bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Enhanced pyroelectric properties of PZT/PVDF-TrFE composites using calcined PZT ceramic powders
Authors: Wu Chuan-Gui , Cai Guang-Qiang , Luo Wen-Bo , Peng Qiang-Xiang , Sun Xiang-Yu , Zhang Wan-Li
Published: April 2013

The effects of calcined lead–zirconate–titanate (PZT) powders on the electric properties of PZT/polyvinylidene-trifluorethylene copolymer (PVDF-TrFE) composites thick films were studied in this paper. Firstly, the PZT powders synthesized by hydrothermal method were calcined at different temperatures ranging from 300°C to 900°C, and then the PZT/PVDF-TrFE composites films were produced by casting PZT/PVDF-TrFE suspension onto the indium-tin-oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrates. Electric properties, including dielectric and pyroelectric performances of thick films consisting of PZT powders calcined at different temperatures were tested. The highest pyroelectric coefficient obtained in the sample using 700°C calcined PZT powders was 96 μCm-2K-1, which was 20% higher than the composites made of uncalcined powders. Additionally, the highest detectivity figure-of-merit (FOM) (F D ) of the composite was 1.36 × 10-5Pa-1/2, which increased about 13.5% compared to the one using uncalcined powders.
A survey and taxonomy of on-chip monitoring of multicore systems-on-chip
Authors: Kornaros Georgios , Pnevmatikatos Dionisios
Published: April 2013

Billion transistor systems-on-chip increasingly require dynamic management of their hardware components and careful coordination of the tasks that they carry out. Diverse real-time monitoring functions assist towards this objective through the collection of important system metrics, such as throughput of processing elements, communication latency, or resource utilization for each application. The online evaluation of these metrics can result in localized or global decisions that attempt to improve aspects of system behavior, system performance, quality-of-service, power and thermal effects under nominal conditions. This work provides a comprehensive categorization of monitoring approaches used in multiprocessor SoCs. As adaptive systems are encountered in many disciplines, it is imperative to present the prominent research efforts in developing online monitoring methods. To this end we offer a taxonomy that groups strongly related techniques that designers increasingly use to produce more efficient and adaptive chips. The provided classification helps to understand and compare architectural mechanisms that can be used in systems, while one can envisage the innovations required to build real adaptive and intelligent systems-on-chip.
Coverage-directed observability-based validation for embedded software
Authors: Costa José C. , Monteiro José C.
Published: April 2013

Motivated by the need for validation methodologies for embedded systems we propose a method for embedded software testing that can be integrated with existing hardware methods. Existing coverage-directed validation methods guarantee the execution of a certain percentage of the program code under test. Yet they do not generally verify whether the statements executed have any influence on the program's output. In the proposed method, a program statement is considered covered not simply for belonging to the executed path, but only if its execution has influence in some observable output. The paths are generated by searching the longest path in terms of the number of statements in the path. Given that not all paths are valid, we check their feasibility using a method based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Variable aliasing is accounted for by representing variables by their memory addresses when building this MILP problem. In this manner, for feasible paths, we obtain immediately the input values that allow the execution of the path. Using these inputs, we determine the statements actually observed. We repeat this process until a user-specified level of coverage has been achieved. In the generation of each new path, the statement coverage obtained so far and the feasibility of previous paths is taken into account. We present results that demonstrate the effectiveness of this methodology.
t/t
-Diagnosability of regular graphs under the PMC model
Authors: Chen Chun-An , Hsieh Sun-Yuan
Published: April 2013

A system is
t/t
-diagnosable if, given any collection of test results, the faulty nodes can be isolated to within a set of at most
t
nodes provided that the number of faulty nodes does not exceed
t
. Given an
N
-vertex graph
G
that is regular with the common degree
d
and has no cycle of three or four vertices, this study shows that
G
is
(2d − 2)/(2d − 2)
-diagnosable if
N
≥ 4
d
− 30 > 0. Based on this result, the
t/t
-diagnosabilities of several classes of graphs can be computed efficiently.
Shared recovery for energy efficiency and reliability enhancements in real-time applications with precedence constraints
Authors: Zhao Baoxian , Aydin Hakan , Zhu Dakai
Published: April 2013

While Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) remains as a popular energy management technique for modern computing systems, recent research has identified significant and negative impacts of voltage scaling on system reliability. To preserve system reliability under DVS settings, a number of
reliability-aware power management
(RA-PM) schemes have been recently studied. However, the existing RA-PM schemes normally schedule a separate recovery for each task whose execution is scaled down and are rather conservative. To overcome such conservativeness, we study in this article novel RA-PM schemes based on the
shared recovery
(SHR) technique. Specifically, we consider a set of frame-based real-time tasks with individual deadlines and a common period where the precedence constraints are represented by a
directed acyclic graph
(DAG). We first show that the
earliest deadline first
(EDF) algorithm can always yield a schedule where all timing and precedence constraints are met by considering the effective deadlines of tasks derived from
as late as possible
(ALAP) policy, provided that the task set is feasible. Then, we propose a shared recovery based frequency assignment technique (namely SHR-DAG) and prove its optimality to minimize energy consumption while preserving the system reliability. To exploit additional slack that arises from early completion of tasks, we also study a dynamic extension for SHR-DAG to improve energy efficiency and system reliability at runtime. The results from our extensive simulations show that, compared to the existing RA-PM schemes, SHR-DAG can achieve up to 35% energy savings, which is very close to the maximum achievable energy savings. More interestingly, our extensive evaluation also indicates that the new schemes offer non-trivial improvements on system reliability over the existing RA-PM schemes as well.
Reducing instruction bit-width for low-power VLIW architectures
Authors: Lee Jongwon , Youn Jonghee M. , Cho Doosan , Paek Yunheung
Published: April 2013

