Software tools for micro-analysis of programs

The paper proposes and describes several tools enabling their user to estimate the efficiency of Pascal or C-like programs. The approach consists of generating symbolic formulas expressing the efficiency of the programs being analyzed. The formulas are applicable to a variety of compiler-machine configurations. The actual numeric values of the variables in the symbolic formula are determined using linear programming techniques. The proposed approach reduces considerably the amount of benchmarking needed to analyze programs. Several examples are presented showing the applicability of the tools. The effort necessary to implement them is considerably reduced by the combined usage of Prolog and a symbolic formula manipulation package (Maple).     

Modelling diffusion-controlled kinetics in equilibrium and driven alloys

Summary We introduce a very simple model for thermally activated atomic migration on a lattice, and several techniques to handle it. For thermodynamical systems, the model can be used for simulating decomposition paths taking into account relevant metallurgical features. Close to equilibrium, the simplest mean-field approximation of the model can be linearized with respect to the departure from equilibrium; one then gets a microscopic interpretation of classical phenomenological coefficients, such as mobility, interfacial transfer coefficient, rate constants for the coupled relaxation of concentration and order fields. Further away from the equilibrium, the nonlinearities can be taken into account in a consistent way. For driven alloys, i.e. alloys submitted to external forcing, forced atomic migration is added to the model and new features emerge: the model is supported by several experimental results some of which confirmed its predictions a posteriori.     

Delay‐dependent passivity and passification for uncertain Markovian jump systems with time‐varying delays

This paper deals with the problems of passivity analysis and passivity‐based controller design for Markovian jump systems with both time‐varying delays and norm‐bounded parametric uncertainties. Firstly, new delay‐dependent conditions for the considered system to be passive are obtained by using a mode‐dependent Lyapunov functional and by introducing some slack variables. These conditions are expressed by means of LMIs that are easy to check. It is shown through a numerical example that the obtained passivity conditions are less conservative than the existing ones in the literature. Secondly, the passification problem is investigated. On the basis of the obtained passivity conditions, dynamic output‐feedback controllers are designed, which ensure that the resulting closed‐loop system is passive. The effectiveness of the proposed design method is demonstrated by a numerical example. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Delay‐dependent stability for Markovian genetic regulatory networks with time‐varying delays

This paper is concerned with the problem of stochastic stability analysis for a class of genetic regulatory networks with Markovian jump parameters and time‐varying delays. A delay‐dependent stability criterion is derived by using a novel mode‐dependent Lyapunov functional. The derived stability criterion is expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities and is less conservative than the existing ones in the literature. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed stability criterion. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Feedback predictive control for constrained fuzzy systems with Markovian jumps

In this paper, a feedback model predictive control method is presented to tackle control problems with constrained multivariables for uncertain discrete‐time nonlinear Markovian jump systems. An uncertain Markovian jump fuzzy system (MJFS) is obtained by employing the Takagi‐Sugeno (T‐S) fuzzy model to represent a discrete‐time nonlinear system with norm bounded uncertainties and Markovain jump parameters. To achieve more generality, the transition probabilities of the Markov chain are assumed to be partly unknown and partly accessible. The predictive formulation adopts an on‐line optimization paradigm that utilizes the closed‐loop state feedback controller and is solved using the standard semi‐definite programming (SDP). To reduce the on‐line computational burden, a mode independent control move is calculated at every sampling time based on a stochastic fuzzy Lyapunov function (FLF) and a parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme. The robust mean square stability, performance minimization and constraint satisfaction properties are guaranteed under the control move for all admissible uncertainties. A numerical example is given to show the efficiency of the developed approach. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Influence of HDDR treatment on magnetic properties of TbFe2- and DyFe2-based intermetallics

Magnetic properties of TbFe₂, DyFe₂, Tb(Fe_0.8M_0.2)₂ and Dy(Fe_0.8M_0.2)₂ with M=Co, Al, Si, Ga alloys affected by the Hydrogenation-Decomposition-Desorption-Recombination processing have been studied. After hydrogen treatment the coercive force H_c grows sharply, so HDDR-powders can be used as isotropic permanent magnets with the energy product up to 26 MG Oe at T=77 K. In Dy(Fe_0.8Al_0.2)₂ at T<10 K the stepwise magnetic reversal has been observed. The HDDR-treatment increases the critical field of magnetic reversal from 11 up to 18.4 kOe at 4.2 K. It is shown that the effect of the stepwise magnetic reversal is caused by a heat release in a sample during an avalanche motion of narrow domain walls.     

Critical transistors nexus based circuit-level aging assessment and prediction

Accurate age modeling, and fast, yet robust reliability sign-off emerged as mandatory constraints in Integrated Circuits (ICs) design for advanced process technology nodes. In this paper we introduce a novel method to assess and predict the circuit reliability at design time as well as at run-time. The main goal of our proposal is to allow for: (i) design time reliability optimization; (ii) fine tuning of the run-time reliability assessment infrastructure, and (iii) run-time aging assessment. To this end, we propose to select a minimum-size kernel of critical transistors and based on them to assess and predict an IC End-Of-Life (EOL) via two methods: (i) as the sum of the critical transistors end-of-life values, weighted by fixed topology-dependent coefficients, and (ii) by a Markovian framework applied to the critical transistors, which takes into account the joint effects of process, environmental, and temporal variations. The former model exploits the aging dependence on the circuit topology to enable fast run-time reliability assessment with minimum aging sensors requirements. By allowing the performance boundary to vary in time such that both remnant and nonremnant variations are encompassed, and imposing a Markovian evolution, the probabilistic model can be better fitted to various real conditions, thus enabling at design-time appropriate guardbands selection and effective aging mitigation/compensation techniques. The proposed framework has been validated for different stress conditions, under process variations and aging effects, for the ISCAS-85 c499 circuit, in PTM 45 nm technology. From the total of 1526 transistors, we obtained a kernel of 15 critical transistors, for which the set of topology dependent weights were derived. Our simulation results for 15 critical transistors kernel indicate a small approximation error (i.e., mean smaller than 15% and standard deviation smaller than 6%) for the considered circuit estimated end-of-life (EOL), when comparing to the end-of-life values obtained from Cadence simulation, which quantitatively confirm the accuracy of the IC lifetime evaluation. Moreover, as the number of critical transistors determines the area overhead, we also investigated the implications of reducing their number on the reliability assessment accuracy. When only 5 transistors are included into the critical set instead of 15, which results in a 66% area overhead reduction, the EOL estimation accuracy diminished with 18%. This indicates that area vs. accuracy trade-offs are possible, while maintaining the aging prediction accuracy within reasonable bounds.     

Double auction mechanisms on Markovian networks

This paper studies the double auction (DA) mechanism in Ma and Li (2011) for a class of exchange economies. We extend their results to more general cases where sellers and buyers each form a complex time non-homogeneous Markovian chain, as specified in Ram et al. (2009), in the communication of their private information. A numerical example is also provided. Both bubbles and crashes are observed in the example, consistent with results of our theorems. Our example and theoretical results provide new evidence that a DA mechanism, widely utilized in real exchange markets, may contribute to the excess volatility identified in Shiller (1981) and LeRoy and Porter (1981).     

随机非线性和部分转移概率未知时马尔科夫系统的H1控制

研究上述系统时: 1) 利用了非线性的概率分布信息; 2) 利用了转移概率中已知部分和未知部分的关系. 利用李雅普诺夫泛函方法和线性矩阵不等式方法, 本文得到了使得系统随机稳定的充分条件并得到了相应的反馈控制增益. 文中最后给出的例子表明了所建立模型和分析方法的有效性.