Inductorless CMOS Receiver Front-End Circuits for 10-Gb/s Optical Communications

[[abstract]]In this paper, a 10-Gb/s inductorless CMOS receiver front end is presented, including a transimpedance amplifier and a limiting amplifier. The transimpedance amplifier incorporates Regulated Cascode (RGC), active-inductor peaking, and intersecting active feedback circuits to achieve a transimpedance gain of 56 dB and a bandwidth of 8.27 GHz with a power dissipation of 35 mW. The limiting amplifier employs interleaving active feedback to achieve a differential voltage gain of 44.5 dB and a bandwidth of 10.3 GHz while consuming 226 mW. Both circuits are realized in 0.18- m CMOS technology with a 1.8-V supply.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]EI[[booktype]]紙

Metabolic syndrome and abdominal fat are associated with inflammation, but not with clinical outcomes, in peritoneal dialysis patients

BACKGROUND: In the general population, metabolic syndrome (MetS) is correlated with visceral fat and a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD); however, little is known about the significance of abdominal fat and its association with inflammation and medication use in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. We investigated the relationship of visceral fat area (VFA) with C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and medication use in PD patients and followed their clinical outcomes. METHODS: In a prospective study from February 2009 to February 2012, we assessed diabetes mellitus (DM) status, clinical and PD-associated characteristics, medication use, CRP levels, components of MetS, and VFA in 183 PD patients. These patients were categorized into 3 groups based on MetS and DM status: non-MetS (group 1, n = 73), MetS (group 2, n = 65), and DM (group 3, n = 45). VFA was evaluated by computed tomography (CT) and corrected for body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: Patients in group 1 had smaller VFAs than patients in groups 2 and 3 (3.2 ± 1.8, 4.6 ± 1.9, and 4.9 ± 2.0 cm(2)/[kg/m(2)], respectively, P < 0.05) and lower CRP levels (0.97 ± 2.31, 1.27 ± 2.57, and 1.11 ± 1.35 mg/dL, respectively, P < 0.05). VFA increased with the number of criteria met for MetS. After adjusting for age, body weight, and sex, CRP and albumin levels functioned as independent positive predictors of VFA; on other hand, the use of renin-angiotensin system blockers was inversely correlated with VFA in PD patients without DM. In the survival analysis, DM patients (group 3) had the poorest survival among the 3 groups, but no significant differences were found between groups 1 and 2. CONCLUSION: This study showed that VFA and MetS are associated with CRP levels but cannot predict survival in PD patients without DM. The complex relationship of nutritional parameters to VFA and MetS may explain these results. The type of antihypertensive medication used was also associated with the VFA. The mechanisms behind these findings warrant further investigation

Control of the nanoscale crystallinity and phase separation in polymer solar cells

Grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy were performed on bulk heterojunction regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (RR-P3HT) [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl esters spin-cast films with different film processing conditions to correlate the crystalline nanostructure of P3HT with the corresponding solar cell performance. The increase in long wavelength absorption for solvent annealed films is related to highly conjugated crystal structure of RR-P3HT phase-separated in the active layer. Upon thermal annealing, the solvent annealed 50-nm-thick device shows high solar cell performance with fill factor up to 73% and power conversion efficiency of 3.80%

Control of the nanoscale crystallinity and phase separation in polymer solar cells

Grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy were performed on bulk heterojunction regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (RR-P3HT) [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl esters spin-cast films with different film processing conditions to correlate the crystalline nanostructure of P3HT with the corresponding solar cell performance. The increase in long wavelength absorption for solvent annealed films is related to highly conjugated crystal structure of RR-P3HT phase-separated in the active layer. Upon thermal annealing, the solvent annealed 50-nm-thick device shows high solar cell performance with fill factor up to 73% and power conversion efficiency of 3.80%

氣候變遷對高屏溪流域崩塌潛勢之影響評估

To investigate the effects of climate change on the potential of the landslides in the basin of Kaoping stream, in this study, physiographic factors are collected and tested; rainfall parameters are selected; logistic regression method is used to establish the model for evaluating the potential of landslides; and 3 GCMs models and 3 future scenarios are used for analysis. Results show that 5 physiographic factors and 1 rainfall parameters are most highly correlated with the potential of landslides. They are the slope steepness, the area ratio of dip slope, the distance to fault, the road ratio and the rainfall amount of consecutive 2 days. The accuracy of the model established in this study reaches 80%. The impact for the future of the simulated results for the short term period (2010~2039) using the INCM3 model is found the greatest and the B1 scenario is found most in accordance with the real conditions. Using the developed model in this study to evaluate the potential of the landslide for the short term period, it is found the area of the highest potential of landslides increase 98%, compared with the potential of landslide in the baseline period (1961~1990).為探討氣候變遷對高屏溪流域崩塌潛勢之影響，本研究透過地文因子蒐集與篩選檢定、降雨參數選定，以邏輯斯回歸建置崩塌潛勢評估模式，並結合3 種GCMs 模式及3 種未來情境進行分析。結果顯示，與崩塌發生最為相關之5 項地文因子及降雨參數分別為岩性、坡度坡向、水系比、道路比及連續二日雨量。所建置之崩塌潛勢模式，其準確率可達80%以上。經綜合評估，INCM3 模式之結果對未來之衝擊最大，其中又以INCM3 模式B1 情境短期(2010~2039 年) 之結果最符合現況；利用此模式及情境推估短期之結果與基期 (1961~1990 年)相比，「極高」崩塌發生潛勢之增加面積達98%

The nucleolar protein NIFK promotes cancer progression via CK1α/β-catenin in metastasis and Ki-67-dependent cell proliferation.

Nucleolar protein interacting with the FHA domain of pKi-67 (NIFK) is a Ki-67-interacting protein. However, its precise function in cancer remains largely uninvestigated. Here we show the clinical significance and metastatic mechanism of NIFK in lung cancer. NIFK expression is clinically associated with poor prognosis and metastasis. Furthermore, NIFK enhances Ki-67-dependent proliferation, and promotes migration, invasion in vitro and metastasis in vivo via downregulation of casein kinase 1α (CK1α), a suppressor of pro-metastatic TCF4/β-catenin signaling. Inversely, CK1α is upregulated upon NIFK knockdown. The silencing of CK1α expression in NIFK-silenced cells restores TCF4/β-catenin transcriptional activity, cell migration, and metastasis. Furthermore, RUNX1 is identified as a transcription factor of CSNK1A1 (CK1α) that is negatively regulated by NIFK. Our results demonstrate the prognostic value of NIFK, and suggest that NIFK is required for lung cancer progression via the RUNX1-dependent CK1α repression, which activates TCF4/β-catenin signaling in metastasis and the Ki-67-dependent regulation in cell proliferation