetry is affected by the bulk temperature and total flow rate; therefore the experimental feasibility can be enhanced by reducing the total flow rate. (authors)

Nonlinear interaction of a parallel-flow relativistic electron beam with a plasma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jungwirth, K.; Koerbel, S.; Simon, P.; Vrba, P.

1975-01-01

Nonlinear evolution of single-mode high-frequency instabilities (ω approximately ksub(parallel)vsub(b)) excited by a parallel-flow high-current relativistic electron beam in a magnetized plasma is investigated. Fairly general dimensionless equations are derived. They describe both the temporal and the spatial evolution of amplitude and phase of the fundamental wave. Numerically, the special case of excitation of the linearly most unstable mode is solved in detail assuming that the wave energy dissipation is negligible. Then the strength of interaction and the relativistic properties of the beam are fully respected by a single parameter lambda. The value of lambda ensuring the optimum efficiency of the wave excitation as well as the efficiency of the self-acceleration of some beam electrons at higher values of lambda>1 are determined in the case of a fully compensated relativistic beam. Finally, the effect of the return current dissipation is also included (phenomenologically) into the theoretical model, its role for the beam-plasma interaction being checked numerically. (J.U.)

Bioclim Deliverable D7: continuous climate evolution scenarios over western Europe (1000 km scale)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2003-01-01

The overall aim of BIOCLIM is to assess the possible long term impacts due to climate change on the safety of radioactive waste repositories in deep formations. This aim is addressed through the following specific objectives: - Development of practical and innovative strategies for representing sequential climatic changes to the geosphere-biosphere system for existing sites over central Europe, addressing the timescale of one million years, which is relevant to the geological disposal of radioactive waste. - Exploration and evaluation of the potential effects of climate change on the nature of the biosphere systems used to assess the environmental impact. - Dissemination of information on the new methodologies and the results obtained from the project among the international waste management community for use in performance assessments of potential or planned radioactive waste repositories. A key point of the project is therefore to develop strategies for representing sequential long-term climatic changes by addressing time scales of relevance to geological disposal of solid radioactive wastes. The integrated strategy, which first step is described in this deliverable (D7), consists of building an integrated, dynamic climate model, to represent all the known important mechanisms for long term climatic variations. The time-dependent results will then be interpreted in terms of regional climate using rule-based and statistical down-scaling approaches. Therefore, the continuous simulation of the climate evolution of the next 200 000 years selected for study is a major objective of the BIOCLIM project. This requires models that account for the simultaneous evolution of the atmosphere, biosphere, land-ice and the ocean. To be able to perform several 200 000-yearlong transient climate simulations, the models have to include all these components, but also need to be simple enough to run fast. Therefore, climate models of intermediate complexity have been chosen to

Art as A Playground for Evolution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beloff, Laura

2016-01-01

Art works which engage with the topic of human enhancement and evolution have begun appearing parallel to increased awareness about anthropogenic changes to our environment and acceleration of the speed of technological developments that impact us and our biological environment. The article...... and related topics is proposed as play activity for adults, which simultaneously experiments directly with ideas concerning evolution and human development. The author proposes that these kinds of experimental art projects support our mental adaptation to evolutionary changes....

Parallel heat transport in integrable and chaotic magnetic fields

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Castillo-Negrete, D. del; Chacon, L. [Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-8071 (United States)

2012-05-15

The study of transport in magnetized plasmas is a problem of fundamental interest in controlled fusion, space plasmas, and astrophysics research. Three issues make this problem particularly challenging: (i) The extreme anisotropy between the parallel (i.e., along the magnetic field), {chi}{sub ||} , and the perpendicular, {chi}{sub Up-Tack }, conductivities ({chi}{sub ||} /{chi}{sub Up-Tack} may exceed 10{sup 10} in fusion plasmas); (ii) Nonlocal parallel transport in the limit of small collisionality; and (iii) Magnetic field lines chaos which in general complicates (and may preclude) the construction of magnetic field line coordinates. Motivated by these issues, we present a Lagrangian Green's function method to solve the local and non-local parallel transport equation applicable to integrable and chaotic magnetic fields in arbitrary geometry. The method avoids by construction the numerical pollution issues of grid-based algorithms. The potential of the approach is demonstrated with nontrivial applications to integrable (magnetic island), weakly chaotic (Devil's staircase), and fully chaotic magnetic field configurations. For the latter, numerical solutions of the parallel heat transport equation show that the effective radial transport, with local and non-local parallel closures, is non-diffusive, thus casting doubts on the applicability of quasilinear diffusion descriptions. General conditions for the existence of non-diffusive, multivalued flux-gradient relations in the temperature evolution are derived.

Development of an inorganic and organic aerosol model (CHIMERE 2017β v1.0): seasonal and spatial evaluation over Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Couvidat, Florian; Bessagnet, Bertrand; Garcia-Vivanco, Marta; Real, Elsa; Menut, Laurent; Colette, Augustin

2018-01-01

A new aerosol module was developed and integrated in the air quality model CHIMERE. Developments include the use of the Model of Emissions and Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) 2.1 for biogenic emissions, the implementation of the inorganic thermodynamic model ISORROPIA 2.1, revision of wet deposition processes and of the algorithms of condensation/evaporation and coagulation and the implementation of the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) mechanism H2O and the thermodynamic model SOAP. Concentrations of particles over Europe were simulated by the model for the year 2013. Model concentrations were compared to the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) observations and other observations available in the EBAS database to evaluate the performance of the model. Performances were determined for several components of particles (sea salt, sulfate, ammonium, nitrate, organic aerosol) with a seasonal and regional analysis of results. The model gives satisfactory performance in general. For sea salt, the model succeeds in reproducing the seasonal evolution of concentrations for western and central Europe. For sulfate, except for an overestimation of sulfate in northern Europe, modeled concentrations are close to observations and the model succeeds in reproducing the seasonal evolution of concentrations. For organic aerosol, the model reproduces with satisfactory results concentrations for stations with strong modeled biogenic SOA concentrations. However, the model strongly overestimates ammonium nitrate concentrations during late autumn (possibly due to problems in the temporal evolution of emissions) and strongly underestimates summer organic aerosol concentrations over most of the stations (especially in the northern half of Europe). This underestimation could be due to a lack of anthropogenic SOA or biogenic emissions in northern Europe. A list of recommended tests and developments to improve the model is also given.

La Turquie et l’Union européenne

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Benoît Montabone

2008-03-01

Full Text Available L’article explore les évolutions possibles des relations entre la Turquie et l’Union européenne à l’horizon 2020. Il présente quatre scénarios géopolitiques : l’ancrage européen (scénario normatif, l’intégration à risque (scénario tendanciel, la diversification des partenaires (scénario alternatif et le renversement stratégique (scénario catastrophe. Dans tous les cas, l’accès aux hydrocarbures du Caucase et de la mer Caspienne joue une place centrale.This article investigates the various possible evolutions of the relations between Turkey and the European Union on the horizon 2020. Four resulting geopolitical scenarios are introduced: European anchoring (the normative scenario, Integration at risk (the trend line scenario, Diversification of partners (the alternate scenario, and at last Strategic overthrow (the nightmare one. In every case, the access to the hydrocarbons of Caucasus and Caspian Sea plays a key role.

Crisis and Geography : Some Observations on Peripheral Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

İbrahim Alper Arısoy

2015-05-01

Full Text Available With a focus on the role of geographical factors in economic performance, the main research question of this study is as follows: given that the ongoing crisis in Europe in general and within the Eurozone in particular is felt much strongly in peripheral areas, how and to what extent might geography be relevant to this process? The answer to this question will be searched through historical-comparative approach, focusing on the turning points in the evolution of Europe's economic and political geography, with particular regard to the key concepts such as "core-periphery dichotomy", "centres of gravity" and "isolation". Departing from these concepts, it will be argued that the structural factors, which contribute to the high vulnerability of certain countries towards crisis, are essentially geographical. However, the role of geography and the patterns of peripherality differ from one country to another, as will be demonstrated by means of a particular focus on the case of Greece.

Selectivity of Nanocrystalline IrO2-Based Catalysts in Parallel Chlorine and Oxygen Evolution

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Kuznetsova, Elizaveta; Petrykin, Valery; Sunde, S.; Krtil, Petr

2015-01-01

Roč. 6, č. 2 (2015), s. 198-210 ISSN 1868-2529 EU Projects: European Commission(XE) 214936 Institutional support: RVO:61388955 Keywords : iridium dioxide * oxygen evolution * chlorine evolution Subject RIV: CG - Electrochemistry Impact factor: 2.347, year: 2015

Transformation and diversification in early mammal evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Zhe-Xi

2007-12-13

Evolution of the earliest mammals shows successive episodes of diversification. Lineage-splitting in Mesozoic mammals is coupled with many independent evolutionary experiments and ecological specializations. Classic scenarios of mammalian morphological evolution tend to posit an orderly acquisition of key evolutionary innovations leading to adaptive diversification, but newly discovered fossils show that evolution of such key characters as the middle ear and the tribosphenic teeth is far more labile among Mesozoic mammals. Successive diversifications of Mesozoic mammal groups multiplied the opportunities for many dead-end lineages to iteratively evolve developmental homoplasies and convergent ecological specializations, parallel to those in modern mammal groups.

Population genomics of parallel adaptation in threespine stickleback using sequenced RAD tags.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paul A Hohenlohe

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Next-generation sequencing technology provides novel opportunities for gathering genome-scale sequence data in natural populations, laying the empirical foundation for the evolving field of population genomics. Here we conducted a genome scan of nucleotide diversity and differentiation in natural populations of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus. We used Illumina-sequenced RAD tags to identify and type over 45,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs in each of 100 individuals from two oceanic and three freshwater populations. Overall estimates of genetic diversity and differentiation among populations confirm the biogeographic hypothesis that large panmictic oceanic populations have repeatedly given rise to phenotypically divergent freshwater populations. Genomic regions exhibiting signatures of both balancing and divergent selection were remarkably consistent across multiple, independently derived populations, indicating that replicate parallel phenotypic evolution in stickleback may be occurring through extensive, parallel genetic evolution at a genome-wide scale. Some of these genomic regions co-localize with previously identified QTL for stickleback phenotypic variation identified using laboratory mapping crosses. In addition, we have identified several novel regions showing parallel differentiation across independent populations. Annotation of these regions revealed numerous genes that are candidates for stickleback phenotypic evolution and will form the basis of future genetic analyses in this and other organisms. This study represents the first high-density SNP-based genome scan of genetic diversity and differentiation for populations of threespine stickleback in the wild. These data illustrate the complementary nature of laboratory crosses and population genomic scans by confirming the adaptive significance of previously identified genomic regions, elucidating the particular evolutionary and demographic history of such

Evolution under changing climates: climatic niche stasis despite rapid evolution in a non-native plant.

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, Jake M

2013-09-22

A topic of great current interest is the capacity of populations to adapt genetically to rapidly changing climates, for example by evolving the timing of life-history events, but this is challenging to address experimentally. I use a plant invasion as a model system to tackle this question by combining molecular markers, a common garden experiment and climatic niche modelling. This approach reveals that non-native Lactuca serriola originates primarily from Europe, a climatic subset of its native range, with low rates of admixture from Asia. It has rapidly refilled its climatic niche in the new range, associated with the evolution of flowering phenology to produce clines along climate gradients that mirror those across the native range. Consequently, some non-native plants have evolved development times and grow under climates more extreme than those found in Europe, but not among populations from the native range as a whole. This suggests that many plant populations can adapt rapidly to changed climatic conditions that are already within the climatic niche space occupied by the species elsewhere in its range, but that evolution to conditions outside of this range is more difficult. These findings can also help to explain the prevalence of niche conservatism among non-native species.

Embodied Evolution in Collective Robotics: A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolas Bredeche

2018-02-01

Full Text Available This article provides an overview of evolutionary robotics techniques applied to online distributed evolution for robot collectives, namely, embodied evolution. It provides a definition of embodied evolution as well as a thorough description of the underlying concepts and mechanisms. This article also presents a comprehensive summary of research published in the field since its inception around the year 2000, providing various perspectives to identify the major trends. In particular, we identify a shift from considering embodied evolution as a parallel search method within small robot collectives (fewer than 10 robots to embodied evolution as an online distributed learning method for designing collective behaviors in swarm-like collectives. This article concludes with a discussion of applications and open questions, providing a milestone for past and an inspiration for future research.

Influence of equilibrium shear flow in the parallel magnetic direction on edge localized mode crash

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Luo, Y.; Xiong, Y. Y. [College of Physical Science and Technology, Sichuan University, 610064 Chengdu (China); Chen, S. Y., E-mail: sychen531@163.com [College of Physical Science and Technology, Sichuan University, 610064 Chengdu (China); Key Laboratory of High Energy Density Physics and Technology of Ministry of Education, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064 (China); Southwestern Institute of Physics, Chengdu 610041 (China); Huang, J.; Tang, C. J. [College of Physical Science and Technology, Sichuan University, 610064 Chengdu (China); Key Laboratory of High Energy Density Physics and Technology of Ministry of Education, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064 (China)

2016-04-15

The influence of the parallel shear flow on the evolution of peeling-ballooning (P-B) modes is studied with the BOUT++ four-field code in this paper. The parallel shear flow has different effects in linear simulation and nonlinear simulation. In the linear simulations, the growth rate of edge localized mode (ELM) can be increased by Kelvin-Helmholtz term, which can be caused by the parallel shear flow. In the nonlinear simulations, the results accord with the linear simulations in the linear phase. However, the ELM size is reduced by the parallel shear flow in the beginning of the turbulence phase, which is recognized as the P-B filaments' structure. Then during the turbulence phase, the ELM size is decreased by the shear flow.

Mean and variance evolutions of the hot and cold temperatures in Europe

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Parey, Sylvie [EDF/R and D, Chatou Cedex (France); Dacunha-Castelle, D. [Universite Paris 11, Laboratoire de Mathematiques, Orsay (France); Hoang, T.T.H. [Universite Paris 11, Laboratoire de Mathematiques, Orsay (France); EDF/R and D, Chatou Cedex (France)

2010-02-15

In this paper, we examine the trends of temperature series in Europe, for the mean as well as for the variance in hot and cold seasons. To do so, we use as long and homogenous series as possible, provided by the European Climate Assessment and Dataset project for different locations in Europe, as well as the European ENSEMBLES project gridded dataset and the ERA40 reanalysis. We provide a definition of trends that we keep as intrinsic as possible and apply non-parametric statistical methods to analyse them. Obtained results show a clear link between trends in mean and variance of the whole series of hot or cold temperatures: in general, variance increases when the absolute value of temperature increases, i.e. with increasing summer temperature and decreasing winter temperature. This link is reinforced in locations where winter and summer climate has more variability. In very cold or very warm climates, the variability is lower and the link between the trends is weaker. We performed the same analysis on outputs of six climate models proposed by European teams for the 1961-2000 period (1950-2000 for one model), available through the PCMDI portal for the IPCC fourth assessment climate model simulations. The models generally perform poorly and have difficulties in capturing the relation between the two trends, especially in summer. (orig.)

EURODELTA-Trends, a multi-model experiment of air quality hindcast in Europe over 1990-2010

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Colette, A.; Andersson, C.; Manders, A.; Mar, K.; Mircea, M.; Pay, M.T.; Raffort, V.; Tsyro, S.; Cuvelier, C.; Adani, M.; Bessagnet, B.; Bergström, R.; Briganti, G.; Butler, T.; Cappelletti, A.; Couvidat, F.; Isidoro, M. d; Doumbia, T.; Fagerli, H.; Granier, C.; Heyes, C.; Klimont, Z.; Ojha, N.; Otero, N.; Schaap, M.; Sindelarova, K.; Stegehuis, A.I.; Roustan, Y.; Vautard, R.; Meijgaard, E. van; Garcia Vivanco, M.; Wind, P.

2017-01-01

The EURODELTA-Trends multi-model chemistry-transport experiment has been designed to facilitate a better understanding of the evolution of air pollution and its drivers for the period 1990-2010 in Europe. The main objective of the experiment is to assess the efficiency of air pollutant emissions

Fuelwood in Europe for environment and development strategies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jahkola, A; Laine, J; Lund, P [Helsinki University of Technology, Otaniemi (Finland). Centre for Energy Technology

1997-12-01

The study of the conditions of a higher fuelwood mobilisation in Europe, takes place within the objectives of energy, environmental, agricultural and regional development policies implemented at the European level. The study aims at estimating the evolution of fuelwood consumption, the additional potential of available fuelwood, new possible uses of fuelwood, socio-economic and environmental implications of its mobilisation. This study deals with five European Union countries: Austria, Finland, France, Portugal and Sweden. This study is financed by EC, its contract number is JOR3-CT95-0004. (orig.)

Parallel Programming with Intel Parallel Studio XE

CERN Document Server

Blair-Chappell , Stephen

2012-01-01

Optimize code for multi-core processors with Intel's Parallel Studio Parallel programming is rapidly becoming a "must-know" skill for developers. Yet, where to start? This teach-yourself tutorial is an ideal starting point for developers who already know Windows C and C++ and are eager to add parallelism to their code. With a focus on applying tools, techniques, and language extensions to implement parallelism, this essential resource teaches you how to write programs for multicore and leverage the power of multicore in your programs. Sharing hands-on case studies and real-world examples, the

Development of an inorganic and organic aerosol model (CHIMERE 2017β v1.0: seasonal and spatial evaluation over Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Couvidat

2018-01-01

Full Text Available A new aerosol module was developed and integrated in the air quality model CHIMERE. Developments include the use of the Model of Emissions and Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN 2.1 for biogenic emissions, the implementation of the inorganic thermodynamic model ISORROPIA 2.1, revision of wet deposition processes and of the algorithms of condensation/evaporation and coagulation and the implementation of the secondary organic aerosol (SOA mechanism H2O and the thermodynamic model SOAP. Concentrations of particles over Europe were simulated by the model for the year 2013. Model concentrations were compared to the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP observations and other observations available in the EBAS database to evaluate the performance of the model. Performances were determined for several components of particles (sea salt, sulfate, ammonium, nitrate, organic aerosol with a seasonal and regional analysis of results. The model gives satisfactory performance in general. For sea salt, the model succeeds in reproducing the seasonal evolution of concentrations for western and central Europe. For sulfate, except for an overestimation of sulfate in northern Europe, modeled concentrations are close to observations and the model succeeds in reproducing the seasonal evolution of concentrations. For organic aerosol, the model reproduces with satisfactory results concentrations for stations with strong modeled biogenic SOA concentrations. However, the model strongly overestimates ammonium nitrate concentrations during late autumn (possibly due to problems in the temporal evolution of emissions and strongly underestimates summer organic aerosol concentrations over most of the stations (especially in the northern half of Europe. This underestimation could be due to a lack of anthropogenic SOA or biogenic emissions in northern Europe. A list of recommended tests and developments to improve the model is also given.

Integration, Disintegration and Trade in Europe : Evolution of Trade Relations during the 1990s

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fidrmuc, J.; Fidrmuc, J.

2000-01-01

The gravity model of trade is used to assess the economic consequences of new borders, which arose in the wake of break-ups of multinational federations in Eastern Europe. The intensity of trade relations among the constituent parts of Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union and the Baltics was very high

Darwinism Extended - A survey of how the idea of cultural evolution evolved

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Buskes, C.J.J.

2013-01-01

In the past 150 years there have been many attempts to draw parallels between cultural and biological evolution. Most of these attempts were flawed due to lack of knowledge and false ideas about evolution. In recent decades these shortcomings have been cleared away, thus triggering a renewed

Darwinism Extended - A Survey of How the Idea of Cultural Evolution Evolved

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Buskes, C.J.J.

2013-01-01

In the past 150 years there have been many attempts to draw parallels between cultural and biological evolution. Most of these attempts were flawed due to lack of knowledge and false ideas about evolution. In recent decades these shortcomings have been cleared away, thus triggering a renewed

Area Studies and Eastern Europe: How Eastern Europe Collapsed

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mirjana Kasapović

2007-01-01

Full Text Available In the first part, the author outlines the development of area studies in contemporary comparative politics, and points to their importance for the development of political science. In the second part, she examines the methodology – research design and methods – of regional comparatistics, paying particular attention to the problem of defining the region as a central category in this field of comparative politics. The third and central part is focused on the emergence of Eastern Europe as a historical-political and socio-cultural region in the course of history, especially after World War II, and on its dissolution in the processes of democratic transformation of communist regimes in the last two decades. The dissolution of Eastern Europe has resulted in restoration of a tripartite political geography in the area which it used to take up, made up of Central Europe, Southeast Europe and the proper Eastern Europe.

Experimental evolution in biofilm populations

Science.gov (United States)

Steenackers, Hans P.; Parijs, Ilse; Foster, Kevin R.; Vanderleyden, Jozef

2016-01-01

Biofilms are a major form of microbial life in which cells form dense surface associated communities that can persist for many generations. The long-life of biofilm communities means that they can be strongly shaped by evolutionary processes. Here, we review the experimental study of evolution in biofilm communities. We first provide an overview of the different experimental models used to study biofilm evolution and their associated advantages and disadvantages. We then illustrate the vast amount of diversification observed during biofilm evolution, and we discuss (i) potential ecological and evolutionary processes behind the observed diversification, (ii) recent insights into the genetics of adaptive diversification, (iii) the striking degree of parallelism between evolution experiments and real-life biofilms and (iv) potential consequences of diversification. In the second part, we discuss the insights provided by evolution experiments in how biofilm growth and structure can promote cooperative phenotypes. Overall, our analysis points to an important role of biofilm diversification and cooperation in bacterial survival and productivity. Deeper understanding of both processes is of key importance to design improved antimicrobial strategies and diagnostic techniques. PMID:26895713

A PARALLEL MONTE CARLO CODE FOR SIMULATING COLLISIONAL N-BODY SYSTEMS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pattabiraman, Bharath; Umbreit, Stefan; Liao, Wei-keng; Choudhary, Alok; Kalogera, Vassiliki; Memik, Gokhan; Rasio, Frederic A., E-mail: bharath@u.northwestern.edu [Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (United States)

2013-02-15

We present a new parallel code for computing the dynamical evolution of collisional N-body systems with up to N {approx} 10{sup 7} particles. Our code is based on the Henon Monte Carlo method for solving the Fokker-Planck equation, and makes assumptions of spherical symmetry and dynamical equilibrium. The principal algorithmic developments involve optimizing data structures and the introduction of a parallel random number generation scheme as well as a parallel sorting algorithm required to find nearest neighbors for interactions and to compute the gravitational potential. The new algorithms we introduce along with our choice of decomposition scheme minimize communication costs and ensure optimal distribution of data and workload among the processing units. Our implementation uses the Message Passing Interface library for communication, which makes it portable to many different supercomputing architectures. We validate the code by calculating the evolution of clusters with initial Plummer distribution functions up to core collapse with the number of stars, N, spanning three orders of magnitude from 10{sup 5} to 10{sup 7}. We find that our results are in good agreement with self-similar core-collapse solutions, and the core-collapse times generally agree with expectations from the literature. Also, we observe good total energy conservation, within {approx}< 0.04% throughout all simulations. We analyze the performance of the code, and demonstrate near-linear scaling of the runtime with the number of processors up to 64 processors for N = 10{sup 5}, 128 for N = 10{sup 6} and 256 for N = 10{sup 7}. The runtime reaches saturation with the addition of processors beyond these limits, which is a characteristic of the parallel sorting algorithm. The resulting maximum speedups we achieve are approximately 60 Multiplication-Sign , 100 Multiplication-Sign , and 220 Multiplication-Sign , respectively.

[On the evolution of scientific thought].

Science.gov (United States)

de Micheli, Alfredo; Iturralde Torres, Pedro

2015-01-01

The Nominalists of the XIV century, precursors of modern science, thought that science's object was not the general, vague and indeterminate but the particular, which is real and can be known directly. About the middle of the XVII Century the bases of the modern science became established thanks to a revolution fomented essentially by Galileo, Bacon and Descartes. During the XVIII Century, parallel to the development of the great current of English Empiricism, a movement of scientific renewal also arose in continental Europe following the discipline of the Dutch Physicians and of Boerhaave. In the XIX Century, Claude Bernard dominated the scientific medicine but his rigorous determinism impeded him from taking into account the immense and unforeseeable field of the random. Nowadays, we approach natural science and medicine, from particular groups of facts; that is, from the responses of Nature to specific questions, but not from the general laws. Furthermore, in recent epistemology, the concept that experimental data are not pure facts, but rather, facts interpreted within a hermeneutical context has been established. Finally a general tendency to retrieve philosophical questions concerning the understanding of essence and existence can frequently be seen in scientific inquiry. In the light of the evolution of medical thought, it is possible to establish the position of scientific medicine within the movement of ideas dominating in our time. Copyright © 2014 Instituto Nacional de Cardiología Ignacio Chávez. Published by Masson Doyma México S.A. All rights reserved.

Modern spandrels: the roles of genetic drift, gene flow and natural selection in the evolution of parallel clines.

Science.gov (United States)

Santangelo, James S; Johnson, Marc T J; Ness, Rob W

2018-05-16

Urban environments offer the opportunity to study the role of adaptive and non-adaptive evolutionary processes on an unprecedented scale. While the presence of parallel clines in heritable phenotypic traits is often considered strong evidence for the role of natural selection, non-adaptive evolutionary processes can also generate clines, and this may be more likely when traits have a non-additive genetic basis due to epistasis. In this paper, we use spatially explicit simulations modelled according to the cyanogenesis (hydrogen cyanide, HCN) polymorphism in white clover ( Trifolium repens ) to examine the formation of phenotypic clines along urbanization gradients under varying levels of drift, gene flow and selection. HCN results from an epistatic interaction between two Mendelian-inherited loci. Our results demonstrate that the genetic architecture of this trait makes natural populations susceptible to decreases in HCN frequencies via drift. Gradients in the strength of drift across a landscape resulted in phenotypic clines with lower frequencies of HCN in strongly drifting populations, giving the misleading appearance of deterministic adaptive changes in the phenotype. Studies of heritable phenotypic change in urban populations should generate null models of phenotypic evolution based on the genetic architecture underlying focal traits prior to invoking selection's role in generating adaptive differentiation. © 2018 The Author(s).

Heat Roadmap Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Connolly, David; Mathiesen, Brian Vad; Lund, Henrik

2015-01-01

This document is a summary of the key technical inputs for the modelling of the heat strategy for Europe outlined in the latest Heat Roadmap Europe studies [1, 2]. These studies quantify the impact of alternative heating strategies for Europe in 2030 and 2050. The study is based on geographical...... information systems (GIS) and energy system analyses. In this report, the inputs for other modelling tools such as PRIMES are presented, in order to enable other researches to generate similar heating scenarios for Europe. Although Heat Roadmap Europe presents a complete heat strategy for Europe, which...... includes energy efficiency, individual heating units (such as boilers and heat pumps), and heat networks, the recommendations here are primarily relating to the potential and modelling of district heating. Although other solutions will play a significant role in decarbonising the heating and cooling sector...

Past and future evolution of Abies alba forests in Europe - comparison of a dynamic vegetation model with palaeo data and observations.

Science.gov (United States)

Ruosch, Melanie; Spahni, Renato; Joos, Fortunat; Henne, Paul D; van der Knaap, Willem O; Tinner, Willy

2016-02-01

Information on how species distributions and ecosystem services are impacted by anthropogenic climate change is important for adaptation planning. Palaeo data suggest that Abies alba formed forests under significantly warmer-than-present conditions in Europe and might be a native substitute for widespread drought-sensitive temperate and boreal tree species such as beech (Fagus sylvatica) and spruce (Picea abies) under future global warming conditions. Here, we combine pollen and macrofossil data, modern observations, and results from transient simulations with the LPX-Bern dynamic global vegetation model to assess past and future distributions of A. alba in Europe. LPX-Bern is forced with climate anomalies from a run over the past 21 000 years with the Community Earth System Model, modern climatology, and with 21st-century multimodel ensemble results for the high-emission RCP8.5 and the stringent mitigation RCP2.6 pathway. The simulated distribution for present climate encompasses the modern range of A. alba, with the model exceeding the present distribution in north-western and southern Europe. Mid-Holocene pollen data and model results agree for southern Europe, suggesting that at present, human impacts suppress the distribution in southern Europe. Pollen and model results both show range expansion starting during the Bølling-Allerød warm period, interrupted by the Younger Dryas cold, and resuming during the Holocene. The distribution of A. alba expands to the north-east in all future scenarios, whereas the potential (currently unrealized) range would be substantially reduced in southern Europe under RCP8.5. A. alba maintains its current range in central Europe despite competition by other thermophilous tree species. Our combined palaeoecological and model evidence suggest that A. alba may ensure important ecosystem services including stand and slope stability, infrastructure protection, and carbon sequestration under significantly warmer

High-speed detection of emergent market clustering via an unsupervised parallel genetic algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dieter Hendricks

2016-02-01

Full Text Available We implement a master-slave parallel genetic algorithm with a bespoke log-likelihood fitness function to identify emergent clusters within price evolutions. We use graphics processing units (GPUs to implement a parallel genetic algorithm and visualise the results using disjoint minimal spanning trees. We demonstrate that our GPU parallel genetic algorithm, implemented on a commercially available general purpose GPU, is able to recover stock clusters in sub-second speed, based on a subset of stocks in the South African market. This approach represents a pragmatic choice for low-cost, scalable parallel computing and is significantly faster than a prototype serial implementation in an optimised C-based fourth-generation programming language, although the results are not directly comparable because of compiler differences. Combined with fast online intraday correlation matrix estimation from high frequency data for cluster identification, the proposed implementation offers cost-effective, near-real-time risk assessment for financial practitioners.

Middle east gas: supply source of Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vivies, P. de

1995-01-01

The evolution of gas demand, the decreasing of reserves leads to the question of European future needs satisfaction. The european market can call on the russian production or middle east production. Iran has the most important reserves but the needs of the population can limit the gas supply. Yemen and Oman which have less important reserves but also less important needs to satisfy can be a serious alternative; Abu dhabi reserves are destined to asia market. The qatar has the most important gas offshore field in the world. The LNG (liquefied natural gas) seems to have a better position than gas pipeline to dispatch gas towards Europe

Vegetation fire proneness in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Pereira, Mário; Aranha, José; Amraoui, Malik

2015-04-01

Fire selectivity has been studied for vegetation classes in terms of fire frequency and fire size in a few European regions. This analysis is often performed along with other landscape variables such as topography, distance to roads and towns. These studies aims to assess the landscape sensitivity to forest fires in peri-urban areas and land cover changes, to define landscape management guidelines and policies based on the relationships between landscape and fires in the Mediterranean region. Therefore, the objectives of this study includes the: (i) analysis of the spatial and temporal variability statistics within Europe; and, (ii) the identification and characterization of the vegetated land cover classes affected by fires; and, (iii) to propose a fire proneness index. The datasets used in the present study comprises: Corine Land Cover (CLC) maps for 2000 and 2006 (CLC2000, CLC2006) and burned area (BA) perimeters, from 2000 to 2013 in Europe, provided by the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). The CLC is a part of the European Commission programme to COoRdinate INformation on the Environment (Corine) and it provides consistent, reliable and comparable information on land cover across Europe. Both the CLC and EFFIS datasets were combined using geostatistics and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques to access the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of shrubs and forest affected by fires. Obtained results confirms the usefulness and efficiency of the land cover classification scheme and fire proneness index which allows to quantify and to compare the propensity of vegetation classes and countries to fire. As expected, differences between northern and southern Europe are notorious in what concern to land cover distribution, fire incidence and fire proneness of vegetation cover classes. This work was supported by national funds by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project PEst-OE/AGR/UI4033/2014 and by

Evolution of calculation methods taking into account severe accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

L'Homme, A.; Courtaud, J.M.

1990-12-01

During the first decade of PWRs operation in France the calculation methods used for design and operation have improved very much. This paper gives a general analysis of the calculation methods evolution in parallel with the evolution of safety approach concerning PWRs. Then a comprehensive presentation of principal calculation tools is presented as applied during the past decade. An effort is done to predict the improvements in near future

Europe of energy: convergencies - complexity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chevalier, J.M. and others

2001-01-01

This issue of 'Economies et Societes' journal comprises 16 articles dealing with the evolution of European energy markets: the security of European petroleum supplies (P.R. Bauquis); the security of European natural gas supplies (J.M. Dauger); an empirical analysis of the power prices convergence in the European union (J.A. Vega-Cervera, A. Jurado-Malaga); the integration of European power markets, from the juxtaposition of national market to the establishment of a regional market (D. Finon); the fusions-acquisitions in the energy sector and the globalization impact (C.A. Michalet); the reorganization of power economics and the share of right (M.A. Frison-Roche); the European industry facing the new economy (J.M. Chevalier); the confidence stake of the traditional power operators (Y. Benamour, A. Bonanni); status and prospects of gas prices in continental Europe (G. Bellec); the gas and power transport challenges and the access charges fixing (L. David, J. Percebois); the strategic challenges of underground storage in the new European gas context (B. Esnault); stranded costs and deregulation of power networks: some questions raised by the US experience (J. Bezzina); natural gas in Europe and the emergence of spot markets and trading hubs (G. Heyvaert); the competitiveness of the power exchange market of the Netherlands (F. Boisseleau); setting up and de-regulated trades in European markets (H. Geman); the Californian power market (P.L. Joskow). (J.S.)

Physical activity recommendations for health: what should Europe do?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fogelholm Mikael

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Accumulating scientific evidence shows physical activity to have profound health benefits amenable to substantial public health gains. Accordingly, recommendations on how much and what kind of physical activity enhances health have been issued. The 1995 recommendation from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine has been adapted worldwide, including Europe. Recently an extensive review of new evidence was undertaken and refined recommendations were issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We summarise the development of physical activity recommendations and consider the need and possible ways to update the current European situation. Discussion The new recommendations include several new elements when compared to the 1995 recommendation, the most notable being the greater emphasis on the contribution of vigorous-intensity activities, and the inclusion of activities for muscle strength and bone health. They also include specific recommendations for young people, middle-aged adults, older adults and some special groups. The existing Pan-European and national physical activity recommendations in Europe are mostly based on the 1995 recommendation and primarily target adults and young people. Thus the degree to which they are compatible with the new recommendations varies. In view of the growing public health importance of physical activity, we discuss the need to review the existing physical activity recommendations at the European level and assess their consistency with the new evidence and the new recommendations. Summary We argue that a review of the current physical activity recommendations in Europe should be undertaken in view of the most recent research evidence. We recommend that such a task should be taken on by WHO Europe in parallel with the ongoing work by WHO global Headquarters. Following this, each country should develop communication

Biofuel implementation in East Europe: Current status and future prospects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kondili, E.M.; Kaldellis, J.K.

2007-01-01

There is a continuously increasing interest concerning the biofuel implementation in Europe, mainly because of environmental protection and energy supply security reasons. In this context, the European Union (EU) strongly encourages the use of biofuels through a number of Directives. To that effect, EU members follow the Directives implementing various political, fiscal and technical measures and incentives. In the light of the potential created by the recently joined Eastern European countries, an increasing interest is shown in the whole biofuel supply chain within the EU. In parallel, the status of the Eastern European countries domestic market, as far as biofuels are concerned, is an interesting issue, since most of these countries present a significant potential, however still lagging in biofuel implementation. In the above context, the objective of the present work is to give a concise and up-to-date picture of the present status of biofuel implementation in East Europe. The work also aims at identifying the prospects of these countries as far as biofuels are concerned and their role in the EU framework as potential suppliers of a wider market. (author)

Gas Storage in Europe, recent developments and outlook to 2035

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hureau, Geoffroy

2015-01-01

These slides present: the European gas storage market in 2014 (Review of 2014 trends, Current challenges, Role of storage); the Outlook to 2035 (Supply/Demand factors, Estimated Storage needs, Project backlog). In conclusion: an over capacity is expected until 2025.Supply and demand evolution, market liberalization and environmental constraints on coal will drive a new period of growth for UGS. Cedigaz estimates that European UGS capacity will increase by around 45 bcm by 2035. UGS projects represent 77 bcm Of which 22 bcm is under construction, there is a majority of salt-cavern projects (market liberalization), not so much new seasonal storage (security of supply?), not all planned storage will be built (Projects under competition for the same (regional) market, the situation is quite contrasted between NW Europe and South-Southeast Europe (and UK)). The challenges are the investment and the security of supply

Climate Impacts in Europe Under +1.5°C Global Warming

Science.gov (United States)

Jacob, Daniela; Kotova, Lola; Teichmann, Claas; Sobolowski, Stefan P.; Vautard, Robert; Donnelly, Chantal; Koutroulis, Aristeidis G.; Grillakis, Manolis G.; Tsanis, Ioannis K.; Damm, Andrea; Sakalli, Abdulla; van Vliet, Michelle T. H.

2018-02-01

The Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change aims not only at avoiding +2°C warming (and even limit the temperature increase further to +1.5°C), but also sets long-term goals to guide mitigation. Therefore, the best available science is required to inform policymakers on the importance of and the adaptation needs in a +1.5°C warmer world. Seven research institutes from Europe and Turkey integrated their competencies to provide a cross-sectoral assessment of the potential impacts at a pan-European scale. The initial findings of this initiative are presented and key messages communicated. The approach is to select periods based on global warming thresholds rather than the more typical approach of selecting time periods (e.g., end of century). The results indicate that the world is likely to pass the +1.5°C threshold in the coming decades. Cross-sectoral dimensions are taken into account to show the impacts of global warming that occur in parallel in more than one sector. Also, impacts differ across sectors and regions. Alongside the negative impacts for certain sectors and regions, some positive impacts are projected. Summer tourism in parts of Western Europe may be favored by climate change; electricity demand decreases outweigh increases over most of Europe and catchment yields in hydropower regions will increase. However, such positive findings should be interpreted carefully as we do not take into account exogenous factors that can and will influence Europe such as migration patterns, food production, and economic and political instability.

Evolution of the carabid ground beetles.

Science.gov (United States)

Osawa, S; Su, Z H; Kim, C G; Okamoto, M; Tominaga, O; Imura, Y

1999-01-01

The phylogenetic relationships of the carabid ground beetles have been estimated by analysing a large part of the ND5 gene sequences of more than 1,000 specimens consisting of the representative species and geographic races covering most of the genera and subgenera known in the world. From the phylogenetic analyses in conjunction with the mtDNA-based dating, a scenario of the establishment of the present habitats of the respective Japanese carabids has been constructed. The carabid diversification took place ca. 40 MYA as an explosive radiation of the major genera. During evolution, occasional small or single bangs also took place, sometimes accompanied by parallel morphological evolution in phylogenetically remote as well as close lineages. The existence of silent periods, in which few morphological changes took place, has been recognized during evolution. Thus, the carabid evolution is discontinuous, alternatively having a phase of rapid morphological change and a silent phase.

Progonomys Schaub, 1938 and Huerzelerimys gen. nov. (Rodentia) : their evolution in Western Europe

OpenAIRE

Mein, P.; Martín Suárez, E.; Agustí, J.

1993-01-01

In this paper the various species and populations attributed to the genus Progonomys Schaub, 1938 are revised. Valerymys Michaux, 1969 is considered to be synonymous with Occitanomys Michaux, 1969, since the type-species V. ellenbergeri (Thaler, 1966) was included in Occitanomys by Aguilar et al. (1986a). Other species from Western Europe that had been included in Valerymys cannot be transferred to Occitanomys. They are the descendants of Progonomys cathalai, for which we create the new genus...

Changes in the Order of Family Life Events in 20th-Century Europe: A Cross-Regional Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Reto Burgin

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This article analyzes the evolution of the sequencing of family life events in Europe during the second half of the 20th century using individual data from the European Social Survey and from the Generation and Gender Program. Considering the four events ‘leaving the parental home‘, ‘first cohabiting union‘, ‘first marriage‘, and ‘first parenthood‘, we hypothesize a transition from a traditional standard event order characterized by a high degree of synchronization between the first three events towards a new standard whose features are a high degree of de-synchronization between first cohabitation and first marriage and a reversal of the traditional order between first marriage and first parenthood. We also hypothesize cross-regional differences in the timing and in the shape of the transition from one standard to another. Applying specifically developed tools to visualize and analyze event sequences, we show important regional variation in the evolution of the sequencing of family life events. Hardly any change can be observed in Southern Europe, where the sequencing behavior of family events has remained highly standardized and rooted in the traditional standard. In Eastern Europe where family event sequences have become less standardized and where a particular sequence characterized by the reversal of the traditional order between leaving home and family formation has been observed, the hypothesized transition is still in its very beginning. In Western Europe the transition is clearly on its way, but no re-standardization towards a new standard can be observed as for now. As expected, the transition is most advanced in Northern Europe, where evidence for a certain re-standardization process in the sequencing of family life events has been found.

A retrospective view on Designation of Origin Labeled foods in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krystallis, Athanasios; Chrysochou, Polymeros; Perrea, Toula

2017-01-01

In the emergence of ethically conscious consumer segments across Europe, the expectation was that Designation of Origin Labeled (DOL) foods would make a production system of similar logic. Past analysis of DOLs' registration history showed that the take-up of this EU food quality scheme concentra......In the emergence of ethically conscious consumer segments across Europe, the expectation was that Designation of Origin Labeled (DOL) foods would make a production system of similar logic. Past analysis of DOLs' registration history showed that the take-up of this EU food quality scheme...... concentrated in the South, attributed to specific food supply and demand conditions prevalent in that part of Europe. This paper sheds light on the DOL product distribution and examines its evolution over a 14-year period (2001-2014). DOLs remain a quality differentiation scheme predominantly for the South EU...... agri-food industry. However, the less restrictive requirements for the PGI certification make it a much more popular DOL in Northern EU. To promote its food quality policy, the EU must approach the two DOL types differently, as they have a different growth potential among EU countries. DOLs...

Severe Autumn storms in future Western Europe with a warmer Atlantic Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Baatsen, Michiel; Haarsma, Reindert J.; Van Delden, Aarnout J.; de Vries, Hylke

2015-08-01

Simulations with a very high resolution (~25 km) global climate model indicate that more severe Autumn storms will impact Europe in a warmer future climate. The observed increase is mainly attributed to storms with a tropical origin, especially in the later part of the twentyfirst century. As their genesis region expands, tropical cyclones become more intense and their chances of reaching Europe increase. This paper investigates the properties and evolution of such storms and clarifies the future changes. The studied tropical cyclones feature a typical evolution of tropical development, extratropical transition and a re-intensification. A reduction of the transit area between regions of tropical and extratropical cyclogenesis increases the probability of re-intensification. Many of the modelled storms exhibit hybrid properties in a considerable part of their life cycle during which they exhibit the hazards of both tropical and extratropical systems. In addition to tropical cyclones, other systems such as cold core extratropical storms mainly originating over the Gulf Stream region also increasingly impact Western Europe. Despite their different history, all of the studied storms have one striking similarity: they form a warm seclusion. The structure, intensity and frequency of storms in the present climate are compared to observations using the MERRA and IBTrACS datasets. Damaging winds associated with the occurrence of a sting jet are observed in a large fraction of the cyclones during their final stage. Baroclinic instability is of great importance for the (re-)intensification of the storms. Furthermore, so-called atmospheric rivers providing tropical air prove to be vital for the intensification through diabatic heating and will increase considerably in strength in the future, as will the associated flooding risks.

Geometric phases for mixed states during cyclic evolutions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fu Libin; Chen Jingling

2004-01-01

The geometric phases of cyclic evolutions for mixed states are discussed in the framework of unitary evolution. A canonical 1-form is defined whose line integral gives the geometric phase, which is gauge invariant. It reduces to the Aharonov and Anandan phase in the pure state case. Our definition is consistent with the phase shift in the proposed experiment (Sjoeqvist et al 2000 Phys. Rev. Lett. 85 2845) for a cyclic evolution if the unitary transformation satisfies the parallel transport condition. A comprehensive geometric interpretation is also given. It shows that the geometric phases for mixed states share the same geometric sense with the pure states

Practical parallel computing

CERN Document Server

Morse, H Stephen

1994-01-01

Practical Parallel Computing provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of high-performance parallel processing. This book discusses the development of parallel applications on a variety of equipment.Organized into three parts encompassing 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the technology trends that converge to favor massively parallel hardware over traditional mainframes and vector machines. This text then gives a tutorial introduction to parallel hardware architectures. Other chapters provide worked-out examples of programs using several parallel languages. Thi

Paleomagnetic and geochronologic constraints on the geodynamic evolution of the Central Dinarides

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Leeuw, Arjan; Mandic, Oleg; Krijgsman, Wout; Kuiper, Klaudia; Hrvatović, Hazim

2012-01-01

The geodynamic evolution of the Dinaride Mountains of southeastern Europe is relatively poorly understood, especially in comparison with the neighboring Alps and Carpathians. Here, we construct a new chronostratigraphy for the post-orogenic intra-montane basins of the Central Dinarides based on

Experience in implementing projects in Eastern Europe; Erfahrungen bei der Realisierung von Projekten in Osteuropa

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weichard, A.; Bauer, I.; Rieck, R.; Ziehm, R. [NUKEM Technologies GmbH, Alzenau (Germany)

2007-11-15

The article covers the present projects and activities in Eastern Europe of Nukem Technologies GmbH. The company's East European business began in 1973 in the field of uranium trading. After difficult negotiations in the period of the ''cold war'' it became possible to enter into an agreement with the Soviet foreign trade organization, Techsnabexport, about purchases of uranium for Western nuclear power plants. In the course of Nukem's realignment in the late 1980s, the focus was shifted more and more to the possibility of exporting into other countries the technologies developed and proven in Germany. This included countries in Eastern Europe. The situation changed abruptly with the political opening of Eastern Europe. A large potential market opened to Nukem as a supplier of technologies and plants for waste treatment and, later, the wider area of decommissioning. The partners in Eastern Europe were interested in proven, modern solutions. The ensuing success was also due to the fact that Nukem, in the early nineties, hired specialists from the new German federal states who had studied in the Soviet Union and were familiar with Russian technology, language, and culture. Soliciting analogous projects in the countries of Eastern Europe other than the former Soviet Union was begun in a parallel process. Very soon it turned out that also the interim storage of spent fuel elements constituted a potential market. (orig.)

Parallel rendering

Science.gov (United States)

Crockett, Thomas W.

1995-01-01

This article provides a broad introduction to the subject of parallel rendering, encompassing both hardware and software systems. The focus is on the underlying concepts and the issues which arise in the design of parallel rendering algorithms and systems. We examine the different types of parallelism and how they can be applied in rendering applications. Concepts from parallel computing, such as data decomposition, task granularity, scalability, and load balancing, are considered in relation to the rendering problem. We also explore concepts from computer graphics, such as coherence and projection, which have a significant impact on the structure of parallel rendering algorithms. Our survey covers a number of practical considerations as well, including the choice of architectural platform, communication and memory requirements, and the problem of image assembly and display. We illustrate the discussion with numerous examples from the parallel rendering literature, representing most of the principal rendering methods currently used in computer graphics.

Using Coarrays to Parallelize Legacy Fortran Applications: Strategy and Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hari Radhakrishnan

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper summarizes a strategy for parallelizing a legacy Fortran 77 program using the object-oriented (OO and coarray features that entered Fortran in the 2003 and 2008 standards, respectively. OO programming (OOP facilitates the construction of an extensible suite of model-verification and performance tests that drive the development. Coarray parallel programming facilitates a rapid evolution from a serial application to a parallel application capable of running on multicore processors and many-core accelerators in shared and distributed memory. We delineate 17 code modernization steps used to refactor and parallelize the program and study the resulting performance. Our initial studies were done using the Intel Fortran compiler on a 32-core shared memory server. Scaling behavior was very poor, and profile analysis using TAU showed that the bottleneck in the performance was due to our implementation of a collective, sequential summation procedure. We were able to improve the scalability and achieve nearly linear speedup by replacing the sequential summation with a parallel, binary tree algorithm. We also tested the Cray compiler, which provides its own collective summation procedure. Intel provides no collective reductions. With Cray, the program shows linear speedup even in distributed-memory execution. We anticipate similar results with other compilers once they support the new collective procedures proposed for Fortran 2015.

Evolution and perspectives of gas market

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Russo, S.

1998-01-01

The gas market in Europe, and thus in Italy, will see great changes as regards the market, the deployment of forces on the ground, the structure of the demand and, in the longer term, that of the offer. It is important to look at the future after having gone through, although in brief, the stages of the development of the gas market in Europe and in Italy, from the origins, in the years 1950-60, up today. It is not difficult to see how the organization of the market, up to now, has been oriented prevailingly at the development and at the security of supplies to the consumer. The future will focus on the improvement of the global efficiency of the gas system with the aim of reducing costs, yet for the final users. The realization of this transition has already begun and it is demonstrated by the evolution of both the institutional and regulatory framework already under way, in Europe with the just approved gas directive, and in Italy with the appointment of the market regulation Authority. It is difficult challenge to which the gas industry will answer adequately [it

Parallel computations

CERN Document Server

1982-01-01

Parallel Computations focuses on parallel computation, with emphasis on algorithms used in a variety of numerical and physical applications and for many different types of parallel computers. Topics covered range from vectorization of fast Fourier transforms (FFTs) and of the incomplete Cholesky conjugate gradient (ICCG) algorithm on the Cray-1 to calculation of table lookups and piecewise functions. Single tridiagonal linear systems and vectorized computation of reactive flow are also discussed.Comprised of 13 chapters, this volume begins by classifying parallel computers and describing techn

Parallel sorting algorithms

CERN Document Server

Akl, Selim G

1985-01-01

Parallel Sorting Algorithms explains how to use parallel algorithms to sort a sequence of items on a variety of parallel computers. The book reviews the sorting problem, the parallel models of computation, parallel algorithms, and the lower bounds on the parallel sorting problems. The text also presents twenty different algorithms, such as linear arrays, mesh-connected computers, cube-connected computers. Another example where algorithm can be applied is on the shared-memory SIMD (single instruction stream multiple data stream) computers in which the whole sequence to be sorted can fit in the

Commercial satellite broadcasting for Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Forrest, J. R.

1988-12-01

A review is presented of the current television broadcasting situation in European countries, which involves a varied mix of terrestrial VHF or UHF systems and cable networks. A small market has emerged in Europe for receivers using the low-power telecommunications satellite transmission between the program providers and cable network companies. This is expected to change with the launch of medium-power pan-European telecommunication satellites (e.g. ASTRA, EUTELSAT II), which are now directly addressing the market of home reception. DBS (direct broadcast satellite) in the UK, using the D-MAC transmission standard, will offer three additional television channels, data broadcasting services, and a planned evolution to compatible forms of wide-screen, high-definition television. Comments are given on receiver and conditional access system standardization. Some views are expressed on satellite broadcasting as part of an overall broadcasting framework for the future.

Electric power in Europe: towards a competitive oligopoly?; L'Europe electrique: vers un oligopole concurrentiel?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huby, J.; Noilhan, F.; Sauvage, Ph

2002-09-01

The Electricity Sector of the European Union has experienced very deep changes in the last decade, in the wake of the 1996 'Electricity Directive'. In most Member States, companies that once enjoyed the position of de facto or de jure monopolists have been facing an increasing competitive pressure, while development of cross-border trade combined with cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions indicates a deeper European integration. It seems that the 'internal market in Electricity', targeted by the 1996 Directive, is slowly but surely taking shape. The present study intends to draw a picture of the recent evolution in the European Electricity Sector and to identify the challenges and options the European public authorities are now facing. Our starting point is an in-depth analysis of the idiosyncrasies of the Electricity Sector in general and of the constraints they impose on the market design. We move then to the peculiarities of the 'Continental Europe', an area including France, Germany, the Benelux and the 'electric peninsulas' of Italy and Spain, but excluding the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries. The latter have indeed a longer and quite different experience of liberalization. We then describe the current regulatory and legislative state of the play and try to identify clear-cut tendencies for the future evolution. We conclude that the 'internal market in Electricity' is far from completion and that the strategy adopted by the European Union seems to be that of a slow and cautious deepening of reforms that are already 'on the way'. Thus one can anticipate that the present framework will not - and maybe should not - experience a radical upheaval. After having built up the setting, we focus on the industrial organisation of the sector. It seems to us that the consolidation that took place in 'Continental Europe' during the last five years is now settling down. Seven or eight major

Parallel Genetic and Phenotypic Evolution of DNA Superhelicity in Experimental Populations of Escherichia coli

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Crozat, Estelle; Winkworth, Cynthia; Gaffé, Joël

2010-01-01

, indicate that changes in DNA superhelicity have been important in the evolution of these populations. Surprisingly, however, most of the evolved alleles we tested had either no detectable or slightly deleterious effects on fitness, despite these signatures of positive selection.......DNA supercoiling is the master function that interconnects chromosome structure and global gene transcription. This function has recently been shown to be under strong selection in Escherichia coli. During the evolution of 12 initially identical populations propagated in a defined environment...

Large-scale dynamics associated with clustering of extratropical cyclones affecting Western Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Pinto, Joaquim G.; Gómara, Iñigo; Masato, Giacomo; Dacre, Helen F.; Woollings, Tim; Caballero, Rodrigo

2015-04-01

Some recent winters in Western Europe have been characterized by the occurrence of multiple extratropical cyclones following a similar path. The occurrence of such cyclone clusters leads to large socio-economic impacts due to damaging winds, storm surges, and floods. Recent studies have statistically characterized the clustering of extratropical cyclones over the North Atlantic and Europe and hypothesized potential physical mechanisms responsible for their formation. Here we analyze 4 months characterized by multiple cyclones over Western Europe (February 1990, January 1993, December 1999, and January 2007). The evolution of the eddy driven jet stream, Rossby wave-breaking, and upstream/downstream cyclone development are investigated to infer the role of the large-scale flow and to determine if clustered cyclones are related to each other. Results suggest that optimal conditions for the occurrence of cyclone clusters are provided by a recurrent extension of an intensified eddy driven jet toward Western Europe lasting at least 1 week. Multiple Rossby wave-breaking occurrences on both the poleward and equatorward flanks of the jet contribute to the development of these anomalous large-scale conditions. The analysis of the daily weather charts reveals that upstream cyclone development (secondary cyclogenesis, where new cyclones are generated on the trailing fronts of mature cyclones) is strongly related to cyclone clustering, with multiple cyclones developing on a single jet streak. The present analysis permits a deeper understanding of the physical reasons leading to the occurrence of cyclone families over the North Atlantic, enabling a better estimation of the associated cumulative risk over Europe.

Epidemiology and Management of Cysticercosis and Taenia solium Taeniasis in Europe, Systematic Review 1990–2011

OpenAIRE

Zammarchi, Lorenzo; Strohmeyer, Marianne; Bartalesi, Filippo; Bruno, Elisa; Muñoz, José; Buonfrate, Dora; Nicoletti, Alessandra; García, Héctor Hugo; Pozio, Edoardo; Bartoloni, Alessandro

2013-01-01

Background Cysticercosis is caused by the invasion of human or pig tissues by the metacestode larval stage of Taenia solium. In Europe, the disease was endemic in the past but the autochthonous natural life cycle of the parasite is currently completed very rarely. Recently, imported cases have increased in parallel to the increased number of migrations and international travels. The lack of specific surveillance systems for cysticercosis leads to underestimation of the epidemiological and cli...

Parallel MR imaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Deshmane, Anagha; Gulani, Vikas; Griswold, Mark A; Seiberlich, Nicole

2012-07-01

Parallel imaging is a robust method for accelerating the acquisition of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, and has made possible many new applications of MR imaging. Parallel imaging works by acquiring a reduced amount of k-space data with an array of receiver coils. These undersampled data can be acquired more quickly, but the undersampling leads to aliased images. One of several parallel imaging algorithms can then be used to reconstruct artifact-free images from either the aliased images (SENSE-type reconstruction) or from the undersampled data (GRAPPA-type reconstruction). The advantages of parallel imaging in a clinical setting include faster image acquisition, which can be used, for instance, to shorten breath-hold times resulting in fewer motion-corrupted examinations. In this article the basic concepts behind parallel imaging are introduced. The relationship between undersampling and aliasing is discussed and two commonly used parallel imaging methods, SENSE and GRAPPA, are explained in detail. Examples of artifacts arising from parallel imaging are shown and ways to detect and mitigate these artifacts are described. Finally, several current applications of parallel imaging are presented and recent advancements and promising research in parallel imaging are briefly reviewed. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Forecast, observation and modelling of a deep stratospheric intrusion event over Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. Zanis

2003-01-01

Full Text Available A wide range of measurements was carried out in central and southeastern Europe within the framework of the EU project STACCATO (Influence of Stratosphere-Troposphere Exchange in a Changing Climate on Atmospheric Transport and Oxidation Capacity with the principle goal to create a comprehensive data set on stratospheric air intrusions into the troposphere along a rather frequently observed pathway over central Europe from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The measurements were based on predictions by suitable quasi-operational trajectory calculations using ECMWF forecast data. A predicted deep Stratosphere to Troposphere Transport (STT event, encountered during the STACCATO period on 20-21 June 2001, was followed by the measurements network almost from its inception. Observations provide evidence that the intrusion affected large parts of central and southeastern Europe. Especially, the ozone lidar observations on 20-21 June 2001 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany captured the evolution of two marked tongues of high ozone with the first one descending to nearly 2 km, thus providing an excellent data set for model intercomparisons and validation. In addition, for the first time to our knowledge concurrent surface measurements of the cosmogenic radionuclides 10Be and 7Be and their ratio 10Be/7Be are presented together as stratospheric tracers in a case study of a stratospheric intrusion. The ozone tracer columns calculated with the FLEXPART model were found to be in good agreement with water vapour satellite images, capturing the evolution of the observed dry streamers of stratospheric origin. Furthermore, the time-height cross section of ozone tracer simulated with FLEXPART over Garmisch-Partenkirchen captures many details of the evolution of the two observed high-ozone filaments measured with the IFU lidar, thus demonstrating the considerable progress in model simulations. Finally, the modelled ozone (operationally available since October

High-Performance Psychometrics: The Parallel-E Parallel-M Algorithm for Generalized Latent Variable Models. Research Report. ETS RR-16-34

Science.gov (United States)

von Davier, Matthias

2016-01-01

This report presents results on a parallel implementation of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for multidimensional latent variable models. The developments presented here are based on code that parallelizes both the E step and the M step of the parallel-E parallel-M algorithm. Examples presented in this report include item response…

Molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 infection in Europe: An overview.

Science.gov (United States)

Beloukas, Apostolos; Psarris, Alexandros; Giannelou, Polina; Kostaki, Evangelia; Hatzakis, Angelos; Paraskevis, Dimitrios

2016-12-01

Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) is characterised by vast genetic diversity. Globally circulating HIV-1 viruses are classified into distinct phylogenetic strains (subtypes, sub-subtypes) and several recombinant forms. Here we describe the characteristics and evolution of European HIV-1 epidemic over time through a review of published literature and updated queries of existing HIV-1 sequence databases. HIV-1 in Western and Central Europe was introduced in the early-1980s in the form of subtype B, which is still the predominant clade. However, in Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries and Russia) the predominant strain, introduced into Ukraine in the mid-1990s, is subtype A (A FSU ) with transmission mostly occurring in People Who Inject Drugs (PWID). In recent years, the epidemic is evolving towards a complex tapestry with an increase in the prevalence of non-B subtypes and recombinants in Western and Central Europe. Non-B epidemics are mainly associated with immigrants, heterosexuals and females but more recently, non-B clades have also spread amongst groups where non-B strains were previously absent - non-immigrant European populations and amongst men having sex with men (MSM). In some countries, non-B clades have spread amongst the native population, for example subtype G in Portugal and subtype A in Greece, Albania and Cyprus. Romania provides a unique case where sub-subtype F1 has predominated throughout the epidemic. In contrast, HIV-1 epidemic in FSU countries remains more homogeneous with A FSU clade predominating in all countries. The differences between the evolution of the Western epidemic and the Eastern epidemic may be attributable to differences in transmission risk behaviours, lifestyle and the patterns of human mobility. The study of HIV-1 epidemic diversity provides a useful tool by which we can understand the history of the pandemic in addition to allowing us to monitor the spread and growth of the epidemic over time

Eastern Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baret, J.P.; Corcuff, A.; Jousten, M.; Cherie, J.B.; Gorge, X.; Augustin, X.; Belime, F.

1999-01-01

By its economical and political impact, nuclear energy has an important contribution the countries of Eastern Europe that goes beyond simple energy source. The most important challenge is to gain a safety culture. Improvements have been noted but the reactors safety must stay a priority of the international cooperation in Eastern Europe. The plan for the completion and improvement of Mochovce nuclear plant is described, the situation of Chernobyl and how to make the sarcophagus in safe is discussed, the experience of a french P.M.E. ( small and medium size firm) called Corys Tess that has chosen to position itself on the Eastern Europe nuclear market is related. (N.C.)

Parallel Evolutionary Optimization of Multibody Systems with Application to Railway Dynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eberhard, Peter [University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute of Applied Mechanics (Germany)], E-mail: eberhard@ltm.uni-erlangen.de; Dignath, Florian [University of Stuttgart, Institute B of Mechanics (Germany)], E-mail: fd@mechb.uni-stuttgart.de; Kuebler, Lars [University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute of Applied Mechanics (Germany)], E-mail: kuebler@ltm.uni-erlangen.de

2003-03-15

The optimization of multibody systems usually requires many costly criteria computations since the equations of motion must be evaluated by numerical time integration for each considered design. For actively controlled or flexible multibody systems additional difficulties arise as the criteria may contain non-differentiable points or many local minima. Therefore, in this paper a stochastic evolution strategy is used in combination with parallel computing in order to reduce the computation times whilst keeping the inherent robustness. For the parallelization a master-slave approach is used in a heterogeneous workstation/PC cluster. The pool-of-tasks concept is applied in order to deal with the frequently changing workloads of different machines in the cluster. In order to analyze the performance of the parallel optimization method, the suspension of an ICE passenger coach, modeled as an elastic multibody system, is optimized simultaneously with regard to several criteria including vibration damping and a criterion related to safety against derailment. The iterative and interactive nature of a typical optimization process for technical systems is emphasized.

Parallel Evolutionary Optimization of Multibody Systems with Application to Railway Dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eberhard, Peter; Dignath, Florian; Kuebler, Lars

2003-01-01

The optimization of multibody systems usually requires many costly criteria computations since the equations of motion must be evaluated by numerical time integration for each considered design. For actively controlled or flexible multibody systems additional difficulties arise as the criteria may contain non-differentiable points or many local minima. Therefore, in this paper a stochastic evolution strategy is used in combination with parallel computing in order to reduce the computation times whilst keeping the inherent robustness. For the parallelization a master-slave approach is used in a heterogeneous workstation/PC cluster. The pool-of-tasks concept is applied in order to deal with the frequently changing workloads of different machines in the cluster. In order to analyze the performance of the parallel optimization method, the suspension of an ICE passenger coach, modeled as an elastic multibody system, is optimized simultaneously with regard to several criteria including vibration damping and a criterion related to safety against derailment. The iterative and interactive nature of a typical optimization process for technical systems is emphasized

Europe in the Balkan mirror

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Milutinović Zoran

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the three dominant, Europe-wide, constructions of Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and claims that all three found their proponents in the Balkans in the same period, while no specifically Balkan construction of Europe can be identified. The discourses which constructed Europe were transnational, and every search for national discourses must recognize that they are always fractured and contradictory, composed of various elements originating in Europe-wide discourses on Europe. Throughout this period the dominant discourse of Europe was shaped by the discourse of modernity and modernization, not only in Europe but in other parts of the globe as well. Several commentators have already noted that the current challenge of the interwar construction of Europe - peace, prosperity, democracy and human rights - mirrors the crisis of Yugoslavia, and many examples point to the unsustainability of this construction at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Gadamer’s hermeneutics offers a valuable lesson in humility and defines the oft-repeated phrase of “belonging together” as listening to the other in the belief that the other may be right, which should be taken as a starting point for any future construction of Europe.

Low genetic diversity despite multiple introductions of the invasive plant species Impatiens glandulifera in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Hagenblad, Jenny; Hülskötter, Jennifer; Acharya, Kamal Prasad; Brunet, Jörg; Chabrerie, Olivier; Cousins, Sara A O; Dar, Pervaiz A; Diekmann, Martin; De Frenne, Pieter; Hermy, Martin; Jamoneau, Aurélien; Kolb, Annette; Lemke, Isgard; Plue, Jan; Reshi, Zafar A; Graae, Bente Jessen

2015-08-20

Invasive species can be a major threat to native biodiversity and the number of invasive plant species is increasing across the globe. Population genetic studies of invasive species can provide key insights into their invasion history and ensuing evolution, but also for their control. Here we genetically characterise populations of Impatiens glandulifera, an invasive plant in Europe that can have a major impact on native plant communities. We compared populations from the species' native range in Kashmir, India, to those in its invaded range, along a latitudinal gradient in Europe. For comparison, the results from 39 other studies of genetic diversity in invasive species were collated. Our results suggest that I. glandulifera was established in the wild in Europe at least twice, from an area outside of our Kashmir study area. Our results further revealed that the genetic diversity in invasive populations of I. glandulifera is unusually low compared to native populations, in particular when compared to other invasive species. Genetic drift rather than mutation seems to have played a role in differentiating populations in Europe. We find evidence of limitations to local gene flow after introduction to Europe, but somewhat less restrictions in the native range. I. glandulifera populations with significant inbreeding were only found in the species' native range and invasive species in general showed no increase in inbreeding upon leaving their native ranges. In Europe we detect cases of migration between distantly located populations. Human activities therefore seem to, at least partially, have facilitated not only introductions, but also further spread of I. glandulifera across Europe. Although multiple introductions will facilitate the retention of genetic diversity in invasive ranges, widespread invasive species can remain genetically relatively invariant also after multiple introductions. Phenotypic plasticity may therefore be an important component of the

Multi Scale Finite Element Analyses By Using SEM-EBSD Crystallographic Modeling and Parallel Computing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakamachi, Eiji

2005-01-01

A crystallographic homogenization procedure is introduced to the conventional static-explicit and dynamic-explicit finite element formulation to develop a multi scale - double scale - analysis code to predict the plastic strain induced texture evolution, yield loci and formability of sheet metal. The double-scale structure consists of a crystal aggregation - micro-structure - and a macroscopic elastic plastic continuum. At first, we measure crystal morphologies by using SEM-EBSD apparatus, and define a unit cell of micro structure, which satisfy the periodicity condition in the real scale of polycrystal. Next, this crystallographic homogenization FE code is applied to 3N pure-iron and 'Benchmark' aluminum A6022 polycrystal sheets. It reveals that the initial crystal orientation distribution - the texture - affects very much to a plastic strain induced texture and anisotropic hardening evolutions and sheet deformation. Since, the multi-scale finite element analysis requires a large computation time, a parallel computing technique by using PC cluster is developed for a quick calculation. In this parallelization scheme, a dynamic workload balancing technique is introduced for quick and efficient calculations

Synchronous parallel kinetic Monte Carlo for continuum diffusion-reaction systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martinez, E.; Marian, J.; Kalos, M.H.; Perlado, J.M.

2008-01-01

A novel parallel kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) algorithm formulated on the basis of perfect time synchronicity is presented. The algorithm is intended as a generalization of the standard n-fold kMC method, and is trivially implemented in parallel architectures. In its present form, the algorithm is not rigorous in the sense that boundary conflicts are ignored. We demonstrate, however, that, in their absence, or if they were correctly accounted for, our algorithm solves the same master equation as the serial method. We test the validity and parallel performance of the method by solving several pure diffusion problems (i.e. with no particle interactions) with known analytical solution. We also study diffusion-reaction systems with known asymptotic behavior and find that, for large systems with interaction radii smaller than the typical diffusion length, boundary conflicts are negligible and do not affect the global kinetic evolution, which is seen to agree with the expected analytical behavior. Our method is a controlled approximation in the sense that the error incurred by ignoring boundary conflicts can be quantified intrinsically, during the course of a simulation, and decreased arbitrarily (controlled) by modifying a few problem-dependent simulation parameters

Nuclear power in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perera, J.

2000-01-01

Currently nuclear power accounts for more than 25% of total electricity production in Europe (including Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union) However, significant new construction is planned in Central and Eastern Europe only, apart from some in France and, possibly in Finland. Many countries in Western Europe have put nuclear construction plans on hold and several have cancelled their nuclear programs. This report looks at the history of nuclear power and its current status in both Eastern and Western Europe. It provides an outline of nuclear fuel cycle facilities, from uranium procurement to final waste disposal. Economic and environmental issues are discussed, as well as the prospect of increased East-West trade and cooperation in the new poso-cold war world. Detailed profiles are provided of all the countries in Western Europe with significant nuclear power programs, as well as profiles of major energy and nuclear companies

Taenia solium in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Devleesschauwer, Brecht; Allepuz, Alberto; Dermauw, Veronique

2017-01-01

is known about the true endemicity status of T. solium throughout Europe. Three recent reviews indicate that autochthonous human T. solium taeniasis/cysticercosis may be possible in Europe, but that current peer-reviewed literature is biased towards Western Europe. Officially reported data on porcine...

A SPECT reconstruction method for extending parallel to non-parallel geometries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wen Junhai; Liang Zhengrong

2010-01-01

Due to its simplicity, parallel-beam geometry is usually assumed for the development of image reconstruction algorithms. The established reconstruction methodologies are then extended to fan-beam, cone-beam and other non-parallel geometries for practical application. This situation occurs for quantitative SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging in inverting the attenuated Radon transform. Novikov reported an explicit parallel-beam formula for the inversion of the attenuated Radon transform in 2000. Thereafter, a formula for fan-beam geometry was reported by Bukhgeim and Kazantsev (2002 Preprint N. 99 Sobolev Institute of Mathematics). At the same time, we presented a formula for varying focal-length fan-beam geometry. Sometimes, the reconstruction formula is so implicit that we cannot obtain the explicit reconstruction formula in the non-parallel geometries. In this work, we propose a unified reconstruction framework for extending parallel-beam geometry to any non-parallel geometry using ray-driven techniques. Studies by computer simulations demonstrated the accuracy of the presented unified reconstruction framework for extending parallel-beam to non-parallel geometries in inverting the attenuated Radon transform.

Parallel and orthogonal stimulus in ultradiluted neural networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sobral, G. A. Jr.; Vieira, V. M.; Lyra, M. L.; Silva, C. R. da

2006-01-01

Extending a model due to Derrida, Gardner, and Zippelius, we have studied the recognition ability of an extreme and asymmetrically diluted version of the Hopfield model for associative memory by including the effect of a stimulus in the dynamics of the system. We obtain exact results for the dynamic evolution of the average network superposition. The stimulus field was considered as proportional to the overlapping of the state of the system with a particular stimulated pattern. Two situations were analyzed, namely, the external stimulus acting on the initialization pattern (parallel stimulus) and the external stimulus acting on a pattern orthogonal to the initialization one (orthogonal stimulus). In both cases, we obtained the complete phase diagram in the parameter space composed of the stimulus field, thermal noise, and network capacity. Our results show that the system improves its recognition ability for parallel stimulus. For orthogonal stimulus two recognition phases emerge with the system locking at the initialization or stimulated pattern. We confront our analytical results with numerical simulations for the noiseless case T=0

Demand Response in Europe's Electricity Sector: Market barriers and outstanding issues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eid, Cherrelle

2015-01-01

In October 2014, Europe's drive for sustainability has been further continued with the set objectives for 2030, aiming for 40% emission reduction compared to 1990 levels and at least a 27% share of renewable energy sources. For the longer term, the European Commission (EC) targets a zero CO_2 emitting electricity sector in 2050. Those objectives for the electricity sector have a large impact on the expected development of electricity generation, but also on the evolution of demand. To meet those objectives, a larger share of electricity supply will come from intermittent sources like wind turbines and solar panels. In an electric system that is largely based on renewable electricity sources, it is desired to have higher electricity consumption in moments when more renewable electricity is being produced, and a lower consumption in times of lower renewable production. Demand response is related to the adaptability of the electricity demand to the availability of supply. The development of demand response is rooted in the need for carbon emission reductions and for efficient use of installed generation capacities with the growth of power consumption. In addition to providing flexibility to the electric system, demand response could be a direct source of revenue to households and businesses. In 2013, in the United States, businesses and homeowners earned over $2.2 billion in revenues from demand response together with other avoided investment in grid infrastructure and power plants. This source of direct revenue could also be made available in Europe and would release financial benefits to local economies (SEDC, 2014). The reliability improvements as well as the economic and sustainability potential coming from a more responsive electricity demand are fully acknowledged. However, demand response is still immaturely developed in Europe. If Europe wants to make a step forward to a more sustainable electricity sector, the development of demand response is an inevitable

The language parallel Pascal and other aspects of the massively parallel processor

Science.gov (United States)

Reeves, A. P.; Bruner, J. D.

1982-01-01

A high level language for the Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) was designed. This language, called Parallel Pascal, is described in detail. A description of the language design, a description of the intermediate language, Parallel P-Code, and details for the MPP implementation are included. Formal descriptions of Parallel Pascal and Parallel P-Code are given. A compiler was developed which converts programs in Parallel Pascal into the intermediate Parallel P-Code language. The code generator to complete the compiler for the MPP is being developed independently. A Parallel Pascal to Pascal translator was also developed. The architecture design for a VLSI version of the MPP was completed with a description of fault tolerant interconnection networks. The memory arrangement aspects of the MPP are discussed and a survey of other high level languages is given.

Parallel Atomistic Simulations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

HEFFELFINGER,GRANT S.

2000-01-18

Algorithms developed to enable the use of atomistic molecular simulation methods with parallel computers are reviewed. Methods appropriate for bonded as well as non-bonded (and charged) interactions are included. While strategies for obtaining parallel molecular simulations have been developed for the full variety of atomistic simulation methods, molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo have received the most attention. Three main types of parallel molecular dynamics simulations have been developed, the replicated data decomposition, the spatial decomposition, and the force decomposition. For Monte Carlo simulations, parallel algorithms have been developed which can be divided into two categories, those which require a modified Markov chain and those which do not. Parallel algorithms developed for other simulation methods such as Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo, grand canonical molecular dynamics, and Monte Carlo methods for protein structure determination are also reviewed and issues such as how to measure parallel efficiency, especially in the case of parallel Monte Carlo algorithms with modified Markov chains are discussed.

Extension parallel to the rift zone during segmented fault growth: application to the evolution of the NE Atlantic

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Bubeck

2017-11-01

Full Text Available The mechanical interaction of propagating normal faults is known to influence the linkage geometry of first-order faults, and the development of second-order faults and fractures, which transfer displacement within relay zones. Here we use natural examples of growth faults from two active volcanic rift zones (Koa`e, island of Hawai`i, and Krafla, northern Iceland to illustrate the importance of horizontal-plane extension (heave gradients, and associated vertical axis rotations, in evolving continental rift systems. Second-order extension and extensional-shear faults within the relay zones variably resolve components of regional extension, and components of extension and/or shortening parallel to the rift zone, to accommodate the inherently three-dimensional (3-D strains associated with relay zone development and rotation. Such a configuration involves volume increase, which is accommodated at the surface by open fractures; in the subsurface this may be accommodated by veins or dikes oriented obliquely and normal to the rift axis. To consider the scalability of the effects of relay zone rotations, we compare the geometry and kinematics of fault and fracture sets in the Koa`e and Krafla rift zones with data from exhumed contemporaneous fault and dike systems developed within a > 5×104 km2 relay system that developed during formation of the NE Atlantic margins. Based on the findings presented here we propose a new conceptual model for the evolution of segmented continental rift basins on the NE Atlantic margins.

Deregulation of the electric power industry in Europe and in the USA: a decomposition-recombining process; La deregulation de l'industrie electrique en Europe et aux Etats-Unis: un processus de decomposition-recomposition

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Percebois, J

1997-07-01

The deregulation of electric industry in Europe and in the U.S.A. assumes various aspects according to each country. Several institutional, economic and political reasons explain this evolution. Electric firms take this opportunity to merge and to implement offensive strategies on global markets. A lot of questions remains unsolved, in particular the problem of TPA pricing and the problem of planning of network infrastructures over the long run. (authors)

Key figures on climate France, Europe and Worldwide. Edition 2018

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baude, Manuel; Dussud, Francois-Xavier; Ecoiffier, Mathieu; Moreau, Sylvain; Bottin, Anne; Duvernoy, Jerome; Vailles, Charlotte

2017-10-01

In line with previous years, the 2018 edition of 'Key figures on climate' has been written in the context of the 22. Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP 22) held in Bonn from 6 to 17 November 2017. This latest version was updated relative to the 2017 edition. New data sources have been used for emissions factors and the part on the carbon footprint was further developed. The part on climate policies notably deals with the Paris Agreement adopted in December 2015 at COP 21. Several data sets, displayed in graphs in this document are also available in tables on the web version. Content: 1 - What is climate change? This part summarizes the scientific basis of climate change, including indicators, causes and possible consequences of global warming. 2 - Which amounts of greenhouse gases are emitted globally? The focus here is on the most relevant data related to global greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, in particular the geographic distribution of these emissions. 3 - How much greenhouse gas is emitted in Europe and in France? A complete overview of GHG emissions statistics in Europe and in France is presented in this part as well as estimates of the carbon footprint of French people. 4 - What is the sectoral distribution of GHG emissions in Europe and in France? This part features the detailed evolution since 1990 of GHG emissions in the following economic sectors: energy sector, transports, industry, residential and tertiary, agriculture, forestry, land use and waste management. 5 - Which climate policies in the world, in Europe and in France? The main climate policies are described at each level: global, European and French

History of bioengineering techniques for erosion control in rivers in Western Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Evette, Andre; Labonne, Sophie; Rey, Freddy; Liebault, Frederic; Jancke, Oliver; Girel, Jacky

2009-06-01

Living plants have been used for a very long time throughout the world in structures against soil erosion, as traces have been found dating back to the first century BC. Widely practiced in Western Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bioengineering was somewhat abandoned in the middle of the twentieth century, before seeing a resurgence in recent times. Based on an extensive bibliography, this article examines the different forms of bioengineering techniques used in the past to manage rivers and riverbanks, mainly in Europe. We compare techniques using living material according to their strength of protection against erosion. Many techniques are described, both singly and in combination, ranging from tree planting or sowing seeds on riverbanks to dams made of fascine or wattle fences. The recent appearance of new materials has led to the development of new techniques, associated with an evolution in the perception of riverbanks.

a Predator-Prey Model Based on the Fully Parallel Cellular Automata

Science.gov (United States)

He, Mingfeng; Ruan, Hongbo; Yu, Changliang

We presented a predator-prey lattice model containing moveable wolves and sheep, which are characterized by Penna double bit strings. Sexual reproduction and child-care strategies are considered. To implement this model in an efficient way, we build a fully parallel Cellular Automata based on a new definition of the neighborhood. We show the roles played by the initial densities of the populations, the mutation rate and the linear size of the lattice in the evolution of this model.

Parallel integer sorting with medium and fine-scale parallelism

Science.gov (United States)

Dagum, Leonardo

1993-01-01

Two new parallel integer sorting algorithms, queue-sort and barrel-sort, are presented and analyzed in detail. These algorithms do not have optimal parallel complexity, yet they show very good performance in practice. Queue-sort designed for fine-scale parallel architectures which allow the queueing of multiple messages to the same destination. Barrel-sort is designed for medium-scale parallel architectures with a high message passing overhead. The performance results from the implementation of queue-sort on a Connection Machine CM-2 and barrel-sort on a 128 processor iPSC/860 are given. The two implementations are found to be comparable in performance but not as good as a fully vectorized bucket sort on the Cray YMP.

Population genomic scans suggest novel genes underlie convergent flowering time evolution in the introduced range of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Science.gov (United States)

Gould, Billie A; Stinchcombe, John R

2017-01-01

A long-standing question in evolutionary biology is whether the evolution of convergent phenotypes results from selection on the same heritable genetic components. Using whole-genome sequencing and genome scans, we tested whether the evolution of parallel longitudinal flowering time clines in the native and introduced ranges of Arabidopsis thaliana has a similar genetic basis. We found that common variants of large effect on flowering time in the native range do not appear to have been under recent strong selection in the introduced range. We identified a set of 38 new candidate genes that are putatively linked to the evolution of flowering time. A high degree of conditional neutrality of flowering time variants between the native and introduced range may preclude parallel evolution at the level of genes. Overall, neither gene pleiotropy nor available standing genetic variation appears to have restricted the evolution of flowering time to high-frequency variants from the native range or to known flowering time pathway genes. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Creationism in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

For decades, the creationist movement was primarily situated in the United States. Then, in the 1970s, American creationists found their ideas welcomed abroad, first in Australia and New Zealand, then in Korea, India, South Africa, Brazil, and elsewhere—including Europe, where creationism plays...... an expanding role in public debates about science policy and school curricula. In this, the first comprehensive history of creationism in Europe, leading historians, philosophers, and scientists narrate the rise of—and response to—scientific creationism, creation science, intelligent design, and organized...... antievolutionism in countries and religions throughout Europe. Providing a unique map of creationism in Europe, the authors chart the surprising history of creationist activities and strategies there. Over the past forty years, creationism has spread swiftly among European Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus...

