Parallel Architectures for Many-Core Systems-On-Chip in Deep Sub-Micron Technology

Despite the several issues faced in the past, the evolutionary trend of silicon has kept its constant pace. Today an ever increasing number of cores is integrated onto the same die. Unfortunately, the extraordinary performance achievable by the many-core paradigm is limited by several factors. Memory bandwidth limitation, combined with inefficient synchronization mechanisms, can severely overcome the potential computation capabilities. Moreover, the huge HW/SW design space requires accurate and flexible tools to perform architectural explorations and validation of design choices. In this thesis we focus on the aforementioned aspects: a flexible and accurate Virtual Platform has been developed, targeting a reference many-core architecture. Such tool has been used to perform architectural explorations, focusing on instruction caching architecture and hybrid HW/SW synchronization mechanism. Beside architectural implications, another issue of embedded systems is considered: energy efficiency. Near Threshold Computing is a key research area in the Ultra-Low-Power domain, as it promises a tenfold improvement in energy efficiency compared to super-threshold operation and it mitigates thermal bottlenecks. The physical implications of modern deep sub-micron technology are severely limiting performance and reliability of modern designs. Reliability becomes a major obstacle when operating in NTC, especially memory operation becomes unreliable and can compromise system correctness. In the present work a novel hybrid memory architecture is devised to overcome reliability issues and at the same time improve energy efficiency by means of aggressive voltage scaling when allowed by workload requirements. Variability is another great drawback of near-threshold operation. The greatly increased sensitivity to threshold voltage variations in today a major concern for electronic devices. We introduce a variation-tolerant extension of the baseline many-core architecture. By means of micro-architectural knobs and a lightweight runtime control unit, the baseline architecture becomes dynamically tolerant to variations.

Functional dna nanostructures for in vitro biosensing in live cells

DNA is a fascinating biomolecule that is well known for its genetic role in living systems. The emerging area of DNA nanotechnology provides an alternative view that exploits unparallel self-assembly ability of DNA molecules for material use of DNA. Although many reports exist on the results of DNA self-assembling systems, still few of them focus on the in vitro study about the function of such DNA nanostructures in live cells. Due to this, there are still a limited research about the in vitro functionality of such designs. To address an aspect of this issue, we have designed, synthesized and characterized two multifunctional fluorescencent nanobiosensors by DNA self-assembling. Each structure was designed and implemented to be introduced in live cells in order to give information on their functioning in real-time. Computational tools were used in order to design a graphic model of two new DNA motifs and also to obtain the specific sequences to all the ssDNA molecules. By thermal self-assembly techniques we have successfully synthesized the structure and corroborate their formation by the PAGE technique. In addition, we have established the conditions to characterize their structural conformation change when they perform their sensor response. The sensing behavior was also accomplished by fluorescence spectroscopy techniques; FRET evaluation and fluorescence microscopy imaging. Providing the evidence about their adequate sensing performance outside and inside the cells detected in real-time. In a preliminary evaluation we have tried to show the in vitro functionality of our structures in different cancer cell lines with the ability to perform local sensing responses. Our findings suggest that DNA sensor nanostructures could serve as a platform to exploit further therapeutic achievements in live cells.

Still/moving images. Il rapporto dialettico tra cinema e fotografia nelle pratiche artistiche contemporanee.

Tra le plurime conseguenze dell’avvento del digitale, la riarticolazione dei rapporti tra immagine statica e immagine in movimento è certamente una delle più profonde. Sintomatica dei cambiamenti in atto sia nei film studies sia nella storia dell’arte, tale riarticolazione richiede un ripensamento dei confini disciplinari tradizionali entro cui il cinema e la fotografia sono stati affrontati come oggetti di studio separati e distinti. Nell’adottare un approccio molteplice, volto a comprendere prospettive provenienti dalla New Film History e dalla media archaeology, dalla teoria dell’arte e dagli studi visuali, questo lavoro esplora l’esistenza di una relazione dialettica tra il cinema e la fotografia intesa in modo duplice: come tensione costitutiva tra due media indissolubilmente connessi – non tanto in considerazione di un medesimo principio realistico di rappresentazione quanto, piuttosto, in virtù di uno scambio incessante nella modellizzazione di categorie quali il tempo, il movimento, l’immobilità, l’istante, la durata; come istanza peculiare della pratica artistica contemporanea, paradigma di riferimento nella produzione estetica di immagini. La tesi si suddivide in tre capitoli. Il primo si concentra sul rapporto tra l’immobilità e il movimento dell’immagine come cifra in grado di connettere l’estetica delle attrazioni e la cronofotografia a una serie di esperienze filmiche e artistiche prodotte nei territori delle avanguardie. Il secondo capitolo considera l’emergenza, dagli anni Novanta, di pratiche artistiche in cui l’incontro intermediale tra film e fotografia fornisce modelli di analisi volti all’indagine dell’attuale condizione estetica e tecnologica. Il terzo offre una panoramica critica su un caso di studio, la GIF art. La GIF è un formato digitale obsoleto che consente di produrre immagini che appaiono, simultaneamente, come fisse e animate; nel presente lavoro, la GIF è discussa come un medium capace di contraddire i confini attraverso cui concepiamo l’immagine fissa e in movimento, suggerendo, inoltre, un possibile modello di pensiero storico-cronologico anti-lineare.

