TFI-FTS: An efficient transient fault injection and fault-tolerant system for asynchronous circuits on FPGA platform

Designing VLSI digital circuits is challenging tasks because of testing the circuits concerning design time. The reliability and productivity of digital integrated circuits are primarily affected by the defects in the manufacturing process or systems. If the defects are more in the systems, which leads the fault in the systems. The fault tolerant systems are necessary to overcome the faults in the VLSI digital circuits. In this research article, an asynchronous circuits based an effective transient fault injection (TFI) and fault tolerant system (FTS) are modelled. The TFI system generates the faults based on BMA based LFSR with faulty logic insertion and one hot encoded register. The BMA based LFSR reduces the hardware complexity with less power consumption on-chip than standard LFSR method. The FTS uses triple mode redundancy (TMR) based majority voter logic (MVL) to tolerant the faults for asynchronous circuits. The benchmarked 74X-series circuits are considered as an asynchronous circuit for TMR logic. The TFI-FTS module is modeled using Verilog-HDL on Xilinx-ISE and synthesized on hardware platform. The Performance parameters are tabulated for TFI-FTS based asynchronous circuits. The performance of TFI-FTS Module is analyzed with 100% fault coverage. The fault coverage is validated using functional simulation of each asynchronous circuit with fault injection in TFI-FTS Module

Toward an Integrative Understanding of Information Technology Training Research across Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction: A Comprehensive Review

Researchers investigating issues in the domain of training and human-computer interaction share a common interest in ensuring that users are skilled in the use of Information Technologies (IT). When users have the necessary skills, they can utilize IT productively and also have a pleasant human-to-computer interaction. Over the past three decades, Information System (IS) researchers have made considerable efforts in identifying the most effective ways to develop users’ IT skills. However, at this point in time, there are many changes taking place in the IT environment and organizations find it challenging to keep their employees trained and updated on IT skills. Hence, it is important for the IS community to respond by taking the lead in identifying and conducting research that can help organizations effectively address these challenges. We take the first step in conducting a comprehensive review of training research published in major IS and HCI journals over the past three decades so as to synthesize IT training research, provide an integrative understanding of findings, and propose directions for future research. Our study indicates that while IS research on training has made steady progress in advancing our understanding of alternative IT training methods and cognitive learning processes, it also has several shortcomings. Past research has: a) focused primarily on the training program without sufficient attention to activities prior to and after the program, b) used a small set of theoretical foundations, and c) focused on a few topics and on single-user systems rather than integrated enterprise systems. Critical issues such as improving user motivations prior to training, transfer of training skills to the workplace, assessment of training, and supporting user learning that occurs after training have not been given adequate attention. We identify several research opportunities by tapping into relatively unexplored theories and urge researchers to continue research to address the gaps identified in this comprehensive review as well as to develop innovative methods to help employees learn through newer channels, such as e-learning and social media

Pyrazole-based analogs as potential antibacterial agents against methicillin-resistance staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and its SAR elucidation

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is becoming lethal to humanity due to easy transmission and difficult-to-treat skin and flimsy diseases. The most threatening aspect is the rapid resistance development of MRSA to any approved antibiotics, including vancomycin. The development of new, efficient, and nontoxic drug candidate to fight against MRSA isolates is the need of the hour. The intriguing molecular structure and versatile bioactive pyrazole core attracting to development required novel antibiotics. This review presents the decade developments of pyrazole-containing derivatives with a broad antibacterial movement against diverged bacterial strains. In specific, we correlated the efficacy of structurally diversified pyrazole analogs against MRSA and discussed different angles of structure-activity relationship (SAR). The current survey highlights pyrazole hybrids' present scenario on MRSA studies, covering articles published from 2011 to 2020. This collective information may become an excellent platform to plan and develop new pyrazole-based small MRSA growth inhibitors with minimal side effects. (C) 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved

Enabling Automated, Rich, and Versatile Data Management for Android Apps with BlueMountain

