Nominal Conversion Research Articles

An Ultra-Low Voltage, Low-Noise, High Linearity 900-MHz Receiver With Digitally Calibrated In-Band Feed-Forward Interferer Cancellation in 65-nm CMOS

We present an ultra-low voltage, highly linear, low noise integrated CMOS receiver operating from a 0.6-V supply. The receiver incorporates programmable, in-band feed-forward interferer cancellation at the baseband to obtain high linearity and low noise operation at ultra-low supply voltages. Being able to reject adjacent channel or far-out blockers, the digitally calibrated interferer cancellation improves the IIP3 and IIP2 by more than 13 dB and 8 dB respectively with very little impact on the receiver noise figure. As such, it breaks the trade-off between linearity and noise figure, making it possible to use a high-gain RF front-end to achieve low noise figure without affecting the linearity of the ultra-low voltage baseband circuits. The 0.6-V 900-MHz direct-conversion receiver prototype integrates a differential LNA, RF transconductors, linear quadrature current driven passive mixers, feed-forward interferer cancellation circuits, baseband variable gain transimpedance amplifiers and second-order channel-select filters. It has a nominal conversion gain of 56.4 dB, noise figure of 5 dB, IIP3 of -9.8 dBm and IIP2 of 21.4 dBm. The receiver operates reliably from 0.55-0.65 V, consumes 26.4 mW and occupies an active area of 1.7 mm2 in a 65-nm low-power CMOS process, of which the feed-forward interferer cancellation circuits consume 11.4 mW and occupies 0.43 mm2 .

Laparoscopy in the Emergency Setting

Laparoscopy has been widely accepted among surgeons for the diagnosis and management of acute abdominal conditions. In this study, we aim to evaluate and summarize the experience in laparoscopic procedures, both diagnostic and interventional, for emergency nontraumatic abdominal conditions, in a tertiary academic center. From June 2005 to June 2009, a total of 1414 patients were subjected to a variety of emergency procedures at the university hospital of Patras and 540 of these patients were managed laparoscopically (38.2%). Indications for operations in the laparoscopic group were abdominal pain mimicking appendicitis in 229 patients (42.4%), acute cholecystitis in 248 patients (45.9%), gastroduodenal perforated ulcer in 14 patients (2.6%), small bowel obstruction in 24 patients (4.4%), and nonspecific abdominal pain in 25 patients (4.6%). Diagnosis was established in 530 patients (98.2%) and definitive laparoscopic treatment was offered to 514 patients (95.2%). The conversion rate was 2.2%. Total mortality was 1.1% and total morbidity was 7.9%. Laparoscopic approach to abdominal emergency provides high diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic options. Surgical experience, optimal procedural timing, and appropriate patient selection criteria diminish perioperative mortality and morbidity, and are associated with nominal conversion.

The EME Enlargement and the Choice of the Euro Conversion Rates: Theoretical and Empirical Issues

The paper deals with the choice of the nominal euro conversion rates for the acceding countries upon their accession to EMU. The paper reviews theoretical models of equilibrium exchange rates as well as discusses their interpretation and the ensuing policy recommendations. Problems with empirical estimations of existing models are addressed. It is argued that despite several equilibrium exchange rate theories not all of them are useful for the real policy choice of the nominal conversion rate. This and the intrinsic uncertainty of equilibrium exchange rate estimates lead to the conclusion that the range of 'optimal' euro conversion rates is quiet wide and other issues must be taken into account. In particular, a smooth transition to the euro conversion rate and minimisation of risks of potential shocks to the economy should be the key concern. Consequently, recommendations for the selection of nominal conversion rates are largely dependent on the current exchange rate regime.

A Scalable 6-to-18 GHz Concurrent Dual-Band Quad-Beam Phased-Array Receiver in CMOS

This paper reports a 6-to-18 GHz integrated phased- array receiver implemented in 130-nm CMOS. The receiver is easily scalable to build a very large-scale phased-array system. It concurrently forms four independent beams at two different frequencies from 6 to 18 GHz. The nominal conversion gain of the receiver ranges from 16 to 24 dB over the entire band while the worst-case cross-band and cross-polarization rejections are achieved 48 dB and 63 dB, respectively. Phase shifting is performed in the LO path by a digital phase rotator with the worst-case RMS phase error and amplitude variation of 0.5deg and 0.4 dB, respectively, over the entire band. A four-element phased-array receiver system is implemented based on four receiver chips. The measured array patterns agree well with the theoretical ones with a peak-to-null ratio of over 21.5 dB.

A cost-efficient high-speed 12-bit pipeline ADC in 0.18-/spl mu/m digital CMOS

A 12-bit pipeline ADC fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m pure digital CMOS technology is presented. Its nominal conversion rate is 110 MS/s and the nominal supply voltage is 1.8 V. The effective number of bits is 10.4 when a 10-MHz input signal with 2V/sub P-P/ signal swing is applied. The occupied silicon area is 0.86 mm/sup 2/ and the power consumption equals 97 mW. A switched capacitor bias current generator scales the opamp bias currents automatically with the conversion rate, which gives scaleable power consumption and full performance of the ADC from 20 to 140 MS/s.

