Physical Design

A well-known problem in timing verification of VLSI circuits using static timing analysis tools is the generation of false timing paths. This leads to a pessimistic estimation of the processor speed and wasted engineering effort spent optimizing unsensitizable paths. Earlier results have shown how ATPG techniques can be used to identify false paths efficiently [6],[9], as well as how to bridge the gap between the physical design on which the static timing analysis is based and the test view on which ATPG technique is applied to identify false paths . In this paper, we will demonstrate efficient techniques to identify more false timing paths by utilizing information from an ordered list of timing paths according to the delay information. More than 10% of additional false timing paths out of the total timing paths analyzed are identified compared to earlier results on the MPC7455, a Motorola processor executing to the PowerPC T M 1 instruction set architecture.

The efficient retrieval of data items on set-valued attributes is an important research topic that has attracted little attention so far. We studied and modified four index structures (sequential signature files, signature trees, extendible signature hashing, and inverted files) for a fast retrieval of sets with low cardinality. We compared the index structures by implementing them and subjecting them to extensive experiments, investigating the influence of query set size, database size, domain size, and data distribution (synthetic and real). The results of the experiments clearly indicate that inverted files exhibit the best overall behavior of all tested index structures.

The exterior design of existing preschool environments is evaluated in the context of contemporary writings by architects focusing on creating designs that nurture childrenÕs emotions. Sense of place research is discussed in relation to young childrenÕs experiences. Findings reveal that the majority of sites included in the study incorporated many physical design elements that create a sense of place for children in preschool environments, including small-scale structures, windows, landscaping, natural wall materials, and thresholds. Recommendations for administrators and directors planning and designing a new or remodeled preschool environment include incorporating features that reflect home-like environments with windows, thresholds, and landscaping.

In this paper, evolutionary algorithms are explored with the objective of demonstrating that they offer the most efficient and adequate solution to the Index Selection Problem (ISP). The final target is to develop a self-tuning database system requiring little (or no) intervention from experts in physical design. Following the evaluation of the proposal and the discussion of experimental results, conclusions are made regarding the possibilities presented by evolutionary algorithms for future projects.

In this paper, we deal with the problem of determining the best possible physical implementation of an ETL workflow, given its logical-level description and an appropriate cost model as inputs. We formulate the problem as a state-space problem and provide a suitable solution for this task. We further extend this technique by intentionally introducing sorter activities in the workflow in order to search for alternative physical implementations with lower cost. We experimentally assess our method based on a principled organization of test suites.

It is now known that the quality of the physical, designed environment of early childhood centers - size, density, privacy, well-defined activity settings, modified open-plan space, a variety of technical design features and the quality of outdoor play spaces - is related to children's cognitive, social and emotional development. A number of scales are in existence for assessing childcare centres and are widely used around the English-speaking world, including the Harms' et al family of Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales (ECERS, ITERS and ECERS-R) and the NAEYC Accreditation Procedures. The new Children's Physical Environments Rating Scale (CPERS), however, is the first tool for centre directors, early childhood educators, policy makers and regulators to assess the quality of the physical environment of childcare, preschool, kindergarten and other early childhood education settings. CPERS is based on a Piagetian ecological theory of child development and the en...

While cemeteries represent a part of any society's cultural heritage, their continued existence in urban areas has raised concerns, mainly due to the scarcity of urban land. Referring specifically to the Chinese cemeteries of Kuala Lumpur, this paper explored the perceptions among the local Chinese residents of the possible multi-dimensional uses of cemeteries for recreational purposes. This issue involves questions of city planning and future land use, urban green purposing and the potential contribution of such land to urban fabric enhancement. Specifically, the authors intended to identify the influence of demographic profile on perceptions in consideration of future planning of cemeteries for recreational purposes. A total of 403 questionnaire samples were collected for analysis. The analysis findings indicated that the possible use of cemeteries for educational purposes was favoured among the respondents in general, with a higher acceptance rate of multiple uses of cemeteries for recreational purposes among younger respondents. Physical design enhancing landscaping, avoiding conflicts overuse, appropriate safety measures and awareness campaigns are all vital if cemeteries are to be promoted for recreational purposes.

