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It's been a year and a half since we last tackled some of life's most vexing struggles in the pages of the AARP Bulletin. And in that time--what do you [...]

The Jewish Book Council has announced the winners of the annual National Jewish Book Awards, given annually to 'outstanding English language books of Jewish interest.' Michael W. Twitty won the [...]

Byline: Michael Frank Electric vehicles have been touted for their low impact on the environment and their high performance. But with gas prices reaching record highs this year, the biggest [...]

This article from Consumer Reports offers guidance on selecting the appropriate lighting for your home. It compares incandescent bulbs to energy-efficient LEDs, which consume less electricity and have a longer lifespan. The article advises readers to consider factors like brightness, lighting hue, color rendering index (CRI), and dimmability when choosing LED bulbs. It also provides a table to assist readers in determining the suitable wattage and lumen values for their replacement bulbs. Furthermore, the article discusses the significance of reviewing the warranty to ensure optimal performance. Additionally, the article provides information on selecting the right LED light bulbs for various areas of the home, recommending specific bulbs for different purposes, such as soft, warm light for table and floor lamps, bright, cool light for work areas, and the best tunable smart bulb. It also offers tips on creating the ideal lighting mix for different rooms, including the kitchen, bathroom, hallways, living room, and bedrooms. The article includes suggestions for fixtures and bulbs that can enhance lighting in specific areas, as well as simple solutions for common lighting issues. [Extracted from the article]

Dynamic Task Scheduling is an enticing programming model aiming to ease the development of parallel programs with intrinsically irregular or data-dependent parallelism. The performance of such solutions relies on the ability of the Task Scheduling HW/SW stack to efficiently evaluate dependencies at runtime and schedule work to available cores. Traditional SW-only systems implicate scheduling overheads of around 30K processor cycles per task, which severely limit the (core count, task granularity) combinations that they might adequately handle. Previous work on HW-accelerated Task Scheduling has shown that such systems might support high performance scheduling on processors with up to eight cores, but questions remained regarding the viability of such solutions to support the greater number of cores now frequently found in high-end SMP systems. The present work presents an FPGA-proven, tightly-integrated, Linux-capable, 30-core RISC-V system with hardware accelerated Task Scheduling. We use this implementation to show that HW Task Scheduling can still offer competitive performance at such high core count, and describe how this organization includes hardware and software optimizations that make it even more scalable than previous solutions. Finally, we outline ways in which this architecture could be augmented to overcome inter-core communication bottlenecks, mitigating the cache-degradation effects usually involved in the parallelization of highly optimized serial code.

Im Rahmen eines im Förderaufruf „Klimaneutrale Wärme und Kälte“ geförderten Mikroprojekts „ECO-TransMikro“ wurden Voruntersuchungen für die Durchführbarkeit des geplanten Forschungsverbundprojekts MISTRAL zur Ermittlung einer Transformationsmethode von Produktionsstandorten hin zu Treibhausgasneutralität unternommen. Mittels dynamischer Simulation wurden Energieeffizienzpotenziale im Produktionssystem einer Hartschaumstoffplattenfertigung ermittelt und hinsichtlich der Wirtschaftlichkeit und des CO2-Einsparpotenzials bewertet.

Byline: Michael Frank BICYCLING IS GOING through a renaissance. Sales of bikes and related equipment were up 75 percent in April, mainly because of COVID-19. 'People want to avoid mass [...]

Reversible logic schemes using flux solitons (fluxons) on long Josephson junctions (LJJs) have recently been proposed. The attraction of the fluxon is that it propagates ballistically along an LJJ until it encounters a change in the character of the LJJ, often a designed circuit element. Logic gates involve fluxons interacting with circuit elements and with other fluxons. However, testing of ballistic fluxon circuits requires other circuits outside the logic family to direct and control fluxon motion. We discuss two such non-reversible fluxon control circuits. First, the polarity filter gate is a simple non-reversible gate that allows one polarity of fluxon to pass, while reflecting the other polarity. In the off state both polarities reflect. Second, the polarity separator generalizes on the polarity filter concept and allows separation of the two fluxon polarities into different LJJs. We discuss simulations of these structures and possible applications.

