Self-calibrating random access logarithmic pixel for on chip camera

CMOS active pixel sensors (APS) have shown competitive performance with charge-coupled device (CCD) and offer many advantages in cost, system power reduction and on-chip integration of VLSI electronics. Among CMOS image sensors, sensors with logarithmic pixels are particularly applicable for outdoor environment where the light intensity varies over a wide range. They are also randomly accessible in both time and space. A major drawback comes from process variations during fabrication. This gives rise to a considerable fixed pattern noise (FPN) which deteriorates the image quality. In this thesis, a technique that greatly reduces FPN using on-chip calibration is introduced. An image sensor that consists of 64x64 active pixels has been designed, fabricated and tested. Pixel pitch is 18um x 19.2um? and is fabricated in a 0.5-um? CMOS process. The proposed pixel circuit considerably reduces the FPN as predicted in theoretical analysis. The measured FPN value is 2.29% of output voltage swing and column-wise FPN is 1.49% of mean output voltage over each column

Modification of Kawai model about the mixing of the pseudoscalar mesons

The Kawai model describing the glueball-quarkonia mixing is modified. The mixing of $\eta$, $\eta^\prime$ and $\eta(1410)$ is re-investigated based on the modified Kawai model. The glueball-quarkonia content of the three states is determined from a fit to the data of the electromagnetic decays involving $\eta$, $\eta^\prime$. Some predictions about the electromagnetic decays involving $\eta(1410)$ are presented.Comment: revtex 8 page

Short-selling and credit default swap spreads—Where do informed traders trade?

© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. During the global financial crisis, short-selling and credit default swaps (CDS) gained notoriety as indicators of financial collapse. This paper extends the literature by examining the relationship between short-selling and CDS spreads. Results indicate that lagged short-selling metrics forecast changes in CDS spreads; short-selling is found to have a positive relationship with CDS spreads. These results are robust to various controls including the supply of stock for short-selling, changes in CDS spreads, cross-sectional controls for fixed effects, sub-group analysis by industry sector, and the use of contemporaneous explanatory variables. This suggests that informed traders prefer to short-sell the underlying stocks

Room temperature Si δ -growth on Ge incorporating high- K dielectric for metal oxide semiconductor applications

A low temperature Al2O3/4 monolayer amorphous Si gate stack process was demonstrated on p-type Ge wafers using atomic layer deposition and molecular beam epitaxy. Multifrequency capacitance-voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V) characteristics showed excellent electrical properties of the Pt/Al2O3/4 ML Si/Ge metal oxide semiconductor capacitor. No kinks from 1 MHz to 4 kHz and a leakage current density of 2.6 x 10(-6) A/cm(2) at 1 V with an equivalent oxide thickness of 2.5 nm. The interface characterization using a conductance method showed that interface trap density at the near midgap was 8 x 10(12) eV(-1) cm(-2) and a mean capture cross section of holes was extracted to be 10(-16) cm(2). (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics

Life Quality Impairment Caused by Hookworm-Related Cutaneous Larva Migrans in Resource-Poor Communities in Manaus, Brazil

Hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans (CLM) is a parasitic skin disease common in developing countries with hot climates. In resource-poor settings, CLM is associated with considerable morbidity. The disease is caused by animal hookworm larvae that penetrate the skin and migrate aimlessly in the epidermis as they cannot penetrate the basal membrane. Particularly in the rainy season, the intensity of infection is high with up to 40 larval tracks in an affected individual. Tracks are very itchy and are surrounded by a significant inflammation of the skin. Bacterial superinfection is common and intensifies the inflammation. The psychosocial consequences caused by CLM have never been investigated. We showed that CLM causes skin disease-associated life quality impairment in 91 patients with CLM. Skin disease-associated life quality was significantly impaired. The degree of impairment correlated to the intensity of infection and the number of body areas affected. After treatment with ivermectin, life quality was rapidly restored

The impact of occupants’ behaviours on building energy analysis: A research review

Over the past 15 years, the evaluation of energy demand and use in buildings has become increasingly acute due to growing scientific and political pressure around the world in response to climate change. The estimation of the use of energy in buildings is therefore a critical process during the design stage. This paper presents a review of the literature published in leading journals through Science Direct and Scopus databases within this research domain to establish research trends, and importantly, to identify research gaps for future investigation. It has been widely acknowledged in the literature that there is an alarming performance gap between the predicted and actual energy consumption of buildings (sometimes this has been up to 300% difference). Analysis of the impact of occupants’ behaviour has been largely overlooked in building energy performance analysis. In short, energy simulation tools utilise climatic data and physical/ thermal properties of building elements in their calculations, and the impact of occupants is only considered through means of fixed and scheduled patterns of behaviour. This research review identified a number of areas for future research including: larger scale analysis (e.g. urban analysis); interior design, in terms of space layout, and fixtures and fittings on occupants’ behaviour; psychological cognitive behavioural methods; and the integration of quantitative and qualitative research findings in energy simulation tools to name but a few

Quantitative nucleolar proteomics reveals nuclear re-organization during stress- induced senescence in mouse fibroblast

