Search

The production of biosourced intermediates from renewable raw materials represents a hot topic for the scientific community, which is engaged in the development of more efficient and sustainable processes. In this perspective, olefin metathesis (OM) is one of the best choices to address societal issues, harnessing the conversion of compounds extracted from plants into molecules of interest with a very low carbon footprint. The aim of this article is to highlight and discuss two relevant metathesis processes dedicated to biomass valorization (on the one hand, the transformation of feedstocks resulting from Fischer–Tropsch cuts of wood wastes, and on the other hand, the transformation of unrefined unsaturated fatty esters from sunflower oils) which involve highly efficient and selective ruthenium-based catalysts. The recent development of continuous flow Z-selective metathesis processes applied to the synthesis of biosourced odorant molecules and insect pheromones will also be discussed.

To document, through a survey, perceptions of functional electrical stimulation (FES) from people with spinal cord injury (SCI) and carers, clinicians, and researchers (CCR). Online questionnaires were completed in Australia and New Zealand from December 1, 2021 to August 31, 2022. Subgroups included people with SCI who have used FES, people with SCI who have not used FES, CCRs who have used FES, and CCRs who have not used FES. Frequencies and percentages of subgroup data were calculated for all questions. Open-ended responses were analyzed with inductive content analysis. Ninety-nine responses (70 people with SCI, 29 CCR) were analyzed. Out of the 99 responses, 47 people with SCI and 27 CCRs had used or currently use FES. Muscle strength was the most frequently reported benefit by people with SCI and CCRs who use(d) FES. Lack of training was the most frequently reported barrier to FES by people with SCI (85% of question responders) and CCRs (94%) who had used FES. People with SCI (95%) who had not used FES reported access as a barrier. The leading priorities for future research include improved ease of use for people with SCI (60% people with SCI) and clinical guidelines (48% CCR). Qualitative findings supported the quantitative findings. This survey identified access as a barrier to FES and echoed benefits (strength) and barriers (training) reported in previous research. Ameliorating the barriers and investigating the areas of future research identified in this study will ultimately improve FES uptake in SCI rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power management (PM) is cumbersome for today's computing systems. Attainable performance is bounded by the architecture's computing efficiency and capped in temperature, current, and power. PM is composed of multiple interacting layers. High-level controllers (HLCs) involve application-level policies, operating system agents (OSPMs), and PM governors and interfaces. The application of high-level control decisions is currently delegated to an on-chip power management unit executing tailored PM firmware routines. The complexity of this structure arises from the scale of the interaction, which pervades the whole system architecture. This paper aims to characterize the cost of the communication backbone between high-level OSPM agents and the on-chip power management unit (PMU) in high performance computing (HPC) processors. For this purpose, we target the System Control and Management Interface (SCMI), which is an open standard proposed by Arm. We enhance a fully open-source, end-to-end FPGA-based HW/SW framework to simulate the interaction between a HLC, a HPC system, and a PMU. This includes the application-level PM policies, the drivers of the operating system-directed configuration and power management (OSPM) governor, and the hardware and firmware of the PMU, allowing us to evaluate the impact of the communication backbone on the overall control scheme. With this framework, we first conduct an in-depth latency study of the communication interface across the whole PM hardware (HW) and software (SW) stack. Finally, we studied the impact of latency in terms of the quality of the end-to-end control, showing that the SCMI protocol can sustain reactive power management policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of employers' attitudes to, knowledge about, and policies relating to employing someone with a spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine employers located in Australia from a range of backgrounds and different sized businesses. The interviews were thematically analysed. Results: Three themes were identified: Organisational policies (sub-themes: Recruitment - inherent requirements of the role vs risk mitigation; Recruitment strategies and targets; Disclosure; Accommodations needed or offered); Barriers & facilitators (sub-themes: Lack of knowledge about SCI; Physical accessibility; Workplace culture); Personal attitudes (sub-themes: Personal attitudes don't align with organisational policy; Personal experiences informed understanding). Conclusions: Organisational policies and practices of the employers' organisations, and workplace culture impact the likelihood of someone with a SCI being employed, particularly in relation to recruitment, employment targets, and available accommodations. Individual staff attitudes and knowledge also influence this process. Multi-faceted approaches are needed to increase the employment of people with SCI. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION: Barriers to employing someone with spinal cord injury (SCI) include lack of knowledge about SCI, and lack of knowledge about workplace laws Organisational policies and practices of organisations impact the likelihood of someone with an SCI being employed Individual staff attitudes influence employment of people with SCI Employers' knowledge about and confidence in employing people with SCI, is an important area to target interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A selective direct arylation of the different Csp2‐H bonds of imidazo[2,1‐b]thiazole with (hetero) aryl halides can be achieved simply by switching from a palladium catalyst system to the use of stoichiometric amounts of copper. The observed selectivity, also rationalized by DFT calculations, can be explained by a change in the mechanistic pathways between electrophilic palladation and base‐promoted C−H metalation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Autism spectrum disorder is a complex condition with wide variation in type and severity that involves persistent challenges in social interaction, speech and nonverbal communication, restricted/repetitive behaviours and adaptive behaviours. In recent years, research has deepened the study of the predictive factors of optimal outcome, intended as indicators of positive trajectory in children with a previous diagnosis of autism who, after a therapeutic path, show a significant reduction in the “core” symptoms of autism and a positive evolution in social, adaptive, affective, and relational skills. Methods The study included 40 children aged 21 to 66 months, enrolled between 2015 and 2016 for an autism spectrum disorder clinical suspicious. Children were re-evaluated after at least 2 years of therapy and they were divided into two groups: the ASD-ASD group included children with a confirmed diagnosis of ASD, and the ASD-OO comparison group included children who no longer met the criteria for an autism classification. The aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the presence of cognitive, emotional and relational predictors capable of predicting the presence of optimal outcome in with a diagnosis of autism; the predictors taken into consideration were the intelligence quotient, the play, the emotional contagion and the understanding of other’s intentions. In this way, it is possible to support clinicians in defining a more complete diagnostic framework of autism, using assessment tools that can be administered quickly and therefore suitable for short observation sessions in paediatric patients. Results The findings showed that 15 out of 40 children, after at least for 2 years, no longer fell into the diagnostic ASD category based on the ADOS-2, DSM-5 and clinical criteria. The children in the ASD-OO group initially had a higher IQ than those in the ASD-ASD group, lower severity of autistic symptoms, greater understanding of intentions, more emotional contagion, and better quality of play. The results suggest that the initial coexistence of skills in these areas at the time of the first diagnostic assessment may allow us to predict the possibility of achieving optimal outcome after 2 years of therapy. Conclusions The data of this study highlight the importance of considering, during assessment, intelligence quotient, play, emotional contagion, and understanding of the intentions of others as potential prognostic predictors that can become useful tools for clinicians and paediatricians. This allows us to focus attention, in both the diagnostic and prognostic phases, on emotional-relational variables that can support the clinician in defining a more complete diagnostic framework and in planning a more personalized therapeutic path.

