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Neuromorphic engineering tries to mimic biological information processing. Address-Event-Representation (AER) is an asynchronous protocol for transferring the information of spiking neuro-inspired systems. Currently AER systems are able sense visual and auditory stimulus, to process information, to learn, to control robots, etc. In this paper we present an AER based layer able to correct in real time the tilt of an AER vision sensor, using a high speed algorithmic mapping layer. A codesign platform (the AER-Robot platform), with a Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA and an 8051 USB microcontroller, has been used to implement the system. Testing it with the help of the USBAERmini2 board and the jAER software. Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417 Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-11730-C03-02 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-02

The large hydroelectric potential of Brazilian river basins is being progressively exploited, and today, this type of electricity generation represents 86% of the Brazilian electric power matrix. The hydroelectric expansion planning in Brazil is done through a serie of studies and the Hydropower Inventory Studies is one of the earliest stages of this process. So, that is the moment when every option for the division of the water head in the river basins should be studied in order to select the one that gives the best energetic, economic, social and environmental balance, according to the Hydroelectric River Basin Inventory’s Manual. To assist Hydroelectric Inventory Studies a computerized decision support system, called SINV, has been developed and it integrates data management with simulation/optimization and plotting tools to aid in energetic and socioenvironmental comparisons of the different head division schemes considering a multi-objective criterion. This paper presents a river basin inventory study case using the SINV package.

et al., This paper describes CAVIAR, a massively parallel hardware implementation of a spike-based sensing-processing-learning-actuating system inspired by the physiology of the nervous system. CAVIAR uses the asychronous address-event representation (AER) communication framework and was developed in the context of a European Union funded project. It has four custom mixed-signal AER chips, five custom digital AER interface components, 45k neurons (spiking cells), up to 5M synapses, performs 12G synaptic operations per second, and achieves millisecond object recognition and tracking latencies. © 2009 IEEE., This work was supported by the European Commission under Grant IST-2001-34124 (CAVIAR). The work of R. Serrano-Gotarredona was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under FPU scholarship. The work of L. Camuñas-Mesa was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under FPI scholarship.

A new general synthetic route to obtain highly functionalized (Z)- and (E)-alk-1-enyl halides is described, where the halogen can be indistinctly F, Cl, Br, and I. The procedure involves CrCl2-promoted reductive elimination of β-O-substituted gem-dihalo alditols easily accessible from carbohydrates. The simplicity and mildness of the reaction conditions and their compatibility with different functional groups increase the synthetic potential of this methodology.

A method to obtain (Z)-beta,gamma-unsaturated nitriles in high or good yields and with moderate or high stereoselectivity is described. The products were achieved through the photoinduced metalation of 3-acetoxy-4-chloronitriles with SmI2. The starting compounds were readily prepared, and a mechanism is proposed to explain this stereoselective beta-elimination reaction.

Neuromorphic engineering tries to mimic biology in information processing. Address-Event Representation (AER) is a neuromorphic communication protocol for spiking neurons between different layers. AER bio-inspired image sensor are called “retina”. This kind of sensors measure visual information not based on frames from real life and generates corresponding events. In this paper we provide an alternative, based on cheap FPGA, to this image sensors that takes images provided by an analog video source (video composite signal), digitalizes it and generates AER streams for testing purposes. Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417 Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-11730-C03-02

One field of the neuroscience is the neuroinformatic whose aim is to develop auto-reconfigurable systems that mimic the human body and brain. In this paper we present a neuro-inspired spike based mobile robot. From commercial cheap vision sensors converted into spike information, through spike filtering for object recognition, to spike based motor control models. A two wheel mobile robot powered by DC motors can be autonomously controlled to follow a line drown in the floor. This spike system has been developed around the well-known Address-Event-Representation mechanism to communicate the different neuro-inspired layers of the system. RTC lab has developed all the components presented in this work, from the vision sensor, to the robot platform and the FPGA based platforms for AER processing. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2006-11730-C03-02 Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417

