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Lung is the second most common locationof cystic echinococcosis (CE), after the liver. Diagnosis of lung CE is often incidental, and clinical manifestations depend on the location and size of the cyst, the most common being chest pain, shortness of breath, expectoration of fragments of endocyst, and haemoptysis. Surgery is the primary treatment, with a minor role for medical therapy. Delayed diagnosis and treatment may have important consequences. We present a case of lung CE in whichsurgical treatment was delayed due to the first wave of COVID-19. Since surgery could not be performed immediately, the patient was kept on albendazole and the cyst stage moved from CE1 to CE3a, to CE4, eventually requiring a more aggressive pericystectomy instead of the commonly performed endocystectomy. The clinical and imaging characteristics of a rare CE4 cyst of the lung are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Functional Management and Recovery is a standardized Psychoeducational Intervention, derived from "Integro", an effective salutogenic-psychoeducational intervention for people in recovery journey, designed to improve recovery and functioning of individuals with psychotic disorders in Psychiatric Residential Facilities (PRFs). The aim of this study is to evaluate the primary and secondary outcomes of this intervention elaborated specifically for PRFs where evidence based structured interventions seem rare and desirable. Methods: 66 individuals with psychotic disorders were recruited in 9 PRFs dislocated in the North, Center and South Italy and 63 underwent a multicenter follow-up study with a two time-point evaluation (t0, pre-treatment and t1, 6 months;). At each time point, social functioning was assessed as primary outcome by the Personal and Social Performance scale (PSP); furthermore, psychopathological status was assessed by Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Recovery by Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS), Cognitive Functioning by Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), Stress management by Stress-Scale, Cognitive Flexibility by Modified Five-Point Test (M-FPT), Emotional Intelligence by Emotional Intelligence Index (EI-I), the PRF Atmosphere and the Opinion of users about the PFR by an ad hoc questionnaire. The Abilities Knowledge, the Utility and Pleasantness of sessions were measured by an ad hoc list of items. Results: 63 individuals out of 66, 52 (82,5%) affected by schizophrenia and 11 (17,5%) by bipolar I disorder with psychotic symptoms according to DSM-5-TR completed the study. At the end of the study, 43 (68,3%) were male, 57 (90.5%) were single, 5 (7.9%) engaged, 1 (1.6%) married; 45 (71.4%) unemployed. The total scores of PSP, RAS, BPRS, BANS, Stress management, Abilities Knowledge, Utility and Pleasantness of sessions showed a statistically significant improvement at t1 vs. t0. Two sub-scales out of 5 of M-FPT showed a statistically significant improvement. The Emotional Intelligence, the Unit Atmosphere and the Opinion of Users about PFR improved without statistical significance. Six months after the end of the follow-up study 22 individuals of the sample were dismissed with a very high turnover. Conclusions: After a six-month follow-up (a short period of time), these results showed improvement in functioning, the primary outcome, as well as in the following secondary outcome variables: RAS, BPRS, BANS, Stress management, Abilities Knowledge, two sub-scales out of 5 of M-FPT, Utility and Pleasantness of sessions. Overall, a remarkable impact of psychoeducational structured intervention on the key Recovery variables is observed. Further studies are needed to address extent and duration of these improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Healthcare expenditure is on the rise placing greater emphasis on operational excellence, cost containment, and high quality of care. Significant variation is seen in operating room (OR) costs with common surgical procedures such as laparoscopic appendectomy. Surgeons can influence cost through the selection of instrumentation for common surgical procedures such as laparoscopic appendectomy. We aimed to quantify the cost of laparoscopic appendectomy in our healthcare system and compare cost variations to operative times and outcomes. Methods and procedures: We performed a retrospective review of laparoscopic appendectomies in a large regional healthcare system during one-year period (2018). Operating room supply costs and procedure durations were obtained for each hospital. The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) outcomes and demographics were compared to the costs for each hospital. Results: A total of 4757 laparoscopic appendectomies were performed at 20 hospitals (27 to 522 per hospital) by 233 surgeons. The average supply cost per case ranged from $650 to $1067. Individual surgeon cost ranged from $197 to $1181. The average operative time was 41 min (range 33 to 60 min). There was no association between lower cost and longer operative time. The patient demographics and comorbidities were similar between sites. There were no significant differences in postoperative complications between high- and low-cost centers. The items with the greatest increase in cost were single-use energy devices (SUD) and endoscopic stapler. We estimate that a saving of over $417 per case is possible by avoiding the use of energy devices and may be as high as $ 984 by adding selective use of staplers. These modifications would result in an annual savings of $1 million for our health system and more than $ 125 million nationwide. Conclusion: Performing laparoscopic appendectomy with reusable instruments and finding alternatives to expensive energy devices and staplers can significantly decrease costs and does not increase operative time or postoperative complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The DNA repair protein O6‐alkylguanine‐DNA alkyltransferase (AGT), found in numerous organisms, can remove methyl groups from the O6‐ and O4‐atoms of 2′‐deoxyguanosine and thymidine in DNA. AGT variants demonstrate different repair efficiencies towards these lesions. To understand the influence of C5 nucleobase substituents on O4‐methyl removal by AGTs, DNA duplexes containing 5‐chloro‐, 5‐bromo‐ 