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Multimodal recording using electroencephalogram (EEG) and other biological signals (e.g., muscle activities, eye movement, pupil diameters, or body kinematics data) is ubiquitous in human neuroscience research. However, the precise time alignment of multiple data from heterogeneous sources (i.e., devices) is often arduous due to variable recording parameters of commercially available research devices and complex experimental setups. In this review, we introduced the versatility of a Lab Streaming Layer (LSL)-based application that can overcome two common issues in measuring multimodal data: jitter and latency. We discussed the issues of jitter and latency in multimodal recordings and the benefits of time-synchronization when recording with multiple devices. In addition, a computer simulation was performed to highlight how the millisecond-order jitter readily affects the signal-to-noise ratio of the electrophysiological outcome. Together, we argue that the LSL-based system can be used for research requiring precise time-alignment of datasets. Studies that detect stimulus-induced transient neural responses or test hypotheses regarding temporal relationships of different functional aspects with multimodal data would benefit most from LSL-based systems. • EEG signals are frequently recorded together with data from other sources. • Synchronized data collection is necessary for good scientific practice but is often disregarded. • We discussed jitter and latency in data acquisition and influences thereof on data reliability. • The open-source Lab Streaming Layer-based system allows combined versatile physiological recordings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel jitter reduction technique for a voltage-controlled ring oscillator (VCRO). This technique is helpful in employing VCRO-based circuits like Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), Phase Locked Loop (PLL) and time-based circuits whose performance is severely degraded by high jitter. In the proposed technique, the jitter is extracted using Excess Phase Discrimination (EPD) block and is transformed into Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) signal, which is then fed into the Phase Compensator (PC) block. This block reduces the jitter by about half its value after enabling the Single Ended Injection Locking (SEIL). The proposed work is designed in SCL 180 nm CMOS technology at 1.8 V supply. On enabling the proposed circuit, the Root Mean Square (RMS) jitter reduces from 5.94 to 2.58 ps (about 56%) for VCRO running at 58 MHz and consumes a total power of 375.84 μ W. The overall performance of the proposed circuit does not vary much in the post-layout simulations, hence demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fiber optic gyroscope (FOG)-based north finding is extensively applied in navigation, positioning, and various fields. In dynamic north finding, an accelerated turntable speed shortens the time required for north finding, resulting in a rapid north-finding response. However, with an increase in turntable speed, the turntable's jitter contributes to signal contamination in the FOG, leading to a deterioration in north-finding accuracy. This paper introduces a divide-and-conquer algorithm, the segmented cross-correlation algorithm, designed to mitigate the impact of turntable speed jitter. A model for north-finding error is established and analyzed, incorporating FOG's self-noise and the turntable's speed jitter. To validate the feasibility of our method, we implemented the algorithm on a FOG. The simulation and experimental results exhibited a strong concordance, affirming the validity of our proposed north-finding error model. The experimental findings indicate that, at a turntable speed of 180°/s, the north-finding bias error within a 360 s duration is 0.052°, representing a 64% improvement over the traditional algorithm. These results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in mitigating the impact of unstable turntable speeds, offering a solution for north finding with both prompt response and enhanced accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power supply voltage (Vdd) scaling in each era is making difficult to manage speed and power trade-off. Latch is a basic component in wireless and wireline communication to enable data transmission at Gbps. Conventional latches minimise the trade-off at the cost of layout area and average power (Pavg). Coupled to a common power delivery network (PDN) and a CPU core drawing abrupt current, a 2-level latch is presented and evaluated to understand performance under process, voltage, temperature (PVT) and AC noise. An analytical delay model is also derived to understand Pavg- delay (td) trade-off. The delay model gives simple expression suitable for manual evaluation of td. The Pavg, td, power-delay-product (PDP) and figure of merit (FoM) in post-layout are 28.5 μW, 140.4 ps, 4 fJ and 172.3 ns×fJ×µm2, respectively, in 90-nm CMOS and 0.45 V Vdd. Nonetheless, at distinct corner the metrics change by 0.01 μW, 0.2 ps, 0.005 fJ and 0.4 ns×fJ×µm2, respectively, for 1°C shift in temperature. The variations for 1 mV drop in Vdd are 0.2 μW, 1 ps, 0.005 fJ and 1.4 ns×fJ×µm2, respectively. Despite this, the voltage close to the die VP oscillates with time as the CPU pumps current. The td due to AC fluctuating noise, namely, 1st droop, 2nd droop, so forth and DC (various voltage levels) are quite different. The Ldi/dt noise so generated due to the oscillations in VP introduces jitter in the output swing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) in benign vocal fold lesions. Methods: MEDLINE, Cochrane Central, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched in April 2023 for relevant clinical trials. Inclusion criteria were clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of PRP in benign vocal fold lesions. We conducted a comparative double-arm analysis using the pooled mean difference (MD) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Outcomes of interest included the vocal handicap index (VHI), the Jitter and Shimmer percentages, and the noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR). Results: Six studies matched the inclusion criteria. The pooled analysis shows that PRP was associated with significantly lower VHI scores compared with the control (MD = − 5.06, p < 0.01). Regarding the Jitter percentage, the PRP group was not superior to the control group at 2 and 4 weeks. However, the results revealed that PRP significantly reduced the Jitter percentage at 3 months (MD = − 0.61, p = 0.0008). The overall analysis favored the PRP arm significantly (p < 0.001). As for the Shimmer percentage, the combined effect estimate favored the PRP group (MD = − 1.22, p = 0.002). Subgroup analysis according to the time did not reveal any significant differences between studies at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 3 months. The analysis of the NHR outcome revealed a significant difference between both groups (MD = −1.09, p = 0.01). However, at 4 weeks, the treatment group had a significantly lower NHR % compared to the control group (MD = − 0.61, p = 0.02). There was no significant difference at 3 months (MD = − 2.14, p = 0.14). Conclusions: Platelet-rich plasma is effective in reducing VHI scores, Jitter and Shimmer percentages, and NHR values. This effect is more evident after follow-up, especially 3 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of high-power laser systems based on incoherent beam combining (IBC) depends on laser beam propagation properties in the atmosphere and their orientation on the target. We have designed an IBC system based on three different beam directing mechanisms, viz., collimated, inclined, and focused-inclined. We have mathematically modeled the laser beam propagation in the atmosphere, including turbulence, wandering, jitter, Strehl ratio, and thermal blooming. The beam propagation efficiency is evaluated for the above combinations to evaluate the IBC system performance in the turbulent atmosphere. We report the simulation results of an IBC system of 44 individual laser sources, each of 1 kW combined incoherently at a target. A comparative study of 3 beam-directing mechanisms is performed, and it is observed that the collimated beam IBC system is most affected by the atmospheric parameters due to the maximum wandering and spreading of the beam at the target compared