Neuromorphic engineering tries to mimic biological information processing. Address-Event Representation (AER) is a neuromorphic communication protocol for spiking neurons between different chips. We present a new way to drive robotic platforms using spiking neurons. We have simulated spiking control models for DC motors, and developed a mobile robot (Eddie) controlled only by spikes. We apply AER to the robot control, monitoring and measuring the spike activity inside the robot. The mobile robot is controlled by the AER-Robot tool, and the AER information is sent to a PC using the USBAERmini2 interface. Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417 Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-11730-C03-02

In this paper some results on the convergence of the Gauss–Seidel iteration when solving fluid/structure interaction problems with strong coupling via fixed point iteration are presented. The flow-induced vibration of a flat plate aligned with the flow direction at supersonic Mach number is studied. The precision of different predictor schemes and the influence of the partitioned strong coupling on stability is discussed. Fil: Storti, Mario Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Nigro, Norberto Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Paz, Rodrigo Rafael. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Dalcin, Lisandro Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina

Address-event representation (AER) is a neuromorphic communication protocol for transferring information of spiking neurons implemented into VLSI chips. These neuro-inspired implementations have been used to design sensor chips (retina, cochleas), processing chips (convolutions, filters) and learning chips, what makes possible the development of complex, multilayer, multichip neuromorphic systems. In biology one of the last steps of the processing is to move a muscle, to apply the results of these complex neuromorphic processing to the real world. One interesting question is to be able to transform, or translate, the AER information into robot movements, like for example, moving a DC motor. This paper presents several ways to translate AER spikes into DC motor power, and to control a DC motor speed, based on Pulse Frequency Modulation. These methods have been simulated into Simulink with Xilinx system generator, and tested into the AER-Robot platform.

Address-event-representation (AER) is an asynchronous protocol for transferring the information of spiking neuro-inspired systems. Actually AER systems are able to see, to ear, to process information, and to learn. Regarding to the actuation step, the AER has been used for implementing central pattern generator algorithms, but not for controlling the actuators in a closed-loop spike-based way. In this paper we analyze an AER based model for a real-time neuro-inspired closed-loop control system. We demonstrate it into a differential control system for a two-wheel vehicle using feedback AER information. PFM modulation has been used to power the DC motors of the vehicle and translation into AER of encoder information is also presented for the close-loop. A codesign platform (called AER-Robot), based into a Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA and an 8051 USB microcontroller, with power stages for four DC motors has been used for the demonstrator.

MPI for Python provides bindings of the message passing interface (MPI) standard for the Python programming language and allows any Python program to exploit multiple processors. In its first release, MPI for Python was constructed on top of the MPI-1 specification defining an object-oriented interface that closely followed the MPI-2 C++ bindings, and provided support for communications of general Python objects. In the latest release, this package is improved to enable direct blocking/non-blocking communication of numeric arrays, and to support almost all MPI-2 features. Improvements in communication performance have been tested in a Beowulf class cluster. Results showed a negligible overhead in comparison to compiled C code. MPI for Python is open source and available for download on the web (http://mpi4py.scipy.org/). Fil: Dalcin, Lisandro Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Paz, Rodrigo Rafael. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Storti, Mario Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: D'elia, Jorge. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina

In this demo we propose a method for computing real time convolution on AER images. For that we use signed events. The AER events produced on an AER retina or an image/video to AER conversor, are processed using a probabilistic multi event mapper that produces more than one event for each incoming event according to an assigned probability. Kernel convolution size are limited by mapping tables size (on board RAM) and AER bus bandwidth. On reconstruction signed events needs to be simplified (subtracted) to get final convolved image. For that two different methods are proposed. Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC-2006-08164-C03-02 Junta de Andalucía P06-TIC-01417

The preparation of Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-oxide superconductor powders from citrate and carboxylate precursors is discussed. Solid state reactions following the pyrolysis of the precursors were examined by means of thermal analysis and X-ray diffraction. The initial powder was identified as a homogeneous mixture of bismuth trioxide, copper oxide and the double carbonate of strontium and calcium. With heat treatment CuBi 2 O 4 was detected as early as 500°C, and Bi 2 Sr 2 CuO 6 after 700°C. The Bi-Sr-Cu phase was identified as an intermediate for the formation of Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-oxide superconductors. Further heat treatment at higher temperatures resulted in the formation of the 2212 superconductor phase. Various phase transformations were identified through-out the process.

Laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN) has been performed at several institutions using oxidized cellulose (OC) as a means of bleeding and urinary fistula (UF) prevention. However, a foreign-body reaction mimicking either abscess or tumor recurrence has been associated with the use of OC. We evaluated renal-defect healing after LPN with and without OC.Sixteen female Landrace pigs underwent lower-pole excision; all the collecting systems were entered and then closed with absorbable running suture. In group 1, hemostatic U-shaped stitches were the only method of hemostasis. In group 2, a bolster of OC was added to the renal defect. The pigs were sacrificed at 1, 4, 7, or 21 days, and gross findings such as perirenal collection were observed. A catheter was advanced up to the kidney, and methylene blue was injected with collecting system pressure observation; burst pressure was defined as the appearance of extravasation. High risk for UF was defined as burst pressure10 mm Hg.Neither hemorrhage nor urinoma was observed during sacrifice. One pig from group 2 had a burst pressure of 4 mm Hg At 7 days (high risk for UF). At 21 days in group 2, the tissue was grossly solid, apparently a granuloma. Suppuration tended to be greater in group 2. The foreign-body reaction was more intense in group 2 and was strongly present at 4, 7, and 21 days.The use of OC is associated with higher scores of suppuration and foreign-body reaction. After LPN with OC, postoperative day 7 might be a critical time for the development of urinary leakage.

Address Event Representation (AER) is an emergent neuromorphic interchip communication protocol that allows realtime virtual massive connectivity among huge number of neurons located on different chips [1]. By exploiting high speed digital communication circuits (with nano-seconds timing), synaptic neural connections can be time multiplexed, while neural activity signals (with mili-seconds timings) are sampled at low frequencies. Neurons generate ‘events’ according to their activity levels. That is, more active neurons generate more events per unit time and access the interchip communication channel more frequently than neurons with low activity. In Neuromorphic system development, AER brings some advantages to develop real-time image processing system: (1) AER represents the information like time continuous stream not like a frame; (2) AER sends the most important information first (although this depends on the sender); (3) AER allows to process information as soon as it is received. When AER is used in artificial vision field, each pixel is considered like a neuron, so pixel’s intensity is represented like a sequence of events; modifying the number and the frequency of these events, it is possible to make some image filtering. In this paper we present four image filters using AER: (a) Noise addition and suppression, (b) brightness modification, (c) single moving object tracking and (d) geometrical transformations (rotation, translation, reduction and magnification). For testing and debugging, we use USB-AER board developed by Robotic and Technology of Computers Applied to Rehabilitation (RTCAR) research group. This board is based on an FPGA, devoted to manage the AER functionality. This board also includes a micro-controlled for USB communication, 2 Mbytes RAM and 2 AER ports (one for input and one for output). Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-11730-C03-02 Commission of the European Communities IST-2001-34124

Address-Event-Representation (AER) is a communication protocol for transferring asynchronous events between VLSI chips, originally developed for bio-inspired processing systems (for example, image processing). Such systems may consist of a complicated hierarchical structure with many chips that transmit data among them in real time, while performing some processing (for example, convolutions). The event information is transferred using a high speed digital parallel bus (typically 16 bits and 20ns-40ns per event). This paper presents a testing platform for AER systems that allows analysing a LVDS Serial AER link produced by a Spartan 3 FPGA, or by a commercial LVDS transceiver. The interface allows up to 0.728 Gbps (~40Mev/s, 16 bits/ev). The eye diagram ensures that the platform could support 1.2 Gbps. Commission of the European Communities IST-2001-34124 (CAVIAR) Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC-2003-08164-C03-02

