2,195 research outputs found
Load-independent characterization of trade-off fronts for operational amplifiers
Abstract—In emerging design methodologies for analog integrated circuits, the use of performance trade-off fronts, also known as Pareto fronts, is a keystone to overcome the limitations of the traditional top-down methodologies. However, most techniques reported so far to generate the front neglect the effect of the surrounding circuitry (such as the output load impedance) on the Pareto-front, thereby making it only valid for the context where the front was generated. This strongly limits its use in hierarchical analog synthesis because of the heavy dependence of key performances on the surrounding circuitry, but, more importantly, because this circuitry remains unknown until the synthesis process. We will address this problem by proposing a new technique to generate the trade-off fronts that is independent of the load that the circuit has to drive. This idea is exploited for a commonly used circuit, the operational amplifier, and experimental results show that this is a promising approach to solve the issue
Deep Neural Networks for the Recognition and Classification of Heart Murmurs Using Neuromorphic Auditory Sensors
Auscultation is one of the most used techniques for
detecting cardiovascular diseases, which is one of the main causes
of death in the world. Heart murmurs are the most common abnormal
finding when a patient visits the physician for auscultation.
These heart sounds can either be innocent, which are harmless, or
abnormal, which may be a sign of a more serious heart condition.
However, the accuracy rate of primary care physicians and expert
cardiologists when auscultating is not good enough to avoid most
of both type-I (healthy patients are sent for echocardiogram) and
type-II (pathological patients are sent home without medication or
treatment) errors made. In this paper, the authors present a novel
convolutional neural network based tool for classifying between
healthy people and pathological patients using a neuromorphic
auditory sensor for FPGA that is able to decompose the audio into
frequency bands in real time. For this purpose, different networks
have been trained with the heart murmur information contained in
heart sound recordings obtained from nine different heart sound
databases sourced from multiple research groups. These samples
are segmented and preprocessed using the neuromorphic auditory
sensor to decompose their audio information into frequency
bands and, after that, sonogram images with the same size are
generated. These images have been used to train and test different
convolutional neural network architectures. The best results
have been obtained with a modified version of the AlexNet model,
achieving 97% accuracy (specificity: 95.12%, sensitivity: 93.20%,
PhysioNet/CinC Challenge 2016 score: 0.9416). This tool could aid
cardiologists and primary care physicians in the auscultation process,
improving the decision making task and reducing type-I and
type-II errors.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2016-77785-
NAVIS: Neuromorphic Auditory VISualizer Tool
This software presents diverse utilities to perform the first post-processing layer taking the neuromorphic auditory sensors (NAS) information. The used NAS implements in FPGA a cascade filters architecture, imitating the behavior of the basilar membrane and inner hair cells and working with the sound information decomposed into its frequency components as spike streams. The well-known neuromorphic hardware interface Address-Event-Representation (AER) is used to propagate auditory information out of the NAS, emulating the auditory vestibular nerve. Using the information packetized into aedat files, which are generated through the jAER software plus an AER to USB computer interface, NAVIS implements a set of graphs that allows to represent the auditory information as cochleograms, histograms, sonograms, etc. It can also split the auditory information into different sets depending on the activity level of the spike streams. The main contribution of this software tool is that it allows complex audio post-processing treatments and representations, which is a novelty for spike-based systems in the neuromorphic community and it will help neuromorphic engineers to build sets for training spiking neural networks (SNN).Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2012-37868-C04-0
Live Demonstration: On the distance estimation of moving targets with a Stereo-Vision AER system
Distance calculation is always one of the most
important goals in a digital stereoscopic vision system. In an
AER system this goal is very important too, but it cannot be
calculated as accurately as we would like. This demonstration
shows a first approximation in this field, using a disparity
algorithm between both retinas. The system can make a distance
approach about a moving object, more specifically, a qualitative
estimation. Taking into account the stereo vision system
features, the previous retina positioning and the very important
Hold&Fire building block, we are able to make a correlation
between the spike rate of the disparity and the distance.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-0
High-temperature mechanical behavior of polycrystalline yttrium-doped barium cerate perovskite