to inclined and focused-inclined IBC. Whereas a focused-inclined IBC system is found to be the most effective for high-power energy applications, with an average intensity of more than 250 W/cm 2 , even at the 10 km target location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the last decades different types of network schemes are pitched to enhance the user performance. Software Defined Networks (SDN) is also considered as important factor for different network schemes and its proper administration or management. Due to major deployment in today's networking era SDN are further sub divided in to commercial and opensource controllers. Commercial and open-source controllers are utilized in different type of businesses. According to our knowledge considerable amount of literature is available on these controllers but did not provide or analyse performance of these controllers on different network parameters. This paper evaluates and compares the performance of two well-known SDN open-source controllers POX and RYU with two performance assessments. The first assessment is the implementation of optimal path by using Dijkstra's algorithm from source to destination. Second assessment is the creation of a custom topology in our desired tool (MiniNet emulator). Then, the performance in terms of QoS parameters such as Jitter, throughput, packet loss, and packet delivery ratio are computed by two end hosts in each network. After the assessments, the performance of POX are optimal as compare to the RYU and best suited to be deployed in any scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is devoted to development of atypical excitation approaches of bistatic laser monitor active elements for the imaging of high-speed processes at a powerful background radiation. The practical significance is increasing the temporal resolution of the bistatic laser monitor, as well as improving the imaging parameters by minimizing the jitter of radiation pulses. To achieve this goal, semiconductor excitation sources of active media based on copper bromide vapor were developed, and their synchronization was performed in a pulse-repetition mode. The developed pump sources are set of identical commutation cells. Each cell contains storage capacitor, commutator and transformer. Powerful HGTG27N120BN insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) were chosen as commutators. Their switching storage capacitors are discharged through the primary winding of the transformer and as result the voltage pulse is induced in the secondary winding. The transformer load was the gas discharge tube (GDT) of the small-size brightness amplifier with the specified geometric parameters (l = 40 cm, d = 2.5 cm, V = 196 cm3). The simultaneous switching of 10 identical cells provided GDT breakdown. The radiation power of the active element in oscillator mode was 665 mW. The developed brightness amplifier with semiconductor pump source was used in the bistatic scheme of the laser monitor for the imaging of the test object. The pumping of the second active element, the illumination source (l = 90 cm, d = 5 cm, V = 1767 cm3), was performed by means of thyratron TGI1-1000-25. The pulse repetition frequency of the illumination source and the brightness amplifier was 10.5 and 21 kHz respectively. As result each second image was formed with increased brightness and contrast. The maximal jitter of radiation pulses in this case was 16 ns. The average jitter was 6 ns. Two identical semiconductor pump sources were tested simultaneously. The resulting array of waveforms (GDT current and GDT voltage) show that in most cases the jitter was completely absent, and when it appeared, it did not exceed 4 ns. The imaging at this configuration of the pump sources was not performed due to semiconductor source power (465 W) turned out to be insufficient for the excitation of the illumination source, and therefore options for increasing it were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Vocal fold polyps (VFP) are a common cause of voice disorders and laryngeal discomfort. They are usually treated by behavioral voice therapy (VT) or phonosurgery, or a combination (CT) of both. However, the superiority of either of these treatments has not been clearly established. Methods: Three databases were searched from inception to October 2022 and a manual search was performed. All clinical trials of VFP treatment were included that reported at least auditory–perceptual judgment, aerodynamics, acoustics, and the patient-perceived handicap. Results: We identified 31 eligible studies (VT: n = 47–194; phonosurgery: n = 404–1039; CT: n = 237–350). All treatment approaches were highly effective, with large effect sizes (d > 0.8) and significant improvements in almost all voice parameters (p-values < 0.05). Phonosurgery reduced roughness and NHR, and the emotional and functional subscales of the VHI-30 were the most compared to behavioral voice therapy and combined treatment (p-values < 0.001). Combined treatment improved hoarseness, jitter, shimmer, MPT, and the physical subscale of the VHI-30 more than phonosurgery and behavioral voice therapy (p-values < 0.001). Conclusions: All three treatment approaches were effective in eliminating vocal fold polyps or their negative sequelae, with phonosurgery and combined treatment providing the greatest improvement. These results may inform future treatment decisions for patients with vocal fold polyps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effect of three different mouth opening levels on fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, harmonic to noise ratio, first formant frequency, second formant frequency and first two formants ratio in Producing vowel/a/.simple random sampling strategy was used to recruit 36 participants. 18 females and 18 males between age 18 to 29 years were recruited. the participants sustained vowel/a/7 seconds. The first 1 second and the last 1 second of the vowel were omitted in order to eliminate the vowel initiation and termination effect from the audio signal and, thereby, the middle 5 seconds were analyzed to derive acoustic parameters. Seven infrared cameras recorded mouth opening and head movements. The results showed that mouth opening level is only effective on fundamental frequency (p=0.009<0.05), shimmer (p=0.033<0.05) and first formant frequency (p=0.004<0.05). An open jaw posture places the larynx in a lower position which causes a more relaxed phonation that reduce fundamental frequency and increase shimmer. Mouth opening level has an inverse relationship with first formant frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional networking solutions are unable to meet modern computing needs due to the expanding popularity of the internet, which requires increased agility and flexibility. To meet these objectives, software-defined networking (SDN) arises. A controller is a major element that will determine if SDN succeeds or fails. Various current SDN controllers in many sectors must be evaluated and compared. The performance of two well-known SDN controllers, POX and Ryu, is evaluated in this research. We used the Mininet-WiFi emulator to implement our work and the distributed internet traffic generator (D-ITG) to assess the aforementioned controllers using delay, jitter, packet loss, and throughput metrics. What is new in our research is the study of network performance in two different types of transmission media: wired and wireless. The speed of the wired medium was chosen to be fast ethernet, which was not previously studied. In addition, the size of the packet was varied among 128, 256, 512, and 1,024 bytes. The comparison was performed on three topologies (single, linear, and tree). The experimental results showed that Ryu offers significantly lower latency, jitter, and packet loss than POX in most scenarios. Also, the Ryu controller has higher throughput than POX, especially on wireless networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) require the interfacing of two different time domains: (1) the physical time-continuous domain and (2) the computational time-discrete domain. The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem allows transitions from one domain to the other. To preserve the informational signal between both domains, strictly periodic sampling, also known as uniform spaced sampling, is required. CPSs utilise real-time systems to meet temporal constraints. However, real-time systems