Without the MCNC and ISPD98 benchmarks, it would arguably not have been possible for the academic community to make consistent advances in physical design over the last decade. While still being used extensively in placement and floorplanning research, those benchmarks can no longer be considered representative of today's (and tomorrow's) physical design challenges. In order to drive physical design research over the next few years, a new benchmark suit is being released in conjunction with the ISPD2005 placement contest. These benchmarks are directly derived from industrial ASIC designs, with circuit sizes ranging from 210 thousand to 2.1 million placeable objects. Unlike the ISPD98 benchmarks, the physical structure of these designs is completely preserved, giving realistic challenging designs for today's placement tools. Hopefully, these benchmarks will help accelerate new physical design research in the placement, floorplanning, and routing.

Modern processors and SoCs require the adoption of poweroriented design styles, due to the implications that power consumption may have on reliability, cost and manufacturability of integrated circuits featuring nanometric technologies. And the power problem is further exacerbated by the increasing demand of devices for mobile, battery-operated systems, for which reduced power dissipation is mandatory. A large fraction of the power consumed by a synchronous circuit is due to the clock distribution network. This is for two reasons: First, the clock nets are long and heavily loaded. Second, they are subject to a high switching activity. The problem of automatically synthesizing a power efficient clock tree has been addressed recently in a few research contributions. In this paper, we introduce a methodology in which low-power clock trees are obtained through aggressive exploitation of the clock-gating technology. Distinguishing features of the methodology are: (i) The capability of calculating powerful clock-gating conditions that go beyond the simple topological search of the RTL source code. (ii) The capability of determining the clock tree logical structure starting from an RTL description. (iii) The capability of including in the cost function that drives the generation of the clock tree structure both functional (i.e., clock activation conditions) and physical (i.e., floorplanning) information. (iv) The capability of generating a clock tree structure that can be synthesized and routed using standard, commercially-available back-end tools. We illustrate the methodology for power-aware RTL clock tree planning, we provide details on the fundamental algorithms that support it and information on how such a methodology can be integrated into an industrial design flow. The results achieved on several benchmarks, as well as on a real design case demonstrate the feasibility and the potential of the proposed approach.

The area-I/O flip-chip package provides a high chip-density solution to the demand of more I/O's in VLSI designs; it can achieve smaller package size, shorter wirelength, and better signal and power integrity. In this paper, we introduce the routing problem for chip and package co-design and present the first work in the literature to handle the multiple Re-Distribution Layer (RDL) routing problem for flip-chip designs, considering pin and layer assignment, total wirelength minimization, and chip-package co-design. Our router adopts a two-stage technique of global routing followed by RDL routing. The global routing assigns each block port to a unique bump pad via an I/O pad and decides the RDL routing among I/O pads and bump pads. Based on the minimum-cost maximumflow algorithm, we can guarantee 100% RDL routing completion after the assignment and the optimal solution with the minimum wirelength. The RDL routing efficiently distributes the routing points between two adjacent bump pads and then generates a 100% routable sequence to complete the routing. Experimental results based on 10 industry designs demonstrate that our router can achieve 100% routability and the optimal routing wirelength under reasonable CPU times, while related works cannot.

We introduce in this paper a new problem of post-mask engineering change order (ECO) timing optimization using spare-cell rewiring and present a two-phase framework for this problem. Spare-cell rewiring is a popular technique for incremental timing optimization and/or functional change after the placement stage. The spare-cell rewiring problem is very challenging because of its dynamic wiring cost nature for selecting a spare cell, while the existing related problems consider only static wiring cost: once a standard cell is placed, its physical location is fixed and so is its wiring cost. For the sparecell rewiring problem, each rewiring could make some spare cells become ordinary standard cells and some standard cells become new spare cells simultaneously. As a result, the wiring cost becomes dynamic and further complicates the optimization process. For the addressed problem, we present a two-phase framework of 1) buffer insertion and gate sizing followed by 2) technology remapping. For Phase 1, we present a dynamic programming algorithm considering the dynamic cost, called dynamic cost programming, for the ECO timing optimization with spare cells. Without loss of solution optimality, we further present an effective pruning method by selecting spare cells only inside an essential bounding polygon to reduce the solution space. For those ECO timing paths that cannot be fixed during Phase 1, we apply technology remapping on the spare cells to restructure the circuit to fix the timing violations. The whole framework is integrated into a commercial design flow. Experimental results based on five industry benchmarks show that our method is very effective and efficient in fixing the timing violations of ECO paths.