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Nucleolus is the most prominent mammalian organelle within the nucleus which is also the site for ribosomal biogenesis. There have been many reports indicating the involvement of nucleolus in the process of aging. Several proteins related to aging have been shown to localize in the nucleolus, which suggests the role of this organelle in senescence.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we used quantitative mass spectrometry to map the flux of proteins into and out of the nucleolus during the induction of senescence in cultured mammalian cells. Changes in the abundance of 344 nucleolar proteins in sodium butyrate-induced senescence in NIH3T3 cells were studied by SILAC (stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture)-based mass spectrometry. Biochemically, we have validated the proteomic results and confirmed that B23 (nucleophosmin) protein was down-regulated, while poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) and nuclear DNA helicase II (NDH II/DHX9/RHA) were up-regulated in the nucleolus upon treatment with sodium butyrate. Accumulation of chromatin in the nucleolus was also observed, by both proteomics and microscopy, in sodium butyrate-treated cells. Similar observations were found in other models of senescence, namely, in mitoxantrone- (MTX) treated cells and primary fibroblasts from the Lamin A knockout mice.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data indicate an extensive nuclear organization during senescence and suggest that the redistribution of B23 protein and chromatin can be used as an important marker for senescence.</p

Extent of Height Variability Explained by Known Height-Associated Genetic Variants in an Isolated Population of the Adriatic Coast of Croatia

BACKGROUND: Human height is a classical example of a polygenic quantitative trait. Recent large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 200 height-associated loci, though these variants explain only 2∼10% of overall variability of normal height. The objective of this study was to investigate the variance explained by these loci in a relatively isolated population of European descent with limited admixture and homogeneous genetic background from the Adriatic coast of Croatia. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In a sample of 1304 individuals from the island population of Hvar, Croatia, we performed genome-wide SNP typing and assessed the variance explained by genetic scores constructed from different panels of height-associated SNPs extracted from five published studies. The combined information of the 180 SNPs reported by Lango Allen el al. explained 7.94% of phenotypic variation in our sample. Genetic scores based on 20~50 SNPs reported by the remaining individual GWA studies explained 3~5% of height variance. These percentages of variance explained were within ranges comparable to the original studies and heterogeneity tests did not detect significant differences in effect size estimates between our study and the original reports, if the estimates were obtained from populations of European descent. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We have evaluated the portability of height-associated loci and the overall fitting of estimated effect sizes reported in large cohorts to an isolated population. We found proportions of explained height variability were comparable to multiple reference GWAS in cohorts of European descent. These results indicate similar genetic architecture and comparable effect sizes of height loci among populations of European descent

Engineering context-aware systems and applications:A survey

Context-awareness is an essential component of systems developed in areas like Intelligent Environments, Pervasive & Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence. In these emerging fields, there is a need for computerized systems to have a higher understanding of the situations in which to provide services or functionalities, to adapt accordingly. The literature shows that researchers modify existing engineering methods in order to better fit the needs of context-aware computing. These efforts are typically disconnected from each other and generally focus on solving specific development issues. We encourage the creation of a more holistic and unified engineering process that is tailored for the demands of these systems. For this purpose, we study the state-of-the-art in the development of context-aware systems, focusing on: (A) Methodologies for developing context-aware systems, analyzing the reasons behind their lack of adoption and features that the community wish they can use; (B) Context-aware system engineering challenges and techniques applied during the most common development stages; (C) Context-aware systems conceptualization

Complicated intra-abdominal infections worldwide: the definitive data of the CIAOW Study.

The CIAOW study (Complicated intra-abdominal infections worldwide observational study) is a multicenter observational study underwent in 68 medical institutions worldwide during a six-month study period (October 2012-March 2013). The study included patients older than 18 years undergoing surgery or interventional drainage to address complicated intra-abdominal infections (IAIs).1898 patients with a mean age of 51.6 years (range 18-99) were enrolled in the study. 777 patients (41%) were women and 1,121 (59%) were men. Among these patients, 1,645 (86.7%) were affected by community-acquired IAIs while the remaining 253 (13.3%) suffered from healthcare-associated infections. Intraperitoneal specimens were collected from 1,190 (62.7%) of the enrolled patients.827 patients (43.6%) were affected by generalized peritonitis while 1071 (56.4%) suffered from localized peritonitis or abscesses.The overall mortality rate was 10.5% (199/1898).According to stepwise multivariate analysis (PR = 0.005 and PE = 0.001), several criteria were found to be independent variables predictive of mortality, including patient age (OR = 1.1; 95%CI = 1.0-1.1; p &lt; 0.0001), the presence of small bowel perforation (OR = 2.8; 95%CI = 1.5-5.3; p &lt; 0.0001), a delayed initial intervention (a delay exceeding 24 hours) (OR = 1.8; 95%CI = 1.5-3.7; p &lt; 0.0001), ICU admission (OR = 5.9; 95%CI = 3.6-9.5; p &lt; 0.0001) and patient immunosuppression (OR = 3.8; 95%CI = 2.1-6.7; p &lt; 0.0001). © 2014 Sartelli et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd