RTL2RTL Formal Equivalence: Boosting the Design Confidence

Increasing design complexity driven by feature and performance requirements and the Time to Market (TTM) constraints force a faster design and validation closure. This in turn enforces novel ways of identifying and debugging behavioral inconsistencies early in the design cycle. Addition of incremental features and timing fixes may alter the legacy design behavior and would inadvertently result in undesirable bugs. The most common method of verifying the correctness of the changed design is to run a dynamic regression test suite before and after the intended changes and compare the results, a method which is not exhaustive. Modern Formal Verification (FV) techniques involving new methods of proving Sequential Hardware Equivalence enabled a new set of solutions for the given problem, with complete coverage guarantee. Formal Equivalence can be applied for proving functional integrity after design changes resulting from a wide variety of reasons, ranging from simple pipeline optimizations to complex logic redistributions. We present here our experience of successfully applying the RTL to RTL (RTL2RTL) Formal Verification across a wide spectrum of problems on a Graphics design. The RTL2RTL FV enabled checking the design sanity in a very short time, thus enabling faster and safer design churn. The techniques presented in this paper are applicable to any complex hardware design.Comment: In Proceedings FSFMA 2014, arXiv:1407.195

How rising temperatures would be detrimental for cool and warm-season food legumes

Rising temperatures are a major concern for the productivity of food legumes, grown in winter as well as summer-season, especially in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Our studies have indicated marked damage to the reproductive stage, resulting in reduction in pod set and seed yield of chickpea, lentil (cool-season legumes) and mungbean (warm-season legume) under high temperatures. Studies done in controlled and outdoor environments (late sowing) revealed that temperatures >35/20°C (as day and night) were highly detrimental for winter-season legumes; while >38/25°C markedly affected the summer-season legumes (mungbean). Urdbean, (a summer season legume), was found to be relatively more tolerant. The degree of damage varies depending upon the duration, timing and severity of stress. Among the reproductive components, pollen grains were more sensitive, became deformed and showed reduction in pollen viability, reduced germination and pollen tube growth. Stigma receptivity and ovule viability were also inhibited, which affected the pollen germination on stigma surface and restricted tube growth through style, and impaired fertilization to cause flower abortion. Assessment of the physiology of leaves, anthers and styles indicated decrease in sucrose production in all these organs due to inhibition of enzymes, which possibly affected the structural and functional aspects of the pollen grains and tube growth through style. Seed filling is another stage which becomes impaired as a result of inactivation of enzymes related to sucrose production, causing inhibition in sucrose translocation into seeds. Additionally, the composition of the seeds was adversely affected, resulting in small size and poor quality of seeds. The data related to these processes would be presented. Genetic variation for heat tolerance exists in our target legume crops, which needs further probing and use of heat tolerant germplasm in breeding programs. Screening for high temperature tolerance has led to identification of few heat-tolerant genotypes, which are able to maintain their gamete function at high temperature, unlike the sensitive genotypes. Future studies should focus on high throughput phenotyping techniques and/or physiological, biochemical or genetic markers that control the reproductive function. Information about the effects of heat stress on reproductive biology and seed filling events of chickpea, lentil and mungbean will be discussed

High nitrogen use efficiency in rice genotypes is associated with higher net photosynthetic rate at lower rubisco content

Contrasting rice genotypes differing in leaf mass ratio (LMR) and leaf nitrogen content were screened. A strong inverse relationship was observed between ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) content and its efficiency estimated as the ratio of net photosynthetic rate (PN) to Rubisco content. Similarly, an inverse relationship between the specific activity of fully activated Rubisco and its content was observed. This suggests that a down regulation of Rubisco may occur if the efficiency of the enzyme is superior. Genotypes IET 12989 and IET 13567 recorded higher PN together with lower Rubisco content in comparison with other genotypes measured. These genotypes showed low LMR and low nitrogen content and hence could be considered as efficient nitrogen users

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Not AvailableGlobal climate change will significantly increase the intensity and frequency of hot, dry days. The simultaneous occurrence of drought and heat stress is also likely to increase, influencing various agronomic characteristics, such as biomass and other growth traits, phenology, and yield-contributing traits, of various crops. At the same time, vital physiological traits will be seriously disrupted, including leaf water content, canopy temperature depression, membrane stability, photosynthesis, and related attributes such as chlorophyll content, stomatal conductance, and chlorophyll fluorescence. Several metabolic processes contributing to general growth and development will be restricted, along with the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that negatively affect cellular homeostasis. Plants have adaptive defense strategies, such as ROS-scavenging mechanisms, osmolyte production, secondary metabolite modulation, and different phytohormones, which can help distinguish tolerant crop genotypes. Understanding plant responses to combined drought/heat stress at various organizational levels is vital for developing stress-resilient crops. Elucidating the genomic, proteomic, and metabolic responses of various crops, particularly tolerant genotypes, to identify tolerance mechanisms will markedly enhance the continuing efforts to introduce combined drought/heat stress tolerance. Besides agronomic management, genetic engineering and molecular breeding approaches have great potential in this direction.Not Availabl

Fulvic Acid (FA) for Enhanced Nutrient Uptake and Growth: Insights from Biochemical and Genomic Studies

<div><p>Potassium (K), one of the essential elements required for plant growth and development, determines leaf quality in tobacco (<i>Nicotiana tabacum</i> L.). Potassium (K) levels are relatively high in black soils (vertisols), but K uptake is severely hindered by the presence of remarkably high levels of calcium and magnesium. Our major objective was to enhance potassium uptake in black soils, which cover the major tobacco growing regions of Andhra Pradesh, India. Among several agronomic inputs such as soil amendments, fertilizer application, and plant growth regulators, we found that foliar application of fulvic acid (FA), one of the most bioactive humate molecules, enhanced K levels in leaves. Using next-generation sequencing (NGS), we identified changes in expression levels of a number of genes related to metabolic pathways implicated in plant growth and nutrient uptake upon FA application. Interestingly, starch levels in leaves were reduced concomitant with an increase in K attributable to FA application. We attempt to provide plausible reasons for these observed FA-induced changes. Our results suggested that FA acts in a manner similar to the plant hormone auxin in tobacco, influencing expression of key genes encoding transporters and enzymes involved in K uptake and starch metabolism. While fulvic acid has beneficial effects on plant growth, its mechanism of action is still unclear.</p></div