Extending Intel-x86 consistency and persistency: formalising the semantics of Intel-x86 memory types and non-temporal stores

Existing semantic formalisations of the Intel-x86 architecture cover only a small fragment of its available features that are relevant for the consistency semantics of multi-threaded programs as well as the persistency semantics of programs interfacing with non-volatile memory. We extend these formalisations to cover: (1) non-temporal writes, which provide higher performance and are used to ensure that updates are flushed to memory; (2) reads and writes to other Intel-x86 memory types, namely uncacheable, write-combined, and write-through; as well as (3) the interaction between these features. We develop our formal model in both operational and declarative styles, and prove that the two characterisations are equivalent. We have empirically validated our formalisation of the consistency semantics of these additional features and their subtle interactions by extensive testing on different Intel-x86 implementations.

Do Leonardo Da Vinci’s Drawings, Room Acoustics And Radio Astronomy Have Anything In Common?

After introducing Leonardo da Vinci’s (LdV) predecessors in the field of light propagation research, his drawings on the topic of focussing light through a spherical mirror are analysed. The discovery of LdV is presented, according to which, at an infinitely distant source of rays, a small fragment of the canopy is enough to generate a focus, while the rest of the mirror forms caustics for which LdV did not indicate an application. An analytical description of the energy concentration in the focus and on the caustics is given, together with its reference to the geometric representation of the acoustic field in rooms. Using symmetry in the description of energy relations in acoustics and electromagnetism, the interference that occurs on the caustics produced by the acoustic and electromagnetic wave is discussed. It is explained why in the sound field in existing halls, instead of a whole caustic only its cusp is observed, which is perceived as a point-like sound focus. The size of the mirror aperture, shown graphically by LdV, is determined. How the development of receiving techniques increased the mirror aperture compared to the LdV estimate is also shown. The implementation of these improvements is presented via the example of the Arecibo and FAST radio telescopes.

Literary Specifics of Biographical Film Story: On the Issue of Genre Heredity

The genre heredity concept is articulated on the analysis example of I. Drach’s screen version of the biographical film story “I’m coming to you” (1970), dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Lesya Ukrainka. The film is marked by innovative approach of I. Drach as a scriptwriter to the image of the poetess. Contrary to the tradition of documentary film to interpret her biography in a certain matrix key (as a fighter and revolutionary), Drach tried to identify Lesya Ukrainka primarily as a private individual, as the woman who knew how to sacrifice herself for the sake of love. Without aiming to show in detail the entire biography of the poetess, the author of the film story chose only a small fragment of her life – four years 1897–1901. In terms of biopic genre heredity, the article observes how this biographical film presents possible ways of processing and contamination of available documentary material (letters, memoirs, reminiscences of contemporaries) and integral creation by Lesya Ukrainka (her poetry, translations, renditions). Hence, the biopic on the basis of multi-genre text material appears as a kind of intertextual plexus. At the same time, the film pays much attention to the feelings, thoughts, creative impulses and state of mind of the heroine. By analogy with the poetics of literary writing, the form of the poetess’ inner monologue was chosen in accordance with the portrait film genre. It is clear that through the prism of Lesya’s life and creative experience the personal attitude of the poet I. Drach emerges towards understanding and reproducing the figure of creative personality in art: the author’ vision logically leads to those biographical episodes that in the existential sense appear the most significant.

Report on the vakuf property of mosques, mesjids and mektebs of the city of Bakhchisarai (From the inventory of the former Mufti Efendi)

To readers attention is offered a small fragment from the message of the Mufti of Crimea Musallaf Efendi, which provides brief data of the state of vakuf property of Muslim religious sites for 1785–1786 , prepared by the Qadies (Judges) of 5 kaymakans of the Crimean Khanate: Bakhchisarai, Kezlev, Kefe, Akmesjit and Or-Kapu. The message of Mufti Efendi is presented in Arabic script in the Crimean Tatar language. Part of the message, translated from the Arabic script into Cyrilic alphabet, includes a list of recorded vakuf property belonging at that time to Bakhchisarai: the political and administrative center of the Crimean Khanate. The given information makes it possible to establish the number and names of administrative units of the city–mahalla, the variety and location of the vakuf property, recorded not only within the city limits, but also outside it. The message also contains data on the funds, allocated to the minister of the city`s Muslim religious buildings.

Establishment of the Hohenbergia capitata complex (Bromeliaceae) with notes on leaf anatomy and description of a new endangered species

We here establish the Hohenbergia capitata complex composed of three species endemic to the Atlantic Forest, in the State of Bahia, Northeastern Brazil. When compared with other Hohenbergia species endemic to the Atlantic Forest, the complex is recognized by the small size of the plants (shorter than 1 m tall when flowering), lanceolate leaf blades, inflorescence with main axis short and congested branches, concentrated on the apical portion of the inflorescence (creating a capitulate shape), primary branches short pedunculate (short stipes), basal primary bracts sub-orbicular, large flowers (over 3 cm long) with spatulate petals with a cuspidate apex. Within this complex, we describe H. nidularioides sp. nov., a critically endangered species from the southern coastal region of Bahia, only known from a small fragment of Restinga forest in Una municipality. This species is very similar to H. capitata but differs by the nidular aspect of the inflorescence, which is only short-pedunculate and more or less hidden inside the rosette. In addition to the taxonomic treatment, we provide illustrations, the geographic distribution, taxonomic comments, and anatomical comparison of the species in the H. capitata complex.

Existence of Microplastics in Indonesia’s Surface Water: A Review

Plastic waste is often being an issue that needs to be overcome since mostly plastic waste ends up in the environment. Some studies stated that plastic waste found in the marine environment are mostly sourced from the land which transported along the river systems. It is nearly impossible for nature to completely breakdown plastic waste, regarding its durability and resistance to degradation. Small fragment resulted from the slowly breakdown of plastic waste is an emerging contaminant in water environment called as microplastic. This study is conducted as a short review of microplastics existence on the surface water in Indonesia, particularly on the Citarum River as the most polluted river in the world. Besides, only few papers regarding microplastic occurrence on the surface water in Indonesia that have been published, which mostly focuses on Citarum River. It is known that microplastic tend to persist in water and has possible risks to the living organisms. Hence, managing microplastic pollution is needed which can be in the form of management strategy and treatment technologies used to remove microplastics from water.

“Both my Cleansed Hands”

This short contribution edits for the first time a small fragment housed in the Horn Archaeological Museum at St Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. This fragment contains the meagre remains of what once was a letter addressed to the goddess Ištar sent by a woman named Abī-tukultī. Literary letters of the Old Babylonian period are fairly scarce, and the present text is the first known letter to Ištar and hence a welcome addition to the corpus.

Exploring protein hotspots by optimized fragment pharmacophores

Fragment-based drug design has introduced a bottom-up process for drug development, with improved sampling of chemical space and increased effectiveness in early drug discovery. Here, we combine the use of pharmacophores, the most general concept of representing drug-target interactions with the theory of protein hotspots, to develop a design protocol for fragment libraries. The SpotXplorer approach compiles small fragment libraries that maximize the coverage of experimentally confirmed binding pharmacophores at the most preferred hotspots. The efficiency of this approach is demonstrated with a pilot library of 96 fragment-sized compounds (SpotXplorer0) that is validated on popular target classes and emerging drug targets. Biochemical screening against a set of GPCRs and proteases retrieves compounds containing an average of 70% of known pharmacophores for these targets. More importantly, SpotXplorer0 screening identifies confirmed hits against recently established challenging targets such as the histone methyltransferase SETD2, the main protease (3CLPro) and the NSP3 macrodomain of SARS-CoV-2.