Temperature management for heterogeneous multi-core FPGAs using adaptive evolutionary multi-objective approaches

Heterogeneous multi-core FPGAs contain different types of cores, which can improve efficiency when used with an effective online task scheduler. However, it is not easy to find the right cores for tasks when there are multiple objectives or dozens of cores. Inappropriate scheduling may cause hot spots which decrease the reliability of the chip. Given that, our research builds a simulating platform to evaluate all kinds of scheduling algorithms on a variety of architectures. On this platform, we provide an online scheduler which uses multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (EA). Comparing the EA and current algorithms such as Predictive Dynamic Thermal Management (PDTM) and Adaptive Temperature Threshold Dynamic Thermal Management (ATDTM), we find some drawbacks in previous work. First, current algorithms are overly dependent on manually set constant parameters. Second, those algorithms neglect optimization for heterogeneous architectures. Third, they use single-objective methods, or use linear weighting method to convert a multi-objective optimization into a single-objective optimization. Unlike other algorithms, the EA is adaptive and does not require resetting parameters when workloads switch from one to another. EAs also improve performance when used on heterogeneous architecture. A efficient Pareto front can be obtained with EAs for the purpose of multiple objectives.

Multi-criteria decision making approaches for supplier evaluation and selection:a literature review

Supplier evaluation and selection problem has been studied extensively. Various decision making approaches have been proposed to tackle the problem. In contemporary supply chain management, the performance of potential suppliers is evaluated against multiple criteria rather than considering a single factor-cost. This paper reviews the literature of the multi-criteria decision making approaches for supplier evaluation and selection. Related articles appearing in the international journals from 2000 to 2008 are gathered and analyzed so that the following three questions can be answered: (i) Which approaches were prevalently applied? (ii) Which evaluating criteria were paid more attention to? (iii) Is there any inadequacy of the approaches? Based on the inadequacy, if any, some improvements and possible future work are recommended. This research not only provides evidence that the multi-criteria decision making approaches are better than the traditional cost-based approach, but also aids the researchers and decision makers in applying the approaches effectively.

A multi-depot travelling salesman problem and its iterative and integrated approaches

This paper formulates a logistics distribution problem as the multi-depot travelling salesman problem (MDTSP). The decision makers not only have to determine the travelling sequence of the salesman for delivering finished products from a warehouse or depot to a customer, but also need to determine which depot stores which type of products so that the total travelling distance is minimised. The MDTSP is similar to the combination of the travelling salesman and quadratic assignment problems. In this paper, the two individual hard problems or models are formulated first. Then, the problems are integrated together, that is, the MDTSP. The MDTSP is constructed as both integer nonlinear and linear programming models. After formulating the models, we verify the integrated models using commercial packages, and most importantly, investigate whether an iterative approach, that is, solving the individual models repeatedly, can generate an optimal solution to the MDTSP. Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Stakeholder performance measurement:general approaches and methods of economic evaluation

This paper begins by suggesting that when considering Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), even CSR as justified in terms of the business case, stakeholders are of great importance to corporations. In the UK the Company Law Review (DTI, 2002) has suggested that it is appropriate for UK companies to be managed upon the basis of an enlightened shareholder approach. Within this approach the importance of stakeholders, other than shareholders, is recognised as being instrumental in succeeding in providing shareholder value. Given the importance of these other stakeholders it is then important that corporate management measure and manage stakeholder performance. In order to do this there are two general approaches that could be adopted and these are the use of monetary values to reflect stakeholder value or cost and non-monetary values. In order to consider these approaches further this paper considered the possible use of these approaches for two stakeholder groups: namely employees and the environment. It concludes that there are ethical and practical difficulties with calculating economic values for stakeholder resources and so prefers a multi-dimensional approach to stakeholder performance measurement that does not use economic valuation.