VLIW (very long instruction word) architectures have proven to be useful for embedded applications with abundant instruction level parallelism. But due to the long instruction bus width it often consumes more power and memory space than necessary. One way to lessen this problem is to adopt a
reduced bit-width
instruction set architecture (ISA) that has a narrower instruction word length. This facilitates a more efficient hardware implementation in terms of area and power by decreasing bus-bandwidth requirements and the power dissipation associated with instruction fetches. In practice, however, it is impossible to convert a given ISA fully into an equivalent reduced bit-width one because the narrow instruction word, due to bit-width restrictions, can encode only a small subset of normal instructions in the original ISA. Consequently, existing processors provide narrow instructions in very limited cases along with severe restrictions on register accessibility. The objective of this work is to explore the possibility of complete conversion, as a case study, of an existing 32-bit VLIW ISA into a 16-bit one that supports effectively all 32-bit instructions. To this objective, we attempt to circumvent the bit-width restrictions by dynamically extending the effective instruction word length of the converted 16-bit operations. Further, we will show that our proposed ISA conversion can create a synergy effect with a VLES (variable length execution set) architecture that is adopted in most recent VLIW processors. According to our experiment, the code size becomes significantly smaller after the conversion to 16-bit VLIW code. Also at a slight run time cost, the machine with the 16-bit ISA consumes much less energy than the original machine.
IC power delivery
Authors: Zeng Zhiyu , Lai Suming , Li Peng
Published: April 2013

Modern IC power delivery systems encompass large on-chip passive power grids and active on-chip or off-chip voltage converters and regulators. While there exists little work targeting on holistic design of such complex IC subsystems, the optimal system-level design of power delivery is critical for achieving power integrity and power efficiency. In this article, we conduct a systematic design analysis on power delivery networks that incorporate Buck Converters (BCs) and on-chip Low-Dropout voltage regulators (LDOs) for the entire chip power supply. The electrical interactions between active voltage converters, regulators as well as passive power grids and their influence on key system design specifications are analyzed comprehensively. With the derived design insights, the system-level codesign of a complete power delivery network is facilitated by a proposed automatic optimization flow in which key design parameters of buck converters and on-chip LDOs as well as on-chip decoupling capacitance are jointly optimized. The experimental results demonstrate significant performance improvements resulted from the proposed system cooptimization in terms of achievable area overhead, supply noise and power efficiency. Impacts of different decoupling capacitance technologies are also investigated.
Embodied cognition and the magical future of interaction design
Authors: Kirsh David
Published: April 2013

The theory of embodied cognition can provide HCI practitioners and theorists with new ideas about interaction and new principles for better designs. I support this claim with four ideas about cognition: (1) interacting with tools changes the way we think and perceive -- tools, when manipulated, are soon absorbed into the body schema, and this absorption leads to fundamental changes in the way we perceive and conceive of our environments; (2) we think with our bodies not just with our brains; (3) we know more by doing than by seeing -- there are times when physically performing an activity is better than watching someone else perform the activity, even though our motor resonance system fires strongly during other person observation; (4) there are times when we literallythinkwith things. These four ideas have major implications for interaction design, especially the design of tangible, physical, context aware, and telepresence systems.
Schedulability analysis of EDF-scheduled embedded real-time systems with resource sharing
Authors: Zhang Fengxiang , Burns Alan
Published: April 2013

Earliest Deadline First (EDF) is the most widely studied optimal dynamic scheduling algorithm for uniprocessor real-time systems. In the existing literature, however, there is no complete exact analysis for EDF scheduling when both resource sharing and release jitter are considered. Since resource sharing and release jitter are important characteristics of embedded real-time systems, a solid theoretical foundation should be provided for EDF scheduled systems. In this paper, we extend traditional processor demand analysis to let arbitrary deadline real-time tasks share non-preemptable resources and suffer release jitter. A complete and exact schedulability analysis for EDF scheduled systems is provided. This analysis is incorporated into QPA (Quick Processor-demand Analysis) which provides an efficient implementation of the exact test.
Achieving energy efficiency through runtime partial reconfiguration on reconfigurable systems
Authors: Liu Shaoshan , Pittman Richard Neil , Forin Alessandro , Gaudiot Jean-Luc
Published: April 2013