introduce jitter when several tasks are executed; consequently, the uniform spaced sampling is jeopardized. The Paley-Wiener-Levinson theorem should be used for non-uniform spaced sampling, but its complexity makes it unsuitable for runtime execution in CPSs. Jitter in real-time systems may cause perturbations in CPS applications. In this paper, frequency domain methodologies are proposed to analyse the perturbations introduced by real-time systems in physical applications. It is shown that jitter may introduce frequency components with the potential to jeopardize the dynamics of the physical application. In this paper, it is proposed that jitter should be related to the period of the fundamental frequency to sample, instead of to the period of the real-time task. The frequency domain methodology proposed should be used to analyse the real-time system behaviour from a CPS application point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional sub‐sampling phase‐locked loop faces the tradeoffs between phase noise and spur, in that low in‐band phase noise requires large sampling capacitor size but at the sacrifice of spur performance. This paper presents a sub‐sampling PLL aimed at minimizing in‐band phase noise via sampling thermal noise cancellation technique. It enables the substantial reduction of in‐band phase noise while reducing the sampling capacitor size. In addition, due to the reduction of the sampling capacitance, the reference spur performance of the PLL is improved, and the power consumption of the isolation buffer is reduced. Implemented in a 65 nm CMOS process, the in‐band phase noise at 200 kHz offset is −133.4 dBc/Hz at 2.2 GHz and integrated jitter is 80 fsrms. The reference spur is −67 dBc. It consumes 5.5 mA from 1.2 V supply and occupies 0.72 mm2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate an energy-harvesting IoT device transmitting (delay/jitter)-sensitive data over a wireless fading channel. The sensory module on the device injects captured event packets into its transmission buffer and relies on the random supply of the energy harvested from the environment to transmit them. Given the limited harvested energy, our goal is to compute optimal transmission control policies that decide on how many packets of data should be transmitted from the buffer's head-of-line at each discrete timeslot such that a long-run criterion involving the average delay/jitter is either minimized or never exceeds a pre-specified threshold. We realistically assume that no advance knowledge is available regarding the random processes underlying the variations in the channel, captured events, or harvested energy dynamics. Instead, we utilize a suite of Q-learning-based techniques (from the reinforcement learning theory) to optimize the transmission policy in a model-free fashion. In particular, we come up with three Q-learning algorithms: a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP)-based algorithm for optimizing energy consumption under a delay constraint, an MDP-based algorithm for minimizing the average delay under the limitations imposed by the energy harvesting process, and finally, a variance-penalized MDP-based algorithm to minimize a linearly combined cost function consisting of both delay and delay variation. Extensive numerical results are presented for performance evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, an analytic approach is proposed for estimation of oscillating signal jitter and eye diagram on a transmission line (TL). Basically, the jitter is a result of oscillator phase noise. There are two types of internal and external sources of phase noise which both are considered in the proposed stochastic estimation. Crosstalk between adjacent TLs is the main source of external phase noise on an oscillating signal of a system layout. This phenomenon on the victim TL is studied with stochastic input signal driving for the aggressor TL. For mathematical derivation, the skin effect of the TL is considered for better accuracy. The skin effect of the TL is considerable in high frequency like bit rate one. In addition, a magnetic near-field probe and test procedure are designed and proposed for the measurement of the TL operating stochastic signal without loading effect. A test board is designed and fabricated for verification of the proposed approach. The analytic derivations have good accuracy in estimation of bit rate of the TL less than 4% for the fabricated test board. For this test board, the crosstalk effect on the TL closes the eye diagram height by 30% in 20 GHz. • An analytic approach is proposed for estimation of oscillating signal jitter and eye diagram. • A closed form formal is derived for estimation of a transmission line bit rate. • The skin effect of transmission line is considered in bit rate estimation. • Internal phase noise and external stochastic crosstalk induction (aggressor line with random input signal) are accounted in jitter estimation. • A magnetic near field probe and test procedure is proposed for measurement of transmission line operating stochastic signal without loading effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an efficient simulation method for electronic transport and avalanche in single-photon avalanche diodes (SPAD). Carrier transport is simulated in the real space using a particle Monte Carlo approach based on the Fokkerâ€"Planck point of view on an advection-diffusion equation, that enables us to reproduce mobility models, including electric fields and doping dependencies. The avalanche process is computed thanks to impact ionization rates implemented using a modified Random Path Length algorithm. Both transport and impact ionization mechanisms are computed concurrently from a statistical point of view, which allows us to achieve a full multi-particle simulation. This method provides accurate simulation of transport and avalanche process suitable for realistic three-dimensional SPADs, including all relevant stochastic aspects of these devices, together with a huge reduction of the computational time required, compared to standard Monte Carlo methods for charge carrier transport. The efficiency of our method empowers the possibility to precisely evaluate SPADs figures of merit and to explore new features that were untrackable by conventional methods. An extensive series of comparisons with experimental data on state-of-the art SPADs shows a very good accuracy of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are currently no objective biomarkers that allow the quantification of negative symptoms of schizophrenia. This study therefore explored the use of acoustic features in identifying the severity of negative symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.Methods: We recruited 79 inpatients who were diagnosed with schizophrenia according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (the schizophrenia group) at the Huilongguan Hospital in Beijing, China, and 79 healthy controls from the surrounding community (the control group). We assessed the clinical symptoms of the patients with schizophrenia using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS) and recorded the voice of each participant as they read emotionally positive, neutral, and negative texts. The Praat software was used to analyse and extract acoustic characteristics from the recordings, such as jitter, shimmer, and pitch. The acoustic differences between the two groups of participants and the relationship between acoustic characteristics and clinical symptoms in the patient group were analysed.Results: There were significant differences between the schizophrenia and control groups in pitch, voice breaks, jitter, shimmer, and the mean harmonics-to-noise ratio (p < 0.05). Jitter was negatively correlated with the blunted affect and alogia subscale scores of the BNSS, both in the positive and neutral emotion conditions, but the correlation disappeared in the negative emotion condition. However, shimmer exhibited a stable negative correlation with the blunted affect and alogia subscale scores of the BNSS in all three emotion conditions. A linear regression analysis showed that pitch, jitter, shimmer, and age were statistically significant predictors of BNSS subscale scores.Conclusions: Acoustic emotional expression differs between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. Some acoustic characteristics are related to the severity of negative symptoms, regardless of semantic emotions, and