bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ichnology and sedimentology of aeolian and shallow‐marine interactions in the Permian Unayzah Group of central Saudi Arabia: Towards a mechanism for infaunal colonization of coastal dune fields and erg margins
Authors: Polo Camilo A. , Melvin John , Hooker Nigel P. , Rees Andrew J. , Gingras Murray K. , Pemberton S. George
Published: October 2019

This paper documents aeolian and shallow‐marine interactions and describes their ichnofossil suites from the early Permian Tinat Member of the Nuayyim Formation of subsurface Saudi Arabia, thereby confirming marine sedimentation in an interval historically interpreted as being dominated by continental settings wherein aeolian processes prevailed. This paper attempts to characterize in situ animal–sediment interactions in coastal dune fields and erg margins in arid to semiarid settings; where the description of organism–sediment relationships, until now, has been focused on the landward portion including freshwater suites. Sedimentological and ichnological assessments in the Tinat Member allowed the identification of aeolian and marginal‐marine, tidally influenced interactions in two facies associations that are conformably interbedded. Facies Association 1 includes sediment deposition in aeolian and continental, groundwater table‐related environments such as: aeolian dunes (facies 1); dry and damp aeolian interdunes (facies 2 and 3); ephemeral and perennial stream deposits (facies 4 and 5); and palaeosols (facies 6). Facies Association 2 reflects sedimentation in shallow‐marine, tidally influenced environments and includes punctuated occurrences of tidal flats and sheltered shallow bay deposits (facies 7 and 8) displaying a brackish‐water trace fossil assemblage. This suite exhibits a diminutive, highly stressed mixture with structures reflecting an impoverished Skolithos Ichnofacies and Cruziana Ichnofacies associated with tidal flat deposits displaying synaeresis cracks, lenticular bedding, low‐angle and wavy lamination, flaser bedding, reactivation surfaces, carbonaceous double mud drapes, current ripples and tubular tidalites. Aeolian sedimentation and trace fossil associations presented in this paper are significant because they provide evidence for shallow‐marine, tidally influenced and aeolian processes in the Unayzah Group during deposition of the Tinat Member of the Nuayyim Formation. More importantly, documenting marine and aeolian interactions and their resulting ichnofossil suite can be used: (i) to build integrated sedimentological and ichnological facies models; and (ii) to characterize the resulting trace fossil association in this particular interactive setting that can be used to identify similar successions elsewhere in the rock record.
Tectonic control on exhumation and seismicity in the Garhwal‐Kumaun Himalaya, NW‐India
Authors: Patel Ramesh C. , Manmohan  , Karnwal Reena , Kumar Rajiv
Published: October 2019

Despite similar geological and tectonic setting along the Himalayan orogen, distinct thermochronological/exhumational and seismicity variability exists between the Kumaun and the Garhwal regions of the NW‐ Himalaya. The processes responsible for such variability are still debated. To understand this, published thermochronological ages from several traverses across the Higher Himalayan Crystalline (HHC) and Lesser Himalayan Crystalline (LHC) have been correlated with the seismicity pattern in both Garhwal and Kumaun segments. The seismicity pattern coincides with the zone of rapid uplift and exhumation. The profiles of seismicity across the Kumaun and the Garhwal regions agree with the existence of the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) underlying the regions and reflect its geometry and architecture. Slip along the MHT is responsible for occurrence of seismicity on decade time‐scale and exhumation pattern on Myr time‐scale of the Himalaya.
Variability, Rigidity and the Nesting Problem
Authors: Poller Olga
Published: October 2019

In order to block controversial predictions of 2D semantics (The Nesting Problem), Chalmers and Rabern (2014) propose adding an additional constriction called “the liveness constraint” in definitions of epistemic modals. Without this constraint, all scenario‐world pairs counterfactual to a scenario‐world pair considered as actual in a 2D matrix for a contingenta prioripropositionϕappear problematic for 2D semantics. This is because, although it is false thatϕin such pairs, it isa prioritrue thatϕ. I consider two versions of 2D semantics, those with unstructured and structured intensions. I argue that the unstructured version of 2D semantics is over‐simplified and due to this, it has controversial predictions for counterfactual scenario‐world pairs – the definition of epistemic conceivability with the liveness constraint causes some contingent propositions to appear inconceivable in counterfactual scenario‐world pairs, while some other contingent propositions remain conceivable. In turn, the structured version of the 2D account of propositions has no explanation of how it is possible to possess purely qualitative knowledge without its being dependent on a particular individual or on a particular actual world.
Vascular ring anomalies in cats: 20 cases (2000‐2018)
Authors: Bascuñán Ana , Regier Penny J. , Case J. Brad , Singh Ameet , Balsa Ingrid , Flanders James , Thieman‐Mankin Kelley , Ham Kathleen M.
Published: October 2019

Objective

To report the clinical characteristics, types of vascular ring anomalies (VRA), operative findings, complications, and survival after surgical treatment of cats with VRA.

