Power Aware Real Time Scheduling in Constrained Devices

Real-time scheduling algorithms, such as Rate Monotonic and Earliest Deadline First, guarantee that calculations are performed within a pre-defined time. As many real-time systems operate on limited battery power, these algorithms have been enhanced with power-aware properties. In this thesis, 13 power-aware real-time scheduling algorithms for processor, device and system-level use are explored.

Power and Authority. Birgitta of Sweden and her Revelations

In the High Middle Ages female saints were customarily noble virgins. Thus, as a wife and a mother of eight children, the Swedish noble lady Birgitta (1302/3 1373) was an atypical candidate for sanctity. However, in 1391 she was canonized only 18 years after her death and became a role model for many late medieval women, who were mothers and widows. The dissertation Power and Authority Birgitta of Sweden and Her Revelations investigates how Birgitta went about establishing her power and authority during the first ten years of her career as a living saint, in 1340 1349. It is written from the perspectives of gender, authority, and power. The sources consist of approximately seven hundred revelations, hagiographical texts and other medieval documents. This work concentrates on the interaction between Birgitta and her audience. During her lifetime Birgitta was already regarded as a holy woman, as a living saint. A living saint could be given no formal papal or other recognition, for one could never be certain about his or her future activities. Thus, the living saint needed an audience for whom to perform signs of sanctity. In this study particular attention is paid to situations within which the power relations between the living saint and her audience can be traced and are open to critical analysis. Situations of conflict that arose in Birgitta s life are especially fruitful for this purpose. During the Middle Ages, institutional power and authority were exclusively in the hands of secular male leaders and churchmen. In this work it is argued, however, that Birgitta used different kinds of power than men. It is evident that she exercized influence on lay people as well as on secular and clerical authorities. The second, third, and fourth chapter of this study examine the beginning of Birgitta s career as a visionary, what factors and influences lay behind it, and what kind of roles they played in establishing her religious authority. The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapter concentrate on Birgitta s exercising of power in specific situations during her time in Sweden until she left on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1349. The central question is how she exercised power with different people. As a result, this book will offer a narrative of Birgitta s social interactions in Sweden seen from the perspectives of power and authority. Along with the concept of power, authority is a key issue. By definition, one who has power also has authority but a person who does not have official power can, nevertheless, have authority. Authority in action is defined here as meaning that a person was listened to. Birgitta acted both in situations of open conflict and where no conflict was evident. Her strategies included, for example, inducement, encouragement and flattery. In order to make people do as she felt was right she also threatened them openly with divine wrath. Sometimes she even used both positive persuasion and threats. Birgitta s power seems very similar to that of priests and ascetics. Common to all of them was that their power demanded interaction with other people and audiences. Because Birgitta did not have power and authority ex officio she had to persuade people to believe in her powers. She did this because she was convinced of her mission and sought to make people change their lives. In so doing, she moved from the domestic field to the public fields of religion and politics.

Integration and optimization of pressure retarded osmosis with reverse osmosis for power generation and high efficiency desalination

Salinity gradient power is proposed as a source of renewable energy when two solutions of different salinity are mixed. In particular, Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) coupled with a Reverse Osmosis process (RO) has been previously suggested for power generation, using RO brine as the draw solution. However, integration of PRO with RO may have further value for increasing the extent of water recovery in a desalination process. Consequently, this study was designed to model the impact of various system parameters to better understand how to design and operate practical PRO-RO units. The impact of feed salinity and recovery rate for the RO process on the concentration of draw solution, feed pressure, and membrane area of the PRO process was evaluated. The PRO system was designed to operate at maximum power density of . Model results showed that the PRO power density generated intensified with increasing seawater salinity and RO recovery rate. For an RO process operating at 52% recovery rate and 35 g/L feed salinity, a maximum power density of 24 W/m2 was achieved using 4.5 M NaCl draw solution. When seawater salinity increased to 45 g/L and the RO recovery rate was 46%, the PRO power density increased to 28 W/m2 using 5 M NaCl draw solution. The PRO system was able to increase the recovery rate of the RO by up to 18% depending on seawater salinity and RO recovery rate. This result suggested a potential advantage of coupling PRO process with RO system to increase the recovery rate of the desalination process and reduce brine discharge.

