Improving the performance of packet-switched networks-on-chip by SDM-based adaptive shortcut paths

Reducing the NoC power is critical for scaling up the number of nodes in future many-core systems. Most NoC designs adopt packet-switching to benefit from its high throughput and excellent scalability. These benefits, however, come at the price of the power consumption and latency overheads of routers. Circuit-switching, on the other hand, enjoys a significant reduction in power and latency of communication by directing data over pre-established circuits, but the relatively large circuit setup time and low resource utilization of this switching mechanism is often prohibitive. In this paper, we address one of the major problems of circuit-switching, i.e. the circuit setup time overhead, by an efficient and fast algorithm based on the time-division multiplexing (TDM) scheme. We then further improve the performance by reserving circuits for anticipated messages, and hence completely hide circuit setup time. To address the low resource utilization problem, we integrate the proposed circuit-switching into a packet switched NoC and use unused circuit resources to transfer packet-switched data. Evaluation results show considerable reduction in NoC power consumption and packet latency.     

Muscle oxygenation measurement in humans by noninvasive optical spectroscopy and Locally Weighted Regression

We have developed a method to make real-time, continuous, noninvasive measurements of muscle oxygenation (Mox) from the surface of the skin. A key development was measurement in both the visible and near infrared (NIR) regions. Measurement of both oxygenated and deoxygenated myoglobin and hemoglobin resulted in a more accurate measurement of Mox than could be achieved with measurement of only the deoxygenated components, as in traditional near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Using the second derivative with respect to wavelength reduced the effects of scattering on the spectra and also made oxygenated and deoxygenated forms more distinguishable from each other. Selecting spectral bands where oxygenated and deoxygenated forms absorb filtered out noise and spectral features unrelated to Mox. NIR and visible bands were scaled relative to each other in order to correct for errors introduced by normalization. Multivariate Curve Resolution (MCR) was used to estimate Mox from spectra within each data set collected from healthy subjects. A Locally Weighted Regression (LWR) model was built from calibration set spectra and associated Mox values from 20 subjects using 2562 spectra. LWR and Partial Least Squares (PLS) allow accurate measurement of Mox despite variations in skin pigment or fat layer thickness in different subjects. The method estimated Mox in five healthy subjects with an RMSE of 5.4%.     

Nuclear quantum effect and temperature dependency on the hydrogen‐bonded structure of base pairs

The structure of Watson–Crick‐type adenine‐thymine and guanine‐cytosine pairs has been studied by hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) and path integral hybrid Monte Carlo (PIHMC) simulations with the use of semiempirical PM6‐DH+ method in the gas phase. We elucidated the nuclear quantum effect and temperature dependency on the hydrogen‐bonded moiety of base pairs. It was shown that the contribution of nuclear quantum effect on the hydrogen‐bonded structure is significant not only at low temperature 150 K but also at temperature as high as 450 K. The relative position of hydrogen‐bonded proton between two heavy atoms and the nuclear quantum nature of the proton are also shown. Furthermore, we have applied principal component analysis to HMC and PIHMC simulations to analyze the nuclear quantum effect on intermolecular motions. We found that the ratio of Buckle mode (lowest vibrational mode from normal mode analysis) decreases due to the nuclear quantum effect, whereas that of Propeller mode (second lowest vibrational mode) increases. In addition, nonplanar structures of base pairs were found to become stable due to the nuclear quantum effect from two‐dimensional free energy landscape along Buckle and Propeller modes. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Explanation of Theoretical Mechanism of Isomerization of L-Alanine Conformation for Experimental Results

B3LYP/6-31＋＋G＊＊ method was applied to investigate the mechanism of alanine isomerization.12 minima and 22 transition states were obtained after optimization and several paths of isomerization were found.It is found that intramolecular single-bond rotation and proton transfer might lead to isomerization.The energy barrier of C–N bond rotation was lower than 2.52 kcal·mol 1,while the energy barrier ranges of the rotation of C–C and C–O were separately 0.43~ 7.01 and 4.69~12.19 kcal·mol 1,and the minimum energy barrier of proton transfer was 30.76 kcal·mol 1.The most probable isomerization path and mechanism for the two most stable conformations was discussed to find that the highest energy barrier to be crossed in this path was 11.87 kcal·mol 1.In order to understand the microscopic nature why only 4 conformations were detected in the experiment,thermodynamic properties of all conformations at the experimental temperature of 391 K was calculated.It is found that conformations XII,XI,X and IX can only unidirectionally convert into conformations rapidly with low energy and vanish immediately.The other conformations were distributed according to Maxwell-Boltzman＇s law,and the distribution probabilities of conformations I,II,III,IV,V,VI,VII and VIII were respectively 27.2%,26.5%,25.8%,6.4%,5.2%,4.8%,2.5% and 1.6%.Conformations I,II and III with bigger probability and stronger absorption peak were easy to detect in the experiment.Conformation IV had a relatively smaller probability（6.4%） and weak absorption peak which,however,could also be identified.The other conformations had too small probability to identify in the spectrum.     