XML is rapidly becoming the standard method for sending information across the Internet. XML Schema, since its elevation to W3C Recommendation on the 2 nd May 2001, is fast becoming the preferred means of describing structured XML data. However, until recently, there has been no effective means of graphically designing XML Schemas without exposing designers to low-level implementation issues. Bird, Goodchild and Halpin proposed a method to address this shortfall using the 'Object Role Modelling' conceptual language to generate XML Schemas.

This paper describes an innovative analog IC layout generation tool, LAYGEN II, based on evolutionary computation techniques. The designer provides the high level layout guidelines through an abstract layout template. The template contains placement and routing constrains independently from technology, and can be used hierarchically in the definition of templates for complex circuits. LAYGEN II uses this expert knowledge to guide the evolutionary optimization kernels during the automatic layout generation in the target technology. The routing task of the proceeding can range from a template-based approach to a full automatic generation, if only connectivity is provided. The LAYGEN II tool is demonstrated for the layout generation of two typical analog circuit structures and the results validated by Calibre® design rule check tool.

Data warehousing and electronic-commerce are two of the most rapidly expanding fields in recent information technologies. In this paper, we discuss the design of data warehouses for e-commerce environment. We discuss requirement analysis, logical design, and physical design issues in e-commerce environments. We have collected an extensive set of interesting OLAP queries for e-commerce environments, and classified them into categories. Based on these OLAP queries, we illustrate our design with data warehouse bus architecture, dimension table structures, a base star schema, and an aggregation star schema. We finally present various physical design considerations for implementing the dimensional models. We believe that our collection of OLAP queries and dimensional models would be very useful in developing any real-world data warehouses in e-commerce environments.

received a master of science degree in applied research in human-environment relations from the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University. Her facility consulting practice, JPK Consulting, offers services in facility planning and programming for both the workplace and educational environments. She lives in South Burlington, Vermont.

Object-oriented database systems typically o er a variety of structuring capabilities to model complex objects. This exibility, together with type (or class) hierarchies and computed \attributes" (methods), poses a high demand on the physical design of object-oriented databases. Similar to traditional databases, it is hardly ever true that the conceptual structure of the database is also a good, that is, e cient, internal one. Rather, data representing the conceptual objects may be structured completely di erent, for performance reasons. Database systems providing a reasonable amount of data independence allow a p h ysical design that di ers from the logical structure signicantly. Hence, the performance of the system can be tailored to the overall transaction load faced. The paper presents choices for physical designs that make use of a complex storage model, an extended nested relational model. A rst prototype of a physical design optimizer is also presented.

The physical and technical characteristics of a cohousing community influence social interactions of dwellers. Technology for instance has a mediating effect on the praxis and/or the perception of humans. In the social ecology of a cohousing community social and individual factors also influence social interactions between residents. This paper presents the relation between social interactions and the physical characteristics of the common areas in a cohousing community and discusses the possibilities for technology to support social contact design principles of cohousing communities.
The study was performed in two directions. Firstly information about the effect of technology and social interactions in cohousing communities was derived from literature. Secondly a project with students was performed that concentrated on the importance of common areas for social interactions in two cohousing communities. From the literature and the case studies it can be concluded that common hallways and the common room have an important function in facilitating social nteractions. Technology may be used to support these functions and influence interactions by a change of script or a change in the perception of the dwellers.

