Addressing the Smart Systems Design Challenge: The SMAC Platform

This article presents the concepts, the organization, and the preliminary application results of SMAC, a smart systems co-design platform. The SMAC platform, which has been developed as Integrated Project (IP) of the 7th ICT Call under the Objective 3.2 \u201cSmart components and Smart Systems integration\u201d addresses the challenges of the integration of heterogeneous and conflicting domains that emerge in the design of smart systems. SMAC includes methodologies and EDA tools enabling multi-disciplinary and multi-scale modelling and design, simulation of multidomain systems, subsystems and components at different levels of abstraction, system integration and exploration for optimization of functional and non-functional metrics. The article presents the preliminary results obtained by adopting the SMAC platform for the design of a limb tracking smart system

Understanding and Connecting Cultures within the World of Advertising

The advertising industry is a human enterprise at its core, constantly relying on and affecting human thoughts and behaviors. Advertisements for products and services reflect cultural messages and the values that shape our daily lives. This two-part article first offers a literature review of the effect of antismoking ads on teenagers’ behavior and attitudes towards smoking across Western, English-speaking societies within a cultural psychology framework. Then, it applies the themes from this literature review in presenting the results of a qualitative study exploring how employees at gyro, a business-to-business advertising agency, incorporate cultural thinking into their advertising process. Conclusions drawn in my review indicate that visceral negative and personal testimonies appealing to the emotions of a teenage audience positively affect youth and discourage them from smoking across cultures. Moreover, the digital age is transforming youth culture because adolescents are increasingly interacting by sharing posts and photos online via social media. Consequently, stronger reliance on online communication can extensively impact communities by closing some of the major cultural gaps. The review indicates that youth antismoking advertising evolves as a subculture in much the same way that larger cultures do. The qualitative study complements this underlying cultural evolution by demonstrating that advertisers actually do use methods of advancing culture in their work. In fact, the study reveals that culture is central to the creative advertising process. For instance, advertisers adjust the content of a message depending on whether a client is asking for a global, national, or regional campaign, in order to appeal to the right audience and deliver interesting and emotional experiences. Advertisers use tools, drawing from cultural psychology, to make their messages maximally effective and attractive. It is important to understand culture in order to create connections between societies around the globe within the world of advertising

Automatic synthesis of analog layout : a survey

A review of recent research in the automatic synthesis of physical geometry for analog integrated circuits is presented. On introduction, an explanation of the difficulties involved in analog layout as opposed to digital layout is covered. Review of the literature then follows. Emphasis is placed on the exposition of general methods for addressing problems specific to analog layout, with the details of specific systems only being given when they surve to illustrate these methods well. The conclusion discusses problems remaining and offers a prediction as to how technology will evolve to solve them. It is argued that although progress has been and will continue to be made in the automation of analog IC layout, due to fundamental differences in the nature of analog IC design as opposed to digital design, it should not be expected that the level of automation of the former will reach that of the latter any time soon

DataHub: Science data management in support of interactive exploratory analysis

The DataHub addresses four areas of significant needs: scientific visualization and analysis; science data management; interactions in a distributed, heterogeneous environment; and knowledge-based assistance for these functions. The fundamental innovation embedded within the DataHub is the integration of three technologies, viz. knowledge-based expert systems, science visualization, and science data management. This integration is based on a concept called the DataHub. With the DataHub concept, science investigators are able to apply a more complete solution to all nodes of a distributed system. Both computational nodes and interactives nodes are able to effectively and efficiently use the data services (access, retrieval, update, etc), in a distributed, interdisciplinary information system in a uniform and standard way. This allows the science investigators to concentrate on their scientific endeavors, rather than to involve themselves in the intricate technical details of the systems and tools required to accomplish their work. Thus, science investigators need not be programmers. The emphasis on the definition and prototyping of system elements with sufficient detail to enable data analysis and interpretation leading to information. The DataHub includes all the required end-to-end components and interfaces to demonstrate the complete concept