Address-event-representation (AER) is a communication protocol for transferring asynchronous events between VLSI chips, originally developed for bio-inspired processing systems (for example, image processing). Such systems may consist of a complicated hierarchical structure with many chips that transmit data among them in real time, while performing some processing (for example, convolutions). The event information is transferred using a high speed digital parallel bus (typically 16 bits and 20ns-40ns per event). This paper presents a testing platform for AER systems that allows to analyse a LVDS Serial AER link. The interface allows up to 0.7 Gbps (~40Mev/s, 16 bits/ev). The eye diagram ensures that the platform could support 1.2 Gbps.

A preconditioner for iterative solution of the interface problem in Schur Complement Domain Decomposition Methods is presented. This preconditioner is based on solving a global problem in a narrow strip around the interface. It requires much less memory and computing time than classical Neumann–Neumann preconditioner and its variants, and handles correctly the flux splitting among subdomains that share the interface. The aim of this work is to present a theoretical basis (regarding the behavior of Schur complement matrix spectra) and some simple numerical experiments conducted in a sequential environment as a motivation for adopting the proposed preconditioner. Efficiency, scalability, and implementation details on a production parallel finite element code [Sonzogni V, Yommi A, Nigro N, Storti M. A parallel finite element program on a Beowulf cluster. Adv Eng Software 2002;33(7–10):427–43; Storti M, Nigro N, Paz R, Dalcín L. PETSc-FEM: a general purpose, parallel, multi-physics FEM program, 1999–2006] can be found in works [Paz R, Storti M. An interface strip preconditioner for domain decomposition methods: application to hydrology. Int J Numer Methods Eng 2005;62(13):1873–94; Paz R, Nigro N, Storti M. On the efficiency and quality of numerical solutions in cfd problems using the interface strip preconditioner for domain decomposition methods. Int J Numer Methods Fluids, in press]. Fil: Storti, Mario Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Dalcin, Lisandro Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Paz, Rodrigo Rafael. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Yommi, Alejandra Karina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Sonzogni, Victorio Enrique. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Nigro, Norberto Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina

A high speed sample image processing application using AER-based components is presented. The setup objective is to distinguish between two propellers of different shape rotating at high speed (around 1000 revolutions/sec) to show event-based systems capabilities in high speed applications. Event-based schemes allow the most relevant information to propagate faster through the system layers. So image processing is sped up because a rough result may be available when only a little part of the input has arrived. This setup is much faster than the conventional frame-based image processing systems because they would need to process more than 10kFrames/s to do the same task proposed here, whereas only few events are required with the event based technique.

In this work, the treatment of an actual industrial waste with three advanced oxidation processes (AOP) has been studied: conductive-diamond electrooxidation (CDEO), ozonation and Fenton oxidation. The wastewater comes from olive-oil mills (OMW) and contains a COD of nearly 3000 mg dm(-3). CDEO allowed achieving the complete mineralization of the waste with high current efficiencies. Likewise, both ozonation and Fenton oxidation were able to treat the wastes, but they obtained very different results in terms of efficiency and mineralization. The accumulation of oxidation-refractory compounds as final products excludes the use of ozonation and Fenton oxidation as a sole treatment technology. This confirms that besides the hydroxyl-radical mediated oxidation, CDEO combines other important oxidation processes such as the direct electro-oxidation on the diamond surface and the oxidation mediated by other electrochemically formed compounds generated on this electrode.