5‐iodo‐ and 5‐trifluoromethyl‐O4‐methyl‐2′‐deoxyuridine were studied. UV thermal denaturation revealed a stability reduction of 11 °C for the O4‐methyl halogen series and 5‐trifluoromethyl analog relative to their controls. For the 5‐chloro analog efficient repair was observed by human and E.coli AGTs. For the larger halogens (5‐bromo and 5‐iodo) and 5‐trifluoromethyl analog, human AGT showed moderate repair of the O4‐methyl adduct. E.coli OGT and Ada‐C readily repaired most adducts with reduced efficiency for the larger groups, except C5‐iodo. These results suggest electronic contributions and favourable interactions of the C5‐halogens within the AGT active site contribute to efficient dealkylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated the epidemiology and treatment outcomes of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) and pre-extensively-resistant (pre-XDR) tuberculosis (TB) in migrants at two TB reference centers in Italy. Patient selection criteria for the present study were as follows: age ≥18 years, international migrants (i.e., person who lives in a country other than his/her country of origin), MDR or pre-XDR-TB based on drug-susceptibility test findings, full availability of microbiological, radiological and clinical data. Non-intersecting populations between the two centers were selected. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with a successful (i.e., cured and treatment completed) treatment outcome. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted, from 01/Jan/2000 to 01/Jan/2015, at the Regional TB Reference Centre of Lombardy Region, Villa Marelli Institute/ASST Niguarda Ca' Granda (Milan, Italy) and at the Reference Center for MDR-TB and HIV-TB, Eugenio Morelli Hospital ASST (Sondalo, Italy). All data were made anonymous. Qualitative and quantitative variables were collected in an ad hoc electronic database. The statistical software used for all computations was STATA version 15 (StataCorp, Texas, USA). Overall, 116 MDR-TB and pre-XDR-TB cases were recorded: 82 (70.7%) MDR-TB and 34 (29.3%) pre-XDR-TB patients, respectively. The majority (53.5%) were from the World Health Organization European Region (excluding EU/EEA) and 75 (64.5%) were male. Median (interquartile range) age was 32 (26–39) years. TB/HIV coinfection was found in 12 (10.3%) patients. Pulmonary TB was diagnosed in 107/116 (92.2%) patients. Resistance to fluoroquinolones and second-line injectables was detected in 22/116 (19.0%) and 12/107 (11.2%) patients, respectively. Overall treatment success was reached in 95/116 (81.9%) cases. Pre-XDR-TB in migrants coming from high-endemic countries represents a matter of concern; therefore, prevention and control activities targeted to high-risk populations are needed to progress toward TB elimination. • Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) represents a major challenge for effective TB control. • DR-TB in low-incidence European countries is more prevalent among international migrants. • Epidemiology of DR-TB can be affected by changes in migratory flow. • TB control activities should be implemented in vulnerable populations (e.g. migrants). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective  This study aimed to determine whether switching from low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) to unfractionated heparin (UFH) or its continuation in the peripartum affected anesthesia choice or bleeding complications. Study Design  A retrospective cohort study of 189 anticoagulated pregnant women who delivered at the University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital and Health Science System from 2005 to 2016. Demography, anesthesia choice, and bleeding complications were compared between the two groups. Results  There were 138 (73%) women on LMWH versus 51 (27%) who switched from LMWH to UFH during the peripartum. The demographics were similar, 123 women were on prophylactic: 81 (66%) were on LMWH and 42 (34%) switched to UFH. Of the 66 women on therapeutic anticoagulation, 57 (86%) continued on LMWH, while 9 (14%) switched to UFH. No difference in neuraxial anesthesia type received: 42 (82.4%) versus 108 (79.7%) women (odds ratio: 1.20, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.52–2.73, p  = 0.837). Bleeding complications more than 1,000 mL, 6 versus 10% (relative risk [RR]: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.17–1.94, p  = 0.380) and relaparotomy due to hemoperitoneum, 2% in either group (RR: 0.9, 95% CI: 0.10–8.48, p  = 0.930) were similar in the two groups regardless of time of last injection. Conclusion  Anesthesia type and rate of bleeding complications were similar between women on LMWH and UFH during the peripartum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the most common procedure performed by general surgeons in the United States, with approximately 600,000 procedures performed annually. As the cost of care rises, there is increasing emphasis on utilization and quality. Our objective was to evaluate the cost of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in our health system and to compare the operative times and outcomes at high- and low-cost centers.Methods: We evaluated all laparoscopic cholecystectomies performed in our system over a 1-year period. The operating room supply costs and procedure durations were obtained for each of the hospitals. The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program outcomes and demographics were compared to the costs for each hospital.Results: During the study period, 7601 laparoscopic cholecystectomies were performed at 20 hospitals (170-759/hospital) by 227 surgeons. The average cost per case ranged from $296 at the lowest cost center to $658 at the highest cost center. The average operative time varied between sites from 46 to 95 min. There was no association between cost and operative time or case volume. There was a slight trend toward increased cost with higher number of emergency procedures, but this was not well correlated (R2 = 0.03). The patient demographics and comorbidities were similar between sites. There were no significant differences in postoperative complications between high- and low-cost centers. The items with the greatest increase in cost were disposable trocars, disposable hook cautery, disposable endoscissors, and disposable clip