On the necessity of explicit cross-layer data formats in near-data processing systems

Distributed and Parallel Databases - Massive data transfers in modern data-intensive systems resulting from low data-locality and data-to-code system design hurt their performance and scalability....     

Evolution of efficient real-time non-linear image filters for FPGAs

Image processing represents a research field in which high-quality solutions have been obtained using various soft computing techniques. Evolutionary algorithms constitute a class of stochastic search methods that are applicable in both optimization and design tasks. In the area of circuit design Cartesian Genetic Programming has often been utilized in combination with an algorithm of Evolutionary Strategy. Digital image filters represent a specific class of circuits whose design can be performed by means of this approach. Switching filters are advanced non-linear filtering techniques in which the main idea is to detect and filter the noise pixels while keeping the uncorrupted pixels unchanged in order to increase the quality of the resulting image. The aim of this article is to present a robust design technique based on Cartesian Genetic Programming for the automatic synthesis of switching image filters intended for real-time processing applications. The robustness of the proposed evolutionary approach is evaluated using four design problems including the removal of salt and pepper noise, random shot noise, impulse burst noise and impulse burst noise combined with random shot noise. An extensive evaluation is performed in order to compare the properties of the evolved switching filters with the best conventional solutions. The evaluation has shown that the evolved switching filters exhibit a very good trade off between the quality of filtering and the implementation cost in field programmable gate arrays.     

Stabiler korrosionsbeständiger Drucksensor für die chemische Verfahrenstechnik

It is described a ceramical pressure sensor, working on a capacitive based measuring method. The pressure sensor has proved meanwhile its precise and reliable working capability in different applications, for instance in chemical process engineering. For the electronic a customer specified circuit (ASIC) is used. The advantages of the sensor are shown. The latest developments with regard to the sensing element and the evaluation circuit are sketched. So there are new applications rising up for this sensor.