may therefore be objective biomarkers of negative symptoms. A systematic method for assessing vocal acoustic characteristics could provide an accurate and feasible means of assessing negative symptoms in schizophrenia.Tweet: Acoustic emotional expression differs between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. A systematic method for assessing vocal acoustics could provide an accurate and feasible means of assessing negative symptoms in schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic voice analysis is still a valuable technique which enables voice clinicians to compare voices to differentiate them into normal and abnormal. The present study was undertaken to standardize acoustic voice parameters in normal healthy adult individuals and gender comparison among them and also acoustic voice analysis of pathological voices and it's comparison with normal healthy voices. Voice samples of vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ of 80 normal healthy adults (males = 40, females = 40) of control group and 40 patients with dysphonic voice of case group collected and acoustic voice parameters were extracted by using Praat software. There were statistically significant higher values of fundamental frequency (F0) in females, while jitter local (%), shimmer local (%) and harmonic to noise ratio (HNR) had no gender differences in normal healthy voices. Pathological voices of case group subjects with laryngeal pathologies had statistically significant higher values of jitter local (%), shimmer local (%) and lower values of HNR as compare to normal healthy voices of control group. Objective voice analysis by using Praat software is convenient, reliable and cost effective method. This study establishes normative acoustic voice parameters in normal healthy adults. There are no gender differences in adult healthy voices except fundamental frequency (F0), which is higher in females. Patients who are with dysphonic voices due to laryngeal pathologies had altered values of acoustic parameters compared to normophonic adults and clinicians can precisely differentiate pathological voices from normophonics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Speech production is the most unique task performed by a human. The speech signals consist of strings of vowels and consonants. Vowels are differentiated based on acoustic characteristics. Methodology: A total of 50 Nepali students, 25 males and 25 females of the age range 18 to 25 years with no history of voice disorders, flu, neurological disorders, speech, language impairment, and respiratory dysfunction were included in the study. Sustained phonation of five short vowels /a/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /e/ were used in order to measure the acoustic variables. PRAAT software was used to extract the acoustic parameter of voice; mean pitch, Jitter, RAP, PPQ 5, Shimmer, and APQ 11. Result: Mean and SD was calculated using SPSS. Mann–Whitney test revealed there was a highly significant difference in all the parameters taken for the study among males and females. However, the females had greater F0, jitter, RAP, PPQ5, shimmer, APQ11 than the males. Conclusion: Before implementing these norms in clinical set up we must consider that these values are developed for the adults whose L1 is Nepali language and the software used for the establishment of norms was Praat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three bit digitally controlled differential delay circuit is investigated in this work. The circuit is coupled to a normal high current power delivery network (PDN), which is capable of coming up from sleep mode (0 A) to 10 or 30 A or else 50 A in 10 ns. Simulated in a 0.09- μ m CMOS process and power supply voltage ( V dd ) of 1.1 V, the proposed circuit in post-layout can operate from 435.5 ps to 152.2 ps. The corresponding input vector (CBA) during this period switches from 000 to 111. Further, there are also intermediate states as the delay varies between the said ranges. These values of delay being dependent on the input vector has been noted to reduce monotonically. In addition to that, the post-layout delay sustains a shift of 4.0 and 6.5 ps for NN and SS process corner, respectively, following a ± 1 0 ∘ C change in temperature. But an abrupt high current I (t) pumped into the chip causes the voltage ( V p ) near the device to drop due to PDN. It also fluctuates with the natural frequency of PDN. The noise so developed induces jitter in the output swing and causes more delay between input and output in comparison to the circuit designed with zero noise in power supply. The jitter achieved for a current ramp I (t) of 0–50 A in 10 ns for the two vector CBA happens to be around 5.0 and 4.4 ps, respectively. The current ramp also generates power supply noise of 0.468 V occurring close to the silicon chip. This, in turn, corresponds to a V p of 0.642 V near the die, appearing to be much less than the required V dd of 1.1 V. Therefore, the delay is found to be affected significantly due to the sudden current ramp. It is also noted that a constant DC voltage of 0.642 V has quite different effect on delay and jitter than a fluctuating AC noise having the first droop same as that DC voltage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrophysiological alterations of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) and motor unit potential (MUP) with unloading are poorly studied. We aimed to investigate these aspects and the underlying molecular mechanisms with short‐term unloading and active recovery (AR). Eleven healthy males underwent a 10‐day unilateral lower limb suspension (ULLS) period, followed by 21‐day AR based on resistance exercise. Quadriceps femoris (QF) cross‐sectional area (CSA) and isometric maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) were evaluated. Intramuscular electromyographic recordings were obtained during 10% and 25% MVC isometric contractions from the vastus lateralis (VL). Biomarkers of NMJ molecular instability (serum c‐terminal agrin fragment, CAF), axonal damage (neurofilament light chain) and denervation status were assessed from blood samples and VL biopsies. NMJ and ion channel transcriptomic profiles were investigated by RNA‐sequencing. QF CSA and MVC decreased with ULLS. Increased CAF and altered NMJ transcriptome with unloading suggested the emergence of NMJ molecular instability, which was not associated with impaired NMJ transmission stability. Instead, increased MUP complexity and decreased motor unit firing rates were found after ULLS. Downregulation of ion channel gene expression was found together with increased neurofilament light chain concentration and partial denervation. The AR period restored most of these neuromuscular alterations. In conclusion, the human NMJ is destabilized at the molecular level but shows functional resilience to a 10‐day unloading period at least at relatively low contraction intensities. However, MUP properties are altered by ULLS, possibly due to alterations in ion channel dynamics and initial axonal damage and denervation. These changes are fully reversed by 21 days of AR. Key points: We used integrative electrophysiological and molecular approaches to comprehensively investigate changes in neuromuscular integrity and function after a 10‐day unilateral lower limb suspension (ULLS), followed by 21 days of active recovery in young healthy men, with a particular focus on neuromuscular junction (NMJ) and motor unit potential (MUP) properties alterations.After 10‐day ULLS, we found significant NMJ molecular alterations in the absence of NMJ transmission stability impairment. These findings suggest that the human NMJ is functionally resilient against insults and stresses induced by short‐term disuse at least at relatively low contraction intensities, at which low‐threshold, slow‐type motor units are recruited.Intramuscular electromyography analysis revealed that unloading caused increased MUP complexity and decreased motor unit firing rates, and these alterations could be related to the observed changes in skeletal muscle ion channel pool and initial and partial signs of fibre denervation and axonal damage.The active recovery period restored these neuromuscular changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of technology, specifically the development of information technology (IT) has had a great influence on everyone life. Due to the rapid development of technology, the