室内环境中脑控轮椅的路径跟踪控制

为了实现室内环境中脑控轮椅的自主导航,提出了一种简单有效的路径跟踪控制方法。给定的路径通常被表示为一系列离散点,根据这一特点,提出了分段直线路径跟踪方法,即依次跟踪由前后两个路径点构成的直线路径到达目标点。基于预瞄点技术并结合模糊算法和传统的PID控制方法设计控制器,完成各分段直线路径的跟踪,并给出了有效的切换条件。实验结果表明,本文提出的路径跟踪控制方法能够使脑控轮椅在室内环境中精确地跟踪给定路径。     

计算化学在正丁醚制备实验教学中的应用*

正丁醚的制备是重要的大学有机化学实验,为提高学生对该实验所涉及的反应机理和关键操作要点的深入了解,采用Gaussian计算软件对正丁醇在酸催化下和无催化剂下的反应体系进行了研究,重点考察了酸催化下反应的主、副反应方向的反应机理。结果表明无催化剂下,正丁醇在常压液相下几乎不能发生反应;在酸催化下,正丁醇发生取代反应生成醚的反应路径是优势反应通道;酸催化下正丁醇的取代和消除反应速率常数均随温度增加而迅速增大,但消除反应的反应速率随温度增加更快,温度超过420 K消除反应将变得很明显,综合考虑,制备正丁醚的反应温度应控制在130~140 ℃之间较为合适。利用计算化学以图、表和动图等形式直观、动态、量化地解释了正丁醇成醚和成烯反应的竞争,该结果有助于更好地控制该反应体系,可用作实验教材的补充内容。     

Optical constants of organic insulators in the UV range extracted from reflection electron energy loss spectra

Reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy (REELS) spectra were measured for seven insulating organic compounds (DNA, Irganox 1010, Kapton, polyethylene [PE], poly(methyl methacrylate) [PMMA], polystyrene [PS] and polytetrafluoroethylene [PTFE]). Optical constants and energy band gaps were extracted from the measured REELS spectra after elimination of multiple electron scattering via a deconvolution and fitting the normalised single scattering energy loss spectra to Drude and Drude–Lindhard model dielectric functions, constrained by the Kramers–Kronig sum and f-sum rules. Satisfactory agreement is found for those optical constants for which literature data exists. For PTFE, the observed features in the optical data correspond to its electronic structure.     

Geometric analysis of anharmonic downward distortion following paths

A mathematical aspect of the anharmonic downward distortion following (ADDF) path is discussed. The ADDF method is utilized as an automated reaction path search method, which can explore transition state geometries on a potential energy surface from a potential minimum. We show that the maximum number of the ADD stationary paths intersecting the potential minimum is 2^{f + 1} ? 2 , where f denotes the degree of freedom of the system. We also show that the bifurcation of the ADD stationary path is essential to detect all the transition states connected from a given minimum. The ADDF computation is demonstrated for a H₂O molecule in which pitchfork bifurcation is observed.     

Optimized IR synchrotron beamline design

Synchrotron infrared beamlines are powerful tools on which to perform spectroscopy on microscopic length scales but require working with large bending‐magnet source apertures in order to provide intense photon beams to the experiments. Many infrared beamlines use a single toroidal‐shaped mirror to focus the source emission which generates, for large apertures, beams with significant geometrical aberrations resulting from the shape of the source and the beamline optics. In this paper, an optical layout optimized for synchrotron infrared beamlines, that removes almost totally the geometrical aberrations of the source, is presented and analyzed. This layout is already operational on the IR beamline of the Brazilian synchrotron. An infrared beamline design based on a SOLEIL bending‐magnet source is given as an example, which could be useful for future IR beamline improvements at this facility.