'A responsible nuclear weapons power' : Nuclear Weapons and Indian Foreign Policy

This thesis examines the interrelationship and dynamics between the Indian United Progressive Alliance government’s foreign policy and its nuclear weapons policy. The purpose of the study is to situate nuclear policy within a foreign policy framework, and the fundamental research problem is thus how does the Indian nuclear policy reflect and respond to the Indian foreign policy? The study examines the intentions in the Indian foreign and nuclear policies, and asks whether these intentions are commensurable or incommensurable. Moreover, the thesis asks whether the UPA government differs from its predecessors, most notably the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government in its foreign and nuclear policies. Answers to these questions are based on the interpretation of political texts and speeches as suggested by Quentin Skinner’s notion of meaning3, what does a writer or speaker mean by what he or she says in a given text, and by J.L. Austin’s speech act theory. This linguistic perspective and the approach of intertextualizing, place the political acts within their contingent intellectual and political contexts. The notion of strategic culture is therefore introduced to provide context for these juxtapositions. The thesis firstly analyses the societal, historical and intellectual context of India’s foreign and nuclear policy. Following from this analysis the thesis then examines the foreign and nuclear policies of Prime Minister Manmo-han Singh’s UPA government. This analysis focuses on the texts, speeches and statements of Indian authorities between 2004 and 2008. This study forwards the following claims: firstly, the UPA Government conducts a foreign policy that is mainly and explicitly inclusive, open and enhancing, and it conducts a nuclear policy that is mainly and implicitly excluding, closed and protective. Secondly, despite the fact that the notion of military security is widely appreciated and does not, as such, necessarily collide with foreign policy, the UPA Government conducts a nuclear policy that is incommensurable with its foreign policy. Thirdly, the UPA Gov-ernment foreign and nuclear policies are, nevertheless, commensurable re-garding their internal intentions. Finally, the UPA Government is conduct-ing a nuclear policy that is gradually leading India towards having a triad of nuclear weapons with various platforms and device designs and a function-ing and robust command and control system encompassing political and military planning, decision-making and execution. Regarding the question of the possible differences between the UPA and NDA governments this thesis claims that, despite their different ideological roots and orientations in domestic affairs, the Indian National Congress Party conducts, perhaps surprisingly, quite a similar foreign and nuclear policy to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Meltdown - a tool for classification and analysis of DSF data

An application that translates raw thermal melt curve data into more easily assimilated knowledge is described. This program, called ‘Meltdown’, performs a number of data remediation steps before classifying melt curves and estimating melting temperatures. The final output is a report that summarizes the results of a differential scanning fluorimetry experiment. Meltdown uses a Bayesian classification scheme, enabling reproducible identification of various trends commonly found in DSF datasets. The goal of Meltdown is not to replace human analysis of the raw data, but to provide a sensible interpretation of the data to make this useful experimental technique accessible to naïve users, as well as providing a starting point for detailed analyses by more experienced users.

A new family of low-power CT/SUP 2/L circuits

A new family of low-power logic circuits, employing a multiemitter transistor input circuit and a modified complementary p-n-p n-p-n output stage, having almost the same performance as standard TTL circuits and suitable for IC use, is reported in this correspondence.

Ministers as strategic political leaders? : Strategic political steering after NPM reforms in Finland

This study explores strategic political steering after the New Public Management (NPM) reforms, with emphasis on the new role assigned to Government ministers in Finland. In the NPM model, politicians concentrate on broad, principal issues, while agencies have discretion within the limits set by politicians. In Finland, strategic steering was introduced with Management by Results (MBR), but the actual tools for strategic political steering have been the Government Programme, the Government Strategy Portfolio (GSP) and Frame Budgeting. This study addresses these tools as means of strategic steering conducted by the Cabinet and individual ministers within their respective ministries. The time frame of the study includes the two Lipponen Cabinets between 1995 and 2003. Interviews with fourteen ministers as well as with fourteen top officials were conducted. In addition, administrative reform documents and documents related to strategic steering tools were analysed. The empirical conclusions of the study can be summarised as follows: There were few signs of strategic political steering in the Lipponen Cabinets. Although the Government Programmes of both Cabinets introduced strategic thinking, the strategic guidelines set forth at the beginning of the Programme were not linked to the GSP or to Frame Budgeting. The GSP could be characterised as the collected strategic agendas of each ministry, while there was neither the will nor the courage among Cabinet members to prioritise the projects and to make selections. The Cabinet used Frame Budgeting mainly in the sense of spending limits, not in making strategic allocation decisions. As for the GSP at the departmental level, projects were suggested by top officials, and ministers only approved the suggested list. Frame Budgeting at the departmental level proved to be the most interesting strategic steering tool from ministers viewpoint: they actively participated in defining which issues would need extra financing. Because the chances for extra financing were minimal, ministers had an effect only on a marginal share of the budget. At the departmental level, the study shows that strategic plans were considered the domain of officials. As for strategies concerning specific substances, there was variation in the interest shown by the ministers. A few ministers emphasised the importance of strategic work and led strategy processes. In most cases, however, officials led the process while ministers offered comments on the drafts of strategy documents. The results of this study together with experiences reported in other countries and local politics show that political decision-makers have difficulty operating at the strategic level. The conclusion is that politicians do not have sufficient incentive to perform the strategic role implied by the NPM type of reforms. Overall, the empirical results of the study indicate the power of politics over management reforms.