traditional network architectures are no longer adequate for the nowadays communication, education, businesses, carriers, and end-users, etc. This indeed is a serious issue, as every organization, enterprise, and educational institute, etc. wants to keep itself on top and to facilitate their customers as much as possible by providing high quality services with minimum delay, etc. In order to tackle this problem, a new emerging network architecture known as software defined networking (SDN) may be employed, as it is more interactive, more flexible, controllable, scalable, and programmable. A network system has two main planes known as control and data planes. The SDN architecture/design separates the control and data planes, legalizes network information and state, and keeps the network infrastructure out of the applications. In contrast, a network may reach a point where the computer or network resources restrict the data flow governed by the bandwidth. In SDN architecture, the controller is the most significant and central component, and large SDN networks might have numerous controllers or controller domains that share network administration. Due to the obvious importance of controllers, different studies have been conducted to compare, test, and assess their performance. This study examines the implementation of Dijkstra's algorithm using two of the most important SDN open-source controllers (POX and RYU), which permits packet acquisition and transmission between end devices via the network's shortest and/or lowest load pathways. Performance of the two utilized controllers is measured in terms of various quality of service (QoS) metrics such as throughput, packet delivery ratio, jitter, and packet loss on a specific network architecture under a variety of workloads. Further, we developed a customized network topology using the Mininet which is an emulator tool for SDN. In addition, we also measured the performance of the utilized controllers in terms of various QoS metrics, using the Mininet tool. The experimental results show that the proposed system attained promising results in terms of all QoS metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiplexer (mux) latch is one of the key components for serializer interface to admit communication at Gbps. This work describes the working of a 2:1 mux-latch coupled to a power delivery network (PDN) and a CPU core drawing abrupt current. In comparison to conventional designs, multiplexer and latch operate at the same time, which is quite different because enable inputs are imperative to start latch operation. An analytical model is also derived to understand power delay trade-off and to choose gate sizes to obtain a comparable delay without increasing power. The average power and delay in post-layout are 257.7 μW and 35 ps, respectively, in a 90-nm CMOS, power supply voltage (Vdd) of 1.1 V and a clock switching at 6.25 GHz. However, a 117OC change in temperature at distinct corner allows average power to vary between 32.8 and 64 μW. The corresponding variation is 135–183.7 μW as Vdd switches from 0.75 to 1.1 V. In addition to so, delay changes between 5-14 ps and 3–12 ps for the given change in temperature and Vdd, respectively. Nonetheless, the effective supply voltage V P oscillates with time as the CPU core draws abrupt current. The delay values due to AC noise are found to be different than V P having no noise and the corresponding jitter changes linearly as a function of noise. • This work describes the working of a 2:1 mux-latch coupled to a power delivery network (PDN) and a CPU core drawing abrupt current. • An analytical model is also derived to understand power delay trade-off and to choose gate sizes to obtain a comparable delay without increasing power. • The average power and delay in post-layout are 257.7 μW and 35 ps, respectively, in a 90-nm CMOS, power supply voltage (Vdd) of 1.1V and a clock switching at 6.25 GHz. • The delay values due to AC noise are found to be different than V P having no noise and the corresponding jitter changes linearly as a function of noise. • To indicate mux-latch robustness, a 4:1 serializer is built using the proposed mux-latch in 90-nm CMOS and 1.1V Vdd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laryngopharyngeal cancers are one of the most commonly diagnosed head and neck malignancies frequently presenting primarily with change in voice. Radiotherapy being the main modality of treatment for early cancers continues to affect voice. Hence, acoustic analysis of the voice offers quantifiable values of several parameters delineating the obvious effect of the therapy. A total number of 60 patients, diagnosed with laryngopharyngeal cancers undergoing radiotherapy underwent acoustic voice assessment using Dr. speech software pre-treatment and at 1 and 3 months post radiotherapy. Data analysis was done using Mann–Whitney test and Wilcoxon signed rank test and a significant p value was obtained. The results of the study showed fundamental frequency (F0) and noise to harmonic ratio (NHR) to be the most affected in comparison to Jitter and Shimmer. The F0 and NHR values across baseline evaluation, first month and third month follow up showed a steady deterioration which was significant. The deterioration noted from the first to third month was not statistically significant. Across genders both F0 and NHR deterioration is more in males than in females. Radiotherapy causes definitive alterations in some acoustic measures of voice, which make the voice disharmonic and hoarse with contribution of harshness and breathiness. The effect is more pronounced on vocal parameters that are structure and projection based as evidenced by deterioration in values noted in F0 and NHR. Persistent deteriorated acoustic parameters for a longer duration of time are more likely which emphasizes the need for early voice rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many fields, e.g., ground-penetrating radar and ultra-wideband radiation, a high-pulse-repetition-frequency (PRF) and high-time-base-stability sub-nanosecond pulser is required, and its output waveform should be close to a gaussian pulse. In this article, the transistorized pulser is studied and optimized to improve its output parameters. The printed circuit board circuit parameters of the pulser are first optimized, which is beneficial for the amplitude and the rise time. To improve the time base stability, the collector voltage ramp triggering mode is adopted to replace the conventional base triggering mode for the pulser. For higher PRF, the pulser with the capacitance–transistor parallel structure is immersed in the fluorinert liquid. Moreover, the deficit-charge method is adopted, and small charging capacitances are used in the last few stages to weaken the oscillation in the pulse falling edge. From experimental results, the amplitude of the optimized pulser is 1.35 kV, its rise time is reduced from about 200 to 135 ps, the maximum PRF is improved from 250 to 500 kHz, the pulse jitter is reduced to 22 ps, and the pulse drift is reduced from hundreds of ps/min to 47 ps/min. Meanwhile, the oscillation in its falling edge is greatly suppressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communications from deep space need to overcome two major issues: the strong attenuation due to the large distances and the limited power available at the transmitter. A class of sensors which looks promising for deep space communications is provided by the superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors that are characterized by very small jitter (few tens of ps), fast rise (hundreds of ps), and comparatively slow decay (few ns). Although it could seem that the bottleneck is represented by the long reset time, in this article, we present a scheme whose effective rate is limited by the jitter and that is able to transmit, with a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector with a ratio between decay time and jitter equal to 170 (a typical value), almost six times faster than the rate that the decay time would allow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This monograph contains descriptions of the single fiber electromyography (SFEMG) method and of the more recently implemented method of recording jitter with concentric needle electrodes (CNEs). SFEMG records action potentials from single muscle fibers (SFAPs), which permits measuring fiber density (FD), a sensitive measure of reinnervation, and jitter, a