A simulated annealing algorithm for energy efficient virtual machine placement

Improving energy efficiency has become increasingly important in data centers in recent years to reduce the rapidly growing tremendous amounts of electricity consumption. The power dissipation of the physical servers is the root cause of power usage of other systems, such as cooling systems. Many efforts have been made to make data centers more energy efficient. One of them is to minimize the total power consumption of these servers in a data center through virtual machine consolidation, which is implemented by virtual machine placement. The placement problem is often modeled as a bin packing problem. Due to the NP-hard nature of the problem, heuristic solutions such as First Fit and Best Fit algorithms have been often used and have generally good results. However, their performance leaves room for further improvement. In this paper we propose a Simulated Annealing based algorithm, which aims at further improvement from any feasible placement. This is the first published attempt of using SA to solve the VM placement problem to optimize the power consumption. Experimental results show that this SA algorithm can generate better results, saving up to 25 percentage more energy than First Fit Decreasing in an acceptable time frame.

Integration of medical images to the teaching of systematic pathology : an evaluation of relevance

A sound knowledge of pathological disease processes is required for professional practice within health professions. The project described in this paper reviewed the resources currently available for the delivery of systematic pathology tutorials. Additional complementary resources were developed and the inclusion of these additional learning resources in practical tutorial sessions was evaluated for their impact on student learning. Student evaluation of the learning resources was undertaken across one semester with two different cohorts of health profession students using questionnaires and focus group discussion. Both cohorts reported an enhancement to their understanding of pathological disease processes through the use of the additional resources. Results indicate student perception of the value of the resources correlates with staff perception and is independent of prior experiences.

Supporting research at QUT : a tale of three librarians and a Creative Industries super-faculty

In 2012 the existing eight disciplines of Creative Industries Faculty, QUT combined with the School of Design (formerly a component of the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering) to create a super faculty that includes the following disciplines: Architecture, Creative Writing & Literary Studies, Dance, Drama, Fashion, Film & Television, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Journalism, Media & Communication, Landscape Architecture, Music & Sound and Urban Design. The university’s research training unit AIRS (Advanced Information Retrieval Skills) is a systematic introduction to research level information literacies. It is currently being redesigned to reflect today’s new data intensive research environment and facilitate the capacity for life-long learning. Upon completion participants are expected to be able to: 1. Demonstrate an understanding of the theory of advanced search and evaluative strategies to efficiently yield appropriate resources to create original research. 2. Apply appropriate data management strategies to organise and utilize your information proficiently, ethically and legally. 3. Identify strategies to ensure best practice in the use of information sources, information technologies, information access tools and investigative methods. All Creative Industries Faculty research students must complete this unit into which CI Librarians teach discipline specific material. The library employs a team of research specific experts as well as Liaison Librarians for each faculty. Together they develop and deliver a generic research training program that provides researcher training in the following areas: Managing Research Data, QUT ePrints: New features for tracking your research impact, Tracking Research Impact, Research Students and the Library: Overview of Library Research Support Services, Technologies for Research Collaboration, Open Access Publishing, Greater Impact via Creative Commons Licence, CAMBIA - Navigating the patent literature, Uploading Publications to QUT ePrints Workshop, AIRS for supervisors, Finding Existing Research Data, Keeping up to date:Discovering and managing current awareness information and Getting Published. In 2011 Creative Industries initiated a new faculty specific research training program to promote capacity building for research within their Faculty, with workshops designed and developed with Faculty Research Leaders, The Office of Research and Liaison Librarians. “Show me the money” which assists staff to pursue alternative funding sources was one such session that was well attended and generated much discussion and interest. Drop in support sessions for ePrints, EndNote referencing software and Tracking Research Impact for the Creative Industries were also popular options on the menu. Liaison Librarians continue to provide one-on-one consultations with individual researchers as requested. This service assists Librarians greatly with getting to know and monitoring their researchers’ changing needs. The CI Faculty has enlisted two Research Leaders, one for each of the two Schools (Design and Media, Entertainment & Creative Arts) whose role it is to mentor newer research staff. Similarly within the CI library liaison team one librarian is assigned the role of Research Coordinator, whose responsibility it is to be the primary liaison with the Assistant Dean, Research and other key Faculty research managers and is the one most likely to attend Faculty committees and meetings relating to research support.

