Living with uncertainty in the age of runtime models

Uncertainty can be defined as the difference between information that is represented in an executing system and the information that is both measurable and available about the system at a certain point in its life-time. A software system can be exposed to multiple sources of uncertainty produced by, for example, ambiguous requirements and unpredictable execution environments. A runtime model is a dynamic knowledge base that abstracts useful information about the system, its operational context and the extent to which the system meets its stakeholders' needs. A software system can successfully operate in multiple dynamic contexts by using runtime models that augment information available at design-time with information monitored at runtime. This chapter explores the role of runtime models as a means to cope with uncertainty. To this end, we introduce a well-suited terminology about models, runtime models and uncertainty and present a state-of-the-art summary on model-based techniques for addressing uncertainty both at development- and runtime. Using a case study about robot systems we discuss how current techniques and the MAPE-K loop can be used together to tackle uncertainty. Furthermore, we propose possible extensions of the MAPE-K loop architecture with runtime models to further handle uncertainty at runtime. The chapter concludes by identifying key challenges, and enabling technologies for using runtime models to address uncertainty, and also identifies closely related research communities that can foster ideas for resolving the challenges raised. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.

A high sensitivity long period grating Mach-Zehnder refractometer

A refractive index sensing system has been demonstrated, which is based upon an in-line fibre long period grating Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a heterodyne interrogation technique. This sensing system has comparable accuracy to laboratory-based techniques used in industry such as high performance liquid chromatography and UV spectroscopy. The advantage of this system is that measurements can be made in-situ for applications in continuous process control. Compared to other refractive index sensing schemes using LPGs, this approach has two main advantages. Firstly, the system relies on a simple optical interrogation system and therefore has the real potential for being low cost, and secondly, so far as we are aware it provides the highest refractive index resolution reported for any fibre LPG device.

A multi-modular second life hybrid battery energy storage system for utility grid applications

The modern grid system or the smart grid is likely to be populated with multiple distributed energy sources, e.g. wind power, PV power, Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV). It will also include a variety of linear and nonlinear loads. The intermittent nature of renewable energies like PV, wind turbine and increased penetration of Electric Vehicle (EV) makes the stable operation of utility grid system challenging. In order to ensure a stable operation of the utility grid system and to support smart grid functionalities such as, fault ride-through, frequency response, reactive power support, and mitigation of power quality issues, an energy storage system (ESS) could play an important role. A fast acting bidirectional energy storage system which can rapidly provide and absorb power and/or VARs for a sufficient time is a potentially valuable tool to support this functionality. Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are one of a range suitable energy storage system because it can provide and absorb power for sufficient time as well as able to respond reasonably fast. Conventional BESS already exist on the grid system are made up primarily of new batteries. The cost of these batteries can be high which makes most BESS an expensive solution. In order to assist moving towards a low carbon economy and to reduce battery cost this work aims to research the opportunities for the re-use of batteries after their primary use in low and ultra-low carbon vehicles (EV/HEV) on the electricity grid system. This research aims to develop a new generation of second life battery energy storage systems (SLBESS) which could interface to the low/medium voltage network to provide necessary grid support in a reliable and in cost-effective manner. The reliability/performance of these batteries is not clear, but is almost certainly worse than a new battery. Manufacturers indicate that a mixture of gradual degradation and sudden failure are both possible and failure mechanisms are likely to be related to how hard the batteries were driven inside the vehicle. There are several figures from a number of sources including the DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Control) and Arup and Cenex reports indicate anything from 70,000 to 2.6 million electric and hybrid vehicles on the road by 2020. Once the vehicle battery has degraded to around 70-80% of its capacity it is considered to be at the end of its first life application. This leaves capacity available for a second life at a much cheaper cost than a new BESS Assuming a battery capability of around 5-18kWhr (MHEV 5kWh - BEV 18kWh battery) and approximate 10 year life span, this equates to a projection of battery storage capability available for second life of >1GWhrs by 2025. Moreover, each vehicle manufacturer has different specifications for battery chemistry, number and arrangement of battery cells, capacity, voltage, size etc. To enable research and investment in this area and to maximize the remaining life of these batteries, one of the design challenges is to combine these hybrid batteries into a grid-tie converter where their different performance characteristics, and parameter variation can be catered for and a hot swapping mechanism is available so that as a battery ends it second life, it can be replaced without affecting the overall system operation. This integration of either single types of batteries with vastly different performance capability or a hybrid battery system to a grid-tie 3 energy storage system is different to currently existing work on battery energy storage systems (BESS) which deals with a single type of battery with common characteristics. This thesis addresses and solves the power electronic design challenges in integrating second life hybrid batteries into a grid-tie energy storage unit for the first time. This study details a suitable multi-modular power electronic converter and its various switching strategies which can integrate widely different batteries to a grid-tie inverter irrespective of their characteristics, voltage levels and reliability. The proposed converter provides a high efficiency, enhanced control flexibility and has the capability to operate in different operational modes from the input to output. Designing an appropriate control system for this kind of hybrid battery storage system is also important because of the variation of battery types, differences in characteristics and different levels of degradations. This thesis proposes a generalised distributed power sharing strategy based on weighting function aims to optimally use a set of hybrid batteries according to their relative characteristics while providing the necessary grid support by distributing the power between the batteries. The strategy is adaptive in nature and varies as the individual battery characteristics change in real time as a result of degradation for example. A suitable bidirectional distributed control strategy or a module independent control technique has been developed corresponding to each mode of operation of the proposed modular converter. Stability is an important consideration in control of all power converters and as such this thesis investigates the control stability of the multi-modular converter in detailed. Many controllers use PI/PID based techniques with fixed control parameters. However, this is not found to be suitable from a stability point-of-view. Issues of control stability using this controller type under one of the operating modes has led to the development of an alternative adaptive and nonlinear Lyapunov based control for the modular power converter. Finally, a detailed simulation and experimental validation of the proposed power converter operation, power sharing strategy, proposed control structures and control stability issue have been undertaken using a grid connected laboratory based multi-modular hybrid battery energy storage system prototype. The experimental validation has demonstrated the feasibility of this new energy storage system operation for use in future grid applications.