Study design

Retrospective, multi‐institutional case series.

Animals

Client‐ or shelter‐owned cats presenting to academic, referral veterinary institutions.

Methods

Medical records of cats with VRA that underwent surgical treatment were reviewed. Signalment, relevant medical history, clinical signs, diagnostic imaging, surgical findings, complications, and survival were recorded.

Results

Twenty cats with VRA were included. Vascular ring anomalies were most commonly (75% [15/20]) diagnosed in cats less than 1 year old, with no breed or sex predilection. Regurgitation was the most common clinical sign, present in 18 of 20 (90%) cats. A persistent right aortic arch was diagnosed in 17 of 20 (85%) cats, with concurrent aberrant left subclavian artery in four of the cats. Surgical treatment was associated with survival to discharge in 18 of 20 (90%) cats. Persistent clinical signs were reported in nine of 13 (69%) cats, and radiographic evidence of megaesophagus persisted in four of 13 (31%) cats, with a median follow‐up of 275 days after discharge.

Conclusion

Persistent right aortic arch was the most commonly diagnosed VRA in cats in this series, although multiple anomalies were observed. Surgical treatment of VRA in cats was associated with a high survival to discharge, although persistence of clinical signs and megaesophagus was noted in 69% and 31% of the cats, respectively.

Clinical significance

Surgical treatment of VRA in cats is associated with a high survival rate; however, persistence of clinical signs is an expected outcome.
Book Review: Advanced Nanomaterials for Membrane Synthesis and Its Applications
Authors: Chong W. C.
Published: October 2019

The book compiled some of the most recent knowledge shared by the experts from different countries who specialize in membrane technology. The effort and knowledge sharing by the experts on the recent development of composite membrane fabrication are greatly appreciated. This book provides readers an overview and insight on how nanomaterials affect the membrane formation, enhance the properties of membrane and ultimately lead to different kinds of applications.
Weibull and Bootstrap-Based Data-Analytics Framework for Fatigue Life Prognosis of the Pressurized Water Nuclear Reactor Component Under Harsh Reactor Coolant Environment
Authors: Park Jae Phil , Mohanty Subhasish , Bahn Chi Bum , Majumdar Saurin , Natesan Krishnamurti
Published: October 2019

In general, the fatigue life of a safety critical pressure component is estimated using best-fit fatigue life curves (S-N curves). These curves are estimated based on underlying in-air condition fatigue test data. The best-fitting approach requires a large safety factor to accommodate the uncertainty associated with large scatter in fatigue test data. In addition to this safety factor, reactor component fatigue life prognostics requires an additional correction factor that in general is also estimated deterministically. This additional factor known as the environmental correction factor Fen is to cater the effect of the harsh coolant environment that severely reduces the life of these components. The deterministic Fen factor may also lead to further conservative estimation of fatigue life leading to unnecessary early retirement of costly reactor components. To address the above-mentioned issues, we propose a data-analytics framework which uses Weibull and Bootstrap probabilistic modeling techniques for explicitly quantifying the uncertainty/scatter associated with fatigue life rather than estimating the lives based on a best-fit based deterministic approach. We assume the proposed probabilistic approach would provide the first hand information for assessing the maximum and minimum effects of pressurized water reactor water on the reactor component. In the discussed approach, in addition to the probabilistic fatigue curves, we suggest using a probabilistic environment correction factor Fen. We assume the probabilistic fatigue curve and Fen would capture the S-N data scatter associated with the bulk effect of material grades, surface finish, strain rate, etc. on the material/component fatigue life.
Development of a perforated plate underwater acoustic ground cloak
Authors: Kerrian Peter A. , Hanford Amanda D. , Capone Dean E. , Beck Benjamin S.
Published: October 2019

One of the commonly investigated transformation acoustic device is the ground cloak, which conceals a scattering object on a reflecting surface. Multiple studies have numerically simulated acoustic ground cloaks, but because of the challenges associated with realizing a homogeneous anisotropic metamaterial, only two acoustic ground cloaks have been built and tested. Perforated plastic plates in air were used to construct two and three dimensional ground cloaks and alternating layers of brass and water were used to construct an extended area ground cloak underwater. With underwater mass density anisotropy previously demonstrated for perforated steel plates, the primary focus of this article is to build and evaluate an underwater ground cloak with perforated steel plates. The cloak was evaluated at a water−air pressure release reflecting surface. The cloak successfully concealed the scattering object over a broad frequency range of 7–12 kHz.
Maternal night-eating pattern and glucose tolerance during pregnancy: study protocol for a longitudinal study
Authors: Loy See Ling , Cheung Yin Bun , Chong Mary , Müller-Riemenschneider Falk , Lek Ngee , Lee YS , Tan Kok Hian , Chern Bernard , Yap Fabian , Chan Jerry
Published: October 2019

Introduction

Coordinating eating schedules with day–night cycles has been shown to improve glucose regulation in adults, but its association with gestational glycaemia is less clear. A better understanding on how eating time can influence glucose levels in pregnancy may improve strategies for gestational glycaemic control. This study aims to examine the association of maternal night-eating pattern with glucose tolerance in the second trimester of pregnancy, and to investigate how lifestyle factors may be related to night-eating pattern.

