Electrically reconfigurable logic array

To compose the complicated systems using algorithmically specialized logic circuits or processors, one solution is to perform relational computations such as union, division and intersection directly on hardware. These relations can be pipelined efficiently on a network of processors having an array configuration. These processors can be designed and implemented with a few simple cells. In order to determine the state-of-the-art in Electrically Reconfigurable Logic Array (ERLA), a survey of the available programmable logic array (PLA) and the logic circuit elements used in such arrays was conducted. Based on this survey some recommendations are made for ERLA devices

Whither Patent Litigation in India?

Patent litigation in India is growing. Awareness about patents and the possibility of commercial exploitation of patents is increasing. This is due to better laws and improving registration facilities. Indian firms are taking the patent disputes to courts, as was and is very common in the United States. More than a century back, disputes about electric bulb, telephone and automobile have been resolved in the American courts. Indian courts never had as much patent litigation as the American and English courts had. In the last ten years or so, things have changed. Post-WTO, Indian law has been amended and patent protection has become stronger. Patent law and protection provided by it is being increasingly used as a potent tool in competitive strategy formulated by many companies. The courts are playing a very important role in ultimately resolving the disputes and interpreting the law. There is, however, a need to expedite the process of resolution of such disputes.

Medical Negligence: Law and Interpretation

Negligence by doctors has to be determined by judges who are not trained in medical science. They rely on experts’ opinion and decide on the basis of basic principles of reasonableness and prudence. This brings into a lot of subjectivity into the decision and the effort is to reduce it and have certain objective criteria. This may sound simple but is tremendously difficult as medical profession evolves and experimentation helps in its evolution. Thus, there is a constant tussle between the established procedures and innovative methods. But, innovation simply for the sake of being different, without any reason is not acceptable. And, these issues make it extremely challenging to decide negligence by doctors. The paper examines the concept of negligence in medical profession in the light of interpretation of law by the Supreme Court of India and the idea of the ‘reasonable man’.

Generating aerosols for laser velocimeter seeding

The laser velocimeter (LV) is a unique tool for fluid flow measurements. In such measurements, even though the fluid velocity is of primary interest, the LV signal originates from seed particles present in the fluid and the LV actually measures the velocity of these particles. Thus it is important that a sufficient number of seed particles be present in the fluid and they scatter sufficient light to produce LV signals. Also, the seed particles should follow the fluid with high fidelity. Aerodynamic diameter is the true measure of a particle's ability to follow the flow. The aerodynamic diameter of a particle is defined as the diameter of a unit density sphere with same settling velocity as the particle in question. It is affected by geometric diameter, density and shape of the particle. For LV seeding, particles with smaller aerodynamic diameter are desirable because they follow the flow more readily. On the other hand, in general, the particle's ability to scatter light increases with its geometric diameter and its refractive index

Computational Geometry Column 34

Problems presented at the open-problem session of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry are listed

Laser Field Induced Birefringence and Enhancement of Magneto-optical Rotation

An initially isotropic medium, when subjected to either a magnetic field or a coherent field, can induce anisotropy in the medium and can cause the polarization of a probe field to rotate. Therefore the rotation of probe polarization, due to magnetic field alone, can be controlled efficiently with the use of a coherent control field. We demonstrate this enhancement of the magneto-optical rotation (MOR) of a linearly polarized light, by doing detailed calculations on a system with relevant transitions $j=0\leftrightarrow j=1\leftrightarrow j=0$.Comment: 9 pages including 4 Figure

Mesoscopic Superposition of States with Sub-Planck Structures in Phase Space

We propose a method using the dispersive interaction between atoms and a high quality cavity to realize the mesoscopic superposition of coherent states which would exhibit sub-Planck structures in phase space. In particular we focus on a superposition involving four coherent states. We show interesting interferences in the conditional measurements involving two atoms.Comment: 4-page 3-figur

An Efficient Algorithm for Computing High-Quality Paths amid Polygonal Obstacles

We study a path-planning problem amid a set $\mathcal{O}$ of obstacles in $\mathbb{R}^2$, in which we wish to compute a short path between two points while also maintaining a high clearance from $\mathcal{O}$; the clearance of a point is its distance from a nearest obstacle in $\mathcal{O}$. Specifically, the problem asks for a path minimizing the reciprocal of the clearance integrated over the length of the path. We present the first polynomial-time approximation scheme for this problem. Let $n$ be the total number of obstacle vertices and let $\varepsilon \in (0,1]$. Our algorithm computes in time $O(\frac{n^2}{\varepsilon ^2} \log \frac{n}{\varepsilon})$ a path of total cost at most $(1+\varepsilon)$ times the cost of the optimal path.Comment: A preliminary version of this work appear in the Proceedings of the 27th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithm