A Co-Processor Approach for Efficient Java Execution in Embedded Systems

This thesis deals with a hardware accelerated Java virtual machine, named REALJava. The REALJava virtual machine is targeted for resource constrained embedded systems. The goal is to attain increased computational performance with reduced power consumption. While these objectives are often seen as trade-offs, in this context both of them can be attained simultaneously by using dedicated hardware. The target level of the computational performance of the REALJava virtual machine is initially set to be as fast as the currently available full custom ASIC Java processors. As a secondary goal all of the components of the virtual machine are designed so that the resulting system can be scaled to support multiple co-processor cores. The virtual machine is designed using the hardware/software co-design paradigm. The partitioning between the two domains is flexible, allowing customizations to the resulting system, for instance the floating point support can be omitted from the hardware in order to decrease the size of the co-processor core. The communication between the hardware and the software domains is encapsulated into modules. This allows the REALJava virtual machine to be easily integrated into any system, simply by redesigning the communication modules. Besides the virtual machine and the related co-processor architecture, several performance enhancing techniques are presented. These include techniques related to instruction folding, stack handling, method invocation, constant loading and control in time domain. The REALJava virtual machine is prototyped using three different FPGA platforms. The original pipeline structure is modified to suit the FPGA environment. The performance of the resulting Java virtual machine is evaluated against existing Java solutions in the embedded systems field. The results show that the goals are attained, both in terms of computational performance and power consumption. Especially the computational performance is evaluated thoroughly, and the results show that the REALJava is more than twice as fast as the fastest full custom ASIC Java processor. In addition to standard Java virtual machine benchmarks, several new Java applications are designed to both verify the results and broaden the spectrum of the tests.

Building object-oriented software with the D-Bus messaging system

Object-oriented programming is a widely adopted paradigm for desktop software development. This paradigm partitions software into separate entities, objects, which consist of data and related procedures used to modify and inspect it. The paradigm has evolved during the last few decades to emphasize decoupling between object implementations, via means such as explicit interface inheritance and event-based implicit invocation. Inter-process communication (IPC) technologies allow applications to interact with each other. This enables making software distributed across multiple processes, resulting in a modular architecture with benefits in resource sharing, robustness, code reuse and security. The support for object-oriented programming concepts varies between IPC systems. This thesis is focused on the D-Bus system, which has recently gained a lot of users, but is still scantily researched. D-Bus has support for asynchronous remote procedure calls with return values and a content-based publish/subscribe event delivery mechanism. In this thesis, several patterns for method invocation in D-Bus and similar systems are compared. The patterns that simulate synchronous local calls are shown to be dangerous. Later, we present a state-caching proxy construct, which avoids the complexity of properly asynchronous calls for object inspection. The proxy and certain supplementary constructs are presented conceptually as generic object-oriented design patterns. The e ect of these patterns on non-functional qualities of software, such as complexity, performance and power consumption, is reasoned about based on the properties of the D-Bus system. The use of the patterns reduces complexity, but maintains the other qualities at a good level. Finally, we present currently existing means of specifying D-Bus object interfaces for the purposes of code and documentation generation. The interface description language used by the Telepathy modular IM/VoIP framework is found to be an useful extension of the basic D-Bus introspection format.