appliers. We estimate that a savings of over $300/case is possible by using reusable instruments, which would result in an annual savings of $1.3 million for our health system, and $285 million nationwide.Conclusion: Performing laparoscopic cholecystectomy with reusable instruments can significantly decrease costs and does not increase operative time or postoperative complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important function in modern routers and switches is to perform a lookup for a key. Hash-based methods, and in particular cuckoo hash tables, are popular for such lookup operations, but for large structures stored in off-chip memory, such methods have the downside that they may require more than one off-chip memory access to perform the key lookup. Although the number of off-chip memory accesses can be reduced using on-chip approximate membership structures such as Bloom filters, some lookups may still require more than one off-chip memory access. This can be problematic for some hardware implementations, as having only a single off-chip memory access enables a predictable processing of lookups and avoids the need to queue pending requests. We provide a data structure for hash-based lookups based on cuckoo hashing that uses only one off-chip memory access per lookup, by utilizing an on-chip pre-filter to determine which of multiple locations holds a key. We make particular use of the flexibility to move elements within a cuckoo hash table to ensure the pre-filter always gives the correct response. While this requires a slightly more complex insertion procedure and some additional memory accesses during insertions, it is suitable for most packet processing applications where key lookups are much more frequent than insertions. An important feature of our approach is its simplicity. Our approach is based on simple logic that can be easily implemented in hardware, and hardware implementations would benefit most from the single off-chip memory access per lookup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play major roles in regulating gene expression in mammals, but are poorly understood in ischemic stroke. Using a mouse model of transient focal ischemia, we applied RNA-seq to evaluate for the first time the unbiased, genome-wide expression of lncRNAs as a function of reperfusion time in the cerebral cortex. Focal ischemia was induced in adult male C57BL/6 mice followed by reperfusion for 6, 12 or 24 h. Total RNA from ipsilateral cortices was used for Illumina sequencing and reads were mapped to the mouse reference genome (GRCm38). Annotated and novel transcript isoforms were identified and differential expression between the groups was estimated. We observed that the baseline expression of lncRNAs in the healthy cortex was low, but many were highly altered after stroke. Very few of these altered lncRNAs were previously annotated. A total of 259 lncRNA isoforms at 6 h, 378 isoforms at 12 h, and 217 isoforms at 24 h of reperfusion were differentially expressed versus sham controls. Of these, 213, 322 and 171 isoforms at 6, 12 and 24 h of reperfusion, respectively, were novel lncRNAs. Reperfusion time-point-specific analyses revealed that the lncRNAs reached peak expression levels at 6 h of reperfusion. Positional analysis of ischemia-responsive lncRNAs with respect to ischemia-responsive protein-coding genes identified potential gene-regulatory relationships. Overall, this work shows that transient focal ischemia induces widespread changes in the expression of lncRNAs in the mouse cortex with distinct reperfusion time-point-dependent expression characteristics that may underlie progression of the ischemic pathophysiology. The detection of hundreds of novel ischemia-responsive lncRNAs marks the discovery of new disease-related genomic regions in the adult cortex and may help identify novel opportunities for therapeutic targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft errors that corrupt the value of bits stored in registers or memories are a major issue for modern electronic systems. To ensure that they do not cause failures, error detection and correction codes are commonly used to protect memories. When memories are used for a specific application, sometimes it is possible to optimize the protection based on the knowledge of the application. One example is the memories used in network devices for packet processing. In particular, the protection of approximate membership check structures such as Bloom filters has been recently studied showing that it is possible to optimize the protection. Cuckoo filters are an alternative to Bloom filters for approximate membership check that has been recently proposed. Cuckoo filters are interesting as they are competitive in terms of memory usage for low false positive rates and also support the removal of elements. In this paper, the protection of Cuckoo filters against soft errors is studied showing that it can be enhanced by exploiting its structure and using the knowledge of the effects on an error in a Cuckoo filter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Inte.G.R.O. is a standardized Salutogenic-Psychoeducational intervention designed to help people with severe mental illness manage their life-stress and achieve personal recovery goals through the improvement of social functioning. The aim of this study is to evaluate the long-term outcome of this approach, characterized by health promotion rather than correction of dysfunctional strategies. Methods: 41 people underwent an observational study with a three time-point evaluation (t0, pre- treatment; t1, 12 months; t2, 36 months). At each time point, social functioning was assessed as primary outcome by the Personal and Social Functioning scale (PSP); furthermore, psychopathological status was assessed by Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), stress management was measured by means of Stress-Scale and cognitive flexibility variables were assessed by Modified Five-Point Test (M-FPT). Results: Personal and Social Functioning increased at t1 and t2 vs t0; psychopathological status improved at t2 vs t0; stress management improved at t2 vs t1; cognitive flexibility improved at t2 vs t0. Conclusions: these results substantially confirm after a three-year follow-up the improvements in functioning, psychopathology, stress management and