Factors affecting the motivation of TEFL academics in higher education in China

This study investigates the motivation of English language lecturers in a Chinese university. Recent studies have shown that low morale and job dissatisfaction are significant problems identified in lecturers who teach English in universities in China. Given the importance of teaching English as a second language in China, this problem has potentially significant ramifications for the nation’s future. Low staff morale is likely to be associated with less effective teaching and poor student learning outcomes. Although the problem is acknowledged, there has been limited research to understand the underlying contributing factors. To address this, a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach was adopted and implemented in two phases at a large regional university in Northern China. The participants in the main study were 100 lecturers from two colleges at this university. All of the lecturers were responsible for teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL); 50 were teaching English majors and 50 were teaching university students whose majors were not English. The research was informed by a synthesis of self determination theory and theories of organisational culture. The study found: 1) in contrast to previously reported studies, lecturers in this institution were in general autonomously motivated in teaching. 2) However, their level of motivation was influenced by their personal experiences and varied sense of competence, relatedness and autonomy. 3) In particular, personal experiences and contextual factors such as the influence of Chinese culture, societal context, and organisational climate were significant in regulating lecturers’ motivation to teach. The findings are significant for leaders in higher education who need to implement policies that foster effective work environments. The study has also provided insights into the capacity of self determination theory to explain motivation in a Chinese culture.

Solving tri-diagonal linear systems using field programmable gate arrays

In this paper, we present the outcomes of a project on the exploration of the use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays(FPGAs) as co-processors for scientific computation. We designed a custom circuit for the pipelined solving of multiple tri-diagonal linear systems. The design is well suited for applications that require many independent tri diagonal system solves, such as finite difference methods for solving PDEs or applications utilising cubic spline interpolation. The selected solver algorithm was the Tri Diagonal Matrix Algorithm (TDMA or Thomas Algorithm). Our solver supports user specified precision thought the use of a custom floating point VHDL library supporting addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The variable precision TDMA solver was tested for correctness in simulation mode. The TDMA pipeline was tested successfully in hardware using a simplified solver model. The details of implementation, the limitations, and future work are also discussed.

Visualisation of complex flows using texture-based techniques

Detailed representations of complex flow datasets are often difficult to generate using traditional vector visualisation techniques such as arrow plots and streamlines. This is particularly true when the flow regime changes in time. Texture-based techniques, which are based on the advection of dense textures, are novel techniques for visualising such flows. We review two popular texture based techniques and their application to flow datasets sourced from active research projects. The techniques investigated were Line integral convolution (LIC) [1], and Image based flow visualisation (IBFV) [18]. We evaluated these and report on their effectiveness from a visualisation perspective. We also report on their ease of implementation and computational overheads.

Children's Literature Digital Resource (CLDR)

Children’s Literature Digital Resources incorporates primary texts published from white settlement to 1945, including children’s and young adult fiction, poetry, short stories, and picture books. This collection is supported by selected secondary material. The objective is to provide a centralised access point for information about Australian children's literature and writers and a growing body of full-text primary resources. Four key aims are: * To establish an important digital facility for research, teaching, and information provision around Australian children’s literature; * To provide access to a wide range of high-quality full-text data, both primary and secondary resources; * To provide access to essential library and research information infrastructure and facilities for established and emerging researchers in the fields of Humanities and Education; To enable research while preserving important heritage material. The collection contains texts digitised for AustLit through cooperation with various Australian libraries. The collection includes children’s and young adult fiction, poetry, picture books, short stories, and critical articles relating to relevant primary texts. Authors of primary sources include Irene Cheyne, E. W. Cole, Richard Rowe, Lillian M. Pyke, and Dorothy Wall. Secondary sources include critical works by Clare Bradford, Heather Scutter, Kerry White, Sharyn Pearce, and Marcie Muir. These full-text materials are keyword searchable (both within individual texts and across the CLDR corpus) and can be downloaded for research purposes. As well as digitising primary and secondary material, the project locates and provides pathways to existing online resources or internet publications to enhance AustLit's Children's Literature subset. These resources include both primary and secondary texts.

Asian-Australian Children’s Literature and Publishing (AACLAP)

Led by Queensland University of Technology, the Asian-Australian Children’s Literature and Publishing (AACLAP)research project investigates and records details of Australian children’s literature that is set in Asia and/or that represents Asian-Australian cultures and experiences and literature that is published in selected Asian languages. This includes East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Bay of Bengal. The AACLAP dataset is a comprehensive collection of agent and work records related to ’Asia’, including, but not limited to, autobiography, fiction, criticism, poetry, drama, short stories, and picture books, published during a forty-year period from 1970 to 2010. The dataset provide valuable primary and secondary sources that are important for developing literature-focused educational programs in line with the national government’s push for Asia Literacy. AACLAP is a subset of AustLit, the virtual research environment and information resource for Australian literary, print, and narrative culture scholars, students, and the public.

