Search Results (10)

Thermal management is an area of study in electronics focused on managing temperature to improve reliability and efficiency. When temperatures are too high, cooling systems are activated to prevent overheating, which can lead to reliability issues. To monitor the temperatures, sensors are often placed on-chip near hotspot locations. These sensors should be very small to allow them to be placed among compact, high-activity circuits. Often, they are connected to a central control circuit located far away from the hot spot locations where more area is available. This paper proposes sensing units for a novel temperature sensing architecture in the TSMC 180 nm process. This architecture functions by approximating the current through the sensing unit at a reference voltage, which is used to approximate the temperature in the digital back end using fitting functions. Sensing units are selected based on how well its temperature–current relationship can be modeled, sensing unit area, and power consumption. Many sensing units will be experimented with at different reference voltages. These temperature–current curves will be modeled with various fitting functions. The sensing unit selected is a diode-connected p-type MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) with a size of W = 400 nm, L = 180 nm. This sensing unit is exceptionally small compared to existing work because it does not rely on multiple devices at the sensing unit location to generate a PTAT or IPTAT signal like most work in this area. The temperature–current relationship of this device can also be modeled using a 2nd order polynomial, requiring a minimal number of trim temperatures. Its temperature error is small, and the power consumption is low. The range of currents for this sensing unit could be reasonably made on an IDAC. Full article

Tripartite motif (TRIM) proteins comprise an important class of E3 ubiquitin ligases that regulate numerous biological processes including protein expression, cellular signaling pathways, and innate immunity. This ubiquitous participation in fundamental aspects of biology has made TRIM proteins a focus of study in many fields and has illuminated the negative impact they exert when functioning improperly. Disruption of TRIM function has been linked to the success of various pathogens and separately to the occurrence and development of several neurodegenerative diseases, making TRIM proteins an appealing candidate to study for novel therapeutic approaches. Here, we review the current findings on TRIM proteins that demonstrate their analogous properties in the distinct fields of viral infection and central nervous system (CNS) disorders. We also examine recent advancements in drug development and targeted protein degradation as potential strategies for TRIM-mediated therapeutic treatments and discuss the implications these technologies have on future research directions. Full article

A novel regression method is introduced and studied. The procedure weights squared residuals based on their magnitude. Unlike the classic least squares which treats every squared residual as equally important, the new procedure exponentially down-weights squared residuals that lie far away from the cloud of all residuals and assigns a constant weight (one) to squared residuals that lie close to the center of the squared-residual cloud. The new procedure can keep a good balance between robustness and efficiency; it possesses the highest breakdown point robustness for any regression equivariant procedure, being much more robust than the classic least squares, yet much more efficient than the benchmark robust method, the least trimmed squares (LTS) of Rousseeuw. With a smooth weight function, the new procedure could be computed very fast by the first-order (first-derivative) method and the second-order (second-derivative) method. Assertions and other theoretical findings are verified in simulated and real data examples. Full article

A novel design method of simultaneous beam forming and focusing using a checkerboard anisotropic surface is proposed and verified in this paper. The proposed multibeam control regardless of far and near regions can easily be achieved through a rearrangement of the checkerboard structure. The unit cell of the utilized anisotropic surface consists of two identical metallic structures divided by a dielectric material. When the EM wave with a circular polarization (CP) is incident on the unit cell, the maximum transmission phase variation of the unit cell is 360 degrees by half rotation of the unit cell. A microstrip patch antenna with trimmed corners is used to launch the CP wave and the distance between the microstrip patch antenna and anisotropic surface is about 2 wavelengths considering the optimized spillover and taper efficiencies. After designing each anisotropic surface for beam forming and focusing, the unit cells of the surface are rearranged in the form of a checkerboard. The feasibility of the proposed method is confirmed by full-wave simulation and measurement for anisotropic surface with a beam forming angle of 30 degrees and beam focusing point 60 mm away from center at 5.8 GHz. The forming angle and focal length are simulated and measured to be 28 degrees and about 65 mm, respectively. Full article

Water is getting scarce and irrigation practices should become more efficient. Mango orchards require great quantities of water, and policies in developing countries are substituting surface gravity irrigation by pressurized systems. A commercial orchard having mature 25-year-old trees and a 10-year-old HD high-density section were irrigated with micro sprinklers using 100% ETc (crop evapotranspiration) and reduced deficit irrigation treatments of 75% and 50% ETc. Water soil measurements were made with EC-5 probes at 10 and 35 cm in depth to study the effect of the different irrigation treatments. After the 2020 harvest, mature trees were trimmed without achieving pruning severity greater than 1.3. Canopy volume, mango size, fruit yield and water-use efficiency WUE were analyzed during 2020 and 2021. Sporadic storms produced sprinkler watering problems as weeds proliferated within trees. A controller with a fuzzy algorithm optimized orchard management and saved water in trees without decreasing yield and fruit size. It was found that one year after mature trees were trimmed by taking away the larger internal branch, more light penetrated the canopy, increasing yield by 60%; pruning in HD trees presented a yield increase of 5.37%. WUE (water-use efficiency) also increased with pruning and its value increased to 87.6 when the fuzzy controller and the 50% DI treatments were used in mature trees. This value was 260% greater than the one obtained in pruned trees without the controller. HD trees presented a lower WUE and yield per hectare than mature trees. Full article