Combinatorial approach to multi-substituted 1,4-Benzodiazepines as novel non-peptide CCK-antagonists

For the drug discovery process, a library of 168 multisubstituted 1,4-benzodiazepines were prepared by a 5-step solid phase combinatorial approach. Substituents were varied in the 3,5, 7 and 8-position on the benzodiazepine scaffold. The combinatorial library was evaluated in a CCK radiolabelled binding assay and CCKA (alimentary) and CCKB (brain) selective lead structures were discovered. The template of CCKA selective 1,4-benzodiazepin-2-ones bearing the tryptophan moiety was chemically modified by selective alkylation and acylation reactions. These studies provided a series of Asperlicin naturally analogues. The fully optimised Asperlicin related compound possessed a similar CCKA activity as the natural occuring compound. 3-Alkylated 1,4-benzodiazepines with selectivity towards the CCKB receptor subtype were optimised on A) the lipophilic side chain and B) the 2-aminophenyl-ketone moiety, together with some stereochemical changes. A C3 unit in the 3-position of 1,4-benzodiazepines possessed a CCKB activity within the nanomolar range. Further SAR optimisation on the N1-position by selective alkylation resulted in an improved CCKB binding with potentially decreased activity on the GABAA/benzodiazepine receptor complex. The in vivo studies revealed two N1-alkylated compounds containing unsaturated alkyl groups with anxiolytic properties. Alternative chemical approaches have been developed, including a route that is suitable for scale up of the desired target molecule in order to provide sufficient quantities for further in vivo evaluation.

The appraisal and management of multi-storey dwelling blocks using large concrete panel systems

This exploratory study is concerned with the integrated appraisal of multi-storey dwelling blocks which incorporate large concrete panel systems (LPS). The first step was to look at U.K. multi-storey dwelling stock in general, and under the management of Birmingham City Council in particular. The information has been taken from the databases of three departments in the City of Birmingham, and rearranged in a new database using a suite of PC software called `PROXIMA' for clarity and analysis. One hundred of their stock were built large concrete panel system. Thirteen LPS blocks were chosen for the purpose of this study as case-studies depending mainly on the height and age factors of the block. A new integrated appraisal technique has been created for the LPS dwelling blocks, which takes into account the most physical and social factors affecting the condition and acceptability of these blocks. This appraisal technique is built up in a hierarchical form moving from the general approach to particular elements (a tree model). It comprises two main approaches; physical and social. In the physical approach, the building is viewed as a series of manageable elements and sub-elements to cover every single physical or environmental factor of the block, in which the condition of the block is analysed. A quality score system has been developed which depends mainly on the qualitative and quantitative conditions of each category in the appraisal tree model, and leads to physical ranking order of the study blocks. In the social appraisal approach, the residents' satisfaction and attitude toward their multi-storey dwelling block was analysed in relation to: a. biographical and housing related characteristics; and b. social, physical and environmental factors associated with this sort of dwelling, block and estate in general.The random sample consisted of 268 residents living in the 13 case study blocks. Data collected was analysed using frequency counts, percentages, means, standard deviations, Kendall's tue, r-correlation coefficients, t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis. The analysis showed a marginally positive satisfaction and attitude towards living in the block. The five most significant factors associated with the residents' satisfaction and attitude in descending order were: the estate, in general; the service categories in the block, including heating system and lift services; vandalism; the neighbours; and the security system of the block. An important attribute of this method, is that it is relatively inexpensive to implement, especially when compared to alternatives adopted by some local authorities and the BRE. It is designed to save time, money and effort, to aid decision making, and to provide ranked priority to the multi-storey dwelling stock, in addition to many other advantages. A series of solution options to the problems of the block was sought for selection and testing before implementation. The traditional solutions have usually resulted in either demolition or costly physical maintenance and social improvement of the blocks. However, a new solution has now emerged, which is particularly suited to structurally sound units. The solution of `re-cycling' might incorporate the reuse of an entire block or part of it, by removing panels, slabs and so forth from the upper floors in order to reconstruct them as low-rise accommodations.

Design methodology for the servo control of high speed multi-axis machinery (BL): decoupling and synchronisation of a generic machine by blockwise decentralised MIMO control

