A Fully Differential CMOS Potentiostat

A CMOS potentiostat for chemical sensing in a noisy environment is presented. The potentiostat measures bidirectional electrochemical redox currents proportional to the concentration of a chemical down to pico-ampere range. The fully differential architecture with differential recording electrodes suppresses the common mode interference. A 200μm×200μm prototype was fabricated in a standard 0.35μm standard CMOS technology and yields a 70dB dynamic range. The in-channel analog-to-digital converter (ADC) performs 16-bit current-tofrequency quantization. The integrated potentiostat functionality is validated in electrical and electrochemical experiments

The Convex Hull Problem in Practice : Improving the Running Time of the Double Description Method

The double description method is a simple but widely used algorithm for computation of extreme points in polyhedral sets. One key aspect of its implementation is the question of how to efficiently test extreme points for adjacency. In this dissertation, two significant contributions related to adjacency testing are presented. First, the currently used data structures are revisited and various optimizations are proposed. Empirical evidence is provided to demonstrate their competitiveness. Second, a new adjacency test is introduced. It is a refinement of the well known algebraic test featuring a technique for avoiding redundant computations. Its correctness is formally proven. Its superiority in multiple degenerate scenarios is demonstrated through experimental results. Parallel computation is one further aspect of the double description method covered in this work. A recently introduced divide-and-conquer technique is revisited and considerable practical limitations are demonstrated

Strong Individualization in Managing Asian Societal Transformations

Is individualization typical for most advanced contemporary societies alone? A correction comes from the comparative analyses of the thoughts and historical deeds of two outstanding Asian leaders. In the XX century, Mahatma Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping substantially influenced public thinking and behaviour as well as the institutional framework in India and China respectively. Their achievement is efficiently channelling the national collective action towards gaining the independence of India and the acceleration of Chinese modernization. Both leaders have some similarities and much more differences in their programmes and practical activities. Gandhi and Deng are eager to foster a full-scale transformation of Indian and Chinese societies and to mobilize the active support of millions for societal transformation. However, Gandhi asks for the support of the Hindu traditional religion while Deng orients his intellectual strategy and practical activities on the principles of civic religion. Gandhi relies on his inventiveness and charisma while Deng searches for support from political organizations and the state.  The conceptual framework of social actors, relations and processes guides the systematic analysis of structures and actions in the transformation of Indian and Chinese societies.     CITE THIS PAPER: Genov, Nikolai (2023). "Strong Individualization in Managing Asian Societal Transformations" Journal of Social Sciences: Transformations & Transitions (JOSSTT) 2(05):24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52459/josstt25240323

Potentials for interethnic integration and disintegration

Die Situationen ethnischer Minderheiten in Bulgarien, Moldau, Russland, in der Ukraine und Deutschland (Berlin) werden in dem vorliegenden Beitrag verglichen, um Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede herauszuarbeiten. Die Leitfrage lautet dabei: Inwieweit ist die untersuchte ethnische Minderheit in das sie umfassende sozietale System integriert? Die gesuchte Antwort bezieht sich auf Operationalisierungen der Variable der Integration in ihren wirtschaftlichen, politischen und kulturellen Dimensionen. Es wird weiterhin gefragt, inwiefern die Teilhabe der jeweils untersuchten ethnischen Minderheit an der organisierten Arbeit, am Funktionieren der politischen Institutionen und am kulturellen Leben der jeweiligen Gesellschaft gewährleistet ist. Für den Beitrag werden vor allem qualitative Daten aus strukturierten Interviews mit vergleichbaren Gruppen von erfolgreichen Vertretern der jeweils untersuchten ethnischen Minderheit gebraucht. Die Leithypothese der Operationalisierung und der Interpretation lautet, dass die fünf untersuchten Gesellschaften ein relatives Kontinuum auf der Achse Integrationspotentiale-Desintegrationspotentiale angesichts der untersuchten ethnischen Minderheiten darstellen. (ICDÜbers

Competing Sociological Diagnoses of Contemporary Times: Potentials of the RISU Conceptual Framework

