A Survey of Digital Systems Curriculum and Pedagogy in Electrical and Computer Engineering Programs

Digital Systems is one of the basic foundational courses in Electrical and Computer Engineering. One of the challenges in designing and modifying the curriculum for the course is the fast pace of technology change in the area. TTL chips that were in vogue with students building physical circuits, have given way to new paradigms like FPGA based synthesis with hardware description languages such as VHDL. However, updating a course is not as simple as just changing the book, and changing the syllabus. A large amount of work needs to be done in terms of selecting the book that will accommodate the course, the device that should be used, the laboratory content, and even how much time needs to be dedicated for every topic. All these issues, and many more makes it hard to take the decision of updating the course. For that reason, this paper surveys the pedagogy and methodology that is used to teach the digital systems curriculum at different universities. The goal is that it will serve as a resource for faculty looking to update or revamp their digital systems curricula. Within the document they will find a comparative study by electrical and computer engineering program, a list of textbooks, and the devices most commonly used.Cockrell School of Engineerin

The light CP-even MSSM Higgs mass resummed to fourth logarithmic order

We present the calculation of the light neutral CP-even Higgs mass in the MSSM for a heavy SUSY spectrum by resumming enhanced terms through fourth logarithmic order (N$^3$LL), keeping terms of leading order in the top Yukawa coupling $\alpha_t$, and NNLO in the strong coupling $\alpha_s$. To this goal, the three-loop matching coefficient for the quartic Higgs coupling of the SM to the MSSM is derived to order $\alpha_t^2\alpha_s^2$ by comparing the perturbative EFT to the fixed-order expression for the Higgs mass. The new matching coefficient is made available through an updated version of the program Himalaya. Numerical effects of the higher-order resummation are studied using specific examples, and sources of theoretical uncertainty on this result are discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures, matches version published in EPJ

Towards an ecological index for tropical soil quality based on soil macrofauna

The objective of this work was to construct a simple index based on the presence/absence of different groups of soil macrofauna to determine the ecological quality of soils. The index was tested with data from 20 sites in South and Central Tabasco, Mexico, and a positive relation between the model and the field observations was detected. The index showed that diverse agroforestry systems had the highest soil quality index (1.00), and monocrops without trees, such as pineapple, showed the lowest soil quality index (0.08). Further research is required to improve this model for natural systems that have very low earthworm biomass

Density-dependent interactions and structure of charged colloidal dispersions in the weak screening regime

We determine the structure of charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions at low ionic strength over an extended range of particle volume fractions using a combination of light and small angle neutron scattering experiments. The variation of the structure factor with concentration is analyzed within a one-component model of a colloidal suspension. We show that the observed structural behavior corresponds to a non-monotonic density dependence of the colloid effective charge and the mean interparticle interaction energy. Our findings are corroborated by similar observations from primitive model computer simulations of salt-free colloidal suspensions.Comment: Revised version, accepted to Phys. Rev. Let

Impacts of forestation on water and soils in the Andes: What do we know?

POLICY BRIEF: This brief summarizes the findings of a systematic review on the impacts of forestation on water and soils in the Andes (detailed in Bonnesoeur et al., 2019). For each finding, we report the confidence level in the evidence found in the literature reviewed. Forestation impacts on water supply, hydrological regulation and soil erosion. The results of the synthesis also helped identify research gaps, which are described at the end

Método de las ondas viajeras para el análisis de fallas en una línea de transmisión de alta tensión

This paper presents an analysis of the error presented in the location of faults by the traveling wave method, and the traveling wave method analyzing reflected waves. This analysis arises from the results of the simulation of a high voltage transmission line in the ATP-EMTP software that allows us to simulate faults in a very graphical way and gives, as a result, the waveform presented at the measurement points. The results show similar behavior between theoretical behavior and simulation.En este artículo se presenta un análisis sobre el error presentado en la ubicación de fallas por el método de ondas viajeras, y el método de ondas viajeras analizando ondas reflejadas. Este análisis surge de los resultados de la simulación de una línea de transmisión en alta tensión en el software ATP-EMTP que nos permite simular fallas de una forma bastante gráfica, y da como resultado la forma de onda presentada en los puntos de medición. Los resultados muestran comportamientos similares entre comportamiento teórico y simulación

Removing superfluous versions in polyvariant specialization of prolog programs.