Ohuiden päällystyskerrosten applikointi puukuitupohjaisille materiaaleille

Työn aiheena oli tutkia vaahdon soveltuvuutta ohuiden päällystyskerrosten applikointiin paperin tai kartongin pinnalle. Paperia ja kartonkia päällystetään teollisessa mittakaavassa eri menetelmillä, mutta niille kaikille yhteistä on päällystyspastan laimentaminen vedellä ennen applikointia ja laimennusveden haihduttaminen applikoinnin jälkeen päällysteen asettamiseksi. Laimennus on tärkeää pastan komponenttien tasaisen levittämisen vuoksi, mutta veden haihduttaminen kuluttaa valtavasti energiaa. Tekstiiliteollisuudessa on saavutettu merkittäviä säästöjä kuivausenergiassa korvaamalla laajalti vedellä laimentaminen vaahdottamisella. Diplomityön kirjallisessa osassa käytiin läpi vaahdon kemiallisia ja fysikaalisia ominaisuuksia sekä selvitettiin mitä kemikaaleja ja laitteita vaahdotukseen käytetään. Lisäksi luotiin katsaus vaahtoprosessien käyttöön tekstiiliteollisuudessa ja muilla aloilla. Kokeellinen osa koostui esikokeista, joissa selvitettiin pastan koostumuksen vaikutuksia vaahtoamiseen, ja pilot-mittakaavan koeajoista, joissa esikokeiden tuloksia hyödynnettiin. Esikokeissa huomiota kiinnitettiin varsinkin eri polyvinyylialkoholien (PVA) seosten erinomaiseen vaahtoavuuteen. Pilot-koeajoissa vaahtopäällystys vaikutti lupaavalta menetelmältä, joskaan täysin tyydyttävää päällystystulosta ei saavutettu. Suurimpana ongelmana esiintyi ilman pääseminen pohjapaperin ja päällysteen väliin ja siitä seuraava huono päällystejälki. Toisen ongelmakokonaisuuden muodostivat päällysteeseen jäävät reiät. Vaahtopäällystys vaikuttaa lupaavalta tekniikalta ohuiden päällystekerrosten applikointiin, mutta pastareseptejä tulee optimoida ja ratkaista päällysteen alle pääsevän ilman ongelma.

丹桂籍Dan gui ji.Collection de traités taoïstes.

Contient : I太上感應篇Tai shang gan ying pian.Le Tai shang gan ying pian ; II文昌帝君陰騭文Wen chang di jun yin zhi wen.Traité de la fixation mystérieuse, par le dieu de la Littérature ; III關夫子覺世眞經Guan fu zi jue shi zhen jing.Le livre sacré de l'éveil du monde, de Guan fu zi ; IV關聖帝君降筆眞經Guan sheng di jun jiang bi zhen jing.Livre sacré écrit par le dieu de la Guerre ; V關聖帝君顯應戒士文Guan sheng di jun xian ying jie shi wen.Conseils aux lettrés, traité par le dieu de la Guerre ; VI東嶽聖帝垂訓Dong yue sheng di chui xun.Instructions du dieu du Dong yue ; VII呂純陽祖師勸世戒食牛犬Lü chun yang zu shi quan shi jie shi niu quan.Défense de manger le bœuf et le chien, traité par Lü Chun yang ; VIII文昌孝經Wen chang xiao jing.Livre sacré de la piété filiale, par Wen chang ; IX蕉窓十則Jiao chuang shi ze.Les dix commandements de Jiao tchhoang ; X功過格纂要Gong ge ge zuan yao.