On The Same Old Road

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dRail: a novel physical layout methodology for power gated circuits

In this paper we present a physical layout methodology, called dRail, to allow power gated and non-power gated cells to be placed next to each other. This is unlike traditional voltage area layout which separates cells to prevent shorting of power supplies leading to impact on area, routing and power. To implement dRail, a modified standard cell architecture and physical layout is proposed. The methodology is validated by implementing power gating on the data engine in an ARM Cortex-A5 processor using a 65nm library, and shows up to 38% reduction in area cost when compared to traditional voltage area layou

\u27Way Down In Borneo-o-o-o

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4085/thumbnail.jp

What do people value when they provide unpaid care for an older person? A meta-ethnography with interview follow-up

Government policies to shift care into the community and demographic changes mean that unpaid (informal) carers will increasingly be relied on to deliver care, particularly to older people. As a result, careful consideration needs to be given to informal care in economic evaluations. Current methods for economic evaluations may neglect important aspects of informal care. This paper reports the development of a simple measure of the caring experience for use in economic evaluations. A meta-ethnography was used to reduce qualitative research to six conceptual attributes of caring. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were then conducted with carers of older people, to check the attributes and develop them into the measure. Six attributes of the caring experience comprise the final measure: getting on, organisational assistance, social support, activities, control, and fulfilment. The final measure (the Carer Experience Scale) focuses on the process of providing care, rather than health outcomes from caring. Arguably this provides a more direct assessment of carers' welfare. Following work to test and scale the measure, it may offer a promising way of incorporating the impact on carers in economic evaluations. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Systematic review of the safety of medication use in inpatient, outpatient and primary care settings in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries

Background Errors in medication use are a patient safety concern globally, with different regions reporting differing error rates, causes of errors and proposed solutions. The objectives of this review were to identify, summarise, review and evaluate published studies on medication errors, drug related problems and adverse drug events in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Methods A systematic review was carried out using six databases, searching for literature published between January 1990 and August 2016. Research articles focussing on medication errors, drug related problems or adverse drug events within different healthcare settings in the GCC were included. Results Of 2094 records screened, 54 studies met our inclusion criteria. Kuwait was the only GCC country with no studies included. Prescribing errors were reported to be as high as 91% of a sample of primary care prescriptions analysed in one study. Of drug-related admissions evaluated in the emergency department the most common reason was patient non-compliance. In the inpatient care setting, a study of review of patient charts and medication orders identified prescribing errors in 7% of medication orders, another reported prescribing errors present in 56% of medication orders. The majority of drug related problems identified in inpatient paediatric wards were judged to be preventable. Adverse drug events were reported to occur in 8.5–16.9 per 100 admissions with up to 30% judged preventable, with occurrence being highest in the intensive care unit. Dosing errors were common in inpatient, outpatient and primary care settings. Omission of the administered dose as well as omission of prescribed medication at medication reconciliation were common. Studies of pharmacists’ interventions in clinical practice reported a varying level of acceptance, ranging from 53% to 98% of pharmacists’ recommendations. Conclusions Studies of medication errors, drug related problems and adverse drug events are increasing in the GCC. However, variation in methods, definitions and denominators preclude calculation of an overall error rate. Research with more robust methodologies and longer follow up periods is now required.Peer reviewe

Test-retest reliability of capability measurement in the UK general population

Although philosophically attractive, it may be difficult, in practice, to measure individuals' capabilities (what they are able to do in their lives) as opposed to their functionings (what they actually do). To examine whether capability information could be reliably self-reported, we administered a measure of self-reported capability (the Investigating Choice Experiments Capability Measure for Adults, ICECAP-A) on two occasions, 2 weeks apart, alongside a self-reported health measure (the EuroQol Five Dimensional Questionnaire with 3 levels, EQ-5D-3L). We found that respondents were able to report capabilities with a moderate level of consistency, although somewhat less reliably than their health status. The more socially orientated nature of some of the capability questions may account for the difference. © 2014 The Authors Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Assumptions and reality in ground models - the case of drift-filled hollows and associated subsurface features in London, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), The subsurface of London is often assumed to be relatively simple, with Late Cretaceous and Palaeogene strata sitting within and forming a synclinal structure (the London Basin). The surface has been modified by mostly fluvial processes during the Quaternary. More recently, a picture of more complex conditions has begun to be developed, largely driven by the need for deeper foundations, groundwater control and tunnelling. One group of significant features are referred to as ‘drift-filled hollows’ (DFH). These are commonly closed depressions in the surface of the bedrock (typically the London Clay Formation), that are infilled by later deposits. Adjacent and underlying strata is sometimes disturbed A new database shows that DFH are more widespread than previously thought, but also highlights issues in how they are classified. It also raises questions about the validity of the ‘simple’ geological model of London and highlights the danger of using assumptions when planning development, and for reconstructing past events

3D printed porous contactors for enhanced oil droplet coalescence

The fabrication of 3D printed porous contactors based on triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) is reported here for the first time. The structures, based on the Schwarz-P and Gyroid TPMS, were tested for oil-in-water demulsification via oil droplet coalescence and compared to a contactor with cylindrical pores and natural separation. The contactors were characterized in terms of intrinsic permeability, resistance and oil separation efficiency, for different oil concentrations (0.3, 0.4, 0.5 vol%) in the oil-in-water emulsion, vacuum pressures (10 and 20 mbar) and thickness of the contactors (4.68 and 9.36 mm). Results show that while the Gyroid contactor has the highest resistance and lowest intrinsic permeability of all three structures, it has 18% and 5% higher separation efficiency than the cylindrical and Schwarz-P structures, respectively. These characteristics reflect the higher tortuosity and surface area of the Gyroid structure compared to the other two. At 90%, the Gyroid structure also has a 22% higher separation efficiency and a two order of magnitude higher separation rate for the permeate compared to natural coalescence, attributed to an 8-fold increase in oil droplet diameter of the permeate compared to the feed, as a result of passage through the contactor. Higher vacuum pressure and higher contactor thickness further increase the separation efficiency of all structures, but the effect is more pronounced for the Gyroid structure due to its higher tortuosity. These results show that 3D printing is an effective tool for the design of porous contactors where a high surface area of interaction is key to their success, paving their way to extended use in a variety of industrial applications.</p

Reliable state retention-based embedded processors through monitoring and recovery

State retention power gating and voltage-scaled state retention are two effective design techniques, commonly employed in embedded processors, for reducing idle circuit leakage power. This paper presents a methodology for improving the reliability of embedded processors in the presence of power supply noise and soft errors. A key feature of the method is low cost, which is achieved through reuse of the scan chain for state monitoring, and it is effective because it can correct single and multiple bit errors through hardware and software respectively. To validate the methodology, ARM Cortex-M0 embedded microprocessor (provided by our industrial project partner) is implemented in FPGA and further synthesized using 65-nm technology to quantify the cost in terms of area, latency and energy. It is shown that the proposed methodology has a small area overhead (8.6%) with less than 4% worst-case increase in critical path and is capable of detecting and correcting both single bit and multi bit errors for a wide range of fault rates