Training Primary School Teachers to use E-Learning Technologies – A Pilot Study

In this paper we present a blended learning scenario for training of students in master program “ICT in primary school” carried out in South-West University “Neofit Rilski”. Our approach is based on “face to face” lectures and seminars, SCORM compatible e-learning content with a lot of simulation demonstrations, trainings and self assessment, group problem based learning. Also we discuss the results of the course and attitude of the participants in the course towards used methods and possibilities of application of e-learning in primary schools.

Formal methods @ runtime

Heuristics, simulation, artificial intelligence techniques and combinations thereof have all been employed in the attempt to make computer systems adaptive, context-aware, reconfigurable and self-managing. This paper complements such efforts by exploring the possibility to achieve runtime adaptiveness using mathematically-based techniques from the area of formal methods. It is argued that formal methods @ runtime represents a feasible approach, and promising preliminary results are summarised to support this viewpoint. The survey of existing approaches to employing formal methods at runtime is accompanied by a discussion of their challenges and of the future research required to overcome them. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Investigating the ability of antibodies to recognize specific oxidized protein epitopes

There is a growing awareness that inflammatory diseases have an oxidative pathology, which can result in specific oxidation of amino acids within proteins. Antibody-based techniques for detecting oxidative posttranslational modifications (oxPTMs) are often used to identify the level of protein oxidation. There are many commercially available antibodies but some uncertainty to the potential level of cross reactivity they exhibit; moreover little information regarding the specific target epitopes is available. The aim of this work was to investigate the potential of antibodies to distinguish between select peptides with and without oxPTMs. Two peptides, one containing chlorotyrosine (DY-Cl-EDQQKQLC) and the other an unmodified tyrosine (DYEDQQKQLC) were synthesized and complementary anti-sera were produced in sheep using standard procedures. The anti-sera were tested using a half-sandwich ELISA and the anti-serum raised against the chloro-tyrosine containing peptide showed increased binding to the chlorinated peptide, whereas the control anti-serum bound similarly to both peptides. This suggested that antibodies can discriminate between similar peptide sequences with and without an oxidative modification. A peptide (STSYGTGC) and its variants with chlorotyrosine or nitrotyrosine were produced. The anti-sera showed substantially less binding to these alternative peptides than to the original peptides the anti-sera were produced against. Work is ongoing to test commercially available antibodies against the synthetic peptides as a comparison to the anti-sera produced in sheep. In conclusion, the antisera were able to distinguish between oxidatively modified and unmodified peptides, and two different sequences around the modification site.

