Analysis and Design of Resilient VLSI Circuits

The reliable operation of Integrated Circuits (ICs) has become increasingly difficult to achieve in the deep sub-micron (DSM) era. With continuously decreasing device feature sizes, combined with lower supply voltages and higher operating frequencies, the noise immunity of VLSI circuits is decreasing alarmingly. Thus, VLSI circuits are becoming more vulnerable to noise effects such as crosstalk, power supply variations and radiation-induced soft errors. Among these noise sources, soft errors (or error caused by radiation particle strikes) have become an increasingly troublesome issue for memory arrays as well as combinational logic circuits. Also, in the DSM era, process variations are increasing at an alarming rate, making it more difficult to design reliable VLSI circuits. Hence, it is important to efficiently design robust VLSI circuits that are resilient to radiation particle strikes and process variations. The work presented in this dissertation presents several analysis and design techniques with the goal of realizing VLSI circuits which are tolerant to radiation particle strikes and process variations. This dissertation consists of two parts. The first part proposes four analysis and two design approaches to address radiation particle strikes. The analysis techniques for the radiation particle strikes include: an approach to analytically determine the pulse width and the pulse shape of a radiation induced voltage glitch in combinational circuits, a technique to model the dynamic stability of SRAMs, and a 3D device-level analysis of the radiation tolerance of voltage scaled circuits. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed techniques for analyzing radiation particle strikes in combinational circuits and SRAMs are fast and accurate compared to SPICE. Therefore, these analysis approaches can be easily integrated in a VLSI design flow to analyze the radiation tolerance of such circuits, and harden them early in the design flow. From 3D device-level analysis of the radiation tolerance of voltage scaled circuits, several non-intuitive observations are made and correspondingly, a set of guidelines are proposed, which are important to consider to realize radiation hardened circuits. Two circuit level hardening approaches are also presented to harden combinational circuits against a radiation particle strike. These hardening approaches significantly improve the tolerance of combinational circuits against low and very high energy radiation particle strikes respectively, with modest area and delay overheads. The second part of this dissertation addresses process variations. A technique is developed to perform sensitizable statistical timing analysis of a circuit, and thereby improve the accuracy of timing analysis under process variations. Experimental results demonstrate that this technique is able to significantly reduce the pessimism due to two sources of inaccuracy which plague current statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) tools. Two design approaches are also proposed to improve the process variation tolerance of combinational circuits and voltage level shifters (which are used in circuits with multiple interacting power supply domains), respectively. The variation tolerant design approach for combinational circuits significantly improves the resilience of these circuits to random process variations, with a reduction in the worst case delay and low area penalty. The proposed voltage level shifter is faster, requires lower dynamic power and area, has lower leakage currents, and is more tolerant to process variations, compared to the best known previous approach. In summary, this dissertation presents several analysis and design techniques which significantly augment the existing work in the area of resilient VLSI circuit design

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF LEAVES AND STEM OF TINOSPORA CORDIFOLIA IN DIFFERENT SOLVENT EXTRACT

Tinospora cordifolia is known as Giloe and Guduchi, with significant importance in the traditional medicinal systems. It is dioeciously plant. It is mostly used in Ayurved system. It is also known as a ‘Rasayans’ of medicinal system, which develops immune system of the body and protect against infection. The aim of this study is carried out to analyse the phytochemical compounds in leaves and stem extracts of T. cordifolia by using phytochemical screening tests and estimate total flavonoid content (TFC) by using aluminium chloride method in the sample extracts. The leaf and stem extracts of T. cordifolia expressed the presence of several phytochemicals viz., flavonoids, amino acids, diterpines, protein, saponins and carbohydrates. The result of phytochemical screening tests revealed that diterpines and carbohydrates are positive in all extracts of T. cordifolia, but flavonoids and saponins only present in  methanol and ethanol extracts. TFC of T. cordifolia was higher in ethanolic leaves extracts than mathanolic leaves extracts. The studies justify that T. cordifolia use in traditional medicines. The investigation further proposed that the phytochemicals present in stems and leaves of T. cordifolia, which can be use as natural antioxidants in medicinal drugs. Keywords: Tinospora cordifolia, Phytochemicals, Flavonoid

Standard Infection Control Practices among Peripheral Health Care Workers: A Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Study from a Rural Haryana