cognitive flexibility seen in previous studies. Furthermore, they show a complex time-dependent fashion. Overall, they confirm a remarkable and long-term impact of Inte.G.R.O. on key Recovery variables. Further studies are needed to address extent and duration of these improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cuckoo hashing has proven to be an efficient option to implement exact matching in networking applications. It provides good memory utilization and deterministic worst case access time. The continuous increase in speed and complexity of networking devices creates a need for higher throughput exact matching in many applications. In this paper, a new Cuckoo hashing implementation named parallel d-pipeline is proposed to increase throughput. The scheme presented is targeted to implementations in which the tables are accessed in parallel. A parallel implementation increases the throughput and therefore is well suited to high speed applications. Parallel schemes are common for ASIC/FPGA implementations in which the tables are stored in several embedded memories. Using the proposed technique, the throughput can be significantly increased with gains that in practical scenarios can reach 60 percent compared to existing parallel implementations. The new scheme has been evaluated using a case study and detailed results for performance and implementation costs are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid data corruption, error correction codes (ECCs) are widely used to protect memories. ECCs introduce a delay penalty in accessing the data as encoding or decoding has to be performed. This limits the use of ECCs in high-speed memories. This has led to the use of simple codes such as single error correction double error detection (SEC-DED) codes. However, as technology scales multiple cell upsets (MCUs) become more common and limit the use of SEC-DED codes unless they are combined with interleaving. A similar issue occurs in some types of memories like DRAM that are typically grouped in modules composed of several devices. In those modules, the protection against a device failure rather than isolated bit errors is also desirable. In those cases, one option is to use more advanced ECCs that can correct multiple bit errors. The main challenge is that those codes should minimize the delay and area penalty. Among the codes that have been considered for memory protection are Reed-Solomon (RS) codes. These codes are based on non-binary symbols and therefore can correct multiple bit errors. In this paper, single symbol error correction codes based on Reed-Solomon codes that can be implemented with low delay are proposed and evaluated. The results show that they can be implemented with a substantially lower delay than traditional single error correction RS codes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

[Display omitted] • A C5-propynyl-β- d -arabinouridine phosphoramidite was synthesized. • C5-propynyl-arabinouridine homopolymers form a stable duplex with RNA. • Arabino and C5-propynyl modifications enhance nuclease stability. • RNA hybrid duplexes containing C5-propynyl-arabinouridine are substrates for RNase H. The promise of the antisense approach to treat a variety of diseases with oligonucleotides and solutions to challenges that have been encountered in their development is attributable to chemical modification of the nucleic acid scaffold. Herein, we describe preliminary data regarding the synthesis of a novel C5-propynyl-β- d -arabinouridine (araUP) phosphoramidite and its incorporation into oligonucleotides. Substitution of araUP in dT 18 results in minor stabilization of duplexes formed with RNA when modifications are placed consecutively and a uniformly modified araUP 18-mer increases stability by 34 °C relative to DNA. The modified oligomer exhibits improved nuclease and serum stability when compared to DNA and duplexes formed between RNA and araUP oligonucleotides are substrates for E. coli RNase H. These preliminary results merit further investigation into C5-propynyl modified arabino nucleic acids for potential therapeutic gene silencing applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The On-Q ® pain pump provides a continuous infusion of local anesthesia for management of postoperative pain. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy and outcomes of the On-Q ® pump compared to continuous epidural in children postoperatively. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of patients in our hospital who received a postoperative epidural or On-Q ® pump from 2005 to 2008. Patients were sub-categorized by incision type. Results: Seventy patients received epidural and 66 On-Q ®. On-Q ® therapy was longer by 1 day ( p < 0.0001), but did not affect postoperative length of stay. Patients with On-Q ® pumps had a decreased rate of Foley catheter placement ( p = 0.002) and shorter duration of catheter use by more than a day ( p < 0.001). Moderate to severe pain was similar in the two groups on postoperative days 0–5. Supplemental narcotic use was higher in the On-Q ® group only on postoperative day 1 ( p = 0.005) and in patients with midline and transverse abdominal incisions. No differences were seen in time to ambulation or recovery of postoperative ileus. Conclusion: The On-Q ® pain pump is an effective method for postoperative pain control, without the inherent risks of epidural catheters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The On-Q(®) pain pump provides a continuous infusion of local anesthesia for management of postoperative pain. