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Ultralow-power sensing systems are a trend in handheld devices. The leakage-current-induced power consumption of traditional power pads has not been able to satisfy the specifications of three-axis ultralow-power sensing systems at high temperatures. In this paper, we present a transient detector and delay cell based on resistor and capacitor charge and discharge, two layers of structure stacking based on a metal–oxide–semiconductor, and gate-driven/substrate-driven/gate and substrate-driven methods to guide away the electrostatic current when electrostatic discharge events occur without influencing the three-axis ultralow-power sensing system. Then, we propose a stacking structure based on a metal–oxide–semiconductor to decrease leakage-current-induced power consumption, which is proportional to temperature. Moreover, we analyze whether the gate-driven/substrate-driven/gate method or substrate-driven method is most cost effective as well as the mechanism of substrate noise suppression of the two layers of structure stacking. The power pad based on the gate-driven metal–oxide–semiconductor with three structural stacks, power pad based on the gate-driven metal–oxide–semiconductor with structural stacking, power pad based on the substrate-driven metal–oxide–semiconductor with structural stacking, and the power pad based on both the gate-driven and substrate-driven metal–oxide–semiconductors with structural stacking have an electrostatic discharge standard with both positive and negative modes higher than 8/8, 8/8, 5/- kV, and 5.5/- kV for the human body model and an electrostatic discharge standard with both positive and negative modes higher than 1000/1000, 600/550, 500/- V, 300/- V for the machine model. The leakage-current-induced power consumption of the power pad based on the gate-driven metal–oxide–semiconductor with structure stacking, the power pad based on the substrate-driven metal–oxide–semiconductor with structure stacking, the power pad based on both the gate-driven, and the substrate-driven metal–oxide–semiconductor with structure stacking are approximately 3.5 pW/16.45 nW, 20 pW/- nW, and 2.89 pW/16.89 nW at 25/125 °C when the voltage of the input pin was 1.0 V.

This paper proposes a learning-based video compression framework for variable-rate coding on YUV 4:2:0 content. Most existing learning-based video compression models adopt the traditional hybrid-based coding architecture, which involves temporal prediction followed by residual coding. However, recent studies have shown that residual coding is sub-optimal from the information-theoretic perspective. In addition, most existing models are optimized with respect to RGB content. Furthermore, they require separate models for variable-rate coding. To address these issues, this work presents an attempt to incorporate the conditional inter-frame coding for YUV 4:2:0 content. We introduce a conditional flow-based inter-frame coder to improve the inter-frame coding efficiency. To adapt our codec to YUV 4:2:0 content, we adopt a simple strategy of using space-to-depth and depth-to-space conversions. Lastly, we employ a rate-adaption net to achieve variable-rate coding without training multiple models. Experimental results show that our model performs better than x265 on UVG and MCL-JCV datasets in terms of PSNR-YUV. However, on the more challenging datasets from ISCAS'22 GC, there is still ample room for improvement. This insufficient performance is due to the lack of inter-frame coding capability at a large GOP size and can be mitigated by increasing the model capacity and applying an error propagation-aware training strategy., Accepted by ISCAS 2022

In this study, a multi-function microelectromechanical system (MEMS) was integrated with a MEMS oscillator, using the resonant frequency oscillation characteristics of the oscillator to provide the Lorentz current of the magnetometer to enhance a large dynamic range of reading, which eliminates the off-chip clock and current generator. The resonant frequency can be adjusted by adjusting the bias voltage of the oscillator to further adjust the sensitivity of the magnetometer. With the mechanical Q value characteristic, a great dynamic range can be achieved. In addition, using the readout circuit of the nested chopper and correlated double-sampling (CDS) to reduce the noise and achieve a smaller resolution, the calibration circuit compensates for errors caused by the manufacturing process. The frequency of the tuning range of the proposed structure is 17,720–19,924 Hz, and the tuning range of the measurement result is 110,620.36 ppm. The sensitivities of the x-, y-, and z-axes of the magnetometer with driving current of 2 mA are 218.3, 74.33, and 7.5 μV/μT for ambient pressure of 760 torr. The resolutions of the x-, y-, and z-axes of the magnetometer with driving current of 2 mA are 3.302, 9.69, and 96 nT/√Hz for ambient pressure of 760 torr.