sensitive measure of abnormal neuromuscular transmission (NMT). With voluntary activation, jitter is measured between two SFAPs with acceptable amplitude and rise time. With activation by axon stimulation, jitter is measured between the stimulus and individual SFAPs. Pitfalls due to unstable triggers and inconstant firing rates during voluntary activation and subliminal stimulation during axon stimulation should be identified and avoided. In CNE recordings, spikes with shoulders or rising phases that are not parallel are produced by summation of SFAPS; these should be excluded and reference values for CNE jitter should be used. CNE and SFEMG have similar and very high sensitivity in detecting increased jitter, as in myasthenia gravis and other myasthenic conditions. However, jitter is also seen in ongoing reinnervation and some myopathic conditions. With SFEMG, these can be identified by increased FD; however, FD cannot be measured with CNE, and conventional electromyography should be performed in muscles with increased jitter to detect neurogenic or myogenic abnormalities. Jitter is abnormal after injections of botulinum toxin, even in muscles remote from the injection site, and can persist for 6 mo or more. This can complicate the detection or exclusion of abnormal NMT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In distributed real-time communication systems, common knowledge of the global time is crucial. It prevents message violations on the bus and allows independent components to collaborate within a real-time system on a timely basis. Systems with hard real-time requirements need to have high precision and accuracy of time. This is achieved by hardware-supported frame time-stamping mechanisms as found in dedicated protocols, such as time-triggered CAN (TTCAN), Flexray, and time-sensitive networking (TSN)-enabled Ethernet. However, many microcontroller units are not specifically designed to provide such a hardware-based solution at the communication interface. Therefore, a software-based implementation of the time synchronization algorithm is needed. Nevertheless, some commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) microcontroller units already provide an IEEE 1588-enabled Ethernet interface, including a high-precision timer module with rate correction. This module can be used for time synchronization purposes to align a set of distributed clocks via various communication interfaces. This article investigates the accuracy of software-based and hardware-supported time synchronization algorithm over the controller area network (CAN) protocol using a COTS microcontroller. As a result, we present identified jitter and delay sources as well as the achieved time accuracy. We show that using an advanced timer module combined with additional system knowledge allows submicrosecond precision and accuracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous deep learning-based video stabilizers require a large scale of paired unstable and stable videos for training, which are difficult to collect. Traditional trajectory-based stabilizers, on the other hand, divide the task into several sub-tasks and tackle them subsequently, which are fragile in textureless and occluded regions regarding the usage of hand-crafted features. In this paper, we attempt to tackle the video stabilization problem in a deep unsupervised learning manner, which borrows the divide-and-conquer idea from traditional stabilizers while leveraging the representation power of DNNs to handle the challenges in real-world scenarios. Technically, DUT is composed of a trajectory estimation stage and a trajectory smoothing stage. In the trajectory estimation stage, we first estimate the motion of keypoints, initialize and refine the motion of grids via a novel multi-homography estimation strategy and a motion refinement network, respectively, and get the grid-based trajectories via temporal association. In the trajectory smoothing stage, we devise a novel network to predict dynamic smoothing kernels for trajectory smoothing, which can well adapt to trajectories with different dynamic patterns. We exploit the spatial and temporal coherence of keypoints and grid vertices to formulate the training objectives, resulting in an unsupervised training scheme. Experiment results on public benchmarks show that DUT outperforms state-of-the-art methods both qualitatively and quantitatively. The source code is available at https://github.com/Annbless/DUTCode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software-defined networking (SDN) is a new way of designing and managing networks. The central SDN controller serves as the network’s brain in the control plane. This paper compares the performance of OpenDayLight (ODL) and Ryu SDN controllers by installing the most stable version of the controllers on a realistic test environment, Mininet, on which several other SDN controllers are built. The sFlow and snort tools have been used to compare the performance of the two controllers for a variety of different workloads. Tests were carried out by launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on the host, stopping them, and then examining the outcomes. Experimental results show that the ODL controller is more effective than the Ryu controller in dealing with DDoS attacks on the SDN network. DDoS attacks are detected using Mininet analysis and the tools Snort and sFlow. The results also show that both controllers perform better in terms of flow setup latency and load shedding performance compared to the Ryu controller. The ODL controller exceeds the Ryu controller in levels of jitter, and its computational complexity outperforms the Ryu controller in terms of processing power. Based on these test findings, it can be concluded that both controllers perform equally well in terms of jitter and ODL is more reliable than Ryu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this prospective study, we aimed to investigate the difference in voice acoustic parameters between girls with idiopathic central precocious puberty (ICPP) and those who developed normally during prepuberty. Our study recruited 54 girls diagnosed with ICPP and randomly sampled 51 healthy prepubertal girls as the control. Tanner stages, circulating hormone levels and bone ages of the girls with ICPP and the age and body mass index (BMI) of all participants were recorded. Acoustic analyses were performed using PRAAT computer-based voice analysis software and the mean pitch (F0), jitter, shimmer, noise-to harmonic-ratio (NHR) and harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR) values were compared in the patient and control groups. The two groups did not significantly differ in age or BMI. In the evaluation of the F0 and jitter values, we were found to be lower in the control group than in the patient group. However, we did not find a statistical significance. The mean shimmer values of the patient group were significantly higher than those of the control group. In addition, a statistically significant difference was noted for the mean HNR and NHR values (P < 0.001). A moderate negative correlation was found between shimmer and hormone levels in the patient group. Voice acoustic parameters one of the defining features of girls with ICPP. Voice changes in acoustic parameters could reflect hormonal changes during puberty. Clinicians should suspect ICPP when there is a change in the voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve a fast and resource-efficient entropy source, we present a novel oscillator unit, called XOR-XNOR ring oscillator (XXRO) which consists of an XOR gate and an XNOR gate. The XXRO unit has an internal feedback loop that allows the accumulation of jitter within the unit. Connecting multiple XXRO units forms a new entropy source. We utilize the differences between the XXRO units in the entropy sources to output two bits pre cycle, increasing the throughput of the True Random Number Generator (TRNG) while optimizing the use of hardware resources. In this paper, we use four proposed entropy source to form a TRNG, by sampling the two outputs of each entropy source individually and performing an XOR computation based on the corresponding positions to obtain random numbers. Experimental results indicate that when working at a throughput of 250 Mbps under a 125 MHz sampling clock, both outputs of the proposed TRNG pass the randomness tests and other performance tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed Inductor-Capacitor Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (LC-VCO) prototype design generates 2.45 GHz to 4.58 GHz of frequency using the Cadence UMC 180 nm process with a 1.8V supply. This architecture carried a new viewpoint on tank design put forth by enhancing the varactor tuning. Here, the circuit employs a CMOS differential cross-coupled pair, and rail-to-rail DC biasing achieves a higher voltage swing. Simulation analysis parameters are measured at 2.45 GHz frequency, phase noise is −123.5 dBc/1 MHz offset, power is 3.5 mW, jitter is 0.232 fsec, and it occupies 0.118 μ m 2 layout area. Additionally, the simulations have been extended for analysis under Process Voltage and Temperature Corners, Monte-Carlo, and Worst-Case Corners. This study obtained a better FoM of -200.94 dBc/Hz. The simulation results and FoM of the proposed design show a considerably improved than state-of-the-art framework. This LC-VCO circuit study will be suitable for implementing the sub-6 GHz charge pump phase-locked loops (CP-PLLs) system for 5G applications. • The LC-VCO design is constructed and simulated using Cadence UMC-180 nm Technology. • The design flow diagram on tank circuits and biasing circuit topology is presented. • Enhancing varactor tuning, CMOS cross-coupled pair, & rail-to-rail biasing explored. • Findings: frequency is 2.45 GHz, power is 3.5 mW, phase noise is -123.5 dBc/@ 1MHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This monograph contains descriptions of the single-fiber electromyography (SFEMG) method and of the more recently implemented method of recording jitter with concentric needle electrodes (CNE). SFEMG records action potentials from single muscle fibers (SFAPs), which permits measuring fiber density (FD), a sensitive measure of reinnervation, and jitter, a sensitive measure of abnormal neuromuscular transmission (NMT). With voluntary activation, jitter is measured between two SFAPs with acceptable amplitude and rise time. With activation by axon stimulation, jitter is measured between the stimulus and individual SFAPs. Pitfalls due to unstable triggers and inconstant firing rates during voluntary activation and subliminal stimulation during axon stimulation should be identified and avoided. In CNE recordings, spikes with shoulders or rising phases that are not parallel are produced by summation of SFAPS; these should be excluded and reference values for CNE jitter should be used. CNE and SFEMG have similar and very high sensitivity in detecting increased jitter, as in myasthenia gravis and other myasthenic conditions. However, jitter is also seen in ongoing reinnervation and some myopathic conditions. With SFEMG, these can be identified by increased FD; however, FD cannot be measured with CNE, and conventional EMG should be performed in muscles with increased jitter to detect neurogenic or myogenic abnormalities. Jitter is abnormal after injections of botulinum toxin, even in muscles remote from the injection site, and can persist for 6 mo or more. This can complicate the detection or exclusion of abnormal NMT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jitter is one of the main factors affecting the bit error rate, and jitter decomposition is a crucial tool with which to characterize jitter at a given BER. In this article, we address this problem based on PointNet and propose a PointNet-based dual-Dirac model (PointNet-DD), where its input is the two-dimensional point cloud formed by the coordinate of the jitter histogram. In particular, we develop a feature extractor, where the stride size of the one-dimensional convolution layer of PointNet is changed to better learn the local features, the corresponding variance and mean features hidden under the jitter histogram point cloud are extracted by global max pooling and global average pooling, respectively. Then, we introduce a dual-Dirac model in the network for jitter calculation to make the estimated deterministic jitter and random jitter more accurate. Consequently, the PointNet-DD can improve the mean absolute error of jitter decomposition. Finally, this approach is practically tested on the test circuits. Experimental results show that the performance, robustness, space, and time of the proposed method are better than other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Megavolt-class pulsed gas switches play an important role in large pulsers as transfer switches. This article analyzes the breakdown process and characteristics of a megavolt self-triggered preionized switch under 100-ns pulses based on the optical diagnosis. It is discovered that the triggering spark illumination targeting the main cathode or anode can separately preionize the main gap. The discharge channel is likely to first form between trigger electrodes and the main anode. Based on the above deduction, the streamer velocity is calculated to be $0.54 \times 10^{6}$ – $2.34 \times 10^{6}$ m/s, proportional to the electric field. Also, parameters of the empirical formula for calculating the gas heating time are amended. Influence mechanisms of the switch jitter are also studied. Under pulsed preionization mode, the trigger gap breaks down when the main gap electric field is high enough, and the switch jitter is mainly determined by the self-triggering jitter. Nonetheless, the self-triggering jitter can be partly offset during the breakdown process if the changing rate of mean reduced electric field $d(E/p)$ / dt at the self-triggering time is higher than 1.0 $1.0\left(\mathrm{kV} \cdot \mathrm{ns}^{-1} \cdot \mathrm{cm}^{-1} \cdot \mathrm{MPa}^{-1}\right)$. Under sustaining preionization mode, the trigger gap breaks down prematurely, and the continuous arcing driven by switch leak current preionizes the main gap. Therefore, the influence of the self-triggering jitter on the switch jitter can be eliminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports a 320-GHz low-jitter and low-reference-spur signal source consisting of an 80-GHz integer- $N$ phase-locked loop (PLL) and a 320-GHz frequency quadrupler. The 80-GHz PLL features a novel dual-path quadrature exclusive-OR (QXOR) technique to cancel the spurs at the reference frequency and its harmonics, enabling low-spur and low-noise phase locking. The proposed phase detector (PD) also enables frequency detection and lock detection (LD), rendering the band-searching to be decoupled from the loop components. Implemented in a 0.13- $\mu \text{m}$ SiGe BiCMOS technology, the proposed signal source shows a −73.1-dBc reference spur, −113.7-dB/Hz phase noise at 1-MHz offset at 40.96 GHz, and −90.3-dB/Hz phase noise at 1-MHz offset at 311.8 GHz. It achieves an integrated jitter of 66.9 fsrms at 40.96 GHz and 122 fsrms (both integrated from 10 kHz to 100 MHz) beyond 300 GHz, with a total division ratio of 512. The LD time is at the microsecond level. The maximum output power is −3.24 dBm, and the power consumption is 372 mW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high phase noise (PN) of CMOS millimeter-wave oscillators has encouraged the adoption of wide loop bandwidth for an integer- $N$ phase-locked loop (PLL). This article proposes a quadrature sampling phase-frequency detector (QS-PFD) to disengage the tradeoff between spur rejection and loop bandwidth. With the introduction of an auxiliary path for phase detection, the spur generated by the main path is canceled without incurring extra power or degrading the loop stability. The high gain of the QS-PFD attenuates its jitter contribution to the loop. The QS-PFD enables fast frequency detection and lock detection. Implemented in 40-nm CMOS technology, the proposed PLL shows a −75-dBc reference spur, −101.5-dBc/Hz PN at a 1-MHz offset, and a minimum integrated jitter of 121.9 fsrms (10 kHz–100 MHz) at 38.2 GHz with a division ratio of 128. The lock detection time is at the microsecond level. The proposed PLL consumes 23.6 mW from a 1.1-V power supply, leading to a figure of merit (FoM) of −245 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-silicon electrical validation of high-speed input/output (HSIO) links is a critical process for product qualification schedules of high-performance computer platforms under current aggressive time-to-market commitments. Improvements in signaling methods, circuits, and process technologies have allowed HSIO data rates to scale well beyond 10 Gb/s. Noise and EM effects can create multiple signal integrity problems, which are aggravated