Purpose -Previous research has focused on how trustworthiness can be evoked by the physical design of on-screen characters (OSCs) within the e-commerce interface. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether or not the OSCs representation, along with user differences, influence, how likeable, appropriate and trustworthy they are. Design/methodology/approach -A web site was created for a simulated online bookseller and 183 people from various countries participated in the experiments. OSC representations were tested under four conditions in the main experiment: facial appearance (human-like vs cartoon-like) and gender (male vs female). Findings -The results suggest that the human-like characters are more likeable, appropriate and trustworthy in general terms. However, when perceived capabilities of OSCs are measured, a mismatch can occur between expectations and capabilities of the human-like OSCs. In fact, cartoon-like OSCs, especially female, had more positive effects on the web site interface. Research limitations/implications -This study was limited to simulations of on-screen scenarios. Future work, with access to the huge database required, could investigate the effects of truly interactive OSCs. Larger national sub-samples would permit generalisations about cross-cultural differences. Practical implications -For e-tailers and web designers, this study suggests critical design variables and response-moderating variables that mediate the effects of OSCs in e-retailing. It helps to understand customers' interaction needs in establishing and maintaining para-social relationships, potentially increasing purchase intentions and persuasion. Originality/value -The efficacy of different representations of OSCs to retail situations has been little investigated previously; this study measured how likeable, appropriate and trustworthy different OSC design formats are to different customer types.

Purpose-To determine the factors that explain customer satisfaction in the full service restaurant industry. Design/methodology/approach-Secondary research and qualitative interviews were used to build the model of customer satisfaction. A structured questionnaire was employed to gather data and test the model. Sampling involved a random selection of addresses from the telephone book and was supplemented by respondents selected on the basis of judgment sampling. Factor analysis and multiple regression were used to test the model. Findings-The regression model suggested that customer satisfaction was influenced most by responsiveness of the frontline employees, followed by price and food quality (in that order). Physical design and appearance of the restaurant did not have a significant effect. Research limitations/implications-To explain customer satisfaction better, it may be important to look at additional factors or seek better measures of the constructs. For example, the measures of food quality may not have captured the complexity and variety of this construct. It may also be important to address the issue of why customers visit restaurants. Instead of the meal, business transactions or enjoying the cherished company of others may be more important. Under the circumstances, customer satisfaction factors may be different. The results are also not generalizable as the sampled area may have different requirements from restaurants. Practical implications-Full service restaurants should focus on three elements-service quality (responsiveness), price, and food quality (reliability)-if customer satisfaction is to be treated as a strategic variable. Originality/value-The study tests the transaction-specific model and enhances the literature on restaurant service management.

This aim of this study was to describe and compare the physical design, as well as the atmosphere of each of gay bathhouses, and reflect on how desire operates within these premises when it intersects with the bathhouse environment and health imperatives. Three bathhouses were studied for a total of 147 hours. Men’s desire for other men has created a landscape of spaces (real and virtual) where sex takes place in parks, alleys, restrooms, rest stops, adult theatres, video arcades, bookstores, bars, gay bathhouses and finally, the Internet. Although the Internet is perceived as an easy way for encountering sexual partners, gay bathhouses remain the most popular and convenient way, for men to meet for anonymous and casual sex. This paper presents the descriptive results of an ethnographic nursing study that took place in three gay bathhouses located in two Canadian metropolitan areas. Gay bathhouses offer patrons a space within which a wide range of interactions, sensations and pleasure can be experienced. The objectives of this paper are to highlight the specific features of three gay bathhouses, to compare settings according to their specific architectural features and related sexual activities, and finally, to propose some changes in light of certain health issues.

Electromigration is increasingly relevant to the physical design of electronic circuits. It is caused by excessive current density stress in the interconnect. The ongoing reduction of circuit feature sizes has aggravated the problem over the last couple of years. It is therefore an important reliability issue to consider electromigration-related design parameters during physical design. In this talk, we give an introduction to the electromigration problem and its relationship to current density. We then present various physical design constraints that affect electromigration. Finally, we introduce components of an electromigration-aware physical design flow.

How can the physical design of the workplace enhance collaborations without compromising an individual's productivity? The body of research on the links between physical space and collaboration in knowledge work settings is reviewed. Collaboration is viewed as a system of behaviours that includes both social and solitary work. The social aspects of collaboration are discussed in terms of three dimensions: awareness, brief interaction and collaboration (working together). Current knowledge on the links between space and the social as well as individual aspects of collaborative work is reviewed. The central conflict of collaboration is considered: how to design effectively to provide a balance between the need to interact and the need to work effectively by oneself. The body of literature shows that features and attributes of space can be manipulated to increase awareness, interaction and collaboration. However, doing so frequently has negative impacts on individual work as a result of increases in noise distractions and interruptions to on-going work. The effects are most harmful for individual tasks requiring complex and focused mental work. The negative effects are compounded by a workplace that increasingly suffers from cognitive overload brought on by time stress, increased workload and multitasking.

