Global-EDF scheduling of multimode real- time systems considering mode independent tasks

Embedded real-time systems often have to support the embedding system in very different and changing application scenarios. An aircraft taxiing, taking off and in cruise flight is one example. The different application scenarios are reflected in the software structure with a changing task set and thus different operational modes. At the same time there is a strong push for integrating previously isolated functionalities in single-chip multicore processors. On such multicores the behavior of the system during a mode change, when the systems transitions from one mode to another, is complex but crucial to get right. In the past we have investigated mode change in multiprocessor systems where a mode change requires a complete change of task set. Now, we present the first analysis which considers mode changes in multicore systems, which use global EDF to schedule a set of mode independent (MI) and mode specific (MS) tasks. In such systems, only the set of MS tasks has to be replaced during mode changes, without jeopardizing the schedulability of the MI tasks. Of prime concern is that the mode change is safe and efficient: i.e. the mode change needs to be performed in a predefined time window and no deadlines may be missed as a function of the mode change.

Power Law Behavior and Self-similarity in Modern Industrial Accidents

Advances in technology have produced more and more intricate industrial systems, such as nuclear power plants, chemical centers and petroleum platforms. Such complex plants exhibit multiple interactions among smaller units and human operators, rising potentially disastrous failure, which can propagate across subsystem boundaries. This paper analyzes industrial accident data-series in the perspective of statistical physics and dynamical systems. Global data is collected from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) during the time period from year 1903 up to 2012. The statistical distributions of the number of fatalities caused by industrial accidents reveal Power Law (PL) behavior. We analyze the evolution of the PL parameters over time and observe a remarkable increment in the PL exponent during the last years. PL behavior allows prediction by extrapolation over a wide range of scales. In a complementary line of thought, we compare the data using appropriate indices and use different visualization techniques to correlate and to extract relationships among industrial accident events. This study contributes to better understand the complexity of modern industrial accidents and their ruling principles.

The global shopper & brands communication at airports

This project aims to illuminate two perspectives on travel retail. On the one hand, it describes the main character of the shopping scenario at airports, namely the Global Shopper. It covers the entire profile of the referred character, the main nationalities that represent him and the current shopping trends of the passenger. Also estimates of the booming nationalities and the future purchasing trends are accurately presented. On the other hand, the travel retail market is analyzed from the airport brands’ perspective. It is described what is currently done in terms of brands communication in the top ten airports around the world and the expected future market retail trends. To accurately explore the Global Shopper behavior and purchasing preferences, a market research was conducted with a sample of 128 respondents, male and female, from different nationalities, age groups, occupation and education backgrounds. The essay tests hypothesis regarding the relevance of several variables in the purchasing process of the Global Shopper in order to understand the most pleasant way to approach consumers in travel retail. The main variables studied concern the reasons to shop at airports, to whom the passenger shops, the preferred category and brand of purchase, feelings while shopping abroad, impulsive buying behavior, brand loyalty, the use of mobile devices in the shopping process, brands communication at airports, pre-ordering online and the attitude towards self-service stores. Some findings were in accordance with expectations, while others were a surprise and may produce valuable recommendations for future travel retail practices. 4 The main relevant results concern two areas, namely pre-ordering online and self-service stores. Results showed a certain stress about not having enough time to choose between the various offerings in travel retail, as well as difficulty in dealing with crowed stores. However, pre-ordering online was not common, which would be an initiative that could solve the discomfort at airport’s stores. Moreover, self-service would promote efficiency in stores allowing passengers to save time if they already know how to go through the shopping process by themselves. Another possible recommendation concerns differentiating the strategy in travel retail for the two genders. Some differences were found in the categories bought by male and female, as well as to how brands should shape their approach concerning the demands of each gender.

Linking Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) data to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC): the case for the Seychelles

Tobacco control has been recognized as a main public health concern in Seychelles for the past two decades. Tobacco advertising, sponsoring and promotion has been banned for years, tobacco products are submitted to high taxes, high-profile awareness programs are organized regularly, and several other control measures have been implemented. The Republic of Seychelles was the first country to ratify the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in the African region. Three population-based surveys have been conducted in adults in Seychelles and results showed a substantial decrease in the prevalence of smoking among adults between 1989 and 2004. A first survey in adolescents was conducted in Seychelles in 2002 (the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, GYTS) in a representative sample of 1321 girls and boys aged 13-15 years. The results show that approximately half of students had tried smoking and a quarter of both boys and girls had smoked at least one cigarette during the past 30 days. Although "current smoking" is defined differently in adolescents (>or=1 cigarette during the past 30 days) and in adults (>or=1 cigarette per day), which precludes direct comparison, the high smoking prevalence in youth in Seychelles likely predicts an increasing prevalence of tobacco use in the next adult generation, particularly in women. GYTS 2002 also provides important data on a wide range of specific individual and societal factors influencing tobacco use. Hence, GYTS can be a powerful tool for monitoring the situation of tobacco use in adolescents, for highlighting the need for new policy and programs, and for evaluating the impact of current and future programs.

Modeling resting-state functional networks when the cortex falls asleep: local and global changes.

