The best approach to a large computing capability

On-chip communication architecture plays an important role in determining the overall performance of the System-on-Chip (SoC) design. In the recourse sharing mechanism of SoC, the communication architecture should be flexible to offer high performance over a wide range of traffic. The paper describes and evaluates the use of fuzzy logic arbiters for shared-bus multiprocessor system. In such systems, arbiters are used to resolve conflicts between processor requests shared bus. Typically, these conflicts are resolved by using two-stage arbitration schemes that employ policies such as random choice, daisy chaining, round-robin, etc. A new way of implementing these arbiters is the use of fuzzy logic to resolve resource request conflicts based on the system state and performance variables. This paper proposed a new technique for implementation of fuzzy logic in the system arbiters and presents a simulation program. The inputs are fuzzified by using appropriate membership functions, and rules have been defined in such a way as to increase and distribute evenly the acceptance rate of each processor in the system

This paper is a try of contribution to explore and create embedded designs in the context of the MultiProcessor System on Chip (MPSoC) based on the state of the art Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), taking a case study and evaluation in the biomedical field. With this design approach, we have developed a Multiprocessor-based system for cardiac monitoring, with the Xilinx soft processor MicroBlaze. The Fast Simplex Link (FSL) bus is used as the mode of communication between the 3 MicroBlazes of this design. One processor is responsible of Human Machine Interface (HMI); another deals with Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and the third processor acts as the unique master that controls and coordinates the whole application software. Thus, the system permits, with success, the digitizing of the Electrocardiogram (ECG) analog signal, the displaying of heart rate (HR) on seven segments indicator, and the communication with a PC via the serial port for debugging and evaluation purposes. We have used the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database records to test and evaluate our implementation performance. The implementation occupies around 94% of the low-cost used FPGA, namely the Xilinx SPARTAN-6 XC6SLX16. The accuracy of the QRS detection, based on the well-known Pan and Tompkins algorithm, exceeds 96%.

The drastically reduced costs and improved performance of fiber optic components in recent years offers an opportunity to economically incorporate high-bandwidth optical communication links within a large-scale multiprocessor system. In this paper, the design, implementation, and initial performance of a fiber optic bus for a tightly coupled multiprocessor system are discussed. This optical bus ulitizes a multiple fiber-multiple star configuration with data rates of up to 80 MHz. It transmits bus control line information by repetitively scanning the control lines and transmitting their states as a packet of bits. It is currently being used for a 30-processor system called the Heidelberg Polyp, which has a custom bus design. However, the design approach is a general one that could easily be adapted to other buses, especially asynchronous buses such as the VME bus.

Hybrid lithium-ion battery-capacitor energy storage device with hybrid composite cathode based on activated carbon / LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2

User Experience (UX) extends the construct of usability by an additional focus on emotion, motivation and aesthetics. An emphasis on aesthetics has been undertaken to a greater extent by design disciplines than by science. The present review examines both design and scientific approaches to aesthetics in order to integrate the two approaches and identify research opportunities that could result in science based design principals. The review of design approaches to aesthetics indicates the primary importance of balance as an element of design. Accordingly, research on the role of balance in producing aesthetic responses from users is a reasonable starting point for a program of research. Additionally, the analysis of aesthetic metrics and individual differences in aesthetic preferences in scientific research are discussed as possible collaboration areas for designers.

Limited research has considered the value derived from using enterprise resource panning (ERP) systems for decision making support. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of a set of individual differences, system characteristics, and perceived benefits of the system, on the intentions to use ERP systems for decision support. A field study was used to collect data from managers working in Bahraini enterprises that use ERP systems. The results indicate that individual differences concerning age, gender, level of education, and even computer self efficacy did not influence intentions of using the decision tools of ERP systems. The only individual difference that showed significant influence is the degree of knowledge of the system. In addition, both perceived shared benefits and system characteristics had significant influence on the intention to use the system for decision support tasks, through perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The paper discusses the implications of these findings and ends with possible extensions of the study.

Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a theoretical framework, this study investigates the effect of a set of individual differences (computer self-efficacy and knowledge of search domain) and system characteristics (relevance, terminology, and screen design) on intention to use digital libraries. The aim of this study is to test the correlation between perceived ease-of-use variable and perceived usefulness variable, beliefs (perceived ease-of-use and perceived usefulness) against behavior intention to use. This study also to test the relationship between individual differences (computer self efficacy and knowledge of search domain) and system characteristics, which consist of relevance terminology and screen design against belief variables. The study replicates Technology Acceptence Model (TAM) by Hong et al (2002) and implements in e-library area. Based on a sample 100 users of a university’s Gadjah Mada digital library, the results strongly support the utilization of TAM in predicting users’ intention to adopt digital libraries, and demonstrate the effects of critical external variables on behavior intention through perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. All of the individual differences and system characteristics have significant effects on perceived ease of use digital libraries. In addition, relevance has strongest effect on perceived usefulness of digital libraries. Keywords: Individual differences, system characteristics, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) perceived ease-of-use, perceived usefulness, e-library.