Éléments des règles du mérite et du péché ; XI桂香殿功過格Gui xiang dian gong ge ge.Règles du mérite et du péché, de la salle Gui xiang ; XII靈驗記Ling yan ji.Exemples miraculeux ; XIII文昌帝君降乩惜字功罪例Wen chang di jun jiang ji xi zi gong zui li.Règlement du mérite et du péché, relativement au respect des caractères d'écriture ; donné par le dieu de la Littérature ; XIV, livre préliminaire募刊疏引Mu kan su yin.Rapport et introduction sur la gravure de l'ouvrage ; XV, livre préliminaire婁東善書目錄.Lou dong shan shu mu lu.Liste d'ouvrages recommandés, dressée à Lou dong ; XVI, livre préliminaire文昌帝君丹桂籍靈驗記 。續記.Wen chang di jun dan gui ji ling yan ji. Xu ji.Notice des miracles dus au Dan gui ji du dieu delà Littérature, partie principale et suite ; XVII, livre préliminaire顏廷表先生傳.Yan ting biao xian sheng zhuan.Vie de Yan Ting biao ; XVIII, livre préliminaire顏雲麓先生傳.Yan yun lu xian sheng zhuan.Vie de Yan Yun lu ; XIX, livre préliminaire丹桂籍奉行心法.Dan gui ji feng xing xin fa.Préceptes pour pratiquer les règles du Dan gui ji ; XX, livre préliminaire文昌帝君降筆記.Wen chang di jun jiang bi ji.Notice dictée parle dieu de la Littérature ; XXI, livre préliminaire玉皇寶號.Yu huang bao hao.Les noms précieux de Yu huang ; XXII, livres 1-4九天開化主宰元皇司錄宏仁文昌帝君陰隲文註案Jiu tian kai hua zhu zai yuan huang si lu hong ren wen chang di jun yin zhi wen zhu an.Traité de la fixation mystérieuse, par le dieu de la Littérature ; avec commentaires et exemples ; XXIII, livre final文昌帝君救刧寶章Wen chang di jun jiu jie bao zhang.Précieux articles du dieu de la Littérature pour le salut du monde ; XXIV, livre final梓潼帝君降筆戒士子文Zi tong di jun jiang bi jie shi zi wen.Conseils aux lettrés, deux traités par le dieu de la Littérature ; XXV, livre final文昌帝君勸孝文Wen chang di jun quan xiao wen.Traité pour conseiller la piété filiale, par le dieu de la Littérature ; XXVI, livre final玉中書勸孝歌Yu zhong shu quan xiao ge.Chanson pour conseiller la piété filiale ; XXVII, livre final圓明鬥母天尊勸世文.Yuan ming dou mu tian zun quan shi wen.Conseils au monde, traité de la déesse Yuan ming dou mu ; XXVIII, livre final俞淨意先生遇竈神記.Yu jing yi xian sheng yu zao shen ji.Entrevue de Yu Jing yi avec l'esprit du Foyer ; XXIX, livre final袁了凡先生四訓 。立命之學.Yuan liao fan xian sheng si xun. Li ming zhi xue.Quatre exhortations de Yuan Liao fan. Première section : Science de la direction de la vie ; XXX, livre final積善之方Ji shan zhi fang.Deuxième section : Recette pour accumuler les bonnes actions ; XXXI, livre final改過之法Gai ge zhi fa.Troisième section : Moyen de corriger les fautes ; XXXII, livre final謙德之效Qian le zhi xiao.Quatrième section : Manifestation d'humilité ; XXXIII, livre final佛母準提神咒Fo mu zhun ti shen zhou.Invocation de la mère du Bouddha ; XXXIV, livre final袁了凡先生勸喪文Yuan liao fan xian sheng quan sang wen.Traité de Yuan Liao fan sur les funérailles ; XXXV, livre final遏淫說E yin shuo.Traité contre l'impureté ; XXXVI, livre final行不費錢功德例Xing bu fei qian gong de li.Manière d'obtenir des mérites sans dépenser d'argent

