IDDQ Testing of Opens in CMOS SRAMs

The behavior of a CMOS SRAM memory in the presence of open defects is analyzed. It has been found that destructive read-out depends on the level of the precharge. A technique to test open defects producing data retention faults is proposed. An initial condition is forced during the writing phase. In this way, intermediate voltages appear during the memorizing phase. Hence, the quiescent current consumption (I_DDQ) increases and the fault can be detected sensing the I_DDQ. The testability regions for the defective memory cell were determined using state diagrams. Conditions to obtain the optimum vector have been stated. A DFT circuitry has been proposed. The cost of the proposed approach in terms of area, test time, and performance degradation is analyzed.     

Performance characteristics and modelling of a micro gas turbine for their integration with thermally activated cooling technologies

We have developed a simple model of a micro gas turbine system operating at high ambient temperatures and characterized its performance with a view to integrating this system with thermally activated cooling technologies. To develop and validate this model, we used experimental data from the micro gas turbine test facility of the CREVER research centre. The microturbine components were modelled and the thermodynamic properties of air and combustion gases were estimated using a commercial process simulator. Important information such as net output power, microturbine fuel consumption and exhaust gas mass flow rate can be obtained with the empirical correlations we have developed in this study. This information can be useful for design exhaust gas fired absorption chillers. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biometric dispersion matcher

In this paper we propose a new classifier called a dispersion matcher. Our proposal is especially well adapted to those scenarios where a large number of classes and a small number of samples per class are available for training. This is the situation of biometric systems where just three to five measures per person are acquired during enrollment. This is just the opposite situation of other pattern recognition applications where a small number of classes and a large amount of training samples are available, such as handwritten digit recognition (10 classes) for ZIP code identification.The dispersion matcher trains a quadratic discriminant classifier to solve the dichotomy “Do these two feature vectors belong to the same person?”. In this way, we solve an important set of topics: (a) we can classify an open world problem and we do not need to train the model again if a new user is added, (b) we find a natural solution for feature selection, (c) experimental results with a priori threshold provides good results.We evaluate the proposed system with hand-geometry and face recognition problems (identification and verification). In hand geometry, we get a minimum detection cost function (DCF) for verification of 0.21% and a maximum identification rate of 99.1%, which compares favorably with other state-of-the-art methods. In face verification we achieve 5.59% DCF and 92.77% identification rate, which also compares favorably with the literature.     

Effects of interpersonal control, perspective taking, and attributions on older mothers' and adult daughters' satisfaction with their helping relationships.

Older mother-adult daughter dyads (N?=?44) were interviewed separately about 3 variables hypothesized to affect satisfaction with the help provided to mothers by their daughters: feelings of interpersonal control, perspective-taking abilities, and attributions made about the self and other dyad member during positive and negative helping interactions. The most important predictors of partner satisfaction were mothers' and daughters' ability to accurately perceive the partner's feelings about the helping relationship and their feelings of interpersonal control. The most salient predictors of mothers' and daughters' own satisfaction were the attributions they made about the partner during a negative helping situation and their feelings of interpersonal control. These findings underscore the importance of considering interpersonal psychological variables in research concerned with helping relationships in later life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Curve Mapping

We present a matching criterion for curves and integrate it into the large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping (LDDMM) scheme for computing an optimal transformation between two curves embedded in Euclidean space ℝ ^d . Curves are first represented as vector-valued measures, which incorporate both location and the first order geometric structure of the curves. Then, a Hilbert space structure is imposed on the measures to build the norm for quantifying the closeness between two curves. We describe a discretized version of this, in which discrete sequences of points along the curve are represented by vector-valued functionals. This gives a convenient and practical way to define a matching functional for curves. We derive and implement the curve matching in the large deformation framework and demonstrate mapping results of curves in ℝ² and ℝ³. Behaviors of the curve mapping are discussed using 2D curves. The applications to shape classification is shown and experiments with 3D curves extracted from brain cortical surfaces are presented. J. Glaunès and A. Qiu contributed equally to this work.     