Methods and analysis

This is an observational longitudinal study that targets to recruit 200 pregnant women at 18–24 weeks’ gestation from the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore. Data collection includes sociodemographics, lifestyle habits and obstetric information. Maternal dietary intake is collected using the 4-day food diary and food frequency questionnaire; while 24-hour physical activity, sedentary behaviour, sleep and light exposure are captured using the accelerometer at 18–24 weeks’ gestation. Continuous glucose monitoring at 18–24 weeks’ gestation, oral glucose tolerance test and insulin test at 24–28 weeks’ gestation are performed to assess glycaemic outcomes. Multivariable generalised linear models will be used to analyse the association of maternal night-eating pattern (consumption of meal and snack during 1900–0659 hours) with glycaemic measures, and the associated factors of night-eating pattern, controlling for potential confounders. Recruitment began in March 2019 and is estimated to end in November 2020.

Ethics and dissemination

Ethical approval has been granted by the Centralised Institutional Review Board of SingHealth, Singapore (reference 2018/2529). The results will be presented at conferences and disseminated in journal articles.

Trial registration number

NCT03803345
Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the spiritual care competency scale in nursing practice: a methodological study
Authors: Hu Yanli , Leeuwen René Van , Li Fan
Published: October 2019

Objectives

To determine the validity and reliability of the Spiritual Care Competency Scale (SCCS) among nurses in China.

Design

Methodological research.

Methods

After the SCCS was translated into Chinese, the validity and reliability of the Chinese version of the SCCS (C-SCCS) were evaluated using a convenience sample of 800 nurses recruited from different healthcare centres. The construct validity of the C-SCCS was determined by an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with promax rotation. Pearson’s correlation coefficients of the C-SCCS and the Palliative Care Spiritual Care Competency Scale (PCSCCS-M) were computed to assess the concurrent validity and construct validity of the C-SCCS. To verify the quality of the component structure, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We tested the internal consistency and stability of the measure using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the Guttman split-half coefficient, respectively, and a factorial analysis was performed.

Results

A total of 709 participants completed the questionnaire (response rate: 88.63%), and all completed questionnaires were suitable for analysis. Three factors were abstracted from the EFA and explained 58.19% of the total variance. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the three subscales were .93, .92, and .89, and the Guttman split-half coefficient for the C-SCCS was .84. The CFA indicated a well-fitting model, and the significant correlations between the C-SCCS and the PCSCCS-M (r=0.67, p<0.01) showed adequate concurrent validity. Nurses’ education and income level showed a significant association with the C-SCCS score.

Conclusion

The C-SCCS was shown to be a psychometrically sound instrument for evaluating Chinese nurses’ spiritual care competencies.
Validation and impact of a simplified clinical decision rule for diagnosing pulmonary embolism in primary care: design of the PECAN prospective diagnostic cohort management study
Authors: van Maanen Rosanne , Rutten Frans H , Klok Frederikus A , Huisman Menno V , Blom Jeanet W , Moons Karel G M , Geersing Geert-Jan
Published: October 2019

Introduction

Combined with patient history and physical examination, a negative D-dimer can safely rule-out pulmonary embolism (PE). However, the D-dimer test is frequently false positive, leading to many (with hindsight) ‘unneeded’ referrals to secondary care. Recently, the novel YEARS algorithm, incorporating flexible D-dimer thresholds depending on pretest risk, was developed and validated, showing its ability to safely exclude PE in the hospital environment. Importantly, this was accompanied with 14% fewer computed tomographic pulmonary angiography than the standard, fixed D-dimer threshold. Although promising, in primary care this algorithm has not been validated yet.

Methods and analysis

The PECAN (DiagnosingPulmonaryEmbolism in the context ofCommonAlternative diagNoses in primary care) study is a prospective diagnostic study performed in Dutch primary care. Included patients with suspected acute PE will be managed by their general practitioner according to the YEARS diagnostic algorithm and followed up in primary care for 3 months to establish the final diagnosis. To study the impact of the use of the YEARS algorithm, the primary endpoints are the safety and efficiency of the YEARS algorithm in primary care. Safety is defined as the proportion of false-negative test results in those not referred. Efficiency denotes the proportion of patients classified in this non-referred category. Additionally, we quantify whether C reactive protein measurement has added diagnostic value to the YEARS algorithm, using multivariable logistic and polytomous regression modelling. Furthermore, we will investigate which factors contribute to the subjective YEARS item ‘PE most likely diagnosis’.

Ethics and dissemination

The study protocol was approved by the Medical Ethical Committee Utrecht, the Netherlands. Patients eligible for inclusion will be asked for their consent. Results will be disseminated by publication in peer-reviewed journals and presented at (inter)national meetings and congresses.