The transition from wakefulness to sleep represents the most conspicuous change in behavior and the level of consciousness occurring in the healthy brain. It is accompanied by similarly conspicuous changes in neural dynamics, traditionally exemplified by the change from "desynchronized" electroencephalogram activity in wake to globally synchronized slow wave activity of early sleep. However, unit and local field recordings indicate that the transition is more gradual than it might appear: On one hand, local slow waves already appear during wake; on the other hand, slow sleep waves are only rarely global. Studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging also reveal changes in resting-state functional connectivity (FC) between wake and slow wave sleep. However, it remains unclear how resting-state networks may change during this transition period. Here, we employ large-scale modeling of the human cortico-cortical anatomical connectivity to evaluate changes in resting-state FC when the model "falls asleep" due to the progressive decrease in arousal-promoting neuromodulation. When cholinergic neuromodulation is parametrically decreased, local slow waves appear, while the overall organization of resting-state networks does not change. Furthermore, we show that these local slow waves are structured macroscopically in networks that resemble the resting-state networks. In contrast, when the neuromodulator decrease further to very low levels, slow waves become global and resting-state networks merge into a single undifferentiated, broadly synchronized network.

Global bioethics – myth or reality?

Affiliation: Bryn Williams-Jones : Département de médicine sociale et préventive, Faculté de medecine, Université de Montréal

Programmable Self-Assembly: Constructing Global Shape using Biologically-inspire

In this thesis I present a language for instructing a sheet of identically-programmed, flexible, autonomous agents (``cells'') to assemble themselves into a predetermined global shape, using local interactions. The global shape is described as a folding construction on a continuous sheet, using a set of axioms from paper-folding (origami). I provide a means of automatically deriving the cell program, executed by all cells, from the global shape description. With this language, a wide variety of global shapes and patterns can be synthesized, using only local interactions between identically-programmed cells. Examples include flat layered shapes, all plane Euclidean constructions, and a variety of tessellation patterns. In contrast to approaches based on cellular automata or evolution, the cell program is directly derived from the global shape description and is composed from a small number of biologically-inspired primitives: gradients, neighborhood query, polarity inversion, cell-to-cell contact and flexible folding. The cell programs are robust, without relying on regular cell placement, global coordinates, or synchronous operation and can tolerate a small amount of random cell death. I show that an average cell neighborhood of 15 is sufficient to reliably self-assemble complex shapes and geometric patterns on randomly distributed cells. The language provides many insights into the relationship between local and global descriptions of behavior, such as the advantage of constructive languages, mechanisms for achieving global robustness, and mechanisms for achieving scale-independent shapes from a single cell program. The language suggests a mechanism by which many related shapes can be created by the same cell program, in the manner of D'Arcy Thompson's famous coordinate transformations. The thesis illuminates how complex morphology and pattern can emerge from local interactions, and how one can engineer robust self-assembly.

Liderazgo y resiliencia organizacional en la crisis financiera global del 2008–2009

Durante la crisis financiera global de 2008 muchas organizaciones y mercados financieros tuvieron que terminar sus operaciones o replantearlas debido a los choques que golpearon el bienestar de sus empresas. A pesar de esta grave situación, en la actualidad se pueden encontrar empresas que se recuperaron y salieron del terrible panorama que les presentó la crisis, incluso encontrando nuevas oportunidades de negocio y fortaleciendo su futuro. Esta capacidad que algunas organizaciones tuvieron y que permitió su salida victoriosa de la crisis se denomina resiliencia, la cual es la capacidad de sobreponerse a los efectos negativos de choques internos o externos (Briguglio, Cordina, Farrugia & Vella 2009). Por tanto en el presente trabajo se estudiará esta capacidad tanto en la organización como en los líderes para hallar factores que mejoren el desempeño de las empresas en crisis como la que ocurrió en el 2008 – 2009. Primero se realizará un estudio sobre los sucesos y el desarrollo de la crisis subprime del año 2008 para tener un entendimiento claro de sus antecedentes, desarrollo, magnitud y consecuencias. Posteriormente se realizará un estudio profundo sobre la teoría de la resiliencia organizacional y la resiliencia en el líder como individuo y los estilos de liderazgo. Finalmente teniendo un sustento teórico tanto de la crisis como del concepto de resiliencia se tomarán casos de estudio de empresas que lograron perdurar en la crisis financiera del 2008 y empresas que no lograron sobrevivir para posteriormente hallar características del líder y del liderazgo que puedan aumentar o afectar la capacidad de resiliencia de las organizaciones con el objetivo de brindar herramientas a los líderes actuales para que manejen de forma eficiente y eficaz las empresas en un mundo complejo y variable como el actual.

El acuerdo de cooperación técnica nuclear firmado entre Brasil y Francia en 2009 y su relación con la búsqueda de Brasil de consolidar su proyecto de liderazgo global

Brasil, ha buscado en las últimas décadas consolidar su proyección y vocación como Estado lider en el mundo. Por ello, ve el desarrollo del área nuclear como una capacidad importante de los países líderes y por ello busca desarrollar aún más todas sus capacidades como Estado.

