Electronic Era Research Articles

Nonvolatile semiconductor memory revolutionizing information storage

(1) NVSM has revolutionized the information-storage technology and has ushered in the mobile electronics era. (2) NVSM has enabled the development of numerous new electronic applications and has penetration rates of over 90% in electronic systems since 2005; it is ubiquitous. (3) Flash memory owns many good attributes for an almost ideal memory. Therefore, it is an inevitable key component in many applications. (4) NAND-based Flash is not only for memory use but is the best solution today for semiconductor digital-mass storage among all other semiconductor choices. Many exotic/emerging technologies are under research for the next-generation candidate, but as of today, none are ready to overtake the floating-gate NVSM- the gap is still quite large.

Utilization of low-complexity and drift-reduction architecture in downscaling transcoder

Downscaling between various video sizes is an important field in transcoding, especially in the era of communication and consumer electronics. Architectures are proposed to offer the best strategy in downscaling. We combine an intra refresh mechanism with a partial encode architecture. A new intra refresh decision mechanism is then proposed based on visual quality constraint. Not only does the work improve transcoded video quality, but overall complexity is also kept low. The experiment results show that the proposed work achieves a 0.5 to 2.5-dB advance in quality, compared with intra refresh in the open loop and partial encode architectures.

My Life in Crime and Other Academic Adventures (review)

Reviewed by: My Life in Crime and Other Academic Adventures Roderick A. Macdonald (bio) Martin L. Friedland. My Life in Crime and Other Academic Adventures. University of Toronto Press. xii, 514. $45.00 Some professors accomplish much in a short career. Some have a long career, but accomplish little. Fortunately for Canadian law and letters, Martin Friedland has enjoyed a remarkable half-century scholarly career during which he has continuously accomplished much. Even more fortunately, he has recorded and interpreted this career with his habitual insight, grace, and felicitous prose. This is no string of anecdotes, although there are anecdotes aplenty. Friedland weaves the personal, the professional, the scholarly, the descriptive, and the analytical into a seamless narrative of one extraordinary life in the law. I read this memoir with the passion of a forensic scientist, for my own career has often been punctuated by transformative encounters (both in person and mediated by text and context) with Marty. How, I thought, would he understand and articulate the broader circumstances of those encounters? The first time I ‘met’ Martin Friedland, the professor, was in late August 1969, when I acquired Cases and Materials on Criminal Law and Procedure, the assigned text for my first-year criminal law course at Osgoode Hall. Even before my initial class, I had thumbed the volume. The use of materials, including a police photograph, from a single case (R. v. Truscott) to illustrate the dynamics of the criminal trial process was only the first of Marty’s many innovative contributions over the years to law teaching. Five years later, Marty was ensconced as dean of Law at the University of Toronto, in which capacity he hosted a lunch for me and the other members of the LL.M. class of 1974. In turn we replied to his query as to how we had passed the summer. When I said that I had worked at a [End Page 449] summer camp north of Toronto, he left me with a quip about the peculiarities of institutional life (not least in universities) that I have often used since: ‘The whole world is just a big summer camp.’ This book bears testimony to the fact that, in the Toronto of our youth, summer camp is where we met many of the most important people in our lives (including our spouses) and where we learned about the world. A decade later I saw Marty in action again as a member of a committee he chaired that was meant to develop a project in law for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. While I became formally involved with the project only some years later, that early setting gave me insight into why Marty has been asked so often to take on high-profile and highly sensitive committees of inquiry. Marty is a great listener, is highly organized, breaks projects into manageable stages, does not lose the thread, writes magnificently, and delivers what he undertakes to accomplish on time – all qualities reflected in the various chapters of this chronicle. The enrolment of his son Tom at the McGill Law Faculty during my deanship, and a visit to Montreal to promote his book, The Case of Valentine Shortis, gave me the opportunity to invite Marty to one of our faculty retreats. As professors and colleagues we benefited greatly from his insight into contemporary challenges of pedagogy and scholarship at the dawn of the electronic era. Few academics can match his knowledge, wisdom, and commitment to the noble enterprise that is legal education in Canada. Indeed, the further one gets in this memoir the greater is one’s admiration for the working methods of a scholar who, while truly committed to conventional law, has made an enormous contribution to interdisciplinarity in legal inquiry. As the above recital intimates, it has been an enormous privilege for me to have profited from Marty’s counsel in so many and such diverse settings. And in reading Marty’s own account of his career I realize that it is studded with dozens of like moments in every dimension, involving hundreds of students and colleagues whom he touched as deeply. In every chapter the reader catches a different glimpse of...