Trial registration

NTR 7431.
Jandu Yani U ‘For All Families’ Triple P—positive parenting program in remote Australian Aboriginal communities: a study protocol for a community intervention trial
Authors: Andersson Ellaina , McIlduff Cari , Turner Karen , Thomas Sue , Davies Jadnah , Elliott Elizabeth J , Einfeld Stewart
Published: October 2019

Introduction

The population-based (Lililwan) study of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) revealed a high prevalence of FASD in the remote communities of the Fitzroy Valley, Western Australia (WA) and confirmed anecdotal reports from families and teachers that challenging child behaviours were a significant concern. In response, Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre initiated a partnership with researchers from The University of Sydney to bring the positive parenting program (Triple P) to the Valley. Triple P has been effective in increasing parenting skills and confidence, and improving child behaviour in various Indigenous communities.

Methods and analysis

Extensive consultation with community leaders, service providers, Aboriginal health networks and academic institutions was undertaken and is ongoing. Based on community consultations, the intervention was adapted to acknowledge local cultural, social and language complexities. Carers of children born after 1 January 2002 and living in the Fitzroy Valley are invited to participate in Group Triple P, including additional Stepping Stones strategies for children with complex needs. Programme are delivered by local community service workers, trained and accredited as Triple P providers or ‘parent coaches’. Assessments for parent coach pretraining and post-training includes their perceived ability to deliver the intervention and the cultural appropriateness of the programme. Carers complete preintervention and postintervention and 6-month follow-up assessments of parenting practices, self-efficacy and child behaviour.

Ethics and dissemination

Approval was granted by the University of Sydney Human Ethics Committee, WA Aboriginal Health Ethics Committee, WA Country Health Services Ethics Committee and Kimberley Aboriginal Health Planning Forum. Consultation with community is imperative for efficacy, engagement, community ownership and sustainability of the programme, and will be ongoing until findings are disseminated. Anonymous findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, community feedback sessions and scientific forums.
Entrepreneurial Orientation and Innovation Intensity: A New “Mediated-Moderated” Model Empirical Validation in the Tunisian Context
Authors: Horchani Samah Chemli , Zouaoui Mahmoud
Published: October 2019

Much of the prior research on entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has focused on its determinants. This paper attempts to extend a point of view by which the EO allows to grasp the internal and external organizational conditions in order to update its business opportunities and innovate (Aloulou and Fayolle, 2005). The study examines the link between entrepreneurial orientation and innovation intensity through intellectual capital in a turbulent context. Research features were drawn in the light of the literature review and access to the ground. After stimulating the debate on the EO phenomenon and ensuring a critical revisit of its approach, the empirical basis was formed by 155 questionnaire surveys among industrial companies active in Tunisia. The mediating role of intellectual capital and the moderating role of environmental turbulence are highlighted while detecting the context specificities. Analysis reveals important contributions in the management research field.
Enhanced Nitrogen Photo Fixation Performance of Transition Metal-Doped Urchin-Like W18O49 Under Visible-Light Irradiation
Authors: Ge Jianhua , Xu Jing , Liu Yujie , Zhang Long , Wang Lan , Wu Dehan
Published: October 2019

Nitrogen photo fixation mediated by various photocatalysts has received extensive concerns in recent years. In this work, a general strategy is proposed to enhance nitrogen photo fixation performance with some W[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text]-based photocatalysts under visible-light irradiation. A series of photocatalysts were successfully synthesized in the presence of some noble-metal-free transition metals (Fe, Co and Ni) to modify the urchin-like W[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text]. The resulting photocatalysts were systematically characterized using XRD, SEM, EDS, XPS, PL, N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms, and DRS. Structural characterization of the photocatalysts revealed that the crystal morphology features were preserved, optional harvesting properties were enhanced, BET specific surface area was extended, and migration efficiency of the photo-induced charge carriers was significantly improved in the modified-W[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text] materials. Therefore, a progressed nitrogen photo fixation performance was observed. The maximum production of NH[Formula: see text] was approximately reached to 2752[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text][Formula: see text][Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] catal. under the optimum reaction conditions. Furthermore, a plausible nitrogen photo fixation mechanism in the presence of the synthesized composites is also proposed.
Intrinsic and Scattering Attenuations in the Crust of the Racha Region, Georgia
Authors: Shengelia Ia , Jorjiashvili Nato , Godoladze Tea , Javakhishvili Zurab , Tumanova Nino
Published: October 2019