Context -aware data caching for mobile computing environments

The deployment of wireless communications coupled with the popularity of portable devices has led to significant research in the area of mobile data caching. Prior research has focused on the development of solutions that allow applications to run in wireless environments using proxy based techniques. Most of these approaches are semantic based and do not provide adequate support for representing the context of a user (i.e., the interpreted human intention.). Although the context may be treated implicitly it is still crucial to data management. In order to address this challenge this dissertation focuses on two characteristics: how to predict (i) the future location of the user and (ii) locations of the fetched data where the queried data item has valid answers. Using this approach, more complete information about the dynamics of an application environment is maintained. ^ The contribution of this dissertation is a novel data caching mechanism for pervasive computing environments that can adapt dynamically to a mobile user's context. In this dissertation, we design and develop a conceptual model and context aware protocols for wireless data caching management. Our replacement policy uses the validity of the data fetched from the server and the neighboring locations to decide which of the cache entries is less likely to be needed in the future, and therefore a good candidate for eviction when cache space is needed. The context aware driven prefetching algorithm exploits the query context to effectively guide the prefetching process. The query context is defined using a mobile user's movement pattern and requested information context. Numerical results and simulations show that the proposed prefetching and replacement policies significantly outperform conventional ones. ^ Anticipated applications of these solutions include biomedical engineering, tele-health, medical information systems and business. ^

The effects of trained teachers' integration of dialogic reading discourse on Hispanic English Language Learners' literacy skills in kindergarten

This quasi-experimental Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) study explored whether the vocabulary and reading comprehension mean scores of Hispanic Kindergarten ELs whose teachers were trained to utilize Dialogic Reading (DR) discourse were higher than the mean scores of Hispanic ELs in kindergarten whose teachers were not trained to utilize DR discourse strategies. Sixty-three self-identified Hispanic, English Language Kindergarten students and four teachers participated in the study. The teachers were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (DR trained) or control group by drawing names from a hat. Student assignment to experimental versus comparison group was based on the teacher's assignment to either the experimental or comparison group. Thirty-one were assigned to the control group and 32 to the experimental group. The teachers were instructed to read the story to a group of six students (maximum) at a time, utilizing the DR discourse strategies they had been trained to implement. Subjects were read a story each week during the 8-week duration of the study. Teachers in the experimental group collaboratively selected 10 words each week from the Read Together Talk Together (RTTT) instructional stories that were utilized for vocabulary instruction. A test of homogeneity was conducted to evaluate whether the variance among the dependent variables was the same across the groups. An Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVA) was applied to analyze students' vocabulary and comprehension mean scores in the experimental group and the comparison group. The results of the study demonstrated a significant increase in the vocabulary and reading comprehension mean scores for the students whose teachers had been trained in DR discourse strategies. When comparing the two groups, the results revealed a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05). In conclusion, this study was conducted to explore how DR discourse may be an effective technique to teach literacy skills. The findings of this study showed that vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension of Hispanic ELs were positively affected by the teachers' inclusion of dialogue during storybook reading. Its outcomes accentuated the need for teachers to provide assistance to ELs as they develop vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension skills.

Electrochemical RNA genosensors for toxic algal species: enhancing selectivity and sensitivity

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are becoming more frequent as climate changes, with tropical species moving northward. Monitoring programs detecting the presence of toxic algae before they bloom are of paramount importance to protect aquatic ecosystems, aquaculture, human health and local economies. Rapid and reliable species identification methods using molecular barcodes coupled to biosensor detection tools have received increasing attention over the past decade as an alternative to the impractical standard microscopic counting-based techniques. This work reports on a PCR amplification-free electrochemical genosensor for the enhanced selective and sensitive detection of RNA from multiple Mediterranean toxic algal species. For a sandwich hybridization (SHA), we designed longer capture and signal probes for more specific target discrimination against a single base-pair mismatch from closely related species and for reproducible signals. We optimized experimental conditions, viz., minimal probe concentration in the SHA on a screen-printed gold electrode and selected the best electrochemical mediator. Probes from 13 Mediterranean dinoflagellate species were tested under optimized conditions and the format further tested for quantification of RNA from environmental samples. We not only enhanced the selectivity and sensitivity of the state-of-the-art toxic algal genosensors but also increased the repertoire of toxic algal biosensors in the Mediterranean, towards an integral and automatic monitoring system.