One major advantage of reconfigurable computing systems is their ability to reconfigure hardware at runtime. In this paper, we study the feasibility of achieving energy efficiency in reconfigurable computing systems (e.g., FPGAs) through runtime partial reconfiguration (PR) techniques. In the ideal scenario, we use a hardware accelerator to accelerate certain parts of the program execution; when the accelerator is not active, we use partial reconfiguration to unload it to reduce power consumption. Since the reconfiguration process may introduce a high energy overhead, it is unclear whether this approach is efficient. To approach this problem, we first analytically identify the conditions under which partial reconfiguration can reduce energy consumption. Our results indicate that the key to reduce partial reconfiguration energy overhead is to minimize the time overhead of the reconfiguration process. Based on this analysis, we design and implement a fast reconfiguration engine that achieves close-to-ideal throughput on Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs. Our fast reconfiguration engine utilizes a master-slave DMA pair to stream data between the SRAM and the Internal Configuration Access Port (ICAP). We experimentally verify our proposed solutions and compare our design to existing energy reduction techniques, such as clock gating. The results of our study show that by using partial reconfiguration to eliminate the power consumption of the accelerator when it is inactive, we can accelerate program execution and at the same time reduce the overall energy consumption by half.
Compositionality in synchronous data flow
Authors: Tripakis Stavros , Bui Dai , Geilen Marc , Rodiers Bert , Lee Edward A.
Published: April 2013

Hierarchical SDF models are not compositional: a composite SDF actor cannot be represented as an atomic SDF actor without loss of information that can lead to rate inconsistency or deadlock. Motivated by the need for incremental and modular code generation from hierarchical SDF models, we introduce in this paper DSSF profiles. DSSF (Deterministic SDF with Shared FIFOs) forms a compositional abstraction of composite actors that can be used for modular compilation. We provide algorithms for automatic synthesis of non-monolithic DSSF profiles of composite actors given DSSF profiles of their sub-actors. We show how different trade-offs can be explored when synthesizing such profiles, in terms of compactness (keeping the size of the generated DSSF profile small) versus reusability (maintaining necessary information to preserve rate consistency and deadlock-absence) as well as algorithmic complexity. We show that our method guarantees maximal reusability and report on a prototype implementation.
Profiling and online system-level performance and power estimation for dynamically adaptable embedded systems
Authors: Mu Jingqing , Shankar Karthik , Lysecky Roman
Published: April 2013

Significant research has demonstrated the performance and power benefits of runtime dynamic reconfiguration of FPGAs and microprocessor/FPGA devices. For dynamically reconfigurable systems, in which the selection of hardware coprocessors to implement within the FPGA is determined at runtime, online estimation methods are needed to evaluate the performance and power consumption impact of the hardware coprocessor selection. In this paper, we present a profile assisted online system-level performance and power estimation framework for estimating the speedup and power consumption of dynamically reconfigurable embedded systems. We evaluate the accuracy and fidelity of our online estimation framework for dynamic hardware kernel selection to maximize performance or minimize the system power consumption.
Role Mining with Probabilistic Models
Authors: Frank Mario , Buhman Joachim M. , Basin David
Published: April 2013

Role mining tackles the problem of finding a role-based access control (RBAC) configuration, given an access-control matrix assigning users to access permissions as input. Most role-mining approaches work by constructing a large set of candidate roles and use a greedy selection strategy to iteratively pick a small subset such that the differences between the resulting RBAC configuration and the access control matrix are minimized. In this article, we advocate an alternative approach that recasts role mining as an inference problem rather than a lossy compression problem. Instead of using combinatorial algorithms to minimize the number of roles needed to represent the access-control matrix, we derive probabilistic models to learn the RBAC configuration that most likely underlies the given matrix.

Our models are generative in that they reflect the way that permissions are assigned to users in a given RBAC configuration. We additionally model how user-permission assignments that conflict with an RBAC configuration emerge and we investigate the influence of constraints on role hierarchies and on the number of assignments. In experiments with access-control matrices from real-world enterprises, we compare our proposed models with other role-mining methods. Our results show that our probabilistic models infer roles that generalize well to new system users for a wide variety of data, while other models’ generalization abilities depend on the dataset given.
Fragmentation Considered Vulnerable
Authors: Gilad Yossi , Herzberg Amir
Published: April 2013

We show that fragmented IPv4 and IPv6 traffic is vulnerable to effective interception and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks by an
off-path
attacker. Specifically, we demonstrate a weak attacker intercepting more than 80% of the data between peers and causing over 94% loss rate.

We show that our attacks are practical through experimental validation on popular industrial and open-source products, with realistic network setups that involve NAT or tunneling and include concurrent legitimate traffic as well as packet losses. The interception attack requires a zombie agent behind the same NAT or tunnel-gateway as the victim destination; the DoS attack only requires a puppet agent, that is, a sandboxed applet or script running in web-browser context.

The complexity of our attacks depends on the predictability of the IP Identification (ID) field which is typically implemented as one or multiple counters, as allowed and recommended by the IP specifications. The attacks are much simpler and more efficient for implementations, such as Windows, which use one ID counter for all destinations. Therefore, much of our focus is on presenting effective attacks for implementations, such as Linux, which use per-destination ID counters.