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy and outcomes of the On-Q(®) pump compared to continuous epidural in children postoperatively.Methods: We performed a retrospective review of patients in our hospital who received a postoperative epidural or On-Q(®) pump from 2005 to 2008. Patients were sub-categorized by incision type.Results: Seventy patients received epidural and 66 On-Q(®). On-Q(®) therapy was longer by 1 day (p < 0.0001), but did not affect postoperative length of stay. Patients with On-Q(®) pumps had a decreased rate of Foley catheter placement (p = 0.002) and shorter duration of catheter use by more than a day (p < 0.001). Moderate to severe pain was similar in the two groups on postoperative days 0-5. Supplemental narcotic use was higher in the On-Q(®) group only on postoperative day 1 (p = 0.005) and in patients with midline and transverse abdominal incisions. No differences were seen in time to ambulation or recovery of postoperative ileus.Conclusion: The On-Q(®) pain pump is an effective method for postoperative pain control, without the inherent risks of epidural catheters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security of today's networks heavily rely on network intrusion detection systems (NIDSs). The ability to promptly update the supported rule sets and detect new emerging attacks makes field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) a very appealing technology. An important issue is how to scale FPGA-based NIDS implementations to ever faster network links. Whereas a trivial approach is to balance traffic over multiple, but functionally equivalent, hardware blocks, each implementing the whole rule set (several thousands rules), the obvious cons is the linear increase in the resource occupation. In this work, we promote a different, traffic-aware, modular approach in the design of FPGA-based NIDS. Instead of purely splitting traffic across equivalent modules, we classify and group homogeneous traffic, and dispatch it to differently capable hardware blocks, each supporting a (smaller) rule set tailored to the specific traffic category. We implement and validate our approach using the rule set of the well-known Snort NIDS, and we experimentally investigate the emerging trade-offs and advantages, showing resource savings up to 80 percent based on real-world traffic statistics gathered from an operator's backbone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the problem of designing a low complexity Concurrent Error Detection (CED) circuit for the complex multiplication function commonly used in Digital Signal Processing circuits. Five novel CED architectures are proposed and their computational complexity, area, and delay evaluated in several circuit implementations. The most efficient architecture proposed reduces the number of gates required by up to 30 percent when compared with a conventional CED architecture based on Dual Modular Redundancy. Compared to a Residue Code CED scheme, the area of the proposed architectures is larger. However, for some of the proposed CEDs delay is significantly lower with reductions exceeding 30 percent in some configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Ovarian masses in the pediatric population are commonly resected with a three or four port laparoscopic approach. Single-incision laparoscopic (SIL) resection is an alternative approach. However, there is limited experience with this modality in ovarian mass resection. Methods: We reviewed SIL ovarian mass resections performed by our group from 2010 to 2012. We evaluated patient demographics, surgery statistics, and hospital course. Results: Six patients were identified with mean age of 14 years. Imaging studies showed cystic masses ranging 4-6 cm in five patients, and 20 cm in one patient. One patient presented with recurrent teratoma. Pathology revealed four benign teratomas, one benign cyst, and one serous cystadenoma. Average operating time was 75 min. All patients had an ovarian-preserving resection. Three patients had cyst spillage, including the one who presented with recurrence (this was the only patient with a subsequent recurrence). Hospital stay averaged 37 h. Narcotic use averaged 9.9 mg of morphine daily. All patients had excellent cosmetic results, and no postoperative complications. Conclusions: Ovarian cystic mass excision using the SIL approach carries a higher risk of tumor spillage. Although the incidence of malignancy is low, they cannot be conclusively excluded with our current preoperative evaluations. At this time, we recommend SIL resection only for simple cysts with low malignant potential; however, further experience with this procedure will likely improve the risk of tumor spillage in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A content addressable memory (CAM) is an SRAM-based memory that can be accessed in parallel to search for a given search word, providing as a result the address of the matching data. Like conventional memories, a CAM can be affected by the occurrence of single event upsets (SEUs) that can alter the content of one of more memory cells causing different effects such as pseudo-HIT or pseudo-MISS events. It is well known that, because of the parallel search performed by a CAM during the query of a word, a standard error correction code could not defend it against SEU events. In this paper, we propose a method that does not require any modification to a CAM's internal structure and, therefore, can be easily applied at system level. Error detection is performed by using a probabilistic structure called "Bloom filter,” which can signal if a given data is present in the CAM. Bloom filters permit to efficiently store and query the presence of data in a set. But, while a CAM suffers from SEU induced errors, the probabilistic nature of Bloom filters has as a consequence the so called false-positive effect. This paper shows that, by combining the use of a Bloom filter with a CAM, the complementary limitations of these modules can be compensated. The combined use of a CAM and a Bloom filter is analyzed in different cases, showing that the proposed technique can be implemented with a low penalty in terms of area and power consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Error correction codes (ECCs) have been used for decades to protect memories from soft errors. Single error correction (SEC) codes that can correct 1-bit error per word are a common option for memory protection. In some cases, SEC codes are extended to also provide double error detection and are known as SEC-DED codes. As technology scales, soft errors on registers also became a concern and, therefore, SEC codes are used to protect registers. The use of an ECC impacts the circuit design in terms of both delay and area. Traditional SEC or SEC-DED codes developed for memories have focused on minimizing the number of redundant bits added by the code. This is important in a memory as those bits are added to each word in the memory. However, for registers used in circuits, minimizing the delay or area introduced by the ECC can be more important. In this paper, a