Exhaustive Testing Research Articles

Effect of electroacupuncture on hepatocyte autophagy and oxidative stress in SAMP8 mice by regulating AMPK/mTOR/ULK1 signaling pathway

To observe the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on physical strength and expression levels of hepatic AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 1 (ULK1) proteins and Atg5, Atg7, Atg13, Beclin1 and ULK1 mRNAs in aging (senescence accelerated mouse/prone 8, SAMP8)mice, so as to exp lore its mechanism underlying delaying aging by activating AMPK/mTOR/ULK1 signaling pathway. Twenty-four male SAMP8 mice were randomly divided into model group, rapamycin (autophagy inducer) group, EA group and EA+autophagy inhibitor (EA+inhibitor) group, with 6 mice in each group, and 6 homologous anti-rapid aging male (SAMR1) mice in the same age were used as the control group. Mice of the rapamycin group received intraperitoneal injection of rapamycin solution (2 mg·kg-1·d-1). EA (2 Hz, 1 mA) was applied to bilateral "Taichong"(LR3)and "Shenshu"(BL23) for 15 min each time. Mice of the EA+inhibitor group received intraperitoneal injection of mTOR inhibitor 3-methyladenine (1.5 mg·kg-1·d-1) before the EA intervention each time. The above-mentioned interventions were conducted 6 times a week for 2 consecutive weeks. Physical conditions of mice were assessed by exhaustive swimming tests. Histopathological changes of the liver were observed by H.E. staining. Western blot was used to detect the expression of AMPK, phosphorylated AMPK (p-AMPK), mTOR, phosphorylated mTOR (p-mTOR), ULK1 and phosphorylated ULK1 (p-ULk1) in the liver tissues. The expression levels of Atg5, Atg7, Atg13, Beclin1 and ULK1 (cellular autophagy-related genes) mRNAs in the liver were detected by quantitative real-time PCR. The immunoactivity (IA) of heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) in the liver was detected by immunohistochemistry, and the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) of the liver were measured by hydroxylamine method for assessing the level of oxidative stress. Compared with the control group, the duration of exhaustive swimming, the expression levels of AMPK, p-AMPK, ULK1 and p-ULK1 proteins, and Atg5, Atg7, Atg13, Beclin1 and ULK1 mRNA, HO-1 IA and SOD activity were considerably down-regulated (P<0.01), while the expression levels of mTOR and p-mTOR and MDA content were significantly up-regulated (P<0.01) in the model group. In comparison with the model group, the duration of the exhausted swimming, the expression levels of AMPK, p-AMPK, ULK1 and p-ULK1 proteins, and Atg5, Atg7, Atg13, Beclin1 and ULK1 mRNAs, HO-1 IA and SOD activity were significantly up-regulated (P<0.01, P<0.05), whereas the expression levels of mTOR and p-mTOR proteins and MDA content were notably down-regulated (P<0.01, P<0.05) in the rapamycin, EA and EA+inhibitor groups. The improvement of the abovementioned indexes of EA+inhibitor group was not as good as rapamycin and EA groups (P<0.01), suggesting an elimination of the therapeutic effects after administration of 3-methyladenine. No significant differences were found between the rapamycin and EA groups in the abovementioned indexes (P>0.05) except p-mTOR and mTOR which were higher in the EA group (P<0.01). H.E. staining showed ambiguous boundary of the liver lobule, disordered arrangement of hepatocytes with a large amount of fat vacuoles at different size and deviation of nucleus, and lysis of some hepatocytes. These situations were relatively milder in the rapamycin and EA groups. EA may enhance physical strength and promote cellular autophagy in the liver of aging mice by regulating AMPK/mTOR/ULK1 signaling, thereby inhibiting excessive oxidative stress, and delaying aging process to some extent.

Evidence against Zika virus infection of pets and peri-domestic animals in Latin America and Africa.