We present practical defenses for the attacks presented in this article, the defenses can be deployed on network firewalls without changes to hosts or operating system kernel.
Deterministic Replay Using Global Clock
Authors: Chen Yunji , Chen Tianshi , Li Ling , Wu Ruiyang , Liu Daofu , Hu Weiwu
Published: April 2013

Debugging parallel programs is a well-known difficult problem. A promising method to facilitate debugging parallel programs is using hardware support to achieve deterministic replay on a Chip Multi-Processor (CMP). As a Design-For-Debug (DFD) feature, a practical hardware-assisted deterministic replay scheme should have low design and verification costs, as well as a small log size.

To achieve these goals, we propose a novel and succinct hardware-assisted deterministic replay scheme named LReplay. The key innovation of LReplay is that instead of recording the logical time orders between instructions or instruction blocks as previous investigations, LReplay is built upon recording the pending period information infused by the global clock. By the recorded pending period information, about 99% execution orders are inferrable, implying that LReplay only needs to record directly the residual 1% noninferrable execution orders in production run. The 1% noninferrable orders can be addressed by a simple yet cost-effective direction prediction technique, which further reduces the log size of LReplay.

Benefiting from the preceding innovations, the overall log size of LReplay over SPLASH-2 benchmarks is about 0.17B/K-Inst (byte per k-instruction) for the sequential consistency, and 0.57B/K-Inst for the Godson-3 consistency. Such log sizes are smaller in an order of magnitude than previous deterministic replay schemes incurring no performance loss. Furthermore, LReplay only consumes about 0.5% area of the Godson-3 CMP, since it requires only trivial modifications to existing components of Godson-3. The features of LReplay demonstrate the potential of integrating hardware support for deterministic replay into future industrial processors.
Session types
Authors: Ng Nicholas , Yoshida Nobuko , Niu Xin Yu , Tsoi Kuen Hung
Published: April 2013

This paper introduces a new programming framework based on the theory of session types for safe, reconfigurable parallel designs. We apply the session type theory to C and Java programming languages and demonstrate that the sessionbased languages can offer a clear and tractable framework to describe communications between parallel components and guarantee communication-safety and deadlock-freedom by compile-time type checking. Many representative communication topologies such as a ring or scatter-gather can be programmed and verified in session-based programming languages. Case studies involving N-body simulation and Kmeans clustering are used to illustrate the session-based programming style and to demonstrate that the session-based languages perform competitively against MPI counterparts in an FPGA-based heterogeneous cluster, as well as the potential of integrating them with FPGA acceleration.
Energy-efficient dataflow computations on FPGAs using application-specific coarse-grain architecture synthesis
Authors: Lin Colin Yu , So Hayden Kwok-Hay Kwok-Hay
Published: April 2013

Compiling high-level user applications to execute on FPGAbased reconfigurable computers often involve synthesizing dataflow graphs beyond the capacity of the available hardware resources. A framework that provides rapid and energyefficient compilation of such dataflow graphs on FPGAs using an array of pre-placed configurable processing elements is proposed. The mapping schedule of the compute operations on the CPEs and the direct network among the CPEs are co-synthesized on a per-application basis to provide the targeted power-performance tradeoff. Compared to the use of a fixed generic topology, the use of an application-specific topology derived by a genetic algorithm can achieve up to 28% improvement in energy-delay product. As the CPEs are pre-placed, compiling for a new application involve only the generation of a new operation schedule, which is stored in on-chip memory, and the new routes among the CPEs. With optimization in operation scheduling and mapping and application-specific interconnect network, the proposed framework achieved up to 199X better energy-delay product compared to a traditional FPGA high-level synthesis tool xPilot. The use of such framework is anticipated to serve as part of a high-level application compiler for hybrid CPU-FPGA computation.
A non-volatile reconfigurable offloader for wireless sensor nodes
Authors: Nakaya Shogo , Miyamura Makoto , Sakimura Noboru , Nakamura Yuichi , Sugibayashi Tadahiko
Published: April 2013

Energy saving is currently one of the most important issues in the development of battery-powered wireless sensor nodes (WSNs). We have developed a non-volatile reconfigurable offioader for flexible and highly efficient processing on WSNs that uses NanoBridges (NBs), which are novel non-volatile and reprogrammable switching elements. Non-volatility is essential for the intermittent operation of WSNs due to the requirement of power-on without loading configuration data. We implemented a data compression algorithm on the offioader that reduces energy consumption during data transmission. Simulation results showed that the energy consumption on the offioader was 1121 of that on an ultra-low power cpu.
Electromagnetic Behavior of Particles and Droplets in Capillary
Authors: Watarai Hitoshi , Funaki Masuro , Kato Takehiro
Published: April 2013

Electromagnetophoretic force working on polystyrene particles and dodecane droplets dispersed in electrolyte solutions in a fused silica capillary exhibited characteristic phenomena. The force applied on the carboxyl terminated polystyrene particles, which was bound to the polyacrylacid modified wall, could determine the dissociation force of the particles. It was found that the addition of some metal ions increased the binding force of the particles. On the other hand, the force applied to the dodecane droplets induced characteristic behavior named local electrophoretic convection in a capillary; smaller droplets circulated around a larger droplet in the medium. This phenomenon was analyzed in terms of the local current density difference around the larger droplet.
(Invited) Dynamic and Coverage Effects in EIS
Authors: Harrington David A.
Published: April 2013

