Technology 2002: The Third National Technology Transfer Conference and Exposition, volume 2

Proceedings from symposia of the Technology 2002 Conference and Exposition, December 1-3, 1992, Baltimore, MD. Volume 2 features 60 papers presented during 30 concurrent sessions

Stream ciphers for secure display

In any situation where private, proprietary or highly confidential material is being dealt with, the need to consider aspects of data security has grown ever more important. It is usual to secure such data from its source, over networks and on to the intended recipient. However, data security considerations typically stop at the recipient's processor, leaving connections to a display transmitting raw data which is increasingly in a digital format and of value to an adversary. With a progression to wireless display technologies the prominence of this vulnerability is set to rise, making the implementation of 'secure display' increasingly desirable. Secure display takes aspects of data security right to the display panel itself, potentially minimising the cost, component count and thickness of the final product. Recent developments in display technologies should help make this integration possible. However, the processing of large quantities of time-sensitive data presents a significant challenge in such resource constrained environments. Efficient high- throughput decryption is a crucial aspect of the implementation of secure display and one for which the widely used and well understood block cipher may not be best suited. Stream ciphers present a promising alternative and a number of strong candidate algorithms potentially offer the hardware speed and efficiency required. In the past, similar stream ciphers have suffered from algorithmic vulnerabilities. Although these new-generation designs have done much to respond to this concern, the relatively short 80-bit key lengths of some proposed hardware candidates, when combined with ever-advancing computational power, leads to the thesis identifying exhaustive search of key space as a potential attack vector. To determine the value of protection afforded by such short key lengths a unique hardware key search engine for stream ciphers is developed that makes use of an appropriate data element to improve search efficiency. The simulations from this system indicate that the proposed key lengths may be insufficient for applications where data is of long-term or high value. It is suggested that for the concept of secure display to be accepted, a longer key length should be used

DEVELOPMENT OF A SIMPLIFIED, MASS PRODUCIBLE HYBRIDIZED AMBIENT, LOW FREQUENCY, LOW INTENSITY VIBRATION ENERGY SCAVENGER (HALF-LIVES)

Scavenging energy from environmental sources is an active area of research to enable remote sensing and microsystems applications. Furthermore, as energy demands soar, there is a significant need to explore new sources and curb waste. Vibration energy scavenging is one environmental source for remote applications and a candidate for recouping energy wasted by mechanical sources that can be harnessed to monitor and optimize operation of critical infrastructure (e.g. Smart Grid). Current vibration scavengers are limited by volume and ancillary requirements for operation such as control circuitry overhead and battery sources. This dissertation, for the first time, reports a mass producible hybrid energy scavenger system that employs both piezoelectric and electrostatic transduction on a common MEMS device. The piezoelectric component provides an inherent feedback signal and pre-charge source that enables electrostatic scavenging operation while the electrostatic device provides the proof mass that enables low frequency operation. The piezoelectric beam forms the spring of the resonant mass-spring transducer for converting vibration excitation into an AC electrical output. A serially poled, composite shim, piezoelectric bimorph produces the highest output rectified voltage of over 3.3V and power output of 145uW using ¼ g vibration acceleration at 120Hz. Considering solely the volume of the piezoelectric beam and tungsten proof mass, the volume is 0.054cm3, resulting in a power density of 2.68mW/cm3. Incorporation of a simple parallel plate structure that provides the proof mass for low frequency resonant operation in addition to cogeneration via electrostatic energy scavenging provides a 19.82 to 35.29 percent increase in voltage beyond the piezoelectric generated DC rails. This corresponds to approximately 2.1nW additional power from the electrostatic scavenger component and demonstrates the first instance of hybrid energy scavenging using both piezoelectric and synchronous electrostatic transduction. Furthermore, it provides a complete system architecture and development platform for additional enhancements that will enable in excess of 100uW additional power from the electrostatic scavenger

