Study of the effects of structural uncertainties on a fractional system of the first kind – application in vibration isolation with the CRONE suspension

In this paper, we deal with the effects of the uncertainties on a fractional system of the first kind, mainly on the frequency-domain and the time-domain responses. For the structural uncertainties, two main aspects are studied: the nonlinearities of the physical components used to realize the fractional system and the consideration of the previously neglected dynamics of the system. Both uncertainties are introduced for the hydropneumatic CRONE suspension, previously synthesized and realized without taking into consideration these uncertainties. So, the novel approach treated in this work is to find whether the uncertainties, which were previously neglected in the synthesis and the realization phases, alter the behaviour of the system or not. The results show that the fractional order system behaviour is not affected.     

Social‐based reputation‐aware data forwarding for improved multicast delivery in the presence of selfish nodes in DTNs

Delay/disruption tolerant networks (DTNs) are potentially applicable in the challenged scenarios like post‐disaster environments. In such networks, data forwarding generally relies on the mutual cooperation of the nodes. However, in reality, despite the availability of necessary resources for data forwarding, a node could misbehave by dropping messages received from other nodes with whom it has no strong social ties. Such a node is called a socially selfish node, which would cause a poor delivery ratio in the network. In this paper, we aim to address the problem of multicast data forwarding in the presence of such selfish nodes, by means of efficient relay selection in DTNs. First, we define a realistic reputation model, in contrast to existing models, to define the socially selfish/misbehaving nodes in the network. Further, a game‐theoretic analysis is carried out that implies data forwarding cost is also an influential parameter in handling selfishness/misbehavior. Subsequently, the problem is formulated as a constrained optimization problem, which is NP hard. Therefore, a heuristic is proposed by combining the reputation of a node and the cost of message forwarding to appropriately identify relay nodes, thus improve the performance of the multicast message delivery in the network. We utilize a social metric, centrality to minimize the message forwarding cost in terms of the number of relay nodes. Finally, the comparative performance evaluation in ONE simulator with practical scenarios shows the superiority of the proposed scheme over the other prominent schemes.     

On-body propagation velocity estimation using ultra-wideband frequency-domain spatial correlation analyses

On-body communications around the human torso are considered, using ultra-wideband transmissions. The velocity of the diffracted wave propagating around the body is extracted from frequency- domain spatial correlation analyses.     

O/sup 2/ABA: a novel high-performance predictable circuit architecture for the deep submicron era

Current VLSI design techniques focus on four major goals: higher integration, faster speed, lower power, and shorter time-to-market. These goals have been accomplished mainly by deep submicron (DSM) technology along with voltage scaling. However, scaling down of feature size causes larger interwire capacitance which results in large crosstalk between interconnects. In this paper, we propose a novel predictable circuit architecture, named "optimized overlaying array-based architecture" (O/sup 2/ABA), especially suited for the deep submicron regime. O/sup 2/ABA achieves reduction in crosstalk by considering the current directions and by reducing interwire capacitance. The introduction of "unit cell" leads to regularity, which makes the performance predictable even before layout, and shortens design time. O/sup 2/ABA is compared with other design styles, such as custom design and standard cell approach, in terms of coupling capacitance, area, and delay.     

Profit Aware Circuit Design Under Process Variations Considering Speed Binning

In this paper, a profit-aware design metric is proposed to consider the overall merit of a design in terms of power and performance. A statistical design methodology is then developed to improve the economic merit of a design considering frequency binning and product price profile. A low-complexity sensitivity-based gate sizing algorithm is developed to improve economic gain of a design over its initial yield-optimized design. Finally, we present an integrated design methodology for simultaneous sizing and bin boundary determination to enhance profit under an area constraint. Experiments on a set of ISCAS'85 benchmarks show in average 19% improvement in profit for simultaneous sizing and bin boundary determination, considering both leakage power dissipation and delay bounds compared to a design initially optimized for 90% yield at iso-area in 70-nm bulk CMOS technology.     

Optimal Dual-$V_{T}$ Design in Sub-100-nm PD/SOI and Double-Gate Technologies

Dual-threshold-voltage (V_T) CMOS is an effective way to reduce leakage power in high-performance very-large-scale-integration circuits. In this paper, we explore the technology design space for dual-threshold-voltage transistor design in deep-sub-100-nm technology nodes. We propose a technique of achieving high-V_T (HVT) devices using thicker gate-sidewall offset spacers to increase the channel length without increasing the printed-gate length. The effectiveness of all the dual-V_T technology options-increasing channel doping, increasing gate length, and proposed technique of increasing spacer thickness-is analyzed at transistor and basic logic gate level. Results on 65-nm partially depleted silicon-on-insulator and double-gate technologies indicate that the proposed technique yields lower dynamic power consumption and lower performance penalty compared with longer gate length and high body-doping devices. Our proposed technique, however, incurs extra fabrication mask similar to achieving HVT by increasing body doping.     

ISDN applications at Tenneco Gas

The evolution from analog to integrated services digital network (ISDN) telecommunication services at Tenneco Gas and the features of its telephone system are described. The results of implementing ISDN in data operations are examined. The benefits of ISDN for Tenneco are briefly summarized     

EEG complexity as a measure of depth of anesthesia for patients

A new approach for quantifying the relationship between brain activity patterns and depth of anesthesia (DOA) is presented by analyzing the spatio-temporal patterns in the electroencephalogram (EEG) using Lempel-Ziv complexity analysis. Twenty-seven patients undergoing vascular surgery were studied under general anesthesia with sevoflurane, isoflurane, propofol, or desflurane. The EEG was recorded continuously during the procedure and patients' anesthesia states were assessed according to the responsiveness component of the observer's assessment of alertness/sedation (OAA/S) score. An OAA/S score of zero or one was considered asleep and two or greater was considered awake. Complexity of the EEG was quantitatively estimated by the measure C(n), whose performance in discriminating awake and asleep states was analyzed by statistics for different anesthetic techniques and different patient populations. Compared with other measures, such as approximate entropy, spectral entropy, and median frequency, C(n) not only demonstrates better performance (93% accuracy) across all of the patients, but also is an easier algorithm to implement for real-time use. The study shows that C(n) is a very useful and promising EEG-derived parameter for characterizing the (DOA) under clinical situations.