by continuously faster bus technologies. The goal of post-silicon validation for HSIO links is to ensure design robustness of both receiver (Rx) and transmitter circuitry in real system environments. One of the most common ways to evaluate the performance of an HSIO link is to characterize the Rx jitter tolerance (JTOL) performance by measuring the bit error rate (BER) of the link under worst stressing conditions. However, JTOL testing is extremely time-consuming when executed at specification BER considering manufacturing process, voltage, and temperature test coverage. In order to significantly accelerate this process, we propose a novel approach for JTOL testing based on an efficient direct search optimization methodology. Our approach exploits the fast execution of a modified golden section search with a high BER, while overcoming the lack of correlation between different BERs by performing a downward linear search at the actual target BER until no errors are found. Our proposed methodology is validated in a realistic industrial server post-silicon validation platform for three different computer HSIO links: SATA, USB3, and PCIe3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the possibilities of detecting psychosocial stress from speech have been discussed. Yet, there are mixed effects and a current lack of clarity in relations and directions for parameters derived from stressed speech. The aim of the current study is – in a controlled psychosocial stress induction experiment – to apply network modeling to (1) look into the unique associations between specific speech parameters, comparing speech networks containing fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, mean voiced segment length, and Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio (HNR) pre- and post-stress induction, and (2) examine how changes pre- versus post-stress induction (i.e., change network) in each of the parameters are related to changes in self-reported negative affect. Results show that the network of speech parameters is similar after versus before the stress induction, with a central role of HNR, which shows that the complex interplay and unique associations between each of the used speech parameters is not impacted by psychosocial stress (aim 1). Moreover, we found a change network (consisting of pre-post stress difference values) with changes in jitter being positively related to changes in self-reported negative affect (aim 2). These findings illustrate – for the first time in a well-controlled but ecologically valid setting – the complex relations between different speech parameters in the context of psychosocial stress. Longitudinal and experimental studies are required to further investigate these relationships and to test whether the identified paths in the networks are indicative of causal relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated how properties of single-fiber action potentials (SFAP) and jitter changed in different recording sites in patients with myopathy and controls. SFAP and jitter were recorded using a disposable single-fiber electrode in the biceps brachii muscle of three patients and controls in two sites: i) near the end-plate zone (EPZ), ii) near the tendon. SFAP and spike duration were longer in patients than in controls. Moving the needle away from the EPZ did not change the electrophysiologic parameters. Longer SFAP duration may reflect slow velocity in muscle fibers and serve as an indicator for small fiber size in myopathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing the speed and power trade-off is becoming increasingly challenging as the power supply voltage (Vdd) is scaled down in each era. Existing logic circuits that address the trade-off require more power. A new logic circuit made up of one PMOS and two NMOS is evaluated while coupled to a typical power delivery network (PDN). Simulated in a 0.09 µm CMOS, the present circuit not only reduces the supply current but also achieves a constant delay than the CSL, MCML and CS-CMOS while the Vdd switches from 0.7 to 1.1 V. Besides, the power consumption and delay sustain a shift of 0.14µW and 0.3ps, respectively, following a 1OC change in temperature. However, the power consumption reduces by 0.2µW for a Vdd drop of 1mV. But the effective supply voltage close to the circuit fluctuates as the PDN draws a sudden high current. This causes the delay to change and induces jitter in the output swing. The jitter introduced for a current ramp 0–40A in 10ns is 6.7ps. The usefulness of the present design is also observed by designing a latch, master-slave flip-flop (FF), frequency divider (FD) and ring oscillator (RO). Comparing the latch, FF, FD and RO built using the conventional, proposed designs and simulated in a 0.09-µm CMOS show the lowest power and delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-sensitive networking (TSN) can help standardize deterministic Ethernet across industrial automation. The deterministic guarantee of TSN is based on network resource scheduling in the unit of flow. However, the state-of-the-art TSN single flow scheduling scheme cannot meet the coordinated scheduling requirements of multiple data flows in advanced industrial applications (e.g., control and safety applications). In this article, we propose a TSN chain flow abstraction, TC-Flow, for a coordinated multiple-flow scheduling model in industrial control and safety applications. Based on the proposed TC-Flow model, we design an offline TC-Flow scheduling algorithm using integer linear programming and an online heuristic TC-Flow scheduling algorithm to handle network dynamics. To deploy the proposed TC-Flow model and scheduling algorithms in the TSN, we design a CF-TSN network architecture that is compatible with the existing TSN single-flow scheduling scheme. Finally, we implement the proposed CF-TSN architecture and TC-Flow scheduling algorithms in real-world network environments. Experimental results show that the proposed scheduling algorithms can increase the number of schedulable flows by 26 percent compared to the state-of-the-art TSN scheduling benchmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet hosts numerous applications with different requirements for network delay, bandwidth, jitter, packet loss, and so on. However, in the TCP/IP network architecture, the network and application layers are decoupled, which means that the network does not have a fine-grained understanding of the application requirements. Therefore, it is not easy to provide truly fine-grained traffic operations for applications and guarantee their corresponding service level agreement requirements. In this article, we propose ATE6, which is an application-aware traffic engineering (TE) framework. For the control plane, we define a request language that can be used by applications to express their requirements, which allows networks to associate IPv6 addresses with the communication requirements of applications. We also devise an efficient path selection algorithm that allows the network operator to deploy an optimal TE path for an application. For the data plane, ATE6 uses segment routing over the IPv6 data plane to enforce and control network paths based on network policies. We implemented a prototype, and evaluation results show that ATE6 is a flexible, privacy-preserving, lightweight, and cost-efficient application-aware TE framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Measuring phase noise in oscillators is crucial in communication systems, vibration analysis, and frequency synthesizers. Traditionally, this measurement is done in frequency domain by estimating the ratio of the power density at an offset frequency from the carrier to the power of the carrier signal. This approach is hardware intensive and dependent on the the offset frequency, for which there exists no standard. Here, we propose an alternative method to quantify phase noise but in the time domain in the form of a root‐mean‐square true phase angle deviation. This is done using a self‐created reference signal and by applying the Hilbert transform to generate a complex analytic signal from the real time‐domain data sequence. This enables the computation of instantaneous metrics such as phase noise. Simulations and experimental results are provided to validate the proposed technique. In addition, its relationship to the origin of phase noise is mathematically explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]