Co-simulation and communication synthesis approach for intellectual properties based SoCs

This paper presents an approach to integrate intellectual properties (IPs) based systems on chip (SoCs). The aim is to synthesize communication units using co-simulation environment and a stochastic process. The proposed approach allows to bound communication memories for different loading rates of the master processor. According to the chosen communication unit while interconnecting IPs components, this approach also allows to refine communication structures in order to lead to a model easily mappable onto the target architecture. The approach has been experimented and validated through a detailed case study concerning the verification and the integration of the discrete and direct wavelet transform (DDWT) IP in a mixed hardware/software architecture. Software partitions are executed on the ARM7 processor and hardware partitions are executed on the ModelSim simulator. The used co-simulation tool is Seamless CVE™ of Mentor Graphics. A library of adaptation protocols of IP blocs to the environment as well as a set of standard communication units (RAM, DPRAM, FIFOs) have been also developed and used.     

Deep Transfer Learning Based Detection and Classification of Citrus Plant Diseases

Citrus fruit crops are among the world’s most important agricultural products, but pests and diseases impact their cultivation, resulting in yield and quality losses. Computer vision and machine learning have been widely used to detect and classify plant diseases over the last decade, allowing for early disease detection and improving agricultural production. This paper presented an automatic system for the early detection and classification of citrus plant diseases based on a deep learning (DL) model, which improved accuracy while decreasing computational complexity. The most recent transfer learning-based models were applied to the Citrus Plant Dataset to improve classification accuracy. Using transfer learning, this study successfully proposed a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based pre-trained model (EfficientNetB3, ResNet50, MobiNetV2, and InceptionV3) for the identification and categorization of citrus plant diseases. To evaluate the architecture’s performance, this study discovered that transferring an EfficientNetb3 model resulted in the highest training, validating, and testing accuracies, which were 99.43%, 99.48%, and 99.58%, respectively. In identifying and categorizing citrus plant diseases, the proposed CNN model outperforms other cutting-edge CNN model architectures developed previously in the literature.     

Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activities of Mentha (longifolia L. and viridis) Essential Oils

ABSTRACT:  The study was aimed to investigate essential oil chemical composition (gas chromatography/flame ionization detection [GC-FID] and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry [GC-MS]) and antioxidant (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl free radical (DPPH) and 2,2'-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonate [ABTS] assays) and antimicrobial (Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, fungi, and yeast) activities of essential oils extracted from leaves of  Mentha longifolia  L. and  Mentha viridis . GC-MS analysis revealed that  M. longifolia  was constituted by pulegone (54.41%) as a major component followed by isomenthone (12.02%), 1,8-cineole (7.41%), borneol (6.85%), and piperitenone oxide (3.19%).  M. viridis  was rich in carvone (50.47%), 1,8-cineole (9.14%), and limonene (4.87%). The antioxidant activity by ABTS assay showed  IC ₅₀ values of 476.3 ± 11.7 and 195.1 ± 4.2 mg/L for  M .  longifolia  and  M .  viridis , respectively, the DPPH assays have resulted in a moderate  IC ₅₀ (>8000 mg/L and 3476.3 ± 133 mg/L for  M .  longifolia  and  M .  viridis , respectively). Antimicrobial activity showed that  Listeria monocytogenes  and  Klebsiella pneumoniae  bacteria were more inhibited by the 2 essential oils tested.  Escherichia coli  was least susceptible. A strong activity was also observed on fungi and yeasts. Carvone, thymol, and piperitone oxide have not been detected in Tunisian  M. longifolia . Camphor is reported for the 1st time for  M. viridis . Antioxidant and antibacterial activities were correlated to chemical composition.     

The influence of organ,season and drying method on chemical composition and antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of Juniperus phoenicea L. essential oils

BACKGROUND: Juniperus phoenicea is an important medicinal plant. In the present study, essential oils (18 samples) from leaves and berries of Juniperus phoenicea L. (Cupressaceae), obtained by various drying methods and in different collection months, were analysed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and also evaluated for in vitro antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Correlations were studied between antimicrobial activity and the chemical composition of essential oils. RESULTS: Sixty‐seven compounds were identified in essential oils, representing 97.7–100%. Essential oils were dominated by monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes, which presented 35.0–93.3% and 6.7–62.0%, respectively, depending of organ, season and drying method. Antimicrobial tests showed that essential oils strongly inhibited the growth of Gram‐positive microorganisms and Mucor ramamnianus, but was inactive against Gram‐negative strains. Antioxidant activity was tested using the ABTS radical‐scavenging assay. Most samples showed good activity (the best IC₅₀ = 41.7 ± 1.5 mg L^?1). CONCLUSIONS: It could be concluded that drying of leaves of J. phoenicea in the sun and berries in oven‐drying was more suitable and was recommended for obtaining higher essential oil yield, but for a higher percentage of some special components such as α‐pinene and δ‐3‐carene shade‐drying was more suitable. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

A design modification for a quadrotor UAV: modeling,control and implementation

Conventional quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles have crucial underactuation limitations. This appears in the coupling between the roll angle and movement along the y-direction, and between the pitch angle and movement along the x-direction. The quadrotor capability of hovering with either roll or pitch angle is restricted due to these limitations. In this paper, a design modification, with experimental verification, is proposed in order to increase the quadrotor degrees of freedom and improve its hovering capability. Four additional rotations for the propellers about the axes perpendicular to the arms grant overactuated system. It could be used to make a horizontal movement with zero inclination angle which is followed in this work as an example for the skills acquired by the quadrotor due to the proposed design. Choosing different tilting axes, rather than the mostly considered ones in previous work which are about the ones along the arms, enhances the advantages of this modification. The benefits are to increase the degrees of freedom and improve the hovering of the quadrotor as well. A PID controller is utilized for practical implementation of the proposed design. Simulation and experimental results show the validity of the proposed design.     

