MIDAS: Automated Approach to Design Microwave Integrated Inductors and Transformers on Silicon

The design of modern radiofrequency integrated circuits on silicon operating at microwave and millimeter-waves requires the integration of several spiral inductors and transformers that are not commonly available in the process design-kits of the technologies. In this work we present an auxiliary CAD tool for Microwave Inductor (and transformer) Design Automation on Silicon (MIDAS) that exploits commercial simulators and allows the implementation of an automatic design flow, including three-dimensional layout editing and electromagnetic simulations. In detail, MIDAS allows the designer to derive a preliminary sizing of the inductor (transformer) on the bases of the design entries (specifications). It draws the inductor (transformer) layers for the specific process design kit, including vias and underpasses, with or without patterned ground shield, and launches the electromagnetic simulations, achieving effective design automation with respect to the traditional design flow for RFICs. With the present software suite the complete design time is reduced significantly (typically 1 hour on a PC based on Intel® Pentium® Dual 1.80GHz CPU with 2-GB RAM). Afterwards both the device equivalent circuit and the layout are ready to be imported in the Cadence environment

Effects of Alzheimer’s Disease on Visual Target Detection: A “Peripheral Bias”

Visual exploration is an omnipresent activity in everyday life, and might represent an important determinant of visual attention deficits in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). The present study aimed at investigating visual search performance in AD patients, in particular target detection in the far periphery, in daily living scenes. Eighteen AD patients and 20 healthy controls participated in the study. They were asked to freely explore a hemispherical screen, covering ±90°, and to respond to targets presented at 10°, 30°, and 50° eccentricity, while their eye movements were recorded. Compared to healthy controls, AD patients recognized less targets appearing in the center. No difference was found in target detection in the periphery. This pattern was confirmed by the fixation distribution analysis. These results show a neglect for the central part of the visual field for AD patients and provide new insights by mean of a search task involving a larger field of view

Street crossing behavior in younger and older pedestrians: an eye- and head-tracking study

Background Crossing a street can be a very difficult task for older pedestrians. With increased age and potential cognitive decline, older people take the decision to cross a street primarily based on vehicles’ distance, and not on their speed. Furthermore, older pedestrians tend to overestimate their own walking speed, and could not adapt it according to the traffic conditions. Pedestrians’ behavior is often tested using virtual reality. Virtual reality presents the advantage of being safe, cost-effective, and allows using standardized test conditions. Methods This paper describes an observational study with older and younger adults. Street crossing behavior was investigated in 18 healthy, younger and 18 older subjects by using a virtual reality setting. The aim of the study was to measure behavioral data (such as eye and head movements) and to assess how the two age groups differ in terms of number of safe street crossings, virtual crashes, and missed street crossing opportunities. Street crossing behavior, eye and head movements, in older and younger subjects, were compared with non-parametric tests. Results The results showed that younger pedestrians behaved in a more secure manner while crossing a street, as compared to older people. The eye and head movements analysis revealed that older people looked more at the ground and less at the other side of the street to cross. Conclusions The less secure behavior in street crossing found in older pedestrians could be explained by their reduced cognitive and visual abilities, which, in turn, resulted in difficulties in the decision-making process, especially under time pressure. Decisions to cross a street are based on the distance of the oncoming cars, rather than their speed, for both groups. Older pedestrians look more at their feet, probably because of their need of more time to plan precise stepping movement and, in turn, pay less attention to the traffic. This might help to set up guidelines for improving senior pedestrians’ safety, in terms of speed limits, road design, and mixed physical-cognitive trainings

SYRPHIDAE (DIPTERA) FROM LAMPEDUSA ISLAND

Diptera of Lampedusa are poorly known, and the only published data are those of VENTURI (1960) and PISCIOTTA et al. (2008). In the present paper the authors report new records of Syrphidae (Diptera) for Lampedusa island discovered during field investigations carried out for a broader research project in the island. Data are updated to November 2009. Eleven species of Syrphidae new for Lampedusa have been found of which one is new for the Sicilian fauna

Imaging to study solid tumour origin and progression: lessons from research and clinical oncology