Three hundred and thirty-five local earthquakes were processed and the attenuation properties of the crust in the Racha region were investigated using the records of seven seismic stations. We have estimated the quality factors of coda waves ([Formula: see text]) and the direct [Formula: see text] waves ([Formula: see text]) by the single back scattering model and the coda normalization methods, respectively. The Wennerberg’s method has been used to estimate relative contribution of intrinsic ([Formula: see text]) and scattering ([Formula: see text]) attenuations in the total attenuation. We have found that [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] parameters are frequency-dependent in the frequency range of 1.5–24[Formula: see text]Hz. [Formula: see text] values increase both with respect to lapse time window from 20[Formula: see text]s to 60[Formula: see text]s and frequency. [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] parameters are nearly similar for all frequency bands, but are smaller than [Formula: see text]. The obtained results show that the intrinsic attenuation has more significant effect than scattering attenuation in the total attenuation. The increase of [Formula: see text] with lapse time shows that the lithosphere becomes more homogeneous with depth.
Experimental Investigations on the Seismic Behavior of Precast Concrete Columns with Novel Box Connections
Authors: Zhang Xizhi , Xu Shengbo , Zhang Shaohua , Xu Gaodong
Published: October 2019

In this study, two types of novel box connections were developed to connect precast concrete (PC) columns and to ensure load transfer integrity. Cyclic loading tests were conducted to investigate the seismic behavior of the PC columns with proposed connections as well as the feasibility and reliability of novel box connections. The failure mode, hysteretic behavior, bearing capacity, ductility, stiffness degradation and energy dissipation were obtained and discussed. The test results indicated that the all PC columns exhibited the ductile flexural failure mode and that the proposed connections could transfer the force effectively. The adoption of novel box connections could improve the deformation capacity and energy dissipation capacity of PC columns. A higher axial compression ratio could enhance the bearing capacity of PC column with proposed connection but would significantly deteriorate the ductility and energy dissipation capacity. Finite element models were developed and the feasibility of the models was verified by the comparison with the test results.
Adaptive particle swarm optimized fuzzy algorithm to predict water table elevation
Authors: Bisht Dinesh C. S. , Jain Shilpa , Srivastava Pankaj Kumar
Published: October 2019

This study helps to select the length for fuzzy sets in fuzzy time series prediction. In order to examine the effect of intervals and evaluate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, numerical data of water recharge and discharge are considered to predict water table elevation fluctuation (WTEF). Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is an influential tool to handle optimization of multi-model problems, whereas fuzzy logic can handle uncertainty. In this paper, adaptive inertia weights are adopted rather than static inertia weights for PSO, which further improves efficiency of PSO. This modified PSO is termed as adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO). APSO optimizes the intervals and these intervals are further used to generate fuzzy sets for prediction. The results indicate that the APSO performs better than PSO and genetic algorithm approaches for the same problem.
Application and Thermal-reliability-aware Reinforcement Learning Based Multi-core Power Management
Authors: Dinakarrao Sai Manoj Pudukotai , Joseph Arun , Haridass Anand , Shafique Muhammad , Henkel Jörg , Homayoun Houman
Published: October 2019

Power management through dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) is one of the most widely adopted techniques. However, it impacts application reliability (due to soft errors, circuit aging, and deadline misses). However, increased power density impacts the thermal reliability of the chip, sometimes leading to permanent failure. To balance both application- and thermal-reliability along with achieving power savings and maintaining performance, we propose application- and thermal-reliability-aware reinforcement learning–based multi-core power management in this work. The proposed power management scheme employs a reinforcement learner to consider the power savings and variations in the application and thermal reliability caused by DVFS. To overcome the computational overhead, the power management decisions are determined at the application-level rather than per-core or system-level granularity. Experimental evaluation of proposed multi-core power management on a microprocessor with up to 32 cores, running PARSEC applications, was done to demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed technique. Compared to the existing state-of-the-art techniques, the proposed technique enables an average energy savings of up to ∼20%, up to 4.926°C temperature reduction without degradation in the application- and thermal-reliability.
Sample Essentiality and Its Application to Modeling Attacks on Arbiter PUFs
Authors: Zhu Siwen , Tang Yi , Zheng Junxiang , Cao Yongzhi , Wang Hanpin , Huang Yu , Margraf Marian
Published: October 2019

Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs), as an alternative hardware-based security method, have been challenged by some modeling attacks. As is known to all, samples are significant in modeling attacks on PUFs, and thus, some efforts have been made to expand sample sets therein to improve modeling attacks. A closer examination, however, reveals that not all samples contribute to modeling attacks equally. Therefore, in this article, we introduce the concept of sample essentiality for describing the contribution of a sample in modeling attacks and point out that any sample without sample essentiality cannot enhance some modeling attacks on PUFs. As a by-product, we find theoretically and empirically that the samples expanded by the procedures proposed by Chatterjee et al. do not satisfy our sample essentiality. Furthermore, we propose the notion of essential sample sets for datasets and discuss its basic properties. Finally, we demonstrate that our results about sample essentiality can be used to reduce samples efficiently and benefit sample selection in modeling attacks on arbiter PUFs.
On Robust Estimates of Correlated Risk in Cyber-Insured IT Firms
Authors: Pal Ranjan , Golubchik Leana , Psounis Konstantions , Bandyopadhyay Tathagata
Published: October 2019