Traditional machinery for manufacturing processes are characterised by actuators powered and co-ordinated by mechanical linkages driven from a central drive. Increasingly, these linkages are replaced by independent electrical drives, each performs a different task and follows a different motion profile, co-ordinated by computers. A design methodology for the servo control of high speed multi-axis machinery is proposed, based on the concept of a highly adaptable generic machine model. In addition to the dynamics of the drives and the loads, the model includes the inherent interactions between the motion axes and thus provides a Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) description. In general, inherent interactions such as structural couplings between groups of motion axes are undesirable and needed to be compensated. On the other hand, imposed interactions such as the synchronisation of different groups of axes are often required. It is recognised that a suitable MIMO controller can simultaneously achieve these objectives and reconciles their potential conflicts. Both analytical and numerical methods for the design of MIMO controllers are investigated. At present, it is not possible to implement high order MIMO controllers for practical reasons. Based on simulations of the generic machine model under full MIMO control, however, it is possible to determine a suitable topology for a blockwise decentralised control scheme. The Block Relative Gain array (BRG) is used to compare the relative strength of closed loop interactions between sub-systems. A number of approaches to the design of the smaller decentralised MIMO controllers for these sub-systems has been investigated. For the purpose of illustration, a benchmark problem based on a 3 axes test rig has been carried through the design cycle to demonstrate the working of the design methodology.

End-to-end versus hop-by-hop soft state refresh for multi-hop signalling systems

To ensure state synchronization of signalling operations, many signaling protocol designs choose to establish “soft” state that expires if it is not refreshed. The approaches of refreshing state in multi-hop signaling system can be classified as either end-to-end (E2E) or hop-by-hop (HbH). Although both state refresh approaches have been widely used in practical signaling protocols, the design tradeoffs between state synchronization and signaling cost have not yet been fully investigated. In this paper, we investigate this issue from the perspectives of state refresh and state removal. We propose simple but effective Markov chain models for both approaches and obtain closed-form solutions which depict the state refresh performance in terms of state consistency and refresh message rate, as well as the state removal performance in terms of state removal delay. Simulations verify the analytical models. It is observed that the HbH approach yields much better state synchronization at the cost of higher signaling cost than the E2E approach. While the state refresh performance can be improved by increasing the values of state refresh and timeout timers, the state removal delay increases largely for both E2E and HbH approaches. The analysis here shed lights on the design of signaling protocols and the configuration of the timers to adapt to changing network conditions.

A Bayesian modeling approach to multi-dimensional sentiment distributions prediction

Sentiment analysis has long focused on binary classification of text as either positive or negative. There has been few work on mapping sentiments or emotions into multiple dimensions. This paper studies a Bayesian modeling approach to multi-class sentiment classification and multidimensional sentiment distributions prediction. It proposes effective mechanisms to incorporate supervised information such as labeled feature constraints and document-level sentiment distributions derived from the training data into model learning. We have evaluated our approach on the datasets collected from the confession section of the Experience Project website where people share their life experiences and personal stories. Our results show that using the latent representation of the training documents derived from our approach as features to build a maximum entropy classifier outperforms other approaches on multi-class sentiment classification. In the more difficult task of multi-dimensional sentiment distributions prediction, our approach gives superior performance compared to a few competitive baselines. © 2012 ACM.

Nonlinearity compensation in multi-rate 28 Gbaud WDM systems employing optical and digital techniques under diverse link configurations

Digital back-propagation (DBP) has recently been proposed for the comprehensive compensation of channel nonlinearities in optical communication systems. While DBP is attractive for its flexibility and performance, it poses significant challenges in terms of computational complexity. Alternatively, phase conjugation or spectral inversion has previously been employed to mitigate nonlinear fibre impairments. Though spectral inversion is relatively straightforward to implement in optical or electrical domain, it requires precise positioning and symmetrised link power profile in order to avail the full benefit. In this paper, we directly compare ideal and low-precision single-channel DBP with single-channel spectral-inversion both with and without symmetry correction via dispersive chirping. We demonstrate that for all the dispersion maps studied, spectral inversion approaches the performance of ideal DBP with 40 steps per span and exceeds the performance of electronic dispersion compensation by ~3.5 dB in Q-factor, enabling up to 96% reduction in complexity in terms of required DBP stages, relative to low precision one step per span based DBP. For maps where quasi-phase matching is a significant issue, spectral inversion significantly outperforms ideal DBP by ~3 dB.

