Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
5.4 A 32nW bandgap reference voltage operational from 0.5V supply for ultra-low power systems

Most systems require a voltage reference independent of variation of power supply, process, or temperature, and a bandgap voltage reference (BGR) often serves this purpose. For ultra-low power (ULP) systems, the BGR may constitute a significant component of standby power, and the system start-up voltage is often determined by the voltage, Vin, at which the BGR becomes operational. Lowering Vin can also allow an ULP system to continue operation longer as its battery or energy harvested input voltage decreases. The minimum Vin for state-of-the-art BGRs is restricted by VEB+VDS [1], where VEB is the emitter-base voltage of a pnp transistor, and VDS is the drain-source saturation voltage of a MOS transistor. Recent work brings the Vin voltage down to 700mV [2]. There is a need to reduce the standby power and Vin of a BGR to increase the lifetime of ULP systems. This paper presents a BGR circuit with measured minimum operating Vin of 500mV, reducing the Vin of [2] by 1.4x. Further, the power consumption of the proposed circuit is 32nW, which is 1.6x lower than the non-duty cycled BGR reported in [2]. A 2x-charge pump based bandgap core, a switched-capacitor network (SCN), and a current controlled oscillator and clock doubler circuit enable a BGR with a temperature variation of 75ppm/°C and power supply rejection (PSR) of up to -52dB at DC.
Measures of lexical diversity in aphasia

Background: Important to the assessment of aphasia are analyses of discourse production and, in particular, lexical diversity analyses of verbal production of adults with aphasia. Previous researchers have used type-token ratio (TTR) to measure conversational vocabulary in adults with aphasia; however, this measure is known to be sensitive to sample size, requiring that only samples of equivalent length be compared. The number of different words (NDW) is another measure of lexical diversity, but it also requires input samples of equivalent length. An alternative to these measures, D, has been developed (Malvern & Richards, 1997) to address this problem. D allows for comparisons across samples of varying lengths. Aims: The first objective of the current study was to examine the relationships among three measures of productive vocabulary in discourse for adults with aphasia: TTR, NDW, and D. The second objective was to use these measures to determine in what ways, and to what degree, they each can differentiate fluent and nonfluent aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Eighteen adults with aphasia participated in this study (nine with nonfluent aphasia; nine with fluent aphasia). Participants completed the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and produced language samples consisting of conversation and picture description. Samples were then subjected to the three lexical diversity analyses. Outcomes & Results: Results indicated that, although the measures generally correlated with each other, adults with fluent aphasia evidenced significantly higher D and NDW values than those with nonfluent aphasia when whole samples were subjected to analyses. Once samples were truncated to 100- and 200-word samples, groups differed significantly for all three measures. Conclusions: These findings add further support to the notion that because TTR and, although to a lesser extent, NDW are sensitive to sample size, length differences across samples tend to confound results. As an alternative to these measures, the use of D for the measurement of conversational vocabulary of adults with aphasia enables the analysis of entire language samples, so that discarding language sample data is not necessary. In the present study, D values differed for fluent and nonfluent aphasia samples.
Presynaptic monoaminergic vesicles in Parkinson's disease and normal aging

We present development and human application of a method for determining the regional cerebral density of the type 2 vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT2) using positron emission tomography (PET) and [11C]dihydrotetrabenazine (DTBZ). Previous animal studies indicate striatal VMAT2 density is linearly related to the integrity of substantia nigra dopamine neurons and is not subject to drug‐or lesion‐compensatory regulation. In the present studies, kinetic compartmental modeling was employed to estimate blood‐brain [11C]DTBZ transport (K1,) and VMAT2 binding site density (tissue‐to‐plasma DTBZ distribution volume, DV)from the cerebral and plasma DTBZ time courses her intravenous tracer injection. In controls, we found reductions of putamen DTBZ DV with advancing age, corresponding to losses of 0.77% per year in specific VMAT2 binding. Parkinson's disease (PD) patients had reduction in specific DTBZ DV in the putamen (−61%) and in the caudate nucleus (−43%). There was no overlap of lowest specific putamen DTBZ DV between individual elderly controls and PD patients. The present results indicate the suitability of [11C]DTBZ PET for objective quantification of nigrostriatal integrity, including evaluation of PD progression and its possible therapeutic modification.
Improved method for SNR prediction in machine-learning-based test