丹桂籍Dan gui ji.Collection de traités taoïstes.

Contient : I太上感應篇Tai shang gan ying pian.Le Tai shang gan ying pian ; II文昌帝君陰騭文Wen chang di jun yin zhi wen.Traité de la fixation mystérieuse, par le dieu de la Littérature ; III關夫子覺世眞經Guan fu zi jue shi zhen jing.Le livre sacré de l'éveil du monde, de Guan fu zi ; IV關聖帝君降筆眞經Guan sheng di jun jiang bi zhen jing.Livre sacré écrit par le dieu de la Guerre ; V關聖帝君顯應戒士文Guan sheng di jun xian ying jie shi wen.Conseils aux lettrés, traité par le dieu de la Guerre ; VI東嶽聖帝垂訓Dong yue sheng di chui xun.Instructions du dieu du Dong yue ; VII呂純陽祖師勸世戒食牛犬Lü chun yang zu shi quan shi jie shi niu quan.Défense de manger le bœuf et le chien, traité par Lü Chun yang ; VIII文昌孝經Wen chang xiao jing.Livre sacré de la piété filiale, par Wen chang ; IX蕉窓十則Jiao chuang shi ze.Les dix commandements de Jiao tchhoang ; X功過格纂要Gong ge ge zuan yao.Éléments des règles du mérite et du péché ; XI桂香殿功過格Gui xiang dian gong ge ge.Règles du mérite et du péché, de la salle Gui xiang ; XII靈驗記Ling yan ji.Exemples miraculeux ; XIII文昌帝君降乩惜字功罪例Wen chang di jun jiang ji xi zi gong zui li.Règlement du mérite et du péché, relativement au respect des caractères d'écriture ; donné par le dieu de la Littérature ; XIV, livre préliminaire募刊疏引Mu kan su yin.Rapport et introduction sur la gravure de l'ouvrage ; XV, livre préliminaire婁東善書目錄.Lou dong shan shu mu lu.Liste d'ouvrages recommandés, dressée à Lou dong ; XVI, livre préliminaire文昌帝君丹桂籍靈驗記 。續記.Wen chang di jun dan gui ji ling yan ji. Xu ji.Notice des miracles dus au Dan gui ji du dieu delà Littérature, partie principale et suite ; XVII, livre préliminaire顏廷表先生傳.Yan ting biao xian sheng zhuan.Vie de Yan Ting biao ; XVIII, livre préliminaire顏雲麓先生傳.Yan yun lu xian sheng zhuan.Vie de Yan Yun lu ; XIX, livre préliminaire丹桂籍奉行心法.Dan gui ji feng xing xin fa.Préceptes pour pratiquer les règles du Dan gui ji ; XX, livre préliminaire文昌帝君降筆記.Wen chang di jun jiang bi ji.Notice dictée parle dieu de la Littérature ; XXI, livre préliminaire玉皇寶號.Yu huang bao hao.Les noms précieux de Yu huang ; XXII, livres 1-4九天開化主宰元皇司錄宏仁文昌帝君陰隲文註案Jiu tian kai hua zhu zai yuan huang si lu hong ren wen chang di jun yin zhi wen zhu an.Traité de la fixation mystérieuse, par le dieu de la Littérature ; avec commentaires et exemples ; XXIII, livre final文昌帝君救刧寶章Wen chang di jun jiu jie bao zhang.Précieux articles du dieu de la Littérature pour le salut du monde ; XXIV, livre final梓潼帝君降筆戒士子文Zi tong di jun jiang bi jie shi zi wen.Conseils aux lettrés, deux traités par le dieu de la Littérature ; XXV, livre final文昌帝君勸孝文Wen chang di jun quan xiao wen.Traité pour conseiller la piété filiale, par le dieu de la Littérature ; XXVI, livre final玉中書勸孝歌Yu zhong shu quan xiao ge.Chanson pour conseiller la piété filiale ; XXVII, livre final圓明鬥母天尊勸世文.Yuan ming dou mu tian zun quan shi wen.Conseils au monde, traité de la déesse Yuan ming dou mu ; XXVIII, livre final俞淨意先生遇竈神記.Yu jing yi xian sheng yu zao shen ji.Entrevue de Yu Jing yi avec l'esprit du Foyer ; XXIX, livre final袁了凡先生四訓 。立命之學.Yuan liao fan xian sheng si xun. Li ming zhi xue.Quatre exhortations de Yuan Liao fan. Première section : Science de la direction de la vie ; XXX, livre final積善之方Ji shan zhi fang.Deuxième section : Recette pour accumuler les bonnes actions ; XXXI, livre final改過之法Gai ge zhi fa.Troisième section : Moyen de corriger les fautes ; XXXII, livre final謙德之效Qian le zhi xiao.Quatrième section : Manifestation d'humilité ; XXXIII, livre final佛母準提神咒Fo mu zhun ti shen zhou.Invocation de la mère du Bouddha ; XXXIV, livre final袁了凡先生勸喪文Yuan liao fan xian sheng quan sang wen.Traité de Yuan Liao fan sur les funérailles ; XXXV, livre final遏淫說E yin shuo.Traité contre l'impureté ; XXXVI, livre final行不費錢功德例Xing bu fei qian gong de li.Manière d'obtenir des mérites sans dépenser d'argent

聖經彚纂Sheng jing hui zuan.Collection des livres sacrés.

