tlCell: a software transactional memory for the cell broadband engine architecture

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Growth of the [110] oriented TiO2 nanorods on ITO substrates by sputtering technique for dye-sensitized solar cells

TiO2 films have been deposited on ITO substrates by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. It has been found that the sputtering pressure is a very important parameter for the structure of the deposited TiO2 films. When the pressure is lower than 1 Pa, the deposited has a dense structure and shows a preferred orientation along the [101] direction. However, the nanorod structure has been obtained as the sputtering pressure is higher than 1 Pa. These nanorods structure TiO2 film shows a preferred orientation along the [110] direction. The x-ray diffraction and the Raman scattering measurements show both the dense and the nanostructure TiO2 films have only an anatase phase, no other phase has been obtained. The results of the SEM show that these TiO2 nanorods are perpendicular to the ITO substrate. The TEM measurement shows that the nanorods have a very rough surface. The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been assembled using these TiO2 nanorod films prepared at different sputtering pressures as photoelectrode. And the effect of the sputtering pressure on the properties of the photoelectric conversion of the DSSCs has been studied.

Management Driven Hybrid Multicast Framework for Content Aware Networks

The need for better adaptation of networks to transported flows has led to research on new approaches such as content aware networks and network aware applications. In parallel, recent developments of multimedia and content oriented services and applications such as IPTV, video streaming, video on demand, and Internet TV reinforced interest in multicast technologies. IP multicast has not been widely deployed due to interdomain and QoS support problems; therefore, alternative solutions have been investigated. This article proposes a management driven hybrid multicast solution that is multi-domain and media oriented, and combines overlay multicast, IP multicast, and P2P. The architecture is developed in a content aware network and network aware application environment, based on light network virtualization. The multicast trees can be seen as parallel virtual content aware networks, spanning a single or multiple IP domains, customized to the type of content to be transported while fulfilling the quality of service requirements of the service provider.

Calcareous nannofossil assemblages around the Pliensbachian/Toarcian boundary in the reference section of Peniche (Portugal)

The Pliensbachian/Toarcian boundary (Lower Jurassic) is well represented in the Lusitanian Basin (Portugal), mainly in the Peniche area, recorded by a marl/limestone series. Calcareous nannofossil assemblages are described herein, with the aim to contribute to the Toarcian GSSP definition. Marly samples were collected 3 m below and 7 m above this boundary and analysed for calcareous nannofossils. The main nannofossils observed were Biscutum finchii, B. grande, Calcivascularis jansae, Crepidolithus crassus, C. granulatus, C. impontus, Lotharingius hauffii, L. sigillatus, L. aff. L. velatus, Schizosphaerella spp. and Tubirhabdus patulus. This assemblage indicates that the Pliensbachian/Toarcian boundary in Peniche lies in the upper part of the NJ5b Subzone. Schizosphaerella and Lotharingius dominate the assemblage. The abundant occurrence of C. jansae and the common occurrence of B. grande indicate a strong Tethyan influence.

Diagnosis of an EPS module

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e Computadores

Sparse matrix multiplication on a reconfigurable many-core architecture

Sparse matrix-vector multiplication (SMVM) is a fundamental operation in many scientific and engineering applications. In many cases sparse matrices have thousands of rows and columns where most of the entries are zero, while non-zero data is spread over the matrix. This sparsity of data locality reduces the effectiveness of data cache in general-purpose processors quite reducing their performance efficiency when compared to what is achieved with dense matrix multiplication. In this paper, we propose a parallel processing solution for SMVM in a many-core architecture. The architecture is tested with known benchmarks using a ZYNQ-7020 FPGA. The architecture is scalable in the number of core elements and limited only by the available memory bandwidth. It achieves performance efficiencies up to almost 70% and better performances than previous FPGA designs.

FPGA-based architecture for hyperspectral unmixing

This paper proposes an FPGA-based architecture for onboard hyperspectral unmixing. This method based on the Vertex Component Analysis (VCA) has several advantages, namely it is unsupervised, fully automatic, and it works without dimensionality reduction (DR) pre-processing step. The architecture has been designed for a low cost Xilinx Zynq board with a Zynq-7020 SoC FPGA based on the Artix-7 FPGA programmable logic and tested using real hyperspectral datasets. Experimental results indicate that the proposed implementation can achieve real-time processing, while maintaining the methods accuracy, which indicate the potential of the proposed platform to implement high-performance, low cost embedded systems.

Parallel GPU architecture for hyperspectral unmixing based on augmented Lagrangian method

Hyperspectral imaging has become one of the main topics in remote sensing applications, which comprise hundreds of spectral bands at different (almost contiguous) wavelength channels over the same area generating large data volumes comprising several GBs per flight. This high spectral resolution can be used for object detection and for discriminate between different objects based on their spectral characteristics. One of the main problems involved in hyperspectral analysis is the presence of mixed pixels, which arise when the spacial resolution of the sensor is not able to separate spectrally distinct materials. Spectral unmixing is one of the most important task for hyperspectral data exploitation. However, the unmixing algorithms can be computationally very expensive, and even high power consuming, which compromises the use in applications under on-board constraints. In recent years, graphics processing units (GPUs) have evolved into highly parallel and programmable systems. Specifically, several hyperspectral imaging algorithms have shown to be able to benefit from this hardware taking advantage of the extremely high floating-point processing performance, compact size, huge memory bandwidth, and relatively low cost of these units, which make them appealing for onboard data processing. In this paper, we propose a parallel implementation of an augmented Lagragian based method for unsupervised hyperspectral linear unmixing on GPUs using CUDA. The method called simplex identification via split augmented Lagrangian (SISAL) aims to identify the endmembers of a scene, i.e., is able to unmix hyperspectral data sets in which the pure pixel assumption is violated. The efficient implementation of SISAL method presented in this work exploits the GPU architecture at low level, using shared memory and coalesced accesses to memory.

