A LATENCY OPTIMIZED BIASED IMPLEMENTATION STYLE WEAK-INDICATION SELF-TIMED FULL ADDER

This article presents a biased implementation style weak-indication self-timed full adder design that is latency optimized. The proposed full adder is constructed using the delay-insensitive dual-rail code and adheres to 4-phase handshaking. Performance comparisons of the proposed full adder vis-à-vis other strong and weak-indication full adders are done on the basis of a 32-bit self-timed carry-ripple adder architecture, with the full adders and ripple carry adders realized using a 32/28nm CMOS process. The results show that the proposed full adder leads to reduction in latency by 63.3% against the best of the strong-indication full adders whilst reporting decrease in area by 10.6% and featuring comparable power dissipation. On the other hand, when compared with the existing optimized weak-indication full adder, the proposed full adder is found to minimize the latency by 25.1% whilst causing an increase in area by just 1.6%, however, with no associated power penalty

COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF QUASI-DELAY-INSENSITIVE ASYNCHRONOUS ADDERS CORRESPONDING TO RETURN-TO-ZERO AND RETURN-TO-ONE HANDSHAKING

This article makes a comparative evaluation of quasi-delay-insensitive (QDI) asynchronous adders, realized using the delay-insensitive dual-rail code, which adhere to 4-phase return-to-zero (RTZ) and 4-phase return-to-one (RTO) handshake protocols. The QDI adders realized correspond to the following adder architectures: i) ripple carry adder, ii) carry lookahead adder, and iii) carry select adder. The QDI adders correspond to three different timing regimes viz. strong-indication, weak-indication and early output. They are physically implemented using a 32/28nm CMOS process. The comparative evaluation shows that, overall, QDI adders which correspond to the 4-phase RTO handshake protocol are better than the QDI adder counterparts which correspond to the 4-phase RTZ handshake protocol in terms of latency, area, and average power dissipation

A comparative study of Faine’s criteria, modified Faine’s criteria, and microscopic serum agglutination test to diagnose the leptospirosis

Introduction: Leptospirosis is an important zoonotic infectious disease globally, caused by spirochetes from the genus Leptospira. The usefulness of Faine’s criteria and modified WHO Faine’s criteria 2012 for diagnosing human leptospirosis has turned out to be a valuable tool; however, limited studies have demonstrated the usefulness of these diagnostic methods in children. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the performance characters of Faine’s and modified Faine’s criteria in diagnosing pediatric leptospirosis. Methods:This descriptive prospective observational study was done over a period of 2 years on children from 1 year to 12 years of age hospitalized for fever of more than 7 days duration with symptoms and signs suggestive of leptospirosis. Faine’s and modified Faine’s criteria were used in the diagnosis of leptospirosis, and the entire study population was tested by microscopic agglutination test (MAT). Results: A total of 91 children were included in the present study with the mean age of 5.4±1.41 years; out of which, 57 were boys and 34 weregirls. All had a fever of >39°C with myalgia (76%) and headache (69%). History of contact with the contaminated environment was present in 79% cases and 53% of cases had contact with animals. Out of 23 children diagnosed with leptospirosis using Faine’s criteria, 2 were MAT positive. Out of 68 children, who were not diagnosed with Faine’s criteria, 52 were MAT negative. Thirty-nine children were diagnosed by modified Faine’s criteria and 17 of them were MAT positive. Fifty-two children ruled out leptospirosis using modified Faine’s criteria; out of which, 51 children were MAT negative which was statistically significant. The sensitivity of 94.4% and specificity of 69.9% of modified Faine’s criteria to diagnosis leptospirosis were significantly higher than the sensitivity of 11.1% and specificity of 71.2% of Faine’s criteria. Conclusion: The modified Faine’s criteria potentially provide a better alternative to Faine’s criteria in the diagnosis of leptospirosis. Modified Faine’s criteria can be very useful to diagnose leptospirosis in the resource-poor settings where the gold standard tests to diagnose leptospirosis such as culture and MAT are not available

Cold Dark Matter with MOND Scaling

We provide a holographic dual description of Milgrom's scaling associated with galactic rotation curves. Our argument is based on the recent entropic reinterpretation of Newton's laws of motion. We propose a duality between cold dark matter and modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). We introduce the concept of MONDian dark matter, and discuss some of its phenomenological implications. At cluster as well as cosmological scales, the MONDian dark matter would behave as cold dark matter, but at the galactic scale, the MONDian dark matter would act as MOND.Comment: 5 pages, v3: version to appear in PLB with the title changed and more discussion

