PAVEL: Decorative Patterns with Packed Volumetric Elements

Many real-world hand-crafted objects are decorated with elements that are packed onto the object’s surface and deformed to cover it as much as possible. Examples are artisanal ceramics and metal jewelry. Inspired by these objects, we present a method to enrich surfaces with packed volumetric decorations. Our algorithm works by first determining the locations in which to add the decorative elements and then removing the non-physical overlap between them while preserving the decoration volume. For the placement, we support several strategies depending on the desired overall motif. To remove the overlap, we use an approach based on implicit deformable models creating the qualitative effect of plastic warping while avoiding expensive and hard-to-control physical simulations. Our decorative elements can be used to enhance virtual surfaces, as well as 3D-printed pieces, by assembling the decorations onto real surfaces to obtain tangible reproductions.

Antigenic evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in immunocompromised hosts

The apparent lack of antigenic evolution by the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) of SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic is puzzling. The combination of increasing immune pressure due to the rollout of vaccines and a relatively high number of infections following the relaxation of non-pharmaceutical interventions should have created perfect conditions for immune escape variants to evolve from the Delta lineage. Instead, the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529), which is hypothesised to have evolved in an immunocompromised individual, is the first major variant to exhibit significant immune escape following vaccination programmes and is set to become globally dominant in 2022. Here, we use a simple mathematical model to explore possible reasons why the Delta lineage did not exhibit antigenic evolution and to understand how and when immunocompromised individuals affect the emergence of immune escape variants. We show that when the pathogen does not have to cross a fitness valley for immune escape to occur, immunocompromised individuals have no qualitative effect on antigenic evolution (although they may accelerate immune escape if within-host evolutionary dynamics are faster in immunocompromised individuals). But if a fitness valley exists between immune escape variants at the between-host level, then persistent infections of immunocompromised individuals allow mutations to accumulate, therefore facilitating rather than simply speeding up antigenic evolution. Our results suggest that better global health equality, including improving access to vaccines and treatments for individuals who are immunocompromised (especially in lower- and middle-income countries), may be crucial to preventing the emergence of future immune escape variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Do we rely on good-enough processing in reading under auditory and visual noise?

Noise, as part of real-life communication flow, degrades the quality of linguistic input and affects language processing. According to predictions of the noisy-channel model, noisemakes comprehenders rely more on word-level semantics and good-enough processing instead of actual syntactic relations. However, empirical evidence of such qualitative effect of noise on sentence processing is still lacking. For the first time, we investigated the qualitative effect of both auditory (three-talker babble) and visual (short idioms appearing next to target sentence on the screen) noise on sentence reading within one study in two eye-trackingexperiments. In both of them, we used the same stimuli — unambiguous grammatical Russian sentences — and manipulated their semantic plausibility. Our findings suggest that although readers relied on good-enough processing in Russian, neither auditory nor visualnoise qualitatively increased reliance on semantics in sentence comprehension. The only effect of noise was found in reading speed: only without noise, semantically implausible sentences were read slower than semantically plausible ones, as measured by both early and late eye-movement measures. These results do not support the predictions of the noisy-channel model. With regard to quantitative effects, we found a detrimental effect ofauditory noise on overall comprehension accuracy, and an accelerating effect of visual noise on sentence processing without accuracy decrease.

A qualitative evaluation of an integrated health and livelihood development project for marginalized communities in India