The morphological family size effect and morphology

It has been reported that in visual lexical decision response latencies to simplex nouns are shorter when these nouns have large morphological families, i.e., when they appear as constituents in large numbers of derived words and compounds. This study presents the results of four experiments that show that verbs have a Family Size effect independently of nominal conversion alternants, that this effect is a strict type frequency effect andnot a token frequency effect, that the effect is co-determined by the morphological structure of the inflected verb, and that it occurs irrespective of the orthographic shape of the base word.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception: Inculturation and Identity among the Anishnaabeg of Manitoulin Island

Incursions by the Iroquois quickly forced the Jesuits from the island, and it was not until 1844 that a permanent mission was established at Wikwemikong. Within fifteen years, the mission work had reached West Bay where a church was built in 1910. Missionary activities have since been continuous and here, as elsewhere, have served not only to promote Christianity but frequently to deny the sacrality and legitimacy of Anishnaabe tradition. As was the case with the religion of earliest missionized Algonquians-the Montagnais2Anishnaabe beliefs, practices and symbols were not only replaced by Christian ones but were denounced as demonic in origin. Sixteen years before Poncet set foot on Manitoulin, Paul Le Jeune had set the tone for centuries of Roman Catholic interaction with Native lifeways, declaring that is the forerunner of faith,3 and rejoicing that dread of punishment is beginning to gain such an ascendancy over their minds that, although they do not soon amend, yet they are little by little giving up their evil customs.4 This is not to say that evangelizing through fear mongering is or was exclusive to the Jesuits or even to the Roman Catholics. Nor was it, as Kenneth Morrison has pointed out, entirely or consistently successful despite the cleared ground of cultural anomie available for these seeds in seventeenthcentury North America.5 As Le Jeune, himself was to note: savages agree very readily with what you say but they do not, for all that, cease to act upon their own ideas.6 In other words, the practical political and economic necessity for nominal conversion did not always entail the transformation of consciousness for which the Jesuits had hoped. The life-worlds of many Algonquians, while deeply scarred and changed by political and religious invasion, still provided islands of continuity with tradition. These islands like the one founded by Nanabush after the primordial flood may have rested upon chaos and yet they, too, were constructed from bits of the old order. Taken together, these remainders of tradition have been used to create-on

Duty-cycle control boosts DC-DC converters

An improved design for a switched-capacitor pulsewidth modulated (PWM) DC-DC converter with adjustable conversion ratios is presented. The converter provides a nominal power of 40 W and nominal voltage conversion ratio of 12/5. The same structure can provide other conversion ratios, as required. Such low power supplies use relatively small, low-value capacitors, and could conceivably be realized with IC technology. >

Theory of errors of digital measuring instruments with a nominal nonlinear conversion function

1. Systematic errors of DMUs in which nonlinear conversion is implemented in hardware are described, analyzed, and normalized by traditional methods [1]. The maximum values of these errors do not exceed one half of the nominal scale value of the least significant display digit. 2. Systematic errors of DMUs in which nonlinear conversion is implemented in software with a computer or a built-in processor depend on the nominal conversion function and on how the readout is obtained (whether or not the results are rounded off). The maximum systematic error of such DMUs depends on many factors including the form of the nominal conversion function and the relation between the nominal quantization step of the ADC included in the DMU and the nominal scale value of the least significant digit of the DMU display.

Elie Benoist, Historian of the Edict of Nantes

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 resulted in the immediate exile of all ministers of the French Reformed churches not amenable to conversion, the illegal flight of several hundred thousand of their fellow-believers to neighboring Protestant lands, and the nominal conversion under duress of the rest of the Roman Catholic church. It also precipitated a literary polemic in which Protestant writers protested vigorously the injustice of revoking an “irrevocable” edict—and the cruel and oppressive measures preceding and accompanying it. Catholic counterparts asserted that, on the contrary, the Edict had been a temporary expedient to end civil strife, extorted forcibly by a naturally rebellious and turbulent minority.

Theoretical Assessment of a Variable-Frequency Envelope Cycloconverter

The operating principles and characteristics of a proposed variable-frequency envelope cycloconverter, constructed with relatively few thyristors, for three-phase variable-speed induction motor drive, are described. As the output frequency is varied, the output voltage wave-forms created by triggering the thyristors are found to vary for both the amplitude of the harmonic components and their phase displacements. Distortion factors, unbalance factors of the three-phase output voltages, and the nominal conversion efficiency of the system are given.

Elie Benoist, Historian of the Edict of Nantes

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 resulted in the immediate exile of all ministers of the French Reformed churches not amenable to conversion, the illegal flight of several hundred thousand of their fellow-believers to neighboring Protestant lands, and the nominal conversion under duress of the rest of the Roman Catholic church. It also precipitated a literary polemic in which Protestant writers protested vigorously the injustice of revoking an “irrevocable” edict—and the cruel and oppressive measures preceding and accompanying it. Catholic counterparts asserted that, on the contrary, the Edict had been a temporary expedient to end civil strife, extorted forcibly by a naturally rebellious and turbulent minority.

Notes on a Crystal Mixer Performance

A simple relation between optimum rf source impedance for minimum noise figure and the nominal conversion loss of a mixer is derived. This impedance is related to the input mismatch and its dependence on the type of IF amplifier input circuit is discussed. Relations between the crystal noise temperature and mixer noise temperature as a function of conversion loss are derived for different load conditions at the image frequency terminals.