Contient : I, livre 1太上感應經Tai shang gan ying jing.Le Tai shang gan ying pian ; II, livre 1感應經解Gan ying jing jie.Le Tai shang gan ying pian, texte et commentaires ; III, livre 1玄天上帝金科玉律Xuan tian shang di jin ke yu lü.Lois de l'Empereur céleste ; IV, livre 1明袁了凡先生力行功過格Ming yuan liao fan xian sheng li xing gong ge ge.Échelle des mérites et des péchés, de Yuan Liao fan, de la dynastie des Ming ; V, livre 1明袁了凡先生四訓 。立命之學Ming yuan liao fan xian sheng si xun. Li ming zhi xue ; VI, livre 1積善之方Ji shan zhi fang ; VII, livre 1改過之法Gai ge zhi fa ; VIII, livre 1謙德之效Qian de zhi xiao ; IX, livre 1準提王菩薩神咒Zhun ti wang pu sa shen zhou.Invocation du bodhisattva roi Caṇḍī ; X, livre 1千手千眼觀世音菩薩廣大圓滿無礙大悲神咒Qian shou qian yan guan shi yin pu sa guang da yuan man Wu ai da bei shen zhou.Sahasrabāhu saharākṣa avalokiteēvara bodhisattva mahāpūrṇāpratihata mahākāruṇikahṛdaya dhāraṇī sūtra ; XI, livre 1拔一切業障根本得生淨土陀羅尼Ba yi qie ye zhang gen ben de sheng jing tu tuo luo ni. Autre titre : 往生咒Wang sheng zhou.Dhāraṇī de la renaissance en Sukhāvatī ; XII, livre 1摩訶般若波羅蜜多心經Mo he ban ruo bai luo mi duo xin jing.Mahāprajn̄āpāramitā hṛdaya sūtra ; XIII, livre 2文昌孝經Wen chang xiao jing.Livre sacré de la piété filiale, par le dieu de la Littérature ; XIV, livre 2太上消劫梓潼本願眞經Tai shang xiao jie zi tong ben yuan zhen jing.Le vrai livre sacré des vœux du dieu de la Littérature ; XV, livre 2就劫寶經Jiu jie bao jing ; XVI, livre 2文昌應化張仙大眞人說注生延嗣妙應眞經Wen chang ying hua zhang xian da zhen ren shuo zhu sheng yan si miao ying zhen jing.Le vrai livre sacré de l'obtention, par grâce divine, de la longévité et de la postérité ; XVII, livre 2文昌帝君陰隲文Wen chang di jun yin zhi wen ; XVIII, livre3關聖帝君降筆忠義眞經Guan sheng di jun jiang bi zhong yi zhen jing. Autre titre : 關聖帝君感應忠義神武眞經Guan sheng di jun gan ying zhong yi shen Wu zhen jing.Livre sacré de la fidélité, révélé par le dieu de la Guerre ; XIX, livre 3關聖覺世經Guan sheng jue shi jing ; XX, livre 3謨訓Mu xun.Instructions ; XXI, livre 3降鸞寶訓Jiang luan bao xun.Précieuses instructions révélées ; XXII, livre 3關夫子筆帖九則Guan fu zi bi tie jiu ze.Neuf règles dictées par le dieu de la Guerre ; XXIII, livre 3關聖帝君封號Guan sheng di jun feng hao.Titres du dieu de la Guerre ; XXIV, livre 3關聖譜敘 。再敘 。世系宗圖Guan sheng pu xu. Zai xu. Shi xi zong tu.Table généalogique du dieu de la Guerre, avec deux préfaces ; XXV, livre 3關聖帝君世家Guan sheng di jun shi jia.Annales de la famille du dieu de la Guerre ; XXVI, livre 3關聖帝君實錄Guan sheng di jun shi lu.Vie du dieu de la Guerre ; XXVII, livre 3關聖帝君感應神武傳Guan sheng di jun gan ying shen Wu zhuan.Histoire des miracles du dieu de la Guerre ; XXVIII, livre 4玉歷鈔傳警世Yu li chao chuan jing shi. Sous titre : 玉帝慈恩纂載通行世間男婦改悔前非准贖罪惡玉歴Yu di ci 'en zuan zai tong xing shi jian nan fu gai hui qian fei zhun shu zui e yu li.Exemples de châtiment et de rachat des châtiments par le repentir ; XXIX, livre 4謹集增勸敬信懺悔Jin ji zeng quan jing xin chan hui.Conseils de repentir ; XXX, livre 4鈔傳玉歴超度亡母夢驗Chao chuan yu li chao du wang mu mong yan.Songe au sujet d'une mère défunte ; XXXI, livre 4玉歴鈔傳敬信福報求已堂李氏謹集Yu li chao chuan jing xin fu bao qiu yi tang li shi jin ji.Exemples de rétribution rapportés par Li, de la salle Qiu yi ; XXXII, livre 5廣生延壽錄Guang sheng yan shou lu.Recueil relatif à la vie et à la longévité ; XXXIII, livre 5遵訓自敘Zun xun zi xu.Préface de l'auteur pour l'Observation des instructions ; XXXIV, livre 5禮佛日期Li fo ri qi.Dates des fêtes du Bouddha ; XXXV, livre 5聖神寶誕日期Sheng shen bao dan ri qi.Dates des fêtes anniversaires de naissance des divinités taoïstes ; XXXVI, livre 5救苦感應膏 。丹方Jiu ku gan ying gao. Dan fang.Formules de remèdes