Decades after its discovery in East Africa, Zika virus (ZIKV) emerged in Brazil in 2013 and infected millions of people during intense urban transmission. Whether vertebrates other than humans are involved in ZIKV transmission cycles remained unclear. Here, we investigate the role of different animals as ZIKV reservoirs by testing 1723 sera of pets, peri-domestic animals and African non-human primates (NHP) sampled during 2013–2018 in Brazil and 2006–2016 in Côte d'Ivoire. Exhaustive neutralization testing substantiated co-circulation of multiple flaviviruses and failed to confirm ZIKV infection in pets or peri-domestic animals in Côte d'Ivoire (n=259) and Brazil (n=1416). In contrast, ZIKV seroprevalence was 22.2% (2/9, 95% CI, 2.8–60.1) in West African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and 11.1% (1/9, 95% CI, 0.3–48.3) in king colobus (Colobus polycomos). Our results indicate that while NHP may represent ZIKV reservoirs in Africa, pets or peri-domestic animals likely do not play a role in ZIKV transmission cycles.

Effects of Perch Essence Supplementation on Improving Exercise Performance and Anti-Fatigue in Mice.

Silver perch (Bidyanus bidyanus) has many nutrition and health benefits, being a rich source of macro and micronutrients, phospholipids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and a variety of essential minerals while having a high protein content. In addition to direct consumption, it is often made into a soup as an important nutritional supplement for strengthening the body and delaying fatigue. By extracting the essence, its quality can be controlled, and it is convenient to supplement. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of supplementation with Santé premium silver perch essence (SPSPE) on improving exercise performance and anti-fatigue. Fifty male institute of cancer research (ICR) mice were divided into five groups (n = 10/group): (1) vehicle (vehicle control or water only), (2) isocaloric (0.93 g casein/kg/mice/day), (3) SPSPE-1X (0.99 g/kg/mice/day), (4) SPSPE-2X (1.98 g/kg/mice/day), and (5) SPSPE-5X (4.95 g/kg/mice/day). A sample or an equal volume of liquid was fed orally for four consecutive weeks. Grip strength and swimming exhaustion tests were used as exercise performance assessments. After 10 and 90 min of unloaded swimming, biochemical parameters of fatigue were evaluated. We found that supplementation with SPSPE for four consecutive weeks could significantly improve mice’s grip strength, exercise endurance performance, and glycogen content (p < 0.05), and significantly reduced post-exercise fatigue biochemical parameters, such as lactate, blood ammonia (NH3), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) concentration, and muscle damage index creatine kinase (CK) activity (p < 0.05). In summary, supplementation with SPSPE for 4 weeks could effectively improve exercise performance, reduce sports fatigue, and accelerate fatigue recovery. In addition, it did not cause any physiological or histopathological damage.

Anti-fatigue and anti-oxidant effects of curcumin supplementation in exhaustive swimming mice via Nrf2/Keap1 signal pathway

Demands for dietary supplements with anti-fatigue effects are growing fast due to increasing societal demands. Moreover, in highly physically active individuals, there are also significant needs for supplements to improve exercise performance. The present study evaluated the potential anti-fatigue and anti-oxidant effects of curcumin in mice using exhaustive swimming test. Male C57BL/6J mice were randomized into six groups: blank control (Rest), swimming control (Con), Vitamin C (Vc), low-dose curcumin (C50), middle-dose curcumin (C100), and high-dose curcumin (C200). After a 4-week intervention, the mice in all groups except the Rest group were subject to an exhaustive swimming test. Then, mice were sacrificed to examine serum biochemical markers and fatigue-related enzymes. Moreover, the gene and protein expressions of signal transduction factors involved in the Nrf2/Keap1 signaling pathway were measured. The results indicated that curcumin significantly enhanced the exercise tolerance of mice in the exhaustive swimming test. Particularly, the swimming time of mice in the C100 group was increased by 273.5% when compared to that of mice in the Con group. The levels of blood urea nitrogen, blood ammonia, lactic acid, creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase in the C100 group were decreased by 13.3%, 21.0%, 18.6%, 16.7% and 21.9%, respectively, when compared to those of mice in the Con group. Curcumin alleviated exercise-induced oxidative stress and significantly enhanced the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase by activating the Nrf2 signaling. These findings indicated that curcumin supplementation exerted remarkable anti-oxidant and anti-fatigue effects in mice, providing additional evidence supporting the use of curcumin as functional food, especially by those engaged in sports-related activities.

