Design and development of a 10 nanosecond semiconductor switch Final report

Device design, fabrication process, transistor evaluation, and test methods in development of 10 nanosecond semiconductor switc

Differentiable Shadow Mapping for Efficient Inverse Graphics

We show how shadows can be efficiently generated in differentiable rendering of triangle meshes. Our central observation is that pre-filtered shadow mapping, a technique for approximating shadows based on rendering from the perspective of a light, can be combined with existing differentiable rasterizers to yield differentiable visibility information. We demonstrate at several inverse graphics problems that differentiable shadow maps are orders of magnitude faster than differentiable light transport simulation with similar accuracy -- while differentiable rasterization without shadows often fails to converge.Comment: CVPR 2023, project page: https://mworchel.github.io/differentiable-shadow-mappin

Fungal endophyte interactions and mechanisms of fungal-mediated plant drought tolerance

Plants are ubiquitously colonized by diverse communities of horizontally-transmitted fungal endophytes, that can drastically alter plant physiology. Though many endophytes are mutualist, effects are context-dependent and can shift from pathogenic to mutualistic depending on abiotic and biotic factors. However, our understanding of endophyte effects comes almost exclusively from test of individual fungi, which may miss important community level processes that can alter fungal effects. Using Panicum grasses, I examined mechanisms underlying fungal interactions on plant physiology. I studied interactions in the context of plant drought responses, as climate models predict and increase in the intensity and frequency of drought. Scaling up from pairwise endophyte-plant studies will allow us to develop fungal applications that are more generalizable in real-world agricultural settings. Throughout my dissertation, I characterize the effects of altered precipitation and fungal interactions on plant physiology. To examine impacts of altered precipitation, I measured leaf-level and whole-plant carbon and water exchange in C4 grasses grown in extreme dry, extreme wet and mean levels of precipitation. Within this system, both extreme increases and decreases in precipitation inhibited plant gas fluxes, with all plants (Andropogon gerardii, Panicum virgtaum, and Sorghastrum nutans) responding similarly. To understand how fungal interactions effect plant performance, I compared the physiology of P. virgatum grown with six fungal pairs, the corresponding 12 individual fungi, and a no-fungus inoculum in low and high soil moisture. In most cases, plants responses to fungal pairs were non-additive (greater or less than expected) relative to effects of corresponding individual fungi. Furthermore, similarity of fungal stress tolerance and metabolic profiles predicted effects of fungal pairs in high and low soil moisture, respectively. To further understand mechanisms behind fungal interactive effects, I grew P. virgatum with 10 fungal pairs, in which each fungus was paired with one another, the five corresponding fungi, and a no-fungus inoculum in low and high soil moisture. Two of the five species dominated effects on the plants, such that outcomes of interactions could be predicted by the presence of these fungi within a pair. Furthermore, overall fungal effects on plant physiology could be predicted in the plant metabolome.Plant Biolog

Greater number of group identifications is associated with healthier behaviour: evidence from a Scottish community sample

Objectives: This paper investigates the interplay between group identification (i.e., the extent to which one has a sense of belonging to a social group, coupled with a sense of commonality with in-group members) and four types of health behaviour, namely physical exercise, smoking, drinking, and diet. Specifically, we propose a positive relationship between one's number of group identifications and healthy behaviour. Design: This study is based on the Scottish portion of the data obtained for Wave 1 of the two-wave cross-national Health in Groups project. 1824 patients from 5 Scottish General Practitioner (GP) surgeries completed the Wave 1 questionnaire in their homes. Methods: Participants completed measures of group identification, group contact, health behaviours and demographic variables. Results: Results demonstrate that the greater the number of social groups with which one identifies, the healthier one’s behaviour on any of the four health dimensions considered. Conclusions: We believe our results are due to the fact that group identification will generally i) enhance one's sense of meaning in life, thereby leading one to take more care of oneself, ii) increase one's sense of responsibility toward other in-group members, thereby enhancing one’s motivation to be healthy in order to fulfil those responsibilities, and iii) increase compliance with healthy group behavioural norms. Taken together, these processes amply overcompensate for the fact that some groups with which people may identify can actually prescribe unhealthy behaviours

Exact Bayesian curve fitting and signal segmentation.

We consider regression models where the underlying functional relationship between the response and the explanatory variable is modeled as independent linear regressions on disjoint segments. We present an algorithm for perfect simulation from the posterior distribution of such a model, even allowing for an unknown number of segments and an unknown model order for the linear regressions within each segment. The algorithm is simple, can scale well to large data sets, and avoids the problem of diagnosing convergence that is present with Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) approaches to this problem. We demonstrate our algorithm on standard denoising problems, on a piecewise constant AR model, and on a speech segmentation problem

Beautiful, Self‐Absorbed, and Shallow: People of Color Perceive W hite Women as an Ethnically Marked Category

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96379/1/jasp980.pd

Neonatal intensive care parent satisfaction: a multicenter study translating and validating the Italian EMPATHIC-N questionnaire

Background: In Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), parent satisfaction and their experiences are fundamental to assess clinical practice and improve the quality of care delivered to infants and parents. Recently, a specific instrument, the EMpowerment of PArents in THe Intensive Care-Neonatology (EMPATHIC-N), has been developed in the Netherlands. This instrument investigated different domains of care in NICUs from a family-centered care perspective. In Italy, no rigorous instruments are available to evaluate parent satisfaction and experiences in NICU with family-centered care. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the EMPATHIC-N instrument into Italian language measuring parent satisfaction. Methods: A psychometric study was conducted in nine Italian NICUs. The hospitals were allocated across Italy: four in the North, four in Central region, one in the South. Parents whose infants were discharged from the Units were enrolled. Parents whose infants died were excluded. Results: Back-forward translation was conducted. Twelve parents reviewed the instrument to assess the cultural adaptation; none of the items fell below the cut-off of 80% agreement. A total of 186 parents of infants who were discharged from nine NICUs were invited to participate and 162 parents responded and returned the questionnaire (87%). The mean scores of the individual items varied between 4.3 and 5.9. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed and all factor loadings were statistically significant with the exception of item ‘Our cultural background was taken into account’. The items related to overall satisfaction showed a higher trend with mean values of 5.8 and 5.9. The Cronbach’s alpha’s (at domain level 0.73-0.92) and corrected item-total scale correlations revealed high reliability estimates. Conclusions: The Italian EMPATHIC-N showed to be a valid and reliable instrument measuring parent satisfaction in NICUs from a family-centered care perspective. Indeed, it had good psychometric properties, validity, and reliability. Furthermore, this instrument is fundamental for further research and internationally benchmarking

Why helping coworkers does not always make you poor:the contingent role of common and unique position within the sales team

In recent years, many companies have implemented sales teams as a way of streamlining accountability and promoting the development of sales expertise. The success of such work groups largely depends on experienced members' willingness to help coworkers. Previous studies indicate that group structure and individual position along individual attributes (e.g., experience) are important to understand interactions between coworkers. However, sales research on this topic is lacking. Drawing on a motivation-opportunity-ability framework, this study addresses this void by examining the impact of individual salesperson's job experience position within work groups on the motivation to help coworkers and his or her own sales performance. The findings of a multisource, multilevel empirical study reveal interesting effects. The results highlight the important role of job experience position: if a salesperson's level of job experience is common within the sales team, it activates identification as a driver of helping behaviors, which in turn negatively influences own performance. Conversely, if a salesperson's level of job experience is unique, it does not activate identification as a driver of helping, but does positively influence the effect of helping on own performance. The authors discuss implications for theory and practice