The Netherlands‐China Low‐Frequency Explorer (NCLE) (Boonstra et al., 2017, https://www.ursi.org/proceedings/procGA17/papers/Paper%5fJ19‐2(1603).pdf; Chen et al., 2020, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020AAS...23610203C/abstract) is a radio instrument for astrophysical studies in the low‐frequency range (80 kHz–80 MHz). As a technology demonstrator, NCLE shall inform the design of future radio receivers that aim at low‐frequency radio astronomy. NCLE can make observations at very high spectral resolution (<1 kHz) and generate radio sky maps at an angular resolution of ≈1.5 radians. NCLE uses three monopole antennas, each 5 m long, and three identical analog signal chains to process the signal from each antenna. A single digital receiver samples the signal and calculates the auto‐correlated and cross‐correlated spectra. The instrument's analog and digital signal chains are extensively configurable. They can be fine‐tuned to produce broadband spectra covering the instrument's complete operating frequency range or sub‐bands. NCLE was developed within a veryshort timescale of 2 years, and currently, it is on board Queqiao, the relay spacecraft of the Chang'e‐ 4 mission, in a halo orbit around the Earth‐Moon L2 point. This paper outlines the science cases, instrument architecture with focus on the signal chain, and discusses the laboratory measurements during the pre‐launch phase. Key Points: Radio observations from the Moon at very low frequenciesRadio instrument technology demonstration for future lunar observatory and interferometryRadio receiver design for low‐frequency observation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-performance computing (HPC) processors are nowadays integrated cyber-physical systems demanding complex and high-bandwidth closed-loop power and thermal control strategies. To efficiently satisfy real-time multi-input multi-output (MIMO) optimal power requirements, high-end processors integrate an on-die power controller system (PCS). While traditional PCSs are based on a simple microcontroller (MCU)-class core, more scalable and flexible PCS architectures are required to support advanced MIMO control algorithms for managing the ever-increasing number of cores, power states, and process, voltage, and temperature variability. This paper presents ControlPULP, an open-source, HW/SW RISC-V parallel PCS platform consisting of a single-core MCU with fast interrupt handling coupled with a scalable multi-core programmable cluster accelerator and a specialized DMA engine for the parallel acceleration of real-time power management policies. ControlPULP relies on FreeRTOS to schedule a reactive power control firmware (PCF) application layer. We demonstrate ControlPULP in a power management use-case targeting a next-generation 72-core HPC processor. We first show that the multi-core cluster accelerates the PCF, achieving 4.9x speedup compared to single-core execution, enabling more advanced power management algorithms within the control hyper-period at a shallow area overhead, about 0.1% the area of a modern HPC CPU die. We then assess the PCS and PCF by designing an FPGA-based, closed-loop emulation framework that leverages the heterogeneous SoCs paradigm, achieving DVFS tracking with a mean deviation within 3% the plant's thermal design power (TDP) against a software-equivalent model-in-the-loop approach. Finally, we show that the proposed PCF compares favorably with an industry-grade control algorithm under computational-intensive workloads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]