Background: Globally, around 2.5% of HIV and 40% of HBV among Health Care Workers (HCWs) are attributed to occupational exposure with an overall incidence of occupational exposure to blood/body fluids among HCW as 32.3%. There exists a gap between the knowledge and practice of standard infection control practices among HCW. Failure to follow these standard protocols leads to loss of precious work hours of this skilled work force.Methods: To know the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding standard infection control protocols, a community based, cross- sectional, analytical, non –interventional study was planned among health care workers at a Rural Community Health Centre (CHC) , Dighal of district Jhajjar (Haryana). A total of 50 HCWs were included in the study. The study was conducted during the months of July –August, 2016.Results: About 56% of HCWs were having the knowledge about the correct steps of hand washing but only 20% were actually practicing hand washing before administrating injections. Only 28% of participants were correctly using hub-cutter and needle destroyers after the injection practices. It was observed that 42% of subjects were still trying to re-cap needles after the injections. 60% of subjects felt that using standard precautions was cumbersome. 74% of the subjects felt that using standard precautions was expensive. 54% of study subjects felt that it was difficult to follow stand precautions in government institutions due to logistics issues. Only 28% of the participants had received complete vaccination against Hepatitis B.Conclusion: There exists a huge gap between the knowledge and practice of standard infection control protocols. Among most of the HCWs, the attitude was not positive towards using standard precautions despite having knowledge. Lack of initiative from the higher up officials, poor training, poor monitoring further complex the issue. Regular monitoring and supervision, capacity building of HCWs along with regular logistic supply are recommended

Global Environmental Microelectromechanical Systems Sensors: Advanced Weather Observation System

The technological developments in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have resulted in conceptualisation of a next generation observation system called global environmental MEMS sensors (GEMS). GEMS consists of a large number of airborne probes that will remain suspended in the atmosphere for long durations and take in situ measurements of pressure, temperature, humidity, wind direction and velocity as these are carried by air currents. It is envisaged that GEMS network would provide a systematic understanding of the earths atmosphere and would improve weather forecast accuracy, well beyond the current capability. In addition to gathering meteorological data, probes could be used for environmental monitoring of particulate emissions, organic and inorganic pollutants, ozone, carbon dioxide, and chemical, biological, or nuclear contaminants. The GEMS concept requires integration of communication engineering and instrumentation with other evolving technologies. This review describes in detail the new observation system designed for environmental monitoring and its potential application in predicting cyclones and monsoon, and measurement of urban air pollution in India. The possible application of the GEMS system during military operations has also been brought out.Defence Science Journal, 2009, 59(6), pp.659-665, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.59.157

The conformational phase diagram of neutral polymers in the presence of attractive crowders

Extensive coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the conformational phase diagram of a neutral polymer in the presence of attractive crowders. We show that, for low crowded densities, the polymer predominantly shows three phases as a function of both intra polymer and polymer-crowder interactions: (1) weak intra polymer and weak polymer-crowder attractive interactions induce extended or coil polymer conformations (phase E) (2) strong intra polymer and relatively weak polymer-crowder attractive interactions induce collapsed or globular conformations (phase CI) and (3) strong polymer-crowder attractive interactions, regardless of intra polymer interactions, induce a second collapsed or globular conformation that encloses bridging crowders (phase CB). The detailed phase diagram is obtained by determining the phase boundaries delineating the different phases based on an analysis of the radius of gyration as well as bridging crowders. The dependence of the phase diagram on strength of crowder-crowder attractive interactions and crowder density is clarified. We also show that when the crowder density is increased, a third collapsed phase of the polymer emerges for weak intra polymer attractive interactions. This crowder density induced compaction is shown to be enhanced by stronger crowder-crowder attraction and is different from the depletion induced collapse mechanism which is primarily driven by repulsive interactions. We also provide a unified explanation of the observed reentrant swollen/extended conformations of earlier simulations of weak and strongly self interacting polymers in terms of crowder-crowder attractive interactions

Fixed point Results with Soft G- Metrc spaces

In the present paper, we prove fixed point results of mapping defined on soft G-metric space. Keywords: - Soft set, soft G-metric space, fixed point. Mathematics Subject Classification: - 47H10, 54H25

Generalized buffering of pass transistor logic (PTL) stages using Boolean division and don't cares