Abstract Today's mobile apps often leverage cloud services to manage their own data as well as user data, enabling many desired features such as backup and sharing. However, this comes at a cost; developers have to manually craft their logic and potentially repeat a similar process for different cloud providers. In addition, users are restricted to the design choices made by developers; for example, once a developer releases an app that uses a particular cloud service, it is impossible for a user to later customize the app and choose a different service. In this paper, we explore the design space of an app instrumentation tool that automatically integrates cloud storage services for Android apps. Our goal is to allow developers to treat all storage operations as local operations, and automatically enable cloud features customized for individual needs of users and developers. We discuss various scenarios that can benefit from such an automated tool, challenges associated with the development of it, and our ideas to address these challenges

Mechanically tunable terahertz metamaterials

Electromagnetic device design and flexible electronics fabrication are combined to demonstrate mechanically tunable metamaterials operating at terahertz frequencies. Each metamaterial comprises a planar array of resonators on a highly elastic polydimethylsiloxane substrate. The resonance of the metamaterials is controllable through substrate deformation. Applying a stretching force to the substrate changes the inter-cell capacitance and hence the resonance frequency of the resonators. In the experiment, greater than 8% of the tuning range is achieved with good repeatability over several stretching-relaxing cycles. This study promises applications in remote strain sensing and other controllable metamaterial-based devices.Jining Li, Charan M. Shah, Withawat Withayachumnankul, Benjamin S.-Y. Ung, Arnan Mitchell, Sharath Sriram, Madhu Bhaskaran, Shengjiang Chang, and Derek Abbot

Experimental demonstration of reflectarray antennas at terahertz frequencies

Reflectarrays composed of resonant microstrip gold patches on a dielectric substrate are demonstrated for operation at terahertz frequencies. Based on the relation between the patch size and the reflection phase, a progressive phase distribution is implemented on the patch array to create a reflector able to deflect an incident beam towards a predefined angle off the specular direction. In order to confirm the validity of the design, a set of reflectarrays each with periodically distributed 360 × 360 patch elements are fabricated and measured. The experimental results obtained through terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) show that up to nearly 80% of the incident amplitude is deflected into the desired direction at an operation frequency close to 1 THz. The radiation patterns of the reflectarray in TM and TE polarizations are also obtained at different frequencies. This work presents an attractive concept for developing components able to efficiently manipulate terahertz radiation for emerging terahertz communications.Tiaoming Niu, Withawat Withayachumnankul, Benjamin S.-Y. Ung, Hakan Menekse, Madhu Bhaskaran, Sharath Sriram, and Christophe Fumeau

Subnational mapping of HIV incidence and mortality among individuals aged 15–49 years in sub-Saharan Africa, 2000–18 : a modelling study