Implementation of PHENIX trigger algorithms on massively parallel computers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petridis, A.N.; Wohn, F.K.

1995-01-01

The event selection requirements of contemporary high energy and nuclear physics experiments are met by the introduction of on-line trigger algorithms which identify potentially interesting events and reduce the data acquisition rate to levels that are manageable by the electronics. Such algorithms being parallel in nature can be simulated off-line using massively parallel computers. The PHENIX experiment intends to investigate the possible existence of a new phase of matter called the quark gluon plasma which has been theorized to have existed in very early stages of the evolution of the universe by studying collisions of heavy nuclei at ultra-relativistic energies. Such interactions can also reveal important information regarding the structure of the nucleus and mandate a thorough investigation of the simpler proton-nucleus collisions at the same energies. The complexity of PHENIX events and the need to analyze and also simulate them at rates similar to the data collection ones imposes enormous computation demands. This work is a first effort to implement PHENIX trigger algorithms on parallel computers and to study the feasibility of using such machines to run the complex programs necessary for the simulation of the PHENIX detector response. Fine and coarse grain approaches have been studied and evaluated. Depending on the application the performance of a massively parallel computer can be much better or much worse than that of a serial workstation. A comparison between single instruction and multiple instruction computers is also made and possible applications of the single instruction machines to high energy and nuclear physics experiments are outlined. copyright 1995 American Institute of Physics

Cosmological evolution of p-brane networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sousa, L.; Avelino, P. P.

2011-01-01

In this paper we derive, directly from the Nambu-Goto action, the relevant components of the acceleration of cosmological featureless p-branes, extending previous analysis based on the field theory equations in the thin-brane limit. The component of the acceleration parallel to the velocity is at the core of the velocity-dependent one-scale model for the evolution of p-brane networks. We use this model to show that, in a decelerating expanding universe in which the p-branes are relevant cosmologically, interactions cannot lead to frustration, except for fine-tuned nonrelativistic networks with a dimensionless curvature parameter k<<1. We discuss the implications of our findings for the cosmological evolution of p-brane networks.

MEvoLib v1.0: the first molecular evolution library for Python.

Science.gov (United States)

Álvarez-Jarreta, Jorge; Ruiz-Pesini, Eduardo

2016-10-28

Molecular evolution studies involve many different hard computational problems solved, in most cases, with heuristic algorithms that provide a nearly optimal solution. Hence, diverse software tools exist for the different stages involved in a molecular evolution workflow. We present MEvoLib, the first molecular evolution library for Python, providing a framework to work with different tools and methods involved in the common tasks of molecular evolution workflows. In contrast with already existing bioinformatics libraries, MEvoLib is focused on the stages involved in molecular evolution studies, enclosing the set of tools with a common purpose in a single high-level interface with fast access to their frequent parameterizations. The gene clustering from partial or complete sequences has been improved with a new method that integrates accessible external information (e.g. GenBank's features data). Moreover, MEvoLib adjusts the fetching process from NCBI databases to optimize the download bandwidth usage. In addition, it has been implemented using parallelization techniques to cope with even large-case scenarios. MEvoLib is the first library for Python designed to facilitate molecular evolution researches both for expert and novel users. Its unique interface for each common task comprises several tools with their most used parameterizations. It has also included a method to take advantage of biological knowledge to improve the gene partition of sequence datasets. Additionally, its implementation incorporates parallelization techniques to enhance computational costs when handling very large input datasets.

About Parallel Programming: Paradigms, Parallel Execution and Collaborative Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Loredana MOCEAN

2009-01-01

Full Text Available In the last years, there were made efforts for delineation of a stabile and unitary frame, where the problems of logical parallel processing must find solutions at least at the level of imperative languages. The results obtained by now are not at the level of the made efforts. This paper wants to be a little contribution at these efforts. We propose an overview in parallel programming, parallel execution and collaborative systems.

Parallel computing works!

CERN Document Server

Fox, Geoffrey C; Messina, Guiseppe C

2014-01-01

A clear illustration of how parallel computers can be successfully appliedto large-scale scientific computations. This book demonstrates how avariety of applications in physics, biology, mathematics and other scienceswere implemented on real parallel computers to produce new scientificresults. It investigates issues of fine-grained parallelism relevant forfuture supercomputers with particular emphasis on hypercube architecture. The authors describe how they used an experimental approach to configuredifferent massively parallel machines, design and implement basic systemsoftware, and develop

Projected evolution of circulation types and their temperatures over Central Europe in climate models

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Plavcová, Eva; Kyselý, Jan

2013-01-01

Roč. 114, 3-4 (2013), s. 625-634 ISSN 0177-798X R&D Project s: GA ČR GAP209/10/2265 Grant - others:ENSEMBLES: EU-FP6(XE) 505539 Program:FP6 Institutional support: RVO:68378289 Keywords : Regional climate models * Atmospheric circulation * Climate change scenarios * Surface air temperature * ENSEMBLES * Central Europe Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology Impact factor: 1.742, year: 2013 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00704-013-0874-4#page-1

Deregulation of the electric power industry in Europe and in the USA: a decomposition-recombining process; La deregulation de l'industrie electrique en Europe et aux Etats-Unis: un processus de decomposition-recomposition

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Percebois, J

1997-07-01

The deregulation of electric industry in Europe and in the U.S.A. assumes various aspects according to each country. Several institutional, economic and political reasons explain this evolution. Electric firms take this opportunity to merge and to implement offensive strategies on global markets. A lot of questions remains unsolved, in particular the problem of TPA pricing and the problem of planning of network infrastructures over the long run. (authors)

[Swine influenza virus: evolution mechanism and epidemic characterization--a review].

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Xian; Lu, Chengping

2009-09-01

Pigs may play an important role in the evolution and ecology of influenza A virus. The tracheal epithelium of pigs contain both SA alpha 2,6 Gal and SA alpha 2,3 Gal receptors and can be infected with swine, human and avian viruses, therefore, pigs have been considered as an intermediate host for the adaptation of avian influenza viruses to humans or as mixing vessels for the generation of genetically reassortant viruses. Evolution patterns among swine influenza viruses including evolution of host adaptation, antigenic drift and genetic reassortment, and the latter is the main one. Unlike human influenza viruses, swine viruses have different epizootiological patterns in different areas of world, which is enzootic and geographic dependence. Currently, three predominant subtypes of influenza virus are prevalent in pig populations worldwide: H1N1, H3N2, and H1N2, and these include classical swine H1N1, avian-like H1N1, human-like H3N2, reassortant H3N2 and various genotype H1N2 viruses. In Europe, North America and China, influenza A viruses circulating in pigs are distinct in the genetic characteristics and genetic sources. Since 1979, three subtypes, avian-like H1N1, reassortant H1N2 and H3N2 viruses, have been co-circulating in European swine. Before 1998, classical H1N1 viruses were the exclusive cause of swine influenza in North America. However, after that, three triple-reassortant H1N2, H3N2 and H1N1 viruses with genes of human, swine and avian virus began to emerge in pigs. Genetically, the pandemic viruses emerging in human, so called influenza A (H1N1) viruses, contain genes from both Europe and North American SIV lineages. SIV is not the same as Europe and the United States in the prevalence and genetic background in China, mainly classical swine H1N1 and human-like H3N2 type virus. However, in recent years, SIV from Europe and North America have been introduced into Chinese pig herds, so more attention should be given on the evolutionary of SIV in China

Multilingual Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Phillipson, Robert

2013-01-01

Review of: Multilingual Europe: Multilingual Europeans. (European Studies: An Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics, Vol. 29). Eds. Láslá Maràcz & Mireille Rosello. Rodopi, 2012. 323 pp.......Review of: Multilingual Europe: Multilingual Europeans. (European Studies: An Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics, Vol. 29). Eds. Láslá Maràcz & Mireille Rosello. Rodopi, 2012. 323 pp....

Microstructure and microtexture evolutions of deformed oxide layers on a hot-rolled microalloyed steel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yu, Xianglong; Jiang, Zhengyi; Zhao, Jingwei; Wei, Dongbin; Zhou, Cunlong; Huang, Qingxue

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Microtexture development of deformed oxide layers is investigated. • Magnetite shares the {0 0 1} fibre texture with wustite. • Hematite develops the {0 0 0 1} basal fibre parallel to the oxide growth. • Stress relief and ion vacancy diffusion mechanism for magnetite seam. - Abstract: Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis has been presented to investigate the microstructure and microtexture evolutions of deformed oxide scale formed on a microalloyed steel during hot rolling and accelerated cooling. Magnetite and wustite in oxide layers share a strong {0 0 1} and a weak {1 1 0} fibres texture parallel to the oxide growth. Trigonal hematite develops the {0 0 0 1} basal fibre parallel to the crystallographic plane {1 1 1} in magnetite. Taylor factor estimates have been conducted to elucidate the microtexture evolution. The fine-grained magnetite seam adjacent to the substrate is governed by stress relief and ions vacancy diffusion mechanism

Sympatric parallel diversification of major oak clades in the Americas and the origins of Mexican species diversity.

Science.gov (United States)

Hipp, Andrew L; Manos, Paul S; González-Rodríguez, Antonio; Hahn, Marlene; Kaproth, Matthew; McVay, John D; Avalos, Susana Valencia; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine

2018-01-01

Oaks (Quercus, Fagaceae) are the dominant tree genus of North America in species number and biomass, and Mexico is a global center of oak diversity. Understanding the origins of oak diversity is key to understanding biodiversity of northern temperate forests. A phylogenetic study of biogeography, niche evolution and diversification patterns in Quercus was performed using 300 samples, 146 species. Next-generation sequencing data were generated using the restriction-site associated DNA (RAD-seq) method. A time-calibrated maximum likelihood phylogeny was inferred and analyzed with bioclimatic, soils, and leaf habit data to reconstruct the biogeographic and evolutionary history of the American oaks. Our highly resolved phylogeny demonstrates sympatric parallel diversification in climatic niche, leaf habit, and diversification rates. The two major American oak clades arose in what is now the boreal zone and radiated, in parallel, from eastern North America into Mexico and Central America. Oaks adapted rapidly to niche transitions. The Mexican oaks are particularly numerous, not because Mexico is a center of origin, but because of high rates of lineage diversification associated with high rates of evolution along moisture gradients and between the evergreen and deciduous leaf habits. Sympatric parallel diversification in the oaks has shaped the diversity of North American forests. © 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.

Endpoint-based parallel data processing in a parallel active messaging interface of a parallel computer

Science.gov (United States)

Archer, Charles J.; Blocksome, Michael A.; Ratterman, Joseph D.; Smith, Brian E.

2014-08-12

Endpoint-based parallel data processing in a parallel active messaging interface (`PAMI`) of a parallel computer, the PAMI composed of data communications endpoints, each endpoint including a specification of data communications parameters for a thread of execution on a compute node, including specifications of a client, a context, and a task, the compute nodes coupled for data communications through the PAMI, including establishing a data communications geometry, the geometry specifying, for tasks representing processes of execution of the parallel application, a set of endpoints that are used in collective operations of the PAMI including a plurality of endpoints for one of the tasks; receiving in endpoints of the geometry an instruction for a collective operation; and executing the instruction for a collective operation through the endpoints in dependence upon the geometry, including dividing data communications operations among the plurality of endpoints for one of the tasks.

Does Europe have a centre? Reflections on the history of Western and Central Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Mout, Nicolette

2006-05-01

Any definition of Central Europe based on geographical and/or historical facts causes difficulties. The line dividing Europe during the Cold War has a very limited use because it does not take into account Central Europe as a special part of the continent. Historians such as Geoffrey Barraclough, Hugh Seton-Watson and Oskar Halecki discussed the idea of a separate identity of Central Europe during the Cold War. Especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this discussion was re-opened. From a historian's point of view, the most important contributions came from Piotr Wandycz and Jeno Szucs. An imaginary centre of Europe can only be found in the continent's common history.

The lithic industry of Sima del Elefante (Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain) in the context of Early and Middle Pleistocene technology in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

de Lombera-Hermida, Arturo; Bargalló, Amèlia; Terradillos-Bernal, Marcos; Huguet, Rosa; Vallverdú, Josep; García-Antón, Maria-Dolores; Mosquera, Marina; Ollé, Andreu; Sala, Robert; Carbonell, Eudald; Rodríguez-Álvarez, Xosé-Pedro

2015-05-01

This paper presents the lithic assemblages documented at Sima del Elefante (TE) and their importance in the context of the Early and Middle Pleistocene human occupation of Europe. We also study changes in human behaviour within the context of the palaeoenvironmental evolution of the Sierra de Atapuerca. This site has characteristics that are of great value for the study of human evolution. The lower levels of TE (Units TE7-TE14) are an essential reference for understanding the early stages of the colonization of Europe. The TE9c level has provided stone tools (Mode 1), faunal remains, and human fossils dated to 1.22 Ma (millions of years ago). Moreover, this is one of the few European sites with a stratigraphic sequence that includes remains of human occupations predating the Jaramillo subchron (Early Pleistocene) and from the Late Middle Pleistocene (Units TE18-TE19). Despite this, the presence of archaeologically sterile units (TE15-17) prevents us from establishing a continuous relationship between the Early and Middle Pleistocene human settlements and, consequently, between their technological and behavioural differences. We can, however compare the technological and palaeoeconomic strategies adopted by different species of hominins during two key phases of the occupation of Europe. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The oldest modern therian mammal from Europe and its bearing on stem marsupial paleobiogeography.

Science.gov (United States)

Vullo, Romain; Gheerbrant, Emmanuel; de Muizon, Christian; Néraudeau, Didier

2009-11-24

We report the discovery of mammalian tribosphenic teeth from the basal Cenomanian of southwestern France that we refer to a new primitive marsupial-like form identified as a basal taxon of Marsupialiformes, a new clade recognized here to include the crown group Marsupialia and primitive stem lineages more closely related to Marsupialia than to Deltatheroida. Arcantiodelphys marchandi gen et sp nov. shares several significant marsupial-like features (s.l.) with marsupialiform taxa known from the North American Mid-Cretaceous. Among marsupialiforms, it shows a closer resemblance to Dakotadens. This resemblance, which is plesiomorphic within "tribotherians," makes Arcantiodelphys one of the most archaic known Marsupialiformes. Moreover, Arcantiodelphys is characterized by an original and precocious crushing specialization. Both the plesiomorphic and autapomorphic characteristics of Arcantiodelphys among Marsupialiformes might be explained by an Eastern origin from Asian stem metatherians, with some in situ European evolution. In addition, the presence of a mammal with North American affinities in western Europe during the early Late Cretaceous provides further evidence of a large Euramerican biogeographical province at this age or slightly before. Concerning the paleobiogeographical history of the first stem marsupialiforms during the Albian-Cenomanian interval, 2 possible dispersal routes from an Asian metatherian ancestry can be proposed: Asia to Europe via North America and Asia to North America via Europe. The main significance of the Archingeay-Les Nouillers mammal discovery is that it indicates that the beginning of the stem marsupialiforms history involved not only North America but also Europe, and that this early history in Europe remains virtually unknown.

Modeling SOL evolution during disruptions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rognlien, T.D.; Cohen, R.H.; Crotinger, J.A.

1996-01-01

We present the status of our models and transport simulations of the 2-D evolution of the scrape-off layer (SOL) during tokamak disruptions. This evolution is important for several reasons: It determines how the power from the core plasma is distributed on material surfaces, how impurities from those surfaces or from gas injection migrate back to the core region, and what are the properties of the SOL for carrying halo currents. We simulate this plasma in a time-dependent fashion using the SOL transport code UEDGE. This code models the SOL plasma using fluid equations of plasma density, parallel momentum (along the magnetic field), electron energy, ion energy, and neutral gas density. A multispecies model is used to follow the density of different charge-states of impurities. The parallel transport is classical but with kinetic modifications; these are presently treated by flux limits, but we have initiated more sophisticated models giving the correct long-mean-free path limit. The cross-field transport is anomalous, and one of the results of this work is to determine reasonable values to characterize disruptions. Our primary focus is on the initial thermal quench phase when most of the core energy is lost, but the total current is maintained. The impact of edge currents on the MHD equilibrium will be discussed

Genome evolution in an ancient bacteria-ant symbiosis: parallel gene loss among Blochmannia spanning the origin of the ant tribe Camponotini

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura E. Williams

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Stable associations between bacterial endosymbionts and insect hosts provide opportunities to explore genome evolution in the context of established mutualisms and assess the roles of selection and genetic drift across host lineages and habitats. Blochmannia, obligate endosymbionts of ants of the tribe Camponotini, have coevolved with their ant hosts for ∼40 MY. To investigate early events in Blochmannia genome evolution across this ant host tribe, we sequenced Blochmannia from two divergent host lineages, Colobopsis obliquus and Polyrhachis turneri, and compared them with four published genomes from Blochmannia of Camponotus sensu stricto. Reconstructed gene content of the last common ancestor (LCA of these six Blochmannia genomes is reduced (690 protein coding genes, consistent with rapid gene loss soon after establishment of the symbiosis. Differential gene loss among Blochmannia lineages has affected cellular functions and metabolic pathways, including DNA replication and repair, vitamin biosynthesis and membrane proteins. Blochmannia of P. turneri (i.e., B. turneri encodes an intact DnaA chromosomal replication initiation protein, demonstrating that loss of dnaA was not essential for establishment of the symbiosis. Based on gene content, B. obliquus and B. turneri are unable to provision hosts with riboflavin. Of the six sequenced Blochmannia, B. obliquus is the earliest diverging lineage (i.e., the sister group of other Blochmannia sampled and encodes the fewest protein-coding genes and the most pseudogenes. We identified 55 genes involved in parallel gene loss, including glutamine synthetase, which may participate in nitrogen recycling. Pathways for biosynthesis of coenzyme A, terpenoids and riboflavin were lost in multiple lineages, suggesting relaxed selection on the pathway after inactivation of one component. Analysis of Illumina read datasets did not detect evidence of plasmids encoding missing functions, nor the presence of

World review: Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

2000-01-01

The article gives information on contracts announced (and to whom) and recently completed in some parts of Europe in the petroleum, natural gas and petrochemicals industries. Countries specifically mentioned are Belgium, Czech Republic, France, the former Soviet Union, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It is suggested that in E. Europe, the demand for gas could triple by 2020, in S. Europe the market for gas will double in the next ten years and the Mediterranean will continue to be a developing global refinery into the 21st century

Electric power in Europe: towards a competitive oligopoly?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huby, J.; Noilhan, F.; Sauvage, Ph.

2002-09-01

The Electricity Sector of the European Union has experienced very deep changes in the last decade, in the wake of the 1996 'Electricity Directive'. In most Member States, companies that once enjoyed the position of de facto or de jure monopolists have been facing an increasing competitive pressure, while development of cross-border trade combined with cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions indicates a deeper European integration. It seems that the 'internal market in Electricity', targeted by the 1996 Directive, is slowly but surely taking shape. The present study intends to draw a picture of the recent evolution in the European Electricity Sector and to identify the challenges and options the European public authorities are now facing. Our starting point is an in-depth analysis of the idiosyncrasies of the Electricity Sector in general and of the constraints they impose on the market design. We move then to the peculiarities of the 'Continental Europe', an area including France, Germany, the Benelux and the 'electric peninsulas' of Italy and Spain, but excluding the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries. The latter have indeed a longer and quite different experience of liberalization. We then describe the current regulatory and legislative state of the play and try to identify clear-cut tendencies for the future evolution. We conclude that the 'internal market in Electricity' is far from completion and that the strategy adopted by the European Union seems to be that of a slow and cautious deepening of reforms that are already 'on the way'. Thus one can anticipate that the present framework will not - and maybe should not - experience a radical upheaval. After having built up the setting, we focus on the industrial organisation of the sector. It seems to us that the consolidation that took place in 'Continental Europe' during the last five years is now settling down. Seven or eight major players are emerging, each of which is relying on a geographical

Multi-objective based on parallel vector evaluated particle swarm optimization for optimal steady-state performance of power systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vlachogiannis, Ioannis (John); Lee, K Y

2009-01-01

In this paper the state-of-the-art extended particle swarm optimization (PSO) methods for solving multi-objective optimization problems are represented. We emphasize in those, the co-evolution technique of the parallel vector evaluated PSO (VEPSO), analysed and applied in a multi-objective problem...

Milk, social acceptance of a new food in Europe: Catalonia, 19th-20th centuries.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicolau-Nos, Roser; Pujol-Andreu, Josep; Hernández, Ismael

2010-01-01

In this article we analyse the time course of the consumption of fresh milk in different regions of Europe between the 1870s and 1930s. Working from the case of Catalonia, we affirm that the increasing consumption of milk in that period must be especially linked to the spreading of new scientific knowledge in microbiology and nutrition that followed Pasteur's discoveries. We particularly highlight the information dissemination activities in this direction carried out by health sector professionals (medical doctors and pharmacists), governing local institutions and the milk industry. The initiatives developed by these groups changed people's preferences--fresh milk became accepted as a necessary food-stuff, and demand for it increased. However, the evolution of consumption was not the same in all regions of Europe due to their different environmental and agronomic conditions.

Parallel phase model : a programming model for high-end parallel machines with manycores.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wu, Junfeng (Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY); Wen, Zhaofang; Heroux, Michael Allen; Brightwell, Ronald Brian

2009-04-01

This paper presents a parallel programming model, Parallel Phase Model (PPM), for next-generation high-end parallel machines based on a distributed memory architecture consisting of a networked cluster of nodes with a large number of cores on each node. PPM has a unified high-level programming abstraction that facilitates the design and implementation of parallel algorithms to exploit both the parallelism of the many cores and the parallelism at the cluster level. The programming abstraction will be suitable for expressing both fine-grained and coarse-grained parallelism. It includes a few high-level parallel programming language constructs that can be added as an extension to an existing (sequential or parallel) programming language such as C; and the implementation of PPM also includes a light-weight runtime library that runs on top of an existing network communication software layer (e.g. MPI). Design philosophy of PPM and details of the programming abstraction are also presented. Several unstructured applications that inherently require high-volume random fine-grained data accesses have been implemented in PPM with very promising results.

Systematic approach for deriving feasible mappings of parallel algorithms to parallel computing platforms

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Arkin, Ethem; Tekinerdogan, Bedir; Imre, Kayhan M.

2017-01-01

The need for high-performance computing together with the increasing trend from single processor to parallel computer architectures has leveraged the adoption of parallel computing. To benefit from parallel computing power, usually parallel algorithms are defined that can be mapped and executed

Normative Power Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Manners, Ian

2009-01-01

The chapter develops a normative power approach to European studies that can be applied across and beyond its constitutive disciplines in order to interrogate and transgress the ideas and spaces on/of Europe. In four parts the chapter explores the terms ‘normative', ‘power', and ‘Europe', before......' - in order to make sense of ideas of the common good. Part two looks at three different types of power - ‘relational', ‘structural', and ‘normative' - as a means of understanding the power of ideas of the common good. Part three considers three different means of understanding Europe - ‘civilizational......', ‘categorical', and ‘cultural' - to show how the power of ideas of the common good shape our means of comprehending contemporary Europe. Part four attempts to apply the approach to the question of a European counter-terrorist response. This example was chosen because of the challenges it presents...

Ising ferromagnet: zero-temperature dynamic evolution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oliveira, P M C de; Newman, C M; Sidoravicious, V; Stein, D L

2006-01-01

The dynamic evolution at zero temperature of a uniform Ising ferromagnet on a square lattice is followed by Monte Carlo computer simulations. The system always eventually reaches a final, absorbing state, which sometimes coincides with a ground state (all spins parallel), and sometimes does not (parallel stripes of spins up and down). We initiate here the numerical study of 'chaotic time dependence' (CTD) by seeing how much information about the final state is predictable from the randomly generated quenched initial state. CTD was originally proposed to explain how nonequilibrium spin glasses could manifest an equilibrium pure state structure, but in simpler systems such as homogeneous ferromagnets it is closely related to long-term predictability and our results suggest that CTD might indeed occur in the infinite volume limit

Parallel algorithms

CERN Document Server

Casanova, Henri; Robert, Yves

2008-01-01

""…The authors of the present book, who have extensive credentials in both research and instruction in the area of parallelism, present a sound, principled treatment of parallel algorithms. … This book is very well written and extremely well designed from an instructional point of view. … The authors have created an instructive and fascinating text. The book will serve researchers as well as instructors who need a solid, readable text for a course on parallelism in computing. Indeed, for anyone who wants an understandable text from which to acquire a current, rigorous, and broad vi

Patterns of gene flow and selection across multiple species of Acrocephalus warblers: footprints of parallel selection on the Z chromosome

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Reifová, R.; Majerová, V.; Reif, J.; Ahola, M.; Lindholm, A.; Procházka, Petr

2016-01-01

Roč. 16, č. 130 (2016), s. 130 ISSN 1471-2148 Institutional support: RVO:68081766 Keywords : Adaptive radiation * Speciation * Gene flow * Parallel adaptive evolution * Z chromosome * Acrocephalus warblers Subject RIV: EG - Zoology Impact factor: 3.221, year: 2016

Cognitive Function, Origin, and Evolution of Musical Emotions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonid Perlovsky

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Cognitive function of music, its origin, and evolution has been a mystery until recently. Here we discuss a theory of a fundamental function of music in cognition and culture. Music evolved in parallel with language. The evolution of language toward a semantically powerful tool required freeing from uncontrolled emotions. Knowledge evolved fast along with language. This created cognitive dissonances, contradictions among knowledge and instincts, which differentiated consciousness. To sustain evolution of language and culture, these contradictions had to be unified. Music was the mechanism of unification. Differentiated emotions are needed for resolving cognitive dissonances. As knowledge has been accumulated, contradictions multiplied and correspondingly more varied emotions had to evolve. While language differentiated psyche, music unified it. Thus the need for refined musical emotions in the process of cultural evolution is grounded in fundamental mechanisms of cognition. This is why today's human mind and cultures cannot exist without today's music.

Past and prospects of forage maize breeding in Europe. II. History, germplasm evolution and correlative agronomic changes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Barriere, Y.; Alber, D.; Dolstra, O.; Lapierre, C.; Motto, M.; Ordas, A.; Waes, Van J.; Vlasminkel, L.; Welcker, C.; Monod, J.P.

2006-01-01

Although maize was early recognized as an excellent forage plant soon after its introduction in Europe, during a long time it was only bred for grain traits. However, the first recommendations of maize varieties for specific forage use are probably those given in the French VILMORIN-ANDRIEUX

Islam in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Jørgen Schøler

2008-01-01

A discussion of various approaches to Islam and Muslims in Europe in seven books published in the USA and the UK between 2005 and 2007.......A discussion of various approaches to Islam and Muslims in Europe in seven books published in the USA and the UK between 2005 and 2007....

Europe representations in textbooks

OpenAIRE

Brennetot , Arnaud

2011-01-01

This EuroBroadMap working paper presents an analysis of textbooks dealing with the representations of Europe and European Union. In most of these textbooks from secondary school, the teaching of the geography of Europe precedes the evocation of the EU. Europe is often depicted as a given object, reduced to a number of structural aspects (relief, climate, demography, traditional cultures, economic activities, etc.) whose only common point is their location within conventional boundaries. Such ...

THE PLACE OF BUCHAREST STOCK EXCHANGE AMONGST THE CAPITAL MARKETS FROM CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

OpenAIRE

Iulia-Oana Stefan

2015-01-01

This study performs a thorough comparative analysis over the last five years on the activity of Bucharest Stock Exchange compared to that of the major stock exchanges in Central and Eastern Europe, respectively, the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, the Bratislava Stock Exchange, the CEESEG Budapest Stock Exchange, the CEESEG Ljubljana Stock Exchange, the CEESEG Prague Stock Exchange and the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Thus, through a correlated interpretation of both the evolution of the main stock marke...

Crustal response to lithosphere evolution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Artemieva, Irina; Thybo, Hans; Cherepanova, Yulia

2012-01-01

We present a new model for the structure of the crust in an area which stretches from the North Atlantic region in the west to the Verkhoyansk Ridge in the east and encompasses Greenland, Iceland, most of Europe, West Siberian basin, and the Siberian cratons. The model is based on critically asse......, thicknesses of different crustal layers, and Pn seismic velocities....... assessed results from various seismic studies, including reflection and refraction profiles and receiver function studies. The region includes a nearly continuous age record for crustal evolution over ca. 3.6-3.8 billion years. We present an analysis of the crustal structure heterogeneity in relation...

Deregulation of the electric power industry in Europe and in the USA: a decomposition-recombining process

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Percebois, J.

1997-07-01

The deregulation of electric industry in Europe and in the U.S.A. assumes various aspects according to each country. Several institutional, economic and political reasons explain this evolution. Electric firms take this opportunity to merge and to implement offensive strategies on global markets. A lot of questions remains unsolved, in particular the problem of TPA pricing and the problem of planning of network infrastructures over the long run. (authors)

Crossing the mesoscale no-mans land via parallel kinetic Monte Carlo.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Garcia Cardona, Cristina (San Diego State University); Webb, Edmund Blackburn, III; Wagner, Gregory John; Tikare, Veena; Holm, Elizabeth Ann; Plimpton, Steven James; Thompson, Aidan Patrick; Slepoy, Alexander (U. S. Department of Energy, NNSA); Zhou, Xiao Wang; Battaile, Corbett Chandler; Chandross, Michael Evan

2009-10-01

The kinetic Monte Carlo method and its variants are powerful tools for modeling materials at the mesoscale, meaning at length and time scales in between the atomic and continuum. We have completed a 3 year LDRD project with the goal of developing a parallel kinetic Monte Carlo capability and applying it to materials modeling problems of interest to Sandia. In this report we give an overview of the methods and algorithms developed, and describe our new open-source code called SPPARKS, for Stochastic Parallel PARticle Kinetic Simulator. We also highlight the development of several Monte Carlo models in SPPARKS for specific materials modeling applications, including grain growth, bubble formation, diffusion in nanoporous materials, defect formation in erbium hydrides, and surface growth and evolution.

Parallel algorithms for mapping pipelined and parallel computations

Science.gov (United States)

Nicol, David M.

1988-01-01

Many computational problems in image processing, signal processing, and scientific computing are naturally structured for either pipelined or parallel computation. When mapping such problems onto a parallel architecture it is often necessary to aggregate an obvious problem decomposition. Even in this context the general mapping problem is known to be computationally intractable, but recent advances have been made in identifying classes of problems and architectures for which optimal solutions can be found in polynomial time. Among these, the mapping of pipelined or parallel computations onto linear array, shared memory, and host-satellite systems figures prominently. This paper extends that work first by showing how to improve existing serial mapping algorithms. These improvements have significantly lower time and space complexities: in one case a published O(nm sup 3) time algorithm for mapping m modules onto n processors is reduced to an O(nm log m) time complexity, and its space requirements reduced from O(nm sup 2) to O(m). Run time complexity is further reduced with parallel mapping algorithms based on these improvements, which run on the architecture for which they create the mappings.

Europe

OpenAIRE

2015-01-01

Voilà deux militants de la cause européenne qui plaident, chacun à sa manière, pour un sursaut afin que renaisse ce « désir d’Europe » qui nous fait tant défaut. « Il n’est pas trop tard, mais il est temps… », écrit P. COLLOWALD dans ses mémoires préfacées par Jacques Delors. Constatant que, « dans les jugements hâtifs de notre époque, on manque souvent de discernement, par ignorance et par manque de recul historique », cet ancien responsable de l’information à la Commission et au Parlement e...

Parallel computing works

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1991-10-23

An account of the Caltech Concurrent Computation Program (C{sup 3}P), a five year project that focused on answering the question: Can parallel computers be used to do large-scale scientific computations '' As the title indicates, the question is answered in the affirmative, by implementing numerous scientific applications on real parallel computers and doing computations that produced new scientific results. In the process of doing so, C{sup 3}P helped design and build several new computers, designed and implemented basic system software, developed algorithms for frequently used mathematical computations on massively parallel machines, devised performance models and measured the performance of many computers, and created a high performance computing facility based exclusively on parallel computers. While the initial focus of C{sup 3}P was the hypercube architecture developed by C. Seitz, many of the methods developed and lessons learned have been applied successfully on other massively parallel architectures.

The genomic history of southeastern Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Mathieson, Iain; Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songül; Posth, Cosimo; Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan; Olalde, Iñigo; Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen; Candilio, Francesca; Cheronet, Olivia; Fernandes, Daniel; Ferry, Matthew; Gamarra, Beatriz; Fortes, Gloria González; Haak, Wolfgang; Harney, Eadaoin; Jones, Eppie; Keating, Denise; Krause-Kyora, Ben; Kucukkalipci, Isil; Michel, Megan; Mittnik, Alissa; Nägele, Kathrin; Novak, Mario; Oppenheimer, Jonas; Patterson, Nick; Pfrengle, Saskia; Sirak, Kendra; Stewardson, Kristin; Vai, Stefania; Alexandrov, Stefan; Alt, Kurt W; Andreescu, Radian; Antonović, Dragana; Ash, Abigail; Atanassova, Nadezhda; Bacvarov, Krum; Gusztáv, Mende Balázs; Bocherens, Hervé; Bolus, Michael; Boroneanţ, Adina; Boyadzhiev, Yavor; Budnik, Alicja; Burmaz, Josip; Chohadzhiev, Stefan; Conard, Nicholas J; Cottiaux, Richard; Čuka, Maja; Cupillard, Christophe; Drucker, Dorothée G; Elenski, Nedko; Francken, Michael; Galabova, Borislava; Ganetsovski, Georgi; Gély, Bernard; Hajdu, Tamás; Handzhyiska, Veneta; Harvati, Katerina; Higham, Thomas; Iliev, Stanislav; Janković, Ivor; Karavanić, Ivor; Kennett, Douglas J; Komšo, Darko; Kozak, Alexandra; Labuda, Damian; Lari, Martina; Lazar, Catalin; Leppek, Maleen; Leshtakov, Krassimir; Vetro, Domenico Lo; Los, Dženi; Lozanov, Ivaylo; Malina, Maria; Martini, Fabio; McSweeney, Kath; Meller, Harald; Menđušić, Marko; Mirea, Pavel; Moiseyev, Vyacheslav; Petrova, Vanya; Price, T Douglas; Simalcsik, Angela; Sineo, Luca; Šlaus, Mario; Slavchev, Vladimir; Stanev, Petar; Starović, Andrej; Szeniczey, Tamás; Talamo, Sahra; Teschler-Nicola, Maria; Thevenet, Corinne; Valchev, Ivan; Valentin, Frédérique; Vasilyev, Sergey; Veljanovska, Fanica; Venelinova, Svetlana; Veselovskaya, Elizaveta; Viola, Bence; Virag, Cristian; Zaninović, Joško; Zäuner, Steve; Stockhammer, Philipp W; Catalano, Giulio; Krauß, Raiko; Caramelli, David; Zariņa, Gunita; Gaydarska, Bisserka; Lillie, Malcolm; Nikitin, Alexey G; Potekhina, Inna; Papathanasiou, Anastasia; Borić, Dušan; Bonsall, Clive; Krause, Johannes; Pinhasi, Ron; Reich, David

2018-03-08

Farming was first introduced to Europe in the mid-seventh millennium bc, and was associated with migrants from Anatolia who settled in the southeast before spreading throughout Europe. Here, to understand the dynamics of this process, we analysed genome-wide ancient DNA data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 bc. We document a west-east cline of ancestry in indigenous hunter-gatherers and, in eastern Europe, the early stages in the formation of Bronze Age steppe ancestry. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe dispersed through southeastern Europe with limited hunter-gatherer admixture, but that some early groups in the southeast mixed extensively with hunter-gatherers without the sex-biased admixture that prevailed later in the north and west. We also show that southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between east and west after the arrival of farmers, with intermittent genetic contact with steppe populations occurring up to 2,000 years earlier than the migrations from the steppe that ultimately replaced much of the population of northern Europe.

Sexual selection on male size drives the evolution of male-biased sexual size dimorphism via the prolongation of male development.

Science.gov (United States)

Rohner, Patrick T; Blanckenhorn, Wolf U; Puniamoorthy, Nalini

2016-06-01

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) arises when the net effects of natural and sexual selection on body size differ between the sexes. Quantitative SSD variation between taxa is common, but directional intraspecific SSD reversals are rare. We combined micro- and macroevolutionary approaches to study geographic SSD variation in closely related black scavenger flies. Common garden experiments revealed stark intra- and interspecific variation: Sepsis biflexuosa is monomorphic across the Holarctic, while S. cynipsea (only in Europe) consistently exhibits female-biased SSD. Interestingly, S. neocynipsea displays contrasting SSD in Europe (females larger) and North America (males larger), a pattern opposite to the geographic reversal in SSD of S. punctum documented in a previous study. In accordance with the differential equilibrium model for the evolution of SSD, the intensity of sexual selection on male size varied between continents (weaker in Europe), whereas fecundity selection on female body size did not. Subsequent comparative analyses of 49 taxa documented at least six independent origins of male-biased SSD in Sepsidae, which is likely caused by sexual selection on male size and mediated by bimaturism. Therefore, reversals in SSD and the associated changes in larval development might be much more common and rapid and less constrained than currently assumed. © 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

Vlasov modelling of parallel transport in a tokamak scrape-off layer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Manfredi, G; Hirstoaga, S; Devaux, S

2011-01-01

A one-dimensional Vlasov-Poisson model is used to describe the parallel transport in a tokamak scrape-off layer. Thanks to a recently developed 'asymptotic-preserving' numerical scheme, it is possible to lift numerical constraints on the time step and grid spacing, which are no longer limited by, respectively, the electron plasma period and Debye length. The Vlasov approach provides a good velocity-space resolution even in regions of low density. The model is applied to the study of parallel transport during edge-localized modes, with particular emphasis on the particles and energy fluxes on the divertor plates. The numerical results are compared with analytical estimates based on a free-streaming model, with good general agreement. An interesting feature is the observation of an early electron energy flux, due to suprathermal electrons escaping the ions' attraction. In contrast, the long-time evolution is essentially quasi-neutral and dominated by the ion dynamics.

Vlasov modelling of parallel transport in a tokamak scrape-off layer

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Manfredi, G [Institut de Physique et Chimie des Materiaux, CNRS and Universite de Strasbourg, BP 43, F-67034 Strasbourg (France); Hirstoaga, S [INRIA Nancy Grand-Est and Institut de Recherche en Mathematiques Avancees, 7 rue Rene Descartes, F-67084 Strasbourg (France); Devaux, S, E-mail: Giovanni.Manfredi@ipcms.u-strasbg.f, E-mail: hirstoaga@math.unistra.f, E-mail: Stephane.Devaux@ccfe.ac.u [JET-EFDA, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, OX14 3DB (United Kingdom)

2011-01-15

A one-dimensional Vlasov-Poisson model is used to describe the parallel transport in a tokamak scrape-off layer. Thanks to a recently developed 'asymptotic-preserving' numerical scheme, it is possible to lift numerical constraints on the time step and grid spacing, which are no longer limited by, respectively, the electron plasma period and Debye length. The Vlasov approach provides a good velocity-space resolution even in regions of low density. The model is applied to the study of parallel transport during edge-localized modes, with particular emphasis on the particles and energy fluxes on the divertor plates. The numerical results are compared with analytical estimates based on a free-streaming model, with good general agreement. An interesting feature is the observation of an early electron energy flux, due to suprathermal electrons escaping the ions' attraction. In contrast, the long-time evolution is essentially quasi-neutral and dominated by the ion dynamics.

Convergent evolution in European and Rroma populations reveals pressure exerted by plague on Toll-like receptors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Laayouni, H.; Oosting, M.; Luisi, P.; Ioana, M.; Alonso, S.; Ricano-Ponce, I.; Trynka, G.; Zhernakova, A.; Plantinga, T.S.; Cheng, S.C.; Meer, J.W. van der; Popp, R.; Sood, A.; Thelma, B.K.; Wijmenga, C.; Joosten, L.A.; Bertranpetit, J.; Netea, M.G.

2014-01-01

Recent historical periods in Europe have been characterized by severe epidemic events such as plague, smallpox, or influenza that shaped the immune system of modern populations. This study aims to identify signals of convergent evolution of the immune system, based on the peculiar demographic

Churchill, Europe and Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Warren Dockter

2016-12-01

Full Text Available From the early 1930s until his peace time premiership (1951-1955, Winston Churchill was one of the strongest advocates of the concept of a United Europe. While this is well known among scholars of 20th century British history, Churchill’s actual vision for what a United Europe might look like has received less attention. Still less attention has been paid to Churchill’s opinions of the roles other nations might play within the new Europe. This article will examine Churchill’s view of Turkey in the new European order and will reveal that Churchill saw Turkey as a part of, (or at least an extension of Europe. However, this article will also reveal that Churchill’s conceptualisation of Turkey’s role was largely predicated on 19th century geostrategic thinking.