Bidirectional EV charger with ancillary power quality capabilities

This paper presents a bidirectional electric vehicle (EV) charger with ancillary power quality (PQ) capabilities in grid-to-vehicle (G2V), vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and vehicle-to-home (V2H) applications. The proposed configuration consists of a five-level (5L) neutral point clamped (NPC) converter in cascaded with a dual-active half bridge (DAHB) DC-DC converter. The proposed cascaded control strategy used for regulating the common DC bus voltage as well as for compensating the grid current harmonics and the reactive power through the 5L-converter is based on a performant proportional-resonant (PR) compensator. By applying the single-phase-shift (SPS) technique to the DAHB converter, the battery power flow is accurately regulated. A detailed study with exhaustive tests and simulation results obtained in MATLAB-SimPowerSystems for a full-scale power system based on a Nissan Leaf´s battery validate the fairly good performance of the proposed configuration and control strategies. The main achievements of this work are: 1) the system’s stability is maintained even during fairly abrupt changing conditions, 2) in steady state of the G2V/V2G operation modes, the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the grid current remains below 3% while the power factor (PF) is kept at unity, 3) the reactive power demanded from the grid is zero in spite of feeding a highly nonlinear load, and 4) when a power outage occurs, the transition to the V2H mode is seamless and the home load is uninterruptedly supplied with a very low-distortion output voltage from the 5L-converter.

Exploration of new analytical correlations as an alternative to the Kramers-Kronig transforms for the assessment of impedance spectroscopy data

• Alternative method to detect errors in EIS spectra. • Overcome of some practical issues for assessment of simple spectra. • Elucidation of analytical correlations between magnitude and phase. New analytical correlations between impedance magnitude and phase are developed and presented. These correlations are used for the assessment of impedance spectroscopy data. As correlations are obtained, they can be calculated point to point at each frequency of the spectra with no need to establish explicit premises related to stability, linearity or finite limits for their derivation. Their use is simpler than that based on the direct evaluation of the Kramers-Kroning transforms or alternative methods. An example of their derivation from basic equations involving complex numbers is described. They were obtained by looking for an explanation of the empirical fact that the slope of the Bode-Magnitude diagram vs frequency resembles the shape of the corresponding Bode-Phase diagram. Unlike the Kramers-Kronig transform, these new correlations can also be directly applied to test spectra with highly predominant capacitive or inductive responses or even incomplete loops. Their analytical expressions are exact for simple ideal elements and circuits, including the Warburg diffusion element. These correlations were tested with simulated spectra altered with known random error distributions, and they were able to detect the random distribution and the error level for simple spectra when the errors were > 0.5%. For more sophisticated spectra, the minimum error that can be detected without interference of the deviations due to the proper algorithm are around 2.5%. No exact correlation was found for a constant phase element (CPE), but a close empirical approximation was obtained for a single CPE. It is necessary to improve this approximation when a CPE is combined with some other elements because of detected deviations. In addition, it was found that in a first approach the algorithm does not detect non-linear behavior on a simple experimental circuit, but the test gave insights of how to detect it. On the contrary, it is well suited for detection of system stability issues. Examples of their application to actual experimental spectra, high capacitive or with several loops, are presented and the limitations discussed. More work and exhaustive tests are necessary to improve the method and stablish its real limitations, but its use for assessment of simple spectra at certain error level can already be done. Given that the derivation of the new correlations is only based on its complex number nature, this study concludes that the magnitude and phase of any complex number or 2D vector are not independent, and it is expected that similar correlations can be applied to any frequency-dependent complex variable, vector or transfer function, such as those used in optics or rheology.

Using a Multidimensional Motivation’s Scale during Effort to Understand How Motivation Evolves with Intensity and Fatigue