Biomedical imaging in recent decades has clarified our understanding of normal and pathological cellular processes in vivo. In particular, this approach recently provided insights into processes occurring at a molecular or genetic level rather than at the anatomical level. The evolution of this discipline by engineering have led to its integration into biomedical research to (1) increase sensitivity and resolution imaging and to (2) improve tissue and cell specificity. Currently, imaging approaches are used in three different biomedical areas: (a) identification of cellular processes in physiological and disease state; (b) in vivo single-cell imaging; and (c) identification of new prognostic and therapeutical strategies. In this review, we will focus on the state of art of biomedical imaging in cancer. Specifically, we will highlight the most important advances in imaging tools available for basic and translational cancer research, with a particular emphasis on solid tissue malignancies.Immunology and Cell Biology advance online publication, 4 April 2017; doi:10.1038/icb.2017.17

BAFF Index and CXCL13 levels in the cerebrospinal fluid associate respectively with intrathecal IgG synthesis and cortical atrophy in multiple sclerosis at clinical onset

Abstract Background B lymphocytes are thought to play a relevant role in multiple sclerosis (MS) pathology. The in vivo analysis of intrathecally produced B cell-related cytokines may help to clarify the mechanisms of B cell recruitment and immunoglobulin production within the central nervous system (CNS) in MS. Methods Paired cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum specimens from 40 clinically isolated syndrome suggestive of MS or early-onset relapsing-remitting MS patients (CIS/eRRMS) and 17 healthy controls (HC) were analyzed for the intrathecal synthesis of IgG (quantitative formulae and IgG oligoclonal bands, IgGOB), CXCL13, BAFF, and IL-21. 3D-FLAIR, 3D-DIR, and 3D-T1 MRI sequences were applied to evaluate white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM) lesions and global cortical thickness (gCTh). Results Compared to HC, CIS/eRRMS having IgGOB (IgGOB+, 26 patients) had higher intrathecal IgG indexes ( p \u2009<\u20090.01), lower values of BAFF Index (11.9\u2009\ub1\u20096.1 vs 17.5\u2009\ub1\u20095.2, p \u2009<\u20090.01), and higher CSF CXCL13 levels (27.7\u2009\ub1\u200933.5 vs 0.9\u2009\ub1\u20091.5, p \u2009<\u20090.005). In these patients, BAFF Index but not CSF CXCL13 levels inversely correlated with the intrathecal IgG synthesis ( r \u2009>\u20090.5 and p \u2009<\u20090.05 for all correlations). CSF leukocyte counts were significantly higher in IgGOB+ compared to IgGOB\u2212 ( p \u2009<\u20090.05) and HC ( p \u2009<\u20090.01), and correlated to CSF CXCL13 concentrations ( r 0.77, p \u2009<\u20090.001). The gCTh was significantly lower in patients with higher CSF CXCL13 levels (2.41\u2009\ub1\u20090.1 vs 2.49\u2009\ub1\u20090.1\ua0mm, p \u2009<\u20090.05), while no difference in MRI parameters of WM and GM pathology was observed between IgGOB+ and IgGOB\u2212. Conclusions The intrathecal IgG synthesis inversely correlated with BAFF Index and showed no correlation with CSF CXCL13. These findings seem to indicate that intrathecally synthesized IgG are produced by long-term PCs that have entered the CNS from the peripheral blood, rather than produced by PCs developed in the meningeal follicle-like structures (FLS). In this study, CXCL13 identifies a subgroup of MS patients characterized by ..