Template based parallel checkpointing in a massively parallel computer system

Science.gov (United States)

Archer, Charles Jens [Rochester, MN; Inglett, Todd Alan [Rochester, MN

2009-01-13

A method and apparatus for a template based parallel checkpoint save for a massively parallel super computer system using a parallel variation of the rsync protocol, and network broadcast. In preferred embodiments, the checkpoint data for each node is compared to a template checkpoint file that resides in the storage and that was previously produced. Embodiments herein greatly decrease the amount of data that must be transmitted and stored for faster checkpointing and increased efficiency of the computer system. Embodiments are directed to a parallel computer system with nodes arranged in a cluster with a high speed interconnect that can perform broadcast communication. The checkpoint contains a set of actual small data blocks with their corresponding checksums from all nodes in the system. The data blocks may be compressed using conventional non-lossy data compression algorithms to further reduce the overall checkpoint size.

Phenomenon in the Evolution of Voles (Mammalia, Rodentia, Arvicolidae

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rekovets L. I.

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This paper presents analytical results of the study of adaptatiogenesis within the family Arvicolidae (Mammalia, Rodentia based of morphological changes of the most functional characters of their masticatory apparatus — dental system — through time. The main directions of the morphological differentiation in parallel evolution of the arvicolid tooth type within the Cricetidae and Arvicolidae during late Miocene and Pliocene were identified and substantiated. It is shown that such unique morphological structure as the arvicolid tooth type has provided a relatively high rate of evolution of voles and a wide range of their adaptive radiation, as well as has determined their taxonomic and ecological diversity. The optimality of the current state of this group and evaluation of evolutionary prospects of Arvicolidae were presented and substantiated here as a phenomenon in their evolution.

The new Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Richardson, J.

1991-01-01

This article examines the opportunities for business growth in an area of changing social, economic and political climate. The topics include existing political and economic ties, how these ties are evolving, comparisons between east and west, pollution and environmental issues, battery markets in eastern Europe, motive power, standby power, the transition of eastern europe to a market economy, and opportunities for the west

Studies of parallel algorithms for the solution of a Fokker-Planck equation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deck, D.; Samba, G.

1995-11-01

The study of laser-created plasmas often requires the use of a kinetic model rather than a hydrodynamic one. This model change occurs, for example, in the hot spot formation in an ICF experiment or during the relaxation of colliding plasmas. When the gradients scalelengths or the size of a given system are not small compared to the characteristic mean-free-path, we have to deal with non-equilibrium situations, which can be described by the distribution functions of every species in the system. We present here a numerical method in plane or spherical 1-D geometry, for the solution of a Fokker-Planck equation that describes the evolution of stich functions in the phase space. The size and the time scale of kinetic simulations require the use of Massively Parallel Computers (MPP). We have adopted a message-passing strategy using Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM)

Desertification in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fantechi, R.; Margaris, N.S.

1986-01-01

Desertification in Europe highlights a phenomenon which is widespread in most of Southern Europe. The continuous loss of fertile soil, wind and water erosion, vegetation degradation, droughts and forest fires all contribute to the creation of a potentially alarming situation. If one adds to this list the threat posed by acid rain, and the possibility of a climatic change inducing drier and warmer conditions in areas already heavily affected by degradation of soil and vegetation, the problem of desertification in Europe could be seen as being grave. This book focuses on those processes in which nature and Man cooperate in producing accelerated and irreversible barreness of once fertile soils. One paper discusses the use of short-lived radioisotopes to provide chronologies of sedimentation

Generation in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aveline, Michelle; Mason, Laura.

1994-01-01

Information for this document has been collected from a range of primary sources which include annual reports, strategy statements and company information leaflets. The first part consists of profiles for each of the countries of Western Europe and selected countries in Eastern Europe. In each case an overview of the organization of the electricity industry is given and information where available on interconnections, new projects, ongoing work at existing plant, environmental issues and details of plant and closures. In the second part, details are given of some of the largest power generating companies in Europe listed in alphabetical order. The most up-to-date figures available have been used in all cases and the companies have been invited to comment on the text. (UK)

Introduction to parallel programming

CERN Document Server

Brawer, Steven

1989-01-01

Introduction to Parallel Programming focuses on the techniques, processes, methodologies, and approaches involved in parallel programming. The book first offers information on Fortran, hardware and operating system models, and processes, shared memory, and simple parallel programs. Discussions focus on processes and processors, joining processes, shared memory, time-sharing with multiple processors, hardware, loops, passing arguments in function/subroutine calls, program structure, and arithmetic expressions. The text then elaborates on basic parallel programming techniques, barriers and race

Parallelism in matrix computations

CERN Document Server

Gallopoulos, Efstratios; Sameh, Ahmed H

2016-01-01

This book is primarily intended as a research monograph that could also be used in graduate courses for the design of parallel algorithms in matrix computations. It assumes general but not extensive knowledge of numerical linear algebra, parallel architectures, and parallel programming paradigms. The book consists of four parts: (I) Basics; (II) Dense and Special Matrix Computations; (III) Sparse Matrix Computations; and (IV) Matrix functions and characteristics. Part I deals with parallel programming paradigms and fundamental kernels, including reordering schemes for sparse matrices. Part II is devoted to dense matrix computations such as parallel algorithms for solving linear systems, linear least squares, the symmetric algebraic eigenvalue problem, and the singular-value decomposition. It also deals with the development of parallel algorithms for special linear systems such as banded ,Vandermonde ,Toeplitz ,and block Toeplitz systems. Part III addresses sparse matrix computations: (a) the development of pa...

ANALYSIS OF WINE SECTOR: DEVELOPMENTS AND PROSPECTS THE WORLD AND IN EUROPE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ştefan MATEI

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Except unwelcoming and unfriendly area of agriculture, in general, Antarctica, all continents meet grape-vine, which is plant trees with the largest expansion around the globe. Wine, the wine produced extremely complex (the composition of the entering over 300 different chemical compounds has a great importance both rational human nutrition as well as increase the national income of a country cultivators, shown standing figures showing growing share while the global economy horticulture and viticulture crops in agricultural production. Thus, we can appreciate the importance of wine products both from a social and economic one. This study aims to develop a blueprint for the wine sector and to capture its evolution both globally and especially in Europe. We believe that an incursion in the analysis of wine-growing in the world and in Europe leaning on the development of wine production and consumption is particularly useful in our proof is the importance of wine in contemporary society. The study is part of a broader analysis is investigating the applicability of the marketing mix in the wine industry.

Molecular Epidemiology and Evolution of European Bat Lyssavirus 2

Science.gov (United States)

McElhinney, Lorraine M.; Zanoni, Reto; Kooi, Engbert A.; Neubauer-Juric, Antonie; Nokireki, Tiina; Müller, Thomas; Fooks, Anthony R.

2018-01-01

Bat rabies cases in Europe are mainly attributed to two lyssaviruses, namely European Bat Lyssavirus 1 (EBLV-1) and European Bat Lyssavirus 2 (EBLV-2). Prior to the death of a bat worker in Finland in 1985, very few bat rabies cases were reported. Enhanced surveillance in the two subsequent years (1986–1987) identified 263 cases (more than a fifth of all reported cases to date). Between 1977 and 2016, 1183 cases of bat rabies were reported, with the vast majority (>97%) being attributed to EBLV-1. In contrast, there have been only 39 suspected cases of EBLV-2, of which 34 have been confirmed by virus typing and presently restricted to just two bat species; Myotis daubentonii and Myotis dasycneme. The limited number of EBLV-2 cases in Europe prompted the establishment of a network of European reference laboratories to collate all available viruses and data. Despite the relatively low number of EBLV-2 cases, a large amount of anomalous data has been published in the scientific literature, which we have here reviewed and clarified. In this review, 29 EBLV-2 full genome sequences have been analysed to further our understanding of the diversity and molecular evolution of EBLV-2 in Europe. Analysis of the 29 complete EBLV-2 genome sequences clearly corroborated geographical relationships with all EBLV-2 sequences clustering at the country level irrespective of the gene studied. Further geographical clustering was also observed at a local level. There are high levels of homogeneity within the EBLV-2 species with nucleotide identities ranging from 95.5–100% and amino acid identities between 98.7% and 100%, despite the widespread distribution of the isolates both geographically and chronologically. The mean substitution rate for EBLV-2 across the five concatenated genes was 1.65 × 10−5, and evolutionary clock analysis confirms the slow evolution of EBLV-2 both between and within countries in Europe. This is further supported by the first detailed EBLV-2 intra

Molecular Epidemiology and Evolution of European Bat Lyssavirus 2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lorraine M. McElhinney

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Bat rabies cases in Europe are mainly attributed to two lyssaviruses, namely European Bat Lyssavirus 1 (EBLV-1 and European Bat Lyssavirus 2 (EBLV-2. Prior to the death of a bat worker in Finland in 1985, very few bat rabies cases were reported. Enhanced surveillance in the two subsequent years (1986–1987 identified 263 cases (more than a fifth of all reported cases to date. Between 1977 and 2016, 1183 cases of bat rabies were reported, with the vast majority (>97% being attributed to EBLV-1. In contrast, there have been only 39 suspected cases of EBLV-2, of which 34 have been confirmed by virus typing and presently restricted to just two bat species; Myotis daubentonii and Myotis dasycneme. The limited number of EBLV-2 cases in Europe prompted the establishment of a network of European reference laboratories to collate all available viruses and data. Despite the relatively low number of EBLV-2 cases, a large amount of anomalous data has been published in the scientific literature, which we have here reviewed and clarified. In this review, 29 EBLV-2 full genome sequences have been analysed to further our understanding of the diversity and molecular evolution of EBLV-2 in Europe. Analysis of the 29 complete EBLV-2 genome sequences clearly corroborated geographical relationships with all EBLV-2 sequences clustering at the country level irrespective of the gene studied. Further geographical clustering was also observed at a local level. There are high levels of homogeneity within the EBLV-2 species with nucleotide identities ranging from 95.5–100% and amino acid identities between 98.7% and 100%, despite the widespread distribution of the isolates both geographically and chronologically. The mean substitution rate for EBLV-2 across the five concatenated genes was 1.65 × 10−5, and evolutionary clock analysis confirms the slow evolution of EBLV-2 both between and within countries in Europe. This is further supported by the first detailed EBLV

Molecular Epidemiology and Evolution of European Bat Lyssavirus 2.

Science.gov (United States)

McElhinney, Lorraine M; Marston, Denise A; Wise, Emma L; Freuling, Conrad M; Bourhy, Hervé; Zanoni, Reto; Moldal, Torfinn; Kooi, Engbert A; Neubauer-Juric, Antonie; Nokireki, Tiina; Müller, Thomas; Fooks, Anthony R

2018-01-05

Bat rabies cases in Europe are mainly attributed to two lyssaviruses, namely European Bat Lyssavirus 1 (EBLV-1) and European Bat Lyssavirus 2 (EBLV-2). Prior to the death of a bat worker in Finland in 1985, very few bat rabies cases were reported. Enhanced surveillance in the two subsequent years (1986-1987) identified 263 cases (more than a fifth of all reported cases to date). Between 1977 and 2016, 1183 cases of bat rabies were reported, with the vast majority (>97%) being attributed to EBLV-1. In contrast, there have been only 39 suspected cases of EBLV-2, of which 34 have been confirmed by virus typing and presently restricted to just two bat species; Myotis daubentonii and Myotis dasycneme . The limited number of EBLV-2 cases in Europe prompted the establishment of a network of European reference laboratories to collate all available viruses and data. Despite the relatively low number of EBLV-2 cases, a large amount of anomalous data has been published in the scientific literature, which we have here reviewed and clarified. In this review, 29 EBLV-2 full genome sequences have been analysed to further our understanding of the diversity and molecular evolution of EBLV-2 in Europe. Analysis of the 29 complete EBLV-2 genome sequences clearly corroborated geographical relationships with all EBLV-2 sequences clustering at the country level irrespective of the gene studied. Further geographical clustering was also observed at a local level. There are high levels of homogeneity within the EBLV-2 species with nucleotide identities ranging from 95.5-100% and amino acid identities between 98.7% and 100%, despite the widespread distribution of the isolates both geographically and chronologically. The mean substitution rate for EBLV-2 across the five concatenated genes was 1.65 × 10 -5 , and evolutionary clock analysis confirms the slow evolution of EBLV-2 both between and within countries in Europe. This is further supported by the first detailed EBLV-2 intra

Model-driven product line engineering for mapping parallel algorithms to parallel computing platforms

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Arkin, Ethem; Tekinerdogan, Bedir

2016-01-01

Mapping parallel algorithms to parallel computing platforms requires several activities such as the analysis of the parallel algorithm, the definition of the logical configuration of the platform, the mapping of the algorithm to the logical configuration platform and the implementation of the

Demographic Evolution in Romania – Convergence or Peripherisation?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adriana Veronica Litra

2006-02-01

Full Text Available Romania began its demographic transition about one century later than the developed countries. We put the blame of this gap on the delayed economic, social and political development in comparison with the Western Europe. But also, it could not be forgotten the shift from a population forced and subdue by the totalitary regime, to a free people to decide when to have a child or how large should be the family. During transition, Romania has pointed many negative demographic evolutions, as compared with the other european countries. It may be said that the transition in Romania over the period 1990-2004 adjusted the classical pattern of demographic evolution. Not fully felt at this moment, we will probably find ourselves few decades later older, less, deprived of skilled labor force and unbalanced as gender ratio.

Parallelization in Modern C++

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2016-01-01

The traditionally used and well established parallel programming models OpenMP and MPI are both targeting lower level parallelism and are meant to be as language agnostic as possible. For a long time, those models were the only widely available portable options for developing parallel C++ applications beyond using plain threads. This has strongly limited the optimization capabilities of compilers, has inhibited extensibility and genericity, and has restricted the use of those models together with other, modern higher level abstractions introduced by the C++11 and C++14 standards. The recent revival of interest in the industry and wider community for the C++ language has also spurred a remarkable amount of standardization proposals and technical specifications being developed. Those efforts however have so far failed to build a vision on how to seamlessly integrate various types of parallelism, such as iterative parallel execution, task-based parallelism, asynchronous many-task execution flows, continuation s...

Small States in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

This book offers an accessible, coherent and informative analysis of contemporary and future foreign policy challenges facing small states in Europe.......This book offers an accessible, coherent and informative analysis of contemporary and future foreign policy challenges facing small states in Europe....

Nuclear energy in Western Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Loennroth, M.; Walker, W.

1984-01-01

This is an overview of nuclear energy in Western Europe, as seen by two Western Europeans, attempting to place the topic into the context not only of energy supply but also of industrial relations, institutional structure, and sociocultural factors. Although its main focus is Western Europe, it is sometimes necessary to glance at the wider context, in particular the industrial relations with the United States and Japan. Export markets are also considered, in particular, in the Pacific. The paper does not, however, deal with nonproliferation policies and the possible difference of opinion within Western Europe and between Western Europe and other regions over this topic. (author)

Massively parallel mathematical sieves

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Montry, G.R.

1989-01-01

The Sieve of Eratosthenes is a well-known algorithm for finding all prime numbers in a given subset of integers. A parallel version of the Sieve is described that produces computational speedups over 800 on a hypercube with 1,024 processing elements for problems of fixed size. Computational speedups as high as 980 are achieved when the problem size per processor is fixed. The method of parallelization generalizes to other sieves and will be efficient on any ensemble architecture. We investigate two highly parallel sieves using scattered decomposition and compare their performance on a hypercube multiprocessor. A comparison of different parallelization techniques for the sieve illustrates the trade-offs necessary in the design and implementation of massively parallel algorithms for large ensemble computers.

Computer-Aided Parallelizer and Optimizer

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Haoqiang

2011-01-01

The Computer-Aided Parallelizer and Optimizer (CAPO) automates the insertion of compiler directives (see figure) to facilitate parallel processing on Shared Memory Parallel (SMP) machines. While CAPO currently is integrated seamlessly into CAPTools (developed at the University of Greenwich, now marketed as ParaWise), CAPO was independently developed at Ames Research Center as one of the components for the Legacy Code Modernization (LCM) project. The current version takes serial FORTRAN programs, performs interprocedural data dependence analysis, and generates OpenMP directives. Due to the widely supported OpenMP standard, the generated OpenMP codes have the potential to run on a wide range of SMP machines. CAPO relies on accurate interprocedural data dependence information currently provided by CAPTools. Compiler directives are generated through identification of parallel loops in the outermost level, construction of parallel regions around parallel loops and optimization of parallel regions, and insertion of directives with automatic identification of private, reduction, induction, and shared variables. Attempts also have been made to identify potential pipeline parallelism (implemented with point-to-point synchronization). Although directives are generated automatically, user interaction with the tool is still important for producing good parallel codes. A comprehensive graphical user interface is included for users to interact with the parallelization process.

Analysis of ribosomal protein gene structures: implications for intron evolution.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

2006-03-01

Full Text Available Many spliceosomal introns exist in the eukaryotic nuclear genome. Despite much research, the evolution of spliceosomal introns remains poorly understood. In this paper, we tried to gain insights into intron evolution from a novel perspective by comparing the gene structures of cytoplasmic ribosomal proteins (CRPs and mitochondrial ribosomal proteins (MRPs, which are held to be of archaeal and bacterial origin, respectively. We analyzed 25 homologous pairs of CRP and MRP genes that together had a total of 527 intron positions. We found that all 12 of the intron positions shared by CRP and MRP genes resulted from parallel intron gains and none could be considered to be "conserved," i.e., descendants of the same ancestor. This was supported further by the high frequency of proto-splice sites at these shared positions; proto-splice sites are proposed to be sites for intron insertion. Although we could not definitively disprove that spliceosomal introns were already present in the last universal common ancestor, our results lend more support to the idea that introns were gained late. At least, our results show that MRP genes were intronless at the time of endosymbiosis. The parallel intron gains between CRP and MRP genes accounted for 2.3% of total intron positions, which should provide a reliable estimate for future inferences of intron evolution.

ColDICE: A parallel Vlasov–Poisson solver using moving adaptive simplicial tessellation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sousbie, Thierry; Colombi, Stéphane

2016-01-01

Resolving numerically Vlasov–Poisson equations for initially cold systems can be reduced to following the evolution of a three-dimensional sheet evolving in six-dimensional phase-space. We describe a public parallel numerical algorithm consisting in representing the phase-space sheet with a conforming, self-adaptive simplicial tessellation of which the vertices follow the Lagrangian equations of motion. The algorithm is implemented both in six- and four-dimensional phase-space. Refinement of the tessellation mesh is performed using the bisection method and a local representation of the phase-space sheet at second order relying on additional tracers created when needed at runtime. In order to preserve in the best way the Hamiltonian nature of the system, refinement is anisotropic and constrained by measurements of local Poincaré invariants. Resolution of Poisson equation is performed using the fast Fourier method on a regular rectangular grid, similarly to particle in cells codes. To compute the density projected onto this grid, the intersection of the tessellation and the grid is calculated using the method of Franklin and Kankanhalli [65–67] generalised to linear order. As preliminary tests of the code, we study in four dimensional phase-space the evolution of an initially small patch in a chaotic potential and the cosmological collapse of a fluctuation composed of two sinusoidal waves. We also perform a “warm” dark matter simulation in six-dimensional phase-space that we use to check the parallel scaling of the code.

ColDICE: A parallel Vlasov–Poisson solver using moving adaptive simplicial tessellation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sousbie, Thierry, E-mail: tsousbie@gmail.com [Institut d' Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS UMR 7095 and UPMC, 98bis, bd Arago, F-75014 Paris (France); Department of Physics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan); Research Center for the Early Universe, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan); Colombi, Stéphane, E-mail: colombi@iap.fr [Institut d' Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS UMR 7095 and UPMC, 98bis, bd Arago, F-75014 Paris (France); Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502 (Japan)

2016-09-15

Resolving numerically Vlasov–Poisson equations for initially cold systems can be reduced to following the evolution of a three-dimensional sheet evolving in six-dimensional phase-space. We describe a public parallel numerical algorithm consisting in representing the phase-space sheet with a conforming, self-adaptive simplicial tessellation of which the vertices follow the Lagrangian equations of motion. The algorithm is implemented both in six- and four-dimensional phase-space. Refinement of the tessellation mesh is performed using the bisection method and a local representation of the phase-space sheet at second order relying on additional tracers created when needed at runtime. In order to preserve in the best way the Hamiltonian nature of the system, refinement is anisotropic and constrained by measurements of local Poincaré invariants. Resolution of Poisson equation is performed using the fast Fourier method on a regular rectangular grid, similarly to particle in cells codes. To compute the density projected onto this grid, the intersection of the tessellation and the grid is calculated using the method of Franklin and Kankanhalli [65–67] generalised to linear order. As preliminary tests of the code, we study in four dimensional phase-space the evolution of an initially small patch in a chaotic potential and the cosmological collapse of a fluctuation composed of two sinusoidal waves. We also perform a “warm” dark matter simulation in six-dimensional phase-space that we use to check the parallel scaling of the code.

Origin and evolution of chromosomal sperm proteins.

Science.gov (United States)

Eirín-López, José M; Ausió, Juan

2009-10-01

In the eukaryotic cell, DNA compaction is achieved through its interaction with histones, constituting a nucleoprotein complex called chromatin. During metazoan evolution, the different structural and functional constraints imposed on the somatic and germinal cell lines led to a unique process of specialization of the sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) associated with chromatin in male germ cells. SNBPs encompass a heterogeneous group of proteins which, since their discovery in the nineteenth century, have been studied extensively in different organisms. However, the origin and controversial mechanisms driving the evolution of this group of proteins has only recently started to be understood. Here, we analyze in detail the histone hypothesis for the vertical parallel evolution of SNBPs, involving a "vertical" transition from a histone to a protamine-like and finally protamine types (H --> PL --> P), the last one of which is present in the sperm of organisms at the uppermost tips of the phylogenetic tree. In particular, the common ancestry shared by the protamine-like (PL)- and protamine (P)-types with histone H1 is discussed within the context of the diverse structural and functional constraints acting upon these proteins during bilaterian evolution.

Supranational Cooperation in Europe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Deugd, Nienke; Stamm, Katharina; Westerman, Wim

The sovereign debt crisis and the euro crisis have prompted heads of state and government in Europe to intensify supranational cooperation. However, some political leaders and policy makers aim for more. They propose the introduction of a common European economic government that would prevent Europe

Europæiske menneskerettigheder

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Werlauff, Erik

Bogen behandler de europæiske menneskerettigheder, således som de udspringer af Den Europæiske Menneskeretskonvention, EMRK. Menneskerettighedernes historiske og sociale baggrund forklares, og EMRK-retsgrundlaget sammenholdes med den danske Grundlov og med EU-retten, herunder med den omstændighed...

Data communications in a parallel active messaging interface of a parallel computer

Science.gov (United States)

Archer, Charles J; Blocksome, Michael A; Ratterman, Joseph D; Smith, Brian E

2013-11-12

Data communications in a parallel active messaging interface (`PAMI`) of a parallel computer composed of compute nodes that execute a parallel application, each compute node including application processors that execute the parallel application and at least one management processor dedicated to gathering information regarding data communications. The PAMI is composed of data communications endpoints, each endpoint composed of a specification of data communications parameters for a thread of execution on a compute node, including specifications of a client, a context, and a task, the compute nodes and the endpoints coupled for data communications through the PAMI and through data communications resources. Embodiments function by gathering call site statistics describing data communications resulting from execution of data communications instructions and identifying in dependence upon the call cite statistics a data communications algorithm for use in executing a data communications instruction at a call site in the parallel application.

Evolution of symmetric reconnection layer in the presence of parallel shear flow

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lu Haoyu [Space Science Institute, School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191 (China); Sate Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190 (China); Cao Jinbin [Space Science Institute, School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191 (China)

2011-07-15

The development of the structure of symmetric reconnection layer in the presence of a shear flow parallel to the antiparallel magnetic field component is studied by using a set of one-dimensional (1D) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations. The Riemann problem is simulated through a second-order conservative TVD (total variation diminishing) scheme, in conjunction with Roe's averages for the Riemann problem. The simulation results indicate that besides the MHD shocks and expansion waves, there exist some new small-scale structures in the reconnection layer. For the case of zero initial guide magnetic field (i.e., B{sub y0} = 0), a pair of intermediate shock and slow shock (SS) is formed in the presence of the parallel shear flow. The critical velocity of initial shear flow V{sub zc} is just the Alfven velocity in the inflow region. As V{sub z{infinity}} increases to the value larger than V{sub zc}, a new slow expansion wave appears in the position of SS in the case V{sub z{infinity}} < V{sub zc}, and one of the current densities drops to zero. As plasma {beta} increases, the out-flow region is widened. For B{sub y0} {ne} 0, a pair of SSs and an additional pair of time-dependent intermediate shocks (TDISs) are found to be present. Similar to the case of B{sub y0} = 0, there exists a critical velocity of initial shear flow V{sub zc}. The value of V{sub zc} is, however, smaller than the Alfven velocity of the inflow region. As plasma {beta} increases, the velocities of SS and TDIS increase, and the out-flow region is widened. However, the velocity of downstream SS increases even faster, making the distance between SS and TDIS smaller. Consequently, the interaction between SS and TDIS in the case of high plasma {beta} influences the property of direction rotation of magnetic field across TDIS. Thereby, a wedge in the hodogram of tangential magnetic field comes into being. When {beta}{yields}{infinity}, TDISs disappear and the guide magnetic field becomes constant.

A parallel buffer tree

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sitchinava, Nodar; Zeh, Norbert

2012-01-01

We present the parallel buffer tree, a parallel external memory (PEM) data structure for batched search problems. This data structure is a non-trivial extension of Arge's sequential buffer tree to a private-cache multiprocessor environment and reduces the number of I/O operations by the number of...... in the optimal OhOf(psortN + K/PB) parallel I/O complexity, where K is the size of the output reported in the process and psortN is the parallel I/O complexity of sorting N elements using P processors....

Application Portable Parallel Library

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Gary L.; Blech, Richard A.; Quealy, Angela; Townsend, Scott

1995-01-01

Application Portable Parallel Library (APPL) computer program is subroutine-based message-passing software library intended to provide consistent interface to variety of multiprocessor computers on market today. Minimizes effort needed to move application program from one computer to another. User develops application program once and then easily moves application program from parallel computer on which created to another parallel computer. ("Parallel computer" also include heterogeneous collection of networked computers). Written in C language with one FORTRAN 77 subroutine for UNIX-based computers and callable from application programs written in C language or FORTRAN 77.

Parallel Algorithms and Patterns

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Robey, Robert W. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2016-06-16

This is a powerpoint presentation on parallel algorithms and patterns. A parallel algorithm is a well-defined, step-by-step computational procedure that emphasizes concurrency to solve a problem. Examples of problems include: Sorting, searching, optimization, matrix operations. A parallel pattern is a computational step in a sequence of independent, potentially concurrent operations that occurs in diverse scenarios with some frequency. Examples are: Reductions, prefix scans, ghost cell updates. We only touch on parallel patterns in this presentation. It really deserves its own detailed discussion which Gabe Rockefeller would like to develop.

Fast Reactor Research in Europe: The Way Towards Sustainability (Summary)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schenkel, R.

2012-01-01

Full text: The European Union (EU) has taken the lead in responding to climate change, announcing far-reaching initiatives ranging from promoting energy efficient light bulbs and cars to new building codes, carbon trading schemes, development of low carbon technologies and greater competition in energy markets. Nuclear energy remains central to the energy debate in Europe. One third of EU electricity is produced via nuclear fission and eight new reactors are under construction. Traditionally non-nuclear countries are manifesting an interest in building nuclear power plants while the clock is ticking down on Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom's decision to renew or close existing nuclear infrastructures. Sustainability in nuclear energy production is ensured in the medium term as a result of the large and diverse uranium resources available in politically stable countries around the world. The quantities available with high probability ensure more than one hundred years of nuclear energy production. This extrapolation depends, however, on the forecast for future nuclear energy production. The use of fast neutron breeder reactors would lead to a much more efficient utilization of the uranium, extending the sustainable energy production to several thousands of years. The presentation will outline the fast reactors of the new generation currently being developed within the Generation IV initiative. Broad conclusions of the presentation are that: - There is a growing nuclear renaissance in Europe for good reason; - Nuclear energy is a green and sustainable option for Europe and indeed the world's energy needs; - Nuclear energy is a competitive energy that makes economic sense; - Nuclear fission reactors have a safety and environmental track record that is second to none, yet public misperceptions persist and must be tackled; - Waste management solutions exist while new developments hold great promise; - The evolution and promise of nuclear technologies must also be

Imams in Western Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

As European Muslims and Muslims in the Middle East diverge, imams in Europe have emerged as major agents of religious authority who shape Islam’s presence in Western societies. This volume examines the theoretical and practical questions concerning the evolving role of imams in Europe. To what...

Designing a cartographic online application in order to assess the Danube Delta evolution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ILIE Codrina Maria

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The Danube Delta, one of the most important wetlands in Europe, went through many transformations during the last century, mainly due to human interference. When analyzing the current state of this ecosystem, one must consider the historical changes that have a significant influence on the evolution of the delta. Written documents are, no doubt, valuable, but a fundamental contribution is given by the study of geospatial information (old maps, satellite images etc. These information depict the ecosystems components state at a specific time and analyzing them in a successive manner allows one to extract information, that otherwise would be difficult to perceive, such as patterns of evolution. Another important aspect that could be resolved through the use of historical maps is the evolution of human settlements and the toponymy.

Totally parallel multilevel algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Frederickson, Paul O.

1988-01-01

Four totally parallel algorithms for the solution of a sparse linear system have common characteristics which become quite apparent when they are implemented on a highly parallel hypercube such as the CM2. These four algorithms are Parallel Superconvergent Multigrid (PSMG) of Frederickson and McBryan, Robust Multigrid (RMG) of Hackbusch, the FFT based Spectral Algorithm, and Parallel Cyclic Reduction. In fact, all four can be formulated as particular cases of the same totally parallel multilevel algorithm, which are referred to as TPMA. In certain cases the spectral radius of TPMA is zero, and it is recognized to be a direct algorithm. In many other cases the spectral radius, although not zero, is small enough that a single iteration per timestep keeps the local error within the required tolerance.

From Massively Parallel Algorithms and Fluctuating Time Horizons to Nonequilibrium Surface Growth

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Korniss, G.; Toroczkai, Z.; Novotny, M. A.; Rikvold, P. A.

2000-01-01

We study the asymptotic scaling properties of a massively parallel algorithm for discrete-event simulations where the discrete events are Poisson arrivals. The evolution of the simulated time horizon is analogous to a nonequilibrium surface. Monte Carlo simulations and a coarse-grained approximation indicate that the macroscopic landscape in the steady state is governed by the Edwards-Wilkinson Hamiltonian. Since the efficiency of the algorithm corresponds to the density of local minima in the associated surface, our results imply that the algorithm is asymptotically scalable. (c) 2000 The American Physical Society

Terrane accumulation and collapse in central Europe: seismic and rheological constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Meissner, R.

1999-05-01

An attempt is made to compare the tectonic units and their evolution in central Europe with the deep seismic velocity structure and patterns of reflectivity. Caledonian and Variscan terrane accretion and orogenic collapse dominate the tectonic development in central and western Europe and have left their marks in a distinct velocity structure and crustal thickness as well as in the various reflectivity patterns. Whereas the memory of old collisional structures is still preserved in the rigid upper crust, collapse processes have formed and modified the lower crust. They have generally created rejuvenated, thin crusts with shallow Mohos. In the Variscan internides, the center of collision and post-orogenic heat pulses, the lower crust developed strong and thick seismic lamellae, the (cooler) externides show a thrust and shear pattern in the whole crust, and the North German Basin experienced large mafic intrusions in the lower crust and developed a high-velocity structure with only very thin lamellae on top of the Moho. The various kinds of reflectivity patterns in the lithosphere can be explained by a thermo-rheological model from terrane collision, with crustal thickening to collapse in a hot, post-orogenic setting.

[Reform of public health in Central Europe during the 18th century].

Science.gov (United States)

Kapronczay, Károly

2010-01-01

Author outlines the history of making and of development of public health during the period of enlightenment in Central Europe, with special regards on the Habsurg Empire, on Poland and on Russia. This development--including the foundation or reforms of medical education--was highly influenced by the ideas of the enlightened absolutism and by other international trends of the age as well. The detailed analysis of the factors shaping the history of public health in the three rather different countries shows an interesing parallelism regarding main issues. While re-organization of public health in all these countries was initiated and directed by the government and shaped according to western models, it was strongly influenced by local possibilities, culture and history.

Europæisk offentlighed i danske medier

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ørsten, Mark

2006-01-01

Nyere forskning viser, at en europæisk offentlighed er under udviklingen. Graden af europæisering er dog forskellig fra land til land. Men en ting er undersøgelserne enige om: Danske medier ligger i front, når det gælder europæisering. Udgivelsesdato: efterår......Nyere forskning viser, at en europæisk offentlighed er under udviklingen. Graden af europæisering er dog forskellig fra land til land. Men en ting er undersøgelserne enige om: Danske medier ligger i front, når det gælder europæisering. Udgivelsesdato: efterår...

Possible steps on the road to a nuclear-weapon-free Europe: The plan for the denuclearization of Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gorbulin, V.; Shevtsov, A.

1998-01-01

In connection with the plans for NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, the issue of defining the role of nuclear weapons in Europe has become exceptionally acute. A 'hidden' nuclear proliferation in Europe arising from NATO expansion would unambiguously conflict with the spirit of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). At the same time the volume of possible military tasks of battlefield nuclear weapons has drastically shrunk in the pos-Cold War period. As a solution to the problems that have arisen, three steps to a nuclear-weapon-free Europe are proposed: obtain commitments from the USA, Great Britain and France not to expand the base areas of battlefield nuclear weapons; create a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central and East Europe; eliminate battlefield nuclear weapons in Europe

Neural Parallel Engine: A toolbox for massively parallel neural signal processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Tam, Wing-Kin; Yang, Zhi

2018-05-01

Large-scale neural recordings provide detailed information on neuronal activities and can help elicit the underlying neural mechanisms of the brain. However, the computational burden is also formidable when we try to process the huge data stream generated by such recordings. In this study, we report the development of Neural Parallel Engine (NPE), a toolbox for massively parallel neural signal processing on graphical processing units (GPUs). It offers a selection of the most commonly used routines in neural signal processing such as spike detection and spike sorting, including advanced algorithms such as exponential-component-power-component (EC-PC) spike detection and binary pursuit spike sorting. We also propose a new method for detecting peaks in parallel through a parallel compact operation. Our toolbox is able to offer a 5× to 110× speedup compared with its CPU counterparts depending on the algorithms. A user-friendly MATLAB interface is provided to allow easy integration of the toolbox into existing workflows. Previous efforts on GPU neural signal processing only focus on a few rudimentary algorithms, are not well-optimized and often do not provide a user-friendly programming interface to fit into existing workflows. There is a strong need for a comprehensive toolbox for massively parallel neural signal processing. A new toolbox for massively parallel neural signal processing has been created. It can offer significant speedup in processing signals from large-scale recordings up to thousands of channels. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Two-fluid and parallel compressibility effects in tokamak plasmas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sugiyama, L.E.; Park, W.

1998-01-01

The MHD, or single fluid, model for a plasma has long been known to provide a surprisingly good description of much of the observed nonlinear dynamics of confined plasmas, considering its simple nature compared to the complexity of the real system. On the other hand, some of the supposed agreement arises from the lack of the detailed measurements that are needed to distinguish MHD from more sophisticated models that incorporate slower time scale processes. At present, a number of factors combine to make models beyond MHD of practical interest. Computational considerations still favor fluid rather than particle models for description of the full plasma, and suggest an approach that starts from a set of fluid-like equations that extends MHD to slower time scales and more accurate parallel dynamics. This paper summarizes a set of two-fluid equations for toroidal (tokamak) geometry that has been developed and tested as the MH3D-T code [1] and some results from the model. The electrons and ions are described as separate fluids. The code and its original MHD version, MH3D [2], are the first numerical, initial value models in toroidal geometry that include the full 3D (fluid) compressibility and electromagnetic effects. Previous nonlinear MHD codes for toroidal geometry have, in practice, neglected the plasma density evolution, on the grounds that MHD plasmas are only weakly compressible and that the background density variation is weaker than the temperature variation. Analytically, the common use of toroidal plasma models based on aspect ratio expansion, such as reduced MHD, has reinforced this impression, since this ordering reduces plasma compressibility effects. For two-fluid plasmas, the density evolution cannot be neglected in principle, since it provides the basic driving energy for the diamagnetic drifts of the electrons and ions perpendicular to the magnetic field. It also strongly influences the parallel dynamics, in combination with the parallel thermal

Greece is the future of Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Douzinas, Costas; Risager, Bjarke Skærlund

2014-01-01

Austerity and popular resistance are essential to a political diagnosis for contemporary Europe. Political developments in Greece will show whether the future of Europe is one of neoliberal restructuring or one of a democratic socialist alternative. An interview with Costas Douzinas.......Austerity and popular resistance are essential to a political diagnosis for contemporary Europe. Political developments in Greece will show whether the future of Europe is one of neoliberal restructuring or one of a democratic socialist alternative. An interview with Costas Douzinas....

A possibility of parallel and anti-parallel diffraction measurements on ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

However, a bent perfect crystal (BPC) monochromator at monochromatic focusing condition can provide a quite flat and equal resolution property at both parallel and anti-parallel positions and thus one can have a chance to use both sides for the diffraction experiment. From the data of the FWHM and the / measured ...

Somalis in Europe

OpenAIRE

FAGIOLI-NDLOVU, Monica

2015-01-01

INTERACT - Researching Third Country Nationals? Integration as a Three-way Process - Immigrants, Countries of Emigration and Countries of Immigration as Actors of Integration Somalis have a long history in Europe; the first Somalis were seamen who arrived in the UK working on British ships at the beginning of the 20th century. Throughout different waves of migrations directly related to European colonial history, Somalis have settled down in various cities throughout Europe. More recently,...

Europe - space for transcultural existence?

OpenAIRE

Tamcke, Martin; Janny, de Jong; Klein, Lars; Waal, Margriet

2013-01-01

Europe - Space for Transcultural Existence? is the first volume of the new series, Studies in Euroculture, published by Göttingen University Press. The series derives its name from the Erasmus Mundus Master of Excellence Euroculture: Europe in the Wider World, a two year programme offered by a consortium of eight European universities in collaboration with four partner universities outside Europe. This master highlights regional, national and supranational dimensions of the European democrati...

The Relationships between Paranormal Belief, Creationism, Intelligent Design and Evolution at Secondary Schools in Vienna (Austria)

Science.gov (United States)

Eder, Erich; Turic, Katharina; Milasowszky, Norbert; Van Adzin, Katherine; Hergovich, Andreas

2011-01-01

The present study is the first to investigate the relationships between a multiple set of paranormal beliefs and the acceptance of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, respectively, in Europe. Using a questionnaire, 2,129 students at secondary schools in Vienna (Austria) answered the 26 statements of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale…

The process of the electric integration in Europe and the lessons for Latin America

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Orjuela Velez, Jaime A

2007-01-01

With the objective of extracting some lessons that serve from reference to the Latin American process of electric integration in course, this article of academic character presents a brief description and analysis of the case of the integration of the electric industry in Europe in the mark of the process of energy integration in that region, starting from the study of three fundamental aspects of this process: the institutional evolution, the macro economic context and the regional politics in energy matter, from the years 50 up to the 90

Historical Evolution of Spatial Abilities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Ardila

1993-01-01

Full Text Available Historical evolution and cross-cultural differences in spatial abilities are analyzed. Spatial abilities have been found to be significantly associated with the complexity of geographical conditions and survival demands. Although impaired spatial cognition is found in cases of, exclusively or predominantly, right hemisphere pathology, it is proposed that this asymmetry may depend on the degree of training in spatial abilities. It is further proposed that spatial cognition might have evolved in a parallel way with cultural evolution and environmental demands. Contemporary city humans might be using spatial abilities in some new, conceptual tasks that did not exist in prehistoric times: mathematics, reading, writing, mechanics, music, etc. Cross-cultural analysis of spatial abilities in different human groups, normalization of neuropsychological testing instruments, and clinical observations of spatial ability disturbances in people with different cultural backgrounds and various spatial requirements, are required to construct a neuropsychological theory of brain organization of spatial cognition.