In this article, we comment on the drawbacks of the existing AI-based Bayesian network (BN) cyber-vulnerability analysis (C-VA) model proposed in Mukhopadhyay et al. (2013) to assess cyber-risk in IT firms, where this quantity is usually a joint distribution of multiple risk (random) variables (e.g., quality of antivirus, frequency of monitoring, etc.) coming from heterogeneous distribution families. As a major modeling drawback, Mukhopadhyay et al. (2013) assume that any pair of random variables in the BN are
linearly
correlated with each other. This simplistic assumption might not always hold true for general IT organizational environments. Thus, the use of the C-VA model in general will result in loose estimates of correlated IT risk and will subsequently affect cyber-insurance companies in framing profitable coverage policies for IT organizations. To this end, we propose methods to (1) find a closed-form expression for the maximal correlation arising between pairs of discrete random variables, whose value finds importance in getting robust estimates of copula-induced computations of organizational cyber-risk, and (2) arrive at a computationally effective mechanism to compute nonlinear correlations among pairs of discrete random variables in the correlation matrix of the CBBN model (Mukhopadhyay et al. 2013). We also prove that an empirical computation of MC using our method converges rapidly, that is, exponentially fast, to the true correlation value in the number of samples. Our proposed method contributes to a tighter estimate of IT cyber-risk under environments of low-risk data availability and will enable insurers to better assess organizational risks and subsequently underwrite profitable cyber-insurance policies.
Aggressive Energy Reduction for Video Inference with Software-only Strategies
Authors: Gonçalves Larissa Rozales , Moura Rafael Fão De , Carro Luigi
Published: October 2019

In the past years, several works have proposed custom hardware and software-based techniques for the acceleration of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). Most of these works focus on saving computations by changing the used precision or modifying frame processing. To reach a more aggressive energy reduction, in this paper we propose software-only modifications to the CNNs inference process.

Our approach exploits the inherent locality in videos by replacing entire frame computations with a movement prediction algorithm. Furthermore, when a frame must be processed, we avoid energy-demanding floating-point operations, and at the same time reduce memory accesses by employing look-up tables in place of the original convolutions.

Using the proposed approach, one can reach significant energy gains of more than 25× for security cameras, and 12× for moving vehicles applications, with only small software modifications.
Analytical Performance Models for NoCs with Multiple Priority Traffic Classes
Authors: Mandal Sumit K. , Ayoub Raid , Kishinevsky Michael , Ogras Umit Y.
Published: October 2019

Networks-on-chip (NoCs) have become the standard for interconnect solutions in industrial designs ranging from client CPUs to many-core chip-multiprocessors. Since NoCs play a vital role in system performance and power consumption, pre-silicon evaluation environments include cycle-accurate NoC simulators. Long simulations increase the execution time of evaluation frameworks, which are already notoriously slow, and prohibit design-space exploration. Existing analytical NoC models, which assume fair arbitration, cannot replace these simulations since industrial NoCs typically employ priority schedulers and multiple priority classes. To address this limitation, we propose a systematic approach to construct priority-aware analytical performance models using micro-architecture specifications and input traffic. Our approach decomposes the given NoC into individual queues with modified service time to enable accurate and scalable latency computations. Specifically, we introduce novel transformations along with an algorithm that iteratively applies these transformations to decompose the queuing system. Experimental evaluations using real architectures and applications show high accuracy of 97% and up to 2.5× speedup in full-system simulation.
CASCADE
Authors: Wijerathne Dhananjaya , Li Zhaoying , Karunarathne Manupa , Pathania Anuj , Mitra Tulika
Published: October 2019

A Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Array (CGRA) is a promising high-performance low-power accelerator for compute-intensive loop kernels. While the mapping of the computations on the CGRA is a well-studied problem, bringing the data into the array at a high throughput remains a challenge. A conventional CGRA design involves on-array computations to generate memory addresses for data access undermining the attainable throughput. A decoupled access-execute architecture, on the other hand, isolates the memory access from the actual computations resulting in a significantly higher throughput.

We propose a novel decoupled access-execute CGRA design called
CASCADE
with full architecture and compiler support for high-throughput data streaming from an on-chip multi-bank memory.
CASCADE
offloads the address computations for the multi-bank data memory access to a custom designed programmable hardware. An end-to-end fully-automated compiler synchronizes the conflict-free movement of data between the memory banks and the CGRA. Experimental evaluations show on average 3× performance benefit and 2.2× performance per watt improvement for
CASCADE
compared to an iso-area conventional CGRA with a bigger processing array in lieu of a dedicated hardware memory address generation logic.
Enabling and Exploiting Partition-Level Parallelism (PALP) in Phase Change Memories
Authors: Song Shihao , Das Anup , Mutlu Onur , Kandasamy Nagarajan
Published: October 2019