Color is a useful design element for wayfinding, spatial orientation, and space definition in children's environments. The study reported here compares the use of color in physical design features associated with the exterior design and interior design of child care centers (N = 101) located in Alabama. Color was evidenced on the exterior of the centers at just over half of the sample. The interior environments of the child care facilities had warm colors and bright accents in the setting; however, the majority of centers used only white, off-white, or gray on the walls.

This paper first examines crime situation in Benin metropolis using questionnaire to elicit information from the public and the police. Result shows that crime is on the rise and that the police are handicapped in managing it because of the obsolete methods and resources at their disposal. It also reveals that members of the public have no confidence in the police force as 80% do not report cases for fear of exposure to the informant to the criminal. In the light of these situations, the second part of the paper looks at the possibility of utilizing GIS for effective management of crime in Nigeria. This option was explored by showing the procedural method of creating 1) digital landuse map showing the crime locations, 2) crime geo-spatial database, and 3) spatial analysis such as query and buffering using ILWIS and ArcGIS software and GPS. The result of buffering analysis shows crime hotspots, areas deficient in security outfit, areas of overlap and areas requiring constant police patrol. The study proves that GIS can give a better synoptic perspective to crime study, analysis, mapping, proactive decision making and prevention of crime. It however suggests that migrating from traditional method of crime management to GIS demands capacity building in the area of personnel, laboratory and facilities backed up with policy statement.

In this paper, Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) is analyzed for application to low power, mixed signal environments. A small CMOS cell library is developed and optimized for several different performance requirements. The cells are then applied to the generation of ripple adders and pipelined CORDIC structures and compared with equivalent MCML circuits. CMOS CORDICs are designed which can operate from 130MHz to 330MHz with power consumption varying between 4.5mW and 18.8mW. These power results are up to 1.5 times less than MCML CORDICs, with equivalent propagation delays. Design was done in a 0.25m standard MCML process from ST Microelectronics.

Community quality is an extremely complex concept which involves the physical environment providing opportunities for humans to meet their needs and desires. Both researchers and designers must concern themselves with raising the standard of the designed environment from the present level, to one which successfully meets the complex levels of human needs. To reach this goal, it is necessary to bridge the gap between research and design and to link the two into a comprehensive framework. This research project is an investigation of the physical elements that contribute to the quality of a community. A quality community is one which meets the needs and desires of its visitors and inhabitants. The methods involve descriptive research, matrix development and case study applications. Six categories and 28 sub-categories of community quality and needs criteria were developed through the research of community quality, and human social and psychological needs theories. The six main categories of the quality principles are livability, character, connection, mobility, personal freedom, and diversity. Approximately, two hundred community physical form criteria were developed through the summary of professional community design literature and guidelines. The physical form criteria were categorized under community, urban block, buildings, streets, pedestrian ways, open space, vegetation, and feature areas. A matrix relating social needs with physical form, illustrates how community quality can be better understood through physical design. Case study applications of three communities in Toronto, the Beaches, High Park, and Parkdale, illustrate how the matrices can be used to analyze a community. The result is a framework for understanding the relationship between the quality of an urban environment and physical form. Matrix analysis showed that connection and character scored the highest with respect to physical form, and the top physical form criteria are, a walkable community, outdoor amenities, lots of seating, barrier free, and open space areas in residential areas. 0 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

Urban Renewal is said to be one of the alternative actions for mitigating the negative impacts of urbanization and urban decay. Th is study investigated the impacts of urban renewal factors on the environmental setting and physical design of the City of Manila. It reviewed redevelopment plans, zoning ordinances, previous studies and conducted an ocular inspection of the City’s major areas. Despite being limited to the City of Manila, urban planners may find the study useful in
formulating redevelopment plans of cities in the light of sustainability. Moreover, the study can present policy makers with better ideas on how the development planning of a city can be managed, say by boosting the economic sector, and how they can keep the environmental and historical conditions at par with each other.