This paper applies an improved method for testing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of Analogue-to-Digital Converters (ADC). In previous work, a noisy and nonlinear pulse signal is exploited as the input stimulus to obtain the signature results of ADC. By applying a machine-learning-based approach, the dynamic parameters can be predicted by using the signature results. However, it can only estimate the SNR accurately within a certain range. In order to overcome this limitation, an improved method based on work [1] is applied in this work. It is validated on the Labview model of a 12-bit 80 Ms/s pipelined ADC with a pulse- wave input signal of 3 LSB noise and 7-bit nonlinear rising and falling edges.
Grief and Trauma Group Therapy for Children After Hurricane Katrina

Theoretical and evidence-based group therapy models that address the interplay of grief and trauma are needed for children postdisaster. This article describes a theoretically informed 10-week grief and trauma group model that was evaluated with children in schools after Hurricane Katrina. The foundation of the grief and trauma intervention includes utilizing developmentally specific methods, an ecological perspective, and culturally relevant approaches. The theoretical ordering of themes addressed occurs within three overlapping phases: (1) resilience and safety, (2) restorative retelling, (3) and reconnecting (Herman, 1997; Rynearson, 2001). Techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy and narrative therapy are combined to address loss and trauma.
Microbiological Oxidation of Ferrous Iron at Low Temperatures

Acidophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria were enriched from mine water samples with ferrous sulfate as the substrate at incubation temperatures in the range of 4 to 46°C. After several subcultures at each test temperature except 46°C, which was prohibitive to growth, the rates of iron oxidation were determined in batch cultures. The results yielded linear rates in a semilogarithmic scale. The rate constants of iron oxidation by growing cultures were fitted into the Arrhenius equation, which displayed linearity in the 4 to 28°C range and yielded an activation energy value of 83 ± 3 kJ/mol.
First Contemporary Case of Human Infection with Cryptococcus gattii in Puget Sound: Evidence for Spread of the Vancouver Island Outbreak

ABSTRACT We report a case of cryptococcosis due to C. gattii which appears to have been acquired in the Puget Sound region, Washington State. Genotyping confirmed identity to the predominant Vancouver Island genotype. This is the first documented case of human disease by the major Vancouver Island emergence strain acquired within the United States.
Gradient Bounds for Wachspress Coordinates on Polytopes

We derive upper and lower bounds on the gradients of Wachspress coordinates defined over any simple convex $d$-dimensional polytope $P$. The bounds are in terms of a single geometric quantity $h_\ast$, which denotes the minimum distance between a vertex of $P$ and any hyperplane containing a nonincident face. We prove that the upper bound is sharp for $d=2$ and analyze the bounds in the special cases of hypercubes and simplices. Additionally, we provide an implementation of the Wachspress coordinates on convex polyhedra using MATLAB and employ them in a three-dimensional finite element solution of the Poisson equation on a nontrivial polyhedral mesh. As expected from the upper bound derivation, the $H^1$-norm of the error in the method converges at a linear rate with respect to the size of the mesh elements.
Biogeosciences Potential impact of DOM accumulation on f CO 2 and carbonate ion computations in ocean acidification experiments

