bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Reliability Analysis and Mitigation of Near-Threshold Voltage (NTC) Caches
Authors: Gebregiorgis Anteneh , Bishnoi Rajendra , Tahoori Mehdi B. 
Published: December 2020

AbstractNear-threshold computing (NTC) has significant role in reducing the energy consumption of modern very large-scale integrated circuits designs. However, NTC designs suffer from functional failures and performance loss. Understanding the characteristics of the functional failures and variability effects is of decisive importance in order to mitigate them, and get the utmost NTC benefits. This chapter presents a comprehensive cross-layer reliability analysis framework to assess the effect of soft error, aging, and process variation in the operation of near-threshold voltage caches. The objective is to quantify the reliability of different SRAM designs, evaluate voltage scaling potential of caches, and to find a reliability-performance optimal cache organization for an NTC microprocessor. In this chapter, the soft error rate (SER) and static noise margin (SNM) of 6T and 8T SRAM cells and their dependencies on aging and process variation are investigated by considering device, circuit, and architecture-level analysis.
Selective Flip-Flop Optimization for Circuit Reliability
Authors: Golanbari Mohammad Saber , Ebrahimi Mojtaba , Kiamehr Saman , Tahoori Mehdi B. 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThis chapter proposes a selective flip-flop optimization method (Golanbari et al., IEEE Trans Very Large Scale Integr VLSI Syst 39(7):1484–1497, 2020; Golanbari et al., Aging guardband reduction through selective flip-flop optimization. In: IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS) (2015)), in which the timing and reliability of the VLSI circuits are improved by optimizing the timing-critical components under severe impact of runtime variations. As flip-flops are vulnerable to aging and supply voltage fluctuation, it is necessary to address these reliability issues in order to improve the overall system lifetime. In the proposed method, we first extend the standard cell libraries by adding optimized versions of the flip-flops designed for better resiliency against severe Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) impact and/or supply voltage fluctuation. Then, we optimize the VLSI circuit by replacing the aging-critical and voltage-drop critical flip-flops of the circuit with optimized versions to improve the timing and reliability of the entire circuit in a cost-effective way. Simulation results show that incorporating the optimized flip-flops in a processor can prolong the circuit lifetime by 36.9%, which translates into better reliability.This chapter is organized as follows. Section 1 introduces wide-voltage operation reliability issues and motivates the proposed selective flip-flop optimization approach. The impacts of runtime variations on flip-flops are explained in Sect. 2. Consequently, Sect. 3 presents cell-level optimization of the flip-flops. The proposed selective flip-flop optimization methodology is described in Sect. 4, and optimization results are discussed in Sect. 5. Finally, Sect. 7 concludes the chapter.
EM Lifetime Constrained Optimization for Multi-Segment Power Grid Networks
Authors: Zhou Han , Sun Zeyu , Sadiqbatcha Sheriff , Tan Sheldon X.-D. 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThis chapter provides techniques for power grid network sizing while considering electromigration reliability. Starting with power grid network and electromigration (EM) fundamentals. Specifically the concerns here are EM immortality and aging effects used as EM constraints when formulating the optimization problems. The chapter first shows that the new power/ground (P/G) optimization problem, subject to the voltage IR drop and new EM constraints, can still be formulated as an efficient sequence of linear programming (SLP) problem, where the optimization is carried out in two linear programming phases in each iteration. The new optimization will ensure that none of the wires fails if all the constraints are satisfied. However, requiring all the wires to be EM immortal can be over-constrained. To mitigate this problem, the improvement is to consider the aging effects of interconnect wires in P/G networks. The idea is to allow some short-lifetime wires to fail and optimize the rest of the wires while considering the additional resistance caused by the failed wire segments. In this way, the resulting P/G networks can be optimized such that the target lifetime of the whole P/G networks can be ensured and will become more robust and aging-aware over the expected lifetime of the chip.
Monitor Circuits for Cross-Layer Resiliency
Authors: Islam Mahfuzul , Onodera Hidetoshi 
Published: December 2020