Upregulation of C-terminal tensin-like (CTEN) is induced by the activation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling and mainly contributes to cancer cell migration and invasion. CTEN is known as a downstream target of the EGFR-RAF-MEK-ERK pathway but the regulatory mechanism underlying EGFR signaling regulates the increased expression of CTEN is still incompletely understood. In this study, we investigated the epigenetic regulation of CTEN gene transcription upon EGFR activation. Analyses of chromatin accessibility revealed that the structure of CTEN promoter became more loosed and the acetylation state of the histone tails within the core promoter region was increased after EGF treatment. Moreover, activation of EGFR signaling facilitates histone acetyltransferase p300 to be recruited to CTEN promoter through MEK-ERK pathway. MEK-ERK activation also induces the phosphorylation of p300, thereby enhancing the levels of histone acetylation within CTEN promoter, which in turn upregulates CTEN gene expression. Our work provides new insights into the actions of EGFR signaling to upregulate CTEN, which may lead to the rational design of novel therapeutic approaches.

This study contributes to the understanding of the effect of influential attributes on reduced energy consumption behavior. The European Union aims to replace at least 80% of electricity meters with smart meters by 2020. With smart meters it could provide energy information on real-time consumption. The smart meter is used to explore energy consumer behavior with socio-demographics, pro-environmental behavior, and goal directed behavior. However, at present there are few studies that investigate these influential attributes on energy consumers. Hence, this study is to understand the effect of influential attributes on reduced energy consumption behavior. Energy consumer information was controlled to provide feedback to the participants based on the product design strategy of persuasive technology. The respondents adapted their energy consumption behavior during this analytical approach. The data was collected and analyzed based on statistical methods. The result shows the influential attributes on reduced energy consumption behavior for design references.

We investigate the formation of the ordered bicontinuous structures in a stereoregular diblock copolymer, isotactic polypropylene-block-polystyrene (iPP-b-PS), in which the minority PP block possessed isotactic configuration. This diblock displayed the conventional ordered bicontinuous double gyroid (OBDG) morphology upon heating above the crystal melting point of the iPP block from the as-cast state. The OBDG phase remained stable in the heating process up to the order–disorder transition. In the subsequent cooling process from the nearly disordered state, the OBDG phase first developed, but when the temperature was sufficiently low, an order–order transition from OBDG to the ordered bicontinuous double diamond (OBDD) phase occurred, and OBDD eventually became the dominant structure. The results attested that OBDD and OBDG represented the thermodynamically stable structure at the lower and the higher temperature, respectively, and the OBDG morphology formed in the as-cast state was metastable. The presen...

Films of ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) and EVOH containing poly(oxypropylene)diamine intercalated montmorrilonite were prepared by solution casting. The nanostructures and viscosity were ...

There is growing recognition of the importance of teamwork and integration of resources in the health care industry. This article studied the influence of organizational climate and managerial coaching skills on team perception of team resource management (TRM) and coaching techniques in selected hospitals in Taiwan. Structural survey method was used to measure the relationship between organizational climate, managerial coaching skills, and team perception of TRM. The participants of this research were 530 administrative staff from 12 hospitals in Taiwan. Cross-level relationship between organizational climate (group level), managerial coaching skills (individual level), and team perception of TRM (individual level) was examined. The results revealed that organizational climate had a significant influence on team perception of TRM. Second, recognition of managerial coaching skills shaped team perception during TRM implementation. Third, organizational climate had a moderating effect on the relationship between managerial coaching skills and team perception of TRM. The study concluded that positive organizational climate and good managerial coaching skills contribute to effective team management and development. Thus, it is important for health care organizations to understand the importance of coaching and mentoring and create a workplace that makes learning, growth, and adaptation possible across different departments and functional teams.

With nine-axis sensing systems in 5G smartphones, mobile power consumption has become increasingly important, and ultra-low-power (ULP) sensor circuits can decrease power consumption to tens of microwatts. This paper presents an innovative successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter, which comprises fine (three most significant bits (MSBs) plus course conversion (11 least significant bits (LSBs)) capacitive digital-to-analog converters (CDACs), ULP, four-mode reconfigurable resolution (9, 10, 11, or 12 bits), an internally generated clock, meta-detection, the switching base midpoint voltage (Vm) (SW-B-M), bit control logic, multi-phase control logic, fine (three MSBs) plus course conversion (11 LSBs) switch control logic, phase control logic, and an input signal plus negative voltage (VI + NEG) voltage generator. Then, the mechanism of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-based calibration is applied. The scalable voltage technique was used, and the analog/digital voltage was Vanalog (1.5 V) and Vdigital (0.9 V) to meet the specifications of the nine-axis ULP sensing system. The CDACs can reconfigure four-mode resolutions, 9&ndash, 12 bits, for use in nine-axis sensor applications. The corresponding dynamic signal-to-noise and distortion ratio performance was 50.78, 58.53, 62.42, and 66.51 dB. In the 12-bit mode, the power consumption of the ADC was approximately 2.7 &mu, W, and the corresponding figure of merit (FoM) was approximately 30.5 fJ for each conversion step.

Laser ablation of polymethylmethacrylate by two-color synthesized waveforms show a dependence on the relative phase between the ω and 2ω beams, a manifestation of photoionization in the intermediate regime (Keldysh parameter γ ≈ 1.5).

This article presents an experimental and theoretical study of the generation of picosecond bursts by a non-polarization-maintaining ytterbium-doped fiber master oscillator fiber amplifier system. The peak power and pulse energy of the burst are higher than 45 kW and 350 nJ at 700 kHz, respectively. The master oscillator fiber amplifier was used to generate 3 W of green and 200 mW of UV light with conversion efficiencies of 16% and 8%, respectively. The enhancement of conversion efficiency by the pulse burst compared with regular pulses was analyzed and attributed to dynamically saturated gain of the pump-power-limited fiber amplifier.

We describe generation and amplification of mediumand high-energy noise-like pulses (NLPs) using Yb-doped optical fibers. We also demonstrate supercontinuum (SC) genera‐ tion techniques in which NLPs serve as the pump. SC pumped by NLPs has been em‐ ployed successfully in optical coherence tomography systems.

We report the performance of a picosecond master-oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) system based on a diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) seed laser and Yb-doped fiber amplifier. An average power of 28 W at ∼200 MHz repetition rate is achieved by using only one amplification stage. We found that positive nonlinear phase shift induced by nonlinear effect in the active fiber can be effectively compensated by a grating pair. A pulse duration of ∼1.6 ps is shown after recompression.

Passively mode-locked diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) Nd:GdVO4 laser by using a saturable output coupler (SOC) in stable two-mirror linear cavity design is demonstrated. The laser was pumped by low-power single laser diode without any active cooling and external optics. Robust CW mode-locked operation was obtained with a repetition of 150–250 MHz, the pulsewidth was 12 ps, the lowest threshold for CW mode-locked was 185 mW. The optimal condition is found when the laser provides the set of characteristics: low CW mode-locking threshold (∼260 mW), compact size (total cavity length 60 cm), good efficiency (∼20%), and very stable output. At the output power of 270 mW an average power fluctuations within ±2% for long-term operation was obtained.