Stem cell bioprocessing: fundamentals and principles

In recent years, the potential of stem cell research for tissue engineering-based therapies and regenerative medicine clinical applications has become well established. In 2006, Chung pioneered the first entire organ transplant using adult stem cells and a scaffold for clinical evaluation. With this a new milestone was achieved, with seven patients with myelomeningocele receiving stem cell-derived bladder transplants resulting in substantial improvements in their quality of life. While a bladder is a relatively simple organ, the breakthrough highlights the incredible benefits that can be gained from the cross-disciplinary nature of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) that encompasses stem cell research and stem cell bioprocessing. Unquestionably, the development of bioprocess technologies for the transfer of the current laboratory-based practice of stem cell tissue culture to the clinic as therapeutics necessitates the application of engineering principles and practices to achieve control, reproducibility, automation, validation and safety of the process and the product. The successful translation will require contributions from fundamental research (from developmental biology to the ‘omics’ technologies and advances in immunology) and from existing industrial practice (biologics), especially on automation, quality assurance and regulation. The timely development, integration and execution of various components will be critical—failures of the past (such as in the commercialization of skin equivalents) on marketing, pricing, production and advertising should not be repeated. This review aims to address the principles required for successful stem cell bioprocessing so that they can be applied deftly to clinical applications.     

Environmental impacts of natural gas distribution networks within urban neighborhoods

This study uses the life cycle assessment methodology to analyze the type and origin of environmental impacts related to natural gas distribution networks in high and low density neighborhoods, and compares the environmental performance of two infrastructures in low density neighborhoods: a standard natural gas grid and a discontinuous system based on propane tanks. The results show that the impact per dwelling in the environmental categories studied is between 1.9 and 4.8 times higher in a low density neighborhood, depending on the impact category. Besides, in high density areas the main impact originates from components and materials related to the buildings and dwellings, whereas in low density areas the main impact originates on the neighborhood network. Given this last result, the advisability of substituting the neighborhood network by a discontinuous system based on propane tanks has been evaluated, obtaining as a result that when a single neighborhood pipe, longer than 1 km, is required to reach one user, it is environmentally preferable for all the studied environmental categories to use the propane tank system.     

Couple dynamics during women's tobacco reduction in pregnancy and postpartum.

Smoking cessation during pregnancy is often temporary; many women relapse postpartum. To develop strategies for supporting successful long-term smoking cessation, we conducted a qualitative study to explore the influence of couple interactions on women's tobacco reduction within the context of pregnancy and the postpartum period. A total of 28 women who quit or reduced smoking for pregnancy and their partners were interviewed following delivery and at 3-6 months postpartum. Open-ended, individual interviews elicited the challenges posed by the women's tobacco reduction and how their partners influenced their cessation efforts. The use of constant comparative analytic strategies focusing on women's processes, experiences, and responses revealed that unquestioned expectations for pregnant women's cessation created the social context of compelled tobacco reduction. Women's engagement in tobacco reduction in this context fundamentally altered couples' previously established tobacco-related routines. The intensity of these changes varied depending on the couples' established interaction patterns with respect to tobacco (i.e., disengaged, conflictual, or accommodating) and was a source of conflict for some couples. The findings offer novel ways to understand smoking cessation during pregnancy that provide new directions for research and for tailoring smoking cessation interventions.     

A Batch Learning Vector Quantization Algorithm for Nearest Neighbour Classification

We introduce a batch learning algorithm to design the set of prototypes of 1 nearest-neighbour classifiers. Like Kohonen's LVQ algorithms, this procedure tends to perform vector quantization over a probability density function that has zero points at Bayes borders. Although it differs significantly from their online counterparts since: (1) its statistical goal is clearer and better defined; and (2) it converges superlinearly due to its use of the very fast Newton's optimization method. Experiments results using artificial data confirm faster training time and better classification performance than Kohonen's LVQ algorithms.     

Seat Reservation Allowing Seat Changes

We consider a new variant of the Seat Reservation Problem [4]in which seat changes are allowed. We analyze the problem using the competitive ratio and the competitive ratio on accommodating sequences [4]. A very promising algorithm defined in this paper is Min-Change, which will ask passengers to change seat, only if they would otherwise have been rejected. Min-Change belongs to a large class of conservative algorithms, for which we prove very high performance guarantees. For instance when assuming that all of the passengers could have been seated by an optimal off-line algorithm, at least of the passengers can be seated on-line with only one seat change and at least will be seated if two seat changes are allowed. This should be compared to the performance guarantee of for the best deterministic on-line algorithm when no seat changes are allowed [2].