AbstractCross-layer resiliency has become a critical deciding factor for any successful product. This chapter focuses on monitor circuits that are essential in realizing the cross-layer resiliency. The role of monitor circuits is to establish a bridge between the hardware and other layers by providing information about the devices and the operating environment in run-time. This chapter explores delay-based monitor circuits for design automation with the existing cell-based design methodology. The chapter discusses several design techniques to monitor parameters of threshold voltage, temperature, leakage current, critical delay, and aging. The chapter then demonstrates a reconfigurable architecture to monitor multiple parameters with small area footprint. Finally, an extraction methodology of physical parameters is discussed for model-hardware correlation. Utilizing the cell-based design flow, delay-based monitors can be placed inside the target digital circuit and thus a better correlation between monitor and target circuit behavior can be realized.
Dealing with Aging and Yield in Scaled Technologies
Authors: Ye Wei , Alawieh Mohamed Baker , Hsu Che-Lun , Lin Yibo , Pan David Z. 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThis chapter reviews recent practices of tackling aging and yield issues in VLSI design related to shrinking technology processes. Different fundamental effects such as device aging, interconnect electromigration, and process variations are investigated with the state-of-the-art techniques for modeling and optimization. The presented techniques vary from analytical approaches to machine learning, and often require cross-layer information feedback for robust design cycles.
Exploiting Memory Resilience for Emerging Technologies: An Energy-Aware Resilience Exemplar for STT-RAM Memories
Authors: Monazzah Amir Mahdi Hosseini , Rahmani Amir M. , Miele Antonio , Dutt Nikil 
Published: December 2020

AbstractDue to the consistent pressing quest of larger on-chip memories and caches of multicore and manycore architectures, Spin Transfer Torque Magnetic RAM (STT-MRAM or STT-RAM) has been proposed as a promising technology to replace classical SRAMs in near-future devices. Main advantages of STT-RAMs are a considerably higher transistor density and a negligible leakage power compared with SRAM technology. However, the drawback of this technology is the high probability of errors occurring especially in write operations. Such errors are asymmetric and transition-dependent, where 0 → 1 is the most critical one, and is high subjected to the amount and current (voltage) supplied to the memory during the write operation. As a consequence, STT-RAMs present an intrinsic trade-off between energy consumption vs. reliability that needs to be properly tuned w.r.t. the currently running application and its reliability requirement. This chapter proposes FlexRel, an energy-aware reliability improvement architectural scheme for STT-RAM cache memories. FlexRel considers a memory architecture provided with Error Correction Codes (ECCs) and a custom current regulator for the various cache ways and conducts a trade-off between reliability and energy consumption. FlexRel cache controller dynamically profiles the number of 0 → 1 transitions of each individual bit write operation in a cache block and based on that selects the most-suitable cache way and current level to guarantee the necessary error rate threshold (in terms of occurred write errors) while minimizing the energy consumption. We experimentally evaluated the efficiency of FlexRel against the most efficient uniform protection scheme from reliability, energy, area, and performance perspectives. Experimental simulations performed by using gem5 has demonstrated that while FlexRel satisfies the given error rate threshold, it delivers up to 13.2% energy saving. From the area footprint perspective, FlexRel delivers up to 7.9% cache ways’ area saving. Furthermore, the performance overhead of the FlexRel algorithm which changes the traffic patterns of the cache ways during the executions is 1.7%, on average.
Increasing Reliability Using Adaptive Cross-Layer Techniques in DRPs: Just-Safe-Enough Responses to Reliability Threats
Authors: Kühn Johannes Maximilian , Bringmann Oliver , Rosenstiel Wolfgang 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThe developments in the semiconductor industry as predicted by institutions such as the ITRS present a difficult question to hardware and software developers alike: How to implement increasingly complex, power hungry, and critical applications reliably in today’s and tomorrow’s semiconductor technology? The present trend of semiconductor technology is characterized by a sharp increase in complexity, cost, and delicacy. Also, it does not scale along the demands which are still based on and often exceed Moore’s Law. In this chapter, we propose to exploit the architectural redundancies provided by potent, yet energy efficient massively parallel architectures, modeled using Dynamically Reconfigurable Processors (DRP). Using DRPs, we built an extensive cross-layer approach, offering different levels of reliability measures to operating system (OS) and software developers through low-cost hardware redundancy schemes and appropriate physical operating condition tuning. On the hardware side, online testing schemes and error detection are deployed to trigger dynamic remapping to avoid the usage of faulty components. This approach is further complemented through hardware health monitoring that can detect reliability issues such as negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) or hot carrier injection (HCI) before they surface as an error as well as further tuning of operating conditions to delay such phenomena from surfacing.
Dependable Software Generation and Execution on Embedded Systems
Authors: Kriebel Florian , Chen Kuan-Hsun , Rehman Semeen , Henkel Jörg , Chen Jian-Jia , Shafique Muhammad 
Published: December 2020