Background: A community-based intervention was implemented to improve maternal, child, and adolescent health practices, promote financial literacy and enhance livelihood opportunities for young people in marginalized communities. A hypothesis related to our intervention was that peer-led education sessions on health and nutrition in conjunction with community mobilization would change communities’ perceptions towards maternal and child health.Design and methods: This three-year intervention was done in the two districts of Rajasthan, India, namely Nagaur and Pali. The paper explored the changes in perceptions and practices that resulted from this intervention among women and adolescents. We performed a retrospective, qualitative effect evaluation of the project. Focus group discussions with married women (15-49 years) and adolescents (10-19 years), and in-depth interviews with frontline workers and village health committees were done. The qualitative data were translated, coded, and analyzed thematically using an inductive approach.Results: Overall, 4853 women and 8158 adolescents were engaged in the intervention. The study seemed to have brought a change in some of the practices like postnatal care uptake, breastfeeding, and uptake of antenatal care among women, and enhanced awareness about sexual and reproductive health and harms of substance abuse among adolescents was noted. Around 23% and 67% of the young people from Nagaur and Pali, respectively, were linked with jobs in computer training centres, tailoring centres, and beauty parlours.Conclusions: The intervention was perceived successful in improving many health and nutrition practices and livelihood opportunities among project beneficiaries, calling for a comprehensive and multi-dimensional intervention to target social determinants of health.

Influence of the presence of a “shelf” on the outer surface of the submerged nozzle and the electromagnetic effect within its length on the qualitative distribution of metal flows during continuous casting of steel

Continuous casting of steel has many ways to control the quality of the billets. The possibilities offered by electromagnetic stirring are far superior to physical eff ects, but combining these two quality control methods can be extremely effective. Research have shown the possibility of a qualitative effect on the flow of the liquid in the mold with implementation of electromagnetic stirring technology and the “skirt” is used in the form of a “shelf” on the nozzle, which is immersed in the mold. In addition, implementation of this shelf increase the possibilities of using direct-flow nozzles with the slope of the inner wall, where in each case it gives advantages, both with an expanding channel, and with a narrowing one. The design of the shelf also does not affect the implementation of electromagnetic stirring in the process of continuous casting, since it is below the level of the mold meniscus and above the level of the effect of the electromagnetic stirrer in the mold. The results of the research show that when using a “shelf” in the middle of the immersion nozzle depth, the casting process is accompanied by the control of most of the flows that are created when the jet enters into the mold and effect of EMS. It also affects the formation of vertex on the meniscus. And the implementation of a “shelf” at the outlet of the submersible nozzle completely changes the nature of the flow of the incoming jet.

The Binding of Aβ42 Peptide Monomers to Sphingomyelin/Cholesterol/Ganglioside Bilayers Assayed by Density Gradient Ultracentrifugation

The binding of Aβ42 peptide monomers to sphingomyelin/cholesterol (1:1 mol ratio) bilayers containing 5 mol% gangliosides (either GM1, or GT1b, or a mixture of brain gangliosides) has been assayed by density gradient ultracentrifugation. This procedure provides a direct method for measuring vesicle-bound peptides after non-bound fraction separation. This centrifugation technique has rarely been used in this context previously. The results show that gangliosides increase by about two-fold the amount of Aβ42 bound to sphingomyelin/cholesterol vesicles. Complementary studies of the same systems using thioflavin T fluorescence, Langmuir monolayers or infrared spectroscopy confirm the ganglioside-dependent increased binding. Furthermore these studies reveal that gangliosides facilitate the aggregation of Aβ42 giving rise to more extended β-sheets. Thus, gangliosides have both a quantitative and a qualitative effect on the binding of Aβ42 to sphingomyelin/cholesterol bilayers.

Kinetics of Diffusion Interaction in Cr15Ni60-AD1 Layered Composite

The structure, phase and chemical composition of the diffusion interaction zone, formed at the interlayer boundary of a layered composite of the alloy Cr15Ni60-aluminum AD1, are studied. The temperature-time conditions for its nucleation and growth are determined. The diffusion zone has a fine predominantly heterogeneous structure and consists of solid solutions based on aluminides Al3Ni, Al3Ni2 and Al7Cr, as well as the ternary compound Al5FeNi. It is shown that the intensity of diffusion zone growth at the interlayer boundary of the bimetal Cr15Ni60-AD1 is determined mainly by the heating temperature, and the dependence of its thickness on the exposure time obeys a parabolic law. The presence of chemical micro-inhomogeneity in the form of a melted metal at the interlayer boundary does not have a qualitative effect on the kinetics of the process: at the first stage, the diffusion zone repeats the contour of the fusion, and then, as the service time increases, «absorbs» it.