In this work, conductive-diamond electrochemical oxidation of synthetic wastes polluted with azoic dyes is studied. Results show that this advanced oxidation process is able to complete the treatment of wastes polluted with large molecules such as the dyes studied in this work. The oxidation process starts with the breakage of the azoic group, and according to the changes in the total organic carbon and chemical oxygen demand observed during the electrolyses, it deals with the accumulation of carboxylic acids in the final stages of the treatment. Negligible amounts of refractory organic matter are found in the effluent of highly loaded waste treatment. The efficiency of the conductive-diamond electrolyses of azoic dyes does not seem to depend on the molecule of the dye oxidized but only on its concentration range. From the experimental results it seems that the primary mechanisms in the oxidation of dyes are the mediated electrooxidation by hydroxyl radicals and persulfate (highly loaded wastes) and by persulfate (diluted wastes)., The authors want to thank the Spanish and the Tunisian Governments for financial support (AECI Joint Project 34/04/P/E).

In this paper, the efficiency of a parallelizable preconditioner for domain decomposition methodsin the context of the solution of non-symmetric linear equations arising from discretization of the Saint-Venant equations, is investigated. The proposed interface strip preconditioner (IS) is based on solving a problem in a narrow strip around the interface. It requires much less memory and computing time than classical Neumann–Neumann preconditioner, and handles correctly the flux splitting among sub-domains that share the interface. The performance of this preconditioner is assessed with an analytical study of Schur complement matrix eigenvalues and numerical experiments conducted in a parallel computational environment (consisting of a Beowulf cluster of 20 nodes). Fil: Paz, Rodrigo Rafael. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina Fil: Storti, Mario Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina

Address-Event-Representation (AER) is a communication protocol for transferring spikes between bio-inspired chips. Such systems may consist of a hierarchical structure with several chips that transmit spikes among them in real time, while performing some processing. To develop and test AER based systems it is convenient to have a set of instruments that would allow to: generate AER streams, monitor the output produced by neural chips and modify the spike stream produced by an emitting chip to adapt it to the requirements of the receiving elements. In this paper we present a set of tools that implement these functions developed in the CAVIAR EU project. Unión Europea IST-2001-34124 (CAVIAR) Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC-2003-08164-C03-02

Address-Event-Representation (AER) is a communications protocol for transferring spikes between bio-inspired chips. Such systems may consist of a hierarchical structure with several chips that transmit spikes among them in real time, while performing some processing. To develop and test AER based systems it is convenient to have a set of instruments that would allow to: generate AER streams, monitor the output produced by neural chips and modify the spike stream produced by an emitting chip to adapt it to the requirements of the receiving elements. In this paper we present a set of tools that implement these functions developed in the CAVIAR EU project. European Commission IST-2001-34124 Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC-2003-08164-C03-02

Address Event Representation (AER) is an emergent neuromorphic interchip communication protocol that allows for real-time virtual massive connectivity between huge number neurons located on different chips. By exploiting high speed digital communication circuits (with nano-seconds timings), synaptic neural connections can be time multiplexed, while neural activity signals (with mili-seconds timings) are sampled at low frequencies. Also, neurons generate ‘events’ according to their activity levels. More active neurons generate more events per unit time, and access the interchip communication channel more frequently, while neurons with low activity consume less communication bandwidth. When building multi-chip muti-layered AER systems it is absolutely necessary to have a computer interface that allows (a) to read AER interchip traffic into the computer and visualize it on screen, and (b) inject a sequence of events at some point of the AER structure. This is necessary for testing and debugging complex AER systems. This paper presents a PCI to AER interface, that dispatches a sequence of events received from the PCI bus with embedded timing information to establish when each event will be delivered. A set of specialized states machines has been introduced to recovery the possible time delays introduced by the asynchronous AER bus. On the input channel, the interface capture events assigning a timestamp and delivers them through the PCI bus to MATLAB applications. It has been implemented in real time hardware using VHDL and it has been tested in a PCI-AER board, developed by authors, that includes a Spartan II 200 FPGA. The demonstration hardware is currently capable to send and receive events at a peak rate of 8,3 Mev/sec, and a typical rate of 1 Mev/sec. European Commission IST-2001-34124 Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIC-2000-0406-P4