method to construct low delay SEC or SEC-DED codes that correct errors only on the data bits is proposed. The method is evaluated for several data block sizes, showing that the new codes offer significant delay reductions when compared with traditional SEC or SEC-DED codes. The results for the area of the encoder and decoder also show substantial savings compared to existing codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article was updated to a correct typo in Figure 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Many techniques have been proposed in the technical literature for repairing FPGAs when affected by permanent faults. Almost all of these works exploit the dynamic reconfiguration capabilities of an FPGA where a subset of the available resources is used as spares for replacing the faulty ones. The choice of the best reconfiguration technique depends on both the required reliability and on the architecture of the chosen FPGA . This paper presents a survey of these techniques and explains how the architectural organization of the FPGA affects the choice of a reconfiguration strategy. Subsequently, a framework is proposed for these techniques by which a fair comparison among them can be assessed and evaluated with respect to reliability. A reliability evaluation is provided for different repair strategies. To provide a comparison between these techniques FPGAs of different size are taken into account. Also the relationship between the area overhead and the overall reliability has been investigated. Considerations about time to repair and feasibility of these techniques are provided. The ultimate goal of this paper is therefore to present a state-of-the-art repair techniques as applicable to FPGA and to establish their performance for reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reed Solomon (RS) codes are widely used to protect information from errors in transmission and storage systems. Most of the RS codes are based on GF(28) Galois Fields and use a byte to encode a symbol providing codewords up to 255 symbols. Codewords with more than 255 symbols can be obtained by using GF(2m) Galois Fields with m > 8, but this choice increases the complexity of the encoding and decoding algorithms. This limitation can be superseded by introducing Parity Sharing (PS) RS codes that are characterized by a greater flexibility in terms of design parameters. Consequently, a designer can choose between different PS code implementations in order to meet requirements such as Bit Error Rate (BER), hardware complexity, speed, and throughput. This paper analyzes the performance of PS codes in terms of BER with respect to the code parameters, taking into account either random error or erasure rates as two independent probabilities. This approach provides an evaluation that is independent of the communication channel characteristics and extends the results to memory systems in which permanent faults and transient faults can be modeled, respectively, as erasures and random errors. The paper also provides hardware implementations of the PS encoder and decoder and discusses their performances in terms of hardware complexity, speed, and throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present a novel memory architecture for quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA). The proposed architecture combines the advantage of reduced area of a serial memory with the reduced latency in the read operation of a parallel memory, hence its name is ‘hybrid’. This hybrid architecture utilises a novel arrangement in the addressing circuitry of the QCA loop for implementing the memory-in-motion paradigm. An evaluation of latency and area is pursued. It is shown that while for a serial memory, latency is O(N) (where N is the number of bits in a loop), a constant latency is accomplished in the hybrid memory. For area analysis, a novel characterisation that considers cells in the logic circuitry, interconnect in addition to the unused portion of the Cartesian plane (i.e. the whole geometric area encompassing the QCA layout), is proposed. This is referred to as the effective area. Different layouts of the hybrid memory are proposed to substantiate the reduction in effective area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] ECCs can be used as efficient hash functions. [•] The use of ECCs as hash functions reduces the cost of error correction in hash tables. [•] The scheme has been validated with a practical case study. [•] Further optimizations of the ECC are enabled by the scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft errors that affect flip-flops are a major issue in advanced electronic circuits. As technology scales, multiple bit errors become more likely. This limits the applicability of traditional protection techniques like triplication with voting or single error correction codes that can correct only one error. Multiple errors tend to affect adjacent bits, and therefore it is interesting to use error correction codes that can correct adjacent errors. The issue with these codes is that they require a large area and delay that limits their use to protect flip-flops in circuits. Presented are codes that can be implemented with low area and delay and can correct multiple adjacent errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern signal processing circuits, it is common to find several filters operating in parallel. Proposed is an area efficient technique to detect and correct single errors occurring in pairs of parallel filters that have either the same input data or the same impulse response. The technique uses a primary implementation comprised of two independent filters and a redundant implementation that shares input data between both filters so as to detect and correct errors.The area cost of the proposed scheme is shown to be slightly more than double that of the unprotected filter, whereas the conventional triple modular redundancy solution requires an area three times that of the unprotected filter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Error correction codes are commonly used in memories to ensure that data are not corrupted. Single error correction double error detection (SEC-DED) codes are among the most widely used codes to protect memories. One common technique to implement SEC-DED codes is to construct a