BDDT: Block-level Dynamic Dependence Analysis for Task-Based Parallelism

We present BDDT, a task-parallel runtime system that dynamically discovers and resolves dependencies among parallel tasks. BDDT allows the programmer to specify detailed task footprints on any memory address range, multidimensional array tile or dynamic region. BDDT uses a block-based dependence analysis with arbitrary granularity. The analysis is applicable to existing C programs without having to restructure object or array allocation, and provides flexibility in array layouts and tile dimensions.
We evaluate BDDT using a representative set of benchmarks, and we compare it to SMPSs (the equivalent runtime system in StarSs) and OpenMP. BDDT performs comparable to or better than SMPSs and is able to cope with task granularity as much as one order of magnitude finer than SMPSs. Compared to OpenMP, BDDT performs up to 3.9× better for benchmarks that benefit from dynamic dependence analysis. BDDT provides additional data annotations to bypass dependence analysis. Using these annotations, BDDT outperforms OpenMP also in benchmarks where dependence analysis does not discover additional parallelism, thanks to a more efficient implementation of the runtime system.

Orthogonal space-time block coded rate-adaptive modulation with outdated feedbasck

Abstract-Channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter can be used to adapt transmission rate or antenna gains in multi-antenna systems. We propose a rate-adaptive M-QAM scheme equipped with orthogonal space-time block coding with simple outdated, finite-rate feedback over independent flat fading channels. We obtain closed-form expressions for the average BER and throughput for our scheme, and analyze the effects of possibly delayed feedback on the performance gains. We derive optimal switching thresholds maximizing the average throughput under average and outage BER constraints with outdated feedback. Our numerical results illustrate the immunity of our optimal thresholds to delayed feedback.

Rent: Prostitution and the Irish apartment block

In 1974, pursuing his interest in the infra-ordinary – ‘the banal, the quotidian, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the back-ground noise, the habitual’ – Georges Perec wrote about an idea for a novel:

‘I imagine a Parisian apartment building whose façade has been removed … so that all the rooms in the front, from the ground floor up to the attics, are instantly and simultaneously visible’.

In Life A User’s Manual (1978) the consummation of this precis, patterns of existence are measured within architectural space with an archaeological sensibility that sifts through narrative and décor, structure and history, services and emotion, the personal and the system, ascribing commensurate value to each. Borrowing methods from Perec, to move somewhere between conjecture, analysis and other documentation and tracing relationships between form, structure, materiality, technology, organisation, tenure and narrative use, this paper interrogates the late twentieth-century speculative apartment block in Britain and Ireland arguing that its speculative and commodified purpose often allows a series of lives that are less than ordinary to inhabit its spaces.

Leniency (Amnesty) Plus: A Building Block or a Trojan Horse?

Leniency (amnesty) plus is one of the tools used in the fight against anticompetitive agreements. It allows a cartelist who did not manage to secure complete immunity under general leniency, to secure an additional reduction of sanctions in exchange for cooperation with the authorities with respect to operation of another prohibited agreement on an unrelated market. The instrument was developed in the United States and, in recent years, it was introduced in a number of jurisdictions. This article contextualises the operation of and rationale behind leniency plus, forewarning about its potential procollusive effects and the possibility of its strategic (mis)use by cartelists. It discusses theoretical, moral, and systemic (deterrence-related) problems surrounding this tool. It also provides a comparison of leniency plus in eleven jurisdictions, identifying common design flaws. This piece argues that leniency plus tends to be a problematic and poorly transplanted US legal innovation. Policy-makers considering its introduction should analyse it in light of institutional limits and local realities. Some of the regimes which already introduced it would be better off abandoning it.

Presentation of a plasmablastic lymphoma in a human immunodeficiency virus-positive patient after administration of an inferior alveolar dental block

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a serious worldwide healthcare problem with implications for all healthcare workers. The reported oral manifestations of the disease are numerous and have been categorised according to the strength of their association with HIV infection. Oral non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is strongly associated with HIV infection, and an increased incidence of such neoplasms is widely reported. This case report details the presentation of a rare subcategory of plasmablastic lymphoma in an HIV-positive patient after administration of an inferior alveolar dental block to facilitate extraction of mandibular teeth. This highly aggressive neoplasm is a large B-cell lymphoma with a predilection for the oral cavity. Unfortunately, the prognosis for such a tumour is poor as detailed in this case.