The internal consistency of measurements and computations of components of the CO 2-system, namely total alkalinity (AT), total dissolved carbon dioxide ( CT), CO2 fugacity (f CO2) and pH, has been confirmed repeatedly in open ocean studies when the CO 2 system had been over determined. Differences between measured and computed properties, such as 1f CO2 (= f CO2 (measured) –f CO2 (computed from AT and CT)) / f CO2 (measured) × 100), are usually below 5 %. Recently, Hoppe et al. (2012) provided evidence of significantly larger1f CO2 in some experimental setups. These observations are currently not well understood. Here we discuss a case from a series of phytoplankton culture experiments with 1f CO2 of up to about 25 %. 1f CO2 varied systematically during the course of these experiments and showed a clear correlation with the accumulation of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Culture and mesocosm experiments are often carried out under high initial nutrient concentrations, yielding high biomass concentrations that in turn often lead to a substantial build-up of DOM. In such experiments, DOM can reach concentrations much higher than typically observed in the open ocean. To the extent that DOM includes organic acids and bases, it will contribute to the alkalinity of the seawater contained in the experimental device. Our analysis suggests that whenever substantial amounts of DOM are produced during the experiment, standard computer programmes used to compute CO2 fugacity can underestimate true f CO2 significantly when the computation is based on AT andCT. Unless the effect of DOM-alkalinity can be accounted for, this might lead to significant errors in the interpretation of the system under consideration with respect to the experimentally applied CO2 perturbation. Errors in the inferred f CO2 can misguide the development of parameterisations used in simulations with global carbon cycle models in future CO 2scenarios. Over determination of the CO 2-system in experimental ocean acidification studies is proposed to safeguard against possibly large errors in estimated f CO2.
Fringe Analysis of 2-3 Trees with Lazy Parent Split

B-trees with lazy parent split (lps) are B-tree variants, according to which parent splits are postponed until a future access of the latter node. This way, the number of splits during an insert is decreased and the number of locks is also decreased. Consequently, better concurrency is achieved. In this paper 2‐3 trees with lps are studied. Fringe analysis is used to obtain bounds on some performance metrics of 2‐3 trees with lps. The performance metrics of 2‐3 tree with lps are compared with those of the classical 2‐3 trees. The conclusions are that 2‐3 trees with lps have slightly better performance, more keys in the fringe, larger storage utilization and a slightly shorter path length from the root to the leaves.
Corneal expression of the inflammatory mediator CAP37.

PURPOSE CAP37 is a polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN)-derived inflammatory protein with potent antibiotic and chemotactic activity. To further investigate the biological significance of CAP37 in infection and inflammation, a well-characterized in vivo rabbit model of bacterial keratitis was selected to study its contribution to host defenses. METHODS One hundred colony-forming units of log phase Staphylococcus aureus was injected intrastromally. Eyes were enucleated at 5 to 25 hours after infection and CAP37 detected by immunohistochemistry. To identify the mechanism of CAP37 upregulation in corneal epithelium, in vitro studies using immortalized human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs) were undertaken to determine whether proinflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta), induce CAP37. Because adhesion of leukocytes is important in leukocyte-epithelium interactions, the effect of CAP37 on expression of intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 on HCECs was determined by flow cytometry. RESULTS Strong staining for CAP37 was demonstrated in the corneal epithelium, stromal fibroblasts, ciliary epithelium, related limbus, ciliary vascular endothelium, and bulbar conjunctiva in rabbits injected with S. aureus. The most dramatic expression of CAP37 aside from that in the PMNs occurred in the corneal epithelium. The in vitro studies suggest that CAP37 induction is regulated by TNF-alpha and IL-1beta. In addition, ICAM-1 expression on HCECs was increased in response to CAP37. Molecular cloning of corneal epithelial CAP37 indicated strong sequence identity with an extensive region of PMN-CAP37. CONCLUSIONS The findings in this study describe the extraneutrophilic expression of CAP37 in response to infection and suggest a role for CAP37 in host defense against infection in the eye.
Key Derivation for Squared-Friendly Applications: Lower Bounds

Security of cryptographic applications is typically defined by security games. The adversary, within certain resources, cannot win with probability much better than 0 (for unpredictability applications, like one-way functions) or much better than 2 (indistinguishability applications for instance encryption schemes). In so called squared-friendly applications the winning probability of the adversary, for different values of the application secret randomness, is not only close to 0 or 1 2 on average, but also concentrated in the sense that its second central moment is small. The class of squared-friendly applications, which contains all unpredictability applications and many indistinguishability applications, is particularly important in the context of key derivation. Barak et al. observed that for square-friendly applications one can beat the “RT-bound”, extracting secure keys with significantly smaller entropy loss. In turn Dodis and Yu showed that in squaredfriendly applications one can directly use a “weak” key, which has only high entropy, as a secure key. In this paper we give sharp lower bounds on square security assuming security for “weak” keys. We show that any application which is either (a) secure with weak keys or (b) allows for saving entropy in a key derived by hashing, must be square-friendly. Quantitatively, our lower bounds match the positive results of Dodis and Yu and Barak et al. (TCC’13, CRYPTO’11) Hence, they can be understood as a general characterization of squared-friendly applications. While the positive results on squared-friendly applications where derived by one clever application of the Cauchy-Schwarz Inequality, for tight lower bounds we need more machinery. In our approach we use convex optimization techniques and some theory of circular matrices.
Altered Cholesterol Metabolism in Niemann-Pick Type C1 Mouse Brains Affects Mitochondrial Function*