Glacier meltwater and monsoon precipitation drive Upper Ganges Basin dissolved organic matter composition

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2019. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier Ltd. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 244 (2019): 216-228, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2018.10.012.Mountain glaciers store dissolved organic carbon (DOC) that can be exported to river networks and subsequently respired to CO2. Despite this potential importance within the global carbon cycle, the seasonal variability and downstream transport of glacier-derived DOC in mountainous river basins remains largely unknown. To provide novel insight, here we present DOC concentrations and molecular-level dissolved organic matter (DOM) compositions from 22 nested, glaciated catchments (1.4 – 81.8 % glacier cover by area) in the Upper Ganges Basin, Western Himalaya over the course of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) in 2014. Aliphatic and peptide-like compounds were abundant in glaciated headwaters but were overprinted by soil-derived phenolic, polyphenolic and condensed aromatic material as DOC concentrations increase moving downstream. Across the basin, DOC concentrations and soil-derived compound class contributions decreased sharply from pre- to post-ISM, implying increased relative contribution of glaciated headwater signals as the monsoon progresses. Incubation experiments further revealed a strong compositional control on the fraction of bioavailable DOC (BDOC), with glacier-derived DOC exhibiting the highest bioavailability. We hypothesize that short-term (i.e. in the coming decades) increases in glacier melt flux driven by climate change will further bias exported DOM toward an aliphatic-rich, bioavailable signal, especially during the ISM and post-ISM seasons. In contrast, eventual decreases in glacier melt flux due to mass loss will likely lead to more a soil-like DOM composition and lower bioavailability of exported DOC in the long term.We thank Britta Voss (WHOI) for assisting with sample collection; Travis Drake (FSU), and Ekaterina Bulygina (Woods Hole Research Center) for laboratory assistance; and the NHMFL ICR user program (NSF-DMR-1157490) for aiding in data acquisition and analysis. This study was partly supported by NSF-DEB-1145932 to R.G.M.S. J.D.H. was partially supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant number 2012126152, with additional support in the form of travel grants awarded by the MIT Houghten Fund and NHMFL. All data used in this study are available in the Supporting Information Tables S1 and S2

Measuring ∣Vub∣|V_{ub}| with B→Ds+Xu\to D_s^+ X_u transitions

We propose the determination of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$ by the measurement of the spectrum of $B \to D_s^+ X_u$, dominated by the spectator quark model mechanism $\bar{b} \to D_s^{(*)+} \bar{u}$. The interest of considering $B \to D_s^+X_u$ versus the semileptonic decay is that more than 50 % of the spectrum for $B \to D_s^+ X_u$ occurs above the kinematical limit for $B \to D_s^+ X_c$, while most of the spectrum $B \to l \nu X_u$ occurs below the $B \to l \nu X_c$ one. Furthermore, the measure of the hadronic mass $M_X$ is easier in the presence of an identified $D_s$ than when a $\nu$ has been produced. As a consistency check, we point out that the rate $\bar{b} \to D_s^{(*)+} \bar{c}$ (including QCD corrections that we present elsewhere) is consistent with the measured $BR (B \to D_s^{\pm} X)$. Although the hadronic complications may be more severe in the mode that we propose than in the semileptonic inclusive decay, the end of the spectrum in $B \to l \nu X_u$ is not well understood on theoretical grounds. We argue that, in our case, the excited $D_s^{**}$, decaying into $D K$, do not contribute and, if there is tagging of the $B$ meson, the other mechanisms to produce a $D_s$ of the right sign are presumably small, of $O(10^{-2})$ relative to the spectator amplitude, or can be controlled by kinematical cuts. In the absence of tagging, other hadronic backgrounds deserve careful study. We present a feasability study with the BaBar detector.Comment: 22 pages, LaTe

AFTER, the front end ASIC of the T2K Time Projection Chambers

The T2K (Tokai-to-Kamioka) experiment is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan. A near detector, located at 280m of the production target, is used to characterize the beam. One of its key elements is a tracker, made of three Time Projection Chambers (TPC) read by Micromegas endplates. A new readout system has been developed to collect, amplify, condition and acquire the data produced by the 124,000 detector channels of these detectors. The front-end element of this system is a a new 72-channel application specific integrated circuit. Each channel includes a low noise charge preamplifier, a pole zero compensation stage, a second order Sallen-Key low pass filter and a 511-cell Switched Capacitor Array. This electronics offers a large flexibility in sampling frequency, shaping time, gain, while taking advantage of the low physics events rate of 0.3 Hz. We detail the design and the performance of this ASIC and report on the deployment of the frond-end electronics on-site