L'utilisation du domaine de la preuve par la Cour suprême du Canada dans la détermination des droits économiques des Autochtones conformément à ses propres valeurs

La Cour suprême du Canada (« Cour ») prône « ses propres valeurs» dans la détermination des droits économiques des Autochtones, dont la prédominance des intérêts économiques des non Autochtones, ainsi que la protection du couple souveraineté canadienne/primauté du droit. Ces valeurs sont maintenues avec constance par la Cour, malgré l'évolution du cadre juridique canadien applicable aux revendications des droits économiques par les Autochtones. Ce mémoire démontre que, depuis la constitutionnalisation des droits économiques des Autochtones en 1982, le domaine de la preuve - tant par l'invocation de règles de preuve que par l'appréciation de la preuve - est le principal outil invoqué par la Cour en rhétorique au soutien de la détermination des droits économiques des Autochtones selon ses propres valeurs. De plus, notre recherche nous a également permis de formuler plusieurs critiques relatives à l'indiscipline de la Cour dans l'application du domaine de la preuve dans les décisions portant sur les droits économiques des Autochtones.

Judicial Review of Academic Decisions

This thesis entitled “Judicial review of academic decisions.Education in India is being increasingly controlled and guided by the courts.This study makes an attempt to assess the involvement of the court in regulating education and its role or interference in the conventional concepts of ‘academic freedom’ and ‘university autonomy.The study mostly concentrates on the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution and its invocation in academic matters with particular reference to the decisions of the Kerala High Court.The concept of judicial review in the Constituent Assembly, initial approach of the Supreme Court of India towards the doctrine, gradual empowerment of Indian judiciary in this area and the resultant judicial activism.The study proceeds through the analysis of ‘academic freedom’ and ‘university autonomy’ in the 4"‘ chapter. This chapter attempts to probe academic freedom and university autonomy in India,England and United States and autonomy of Indian universities before and after independence.Basic principles and the jurisdictional parameters of judicial review in the area of academic decisions, as pronounced by the Apex Court, can be convincingly and consistently followed by the High Courts, which is possible only if special Academic Benches are constituted.

Building a biodiversity GRID

In the BiodiversityWorld project we are building a GRID to support scientific biodiversity-related research. The requirements associated with such a GRID are somewhat different from other GRIDs, and this has influenced the architecture that we have developed. In this paper we outline these requirements, most notably the need to interoperate over a diverse set of legacy databases and applications in an environment that supports effective resource discovery and use of these resources in complex workflows. Our architecture provides an invocation model that is usable over a wide range of resource types and underlying GRID middleware. However, there is a trade-off between the flexibility provided by our architecture and its performance. We discuss how this affects the inclusion of computationally intensive applications and applications that are highly interactive; we also consider the broader issue of interoperation with other GRIDs.

“There’s something very familiar about all this”: generic play and performance in the Back to the Future trilogy (Robert Zemeckis, 1985, 1989, 1990)

The Back to the Future Trilogy incorporates several different generic elements, including aspects of the fifties teen movie, science fiction, comedy and the western. These different modes playfully intertwine with each other creating a complex world of repetitions, echoes and modulations. This essay seeks to interrogate the construction of generic elements and the play between them through a close analysis of a repeated performance. Genre is signalled through various strategies employed within the construction of mise-en-scène, a significant portion of this, as I would like to argue, is transmitted through performance. The material detail of a performance – incorporating gesture, movement, voice, and even surrounding elements such as costume – as well as the way it its presented within a film is key to the establishment, invocation and coherence of genre. Furthermore, attention to the complexity of performance details, particularly in the manner in which they reverberate across texts, demonstrates the intricacy of genre and its inherent mutability. The Back to the Future trilogy represents a specific interest in the flexibility of genre. Within each film, and especially across all three, aspects of various genres are interlaced through both visual and narrative detail, thus constructing a dense layer of references both within and without the texts. To explore this patterning in more detail I will interrogate the contribution of performance to generic play through close analysis of Thomas F. Wilson’s performance of Biff/Griff/Burford Tannen and his central encounter with Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in each film. These moments take place in a fifties diner, a 1980s retro diner and a saloon respectively, each space contributing the similarities and differences in each repetition. Close attention to Wilson’s performance of each related character, which contains both modulations and repetitions used specifically to place each film’s central generic theme, demonstrates how embedded the play between genres and their flexibility is within the trilogy.

