Design Trade‐Offs for FPGA Implementation of LDPC Decoders

Low density parity check (LDPC) decoders represent important throughput bottlenecks, as well as major cost and power-consuming components in today\u27s digital circuits for wireless communication and storage. They present a wide range of architectural choices, with different throughput, cost, and error correction capability trade-offs. In this book chapter, we will present an overview of the main design options in the architecture and implementation of these circuits on field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices. We will present the mapping of the main units within the LDPC decoders on the specific embedded components of FPGA device. We will review architectural trade-offs for both flooded and layered scheduling strategies in their FPGA implementation

Treatment possibilities in ectromelia

Introduction: Ectromelia is a congenital abnormality characterized by limb growth disturbances (aplasia or hypoplasia) during the period from 4th to 8th gestation week. Case outline. We present a case of hemimezomelic longitudinal ectromelia of the right upper limb associated with other skeletal abnormalities, surgically treated. An important role in the management of this case is attributed to the complex rehabilitation programme done before and after each surgical intervention. Conclusion. The aim of the complex therapy is to diminish the permanent invalidity of these patients.

Designing a Software Test Automation Framework

Testing is an art and science that should ultimately lead to lower cost businesses through increasing control and reducing risk. Testing specialists should thoroughly understand the system or application from both the technical and the business perspective, and then design, build and implement the minimum-cost, maximum-coverage validation framework. Test Automation is an important ingredient for testing large scale applications. In this paper we discuss several test automation frameworks, their advantages and disadvantages. We also propose a custom automation framework model that is suited for applications with very complex business requirements and numerous interfaces

Assessment of jaw muscles and cervical spine muscles isometric force using a hand-held dynamometer in young adults

Our study aims to investigate the jaw and cervical spine muscle isometric forces in healthy young adults. Fifty-four subjects (21.2 ± 4.82 years) met the inclusion criteria and agreed to par-ticipate in the study. Muscle forces were assessed with a hand-held dynamometer. A significant positive correlation was found between jaw opening forces and cervical flexors forces (r=0.62, p0.0001) and between lateral mandible deviation forces and cervical spine lateral flexion forces, both for right and left side (r=0.65, p<0.0001; r=0.69, p<0.0001, respectively. In healthy young adults, using a hand-held dynamometer for muscle strength testing, significant positive correla-tion was found between jaw opening forces and cervical flexors forces and between lateral mo-uth deviation force and cervical spine lateral flexion forces, both for right and left side. The rela-tionship between jaw muscles forces and cervical spine muscles forces is a topic that needs to be further studied, also together with posture and balance

The necessity of using high quality orthoses in rehabilitation medicine

In rehabilitation medicine there is increasing need of using high quality orthoses that can provide either good stability of the joint or good correction of the postural defect. The advantages of using orthoses that are in the same time hypoallergenic, lightweight, flexible, resistant and durable over time should be considered when prescribing them in clinical practice. This study presents different types of orthoses and the necessity of proper selection of materials when choosing the best ones. We included 34 patients diagnosed with different musculoskeletal conditions (thoracic and thoraco-lumbar scoliosis, genu valgum deviation and rheumatoid arthritis) that required the use of special orthoses (thoraco-lumbar braces, knee or hand orthoses). Patients were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding the quality of the orthoses that they have been used. The following characteristics of an orthosis should be considered when choosing the right one: easily wearable, comfortable, offering good stability of a joint, high quality, lightweight, hypoallergenic and resistant

Fault modeling and analysis of short defects in CMOS based reversible circuits

This paper presents a SPICE based analysis of reversible circuits affected by the short defects: the gate oxide defect and the source-drain defect. The simulations are performed using realistic transistor models (the BSIM4 model) and take into account the resistive nature of the gate oxide and the source drain shorts. We aim at determining dependence between the short's resistance and the output voltage. Furthermore, we analyze the timing characteristics of reversible circuits affected by such faults. The goal is to develop logic and delay fault models for CMOS based reversible gates. This way, Boolean test strategies and logic level fault tolerant mechanisms and strategies can be devised for reversible circuits