li i-c., chen y-c., hsu l-l., lin c-h. & chrisman n.j. (2012) The effects of an educational training workshop for community leaders on self-efficacy of program planning skills and partnerships. Journal of Advanced Nursing68(3), 600–613. Abstract Aim. This aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a 6-month educational workshop for community leaders designed to improve their confidence in health promotion programmes and to develop partnerships among the participants. Background. It is important for public health nurses to work with community leaders to provide community-orientated services. However, only a few existing studies have reported the content and effects of training programmes aimed at enhancing the capabilities of community leaders. Methods. A participatory action research design with pre- and post-test methods was applied in this study. Fifteen community leaders completed a 6-month educational workshop that was held in Tamsui, Taipei and Taiwan. It was designed to enable community leaders to improve their confidence in planning health programmes and developing group partnerships. Data were collected from April 2009 to October 2009, and descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon signed-rank test analyses were carried out. Results. Participants demonstrated improvements in their self-efficacies of planning health programmes by completing a structured questionnaire after attending a 6-month educational workshop (Z = −2·90, P = 0·004). Their confidence in data collection, needs assessment and diagnosis, programme planning, and programme evaluation were significantly improved (Z = −3·1, P = 0·002; Z = −2·42, P = 0·016, Z = −2·84, P = 0·004, and Z = −2·68, P = 0·007, respectively). Conclusions. Providing training workshops for community leaders is a useful strategy for increasing their capabilities and confidence in planning health programmes. Nurses have a responsibility to advocate and provide training programmes for community leaders.

We observed clear modulation in ablated area and threshold as a function of relative phase between the ω and 2ω beams and the increase of incubation coefficient up to 0.83 compared to single color case.

We investigate femtosecond pulse transmission through BK7 in the presence of its second harmonic as a seeding pulse. Enhanced absorption is observed when the pulses are co-polarized. Such phenomenon can be used to control absorption.

In this chapter, we first considered practical aspects in design and construction of relatively high-average-power picosecond Yb-doped fiber laser systems. Employing a highly stable diode-pumped solid-state laser as the seed source together with proper design of the fiber amplifiers, we were able to achieve an average output power of ~60 W with 73 W pumping using just 2 amplifier stages based on regular non-PM Yb-doped fiber. Applying modulation technique to generate pulse bursts at 700 kHz allowed us to optimize dynamically saturated amplifier and extract higher energies from the MOFA. This was used to improve the nonlinear conversion efficiency in the cases of second (16 % vs. 4 %) and fourth (8 % vs. 2 %) harmonic generation compared to regular pulse trains at ~250 MHz. We will also describe mode-locking techniques of fiber-based oscillators based on ring type cavities with NPE port. Our simulation results based on coupled nonlinear Schrodinger equations showed the possibility to generate either regular mode-locked pulse trains or noise-like pulses in such oscillators. Novel scheme of supercontinuum generation by noise-like pulses in normally dispersive single-mode fibers was demonstrated. The SC exhibits low threshold (43 nJ) and flat spectrum over the wavelength range of 1,050–1,250 nm.

We demonstrated femtosecond laser ablation of PMMA using 2-color waveform synthesis. A modest and yet clear modulation in ablated area versus relative phase between the ω and 2 ω beams is observed.

A mode-locked cladding-pumped Yb-doped fiber laser using a saturable Bragg reflector and a chirped fiber Bragg grating at 1064 nm wavelength can generate 170 mW of average power and 34 nJ of pulse energy.

The development of crazes in thin films of glassy polymers is a result of a micronecking process. Hence, when sandwiched between ductile poly(phenylene oxide) (PPO) films, a brittle glassy polystyrene (PS) film can be plastically deformed to very large strains without crazing or cracking. However, the stability of this superplastic behavior is strongly dependent upon thickness of the outer ductile films. A sharp ductile−brittle transition in the sandwich thin film structure was observed as the PPO thickness decreased. A simple mechanical model built upon the competition between the necking force, associated with crazing, and the constraining force, due to the ductile films, was utilized to analyze the stability of this superplasticity. The result of the mechanical analysis is in good agreement with the experimental data. The mechanical calculation indicates that the constraining force from the outer layers should be at least 60 MPa greater than the necking force to ensure the superplasticity. The defect s...

We report generation of broadband supercontinuum (SC) by noise-like pulses (NLPs) with a central wavelength of 1070 nm propagating through a long piece of standard single-mode fibers (~100 meters) in normal dispersion region far from the zero-dispersion point. Theoretical simulations indicate that the physical mechanism of SC generation is due to nonlinear effects in fibers. The cascaded Raman scattering is responsible for significant spectral broadening in the longer wavelength regions whereas the Kerr effect results in smoothing of SC generated spectrum. The SC exhibits low threshold (43 nJ) and a flat spectrum over 1050-1250 nm.