Two new rapid SNP-typing methods for classifying Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex into the main phylogenetic lineages

There is increasing evidence that strain variation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) might influence the outcome of tuberculosis infection and disease. To assess genotype-phenotype associations, phylogenetically robust molecular markers and appropriate genotyping tools are required. Most current genotyping methods for MTBC are based on mobile or repetitive DNA elements. Because these elements are prone to convergent evolution, the corresponding genotyping techniques are suboptimal for phylogenetic studies and strain classification. By contrast, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) are ideal markers for classifying MTBC into phylogenetic lineages, as they exhibit very low degrees of homoplasy. In this study, we developed two complementary SNP-based genotyping methods to classify strains into the six main human-associated lineages of MTBC, the "Beijing" sublineage, and the clade comprising Mycobacterium bovis and Mycobacterium caprae. Phylogenetically informative SNPs were obtained from 22 MTBC whole-genome sequences. The first assay, referred to as MOL-PCR, is a ligation-dependent PCR with signal detection by fluorescent microspheres and a Luminex flow cytometer, which simultaneously interrogates eight SNPs. The second assay is based on six individual TaqMan real-time PCR assays for singleplex SNP-typing. We compared MOL-PCR and TaqMan results in two panels of clinical MTBC isolates. Both methods agreed fully when assigning 36 well-characterized strains into the main phylogenetic lineages. The sensitivity in allele-calling was 98.6% and 98.8% for MOL-PCR and TaqMan, respectively. Typing of an additional panel of 78 unknown clinical isolates revealed 99.2% and 100% sensitivity in allele-calling, respectively, and 100% agreement in lineage assignment between both methods. While MOL-PCR and TaqMan are both highly sensitive and specific, MOL-PCR is ideal for classification of isolates with no previous information, whereas TaqMan is faster for confirmation. Furthermore, both methods are rapid, flexible and comparably inexpensive.

Intervention Research Approaches

This article reviews the process of intervention research, with particular emphasis on interventions with and for older adults. First, we consider the context of intervention research: What are the resources and constraints that shape the process of intervention and research? Second, we outline a taxonomy of interventions, reflecting different combinations of level and timing of interventions. Third, we consider the types of research designs that are most appropriate in the different contexts of applied research.

Franciszek Maczynski: a Monograph

Franciszek Maczynski was one of the best Polish architects of the early 20th century and Solewski used a wide range of materials to complete a bibliography of Maczynski's architectural, artistic and theoretical works, and a biography of the architect. From his analysis of the material collected, he concluded that Maczynski was a romantic architect, influenced by a vision to seek the essential Truth in historical patterns or artistic creativity. This determined his search for the ideal form and style in architecture, connecting 'national' and historical inspiration, the vernacular 'Zakopane Style', Gesamtkunstwek and modernistic severity. However, Maczynski worked closely with Tadeusz Stryjenski, his most important patron, who also used the 'beginner's' artistic talents, while he, as the 'boss', decided on commissions and profits. This experience led to Maczynski's involvement in the Spojnia partnership, creating simple engineering architecture and successfully locating wealthy investors. It was the liberal idea of establishing a building firm to make profits that turned Maczynski into a regular builder and entrepreneur, abandoning the romantic idea of 'artistic' or 'national' architecture. The transformation from artist to entrepreneur indeed reflected the opposition of romantic-liberal.

[Titanium-alloy vs. CoCr-alloy in removable prosthodontics--a clinical study]