IFRS Adoption and Accounting Quality: A Review

Literature on IFRS adoption by countries concerning high quality, understandable and applicable IFRS in order to be worldwide accepted has generated a pertinent discussion, since the results presented in the literature are not unanimous on the adoption of IFRS and accounting quality. Soderstrom and Sun (2007) analyzed a research published in leading accounting journals selected from 1990’s on the consequences of IFRS adoption and found that the determinants of accounting quality after the adoption of these standards are articulated in: quality of the standards; political and judicial system in the country; financial reporting incentives. Based on Soderstrom and Sun (2007) study, this work aims to analyze literature on IFRS adoption and the accounting quality from 2006. In order to achieve this goal, a systematic search of the literature focused on a "Web of Science" database associated with a bibliometric analysis was done, aiming to understand the discussion on IFRS adoption and accounting quality in literature. As a result, it was found that the adoption of IFRS related to the accounting standard factors, political and judicial systems of the countries and the financial reporting incentives discussed by Soderstrom and Sun (2007) to determine the quality of accounting remains persistent. Overall, this analysis concludes that the quality of accounting cannot be evaluated only in terms of IFRS adoption, either on a voluntary or mandatory basis. The results of this study present at least two limitations: The studies on IFRS adoption researched, despite tackling institutional issues, do not show the real complexity of the reality, due to reduce the quality of the social context to the quality of economic rationality; and the alleged quality of standards based on principles is not enough to determine the quality of accounting

Workshop on programming languages for high performance computing (HPCWPL): final report.

This report summarizes the deliberations and conclusions of the Workshop on Programming Languages for High Performance Computing (HPCWPL) held at the Sandia CSRI facility in Albuquerque, NM on December 12-13, 2006

Development of a Night Vision Goggle Heads Up Display For Paratrooper Guidance

This thesis provides the proof of concept for the development and implementation of a Global Positioning System (GPS) display via Night Vision Goggles (NVG) Heads-Up Display (HUD) for paratroopers. The system has been designed for soldiers who will be able to utilize the technology in the form of a processing system worn in an ammo pouch and displayed via NVG HUD as a tunnel in the sky. The tunnel in the sky display design is essentially a series of boxes displayed within the goggle\u27s HUD leading the paratrooper to the desired Landing Zone (LZ). The algorithm developed receives GPS and inertial sensor data (both position and attitude), and displays the guidance information in the paratrooper\u27s NVG HUD as the tunnel in the sky. The primary goal of the project is to provide a product which allows military personnel to reach a desired LZ in obscured visibility conditions such as darkness, clouds, smoke, and other unforeseen situations. This allows missions to be carried out around the clock, even in adverse visibility conditions which would normally halt operations

Trends in Australian Manufacturing

Australian manufacturing is a picture of diversity and contrasts. This is the main finding of this paper which examines trends in the Australian manufacturing sector over the last two decades. Manufacturing output has quadrupled since the mid-1950s. The fastest growing activities have been those with links to Australia^Rs n atural endowments and products that are more differentiated, with higher skill levels and R&D intensities.Australia; Research; Reports; Employment; Employment opportunities; Industrial disputes; Industrial relations; Industry; I ndustry policy; Labour market; Manufacturing; Part-time employment; Permanent employment; Productivity; Skilled labour; Structural a djustment; Temporary employment; Trade unions;

Research & Technology Report Goddard Space Flight Center

The main theme of this edition of the annual Research and Technology Report is Mission Operations and Data Systems. Shifting from centralized to distributed mission operations, and from human interactive operations to highly automated operations is reported. The following aspects are addressed: Mission planning and operations; TDRSS, Positioning Systems, and orbit determination; hardware and software associated with Ground System and Networks; data processing and analysis; and World Wide Web. Flight projects are described along with the achievements in space sciences and earth sciences. Spacecraft subsystems, cryogenic developments, and new tools and capabilities are also discussed

VLSI Revisited - Revival in Japan

This paper describes the abundance of semiconductor consortia that have come into existence in Japan since the mid-1990s. They clearly reflect the ambition of the government - through its reorganized ministry METI and company initiatives - to regain some of the industrial and technological leadership that Japan has lost. The consortia landscape is very different in Japan compared with EU and the US. Outside Japan the universities play a much bigger and very important role. In Europe there has emerged close collaboration, among national government agencies, companies and the EU Commission in supporting the IT sector with considerable attention to semiconductor technologies. Another major difference, and possibly the most important one, is the fact that US and EU consortia include and mix partners from different areas of the semiconductor landscape including wafer makers, material suppliers, equipment producers and integrated device makers.semiconductors, Hitachi, Sony, Toshiba, Elpida, Renesas, Sematech, VLSI, JESSI, MEDEA, ASPLA, MIRAI, innovation system