But what have you done for me lately? Commercial Publishing, Scholarly Communication, and Open-Access

We discuss our experience in both commercial and open-access publishing. We argue that, in the papyrocentric (paper-centered) era before 1990, commercial publishers served a useful and necessary purpose. In the electronic era, post 2000, the academy has very little to gain from commercial publishers, who may actually impede rather than facilitate scholarly communication. We consider the costs of running an open-access journal and argue that they are considerably less than is commonly supposed. We describe the role of workflow and content-management software systems and how they can facilitate not only open-access journals, but also working-paper series, conference organization, scholarly societies, and other forms of scholarly communication.

Patient safety and privacy in the electronic health information era: Medical and beyond

Patient safety and privacy in the electronic health information era: Medical and beyond

Challenges of Digital Heritage Materials Preservation in Botswana

The media for recording information has evolved over time. In the past, stone, wood, metal, clay and paper served as information storage media. Developments in science and technology over the past two centuries have now necessitated the transition from paperbased formats to a variety of media and further deepened the challenges of materials preservation. Increasingly, information is now in electronic multi-media form occasioned by its creation, storage and dissemination in picture, sound, text or combination of these. Information resources in the electronic era now range or exist in the form of simple text-based files such as word processing files, to highly sophisticated web-based resources such as databases, websites, mails and storage mediums such as diskettes, flush drives, CD ROMs and others. This paper documents work undertaken to assess the current practices for heritage digital materials preservation in Botswana with a view to identifying strategies and policy issues for the long-term preservation of digital materials. The study sought to establish the current situation regarding digital materials preservation in national archives, libraries, museums, media organizations and other public institutions involved in the creation, collection, and storage of heritage materials. It also investigated the institutional capacities (human and material) for collection, storage and preservation, and provision of access to digital information in Botswana. The paper further makes several recommendations on the policies and strategies for improving the state of national digital material preservation in Botswana. Keywords: Botswana, National digital material, Preservation ESARBICA Vol. 27 2008: pp. 171-202

SoC and SiP, the Yin and Yang of the Tao for the New Electronic Era

ldquoMore than Moorerdquo is becoming the password for these coming years. New steps to overcome technology limitations to diffuse, on the same die, different chips to have a complete system have been developed. This approach is called system in package (SiP), a way to have in a package dies of logic, analog, memory, passive components, etc., assembled to obtain a miniaturized board. SiP performances and limitations are here analyzed to understand advantages versus system on chip (SoC). This paper is a discussion about the main items that can lead to the choice of the right approach-SiP or SoC-before a system design start. Three persons attend to our virtual meeting: an SoC technology development manager, expert in microcontroller embedded memories and technology integration; an SiP analog radio-frequency design senior expert; and a moderator that designed embedded memories and now SiP, all involved to understand how to reach a tradeoff among these two approaches. Like for the Yin and Yang, symbol of the equilibrium for the Taoist philosophy, the two opposites divide the circle of the life, with a piece of each in the other.

Arrangement and description of architectural records: time-honored principles and new technologies

The basic archival practices for arrangement and description of architectural records evolved prior to the electronic era. Now as more is being learned about digital documentation of architecture, the underlying principles of arrangement and description continue to be validated even as archival practices evolve. In archival arrangement the principles of provenance or respect des fonds and original order are now being understood as a way to capture and retain information on the source and organization of groups of documents. In archival description, computer-based information tools have become widely adopted and the power of the internet and the world wide web are improving delivery of information. As technological solutions continue to evolve, the underlying principles and goals of archival arrangement and description will remain unchanged even as they continue to be adapted to the changing information environment.