Parallel Evolution under Chemotherapy Pressure in 29 Breast Cancer Cell Lines Results in Dissimilar Mechanisms of Resistance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tegze, Balint; Szallasi, Zoltan Imre; Haltrich, Iren

2012-01-01

Background: Developing chemotherapy resistant cell lines can help to identify markers of resistance. Instead of using a panel of highly heterogeneous cell lines, we assumed that truly robust and convergent pattern of resistance can be identified in multiple parallel engineered derivatives of only...

Parallel implementation of the PHOENIX generalized stellar atmosphere program. II. Wavelength parallelization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baron, E.; Hauschildt, Peter H.

1998-01-01

We describe an important addition to the parallel implementation of our generalized nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) stellar atmosphere and radiative transfer computer program PHOENIX. In a previous paper in this series we described data and task parallel algorithms we have developed for radiative transfer, spectral line opacity, and NLTE opacity and rate calculations. These algorithms divided the work spatially or by spectral lines, that is, distributing the radial zones, individual spectral lines, or characteristic rays among different processors and employ, in addition, task parallelism for logically independent functions (such as atomic and molecular line opacities). For finite, monotonic velocity fields, the radiative transfer equation is an initial value problem in wavelength, and hence each wavelength point depends upon the previous one. However, for sophisticated NLTE models of both static and moving atmospheres needed to accurately describe, e.g., novae and supernovae, the number of wavelength points is very large (200,000 - 300,000) and hence parallelization over wavelength can lead both to considerable speedup in calculation time and the ability to make use of the aggregate memory available on massively parallel supercomputers. Here, we describe an implementation of a pipelined design for the wavelength parallelization of PHOENIX, where the necessary data from the processor working on a previous wavelength point is sent to the processor working on the succeeding wavelength point as soon as it is known. Our implementation uses a MIMD design based on a relatively small number of standard message passing interface (MPI) library calls and is fully portable between serial and parallel computers. copyright 1998 The American Astronomical Society

Parallel Evolution of Genes and Languages in the Caucasus Region

Science.gov (United States)

Balanovsky, Oleg; Dibirova, Khadizhat; Dybo, Anna; Mudrak, Oleg; Frolova, Svetlana; Pocheshkhova, Elvira; Haber, Marc; Platt, Daniel; Schurr, Theodore; Haak, Wolfgang; Kuznetsova, Marina; Radzhabov, Magomed; Balaganskaya, Olga; Romanov, Alexey; Zakharova, Tatiana; Soria Hernanz, David F.; Zalloua, Pierre; Koshel, Sergey; Ruhlen, Merritt; Renfrew, Colin; Wells, R. Spencer; Tyler-Smith, Chris; Balanovska, Elena

2012-01-01

We analyzed 40 SNP and 19 STR Y-chromosomal markers in a large sample of 1,525 indigenous individuals from 14 populations in the Caucasus and 254 additional individuals representing potential source populations. We also employed a lexicostatistical approach to reconstruct the history of the languages of the North Caucasian family spoken by the Caucasus populations. We found a different major haplogroup to be prevalent in each of four sets of populations that occupy distinct geographic regions and belong to different linguistic branches. The haplogroup frequencies correlated with geography and, even more strongly, with language. Within haplogroups, a number of haplotype clusters were shown to be specific to individual populations and languages. The data suggested a direct origin of Caucasus male lineages from the Near East, followed by high levels of isolation, differentiation and genetic drift in situ. Comparison of genetic and linguistic reconstructions covering the last few millennia showed striking correspondences between the topology and dates of the respective gene and language trees, and with documented historical events. Overall, in the Caucasus region, unmatched levels of gene-language co-evolution occurred within geographically isolated populations, probably due to its mountainous terrain. PMID:21571925

Parameter estimation of fractional-order chaotic systems by using quantum parallel particle swarm optimization algorithm.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu Huang

Full Text Available Parameter estimation for fractional-order chaotic systems is an important issue in fractional-order chaotic control and synchronization and could be essentially formulated as a multidimensional optimization problem. A novel algorithm called quantum parallel particle swarm optimization (QPPSO is proposed to solve the parameter estimation for fractional-order chaotic systems. The parallel characteristic of quantum computing is used in QPPSO. This characteristic increases the calculation of each generation exponentially. The behavior of particles in quantum space is restrained by the quantum evolution equation, which consists of the current rotation angle, individual optimal quantum rotation angle, and global optimal quantum rotation angle. Numerical simulation based on several typical fractional-order systems and comparisons with some typical existing algorithms show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

Parallel k-means++

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2017-04-04

A parallelization of the k-means++ seed selection algorithm on three distinct hardware platforms: GPU, multicore CPU, and multithreaded architecture. K-means++ was developed by David Arthur and Sergei Vassilvitskii in 2007 as an extension of the k-means data clustering technique. These algorithms allow people to cluster multidimensional data, by attempting to minimize the mean distance of data points within a cluster. K-means++ improved upon traditional k-means by using a more intelligent approach to selecting the initial seeds for the clustering process. While k-means++ has become a popular alternative to traditional k-means clustering, little work has been done to parallelize this technique. We have developed original C++ code for parallelizing the algorithm on three unique hardware architectures: GPU using NVidia's CUDA/Thrust framework, multicore CPU using OpenMP, and the Cray XMT multithreaded architecture. By parallelizing the process for these platforms, we are able to perform k-means++ clustering much more quickly than it could be done before.

One-year mortality of HIV-positive patients treated for rifampicin- and isoniazid-susceptible tuberculosis in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Latin America.

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-28

The high mortality among HIV/tuberculosis (TB) coinfected patients in Eastern Europe is partly explained by the high prevalence of drug-resistant TB. It remains unclear whether outcomes of HIV/TB patients with rifampicin/isoniazid-susceptible TB in Eastern Europe differ from those in Western Europe or Latin America. One-year mortality of HIV-positive patients with rifampicin/isoniazid-susceptible TB in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Latin America was analysed and compared in a prospective observational cohort study. Factors associated with death were analysed using Cox regression modelsRESULTS:: Three hundred and forty-one patients were included (Eastern Europe 127, Western Europe 165, Latin America 49). Proportions of patients with disseminated TB (50, 58, 59%) and initiating rifampicin + isoniazid + pyrazinamide-based treatment (93, 94, 94%) were similar in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Latin America respectively, whereas receipt of antiretroviral therapy at baseline and after 12 months was lower in Eastern Europe (17, 39, 39%, and 69, 94, 89%). The 1-year probability of death was 16% (95% confidence interval 11-24%) in Eastern Europe, vs. 4% (2-9%) in Western Europe and 9% (3-21%) in Latin America; P Eastern Europe were at nearly 3-fold increased risk of death compared with those in Western Europe/Latin America (aHR 2.79 (1.15-6.76); P = 0.023). Despite comparable use of recommended anti-TB treatment, mortality of patients with rifampicin/isoniazid-susceptible TB remained higher in Eastern Europe when compared with Western Europe/Latin America. The high mortality in Eastern Europe was only partially explained by IDU, use of ART and CD4 cell count. These results call for improvement of care for TB/HIV patients in Eastern Europe.

Mammographic screening programmes in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Giordano, Livia; von Karsa, Lawrence; Tomatis, Mariano

2012-01-01

To summarize participation and coverage rates in population mammographic screening programmes for breast cancer in Europe.......To summarize participation and coverage rates in population mammographic screening programmes for breast cancer in Europe....

Parallel magnetic resonance imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Larkman, David J; Nunes, Rita G

2007-01-01

Parallel imaging has been the single biggest innovation in magnetic resonance imaging in the last decade. The use of multiple receiver coils to augment the time consuming Fourier encoding has reduced acquisition times significantly. This increase in speed comes at a time when other approaches to acquisition time reduction were reaching engineering and human limits. A brief summary of spatial encoding in MRI is followed by an introduction to the problem parallel imaging is designed to solve. There are a large number of parallel reconstruction algorithms; this article reviews a cross-section, SENSE, SMASH, g-SMASH and GRAPPA, selected to demonstrate the different approaches. Theoretical (the g-factor) and practical (coil design) limits to acquisition speed are reviewed. The practical implementation of parallel imaging is also discussed, in particular coil calibration. How to recognize potential failure modes and their associated artefacts are shown. Well-established applications including angiography, cardiac imaging and applications using echo planar imaging are reviewed and we discuss what makes a good application for parallel imaging. Finally, active research areas where parallel imaging is being used to improve data quality by repairing artefacted images are also reviewed. (invited topical review)

Experiences in Data-Parallel Programming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Terry W. Clark

1997-01-01

Full Text Available To efficiently parallelize a scientific application with a data-parallel compiler requires certain structural properties in the source program, and conversely, the absence of others. A recent parallelization effort of ours reinforced this observation and motivated this correspondence. Specifically, we have transformed a Fortran 77 version of GROMOS, a popular dusty-deck program for molecular dynamics, into Fortran D, a data-parallel dialect of Fortran. During this transformation we have encountered a number of difficulties that probably are neither limited to this particular application nor do they seem likely to be addressed by improved compiler technology in the near future. Our experience with GROMOS suggests a number of points to keep in mind when developing software that may at some time in its life cycle be parallelized with a data-parallel compiler. This note presents some guidelines for engineering data-parallel applications that are compatible with Fortran D or High Performance Fortran compilers.

Cost of depression in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Sobocki, Patrik; Jönsson, Bengt; Angst, Jules; Rehnberg, Clas

2006-06-01

Depression is one of the most disabling diseases, and causes a significant burden both to the individual and to society. WHO data suggests that depression causes 6% of the burden of all diseases in Europe in terms of disability adjusted life years (DALYs). Yet, the knowledge of the economic impact of depression has been relatively little researched in Europe. The present study aims at estimating the total cost of depression in Europe based on published epidemiologic and economic evidence. A model was developed to combine epidemiological and economic data on depression in Europe to estimate the cost. The model was populated with data collected from extensive literature reviews of the epidemiology and economic burden of depression in Europe. The cost data was calculated as annual cost per patient, and epidemiologic data was reported as 12-month prevalence estimates. National and international statistics for the model were retrieved from the OECD and Eurostat databases. The aggregated annual cost estimates were presented in Euro for 2004. In 28 countries with a population of 466 million, at least 21 million were affected by depression. The total annual cost of depression in Europe was estimated at Euro 118 billion in 2004, which corresponds to a cost of Euro 253 per inhabitant. Direct costs alone totalled dollar 42 billion, comprised of outpatient care (Euro 22 billion), drug cost (Euro 9 billion) and hospitalization (Euro 10 billion). Indirect costs due to morbidity and mortality were estimated at Euro 76 billion. This makes depression the most costly brain disorder in Europe, accounting for 33% of the total cost. The cost of depression corresponds to 1% of the total economy of Europe (GDP). Our cost results are in good agreement with previous research findings. The cost estimates in the present study are based on model simulations for countries where no data was available. The predictability of our model is limited to the accuracy of the input data employed. As

Europe : where are its cultural borders?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Helmond, van F.J.M.G.; Ulijn, J.M.

2010-01-01

In this essay it is stated that Europe fundamen tally is a cultural phenomenon: an idealistic image of European community and identity. Which implicates that Europe is far from perfect and completed. Europe is a destiny as well as a wish -dream. 0.1 On the every-day surface the image of the

Europe's neglected infections of poverty.

Science.gov (United States)

Hotez, Peter J; Gurwith, Meredith

2011-09-01

To review the prevalence, incidence, and geographic distribution of the major neglected infections of poverty in Europe as a basis for future policy recommendations. We reviewed the literature from 1999 to 2010 for neglected tropical diseases listed by PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (http://www.plosntds.org/static/scope.action) and the geographic regions and countries of (continental) Europe. Reference lists of identified articles and reviews were also hand searched, as were World Health Organization databases. In Eastern Europe, the soil-transmitted helminth infections (especially ascariasis, trichuriasis, and toxocariasis), giardiasis, and toxoplasmosis remain endemic. High incidence rates of selected food-borne helminthiases including trichinellosis, opisthorchiasis, taeniasis, and echinococcosis also occur, while brucellosis and leptospirosis represent important bacterial zoonoses. Turmoil and economic collapse following the war in the Balkans, the fall of Communism, and Europe's recent recession have helped to promote their high prevalence and incidence rates. In Southern Europe, vector-borne zoonoses have emerged, including leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, and key arboviral infections. Additional vulnerable populations include the Roma, orphans destined for international adoption, and some immigrant groups. Among the policy recommendations are increased efforts to determine the prevalence, incidence, and geographic distribution of Europe's neglected infections, epidemiological studies to understand the ecology and mechanisms of disease transmission, and research and development for new control tools. Copyright © 2011 International Society for Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Relationship between plants in Europe and surface temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean during the glacial maximum

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Van Campo, M

1984-01-01

In Europe and North America, the deciduous forest, whether or not mixed with conifers, prevails within boundaries which coincide with the 12 and 18/sup 0/C isotherms of Ocean surface temperatures in August; within Europe this forest points to the limit of the Atlantic influence and bevels out as it is squeezed between coniferous forest to the NE (thermic boundary) and steppe to the SE (hydric boundary). During the glacial age this forest disappeared from its main European area and remained only in mountain refuges. Thus, the temperature of the eastern Atlantic surface waters, off Europe, control the nature of its vegetation. Variations in the pollen curve of pines, birches, Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae and Ephedra are accounted for by the climatic variations in southern Europe before 13,000 yr BP. It is seen that a very arid climate culminated at about 15,000 yr BP. It corresponds to the most active iceberg calving which considerably lowered the Ocean surface temperature far to the south. In spite of the increasing summer temperatures, this temperature remained as cold as it was during the glacial maximum. The result is the lowest evaporation from the Ocean hence a minimum of clouds and a minimum of rain. The end of the first phase of the deglaciation at +/- 13,000 yr BP corresponds to a warming up of the Ocean surface bringing about increased evaporation, hence rains over the continent. The evolution of the vegetation in Europe at the end of the glacial times from south of the ice sheet down to the Mediterranean, depends as much, if not more, on rains than on temperatures.

Non-Cartesian parallel imaging reconstruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Katherine L; Hamilton, Jesse I; Griswold, Mark A; Gulani, Vikas; Seiberlich, Nicole

2014-11-01

Non-Cartesian parallel imaging has played an important role in reducing data acquisition time in MRI. The use of non-Cartesian trajectories can enable more efficient coverage of k-space, which can be leveraged to reduce scan times. These trajectories can be undersampled to achieve even faster scan times, but the resulting images may contain aliasing artifacts. Just as Cartesian parallel imaging can be used to reconstruct images from undersampled Cartesian data, non-Cartesian parallel imaging methods can mitigate aliasing artifacts by using additional spatial encoding information in the form of the nonhomogeneous sensitivities of multi-coil phased arrays. This review will begin with an overview of non-Cartesian k-space trajectories and their sampling properties, followed by an in-depth discussion of several selected non-Cartesian parallel imaging algorithms. Three representative non-Cartesian parallel imaging methods will be described, including Conjugate Gradient SENSE (CG SENSE), non-Cartesian generalized autocalibrating partially parallel acquisition (GRAPPA), and Iterative Self-Consistent Parallel Imaging Reconstruction (SPIRiT). After a discussion of these three techniques, several potential promising clinical applications of non-Cartesian parallel imaging will be covered. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Influence of Paralleling Dies and Paralleling Half-Bridges on Transient Current Distribution in Multichip Power Modules

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Li, Helong; Zhou, Wei; Wang, Xiongfei

2018-01-01

This paper addresses the transient current distribution in the multichip half-bridge power modules, where two types of paralleling connections with different current commutation mechanisms are considered: paralleling dies and paralleling half-bridges. It reveals that with paralleling dies, both t...

Rickettsioses in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Portillo, Aránzazu; Santibáñez, Sonia; García-Álvarez, Lara; Palomar, Ana M; Oteo, José A

2015-01-01

Bacteria of the genera Rickettsia and Orientia (family rickettsiaceae, order rickettsiales) cause rickettsioses worldwide, and are transmitted by lice, fleas, ticks and mites. In Europe, only Rickettsia spp. cause rickettsioses. With improvement of hygiene, the risk of louse-borne rickettsiosis (epidemic typhus) is low in Europe. Nevertheless, recrudescent form of Rickettsia prowazekii infection persists. There could be an epidemic typhus outbreak if a body lice epidemic occurs under unfavorable sanitary conditions. In Europe, endemic typhus or Rickettsia typhi infection, transmitted by rats and fleas, causes febrile illness. At the beginning of this century, flea-borne spotted fever cases caused by Rickettsia felis were diagnosed. Flea-borne rickettsiosis should be suspected after flea bites if fever, with or without rash, is developed. Tick-borne rickettsioses are the main source of rickettsia infections in Europe. Apart from Rickettsia conorii, the Mediterranean Spotted Fever (MSF) agent, other Rickettsia spp. cause MSF-like: Rickettsia helvetica, Rickettsia monacensis, Rickettsia massiliae or Rickettsia aeschlimannii. In the 1990s, two 'new' rickettsioses were diagnosed: Lymphangitis Associated Rickettsiosis (LAR) caused by Rickettsia sibirica mongolitimonae, and Tick-Borne Lymphadenopathy/Dermacentor-Borne-Necrosis-Erythema-Lymphadenopathy/Scalp Eschar Neck Lymphadenopathy (TIBOLA/DEBONEL/SENLAT), caused by Rickettsia slovaca, Candidatus Rickettsia rioja and Rickettsia raoultii. Lastly, European reports about mite-borne rickettsiosis are scarce. Copyright © 2015 Institut Pasteur. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Renewable energy in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deshaies, M.

2009-01-01

Europe's increasing demand for energy and its environmental preoccupations are creating a favourable environment for the development of renewable energy sources. This article stated that although many European countries have adopted voluntary policies since the 1990s to increase the use of renewable energy sources, they have not been developed in an equal or consistent manner. A table was included to show the consumption of renewable energies by country; the percentage of renewable energies in 1995 as compared to 2006; and the consumption of primary energy resources. Combined, Germany, Spain and Denmark produce 75 per cent of wind energy in Europe, while 75 per cent of Europe's hydroelectricity is produced in Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. Germany has also made significant contributions in developing biomass energy. The article emphasized that the development of renewable energy sources is limited by the fact that it cannot keep up with growing energy demands. In addition, renewable energies cannot yet replace all fossil fuel consumption in Europe because of the variation in development from one country to another. 1 ref., 2 tabs., 4 figs.

Time evolution of tokamak states with flow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kerner, W.; Weitzner, H.

1985-12-01

The general dissipative Braginskii single-fluid model is applied to simulate tokamak transport. An expansion with respect to epsilon = (ω/sub i/tau/sub i/) -1 , the factor by which perpendicular and parallel transport coefficients differ, yields a numerically tractable scheme. The resulting 1-1/2 D procedure requires computation of 2D toroidal equilibria with flow together with the solution of a system of ordinary 1D flux-averaged equations for the time evolution of the profiles. 13 refs

Market potential of nanoremediation in Europe - Market drivers and interventions identified in a deliberative scenario approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Bartke, Stephan; Hagemann, Nina; Harries, Nicola; Hauck, Jennifer; Bardos, Paul

2018-04-01

A deliberate expert-based scenario approach is applied to better understand the likely determinants of the evolution of the market for nanoparticles use in remediation in Europe until 2025. An initial set of factors had been obtained from a literature review and was complemented by a workshop and key-informant interviews. In further expert engaging formats - focus groups, workshops, conferences, surveys - this initial set of factors was condensed and engaged experts scored the factors regarding their importance for being likely to influence the market development. An interaction matrix was obtained identifying the factors being most active in shaping the market development in Europe by 2025, namely "Science-Policy-Interface" and "Validated information on nanoparticle application potential". Based on these, potential scenarios were determined and development of factors discussed. Conclusions are offered on achievable interventions to enhance nanoremediation deployment. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Parallel Architectures and Parallel Algorithms for Integrated Vision Systems. Ph.D. Thesis

Science.gov (United States)

Choudhary, Alok Nidhi

1989-01-01

Computer vision is regarded as one of the most complex and computationally intensive problems. An integrated vision system (IVS) is a system that uses vision algorithms from all levels of processing to perform for a high level application (e.g., object recognition). An IVS normally involves algorithms from low level, intermediate level, and high level vision. Designing parallel architectures for vision systems is of tremendous interest to researchers. Several issues are addressed in parallel architectures and parallel algorithms for integrated vision systems.

Pattern-Driven Automatic Parallelization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christoph W. Kessler

1996-01-01

Full Text Available This article describes a knowledge-based system for automatic parallelization of a wide class of sequential numerical codes operating on vectors and dense matrices, and for execution on distributed memory message-passing multiprocessors. Its main feature is a fast and powerful pattern recognition tool that locally identifies frequently occurring computations and programming concepts in the source code. This tool also works for dusty deck codes that have been "encrypted" by former machine-specific code transformations. Successful pattern recognition guides sophisticated code transformations including local algorithm replacement such that the parallelized code need not emerge from the sequential program structure by just parallelizing the loops. It allows access to an expert's knowledge on useful parallel algorithms, available machine-specific library routines, and powerful program transformations. The partially restored program semantics also supports local array alignment, distribution, and redistribution, and allows for faster and more exact prediction of the performance of the parallelized target code than is usually possible.

Data communications in a parallel active messaging interface of a parallel computer

Science.gov (United States)

Archer, Charles J; Blocksome, Michael A; Ratterman, Joseph D; Smith, Brian E

2013-10-29

Data communications in a parallel active messaging interface (`PAMI`) of a parallel computer, the parallel computer including a plurality of compute nodes that execute a parallel application, the PAMI composed of data communications endpoints, each endpoint including a specification of data communications parameters for a thread of execution on a compute node, including specifications of a client, a context, and a task, the compute nodes and the endpoints coupled for data communications through the PAMI and through data communications resources, including receiving in an origin endpoint of the PAMI a data communications instruction, the instruction characterized by an instruction type, the instruction specifying a transmission of transfer data from the origin endpoint to a target endpoint and transmitting, in accordance with the instruction type, the transfer data from the origin endpoint to the target endpoint.

The STAPL Parallel Graph Library

KAUST Repository

Harshvardhan,; Fidel, Adam; Amato, Nancy M.; Rauchwerger, Lawrence

2013-01-01

This paper describes the stapl Parallel Graph Library, a high-level framework that abstracts the user from data-distribution and parallelism details and allows them to concentrate on parallel graph algorithm development. It includes a customizable

Evolution Engines and Artificial Intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Hemker, Andreas; Becks, Karl-Heinz

In the last years artificial intelligence has achieved great successes, mainly in the field of expert systems and neural networks. Nevertheless the road to truly intelligent systems is still obscured. Artificial intelligence systems with a broad range of cognitive abilities are not within sight. The limited competence of such systems (brittleness) is identified as a consequence of the top-down design process. The evolution principle of nature on the other hand shows an alternative and elegant way to build intelligent systems. We propose to take an evolution engine as the driving force for the bottom-up development of knowledge bases and for the optimization of the problem-solving process. A novel data analysis system for the high energy physics experiment DELPHI at CERN shows the practical relevance of this idea. The system is able to reconstruct the physical processes after the collision of particles by making use of the underlying standard model of elementary particle physics. The evolution engine acts as a global controller of a population of inference engines working on the reconstruction task. By implementing the system on the Connection Machine (Model CM-2) we use the full advantage of the inherent parallelization potential of the evolutionary approach.

Europe's nuclear dominos

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharp, J.

1993-01-01

As long as the United States continues to play a leading role in NATO, the incentive for European powers to acquire independent nuclear weapons is virtually zero. Most European power, however, have relatively sophisticated nuclear establishments and could easily manufacture nuclear explosives if they judged that their security required an independent capability. They might judge so if the United States pulls out of Europe and out of NATO. It is the opinion of the author that if the United States withdraws, and if France and Britain insist on maintaining their current status as independent nuclear weapons powers, they will encourage proliferation by example. The likelihood of different countries deciding to manufacture nuclear weapons under these cicumstances is evaluated. The future of NATO is assessed. The conclusions of and future structure of the Conference on Cooperation and Security in Europe (CSCE) is discussed. The impact of United Nations involvement in preventing proliferation is evaluated. Recommendations are proposed for the utilization of existing organizations to deter proliferation in Europe

Parallelism and array processing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zacharov, V.

1983-01-01

Modern computing, as well as the historical development of computing, has been dominated by sequential monoprocessing. Yet there is the alternative of parallelism, where several processes may be in concurrent execution. This alternative is discussed in a series of lectures, in which the main developments involving parallelism are considered, both from the standpoint of computing systems and that of applications that can exploit such systems. The lectures seek to discuss parallelism in a historical context, and to identify all the main aspects of concurrency in computation right up to the present time. Included will be consideration of the important question as to what use parallelism might be in the field of data processing. (orig.)

A review of gas tariff systems in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wessels, L.; Swagerman, D.

1996-01-01

This review of the gas tariff systems in Europe did not confirm the previously established opinion that there is a large difference between the situation in Western Europe and the Central and Eastern Europe. The differences are not as great as the differences inside Western Europe and inside the Central and Eastern Europe countries. This overview was done according to the UN Gas centre questionnaire that was sent to all the countries with economies in transition and the information Gasunie has about he tariff system in western Europe

Vectorization, parallelization and porting of nuclear codes (vectorization and parallelization). Progress report fiscal 1998

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ishizuki, Shigeru; Kawai, Wataru; Nemoto, Toshiyuki; Ogasawara, Shinobu; Kume, Etsuo; Adachi, Masaaki; Kawasaki, Nobuo; Yatake, Yo-ichi

2000-03-01

Several computer codes in the nuclear field have been vectorized, parallelized and transported on the FUJITSU VPP500 system, the AP3000 system and the Paragon system at Center for Promotion of Computational Science and Engineering in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. We dealt with 12 codes in fiscal 1998. These results are reported in 3 parts, i.e., the vectorization and parallelization on vector processors part, the parallelization on scalar processors part and the porting part. In this report, we describe the vectorization and parallelization on vector processors. In this vectorization and parallelization on vector processors part, the vectorization of General Tokamak Circuit Simulation Program code GTCSP, the vectorization and parallelization of Molecular Dynamics NTV (n-particle, Temperature and Velocity) Simulation code MSP2, Eddy Current Analysis code EDDYCAL, Thermal Analysis Code for Test of Passive Cooling System by HENDEL T2 code THANPACST2 and MHD Equilibrium code SELENEJ on the VPP500 are described. In the parallelization on scalar processors part, the parallelization of Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport code MCNP4B2, Plasma Hydrodynamics code using Cubic Interpolated Propagation Method PHCIP and Vectorized Monte Carlo code (continuous energy model / multi-group model) MVP/GMVP on the Paragon are described. In the porting part, the porting of Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport code MCNP4B2 and Reactor Safety Analysis code RELAP5 on the AP3000 are described. (author)

Parallel External Memory Graph Algorithms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Arge, Lars Allan; Goodrich, Michael T.; Sitchinava, Nodari

2010-01-01

In this paper, we study parallel I/O efficient graph algorithms in the Parallel External Memory (PEM) model, one o f the private-cache chip multiprocessor (CMP) models. We study the fundamental problem of list ranking which leads to efficient solutions to problems on trees, such as computing lowest...... an optimal speedup of ¿(P) in parallel I/O complexity and parallel computation time, compared to the single-processor external memory counterparts....

Training in psychiatry throughout Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Brittlebank, Andrew; Hermans, Marc; Bhugra, Dinesh; Pinto da Costa, Mariana; Rojnic-Kuzman, Martina; Fiorillo, Andrea; Kurimay, Tamas; Hanon, Cecile; Wasserman, Danuta; van der Gaag, Rutger Jan

2016-03-01

Psychiatry is the largest medical specialty in Europe. Despite efforts to bring harmonisation, training in psychiatry in Europe continues to be very diverse. The Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes (UEMS) has issued as from 2000 a charter of requirements for the training in psychiatry with an additional European Framework for Competencies in Psychiatry in 2009. Yet these have not been implemented throughout Europe. In this paper, the diversity in training throughout Europe is approached from different angles: the cultural differences between countries with regards to how mental health care is considered and founded on, the cultural differences between people throughout Europe in all states. The position of psychotherapy is emphasised. What once was the cornerstone of psychiatry as medical specialty seems to have become a neglected area. Seeing the patient with mental health problems within his cultural context is important, but considering him within his family context. The purpose of any training is enabling the trainee to gain the knowledge and acquire the competencies necessary to become a well-equipped professional is the subject of the last paragraph in which trainees consider their position and early career psychiatrists look back to see whether what they were trained in matches with what they need in the working situation. Common standard for training and certification are a necessity within Europe, for the benefit of the profession of psychiatrist but also for patient safety. UEMS is advised to join forces with the Council of National Psychiatric Associations (NPAs) within the EPA and trainings and early career psychiatrist, to discuss with the users what standards should be implemented in all European countries and how a European board examination could ensure professional quality of psychiatrists throughout the continent.

Paleomagnetic and geochronologic constraints on the geodynamic evolution of the Central Dinarides

Science.gov (United States)

de Leeuw, Arjan; Mandic, Oleg; Krijgsman, Wout; Kuiper, Klaudia; Hrvatović, Hazim

2013-04-01

The geodynamic evolution of the Dinaride Mountains of southeastern Europe is relatively poorly understood, especially in comparison with the neighbouring Alps and Carpathians. We have constructed a new chronostratigraphy for the post-orogenic intra-montane basins of the Central Dinarides based on paleomagnetic and 40Ar/39Ar age data. Our results provide time constraints on the formation of these basins and elucidate their subsequent evolution. This is a fundamental step towards a better understanding of the late stage geodynamic evolution of the Central Dinarides. Our paleomagnetic results moreover indicate that the Dinarides have not experienced significant tectonic rotation since the late Oligocene. This implies that the Dinarides were decoupled from the adjacent Adria and the Tisza-Dacia Mega-Units that both underwent major rotation. We provide a reference frame for our rotation results through a review of Late Jurassic to Miocene paleomagnetic data, which elucidates spatial and tectonic rotation patterns in the Adria-Dinarides collision zone. The obtained results significantly improve our insight in the evolution of the Central Dinarides and help reconcile structural geological and paleomagnetic rotation estimates.

Psychologie - Fachdatenbank mit europäischem Fokus

OpenAIRE

Schön, Dana

2010-01-01

Die Sichtbarkeit von europäischer Wissenschaftsliteratur ist notwendige Voraussetzung für deren Rezeption im internationalen Kontext. Ein bibliographisches Nachweissystem psychologischer Fachliteratur auf der Basis moderner Suchtechnologie mit Fokus auf europäischen Werken kann einen wichtigen Beitrag dazu leisten. Mehrere europäische Institute stellen ihre bibliographischen Datenbestände zum Aufbau einer umfassenden europäischen Fachdatenbank für die Psychologie zur Verfügung. Die Bereitstel...

English-Only Europe?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Phillipson, Robert

and international relations. In this book, Robert Phillipson considers whether the contemporary expansion of English represents a serious threat to other European languages. After exploring the implications of current policies, Phillipson argues the case for more active language policies to safeguard a multilingual......English-Only Europe? explores the role of languages in the process of European integration. Languages are central to the development of an integrated Europe. The way in which the European Union deals with multilingualism has serious implications for both individual member countries...

Disparities in multimorbidity across Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Camilla Riis; Halling, Anders; Andersen-Ranberg, Karen

2017-01-01

Introduction: Europe is the continent with the highest share of older adults, many of which suffer from multiple chronic conditions (multimorbidity) and the associated negative outcomes. Health inequalities across European regions exist, but little is known about regional differences in multimorb......Introduction: Europe is the continent with the highest share of older adults, many of which suffer from multiple chronic conditions (multimorbidity) and the associated negative outcomes. Health inequalities across European regions exist, but little is known about regional differences...... in multimorbidity. Material and methods: Cross-sectional analyses of data collected in the 5th wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) during 2013. The study population included 50+-year-olds from 14 European countries and Israel. Results: Across all regions age and gender adjusted...... multimorbidity prevalence was 31.4% [30.7; 32.2]. Northern Europe had the lowest multimorbidity prevalence of 26.2% [25.2; 27.1], while Eastern and Central Europe had the highest, 35.2% [33.8; 36.5] and 34.8% [33.8; 35.9], respectively. In all regions female gender, increasing age, lower education, and lower...

Parallelizing Gene Expression Programming Algorithm in Enabling Large-Scale Classification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lixiong Xu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available As one of the most effective function mining algorithms, Gene Expression Programming (GEP algorithm has been widely used in classification, pattern recognition, prediction, and other research fields. Based on the self-evolution, GEP is able to mine an optimal function for dealing with further complicated tasks. However, in big data researches, GEP encounters low efficiency issue due to its long time mining processes. To improve the efficiency of GEP in big data researches especially for processing large-scale classification tasks, this paper presents a parallelized GEP algorithm using MapReduce computing model. The experimental results show that the presented algorithm is scalable and efficient for processing large-scale classification tasks.

Parallel Mitogenome Sequencing Alleviates Random Rooting Effect in Phylogeography.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirase, Shotaro; Takeshima, Hirohiko; Nishida, Mutsumi; Iwasaki, Wataru

2016-04-28

Reliably rooted phylogenetic trees play irreplaceable roles in clarifying diversification in the patterns of species and populations. However, such trees are often unavailable in phylogeographic studies, particularly when the focus is on rapidly expanded populations that exhibit star-like trees. A fundamental bottleneck is known as the random rooting effect, where a distant outgroup tends to root an unrooted tree "randomly." We investigated whether parallel mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequencing alleviates this effect in phylogeography using a case study on the Sea of Japan lineage of the intertidal goby Chaenogobius annularis Eighty-three C. annularis individuals were collected and their mitogenomes were determined by high-throughput and low-cost parallel sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis of these mitogenome sequences was conducted to root the Sea of Japan lineage, which has a star-like phylogeny and had not been reliably rooted. The topologies of the bootstrap trees were investigated to determine whether the use of mitogenomes alleviated the random rooting effect. The mitogenome data successfully rooted the Sea of Japan lineage by alleviating the effect, which hindered phylogenetic analysis that used specific gene sequences. The reliable rooting of the lineage led to the discovery of a novel, northern lineage that expanded during an interglacial period with high bootstrap support. Furthermore, the finding of this lineage suggested the existence of additional glacial refugia and provided a new recent calibration point that revised the divergence time estimation between the Sea of Japan and Pacific Ocean lineages. This study illustrates the effectiveness of parallel mitogenome sequencing for solving the random rooting problem in phylogeographic studies. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Feynman’s clock, a new variational principle, and parallel-in-time quantum dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

McClean, Jarrod R.; Parkhill, John A.; Aspuru-Guzik, Alán

2013-01-01

We introduce a discrete-time variational principle inspired by the quantum clock originally proposed by Feynman and use it to write down quantum evolution as a ground-state eigenvalue problem. The construction allows one to apply ground-state quantum many-body theory to quantum dynamics, extending the reach of many highly developed tools from this fertile research area. Moreover, this formalism naturally leads to an algorithm to parallelize quantum simulation over time. We draw an explicit connection between previously known time-dependent variational principles and the time-embedded variational principle presented. Sample calculations are presented, applying the idea to a hydrogen molecule and the spin degrees of freedom of a model inorganic compound, demonstrating the parallel speedup of our method as well as its flexibility in applying ground-state methodologies. Finally, we take advantage of the unique perspective of this variational principle to examine the error of basis approximations in quantum dynamics. PMID:24062428

Sustainable growth in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andreini, P.

1993-01-01

The measures till now adopted did not stop environmental deterioration in Europe and the growth of economic activities in the future will make the situation more and more heavy. The European Communities (EEC) Cabinet launched a long term program for a sustainable growth in Europe, which could conciliate economic needs with environmental protection. This paper presents the first part of the program

Parallel inter channel interaction mechanisms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jovic, V.; Afgan, N.; Jovic, L.

1995-01-01

Parallel channels interactions are examined. For experimental researches of nonstationary regimes flow in three parallel vertical channels results of phenomenon analysis and mechanisms of parallel channel interaction for adiabatic condition of one-phase fluid and two-phase mixture flow are shown. (author)

Mapping earthworm communities in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rutgers, Michiel; Orgiazzi, Alberto; Gardi, Ciro

Existing data sets on earthworm communities in Europe were collected, harmonized, modelled and depicted on a soil biodiversity map of Europe. Digital Soil Mapping was applied using multiple regressions relating relatively low density earthworm community data to soil characteristics, land use...

Background noise levels in Europe

OpenAIRE

Gjestland, Truls

2008-01-01

- This report gives a brief overview of typical background noise levels in Europe, and suggests a procedure for the prediction of background noise levels based on population density. A proposal for the production of background noise maps for Europe is included.

Parallel paving: An algorithm for generating distributed, adaptive, all-quadrilateral meshes on parallel computers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lober, R.R.; Tautges, T.J.; Vaughan, C.T.

1997-03-01

Paving is an automated mesh generation algorithm which produces all-quadrilateral elements. It can additionally generate these elements in varying sizes such that the resulting mesh adapts to a function distribution, such as an error function. While powerful, conventional paving is a very serial algorithm in its operation. Parallel paving is the extension of serial paving into parallel environments to perform the same meshing functions as conventional paving only on distributed, discretized models. This extension allows large, adaptive, parallel finite element simulations to take advantage of paving`s meshing capabilities for h-remap remeshing. A significantly modified version of the CUBIT mesh generation code has been developed to host the parallel paving algorithm and demonstrate its capabilities on both two dimensional and three dimensional surface geometries and compare the resulting parallel produced meshes to conventionally paved meshes for mesh quality and algorithm performance. Sandia`s {open_quotes}tiling{close_quotes} dynamic load balancing code has also been extended to work with the paving algorithm to retain parallel efficiency as subdomains undergo iterative mesh refinement.

Forecasting the northern African dust outbreak towards Europe in April 2011: a model intercomparison

Science.gov (United States)

Huneeus, N.; Basart, S.; Fiedler, S.; Morcrette, J.-J.; Benedetti, A.; Mulcahy, J.; Terradellas, E.; Pérez García-Pando, C.; Pejanovic, G.; Nickovic, S.; Arsenovic, P.; Schulz, M.; Cuevas, E.; Baldasano, J. M.; Pey, J.; Remy, S.; Cvetkovic, B.

2016-04-01

In the framework of the World Meteorological Organisation's Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System, we evaluated the predictions of five state-of-the-art dust forecast models during an intense Saharan dust outbreak affecting western and northern Europe in April 2011. We assessed the capacity of the models to predict the evolution of the dust cloud with lead times of up to 72 h using observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and dust surface concentrations from a ground-based measurement network. In addition, the predicted vertical dust distribution was evaluated with vertical extinction profiles from the Cloud and Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP). To assess the diversity in forecast capability among the models, the analysis was extended to wind field (both surface and profile), synoptic conditions, emissions and deposition fluxes. Models predict the onset and evolution of the AOD for all analysed lead times. On average, differences among the models are larger than differences among lead times for each individual model. In spite of large differences in emission and deposition, the models present comparable skill for AOD. In general, models are better in predicting AOD than near-surface dust concentration over the Iberian Peninsula. Models tend to underestimate the long-range transport towards northern Europe. Our analysis suggests that this is partly due to difficulties in simulating the vertical distribution dust and horizontal wind. Differences in the size distribution and wet scavenging efficiency may also account for model diversity in long-range transport.

Eastern Europe's market role

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schreiber, K.F.

1991-01-01

Until the late 1980s, trade in nuclear fuel between market economy countries and those with planned economies was limited. The exception to this was in the enrichment market across Western Europe during the 1970s. Most of the nuclear generating plants in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are light water reactors needing enriched uranium. Under the fuel supply agreements with Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union has provided all of the regions' enrichment services, and therefore it has developed the only enrichment facilities. Techsnabexport (TENEX), the USSR foreign trade organization for the nuclear fuel cycle, first appeared in the early 1970s. It was as an alternative supplier to the US government, which had a monopoly in the West regarding enrichment. In 1986 the USSR entered and soon dominated the spot market for enrichment. Political changes in Eastern Europe at the end of 1989 and throughout 1990 opened the nuclear fuel market even wider. In 1990 the USSR began allowing exports of concentrates, as well as enriched product, and a free flow of trade to the Western market is now developing for both enrichment and uranium. (author)

GPU: the biggest key processor for AI and parallel processing

Science.gov (United States)

Baji, Toru

2017-07-01

Two types of processors exist in the market. One is the conventional CPU and the other is Graphic Processor Unit (GPU). Typical CPU is composed of 1 to 8 cores while GPU has thousands of cores. CPU is good for sequential processing, while GPU is good to accelerate software with heavy parallel executions. GPU was initially dedicated for 3D graphics. However from 2006, when GPU started to apply general-purpose cores, it was noticed that this architecture can be used as a general purpose massive-parallel processor. NVIDIA developed a software framework Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) that make it possible to easily program the GPU for these application. With CUDA, GPU started to be used in workstations and supercomputers widely. Recently two key technologies are highlighted in the industry. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Autonomous Driving Cars. AI requires a massive parallel operation to train many-layers of neural networks. With CPU alone, it was impossible to finish the training in a practical time. The latest multi-GPU system with P100 makes it possible to finish the training in a few hours. For the autonomous driving cars, TOPS class of performance is required to implement perception, localization, path planning processing and again SoC with integrated GPU will play a key role there. In this paper, the evolution of the GPU which is one of the biggest commercial devices requiring state-of-the-art fabrication technology will be introduced. Also overview of the GPU demanding key application like the ones described above will be introduced.