Private power and new media: The case of the corporate suppression of WikiLeaks and its implications for the exercise of fundamental rights on the internet

Globalization, along with its digital and information communication technology counterparts, including the Internet and cyberspace, may signify a whole new era for human rights, characterized by new tensions, challenges, and risks for human rights, as well as new opportunities. Human Rights and Risks in the Digital Era: Globalization and the Effects of Information Technologies explores the emergence and evolution of ‘digital’ rights that challenge and transform more traditional legal, political, and historical understandings of human rights. Academic and legal scholars will explore individual, national, and international democratic dilemmas--sparked by economic and environmental crises, media culture, data collection, privatization, surveillance, and security--that alter the way individuals and societies think about, regulate, and protect rights when faced with new challenges and threats. The book not only uncovers emerging changes in discussions of human rights, it proposes legal remedies and public policies to mitigate the challenges posed by new technologies and globalization.

The Gerbera cDNA Microarray: A Tool for Large-Scale Identification of Genes Involved in Flower Development

During the past ten years, large-scale transcript analysis using microarrays has become a powerful tool to identify and predict functions for new genes. It allows simultaneous monitoring of the expression of thousands of genes and has become a routinely used tool in laboratories worldwide. Microarray analysis will, together with other functional genomics tools, take us closer to understanding the functions of all genes in genomes of living organisms. Flower development is a genetically regulated process which has mostly been studied in the traditional model species Arabidopsis thaliana, Antirrhinum majus and Petunia hybrida. The molecular mechanisms behind flower development in them are partly applicable in other plant systems. However, not all biological phenomena can be approached with just a few model systems. In order to understand and apply the knowledge to ecologically and economically important plants, other species also need to be studied. Sequencing of 17 000 ESTs from nine different cDNA libraries of the ornamental plant Gerbera hybrida made it possible to construct a cDNA microarray with 9000 probes. The probes of the microarray represent all different ESTs in the database. From the gerbera ESTs 20% were unique to gerbera while 373 were specific to the Asteraceae family of flowering plants. Gerbera has composite inflorescences with three different types of flowers that vary from each other morphologically. The marginal ray flowers are large, often pigmented and female, while the central disc flowers are smaller and more radially symmetrical perfect flowers. Intermediate trans flowers are similar to ray flowers but smaller in size. This feature together with the molecular tools applied to gerbera, make gerbera a unique system in comparison to the common model plants with only a single kind of flowers in their inflorescence. In the first part of this thesis, conditions for gerbera microarray analysis were optimised including experimental design, sample preparation and hybridization, as well as data analysis and verification. Moreover, in the first study, the flower and flower organ-specific genes were identified. After the reliability and reproducibility of the method were confirmed, the microarrays were utilized to investigate transcriptional differences between ray and disc flowers. This study revealed novel information about the morphological development as well as the transcriptional regulation of early stages of development in various flower types of gerbera. The most interesting finding was differential expression of MADS-box genes, suggesting the existence of flower type-specific regulatory complexes in the specification of different types of flowers. The gerbera microarray was further used to profile changes in expression during petal development. Gerbera ray flower petals are large, which makes them an ideal model to study organogenesis. Six different stages were compared and specifically analysed. Expression profiles of genes related to cell structure and growth implied that during stage two, cells divide, a process which is marked by expression of histones, cyclins and tubulins. Stage 4 was found to be a transition stage between cell division and expansion and by stage 6 cells had stopped division and instead underwent expansion. Interestingly, at the last analysed stage, stage 9, when cells did not grow any more, the highest number of upregulated genes was detected. The gerbera microarray is a fully-functioning tool for large-scale studies of flower development and correlation with real-time RT-PCR results show that it is also highly sensitive and reliable. Gene expression data presented here will be a source for gene expression mining or marker gene discovery in the future studies that will be performed in the Gerbera Laboratory. The publicly available data will also serve the plant research community world-wide.

