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This brief presents an asynchronous double-edge triggered Gray counter that can advantageously be used as coarse counter in a coarse-fine VCO ADC. We show that, in spite of using only a single counter and a single sampling register, it is possible to resolve the ambiguity in the coarse counter value caused by metastability and delay. We present simple decoding logic that performs both Gray-to-binary conversion and ambiguity resolution. A comparative case study is made for an 11 bit coarse-fine architecture based on the new Gray counter and a prior-art double-sampling binary counter. A reduction of 21% in area has been obtained, while at the same time post-layout simulations show a power saving of 17.5%.

The aim of this study was to compare the magnitude and the predictors of the placebo response in an internet versus onsite randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in people with hand osteoarthritis (HOA).

We provide an axiomatic justification to aggregate money metrics. The key axiom requires the approval of richer‐to‐poorer transfers that preserve the overall efficiency of the distribution. This transfer principle—together with the basic axioms of anonymity, continuity, monotonicity, and a version of welfarism—characterizes a standard social welfare function defined over money metric utilities.

With the growing demand for highbandwidth video services such as Internet Protocol television IPTV, the packet network must be adapted in order to support these services with the required quality. Evolutions of broadband access technologies such as very high speed digital subscriber line 2 VDSL2 and Gigabit passive optical networks GPONs create this possibility. Nevertheless, the bandwidth on the access link the first mile and the access node uplink the second mile remain a limited resource. This paper discusses how resource admission control RAC can be used in access networks to protect against exceptional overloads and maintain quality for active services. It describes the behavior of a local RAC function in the access node in a case where broadcast IPTV BTV and video on demand VoD share bandwidth on the first mile and shows that this solution is scalable from a message load point of view. © 2008 AlcatelLucent.

Internet access was the main service supported in legacy access networks via asynchronous transfer mode ATMbased digital subscriber line access multiplexers DSLAMs and aggregation networks. The broadband remote access server BRAS was the Internet Protocol IP edge router, and it provided various services including service routing, PointtoPoint Protocol PPP handling, shaping, scheduling, and policybased controls. This architecture is being increasingly replaced by an Ethernetbased aggregation network with potentially multiple broadband network gateways BNGs replacing the single BRAS. The migration to Ethernetbased networks is partly driven by the high bandwidth needs of applications such as video on demand VoD, IP television IPTV, and the ability to support these applications at costeffective points. Other drivers that are emerging to further shape the next generation of access networks are examined in this paper. In particular, we focus closely on emerging video and voice applications and the new challenges and requirements they bring. The set of applications and issues that we consider is by no means comprehensive. They have been selected as they pose some interesting challenges and have significant impact on the access network functionality and architecture. For video traffic, we examine the challenges for providing high video quality, fast response for IPTV channel change, and content distribution. For voice, we examine the challenges of emergency standalone operation. Finally, we examine aspects of quality of service QoS management, resource control, and network resiliency mechanisms for these emerging applications. We see that the access network needs to become extremely application aware and dynamic and move beyond the traditional IP layer 23 forwarding functions in order to meet these challenges effectively. © 2008 AlcatelLucent.

Internet access was the main service supported in legacy access networks via asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-based digital subscriber line access multiplexers (DSLAMs) and aggregation networks. The broadband remote access server (BRAS) was the Internet Protocol (IP) edge router, and it provided various services including service routing, Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) handling, shaping, scheduling, and policy-based controls. This architecture is being increasingly replaced by an Ethernet-based aggregation network with potentially multiple broadband network gateways (BNGs) replacing the single BRAS. The migration to Ethernet-based networks is partly driven by the high bandwidth needs of applications such as video on demand (VoD), IP television (IPTV), and the ability to support these applications at cost-effective points. Other drivers that are emerging to further shape the next generation of access networks are examined in this paper. In particular, we focus closely on emerging video and voice applications and the new challenges and requirements they bring. The set of applications and issues that we consider is by no means comprehensive. They have been selected as they pose some interesting challenges and have significant impact on the access network functionality and architecture. For video traffic, we examine the challenges for providing high video quality, fast response for IPTV channel change, and content distribution. For voice, we examine the challenges of emergency standalone operation. Finally, we examine aspects of quality of service (QoS) management, resource control, and network resiliency mechanisms for these emerging applications. We see that the access network needs to become extremely application aware and dynamic and move beyond the traditional IP layer 2/3 forwarding functions in order to meet these challenges effectively.

Forty patients with osteoarthrosis or rheumatoid arthritis were entered in a 4-week double-blind trial to compare the efficacy, safety and tolerance of a flurbiprofen 100 mg suppository formulation with indomethacin 100 mg suppositories. There were twenty patients each on indomethacin and flurbiprofen. Statistically significant improvements were reported for both treatments during the study with respect to morning stiffness, night pain and the overall progress of the patients.Both treatments were equally effective with respect to the amount of improvement shown for the parameters.No improvement was noted on either treatment with respect to grip-strength, functional capacity or the daily intake of analgesic therapy, while a marginally significant decrease in the erythrocyte sedimentation rate was noted on indomethacin.Both treatments were well tolerated with only a few transient and mild side-effects being reported.On the basis of this trial, flurbiprofen and indomethacin suppositories have equal therapeutic effects in the treatment of night pain and morning stiffness.

Principal Components Analysis is used to display the variation in a data set consisting of the free amino-acid patterns in serum from dogs as a function of fasting time. Inhomogeneities found in the data set resulted in an optimization of the experimental conditions. Moreover important observations concerning sampling time and biological variability could be made.

The article presents the results of close reading of current practices and guidelines for digitization selection of content from heritage collection. An overview of the criteria are proposed which represent the most significant factor to accomplish selection including physical criteria, value of material, and unicity. It also notes the underlying issues in selection as part of collection management process which includes differences in approach, terminology, and optimism.