Decoupling-Capacitor Planning and Sizing for Noise and Leakage Reduction

Decoupling capacitors (decaps) are a popular means for reducing power-supply noise in integrated circuits. Since the decaps are usually inserted in the whitespace of the device layer, decap management during the floorplanning stage is desirable. However, a well-known existing work only allows the blocks to utilize the adjacent whitespace. In order to overcome this limit, we devise the effective-decap-distance model to analyze how functional blocks are affected by nonneighboring decaps. In addition, we propose a generalized network-flow-based algorithm to allocate the whitespace to the blocks and determine the oxide thicknesses for the decaps to be implemented in the whitespace. Experimental results show that our decap allocation and sizing methods can significantly reduce decap budget and leakage power with a small increase in area and wire length when integrated into 2-D and 3-D floorplanners

Routing in Delay Tolerant Networks

Delay-tolerant networks (DTNs) have the great potential to connecting devices and regions of the world that are presently under-served by current networks. A vital challenge for Delay Tolerant Networks is to determine the routes through the network without ever having an end to end path, or knowing which routers will be connected at any given instant of time. The problem has an added constraint of limited size of buffers at each node. This situation limits the applicability of traditional routing techniques which categorize lack of path as failure of nodes and try to seek for existing end-to-end path. Approaches have been proposed which focus either on epidemic message replication or on previously known information about the connectivity schedule. The epidemic approach, which is basically a flooding technique, of replicating messages to all nodes has a very high overhead and does not perform well with increasing load. It can, however, operate without any prior information on the network configuration. On the other hand, the alternatives, i.e., having a prior knowledge about the connectivity, seems to be infeasible for a self-configuring network. In this project we try to maximize the message delivery rate without compromising on the amount of message discarded. The amount of message discarded has a direct relation to the bandwidth used and the battery consumed. The more the message discarded more is the bandwidth used and battery consumed by every node in transmitting the message. At the same time, with the increase in the number of messages discarded, the cost for processing every message increases and this adversely affects the nodes. Therefore, we have proposed an algorithm where the messages are disseminated faster into the network with lesser number of replication of individual messages. The history of encounter of a node with other nodes gives noisy but valuable information about the network topology. Using this history, we try to route the packets from one node to another using an algorithm that depends on each node’s present available neighbours/contact and the nodes which it has encountered in the recent past. We have also focused on passing the messages to those nodes which are on the move away from the source/forwarder node, as the nodes moving away have a greater probability of disseminating the messages throughout the network and hence increases chances of delivering the message to the destination

Resolving Power of Optical Instruments Using Finite Element Method

The provided simulation takes in various tasks in various parameters to calculate the resolving power of the optical instruments and also conveniently simulates their behavior. To calculate the resolving power of the optical instruments such as prism,telescope or microscope a special technique known as “FINITE ELEMENT METHOD” has been used. Basically in this method the convex lens is divided into several segments and resolving power of each segment is computed separately, details of which is provided in the concerned topic. Finally a software model has been developed for prism, single convex lens and combination of lenses to study and show the required behavior. This software model is developed using Visual C++

Prevalence & risk factors for soil transmitted helminth infection among school children in south India

Background & objectives: Soil-transmitted helminths (STH) are a major public health problem in tropical and sub-tropical countries, affecting the physical growth and cognitive development in schoolage children. This study was aimed to assess the prevalence and risk factors of STH infection among school children aged 6-14 yr in Vellore and Thiruvanamalai districts in south India. Methods: Children aged 6-14 yr, going to government and government aided schools (n=33, randomly selected) in Vellore and Thiruvanamalai districts were screened to estimate the prevalence of STH, and a case control study was done on a subset to assess the risk factors for the infection. Results: The prevalence of STH was 7.8 per cent, varying widely in schools from 0 to 20.4 per cent, in 3706 screened children. Hookworm (8.4%) rates were high in rural areas, while Ascaris (3.3%) and Trichuris (2.2%) were more prevalent among urban children. Consumption of deworming tablets (OR=0.25, P<0.01) offered protection, while residing in a field hut (OR=6.73, P=0.02) and unhygienic practices like open air defaecation (OR=5.37, P<0.01), keeping untrimmed nails (OR=2.53, P=0.01) or eating food fallen on the ground (OR=2.52, P=0.01) were important risk factors for STH infection. Interpretation & conclusions: Our study indicated that school children with specific risk factors in the studied area were vulnerable subpopulation with elevated risk of STH infection. Identifying risk factors and dynamics of transmission in vulnerable groups can help to plan for effective prevention strategies