Environmental effects of thermal and radioactive discharges from nuclear power plants in the boreal brackish-water conditions of the northern Baltic Sea

During recent decades, thermal and radioactive discharges from nuclear power plants into the aquatic environment have become the subject of lively debate as an ecological concern. The target of this thesis was to summarize the large quantity of results obtained in extensive monitoring programmes and studies carried out in recipient sea areas off the Finnish nuclear power plants at Loviisa and Olkiluoto during more than four decades. The Loviisa NPP is located on the coast of the Gulf of Finland and Olkiluoto NPP on that of the Bothnian Sea. The state of the Gulf of Finland is clearly more eutrophic; the nutrient concentrations in the surface water are about 1½ 2 times higher at Loviisa than at Olkiluoto, and the total phosphorus concentrations still increased in both areas (even doubled at Loviisa) between the early 1970s and 2000. Thus, it is a challenge to distinguish the local effects of thermal discharges from the general eutrophication process of the Gulf of Finland. The salinity is generally low in the brackish-water conditions of the northern Baltic Sea, being however about 1 higher at Olkiluoto than at Loviisa (the salinity of surface water varying at the latter from near to 0 in early spring to 4 6 in late autumn). Thus, many marine and fresh-water organisms live in the Loviisa area close to their limit of existence, which makes the biota sensitive to any additional stress. The characteristics of the discharge areas of the two sites differ from each other in many respects: the discharge area at Loviisa is a semi-enclosed bay in the inner archipelago, where the exchange of water is limited, while the discharge area at Olkiluoto is more open, and the exchange of water with the open Bothnian Sea is more effective. The effects of the cooling water discharged from the power plants on the temperatures in the sea were most obvious in winter. The formation of a permanent ice cover in the discharge areas has been delayed in early winter, and the break-up of the ice occurs earlier in spring. The prolonging of the growing season and the disturbance of the overwintering time, in conditions where the biota has adjusted to a distinct rest period in winter, have been the most significant biological effects of the thermal pollution. The soft-bottom macrofauna at Loviisa has deteriorated to the point of almost total extinction at many sampling stations during the past 40 years. A similar decline has been reported for the whole eastern Gulf of Finland. However, the local eutrophication process seems to have contributed into the decline of the zoobenthos in the discharge area at Loviisa. Thermal discharges have increased the production of organic matter, which again has led to more organic bottom deposits. These have in turn increased the tendency of the isolated deeps to a depletion of oxygen, and this has further caused strong remobilization of phosphorus from the bottom sediments. Phytoplankton primary production and primary production capacity doubled in the whole area between the late 1960s and the late 1990s, but started to decrease a little at the beginning of this century. The focus of the production shifted from spring to mid- and late summer. The general rise in the level of primary production was mainly due to the increase in nutrient concentrations over the whole Gulf of Finland, but the thermal discharge contributed to a stronger increase of production in the discharge area compared to that in the intake area. The eutrophication of littoral vegetation in the discharge area has been the most obvious, unambiguous and significant biological effect of the heated water. Myriophyllum spicatum, Potamogeton perfoliatus and Potamogeton pectinatus, and vigorous growths of numerous filamentous algae as their epiphytes have strongly increased in the vicinity of the cooling water outlet, where they have formed dense populations in the littoral zone in late summer. However, the strongest increase of phytobenthos has extended only to a distance of about 1 km from the outlet, i.e., the changes in vegetation have been largest in those areas that remain ice-free in winter. Similar trends were also discernible at Olkiluoto, but to a clearly smaller extent, which was due to the definitely weaker level of background eutrophy and nutrient concentrations in the Bothnian Sea, and the differing local hydrographical and biological factors prevailing in the Olkiluoto area. The level of primary production has also increased at Olkiluoto, but has remained at a clearly lower level than at Loviisa. In spite of the analogous changes observed in the macrozoobenthos, the benthic fauna has remained strong and diversified in the Olkiluoto area. Small amounts of local discharge nuclides were regularly detected in environmental samples taken from the discharge areas: tritium in seawater samples, and activation products, such as 60Co, 58Co, 54Mn, 110mAg, 51Cr, in suspended particulate matter, bottom sediments and in several indicator organisms (e.g., periphyton and Fucus vesiculosus) that effectively accumulate radioactive substances from the medium. The tritium discharges and the consequent detection frequency and concentrations of tritium in seawater were higher at Loviisa, but the concentrations of the activation products were higher at Olkiluoto, where traces of local discharge nuclides were also observed over a clearly wider area, due to the better exchange of water than at Loviisa, where local discharge nuclides were only detected outside Hästholmsfjärden Bay quite rarely and in smaller amounts. At the farthest, an insignificant trace amount (0.2 Bq kg-1 d.w.) of 60Co originating from Olkiluoto was detected in Fucus at a distance of 137 km from the power plant. Discharge nuclides from the local nuclear power plants were almost exclusively detected at the lower trophic levels of the ecosystems. Traces of local discharge nuclides were very seldom detected in fish, and even then only in very low quantities. As a consequence of the reduced discharges, the concentrations of local discharge nuclides in the environment have decreased noticeably in recent years at both Loviisa and Olkiluoto. Although the concentrations in environmental samples, and above all, the discharge data, are presented as seemingly large numbers, the radiation doses caused by them to the population and to the biota are very low, practically insignificant. The effects of the thermal discharges have been more significant, at least to the wildlife in the discharge areas of the cooling water, although the area of impact has been relatively small. The results show that the nutrient level and the exchange of water in the discharge area of a nuclear power plant are of crucial importance.

