An Interactive Design Environment for C-Based High-Level Synthesis of RTL Processors

Much effort in register transfer level (RTL) design has been devoted to developing "push-button" types of tools. However, given the highly complex nature, and lack of control on RTL design, push-button type synthesis is not accepted by many designers. Interactive design with assistance of algorithms and tools can be more effective if it provides control to the steps of synthesis. In this paper, we propose an interactive RTL design environment which enables designers to control the design steps and to integrate hardware components into a system. Our design environment is targeting a generic RTL processor architecture and supporting pipelining, multicycling, and chaining. Tasks in the RTL design process include clock definition, component allocation, scheduling, binding, and validation. In our interactive environment, the user can control the design process at every stage, observe the effects of design decisions, and manually override synthesis decisions at will. We present a set of experimental results that demonstrate the benefits of our approach. Our combination of automated tools and interactive control by the designer results in quickly generated RTL designs with better performance than fully-automatic results, comparable to fully manually optimized designs.     

Bereitstellung von luftgetragenen Nanopartikeln für in vitro- und in vivo-Untersuchungen

Zusammenfassung:  Die in vitro- und in vivo-Untersuchungen von Nanopartikeln im Hinblick auf ihre m?glichen toxikologischen Wirkungen erfolgen h?ufig über die Aufgabe von Suspensionen auf Zellen mit aus der Nanopartikelkonzentration ableitbarer Dosis. Ein wichtiger Weg der Nanopartikelwirkung aber geht über die Inhalation. Es ist deshalb naheliegend, Nanopartikel in Form von charakterisierten Aerosolen bereitzustellen. Der Ausgangspunkt sind h?ufig Pulver in Form von Agglomeraten, die ohne Zerlegung in den gasgetragenen Zustand überführt werden müssen. Es werden Methoden zur Aerosolisierung von Nanopartikelpulvern vorgestellt, die zur Zeit untersucht werden. Aus der im gasgetragenen Zustand bestimmbaren Nanopartikelkonzentration kann mit Hilfe von Depositionsmodellen die auf Zellen abgeschiedene Nanopartikeldosis bestimmt werden. Für in vivo-Untersuchungen am Menschen besteht die M?glichkeit, die im alveolaren und tracheobronchialen Bereich deponierten Nanopartikelkonzentrationen unter Verwendung des ICRP–Depositionsmodells direkt messtechnisch zu erfassen. Für alle Verfahrensschritte, von der Aerosolbereitstellung und -charakterisierung bis zur deponierten Dosis, besteht Bedarf an Standardisierung. Eingegangen: 31. Januar 2008; angenommen: 4. Februar 2008     

Effect of the monascus pigment threonine derivative on regulation of the cholesterol level in mice

Different amino acid derivatives were synthesized during cultivation of a Monascus species. Derivatives exhibiting an inhibitory activity against HMG-CoA reductase were screened by in vitro tests. The threonine derivative had a high inhibitory activity of 38% while four other derivatives showed a greater than 23% activity. The orange monascus pigment showed a high activity of 36%. In vivo tests using female C57BL/6 mice were performed with the threonine derivative and orange pigment. Changes in the cholesterol and lipid levels in mice due to addition of the pigments were investigated. The total cholesterol (TC) level of mouse serum was reduced by 8–9% with the threonine derivative and by 16% with orange pigment. Supplementation with the threonine derivative and orange pigment decreased the LDL cholesterol level by 18–26% and increased the HDL cholesterol level by 1–9%. The atherogenic index (AI) value was reduced by 23–27% with pigment supplementation. The anti-atherosclerosis effect of monascus pigments can be induced by control of the lipid content in the serum rather than in the liver of mice.     

Tenderization and fragmentation of myofibrillar proteins in bovine longissimus dorsi muscle using proteolytic extract from Sarcodon aspratus

The objective of this study was to examine the Sarcodon aspratus extract including protease how to affect tenderness of the bovine longissimus dorsi muscle. In addition, we investigated myofibrillar protein fragmentation, particularly in myosin, and its influence on meat tenderness. Beef loin chunks were marinated with 0.5 g/100 g, 1 g/100 g, and 2 g/100 g powdered S. aspratus extract, 0.2 g/100 mL papain, and distilled water (control), respectively. Although tenderness of meat is increased by adding S. aspratus extract, differences in meat quality traits, such as muscle pH and meat color, were small and not considered to have practical importance between the control and enzyme-treated samples. Furthermore, the S. aspratus extract influenced the myofibril fragmentation index (MFI) as well as protein solubility. The changes in MFI and protein solubility were due to the myofibrillar protein degradation. Through Western blotting, we found that the S. aspratus extract, as well as papain, caused fragmentation of the myosin heavy chain, but the mushroom extract induced more fragmentations of myofibrillar proteins, and caused more tender meat.     

Evaluation model for cocoa butter equivalents based on fatty acid compositions and triacylglycerol patterns

Food Science and Biotechnology - An effective evaluation model was established to digitize the quality of cocoa butter equivalents (CBEs) based on determinations of total and sn-2 fatty acid...     

Corrosion and inhibition process of carbon steel in LiBr-H2O solution

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - Lithium bromide (LiBr)-H2O triple-effect absorption chillers are supposed to have a much higher carbon steel corrosion rate under high temperature...     

Development of tunable filters using self-folding technology

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - This paper seeks to demonstrate the functionality and verify the capabilities of capacitance adjustment by a self-folding device. The self-folding...     

Real-time quality monitoring and control system using an integrated cost effective support vector machine

The quality monitoring and control (QMC) has been an essential process in the manufacturing industries. With the advancements in data analytics, machine-learning based QMC has become popular in various manufacturing industries. At the same time, the cost effectiveness (CE) of the QMC is perceived as a main decision criterion that explicitly accounts for inspection efforts and has a direct relationship with the QMC capability. In this paper, the cost-effective support vector machine (CESVM)-based automated QMC system (QMCS) is proposed. Unlike existing models, the proposed CESVM explicitly incorporates inspection-related expenses and error types in the SVM algorithm. The proposed automated QMCS is verified and validated using an automotive door-trim manufacturing process. Next, we perform a design of experiment to assess the sensitivity analysis of the proposed framework. The proposed model is found to be effective and could be viewed as an alternative or complementary tool for the traditional quality inspection system.