The effect of sweep rate on the validity of impedance measurements made dynamically when sweeping the potential is investigated by numerical solution of the differential equations for a simple adsorption reaction. The same method is used to show that dynamic EIS can detect a nucleation-growth-collision mechanism through a negative time constant, and that measurement in the unstable regime is possible, even though the data is not Kramers-Kronig transformable. The utility of the concept of the rate-determining step in EIS is demonstrated for a simple example.
Multi-Sine EIS- Drift, Non Linearity and Solution Resistance Effects
Authors: Srinivasan Ramanathan , Ramani Vimala , Santhanam Sruthi
Published: April 2013

The impedance spectral response of electrochemical systems to multi sine (MS) potential perturbations was simulated using numerical techniques. The MS waves comprised of odd harmonic waves and were applied to a simple electron transfer reaction, and a reaction with an adsorbed intermediate. The governing equations were solved without linearization. Two choices of frequency sets with phases corresponding to the minimum crest factor were employed. The effects of large amplitude perturbations, potential instability, noise and solution resistance were investigated. The EIS data were subjected to Kramers Kronig transforms (KKT). The results show that (i) if large amplitude perturbations are used, the spectra acquired using MS appear to be noisy and they violate KKT, (ii) potential drifts and noise effects are successfully identified by KKT and (iii) in the presence of a significant solution resistance, the kinetic equations must be employed along with the equivalent circuit model to estimate the kinetic parameters.
The French SIMCAL Research Network For Modelling of Calendar Aging for Energy Storage System in EVs And HEVs - EIS Analysis on LFP/C Cells
Authors: Grolleau Sebastien , Molina-Concha Belen , Delaille Arnaud , Revel Renaud , Bernard Julien , Pélissier Serge , Peter Jéremy
Published: April 2013

Durability is of the first importance in Lithium-Ion batteries dedicated to electrical transportation. In this paper, commercial Lithium-Ion cells are stored under 3 different conditions of temperature (30{degree sign}C, 45{degree sign}C, and 60{degree sign}C) and state of charge (30%, 65%, and 100%) during up to 15 months. Capacity and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements are performed periodically in order to follow and to understand calendar aging phenomena. Capacity fade strongly increases with storage temperature and to a lesser extent with the state of charge. EIS analyses do not show any evidence of change in mater transport properties. Conversely, this analysis supports the existence of side reactions taking place at the electrode/electrolyte interface leading to the growth of the solid electrolyte interphase.
Substrate Effects on an Electrochemical NOx Sensor Based on Porous Y2O3-Stabilized ZrO2 (YSZ) and Sr-doped LaMnO3 (LSM)
Authors: Du Frane Wyatt Louis , Woo Leta Y. , Glass Robert S. , Novak Robert , Visser Jaco
Published: April 2013

Previous work has demonstrated the potential for high-performance, low-cost NOx (NO and NO2) solid-state electrochemical sensors based on porous Y2O3-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte and dense Sr-doped LaMnO3 electrodes using an impedancemetric measurement approach. However, microcracking in the YSZ electrolyte has been observed after processing at 1000 {degree sign}C, which can impact sensor stability and lifetime. The microcracking results from mismatch in the coefficients of thermal expansion of the YSZ electrolyte and the alumina (Al2O3) substrates used in these cells. The effects of microcracking were investigated by comparing the performances of sensors built on three different substrates with different thermal mismatch characteristics with the YSZ electrolyte: 1) Al2O3, 2) YSZ, and 3) Al2O3 coated YSZ. Microcracking in the YSZ electrolyte was only evident with the Al2O3 substrates, but this had no discernible effect on the performance of the NOx sensor on the experimental timescales employed.
Modeling a Novel MEMS Gyroscope
Authors: Zarei Nilgoon , Leung Albert , Jones John Dewey
Published: April 2013

Different designs of Thermal MEMS gyroscope are presented and compared through the use of the Comsol Multiphysics software package. Previously designed Thermal MEMS gyroscopes show some limitations such as being vulnerable to gravity force. Finding a technique to increase the range of thermal MEMS gyroscope reliability motivated us to come up with a new design that we refer to as the `Forced Convection MEMS gyroscope'. An external force has been introduced to the system to create a higher-velocity hot gas stream that will be deviated more in response to rotation. The external force should be great enough that convection currents resulting from gravity or acceleration will have minimal impact on the gyroscope sensitivity. A heating element can still be used, but its primary purpose is now to warm the flowing gas so that it can be detected by the sensors.
Deposition and Characterization of FeB thin films by Electrochemical Method
Authors: Park Hyejin , Ahn Hosang , Kim Seon-Bae , Jeong Jaeyoung , Kim Dong Joo
Published: April 2013

