Critical Behavior of CP^1 at theta = pi, Haldane's Conjecture and the Universality Class

Using an approach to analyze the theta dependence of systems with a theta-term we recently proposed, the critical behavior of CP^1 at theta=pi is studied. We find a region outside the strong coupling regime where Haldane's conjecture is verified. The critical line however does not belong to the universality class of the Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model at topological coupling k=1 since it shows continuously varying critical exponents.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

FPGA based remote code integrity verification of programs in distributed embedded systems

The explosive growth of networked embedded systems has made ubiquitous and pervasive computing a reality. However, there are still a number of new challenges to its widespread adoption that include scalability, availability, and, especially, security of software. Among the different challenges in software security, the problem of remote-code integrity verification is still waiting for efficient solutions. This paper proposes the use of reconfigurable computing to build a consistent architecture for generation of attestations (proofs) of code integrity for an executing program as well as to deliver them to the designated verification entity. Remote dynamic update of reconfigurable devices is also exploited to increase the complexity of mounting attacks in a real-word environment. The proposed solution perfectly fits embedded devices that are nowadays commonly equipped with reconfigurable hardware components that are exploited to solve different computational problems

Renormalization group and triviality in noncompact lattice QED with light fermions

In the framework of noncompact lattice QED with light fermions, we derive the functional dependence of the average energy per plaquette on the bare parameters using block-spin Renormalization Group arguments and assuming that the renormalized coupling vanishes. Our numerical results for this quantity in $8^4$ and $10^4$ lattices show evidence for triviality in the weak coupling phase and point to a non vanishing value for the renormalized coupling constant in the strong coupling phase.Comment: 9 page

A FPGA-Based Reconfigurable Software Architecture for Highly Dependable Systems

Nowadays, systems-on-chip are commonly equipped with reconfigurable hardware. The use of hybrid architectures based on a mixture of general purpose processors and reconfigurable components has gained importance across the scientific community allowing a significant improvement of computational performance. Along with the demand for performance, the great sensitivity of reconfigurable hardware devices to physical defects lead to the request of highly dependable and fault tolerant systems. This paper proposes an FPGA-based reconfigurable software architecture able to abstract the underlying hardware platform giving an homogeneous view of it. The abstraction mechanism is used to implement fault tolerance mechanisms with a minimum impact on the system performanc

Influence of parasitic capacitance variations on 65 nm and 32 nm predictive technology model SRAM core-cells

The continuous improving of CMOS technology allows the realization of digital circuits and in particular static random access memories that, compared with previous technologies, contain an impressive number of transistors. The use of new production processes introduces a set of parasitic effects that gain more and more importance with the scaling down of the technology. In particular, even small variations of parasitic capacitances in CMOS devices are expected to become an additional source of faulty behaviors in future technologies. This paper analyzes and compares the effect of parasitic capacitance variations in a SRAM memory circuit realized with 65 nm and 32 nm predictive technology model