Modeling Power Supply Noise in Delay Testing

Excessive power supply noise during test can cause overkill. This article discusses two models for supply noise in delay testing and their application to test compaction. The proposed noise models avoid complicated power network analysis, making them much faster than existing power noise analysis tools. can cause performance degradation and     

Effect of the Extraction of a Hemagglutinin on the Nutritive Value of Amaranthus leucocarpus Seeds

Hemagglutinins present in Amaranthus leucocarpus seed meal were extracted with saline buffer and nutritive value was estimated by PER, NPR as well as Digestible Energy Consumption Evaluations. Protein digestibility was determined both in vitro and in vivo. Trypsin inhibitor activity was also determined. Saline-extracted Amaranth meal had significantly higher PER and NPR values than whole meal (p<0.05). There were no significant differences in digestible energy (Kcal/day/ animal) and protein consumption (g/day/animal) between diets (p<0.05). A. leucocarpus improves in nutritive value after the saline extraction procedures and has a good potential as a complementary food due to its lysine content. In addition purified agglutinin may be a useful biochemical.     

Income, Time Effects and Direct Preferences in a Multimodal Choice Context: Application of Mixed RP/SP Models with Non-Linear Utilities

Transport problems typically involve at least two types of constraints, on income and on time. Therefore, the indirect utility function depends either on the income available after having subtracted the cost of the discrete alternative and on the free time left after having worked and travelled by each competing option. In the typical linear-in-the-attributes and in-the-parameters specification, that represents the first grade approximation of the indirect utility function, the effect of income and time constraints cancel out and only the cost and time of the alternatives matter in the comparison between them. From a microeconomic point of view this is equivalent to assume that income and time effects could be disregarded; which is not always the case. To account for these effects the utility function should include second order attributes; however, in non-linear utility functions it may not be easy to distinguish among several effects that could be relevant: direct preferences for good and leisure, and simple interactions between attributes other than income and time effects. This paper analyses these effects from a theoretical point of view focusing on the possible confounding problem in detecting income and time effects. We use a dataset collected for a modal choice context and containing both revealed and stated preference data, and estimate several NL models examining the effect of the different second-order terms on detecting income and time effects. We compared specifications including square cost and time attributes, interactions between time and cost, cost divided by the income available to be spent on free time, and time multiplied by free time. Our results confirm the strong effect of direct preferences for goods and leisure time on choice, and the potential confounding effect between quadratic attributes and other non-linear omitted terms. Finally, we also found that care should be taken in highlighting income and time effects using mixed data sources, since confounding effects can occur when non-linearities are accounted for in both data sets.     

DefibViz: A Visualization Tool for the Assessment of Electrode Parameters on Transthoracic Defibrillation Thresholds

DefibViz is a software application developed for defibrillation simulation and visualization. It exploits both surface techniques and methods for the interactive exploration of volumetric datasets for the analysis of transthoracic defibrillation simulation results. DefibViz has a graphical user interface for the specification of the shape, size, position, and applied voltage of a defibrillator's electrodes. An option is provided for using 3D slice plane widgets, which operate on the volumetric datasets, such that the distribution of the voltage gradient induced by an electric shock can be visually inspected in various tissues throughout the myocardium and torso. One goal of DefibViz is to enhance understanding of how electrode parameters relate to the change of the voltage gradient distribution throughout the heart, which may help lead to optimal defibrillator design. DefibViz is significant, in that, it is built by using an open-source graphics and visualization framework providing a platform for subsequent modifiability and extensibility. Moreover, it integrates simulation and visualization techniques, which previously required the running of several independent software executables, into an enhanced, seamless, and comprehensive software application.     

Interpretation of scatterometer ocean surface wind vector EOFs over the Northwestern Pacific

Satellite scatterometer winds over the northwestern Pacific were analyzed with the vector empirical orthogonal function (VEOF) method. The Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT), a newly developed non-linear and non-stationary time series data processing method, was also employed in the analysis. A combination of European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS) −1/2 scatterometer, NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) and NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) winds covering the period from January 1992 to April 2000 and the area of 0-50°N, 100-148°E constitutes the baseline for this study. The results indicate that annual cycles dominate the two leading VEOF modes. The first VEOF shows the East Asian monsoon features and the second represents a spring-autumn oscillation. We removed the annual signal from the data set and calculated the interannual VEOFs. The first interannual VEOF represents the interannual variability existing in the spring-autumn oscillation. The temporal mode is correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), but has a half-year lag with respect to the SOI. The spatial mode of the first interannual VEOF reflects the response of the tropical and extratropical winds to ENSO events. The second interannual VEOF is another ENSO related mode, and the temporal VEOF mode is correlated with the SOI with a correlation coefficient of 0.78, revealing the wind variability over mid-latitudes, which is associated with ENSO events. Further analysis indicated that the wind variability over the coast of East Asia represents anomalies of a Hadley cell. The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) was found in the temporal mode, indicating and verifying that the QBO in the wind fields is related to ENSO events. The third VEOF shows the interannaul variability in the winter-summer mode and displays the interannual variability of the East Asian monsoon. The three leading interannual VEOFs are statistically meaningful as confirmed by a significance test.