Costanza didn't see Leopold's eyes until he had turned around to face her. By then he had been followed into the apartment by a refined-looking older woman with rich dark [...]

Ditch the old-school parka and clumsy snowsuit: the newest high-tech ski and snowboard wear looks every bit as great as it works (1) A COOL WARM HAT Aether Stripe * [...]

For years, sidewalks have been the bane of many a snow management professional's existence. Armed with brooms, shovels and buckets of rock salt, crewmembers tasked with keeping walkways clear spend [...]

My octogenarian parents are in Iceland on a 13-day group photography trip around the island nation. They are not alone. According to a 2013 study by the Adventure Travel Tourism [...]

Im Rahmen des BMWK-geförderten Forschungsverbundprojektes „ETA im Bestand“ wurde eine Simulationsbibliothek zur Identifikation und Bewertung von Energieeffizienzmaßnahmen entwickelt. Im Zuge dieser Arbeit werden die Funktionalität der Simulationsbibliothek sowie Grundmodelle dargestellt und an einer Produktionshalle aus der metallverarbeitenden Industrie angewandt. Die Anwendung verdeutlicht, dass durch die bereitgestellte Funktionalität erhebliche Energieeffizienzpotenziale identifiziert werden können.

Die für eine Infektion der Wirtszelle durch SARS-CoV‑2 („severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2“) notwendigen ACE („angiotensin converting enzyme“)-2-Rezeptoren sowie die „transmembrane serine protease 2“ (TMPRSS2) sind in verschiedenen Zellen des männlichen Genitaltraktes nachweisbar. Auch wenn eine Koexpression von ACE-2-Rezeptor und TMPRSS2 in Zellen des Hodens nicht gesichert werden konnte, wurden mögliche Effekte von COVID-19 auf die Spermaqualität und Leydig-Zell-Funktion schon früh in der Pandemie berücksichtigt. Einige Patienten berichteten im akuten Zustand einer COVID-19-Erkrankung über klinische Symptome, die zur Verdachtsdiagnose einer Orchitis oder Epididymitis führten. In der Akutphase der Infektion ist bei wenigen Männern SARS-CoV‑2 auch im Ejakulat oder in Hodengewebe nachweisbar. Die Kryokonservierung von Spermien ist aber dennoch grundsätzlich möglich. Die Spermaqualität kann insbesondere bei schweren Verläufen beeinträchtigt sein. Fieber und eine längere Rekonvaleszenzzeit wirken sich zusätzlich negativ auf die Spermatogenese aus. Bisher konnten langfristige Beeinträchtigungen der Spermaqualität nicht nachgewiesen werden. Durch Störungen der Leydig-Zell-Funktion im akuten Zustand der Infektion kann es zur Reduktion der Testosteronspiegel im Serum kommen. Ob diese Effekte langfristig bestehen, muss jedoch durch umfangreichere Studien untersucht werden. Ein Effekt der Impfungen gegen SARS-CoV‑2 fand sich in den vorliegenden Untersuchungen nicht.

Synaptic plasticity configures interactions between neurons and is therefore likely to be a primary driver of behavioral learning and development. How this microscopic-macroscopic interaction occurs is poorly understood, as researchers frequently examine models within particular ranges of abstraction and scale. Computational neuroscience and machine learning models offer theoretically powerful analyses of plasticity in neural networks, but results are often siloed and only coarsely linked to biology. In this review, we examine connections between these areas, asking how network computations change as a function of diverse features of plasticity and vice versa. We review how plasticity can be controlled at synapses by calcium dynamics and neuromodulatory signals, the manifestation of these changes in networks, and their impacts in specialized circuits. We conclude that metaplasticity—defined broadly as the adaptive control of plasticity—forges connections across scales by governing what groups of synapses can and can’t learn about, when, and to what ends. The metaplasticity we discuss acts by co-opting Hebbian mechanisms, shifting network properties, and routing activity within and across brain systems. Asking how these operations can go awry should also be useful for understanding pathology, which we address in the context of autism, schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.