The high-temperature mechanical properties of the mixed ionic-electronic conductor perovskite BaCe0.95Y0.05O3-δ with average grain size of 0.40μm have been studied in compression between 1100 and 1300°C in air at different initial strain rates. The true stress-true strain curves display an initial stress drop, followed by an extended steady-state stage. As the temperature decreases and/or the strain rate increases, there is a transition to a damage-tolerant strain-softening stage and eventually to catastrophic failure. Analysis of mechanical and microstructural data revealed that grain boundary sliding is the primary deformation mechanism. The strength drop has been correlated with the growth of ultrafine grains during deformation, already present at grain boundaries and triple grain junctions in the as-fabricated material.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación MAT2009-13979-C03-0
Stereo Matching in Address-Event-Representation (AER) Bio-Inspired Binocular Systems in a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
In stereo-vision processing, the image-matching step is essential for results, although it
involves a very high computational cost. Moreover, the more information is processed, the more time
is spent by the matching algorithm, and the more ine cient it is. Spike-based processing is a relatively
new approach that implements processing methods by manipulating spikes one by one at the time
they are transmitted, like a human brain. The mammal nervous system can solve much more complex
problems, such as visual recognition by manipulating neuron spikes. The spike-based philosophy
for visual information processing based on the neuro-inspired address-event-representation (AER)
is currently achieving very high performance. The aim of this work was to study the viability of a
matching mechanism in stereo-vision systems, using AER codification and its implementation in
a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Some studies have been done before in an AER system
with monitored data using a computer; however, this kind of mechanism has not been implemented
directly on hardware. To this end, an epipolar geometry basis applied to AER systems was studied
and implemented, with other restrictions, in order to achieve good results in a real-time scenario.
The results and conclusions are shown, and the viability of its implementation is proven.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2016-77785-
Efectes d’un entrenament planificat i controlat en minibàsquet (11 i 12 anys) sobre la potència anaeròbica
L’objectiu d’aquest treball ha estat avaluar els efectes que té, en nens, la participació en el programa d’entrenament esportiu dissenyat i controlat en minibàsquet, mitjançant l’índex de Korcek (GE, N = 12), sobre la potència anaeròbica en comparació amb un grup d’entrenament no planificat (GC, N = 12). El control del programa es va realitzar registrant la freqüència cardíaca mitjançant Sport Tester en les sessions d’entrenament i ajustant-ne la càrrega, segons l’índex de Korcek, als microcicles establerts en la planificació anual. El programa d’entrenament es va realitzar al llarg de set mesos, amb recollides de dades en dos moments diferents (primer mes i setè mes). La valoració de la potència anaeròbica es va estimar mitjançant la realització del test de Wingate en cicloergòmetre. Es van controlar les variables d’edat cronològica i biològica, pes, alçària, dos perímetres musculars, dos diàmetres ossis i tres plecs cutanis, i totes les variables van ser valorades seguint les normes establertes per l’“IWGK” i “GREC”. Els resultats mostren millores de la potència anaeròbica en el GE. Els components del GE presenten millores significatives en la resistència anaeròbica respecte del GC, i milloren de manera substancial l’índex de fatiga
Bio-Inspired Stereo Vision Calibration for Dynamic Vision Sensors
Many advances have been made in the eld of computer vision. Several recent research trends
have focused on mimicking human vision by using a stereo vision system. In multi-camera systems, a
calibration process is usually implemented to improve the results accuracy. However, these systems generate
a large amount of data to be processed; therefore, a powerful computer is required and, in many cases,
this cannot be done in real time. Neuromorphic Engineering attempts to create bio-inspired systems that
mimic the information processing that takes place in the human brain. This information is encoded using
pulses (or spikes) and the generated systems are much simpler (in computational operations and resources),
which allows them to perform similar tasks with much lower power consumption, thus these processes
can be developed over specialized hardware with real-time processing. In this work, a bio-inspired stereovision
system is presented, where a calibration mechanism for this system is implemented and evaluated
using several tests. The result is a novel calibration technique for a neuromorphic stereo vision system,
implemented over specialized hardware (FPGA - Field-Programmable Gate Array), which allows obtaining
reduced latencies on hardware implementation for stand-alone systems, and working in real time.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2016-77785-PMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-80644-
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