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Video processing in software is often characterized by highly fluctuating, content-dependent processing times, and a limited tolerance for deadline misses. We present an approach that allows close-to-average-case resource allocation to a single video processing task, based on asynchronous, scalable processing, and QoS adaptation. The QoS adaptation balances different QoS parameters that can be tuned by user-perception experiments: picture quality, deadline misses, and quality changes. We model the balancing problem as a discrete stochastic decision problem, and propose two closely related solution strategies, for which the processing-time statistics are determined off line and at run time, respectively. We enhance both strategies with a compensation for structural (non-stochastic) load fluctuations. Finally, we validate our approach by means of simulation experiments, and conclude that both enhanced strategies perform close to the theoretical optimum.

A generalisation of the classical assignment statement is described together with two generalizations of the sequential composition operator.The semantics is given by a meaning function. Each statement takes two input states instead of one: the first state is to be modified by the assignments in the statement where as the second state provides the con-text for evaluating the right hand sides of the assignments in the statement. The semantics of the generalised assignments and the composition operators are defined formally. Then the algebraic properties of the operators are investigated.

In the past three years, the knowledge on the protein composition of blood has been greatly improved; for example the number of proteins identified in blood has increased 30 fold from 300 to almost 10.000. We discuss the techniques used to separate these proteins, in particular liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. By applying in-silico digestion and separation on the most recent list of known serum proteins, we study separation schemes and apply this to searching for protein biomarkers signalling disease.

The dielectric constant of a metallization system can be reduced drastically by introduction of air gaps between metal lines. It was the objective of the activities reported here to demonstrate processes that allow to incorporate air gaps in single-metal layer structures. Two different methods were used for this purpose: Philips favoreda "sacrificial materials" approach where the dielectric material between the metal lines was removed underneath a porous hard mask layer by thermal decomposition; the air gaps of Infineon's "close-off" approach were etched between metal lines by RIE and subsequently sealed at the top by a novel selective oxide deposition. In both cases,air gaps could be created successfully and reproducibly. The Philips air gaps are less than 150 nm wide. Preliminary electrical measurements indicate that the capacitance between adjacent metal lines indeed can be reduced to a value that is compatible with the requirements of the ITRS roadmap for the 45 nm node. The reliability performancewill be evaluated in the remaining part of the project.

Molecular Imaging allows the visualization of biological processesin vivo, offering new chances for healthcare with respect to early diagnosis and improved therapy. The new field of molecular imaging isboosted by more sensitive imaging systems and the emergence of targeted imaging agents that home in on molecules of interest. This chapter describes the principles of molecular imaging and the differentstrategies to design targeted agents. Each imaging modality offers certain strong points but also shortcomings, which impact targeted agent design and their potential area of application.

From a numerically exact solution of the Master equation for hoppingtransport in a disordered energy landscape with a Gaussian densityof states, we determine the dependence on temperature, carrier density, and electric field of the charge carrier mobility. Experimentalspace-charge limited currents in semiconducting polymer-based devices are excellently reproduced with this unified description of the mobility. At room temperature it is mainly the dependence on carrier density that plays an important role, whereas at low temperatures andhigh fields the electric field dependence becomes important. Omission of the carrier-density dependence has led to an underestimation of the hopping distance and the width of the density of states in these polymers.

The famous max-flow min-cut theorem states that a source node can send information through a network ( ) to a sink node at a rate determined by the min-cut separating and . Recently, it has been shown that this rate can also be achieved for multicasting to several sinks provided that the intermediate nodes are allowed to re-encode the information they receive. We demonstrate examples of networks where theachievable rates obtained by coding at intermediate nodes are arbitrarily larger than if coding is not allowed. We give deterministic polynomial time algorithms and even faster randomized algorithms fordesigning linear codes for directed acyclic graphs with edges of unit capacity. We extend these algorithms to integer capacities and tocodes that are tolerant to edge failures.