Congestion is one of the fundamental issues in very large scale integration physical design. In this paper, we propose two congestion-estimation approaches for early placement stages. First, we theoretically analyze the peak-congestion value of the design and experimentally validate the estimation approach. Second, we estimate regional congestion at the early stages of top-down placement. This is done by combining the wire-length distribution model and interregion wire estimation. Both approaches are based on the well-known Rent's rule, which is previously used for wirelength estimation. This is the first attempt to predict congestion using Rent's rule. The estimation results are compared with the layout after placement and global routing. Experiments on large industry circuits show that the early congestion estimation based on Rent's rule is a promising approach.

Voltage drop is becoming increasingly significant
as integrated circuit (IC) fabrication processes move
beyond 45nm, affecting both timing and reliability.
We propose an IR-Drop based detailed standard cell
placer that can achieve significant optimization of
up to 6% for the timing of the critical path of a
design. Our placer works incrementally to existing
placers and is, thus, easier to integrate into existing
industrial design flows.

Electromigration (EM) is one of the key concerns going forward for interconnect reliability in integrated circuit (IC) design. Although analog designers have been aware of the EM problem for some time, digital circuits are also being affected now. This talk addresses basic design issues and their effects on electromigration during interconnect physical design. The intention is to increase current density limits in the interconnect by adopting electromigration-inhibiting measures, such as short-length and reservoir effects. Exploitation of these effects at the layout stage can provide partial relief of EM concerns in IC design flows in future.

This paper examines the policies and strategies governing the design and, especially, operations of bus lanes in major congested urban centers. It focuses on bus lanes that operate in mixed traffic conditions; the study does not examine practices concerning bus priority lanes on urban highways or freeways. Three key questions addressed in the paper are: 1. What is the physical design of the lanes? 2. What is the scope of the priority use granted to buses? When is bus priority in effect, and what other users may share the lanes during these times? 3. How are the lanes enforced? To answer these questions, the study developed detailed cases on the bus lane development and management strategies in seven cities that currently have shared-use bus priority lanes: Los Angeles, London, New York City, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, and Sydney. Through the case studies, the paper examines the range of practices in use, thus providing planners and decisionmakers with an awareness of the wide vari...

VLSI cell placement problem is known to be NP complete. A wide repertoire of heuristic algorithms exists in the literature for efficiently arranging the logic cells on a VLSI chip. The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive solution of the cell placement technique, with emphasis on standard cell and macro cell placement using simulated annealing. The metropolis algorithm is applied to generate generations by decreasing the temperature (cooling coefficient). The state will be accepted or rejected based on energy level (cost) and finally optimum solution will be selected.

This paper presents a systematic evaluation approach of three-phase pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) ac-ac converter topologies for high-density applications. All major components and subsystems in a converter are considered and the interdependence of all the constraints and design parameters is systematically studied. The key design parameters, including switching frequency, modulation scheme, and passive values, are selected by considering their impacts on loss, harmonics, electromagnetic interference (EMI), control dynamics and stability, and protection. The component selection criteria as well as the physical design procedures are developed from the high-density standpoint. The concept of using the same inductor for harmonic suppression and EMI filtering is introduced in the design.

Errors in timing closure process during the physical design stage may result in systematic silicon failures, such as scan chain hold time violations, which prohibit the test of manufactured chips. In this paper, we propose a set of techniques that enable the accurate pinpointing of hold time violating scan cells, their modeling and tolerance, paving the way for the generation of valid test data that can be used to test chips with such systematic failures. The process yield is thus restored, as chips that are functional in mission mode can still be identified and shipped out, despite the existence of scan chain hold time failures. The techniques that we propose are non-intrusive, as they utilize only basic scan capabilities, and thus impose no design changes. Scan cells with hold time violations can be identified with maximal possible resolution, enabling the incorporation of the associated impact during the ATPG process and thus the generation of valid test data for the chips with such systematic failures.