Perceived stress and coping among Oncology Health Care Workers (OHCW) during the COVID-19 pandemic in a tertiary cancer centre in India

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study is to estimate the level of the COVID-19 related stress and perceived stress and the pattern of coping styles among Oncology Health Care Workers (OHCW) during the COVID-19 pandemic. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted in a tertiary cancer centre in the rural part of Kerala (India). The OHCW working in the centre during the COVID-19 pandemic were included, andstudents and observers were excluded from the study. The COVID-19 stress rating scale, perceived stress scale and brief-COPE were used to collect the data. RESULTS: Data were collected when the COVID-19 cases were in their first peak in Kerala. Two hundred and eighty two OHCW participated in the study.The COVID-19 stress of 5 or above was reported by 48.6% of OHCW. More than half (59.6%) of them reported moderate to severe perceived stress. On the Brief-COPE scale, the mean score of approach coping was 35.58 and of avoidance coping was 24.26. A significant positive correlation (r =0.347) was found between COVID-19 related stress and perceived stress. Significantly high stress was found among males, front office staff, those between 30 and 40 years, with a history of the COVID-19 contact and those with co-morbidity. CONCLUSIONS: Although half of the OHCW reported high COVID-19 related stress and perceived stress, they used an approach coping style to deal with the stress during this pandemic

Electronic structure of Pr2MnNiO6 from x-ray photoemission, absorption and density functional theory

The electronic structure of double perovskite Pr2MnNiO6 is studied using core x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and x-ray absorption spectroscopy. The 2p x-ray absorption spectra show that Mn and Ni are in 2+ and 4+ states respectively. Using charge transfer multiplet analysis of Ni and Mn 2p XPS spectra, we find charge transfer energies {\Delta} of 3.5 and 2.5 eV for Ni and Mn respectively. The ground state of Ni2+ and Mn4+ reveal a higher d electron count of 8.21 and 3.38 respectively as compared to the atomic values of 8.00 and 3.00 respectively thereby indicating the covalent nature of the system. The O 1s edge absorption spectra reveal a band gap of 0.9 eV which is comparable to the value obtained from first principle calculations for U-J >= 2 eV. The density of states clearly reveal a strong p-d type charge transfer character of the system, with band gap proportional to average charge transfer energy of Ni2+ and Mn4+ ions.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure

Holographic principle and dark energy

We discuss the relationship between holographic entropy bounds and gravitating systems. In order to obtain a holographic energy density, we introduce the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy $S_{\rm BH}$ and its corresponding energy $E_{\rm BH}$ using the Friedman equation. We show that the holographic energy bound proposed by Cohen {\it et al} comes from the Bekenstein-Hawking bound for a weakly gravitating system. Also we find that the holographic energy density with the future event horizon deriving an accelerating universe could be given by vacuum fluctuations of the energy density.Comment: 10 page

One-loop effective potential from higher-dimensional AdS black holes

We study the quantum effects in a brane-world model in which a positive constant curvature brane universe is embedded in a higher-dimensional bulk AdS black hole, instead of the usual portion of the AdS$_5$. By using zeta regularisation, in the large mass regime, we explicitly calculate the one-loop effective potential due to the bulk quantum fields and show that it leads to a non-vanishing cosmological constant, which can definitely acquire a positive value.Comment: 7 page

Black Holes in de Sitter Space: Masses, Energies and Entropy Bounds

In this paper we consider spacetimes in vacuum general relativity --possibly coupled to a scalar field-- with a positive cosmological constant $\Lambda$. We employ the Isolated Horizons (IH) formalism where the boundary conditions imposed are that of two horizons, one of black hole type and the other, serving as outer boundary, a cosmological horizon. As particular cases, we consider the Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime, in both 2+1 and 3+1 dimensions. Within the IH formalism, it is useful to define two different notions of energy for the cosmological horizon, namely, the "mass" and the "energy". Empty de Sitter space provides an striking example of such distinction: its horizon energy is zero but the horizon mass takes a finite value given by $\pi/(2\sqrt\Lambda)$. For both horizons we study their thermodynamic properties, compare our results with those of Euclidean Hamiltonian methods and construct some generalized Bekenstein entropy bounds. We discuss these new entropy bounds and compare them with some recently proposed entropy bounds in the cosmological setting.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, revtex4. References added. Version to appear in PR