Arduino Based Automatic Irrigation System

In the present days, the farmers are suffering from severe drought like condition throughout the year. The main objective of this paper is to provide a system leads to automatic irrigation thereby saving time, money &amp; power of the farmers, gardeners in greenhouses etc. Manual intervention is common in traditional farm-land irrigation techniques. This paper presents a technique for Arduino based Automatic Irrigation System. With this automated technology of irrigation, human intervention can be minimized. The moisture sensors will be bedded in on the field. Whenever there is a change in water concentration, these sensors will sense the change and gives an interrupt signal to the microcontroller. Soil is one of the most fragile resources whose soil pH property used to describe the degree of the acidity or basicity, which affects nutrient availability and ultimately plant growth. Thus, the system will provide automation, remote controlling and increased efficiency. The humidity sensor is connected to internal ports of microcontroller via comparator; whenever there is a fluctuation in temperature and humidity of the environment, these sensors sense the change in temperature and humidity and give an interrupt signal to the micro-controller and thus the motor is activated. A buzzer is used to indicate that the pump is on

Coronary Artery By-Pass Surgery -Nurses’ Interventions in Post-operative Pain Management

Coronary artery by-pass graft (CABG) comes under the most common surgery done all over the world. This surgery includes incisions made by the surgeons, which causes tissue and nerves damage, causes inflammation and pain. Postoperative pain is an inevitable consequence of almost all surgeries. Effective pain management is necessary because it can influence vitals of the patients, can lead to complication, and delay recovery. The aim of this study is to enhance the knowledge among nurses to effectively improve patient outcome about postoperative pain management after coronary artery bypass surgery. The scoping review was used as the study methodology and Katherine Kolcabas’ theory of comfort has been chosen as a theoretical framework. There were 12 articles in total, which were reviewed for the result. There were three categories made: pain assessment tools, pharmacological intervention and non-pharmacological intervention. The result includes pain assessment tools, nurses' role in pain assessment and administration of pain medicine, non pharmacological interventions include use of eye mask, music, body positioning, rhythmic breathing and aloe vera gel. As a conclusion, all of these interventions were able to effectively lower postoperative pain and improved patient outcome in CABG patients. As there was lack of studies discovered related to this topic of CABG and nurses’ intervention in postoperative pain management, more studies are suggested, especially nurses’ role in postoperative pain management among CABG patients

Exploring Art Therapy Techniques in Parent-Child Dyads with Children Who Have Experienced Trauma

Exposure to trauma during childhood has been shown to have severe long-term consequences. It has been shown that art therapy promotes the reduction of trauma symptoms in children, as it allows them to easily engage in the process of therapy through non-verbal treatment. Involving the caregiver in the treatment process of children was shown to hold significant benefits for children, especially in a setting of parent-child art therapy interventions. In this capstone thesis, I present a case study in which I explored the impact of art therapy interventions performed in a parent-child dyad on the well-being of a child who has experienced trauma. The interventions were performed in family sessions over the course of two weeks in a virtual in-home therapy setting. The case study presents significant benefits of the creative interventions on the child’s experienced symptoms, as well as on the parent-child relationship. These preliminary results show a growing need for additional studies on the topic of dyadic art therapy with children who have experienced trauma, in order to improve outcomes in the child’s treatment as well as to strengthen the family relationships and the parent’s ability to support their child

Local symmetries in partially ordered sets

Partially ordered sets (posets) have a universal appearance as an abstract structure in many areas of mathematics. Though, even their explicit enumeration remains unknown in general, and only the counts of all partial orders on sets of up to 16 unlabelled elements have been calculated to date, see sequence A000112 in the OEIS. In this work, we study automorphisms of posets in order to formulate a classification by local symmetries. These symmetries give rise to a division operation on the set of all posets and lead us to the construction of symmetry classes that are easier to characterise and enumerate. Additionally to the enumeration of symmetry classes, I derive polynomial expressions that count certain subsets of posets with a large number of layers (a large height). As an application in physics, I investigate local symmetries (or rather their lack of) in causal sets, which are discrete spacetime models used as a candidate framework for quantum gravity.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figures, 3 table

Prolapse in pregnancy

Presentation of uterine prolapse is a normal event in a pregnant woman which can be pre-existent or else manifest in the course of pregnancy. Complications resulting from prolapse of uterus vary from minor cervical infection to spontaneous abortion to preterm labour, maternal and fetal mortality, acute retention of urine and urinary tract infection. Authors of this paper have studied a case of a pregnant lady who presented to the emergency department with prolapse and her line of management which was executed. This was a case report study and management were done as per standard obstetrical guidelines. Patient was counselled at the time of discharge. Implementation of conservative treatment modalities throughout pregnancy with prolapse and their application in accordance of severity of uterine prolapse and patient’s preference may be sufficient to achieve an uneventful pregnancy, normal and spontaneous vaginal delivery.