Rapid SoC Design: On Architectures, Methodologies and Frameworks

Modern applications like machine learning, autonomous vehicles, and 5G networking require an order of magnitude boost in processing capability. For several decades, chip designers have relied on Moore’s Law - the doubling of transistor count every two years to deliver improved performance, higher energy efficiency, and an increase in transistor density. With the end of Dennard’s scaling and a slowdown in Moore’s Law, system architects have developed several techniques to deliver on the traditional performance and power improvements we have come to expect. More recently, chip designers have turned towards heterogeneous systems comprised of more specialized processing units to buttress the traditional processing units. These specialized units improve the overall performance, power, and area (PPA) metrics across a wide variety of workloads and applications. While the GPU serves as a classical example, accelerators for machine learning, approximate computing, graph processing, and database applications have become commonplace. This has led to an exponential growth in the variety (and count) of these compute units found in modern embedded and high-performance computing platforms. The various techniques adopted to combat the slowing of Moore’s Law directly translates to an increase in complexity for modern system-on-chips (SoCs). This increase in complexity in turn leads to an increase in design effort and validation time for hardware and the accompanying software stacks. This is further aggravated by fabrication challenges (photo-lithography, tooling, and yield) faced at advanced technology nodes (below 28nm). The inherent complexity in modern SoCs translates into increased costs and time-to-market delays. This holds true across the spectrum, from mobile/handheld processors to high-performance data-center appliances. This dissertation presents several techniques to address the challenges of rapidly birthing complex SoCs. The first part of this dissertation focuses on foundations and architectures that aid in rapid SoC design. It presents a variety of architectural techniques that were developed and leveraged to rapidly construct complex SoCs at advanced process nodes. The next part of the dissertation focuses on the gap between a completed design model (in RTL form) and its physical manifestation (a GDS file that will be sent to the foundry for fabrication). It presents methodologies and a workflow for rapidly walking a design through to completion at arbitrary technology nodes. It also presents progress on creating tools and a flow that is entirely dependent on open-source tools. The last part presents a framework that not only speeds up the integration of a hardware accelerator into an SoC ecosystem, but emphasizes software adoption and usability.PHDElectrical and Computer EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/168119/1/ajayi_1.pd

The impact of domestic and foreign R&D on agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa

We use a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model to investigate the impact of domestic and foreign R&D on agricultural productivity for a sample of 30 sub-Sahara African (SSA) countries during the period 1981–2011. The results reveal that total factor productivity is strongly influenced by both domestic and foreign R&D spending in the agricultural sector, albeit the former plays a more important role. The decomposition of total factor productivity (TFP) and its components show an annual average rate of productivity growth of 4.8%, driven mainly by technical change which had an average annual improvement of 3.2%. Efficiency change had a negative impact on productivity and generally exhibited a net reduction in TFP growth at an average annual growth rate of −0.8%. Our sub-regional analyses indicate the West African region recorded the highest productivity growth during the period under consideration. Overall, our findings highlight the crucial role of knowledge stocks in driving agricultural productivity in the SSA region.We wish to express our deep appreciation to the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) for the financial support to carry out this research under the grant RT16523

Heavy Metal in Cassava Roots (Manihot esculenta) Harvested from Farm land along Ilaro-Ibese Road, Ogun State Nigeria

Heavy metal concentrations (Cu, Pb, Zn, Ni, Cd) in cassava roots cultivated on farmlands along the Ilaro-Ibese road were studied. Cassava root samples were collected from cassava farms in three different spots within the farmland. The concentration of these metals was determined using ICP-OES (Agilent 720-ES). Cu (5.1883 mg/kg), Ni (0.1552 mg/kg) Zn (0.1204 mg/kg), Pb (0.0581 mg/kg), and Cd (0.0432 mg/kg) had significant metal concentrations in cassava root. Heavy metal concentrations in cassava roots were in the following order: Cu > Ni > Zn > Pb > Cd. In comparison to other spots (i.e., 10 and 15 m distances), the concentration of heavy metals in cassava roots planted at 5 meters away from the major road is high. The bioaccumulation of heavy metals in cassava roots observed in this study is generally lower than the WHO/FAO acceptable limit (2001). For all metals, the soil plant transfer factor values at all sites indicated medium accumulation

Sources of marital stress experienced by married people as perceived by lecturers of College of Education

Stress is the condition that is in place when demands exceed the adaptive capacity of individuals. The study investigated sources of marital stress experienced by married people as perceived by lecturers of College of Education.  Respondents were stratified into different strata of gender, age group, educational qualification and number of children, after which simple random sampling technique was used for selecting 20 respondents from each of the five schools in the college i.e School of Education, Arts and Social Sciences, Science, Vocational Technology and Languages consisting of 42 males and 58 females making a total of 100 respondents. The “Sources of Marital Stress Expericenced by Married People Questionnaire” (SMSEMPQ) was administered to the respondents to collect relevant data. The t-test and Analysis of Variance (  ANOVA) statistics were used to test four generated null hypotheses and where the result of ANOVA showed a significant difference, Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) statistics was used as a post-hoc test  to determine the group(s) that contributed to the significant difference. All null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings showed that the major source of marital stress is “child rearing” with a mean score of 12.88 and ranked 1st while the least source is “social” with a mean score of 11.68 and ranked 8th. The findings equally showed that there was no significant difference in respondents’ perception based on gender while significant differences existed based on age, educational qualification and number of children. Based on the findings, recommendations were made for implementation -   professional counsellors should intensify efforts to set up clinics where people can come for counselling on stress management; the government at all levels ought to establish counselling centres in hospitals where people can come for counselling on stress related matters; and since child rearing has been identified as the most crucial source of stress, parents and guardians ought to be careful in the way they rear children so as to avoid stressful interaction as much as possible.   Key Words: Sources, marital, stress experienced, married people and lecturers

Isolation of Polygalacturonase-Producing Bacterial Strain from Tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)

Background. Polygalacturonase (EC 3.2.1.15) enzyme aids in microbial spoilage of fruits and vegetables. It is very important to find economical ways to producing the enzyme so as to achieve maximum yield in industries due to its use at different areas of production process. Methods. Isolation of polygalacturonase-producing bacterial strain from tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) was studied. Polygalacturonase-producing bacterial strains were isolated and screened from tomatoes stored at normal laboratory temperature (25 ± 2°C). They were identified based on their morphological, biochemical, and molecular characteristics. The enzyme produced was partially purified by the ammonium sulphate precipitation method. Molecular weights and optimum conditions for best enzyme activity were obtained by SDS PAGE technique. Results. Five bacterial isolates resulted after screening. Bacterial strain code B5 showed highest polygalacturonase activity. Optimum conditions for polygalacturonase PEC B5 were maintained at pH 4.5; temperature 35°C; substrate concentration 0.3 mg/ml, and best activity at less than 5 min of heating. The enzyme PEC B5 was found to weigh 65 kDa and 50 kDa for crude and partially purified aliquots, respectively. The result of 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed bacterial strain code B5 as Enterobacter tabaci NR146667 having 79% similarity with the NCBI GenBank. Conclusion. Microorganisms should be developed for large-scale production of enzymes in developing countries