Automatização de testes à framework myMIS

Atualmente, verifica-se um aumento na necessidade de software feito à medida do cliente, que se consiga adaptar de forma rápida as constantes mudanças da sua área de negócio. Cada cliente tem os seus problemas concretos que precisa de resolver, não lhe sendo muitas vezes possível dispensar uma elevada quantidade de recursos para atingir os fins pretendidos. De forma a dar resposta a estes problemas surgiram várias arquiteturas e metodologias de desenvolvimento de software, que permitem o desenvolvimento ágil de aplicações altamente configuráveis, que podem ser personalizadas por qualquer utilizador das mesmas. Este dinamismo, trazido para as aplicações sobre a forma de modelos que são personalizados pelos utilizadores e interpretados por uma plataforma genérica, cria maiores desafios no momento de realizar testes, visto existir um número de variáveis consideravelmente maior que numa aplicação com uma arquitetura tradicional. É necessário, em todos os momentos, garantir a integridade de todos os modelos, bem como da plataforma responsável pela sua interpretação, sem ser necessário o desenvolvimento constante de aplicações para suportar os testes sobre os diferentes modelos. Esta tese debruça-se sobre uma aplicação, a plataforma myMIS, que permite a interpretação de modelos orientados à gestão, escritos numa linguagem específica de domínio, sendo realizada a avaliação do estado atual e definida uma proposta de práticas de testes a aplicar no desenvolvimento da mesma. A proposta resultante desta tese permitiu verificar que, apesar das dificuldades inerentes à arquitetura da aplicação, o desenvolvimento de testes de uma forma genérica é possível, podendo as mesmas lógicas ser utilizadas para o teste de diversos modelos distintos.

Drug resistance of M. Tuberculosis isolated from patients with HIV infection seen at an AIDS Reference Center in São Paulo, Brazil

M. tuberculosis-positive cultures were obtained from 228 patients seen in our service and drug sensitivity assays were carried out from January 1992 to December 1994. A survey of the medical records of these patients showed resistance to one or more drugs in 47 (20.6%), 25 of whom (10.9%), who reported previous treatment, were considered to have acquired resistance. Among the antecedents investigated, only previous treatment and alcoholism were the factors independently associated with the occurrence of resistance. The survival of patients with resistant strains was lower than that of patients attacked by non-resistant M. tuberculosis. We conclude that in the present series M. tuberculosis resistance to tuberculostatic agents was predominantly of the acquired type.

Using perspective schema and a reference model to design the ETL process

Dissertação apresentada para a obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Informática

Multiagent System Architecture for Short-term Operation of Integrated Microgrids

The forthcoming smart grids are comprised of integrated microgrids operating in grid-connected and isolated mode with local generation, storage and demand response (DR) programs. The proposed model is based on three successive complementary steps for power transaction in the market environment. The first step is characterized as a microgrid’s internal market; the second concerns negotiations between distinct interconnected microgrids; and finally, the third refers to the actual electricity market. The proposed approach is modeled and tested using a MAS framework directed to the study of the smart grids environment, including the simulation of electricity markets. This is achieved through the integration of the proposed approach with the MASGriP (Multi-Agent Smart Grid Platform) system.

Methodology for collaborative enterprise reference ontology building

Dissertation presented at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa to obtain the Master degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

FROM NON-PLACE TO PLACE: A STUDY OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC SPACE AS A SPACE OF IDENTITY

Master Erasmus Mundus Crossways in European Humanities

Bacillary angiomatosis: description of 13 cases reported in five reference centers for AIDS treatment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The aim of this case series was to describe the clinical, laboratory and epidemiological characteristics and the presentation of bacillary angiomatosis cases (and/or parenchymal bacillary peliosis) that were identified in five public hospitals of Rio de Janeiro state between 1990 and 1997; these cases were compared with those previously described in the medical literature. Thirteen case-patients were enrolled in the study; the median age was 39 years and all patients were male. All patients were human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infected and they had previous or concomitant HIV-associated opportunistic infections or malignancies diagnosed at the time bacillary angiomatosis was diagnosed. Median T4 helper lymphocyte counts of patients was 96 cells per mm³. Cutaneous involvement was the most common clinical manifestation of bacillary angiomatosis in this study. Clinical remission following appropriate treatment was more common in our case series than that reported in the medical literature, while the incidence of relapse was similar. The frequency of bacillary angiomatosis in HIV patients calculated from two of the hospitals included in our study was 1.42 cases per 1000 patients, similar to the frequencies reported in the medical literature. Bacillary angiomatosis is an unusual opportunistic pathogen in our setting.