Motivation is an important factor in getting athletes to reach their maximal potential, but no questionnaire or scale to observe motivation during exercise has been developed. Objective: The first aim of this study was to test the validity and the reliability of a new French Multidimensional Motivation Scale during Effort (MMSE) constructed to determine Intrinsic Motivation (IM), External Regulation (ExtR), Introjected Regulation (IntroR), Identified Regulation (IdentR), Integrated Regulation (IntegR) and Amotivation (Am). The second aim was to use it during intermittent exercises to understand how motivation evolves with intensity and fatigue. Methods: A hundred and four trained athletes answered the French version of BREQ-3 and French MMSE before the protocol. Then, they performed a running test-retest (Test 1 and Test 2) around one loop (770 m) at level 4 of the CR10 Borg scale. Then, they were asked to perform five loops at the intensity of effort 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 using the same scale (Test 3). Finally, 28 of these athletes were asked to perform more series of 20 squat jumps without charge until exhaustion (Test 4). Results: The results show that all motivational parameters of MMSE were correlated with BREQ-3, except for Am. No motivational parameter was significantly different between Test 1 and Test 2, and they were significantly correlated. During Test 3, IM was significantly reduced with intensity (-34.6%; p 0.001) whereas the increase of IntegR (+17.3%; p a motivational reserve. During Test 4, the diminution of power output (-15.3%, p p tant decrease of IM (-81.2%, p p p Conclusion: MMSE is valid and reliable to measure motivation during exercise. Autonomous parameters of motivation were the most evolving with the intensity of effort and fatigue.

White tea modulates antioxidant defense of endurance-trained rats.

The interest in nutritional strategies that may counteract the deleterious oxidative effects induced by strenuous exercises is remarkable. Herein, the impact of white tea (Camellia sinensis) (WT), a polyphenol-rich beverage, on antioxidant status in endurance-trained rats after one session of exhaustive exercise were evaluated. Male Wistar rats were divided into groups, which received: control groups - water, and testing groups - WT1 (0.25%; w/v) or WT2 (0.5%; w/v). Drinks were consumed, ad libitum, for 5 or 10 weeks, concomitantly with the running training. Exhaustive running tests were applied before and after the experimental periods. WT intake increased the serum antioxidant capacity of rats in a dose-dependent manner (P < 0.001), which was unaccompanied by the activity of endogenous antioxidant enzymes SOD, GPx, and GR, and GSH content. Inflammatory markers in serum [IL-1β (P = 0.004) and IL-6 (P = 0.001)] could be downregulated by tea intake. In liver tissue, lower levels of lipid oxidation (P < 0.05) and improved antioxidant defenses (SOD, GPx, GR, and GSH, P < 0.05) were related to the consumption of 10.13039/100010269WT in both doses, supporting protective effects in this responsible metabolic organ. In conclusion, long-term consumption of WT could be a promising adjuvant to exercise-stress management, emphasizing its ability to regulate antioxidant responses and prevent oxidative tissue damage.

Construction of Prioritized T-Way Test Suite Using Bi-Objective Dragonfly Algorithm

Software testing is important for ensuring the reliability of software systems. In software testing, effective test case generation is essential as an alternative to exhaustive testing. For improving the software testing technology, the t-way testing technique combined with metaheuristic algorithm has been great to analyze a large number of combinations for getting optimal solutions. However, most of the existing t-way strategies consider test case weights while generating test suites. Priority of test cases hasn&#x2019;t been fully considered in previous works, but in practice, it&#x2019;s frequently necessary to distinguish between high-priority and low-priority test cases. Therefore, the significance of test case prioritization is quite high. For this reason, this paper has proposed a t-way strategy that implements an adaptive Dragonfly Algorithm (DA) to construct prioritized t-way test suites. Both test case weight and test case priority have equal significance during test suite generation in this strategy. We have designed and implemented a Bi-objective Dragonfly Algorithm (BDA) for prioritized t-way test suite generation, and the two objectives are test case weight and test case priority. The test results demonstrate that BDA performs competitively against existing t-way strategies in terms of test suite size, and in addition, BDA generates prioritized test suites.

Cardiac gene therapy with type 2 phosphodiesterase (PDE2) in experimental heart failure: Complementary or alternative to β–blockers?