Transferring knowledge of manufacturing techniques within a subsidiary of a multi-national corporation

With the growth of the multi-national corporation (MNCs) has come the need to understand how parent companies transfer knowledge to, and manage the operations of, their subsidiaries. This is of particular interest to manufacturing companies transferring their operations overseas. Japanese companies in particular have been pioneering in the development of techniques such as Kaizen, and elements of the Toyota Production System (TPS) such as Kanban, which can be useful tools for transferring the ethos of Japanese manufacturing and maintaining quality and control in overseas subsidiaries. Much has been written about the process of transferring Japanese manufacturing techniques but much less is understood about how the subsidiaries themselves – which are required to make use of such techniques – actually acquire and incorporate them into their operations. This research therefore takes the perspective of the subsidiary in examining how knowledge of manufacturing techniques is transferred from the parent company within its surrounding (subsidiary). There is clearly a need to take a practice-based view to understanding how the local managers and operatives incorporate this knowledge into their working practices. A particularly relevant theme is how subsidiaries both replicate and adapt knowledge from parents and the circumstances in which replication or adaptation occurs. However, it is shown that there is a lack of research which takes an in-depth look at these processes from the perspective of the participants themselves. This is particularly important as much knowledge literature argues that knowledge is best viewed as enacted and learned in practice – and therefore transferred in person – rather than by the transfer of abstract and de-contextualised information. What is needed, therefore, is further research which makes an in-depth examination of what happens at the subsidiary level for this transfer process to occur. There is clearly a need to take a practice-based view to understanding how the local managers and operatives incorporate knowledge about manufacturing techniques into their working practices. In depth qualitative research was, therefore, conducted in the subsidiary of a Japanese multinational, Gambatte Corporation, involving three main manufacturing initiatives (or philosophies), namely 'TPS‘, 'TPM‘ and 'TS‘. The case data were derived from 52 in-depth interviews with project members, moderate-participant observations, and documentations and presented and analysed in episodes format. This study contributes to our understanding of knowledge transfer in relation to the approaches and circumstances of adaptation and replication of knowledge within the subsidiary, how the whole process is developed, and also how 'innovation‘ takes place. This study further understood that the process of knowledge transfer could be explained as a process of Reciprocal Provider-Learner Exchange that can be linked to the Experiential Learning Theory.

Generation and performance of localised surface plasmons utilising nano-scale structured multi-layered thin films deposited upon D-shaped optical fiber

A new generation of surface plasmonic optical fibre sensors is fabricated using multiple coatings deposited on a lapped section of a single mode fibre. Post-deposition UV laser irradiation using a phase mask produces a nano-scaled surface relief grating structure, resembling nano-wires. The overall length of the individual corrugations is approximately 14 μm with an average full width half maximum of 100 nm. Evidence is presented to show that these surface structures result from material compaction created by the silicon dioxide and germanium layers in the multi-layered coating and the surface topology is capable of supporting localised surface plasmons. The coating compaction induces a strain gradient into the D-shaped optical fibre that generates an asymmetric periodic refractive index profile which enhances the coupling of the light from the core of the fibre to plasmons on the surface of the coating. Experimental data are presented that show changes in spectral characteristics after UV processing and that the performance of the sensors increases from that of their pre-UV irradiation state. The enhanced performance is illustrated with regards to change in external refractive index and demonstrates high spectral sensitivities in gaseous and aqueous index regimes ranging up to 4000 nm/RIU for wavelength and 800 dB/RIU for intensity. The devices generate surface plasmons over a very large wavelength range, (visible to 2 μm) depending on the polarization state of the illuminating light. © 2013 SPIE.

Physical characteristics of localized surface plasmons resulting from nano-scale structured multi-layer thin films deposited on D-shaped optical fiber

Novel surface plasmonic optical fiber sensors have been fabricated using multiple coatings deposited on a lapped section of a single mode fiber. UV laser irradiation processing with a phase mask produces a nano-scaled surface relief grating structure resembling nano-wires. The resulting individual corrugations produced by material compaction are approximately 20 μm long with an average width at half maximum of 100 nm and generate localized surface plasmons. Experimental data are presented that show changes in the spectral characteristics after UV processing, coupled with an overall increase in the sensitivity of the devices to surrounding refractive index. Evidence is presented that there is an optimum UV dosage (48 joules) over which no significant additional optical change is observed. The devices are characterized with regards to change in refractive index, where significantly high spectral sensitivities in the aqueous index regime are found, ranging up to 4000 nm/RIU for wavelength and 800 dB/RIU for intensity. © 2013 Optical Society of America.