4 pages, 1 table, 1 scheme.-- Available online Dec 3, 2003., The reaction of 2-bromo-2-deoxy-2-fluoro-hexopyranose and -pentopyranose compounds from the d-gluco, d-galacto, l-rhamno, l-fuco, and l-arabino carbohydrate series with (diacetoxyiodo)benzene and iodine, under visible light irradiation conditions, generated the corresponding 1-bromo-1-deoxy-1-fluoro-1-iodo-alditols with one less carbon. In the case of the d-galacto derivative, the diastereoisomeric mixture can be chromatographically separated and the absolute configuration determined by X-ray crystallographic analysis of the (1R)-isomer., This work was supported by Investigation Programmes BQU2000-0650, BQU2001-1665, and PPQ2000-0728 of the Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica, Spain. N. R. P. thanks the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and the Gobierno de Canarias for a fellowship.

TM‐doped BaYYbF8 films were epitaxially grown on both (100) and (111) GaAs substrates using CaF2 or LiF as intermediate layers. The BaYYbF8 phase was found to be a previously unreported cubic phase with a lattice constant of 0.5711 nm, which is different from a monoclinic phase reported for bulk crystals. The films produced UV and visible radiation with wavelengths at 360 nm (UV), 450–480 nm (blue), and 500–550 nm (green) when pumped by laser radiation at 647 nm.

We report the results of Tm3+ doped Ba–Y–Yb–F thin film planar waveguides in glassy form, which produced red, green, blue, and ultraviolet upconverted luminescence when pumped by infrared radiation at λ=960 nm. The films of nominal composition BaYYbF8 doped with 1% Tm have been deposited with both thermal and e‐beam evaporation techniques on substrates of fused silica, Si, and GaAs. Planar waveguiding was demonstrated for the films deposited on fused silica. Optimal deposition conditions with respect to the ability of the films to produce upconverted luminescence and low propagation loss are discussed.

Address-Event-Representation (AER) is a communications protocol for transferring images between chips, originally developed for bio-inspired image processing systems. Such systems may consist of a complicated hierarchical structure with many chips that transmit images among them in real time, while performing some processing (for example, convolutions). In developing AER based systems it is very convenient to have available some kind of means of generating AER streams from on-computer stored images. In this paper we present a method for generating AER streams in real time from images stored in a computer’s memory. The method exploits the concept of linear feedback shift register random number generators. This method has been tested by software and compared to other possible algorithms for generating AER streams. It has been found that the proposed method yields a minimum error with respect to the ideal situation. A hardware platform that exploits this technique is currently under development.

3 pages, 1 table, 2 schemes.-- PMID: 14572277 [PubMed].-- Printed version published Oct 30, 2003.-- Supporting information available at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/ol035611l, The β-fragmentation of 2,2-difluoro-saccharide anomeric alkoxyl radicals, generated under oxidative condition by treatment of the respective alcohols with (diacetoxyiodo)benzene (DIB) and iodine, afforded 1,1-difluoro-1-iodo alditols in high yield. The reactivity of the fluorinated radical generated by rupture of the C−I bond has been preliminarily assessed by reductive deiodination with tributyltin hydride/AIBN and intermolecular allylation using the Keck reaction.

