Regional differences in price levels across the European Union and their implications for its regional policy

Although regional price levels should be accounted for in any analysis of well-being in regions, the European Union fails to reflect them because they are not currently available for most EU member states. To fill this gap, we estimate regional price levels for all EU regions on the basis of available regional price level data from six EU countries. Once socio-economic indicators are recalculated using our estimates, substantially higher differences in living standards emerge. These results also have important implications for the European cohesion policy, with 9% of regions currently misclassified as a consequence of regional price levels not being used.     

Stable discretization of poroelasticity problems and efficient preconditioners for arising saddle point type matrices

Poroelastic models arise in reservoir modeling and many other important applications. Under certain assumptions, they involve a time-dependent coupled system consisting of Navier–Lamé equations for the displacements, Darcy’s flow equation for the fluid velocity and a divergence constraint equation. Stability for infinite time of the continuous problem and, second and third order accurate, time discretized equations are shown. Methods to handle the lack of regularity at initial times are discussed and illustrated numerically. After discretization, at each time step this leads to a block matrix system in saddle point form. Mixed space discretization methods and a regularization method to stabilize the system and avoid locking in the pressure variable are presented. A certain block matrix preconditioner is shown to cluster the eigenvalues of the preconditioned matrix about the unit value but needs inner iterations for certain matrix blocks. The strong clustering leads to very few outer iterations. Various approaches to construct preconditioners are presented and compared. The sensitivity of the number of outer iterations to the stopping accuracy of the inner iterations is illustrated numerically.     

Cancer Cell Response to Anthracyclines Effects: Mysteries of the Hidden Proteins Associated with These Drugs

A comprehensive proteome map of T-lymphoblastic leukemia cells and its alterations after daunorubicin, doxorubicin and mitoxantrone treatments was monitored and evaluated either by paired comparison with relevant untreated control and using multivariate classification of treated and untreated samples. With the main focus on early time intervals when the influence of apoptosis is minimized, we found significantly different levels of proteins, which corresponded to 1%–2% of the total amount of protein spots detected. According to Gene Ontology classification of biological processes, the highest representation of identified proteins for all three drugs belong to metabolic processes of proteins and nucleic acids and cellular processes, mainly cytoskeleton organisation and ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. Importantly, we observed significant proportion of changes in proteins involved in the generation of precursor metabolites and energy typical for daunorubicin, transport proteins participating in response to doxorubicin and a group of proteins of immune system characterising response to mitoxantrone. Both a paired comparison and the multivariate evaluation of quantitative data revealed daunorubicin as a distinct member of the group of anthracycline/anthracenedione drugs. A combination of identified drug specific protein changes, which may help to explain anti-cancer activity, together with the benefit of blocking activation of adaptive cancer pathways, presents important approaches to improving treatment outcomes in cancer.     

A new method for in situ measurement of parameters and degradation processes in modern nanoscale programmable devices

This paper presents a new method and results from measurement of internal parameters of programmable nanoscale circuits, namely Xilinx FPGA devices and especially Zynq SoC devices designed on 28 nm TSMC’s technology and older 45 nm Spartan 6 device as well as Xilinx Virtex product lines. The method utilizes a new undersampling approach for frequency measurement and an easy way of processing BRAM data streams. The proposed flexible circuits have been used in various measurements of timing parameters and delays in FPGAs, including measurements or detection of the aging issues. The paper presents results of measurements under various core voltage values as performed on selected Xilinx FPGA platforms, including key results about limited usability of the latest 28 nm devices under accelerated conditions and possibility of studying or mitigating aging effects in FPGAs. The paper presents rare results of experiments, real measurements and data available from current as well as previous technology nodes and it attempts to uncover new facts and areas of the latest high-end technologies, including the area of aging and degradation processes in general. The new methodology, presented approach and results can also be used in various dependable systems, including selected aerospace, medical, automotive or transportation ones. It is also directly and easily applicable to modern processor and multicore systems.     

Measuring a spectral bandpass of a fibre-optic spectrometer using time-domain and spectral-domain two-beam interference

Abstract

Spectral bandpasses of a miniature spectrometer with three read fibres of different core diameters are obtained using the visibility functions for both spatial and spectral fringes resolved in the interference of two light beams from a laser diode operated below the threshold. From a width of the central peak of the visibility function for the spatial interference fringes measured in the Michelson interferometer configuration with a broadband detector, the source spectral width is evaluated. From widths of the visibility functions for the spectral interference fringes measured in the Michelson interferometer configuration by the spectrometer with the different read fibres, the overall spectral bandpasses are evaluated. Subtracting the effect of the source spectral width, the spectral bandpasses of the fibre-optic spectrometer are determined. These are compared with the directly measured bandpasses using the delta-function spectrum of the same laser diode operated far above the threshold.     

Dots to dots: a general methodology to build local indicators using spatial micro-data

Empirical studies in regional science have so far largely relied on discrete conceptualizations of space and aggregated metrics, which do not take into consideration spatial heterogeneity and variability at the micro-level. This paper explores the use of these indicators when dealing with observations at the subregional level, based on micro-data sets that impose the conceptualization of spatial interactions in a continuous and multidirectional space. We propose a general methodology to build local indicators for spatial micro-data sets. Based on distance matrix and matrix calculations, some classical indices of specialization and diversity are extended to their local counterparts to explore the full spatial heterogeneity and variability of space. The methodology is applied to 9,839 establishments covering all economic sectors in the Lower St-Lawrence region (Quebec, Canada). We find that the distribution of the local indicator varies significantly with distance, which suggests that the effects of specialization or diversity are not constant over space. Treating space as continuous may become of prime importance, given that more individual data sets are now available, combined with the fact that the performance of microcomputers is still improving.     

Structure and properties of hot-pressed materials based on AlB<Subscript>12</Subscript>C<Subscript>2</Subscript>

The results are presented on the investigation of the structure and mechanical properties of hot-pressed materials based on AlB₁₂C₂ powders of sizes 50–150 nm. It is shown that the consolidated materials having mechanical properties comparable with boron carbide may be produced at essentially lower (by 270–300°C) sintering temperatures. It has been established that the heating rate at compressing affects the stoichiometry of the impurity phase containing Al, B, O, which define the difference in mechanical properties of the materials (a decrease of the heating rate results in the insignifical decrease of the material hardness and increase of the fracture toughness).     

Influence of Pulsed Electric Field Protocols on the Reversible Permeabilization of Rucola Leaves

Reversible electropermeabilization of plant tissues with heterogeneous structure represents a technological challenge as the response of the different structures within the same specimen to the application of electric field may differ due to different cell sizes, extracellular space configurations, and electrical properties. The influence of five different pulsed electric field protocols with different pulse polarity, number of pulses (25, 50, 75, 100, 250, and 500), and intervals between pulses (no intervals and 1- and 2-ms intervals) on the reversible permeabilization of rucola (Eruca sativa) leaves was investigated. The electric field intensity was 600 V/cm. Electrical resistance of the bulk tissue was measured before and after electroporation, and propidium iodide was used to analyze the electroporation at the surface of the leaf. Leaf viability was assessed from survival in storage, and cell viability was investigated with fluorescein diacetate. Results indicate that the viability of the leaves could not be predicted by measurements of electrical resistance or permeabilization levels of the leaf surface. Higher survival rate was demonstrated when applying bipolar pulses compared with monopolar pulses, but the latter proved to be more effective than bipolar pulses for permeabilizing the surface of the leaves. Longer intervals between bipolar pulses resulted in increased viability preservation, while the number of electroporated cells on the leaf surface was comparable for all tested protocols.