Niemann-Pick type C1 (NPC1) disease is a fatal hereditary disorder characterized by a defect in cholesterol trafficking and progressive neurodegeneration. Although the NPC1 gene has been identified, the molecular mechanism responsible for neuronal dysfunction in brains of patients with NPC1 disease remains unknown. This study demonstrates that the amount of cholesterol within mitochondria membranes is significantly elevated in NPC1 mouse brains and neural cells. In addition, the mitochondrial membrane potential, the activity of ATP synthase, and henceforth the level of ATP are markedly decreased in NPC1 mouse brains and neurons. Importantly, reducing the level of cholesterol within mitochondrial membranes using methyl-β-cyclodextrin can restore the activity of ATP synthase. Finally, NPC1 neurons show an impaired neurite outgrowth, which can be rescued by exogenous ATP. These results suggest that mitochondrial dysfunctions and subsequent ATP deficiency, which are induced by altered cholesterol metabolism in mitochondria, may be responsible for neuronal impairment in NPC1 disease.
The mechanism of amphetamine‐induced inhibition of rat substantia nigra compacta neurones investigated with intracellular recording in vitro

1 The effects of (+)‐amphetamine (1–300 μm) applied by superfusion, on substantia nigra zona compacta neurones were studied in slices of the rat mesencephalon with intracellular recording techniques (current and voltage clamp mode). 2 Amphetamine inhibited the action potential discharge, hyperpolarized the cells and increased the membrane conductance. Under voltage clamp it produced an outward current. 3 The amphetamine outward current reversed at potentials negative to −100 mV (2.5 mM extracellular potassium) and was reduced by barium, (1 mM) suggesting an increased potassium conductance. 4 In slices treated with tetrodotoxin and calcium‐free solution and added cobalt, amphetamine was still effective. 5 (−)‐Sulpiride, (1 μm) a D2 antagonist, blocked the effects of both amphetamine and dopamine. 6 In slices treated for more than 3 h with 30 μm α‐methyl‐DL‐tyrosine, an agent known to block the synthesis of dopamine, the action of amphetamine was attenuated, while dopamine was still effective. 7 Responses to applied dopamine were potentiated by cocaine (10 μm) but unaffected by amphetamine (1–3 μm). 8 It is suggested that the inhibition of substantia nigra compacta neurones by amphetamine is mainly due to the release of endogenous dopamine.
Women's organizing and intersectional policy-making in comparative perspective: evidence from Guatemala and Germany

Despite worldwide increases in the proportion of women in legislatures, advances in levels of democracy, and rising levels of economic and human development, the preferences and priorities of the most marginalized women are still typically neglected in public policy. We identify a type of substantive representation that we call intersectional policy-making, which addresses the specific sources of disadvantage that deter the social mobility and even fundamental well-being of marginalized subgroups of women. We conduct a cross-national paired comparison of Guatemala and Germany as contrasting cases with unexpected outcomes. Intersectional policies emerged in Guatemala but were limited and even misguided in Germany. We find that typical explanations for variation in the emergence of policies benefiting women as a larger group do not explain variation in intersectional policies. Instead, we advance the novel argument that civil society organizations composed of marginalized subgroups of women must engage in grassroots advocacy as well as work in coordination with key allies within the state to advance intersectional policies. Among other things, this coordination facilitates the placement of marginalized women's preferences and priorities on the policy agenda.
Tail-biting massey trellis construction for block codes