To the Editor, I read with interest the recent review article by Stabile and Cooper that identifies the lack of clinician involvement in the implementation, planning, design, and installation of anesthesia information management systems (AIMS) as a barrier to the adoption of health information technology. Many challenges are associated with the implementation of new AIMS in the perioperative setting, including the perception that workload will increase or autonomy will decrease. Even if AIMS use were mandated and early acceptance occur, the negative consequences of resistance may surface over the long term if the information system were viewed as prone to error or slow. Medical directors and anesthesiology department chiefs must actively manage the change process and gain physician acceptance for the new information system. Failure to gain acceptance of the AIMS may result in the unsuccessful launch of the system and huge financial losses. The Technology Acceptance Model, the most widely accepted method of adopting information technology, focuses on interventions taken by managers to change employees’ attitudes toward information technology. The model identifies two main factors that influence an individual’s intention to use information technology, namely, the extent to which the user believes that the information technology will enhance their job performance (perceived usefulness) and require little effort (perceived ease of use). Perceived usefulness is determined by social influence and system characteristics, and perceived ease of use is determined by facilitating factors, individual differences, and system characteristics. Social influence variables include the opinions about use of information technology from people who are important to the user (subjective norm) and the extent to which the user’s standing among their peers will be maintained or raised (image). System characteristics are defined by the degree to which the user thinks the information technology is important to their work (job relevance), effective (output quality), able to deliver results that are easy to observe and share (result demonstrability), enjoyable (perceived enjoyment), and matches their desired level of effort (objective usability). Facilitating factors refer to the user’s belief that the organization supports the information technology and has committed resources to maintain its operation (perception of external control). Individual differences are defined by the degree to which the user believes in their computer skills (computer self-efficacy), is apprehensive about using a computer (computer anxiety), and is motivated to use new technology (computer playfulness). Managers should take well-defined steps to target the determinants of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in order to improve the adoption of AIMS and influence acceptance of information systems among anesthesiologists.

Curiosity is the foundation of learning and adaptation across the lifespan. It develops into interests, which in turn develop into personal, social, occupational, and research choices. Being curious and exploratory entails risk; one must be willing to step out of one’s comfort zone to seek new information and experiences. There are individual differences in both the cognitive and sensory forms of curiosity, with cognitive curiosity being closely linked to knowledge-seeking and problem-solving, and sensory curiosity closely associated with creativity and innovation. Research suggests there are age, gender, and to a much lesser extent, ethnic differences in curiosity. Contrary to popular belief, curiosity does not mysteriously disappear as we age; instead, we channel our curiosities into interpersonal, occupational, and intellectual areas. In other words, unless we are physically or psychologically unwell, our curiosity remains as robust as it ever was.

For centuries, traditional musical instruments have been built to control specific types of sound production processes according to the same principles: their control and sound generation parts are typically tightly integrated with a solid physical interface. Current-day digital counterparts lack such requirement of physicality in their control, and very few last more than a couple of years. In this paper, we argue that the flexibility of computer music instrument designs has inhibited the development of dedicated control structures, as well as the training of musicians with associated motor skills. As a candidate solution to this problem we present SensOrg, first in a class of Cyberinstruments that we envision to be a more generic and hopefully long-lasting class of control structures for digital instruments. SensOrg is a hand controlled Cyberinstrument, sculpted from a modular assembly of input/output devices and musical software that are mapped and arranged according to essential functional characteristics of the Human-Instrument system. We discuss how the cognitive ergonomics of non-verbal performance and symbolic compositional tasks influenced the design of our hardware interface. We also sketch the design of our underlying software framework, IGMA (Interactive Gesture Mapping), which provides interactive musical functionality for improvisation, composition and performance alike.

The EMMA2EMMA is a registered trademark of Elsag—Elettronica San Giorgio. parallel architecture is a network of nodes, named 'Regions': each region is based on two shared‐memory hierarchical bus levels, on which a large series of monocpu, multicpu and specialized I/O boards can be inserted, grouped in 'Families'.Its typical applications are Image processing, pattern recognition and artificial intelligence, characterized by intensive computation requirements, real‐time constraints and good price‐performance ratio for building large industrial systems. This paper presents the main characteristics of the EMMA2 parallel operating system, highlighting the internal organization and mechanisms offering the parallel co‐operation model for user programs.Section 1 briefly introduces the overall hardware architecture. It allows application partitioning into parallel independent subsystems, on two levels of computation: the lower level (family) is dedicated to massive number crunching, while the upper (region) permits the interaction of these lower machines.Section 2 deals with the system software environment, based on a host‐target configuration: the host is mainly devoted to machine control, system monitoring, program development and debugging in a multi‐user environment.Sections 3, 4 and 5 describe respectively the fundamental concepts of the operating system internal organization and the basic mechanisms with respect to the machine architecture; the basic functions that constitute the internal layers and services; the resulting parallel programming and co‐operation model and the typical mapping rules of algorithms to this architecture, completed with some examples of their functionalities.The most important aspect of the EMMA2 operating system is the fact that it offers a uniform interface to user tasks, independently of their allocation on the target machine. Objects managed by system services can be referred to via logical names. Code for system services is distributed among processors and resides on a private read‐only memory. The operating system's data reside in shared memory only for system functions that need to be distributed, while private functions are based on different copies of data in private memories.Section 6 gives more details on the most relevant EMMA2 industrial applications, also showing their mapping to the parallel architecture and some performance‐related information. Section 7 contains a brief outline of the novel architecture currently in development and of the subsequent OS Improvements.In conclusion, we report some considerations about the present status of the EMMA2 system, compared with some other well‐known architectures, and about research efforts for its future evolution.