Chronic activation of the β-adrenergic (β-AR) pathway induces cardiac remodeling and worsens outcome in heart failure (HF). β-blockers counteract β-AR pathway membranous activation and reduce mortality and morbidity in HF. Various cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs) finely tune β-AR responses by degrading and compartmentalizing cAMP. Recent results suggest that cardiac PDE overexpression protects against maladaptive remodeling induced by chronic catecholamines infusion in mice. To determine if a cardiac PDE gene therapy would treat HF induced by pressure overload in mice, alone or in combination with β-blockers. HF was induced by transverse aortic constriction (TAC) and mice were injected with adeno-associated virus (AAV9 to allow preferential cardiac expression, 10^12 viral particles per mice) encoding PDE2A or the Luciferase (Luc) as a control for cardiac overexpression 1 week after surgery. Metoprolol (Meto) or NaCl were administered via osmotic minipumps at 2 weeks post-surgery during 4 weeks. Four groups were compared: TAC-Luc-NaCl, TAC-PDE2A-NaCl, TAC-Luc-Meto, TAC-PDE2A-Meto. Cardiac function was monitored by serial echocardiography and physical capacity tested by treadmill exhaustion test. Following euthanasia, hearts were harvested for histological and molecular analysis. In a pilot study, healthy mice were treated with Meto (30 mg/kg/day, n = 4) or NaCl ( n = 2). Meto decreases phospholamban phosphorylation, as well as heart rate (−18%) and ejection fraction (−17%). Following this validation, TAC mice with aortic gradient > 60 mmHg were randomized. Both PDE2A-AAV9 injection and Meto were well tolerated. On-going experiments should be completed by July. Preliminary results indicate that cardiac PDE2A gene therapy is well tolerated in mice with HF induced by pressure overload.

An improved fuzzy adaptive teaching learning-based optimisation algorithm for generating pairwise test suites

Pairwise testing has proved its applicability to adequately test software with a huge number of inputs. It can avoid the otherwise impractical exhaustive testing by employing an efficient sampling strategy. Strategies based on meta-heuristic algorithms offer optimal pairwise test suite sizes for software applications. A fuzzy adaptive teaching learning-based optimisation (ATLBO) algorithm has shown competitiveness against other meta-heuristic-based strategies in terms of pairwise test suite generation. Although useful, the present design of ATLBO is lacking in dealing with stagnation or abnormal convergence after some iterations. A remedial operator is introduced in ATLBO in order to address this issue and hence further enhance its convergence speed. With this modification, ATLBO is used for the pairwise test suite generation problem. From the conducted experiments, it can be concluded that the performance of ATLBO with remedial operator is comparable with other pairwise strategies based on hyper-heuristic, meta-heuristic and greedy algorithms.

Time limit at maximal aerobic power, heart rate kinetics and performance in time-trial cycling test of 3 km

The performance of cyclists in short terms workouts can be associate with several factors, including the maximal aerobic power (MAP), heart rate (HR) and its kinetics parameters, and the capacity to tolerate maximal efforts to exhaustion (TLimMAP). Thereby, the main of this study was analyze the presumable relation among TLimMAP and performance in a time-trial cycling test of 3 km. (TT3km). Seven cyclists were involved in this study, performing the following tests with a minimum interval of 48h: (1) initial familiarization and anthropometric evaluation, (2) maximal progressive test to exhaustion, (3) TLimMAP and (4) TT3km test. There was a tendency of subjects with higher values to TLimMAP performed the TT3km faster (r = -0,71; p = 0,07). It showed positive correlation among TLimMAP and the first time constant of the heart rate at the beginning of exercise (r = 0,95 e p &lt; 0,01), and negative to TLimMAP and the first time constant of the heart rate recovery (r = -0,67 e p = 0,04). The tendency to association among the TLimMAP and performance at the TT3km indicate that the TLimMAP could be utilized in the assessment of cyclists – although with caveats – since there was not significant correlation. Additional investigations to enlighten the relations among TLimMAP, HR kinetics and performance would characterize a proficuous field of research.

Anti-fatigue effect of phlorizin on exhaustive exercise-induced oxidative injury mediated by Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway in mice

