Advance Engineering Division

Real-time video compression is a challenging subject for FPGA implementation because it typically has a large computational complexity and requires high data throughput. Previous implementations have used parallel banks of FPGAs or DSPs [1,2,3] to meet these requirements. Using design techniques that maximize FPGA utilization, we have implemented two video compression systems, each of which uses a single FPGA. In the first system, algorithmic optimizations are made to create a low-complexity implementation that exploits the in-system programmability of the FPGA. This low-complexity implementation performs well, but is limited to a single compression algorithm. In the second system, the FPGA is augmented with an external, low-complexity, video signal processor (VSP [4,.) This combination of ASIC and FPGA is flexible enough to implement four common compression algorithms, and powerful enough to execute them in real time.

The quality of wireless links suffers from timevarying channel degradations such as interference, flat-fading, and frequency-selective fading. Current radios are limited in their ability to adapt to these channel variations because they are designed with fixed values for most system parameters such as frame length, error control, and processing gain. The values for these parameters are usually a compromise between the requirements for worst-case channel conditions and the need for low implementation cost. Therefore, in benign channel conditions these commercial radios can consume more battery energy than needed to maintain a desired link quality, while in a severely degraded channel they can consume energy without providing any quality-of-service (QoS). While techniques for adapting radio parameters to channel variations have been studied to improve link performance, in this paper they are applied to minimize battery energy. Specifically, an adaptive radio is being designed that adapts the frame length, error control, processing gain, and equalization to different channel conditions, while minimizing battery energy consumption. Experimental measurements and simulation results are presented in this paper to illustrate the adaptive radio's energy savings.

The DO detector at Fermilab has been collecting data with its new, Ethernet-based Data Acquisition (DAQ) System since spring 2002. The system was built almost exclusively with commercially available components, and designed to read in event fragments at a rate of 1 kHz from about 70 VME crates, assemble the events with a typical size of 250 kB and pass them to the Level 3 trigger farm, composed of about 160 CPUs, for final event selection. Accepted events are sent to the online system to he stored on tape at an average rate of 50 Hz. The event fragments are read out over VME using Single Board Computers (SBCs) and sent to the trigger farm through 100 Mb/s and 1 Gb/s Ethernet connections via a series of Ethernet switches. This paper gives an overview of the main components of the DAQ and trigger system and reports on its performance during the first year of operation.

Background: Capecitabine and oxaliplatin are both active anticancer agents in the treatment of patients with advanced colorectal cancer. The aim of this phase II study is to determine the efficacy and tolerability of combining oxaliplatin with capecitabine in the treatment of advanced non-pretreated colorectal cancer.

It is well known that children's language development lays the foundation for their literacy development, though it is difficult for preschool teachers alone to consistently engage in the individual interactions necessary to boost children's language skills. Given that parents are their children's first teachers, it is imperative to consider how parents can help improve their children's language and emergent literacy development prior to formal schooling. This article reviews parent-training studies of children's language and literacy in three contexts: parent-child book-reading; parent-child conversations; and parent-child writing. Parent training in each of these contexts has the capacity to improve children's language and literacy, with the effects being specific to the targeted skill. All three contexts are potentially valuable sites for training parents to help their children's language and literacy. In conclusion, parents are an undertapped resource for improving children's language and literacy.

The European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is an introduced species in Britain, and populations have been profoundly in¯uenced by both man and disease. In stable environmental conditions, distinct social behaviour is observed, and this social structure leads to signi®cant genetic structuring at the intrapopulation level. In this study, European wild rabbits were sampled from 17 sites across the East Anglian region of Britain and genotyped with nine microsatellite loci. Genotypical proportions deviated signi®cantly from Hardy±Weinberg equilibrium, re¯ecting a degree of population subdivision and non-random mating. Several estimates of measures of population genetic structure revealed that populations are genetically distinct and have small eective population sizes. These distinctive properties are seen to be the combined eects of the social structure and random drift acting on bottlenecked populations after myxomatosis. It is concluded that the genetic structure seen in rabbit populations today is unlikely to re¯ect historical structuring present before myxomatosis, but that it results from recent events.

Objective An initial audit was conducted in 2001 to monitor all women referred for female sterilisation. This reaudit in 2003 set out to investigate those women who initially chose alternative reversible contraception and ascertain whether they were still using that method or if they or their partner had requested sterilisation.

Scytalidium thermophilum type culture Humicola insolens MTCC 4520 isolated from composting soil was optimized for production of cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes (endoglucanase, Avicel-adsorbable endoglucanase, FPase, β-glucosidase, xylanase and mannanase) by solid-state fermentation (SSF). Initial experiments showed that culture medium containing rice straw and wheat bran (1:3) as carbon source prepared in a synthetic basal medium supported maximal enzyme production at 45 °C. Further optimization of enzyme production was carried out using Box-Behnken design of experiments to study the influence of process variables (inoculum level, (NH4)2SO4 and pH) on enzyme production. The response surface plots revealed the conditions for obtaining optimal enzyme levels. The models computed for R 2 value ranged between 95% and 98.7% indicating they are appropriate and can be useful to predict the effect of inoculum level, (NH4)2SO4 and pH on enzyme production. Under optimized conditions 62.5 ± 0.50, 23.0 ± 0.58, 3.0 ± 0.50, 151.00 ± 8.194, 196 ± 5.033 and 4.9 ± 0.32 (units/g substrate) of endoglucanase (EG), Avicel-adsorbable endoglucanase (AAEG), FPase, β-glucosidase, xylanase and mannanase were produced, respectively. Isoelectric focusing (IEF) of the crude extract showed that S. thermophilum produced six different EG isoforms, of which the EG corresponding to pI values of 8.4, 7.9 and 6.5 showed affinity for Avicel, thereby indicating the presence of a cellulose-binding domain (CBD). Furthermore, seven isoforms of β-glucosidase and ten multiple forms of xylanase distributed over a wide range of pI were also detected.