AbstractFor generating and executing dependable software, the effects of hardware layer faults at the software layer have to be accurately analyzed and modeled. This requires relevant information from the hardware and software layers, as well as an in-depth analysis of how an application’s outputs are affected by errors, and quantifying the error masking and error propagation on the software layer. Based on this analysis, techniques for generating dependable software can be proposed, e.g., by different dependability-aware compiler-based software transformations or selective instruction protection. Beside functional aspects, timing also plays an important role, as oftentimes tasks have to be finished before a certain deadline to provide useful information, especially in real-time systems. Both aspects are jointly taken into account by the run-time system software which decides—with the help of offline and online-generated data—for multiple concurrently executing applications how to protect and when to execute which application task to optimize for dependability and timing correctness. This is achieved for example by selecting appropriate application versions and protection levels for single and multi-core systems—for example using redundant multithreading (RMT) in different modes—under tolerable performance overhead constraints.
Introduction
Authors: Griffith-Jones Stephany , De Souza Guilherme Bettina 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThis book is the result of the first 3 years of the comparative and multidisciplinary Jean Monnet Network, “Crisis-Equity-Democracy for Europe and Latin America”, of senior academics and policy advisors from four European and three Latin American countries, including experts on the European Union and Latin American regionalism. The rationale of the project and the common link is that both Europe and Latin America can learn from their respective experiences on “crisis”, its management and the distributive and democratic implications at national and regional level. The main purposes of the joint research can be summarised as to (1) locate in the current global financial system as one of the very major causes of the financial and debt crises in the EU and Latin America; (2) demonstrate the impact of the paradigm change on global and EU economic governance; (3) analyse key systemic aspects of the global crisis, i.e. climate change, macro-financial instability and the weakening of democracy and their inter-connections; (4) map and evaluate how both regions and individual countries within both regions have tried to manage these crises; (5) discuss the economic, political and social effects of these crises on both regions and individual countries; (6) finally, to make policy suggestions on how to transition from finance capitalism to a more sustainable real capitalism, on how both regions can better manage/govern/respond to such systemic pressures and on how they can increase their cooperation.
The 2011 Crisis in Italy: A Story of Deep-Rooted (and Still Unresolved) Economic and Political Weaknesses
Authors: Romano Simone 
Published: December 2020

AbstractItaly went through an economic and political crisis in 2011. The trigger was the Sovereign debt crisis that shook the Eurozone due to its incomplete structure. The ingrained causes were the long-term structural problems that have plagued the Italian economy for a long time, leaving it vulnerable to external shocks. The reaction to the crisis took the form of austerity measures and reforms implemented by a technocratic Government. These policies, carried out with no external financial assistance, were meant to send a signal to markets and stop the spiral of distrust and negative self-fulfilling expectations, but they did not address the sources of the problems. Since then much has been done at both national and European levels, but it is still not enough to guarantee resilience. Italy needs to finally solve its structural problems, and the European Monetary Union (EMU) needs to complete its architecture, starting with the completion of the Banking Union. Considering the increasing social discontent and political intolerance, failing to act now might imply severe consequences when the next crisis hits.
Latin American Economic Crises and Populist Bids: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico
Authors: Lins Maria Antonieta Del Tedesco 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThrough a comparative case study analysis, the chapter seeks to retrace the recent history of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico in dealing with economic crises. Despite their different institutional arrangements and macroeconomic trajectories, the comparison shows that domestic concerns were the main drivers of economic policies. Particularly regarding each country’s approaches to exchange markets and capital controls—here called financial policy—the chapter evaluates the extent to which they contradict international perceptions and even the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) stance on financial regulation and the management of capital flows. A close relationship between domestic political demands and the design of economic policy indicated that even in the face of some similarity between the challenges posed to the three countries and more than responses to changes in the world economy and the quest to keep these economies integrated, economic policy aimed to accommodate internal political pressures.
European Economic Governance and Rising Sovereignism
Authors: Poli Eleonora 
Published: December 2020