Purpose To compare the outcomes and complications of the partial-thickness scleral flap technique to the long scleral tunnel technique in patients who underwent mitomycin C (MMC)-augmented Ahmed glaucoma valve (AGV) implantation.Patients and Methods In this retrospective study, we reviewed 139 eyes of 137 patients with refractory glaucoma who underwent AGV-Model FP7 implantation. The eyes were divided into the scleral flap group (n = 74) and the scleral tunnel group (n = 65).Results The mean follow-up was 57.91 ± 18.18 months for the flap and 61.18 ± 15.13 months for the tunnel group (p = 0.2499). The postoperative intraocular pressure (IOP) at 1 to 6 years was significantly lower than the baseline IOP in each group (p < 0.001). The average number of postoperative glaucoma medications decreased in the tunnel group (p = 0.0001) and in the flap group (p = 0.6194) compared to baseline. No statistically significant differences in postoperative visual acuity (p = 0.6396) and cumulative success (p = 0.054) were noted between the two groups. Conjunctival erosion or tube migration only occurred in the flap group. Significantly more reoperations were performed in the flap than in the tunnel group (p = 0.048).Conclusions Both MMC-augmented AGV tube implantation methods lowered IOP. The flap technique was associated with higher rates of postoperative serious complications and more reoperations than the tunnel technique. Previous glaucoma surgery and the technique used to implant the surgical tube proved to be significant risk factors for conjunctival erosion.

Confidentiality is the cornerstone of the lawyer-client relationship. The duty of confidentiality helps to build a trusting relationship between lawyer and client that encourages the client to be as open [...]

SKI SUITS Spyder has been streamlining ski suits since the 1970s. The company's mid-'90s SpeedWyre technology--running the length of the arms and legs like the spoiler on a car--was so [...]

This communication introduces a quick and easy method to modify a typical disk electrode’s surface geometry. The method involves masking fragments of the flat surface of the working electrode, by applying a specific thin layer of chemically stable insulating material, leaving unvarnished, electrochemically active surface. Desired shapes are achieved by using a properly laser-engraved stainless-steel plate and a stamper to transfer the profiled varnish from the steel plate to the surface of the electrode. Three shapes - microdisk, microband, and ring electrodes - were applied to a platinum disk electrode, validated through optical and scanning electrochemical microscopies, and cyclic voltammetry.

Byline: Michael Frank, Risha Gotlieb, Lexi Pandell, Lance Whitney NOT TOO LONG AGO, all you did to watch TV was plug in the set, flick it on, and sit back [...]

Many landscaping and lawn care professionals extend their services into the offseason to include snow and ice management. Veterans and newcomers alike do it to grow profits and cover their [...]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) and the Treasury Department (Treasury) have recently unveiled plans for addressing concerns about executive compensation and corporate governance. Far-reaching rule proposals, if adopted, [...]

In Rome, the past is always underfootand overhead. For Jews, in particular, during the last two millennia, the past has been prominently, sculpturally, and hauntingly overhead in the Arch of [...]

In the fall of 2011 I received a letter from my friend Letizia Gualandi, a professor of archaeology at the University of Pisa. 'I have a question to ask you [...]

For much of my childhood, my two grandmothers, Harriet Frank Sr., and Sylvia Ravetch, lived unhappily together in an apartment on Ogden Drive in West Hollywood, California, an arrangement I [...]

The authors present their primary value learned value (PVLV) model for understanding the reward predictive firing properties of dopamine (DA) neurons as an alternative to the temporal-differences (TD) algorithm. PVLV is more directly related to underlying biology and is also more robust to variability in the environment. The primary value (PV) system controls performance and learning during primary rewards, whereas the learned value (LV) system learns about conditioned stimuli. The PV system is essentially the Rescorla-Wagner/delta-rule and comprises the neurons in the ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens that inhibit DA cells. The LV system comprises the neurons in the central nucleus of the amygdala that excite DA cells. The authors show that the PVLV model can account for critical aspects of the DA firing data, making a number of clear predictions about lesion effects, several of which are consistent with existing data. For example, first- and second-order conditioning can be anatomically dissociated, which is consistent with PVLV and not TD. Overall, the model provides a biologically plausible framework for understanding the neural basis of reward learning. Keywords: basal ganglia, dopamine, reinforcement learning, Pavlovian conditioning, computational modeling