ABC transporters Cdr1p, Cdr2p and Cdr3p of a human pathogen Candida albicans are general phospholipid translocators

We have used fluorescent 7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl (NBD)-tagged phospholipid analogues, NBD-PE (phosphatidylethanolamine), NBD-PC (phosphatidylcholine) and NBD-PS (phosphatidylserine), to demonstrate that Cdr1p and its other homologues, Cdr2p and Cdr3p, belonging to the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) superfamily behave as general phospholipid translocators. Interestingly, CDR1 and CDR2, whose overexpression leads to azole resistance in C. albicans, elicit in-to-out transbilayer phospholipid movement, while CDR3, which is not involved in drug resistance, carries out-to-in translocation of phospholipids between the two monolayers of plasma membrane. Cdr1p, Cdr2p and Cdr3p could be further distinguished on the basis of their sensitivities to different inhibitors. For example, the in-to-out activity associated with Cdr1p and Cdr2p is energy-dependent and sensitive to sulphydryl blocking agents such as N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) and cytoskeleton disrupting agent cytochalasin E, while Cdr3p-associated out-to-in activity is energy-dependent but insensitive to NEM and cytochalasin E. We found that certain drugs, such as fluconazole, cycloheximide and miconazole, to which Cdr1p confers resistance could also affect in-to-out transbilayer movement of NBD-PE, while the same drugs had no effect on Cdr3p-mediated out-to-in translocation of NBD-PE. The ineffectiveness of these drugs to affect Cdr3p mediated out-to-in phospholipid translocation further confirms the inherent difference in the directionality of phospholipid translocation between these pumps. Notwithstanding the role of some of the Cdrps in drug resistance, this study clearly demonstrates that these ABC transporters of C. albicans are phospholipid translocators and this function could represent one of the physiological functions of such large family of proteins.     

Analysis of flange joints with elastic bolt

The contact zone and pressure distribution between two elastic plates joined by an elastic bolt and nut are estimated using finite element analysis. Smooth interfacial conditions are assumed in all the regions of contact. Eight node axisymmetric ring elements are used to model the structure. The matrix solution is obtained through frontal technique and this solution technique is shown to be very efficient for the iterative scheme adopted to determine the extent of contact. A parametric study is conducted varying the elastic properties of bolt and plate materials, bolt head diameter and thickness of the plates. The method of approach presented in this paper provides a solution with a realistic idealization of tension flange joints.     

5-GHz 32-bit integer execution core in 130-nm dual-V/sub T/ CMOS

A 32-bit integer execution core containing a Han-Carlson arithmetic-logic unit (ALU), an 8-entry /spl times/ 2 ALU instruction scheduler loop and a 32-entry /spl times/ 32-bit register file is described. In a 130 nm six-metal, dual-V/sub T/ CMOS technology, the 2.3 mm/sup 2/ prototype contains 160 K transistors. Measurements demonstrate capability for 5-GHz single-cycle integer execution at 25/spl deg/C. The single-ended, leakage-tolerant dynamic scheme used in the ALU and scheduler enables up to 9-wide ORs with 23% critical path speed improvement and 40% active leakage power reduction when compared to a conventional Kogge-Stone implementation. On-chip body-bias circuits provide additional performance improvement or leakage tolerance. Stack node preconditioning improves ALU performance by 10%. At 5 GHz, ALU power is 95 mW at 0.95 V and the register file consumes 172 mW at 1.37 V. The ALU performance is scalable to 6.5 GHz at 1.1 V and to 10 GHz at 1.7 V, 25/spl deg/C.     

Grinding of sol-gel derived alumina-zirconia composites

Alumina-zirconia powders containing 12.5 wt% zirconia were prepared by sol-gel processing. After calcination these powders were cold pressed, sintered and HIPed. The maximum amount of tetragonal form of zirconia is retained in these specimens. Grindability and the transformation behaviour of tetragonal zirconia were evaluated by conducting grinding studies at different speeds and depths of cut. The surface characteristics of the specimens and phase analysis of the specimens and grinding chips were determined. The surface finish improved as the grinding speed increased and with the decrease of depth of grinding. The grinding condition to obtain maximum amounts of tetragonal zirconia was optimized.     

