Minimization of switching activities of partial products for designing low-power multipliers

This work presents low-power 2's complement multipliers by minimizing the switching activities of partial products using the radix-4 Booth algorithm. Before computation for two input data, the one with a smaller effective dynamic range is processed to generate Booth codes, thereby increasing the probability that the partial products become zero. By employing the dynamic-range determination unit to control input data paths, the multiplier with a column-based adder tree of compressors or counters is designed. To further reduce power consumption, the two multipliers based on row-based and hybrid-based adder trees are realized with operations on effective dynamic ranges of input data. Functional blocks of these two multipliers can preserve their previous input states for noneffective dynamic data ranges and thus, reduce the number of their switching operations. To illustrate the proposed multipliers exhibiting low-power dissipation, the theoretical analyzes of switching activities of partial products are derived. The proposed 16 /spl times/ 16-bit multiplier with the column-based adder tree conserves more than 31.2%, 19.1%, and 33.0% of power consumed by the conventional multiplier, in applications of the ADPCM audio, G.723.1 speech, and wavelet-based image coders, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed multipliers with row-based, hybrid-based adder trees reduce power consumption by over 35.3%, 25.3% and 39.6%, and 33.4%, 24.9% and 36.9%, respectively. When considering product factors of hardware areas, critical delays and power consumption, the proposed multipliers can outperform the conventional multipliers. Consequently, the multipliers proposed herein can be broadly used in various media processing to yield low-power consumption at limited hardware cost or little slowing of speed.     

The variability of urinary cotinine levels in young children: implications for measuring ETS exposure.

This study examined the within-subject variability of urinary cotinine levels in young children (aged = 0.6-7.2 years) of smoking parents to determine the number of urine samples needed to provide accurate estimates of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) for different time intervals. Secondary analyses were conducted of five independent studies (N = 376), in which multiple urinary cotinine measures had been collected over time periods up to 13 months. Over measurement periods of 4-15 days, the within-subject cotinine levels varied 3-5 times more than would be expected based on measurement error alone. Over 7-13 months, the within-subject variability was 10-20 times higher than would be expected based on the measurement error. Findings indicated that cotinine measures from single urine samples provided highly accurate estimates of only recent exposure (i.e., 2-3 days; rho = 0.99). To achieve similarly precise estimates of the mean cotinine level of an individual child over 4-15 days, up to nine urine samples may be necessary. Up to 12 urine samples may be required to achieve similarly precise estimates of ETS exposure over a 4- to 13-month period. Epidemiologic and clinical research on ETS exposure in children can benefit from multiple urine samples (a) to accurately measure average exposure at the level of the individual child, (b) to describe temporal patterns, (c) to detect incidences of peak exposure that would remain underrecognized if monitoring is limited to a single time point, and (d) to establish stable baseline levels and endpoints based on urine samples collected over clinically relevant time periods.     

Products formed in an aged concrete

At a dam in Australia the concrete shows a widespread reaction that has caused surface cracking, and possibly a tightening up of gates that control the flow of water through diversion tunnels. The reaction has produced reaction rims to the aggregate, a crystallization of zeolite A-like material within the aggregate and in pores in the concrete, in addition to the precipitation of amorphous alkali-silicate hardened gel in other concrete pores. The hardened gel is sometimes associated with trona and is metastable. It tends to transform into zeolite A-like material or analcite. The reaction products are low in alumina and high in silica. Possible reaction mechanisms are discussed.     

Lower critical solution temperature behavior of ethylene propylene copolymers in multicomponent solvents

The lower critical solution temperature (LCST) locus for ethylene-propylene copolymers has been determined as a function of pressure in a variety of single and multicomponent solvents. The lower critical end-point temperature (LCEP), which is the intersection of the LCST locus with the vapor-pressure curve, was found to be predictable from the solvent density as previously established for single-component solvents by Charlet and Delmas.¹ Dissolving a low-molecular hydrocarbon gas such as propylene in an alkane has a dramatic effect on lowering the LCEP, and can reduce phase-separation temperatures to levels at which this technique becomes attractive as a practical method for polymer recovery from diluents such as those used in solution polymerizations. Temperatures considerably above the LCEP are needed to minimize the residual polymer concentration in the solvent in the two-liquid-phase region. The solvent critical temperature must be approached for essentially complete elimination of the polymer from the solvent phase. The LCST locus was found to be a linear function of pressure for all of the systems investigated, and the slope of the line, d(LCST)/dP, could be well correlated as a function of solvent density and critical temperature. From the relationship between the LCEP and solvent density and the correlation for d(LCST)/dP, the location of the LCST locus can be readily predicted from a knowledge of solvent properties.     

Optimal production of intermediate for zero—first and first—first order reaction sequences in fluidised bed reactors1

An analysis of zero—first and first—first order reaction schemes has been carried out in a fluidised bed with a view to optimising the production of intermediate R for a given bubble diameter. For the zero—first order reaction sequence, the gas residence time at which the maximum concentration of R occurs is shown to be fixed and independent of bubble size in the bed. On the other hand, for a first—first order reaction scheme, an optimum gas residence time exists for the concentration maximum to occur at the bed exit. This interaction between bubble diameter, gas residence time and maximum concentration of intermediate is resolved by recourse to a three dimensional diagram which optimises the production of intermediate for any given value of bubble diameter or gas residence time.     

Are U.K. Citizens Satisfied With E-Government Services? Identifying and Testing Antecedents of Satisfaction

Citizens’ satisfaction is acknowledged as one of the most significant influences for e-government adoption and diffusion. This study examines the impact of information quality, system quality, trust, and cost on user satisfaction of e-government services. Using a survey, this study collected 1518 valid responses from e-government service adopters across the United Kingdom. Our empirical outcomes show the five factors identified in this study have a significant impact on U.K. citizens’ satisfaction with e-government services.     

Multi-frame estimation of planar motion

Traditional plane alignment techniques are typically performed between pairs of frames. We present a method for extending existing two-frame planar motion estimation techniques into a simultaneous multi-frame estimation, by exploiting multi-frame subspace constraints of planar surfaces. The paper has three main contributions: 1) we show that when the camera calibration does not change, the collection of all parametric image motions of a planar surface in the scene across multiple frames is embedded in a low dimensional linear subspace; 2) we show that the relative image motion of multiple planar surfaces across multiple frames is embedded in a yet lower dimensional linear subspace, even with varying camera calibration; and 3) we show how these multi-frame constraints can be incorporated into simultaneous multi-frame estimation of planar motion, without explicitly recovering any 3D information, or camera calibration. The resulting multi-frame estimation process is more constrained than the individual two-frame estimations, leading to more accurate alignment, even when applied to small image regions.     

Cumulating Retrieval Inhibition in Semantic and Lexical Domains.

In 3 experiments the authors examined changes in successive exemplar generation percentages within categories defined semantically (e.g., fruit-P, fruit-A, fruit-M) and by 1st letter (e.g., insect-C, sport-C, car-C), with a mixed control condition (e.g., fruit-P, insect-C, disease-M). Retrieval success declined across 12 successive items in both semantic and letter categories, with no change for the mixed condition. This retrieval inhibition is unrelated to taxonomic frequency of exemplars within either letter or semantic categorical structures. Furthermore, semantic retrieval inhibition appears to be long lasting, suggested by the decline in retrieval percentage across successive 12-item blocks in both the mixed and letter conditions. The authors suggest that different mechanisms underlie the inhibition found in the semantic (suppression) and letter (interference) conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)