Magnetostrictive materials exhibit a resonant frequency under an alternating magnetic field. Amorphous iron-boron film is well known as a magnetostrictive material. In order to obtain an amorphous phase of FeB thin film by electrochemical deposition, solution deposition parameters - such as current density, solution concentration, and ratio of precursors - was investigated. The amorphous FeB thin films were deposited at higher current densities and concentration of the solution. The relationship between phase formation and kinetic effect was also studied. Magnetic behavior of these films was examined by measuring the resonant frequency.
Chemical MIS Sensor with Nanoporous Carbon Adsorbed Layer Using Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy as Sensing Method
Authors: Polyakov V. I. , Rukovishnikov A.I. , Shustin E.G. , Meriakri V.V. , Druz B. , Yevtukhov Y.
Published: April 2013

Sensitive and selective chemical sensor based on carrier transfer in metal/NPC/SiO2/p-Si structure with nanoscale metal and nanoporous carbon adsorbed layers were fabricated and studied. It was found that most powerfully and noticeably adsorbed molecules influence on whole injection from p-Si substrate on border traps in SiO2 layer and energy spectrum of trapping centers that lead to changes of sensor electrical characteristics. The most adsorption effect was found in Q-DLTS spectra. Moreover adsorption of the molecules of the different gases (vapor) induced different spectra changes. Physical model of the operating the chemical sensor was proposed and discussed. Got results are indicative of possibility of the fabrication sensitive and selective MIS chemical sensors using for detected of adsorbed molecules the isothermal Q-DLTS as sensing method.
Oxidation study of Ge Condensation on SGOI Nanowire Biosensor Fabrication
Authors: Chang Kow-Ming , Chen Chu-Feng , Lai Chiung-Hui , Wu Chin-Ning , Hsieh Cheng-Ting , Wang Yu-Bin , Liu Chung-Hsien , Chang Kuo-Chin
Published: April 2013

The Ge condensation method is effective in increasing the Ge fraction of Ge in SGOI. Previous studies by the authors confirmed a correlation between the Ge fraction and the sensitivity of the SiGe nano-wire sensor. To understand how Ge condensation on an SGOI nano-wire sensor helps to optimize oxidation conditions and sensitivity, the effect of oxidizing gas and the SiGe/α-Si stacked structure on the movement of Ge is investigated. The analytical results reveal that the sensitivity of SiGe nano-wires can be optimized by stacking an Si1-xGex layer that contains 14% Ge on a 200 Å-thick α-Si layer and treating the stack with O2 gas diluted by 13% N2 for 3 min.
pH Sensor Fabrication Using CdSe/ZnS Quantum Dots
Authors: Kumar Pankaj , Prakash Amit , Maikap Siddheswar
Published: April 2013

Fabrication and characterization of capacitive pH sensor based on Electrolyte/Insulator/Semiconductor (EIS) structure has been investigated. EIS structure has been fabricated by trapping CdSe/ZnS quantum dots in the chaperonin protein layer deposited on SiO2 surface. Random distribution of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots having very small diameter ~4nm characterized by atomic force microscope. Electrochemical characterization shows that improvement in pH response with sensitivity of 53.3mV/pH (~99% linearity) has been observed with CdSe/ZnS Quantum Dots modified EIS structure as compare to bare SiO2 EIS structure with pH response of 35mV/pH (~98% linearity). CdSe/ZnS modified pH sensor has good stability and repeatability concluded from the concap Vfb measurement. High surface area of the CdSe/ZnS quantum dots can be utilized for the immobilization of biomolecules and biosensor applications in future.
Functionalized Three-Dimensional Carbon Microarrays for Cancer Biomarker Detection
Authors: Penmatsa Varun , Ruslinda A.R. , Beidaghi Majid , Kawarada Hiroshi , Wang Chunlei
Published: April 2013

A label-free detection strategy for the detection of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF-BB) oncoprotein detection using signaling aptamer/protein binding complex is reported. The 3D carbon microarrays detection platform was fabricated by pyrolyzing patterned photoresist and surface functionalized using direct-amination technique. The detection strategy is based on the release of TOTO intercalating dye from the target binding aptamer's stem structure when it captures PDGF. The sensor showed near linear relationship between the relative fluorescence difference and protein concentration with a very good detection limit of 5 pmol. This detection strategy is promising for the potential detection of different cancer biomarkers and proteins.
Towards the Design of an Acetone Breath Biosensor
Authors: Hausmann Nina Z. , Meredith Matthew T. , Minteer Shelley D.
Published: April 2013

Acetone is one of the most abundant volatile organic compounds (VOC) in human breath and high acetone levels result in ketoacidosis. Many acetone sensors have been developed; however, many disadvantages are present; therefore, there is a need for a more specific, biologically friendly, and simpler biosensor for breath acetone detection for diabetics. This study outlines a procedure for isolation, purification, and characterization of NADPH-dependant carbonyl reductase enzyme for use in an amperometric acetone sensor. Carbonyl reductase was extracted from Saccharomyces pastorianus yeast cells and purified using column chromatography. Carbonyl reductase activity was evaluated using activity assays and was also studied electrochemically. Furthermore, this study outlines a procedure for a flow injection method used for detecting aqueous acetone in the presence of carbonyl reductase. Lastly, various immobilization techniques were tested in order to improve current response and the selectivity towards acetone.
s-Goodness for Low-Rank Matrix Recovery
Authors: Kong Lingchen , Tunçel Levent , Xiu Naihua
Published: April 2013

