This paper presents a new method for estimating nearshore wave height from a digital video sequence. The method identifies main wave breaking zones in the video records and estimates the height of breaking waves inside the detected breaking zones. A geometric rectification is applied to the resulting estimation to convert the height measurement from image pixels to meters. The validation of the algorithm was undertaken over three months at Surfers Paradise, Australia. The performance of the algorithm was demonstrated to be comparable with that of buoy-measured wave height, as well as manual estimates of the onshore wave height by a surf reporter. The results indicate that the method can be used as a cost-effective tool for long-term monitoring of nearshore wave conditions.

This paper presents a new system for measuring breakzone locations, breaking wave height and wave periods across the surfzone from a digital video sequence. The system (Wave Pack) aims to provide real-time measurement of breaking and re-breaking wave heights and wave periods using low mounted video camera installations. Following on site data collection and analysis it was found that the Wave Pack system provides a low cost, robust, reliable and accurate system for measuring continuous wave height and period from a low elevation video camera aimed at the target beach under a wide range of wave conditions. These tests have verified the accuracy of Wave Pack in comparison to existing systems.

This paper describes architectural enhancements in the Stratix-III" and Stratix-IV" FPGA architectures. These architectures feature programmable power management, which allows the power and performance of logic and routing to be varied to minimize total power without any performance loss. This paper describes the technique used for programmable power management, and describes the experimental evaluation that led to the choice of regions in these architectures. The memory architecture is also explored by adding heterogeneous memory mapping to the FPGA Modeling Toolkit, and used to explore LUT based memory structures. The ALM structure provides more inputs than required for a simple 6 LUT, which can be used with simple modifications to efficiently support simple dual-ported LUT based RAM. Replacing the Stratix-II" small memory blocks with LUT RAM and changing the size of other two memories is shown to reduce overall core area across a set of benchmark designs.

Global wind-wave models such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration WaveWatch 3 (NWW3) play an important role in monitoring the world's oceans. However, untransformed data at grid points in deep water provide a poor estimate of swell characteristics at nearshore locations, which are often of significant scientific, engineering, and public interest. Explicit wave modeling, such as the Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN), is one method for resolving the complex wave transformations affected by bathymetry, winds, and other local factors. However, obtaining accurate bathymetry and determining parameters for such models is often difficult. When target data is available (i.e., from in situ buoys or human observers, empirical alternatives such artificial neural networks (ANNs) and linear regression may be considered for inferring nearshore conditions from offshore model output. Using a sixfold cross-validation scheme, significant wave height$H_s$and period were estimated at one onshore and two nearshore locations. In estimating$H_s$at the shoreline, the validation performance of the best ANN was$r = 0.91$, as compared to those of linear regression (0.82), SWAN (0.78), and the NWW3$H_s$baseline (0.54).

This paper describes the Altera Stratix II™ logic and routing architecture. This architecture features a novel adaptive logic module (ALM) that is based on a 6-LUT, but can be partitioned into two smaller LUTs to efficiently implement circuits containing a range of LUT sizes that arises in conventional synthesis flows. This provides a performance increase of 15% in the Stratix II architecture while reducing area by 2%. The ALM also includes a more powerful arithmetic structure that can perform two bits of arithmetic per ALM, and perform a sum of up to three inputs. The routing fabric adds a new set of fast inputs to the routing multiplexers for another 3% improvement in performance, while other improvements in routing efficiency cause another 6% reduction in area. These changes in combination with other circuit and architecture changes in Stratix II contribute 27% of an overall 51% performance improvement (including architecture and process improvement). The architecture changes reduce area by 10% in the same process, and by 50% after including process migration.

A scientific database can be a powerful tool for biologists in an era where large-scale genomic analysis, combined with smaller-scale scientific results, provides new insights into the roles of genes and their products in the cell. However, the collection and assimilation of data is, in itself, not enough to make a database useful. The data must be incorporated into the database and presented to the user in an intuitive and biologically significant manner. Most importantly, this presentation must be driven by the user's point of view; that is, from a biological perspective. The success of a scientific database can therefore be measured by the response of its users - statistically, by usage numbers and, in a less quantifiable way, by its relationship with the community it serves and its ability to serve as a model for similar projects. Since its inception ten years ago, the Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD) has seen a dramatic increase in its usage, has developed and maintained a positive working relationship with the yeast research community, and has served as a template for at least one other database. The success of SGD, as measured by these criteria, is due in large part to philosophies that have guided its mission and organisation since it was established in 1993. This paper aims to detail these philosophies and how they shape the organisation and presentation of the database.

UNLABELLED: GermOnline is a web-accessible relational database that enables life scientists to make a significant and sustained contribution to the annotation of genes relevant for the fields of mitosis, meiosis, germ line development and gametogenesis across species. This novel approach to genome annotation includes a platform for knowledge submission and curation as well as microarray data storage and visualization hosted by a global network of servers. AVAILABILITY: The database is accessible at http://www.germonline.org/. For convenient world-wide access we have set up a network of servers in Europe (http://germonline.unibas.ch/; http://germonline.igh.cnrs.fr/), Japan (http://germonline.biochem.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/) and USA (http://germonline.yeastgenome.org/). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Extended documentation of the database is available through the link 'About GermOnline' at the websites.

This paper describes the Altera Stratix logic and routing architecture. The primary goals of the architecture were to achieve high performance and logic density. We give an overview of the entire device, and then focus on the logic and routing architecture. The Stratix logic architecture is based on a cluster of ten 4-input LUTs and its routing consists of staggered routing lines. We describe the development of the routing architecture, including its directional bias, its direct-drive routing which reduces both area and delay. The logic array block and logic cell design is also described, and new routing structures with in the logic array block, and logic element features are described.