Distributed parallel cooperative coevolutionary multi-objective large-scale immune algorithm for deployment of wireless sensor networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cao, Bin; Zhao, Jianwei; Yang, Po

2018-01-01

-objective evolutionary algorithms the Cooperative Coevolutionary Generalized Differential Evolution 3, the Cooperative Multi-objective Differential Evolution and the Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm III, the proposed algorithm addresses the deployment optimization problem efficiently and effectively.......Using immune algorithms is generally a time-intensive process especially for problems with a large number of variables. In this paper, we propose a distributed parallel cooperative coevolutionary multi-objective large-scale immune algorithm that is implemented using the message passing interface...... (MPI). The proposed algorithm is composed of three layers: objective, group and individual layers. First, for each objective in the multi-objective problem to be addressed, a subpopulation is used for optimization, and an archive population is used to optimize all the objectives. Second, the large...

Seeing or moving in parallel

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Mark Schram; Ehrsson, H Henrik; Nielsen, Jens Bo

2013-01-01

a different network, involving bilateral dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), primary motor cortex, and SMA, was more active when subjects viewed parallel movements while performing either symmetrical or parallel movements. Correlations between behavioral instability and brain activity were present in right lateral...... adduction-abduction movements symmetrically or in parallel with real-time congruent or incongruent visual feedback of the movements. One network, consisting of bilateral superior and middle frontal gyrus and supplementary motor area (SMA), was more active when subjects performed parallel movements, whereas...

Prehistoric land use and Neolithisation in Europe in the context of regional climate events

Science.gov (United States)

Lemmen, C.; Wirtz, K. W.; Gronenborn, D.

2009-04-01

We present a simple, adaptation-driven, spatially explicit model of pre-Bronze age socio-technological change, called the Global Land Use and Technological Evolution Simulator (GLUES). The socio-technological realm is described by three characteristic traits: available technology, subsistence style ratio, and economic diversity. Human population and culture develop in the context of global paleoclimate and regional paleoclimate events. Global paleoclimate is derived from CLIMBER-2 Earth System Model anomalies superimposed on the IIASA temperature and precipitation database. Regional a forcing is provided by abrupt climate deteriorations from a compilation of 138 long-term high-resolution climate proxy time series from mostly terrestrial and near-shore archives. The GLUES simulator provides for a novel way to explore the interplay between climate, climate change, and cultural evolution both on the Holocene timescale as well as for short-term extreme event periods. We sucessfully simulate the migration of people and the diffusion of Neolithic technology from the Near East into Europe in the period 12000-4000 a BP. We find good agreement with recent archeological compilations of Western Eurasian Neolithic sites. No causal relationship between climate events and cultural evolution could be identified, but the speed of cultural development is found to be modulated by the frequency of climate events. From the demographic evolution and regional ressource consumption, we estimate regional land use change and prehistoric greenhouse gas emissions.

Bat Rabies Surveillance in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schatz, J.; Fooks, A. R.; McElhinney, L.

2013-01-01

Rabies is the oldest known zoonotic disease and was also the first recognized bat associated infection in humans. To date, four different lyssavirus species are the causative agents of rabies in European bats: the European Bat Lyssaviruses type 1 and 2 (EBLV-1, EBLV-2), the recently discovered...... putative new lyssavirus species Bokeloh Bat Lyssavirus (BBLV) and the West Caucasian Bat Virus (WCBV). Unlike in the new world, bat rabies cases in Europe are comparatively less frequent, possibly as a result of varying intensity of surveillance. Thus, the objective was to provide an assessment of the bat...... rabies surveillance data in Europe, taking both reported data to the WHO Rabies Bulletin Europe and published results into account. In Europe, 959 bat rabies cases were reported to the RBE in the time period 1977–2010 with the vast majority characterized as EBLV-1, frequently isolated in the Netherlands...

The numerical parallel computing of photon transport

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang Qingnan; Liang Xiaoguang; Zhang Lifa

1998-12-01

The parallel computing of photon transport is investigated, the parallel algorithm and the parallelization of programs on parallel computers both with shared memory and with distributed memory are discussed. By analyzing the inherent law of the mathematics and physics model of photon transport according to the structure feature of parallel computers, using the strategy of 'to divide and conquer', adjusting the algorithm structure of the program, dissolving the data relationship, finding parallel liable ingredients and creating large grain parallel subtasks, the sequential computing of photon transport into is efficiently transformed into parallel and vector computing. The program was run on various HP parallel computers such as the HY-1 (PVP), the Challenge (SMP) and the YH-3 (MPP) and very good parallel speedup has been gotten

Hypergraph partitioning implementation for parallelizing matrix-vector multiplication using CUDA GPU-based parallel computing

Science.gov (United States)

Murni, Bustamam, A.; Ernastuti, Handhika, T.; Kerami, D.

2017-07-01

Calculation of the matrix-vector multiplication in the real-world problems often involves large matrix with arbitrary size. Therefore, parallelization is needed to speed up the calculation process that usually takes a long time. Graph partitioning techniques that have been discussed in the previous studies cannot be used to complete the parallelized calculation of matrix-vector multiplication with arbitrary size. This is due to the assumption of graph partitioning techniques that can only solve the square and symmetric matrix. Hypergraph partitioning techniques will overcome the shortcomings of the graph partitioning technique. This paper addresses the efficient parallelization of matrix-vector multiplication through hypergraph partitioning techniques using CUDA GPU-based parallel computing. CUDA (compute unified device architecture) is a parallel computing platform and programming model that was created by NVIDIA and implemented by the GPU (graphics processing unit).

Writing parallel programs that work

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2012-01-01

Serial algorithms typically run inefficiently on parallel machines. This may sound like an obvious statement, but it is the root cause of why parallel programming is considered to be difficult. The current state of the computer industry is still that almost all programs in existence are serial. This talk will describe the techniques used in the Intel Parallel Studio to provide a developer with the tools necessary to understand the behaviors and limitations of the existing serial programs. Once the limitations are known the developer can refactor the algorithms and reanalyze the resulting programs with the tools in the Intel Parallel Studio to create parallel programs that work. About the speaker Paul Petersen is a Sr. Principal Engineer in the Software and Solutions Group (SSG) at Intel. He received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois in 1993. After UIUC, he was employed at Kuck and Associates, Inc. (KAI) working on auto-parallelizing compiler (KAP), and was involved in th...

Parallel Framework for Cooperative Processes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mitică Craus

2005-01-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the work of an object oriented framework designed to be used in the parallelization of a set of related algorithms. The idea behind the system we are describing is to have a re-usable framework for running several sequential algorithms in a parallel environment. The algorithms that the framework can be used with have several things in common: they have to run in cycles and the work should be possible to be split between several "processing units". The parallel framework uses the message-passing communication paradigm and is organized as a master-slave system. Two applications are presented: an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO parallel algorithm for the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP and an Image Processing (IP parallel algorithm for the Symmetrical Neighborhood Filter (SNF. The implementations of these applications by means of the parallel framework prove to have good performances: approximatively linear speedup and low communication cost.

Compiler Technology for Parallel Scientific Computation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Can Özturan

1994-01-01

Full Text Available There is a need for compiler technology that, given the source program, will generate efficient parallel codes for different architectures with minimal user involvement. Parallel computation is becoming indispensable in solving large-scale problems in science and engineering. Yet, the use of parallel computation is limited by the high costs of developing the needed software. To overcome this difficulty we advocate a comprehensive approach to the development of scalable architecture-independent software for scientific computation based on our experience with equational programming language (EPL. Our approach is based on a program decomposition, parallel code synthesis, and run-time support for parallel scientific computation. The program decomposition is guided by the source program annotations provided by the user. The synthesis of parallel code is based on configurations that describe the overall computation as a set of interacting components. Run-time support is provided by the compiler-generated code that redistributes computation and data during object program execution. The generated parallel code is optimized using techniques of data alignment, operator placement, wavefront determination, and memory optimization. In this article we discuss annotations, configurations, parallel code generation, and run-time support suitable for parallel programs written in the functional parallel programming language EPL and in Fortran.

Mortality from HIV and TB coinfections is higher in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe and Argentina

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Podlekareva, Daria; Mocroft, Amanda; Post, Frank A

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death in HIV-infected patients worldwide. We aimed to study clinical characteristics and outcome of 1075 consecutive patients diagnosed with HIV/TB from 2004 to 2006 in Europe and Argentina. METHODS: One-year mortality was assessed...... in patients stratified according to region of residence, and factors associated with death were evaluated in multivariable Cox models. RESULTS: At TB diagnosis, patients in Eastern Europe had less advanced immunodeficiency, whereas a greater proportion had a history of intravenous drug use, coinfection...... with 7, 9 and 11% in Central/Northern Europe, Southern Europe, and Argentina, respectively (P

Digits lost or gained? Evidence for pedal evolution in the dwarf salamander complex (Eurycea, Plethodontidae.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Trip Lamb

Full Text Available Change in digit number, particularly digit loss, has occurred repeatedly over the evolutionary history of tetrapods. Although digit loss has been documented among distantly related species of salamanders, it is relatively uncommon in this amphibian order. For example, reduction from five to four toes appears to have evolved just three times in the morphologically and ecologically diverse family Plethodontidae. Here we report a molecular phylogenetic analysis for one of these four-toed lineages--the Eurycea quadridigitata complex (dwarf salamanders--emphasizing relationships to other species in the genus. A multilocus phylogeny reveals that dwarf salamanders are paraphyletic with respect to a complex of five-toed, paedomorphic Eurycea from the Edwards Plateau in Texas. We use this phylogeny to examine evolution of digit number within the dwarf-Edwards Plateau clade, testing contrasting hypotheses of digit loss (parallelism among dwarf salamanders versus digit gain (re-evolution in the Edwards Plateau complex. Bayes factors analysis provides statistical support for a five-toed common ancestor at the dwarf-Edwards node, favoring, slightly, the parallelism hypothesis for digit loss. More importantly, our phylogenetic results pinpoint a rare event in the pedal evolution of plethodontid salamanders.

Entropy in the Tangled Nature Model of evolution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Roach, Ty N.F.; Nulton, James; Sibani, Paolo

2017-01-01

Applications of entropy principles to evolution and ecology are of tantamount importance given the central role spatiotemporal structuring plays in both evolution and ecological succession. We obtain here a qualitative interpretation of the role of entropy in evolving ecological systems. Our...... interpretation is supported by mathematical arguments using simulation data generated by the Tangled Nature Model (TNM), a stochastic model of evolving ecologies. We define two types of configurational entropy and study their empirical time dependence obtained from the data. Both entropy measures increase...... logarithmically with time, while the entropy per individual decreases in time, in parallel with the growth of emergent structures visible from other aspects of the simulation. We discuss the biological relevance of these entropies to describe niche space and functional space of ecosystems, as well as their use...

GRADSPMHD: A parallel MHD code based on the SPH formalism

Science.gov (United States)

Vanaverbeke, S.; Keppens, R.; Poedts, S.

2014-03-01

We present GRADSPMHD, a completely Lagrangian parallel magnetohydrodynamics code based on the SPH formalism. The implementation of the equations of SPMHD in the “GRAD-h” formalism assembles known results, including the derivation of the discretized MHD equations from a variational principle, the inclusion of time-dependent artificial viscosity, resistivity and conductivity terms, as well as the inclusion of a mixed hyperbolic/parabolic correction scheme for satisfying the ∇ṡB→ constraint on the magnetic field. The code uses a tree-based formalism for neighbor finding and can optionally use the tree code for computing the self-gravity of the plasma. The structure of the code closely follows the framework of our parallel GRADSPH FORTRAN 90 code which we added previously to the CPC program library. We demonstrate the capabilities of GRADSPMHD by running 1, 2, and 3 dimensional standard benchmark tests and we find good agreement with previous work done by other researchers. The code is also applied to the problem of simulating the magnetorotational instability in 2.5D shearing box tests as well as in global simulations of magnetized accretion disks. We find good agreement with available results on this subject in the literature. Finally, we discuss the performance of the code on a parallel supercomputer with distributed memory architecture. Catalogue identifier: AERP_v1_0 Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AERP_v1_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen’s University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.html No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 620503 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 19837671 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: FORTRAN 90/MPI. Computer: HPC cluster. Operating system: Unix. Has the code been vectorized or parallelized?: Yes, parallelized using MPI. RAM: ˜30 MB for a

Parallel computing: numerics, applications, and trends

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Trobec, Roman; Vajteršic, Marián; Zinterhof, Peter

2009-01-01

... and/or distributed systems. The contributions to this book are focused on topics most concerned in the trends of today's parallel computing. These range from parallel algorithmics, programming, tools, network computing to future parallel computing. Particular attention is paid to parallel numerics: linear algebra, differential equations, numerica...

Parallel Computing Strategies for Irregular Algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Biswas, Rupak; Oliker, Leonid; Shan, Hongzhang; Biegel, Bryan (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Parallel computing promises several orders of magnitude increase in our ability to solve realistic computationally-intensive problems, but relies on their efficient mapping and execution on large-scale multiprocessor architectures. Unfortunately, many important applications are irregular and dynamic in nature, making their effective parallel implementation a daunting task. Moreover, with the proliferation of parallel architectures and programming paradigms, the typical scientist is faced with a plethora of questions that must be answered in order to obtain an acceptable parallel implementation of the solution algorithm. In this paper, we consider three representative irregular applications: unstructured remeshing, sparse matrix computations, and N-body problems, and parallelize them using various popular programming paradigms on a wide spectrum of computer platforms ranging from state-of-the-art supercomputers to PC clusters. We present the underlying problems, the solution algorithms, and the parallel implementation strategies. Smart load-balancing, partitioning, and ordering techniques are used to enhance parallel performance. Overall results demonstrate the complexity of efficiently parallelizing irregular algorithms.

Construction research needs in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

1991-01-01

fælles europæisk forsknings- og udviklingsstrategi for byggesektoren har det europæiske netværk af byggeforskningsinstitutter, ENBRI, sammenfattet de nationale forskningstemaer samt analyseret perspektiver og behov. Dette materiale er anvendt som diskussionsoplæg ved symposiet Construction research needs...

Europe's New Energy Policy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Piebalgs, A.; Conn, I.; Dobbeni, D.; Josefsson, L.G.; Mogg, L.; Rifkin, J.; Scaroni, P.; Tanaka, N.

2009-01-01

Europe's energy policy has been completely transformed over the last few years, tackling the dual challenges of climate change and energy security. This has lead to major new laws on issues such as energy liberalisation, renewable energy and energy efficiency. In this volume the detailed reasons for these changes are outlined and the way in which the European Union has risen to these challenges is discussed. Views are given on where Europe's energy policy will go next, the challenges of 2050 and the development of a 'third industrial revolution'. This insight is complemented by the observations and comments of some of the leading figures concerning European and global energy issues, explaining how industry, energy regulators and global thinkers see Europe's energy policy and the challenges that it now faces

The Glasgow Parallel Reduction Machine: Programming Shared-memory Many-core Systems using Parallel Task Composition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ashkan Tousimojarad

2013-12-01

Full Text Available We present the Glasgow Parallel Reduction Machine (GPRM, a novel, flexible framework for parallel task-composition based many-core programming. We allow the programmer to structure programs into task code, written as C++ classes, and communication code, written in a restricted subset of C++ with functional semantics and parallel evaluation. In this paper we discuss the GPRM, the virtual machine framework that enables the parallel task composition approach. We focus the discussion on GPIR, the functional language used as the intermediate representation of the bytecode running on the GPRM. Using examples in this language we show the flexibility and power of our task composition framework. We demonstrate the potential using an implementation of a merge sort algorithm on a 64-core Tilera processor, as well as on a conventional Intel quad-core processor and an AMD 48-core processor system. We also compare our framework with OpenMP tasks in a parallel pointer chasing algorithm running on the Tilera processor. Our results show that the GPRM programs outperform the corresponding OpenMP codes on all test platforms, and can greatly facilitate writing of parallel programs, in particular non-data parallel algorithms such as reductions.

Genetic architecture underlying convergent evolution of egg-laying behavior in a seed-feeding beetle.

Science.gov (United States)

Fox, Charles W; Wagner, James D; Cline, Sara; Thomas, Frances Ann; Messina, Frank J

2009-05-01

Independent populations subjected to similar environments often exhibit convergent evolution. An unresolved question is the frequency with which such convergence reflects parallel genetic mechanisms. We examined the convergent evolution of egg-laying behavior in the seed-feeding beetle Callosobruchus maculatus. Females avoid ovipositing on seeds bearing conspecific eggs, but the degree of host discrimination varies among geographic populations. In a previous experiment, replicate lines switched from a small host to a large one evolved reduced discrimination after 40 generations. We used line crosses to determine the genetic architecture underlying this rapid response. The most parsimonious genetic models included dominance and/or epistasis for all crosses. The genetic architecture underlying reduced discrimination in two lines was not significantly different from the architecture underlying differences between geographic populations, but the architecture underlying the divergence of a third line differed from all others. We conclude that convergence of this complex trait may in some cases involve parallel genetic mechanisms.

4. 'Energy and Geopolitics' Forum: Energy transition, which model for Europe? Report on works

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rouyer, Jean-Loup

2005-11-01

This 4. forum on energy and geopolitics, held in Nice in 2005, globally addressed the issue of energy production facing the continuously rising prices of petroleum and natural gas in the world: oil and gas perspectives in the world and in Europe, the role of renewable energies and energy management in the new European energy model (climatic change, demand management, supply and demand optimization), preparation of the Moscow G8 summit (energy security, technological risks, geopolitical unstableness, the Kyoto protocol, assistance to developing countries, energy conservation and efficiency); natural gas and electric power market evolutions as seen by French actors such as Gaz de France and Electricite de France, the natural gas industry in Europe, the Russian policy towards the European market, the Russian/European Union partnership (Common European energy policy, the EU-Russia energy dialogue, EU and Russia energy challenges in 2030/2040; the energy efficiency policy in the European Union and in the context of a cooperation with Russia

Natural Disasters under the Form of Severe Storms in Europe: the Cause-Effect Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Virginia Câmpeanu

2009-07-01

Full Text Available For more than 100 years, from 1900 to 2008, there were almost 400 storms natural disasters in Europe, 40% of which occurred in the 1990s. The international prognoses for the world weather suggest a tendency toward increasing in frequency and intensity of the severe storms as the climate warms. In these circumstances, for a researcher in the field of Environmental Economics, a natural question occurs, on whether people can contribute to reducing the frequency and the magnitude of severe storms that produce disastreous social and economic effects, by acting on their causes. In researching an answer to support the public policies in the field, a cause-effect analysis applied to Europe might make a contribution to the literature in the field. This especially considering the fact that international literature regarding the factors influencing global warming contains certainties in regard to the natural factors of influence, but declared incertitudes or skepticism in regard to anthropogenic ones. Skepticism, and even tension arised during the international negotiations in Copenhagen (December 2009 in regard to the agreement for limiting global warming, with doubts being raised about the methods used by experts of the International Climate Experts Group (GIEC, and thus the results obtained, which served as a basis for the negotiations. The object of critics was in regard to the form, and at times in regard to the content. It was not about contesting the phenomenon of Global warming during the negotiations, but the methods of calculation. The methodology relies on qualitative (type top down and quantitative (type correlations bottom up cause-effect analysis of the storm disasters in Europe. Based on the instruments used, we proposed a dynamic model of association of the evolution of storm disasters in Europe with anthropogenic factors, with 3 variants. Results: The diagram cause-effect (Ishikawa or fishbone diagram and quantitative correlation of sub

Streaming for Functional Data-Parallel Languages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Frederik Meisner

In this thesis, we investigate streaming as a general solution to the space inefficiency commonly found in functional data-parallel programming languages. The data-parallel paradigm maps well to parallel SIMD-style hardware. However, the traditional fully materializing execution strategy...... by extending two existing data-parallel languages: NESL and Accelerate. In the extensions we map bulk operations to data-parallel streams that can evaluate fully sequential, fully parallel or anything in between. By a dataflow, piecewise parallel execution strategy, the runtime system can adjust to any target...... flattening necessitates all sub-computations to materialize at the same time. For example, naive n by n matrix multiplication requires n^3 space in NESL because the algorithm contains n^3 independent scalar multiplications. For large values of n, this is completely unacceptable. We address the problem...

Energy and fuel efficient parallel mild hybrids for urban roads

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Babu, Ajay; Ashok, S.

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Energy and fuel savings depend on battery charge variations and the vehicle speed parameters. • Indian urban conditions provide lot of scope for energy and fuel savings in mild hybrids. • Energy saving strategy has lower payback periods than the fuel saving one in mild hybrids. • Sensitivity to parameter variations is the least for energy saving strategy in a mild hybrid. - Abstract: Fuel economy improvements and battery energy savings can promote the adoption of parallel mild hybrids for urban driving conditions. The aim of this study is to establish these benefits through two operating modes: an energy saving mode and a fuel saving mode. The performances of a typical parallel mild hybrid using these modes were analysed over urban driving cycles, in the US, Europe, and India, with a particular focus on the Indian urban conditions. The energy pack available from the proposed energy-saving operating mode, in addition to the energy already available from the conventional mode, was observed to be the highest for the representative urban driving cycle of the US. The extra energy pack available was found to be approximately 21.9 times that available from the conventional mode. By employing the proposed fuel saving operating mode, the fuel economy improvement achievable in New York City was observed to be approximately 22.69% of the fuel economy with the conventional strategy. The energy saving strategy was found to possess the lowest payback periods and highest immunity to variations in various cost parameters.

Modeling on Fe-Cr microstructure: evolution with Cr content

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Diaz Arroyo, D.; Perlado, J.M.; Hernandez-Mayoral, M.; Caturla, M.J.; Victoria, M.

2007-01-01

Full text of publication follows: The minimum energy configuration of interstitials in the Fe-Cr system, which is the base for the low activation steels being developed in the European fusion reactor materials community, is determined by magnetism. Magnetism plays also a role in the atomic configurations found with increasing Cr content. Results will be presented from a program in which the microstructure evolution produced after heavy ion irradiation in the range from room temperature to 80 K is studied as a function of the Cr content in alloys produced under well controlled conditions, i.e. from high purity elements and with adequate heat treatment. It is expected that these measurements will serve as matrix for model validation. The first step in such modeling sequence is being performed by modeling the evolution of displacement cascades in Fe using the Dudarev -Derlet and Mendeleev potentials for Fe and the Caro potential for Fe-Cr. It is of particular interest to study the evolution of high-energy cascades, where an attempt will be made to clarify the role of the evolution of sub-cascades. Kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) techniques will be used then to simulate the defect evolution. A new parallel kMC code is being implemented for this purpose. (authors)

Bioinformatics algorithm based on a parallel implementation of a machine learning approach using transducers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roche-Lima, Abiel; Thulasiram, Ruppa K

2012-01-01

Finite automata, in which each transition is augmented with an output label in addition to the familiar input label, are considered finite-state transducers. Transducers have been used to analyze some fundamental issues in bioinformatics. Weighted finite-state transducers have been proposed to pairwise alignments of DNA and protein sequences; as well as to develop kernels for computational biology. Machine learning algorithms for conditional transducers have been implemented and used for DNA sequence analysis. Transducer learning algorithms are based on conditional probability computation. It is calculated by using techniques, such as pair-database creation, normalization (with Maximum-Likelihood normalization) and parameters optimization (with Expectation-Maximization - EM). These techniques are intrinsically costly for computation, even worse when are applied to bioinformatics, because the databases sizes are large. In this work, we describe a parallel implementation of an algorithm to learn conditional transducers using these techniques. The algorithm is oriented to bioinformatics applications, such as alignments, phylogenetic trees, and other genome evolution studies. Indeed, several experiences were developed using the parallel and sequential algorithm on Westgrid (specifically, on the Breeze cluster). As results, we obtain that our parallel algorithm is scalable, because execution times are reduced considerably when the data size parameter is increased. Another experience is developed by changing precision parameter. In this case, we obtain smaller execution times using the parallel algorithm. Finally, number of threads used to execute the parallel algorithm on the Breezy cluster is changed. In this last experience, we obtain as result that speedup is considerably increased when more threads are used; however there is a convergence for number of threads equal to or greater than 16.

Tempo and mode in human evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

McHenry, H M

1994-01-01

The quickening pace of paleontological discovery is matched by rapid developments in geochronology. These new data show that the pattern of morphological change in the hominid lineage was mosaic. Adaptations essential to bipedalism appeared early, but some locomotor features changed much later. Relative to the highly derived postcrania of the earliest hominids, the craniodental complex was quite primitive (i.e., like the reconstructed last common ancestor with the African great apes). The pattern of craniodental change among successively younger species of Hominidae implies extensive parallel evolution between at least two lineages in features related to mastication. Relative brain size increased slightly among successively younger species of Australopithecus, expanded significantly with the appearance of Homo, but within early Homo remained at about half the size of Homo sapiens for almost a million years. Many apparent trends in human evolution may actually be due to the accumulation of relatively rapid shifts in successive species. PMID:8041697

Patterns of myoxid evolution in the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam Nadachoswki

1995-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract The origin of recent species belonging to the genera Myoxus, Muscardinus, Glirulus, Eliomys, Dryomys and Myomimus is discussed. Evolution of myoxids in the Pliocene and Pleistocene is expressed by gradual size increase of their cheek teeth. No gradual change in the dental pattern is observed. Riassunto Modelli di evoluzione dei Mioxidi nel Pliocene e Pleistocene in Europa - Viene discussa l'origine delle specie recenti appartenenti ai generi Myoxus, Muscardinus, Glirulus, Eliomys, Dryomys e Myomimus. L'evoluzione dei Mioxidi nel Pliocene e nel Pleistocene è espressa da un graduale aumento delle dimensioni dei molari. Non è stato osservato alcun cambiamento graduale nel pattern dentale.

The role of internal and external constructive processes in evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Laland, Kevin; Odling-Smee, John; Turner, Scott

2014-01-01

The architects of the Modern Synthesis viewed development as an unfolding of a form already latent in the genes. However, developing organisms play a far more active, constructive role in both their own development and their evolution than the Modern Synthesis proclaims. Here we outline what is meant by constructive processes in development and evolution, emphasizing how constructive development is a shared feature of many of the research developments central to the developing Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Our article draws out the parallels between constructive physiological processes expressed internally and in the external environment (niche construction), showing how in each case they play important and not fully recognized evolutionary roles by modifying and biasing natural selection. PMID:24591574

Patterns for Parallel Software Design

CERN Document Server

Ortega-Arjona, Jorge Luis

2010-01-01

Essential reading to understand patterns for parallel programming Software patterns have revolutionized the way we think about how software is designed, built, and documented, and the design of parallel software requires you to consider other particular design aspects and special skills. From clusters to supercomputers, success heavily depends on the design skills of software developers. Patterns for Parallel Software Design presents a pattern-oriented software architecture approach to parallel software design. This approach is not a design method in the classic sense, but a new way of managin

High performance parallel I/O

CERN Document Server

Prabhat

2014-01-01

Gain Critical Insight into the Parallel I/O EcosystemParallel I/O is an integral component of modern high performance computing (HPC), especially in storing and processing very large datasets to facilitate scientific discovery. Revealing the state of the art in this field, High Performance Parallel I/O draws on insights from leading practitioners, researchers, software architects, developers, and scientists who shed light on the parallel I/O ecosystem.The first part of the book explains how large-scale HPC facilities scope, configure, and operate systems, with an emphasis on choices of I/O har

Parallel transport of long mean-free-path plasma along open magnetic field lines: Parallel heat flux

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo Zehua; Tang Xianzhu

2012-01-01

In a long mean-free-path plasma where temperature anisotropy can be sustained, the parallel heat flux has two components with one associated with the parallel thermal energy and the other the perpendicular thermal energy. Due to the large deviation of the distribution function from local Maxwellian in an open field line plasma with low collisionality, the conventional perturbative calculation of the parallel heat flux closure in its local or non-local form is no longer applicable. Here, a non-perturbative calculation is presented for a collisionless plasma in a two-dimensional flux expander bounded by absorbing walls. Specifically, closures of previously unfamiliar form are obtained for ions and electrons, which relate two distinct components of the species parallel heat flux to the lower order fluid moments such as density, parallel flow, parallel and perpendicular temperatures, and the field quantities such as the magnetic field strength and the electrostatic potential. The plasma source and boundary condition at the absorbing wall enter explicitly in the closure calculation. Although the closure calculation does not take into account wave-particle interactions, the results based on passing orbits from steady-state collisionless drift-kinetic equation show remarkable agreement with fully kinetic-Maxwell simulations. As an example of the physical implications of the theory, the parallel heat flux closures are found to predict a surprising observation in the kinetic-Maxwell simulation of the 2D magnetic flux expander problem, where the parallel heat flux of the parallel thermal energy flows from low to high parallel temperature region.

A Pervasive Parallel Processing Framework for Data Visualization and Analysis at Extreme Scale

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moreland, Kenneth [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Geveci, Berk [Kitware, Inc., Clifton Park, NY (United States)

2014-11-01

The evolution of the computing world from teraflop to petaflop has been relatively effortless, with several of the existing programming models scaling effectively to the petascale. The migration to exascale, however, poses considerable challenges. All industry trends infer that the exascale machine will be built using processors containing hundreds to thousands of cores per chip. It can be inferred that efficient concurrency on exascale machines requires a massive amount of concurrent threads, each performing many operations on a localized piece of data. Currently, visualization libraries and applications are based off what is known as the visualization pipeline. In the pipeline model, algorithms are encapsulated as filters with inputs and outputs. These filters are connected by setting the output of one component to the input of another. Parallelism in the visualization pipeline is achieved by replicating the pipeline for each processing thread. This works well for today’s distributed memory parallel computers but cannot be sustained when operating on processors with thousands of cores. Our project investigates a new visualization framework designed to exhibit the pervasive parallelism necessary for extreme scale machines. Our framework achieves this by defining algorithms in terms of worklets, which are localized stateless operations. Worklets are atomic operations that execute when invoked unlike filters, which execute when a pipeline request occurs. The worklet design allows execution on a massive amount of lightweight threads with minimal overhead. Only with such fine-grained parallelism can we hope to fill the billions of threads we expect will be necessary for efficient computation on an exascale machine.

Biotechnological research in Europe

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rehm, H J

1982-01-01

The current research possibilities in the expanding field of biotechnology in Europe are very briefly described. Remarks on research and development are limited to six topics: fermented food products; biomass production; product formation; bioreactors; waste-water treatment, environmental processes and methane formation; central research institutions. It is summarised that increased efforts at co-operation on all levels are vital for an improved development in the field of biotechnology throughout Europe.

Is Monte Carlo embarrassingly parallel?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hoogenboom, J. E. [Delft Univ. of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB Delft (Netherlands); Delft Nuclear Consultancy, IJsselzoom 2, 2902 LB Capelle aan den IJssel (Netherlands)

2012-07-01

Monte Carlo is often stated as being embarrassingly parallel. However, running a Monte Carlo calculation, especially a reactor criticality calculation, in parallel using tens of processors shows a serious limitation in speedup and the execution time may even increase beyond a certain number of processors. In this paper the main causes of the loss of efficiency when using many processors are analyzed using a simple Monte Carlo program for criticality. The basic mechanism for parallel execution is MPI. One of the bottlenecks turn out to be the rendez-vous points in the parallel calculation used for synchronization and exchange of data between processors. This happens at least at the end of each cycle for fission source generation in order to collect the full fission source distribution for the next cycle and to estimate the effective multiplication factor, which is not only part of the requested results, but also input to the next cycle for population control. Basic improvements to overcome this limitation are suggested and tested. Also other time losses in the parallel calculation are identified. Moreover, the threading mechanism, which allows the parallel execution of tasks based on shared memory using OpenMP, is analyzed in detail. Recommendations are given to get the maximum efficiency out of a parallel Monte Carlo calculation. (authors)

Is Monte Carlo embarrassingly parallel?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoogenboom, J. E.

2012-01-01

Monte Carlo is often stated as being embarrassingly parallel. However, running a Monte Carlo calculation, especially a reactor criticality calculation, in parallel using tens of processors shows a serious limitation in speedup and the execution time may even increase beyond a certain number of processors. In this paper the main causes of the loss of efficiency when using many processors are analyzed using a simple Monte Carlo program for criticality. The basic mechanism for parallel execution is MPI. One of the bottlenecks turn out to be the rendez-vous points in the parallel calculation used for synchronization and exchange of data between processors. This happens at least at the end of each cycle for fission source generation in order to collect the full fission source distribution for the next cycle and to estimate the effective multiplication factor, which is not only part of the requested results, but also input to the next cycle for population control. Basic improvements to overcome this limitation are suggested and tested. Also other time losses in the parallel calculation are identified. Moreover, the threading mechanism, which allows the parallel execution of tasks based on shared memory using OpenMP, is analyzed in detail. Recommendations are given to get the maximum efficiency out of a parallel Monte Carlo calculation. (authors)

3-D Hybrid Simulation of Quasi-Parallel Bow Shock and Its Effects on the Magnetosphere

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin, Y.; Wang, X.Y.

2005-01-01

A three-dimensional (3-D) global-scale hybrid simulation is carried out for the structure of the quasi-parallel bow shock, in particular the foreshock waves and pressure pulses. The wave evolution and interaction with the dayside magnetosphere are discussed. It is shown that diamagnetic cavities are generated in the turbulent foreshock due to the ion beam plasma interaction, and these compressional pulses lead to strong surface perturbations at the magnetopause and Alfven waves/field line resonance in the magnetosphere

ESA Earth Observation Ground Segment Evolution Strategy

Science.gov (United States)

Benveniste, J.; Albani, M.; Laur, H.

2016-12-01

One of the key elements driving the evolution of EO Ground Segments, in particular in Europe, has been to enable the creation of added value from EO data and products. This requires the ability to constantly adapt and improve the service to a user base expanding far beyond the `traditional' EO user community of remote sensing specialists. Citizen scientists, the general public, media and educational actors form another user group that is expected to grow. Technological advances, Open Data policies, including those implemented by ESA and the EU, as well as an increasing number of satellites in operations (e.g. Copernicus Sentinels) have led to an enormous increase in available data volumes. At the same time, even with modern network and data handling services, fewer users can afford to bulk-download and consider all potentially relevant data and associated knowledge. The "EO Innovation Europe" concept is being implemented in Europe in coordination between the European Commission, ESA and other European Space Agencies, and industry. This concept is encapsulated in the main ideas of "Bringing the User to the Data" and "Connecting the Users" to complement the traditional one-to-one "data delivery" approach of the past. Both ideas are aiming to better "empower the users" and to create a "sustainable system of interconnected EO Exploitation Platforms", with the objective to enable large scale exploitation of European EO data assets for stimulating innovation and to maximize their impact. These interoperable/interconnected platforms are virtual environments in which the users - individually or collaboratively - have access to the required data sources and processing tools, as opposed to downloading and handling the data `at home'. EO-Innovation Europe has been structured around three elements: an enabling element (acting as a back office), a stimulating element and an outreach element (acting as a front office). Within the enabling element, a "mutualisation" of efforts

Parallel random number generator for inexpensive configurable hardware cells

Science.gov (United States)

Ackermann, J.; Tangen, U.; Bödekker, B.; Breyer, J.; Stoll, E.; McCaskill, J. S.

2001-11-01

A new random number generator ( RNG) adapted to parallel processors has been created. This RNG can be implemented with inexpensive hardware cells. The correlation between neighboring cells is suppressed with smart connections. With such connection structures, sequences of pseudo-random numbers are produced. Numerical tests including a self-avoiding random walk test and the simulation of the order parameter and energy of the 2D Ising model give no evidence for correlation in the pseudo-random sequences. Because the new random number generator has suppressed the correlation between neighboring cells which is usually observed in cellular automaton implementations, it is applicable for extended time simulations. It gives an immense speed-up factor if implemented directly in configurable hardware, and has recently been used for long time simulations of spatially resolved molecular evolution.

Highly parallel translation of DNA sequences into small molecules.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebecca M Weisinger

Full Text Available A large body of in vitro evolution work establishes the utility of biopolymer libraries comprising 10(10 to 10(15 distinct molecules for the discovery of nanomolar-affinity ligands to proteins. Small-molecule libraries of comparable complexity will likely provide nanomolar-affinity small-molecule ligands. Unlike biopolymers, small molecules can offer the advantages of cell permeability, low immunogenicity, metabolic stability, rapid diffusion and inexpensive mass production. It is thought that such desirable in vivo behavior is correlated with the physical properties of small molecules, specifically a limited number of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors, a defined range of hydrophobicity, and most importantly, molecular weights less than 500 Daltons. Creating a collection of 10(10 to 10(15 small molecules that meet these criteria requires the use of hundreds to thousands of diversity elements per step in a combinatorial synthesis of three to five steps. With this goal in mind, we have reported a set of mesofluidic devices that enable DNA-programmed combinatorial chemistry in a highly parallel 384-well plate format. Here, we demonstrate that these devices can translate DNA genes encoding 384 diversity elements per coding position into corresponding small-molecule gene products. This robust and efficient procedure yields small molecule-DNA conjugates suitable for in vitro evolution experiments.

The Evolution of Missile Defense Plan from Bush to Obama. Implications for the National Security of Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ruxandra-Laura BOSILCA

2012-06-01

Full Text Available In 2011 Romania officially became part of the Obama administration’s missile defense system in Europe which has significantly changed the strategic military relations both in Europe and worldwide. The Bush approach has been revised and progress in several sections has been achieved, both strategically and technically. For Romania, the participation in the missile defence plan, ensures more solid security guarantees, especially in an unpredictable and risk-prone international environment where the U.S. reconsiders its presence in Europe under the pressure of the economic crisis and of a relative decline in power; it has also become a more visible actor – alongside Bulgaria – which were initially excluded by the Bush missile defence plan. This paper’s purpose is to review the main evolutions of the missile defense plan from the Bush to the Obama administration and to outline its implications on the national security of Romania.

Cancer rehabilitation indicators for Europe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Baili, Paolo; Hoekstra-Weebers, Josette; Van Hoof, Elke; Bartsch, Hans Helge; Travado, Luzia; Garami, Miklos; Di Salvo, Francesca; Micheli, Andrea; Veerus, Piret

Little is known of cancer rehabilitation needs in Europe. EUROCHIP-3 organised a group of experts to propose a list of population-based indicators used for describing cancer rehabilitation across Europe. The aim of this study is to present and discuss these indicators. A EUROCHIP-3 expert panel

Parallel algorithms for continuum dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hicks, D.L.; Liebrock, L.M.

1987-01-01

Simply porting existing parallel programs to a new parallel processor may not achieve the full speedup possible; to achieve the maximum efficiency may require redesigning the parallel algorithms for the specific architecture. The authors discuss here parallel algorithms that were developed first for the HEP processor and then ported to the CRAY X-MP/4, the ELXSI/10, and the Intel iPSC/32. Focus is mainly on the most recent parallel processing results produced, i.e., those on the Intel Hypercube. The applications are simulations of continuum dynamics in which the momentum and stress gradients are important. Examples of these are inertial confinement fusion experiments, severe breaks in the coolant system of a reactor, weapons physics, shock-wave physics. Speedup efficiencies on the Intel iPSC Hypercube are very sensitive to the ratio of communication to computation. Great care must be taken in designing algorithms for this machine to avoid global communication. This is much more critical on the iPSC than it was on the three previous parallel processors

Heat Roadmap Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

David, Andrei; Mathiesen, Brian Vad; Averfalk, Helge

2017-01-01

The Heat Roadmap Europe (HRE) studies estimated a potential increase of the district heating (DH) share to 50% of the entire heat demand by 2050, with approximately 25–30% of it being supplied using large-scale electric heat pumps. This study builds on this potential and aims to document that suc......The Heat Roadmap Europe (HRE) studies estimated a potential increase of the district heating (DH) share to 50% of the entire heat demand by 2050, with approximately 25–30% of it being supplied using large-scale electric heat pumps. This study builds on this potential and aims to document...

