Routing for analog chip designs at NXP Semiconductors

During the study week 2011 we worked on the question of how to automate certain aspects of the design of analog chips. Here we focused on the task of connecting different blocks with electrical wiring, which is particularly tedious to do by hand. For digital chips there is a wealth of research available for this, as in this situation the amount of blocks makes it hopeless to do the design by hand. Hence, we set our task to finding solutions that are based on the previous research, as well as being tailored to the specific setting given by NXP. This resulted in an heuristic approach, which we presented at the end of the week in the form of a protoype tool. In this report we give a detailed account of the ideas we used, and describe possibilities to extend the approach

The dust emission of high-redshift quasars

The detection of powerful near-infrared emission in high redshift (z>5) quasars demonstrates that very hot dust is present close to the active nucleus also in the very early universe. A number of high-redshift objects even show significant excess emission in the rest frame NIR over more local AGN spectral energy distribution (SED) templates. In order to test if this is a result of the very high luminosities and redshifts, we construct mean SEDs from the latest SDSS quasar catalogue in combination with MIR data from the WISE preliminary data release for several redshift and luminosity bins. Comparing these mean SEDs with a large sample of z>5 quasars we could not identify any significant trends of the NIR spectral slope with luminosity or redshift in the regime 2.5 < z < 6 and 10^45 < nuL_nu(1350AA) < 10^47 erg/s. In addition to the NIR regime, our combined Herschel and Spitzer photometry provides full infrared SED coverage of the same sample of z>5 quasars. These observations reveal strong FIR emission (L_FIR > 10^13 L_sun) in seven objects, possibly indicating star-formation rates of several thousand solar masses per year. The FIR excess emission has unusally high temperatures (T ~ 65 K) which is in contrast to the temperature typically expected from studies at lower redshift (T ~ 45 K). These objects are currently being investigated in more detail.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings to "The Central Kiloparsec in Galactic Nuclei (AHAR2011)", Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS), IOP Publishin

Resolving the molecular gas around the lensed quasar RXJ0911.4+0551

We report on high angular resolution observations of the CO(7-6) line and millimeter continuum in the host galaxy of the gravitationally lensed (z~2.8) quasar RXJ0911.4+0551 using the Plateau de Bure Interferometer. Our CO observations resolve the molecular disk of the source. Using a lens model based on HST observations we fit source models to the observed visibilities. We estimate a molecular disk radius of 1$\pm$0.2 kpc and an inclination of 69$\pm$6\deg, the continuum is more compact and is only marginally resolved by our observations. The relatively low molecular gas mass, $Mgas=(2.3\pm 0.5)\times 10^{9}$ Msolar, and far infrared luminosity, $LFIR=(7.2\pm 1.5) \times 10^{11}$ Lsolar, of this quasar could be explained by its relatively low dynamical mass, $Mdyn=(3.9\pm 0.9)\times 10^9$ Msolar. It would be a scaled-down version the QSOs usually found at high-z. The FIR and CO luminosities lie on the correlation found for QSOs from low to high redshifts and the gas-to-dust ratio ($45\pm 17$) is similar to the one measured in the z=6.4 QSO, SDSS J1148+5251. Differential magnification affects the continuum-to-line luminosity ratio, the line profile and possibly the spectral energy distribution.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, revised after language editin

Tanino condensando das espécies jurema preta (Mimosa hostilis), sabiá (Mimosa caesalpinifolia) e mororó (Bauhinia cheilantha), em três fases do ciclo fenológico.

Resumo: O objetivo do presente trabalho foi caracterizar os taninos condensados das espécies Jurema Preta (Mimosa hostilis), Sabiá (Mimosa caesalpinifolia) e Mororó (Bauhinia cheilantha) nas fases de vegetação(Mimosa hostilis), Sabiá (Mimosa caesalpinifolia) e Mororó (Bauhinia cheilantha) nas fases de vegetação plena, floração plena e frutificação. A concentração em tanino solúvel, tanino ligado ao resíduo e tanino total (TT) foi determinada pelo método butanol-HCL e a adstringência pelo método de difusão radial. Foram observadas diferenças entre as espécies quanto a concentração (P<0,05) e adstringência (P<0,05) dos taninos. A Jurema Preta apresentou os maiores valores (30,98% TT e 22% de adstringência na vegetação plena) e Mororó as menores (10,38% TT e 14% de adstringência na frutificação). A concentração e adstringência dos taninos condensados, assim como a adstringência variaram entre as espécies e, em alguns casos, entre as fases do ciclo fenológico. Os valores observados foram sempre superiores aos considerados benéficos (5%) para a digestão ruminal e aproveitamento geral da dieta. Abstract: This study was conducted aiming at characterizing the condensed tannins present in the legumes species Jurema Preta (Mimosa hostilis), Sabiá (Mimosa caesalpinifolia) and Mororó (Bauhinia cheilantha) at three stages of their phenological cycle. The concentration of soluble tannin, bound tannin and total tannin (TT) was determined using the butanol-HCL method and astringency was determined using the radial diffusion method. Jurema Preta presented the highest values (30.98% TT and 22 % astringency at full growth stage), and Mororó the lowest (10.38% TT and 14 % astringency during fructification). Concentration and astringency of condensed tannins, as well as their monomeric composition varied between species, and in some cases among phenological cycles. The values observed were always above the limits considered beneficial for ruminal digestion (i.e. 5%)

Does your robot know? Enhancing children's information retrieval through spoken conversation with responsible robots

In this paper, we identify challenges in children's current information retrieval process, and propose conversational robots as an opportunity to ease this process in a responsible way. Tools children currently use in this process, such as search engines on a computer or voice agents, do not always meet their specific needs. The conversational robot we propose maintains context, asks clarifying questions, and gives suggestions in order to better meet children's needs. Since children are often too trusting of robots, we propose to have the robot measure, monitor and adapt to the trust the child has in the robot. This way, we hope to induce a critical attitude with the children during their information retrieval process.Comment: IR4Children'21 workshop at SIGIR 2021 - http://www.fab4.science/IR4C