parity check matrix with odd-weight columns. This ensures that double errors have an even weight syndrome and therefore are not confused with single errors thus providing the DED feature. Recently, a technique that reduces the decoding complexity for odd-weight SEC-DED codes has been proposed. This technique can be used only for small data block sizes being the practical limit 32 bits. However, memories with 64 bits are commonly found in modern computing systems. Therefore, it would be advantageous to also reduce the decoding complexity for larger block sizes. A scheme to optimise the decoding of odd-weight SEC-DED codes with block sizes of 64 bits is presented and evaluated. The results show that the new scheme can provide significant reductions in the decoder circuitry area and delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Error correction codes are commonly used in memories to ensure that data are not corrupted. Single error correction double error detection (SEC‐DED) codes are among the most widely used codes to protect memories. One common technique to implement SEC‐DED codes is to construct a parity check matrix with odd‐weight columns. This ensures that double errors have an even weight syndrome and therefore are not confused with single errors thus providing the DED feature. Recently, a technique that reduces the decoding complexity for odd‐weight SEC‐DED codes has been proposed. This technique can be used only for small data block sizes being the practical limit 32 bits. However, memories with 64 bits are commonly found in modern computing systems. Therefore, it would be advantageous to also reduce the decoding complexity for larger block sizes. A scheme to optimise the decoding of odd‐weight SEC‐DED codes with block sizes of 64 bits is presented and evaluated. The results show that the new scheme can provide significant reductions in the decoder circuitry area and delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estimated number of people deprived of liberty is increasing, with 11.55 million incarcerated globally in 2021. Transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains is facilitated in over-crowded, poorly ventilated settings, such as jails and penitentiaries. Moreover, inmates may show individual risk factors for the development of tuberculosis disease. Treatment regimens for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) may require up to 9 months of drug exposure and are characterized by adverse events (AE) and low completion rates. To describe current scientific evidence on feasibility, acceptability, and completion rate of LTBI treatment in prison or correctional institutes. Articles were retrieved from MEDLINE/PubMed, no time restriction was applied. Human retrospective and prospective studies published on LTBI treatment in incarcerated populations were included. Bias assessment plots and Egger weighted regression test were used to determine the risk of bias. Absolute and relative frequencies were assessed for qualitative data. Pooled proportion of included study groups and 95% confidence interval estimates, weighted for sample sizes, were illustrated in forest plots. I2 indicator association were used for true variability and overall variation. Fixed and random-effects models were chosen depending on the estimated between-study heterogeneity. Of the 11 selected studies, only 1 was conducted in a high tuberculosis incidence country. Overall, completion rates ranged from 26% to 100% across the included studies. Reason for the discontinuation of treatment were transfer to other facilities, release, or loss to follow-up (range, 0–74%), incidence of AEs (range, 0–18%), and refusal or withdrawal from treatment (range, 0–16%). Implementation of short-course regimens in prisons should be considered given the low incidence of AEs observed; however, inmates consistently refused to complete LTBI treatment, thus underlining the need for improvement in retention in care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many applications, there is a need to identify to which of a group of sets an element $x$ belongs, if any. For example, in a router, this functionality can be used to determine the next hop of an incoming packet. This problem is generally known as set separation and has been widely studied. Most existing solutions make use of hash-based algorithms, particularly when a small percentage of false positives is allowed. A known approach is to use a collection of Bloom filters in parallel. Such schemes can require several memory accesses, a significant limitation for some implementations. We propose an approach using Block Bloom Filters, where each element is first hashed to a single memory block that stores a small Bloom filter that tracks the element and the set or sets the element belongs to. In a naïve solution, when an element $x$ in a set $S$ is stored, it necessarily increases the false positive probability for finding that $x$ is in another set $T$. In this paper, we introduce our One Memory Access Set Separation (OMASS) scheme to avoid this problem. OMASS is designed so that for a given element $x$, the corresponding Bloom filter bits for each set map to different positions in the memory word. This ensures that the false positive rates for the Bloom filters for element $x$ under other sets are not affected. In addition, OMASS requires fewer hash functions compared to the naïve solution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The adoption of cloud computing and the deployment of new services require more and more computing and networking resources in large data centers. In particular, there is a need for faster, rich featured switches. Today, switching integrated circuits can handle more than 50 Tb/s and are expected to reach 100 Tb/s next year. This trend is likely to continue, approaching petabit capacities in a few years. At the same time, switches need to support more advanced packet classification features. This poses many challenges to the designers of switching integrated circuits, creating a need for innovations to move forward. One of those challenges is to support programmable packet classification with large rulesets at wire speed using limited silicon footprint. Unfortunately, traditional solutions like ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs) have high cost in area and