Phase-change memory (PCM) devices have multiple banks to serve memory requests
in parallel
. Unfortunately, if two requests go to the
same bank
, they have to be served
one after another
, leading to lower
system performance
. We observe that a modern PCM bank is implemented as a collection of
partitions
that operate mostly
independently
while
sharing
a
few
global peripheral structures, which include the sense amplifiers (to read) and the write drivers (to write). Based on this observation, we propose
PALP
, a
new
mechanism that
enables
partition-level parallelism within each PCM bank, and
exploits
such parallelism by using the memory controller’s access scheduling decisions. PALP consists of
three
new contributions.
First
, we introduce
new
PCM commands to enable parallelism in a bank’s partitions in order to resolve the
read-write
bank conflicts, with
no
changes needed to PCM logic or its interface.
Second
, we propose
simple
circuit modifications that introduce a new operating mode for the write drivers, in addition to their
default
mode of serving write requests. When configured in this new mode, the write drivers can resolve the
read-read
bank conflicts, working
jointly
with the sense amplifiers.
Finally
, we propose a
new
access scheduling mechanism in PCM that improves performance by prioritizing those requests that exploit partition-level parallelism over other requests, including the long outstanding ones. While doing so, the memory controller also guarantees starvation-freedom and the PCM’s running-average-power-limit (RAPL).

We evaluate PALP with workloads from the MiBench and SPEC CPU2017 Benchmark suites. Our results show that PALP reduces average PCM access latency by 23%, and improves average system performance by 28% compared to the state-of-the-art approaches.
High-Level Synthesis of Approximate Designs under Real-Time Constraints
Authors: Leipnitz Marcos T. , Nazar Gabriel L.
Published: October 2019

The adoption of High-Level Synthesis (HLS) has increased as the latest HLS tools have evolved to provide high-quality results while improving productivity and time-to-market. Concurrently, many works have been proposing the incorporation of approximate computing techniques within HLS toolchains, allowing automated generation of inexact circuits for error-tolerant application domains with the aim of trading-off computation accuracy with area/power savings or performance improvements. Thus, when attempting to make a design meet timing requirements, designers of real-time systems using HLS may resort to approximation approaches. However, current approximate HLS tools do not allow specifying real-time constraints, being instead error-constrained to explore area, power, or performance optimizations. In this work, we propose an approximate HLS framework for real-time systems that can be integrated with state-of-the-art HLS tools. With this framework designers can specify real-time constraints and satisfy them while minimizing the output error. It uses scheduling information and Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) analysis for iteratively exploring time-error trade-offs of approximations in the time-critical execution path. Experimental results on signal and image processing benchmarks show that we can reduce the WCET of exact designs by up to 35% with acceptable quality degradation.
Synterface
Authors: Sridhar Aditya , Ibrahim Mohamed , Chakrabarty Krishnendu
Published: October 2019

Flow-based microfluidic biochips can be used to perform bioassays by manipulating a large number of on-chip valves. These biochips are increasingly used today for biomolecular recognition, single-cell screening, and point-of-care disease diagnostics, and design-automation solutions for flow-based microfluidics enable the mapping and optimization of bimolecular protocols and software-based valve control. However, a key problem that has not received adequate attention is chip-to-world interfacing, which requires the use of off-chip control equipment to provide control signals for the on-chip valves. This problem is exacerbated by the increase in the number of valves as chips get more complex. To address the interfacing problem, we present an efficient pin-count minimization (synthesis) problem, referred to as Synterface, which uses on-chip microfluidic logic gates and optimization based on concepts from linear algebra. We present results to show that Synterface significantly reduces pin-count and simplifies the external interface for flow-based microfluidics.
Compositional Design of Multi-Robot Systems Control Software on ROS
Authors: Spellini Stefano , Lora Michele , Fummi Franco , Chattopadhyay Sudipta
Published: October 2019

This paper presents a methodology that relies on Assume-Guarantee Contracts to decompose the problem of synthesizing control software for a multi-robot system. Initially, each contract describes either a component (
e.g.
, a robot) or an aspect of the system. Then, the design problem is decomposed into different synthesis and verification sub-problems, allowing to tackle the complexity involved in the design process. The design problem is then recomposed by exploiting the rigorousness provided by contracts. This allows us to achieve system-level simulation capable to be used for validating the entire design. Once validated, the software synthesized during the process can be integrated into Robot Operating System (ROS) nodes and executed using state-of-the-practice packages and tools for modern robotic systems.