The architecture of a modular VLSI signal processor with highly reconfigurable architecture is discussed. The processor has three types of modules: function modules; interconnection modules; and signal generation/nonlinear function generation modules. Signals are represented as currents. Multiplying transconductance amplifiers are used to implement linear and nonlinear programmable building blocks. >

This paper presents a method for designing fuzzy logic controllers by using the experience of human operators and/or control engineers. This five-step method, involving a fuzzy logic controller, uses a modified fuzzy associative memory (FAM) approach. The Magnetic Ball Suspension Problem (a nonlinear system problem) is used for illustrative purposes. Comparisons with an optimal PD controller in the linearized and nonlinear cases are made with the result that not only is the fuzzy logic controller more robust than the optimal PD controller in the sense of stability, but it also provides better performance for a given performance index. >

The authors present data demonstrating early cardiovascular responses to simulated gravity levels between 1G and -1G. A noninvasive, cardiac impedance cardiography system (the IQ System) was used to evaluate cardiac output (CO), stroke volume (SV), ventricular ejection time (VET), ejection fraction (EF), and pre-ejection period (PEP). Seven subjects were positioned at selected angles of +90/spl deg/, +45/spl deg/, 0/spl deg/, -45/spl deg/, and -90/spl deg/ for five minutes at each angle. These postural changes simulate different gravitational forces on the human body ranging from +1G to -1G. This study's findings demonstrate an overall increasing trend in CO, SV, VET and EF, and a slight decrease in PEP with postural changes from +90/spl deg/ to -90/spl deg/. Findings may aid responses to low and negative gravity environments. >

The anomalous origin of the left coronary artery can lead to angina pectoris, acute myocardial infarction or even sudden death, especially during exercise. We present a patient in whom the anomalous origin of the left coronary artery is from the right sinus of Valsalva, crossing between the aorta and the pulmonary trunk and causing ischemic chest pain. The anomaly was verified by a Spiral CT, as the coronary angiographic findings were not conclusive, particularly regarding the left course in relation to the major arteries. We suggest that Spiral CT is useful for detecting this kind of anomaly, particularly in clarifying the relationship between the left main coronary artery and the major arteries.

We demonstrate the solid‐phase epitaxial crystallization of thin films of lithium tantalate deposited on lithium niobate and sapphire substrates. An organometallic compound, formed by reaction of lithium dipivaloylmethanate and tantalum(V) ethoxide, is used as a single‐source precursor for the deposition of amorphous thin films of lithium tantalate using a spray‐metalorganic chemical vapor deposition process. Annealing of the amorphous films results in their epitaxial alignment with respect to the underlying LiNbO3 or Al2O3 substrates. X‐ray diffraction, ion channeling, and scanning electron microscopy are used to evaluate and compare the crystalline quality of the films produced by this solid‐phase epitaxial process to films that are crystalline as deposited.

Z‐cut LiNbO3 wafers were proton exchanged (PE) with pyrophosphoric acid. The polished edges provided a side view of the exchanged region. The region was probed by micro‐Raman spectroscopy by stepping a 488.0 nm laser at intervals as small as 0.2 μm across the edge face starting below the exchanged region and moving towards the wafer surface, thereby traversing the PE region. Profiling revealed significant changes, in the 125–800 cm−1 and 3200–3600 cm−1 frequency ranges. The PE region expanded after annealing at 300 °C indicating proton penetration into the wafer. Continued annealing resulted in the progressive recovery of spectral characteristics resembling unexchanged lithium niobate. Micro‐Raman profiles provide spectroscopic information regarding which vibrational modes are affected by the exchange and the annealing processes as a function of depth.

Este trabajo se centra en la comprensión de la racionalidad de la gestión de los recursos disponibles en la unidad de producción agrícola (UPA), la identificación de sus características técnicas y socioeconómicas con el fin de hacer un diagnóstico para subsidiar el gerente rural en la toma de decisiones en la producción estratégica de la organización rural. Este estudio de caso fue parte del proyecto de extensión empresarial rural, desarrollado en la comunidad de Nhu-Porã, São Borja / RS / Brasil, priorizando como objeto de estudio una unidad de producción familiar, siendo realizado en el período de octubre a noviembre 2014. Se realizó una encuesta de datos cualitativos y cuantitativos, como los recursos naturales, la superficie agrícola utilizada, manada, mejoras, maquinaria y equipo, la disponibilidad de mano de obra y las producciones de los diferentes subsistemas de cultivo, cría y procesamiento. Estos datos fueron organizados en una hoja de cálculo, la cual pertmitó identificar lo sistema de producción adoptado y sus características técnicas y socioeconómicas. En la evaluación económica, teniendo en cuenta los indicadores económicos globales obtenidos, se puede decir que la UPA se encuentra en una situación cómoda, cuya renta agrícola global puede superar el nivel de reproducción social (NRS), estipulado en este estudio en R$ 9,100.00. Como propuesta de la intervención técnica y de gestión, a partir de este diagnóstico, propose estratégicamente intensificar la producción de leche em detrimiento de la producción de soja, hasta su alta contribuición en relación con el valor añadido por unidad de área.