Polyvariant specialization allows generating múltiple versions of a procedure, which can then be separately optimized for different uses. Since allowing a high degree of polyvariance often results in more optimized code, polyvariant specializers, such as most partial evaluators, can genérate a large number of versions. This can produce unnecessarily large residual programs. Also, large programs can be slower due to cache miss effects. A possible solution to this problem is to introduce a minimization step which identifies sets of equivalent versions, and replace all occurrences of such versions by a single one. In this work we present a unifying view of the problem of superfluous polyvariance. It includes both partial deduction and abstract múltiple specialization. As regards partial deduction, we extend existing approaches in several ways. First, previous work has dealt with puré logic programs and a very limited class of builtins. Herein we propose an extensión to traditional characteristic trees which can be used in the presence of calis to external predicates. This includes all builtins, librarles, other user modules, etc. Second, we propose the possibility of collapsing versions which are not strictly equivalent. This allows trading time for space and can be useful in the context of embedded and pervasive systems. This is done by residualizing certain computations for external predicates which would otherwise be performed at specialization time. Third, we provide an experimental evaluation of the potential gains achievable using minimization which leads to interesting conclusions

Infrastructure and FDI Inflows Into Mexico: A Panel Data Approach

In December 1993, restrictions to foreign ownership across major Mexican economic sectors were abolished. This paper studies output, industrialization intensity, \ international infrastructure\ , and government expenditures on infrastructure as determinants of FDI inflows into Mexican states over 1994-2001. We conduct a \ general to specific\ estimation strategy across Mexican states. Telephone lines appear to be very important to FDI as their coefficients are around 2.0 in Random Effects Models. Industrialization is also important, with coefficients varying from 0.62 to 0.67. Allowing for endogeneity between FDI and real output, dynamic GMM panels confirm the robust effects of telephone lines on FDI. International infrastructure thus appears more conducive to FDI than domestic infrastructure, such as interstate and secondary roads. With international infrastructure being a major catalyst of FDI inflows into Mexico, we provide support to ongoing conventional wisdom promoting such type of investment

A comparative analysis of chromosome pairing at metaphase I in interspecific hybrids between durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) and the most widespread Aegilops species.

Homoeologous metaphase I (MI) associations in hybrids between durum wheat and its wild allotetraploid relatives Aegilops neglecta, Ae. triuncialis and Ae. ventricosa have been characterized by a genomic in situ hybridization procedure that allows simultaneous discrimination of A, B and wild species genomes. Earlier results in equivalent hybrids with the wild species Ae. cylindrica and Ae. geniculata have also been considered to comparatively assay the MI pairing pattern of the durum wheat × Aegilops interspecific combinations more likely to occur in nature. The general picture can be drawn as follows. A and B wheat genomes pair with each other less than the 2 wild constituent genomes do in any of the hybrid combinations examined. Interspecific wheat-wild associations account for 60–70% of total MI pairing in all hybrids, except in that derived from Ae. triuncialis, but the A genome is always the wheat partner most frequently involved in MI pairing with the wild homoeologues. Hybrids with Ae. cylindrica, Ae. geniculata and Ae. ventricosa showed similar reduced levels of MI association and virtually identical MI pairing patterns. However, certain recurrent differences were found when the pattern of homoeologous pairing of hybrids from either Ae. triuncialis or Ae. neglecta was contrasted to that observed in the other durum wheat hybrid combinations. In the former case, a remarkable preferential pairing between the wild species constituent genomes Ut and Ct seems to be the reason, whereas a general promotion of homoeologous pairing, qualitatively similar to that observed under the effect of the ph1c mutation, appears to occur in the hybrid with Ae. neglecta. It is further discussed whether the results reported here can be extrapolated to the corresponding bread wheat hybrid combination