Heat transfer to power-law fluids in thermal entrance region with viscous dissipation for constant heat flux conditions

An analytical solution of the heat transfer problem with viscous dissipation for non-Newtonian fluids with power-law model in the thermal entrance region of a circular pipe and two parallel plates under constant heat flux conditions is obtained using eigenvalue approach by suitably replacing one of the boundary conditions by total energy balance equation. Analytical expressions for the wall and the bulk temperatures and the local Nusselt number are presented. The results are in close agreement with those obtained by implicit finite-difference scheme. It is found that the role of viscous dissipation on heat transfer is completely different for heating and cooling conditions at the wall. The results for the case of cooling at the wall are of interest in the design of the oil pipe line.

On the expressive power of behavioral profiles

Behavioral profiles have been proposed as a behavioral abstraction of dynamic systems, specifically in the context of business process modeling. A behavioral profile can be seen as a complete graph over a set of task labels, where each edge is annotated with one relation from a given set of binary behavioral relations. Since their introduction, behavioral profiles were argued to provide a convenient way for comparing pairs of process models with respect to their behavior or computing behavioral similarity between process models. Still, as of today, there is little understanding of the expressive power of behavioral profiles. Via counter-examples, several authors have shown that behavioral profiles over various sets of behavioral relations cannot distinguish certain systems up to trace equivalence, even for restricted classes of systems represented as safe workflow nets. This paper studies the expressive power of behavioral profiles from two angles. Firstly, the paper investigates the expressive power of behavioral profiles and systems captured as acyclic workflow nets. It is shown that for unlabeled acyclic workflow net systems, behavioral profiles over a simple set of behavioral relations are expressive up to configuration equivalence. When systems are labeled, this result does not hold for any of several previously proposed sets of behavioral relations. Secondly, the paper compares the expressive power of behavioral profiles and regular languages. It is shown that for any set of behavioral relations, behavioral profiles are strictly less expressive than regular languages, entailing that behavioral profiles cannot be used to decide trace equivalence of finite automata and thus Petri nets.

On Minimization of Peak Power for Scan Circuit during Test

Scan circuit generally causes excessive switching activity compared to normal circuit operation. The higher switching activity in turn causes higher peak power supply current which results into supply, voltage droop and eventually yield loss. This paper proposes an efficient methodology for test vector re-ordering to achieve minimum peak power supported by the given test vector set. The proposed methodology also minimizes average power under the minimum peak power constraint. A methodology to further reduce the peak power below the minimum supported peak power, by inclusion of minimum additional vectors is also discussed. The paper defines the lower bound on peak power for a given test set. The results on several benchmarks shows that it can reduce peak power by up to 27%.

An open source service oriented Mobile Business Intelligence Tool (MBIT)

Corporate executives require relevant and intelligent business information in real-time to take strategic decisions. They require the freedom to access this information anywhere and anytime. There is a need to extend this functionality beyond the office and on the fingertips of the decision makers. Mobile Business Intelligence Tool (MBIT) aims to provide these features in a flexible and cost-efficient manner. This paper describes the detailed architecture of MBIT to overcome the limitations of existing mobile business intelligence tools. Further, a detailed implementation framework is presented to realize the design. This research highlights the benefits of using service oriented architecture to design flexible and platform independent mobile business applications. © 2009 IEEE.