power, and therefore are not a viable option for large on-chip rulesets, so new alternatives are needed. In the last two decades, researchers have extensively studied the problem of packet classification, proposing many algorithms based on standard memories, mostly targeting software implementations. These packet classification algorithms could be a solution to enable large on-chip classification rulesets using standard memories. However, porting the standard packet classification algorithms to a hardware implementation is not a trivial task, due to the different requirements and the different kinds of memory and computing resources available on application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) switching chips. This article describes a packet classification design tailored for high-speed switching integrated circuits, which is currently used in the NVIDIA® Mellanox® Spectrum® switching ASIC product line, illustrating how to solve the mismatch between the usual software-based classification algorithms and the specific requirements of a hardware implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a methodology for the development of fault-tolerant adders based on the Radix 2 Signed Digit (SD) representation is presented. The use of a number representation characterized by a carry propagation confined to neighbor digits implies interesting advantages in terms of error detection, fault localization, and repair. Errors caused by faults belonging to a considered stuck-at fault set can be detected by a parity-based technique. In fact, a carry-free adder preserving the parity of the augends can be implemented allowing fault detection by using a parity checker. Regarding fault localization, the ‘carry-free’ property of the adder ensures the confinement of the error due to a permanent fault to only few digits. The detection of the faulty digit has been obtained by using a recomputation with shifted operands method. Finally, after the fault localization, graceful degradation of the system intended as the reduction of the performances versus a correct output computation can be obtained by using two different procedures. The first one allows obtaining the correct output by recomputing the result performing two different shift operations and using the intersection of the obtained results to recover the correct output, while the second one is based on a reduced dynamic range approach, which allows us to obtain the result in only one step, but with fewer output digits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Primary chondrocytes from quail embryo epiphysis (quail epiphyseal chondrocytes, QEC) can grow either in suspension or in monolayer. In this study, the adhesion of QEC to collagen II was used as a model to study the regulation of the ligand-binding activity of integrin receptors that allows these cells to undergo a rapid transition from suspension to an adherent state. Preincubation of suspension QEC (QECSP) with the disintegrin echistatin increased by 40% their adhesion to collagen II. An inverse relationship between immobilized collagen density and echistatin-induced increase of chondrocyte adhesion was observed, thus suggesting that the disintegrin acts by increasing the ligand-binding affinity of collagen receptor(s). Further, echistatin activity does not appear to depend upon a direct binding of the disintegrin to collagen receptor(s). In fact, immobilized anti-β 1 antibodies, but not immobilized echistatin, served as effective binding sites for QECSP. Echistatin failed to stimulate chondrocyte adhesion to collagen in the presence of metabolic inhibitors, while an activating anti-β 1 antibody was still effective. Thus, echistatin may promote cell adhesion by interfering with energy-dependent signals that keep the collagen receptor(s) in a low-affinity state. Adhesion experiments performed in the presence of pharmacological inhibitors indicate that phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase (PI3-K)/protein kinase C (PKC) and protein kinase A (PKA) pathways may transmit opposing signals on chondrocyte adhesion, and that collagen receptors are kept in a low-affinity state by PI3-kinase/PKC signalling. Since echistatin is a high-affinity ligand for α v β 3 integrin, the effect of the function-blocking anti-α v β 3 antibody LM609 was investigated. Like echistatin, LM609 stimulated chondrocyte adhesion to collagen and failed to support their attachment. Therefore, our data suggest that α v β 3-antagonists might regulate the binding activity of the β 1 collagen receptor, which in turn leads to the rapid transition of chondrocytes from suspension to an adherent state. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper an innovative fault tolerant solid state mass memory (FTSSMM) architecture is described. Solid state mass memories (SSMMs) are particularly suitable for space applications and more in general for harsh environments such us, for example, nuclear accelerators or avionics. The presented FTSSMM design has been entirely based on commercial off the shelf (COTS) components. In fact, cost competitive and very high performance SSMMs cannot be easily implemented by using space qualified components, due the technological gap and very high cost characterizing these components. In order to match the severe reliability requirements of space applications a COTS-based apparatus must be designed by using suitable system level methodologies [1, 2]. In the proposed architecture error-correcting codes are used to strengthen the commercial dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, while the system controller has been designed by applying suitable fault tolerant design techniques. Different from other proposed solutions, our architecture fully exploits the reconfiguration capabilities of Reed-Solomon (RS) codes, discriminates between permanent and transient faults reducing the use of spare elements, and provides dynamic reconfiguration and graceful degradation capability, i.e., the FTSSMM performances are gracefully reduced in case of permanent faults, maintaining part of the system functionality. The papers shows the FTSSMM design methodology, the architecture, the reliability analysis, some simulation results, and a description of its implementation based on fast prototyping techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]