Low-rank matrix recovery (LMR) is a rank minimization problem subject to linear equality constraints, and it arises in many fields such as signal and image processing, statistics, computer vision, and system identification and control. This class of optimization problems is generally𝒩𝒫hard. A popular approach replaces the rank function with the nuclear norm of the matrix variable. In this paper, we extend and characterize the concept ofs-goodness for a sensing matrix in sparse signal recovery (proposed by Juditsky and Nemirovski (Math Program, 2011)) to linear transformations in LMR. Using the two characteristics-goodness constants,γsandγ^s, of a linear transformation, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for a linear transformation to bes-good. Moreover, we establish the equivalence ofs-goodness and the null space properties. Therefore,s-goodness is a necessary and sufficient condition for exacts-rank matrix recovery via the nuclear norm minimization.
Biomarkers for Gastroesophageal Reflux in Respiratory Diseases
Authors: Emilsson Össur Ingi , Gíslason Þórarinn , Olin Anna-Carin , Janson Christer , Ólafsson Ísleifur
Published: April 2013

Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is commonly associated with respiratory symptoms, either through a vagal bronchoconstrictive reflex or through microaspiration of gastric contents. No diagnostic test is available, however, to diagnose when respiratory illnesses are caused by GER and when not, but research in this field has been moving forward. Various biomarkers in different types of biosamples have been studied in this context. The aim of this review is to summarize the present knowledge in this field. GER patients with respiratory diseases seem to have a different biochemical profile from similar patients without GER. Inflammatory biomarkers differ in asthmatics based on GER status, tachykinins are elevated in patients with GER-related cough, and bile acids are elevated in lung transplant patients with GER. However, studies on these biomarkers are often limited by their small size, methods of analysis, and case selections. The two pathogenesis mechanisms are associated with different respiratory illnesses and biochemical profiles. A reliable test to identify GER-induced respiratory disorders needs to be developed. Bronchoalveolar lavage is too invasive to be of use in most patients. Exhaled breath condensate samples need further evaluation and standardization. The newly developed particles in exhaled air measurements remain to be studied further.
Density Functional Theory of Mild Steel Corrosion in Acidic Media Using Dyes as Inhibitor: Adsorption onto Fe(110) from Gas Phase
Authors: Oguike R. S. , Kolo A. M. , Shibdawa A. M. , Gyenna H. A.
Published: April 2013

Quantum chemical calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) methods were performed on indigo blue (IB), methylene blue (MB), and crystal violet (CV) molecules as inhibitors for iron corrosion in acid media. DFT calculations were performed on the molecular structures to describe electronic parameters which are associated with inhibition efficiency such as the values −4.981 eV, −4.518 eV, and −3.872 eV which increased in the order IB > MB > CV while values were −3.73 eV, −3.63 eV, and −2.87 eV for IB, MB, and CV, respectively. Quench molecular dynamics simulations performed at metal/vacuum interface were applied to find the equilibrium adsorption configurations and calculate the minima interaction energy between inhibitor molecules and iron surface Fe(110). The theoretical order of inhibition efficiency of these dye molecules had a linear relationship with experimentally observed inhibition efficiency on iron corrosion in acid media. The electronic structures as well as reactivity elucidate parameters which could be practical in designing novel high-efficiency, cheap, and eco-friendly inhibitors by quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) method.
Bandwidth Allocation Based on Traffic Load and Interference in IEEE 802.16 Mesh Networks
Authors: Jain Sanjeev , Tripathi Vijay Shanker , Tiwari Sudarshan
Published: April 2013

This paper introduces a traffic load and interference based bandwidth allocation (TLIBA) scheme for wireless mesh network (WMN) that improves the delay and throughput performance by proper utilization of assigned bandwidth. The bandwidth is allocated based jointly on traffic load and interference. Then a suitable path is selected based upon the least routing metric (RM) value. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach which indicates higher bandwidth utilization and throughput as compared with existing fair end-to-end bandwidth allocation (FEBA).
Association between Osteocalcin, Metabolic Syndrome, and Cardiovascular Risk Factors: Role of Total and Undercarboxylated Osteocalcin in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes
Authors: Alfadda Assim A. , Masood Afshan , Shaik Shaffi Ahamed , Dekhil Hafedh , Goran Michael
Published: April 2013

