F.J. Hill

There have been many attempts to perform a frequency analysis of speech and to use the outputs of this analysis to provide cutaneous stimulation. The results of these tests have left in doubt the issue of whether or not cutaneous recognition of speech is actually possible. In addition to other difficulties, an optimum frequency analysis has never been achieved. Instead, filtering configurations have been chosen essentially arbitrarily. The systems considered may well have had insufficient channel capacity for speech recognition even in the event that the tactile stimulators were arranged in an optimum manner. In this paper, several sets of finite frequency band to discrete channels filters were considered. The frequency of each discrete channel was constrained to the fixed center frequency of the corresponding band so as to be directly translatable to the position of a tactile stimulator. Tests were conducted to measure the auditory recognition rate of speech, resynthesized as the sum of these discrete channel signals. From these measurements with different numbers of channels, a representation of recognition rate as a function channel capacity was obtained. It is anticipated that these results will be helpful in the choice of the optimum filtering configuration for test in actual tactile recognition.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of cardiopulmonary bypass for thoraco-abdominal normothermic regional perfusion on the metabolic milieu of donation after cardiac death organ donors before transplantation. Methods: Local donation after cardiac death donor offers are assessed for suitability and willingness to participate. Withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy is performed in the operating room. After declaration of circulatory death and a 5-minute observation period, the cardiac team performs a median sternotomy, ligation of the aortic arch vessels, and initiation of thoraco-abdominal normothermic regional perfusion via central cardiopulmonary bypass at 37 °C. Three sodium chloride zero balance ultrafiltration bags containing 50 mEq sodium bicarbonate and 0.5 g calcium carbonate are infused. Arterial blood gas measurements are obtained every 15 minutes after every zero balance ultrafiltration bag is infused, and blood is transfused as needed to maintain hemoglobin greater than 8 mg/dL. Cardiopulmonary bypass is weaned with concurrent hemodynamic and transesophageal echocardiogram evaluation of the donor heart. The remainder of the procurement, including the abdominal organs, proceeds in a similar controlled fashion as is performed for a standard donation after brain death donor. Results: .001) . On average, donation after cardiac death donors received transfusions of 2.3 ± 1.5 units of packed red blood cells. Of the 18 donors who underwent normothermic regional perfusion, all hearts were deemed suitable for recovery and successfully transplanted, a yield of 100%. Other organs successfully recovered and transplanted include kidneys (80.6% yield), livers (66.7% yield), and bilateral lungs (27.8% yield). Conclusions: The use of cardiopulmonary bypass for thoraco-abdominal normothermic regional perfusion is a burgeoning option for improving the quality of organs from donation after cardiac death donors. Meticulous intraoperative management of donation after cardiac death donors with a specific focus on improving their metabolic milieu may lead to improved graft function in transplant recipients.

This paper treats the automatic translation of register transfer level (RTL) descriptions of digital systems to VLSI realization. The target technology is the storage logic array or SLA. The approach is aimed at applications where the emphasis is on reducing engineering effort and design turnaround time rather than maximizing chip area utilization. The paper develops a mapping between the register transfer language, AHPL, and the SLA. It is shown that each primitive explicitly appearing in an AHPL description can be mapped into an area of real estate in an SLA realization. A detailed development of some of the algorithms is presented. The entire process has been successfully implemented and applied to a set of examples. This is accomplished by developing a final stage for an already existing three-stage multi-application compiler for AHPL. Layout and routing are shown to be a single optimization process if the hardware target is an SLA.

The development of a CONLAN(CONsensus LANguage) goes back to the first Symposium on Hardware Description Languages (HDL) at Rutgers University in 1973. It was initiated by J. Lipovski, then Univ. of Florida. After two years of preparatory work the CONLAN Working Group was formed on the occasion of the third Symposium on HDL in New York. These papers represent the result of four years of hard work of a group spread out over two continents. This work is by no means complete; many things have still to be done. Nevertheless, encouraged by the positive response to an informal presentation of our approach at the fourth Symposium on HDL in Palo Alto 1979, we feel that publication of what we have obtained so far is warranted. This paper presents the basic principles of CONLAN. Two companion papers [1, 2] treat language derivation and language application within the framework of CONLAN. A more detailed report, of which a draft exists already, will be forthcoming soon.

A CONLAN document has significance only if it is read by a person or machine. That reader (environment) is required to use available facilities to respond to and interact with the document. It must provide the type checking mechanism. It must record the names of defined and declared items and provide the data base they require. It must record signal values. From such records, it can determine facts of importance to continued document evaluation. "System interfaces" are prescribed environment responses, not formally defined via CONLAN syntax.