TEA: Timing and Energy Aware compression architecture for Efficient Configuration in CGRAs

Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Architectures (CGRAs) are emerging as enabling platforms to meet the high performance demanded by modern applications (e.g. 4G, CDMA, etc.). Recently proposed CGRAs offer time-multiplexing and dynamic applications parallelism to enhance device utilization and reduce energy consumption at the cost of additional memory (up to 50% area of the overall platform). To reduce the memory overheads, novel CGRAs employ either statistical compression, intermediate compact representation, or multicasting. Each compaction technique has different properties (i.e. compression ratio, decompression time and decompression energy) and is best suited for a particular class of applications. However, existing research only deals with these methods separately. Moreover, they only analyze the compaction ratio and do not evaluate the associated energy overheads. To tackle these issues, we propose a polymorphic compression architecture that interleaves these techniques in a unique platform. The proposed architecture allows each application to take advantage of a separate compression/decompression hierarchy (consisting of various types and implementations of hardware/software decoders) tailored to its needs. Simulation results, using different applications (FFT, Matrix multiplication, and WLAN), reveal that the choice of compression hierarchy has a significant impact on compression ratio (up to 52%), decompression energy (up to 4 orders of magnitude), and configuration time (from 33 n to 1.5 s) for the tested applications. Synthesis results reveal that introducing adaptivity incurs negligible additional overheads (1%) compared to the overall platform area.

DEWI - Wirelessly into the Future

Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD2015), EPDSD - 3rd European Projects in Digital System Design, Funchal, Portugal.

A Novel Run-Time Monitoring Architecture for Safe and Efficient Inline Monitoring

20th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe 2015 (Ada-Europe 2015), Madrid, Spain.

A module for the XDense architecture in ns-3

Demo in Workshop on ns-3 (WNS3 2015). 13 to 14, May, 2015. Castelldefels, Spain.

A Novel Runtime Monitoring Architecture

Poster presented in 28th GI/ITG International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS 2015). 25 to 28, Mar, 2015, Poster Session. Porto, Portugal.

Architecture to Support Quality of Service in Arrowhead Systems

Presented at INForum - Simpósio de Informática (INFORUM 2015). 7 to 8, Sep, 2015. Covilhã, Portugal.

Run-time Monitoring Architecture for RealTime Systems

Presented at INForum - Simpósio de Informática (INFORUM 2015). 7 to 8, Sep, 2015. Portugal.

Massive Open Online Course management: learning science and engineering through peer-reviewed projects

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are gaining prominence in transversal teaching-learning strategies. However, there are many issues still debated, namely assessment, recognized largely as a cornerstone in Education. The large number of students involved requires a redefinition of strategies that often use approaches based on tasks or challenging projects. In these conditions and due to this approach, assessment is made through peer-reviewed assignments and quizzes online. The peer-reviewed assignments are often based upon sample answers or topics, which guide the student in the task of evaluating peers. This chapter analyzes the grading and evaluation in MOOCs, especially in science and engineering courses, within the context of education and grading methodologies and discusses possible perspectives to pursue grading quality in massive e-learning courses.

Interpretative research in information systems: two qualitative research design projects

In a scientific research project is important to define the underlying philosophical orientation of the project, because this will influence the choices made in respect of scientific methods used, as well as the way they will be applied. It is crucial, therefore, that the philosophy and research design strategy are consistent with each other. These questions become even more relevant in qualitative research. Historically, the interpretive research philosophy is more associated to the scientific areas of social sciences and humanities where the subjectivity inherent to human intervention is more explicitly defined. Information systems field are, primarily, trapped in computer science field, though it also integrates issues related with management and organizations field. This shift from a purely technological guidance for the consideration of the problems of management and organizations has fostered the rise of research projects according to the interpretive philosophy and using qualitative methods. This paper explores the importance of alignment between the epistemological orientation and research design strategy, in qualitative research projects. As a result, it is presented two PhD projects, with different research design strategies, that are being developed in the technology and information systems field, in the light of the interpretive paradigm.

The development and implementation of math projects in a HEI: expectations, objectives, experiences and analysis

An overwhelming problem in Math Curriculums in Higher Education Institutions (HEI), we are daily facing in the last decade, is the substantial differences in Math background of our students. When you try to transmit, engage and teach subjects/contents that your “audience” is unable to respond to and/or even understand what we are trying to convey, it is somehow frustrating. In this sense, the Math projects and other didactic strategies, developed through Learning Management System Moodle, which include an array of activities that combine higher order thinking skills with math subjects and technology, for students of HE, appear as remedial but important, proactive and innovative measures in order to face and try to overcome these considerable problems. In this paper we will present some of these strategies, developed in some organic units of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (IPP). But, how “fruitful” are the endless number of hours teachers spent in developing and implementing these platforms? Do students react to them as we would expect? Do they embrace this opportunity to overcome their difficulties? How do they use/interact individually with LMS platforms? Can this environment that provides the teacher with many interesting tools to improve the teaching – learning process, encourages students to reinforce their abilities and knowledge? In what way do they use each available material – videos, interactive tasks, texts, among others? What is the best way to assess student’s performance in these online learning environments? Learning Analytics tools provides us a huge amount of data, but how can we extract “good” and helpful information from them? These and many other questions still remain unanswered but we look forward to get some help in, at least, “get some drafts” for them because we feel that this “learning analysis”, that tackles the path from the objectives to the actual results, is perhaps the only way we have to move forward in the “best” learning and teaching direction.

Reabilitação da Envolvente e Estrutura do Edifício da Piscina de Vila Nova de Cerveira

O presente relatório de estágio foi elaborado no âmbito da unidade curricular de DIPRE (Dissertação/Projeto/Estágio), que se encontra no plano de estudos do 2º semestre do 2º ano do Mestrado em Engenharia Civil, no ramo de Construções do Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto. Este documento faz referência ao estágio que se desenvolveu em ambiente empresarial na Telhabel Construções S.A. durante um período de seis meses. Nesse período foi me dada a oportunidade de acompanhar a obra de Reabilitação e Beneficiação do Edifício das Piscinas Municipais de Vila Nova de Cerveira. Numa primeira fase, o estágio foi desenvolvido no departamento de Subempreitadas da empresa, onde foi possível obter um primeiro contacto com os projetos da obra. Este período teve uma duração de cerca de 1 mês. Na segunda fase do estágio foi-me confiada a função de Diretor de Obra Adjunto, o que permitiu um acompanhamento mais direto da obra e uma participação mais ativa em todos os componentes da obra. Neste relatório procurou-se descrever algumas técnicas e soluções construtivas utilizadas na intervenção realizada. O relatório inicia-se com a fundamentação teórica que pretende dar a conhecer alguns conceitos teóricos, de forma a proporcionar uma melhor compressão do caso de estudo. A segunda parte deste relatório faz referência à aplicação dessas técnicas e soluções. Como no desenvolvimento do estágio tive oportunidade de ter uma intervenção bastante direta e ativa, será feita também uma referência a algumas situações onde esta participação foi mais notada. Este edifício, cuja arquitetura data a década de 90 do século passado, é tido como uma referência em Vila Nova de Cerveira, uma vez que se trata de um edifício com grande presença e singularidade a nível arquitetónico. Na intervenção que se realizou foram poucas as especialidades e zonas do edifício que não sofreram qualquer tipo de intervenção. Contudo, este relatório teve como grande foco a intervenção e o tratamento a que a estrutura metálica foi alvo. Este enfoque justifica-se com base na complexidade e importância que esta intervenção teve na globalidade da obra.