Exploring the design space of mixed swing quadrail for low-powerdigital circuits

This paper describes and explores the design space of a mixed voltage swing methodology for lowering the energy per switching operation of digital circuits in standard submicron complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication processes. Employing mixed voltage swings expands the degrees of freedom available in the power-delay optimization space of static CMOS circuits. In order to study this design space and evaluate the power-delay tradeoffs, analytical polynomial formulations for power and delay of mixed swing circuits are derived and HSPICE simulation results are presented to demonstrate their accuracy. Efficient voltage scaling and transistor sizing techniques based on our analytical formulations are proposed for optimizing energy/operation subject to target delay constraints; up to 2.2× improvement in energy/operation is demonstrated for an ISCAS'85 benchmark circuit using these techniques. Experimental results from HSPICE simulations and measurements from an And-Or-Invert (AO1222) test chip fabricated in the Hewlett-Packard 0.5 μm process are presented to demonstrate up to 2,92× energy/operation savings for optimized mixed swing circuits compared to static CMOS     

Algorithms for optimal scheduling and management of hidden Markovmodel sensors

The author considers a hidden Markov model (HMM) where a single Markov chain is observed by a number of noisy sensors. Due to computational or communication constraints, at each time instant, one can select only one of the noisy sensors. The sensor scheduling problem involves designing algorithms for choosing dynamically at each time instant which sensor to select to provide the next measurement. Each measurement has an associated measurement cost. The problem is to select an optimal measurement scheduling policy to minimize a cost function of estimation errors and measurement costs. The optimal measurement policy is solved via stochastic dynamic programming. Sensor management issues and suboptimal scheduling algorithms are also presented. A numerical example that deals with the aircraft identification problem is presented     

On the radio capacity of TDMA and CDMA for broadband wireless packet communications

Studies of the capacity of cellular systems, stated in terms of the admissible number of remote users, have generally been limited to voice telephony. We address the problem of comparing the interference-limited performance of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) and time-division multiple-access (TDMA) systems in a packet-switched environment. The objective is to determine whether the capacity advantages claimed for circuit-switched CDMA still apply in a packet-switched environment, where the natural time diversity of bursty transmission may be a significant factor. Under a set of specific assumptions about the wireless environment (including path loss, shadow fading, multipath delay spread, cochannel interference, power control, and coding), we evaluate the number of users that can be admitted to the system while maintaining some desired quality-of-service (QoS) level. Four different classes of users with different characteristics and requirements are considered. The system capacity is found to depend significantly on the QoS objectives, which might be stated in terms of availability of some specified signal-to-interference level, packet-loss rate, or mean tolerable delay. The main finding is that strict requirements imposed on the radio access level tend to favor CDMA, whereas if some form of packet recovery is allowed at the higher layers (implying a relaxed set of requirements on the radio interface), then a somewhat higher capacity may be achieved by TDMA.     

Opportunistic scheduling for streaming multimedia users in high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA)

High-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) achieves high data rates and high spectral efficiency by using adaptive modulation and coding schemes and employing multicode CDMA. In this paper, we present opportunistic algorithms for scheduling HSDPA users and selecting modulation/coding and multicode schemes that exploit channel and buffer variations to increase the probability of uninterrupted media play-out. First, we introduce a stochastic discrete event model for a HSDPA system. By employing the discrete event model, we transform the scheduling problem of providing uninterrupted play-out to a feasibility problem that considers two sets of stochastic quality-of-service (QoS) constraints: stability constraints and robustness constraints. A methodology for obtaining a feasible solution is then proposed by starting with a so-called stable algorithm that satisfies the stability QoS constraints. Next, we present stochastic approximation algorithms that adapt the parameters of the stable algorithm in a way that a feasible point for the robustness QoS is reached within the feasibility region of the stability QoS.     

Fundamental materials studies of undoped, In-doped, and As-doped Hg1−xCdxTe

Variable magnetic-field Hall and transient photoconductance-lifetime measurements were performed on a series of undoped, In-doped, and As-doped HgCdTe samples grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Use of quantitative mobility-spectrum analysis (QMSA) combined with multiple carrier-fitting (MCF) techniques indicates that the majority of samples contain an interfacial n-type layer that significantly influences the interpretation of the electrical measurements. This n-type layer completely masks the high-quality electrical properties of undoped or low n-type In-doped HgCdTe, as well as complicating the interpretation of activation in As-doped p-type HgCdTe. Introduction of an intentional n-type background, typically created through doping with In to “recover” high mobility, is actually shown to increase the “bulk” layer conductivity to a level comparable to the interface layer conductivity. Photoconductance-lifetime measurements suggest that In-doping may introduce Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination centers. Variable-field Hall analysis is shown to be essential for characterizing p-type material. Photoconductance-lifetime measurements suggest that trapping states may be introduced during the incorporation and activation of As. Two distinctly different types of temperature dependencies were observed for the lifetimes of As-doped samples.