Oxidative stress plays a crucial role in fatigue, thus it is of significance to develop safe and efficient antioxidant to prevent fatigue. Phlorizin (PHZ) is a major active ingredient of dihydrochalcone from Lithocarpus polystachyus Rehd., which has already been approved as a new food material in China since 2017. The current study was designed to investigate the effect of PHZ on fatigue, and further to elucidate its possible underlying mechanism. Our results revealed that PHZ exerted beneficial effect on exhaustive exercise-induced fatigue in mice, as reflected by rotarod test and exhaustive swimming test. Moreover, PHZ also effectively decreased the levels of blood urea nitrogen, creatine kinase and plasma lactic acid, increased the liver glycogen and skeletal muscle glycogen of fatigued mice, as evidenced by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. PHZ balanced the redox status through reducing generation of reactive oxygen species, enhancing the activities of antioxidative enzymes. Furthermore, PHZ not only increased the ratio of Bcl2/Bax, but also decreased the level of cleaved-caspase 3. Notably, PHZ facilitated nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) translocated from cytoplasm to nucleus, and up-regulated its downstream antioxidant response element including heme oxygenase-1 and NADPH quinone oxidoreductase-1. Intriguingly, PHZ directly bound to Nrf2, as evidenced by molecular docking, and the anti-fatigue effects of PHZ were almost abolished in Nrf2 deficient mice. In summary, our findings suggest that PHZ might be a natural occurring antioxidant with safety profile to relieve fatigue via targeting Nrf2 to inhibit apoptosis.

A Multi-Ingredient Formula Ameliorates Exercise-Induced Fatigue by Changing Metabolic Pathways and Increasing Antioxidant Capacity in Mice.

Multiple mechanisms are involved in exercise-induced fatigue, including energy depletion, metabolite accumulation, and oxidative stress, etc. The mechanistic findings provide a rationale for a multi-targeted approach to exercise-induced fatigue management. This study created a multi-ingredient formula mixed with valine, isoleucine, leucine, β-alanine, creatine, l-carnitine, quercetin, and betaine, based on the functional characteristics of these agents, and evaluated the preventive effect of this mechanism-based formula on exercise-induced fatigue. Results showed that the 7-d formula supplement significantly increased the running duration time of mice by 14% and the distance by 20% in an exhaustive treadmill test, indicating that the formula could delay fatigue appearance and improve exercise performance. Mechanistically, the formula enhanced fatty acid oxidation and spared liver glycogen by regulating the fat/glucose metabolism-related signaling pathways, including phospho-adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase α (p-AMPKα), phospho-acetyl CoA carboxylase (p-ACC), carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1B (CPT1B), fatty acid translocase (CD36), and glucose transporter type 4 (GLUT4), and increased antioxidant capacity. The findings suggested that the formula tested in this study effectively ameliorated exercise-induced fatigue by targeting multi-signaling pathways, showing promise as a regimen to fight exercise-induced fatigue.

Multilayer Architecture for Fault Diagnosis of Embedded Systems

This work presents a multilayer architecture for fault diagnosis in embedded systems based on formal modeling of Discrete Event Systems (DES). Most works on diagnosis of DES focus in faults of actuators, which are the devices subject to intensive wear in industry. However, embedded systems are commonly subject to cost reduction, which may increase the probability of faults in the electronic hardware. Further, software faults are hard to track and fix, and the common solution is to replace the whole electronic board. We propose a modeling approach which includes the isolation of the source of the fault in the model, regarding three layers of embedded systems: software, hardware, and sensors &amp; actuators. The proposed method is applied to a home appliance refrigerator and after exhaustive practical tests with forced fault occurrences, all faults were diagnosed, precisely identifying the layer and the faulty component. The solution was then incorporated into the product manufactured in industrial scale.

New decoding techniques for modified product code used in critical applications

The shrinking of memory devices increased the probability of system failures due to the higher sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation. Critical memory systems employ fault-tolerant techniques like Error Correction Code (ECC) to mitigate these failures. This work explores error correction techniques and algorithms employing the Line Product Code (LPC), a product-like ECC. We propose to decode LPC codewords using a single error correction algorithm (AlgSE) followed by a double error correction algorithm (AlgDE). Both algorithms explore the LPC characteristics to attain greater decoding efficiency. AlgSE is implemented with an iterative technique associated with a correction heuristic, while AlgDE is an innovative proposal that allows increasing correction effectiveness through the inference of errors. AlgDE allows increasing the efficiency of the LPC decoder significantly when used together with AlgSE. It corrects 100% of the cases up to three bitflips as well as 98% and 92%, respectively, for four and five upsets in exhaustive tests. Besides, we present tradeoffs concerning the error correction potential versus the costs of implementing the correction algorithms.

