Design and implementation of a field programmable CRC circuit architecture

The design and implementation of a programmable cyclic redundancy check (CRC) computation circuit architecture, suitable for deployment in network related system-on-chips (SoCs) is presented. The architecture has been designed to be field reprogrammable so that it is fully flexible in terms of the polynomial deployed and the input port width. The circuit includes an embedded configuration controller that has a low reconfiguration time and hardware cost. The circuit has been synthesised and mapped to 130-nm UMC standard cell [application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)] technology and is capable of supporting line speeds of 5 Gb/s. © 2006 IEEE.

Agitating for a design and regeneration agenda in a postconflict city: the case of Belfast

Introduction

Belfast has been a focus of academic attention for the last forty years with most interest centred on various aspects of ‘the Troubles’. Where there has been interest in the built environment, it has largely been about how the ‘security situation’ impacted directly on architecture and on the design and layout of social housing. This paper seeks to go beyond this to explore how the political- administrative culture of ‘the Troubles’ interacted with ‘normal’ market forces to shape the central area of the city, and to consider the responses of a recently formed activist group, known as the Forum for Alternative Belfast (hereafter referred to as the Forum). The paper is written by three of the directors of the Forum.1 Moreover, the empirical research presented here was undertaken by the Forum as part of a campaign to address issues relating to the design, layout and quality of Belfast’s built environment. In the longstanding tradition of participant observation working within an action-research paradigm, the participants have attempted to offer an account that is evidentially and purposefully selfcritical and reflective. It is of course recognised that while this approach offers many positive attributes, such as phenomenological access through immersion in the project, it also has the potential to bring compromise on research detachment and objectivity.2 To address the latter, the authors have attempted
to avoid polemical argument, and to support claims with primary or secondary research evidence. The authors also acknowledge that action-research has a chequered history; however, they would argue
that their approach is faithful to a concept that sees ‘research’ defined as understanding and ‘action’ defined as seeking change. The Forum’s very purpose is to seek change, but to do this requires evidence, collaboration and demonstration. And in this sense, it is a learning process for all participants, including the research activists, government officials, community organisations and students. The authors also recognise the complexity of factors that affect urban management and change, particularly in a city such as Belfast, which has had to cope with political violence for over thirty years. And they appreciate that in the context of conflict, governance is skewed to cope with political realities. Hamdi reminds us, however, that in practice there is an ‘important dialectic between top-down planning, with its formal and designed laws and structures, and bottom-up selforganizing collectivism—those “quantum and emergent systems” which Jane Jacobs argued long ago give cities their life and order.’3

Temporal and Urban Peripheries in Systems Thinking

The “Temporal and Urban Peripheries” is the fall project of the final year of the Architecture program of Izmir University of Economics in Turkey. With a critical and contextual look at the built environment, the studio focuses on the significance of the incorporation of history, urban design, and parametrics in architectural design. This short article presents the thrust of the studio, basic concepts, the process, and outcomes.

Special issue on design and programming of signal processors for multimedia communication:Special issue on design and programming of signal processors for multimedia communication

The technical challenges in the design and programming of signal processors for multimedia communication are discussed. The development of terminal equipment to meet such demand presents a significant technical challenge, considering that it is highly desirable that the equipment be cost effective, power efficient, versatile, and extensible for future upgrades. The main challenges in the design and programming of signal processors for multimedia communication are, general-purpose signal processor design, application-specific signal processor design, operating systems and programming support and application programming. The size of FFT is programmable so that it can be used for various OFDM-based communication systems, such as digital audio broadcasting (DAB), digital video broadcasting-terrestrial (DVB-T) and digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H). The clustered architecture design and distributed ping-pong register files in the PAC DSP raise new challenges of code generation.

Creating Shared Public Space in the Contested City: The Role of Urban Design

This paper examines relevant characteristics of the ‘contested city’ and the concept of ‘public space’ in that problematic context. It offers an appraisal of the historical and contemporary role of urban design in shaping social space and interrogates the feasibility of using urban design to facilitate more integrated cityscapes. It presents detailed case studies of two ‘contested cities’, Nicosia and Belfast, based on content analysis of policy and planning documents, extensive site analyses in both places, interviews and seminar discussions with policy makers, planners, community and civic leaders. The paper comprises four dimensions—conceptual, descriptive, analytical and prescriptive—and in its final section identifies core values and relevant policies for the potential achievement of shared space in contested cities.

Design and Practice in Architectural Theory Education

Benefiting from design in theory learning is not common in architecture schools. The general practice is to design in studio and to theorise in lectures. In the undergraduate module History and Theory in Architecture II at Queen’s University Belfast, students attend interactive lectures, participate in reading group discussions, design TextObjects, and write essays. TextObjects contain textual, audio and/or graphic representations that highlight a single concept or a complex set of issues derived from readings. Students experiment with diverse media, such as filmmaking, photography, and graphic design, some of which they experience for the first time. Lectures and readings revolve around theories of architectural representation, media and communication, which are practiced through TextObjects. This is a new way to link theory and practice in architectural education. Through action research, this study analyses this innovative teaching method called TextObject, which brings design and practice into architectural theory education to stimulate students towards critical thinking. The pedagogical research of architectural theoretician Necdet Teymur (1992, 1996, 2002) underlies the study.

Design and test of a bit parallel 2nd order IIR filter structure

Test procedures for a pipelined bit-parallel IIR filter chip which maximally exploit its regularity are described. It is shown that small modifications to the basic architecture result in significant reductions in the number of test patterns required to test such chips. The methods used allow 100% fault coverage to be achieved using less than 1000 test vectors for a chip which has 12 bit data and coefficients.