Studies have demonstrated that total osteocalcin (TOC) is associated with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and therefore might influence the risk of cardiovascular disease in humans. Undercarboxylated osteocalcin (uOC) regulates insulin secretion and sensitivity in mice, but its relation to MetS in humans is unclear. We aimed to determine whether uOC is related to MetS and/or its individual components and other cardiovascular risk factors in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and whether TOC and uOC have utility in predicting the cardiovascular risk. We studied 203 T2DM patients with and without MetS. MetS was defined based on the NCEP-ATP III criteria. A correlation analysis was performed between the three outcome variables: (i) TOC, (ii) uOC, and (iii) carboxylated osteocalcin (cOC) and MetS components and other cardiovascular risk factors. Both TOC and uOC were significantly lower in patients with MetS compared to those without MetS, independent of body mass index. In patients with MetS, uOC was significantly and positively correlated with HDL cholesterol, while TOC was significantly and negatively correlated with serum triglycerides. We report for the first time that uOC is related to lipid indices in patients with T2DM. Further studies are necessary to determine whether uOC can be utilized for cardiovascular risk assessments in these patients.
Removal of Crystal Violet Dye from Aqueous Solutions onto Date Palm Fiber by Adsorption Technique
Authors: Alshabanat Mashael , Alsenani Ghadah , Almufarij Rasmiah
Published: April 2013

The adsorption of crystal violet (CV) onto date palm fibers (DPFs) was examined in aqueous solution at 25°C. The experimental maximum adsorption capacity value was 0.66 × 10−6. Langmuir, Freundlich, Elovich and Temkin models were applied to describe the equilibrium isotherms. The influence of pH and temperature on dye removal was evaluated. The percentage removal of CV dye by adsorption onto DPF at different pH and temperatures showed that these factors play a role in the adsorption process. Thermodynamic analysis was performed, and the Gibbs free energy ΔGο, enthalpy change ΔHο, and entropy ΔSο were calculated. The negative values of ΔGο indicate spontaneous adsorption. The negative value of ΔHο indicates that the interaction between CV and DPF is exothermic, and the positive value of ΔSο indicates good affinity between DPF and CV. The kinetic data were fitted to a pseudo‐second‐order model.
A Novel Two-Terminal Reliability Analysis for MANET
Authors: Zhao Xibin , You Zhiyang , Wan Hai
Published: April 2013

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a dynamic wireless communication network. Because of the dynamic and infrastructureless characteristics, MANET is vulnerable in reliability. This paper presents a novel reliability analysis for MANET. The node mobility effect and the node reliability based on a real MANET platform are modeled and analyzed. An effective Monte Carlo method for reliability analysis is proposed. A detailed evaluation is performed in terms of the experiment results.
Mitochondrial Complex I Inhibitors and Forced Oxidative Phosphorylation Synergize in Inducing Cancer Cell Death
Authors: Palorini Roberta , Simonetto Tiziana , Cirulli Claudia , Chiaradonna Ferdinando
Published: April 2013

Cancer cells generally rely mostly on glycolysis rather than oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) for ATP production. In fact, they are particularly sensitive to glycolysis inhibition and glucose depletion. On the other hand mitochondrial dysfunctions, involved in the onset of the Warburg effect, are sometimes also associated with the resistance to apoptosis that characterizes cancer cells. Therefore, combined treatments targeting both glycolysis and mitochondria function, exploiting peculiar tumor features, might be lethal for cancer cells. In this study, we show that glucose deprivation and mitochondrial Complex I inhibitors synergize in inducing cancer cell death. In particular, our results reveal that low doses of Complex I inhibitors, ineffective on immortalized cells and in high glucose growth, become specifically cytotoxic on cancer cells deprived of glucose. Importantly, the cytotoxic effect of the inhibitors on cancer cells is strongly enhanced by forskolin, a PKA pathway activator, that we have previously shown to stimulate OXPHOS. Taken together, we demonstrate that induction in cancer cells of a switch from a glycolytic to a more respirative metabolism, obtained by glucose depletion or mitochondrial activity stimulation, strongly increases their sensitivity to low doses of mitochondrial Complex I inhibitors. Our findings might be a valuable approach to eradicate cancer cells.
Can High Altitude Influence Cytokines and Sleep?
Authors: de Aquino Lemos Valdir , dos Santos Ronaldo Vagner Thomatieli , Lira Fabio Santos , Rodrigues Bruno , Tufik Sergio , de Mello Marco Tulio
Published: April 2013

The number of persons who relocate to regions of high altitude for work, pleasure, sport, or residence increases every year. It is known that the reduced supply of oxygen (O2) induced by acute or chronic increases in altitude stimulates the body to adapt to new metabolic challenges imposed by hypoxia. Sleep can suffer partial fragmentation because of the exposure to high altitudes, and these changes have been described as one of the responsible factors for the many consequences at high altitudes. We conducted a review of the literature during the period from 1987 to 2012. This work explored the relationships among inflammation, hypoxia and sleep in the period of adaptation and examined a novel mechanism that might explain the harmful effects of altitude on sleep, involving increased Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) production from several tissues and cells, such as leukocytes and cells from skeletal muscle and brain.
Reliable Node Clustering for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Authors: Wang Tao , Hung William N. N.
Published: April 2013

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are gaining popularity in recent years due to their flexibility, the proliferation of smart computing devices, and developments in wireless communications. Due to the mobile nature of the network, creating reliable clusters that can sustain for long period of time is a challenging problem. In this paper, we use probabilistic analysis to guide our clustering algorithm towards more reliable clusters. We also use scatter search to perform clustering while considering various performance metrics. Experiment results show that our clustering approach produces more reliable clusters than prior approaches.