We apply the methodology to generate a control strategy for an autonomous goods transportation system. Our results show a massive reduction of the time required to obtain automatically the control software implementing a multi-robot mission.
Enabling Sequential-write-constrained B
+
-tree Index Scheme to Upgrade Shingled Magnetic Recording Storage Performance
Authors: Liang Yu-Pei , Chen Tseng-Yi , Chang Yuan-Hao , Chen Shuo-Han , Lam Kam-Yiu , Li Wei-Hsin , Shih Wei-Kuan
Published: October 2019

When a shingle magnetic recording (SMR) drive has been widely applied to modern computer systems (e.g., archive file systems, big data computing systems, and large-scale database systems), storage system developers should thoroughly review whether current designs (e.g., index schemes and data placements) are appropriate for an SMR drive because of its sequential write constraint. Through many prior works excellently manage data in an SMR drive by integrating their proposed solutions into the driver layer, an index scheme over an SMR drive has never been optimized by any previous works because managing index over the SMR drive needs to jointly consider the properties of B
+
-tree and SMR natures (e.g., sequential write constraint and zone partitions) in a host storage system. Moreover, poor index management will result in terrible storage performance because an index manager is extensively used in file systems and database applications. For optimizing the B
+
-tree index structure over an SMR storage, this work identifies performance overheads caused by the B
+
-tree index structure in an SMR drive. By such observation, this study proposes a sequential-write-constrained B
+
-tree index scheme, namely SW-B
+
tree, which consists of an address redirection data structure, an SMR-aware node allocation mechanism, and a frequency-aware garbage collection strategy. According to our experiments, the SW-B
+
tree can improve the SMR storage performance 55% on average.
SWARAM
Authors: Mohanty Ram Prasad , Gamaarachchi Hasindu , Lambert Andrew , Parameswaran Sri
Published: October 2019

Treatment of patients using high-quality precision medicine requires a thorough understanding of the genetic composition of a patient. Ideally, the identification of unique variations in an individual’s genome is needed for specifying the necessary treatment. Variant calling workflow is a pipeline of tools, integrating state of the art software systems aimed at alignment, sorting and variant calling for the whole genome sequencing (WGS) data. This pipeline is utilized for identifying unique variations in an individual’s genome (compared to a reference genome). Currently, such a workflow is implemented on high-performance computers (with additional GPUs or FPGAs) or in cloud computers. Such systems are large, have a high cost, and rely on the internet for genome data transfer which makes the system unusable in remote locations unequipped with internet connectivity. It further raises privacy concerns due to processing being carried out in a different facility.

To overcome such limitations, in this paper, for the first time, we present a cost-efficient, offline, scalable, portable, and energy-efficient computing system named SWARAM for variant calling workflow processing. The system uses novel architecture and algorithms to match against partial reference genomes to exploit smaller memory sizes which are typically available in tiny processing systems. Extensive tests on a standard benchmark data-set (NA12878 Illumina platinum genome) confirm that the time consumed for the data transfer and completing variant calling workflow on SWARAM was competitive to that of a 32-core Intel Xeon server with similar accuracy, but costs less than a fifth, and consumes less than 40% of the energy of the server system. The original scripts and code we developed for executing the variant calling workflow on SWARAM are available in the associated Github repository https://github.com/Rammohanty/swaram.
FPGA Stream-Monitoring of Real-time Properties
Authors: Baumeister Jan , Finkbeiner Bernd , Schwenger Maximilian , Torfah Hazem
Published: October 2019

An essential part of cyber-physical systems is the online evaluation of real-time data streams. Especially in systems that are intrinsically safety-critical, a dedicated monitoring component inspecting data streams to detect problems at runtime greatly increases the confidence in a safe execution. Such a monitor needs to be based on a specification language capable of expressing complex, high-level properties using only the accessible low-level signals. Moreover, tight constraints on computational resources exacerbate the requirements on the monitor. Thus, several existing approaches to monitoring are not applicable due to their dependence on an operating system.

We present an FPGA-based monitoring approach by compiling an RTL
ola
specification into synthesizable VHDL code. RTL
ola
is a stream-based specification language capable of expressing complex real-time properties while providing an upper bound on the execution time and memory requirements. The statically determined memory bound allows for a compilation to an FPGA with a fixed size. An advantage of FPGAs is a simple integration process in existing systems and superb executing time. The compilation results in a highly parallel implementation thanks to the modular nature of RTL
ola
specifications. This further increases the maximal event rate the monitor can handle.
Numerical Representation of Directed Acyclic Graphs for Efficient Dataflow Embedded Resource Allocation
Authors: Arrestier Florian , Desnos Karol , Juarez Eduardo , Menard Daniel
Published: October 2019

Stream processing applications running on Heterogeneous Multi-Processor Systems on Chips (HMPSoCs) require efficient resource allocation and management, both at compile-time and at runtime. To cope with modern adaptive applications whose behavior can not be exhaustively predicted at compile-time, runtime managers must be able to take resource allocation decisions on-the-fly, with a minimum overhead on application performance.

Resource allocation algorithms often rely on an internal modeling of an application. Directed Acyclic Graph (DAGs) are the most commonly used models for capturing control and data dependencies between tasks. DAGs are notably often used as an intermediate representation for deploying applications modeled with a dataflow Model of Computation (MoC) on HMPSoCs. Building such intermediate representation at runtime for massively parallel applications is costly both in terms of computation and memory overhead.

In this paper, an intermediate representation of DAGs for resource allocation is presented. This new representation shows improved performance for run-time analysis of dataflow graphs with less overhead in both computation time and memory footprint. The performances of the proposed representation are evaluated on a set of computer vision and machine learning applications.