Ambient Electronics and Digital Fabrication: Print Electronics Everywhere!

In view of the tremendous technical challenges for realizing next-generation information technology, organic semiconductors have attracted significant attention since the emerging electronics based on them have features that are complimentary to main stream electronics based on silicon. Thanks to the recent advent of organic transistors, the emergence of a new class of electronics makes full use of the unique features of organic semiconductors, such as the ultralow cost, low weight, and flexibility, is becoming more realistic. With this background, our group discerned that large-area circuits could be easily fabricated using organic transistors, which are essential for certain applications, and has developed large-area sensors and actuators using organic transistors. More accurately, we have integrated various types of sheet-type sensors and sheet-type actuators with organic transistors on plastic films and have demonstrated the world's first electronic artificial skins (E-skins), sheet-type Braille displays, and many other sheet-type devices. In the forthcoming ambient electronics era, multiple electronic objects are scattered on walls, ceilings or in imaginative locations and interact each other to enhance safety, security and convenience. For implementation of many electronic objects in our daily life, large-area sheet-type devices, which would be printed on plastic sheet, cloth, and/or paper, are expected to play an important role. In this talk, I will describe recent progress and future prospects of organic transistor-based flexible, large-area sensors and actuators. Moreover, the issues and the future prospect of digital fabrication will be addressed from the view point of ambient electronics.

The Right to Privacy in the Information Era: A South Asian Perspective

The famous saying that “Your freedom ends where my nose begins” may, in the electronic era, be transformed to mean “Your freedom ends where my ‘Network’ begins”. The progression into an e-literate society in which the electronic medium is used to transact all forms of business – including government (e-governance) – has greatly increased the need to protect the privacy of the individual from invasions not only by the State, but also from others who seek to profit from such intrusions. This paper probes into the latest trends in modern technology and analyses the existing legal framework in Sri Lanka and India in support of the argument that the right to privacy must be guarded as a constitutional right.

An investigation into electronic‐source plagiarism in a first‐year essay assignment

Since the emergence of the electronic era, plagiarism has become an increasingly prevalent problem at tertiary institutions. This study investigated the role electronic sources of information played in influencing plagiarism in an essay assignment in a first‐year geography module at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal in South Africa. Despite explicit instruction in tutorials on academic writing, referencing and plagiarism, a quarter of students still plagiarised in their essay, with the majority having done so off the Internet. A survey questionnaire and interviews revealed that not only did the school writing experience prepare students poorly for academic writing discourses, but also highlighted that student ignorance with regard to acknowledgement of electronic sources, a pervasive perception of difference between electronic and print sources, as well as the availability of the copy‐and‐paste facility which reinforces the product view of writing, all contributed towards electronic‐source plagiarism. Active instructional engagement with electronic‐source material, and open dialogue on ownership of knowledge as well as on moral and ethical issues with students, are recommended as strategies to overcome such plagiarism.

Gels excel

Printing electronic circuits will usher in a new era in electronics. With ion gel dielectrics, unprecedented transistor performance and speeds at low voltage can be demonstrated.

Editorial

Editorial

English

The relationship between law and technology has to be strengthened to raise the level of present electronic era. Though it is a challenging task, as per the latest know-how, it is the time to respond to new technologies. Till recently, the law makers handled problems presented by technology without breakdown of legal resources. Convergence of computers and Internet has posed a much graver problem, which legal policy makers find difficult to address. Music and film industries are also facing the heat of Internet piracy. Their reliance on traditional laws pertaining to copyright or other laws have not produced the expected results. In this scenario, a new emerging revolutionary digital technology, that could enable the originator to manage, control, permit usage of digital content is most welcoming. This article discusses the possibilities of paper management of IPR becoming digital management of IPR and surmise that DRM is becoming an important tool to manage digital products. DOI: 10.14429/djlit.28.5.214