ALPACA - a level-set based sharp-interface multiresolution solver for conservation laws

ALPACA is a simulation environment for simulating hyperbolic and (incompletely) parabolic conservation laws with multiple distinct and immiscible phases. As prominent example, consider the compressible Navier-Stokes equations (NSE). Solutions to these equations give insight and understanding of many important engineering applications. Numerical simulations of nonlinear parabolic systems of equations are very challenging for their complex nonlinear dynamics including the propagations of discontinuities such as shocks and phase interfaces. Accurate predictions require high temporal and spatial resolutions for such multi-scale problems. We utilize low dissipation high-resolution methods to capture the dynamics inside the separate phases. Their interaction is modeled by a sharp-interface level-set method with conservative interface-interaction. This allows to accurately locate the interface position and to easily prescribe arbitrary coupling conditions. We tackle the resulting immense computational loads by using a block-based multiresolution (MR) algorithm and adaptive local time stepping. The level-set treatment is integrated into the MR algorithm with little overhead by employing a smart tagging system and adaptive storage of the fluid data in the MR nodes. We embed these methods in a C++20 object-oriented modular framework using state-of-the-art programming paradigms. Furthermore, our implementation is capable to exploit the multiple levels of parallelism in modern high-performance computing (HPC) systems efficiently. We demonstrate the capabilities of our framework by simulating a variety of compressible multi-phase flow problems. Problem-sizes are of O(1010) effective degree of freedom (DOFs). By the use of MR, we typically achieve memory and compute compressions of >90%. We demonstrate near-optimal parallel performance for scaling runs using O(104) cores, regardless of the employed numerical models. Program summaryProgram Title: ALPACA - Adaptive Level-set Parallel Code AlpacaCPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/5zr3sg83ct.1Developer's repository link:https://gitlab.lrz.de/nanoshock/ALPACALicensing provisions: GPLv3Programming language: C++20Supplementary material: Code: Copy of the git repository, Videos: Air-helium shock bubble interaction (front and back view), Air-R22 shock bubble interaction, Three bubble shock interface interaction.Nature of problem: Numerical simulation of conservation laws such as the compressible Navier-Stokes equation with several interacting gaseous and liquid phases remains challenging even today. These flows often involve singularities such as shocks and interfaces as well as instabilities driven by their interaction. The inherent highly nonlinear dynamics of those systems leads to a broad range of temporal and spatial scales that have to be resolved. There exists a variety of mutually exclusive numerical models that are able to tackle these challenges. Those, however, are computationally expensive and require computational power that is offered only by large-scale state-of-the-art distributed-memory machines.Solution method: We have developed a modular simulation environment for conservation laws allowing exchange of numerical methods without loss of parallel performance. Computational efficiency is enhanced by employing multi-resolution schemes with adaptive local-time stepping. Our block-based implementation of these schemes is parallelized using the Message Passing Interface and exploits vectorization capabilities of the compute hardware. To simulate distinct and immiscible phases inside the computational domain, we utilize a sharp-interface level-set method. The level-set method allows to accurately locate the interface position and to easily prescribe arbitrary coupling conditions. The narrow-band approach reduces the computational load of the level-set method. We extend this method by a smart tagging system that exploits the block-based nature of the algorithm and further reduces the computational load. The simulation framework is written in modern C++20 and provides a Python interface for integration in Machine Learning and Uncertainty Quantification toolchains. We use parallel HDF5 in combination with XDMF to output field quantities. CMake is used as build system. We have completely annotated the source code using doxygen-style comments, allowing automated documentation generation in different formats. The source code is equipped with CI/CD-automated unit tests and an exhaustive integration test suite.Additional comments including restrictions and unusual features: ALPACA relies on open-source third-party libraries for input and testing. These are packaged as git submodules and automatically integrated. ALPACA is tested on Linux and macOS.