This paper examines the transient behaviour of a two-stage multi-product production system with an interstage buffer. The system is described by a stochastic method and is analysed by employing the state-space model and regenerating point technique. Explicit expressions are obtained for certain essential system characteristics and a cost analysis is carried out using some of the characteristics. A particular case is investigated to illustrate some features of this production system.

Nonlinear identification via connected neural networks for unsteady aerodynamic analysis

Predicting the outcomes of software projects using data available in early development phases allows developers and managers more time to re-plan or re-design systems as needed to increase success. This research investigates early lifecycle predictive models of software faults and effort using information available no later than the system design phase. Static analysis of system designs characterizes intra- and inter-component control flow structure to calculate objective system design metrics. The model building process composes these design metrics into a set of relative factors that calibrate the relationships between the metrics and software faults and effort. These component-based predictive models provide a powerful approach to capture and analyze the designs of complex systems. These models facilitate the identification of essential system characteristics in terms of component structures and interactions, and they enable comprehensive analysis by being scalable to large systems. The research approach applies static analysis tools to the designs of 23 large-scale NASA systems containing over 5000 software components in order to automatically generate state- and interaction-based models of their designs. The static analysis tools derive the number of internal states for a component from its internal control flow design structure using cyclomatic complexity, and they calculate the number of interactions between components from the passing of control flow or data abstractions between components. The research approach evaluates the models by characterizing their relationships to favorable or unfavorable aspects of the system designs, in terms of component development faults and effort. The data analysis focuses on describing the characteristics of the state- and interaction-based models and identifying system design factors revealed by the models that relate to low or high faults, fault correction effort, and development effort. The results include the following, with comparative data being statistically significant at α < 0.05: ♦ The static analysis tools successfully generated state- and interaction-based models of the 23 system designs comprised of 5469 components. The numbers of states per component were exponentially distributed with an average of 14.3 and a median of 7.0. The numbers of interactions per component were exponentially distributed with an average of 8.8 and a median of 4.0. During system development, the components had 0.60 faults on average. ♦ Components with the most states (top 20%) had 7.8 times more faults than did those with the fewest states (bottom 20%). Components with the most states also had 22.5 times more fault correction effort and 5.4 times more development effort than did those with the fewest states. ♦ Components with the most interactions (top 20%) had 2.9 times more faults than did those with the fewest interactions (bottom 20%). Components with the most interactions also had 3.9 times more fault correction effort and 2.7 times more development effort than did those with the fewest interactions. In conclusion, we outline future research directions that build on these system modeling ideas and strategies.

Propulsion, auxiliary, and electric machinery developments for surface combatants are surveyed---overall system characteristics are covered to permit a broad coverage of related activities. Prime movers in both propulsion and ship service sizes are discussed. All will demonstrate improved economy, especially at part power, and increased attention to thermal and acoustic signatures. Gas turbines are the source of propulsion power, but diesels join turbines in ship service application. Electric drives may be selected where machinery is widely separated or geometries are restrictive. Reversing motors or reversing gears will provide backing power without the inefficiencies of controllable--pitch (CP) propellers. Transmission component improvements, including surface-hardened gears and composite shafts, will increase power density. Shaftline elements compatible with contrarotating propellers may lead to significantly increased propulsive coefficients. Auxiliary machinery developments are driven by the need to improve performance in smaller, simpler packages with lower acquisition and operating costs. This encourages the development and adaption of new materials and design approaches such as composite structures, rotary screw pump and compressor arrangements, variable speed or geometry units, and molecular sieves and membrane separation for gas and fresh-water production. Ventilation system requirements will be expanded and integrated with the new demands of collective protection. The ship's service generation and distribution system will reflect the increasingly nonlinear character of electric loads. Developments will emphasize power quality and continuity in system arrangements which promote both survivability and energy efficiency. Propulsion-derived ship's service, uninterruptible power at the system and component levels, and variable-speed auxiliary motor drives reflect these thrusts.