The global financial and economic crisis caught social scientists and decision makers by surprise. They did not possess explanatory and predictive conceptual frameworks needed for coping with the crisis. This finding provokes critical analysis of available sociological concepts and constructive argumentation in three steps. First, disparities are identified between influential diagnoses of global processes and the processes themselves. Second, the question arises: How to conceptually reduce the global over-complexity in order to reach a reliable diagnosis of our times? Third, the suggested solution focuses on the substantiation, development and application of mutually connected concepts of four global trends: upgrading the rationality of organizations, individualization, spread of instrumental activism and universalization of value-normative systems (the RISU conceptual framework). The claim is that these trends decisively shape the contemporary social reality and will continue to profoundly shape it in the future. The conclusion reads that the RISU conceptual framework offers analytical tools for making the global, regional and societal over-complexity transparent for descriptions, explanations, forecasting and potentially efficient management of social development. The claim is substantiated by applying the conceptual framework in the analysis of the housing crisis in the United States

Sociology - Bulgaria

Analysis of the pre-1989 situation; Redefinition of the discipline since 1990; Core theoretical and methodological orientations; Thematic orientation and funding; Public space and academic debates; Views on further development

A bioinformatic analysis identifies circadian expression of splicing factors and time-dependent alternative splicing events in the HD-MY-Z cell line

The circadian clock regulates key cellular processes and its dysregulation is associated to several pathologies including cancer. Although the transcriptional regulation of gene expression by the clock machinery is well described, the role of the clock in the regulation of post-transcriptional processes, including splicing, remains poorly understood. In the present work, we investigated the putative interplay between the circadian clock and splicing in a cancer context. For this, we applied a computational pipeline to identify oscillating genes and alternatively spliced transcripts in time-course high-throughput data sets from normal cells and tissues, and cancer cell lines. We investigated the temporal phenotype of clock-controlled genes and splicing factors, and evaluated their impact in alternative splice patterns in the Hodgkin Lymphoma cell line HD-MY-Z. Our data points to a connection between clock-controlled genes and splicing factors, which correlates with temporal alternative splicing in several genes in the HD-MY-Z cell line. These include the genes DPYD, SS18, VIPR1 and IRF4, involved in metabolism, cell cycle, apoptosis and proliferation. Our results highlight a role for the clock as a temporal regulator of alternative splicing, which may impact malignancy in this cellular model

Surface plasmon enhanced fluorescence: self-consistent classical treatment in the quasi-static limit

The problem of enhanced molecular emission in close proximity to dielectric and metallic interfaces is of great importance for many physical and biological applications. Here we present an exact treatment of the problem from the view point of classical electromagnetism. Self-consistent analytical theory of the surface fluorescence enhancement is developed for configurations consisting of an emitter in proximity to core-shell metal-dielectric nanoparticles. The dependence of the fluorescence enhancement on the excitation laser and fluorescence frequencies and distance of the emitter to the nanoparticle interface are studied. The developed theory predicts enhanced fluorescence at intermediate distances as well as emission quenching into non-radiative surface plasmon (SP) modes dominating the response for short distances. The conditions for optimal emission enhancement for two core-shell configurations are determined. The theory can be applied toward analyzes and optimization of various applications related to SP enhance fluorescence spectroscopy

Correction of Arbitrary Errors in Population Inversion of Quantum Systems by Universal Composite Pulses

We introduce universal broadband composite pulse sequences for robust high-fidelity population inversion in two-state quantum systems, which compensate deviations in any experimental parameter (e.g. pulse amplitude, pulse duration, detuning from resonance, Stark shifts, unwanted frequency chirp, etc.) and are applicable with any pulse shape. We demonstrate the efficiency and universality of these composite pulses by experimental data on rephasing of atomic coherences in a $\text{Pr}^{3+}\text{:}\text{Y}_2\text{SiO}_5$ crystal

Computing with rational symmetric functions and applications to invariant theory and PI-algebras

Let the formal power series f in d variables with coefficients in an arbitrary field be a symmetric function decomposed as a series of Schur functions, and let f be a rational function whose denominator is a product of binomials of the form (1 - monomial). We use a classical combinatorial method of Elliott of 1903 further developed in the Partition Analysis of MacMahon in 1916 to compute the generating function of the multiplicities (i.e., the coefficients) of the Schur functions in the expression of f. It is a rational function with denominator of a similar form as f. We apply the method to several problems on symmetric algebras, as well as problems in classical invariant theory, algebras with polynomial identities, and noncommutative invariant theory.Comment: 37 page