Networking automatic test equipment environments

Automatic test equipment (ATE) is a term that, in its broadest meaning, indicates a generic system capable of performing measurements in an automatic or semiautomated (human-assisted) way. Years ago, this term was used specifically to refer to an automated measurement system employed to test the functionality of some electronic device-under-test (DUT). Typical applications were in the manufacturing area, where ATE had a twofold nature: in-circuit testing and functional testing. For in-circuit testing, ATE often were stand-alone complex programmable machines, equipped with a bed-of-nails adapter specifically designed as a fixture to provide signal inputs and meaningful test-points of the DUT. The test engineer had the responsibility of writing code that determined the exact sequence of stimulus signals, response measurements, and go/no-go decisions. For this aim, a switch matrix and the ATE itself were suitably controlled and coordinated by a workstation. For functional testing, ATE consisted of off-the-shelf instruments connected to the DUT by some kind of front-end adapter. In the latter case, most of the effort of the test engineer consisted of designing a program to control the various instruments to assess DUT performances. When planning the use of a dedicated testing machine as opposed to a test bench, other factors were taken into account: measurement speed, cost, and fault coverage.     

Macrophage-Mediated Melanoma Reduction after HP-NAP Treatment in a Zebrafish Xenograft Model

The Helicobacter pylori Neutrophil Activating Protein (HP-NAP) is endowed with immunomodulatory properties that make it a potential candidate for anticancer therapeutic applications. By activating cytotoxic Th1 responses, HP-NAP inhibits the growth of bladder cancer and enhances the anti-tumor activity of oncolytic viruses in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer and neuroendocrine tumors. The possibility that HP-NAP exerts its anti-tumor effect also by modulating the activity of innate immune cells has not yet been explored. Taking advantage of the zebrafish model, we examined the therapeutic efficacy of HP-NAP against metastatic human melanoma, limiting the observational window to 9 days post-fertilization, well before the maturation of the adaptive immunity. Human melanoma cells were xenotransplanted into zebrafish embryos and tracked in the presence or absence of HP-NAP. The behavior and phenotype of macrophages and the impact of their drug-induced depletion were analyzed exploiting macrophage-expressed transgenes. HP-NAP administration efficiently inhibited tumor growth and metastasis and this was accompanied by strong recruitment of macrophages with a pro-inflammatory profile at the tumor site. The depletion of macrophages almost completely abrogated the ability of HP-NAP to counteract tumor growth. Our findings highlight the pivotal role of activated macrophages in counteracting melanoma growth and support the notion that HP-NAP might become a new biological therapeutic agent for the treatment of metastatic melanomas.     

Microscopic diagnosis of the leaf and stem of Piper solmsianum C.DC

Piper solmsianum C.DC., which is popularly known as pariparoba, is a shrub that measures 1–3 m in height and it inhabits areas with wet tropical soils. The objective of this study was to analyze the leaf and stem anatomy using light microscopy, scanning electron micrographs, and energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy in order to provide information for species identification. The anatomical profile showed the following main microscopic markers: hypostomatic leaf; hypodermis layer on both sides; pearl glands; biconvex midrib shape; five collateral vascular bundles in open arc with the central bundle larger than the others; circular stem shape; collateral vascular bundles arranged in two rings; sinuous sclerenchymatic sheath in the pith; secretory idioblasts; and starch grains in the mesophyll, in the ground parenchyma of the midrib, petiole, and in the stem; and six morphotypes of calcium oxalate crystals (styloids, cuneiform, tabular crystal rosettes, cuneiform crystal rosettes, elongated square dipyramids, as well as very elongated square dipyramids).     

Virtual environment for fast development of distributed measurement applications

This paper deals with a virtual environment that allows automatic measurement systems to be easily developed by accessing programmable instrumentation, which can be located either in a local or in a remote laboratory. The environment, which is based on a client-server application that runs on a single personal computer or over the Internet, is designed to hide most of the details connected to the setup of a complex measurement system to the users. Client and server applications have been developed in Java/spl trade/ language so that they can be used on different platforms and are easily extensible to accommodate new processing tasks, interfaces, and instruments.     

Dynamic behavior of a digital phase estimator

A frequency-domain estimator for the phase of a sinewave with respect to an arbitrary time reference is presented. In particular, the behavior of the estimate is analyzed when the unknown phase is a time-varying function. No information regarding the signal frequency is required, and highly accurate results are provided even when the signal is distorted by other spectral components, both harmonics and spurious tones. Modern digital signal processors allow the realization of digital instrumentation that achieves a real-time bandwidth of some hundreds of kilohertz     

Experimental Study of Coexistence Issues Between IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Networks

Coexistence issues between IEEE 802.11b wireless communication networks and IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks, operating over the 2.4-GHz industrial, scientific, and medical band, are assessed. In particular, meaningful experiments that are performed through a suitable testbed are presented. Such experiments involve both the physical layer, through measurements of channel power and the SIR, and the network/transport layer, by means of packet loss ratio estimations. Different configurations of the testbed are considered; major characteristics, such as the packet rate, the packet size, the SIR, and the network topology, are varied. The purpose of this paper is to gain helpful information and hints to efficiently face coexistence problems between such networks and optimize their setup in some real-life conditions. Details concerning the testbed, the measurement procedure, and the performed experiments are provided.      

In-service nonintrusive measurement of noise and active speechlevel in telephone-type networks

The paper presents an in-service, nonintrusive technique for the measurement of noise level and active speech level in telecommunication systems. It is based on the segmentation of the signal observed during a telephone call into active speech and noise intervals and on an improved method for level estimation via the determination of the noise-level probability density function. Experimental results show the high accuracy of the method also under poor signal-to-noise ratio conditions and its robustness with respect to other real-life impairments found in telecommunication lines     

An in-service measurement system for the quality analysis offacsimile transmissions

The paper presents a measurement technique for the assessment of the degree of quality of facsimile transmissions over a telephone-type network that can be performed while the communication lines are in use. The main impairments introduced by the telecommunication channel are continuously measured by using a blind equalization technique and a timing recovery system, thus assuring a high accuracy with a reasonable measurement time, even under poor signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions. Experimental results, that confirm the good performance of the proposed method, are reported and discussed     

A client-server architecture for distributed measurement systems

This paper describes a client-server architecture for the remote control of instrumentation over the Internet network. The proposed solution allows multiuser, multi-instrument sessions by means of a queueing and instrument locking capability. Client applications can be easily developed by using conventional high-level programming languages or well-assessed virtual instrumentation frameworks. Performance tests are reported; they show the low overhead due to network operation with respect to the direct control of instrumentation