Pass Transistor Logic (PTL) is a well known approach for implementing digital circuits. In order to handle larger designs and also to ensure that the total number of series devices in the resulting circuit is bounded, partitioned Reduced Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (ROBDDs) can be used to generate the PTL circuit. The output signals of each partitioned block typically needs to be buffered. In this thesis, a new methodology is presented to perform generalized buffering of the outputs of PTL blocks. By performing the Boolean division of each PTL block using different gates in a library, we select the gate that results in the largest reduction in the height of the PTL block. In this manner, these gates serve the function of buffering the outputs of the PTL blocks, while also reducing the height and delay of the PTL block. PTL synthesis with generalized buffering was implemented in two different ways. In the first approach, Boolean division was used to perform generalized buffering. In the second approach, compatible observability don't cares (CODCs) were utilized in tandem with Boolean division to simplify the ROBDDs and to reduce the logic in PTL structure. Also CODCs were computed in two different manners: one using full simplify to compute complete CODCs and another using, approximate CODCs (ACODCs). Over a number of examples, on an average, generalized buffering without CODCs results in a 24% reduction in delay, and a 3% improvement in circuit area, compared to a traditional buffered PTL implementation. When ACODCs were used, the delay was reduced by 29%, and the total area was reduced by 5% compared to traditional buffering. With complete CODCs, the delay and area reduction compared to traditional buffering was 28% and 6% respectively. Therefore, results show that generalized buffering provides better implementation of the circuits than the traditional buffering method

Comparison of prices of commonly used drugs in AMRIT pharmacy, Jan Aushadhi Centre and Private chemist shop: An analytical study from a tertiary care centre in Haryana

Background: The price of medicine in India has always been a point of discussion in public domain. The price range of the same drug is very large with more than 100% difference between various brands available in different settings. Aims and Objectives: To assess the price of different drugs at Jan Aushasdhi (JA), AMRIT and Private Chemist and to compare the prices of these three outlets so that the issues. Material and Methods: This institution-based cross-sectional study was carried out from May 2019 to June 2019. A pretested proforma was prepared to compare the prices of 284 different medicines in Jan Aushadhi, AMRIT and private chemist shops. The collected data were entered in an Excel spreadsheet and presented in Proportions, percentages, and mean. Results: The price of 284 medicines were compared from JA (Median(IQR)- 15.18(18.75) INR) and Private chemist shop (Median(IQR)-88(111.5) INR) while 249 medicine from AMRIT (Median(IQR)-61.05(78.33) INR). Although the majority of the AMRIT drugs are cheaper than the chemist shop except for 31% of Antipsychotic drugs, 26.6% of antihypertensives, 25% of respiratory drugs, 25% of steroids, 21.9% of antibiotics. Conclusion: We concluded that JA is providing drugs cheaper than AMRIT and Private chemist . The prices of medicines offered at AMRIT  are lower than market pricing but they are costlier when compared to JA prices

Hypoglycemia, With or Without Insulin Therapy, Is Associated With Increased Mortality Among Hospitalized Patients

OBJECTIVE Hypoglycemia is associated with increased mortality in hospitalized patients. We investigated the relationship between spontaneous hypoglycemia versus insulin-associated hypoglycemia and mortality in hospitalized patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Data for this retrospective cohort study were obtained from electronic databases of patients admitted between 1 April 2008 and 30 November 2010. Patients with one or more blood glucose values ≤50 mg/dL on point-of-care glucose testing were considered hypoglycemic. Patients treated with insulin were assumed to have insulin-associated hypoglycemia. Age-, sex-, and race-matched patients with all blood glucose values >70 mg/dL were selected as controls. The Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) was used to control for severity of illness. RESULTS There were four groups: 1) noninsulin-treated hypoglycemia (NTH) (n = 135), 2) insulin-treated hypoglycemia (ITH) (n = 961), 3) noninsulin-treated control (NTC) (n = 1,058), and 4) insulin-treated control (ITC) (n = 736). Mortality was higher in the ITH group compared with the ITC group (20.3 vs. 4.5%, P < 0.0001), with a relatively higher CCI (1.8 vs. 1.5%, P < 0.0001), but much higher in the NTH group compared with the NTC group (34.5 vs. 1.1%, P < 0.0001), with much higher CCI (2.4 vs. 1.1%, P < 0.0001). Mortality was higher in the NTH group compared with the ITH group (P < 0.0001) but lower in the NTC group compared with the ITC group (P < 0.0001). After controlling for age, sex, CCI, and admission to the intensive care unit, insulin treatment was associated with a lower mortality among the hypoglycemic patients; hazard ratio of death in the ITH group relative to the NTH group was 0.34 (95% CI 0.25–0.47, P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Insulin-associated and spontaneous hypoglycemia are associated with increased mortality among hospitalized patients