2024-05-06

📅 Monday, May 6th, 2024

ECS154A Lecture: Mealy vs Moore machines; synchronizer

Study Guide Released

It would seem like Mealy machines are simpler, since the Mealy variant of the 01 sequence recognizer has fewer states (and thus fewer flip-flops required to store the state), but the fact that the input is required to compute the output after the next state is computed is problematic, because it’s not necessarily synchronized to the clock. Therefore we can say that Moore machines always have synchronous outputs, and Mealy machines may have asynchronous outputs.

We can remediate the asynchronous nature by adding synchronizers. They are basically registers added to either the input or output bus of the Mealy circuit so output never changes outside of a positive clock edge, with the caveat of more register cost and higher propagation delay for the overall circuit. Whether to use Mealy circuits depends on whether or not it’s simple enough to overweigh to cost of extra synchronizers, etc.

SOC001 Lecture: Sociological Research

• Sociological research…
  • depends on empirical evidence—things that can be observed from statistics, direct measurement, surveys, verbal questions, etc.
  • relies on systematic approaches
  • analyzes both quantitative (easier to analyze, but may be less detailed) and qualitative data (much more detailed, but may need interpretation).
• research approaches
  • scientific method + usually quantitative data
  • interpretivist + qualitative data
    • doesn’t start with a hypothesis, unlike the scientific method
    • collect data → interpret data → infer conclusions
  • critical + qualitative
  • Note: in reality, it’s impossible to be an “objective” researcher
• in-class assignment IV = astrological sign, DV = number of hours of Netflix watched per day
• research steps for surveys
  • create a research question / topic
    • Does a person’s astrological sign affect their tendency to watch Netflix?
  • literature review: look for previous studies on the topic
    • In-class literature review mock up: ask someone from another group about topic.
    • Astrological signs are pseudoscience since they are based on birthdays, so they should have no correlation with number of hours of Netflix watched.
  • develop hypotheses
    • The two factors are not correlated.
  • design & conduct a study
    • in-class: ask other people not in the group
    • What is your astrological sign?
      • Libra
    • How many hours of Netflix do you watch per day, on average?
      • 0
    • Do you use any other streaming service? How many hours do you watch shows on other services?
      • 0
  • draw conclusions
    • The hypothesis is true.
  • report results
• typical research methods
  • survey (closed-ended questions)
  • interview (open-ended questions)
  • participant observation
• typical data gathered