Parallel S/sub n/ iteration schemes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wienke, B.R.; Hiromoto, R.E.

1986-01-01

The iterative, multigroup, discrete ordinates (S/sub n/) technique for solving the linear transport equation enjoys widespread usage and appeal. Serial iteration schemes and numerical algorithms developed over the years provide a timely framework for parallel extension. On the Denelcor HEP, the authors investigate three parallel iteration schemes for solving the one-dimensional S/sub n/ transport equation. The multigroup representation and serial iteration methods are also reviewed. This analysis represents a first attempt to extend serial S/sub n/ algorithms to parallel environments and provides good baseline estimates on ease of parallel implementation, relative algorithm efficiency, comparative speedup, and some future directions. The authors examine ordered and chaotic versions of these strategies, with and without concurrent rebalance and diffusion acceleration. Two strategies efficiently support high degrees of parallelization and appear to be robust parallel iteration techniques. The third strategy is a weaker parallel algorithm. Chaotic iteration, difficult to simulate on serial machines, holds promise and converges faster than ordered versions of the schemes. Actual parallel speedup and efficiency are high and payoff appears substantial

Europe's economic integration: Maastricht and Europe. Europas wirtschaftliche Integration: Maastricht und Europa

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jaeggi, U. (DuPont de Nemours International S.A., Genf (Switzerland))

1994-10-01

The Maastricht Treaty is a decisive step towards Europe's economic integration, which will ultimately provide an alignment of economic policies and a common currency. Companies wishing to keep abreast of their competitors and contribute to improving the competitivity of Europe's industry are faced with the challenge of changing their traditional ways of business relations. (orig.)

Vectorization, parallelization and porting of nuclear codes. Vectorization and parallelization. Progress report fiscal 1999

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Adachi, Masaaki; Ogasawara, Shinobu; Kume, Etsuo [Japan Atomic Energy Research Inst., Tokai, Ibaraki (Japan). Tokai Research Establishment; Ishizuki, Shigeru; Nemoto, Toshiyuki; Kawasaki, Nobuo; Kawai, Wataru [Fujitsu Ltd., Tokyo (Japan); Yatake, Yo-ichi [Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)

2001-02-01

Several computer codes in the nuclear field have been vectorized, parallelized and trans-ported on the FUJITSU VPP500 system, the AP3000 system, the SX-4 system and the Paragon system at Center for Promotion of Computational Science and Engineering in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. We dealt with 18 codes in fiscal 1999. These results are reported in 3 parts, i.e., the vectorization and the parallelization part on vector processors, the parallelization part on scalar processors and the porting part. In this report, we describe the vectorization and parallelization on vector processors. In this vectorization and parallelization on vector processors part, the vectorization of Relativistic Molecular Orbital Calculation code RSCAT, a microscopic transport code for high energy nuclear collisions code JAM, three-dimensional non-steady thermal-fluid analysis code STREAM, Relativistic Density Functional Theory code RDFT and High Speed Three-Dimensional Nodal Diffusion code MOSRA-Light on the VPP500 system and the SX-4 system are described. (author)

Gas in Europe: supply

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1994-01-01

It is predicted that natural gas consumption in western Europe could rise by more than 55% over the next two decades, from 290bn cubic metres (cm) in 1991 to 450bn cm in 2010. This growth, projected by the consultants, Arthur D Little, reflects the environmental and economic attractions of natural gas, particularly in the power generation sector. Another consultant, Poten and Partners, predicts an even greater rise in gas consumption, from 301bn cm in 1992 to 482 bn cm in 2010. However, while demand is forecast to increase in all major European gas markets, indigenous production within Europe is expected to remain stable for the foreseeable future, with indigenous supplies projected to peak at approximately 350bn cubic metres per year (cm/y) in the late 1990s. This raises the prospect of significant supply constraints emerging in Europe. (author)

FTA Corpus: a parallel corpus of English and Spanish Free Trade Agreements for the study of specialized collocations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro Patiño García

2013-04-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the Corpus of Free Trade Agreements (henceforth FTA, a specialized parallel corpus in English and Spanish from Europe and America and a smaller subcorpus in English-Norwegian and Spanish-Norwegian that was prepared and then aligned with Translation Corpus Aligner 2 (Hofland & Johansson, 1998. The data was taken from Free Trade Agreements. These agreements are specialized texts officially signed and ratified by several countries and blocks of countries in the last twenty years. Thus, FTAs are a rich repository for terminology and phraseology that is used in different fields of business activity throughout the world. The corpus contains around 1.37 million words in the English section and 1.48 million words in its Spanish counterpart, plus 60,000 words each in the Spanish-Norwegian and English-Norwegian subcorpus. The corpus is being used primarily to study the terms and specialized collocations that include these terms in this kind of specialized texts.Keywords: specialized collocation, specialized parallel corpus, corpus linguistics, Free Trade Agreement

Parallel R-matrix computation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heggarty, J.W.

1999-06-01

For almost thirty years, sequential R-matrix computation has been used by atomic physics research groups, from around the world, to model collision phenomena involving the scattering of electrons or positrons with atomic or molecular targets. As considerable progress has been made in the understanding of fundamental scattering processes, new data, obtained from more complex calculations, is of current interest to experimentalists. Performing such calculations, however, places considerable demands on the computational resources to be provided by the target machine, in terms of both processor speed and memory requirement. Indeed, in some instances the computational requirements are so great that the proposed R-matrix calculations are intractable, even when utilising contemporary classic supercomputers. Historically, increases in the computational requirements of R-matrix computation were accommodated by porting the problem codes to a more powerful classic supercomputer. Although this approach has been successful in the past, it is no longer considered to be a satisfactory solution due to the limitations of current (and future) Von Neumann machines. As a consequence, there has been considerable interest in the high performance multicomputers, that have emerged over the last decade which appear to offer the computational resources required by contemporary R-matrix research. Unfortunately, developing codes for these machines is not as simple a task as it was to develop codes for successive classic supercomputers. The difficulty arises from the considerable differences in the computing models that exist between the two types of machine and results in the programming of multicomputers to be widely acknowledged as a difficult, time consuming and error-prone task. Nevertheless, unless parallel R-matrix computation is realised, important theoretical and experimental atomic physics research will continue to be hindered. This thesis describes work that was undertaken in

Causal evidence between monsoon and evolution of rhizomyine rodents.

Science.gov (United States)

López-Antoñanzas, Raquel; Knoll, Fabien; Wan, Shiming; Flynn, Lawrence J

2015-03-11

The modern Asian monsoonal systems are currently believed to have originated around the end of the Oligocene following a crucial step of uplift of the Tibetan-Himalayan highlands. Although monsoon possibly drove the evolution of many mammal lineages during the Neogene, no evidence thereof has been provided so far. We examined the evolutionary history of a clade of rodents, the Rhizomyinae, in conjunction with our current knowledge of monsoon fluctuations over time. The macroevolutionary dynamics of rhizomyines were analyzed within a well-constrained phylogenetic framework coupled with biogeographic and evolutionary rate studies. The evolutionary novelties developed by these rodents were surveyed in parallel with the fluctuations of the Indian monsoon so as to evaluate synchroneity and postulate causal relationships. We showed the existence of three drops in biodiversity during the evolution of rhizomyines, all of which reflected elevated extinction rates. Our results demonstrated linkage of monsoon variations with the evolution and biogeography of rhizomyines. Paradoxically, the evolution of rhizomyines was accelerated during the phases of weakening of the monsoons, not of strengthening, most probably because at those intervals forest habitats declined, which triggered extinction and progressive specialization toward a burrowing existence.

The Social Economy in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Spear, Roger

2010-01-01

This paper gives an overview of the social economy in Europe. Drawing on the most recent statistical data, the paper examines the social economy’s size in different European countries, and current trends and challenges in Europe; it also reviews its status and political context at the EU level. T...

Implementation and performance of parallelized elegant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Y.; Borland, M.

2008-01-01

The program elegant is widely used for design and modeling of linacs for free-electron lasers and energy recovery linacs, as well as storage rings and other applications. As part of a multi-year effort, we have parallelized many aspects of the code, including single-particle dynamics, wakefields, and coherent synchrotron radiation. We report on the approach used for gradual parallelization, which proved very beneficial in getting parallel features into the hands of users quickly. We also report details of parallelization of collective effects. Finally, we discuss performance of the parallelized code in various applications.

Parallelizing the spectral transform method: A comparison of alternative parallel algorithms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Foster, I.; Worley, P.H.

1993-01-01

The spectral transform method is a standard numerical technique for solving partial differential equations on the sphere and is widely used in global climate modeling. In this paper, we outline different approaches to parallelizing the method and describe experiments that we are conducting to evaluate the efficiency of these approaches on parallel computers. The experiments are conducted using a testbed code that solves the nonlinear shallow water equations on a sphere, but are designed to permit evaluation in the context of a global model. They allow us to evaluate the relative merits of the approaches as a function of problem size and number of processors. The results of this study are guiding ongoing work on PCCM2, a parallel implementation of the Community Climate Model developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research

Fondements et objectifs des Incriminations et des Peines en Droit Pénal International et en Droit Pénal Européen en matière de Blanchiment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vervaele, J.A.E.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/074957473

2016-01-01

This article discusses money laundering by a double reading of the historical evolution. The first reading is that of public international law, be it on a global scale or on a European regional scale (Council of Europe). The second reading is that of integration law in the context of the European

Algorithms for parallel computers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Churchhouse, R.F.

1985-01-01

Until relatively recently almost all the algorithms for use on computers had been designed on the (usually unstated) assumption that they were to be run on single processor, serial machines. With the introduction of vector processors, array processors and interconnected systems of mainframes, minis and micros, however, various forms of parallelism have become available. The advantage of parallelism is that it offers increased overall processing speed but it also raises some fundamental questions, including: (i) which, if any, of the existing 'serial' algorithms can be adapted for use in the parallel mode. (ii) How close to optimal can such adapted algorithms be and, where relevant, what are the convergence criteria. (iii) How can we design new algorithms specifically for parallel systems. (iv) For multi-processor systems how can we handle the software aspects of the interprocessor communications. Aspects of these questions illustrated by examples are considered in these lectures. (orig.)

Parallel processing for fluid dynamics applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, G.M.

1989-01-01

The impact of parallel processing on computational science and, in particular, on computational fluid dynamics is growing rapidly. In this paper, particular emphasis is given to developments which have occurred within the past two years. Parallel processing is defined and the reasons for its importance in high-performance computing are reviewed. Parallel computer architectures are classified according to the number and power of their processing units, their memory, and the nature of their connection scheme. Architectures which show promise for fluid dynamics applications are emphasized. Fluid dynamics problems are examined for parallelism inherent at the physical level. CFD algorithms and their mappings onto parallel architectures are discussed. Several example are presented to document the performance of fluid dynamics applications on present-generation parallel processing devices

A simple method for the parallel deep sequencing of full influenza A genomes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kampmann, Marie-Louise; Fordyce, Sarah Louise; Avila Arcos, Maria del Carmen

2011-01-01

Given the major threat of influenza A to human and animal health, and its ability to evolve rapidly through mutation and reassortment, tools that enable its timely characterization are necessary to help monitor its evolution and spread. For this purpose, deep sequencing can be a very valuable tool....... This study reports a comprehensive method that enables deep sequencing of the complete genomes of influenza A subtypes using the Illumina Genome Analyzer IIx (GAIIx). By using this method, the complete genomes of nine viruses were sequenced in parallel, representing the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus, H5N1 virus...

Parallel discrete event simulation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Overeinder, B.J.; Hertzberger, L.O.; Sloot, P.M.A.; Withagen, W.J.

1991-01-01

In simulating applications for execution on specific computing systems, the simulation performance figures must be known in a short period of time. One basic approach to the problem of reducing the required simulation time is the exploitation of parallelism. However, in parallelizing the simulation

Toward an Europe without nuclear weapons

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Collin, J.M.

2003-10-01

Where it is exposed that France and Great Britain could propose a progressive and controlled disarmament agenda on beginning by Europe, because of their special situation of only nuclear powers in Europe. (N.C.)

One-year mortality of HIV-positive patients treated for rifampicin- and isoniazid-susceptible tuberculosis in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Latin America

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Podlekareva, DN; Schultze, A; Panteleev, A

2017-01-01

in Western Europe or Latin America. METHODS: One-year mortality of HIV-positive patients with rifampicin/isoniazid-susceptible TB in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Latin America was analysed and compared in a prospective observational cohort study. Factors associated with death were analysed using Cox......OBJECTIVES: The high mortality among HIV/tuberculosis (TB) coinfected patients in Eastern Europe is partly explained by the high prevalence of drug-resistant TB. It remains unclear whether outcomes of HIV/TB patients with rifampicin/isoniazid-susceptible TB in Eastern Europe differ from those...... cell count. These results call for improvement of care for TB/HIV patients in Eastern Europe....

Overview of the Force Scientific Parallel Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gita Alaghband

1994-01-01

Full Text Available The Force parallel programming language designed for large-scale shared-memory multiprocessors is presented. The language provides a number of parallel constructs as extensions to the ordinary Fortran language and is implemented as a two-level macro preprocessor to support portability across shared memory multiprocessors. The global parallelism model on which the Force is based provides a powerful parallel language. The parallel constructs, generic synchronization, and freedom from process management supported by the Force has resulted in structured parallel programs that are ported to the many multiprocessors on which the Force is implemented. Two new parallel constructs for looping and functional decomposition are discussed. Several programming examples to illustrate some parallel programming approaches using the Force are also presented.

The Galley Parallel File System

Science.gov (United States)

Nieuwejaar, Nils; Kotz, David

1996-01-01

Most current multiprocessor file systems are designed to use multiple disks in parallel, using the high aggregate bandwidth to meet the growing I/0 requirements of parallel scientific applications. Many multiprocessor file systems provide applications with a conventional Unix-like interface, allowing the application to access multiple disks transparently. This interface conceals the parallelism within the file system, increasing the ease of programmability, but making it difficult or impossible for sophisticated programmers and libraries to use knowledge about their I/O needs to exploit that parallelism. In addition to providing an insufficient interface, most current multiprocessor file systems are optimized for a different workload than they are being asked to support. We introduce Galley, a new parallel file system that is intended to efficiently support realistic scientific multiprocessor workloads. We discuss Galley's file structure and application interface, as well as the performance advantages offered by that interface.

Heat Roadmap Europe 1

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Connolly, David; Mathiesen, Brian Vad; Østergaard, Poul Alberg

2012-01-01

Heat Roadmap Europe (Pre-study 1) investigates the role of district heating in the EU27 energy system by mapping local conditions across Europe, identifying the potential for district heating expansion, and subsequently simulating the potential resource in an hourly model of the EU27 energy system....... In 2010, approximately 12% of the space heating demand in Europe is met by district heating, but in this study four alternative scenarios are considered for the EU27 energy system: 1. 2010 with 30% district heating 2. 2010 with 50% district heating 3. 2030 with 30% district heating 4. 2050 with 50......% district heating These scenarios are investigated in two steps. Firstly, district heating replaces individual boilers by converting condensing power plants to combined heat and power plants (CHP) to illustrate how district heating improves the overall efficiency of the energy system. In the second step...

PDDP, A Data Parallel Programming Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karen H. Warren

1996-01-01

Full Text Available PDDP, the parallel data distribution preprocessor, is a data parallel programming model for distributed memory parallel computers. PDDP implements high-performance Fortran-compatible data distribution directives and parallelism expressed by the use of Fortran 90 array syntax, the FORALL statement, and the WHERE construct. Distributed data objects belong to a global name space; other data objects are treated as local and replicated on each processor. PDDP allows the user to program in a shared memory style and generates codes that are portable to a variety of parallel machines. For interprocessor communication, PDDP uses the fastest communication primitives on each platform.

Distributed Memory Parallel Computing with SEAWAT

Science.gov (United States)

Verkaik, J.; Huizer, S.; van Engelen, J.; Oude Essink, G.; Ram, R.; Vuik, K.

2017-12-01

Fresh groundwater reserves in coastal aquifers are threatened by sea-level rise, extreme weather conditions, increasing urbanization and associated groundwater extraction rates. To counteract these threats, accurate high-resolution numerical models are required to optimize the management of these precious reserves. The major model drawbacks are long run times and large memory requirements, limiting the predictive power of these models. Distributed memory parallel computing is an efficient technique for reducing run times and memory requirements, where the problem is divided over multiple processor cores. A new Parallel Krylov Solver (PKS) for SEAWAT is presented. PKS has recently been applied to MODFLOW and includes Conjugate Gradient (CG) and Biconjugate Gradient Stabilized (BiCGSTAB) linear accelerators. Both accelerators are preconditioned by an overlapping additive Schwarz preconditioner in a way that: a) subdomains are partitioned using Recursive Coordinate Bisection (RCB) load balancing, b) each subdomain uses local memory only and communicates with other subdomains by Message Passing Interface (MPI) within the linear accelerator, c) it is fully integrated in SEAWAT. Within SEAWAT, the PKS-CG solver replaces the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) solver for solving the variable-density groundwater flow equation and the PKS-BiCGSTAB solver replaces the Generalized Conjugate Gradient (GCG) solver for solving the advection-diffusion equation. PKS supports the third-order Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) scheme for computing advection. Benchmarks were performed on the Dutch national supercomputer (https://userinfo.surfsara.nl/systems/cartesius) using up to 128 cores, for a synthetic 3D Henry model (100 million cells) and the real-life Sand Engine model ( 10 million cells). The Sand Engine model was used to investigate the potential effect of the long-term morphological evolution of a large sand replenishment and climate change on fresh groundwater resources

Design considerations for parallel graphics libraries

Science.gov (United States)

Crockett, Thomas W.

1994-01-01

Applications which run on parallel supercomputers are often characterized by massive datasets. Converting these vast collections of numbers to visual form has proven to be a powerful aid to comprehension. For a variety of reasons, it may be desirable to provide this visual feedback at runtime. One way to accomplish this is to exploit the available parallelism to perform graphics operations in place. In order to do this, we need appropriate parallel rendering algorithms and library interfaces. This paper provides a tutorial introduction to some of the issues which arise in designing parallel graphics libraries and their underlying rendering algorithms. The focus is on polygon rendering for distributed memory message-passing systems. We illustrate our discussion with examples from PGL, a parallel graphics library which has been developed on the Intel family of parallel systems.

Europe - the first hydrogen economy?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hart, D.

1999-01-01

An examination of the state of research relating to hydrogen production and utilization indicates that interest in hydrogen from major companies in Europe has increased by several orders of magnitude in recent years. Of the three major areas where a hydrogen economy could be expected to start, namely, Japan, the United States and Europe, the latter may have advantages in diversity of resources, attitudes towards environmental issues and specific fiscal and regulatory structures. Examples of ongoing research and development projects in Europe include Norway's hydrogen combustion turbine to run on hydrogen from decarbonised natural gas, a project in the Netherlands involving mixing hydrogen and methane in the natural gas grid and a variety of projects involving liquid hydrogen refuelling, hydrogen aircraft, hydrogen fuelling stations and fuel cell vehicle development. There are also ongoing projects in carbon sequestration and hydrogen production for power generation and vehicle use. The author's main contention is that the combination of natural surroundings, environmental problems and attitudes, and business and government frameworks strongly suggest that Europe may be the first to have a hydrogen-based economy. 8 refs

Transnational Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bondebjerg, Ib

2016-01-01

-productions has increased the distribution of original and often local stories in Europe. The article analyses examples of some successful European drama series, their audiences and reception. The analysis is discussed in the context of national and transnational media policy and the impact of globalisation......This article deals with the social and cultural dimensions of globalization and uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse the effects of stronger European integration on media production and reception. It combines theories and methods from sociology, anthropology and media studies...... in this development. The article concludes that encounters of the kind we find in different forms of TV drama will make Europe more diverse and richer for a much broader audience. The interaction between the particular and universal in “narratives” on our past and contemporary social and cultural order contribute...

The spatial distribution and evolution characteristics of North Atlantic cyclones

Science.gov (United States)

Dacre, H.; Gray, S.

2009-09-01

Mid-latitude cyclones play a large role in determining the day-to-day weather conditions in western Europe through their associated wind and precipitation patterns. Thus, their typical spatial and evolution characteristics are of great interest to meteorologists, insurance and risk management companies. In this study a feature tracking algorithm is applied to a cyclone database produced using the Hewson-method of cyclone identification, based on low-level gradients of wet-bulb potential temperature, to produce a climatology of mid-latitude cyclones. The aim of this work is to compare the cyclone track and density statistics found in this study with previous climatologies and to determine reasons for any differences. This method is found to compare well with other cyclone identification methods; the north Atlantic storm track is reproduced along with the major regions of genesis. Differences are attributed to cyclone lifetime and strength thresholds, dataset resolution and cyclone identification and tracking methods. Previous work on cyclone development has been largely limited to case studies as opposed to analysis of climatological data, and does not distinguish between the different stages of cyclone evolution. The cyclone database used in this study allows cyclone characteristics to be tracked throughout the cyclone lifecycle. This enables the evaluation of the characteristics of cyclone evolution for systems forming in different genesis regions and a calculation of the spatial distribution and evolution of these characteristics in composite cyclones. It was found that most of the cyclones that cross western Europe originate in the east Atlantic where the baroclinicity and sea surface temperature gradients are weak compared to the west Atlantic. East Atlantic cyclones also have higher low-level relative vorticity and lower mean sea level pressure at their genesis point than west Atlantic cyclones. This is consistent with the hypothesis that they are secondary

Forecasting the northern African dust outbreak towards Europe in April 2011: a model intercomparison

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Huneeus

2016-04-01

Full Text Available In the framework of the World Meteorological Organisation's Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System, we evaluated the predictions of five state-of-the-art dust forecast models during an intense Saharan dust outbreak affecting western and northern Europe in April 2011. We assessed the capacity of the models to predict the evolution of the dust cloud with lead times of up to 72 h using observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD from the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS and dust surface concentrations from a ground-based measurement network. In addition, the predicted vertical dust distribution was evaluated with vertical extinction profiles from the Cloud and Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP. To assess the diversity in forecast capability among the models, the analysis was extended to wind field (both surface and profile, synoptic conditions, emissions and deposition fluxes. Models predict the onset and evolution of the AOD for all analysed lead times. On average, differences among the models are larger than differences among lead times for each individual model. In spite of large differences in emission and deposition, the models present comparable skill for AOD. In general, models are better in predicting AOD than near-surface dust concentration over the Iberian Peninsula. Models tend to underestimate the long-range transport towards northern Europe. Our analysis suggests that this is partly due to difficulties in simulating the vertical distribution dust and horizontal wind. Differences in the size distribution and wet scavenging efficiency may also account for model diversity in long-range transport.

Automatic Loop Parallelization via Compiler Guided Refactoring

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Per; Ladelsky, Razya; Lidman, Jacob

For many parallel applications, performance relies not on instruction-level parallelism, but on loop-level parallelism. Unfortunately, many modern applications are written in ways that obstruct automatic loop parallelization. Since we cannot identify sufficient parallelization opportunities...... for these codes in a static, off-line compiler, we developed an interactive compilation feedback system that guides the programmer in iteratively modifying application source, thereby improving the compiler’s ability to generate loop-parallel code. We use this compilation system to modify two sequential...... benchmarks, finding that the code parallelized in this way runs up to 8.3 times faster on an octo-core Intel Xeon 5570 system and up to 12.5 times faster on a quad-core IBM POWER6 system. Benchmark performance varies significantly between the systems. This suggests that semi-automatic parallelization should...

Aspects of computation on asynchronous parallel processors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wright, M.

1989-01-01

The increasing availability of asynchronous parallel processors has provided opportunities for original and useful work in scientific computing. However, the field of parallel computing is still in a highly volatile state, and researchers display a wide range of opinion about many fundamental questions such as models of parallelism, approaches for detecting and analyzing parallelism of algorithms, and tools that allow software developers and users to make effective use of diverse forms of complex hardware. This volume collects the work of researchers specializing in different aspects of parallel computing, who met to discuss the framework and the mechanics of numerical computing. The far-reaching impact of high-performance asynchronous systems is reflected in the wide variety of topics, which include scientific applications (e.g. linear algebra, lattice gauge simulation, ordinary and partial differential equations), models of parallelism, parallel language features, task scheduling, automatic parallelization techniques, tools for algorithm development in parallel environments, and system design issues

Liberalization and enlargement: impacts on the industrial organisation of natural gas markets in Eastern Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pirovska, M.

2004-01-01

In 2004, the EU has opened its commercial natural gas industry to competition, while eight former socialist countries have become member states. This ongoing institutional evolution is expected to have a great impact on the industrial organisation of the East European natural gas markets. Specificities and rigidities of the transport networks, as well as strong import dependency may in fact weaken the security of supply and confirm that natural gas is strongly affected by geopolitical constraints. By levering on an analysis of structure and strategies across natural gas markets in Eastern Europe, this dissertation explores the stakes of integration and liberalization on the industrial organisation of European natural gas and reveals the risk of an emerging oligopoly, and the cooperation between dominant players. Our main contention is that this evolution could possibly hinder network interconnection thereby thwarting the achievement of an integrated and single competitive natural gas market in the Union. (author)

Parallelization of the FLAPW method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Canning, A.; Mannstadt, W.; Freeman, A.J.

1999-01-01

The FLAPW (full-potential linearized-augmented plane-wave) method is one of the most accurate first-principles methods for determining electronic and magnetic properties of crystals and surfaces. Until the present work, the FLAPW method has been limited to systems of less than about one hundred atoms due to a lack of an efficient parallel implementation to exploit the power and memory of parallel computers. In this work we present an efficient parallelization of the method by division among the processors of the plane-wave components for each state. The code is also optimized for RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architectures, such as those found on most parallel computers, making full use of BLAS (basic linear algebra subprograms) wherever possible. Scaling results are presented for systems of up to 686 silicon atoms and 343 palladium atoms per unit cell, running on up to 512 processors on a CRAY T3E parallel computer

Parallelization of the FLAPW method

Science.gov (United States)

Canning, A.; Mannstadt, W.; Freeman, A. J.

2000-08-01

The FLAPW (full-potential linearized-augmented plane-wave) method is one of the most accurate first-principles methods for determining structural, electronic and magnetic properties of crystals and surfaces. Until the present work, the FLAPW method has been limited to systems of less than about a hundred atoms due to the lack of an efficient parallel implementation to exploit the power and memory of parallel computers. In this work, we present an efficient parallelization of the method by division among the processors of the plane-wave components for each state. The code is also optimized for RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architectures, such as those found on most parallel computers, making full use of BLAS (basic linear algebra subprograms) wherever possible. Scaling results are presented for systems of up to 686 silicon atoms and 343 palladium atoms per unit cell, running on up to 512 processors on a CRAY T3E parallel supercomputer.

Evolution of morphological and climatic adaptations in Veronica L. (Plantaginaceae

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jian-Cheng Wang

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Perennials and annuals apply different strategies to adapt to the adverse environment, based on ‘tolerance’ and ‘avoidance’, respectively. To understand lifespan evolution and its impact on plant adaptability, we carried out a comparative study of perennials and annuals in the genus Veronica from a phylogenetic perspective. The results showed that ancestors of the genus Veronicawere likely to be perennial plants. Annual life history of Veronica has evolved multiple times and subtrees with more annual species have a higher substitution rate. Annuals can adapt to more xeric habitats than perennials. This indicates that annuals are more drought-resistant than their perennial relatives. Due to adaptation to similar selective pressures, parallel evolution occurs in morphological characters among annual species of Veronica.

Giant hub Src and Syk tyrosine kinase thermodynamic profiles recapitulate evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Phillips, J. C.

2017-10-01

Thermodynamic scaling theory, previously applied mainly to small proteins, here analyzes quantitative evolution of the titled functional network giant hub enzymes. The broad domain structure identified homologically is confirmed hydropathically using amino acid sequences only. The most surprising results concern the evolution of the tyrosine kinase globular surface roughness from avians to mammals, which is first order, compared to the evolution within mammals from rodents to humans, which is second order. The mystery of the unique amide terminal region of proto oncogene tyrosine protein kinase is resolved by the discovery there of a rare hydroneutral septad targeting cluster, which is paralleled by an equally rare octad catalytic cluster in tyrosine kinase in humans and a few other species (cat and dog). These results, which go far towards explaining why these proteins are among the largest giant hubs in protein interaction networks, use no adjustable parameters.

Development of Healthy Cities networks in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Goepel, Eberhard

2007-01-01

The Healthy Cities network in Europe was inspired by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion when it was launched in 1987. The networking process was initiated by the WHO Regional Office for Europe, but developed its own dynamics in different European countries during a time marked by fundamental political transformations in many of the countries of Eastern Europe. The networks then connected with the 'Local Agenda 21' and the 'Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign' to create a new and broader programmatic agenda at the local level. In particular, the ''Aalborg plus 10 - commitments"--of local governments in 2004 have the potential to inspire a new phase of participatory and sustainable policies at the level of local communities in Europe. However, the extent to which these initiatives will influence the macro-politics of the European Union towards a proclaimed "Europe of Citizens" remains to be watched carefully during the coming years.

West Europe Report

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

1986-01-01

.... This report from Western Europe, Austria, Finland, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, Greenland, Netherlands, Federal Republic of Germany, France and Italy, contains articles on Politics...

Parallelization of 2-D lattice Boltzmann codes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suzuki, Soichiro; Kaburaki, Hideo; Yokokawa, Mitsuo.

1996-03-01

Lattice Boltzmann (LB) codes to simulate two dimensional fluid flow are developed on vector parallel computer Fujitsu VPP500 and scalar parallel computer Intel Paragon XP/S. While a 2-D domain decomposition method is used for the scalar parallel LB code, a 1-D domain decomposition method is used for the vector parallel LB code to be vectorized along with the axis perpendicular to the direction of the decomposition. High parallel efficiency of 95.1% by the vector parallel calculation on 16 processors with 1152x1152 grid and 88.6% by the scalar parallel calculation on 100 processors with 800x800 grid are obtained. The performance models are developed to analyze the performance of the LB codes. It is shown by our performance models that the execution speed of the vector parallel code is about one hundred times faster than that of the scalar parallel code with the same number of processors up to 100 processors. We also analyze the scalability in keeping the available memory size of one processor element at maximum. Our performance model predicts that the execution time of the vector parallel code increases about 3% on 500 processors. Although the 1-D domain decomposition method has in general a drawback in the interprocessor communication, the vector parallel LB code is still suitable for the large scale and/or high resolution simulations. (author)

Parallelization of 2-D lattice Boltzmann codes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Suzuki, Soichiro; Kaburaki, Hideo; Yokokawa, Mitsuo

1996-03-01

Lattice Boltzmann (LB) codes to simulate two dimensional fluid flow are developed on vector parallel computer Fujitsu VPP500 and scalar parallel computer Intel Paragon XP/S. While a 2-D domain decomposition method is used for the scalar parallel LB code, a 1-D domain decomposition method is used for the vector parallel LB code to be vectorized along with the axis perpendicular to the direction of the decomposition. High parallel efficiency of 95.1% by the vector parallel calculation on 16 processors with 1152x1152 grid and 88.6% by the scalar parallel calculation on 100 processors with 800x800 grid are obtained. The performance models are developed to analyze the performance of the LB codes. It is shown by our performance models that the execution speed of the vector parallel code is about one hundred times faster than that of the scalar parallel code with the same number of processors up to 100 processors. We also analyze the scalability in keeping the available memory size of one processor element at maximum. Our performance model predicts that the execution time of the vector parallel code increases about 3% on 500 processors. Although the 1-D domain decomposition method has in general a drawback in the interprocessor communication, the vector parallel LB code is still suitable for the large scale and/or high resolution simulations. (author).

Explorations of the implementation of a parallel IDW interpolation algorithm in a Linux cluster-based parallel GIS

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Fang; Liu, Dingsheng; Tan, Xicheng; Wang, Jian; Chen, Yunping; He, Binbin

2011-04-01

To design and implement an open-source parallel GIS (OP-GIS) based on a Linux cluster, the parallel inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation algorithm has been chosen as an example to explore the working model and the principle of algorithm parallel pattern (APP), one of the parallelization patterns for OP-GIS. Based on an analysis of the serial IDW interpolation algorithm of GRASS GIS, this paper has proposed and designed a specific parallel IDW interpolation algorithm, incorporating both single process, multiple data (SPMD) and master/slave (M/S) programming modes. The main steps of the parallel IDW interpolation algorithm are: (1) the master node packages the related information, and then broadcasts it to the slave nodes; (2) each node calculates its assigned data extent along one row using the serial algorithm; (3) the master node gathers the data from all nodes; and (4) iterations continue until all rows have been processed, after which the results are outputted. According to the experiments performed in the course of this work, the parallel IDW interpolation algorithm can attain an efficiency greater than 0.93 compared with similar algorithms, which indicates that the parallel algorithm can greatly reduce processing time and maximize speed and performance.

Parallel Monte Carlo reactor neutronics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Blomquist, R.N.; Brown, F.B.

1994-01-01

The issues affecting implementation of parallel algorithms for large-scale engineering Monte Carlo neutron transport simulations are discussed. For nuclear reactor calculations, these include load balancing, recoding effort, reproducibility, domain decomposition techniques, I/O minimization, and strategies for different parallel architectures. Two codes were parallelized and tested for performance. The architectures employed include SIMD, MIMD-distributed memory, and workstation network with uneven interactive load. Speedups linear with the number of nodes were achieved

Europe is going to Mars

Science.gov (United States)

1999-06-01

The Agency's Science Programme Committee (SPC) approved Mars Express after ESA's Council, meeting at ministerial level in Brussels on 11 and 12 May, had agreed the level of the science budget for the next 4 years, just enough to make the mission affordable. "Mars Express is a mission of opportunity and we felt we just had to jump in and do it. We are convinced it will produce first-rate science", says Hans Balsiger, SPC chairman. As well as being a first for Europe in Mars exploration, Mars Express will pioneer new, cheaper ways of doing space science missions. "With a total cost of just 150 million euros, Mars Express will be the cheapest Mars mission ever undertaken", says Roger Bonnet, ESA's Director of Science. Mars Express will be launched in June 2003. When it arrives at the red planet six months later, it will begin to search for water and life. Seven instruments, provided by space research institutes throughout Europe, will make observations from the main spacecraft as it orbits the planet. Just before the spacecraft arrives, it will release a small lander, provided by research institutes in the UK, that will journey on to the surface to look for signs of life. The lander is called Beagle 2 after the ship in which Charles Darwin sailed round the world in search of evidence supporting his theory of evolution. But just as Darwin had to raise the money for his trip, so the search is on for public and private finance for Beagle 2. "Beagle 2 is an extremely important element of the mission", says Bonnet. Europe's space scientists have envisaged a mission to Mars for over fifteen years. But limited funding has prevented previous proposals from going ahead. The positioning of the planets in 2003, however, offers a particularly favourable passage to the red planet - an opportunity not to be missed. Mars Express will be joined by an international flotilla of spacecraft that will also be using this opportunity to work together on scientific questions and pave the way

Parallel Implicit Algorithms for CFD

Science.gov (United States)

Keyes, David E.

1998-01-01

The main goal of this project was efficient distributed parallel and workstation cluster implementations of Newton-Krylov-Schwarz (NKS) solvers for implicit Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD.) "Newton" refers to a quadratically convergent nonlinear iteration using gradient information based on the true residual, "Krylov" to an inner linear iteration that accesses the Jacobian matrix only through highly parallelizable sparse matrix-vector products, and "Schwarz" to a domain decomposition form of preconditioning the inner Krylov iterations with primarily neighbor-only exchange of data between the processors. Prior experience has established that Newton-Krylov methods are competitive solvers in the CFD context and that Krylov-Schwarz methods port well to distributed memory computers. The combination of the techniques into Newton-Krylov-Schwarz was implemented on 2D and 3D unstructured Euler codes on the parallel testbeds that used to be at LaRC and on several other parallel computers operated by other agencies or made available by the vendors. Early implementations were made directly in Massively Parallel Integration (MPI) with parallel solvers we adapted from legacy NASA codes and enhanced for full NKS functionality. Later implementations were made in the framework of the PETSC library from Argonne National Laboratory, which now includes pseudo-transient continuation Newton-Krylov-Schwarz solver capability (as a result of demands we made upon PETSC during our early porting experiences). A secondary project pursued with funding from this contract was parallel implicit solvers in acoustics, specifically in the Helmholtz formulation. A 2D acoustic inverse problem has been solved in parallel within the PETSC framework.

Competitiveness of Dairy Farms In Northern Europe: A Cross-Country analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Csaba Jansik

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The milk sector has received much attention in Europe due to the abolition of milk quotas in 2015 and its potential effect on the geographical distribution of milk production across countries. As a way of assessing the competitive advantage of Nordic EU countries, we investigated the productivity level and productivity growth of milk farms across eight countries of the Baltic Sea region from 1995 to 2010. We found considerable discrepancy in the productivity performance of dairy farms across countries. TFP growth rates indicate that, at farm level, the competitive positions of the older EU members are stable, and that there is no catching up from the newer EU entrants. We offer explanations for this evolution based on the different patterns of structural change followed by the studied countries.

Electricity in Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Holmes, A.

1985-01-01

European electricity consumption and demand is summarized in Chapter 1. The relationship between government and electricity producers is touched on. Five further chapters examine aspects of electricity in Europe. Chapter 2 discusses the electricity trade (import and export of electricity). The next looks at the current status of nuclear power in individual European countries. The environmental impact of generating electricity (eg acid rain, radioactive waste disposal) is assessed next and then the price of electricity in Europe is reviewed (with comparisons between the countries). Profiles of the situation in each country are presented in the last chapter. There are 72 tables presenting the facts and figures on which the text is based. (U.K.)

Experiments with parallel algorithms for combinatorial problems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

G.A.P. Kindervater (Gerard); H.W.J.M. Trienekens

1985-01-01

textabstractIn the last decade many models for parallel computation have been proposed and many parallel algorithms have been developed. However, few of these models have been realized and most of these algorithms are supposed to run on idealized, unrealistic parallel machines. The parallel machines

Unhomely Europes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dimitris Eleftheriotis

2007-10-01

Full Text Available This special issue of PORTAL constitutes an indirect, sideways reflection on the EU’s move toward (re-discovering, establishing, and promoting shared cultural values. It seeks to unveil not the official historical contexts and traditions in which contemporary inventions of cultural identity occur. Rather, its aim is to discover and listen to competing voices and alternative visions—be they cultural, social, political, literary or cinematic—that give different shape to trans-European identities and model union, commonality, and belonging, according to transregional or translocal values. The special issue, then, is an exploration of possible forms of frictions occurring across the European cultural and historical landscape. It questions the pre-eminence of formal EU discourses on values, and the branding of Europe in the global marketplace, by listening to marginalised, unheard or discordant Euro-voices. The issue demonstrates the need for more rigorous theorisations of notions such as ‘value,’ whether ‘shared’ or ‘cultural,’ in the European region, and posits alternative mappings and visions of European belonging and identity. The essays included in this special issue consider Europe as a locus of frictions, consensus, tension, contestation and reconciliation. This locus is capable of co-locating Scotland with the Costa Brava, crossing Swedish views of Russia with their converse, recognising a Europe of borders that continuously unfold, acknowledging the interference of historical memories, and inflecting the Houellebecquian Euro-futurescape with Greco-Australian undertones; to cite a few examples of vibrant transvaluation occurring in the issue.

Evolution of the salivary apyrases of blood-feeding arthropods.

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, Austin L

2013-09-15

Phylogenetic analyses of three families of arthropod apyrases were used to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of salivary-expressed apyrases, which have an anti-coagulant function in blood-feeding arthropods. Members of the 5'nucleotidase family were recruited for salivary expression in blood-feeding species at least five separate times in the history of arthropods, while members of the Cimex-type apyrase family have been recruited at least twice. In spite of these independent events of recruitment for salivary function, neither of these families showed evidence of convergent amino acid sequence evolution in salivary-expressed members. On the contrary, in the 5'-nucleotide family, salivary-expressed proteins conserved ancestral amino acid residues to a significantly greater extent than related proteins without salivary function, implying parallel evolution by conservation of ancestral characters. This unusual pattern of sequence evolution suggests the hypothesis that purifying selection favoring conservation of ancestral residues is particularly strong in salivary-expressed members of the 5'-nucleotidase family of arthropods because of constraints arising from expression within the vertebrate host. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 2007

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

de Mouzon, J; Goossens, V; Bhattacharya, S

2012-01-01

This 11th European IVF-monitoring report presents the results of assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments initiated in Europe during 2007.......This 11th European IVF-monitoring report presents the results of assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments initiated in Europe during 2007....

