A Feed Forward Circuit for Jitter Attenuation on High-Speed Digital Signals

In the age of high-speed digital circuitry, there exists a need for clean, precise clock signals. In generating and distributing clock signals throughout a circuit, unwanted jitter can become a serious issue. A common technique for attenuating jitter uses phase-locked-loops to treat the signal, but as the clock frequency increases, so does the cost and complexity of the designs. Following the research completed by Dr. Tina Smilkstein [1], this project examines a purely feed-forward technique for attenuating jitter that is low-complexity and robust, and aims to design an integrated circuit that implements the technique

Arts Integration into Elementary Science: Force and Motion and Natural Disasters

This study explored the effect of arts integration into science during an instructional unit on force and motion and one addressing natural weather disasters. Seventy-eight elementary students in four classrooms (grade 5, grade 4, and two at grade 3) participated in the study. This study assessed content retention, student-made products (rollercoasters and hurricane shelters), and student attitudes. All students in each classroom experienced the two units of instruction, one unit in the experimental condition of arts integration and one unit in the control condition without arts integration. Both conditions involved students in constructing models of given materials. Each unit consisted of three weeks of instruction with the last week being a final project scored for science content and creativity. This final rollercoaster model or hurricane shelter model supported engineering standard 3-5-ETS1-2. Grade 4 and grade 5 classes showed significant posttest gains and distal posttest gains regarding content scores in favor of the experimental condition with a large effect size. The mean overall product scores favored the experimental condition with a very large effect size. The results indicated that arts integration produced greater creativity, collaboration, and more positive overall perceptions of learning

Parsing the Mechanisms Underlying Ingroup Facial Resemblance

People prefer to form relationships with people like themselves—a tendency that extends even to facial appearance, resulting in groups whose members look alike. Here, we investigated the mechanisms underlying homophilic resemblance using facial photos of fraternity/sorority members from two time points: before joining the group and after belonging to the group for three years. Analyses of both subjective trait impressions and objective face-shape measurements revealed that not only did group members look alike, they resembled one another even before joining the group. Moreover, photos of potential fraternity recruits revealed that facial appearance predicted both the group that individuals sought to join and the group’s likelihood of accepting them. Individuals, therefore, seek to join groups consisting of people who look like them, and the groups preferentially accept new members who resemble those already in the group. This bidirectional preference for homophily likely perpetuates intragroup homogeneity, suggesting potential implications beyond appearance

Durable response with single-agent acalabrutinib in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma

Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors have greatly improved the spectrum of treatment options in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) [1–4]. Acalabrutinib is a highly selective, orally administered, and potent BTK inhibitor with limited off-target activity [5]. Acalabrutinib was approved in 2017 by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of relapsed/refractory MCL based on clinical data from the open-label, multicenter, phase 2 ACE-LY-004 study of acalabrutinib 100 mg twice daily [1]. Here, we present updated results from the ACE-LY-004 study after a median 26-month follow-up. Eligibility criteria and study design were published previously (Supplementary methods) [1]. Analysis of minimal residual disease (MRD) was conducted after complete response (CR) or partial response (PR) was achieved using the quantitative ClonoSEQ next-generation sequencing (5 × 10−6 ) assay (Adpative Biotechnologies, Seattle, WA, USA) in consenting patients with available paired archival tumor and whole blood samples. Data are updated as of February 12, 2018

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

To which world regions does the valence–dominance model of social perception apply?

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov’s valence–dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions. We addressed this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov’s methodology across 11 world regions, 41 countries and 11,570 participants. When we used Oosterhof and Todorov’s original analysis strategy, the valence–dominance model generalized across regions. When we used an alternative methodology to allow for correlated dimensions, we observed much less generalization. Collectively, these results suggest that, while the valence–dominance model generalizes very well across regions when dimensions are forced to be orthogonal, regional differences are revealed when we use different extraction methods and correlate and rotate the dimension reduction solution

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world

Gain and phase equalisation of power amplifiers

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Altered Calcium and Vitamin D Homeostasis in First-Time Calcium Kidney Stone-Formers.

Elevated serum 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D) concentrations have been reported among cohorts of recurrent calcium (Ca) kidney stone-formers and implicated in the pathogenesis of hypercalciuria. Variations in Ca and vitamin D metabolism, and excretion of urinary solutes among first-time male and female Ca stone-formers in the community, however, have not been defined.In a 4-year community-based study we measured serum Ca, phosphorus (P), 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), 1,25(OH)2D, 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (24,25(OH)2D), parathyroid hormone (PTH), and fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF-23) concentrations in first-time Ca stone-formers and age- and gender frequency-matched controls.Serum Ca and 1,25(OH)2D were increased in Ca stone-formers compared to controls (P = 0.01 and P = 0.001). Stone-formers had a lower serum 24,25(OH)2D/25(OH)D ratio compared to controls (P = 0.008). Serum PTH and FGF-23 concentrations were similar in the groups. Urine Ca excretion was similar in the two groups (P = 0.82). In controls, positive associations between serum 25(OH)D and 24,25(OH)2D, FGF-23 and fractional phosphate excretion, and negative associations between serum Ca and PTH, and FGF-23 and 1,25(OH)2D were observed. In SF associations between FGF-23 and fractional phosphate excretion, and FGF-23 and 1,25(OH)2D, were not observed. 1,25(OH)2D concentrations associated more weakly with FGF-23 in SF compared with C (P <0.05).Quantitative differences in serum Ca and 1,25(OH)2D and reductions in 24-hydroxylation of vitamin D metabolites are present in first-time SF and might contribute to first-time stone risk