High-performance and ultra-compact spike-based architecture for real-time acoustic echo cancellation

In recent years, the implementation of advanced adaptive filters in embedded devices for acoustic echo cancellation has increased because most of them are used in portable devices, especially in Internet of Things systems, in which high-performance and low-area digital hardware implementations are required. In this work, we present a high-performance and ultra-compact spike-based hardware architecture to efficiently compute adaptive filters to be used as an acoustic echo canceller (AEC). To achieve this architecture, we address two factors. (1) We propose a new data-selective adaptive filter along with subband decomposition least mean square (LMS) method to reduce the computational cost by minimizing the number of operations required to efficiently update the filter coefficients. The proposed method requires approximately 40% fewer updates when compared with conventional subband adaptive filters. As a consequence, the spike-based hardware architecture simulates the proposed adaptive filter at high processing speeds. (2) We propose a compact and high-precision neural multiplier since acoustic echo cancellers require a large number of high-precision multiplications to efficiently identify the echo path. The proposed neural multiplier expends up to 15 times fewer synapses when compared with existing approaches, which represents a significant improvement in terms of area. In addition, this improvement avoids routing problems by implementing large-scale synapse connectivity in advanced FPGAs. Herein, we carry out exhaustive testing by simulating several acoustic echo scenarios. The results demonstrate that the features of the model and the hardware implementation techniques potentially allow easy integration into portable devices for use in real-world acoustic echo cancellation scenarios.

Performance Evaluation of “Ga-Fc” Technique for Aspect-Oriented Software System

Objectives : Exhaustive testing requires more effort and consumes lots of time of the software testers. Recently, “GA-FC” technique has been proposed to generate test cases optimally for Aspect-Oriented Software System (AOSS). This paper evaluates the performance of the proposed “GA-FC” technique. Method: To analyze the performance of “GA-FC” technique, two parameters namely, Effectiveness of Test Suite Minimization (ETSM) and Aspectual Branch Coverage (ABC) have been used against GA and FC technique individually. Findings: - GA-FC technique has been applied on three case studies and the obtained results reveal that GA-FC technique reduces the testing efforts by producing the minimum number of test cases and time of the tester. Novelty: “GA-FC” technique generates the minimum number of test cases by composition of metaheuristic techniques. Keywords: AspectOriented Software System; Aspectual Branch Coverage; Genetic Algorithm; Fuzzy Clustering Algorithm; AspectOriented Software Testing

Tendon midsubstance trauma as a means for the development of translatable chronic rotator cuff degeneration in an ovine model.

BackgroundChronic degeneration of rotator cuff tendons is a major contributing factor to the unacceptably high prevalence of rotator cuff repair surgery failures. The etiology of chronic rotator cuff degeneration is not well understood, and current therapies are not effective, necessitating preclinical research to fill this knowledge gap. Unfortunately, current large animal models rely on enthesis disruption as a means of model generation, which is not representative of human patients with chronic rotator cuff degeneration prior to full-thickness tears. Following, the goal of this study was to develop and characterize a translational large-animal model of chronic rotator cuff degeneration without enthesis release.MethodsA midsubstance damage model [i.e., “combed fenestration” (CF)] in adult sheep was generated by creating 16 longitudinal cuts within the top third of the infraspinatus tendon thickness. Tendon integrity was characterized through exhaustive non-destructive biomechanical stress relaxation testing [peak stress, peak load, percent relaxation, and cross-sectional area (CSA)], followed by histopathological degeneration scoring and analysis (Bonar score), histomorphological analysis of collagen organization and fatty atrophy (percent adipose area), and gene expression analyses.ResultsThe CF model tendons exhibited significantly decreased mechanical properties as evidenced by decreased peak stress (P<0.025) and increased percent relaxation (18-week vs. Control, P<0.035) at multiple strain magnitudes and across all timepoints. At all timepoints, the CF tendons exhibited pathological changes aligned with tendon degeneration, as evidenced by increased Bonar scoring (P<0.001) and decreased collagen organization (6-week vs. Control, P=0.013). Increases in intramuscular adipose content were also documented through histomorphology analysis (6- and 18-week vs. Control, P<0.077). Significant changes in gene expression were noted at all timepoints.ConclusionsThese data reveal that this new ovine CF model of chronic rotator cuff degeneration results in tendons with decreased mechanical properties, degenerative pathology characteristics, and gene expression profiles that aligned with the degenerative changes that have been noted in humans with tendinopathy. For these reasons, we believe this novel large animal model of chronic rotator cuff degeneration is a translational platform in which to test devices, therapies, and/or technologies aimed at repairing damage to the shoulder.