K-Surfer: a KNIME extension for the management and analysis of Human brain MRI FreeSurfer/FSL data

Human brain imaging techniques, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) or Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), have been established as scientific and diagnostic tools and their adoption is growing in popularity. Statistical methods, machine learning and data mining algorithms have successfully been adopted to extract predictive and descriptive models from neuroimage data. However, the knowledge discovery process typically requires also the adoption of pre-processing, post-processing and visualisation techniques in complex data workflows. Currently, a main problem for the integrated preprocessing and mining of MRI data is the lack of comprehensive platforms able to avoid the manual invocation of preprocessing and mining tools, that yields to an error-prone and inefficient process. In this work we present K-Surfer, a novel plug-in of the Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME) workbench, that automatizes the preprocessing of brain images and leverages the mining capabilities of KNIME in an integrated way. K-Surfer supports the importing, filtering, merging and pre-processing of neuroimage data from FreeSurfer, a tool for human brain MRI feature extraction and interpretation. K-Surfer automatizes the steps for importing FreeSurfer data, reducing time costs, eliminating human errors and enabling the design of complex analytics workflow for neuroimage data by leveraging the rich functionalities available in the KNIME workbench.

Graceful remedies: understanding grace in the Catholic Church's treatment of clerical child sexual abuse

This article examines advocacy of Catholic restorative justice for clerical child sexual abuse from the standpoint of feminist criminological critiques of the use of restorative mediation in sexual offence cases. In particular, it questions the Catholic invocation of grace and forgiveness of survivors of abuse in light of critical feminist concerns about the exploitation of emotions in restorative practices, especially in regard to sexual and other gender-based offences. In the context of sexual abuse, the Catholic appeal to grace has the potential for turning into an extraordinary demand made of victims not only to rehabilitate offenders and the church in the eyes of the community, but also to work towards the spiritual absolution of the abuser. This unique feature of Catholic-oriented restorative justice raises important concerns in terms of feminist critiques of the risk of abuses of power within mediation, and is also incompatible with orthodox restorative justice theory, which, although it advocates a ‘spiritual’ response to crime, is concerned foremost with the rights, needs and experiences of victims.

Local ownership and UN peacebuilding: discourse versus operationalization

The UN asserts that local ownership boosts the legitimacy and sustainabil- ity of peacebuilding by preserving the principles of self-determination and nonimposition in an activity that can contravene them. At the same time, it also perceives local ownership to imperil the achievement of its operational goals, thus bringing its normative and operational obligations into conflict. This article evaluates the UN’s discourse and operationalization of local ownership, showing that despite the UN’s invocation of ownership dis- course, it operationalizes ownership in restrictive ways that are intended to protect the achievement of operational goals but that consequently limit self-determination and increase imposition. Moreover, because of contra- dictions in the UN’s practices of ownership, it also undercuts its ability to re- alize the very operational goals that it is trying to protect. KEYWORDS: UN peacebuilding, local ownership, discourse vs. practice.

TOWARD SEMANTIC WEB SERVICES AS MVC APPLICATIONS: FROM OWL-S VIA UML

OWL-S is an application of OWL, the Web Ontology Language, that describes the semantics of Web Services so that their discovery, selection, invocation and composition can be automated. The research literature reports the use of UML diagrams for the automatic generation of Semantic Web Service descriptions in OWL-S. This paper demonstrates a higher level of automation by generating complete complete Web applications from OWL-S descriptions that have themselves been generated from UML. Previously, we proposed an approach for processing OWL-S descriptions in order to produce MVC-based skeletons for Web applications. The OWL-S ontology undergoes a series of transformations in order to generate a Model-View-Controller application implemented by a combination of Java Beans, JSP, and Servlets code, respectively. In this paper, we show in detail the documents produced at each processing step. We highlight the connections between OWL-S specifications and executable code in the various Java dialects and show the Web interfaces that result from this process.