The nuclear reactor accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, resulted in effects both locally and farther away. Most of the contaminated areas were the agricultural fields and forests. Experimental fields were established near Chernobyl—radioactively contaminated fields localized 5 km from Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant as well as the remediated soil that is localized directly in the Chernobyl town. Two flax varieties growing under chronic exposition to ionizing radiation were used for this study—the local Ukrainian variety Kyivskyi and a commercial variety Bethune. The screening of the length polymorphism generated by transposable elements insertions were performed. All known types of common flax transposon, retrotransposons and iPBS approach were used. In the iPBS multiplex analyze, for the Kyivskyi variety, a unique addition was found in the seeds from the radioactive contaminated field and for the Bethune variety, a total of five amplicon additions were obtained and one deletion. For the TRIM Cassandra fingerprints, two amplicon additions were generated in the seeds from radioactive contaminated fields for the Bethune variety. In summary, the obtained data represent the genetic diversity between control and irradiated subgroups of flax seeds from Chernobyl area and the presence of activated transposable elements due to the irradiation stress. Full article

The current gold standard for extracting highlight clips from soccer games is the use of manual annotations and clippings, where human operators define the start and end of an event and trim away the unwanted scenes. This is a tedious, time-consuming, and expensive task, to the extent of being rendered infeasible for use in lower league games. In this paper, we aim to automate the process of highlight generation using logo transition detection, scene boundary detection, and optional scene removal. We experiment with various approaches, using different neural network architectures on different datasets, and present two models that automatically find the appropriate time interval for extracting goal events. These models are evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively, and the results show that we can detect logo and scene transitions with high accuracy and generate highlight clips that are highly acceptable for viewers. We conclude that there is considerable potential in automating the overall soccer video clipping process. Full article

Most recently, a technology termed TRIM-Away has allowed acute and rapid destruction of endogenous target proteins in cultured cells using specific antibodies and endogenous/exogenous tripartite motif 21 (TRIM21). However, the relatively large size of the full-size mAbs (150 kDa) results in correspondingly low tissue penetration and inaccessibility of some sterically hindered epitopes, which limits the target protein degradation. In addition, exogenous introduction of TRIM21 may cause side effects for treated cells. To tackle these limitations, we sought to replace full-size mAbs with the smaller format of antibodies, a nanobody (VHH, 15 kDa), and construct a new type of fusion protein named TRIMbody by fusing the nanobody and RBCC motif of TRIM21. Next, we introduced enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) as a model substrate and generated αEGFP TRIMbody using a bispecific anti-EGFP (αEGFP) nanobody. Remarkably, inducible expression of αEGFP TRIMbody could specifically degrade intracellular EGFP in HEK293T cells in a time-dependent manner. By treating cells with inhibitors, we found that intracellular EGFP degradation by αEGFP TRIMbody relies on both ubiquitin–proteasome and autophagy–lysosome pathways. Taken together, these results suggested that TRIMbody-Away technology could be utilized to specifically degrade intracellular protein and could expand the potential applications of degrader technologies. Full article

The amount and distribution of subcutaneous fat is an important factor affecting beef carcass quality. The degree of fatness is determined by visual assessments scored on a scale of five fatness levels (the SEUROP system). New technologies such as the image analysis method have been developed and applied in an effort to enhance the accuracy and objectivity of this classification system. In this study, 50 young bulls were slaughtered (570 ± 52.5 kg) and after slaughter the carcasses were weighed (360 ± 33.1 kg) and a SEUROP system fatness score assigned. A digital picture of the outer surface of the left side of the carcass was taken and the area of fat cover (fat area) was measured using an image analysis system. Commercial cutting of the carcasses was performed 24 h post-mortem. The fat trimmed away on cutting (cutting fat) was weighed. A regression analysis was carried out for the carcass cutting fat (y-axis) on the carcass fat area (x-axis) to establish the accuracy of the image analysis system. A greater accuracy was obtained by the image analysis (R² = 0.72; p < 0.001) than from the visual fatness scores (R² = 0.66; p < 0.001). These results show the image analysis to be more accurate than the visual assessment system for predicting beef carcass fatness. Full article

Corporations and their supply chains have to go through significant changes to become more sustainable as society is pressing for sustainable systems. To this end, it is critical to develop new methodologies to trim away processes and activities that add no value and, thus, derive more sustainable supply chains. Considering the need to have a simple tool that can be used by managers to achieve this goal, in this work, we explore the value stream mapping method (VSM) and extend it to support the design of sustainable supply chains in a more systematic and quantitative way. This work proposes a new generic methodology, called SustainSC-VSM, which allows assessing the supply chain’s performance through a set of realistic indicators. These indicators are designed to identify bottlenecks that hinder sustainable operations development and provide guidelines to achieve that goal by following a lean-driven sustainability approach. SustainSC-VSM was tested and validated through its application to a relevant industrial case study, where operational bottlenecks were pinpointed and potential solutions were identified to seek continuous improvement. Although envisioned to be generic and applicable to all supply chains, the indicators should be selected according to the context in study (e.g., services). SustainSC-VSM aims at being a generic and systematic tool to design future value stream maps to achieve a more sustainable supply chain following a lean-driven sustainability approach, through the use of multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary indicators to identify and solve the supply chain’s bottlenecks. Full article