It was Aditya V. Nori and Priti Shankar's achievement to extend the well-known BCJR and Forney construction algorithms for minimal conventional trellis to tail-biting trellis respectively. In this artical, based on the Massey construction we present an effective and significative algorithm for constructing TB-Massey trellis, a key step in our work is discoverying that in effect V0 = Vn(mod n), where V0 is the vertex set for i=0 in the trellis. This renews the work of Nori and Shankar in aspect of other noted construction algorithm for minimal conventional trellis. We also show the properties of resultant trellis and discuss its performance by comparing with T-BCJR trellis and T-Forney trellis
Role for α-Dystrobrevin in the Pathogenesis of Dystrophin-Dependent Muscular Dystrophies

A dystrophin-containing glycoprotein complex (DGC) links the basal lamina surrounding each muscle fibre to the fibre's cytoskeleton, providing both structural support and a scaffold for signalling molecules. Mutations in genes encoding several DGC components disrupt the complex and lead to muscular dystrophy. Here we show that mice deficient in alpha-dystrobrevin, a cytoplasmic protein of the DGC, exhibit skeletal and cardiac myopathies. Analysis of double and triple mutants indicates that alpha-dystrobrevin acts largely through the DGC. Structural components of the DGC are retained in the absence of alpha-dystrobrevin, but a DGC-associated signalling protein, nitric oxide synthase, is displaced from the membrane and nitric-oxide-mediated signalling is impaired. These results indicate that both signalling and structural functions of the DGC are required for muscle stability, and implicate alpha-dystrobrevin in the former.
Polarization dependent cavity ring down spectroscopy

both techniques. The b 1 S g (v852) X 3 Sg (v950) transition of molecular oxygen around 628 nm is used to demonstrate the possibility to selectively measure either the polarization-dependent absorption or the resonant magneto-optical rotation of gas-phase molecules in the appropriate setup. Just as in CRD absorption spectroscopy, where the rate of absorption is measured, in the here presented polarization-dependent CRD ~PDCRD! detection scheme the rate of polarization rotation is measured, which enables the polarization rotation to be quantitatively determined. Apart from studying electro-optic and magneto-optic phenomena on gas-phase species, the PDCRD detection scheme is demonstrated to be applicable to the study of magneto-optical rotation in transparent solid samples as well. © 1997 American Institute of Physics. @S0021-9606~97! 00836-2# In 1988 O’Keefe and Deacon demonstrated a new direct absorption spectroscopic technique that can be performed with a pulsed light source and that has a significantly higher sensitivity than obtainable in ‘‘conventional’’ absorption spectroscopy. This so-called cavity ring down ~CRD! technique is based upon the measurement of the rate of absorption rather than the magnitude of absorption of a light pulse confined in a closed optical cavity with a highQ factor. 1 The advantage over normal absorption spectroscopy results from ~i! the intrinsic insensitivity of the CRD technique to light source intensity fluctuations, and ~ii! the extremely long effective path lengths ~many kilometers! that can be realized in stable optical cavities. Since the technique is based on a pulsed measurement, it can be used in combination with pulsed molecular beams 2‐4 and it can also be used to study dynamical processes via time-resolved absorption measurements. 5 As long as mirrors with a sufficiently high reflectivity, detectors with a sufficiently fast time response, and tunable ~pulsed! light sources are available there is no intrinsic limitation to the spectral region in which CRD can be applied. By now, successful application of CRD spectroscopy has been demonstrated from the uv part of the spectrum 6 to the ir spectral region. 7,8 The application of CRD is most straightforward if it can be assumed that the linewidth of the light source can be neglected relative to the width of the molecular absorption. It has been shown, however, that if this assumption is no longer valid, one can still extract the correct absorption coefficient from the measured transients, provided the spectral intensity distribution of the light source is known. 6,9 As a consequence, it has been experimentally demonstrated that one does not necessarily need a narrow-band pulsed laser to perform a CRD experiment. One might just as well use a polychromatic light source and extract the spectral information after spectrally dispersing the light exiting the cavity, either in a monochromator or by using a Fourier transform spectrometer. 8,10