A 100-MIPS GaAs asynchronous microprocessor

The authors describe how they ported an asynchronous microprocessor previously implemented in CMOS to gallium arsenide, using a technology-independent asynchronous design technique. They introduce new circuits including a sense-amplifier, a completion detection circuit, and a general circuit structure for operators specified by production rules. The authors used and tested these circuits in a variety of designs

An introduction to deep learning

Deep learning (DL) is currently being researched and implemented to solve civil engineering related problems, including autonomous inspection and inventory of civil infrastructure projects. The article introduces DL, specifically a convolutional neural network and the supervised learning process used to train a model that will enable professional structural engineers to automatically detect types of earthquake damage

Development and feasibility of a home-based education model for families of children with sickle cell disease

BACKGROUND: Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) commonly have cognitive deficits, even among toddlers. Much medical literature emphasizes disease-based factors to account for these deficits. However, the social environment plays a large role in child development. To address the specific needs of early childhood, a monthly hospital-based education program was initiated to educate parents about child development. Education sessions were poorly attended (20-25%) and deemed unsuccessful. This study describes the development and implementation of a home-based education service to teach parents about SCD, developmental milestones and positive parenting techniques. METHODS: This was a prospective, single-arm intervention to study the feasibility of a home-based caregiver education program for families with infants and toddlers with SCD. Parents of children aged 0-3 years with SCD from one Midwestern hospital were approached to participate in a home-based program. The program followed the Born to Learn™ curriculum provided through the Parents as Teachers™ National Center. Reminder calls or texts were provided the day before each visit. Results of the first twenty-six months of the program are presented. RESULTS: A total of 62% (56 of 91) of families approached agreed to participate; all were African American. The majority of caregivers were single mothers with a high school education or less and whose children had Medicaid for health coverage. The phenotypes of SCD represented in this sample were similar to those in the general SCD population. Over 26 months, 39 families received at least one home visit. Parents of infants (younger than 8 months) were more likely to participate in the home-based education program than parents of older children, (Fisher’s exact test, p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: For participating families, home-based visits were a feasible method for reinforcing clinic education. About 43% of eligible families participated in the education, a two-fold increase in the poor attendance (20%) for a previous hospital-based program. A home visitation program for parents of infants with SCD could offer an effective approach to helping these children overcome adverse environmental conditions that are compounded by the complexities of a chronic health condition

An Asynchronous Microprocessor in Gallium Arsenide

In this paper, several techniques for designing asynchronous circuits in Gallium Arsenide are presented. Several new circuits were designed, to implement specific functions necessary to the design of a full microprocessor. A sense-amplifier, a completion tree, and a general circuit structure for operators specified by production rules are introduced. These circuit were used and tested in a variety of designs, including two asynchronous microprocessors and two asynchronous static RAM's. One of the microprocessor runs at over 100 MIPS with a power consumption of 2 Watts

Old and Young Politicians

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151327/1/ecca12287_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151327/2/ecca12287.pd

Federal tax policies, congressional voting and natural resources

Can abundance of natural resources affect legislators' voting behaviour over federal tax policies? We construct a political economy model of a federalized economy with district heterogeneity in natural resource abundance. The model shows that representatives of natural resource-rich districts are more (less) willing to vote in favour of federal tax increases (decreases). This occurs because resource-rich districts are less responsive to federal tax changes due to the immobile nature of their natural resources. We test the model's predictions using data on roll-call votes in the US House of Representatives over the major federal tax bills initiated during the period of 1945–2003, in conjunction with the presence of active giant oil fields in US congressional districts. Our identification strategy rests on plausibly exogenous giant oil field discoveries and exploitation and narrative-based aggregate federal tax shocks that are exogenous to individual congressional districts and legislators. We find that: (i) resource-rich congressional districts are less responsive to changes in federal taxes and (ii) representatives of resource-rich congressional districts are more (less) supportive of federal tax increases (decreases), controlling for legislator, congressional district and state indicators. Our results indicate that resource richness is approximately half as dominant as the main determinant, namely party affiliation, in driving legislators' voting behaviour over federal tax policies

Uncertain Duration of Reform: Dynamic Implications

We develop a framework to study the effects of policies of uncertain duration on consumption dynamics under both complete and incomplete markets. We focus on the dynamic implications of market incompleteness, specifically on the lack of state-contingent bonds. Two policies are considered: pure output-increasing and tariff-reducing (trade liberalization). With complete markets, the output-increasing policy leads to flat consumption, while with no contingent assets, consumption jumps upward on the announcement of the policy, continues rising as long as the policy is in effect, and collapses when it is abandoned. A similar consumption path obtains in a trade liberalization in the realistic case of low elasticity of substitution and no rebate of tariffs. Market incompleteness rationalizes the existence of gradual changes in consumption

Marine fish may be biochemically constrained from inhabiting the deepest ocean depths

No fish have been found in the deepest 25% of the ocean (8,400-11,000 m). This apparent absence has been attributed to hydrostatic pressure, although direct evidence is wanting because of the lack of deepest-living species to study. The common osmolyte trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) stabilizes proteins against pressure and increases with depth, going from 40 to 261 mmol/kg in teleost fishes from 0 to 4,850 m. TMAO accumulation with depth results in increasing internal osmolality (typically 350 mOsmol/kg in shallow species compared with seawater\u27s 1,100 mOsmol/kg). Preliminary extrapolation of osmolalities of predicted isosmotic state at 8,000-8,500 m may indicate a possible physiological limit, as greater depths would require reversal of osmotic gradients and, thus, osmoregulatory systems. We tested this prediction by capturing five of the second-deepest known fish, the hadal snailfish (Notoliparis kermadecensis; Liparidae), from 7,000 m in the Kermadec Trench. We found theirmuscles to have a TMAOcontent of 386 ± 18 mmol/kg and osmolality of 991 ± 22 mOsmol/kg. These data fit previous extrapolations and, combined with new osmolalities from bathyal and abyssal fishes, predict isosmotic state at 8,200 m. This is previously unidentified evidence that biochemistry could constrain the depth of a large, complex taxonomic group