During the few last years, several approaches have been proposed to model different aspects of a Data Warehouse (DW), such as the conceptual model of the DW, the design of the ETL (Extraction, Transformation, Loading) processes, the derivation of the DW models from the enterprise data models, etc. At the end, a DW has to be deployed to a database environment and that takes many decisions of a physical nature. However, few efforts have been dedicated to the modeling of the physical design (i.e. the physical structures that will host data together with their corresponding implementations) of a DW from the early stages of a DW project. From our previously presented DW engineering process, in this paper we present our proposal for the modeling of the physical design of DWs by using the component diagrams and deployment diagrams of the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Our approach allows the designer to anticipate important physical design decisions that may reduce the overall development time of a DW such as replicating dimension tables, vertical and horizontal partitioning of a fact table, the use of particular servers for certain ETL processes and so on. Moreover, our approach allows the designer to cover all main design phases of DWs, from the conceptual modeling phase until the final implementation, as we show with an example in this paper.

Can Augmented Reality (AR) techniques inform the design and implementation of a mobile multimedia guide for the museum setting? Drawing from our experience both on previous mobile museum guides projects and in AR technology, we present a fully functional prototype of an AR-enabled mobile multimedia museum guide, designed and implemented for the Museum of Fine Arts in Rennes, France. We report on the life cycle of the prototype and the methodology employed for the AR approach as well as on the selected mixed method evaluation process; finally, the first results emerging from quantitative evaluation are discussed, supported by evidence and findings from the qualitative part of the assessment process. We conclude with lessons learned during the full circle of conception, implementation, testing and assessment of the guide.

Data warehouses are a major component of data-driven decision support systems (DSS). They rely on multidimensional models. The latter provide decision makers with a business-oriented view to data, thereby easing data navigation and analysis via On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools. They also determine how the data are stored in the data warehouse for subsequent use, not only by OLAP tools, but also by other decision support tools. Data warehouse design is a complex task, which requires a systematic method. Few such methods have been proposed to date. This paper presents a UML-based data warehouse design method that spans the three design phases (conceptual, logical and physical). Our method comprises a set of metamodels used at each phase, as well as a set of transformations that can be semi-automated. Following our object orientation, we represent all the metamodels using UML, and illustrate the formal specification of the transformations based on OMG's Object Constraint Language (OCL). Throughout the paper, we illustrate the application of our method to a case study.

Abstract| Experimental data describing circuit and physical design issues that in uence the noise immunity of digital latches in mixed-signal smart power circuits are described and discussed. The principal result of this paper is the characterization of the conditions under which substrate noise generated by high power analog circuitry a ects digital latches. The experimental data characterize a variety of di erent noise mitigation techniques for the particular process technology, circuit structures, signal clocking interdependencies, and related conditions.

This paper extends Mehrabian and Russell's Stimulus-Organism-Response framework to investigate the influence of two selected environmental variables – esthetic design and tenant variety – relating to an urban shopping area on consumers' emotional states and actual shopping responses. Results of a survey conducted in an Italian town center show that the variety of tenant-mix positively affects both pleasure and arousal while esthetic design has a significant influence only on pleasure. Moreover, emotional states induced by the urban environment exert a different influence on shopping outcomes, with pleasure increasing the amount of money and time spent, and arousal positively influencing unplanned shopping and negatively affecting time and money. The paper concludes by discussing managerial and research implications for both retailing and urban marketing.

Human communication involves a number of nonverbal cues that are seemingly unintentional, unconscious, and automatic-both in their production and perception-and convey rich information on the emotional state and intentions of an individual. One family of such cues is called "nonverbal leakage." In this paper, we explore whether people can read nonverbal leakage cues-particularly gaze cues-in humanlike robots and make inferences on robots' intentions, and whether the physical design of the robot affects these inferences. We designed a gaze cue for Geminoid-a highly humanlike android-and Robovie-a robot with stylized, abstract humanlike features-that allowed the robots to "leak" information on what they might have in mind. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we asked participants to play a game of guessing with either of the robots and evaluated how the gaze cue affected participants' task performance. We found that the gaze cue did, in fact, lead to better performance, from which we infer that the cue led to attributions of mental states and intentionality. Our results have implications for robot design, particularly for designing expression of intentionality, and for our understanding of how people respond to human social cues when they are enacted by robots.