Solving tri-diagonal linear systems using field programmable gate arrays

In this paper, we present the outcomes of a project on the exploration of the use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) as co-processors for scientific computation. We designed a custom circuit for the pipelined solving of multiple tri-diagonal linear systems. The design is well suited for applications that require many independent tri-diagonal system solves, such as finite difference methods for solving PDEs or applications utilising cubic spline interpolation. The selected solver algorithm was the Tri-Diagonal Matrix Algorithm (TDMA or Thomas Algorithm). Our solver supports user specified precision thought the use of a custom floating point VHDL library supporting addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The variable precision TDMA solver was tested for correctness in simulation mode. The TDMA pipeline was tested successfully in hardware using a simplified solver model. The details of implementation, the limitations, and future work are also discussed.

'These are my photos of when I was little' : Locating Media Arts in the Primary School Curriculum

‘Media Arts’ has been included as a fifth area of the Arts for the Australian Curriculum which will become mandatory learning for all Australian children from pre-school to Year Six (Y6) from 2014. The current curriculum design is underpinned by an approach familiar to media educators who combine creative practice and critical response to develop students’ media literacies. Media Arts within the Australian Curriculum will place Australia at the forefront of international efforts to promote media education as an entitlement for all children. Even with this mandated endorsement, however, there remains ongoing debate about where to locate media education in school curricula. Historically, media education in Australia has been approached through diverse curriculum activities at the secondary school level. These include subject English’s critical literacy objectives; vocationally oriented media and technology education or ICTs education; and Arts courses using new media technologies for creativity. In this chapter we consider the possibilities and challenges for Media Arts, specifically for primary school student learning. We draw on empirical evidence from a research project that has trialled a Media Arts curriculum with students attending a primary school in a low socio-economic status and culturally diverse community on the outskirts of Brisbane, Queensland.

Simulation of phosphine flow in vertical grain storage : a preliminary numerical study

To fumigate grain stored in a silo, phosphine gas is distributed by a combination of diffusion and fan-forced advection. This initial study of the problem mainly focuses on the advection, numerically modelled as fluid flow in a porous medium. We find satisfactory agreement between the flow predictions of two Computational Fluid Dynamics packages, Comsol and Fluent. The flow predictions demonstrate that the highest velocity (>0.1 m/s) occurs less than 0.2m from the inlet and reduces drastically over one metre of silo height, with the flow elsewhere less than 0.002 m/s or 1% of the velocity injection. The flow predictions are examined to identify silo regions where phosphine dosage levels are likely to be too low for effective grain fumigation.

Calculation of engine parameters using reconfigurable hardware

The feasibility of real-time calculation of parameters for an internal combustion engine via reconfigurable hardware implementation is investigated as an alternative to software computation. A detailed in-hardware field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based design is developed and evaluated using input crank angle and in-cylinder pressure data from fully instrumented diesel engines in the QUT Biofuel Engine Research Facility (BERF). Results indicate the feasibility of employing a hardware-based implementation for real-time processing for speeds comparable to the data sampling rate currently used in the facility, with acceptably low level of discrepancies between hardware and software-based calculation of key engine parameters.

Towards equity in the futures market : curriculum as a condition of access

This article provides a consideration of the problem of equity in education. In the first part of the discussion, the author draws on philosophical and sociological literatures to consider what equity means and its implications for education. Drawing on work by Burbules, Lord & Sherman, she looks to curriculum as a condition of access and the importance of learning support structures in bringing about equitable educational outcomes, conceived in terms of Amy Gutmanns’s democratic threshold. The paper offers a conceptual-theoretical model for thinking about the resourcing and curricular requirements for equity in contemporary liberal democratic societies, contrasting the social and economic policy mixes employed by governments situated at different points along a liberty/equality continuum.

Cement-in-cement revision for selected Vancouver Type B1 femoral periprosthetic fractures : A biomechanical analysis

The aim of this study was to perform a biomechanical analysis of the cement-in-cement (c-in-c) technique for fixation of selected Vancouver Type B1 femoral periprosthetic fractures and to assess the degree of cement interposition at the fracture site. Six embalmed cadaveric femora were implanted with a cemented femoral stem. Vancouver Type B1 fractures were created by applying a combined axial and rotational load to failure. The femora were repaired using the c-in-c technique and reloaded to failure. The mean primary fracture torque was 117 Nm (SD 16.6, range 89–133). The mean revision fracture torque was 50 Nm (SD 16.6, range 29–74), which is above the torque previously observed for activities of daily living. Cement interposition at the fracture site was found to be minimal.