Electrochemical RNA genosensors for toxic algal species: enhancing selectivity and sensitivity

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are becoming more frequent as climate changes, with tropical species moving northward. Monitoring programs detecting the presence of toxic algae before they bloom are of paramount importance to protect aquatic ecosystems, aquaculture, human health and local economies. Rapid and reliable species identification methods using molecular barcodes coupled to biosensor detection tools have received increasing attention over the past decade as an alternative to the impractical standard microscopic counting-based techniques. This work reports on a PCR amplification-free electrochemical genosensor for the enhanced selective and sensitive detection of RNA from multiple Mediterranean toxic algal species. For a sandwich hybridization (SHA), we designed longer capture and signal probes for more specific target discrimination against a single base-pair mismatch from closely related species and for reproducible signals. We optimized experimental conditions, viz., minimal probe concentration in the SHA on a screen-printed gold electrode and selected the best electrochemical mediator. Probes from 13 Mediterranean dinoflagellate species were tested under optimized conditions and the format further tested for quantification of RNA from environmental samples. We not only enhanced the selectivity and sensitivity of the state-of-the-art toxic algal genosensors but also increased the repertoire of toxic algal biosensors in the Mediterranean, towards an integral and automatic monitoring system.

Improving Smartphones Battery Life by Reducing Energy Waste of Background Applications

Smartphones have undergone a remarkable evolution over the last few years, from simple calling devices to full fledged computing devices where multiple services and applications run concurrently. Unfortunately, battery capacity increases at much slower pace, resulting as a main bottleneck for Internet connected smartphones. Several software-based techniques have been proposed in the literature for improving the battery life. Most common techniques include data compression, packet aggregation or batch scheduling, offloading partial computations to cloud, switching OFF interfaces (e.g., WiFi or 3G/4G) periodically for short intervals etc. However, there has been no focus on eliminating the energy waste of background applications that extensively utilize smartphone resources such as CPU, memory, GPS, WiFi, 3G/4G data connection etc. In this paper, we propose an Application State Proxy (ASP) that suppresses/stops the applications on smartphones and maintains their presence on any other network device. The applications are resumed/restarted on smartphones only in case of any event, such as a new message arrival. In this paper, we present the key requirements for the ASP service and different possible architectural designs. In short, the ASP concept can significantly improve the battery life of smartphones, by reducing to maximum extent the usage of its resources due to background applications.

Morphology and material stability in polymer solar cells

Polymer solar cells are promising in that they are inexpensive to produce, and due to their mechanical flexibility have the potential for use in applications not possible for more traditional types of solar cells. The performance of polymer solar cells depends strongly on the distribution of electron donor and acceptor material in the active layer. Understanding the connection between morphology and performance as well as how to control the morphology, is therefore of great importance. Furthermore, improving the lifetime of polymer solar cells has become at least as important as improving the efficiency.   In this thesis, the relation between morphology and solar cell performance is studied, and the material stability for blend films of the thiophene-quinoxaline copolymer TQ1 and the fullerene derivatives PCBM and PC70BM. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) are used to investigate the lateral morphology, secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) to measure the vertical morphology and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy to determine the surface composition. Lateral phase-separated domains are observed whose size is correlated to the solar cell performance, while the observed TQ1 surface enrichment does not affect the performance. Changes to the unoccupied molecular orbitals as a result of illumination in ambient air are observed by NEXAFS spectroscopy for PCBM, but not for TQ1. The NEXAFS spectrum of PCBM in a blend with TQ1 changes more than that of pristine PCBM. Solar cells in which the active layer has been illuminated in air prior to the deposition of the top electrode exhibit greatly reduced electrical performance. The valence band and absorption spectrum of TQ1 is affected by illumination in air, but the effects are not large enough to account for losses in solar cell performance, which are mainly attributed to PCBM degradation at the active layer surface.