5093 Background: With the advancement of diagnostic and treatment modalities in prostate cancer (PC) over the past 20 years, PC specific survival rates have improved. The aim of this study was to e...

e14616 Background: We studied the characteristics and survival for patients (pts) with left and right sided colon cancer in Veterans. Methods: In an IRB-approved protocol, we reviewed the records o...

The method of thin film preparation by metallo-organic decomposition (MOD) consists of the thermal decomposition of a solution of metallo-organic compounds coated (by dipping, brushing or spinning) over a substrate. Using SrTiO 3 as a model system, we have investigated the feasibility of the epitaxial crystallization of films prepared by MOD. Films spin coated onto silicon substrates and subsequently annealed are single-phase SrTiO 3 . However, they have a randomly oriented porous polycrystalline structure. Spin coating onto single-crystal SrTiO 3 substrates followed by thermal treatment at 1200°C results in the homoepitaxial alignment of the MOD films.

Acquired left ventricle-to-right atrium communications are a known complication of valvular heart surgery. Previous reports have described the clinical features and diagnosis using cardiac catheterization. We report two cases of acquired left ventricle-to-right atrium fistula following mitral valve replacement. Particular emphasis is placed on the diagnosis using transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography, obviating the need for cardiac catheterization before repair.

To compare the serum pharmacokinetics of fosinoprilat with enalaprilat and lisinopril after 1 and 10 days of dosing with fosinopril, enalapril and lisinopril.Patients with congestive heart failure (CHF, NYHA Class II-IV) and chronic renal insufficiency (creatinine clearance/=30 ml min-1 ) were randomized to receive fosinopril, enalapril or lisinopril in two parallel-group studies. In the first study 24 patients were treated with 10 mg fosinopril (n=12 patients) or 2.5 mg enalapril (n=12) every morning for 10 consecutive days. In the second study 31 patients were treated with 10 mg fosinopril (n=16 patients) or 5 mg lisinopril (n=15) every morning for 10 consecutive days. Samples of blood were collected for determination of pharmacokinetic parameters. The area under the curve (AUC) between the first and last days of treatment and the accumulation index (AI) were the primary outcome measures.All three angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors exhibited a significant increase in AUC between the first and last days of treatment in both studies. The difference between the AI for fosinoprilat (1.41) and enalaprilat (1.96) was statistically significant (95% CI: 1.05, 1.84). Similarly, the difference between the AI for fosinoprilat (1.21) and lisinopril (2.76) was statistically significant (95% CI: 1.85, 2.69). All three ACE inhibitors completely inhibited serum ACE for 24 h. All treatments were well tolerated.Fosinoprilat exhibits significantly less accumulation than enalaprilat or lisinopril in patients with CHF and renal insufficiency, most probably because fosinoprilat is eliminated by both the kidney and liver, and increased hepatic elimination can compensate for reduced renal clearance in patients with kidney dysfunction.

Magnetic resonance imaging of the heart was used in a patient with a history of recurrent episodes of transient ischemic attacks in whom a left atrial mass was suspected on transesophageal echocardiography. The use of MRI clarified a diagnosis of a diaphragmatic hernia.