Detecting regular sound changes in linguistics as events of concerted evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Hruschka, Daniel J; Branford, Simon; Smith, Eric D; Wilkins, Jon; Meade, Andrew; Pagel, Mark; Bhattacharya, Tanmoy

2015-01-05

Concerted evolution is normally used to describe parallel changes at different sites in a genome, but it is also observed in languages where a specific phoneme changes to the same other phoneme in many words in the lexicon—a phenomenon known as regular sound change. We develop a general statistical model that can detect concerted changes in aligned sequence data and apply it to study regular sound changes in the Turkic language family. Linguistic evolution, unlike the genetic substitutional process, is dominated by events of concerted evolutionary change. Our model identified more than 70 historical events of regular sound change that occurred throughout the evolution of the Turkic language family, while simultaneously inferring a dated phylogenetic tree. Including regular sound changes yielded an approximately 4-fold improvement in the characterization of linguistic change over a simpler model of sporadic change, improved phylogenetic inference, and returned more reliable and plausible dates for events on the phylogenies. The historical timings of the concerted changes closely follow a Poisson process model, and the sound transition networks derived from our model mirror linguistic expectations. We demonstrate that a model with no prior knowledge of complex concerted or regular changes can nevertheless infer the historical timings and genealogical placements of events of concerted change from the signals left in contemporary data. Our model can be applied wherever discrete elements—such as genes, words, cultural trends, technologies, or morphological traits—can change in parallel within an organism or other evolving group. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Parallel reservoir simulator computations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hemanth-Kumar, K.; Young, L.C.

1995-01-01

The adaptation of a reservoir simulator for parallel computations is described. The simulator was originally designed for vector processors. It performs approximately 99% of its calculations in vector/parallel mode and relative to scalar calculations it achieves speedups of 65 and 81 for black oil and EOS simulations, respectively on the CRAY C-90

Life in Europe under climate change

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Alcamo, J.; Olesen, Jørgen E

Life in Europe will indeed go on as the climate changes, but not in the same way as before. The air will be warmer, winds will change, patterns of rainfall and snowfall will alter, and sea level is likely to rise. These phenomena are already being seen. Europe will in the future experience marked...... changes in vegetation cover, increased floods along rivers and coastlines as well as more frequent droughts and forest fires, often leading to large societal costs. The changes will be minor in some cases, profound in others, but in any case, pervasive.......Life in Europe will indeed go on as the climate changes, but not in the same way as before. The air will be warmer, winds will change, patterns of rainfall and snowfall will alter, and sea level is likely to rise. These phenomena are already being seen. Europe will in the future experience marked...

The STAPL Parallel Graph Library

KAUST Repository

Harshvardhan,

2013-01-01

This paper describes the stapl Parallel Graph Library, a high-level framework that abstracts the user from data-distribution and parallelism details and allows them to concentrate on parallel graph algorithm development. It includes a customizable distributed graph container and a collection of commonly used parallel graph algorithms. The library introduces pGraph pViews that separate algorithm design from the container implementation. It supports three graph processing algorithmic paradigms, level-synchronous, asynchronous and coarse-grained, and provides common graph algorithms based on them. Experimental results demonstrate improved scalability in performance and data size over existing graph libraries on more than 16,000 cores and on internet-scale graphs containing over 16 billion vertices and 250 billion edges. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.

The parallel volume at large distances

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kampf, Jürgen

In this paper we examine the asymptotic behavior of the parallel volume of planar non-convex bodies as the distance tends to infinity. We show that the difference between the parallel volume of the convex hull of a body and the parallel volume of the body itself tends to . This yields a new proof...... for the fact that a planar body can only have polynomial parallel volume, if it is convex. Extensions to Minkowski spaces and random sets are also discussed....

The parallel volume at large distances

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kampf, Jürgen

In this paper we examine the asymptotic behavior of the parallel volume of planar non-convex bodies as the distance tends to infinity. We show that the difference between the parallel volume of the convex hull of a body and the parallel volume of the body itself tends to 0. This yields a new proof...... for the fact that a planar body can only have polynomial parallel volume, if it is convex. Extensions to Minkowski spaces and random sets are also discussed....

Expressing Parallelism with ROOT

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Piparo, D. [CERN; Tejedor, E. [CERN; Guiraud, E. [CERN; Ganis, G. [CERN; Mato, P. [CERN; Moneta, L. [CERN; Valls Pla, X. [CERN; Canal, P. [Fermilab

2017-11-22

The need for processing the ever-increasing amount of data generated by the LHC experiments in a more efficient way has motivated ROOT to further develop its support for parallelism. Such support is being tackled both for shared-memory and distributed-memory environments. The incarnations of the aforementioned parallelism are multi-threading, multi-processing and cluster-wide executions. In the area of multi-threading, we discuss the new implicit parallelism and related interfaces, as well as the new building blocks to safely operate with ROOT objects in a multi-threaded environment. Regarding multi-processing, we review the new MultiProc framework, comparing it with similar tools (e.g. multiprocessing module in Python). Finally, as an alternative to PROOF for cluster-wide executions, we introduce the efforts on integrating ROOT with state-of-the-art distributed data processing technologies like Spark, both in terms of programming model and runtime design (with EOS as one of the main components). For all the levels of parallelism, we discuss, based on real-life examples and measurements, how our proposals can increase the productivity of scientists.

Expressing Parallelism with ROOT

Science.gov (United States)

Piparo, D.; Tejedor, E.; Guiraud, E.; Ganis, G.; Mato, P.; Moneta, L.; Valls Pla, X.; Canal, P.

2017-10-01

The need for processing the ever-increasing amount of data generated by the LHC experiments in a more efficient way has motivated ROOT to further develop its support for parallelism. Such support is being tackled both for shared-memory and distributed-memory environments. The incarnations of the aforementioned parallelism are multi-threading, multi-processing and cluster-wide executions. In the area of multi-threading, we discuss the new implicit parallelism and related interfaces, as well as the new building blocks to safely operate with ROOT objects in a multi-threaded environment. Regarding multi-processing, we review the new MultiProc framework, comparing it with similar tools (e.g. multiprocessing module in Python). Finally, as an alternative to PROOF for cluster-wide executions, we introduce the efforts on integrating ROOT with state-of-the-art distributed data processing technologies like Spark, both in terms of programming model and runtime design (with EOS as one of the main components). For all the levels of parallelism, we discuss, based on real-life examples and measurements, how our proposals can increase the productivity of scientists.

Parallel hierarchical radiosity rendering

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Carter, Michael [Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)

1993-07-01

In this dissertation, the step-by-step development of a scalable parallel hierarchical radiosity renderer is documented. First, a new look is taken at the traditional radiosity equation, and a new form is presented in which the matrix of linear system coefficients is transformed into a symmetric matrix, thereby simplifying the problem and enabling a new solution technique to be applied. Next, the state-of-the-art hierarchical radiosity methods are examined for their suitability to parallel implementation, and scalability. Significant enhancements are also discovered which both improve their theoretical foundations and improve the images they generate. The resultant hierarchical radiosity algorithm is then examined for sources of parallelism, and for an architectural mapping. Several architectural mappings are discussed. A few key algorithmic changes are suggested during the process of making the algorithm parallel. Next, the performance, efficiency, and scalability of the algorithm are analyzed. The dissertation closes with a discussion of several ideas which have the potential to further enhance the hierarchical radiosity method, or provide an entirely new forum for the application of hierarchical methods.

Environmental protection in Eastern Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kabala, S.

1990-01-01

There is a need for the development of institutional structures to make the transfer of technology work to improve the ability of Eastern Europe to find solutions to its environmental problems. Envisioned is technical assistance: U.S. experts who will work on-site with Eastern European experts. The idea is to technically train individuals in pollution-prevention methods. Trained experts could then upgrade processes to save input, energy, and materials. In the exchange of environmental information, discussions have led to four issues: it is expensive to transfer equipment and make qualified personnel available for a long period; information is comparatively inexpensive to convey; in Eastern Europe there are trained and competent personnel; the theoretical knowledge, academic knowledge, and education are at a very high level but little of this knowledge has been put into practice. The technology transfer goal is to develop a response to needs identified by partner institutions and counterpart professionals that will enable Eastern Europe to tap resources that do exist- scientific, managerial, and economic resources and tap information resources in the US in order to address the environmental problems that exist in Eastern Europe

Europe phrasebook

CERN Document Server

2001-01-01

This book replaces "Western Europe Phrasbook". It includes Basque, Catalan, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Maltese, Portugese, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish and Welsh. This fully updated edition includes special sections on going out, sports and festivals, as well as local dishes, shopping and sightseeing.

Europeanization of the World or Globalization of Europe?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jerry Bentley

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Building on his long career as a distinguished historian of early modern Europe, John Miles Headley has recently turned his gaze to the influence of Europe in the larger world. In The Europeanization of the World, Headley makes an insistent case for the uniqueness of European values—particularly human rights and democracy—and argues that these values are Europe’s most precious gifts to the larger world. Without seeking to diminish the remarkable intellectual and cultural achievements of European peoples, this presentation will suggest a more nuanced view of relations between Europe and the larger world. Human rights and democracy mean different things to different peoples in different contexts at different times, and there have in fact been numerous expressions of both in societies beyond Europe. Furthermore, European theorists of human rights and democracy drew influence from societies beyond Europe. To the extent that the Europeanization of the world is a persuasive idea, it is possible only because of a prior globalization of Europe.

Shared Variable Oriented Parallel Precompiler for SPMD Model

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

1995-01-01

For the moment,commercial parallel computer systems with distributed memory architecture are usually provided with parallel FORTRAN or parallel C compliers,which are just traditional sequential FORTRAN or C compilers expanded with communication statements.Programmers suffer from writing parallel programs with communication statements. The Shared Variable Oriented Parallel Precompiler (SVOPP) proposed in this paper can automatically generate appropriate communication statements based on shared variables for SPMD(Single Program Multiple Data) computation model and greatly ease the parallel programming with high communication efficiency.The core function of parallel C precompiler has been successfully verified on a transputer-based parallel computer.Its prominent performance shows that SVOPP is probably a break-through in parallel programming technique.

Evaluating parallel optimization on transputers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A.G. Chalmers

2003-12-01

Full Text Available The faster processing power of modern computers and the development of efficient algorithms have made it possible for operations researchers to tackle a much wider range of problems than ever before. Further improvements in processing speed can be achieved utilising relatively inexpensive transputers to process components of an algorithm in parallel. The Davidon-Fletcher-Powell method is one of the most successful and widely used optimisation algorithms for unconstrained problems. This paper examines the algorithm and identifies the components that can be processed in parallel. The results of some experiments with these components are presented which indicates under what conditions parallel processing with an inexpensive configuration is likely to be faster than the traditional sequential implementations. The performance of the whole algorithm with its parallel components is then compared with the original sequential algorithm. The implementation serves to illustrate the practicalities of speeding up typical OR algorithms in terms of difficulty, effort and cost. The results give an indication of the savings in time a given parallel implementation can be expected to yield.

Programming massively parallel processors a hands-on approach

CERN Document Server

Kirk, David B

2010-01-01

Programming Massively Parallel Processors discusses basic concepts about parallel programming and GPU architecture. ""Massively parallel"" refers to the use of a large number of processors to perform a set of computations in a coordinated parallel way. The book details various techniques for constructing parallel programs. It also discusses the development process, performance level, floating-point format, parallel patterns, and dynamic parallelism. The book serves as a teaching guide where parallel programming is the main topic of the course. It builds on the basics of C programming for CUDA, a parallel programming environment that is supported on NVI- DIA GPUs. Composed of 12 chapters, the book begins with basic information about the GPU as a parallel computer source. It also explains the main concepts of CUDA, data parallelism, and the importance of memory access efficiency using CUDA. The target audience of the book is graduate and undergraduate students from all science and engineering disciplines who ...

Potato developments in a changing Europe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Haase, N.U.; Haverkort, A.J.

2006-01-01

The papers in this book reflect societal and commercial changes such as consumer behaviour and marketing aspects in relation to fresh and processed potatoes in western, central and eastern Europe. Seed trade between western and central Europe is entering a new stage with altered inspection

Promotion of Sustainable Renovation in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fokaides, Paris A.; Kanarachos, Andreas; Kanarachos, Georgette

2013-01-01

pressing the energy renovation of buildings. Both the obstacles and the contribution of national regulations will be discussed, towards promotion of sustainable renovation in Europe today. This study is also expected to report on research initiatives currently being undertaken in Europe on the energy...

Europe Report, Science and Technology.

Science.gov (United States)

1986-09-29

MICROELECTRONICS Italian SGS President: Survival Strategies for Small Firms (Rudolf Schulze; VDI NACHRICHTEN , 11 Jul 86) 47 SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY...29 September 1986 WEST EUROPE/^OtoEIECTRONICS ITALIAN SGS PRESIDENT: SURVIVAL STRATEGIES FOR SMALL FIRMS Duesseldorf VDI NACHRICHTEN in German...for Europe," first paragraph is VDI NACHRICHTEN introduction] [Text] Duesseldorf, 11 Jul 86—Japanese producers are in the process of taking over the

Middle Eastern Christians in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sparre, Sara Cathrine Lei; Hunter, Alistair; Jørgensen, Anne Rosenlund

This booklet, published in English, Danish, Swedish and Arabic, has the aim to present overall findings of the research project Defining and Identifying Middle Eastern Christians in Europe (DIMECCE) to a broader audience.......This booklet, published in English, Danish, Swedish and Arabic, has the aim to present overall findings of the research project Defining and Identifying Middle Eastern Christians in Europe (DIMECCE) to a broader audience....

West Europe Report

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

1987-01-01

.... This document contains articles about Western Europe. Some topics discussed are socialism, political parties, international relations, foreign policy, sociology, consumerism, economics, military operations, commerce, industries, energy, trade, private...

Exploiting Symmetry on Parallel Architectures.

Science.gov (United States)

Stiller, Lewis Benjamin

1995-01-01

This thesis describes techniques for the design of parallel programs that solve well-structured problems with inherent symmetry. Part I demonstrates the reduction of such problems to generalized matrix multiplication by a group-equivariant matrix. Fast techniques for this multiplication are described, including factorization, orbit decomposition, and Fourier transforms over finite groups. Our algorithms entail interaction between two symmetry groups: one arising at the software level from the problem's symmetry and the other arising at the hardware level from the processors' communication network. Part II illustrates the applicability of our symmetry -exploitation techniques by presenting a series of case studies of the design and implementation of parallel programs. First, a parallel program that solves chess endgames by factorization of an associated dihedral group-equivariant matrix is described. This code runs faster than previous serial programs, and discovered it a number of results. Second, parallel algorithms for Fourier transforms for finite groups are developed, and preliminary parallel implementations for group transforms of dihedral and of symmetric groups are described. Applications in learning, vision, pattern recognition, and statistics are proposed. Third, parallel implementations solving several computational science problems are described, including the direct n-body problem, convolutions arising from molecular biology, and some communication primitives such as broadcast and reduce. Some of our implementations ran orders of magnitude faster than previous techniques, and were used in the investigation of various physical phenomena.

Advanced parallel processing with supercomputer architectures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hwang, K.

1987-01-01

This paper investigates advanced parallel processing techniques and innovative hardware/software architectures that can be applied to boost the performance of supercomputers. Critical issues on architectural choices, parallel languages, compiling techniques, resource management, concurrency control, programming environment, parallel algorithms, and performance enhancement methods are examined and the best answers are presented. The authors cover advanced processing techniques suitable for supercomputers, high-end mainframes, minisupers, and array processors. The coverage emphasizes vectorization, multitasking, multiprocessing, and distributed computing. In order to achieve these operation modes, parallel languages, smart compilers, synchronization mechanisms, load balancing methods, mapping parallel algorithms, operating system functions, application library, and multidiscipline interactions are investigated to ensure high performance. At the end, they assess the potentials of optical and neural technologies for developing future supercomputers

Endpoint-based parallel data processing with non-blocking collective instructions in a parallel active messaging interface of a parallel computer

Science.gov (United States)

Archer, Charles J; Blocksome, Michael A; Cernohous, Bob R; Ratterman, Joseph D; Smith, Brian E

2014-11-11

Endpoint-based parallel data processing with non-blocking collective instructions in a PAMI of a parallel computer is disclosed. The PAMI is composed of data communications endpoints, each including a specification of data communications parameters for a thread of execution on a compute node, including specifications of a client, a context, and a task. The compute nodes are coupled for data communications through the PAMI. The parallel application establishes a data communications geometry specifying a set of endpoints that are used in collective operations of the PAMI by associating with the geometry a list of collective algorithms valid for use with the endpoints of the geometry; registering in each endpoint in the geometry a dispatch callback function for a collective operation; and executing without blocking, through a single one of the endpoints in the geometry, an instruction for the collective operation.

Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence

Science.gov (United States)

Scally, Aylwyn; Dutheil, Julien Y.; Hillier, LaDeana W.; Jordan, Greg E.; Goodhead, Ian; Herrero, Javier; Hobolth, Asger; Lappalainen, Tuuli; Mailund, Thomas; Marques-Bonet, Tomas; McCarthy, Shane; Montgomery, Stephen H.; Schwalie, Petra C.; Tang, Y. Amy; Ward, Michelle C.; Xue, Yali; Yngvadottir, Bryndis; Alkan, Can; Andersen, Lars N.; Ayub, Qasim; Ball, Edward V.; Beal, Kathryn; Bradley, Brenda J.; Chen, Yuan; Clee, Chris M.; Fitzgerald, Stephen; Graves, Tina A.; Gu, Yong; Heath, Paul; Heger, Andreas; Karakoc, Emre; Kolb-Kokocinski, Anja; Laird, Gavin K.; Lunter, Gerton; Meader, Stephen; Mort, Matthew; Mullikin, James C.; Munch, Kasper; O’Connor, Timothy D.; Phillips, Andrew D.; Prado-Martinez, Javier; Rogers, Anthony S.; Sajjadian, Saba; Schmidt, Dominic; Shaw, Katy; Simpson, Jared T.; Stenson, Peter D.; Turner, Daniel J.; Vigilant, Linda; Vilella, Albert J.; Whitener, Weldon; Zhu, Baoli; Cooper, David N.; de Jong, Pieter; Dermitzakis, Emmanouil T.; Eichler, Evan E.; Flicek, Paul; Goldman, Nick; Mundy, Nicholas I.; Ning, Zemin; Odom, Duncan T.; Ponting, Chris P.; Quail, Michael A.; Ryder, Oliver A.; Searle, Stephen M.; Warren, Wesley C.; Wilson, Richard K.; Schierup, Mikkel H.; Rogers, Jane; Tyler-Smith, Chris; Durbin, Richard

2012-01-01

Summary Gorillas are humans’ closest living relatives after chimpanzees, and are of comparable importance for the study of human origins and evolution. Here we present the assembly and analysis of a genome sequence for the western lowland gorilla, and compare the whole genomes of all extant great ape genera. We propose a synthesis of genetic and fossil evidence consistent with placing the human-chimpanzee and human-chimpanzee-gorilla speciation events at approximately 6 and 10 million years ago (Mya). In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression. A comparison of protein coding genes reveals approximately 500 genes showing accelerated evolution on each of the gorilla, human and chimpanzee lineages, and evidence for parallel acceleration, particularly of genes involved in hearing. We also compare the western and eastern gorilla species, estimating an average sequence divergence time 1.75 million years ago, but with evidence for more recent genetic exchange and a population bottleneck in the eastern species. The use of the genome sequence in these and future analyses will promote a deeper understanding of great ape biology and evolution. PMID:22398555

Cancer Control in Central and Eastern Europe

OpenAIRE

La Vecchia, Carlo; Conte, Pierfranco

2016-01-01

In Central and Western Europe, cancer mortality is declining at slower rates as compared with rates in the rest of the world. More than a generation has now passed since the end of nonmarket economies in Central and Eastern Europe. It is time for this area of the continent to close the gap in cancer incidence and mortality rates between it and Western Europe and other high-income areas of the world.

Science in Society in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mejlgaard, Niels; Bloch, Carter Walter

2012-01-01

This paper introduces a special section of Science and Public Policy on science in society in Europe. Based on extensive data collected for the Monitoring Policy and Research Activities on Science in Society in Europe (MASIS) project, contributions to this special section explore pertinent issues...... related to the location, role and responsibility of science across EU member states and associated countries. By developing analytical typologies and classifying countries, the collection of papers provides a novel and detailed picture of Europe. It reveals considerable variation regarding...... the interactions of science and society at the national level, and it offers a platform for international learning. The identification of patterns and trends concerning the place of science in society may also feed into emerging European discussions about ‘responsible research and innovation’....

An energy policy for Europe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2007-01-01

This document takes stock on the future energy policy of Europe. It discusses successively the challenges, the sustainability, the security of supply, the competitiveness, a strategic objective to guide europe energy policy, the action plan, the internal energy market, the solidarity between member states and security of supply for oil gas and electricity, a long term commitment to greenhouse gases reduction and the EU emissions trading System, the ambitious program of energy efficiency measures at Community national local and international level, a longer term target for renewable energy, a european strategic energy technology plan, a turn towards a low CO 2 fossil fuel future, the future of Nuclear, an international energy policy that actively pursues europe interests, the effective monitoring and reporting and how taking work forwards. (A.L.B.)

Global Dimming and Brightening Versus Atmospheric Column Transparency, Europe 1906-2007

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ohvril, H.; Teral, H.; Neiman, L.; Kannel, Martin; Uustare, M.; Tee, M.; Russak, V.; Okulov, O.; Joeveer, A.; Kallis, A.; Ohvril, Tiiu; Terez, E.; Terez, G.; Gushchin, G.; Abakumova, G. M.; Gorbarenko, Ekaterina V.; Tsvetkov, Anatoly V.; Laulainen, Nels S.

2009-05-09

Multiannual changes in atmospheric column transparency based on measurements of direct solar radiation allow us to assess various tendencies in climatic changes. Variability of the atmospheric integral (broadband) transparency coefficient, calculated according to the Bouguer-Lambert law and transformed to a solar elevation of 30°, is used for two Russian locations, Pavlovsk and Moscow, one Ukrainian location, Feodosiya, and three Estonian locations, Tartu, Tõravere, and Tiirikoja, covering together a 102-year period, 1906–2007. The comparison of time series revealed significant parallelism. Multiannual trends demonstrate decrease in transparency during the postwar period until 1983/1984. The trend ends with a steep decline of transparency after a series of four volcanic eruptions of Soufriere (1979), Saint Helens (1980), Alaid (1981), and El Chichón (1982). From 1984/1985 to 1990 the atmosphere remarkably restored its clarity, which almost reached again the level of the 1960s. Following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo (June 1991), there was the most significant reduction in column transparency of the postwar period. However, from the end of 1990s, the atmosphere in all considered locations is characterized with high values of transparency. The clearing of the atmosphere (from 1993) evidently indicates a decrease in the content of aerosol particles and, besides the decline of volcanic activity, may therefore be also traced to environmentally oriented changes in technology (pollution prevention), to general industrial and agricultural decline in the territory of the former USSR and Eastern Europe after deep political changes in 1991, and in part to migration of some industries out of Europe.

Global dimming and brightening versus atmospheric column transparency, Europe, 1906-2007

Science.gov (United States)

Ohvril, Hanno; Teral, Hilda; Neiman, Lennart; Kannel, Martin; Uustare, Marika; Tee, Mati; Russak, Viivi; Okulov, Oleg; Jõeveer, Anne; Kallis, Ain; Ohvril, Tiiu; Terez, Edward I.; Terez, Galina A.; Gushchin, Gennady K.; Abakumova, Galina M.; Gorbarenko, Ekaterina V.; Tsvetkov, Anatoly V.; Laulainen, Nels

2009-05-01

Multiannual changes in atmospheric column transparency based on measurements of direct solar radiation allow us to assess various tendencies in climatic changes. Variability of the atmospheric integral (broadband) transparency coefficient, calculated according to the Bouguer-Lambert law and transformed to a solar elevation of 30°, is used for two Russian locations, Pavlovsk and Moscow, one Ukrainian location, Feodosiya, and three Estonian locations, Tartu, Tõravere, and Tiirikoja, covering together a 102-year period, 1906-2007. The comparison of time series revealed significant parallelism. Multiannual trends demonstrate decrease in transparency during the postwar period until 1983/1984. The trend ends with a steep decline of transparency after a series of four volcanic eruptions of Soufriere (1979), Saint Helens (1980), Alaid (1981), and El Chichón (1982). From 1984/1985 to 1990 the atmosphere remarkably restored its clarity, which almost reached again the level of the 1960s. Following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo (June 1991), there was the most significant reduction in column transparency of the postwar period. However, from the end of 1990s, the atmosphere in all considered locations is characterized with high values of transparency. The clearing of the atmosphere (from 1993) evidently indicates a decrease in the content of aerosol particles and, besides the decline of volcanic activity, may therefore be also traced to environmentally oriented changes in technology (pollution prevention), to general industrial and agricultural decline in the territory of the former USSR and Eastern Europe after deep political changes in 1991, and in part to migration of some industries out of Europe.

Community wind power ownership schemes in Europe and their relevance to the United States

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bolinger, Mark

2001-05-15

With varying success, the United States and Europe have followed a more or less parallel path of policies to support wind development over the past twenty years. Feed-in laws and tax incentives first popularized in California in the early 1980s and greatly expanded upon in Europe during the 1990s are gradually giving way to market-based support mechanisms such as renewable portfolio standards, which are being implemented in one form or another in ten US states and at least three European nations. At the same time, electricity markets are being liberalized in both the US and Europe, and many electricity consumers are being given the choice to support the development of renewable energy through higher tariffs, both in traditionally regulated and newly competitive markets. One notable area in which wind development in Europe and United States has not evolved in common, however, is with respect to the level of community ownership of wind turbines or clusters. While community ownership of wind projects is unheard of in the United States, in Europe, local wind cooperatives or other participatory business schemes have been responsible for a large share of total wind development. In Denmark, for example, approximately 80% of all wind turbines are either individually or cooperatively owned, and a similar pattern holds in Germany, the world leader in installed wind capacity. Sweden also has a strong wind cooperative base, and the UK has recently made forays into community wind ownership. Why is it that wind development has evolved this way in Europe, but not in the United States? What incremental effect have community-owned wind schemes had on European wind development? Have community-owned wind schemes driven development in Europe, or are they merely a vehicle through which the fundamental driving institutions have been channeled? Is there value to having community wind ownership in the US? Is there reason to believe that such schemes would succeed in the US? If so, which

SOFTWARE FOR DESIGNING PARALLEL APPLICATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. K. Bouza

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The object of research is the tools to support the development of parallel programs in C/C ++. The methods and software which automates the process of designing parallel applications are proposed.

An Introduction to Parallel Computation R

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

How are they programmed? This article provides an introduction. A parallel computer is a network of processors built for ... and have been used to solve problems much faster than a single ... in parallel computer design is to select an organization which ..... The most ambitious approach to parallel computing is to develop.

Building a parallel file system simulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Molina-Estolano, E; Maltzahn, C; Brandt, S A; Bent, J

2009-01-01

Parallel file systems are gaining in popularity in high-end computing centers as well as commercial data centers. High-end computing systems are expected to scale exponentially and to pose new challenges to their storage scalability in terms of cost and power. To address these challenges scientists and file system designers will need a thorough understanding of the design space of parallel file systems. Yet there exist few systematic studies of parallel file system behavior at petabyte- and exabyte scale. An important reason is the significant cost of getting access to large-scale hardware to test parallel file systems. To contribute to this understanding we are building a parallel file system simulator that can simulate parallel file systems at very large scale. Our goal is to simulate petabyte-scale parallel file systems on a small cluster or even a single machine in reasonable time and fidelity. With this simulator, file system experts will be able to tune existing file systems for specific workloads, scientists and file system deployment engineers will be able to better communicate workload requirements, file system designers and researchers will be able to try out design alternatives and innovations at scale, and instructors will be able to study very large-scale parallel file system behavior in the class room. In this paper we describe our approach and provide preliminary results that are encouraging both in terms of fidelity and simulation scalability.

Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 2008

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ferraretti, A P; Goossens, V; de Mouzon, J

2012-01-01

This 12th European IVF-monitoring (EIM) report presents the results of treatments involving assisted reproductive technology (ART) initiated in Europe during 2008.......This 12th European IVF-monitoring (EIM) report presents the results of treatments involving assisted reproductive technology (ART) initiated in Europe during 2008....

Management of imported malaria in Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Askling Helena H

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract In this position paper, the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Study Group on Clinical Parasitology, summarizes main issues regarding the management of imported malaria cases. Malaria is a rare diagnosis in Europe, but it is a medical emergency. A travel history is the key to suspecting malaria and is mandatory in patients with fever. There are no specific clinical signs or symptoms of malaria although fever is seen in almost all non-immune patients. Migrants from malaria endemic areas may have few symptoms. Malaria diagnostics should be performed immediately on suspicion of malaria and the gold- standard is microscopy of Giemsa-stained thick and thin blood films. A Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT may be used as an initial screening tool, but does not replace urgent microscopy which should be done in parallel. Delays in microscopy, however, should not lead to delayed initiation of appropriate treatment. Patients diagnosed with malaria should usually be hospitalized. If outpatient management is preferred, as is the practice in some European centres, patients must usually be followed closely (at least daily until clinical and parasitological cure. Treatment of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria is either with oral artemisinin combination therapy (ACT or with the combination atovaquone/proguanil. Two forms of ACT are available in Europe: artemether/lumefantrine and dihydroartemisinin/piperaquine. ACT is also effective against Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium knowlesi, but these species can be treated with chloroquine. Treatment of persistent liver forms in P. vivax and P. ovale with primaquine is indicated after excluding glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. There are modified schedules and drug options for the treatment of malaria in special patient groups, such as children and pregnant women. The potential for drug interactions and the role of food in the

Taenia solium in Europe: Still endemic?

Science.gov (United States)

Devleesschauwer, Brecht; Allepuz, Alberto; Dermauw, Veronique; Johansen, Maria V; Laranjo-González, Minerva; Smit, G Suzanne A; Sotiraki, Smaragda; Trevisan, Chiara; Wardrop, Nicola A; Dorny, Pierre; Gabriël, Sarah

2017-01-01

The pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, causes an important economic and health burden, mainly in rural or marginalized communities of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin-America. Although improved pig rearing conditions seem to have eliminated the parasite in most Western European countries, little is known about the true endemicity status of T. solium throughout Europe. Three recent reviews indicate that autochthonous human T. solium taeniasis/cysticercosis may be possible in Europe, but that current peer-reviewed literature is biased towards Western Europe. Officially reported data on porcine cysticercosis are highly insufficient. Favourable conditions for local T. solium transmission still exist in eastern parts of Europe, although the ongoing integration of the European Union is speeding up modernisation and intensification of the pig sector. Further evidence is urgently needed to fill the gaps on the European T. solium endemicity map. We urge to make human cysticercosis notifiable and to improve the reporting of porcine cysticercosis. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hadron therapy takes off in Europe

CERN Multimedia

CERN Bulletin

2011-01-01

A joint meeting of ULICE, ENLIGHT and PARTNER recently took place in Marburg (Germany). The three initiatives are shaping both the present and the future of hadron therapy in Europe, where new cutting-edge facilities have started to fight cancer with beams of protons and carbon ions.   A pictorial representation of a raster scan on a tumour. (Photo courtesy of HIT/GSI/Siemens.) Thanks to a very active multidisciplinary community consisting of physicists, biologists, radiobiologists, engineers, IT specialists and medical doctors, hadron therapy is taking off in Europe. Indeed, after a few decades during which the innovative technique was mainly used experimentally in Japan, the US and a couple of pioneering laboratory-based facilities in Europe, today an increasing number of hospitals are being equipped with synchrotrons and dedicated treatment rooms. “Asia and Europe are at the forefront of research and use of carbon ions in the treatment of some rare and radio-resistant t...

Auditing HIV Testing Rates across Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Raben, D; Mocroft, A; Rayment, M

2015-01-01

European guidelines recommend the routine offer of an HIV test in patients with a number of AIDS-defining and non-AIDS conditions believed to share an association with HIV; so called indicator conditions (IC). Adherence with this guidance across Europe is not known. We audited HIV testing behaviour...... audits from 23 centres, representing 7037 patients. The median test rate across audits was 72% (IQR 32-97), lowest in Northern Europe (median 44%, IQR 22-68%) and highest in Eastern Europe (median 99%, IQR 86-100). Uptake of testing was close to 100% in all regions. The median HIV+ rate was 0.9% (IQR 0.......0-4.9), with 29 audits (60.4%) having an HIV+ rate >0.1%. After adjustment, there were no differences between regions of Europe in the proportion with >0.1% testing positive (global p = 0.14). A total of 113 patients tested HIV+. Applying the observed rates of testing HIV+ within individual ICs and regions to all...

Professional Parallel Programming with C# Master Parallel Extensions with NET 4

CERN Document Server

Hillar, Gastón

2010-01-01

Expert guidance for those programming today's dual-core processors PCs As PC processors explode from one or two to now eight processors, there is an urgent need for programmers to master concurrent programming. This book dives deep into the latest technologies available to programmers for creating professional parallel applications using C#, .NET 4, and Visual Studio 2010. The book covers task-based programming, coordination data structures, PLINQ, thread pools, asynchronous programming model, and more. It also teaches other parallel programming techniques, such as SIMD and vectorization.Teach

Parallelization for first principles electronic state calculation program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Watanabe, Hiroshi; Oguchi, Tamio.

1997-03-01

In this report we study the parallelization for First principles electronic state calculation program. The target machines are NEC SX-4 for shared memory type parallelization and FUJITSU VPP300 for distributed memory type parallelization. The features of each parallel machine are surveyed, and the parallelization methods suitable for each are proposed. It is shown that 1.60 times acceleration is achieved with 2 CPU parallelization by SX-4 and 4.97 times acceleration is achieved with 12 PE parallelization by VPP 300. (author)

Parallel computation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jejcic, A.; Maillard, J.; Maurel, G.; Silva, J.; Wolff-Bacha, F.

1997-01-01

The work in the field of parallel processing has developed as research activities using several numerical Monte Carlo simulations related to basic or applied current problems of nuclear and particle physics. For the applications utilizing the GEANT code development or improvement works were done on parts simulating low energy physical phenomena like radiation, transport and interaction. The problem of actinide burning by means of accelerators was approached using a simulation with the GEANT code. A program of neutron tracking in the range of low energies up to the thermal region has been developed. It is coupled to the GEANT code and permits in a single pass the simulation of a hybrid reactor core receiving a proton burst. Other works in this field refers to simulations for nuclear medicine applications like, for instance, development of biological probes, evaluation and characterization of the gamma cameras (collimators, crystal thickness) as well as the method for dosimetric calculations. Particularly, these calculations are suited for a geometrical parallelization approach especially adapted to parallel machines of the TN310 type. Other works mentioned in the same field refer to simulation of the electron channelling in crystals and simulation of the beam-beam interaction effect in colliders. The GEANT code was also used to simulate the operation of germanium detectors designed for natural and artificial radioactivity monitoring of environment

Neoclassical parallel flow calculation in the presence of external parallel momentum sources in Heliotron J

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nishioka, K.; Nakamura, Y. [Graduate School of Energy Science, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011 (Japan); Nishimura, S. [National Institute for Fusion Science, 322-6 Oroshi-cho, Toki, Gifu 509-5292 (Japan); Lee, H. Y. [Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-701 (Korea, Republic of); Kobayashi, S.; Mizuuchi, T.; Nagasaki, K.; Okada, H.; Minami, T.; Kado, S.; Yamamoto, S.; Ohshima, S.; Konoshima, S.; Sano, F. [Institute of Advanced Energy, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011 (Japan)

2016-03-15

A moment approach to calculate neoclassical transport in non-axisymmetric torus plasmas composed of multiple ion species is extended to include the external parallel momentum sources due to unbalanced tangential neutral beam injections (NBIs). The momentum sources that are included in the parallel momentum balance are calculated from the collision operators of background particles with fast ions. This method is applied for the clarification of the physical mechanism of the neoclassical parallel ion flows and the multi-ion species effect on them in Heliotron J NBI plasmas. It is found that parallel ion flow can be determined by the balance between the parallel viscosity and the external momentum source in the region where the external source is much larger than the thermodynamic force driven source in the collisional plasmas. This is because the friction between C{sup 6+} and D{sup +} prevents a large difference between C{sup 6+} and D{sup +} flow velocities in such plasmas. The C{sup 6+} flow velocities, which are measured by the charge exchange recombination spectroscopy system, are numerically evaluated with this method. It is shown that the experimentally measured C{sup 6+} impurity flow velocities do not contradict clearly with the neoclassical estimations, and the dependence of parallel flow velocities on the magnetic field ripples is consistent in both results.

Reduce, reuse, and recycle: developmental evolution of trait diversification.

Science.gov (United States)

Preston, Jill C; Hileman, Lena C; Cubas, Pilar

2011-03-01

A major focus of evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) studies is to determine the genetic basis of variation in organismal form and function, both of which are fundamental to biological diversification. Pioneering work on metazoan and flowering plant systems has revealed conserved sets of genes that underlie the bauplan of organisms derived from a common ancestor. However, the extent to which variation in the developmental genetic toolkit mirrors variation at the phenotypic level is an active area of research. Here we explore evidence from the angiosperm evo-devo literature supporting the frugal use of genes and genetic pathways in the evolution of developmental patterning. In particular, these examples highlight the importance of genetic pleiotropy in different developmental modules, thus reducing the number of genes required in growth and development, and the reuse of particular genes in the parallel evolution of ecologically important traits.

Aedes albopictus and Its Environmental Limits in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Cunze, Sarah; Kochmann, Judith; Koch, Lisa K; Klimpel, Sven

2016-01-01

The Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus, native to South East Asia, is listed as one of the worst invasive vector species worldwide. In Europe the species is currently restricted to Southern Europe, but due to the ongoing climate change, Ae. albopictus is expected to expand its potential range further northwards. In addition to modelling the habitat suitability for Ae. albopictus under current and future climatic conditions in Europe by means of the maximum entropy approach, we here focused on the drivers of the habitat suitability prediction. We explored the most limiting factors for Aedes albopictus in Europe under current and future climatic conditions, a method which has been neglected in species distribution modelling so far. Ae. albopictus is one of the best-studied mosquito species, which allowed us to evaluate the applied Maxent approach for most limiting factor mapping. We identified three key limiting factors for Ae. albopictus in Europe under current climatic conditions: winter temperature in Eastern Europe, summer temperature in Southern Europe. Model findings were in good accordance with commonly known establishment thresholds in Europe based on climate chamber experiments and derived from the geographical distribution of the species. Under future climatic conditions low winter temperature were modelled to remain the most limiting factor in Eastern Europe, whereas in Central Europe annual mean temperature and summer temperatures were modelled to be replaced by summer precipitation, respectively, as most limiting factors. Changes in the climatic conditions in terms of the identified key limiting factors will be of great relevance regarding the invasive potential of the Ae. albopictus. Thus, our results may help to understand the key drivers of the suggested range expansion under climate change and may help to improve monitoring programmes. The applied approach of investigating limiting factors has proven to yield valuable results and may also provide

Structural Properties of G,T-Parallel Duplexes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Aviñó

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The structure of G,T-parallel-stranded duplexes of DNA carrying similar amounts of adenine and guanine residues is studied by means of molecular dynamics (MD simulations and UV- and CD spectroscopies. In addition the impact of the substitution of adenine by 8-aminoadenine and guanine by 8-aminoguanine is analyzed. The presence of 8-aminoadenine and 8-aminoguanine stabilizes the parallel duplex structure. Binding of these oligonucleotides to their target polypyrimidine sequences to form the corresponding G,T-parallel triplex was not observed. Instead, when unmodified parallel-stranded duplexes were mixed with their polypyrimidine target, an interstrand Watson-Crick duplex was formed. As predicted by theoretical calculations parallel-stranded duplexes carrying 8-aminopurines did not bind to their target. The preference for the parallel-duplex over the Watson-Crick antiparallel duplex is attributed to the strong stabilization of the parallel duplex produced by the 8-aminopurines. Theoretical studies show that the isomorphism of the triads is crucial for the stability of the parallel triplex.

Study of three-dimensional Rayleigh--Taylor instability in compressible fluids through level set method and parallel computation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, X.L.

1993-01-01

Computation of three-dimensional (3-D) Rayleigh--Taylor instability in compressible fluids is performed on a MIMD computer. A second-order TVD scheme is applied with a fully parallelized algorithm to the 3-D Euler equations. The computational program is implemented for a 3-D study of bubble evolution in the Rayleigh--Taylor instability with varying bubble aspect ratio and for large-scale simulation of a 3-D random fluid interface. The numerical solution is compared with the experimental results by Taylor