Nonbanks and Risk in Retail Payments: EU and US

This paper documents the importance of nonbanks in retail payments in the United States and in 15 European countries and analyses the implications of the importance and multiple roles played by nonbanks on retail payment risks. Nonbanks play multiple roles along the entire payment processing chain. They are prominent in the United States and their presence is high and growing in Europe as well, although there are differences among the various countries and payments classes. Nonbanks' presence has shifted the locus of risks in retail payments towards greater relevance of operational and fraud risk. The paper reviews the main safeguards in place, and concludes that there may be a need to reconsider some of them in view of the growing role of nonbanks and of the global reach of risks in the electronic era.

Prospective crystallization of amorphous Si films for new Si TFTs

AbstractProspective crystallization results of amorphous silicon film are reviewed and are discussed. Silicon TFTs are playing an important role for Active‐Matrix Flat Panel Displays (AM‐FPD) based on amorphous or poly‐Si thin‐film transistors (TFTs). Poly‐Si TFTs provide a possibility to develop highly functional system on pane (SoP) applications. In order to get a high performance TFT, large poly‐crystal grains or high cystallinity for the film is required. Two basic crystallization techniques namely solid phase crystallization (SPC) and excimer laser crystallization (ELC) are reviewed and relating issues are described. A grain growth technique has been developed based on the two crystallization techniques, so far. In order to mount a poly‐Si TFT system on a flexible panel such as a plastic, an excimer laser of UV pulse beam has an advantage for the TFT channel as well as for the source and drain contacts as a ultra‐low temperature poly‐Si (U‐LTPS) process. To realize a high performance TFT of uniform and high carrier mobility, location control crystallization had been proposed. Some of the distinctive results for crystal orientation control of (100) and (111) face using the laser crystallization techniques are described. In the future, single‐crystalline Si TFT of a functional 3D structure is expected to realize an advanced SoP for ubiquitous electronics era. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

The electronic era

The electronic era

Library systems in the electronic era

The ‘traditional’ academic library system model – i.e. a central system constructed around a common catalogue record that also dictated the end-users' view – is breaking down. Systems that were constructed to handle the processing and lending of printed items are no longer capable, on their own, of dealing with the variety of different information resources handled by modern academic libraries. A great deal has been written about how end-users expect more ‘Web 2.0’ features than library catalogues currently provide. New front-end services have been designed by libraries and library system providers to cater for this need. However, not much has been written about the needs of internal library staff who struggle with processing, handling, and supporting the huge volume of electronic resources subscribed to by libraries. Electronic resource management systems have been developed to cater for these needs, and new standards for data interchange with such systems have been developed. Just as standards were important in encouraging electronic data interchange (orders, invoices, claims, etc.) between libraries, publishers, and agents in the last century, so new standards are evolving for such transactions in the electronic era.

A heuristics-based approach to reverse engineering of electronic services

Since the beginning of the electronic era, public administrations and enterprises have been developing services, through which citizens, businesses and customers can conduct their transactions with the offering entity. Each electronic service contains a substantial amount of knowledge in the form help texts, rules of use or legislation excerpts, examples, validation checks, etc. This knowledge has been extracted from domain experts when the services were developed, especially in the phases of analysis and design, and was subsequently translated into software. In the latter format though, knowledge cannot be readily used in organizational processes, such as knowledge sharing and development of new services. In this paper, we present an approach for reverse engineering electronic services in order to create knowledge items of high levels of abstraction, which can be used in knowledge sharing environments as well as in service development platforms. The proposed approach has been implemented and configured to generate artifacts for the SmartGov service development platform. Finally, an evaluation of the proposed approach is presented to assess its efficiency regarding various aspects of the reverse engineering process.

Profile of Michael D. Fayer

A career in science seems inevitable to anyone growing up in a family like Fayer's. His father, William, an electrical engineer at the dawn of the modern electronics era, exuded excitement for science and technology and transmitted that fascination to his son.