AbstractEuropeans have experienced a variety of challenges in recent years. The rise of sovereignism is one of them. Against this backdrop, this chapter analyses the link between the economic crises and the development of right-wing populist parties. It assesses that while the European economic governance, through a set of mechanisms and institutions, acquired a renovated economic and financial equilibrium, it failed to deal with other salient imbalances concerning wage and fiscal policies across European Union (EU) member countries allowing sovereign parties to gain more legitimacy.
A “Pink Tide” Then a “Turn to the Right”: Populisms and Extremism in Latin America in the Twenty-First Century
Authors: Salgado Carolina , Sandrin Paula 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThis chapter gives a brief historical account of previous and current waves of populism in Latin America and their intermeshing with systemic factors, and discusses the historical relationship between populism, democracy and neoliberalism, giving particular focus to Bolivia, Chile and Brazil.
Regional Governance and Macroeconomic Crisis Management in Latin America
Authors: Lins Maria Antonieta Del Tedesco , Ribeiro Hoffmann Andrea 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThis chapter analyses the governance institutions in Latin America, i.e. norms, instruments and mechanisms designed to deal with macroeconomic and financial crisis management, and their use during the financial crisis which started in 2008 in the USA and reached the region mostly towards the mid-2010s. It argues that Latin American regional institutions never prioritized the harmonization or the development of common macroeconomic policies or mechanisms to deal with financial crises, and the few multilateral initiatives created were not successful.
Teaching Units as the Integrating Core of Mathematics Education
Authors: Wittmann Erich Christian 
Published: December 2020

AbstractHow to integrate mathematics, psychology, pedagogy and practical teaching within the didactics of mathematics in order to get unified specific theories and conceptions of mathematics teaching? This problem—relevant for theoretical and empirical studies in mathematics education as well as for teacher training—is considered in the present paper. The author suggests an approach which is based on teaching units (Unterrichtsbeispiele). Suitable teaching units incorporate mathematical, pedagogical, psychological and practical aspects in a natural way and therefore they are a unique tool for integration. It is the aim of the present paper to describe an approach to bridging the often deplored gap between didactics of mathematics teaching on one hand and teaching practice, mathematics, psychology, and pedagogy on the other hand. In doing so I relate the various aspects of mathematics education to one another. My interest is equally directed to teacher training and to the methodology of research in mathematics education. The structure of the paper is as follows. First I would like to make reference to and characterize an earlier discussion on the status and role of mathematics education; secondly, I will talk about problems of integration which naturally arise when mathematics education is viewed as an interdisciplinary field of study. The fourth and essential section will show how to tackle these problems by means of teaching units. The present approach is based on a certain conception of mathematics teaching which is necessary for appreciating Sect. 4. This conception is therefore explained in Sect. 3.
Factors influencing genotyping success and genotyping error rate of Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) faeces collected in temperate Central Europe
Authors: Sittenthaler Marcia , Schöll Eva Maria , Leeb Christoph , Haring Elisabeth , Parz-Gollner Rosemarie , Hackländer Klaus 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThe use of non-invasively collected DNA source material for genetic and genomic applications is usually characterized by low target DNA concentration and quality, genotyping errors and cost-intensive lab procedures. However, for otters (Lutrinae) as elusive species of conservation concern, genetic non-invasive sampling has become an important tool to study their ecology and demography. To increase cost-efficiency of monitoring programmes and to promote the expansion of genomic approaches to non-invasive samples, we aimed to refine sample collection and preparation. Therefore, we examined the effects of intrinsic sample characteristics (including diet), environmental conditions in the field and sample treatment in the molecular laboratory on the success of genotyping and allelic dropout (ADO) rates using microsatellite markers in 1970 fresh Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) scats. Using fresh samples only, we probably eliminated one of the most important impediments of genotyping DNA from otter faecal samples beforehand. But, we observed higher genotyping success and lower ADO rates for anal glad secretions and faecal samples containing high proportions of mucus. Moist conditions during sample collection may promote DNA degradation and PCR inhibition, leading to decreased genotyping success rates. ADO was further affected by the type of extraction kit. However, a high proportion of variance remaining unexplained by our models implied that additional parameters were acting (amount of PCR inhibitors, non-uniform distribution of intestinal cells, efficiency of PCRs, specific microclimate at marking sites). We summarized influential factors maximizing genotyping quality of otter scats and give recommendations for sample collection, storage and DNA extraction based on our results and current literature.
The Value of Transparent Self-Knowledge
Authors: Jongepier Fleur 
Published: December 2020

AbstractQuestions about the normative significance of ‘transparency’ do not receive much attention, even though they were central to Richard Moran’s (2001) original account. Instead, transparency is typically studied because of its epistemic and psychological peculiarities. In this paper, I consider three normative conceptions of transparency: teleological rationalism, procedural rationalism, and relational rationalism. The first is a theory about how transparency might relate to flourishing as a rational agent; the latter two are theories about how transparency relates to non-alienated self-knowledge. All three conceptions, I argue, face serious problems. I end the paper by suggesting where the rationalist might go from here and by highlighting the importance of focusing not on the methods but on the broader circumstances in which self-knowledge is gained or lost.