O processo de organização social do Grupo Herança Viva de Chapecó-SC e suas estratégias de ação conjunta

The consequences resulting from economic modernization model generated social and environmental imbalances, resulting in the exclusion and social isolation, perceived consequences in the agricultural sector. When studying social organizations, tends to see how they keep their forward cooperation processes all a company incorporated by the appreciation of individualism and competition. The overall objective for this research was to analyze the organizational dynamics of Agroecology Group Heritage Viva Chapecó, Santa Catarina, in order to identify the strengths and threats and collaborate in this way for preparation of action strategies for sustainability. The selected group is based on the principles of agroecology for the conduct of their agricultural production systems, avoiding the use of agrochemicals, proven through the use of participatory certification seal Ecovida Network, and the products sold mainly in street fairs in the city of chapecó. To fulfill such a proposal were consulted the minutes of meetings and questionnaires with farmers to assess the dynamics of cooperation among its members, through the understanding of their social capital and social network analysis (SNA). To extend the study of the group and its members was adopted methodological approach of action research where activities were developed to identify strengths and weaknesses and contribute to its organizational restructuring, resulting in the construction, carried out by farmers, the guiding principles of the Living Heritage Group will contribute to the decision-making and strengthen their identity. The survey also brought the group is inserted in the Social Transition Agroecology therefore change the current paradigm is not inserted only in the alternative model of production, but in the form of organization of social actors and their role in the marketing process of their products, in discussing the scenario of food supply chains.

Conservation value, biodiversity value and methods of assessment in regenerating and human disturbed tropical forest

Although the value of primary forests for biodiversity conservation is well known, the potential biodiversity and conservation value of regenerating forests remains controversial. Many factors likely contribute to this, including: 1. the variable ages of regenerating forests being studied (often dominated by relatively young regenerating forests); 2. the potential for confounding on-going human disturbance (such as logging and hunting); 3. the relatively low number of multi-taxa studies; 4. the lack of studies that directly compare different historic disturbances within the same location; 5. contrasting patterns from different survey methodologies and the paucity of knowledge on the impacts across different vertical levels of rainforest biodiversity (often due to a lack of suitable methodologies available to assess them). We also know relatively little as to how biodiversity is affected by major current impacts, such as unmarked rainforest roads, which contribute to this degradation of habitat and fragmentation. This thesis explores the potential biodiversity value of regenerating rainforests under the best of scenarios and seeks to understand more about the impact of current human disturbance to biodiversity; data comes from case studies from the Manu and Sumaco Biosphere Reserves in the Western Amazon. Specifically, I compare overall biodiversity and conservation value of a best case regenerating rainforest site with a selection of well-studied primary forest sites and with predicted species lists for the region; including a focus on species of key conservation concern. I then investigate the biodiversity of the same study site in reference to different types of historic anthropogenic disturbance. Following this I investigate the impacts to biodiversity from an unmarked rainforest road. In order to understand more about the differential effects of habitat disturbance on arboreal diversity I directly assess how patterns of butterfly biodiversity vary between three vertical strata. Although assessments within the canopy have been made for birds, invertebrates and bats, very few studies have successfully targeted arboreal mammals. I therefore investigate the potential of camera traps for inventorying arboreal mammal species in comparison with traditional methodologies. Finally, in order to investigate the possibility that different survey methodologies might identify different biodiversity patterns in habitat disturbance assessments, I investigate whether two different but commonly used survey methodologies used to assess amphibians, indicate the same or different responses of amphibian biodiversity to historic habitat change by people. The regenerating rainforest study site contained high levels of species richness; both in terms of alpha diversity found in nearby primary forest areas (87% ±3.5) and in terms of predicted primary forest diversity from the region (83% ±6.7). This included 89% (39 out of 44) of the species of high conservation concern predicted for the Manu region. Faunal species richness in once completely cleared regenerating forest was on average 13% (±9.8) lower than historically selectively logged forest. The presence of the small unmarked road significantly altered levels of faunal biodiversity for three taxa, up to and potentially beyond 350m into the forest interior. Most notably, the impact on biodiversity extended to at least 32% of the whole reserve area. The assessment of butterflies across strata showed that different vertical zones within the same rainforest responded differently in areas with different historic human disturbance. A comparison between forest regenerating after selective logging and forest regenerating after complete clearance, showed that there was a 17% greater reduction in canopy species richness in the historically cleared forest compared with the terrestrial community. Comparing arboreal camera traps with traditional ground-based techniques suggests that camera traps are an effective tool for inventorying secretive arboreal rainforest mammal communities and detect a higher number of cryptic species. Finally, the two survey methodologies used to assess amphibian communities identified contrasting biodiversity patterns in a human modified rainforest; one indicated biodiversity differences between forests with different human disturbance histories, whereas the other suggested no differences between forest disturbance types. Overall, in this thesis I find that the conservation and biodiversity value of regenerating and human disturbed tropical forest can potentially contribute to rainforest biodiversity conservation, particularly in the best of circumstances. I also highlight the importance of utilising appropriate study methodologies that to investigate these three-dimensional habitats, and contribute to the development of methodologies to do so. However, care should be taken when using different survey methodologies, which can provide contrasting biodiversity patterns in response to human disturbance.