Nanoarchitectonics of Hydroxyapatite/Molybdenum Trioxide/Graphene Oxide Composite for Efficient Antibacterial Activity

Nanocomposites based on hydroxyapatite (HAP), including MoO₃, HAP/MoO₃, HAP/GO and HAP/MoO₃/GO have been studied to be suggested for biological usage. The different compositions were investigated using FTIR, XRD, EDS, and XPS analysis. The tight relation between morphological features and composites' chemical ingredients was also studied. According to TEM micrographs, it was mentioned that the disappearance of well-defined grains after the combinations of HAP and MoO₃, while graphene oxide (GO) caused a reduction in size and maintaining the particles’ shape. The combination between HAP/MoO₃ declines the roughness of both HAP and MoO₃ individually, recording 27.5 nm, while HAP/GO and HAP/MoO3/GO exhibit in-between roughness average (Ra) value among its raw constituents with 34.7 and 33.5 nm, respectively. Furthermore, SEM micrographs and roughness results show how to tailing the proper features for the proposed application by changing the type and amount of additives into HAP. Thus, the composite (HAP/MoO₃/GO) displays the uppermost cell viability compared with the rest compositions with 97.8?±?3.0%. Additionally, this triple composite hits the peak germicidal behavior with 17.9?±?1.2 and 16.5?±?0.9 mm against both E.coli and S.aureus, respectively.

     

Architecture level optimization of 3-dimensional tree-based FPGA

We describe a methodology to design and optimize Three-dimensional (3D) Tree-based FPGA by introducing a break-point at particular tree level interconnect to optimize the speed, area, and power consumption. The ability of the design flow to decide a horizontal or vertical network break-point based on design specifications is a defining feature of our design methodology. The vertical partitioning is organized in such a way to balance the placement of logic blocks and switch blocks into multiple tiers while the horizontal partitioning optimizes the interconnect delay by segregating the logic blocks and programmable interconnect resources into multiple tiers to build a 3D stacked Tree-based FPGA. We finally evaluate the effect of Look-Up-Table (LUT) size, cluster size, speed, area and power consumption of the proposed 3D Tree-based FPGA using our home grown experimental flow and show that the horizontal partitioned 3D stacked Tree-based FPGA with LUT and cluster sizes equal to 4 has the best area-delay product to design and manufacture 3D Tree-based FPGA.     

An AHP/DEA methodology for ranking decision making units

This paper presents a two-stage model for fully ranking organizational units where each unit has multiple inputs and outputs. In the first stage, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is run for each pair of units separately. In the second stage, the pairwise evaluation matrix generated in the first stage is utilized to rank scale the units via the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The consistency of this AHP/DEA evaluation can be tested statistically. Its goodness of fit with the DEA classification (to efficient/inefficient) can also be tested using non-parametric tests. Both DEA and AHP are commonly used in practice. Both have limitations. The hybrid model AHP/DEA takes the best of both models, by avoiding the pitfalls of each. The nonaxiomatic utility theory limitations of AHP are irrelevant here: since we are working with given inputs and outputs of units, no subjective assessment of a decision maker evaluation is involved. AHP/DEA ranking does not replace the DEA classification model, rather it furthers the analysis by providing full ranking in the DEA context for all units, efficient and inefficient.     

Ultra-Fine Characteristics of Starch Nanoparticles Prepared Using Native Starch With and Without Surfactant

Starch nanoparticles (St-NPs) were synthesized using native maize starch (NS). The synthesis was carried out as per the Solvent displacement method after being modified. Modification involved the use of aqueous alkaline medium as the solvent and ethanol as the organic non-solvent. This was done with a view to assure easier and more reproducible St-NPs preparation without consuming more solvent. The modified method for preparation of St-NPs was evaluated; investigation into factors affecting it were made in order to discover the optimum conditions for such preparation. Factors studied included concentration of starch as well as concentration of surface-active agent, namely, Tween^® 80, which was added before precipitation. World-class facilities was used for evaluation of the obtained St-NPs such as transmission electron microscopy, particle size analyzer, polydispersity index (PdI), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and, X-ray diffraction. The results indicate that there are no changes of the chemical structure of St-NPs as indicated by FT-IR and the crystallinity pattern is converted from A-type to amorphous (V-type). The data obtained indicate also that the smallest, highly distributed particles size with good PdI of St-NPs are obtained in the presence of 20 % Tween^® 80 (based on weight of NS).