Different types of titanium-alloys instead of CoCr-alloys have been tested as material for the framework of removable partial dentures (RPD). Adequate casting and processing techniques have been developed which enable to fabricate frameworks of complex designs and the problem limits porosity. This opened new possibilities for the use of titanium-alloys with improved properties (E-module). The aim of this study was to summarise the use of titanium in removable prosthodontics and to evaluate prospectively the use of the Ti6A17Nb-alloy for RPDs in a small group of patients. Two identically designed RPDs from CoCr-alloy (remanium GM 800+) and Ti6A17Nb-alloy (girotan L) were produced for ten patients. They had to wear each RPD during six months, first the CoCr-RPD and then the Ti6A17Nb-RPD. A questionnaire (visual analogue scale = VAS) was completed by the patients after one, three and six months of function for each RPD. Prosthetic complications and service needed were recorded. After the end of the entire observation period of twelve months, the patients remained with the Ti6A17Nb-RPD and answered the questionnaire after another six months. All parameters regarding the design of the RPDs were positively estimated by the dentist. Minimal, not significant differences were noted by the patients concerning comfort, stability and retention (VAS). Clinically, no differences in technical aspects or regarding biological complications were observed after six-months periods. The Ti6A17Nb-alloy (girotan L) for the framework of RPDs was judged by patients and professionals to be equivalent to RPDs made from CoCr-alloy. No differences in material aspects could objectively be observed. The Ti6A17Nb-alloy can be beneficial for patients with allergies or incompatibility with one or several components of the CoCr-alloy.

Methodik für Wirtschaftswissenschaftler

Das vorgestellte Buch zeigt ein grosses Spektrum didaktischer Methoden, die sich trotz des Titels nicht nur für die Wirtschaftswissenschaften und nicht nur für Hochschulen eignen. Zum Teil stellen die Herausgeberinnen auch unkonventionelle Ansätze dar. Die vorliegende Rezension konzentriert sich auf jene vorgestellten Methoden, die elektronische Medien einbeziehen.

The EU’s Trouble with Mashups: From Disabling to Enabling a Digital Art Form

New tools for editing of digital images, music and films have opened up new possibilities to enable wider circles of society to engage in ’artistic’ activities of different qualities. User-generated content has produced a plethora of new forms of artistic expression. One type of user-generated content is the mashup. Mashups are compositions that combine existing works (often) protected by copyright and transform them into new original creations. The European legislative framework has not yet reacted to the copyright problems provoked by mashups. Neither under the US fair use doctrine, nor under the strict corset of limitations and exceptions in Art 5 (2)-(3) of the Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC) have mashups found room to develop in a safe legal environment. The contribution analyzes the current European legal framework and identifies its insufficiencies with regard to enabling a legal mashup culture. By comparison with the US fair use approach, in particular the parody defense, a recent CJEU judgment serves as a comparative example. Finally, an attempt is made to suggest solutions for the European legislator, based on the policy proposals of the EU Commission’s “Digital Agenda” and more recent policy documents (e.g. “On Content in the Digital Market”, “Licenses for Europe”). In this context, a distinction is made between non-commercial mashup artists and the emerging commercial mashup scene.

Carbon-related Border Adjustment and WTO Law

By expounding the legal foundations of border tax adjustments in international trade regulation, this book lays out the scope and limitations within which border carbon adjustments need to operate. The author examines the extent to which countries can lawfully impose border adjustment measures in relation to the carbon footprint of products on importation and exportation. In doing so, she provides a thorough analysis of the provisions of the WTO Agreement applicable to border carbon adjustments, offers a comprehensive review of relevant case law and engages with the extensive literature on the subject. Given the probability of conflict with non-discrimination rules of the GATT and uncertainty over justification of different designs of carbon-related border adjustment schemes under the exceptions of GATT Article XX, the book argues for a negotiated solution and discusses the possibility of the use of border carbon adjustments under preferential trade agreements.

Luxurious Merovingian Textiles Excavated from Burials in the Saint Denis Basilica, France, 6th-7th century

A new examination of the textile fragments found in the Merovingian burials in the basilica of Saint Denis, near Paris, has recently underscored the diversity of fabrics used to make garments in which members of the royal court were buried. Among them, some woolens of fine quality had been dyed with indigotin. The most astonishing fibre found belongs to a mixed textile (not skin) with beaver fibers and wool. Silks contained shellfish purple and in one case kermes? Two dyestuffs associated with royalty and privilege. Along with this was large number of gold threads, probably produced locally and that were used in tablet-woven borders or for embroideries. In addition, several figured silks, of oriental origin, testify to the importance of this "foreign" material and the taste for textiles woven with complex techniques and probably what had originally had beautiful designs. Although none of these designs have been preserved and many colors have been greatly damaged, the technical characteristics of the remnants indicate proveniences as far as Byzantium, Sassanid Persia and the Chinese court. Such precious textiles show the high social status and political power of the Merovingian court, a testament to their ability to access such luxurious and costly textiles through diplomacy and/or trade with other powerful empires. The examination of these rare textiles along with other fine silks and luxury objects from the same period found in France expand our view of the fundamental role of textiles in the political sphere of this early period of European history.