A Log-Likelihood Ratio based Generalized Belief Propagation

In this paper, we propose a reduced complexity Generalized Belief Propagation (GBP) that propagates messages in Log-Likelihood Ratio (LLR) domain. The key novelties of the proposed LLR-GBP are: (i) reduced fixed point precision for messages instead of computational complex floating point format, (ii) operations performed in logarithm domain, thus eliminating the need for multiplications and divisions, (iii) usage of message ratios that leads to simple hard decision mechanisms. We demonstrated the validity of LLR-GBP on reconstruction of images passed through binary-input two-dimensional Gaussian channels with memory and affected by additive white Gaussian noise.This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

FPGA implementations of low precision floating point multiply-accumulate

Floating point (FP) multiply-accumulate (MAC) represents one of the most important operations in a wide range of applications, such as DSP, multimedia or graphic processing. This paper presents a FP MAC half precision (16-bit) FPGA implementation. The main contribution of this work is represented by the utilization of modern FPGA DSP block for performing both mantissa multiplication and mantissa accumulation. In order to use the DSP block for these operations, the alignment right shifts are performed before the multiply-add stage: a right shift on one of the multiplicand, and, a left shift for the other. This results in efficient DSP usage; thus both cost savings and higher performance (high working frequencies and low latencies) are targeted for MAC operations

The Impact of Piano Styles on Muscle Force in Pianist Students

The study of the consequences of different sonata styles (baroque, classical and romantic piano repertoire) on pianists&rsquo; upper limbs represents a research topic for both the musical and medical fields. Twenty piano students were examined using a MicroFet2 dynamometer after playing three sonatas (Scarlatti K. 1 Sonata as a representative of the baroque style, Haydn Sonata no. 60 for the classical style and Chopin second Sonata for the romantic style). The phase sequence was randomised for each subject: firstly, continuous interpretation of 10 bars of a sonata was conducted 10 times, with the metronome tempo set by the investigator; secondly, the subject interpreted 10 bars of a different sonata continuously, standardised by tempo, which was carried out 10 times; finally, the continuous interpretation of 10 bars of the remaining third sonata, standardised by tempo, was carried out 10 times. After each performance of the 10 bars, the elbow extensor&rsquo;s isometric muscle force was measured. Significant differences were found between the elbow extensor&rsquo;s isometric muscle force assessed after playing Scarlatti&rsquo;s sonata and Haydn&rsquo;s sonata (p = 0.005 for left arm, p = 0.03 for right arm), between Scarlatti&rsquo;s sonata and Chopin&rsquo;s sonata (p &lt; 0.0001 for both left and right arms) and between Haydn&rsquo;s sonata and Chopin&rsquo;s sonata (p = 0.01 for left arm, p &lt; 0.0001 for right arm). In healthy piano students, the dynamometric assessment of elbow extensors&rsquo; isometric muscle force after playing three different sonatas (baroque, classical and romantic) showed that the lowest values were recorded after playing the baroque style. Our results showed bilateral symmetry in the elbow extensor&rsquo;s isometric muscle force for all three piano styles. The testing of arm muscles, besides that of the fingers, should be considered as a regular evaluation for future professional pianists with regard to the prevention of musculoskeletal complaints

Multi-Level Simulated Fault Injection for Data Dependent Reliability Analysis of RTL Circuit Descriptions

This paper proposes data-dependent reliability evaluation methodology for digital systems described at Register Transfer Level (RTL). It uses a hybrid hierarchical approach, combining the accuracy provided by Gate Level (GL) Simulated Fault Injection (SFI) and the low simulation overhead required by RTL fault injection. The methodology comprises the following steps: the correct simulation of the RTL system, according to a set of input vectors, hierarchical decomposition of the system into basic RTL blocks, logic synthesis of basic RTL blocks, data-dependent SFI for the GL netlists, and RTL SFI. The proposed methodology has been validated in terms of accuracy on a medium sized circuit – the parallel comparator used in Check Node Unit (CNU) of the Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) decoders. The methodology has been applied for the reliability analysis of a 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) crypto-core, for which the GL simulation was prohibitive in terms of required computational resources