Data structures for SIMD logic simulation

Due to the growth of design size and complexity, design verification is an important aspect of the Logic Circuit development process. The purpose of verification is to validate that the design meets the system requirements and specification. This is done by either functional or formal verification. The most popular approach to functional verification is the use of simulation based techniques. Using models to replicate the behaviour of an actual system is called simulation. In this thesis, a software/data structure architecture without explicit locks is proposed to accelerate logic gate circuit simulation. We call thus system ZSIM. The ZSIM software architecture simulator targets low cost SIMD multi-core machines. Its performance is evaluated on the Intel Xeon Phi and 2 other machines (Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron). The aim of these experiments is to: • Verify that the data structure used allows SIMD acceleration, particularly on machines with gather instructions ( section 5.3.1). • Verify that, on sufficiently large circuits, substantial gains could be made from multicore parallelism ( section 5.3.2 ). • Show that a simulator using this approach out-performs an existing commercial simulator on a standard workstation ( section 5.3.3 ). • Show that the performance on a cheap Xeon Phi card is competitive with results reported elsewhere on much more expensive super-computers ( section 5.3.5 ). To evaluate the ZSIM, two types of test circuits were used: 1. Circuits from the IWLS benchmark suit [1] which allow direct comparison with other published studies of parallel simulators.2. Circuits generated by a parametrised circuit synthesizer. The synthesizer used an algorithm that has been shown to generate circuits that are statistically representative of real logic circuits. The synthesizer allowed testing of a range of very large circuits, larger than the ones for which it was possible to obtain open source files. The experimental results show that with SIMD acceleration and multicore, ZSIM gained a peak parallelisation factor of 300 on Intel Xeon Phi and 11 on Intel Xeon. With only SIMD enabled, ZSIM achieved a maximum parallelistion gain of 10 on Intel Xeon Phi and 4 on Intel Xeon. Furthermore, it was shown that this software architecture simulator running on a SIMD machine is much faster than, and can handle much bigger circuits than a widely used commercial simulator (Xilinx) running on a workstation. The performance achieved by ZSIM was also compared with similar pre-existing work on logic simulation targeting GPUs and supercomputers. It was shown that ZSIM simulator running on a Xeon Phi machine gives comparable simulation performance to the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer at very much lower cost. The experimental results have shown that the Xeon Phi is competitive with simulation on GPUs and allows the handling of much larger circuits than have been reported for GPU simulation. When targeting Xeon Phi architecture, the automatic cache management of the Xeon Phi, handles and manages the on-chip local store without any explicit mention of the local store being made in the architecture of the simulator itself. However, targeting GPUs, explicit cache management in program increases the complexity of the software architecture. Furthermore, one of the strongest points of the ZSIM simulator is its portability. Note that the same code was tested on both AMD and Xeon Phi machines. The same architecture that efficiently performs on Xeon Phi, was ported into a 64 core NUMA AMD Opteron. To conclude, the two main achievements are restated as following: The primary achievement of this work was proving that the ZSIM architecture was faster than previously published logic simulators on low cost platforms. The secondary achievement was the development of a synthetic testing suite that went beyond the scale range that was previously publicly available, based on prior work that showed the synthesis technique is valid.