Bedeutung der Arbeitsallianz in der Psychotherapie

Das pantheoretische Konzept der Arbeitsallianz stellt die kollaborative Qualität der an der Therapie beteiligten Personen (i. e. zumeist der Patient und der Therapeut) in den Mittelpunkt. Die Arbeitsallianz ist die weltweit am besten untersuchte Prozessvariable in der Psychotherapie. Die vorliegende Arbeit bietet einen Überblick über den aktuellen metaanalytischen Wissensstand. Basierend auf 200 Primärstudien mit 14.000 teilnehmenden Patienten wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen Arbeitsallianz und Therapieerfolg metaanalytisch untersucht. Die Arbeitsallianz erweist sich als äußerst robuster Prädiktor, der moderate 8 % der Varianz des Therapieerfolgs erklärt. Der Zusammenhang über die verschiedenen Psychotherapietraditionen hinweg zeigte sich sowohl unter randomisierten kontrollierten, manualisierten Studienbedingungen als auch unter naturalistischen Voraussetzungen. Der Effekt fand sich zudem in den störungsspezifischen Erfolgseinschätzungen und den generelleren Erfolgsmaßen. Die moderaten Therapeuteneffekte in den Primärstudien konnten metaanalytisch bestätigt werden. Soziokulturelle Aspekte wie Substanzmissbrauch und ethnische Minoritäten moderieren den Einfluss zwischen Arbeitsallianz und Therapieerfolg. Die Nähe der Forscher zum Allianzkonzept („allegiance“) beeinflusst die Vorhersagekraft der frühen Allianz zwar statistisch bedeutsam, jedoch nicht substanziell.

Adaptive clinical trial design for targeted therapy development

The development of targeted therapy involve many challenges. Our study will address some of the key issues involved in biomarker identification and clinical trial design. In our study, we propose two biomarker selection methods, and then apply them in two different clinical trial designs for targeted therapy development. In particular, we propose a Bayesian two-step lasso procedure for biomarker selection in the proportional hazards model in Chapter 2. In the first step of this strategy, we use the Bayesian group lasso to identify the important marker groups, wherein each group contains the main effect of a single marker and its interactions with treatments. In the second step, we zoom in to select each individual marker and the interactions between markers and treatments in order to identify prognostic or predictive markers using the Bayesian adaptive lasso. In Chapter 3, we propose a Bayesian two-stage adaptive design for targeted therapy development while implementing the variable selection method given in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4, we proposed an alternate frequentist adaptive randomization strategy for situations where a large number of biomarkers need to be incorporated in the study design. We also propose a new adaptive randomization rule, which takes into account the variations associated with the point estimates of survival times. In all of our designs, we seek to identify the key markers that are either prognostic or predictive with respect to treatment. We are going to use extensive simulation to evaluate the operating characteristics of our methods.^

El tercer espacio: cruce de culturas en la literatura de frontera

Favorecida por el proyecto económico y político de la globalización, es posible observar cómo, desde las últimas décadas del pasado siglo, se ha ido agudizando una tendencia a la hibridación que, si bien podríamos considerar casi innata de la condición humana, ha trascendido en nuestros días la mera enunciación retórica hasta llegar a impregnar casi todos los estratos de la cultura. En el campo de los estudios literarios este proceso de mixturación ha contribuido a generar una verdadera explosión de la llamada literatura de frontera, caracterizada no sólo por una mutación en las mentalidades de los sectores sociales y étnicos -desde los que se origina-, sino por profundos cambios en las mismas estructuras sociales, culturales y lingüísticas. Esta problemática pone en cuestión la homogeneidad y la esencialidad de la identidad cultural, pues es un fenómeno actual que nos remite, inevitablemente, a la complejidad de la identidad. Precisamente, podríamos hablar de deslizamientos que se van produciendo en los diferentes planos de las manifestaciones artísticas, tendiendo éstos a amalgamarse, a fundirse uno con otros, en un cruzamiento de líneas de fuga, de rupturas, que atraviesan ese nuevo espacio, el Tercer Espacio, donde los diferentes discursos se van hibridando unos con otros, rompiendo la imagen de unidad, la imagen unitaria y tradicional. Unidad que no existió nunca y que no puede existir de ningún modo, porque es una imagen acotada que se esfuma en el caótico tejido de lo vivo, en la conformación y evolución de la raza humana.

Ergonomía y bienestar para las personas sentadas : propuesta para puestos de trabajo en oficinas y vehículos

El crecimiento sostenido de las actividades humanas, particularmente de aquellas que se realizan en postura sedente y la frecuencia de patologías ocasionadas por el mantenimiento de dicha postura, plantean la conveniencia del estudio del bienestar en el uso de equipamiento concebido para sentarse. El propósito del trabajo es lograr un conjunto de recomendaciones y una guía para el análisis del confort postural en productos y puestos de trabajo a partir del diagnóstico de los diseños de asientos actualmente disponibles en el mercado local, en particular: sillas, taburetes, butacas de vehículos, aplicándose en el estudio la metodología propia de la ergonomía.