Determinantes socio-económicas de la desnutrición global infantil en la Localidad de Ciudad Bolívar (Bogotá, Colombia) en el año 2011

La desnutrición infantil y la pobreza se encuentran asociadas y estas a su vez con el progreso de los países. Conocer las determinantes sociales y económicas de la niñez que padece de bajo peso es necesario para crear escenarios propicios para el adecuado desarrollo de la primera infancia y de esta manera contribuir con la superación de la pobreza en el marco de sistemas sanitarios equitativos. Se realiza una descripción de las características socio-económicas y un análisis de posibles asociaciones entre estas y el bajo peso infantil de una muestra de infantes de uno de los sectores de mayor vulnerabilidad y pobreza de Bogotá (Colombia). La tasa del bajo peso infantil en la muestra del estudio en más alta a la presentada en Bogotá y Colombia (8.5%, 2.9% y 3.4% respectivamente). Al realizar el análisis de las posibles asociaciones entre el bajo peso y las variables de estudio, se evidencia que las relaciones son débiles entre la primera y las segundas, siendo la condición de desplazamiento la que mayor asociación positiva presenta con la deficiencia nutricional seguido del rango de edad entre los 25 y 36 meses. La situación que presenta mayor independencia con respecto al bajo peso infantil es contar con vivienda propia seguida del sexo. La desnutrición infantil se presenta en niveles importantes en sectores de mayor vulnerabilidad con implicaciones para el adecuado desarrollo de los infantes y para las intenciones de reducción de los índices de pobreza en el país. El fortalecimiento de las políticas públicas que favorezca el desarrollo infantil, la superación de la pobreza y las inequidades en los sistemas de salud deben contemplar acciones integrales dirigidas a los más vulnerables, con la participación de la sociedad civil y los sectores públicos y privados, el compromiso político y económico de los gobiernos y reglas claras que contribuyan a la solución estructural de la pobreza y que promueva el adecuado desarrollo infantil.

Validity of the DSM-Oriented Scales of the Child Behavior Checklist and Youth Self-Report

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Global attractivity in a recursive sequence

In this paper, we Study the invariant intervals, the globally attractivity of the two equilibrium points, and the oscillatory behavior of tile solutions of the difference equation x(n =) ax(n-1) - bx(n-2)/c + x(n-2), n = 1,2,......, where a, b. c > 0. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Global exponential periodicity of a class of bidirectional associative memory networks with finite distributed delays

In this paper, we study the periodic oscillatory behavior of a class of bidirectional associative memory (BAM) networks with finite distributed delays. A set of criteria are proposed for determining global exponential periodicity of the proposed BAM networks, which assume neither differentiability nor monotonicity of the activation function of each neuron. In addition, our criteria are easily checkable. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On the long time behavior of free stochastic Schrödinger evolutions

We discuss the time evolution of the wave function which is the solution of a stochastic Schrödinger equation describing the dynamics of a free quantum particle subject to spontaneous localizations in space. We prove global existence and uniqueness of solutions. We observe that there exist three time regimes: the collapse regime, the classical regime and the diffusive regime. Concerning the latter, we assert that the general solution converges almost surely to a diffusing Gaussian wave function having a finite spread both in position as well as in momentum. This paper corrects and completes earlier works on this issue.

A global picture of the seasonal persistence of stratospheric ozone anomalies

Interannual anomalies in vertical profiles of stratospheric ozone, in both equatorial and extratropical regions, have been shown to exhibit a strong seasonal persistence, namely, extended temporal autocorrelations during certain times of the calendar year. Here we investigate the relationship between this seasonal persistence of equatorial and extratropical ozone anomalies using the SAGE‐corrected SBUV data set, which provides a long‐term ozone profile time series. For the regions of the stratosphere where ozone is under purely dynamical or purely photochemical control, the seasonal persistence of equatorial and extratropical ozone anomalies arises from distinct mechanisms but preserves an anticorrelation between tropical and extratropical anomalies established during the winter period. In the 16–10 hPa layer, where ozone is controlled by both dynamical and photochemical processes, equatorial ozone anomalies exhibit a completely different behavior compared to ozone anomalies above and below in terms of variability, seasonal persistence, and especially the relationship between equatorial and extratropical ozone. Cross‐latitude‐time correlations show that for the 16–10 hPa layer, Northern Hemisphere (NH) extratropical ozone anomalies show the same variability as equatorial ozone anomalies but lagged by 3–6 months. High correlation coefficients are observed during the time frame of seasonal persistence of ozone anomalies, which is June– December for equatorial ozone and shifts by approximately 3–6 months when going from the equatorial region to NH extratropics. Thus in the transition zone between dynamical and photochemical control, equatorial ozone anomalies established in boreal summer/autumn are mirrored by NH extratropical ozone anomalies with a time lag similar to transport time scales. Equatorial ozone anomalies established in boreal winter/spring are likewise correlated with ozone anomalies in the Southern Hemisphere extratropics with a time lag comparable to transport time scales, similar to what is seen in the NH. However, the correlations between equatorial and SH extratropical ozone in the 10–16 hPa layer are weak.