Background: High-resolution estimates of HIV burden across space and time provide an important tool for tracking and monitoring the progress of prevention and control efforts and assist with improving the precision and efficiency of targeting efforts. We aimed to assess HIV incidence and HIV mortality for all second-level administrative units across sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: In this modelling study, we developed a framework that used the geographically specific HIV prevalence data collected in seroprevalence surveys and antenatal care clinics to train a model that estimates HIV incidence and mortality among individuals aged 15–49 years. We used a model-based geostatistical framework to estimate HIV prevalence at the second administrative level in 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for 2000–18 and sought data on the number of individuals on antiretroviral therapy (ART) by second-level administrative unit. We then modified the Estimation and Projection Package (EPP) to use these HIV prevalence and treatment estimates to estimate HIV incidence and mortality by second-level administrative unit. Findings: The estimates suggest substantial variation in HIV incidence and mortality rates both between and within countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with 15 countries having a ten-times or greater difference in estimated HIV incidence between the second-level administrative units with the lowest and highest estimated incidence levels. Across all 44 countries in 2018, HIV incidence ranged from 2 ·8 (95% uncertainty interval 2·1–3·8) in Mauritania to 1585·9 (1369·4–1824·8) cases per 100 000 people in Lesotho and HIV mortality ranged from 0·8 (0·7–0·9) in Mauritania to 676· 5 (513· 6–888·0) deaths per 100 000 people in Lesotho. Variation in both incidence and mortality was substantially greater at the subnational level than at the national level and the highest estimated rates were accordingly higher. Among second-level administrative units, Guijá District, Gaza Province, Mozambique, had the highest estimated HIV incidence (4661·7 [2544·8–8120·3]) cases per 100000 people in 2018 and Inhassunge District, Zambezia Province, Mozambique, had the highest estimated HIV mortality rate (1163·0 [679·0–1866·8]) deaths per 100 000 people. Further, the rate of reduction in HIV incidence and mortality from 2000 to 2018, as well as the ratio of new infections to the number of people living with HIV was highly variable. Although most second-level administrative units had declines in the number of new cases (3316 [81· 1%] of 4087 units) and number of deaths (3325 [81·4%]), nearly all appeared well short of the targeted 75% reduction in new cases and deaths between 2010 and 2020. Interpretation: Our estimates suggest that most second-level administrative units in sub-Saharan Africa are falling short of the targeted 75% reduction in new cases and deaths by 2020, which is further compounded by substantial within-country variability. These estimates will help decision makers and programme implementers expand access to ART and better target health resources to higher burden subnational areas

Mapping geographical inequalities in access to drinking water and sanitation facilities in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17

Background: Universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is an essential human right, recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals as crucial for preventing disease and improving human wellbeing. Comprehensive, high-resolution estimates are important to inform progress towards achieving this goal. We aimed to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of access to drinking water and sanitation facilities. Methods: We used a Bayesian geostatistical model and data from 600 sources across more than 88 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to estimate access to drinking water and sanitation facilities on continuous continent-wide surfaces from 2000 to 2017, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. We estimated mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subcategories of facilities for drinking water (piped water on or off premises, other improved facilities, unimproved, and surface water) and sanitation facilities (septic or sewer sanitation, other improved, unimproved, and open defecation) with use of ordinal regression. We also estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths in children younger than 5 years attributed to unsafe facilities and estimated deaths that were averted by increased access to safe facilities in 2017, and analysed geographical inequality in access within LMICs. Findings: Across LMICs, access to both piped water and improved water overall increased between 2000 and 2017, with progress varying spatially. For piped water, the safest water facility type, access increased from 40·0% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 39·4–40·7) to 50·3% (50·0–50·5), but was lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to piped water was mostly concentrated in urban centres. Access to both sewer or septic sanitation and improved sanitation overall also increased across all LMICs during the study period. For sewer or septic sanitation, access was 46·3% (95% UI 46·1–46·5) in 2017, compared with 28·7% (28·5–29·0) in 2000. Although some units improved access to the safest drinking water or sanitation facilities since 2000, a large absolute number of people continued to not have access in several units with high access to such facilities (>80%) in 2017. More than 253 000 people did not have access to sewer or septic sanitation facilities in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe, despite 88·6% (95% UI 87·2–89·7) access overall. Many units were able to transition from the least safe facilities in 2000 to safe facilities by 2017; for units in which populations primarily practised open defecation in 2000, 686 (95% UI 664–711) of the 1830 (1797–1863) units transitioned to the use of improved sanitation. Geographical disparities in access to improved water across units decreased in 76·1% (95% UI 71·6–80·7) of countries from 2000 to 2017, and in 53·9% (50·6–59·6) of countries for access to improved sanitation, but remained evident subnationally in most countries in 2017. Interpretation: Our estimates, combined with geospatial trends in diarrhoeal burden, identify where efforts to increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are most needed. By highlighting areas with successful approaches or in need of targeted interventions, our estimates can enable precision public health to effectively progress towards universal access to safe water and sanitation