INTERCONNECT STRUCTURE TO IMPROVE CHIP SIGNAL INTEGRITY AND MECHANICAL RELIABILITY

Techniques are presented herein that support a novel chip interconnect structure, encompassing convex- and concave-shaped copper joint pillars, for connecting a chip (that follows the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) next generation (NG) common electrical input/output (CEI)-224 gigabit per second (G) framework) to a printed circuit board (PCB). Aspects of the presented techniques provide excellent signal integrity (SI) performance (including return loss, insertion loss, and impedance discontinuity) in support of, for example, a 102.4 terabit (T) per second switch comprising, among other things, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) having 512 lanes of 224G Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) capacity. Under further aspects of the techniques, mechanical performance and long-term reliability are significantly improved

Image Super-Resolution using Efficient Striped Window Transformer

Transformers have achieved remarkable results in single-image super-resolution (SR). However, the challenge of balancing model performance and complexity has hindered their application in lightweight SR (LSR). To tackle this challenge, we propose an efficient striped window transformer (ESWT). We revisit the normalization layer in the transformer and design a concise and efficient transformer structure to build the ESWT. Furthermore, we introduce a striped window mechanism to model long-term dependencies more efficiently. To fully exploit the potential of the ESWT, we propose a novel flexible window training strategy that can improve the performance of the ESWT without additional cost. Extensive experiments show that ESWT outperforms state-of-the-art LSR transformers, and achieves a better trade-off between model performance and complexity. The ESWT requires fewer parameters, incurs faster inference, smaller FLOPs, and less memory consumption, making it a promising solution for LSR.Comment: SOTA lightweight super-resolution transformer. 8 pages, 9 figures and 6 tables. The Code is available at https://github.com/Fried-Rice-Lab/FriedRiceLa

Higher Carbohydrate Antigen 125 Levels Are Associated with Increased Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Elderly Chinese: A Population-Based Case-Control Study

Background: High carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA-125) level was reported to be associated with some cardiac dysfunctions, such as chronic heart failure, but the relationship between CA-125 level and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk remains unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the potential association in a Chinese older population. Methods: In a population-based case-control study conducted in a Chinese older population, serum CA-125 levels were measured in 1177 diagnosed CHD patients and 3531 age and sex matched control subjects without CHD. Results: Serum CA-125 level was significantly higher in CHD patients than controls (P < 0.001) with adjustment for age, gender, smoking, drinking, BMI, physical activity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, medication history and family history of CHD and myocardial infarction. CHD risk was doubled (OR: 2.10, 95%CI: 1.69-2.60) among subjects in the highest quartile compared to those in the lowest quartile of CA-125 level (Ptrend < 0.001). Furthermore, CA-125 levels were associated with CHD risks in subjects with age over 60 years (OR: 2.19, 95%CI: 1.75-2.73), current smokers (OR: 2.29, 95%CI: 1.50-3.49), current drinkers (OR: 2.35, 95%CI: 1.57-3.53) and subjects with hypertension (OR: 2.04, 95%CI: 1.71-2.43). Conclusions: Elevated serum CA-125 level might be associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease in the Chinese older population. Further investigations are needed to identify the possible biological role of CA-125 in CHD development in the future

Cloning and Characterization of TaTGW-7A Gene Associated with Grain Weight in Wheat via SLAF-seq-BSA

Thousand-grain weight (TGW) of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) contributes significantly to grain yield. In the present study, a candidate gene associated with TGW was identified through specific-locus amplified fragment sequencing (SLAF-seq) of DNA bulks of recombinant inbred lines (RIL) derived from the cross between Jing 411 and Hongmangchun 21. The gene was located on chromosome 7A, designated as TaTGW-7A with a complete genome sequence and an open reading frame (ORF). A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) was present in the first exon between two alleles at TaTGW-7A locus, resulting in a Val to Ala substitution, corresponding to a change from higher to lower TGW. Cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (CAPS) (TGW7A) and InDel (TG9) markers were developed to discriminate the two alleles TaTGW-7Aa and TaTGW-7Ab for higher and lower TGW, respectively. A major QTL co-segregating with TaTGW-7A explained 21.7–27.1% of phenotypic variance for TGW in the RIL population across five environments. The association of TaTGW-7A with TGW was further validated in a natural population and Chinese mini-core collections. Quantitative real-time PCR revealed higher transcript levels of TaTGW-7Aa than those of TaTGW-7Ab during grain development. High frequencies of the superior allele TaTGW-7Aa for higher TGW in Chinese mini-core collections (65.0%) and 501 wheat varieties (86.0%) indicated a strong and positive selection of this allele in wheat breeding. The molecular markers TGW7A and TG9 can be used for improvement of TGW in breeding programs

Study on the general dynamic model of biomass drying processes

[EN] Nowadays most studies of drying processes dynamics are established on empirical models without clear physical meanings, which could not predict the drying characteristic on different dryers. In order to describe the change of temperature and water content in the cut tobacco in different dryers, a mathematical model based on heat and mass transfer phenomena was developed, and the model employed the relationship of equilibrium moisture content and air humidity as basis, the difference of moisture between biomass and wet air as mass transfer driver, and the difference of temperature between biomass and wet air as heat transfer driver. The drying experiments under different air temperature and humidity are carried out on the batch rotary dryer, and the variance of temperature and moisture content in the biomass is obtained by using infrared thermometer and oven. The model is validated by two parameters with experiment data under each condition of air temperature and humidity. The results show that the drying dynamic model is well on accuracy and universality, and it could be applied on different drying device to predict the characteristic of kinds of drying processes.Wang, L.; Li, X.; Li, Q.; Lu, D.; Li, B.; Zhu, W.; Zhang, M.... (2018). Study on the general dynamic model of biomass drying processes. En IDS 2018. 21st International Drying Symposium Proceedings. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1671-1678. https://doi.org/10.4995/IDS2018.2018.7641OCS1671167

Research Note: Association of single nucleotide polymorphism of AKT3 with egg production traits in White Muscovy ducks (Cairina moschata).

Prior studies on transcriptomes of hypothalamus and ovary revealed that AKT3 is one of the candidate genes that might affect egg production in White Muscovy ducks. The role of AKT3 in the uterus during reproductive processes cannot be overemphasized. However, functional role of this gene in the tissues and on egg production traits of Muscovy ducks remains unknown. To identify the relationship between AKT3 and egg production traits in ducks, relative expression profile was first examined prior to identifying the variants within AKT3 that may underscore egg production traits [age at first egg (AFE), number of eggs at 300 d (N300D), and number of eggs at 59 wk (N59W)] in 549 ducks. The mRNA expression of AKT3 gene in high producing (HP) ducks was significantly higher than low producing (LP) ducks in the ovary, oviduct, and hypothalamus (P \u3c 0.05 or 0.001). Three variants in AKT3 (C-3631A, C-3766T, and C-3953T) and high linkage block between C-3766T and C-3953T which are significantly (P \u3c 0.05) associated with N300D and N59W were discovered. This study elucidates novel knowledge on the molecular mechanism of AKT3 that might be regulating egg production traits in Muscovy ducks