Uma interface para o aumento da faixa de freqüências de operação de FPAAS

O crescente avanço nas mais diversas áreas da eletrônica, desde instrumentação em baixa freqüência até telecomunicações operando em freqüências muito elevadas, e a necessidade de soluções baratas em curto espaço de tempo que acompanhem a demanda de mercado, torna a procura por circuitos programáveis, tanto digitais como analógicos, um ponto comum em diversas pesquisas. Os dispositivos digitais programáveis, que têm como grande representante os Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), vêm apresentando um elevado e contínuo crescimento em termos de complexidade, desempenho e número de transistores integrados, já há várias décadas. O desenvolvimento de dispositivos analógicos programáveis (Field Programmable Analog Arrays – FPAAs), entretanto, esbarra em dois pontos fundamentais que tornam sua evolução um tanto latente: a estreita largura de banda alcançada, conseqüência da necessidade de um grande número de chaves de programação e reconfiguração, e a elevada área consumida por componentes analógicos como resistores e capacitores, quando integrados em processos VLSI Este trabalho apresenta uma proposta para aumentar a faixa de freqüências das aplicações passíveis de serem utilizadas tanto em FPAAs comerciais quanto em outros FPAAs, através da utilização de uma interface de translação e seleção de sinais, mantendo características de programabilidade do FPAA em questão, sem aumentar em muito sua potência consumida. A proposta, a simulação e a implementação da interface são apresentadas ao longo desta dissertação. Resultados de simulação e resultados práticos obtidos comprovam a eficácia da proposta.

Graphical constraints: a graphical user interface for constraint problems

A constraint satisfaction problem is a classical artificial intelligence paradigm characterized by a set of variables (each variable with an associated domain of possible values), and a set of constraints that specify relations among subsets of these variables. Solutions are assignments of values to all variables that satisfy all the constraints. Many real world problems may be modelled by means of constraints. The range of problems that can use this representation is very diverse and embraces areas like resource allocation, scheduling, timetabling or vehicle routing. Constraint programming is a form of declarative programming in the sense that instead of specifying a sequence of steps to execute, it relies on properties of the solutions to be found, which are explicitly defined by constraints. The idea of constraint programming is to solve problems by stating constraints which must be satisfied by the solutions. Constraint programming is based on specialized constraint solvers that take advantage of constraints to search for solutions. The success and popularity of complex problem solving tools can be greatly enhanced by the availability of friendly user interfaces. User interfaces cover two fundamental areas: receiving information from the user and communicating it to the system; and getting information from the system and deliver it to the user. Despite its potential impact, adequate user interfaces are uncommon in constraint programming in general. The main goal of this project is to develop a graphical user interface that allows to, intuitively, represent constraint satisfaction problems. The idea is to visually represent the variables of the problem, their domains and the problem constraints and enable the user to interact with an adequate constraint solver to process the constraints and compute the solutions. Moreover, the graphical interface should be capable of configure the solver’s parameters and present solutions in an appealing interactive way. As a proof of concept, the developed application – GraphicalConstraints – focus on continuous constraint programming, which deals with real valued variables and numerical constraints (equations and inequalities). RealPaver, a state-of-the-art solver in continuous domains, was used in the application. The graphical interface supports all stages of constraint processing, from the design of the constraint network to the presentation of the end feasible space solutions as 2D or 3D boxes.

Towards an intelligent graphical interface for linear programming modelling

The increase of computing power of the microcomputers has stimulated the building of direct manipulation interfaces that allow graphical representation of Linear Programming (LP) models. This work discusses the components of such a graphical interface as the basis for a system to assist users in the process of formulating LP problems. In essence, this work proposes a methodology which considers the modelling task as divided into three stages which are specification of the Data Model, the Conceptual Model and the LP Model. The necessity for using Artificial Intelligence techniques in the problem conceptualisation and to help the model formulation task is illustrated.

NCAP embedded using structured programming

This paper presents a network node embedded based on IEEE 1451 standard developed using structured programming to access the transducers in the WTIM. The NCAP was developed using Nios II processor and uClinux, a embedded operating system developed to features restricted hardware. Both hardware and software have dynamics features and they can be configured based in the application features. Based in this features, the NCAP was developed using the minimum components of hardware and software to that being implemented in remote environment like central point of data request. Many NCAP works are implemented with an object oriented structure. This is different from the surrounding implementations. In this project the NCAP was developed using structured programming. The tests of the NCAP were made using a ZigBee interface between NCAP and WTIM and the system demonstrated in areas of difficult access for long period of time due to need for low power consumption. © 2012 IEEE.

Interface gráfica no contexto de teoria dos jogos sob a forma de Java Apples

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

JavaFMI una librería Java para el estándar Functional Mockup Interface

[ES] El estándar Functional Mockup Interface (FMI), es un estándar abierto e independiente de cualquier aplicación o herramienta que permite compartir modelos de sistemas dinámicos entre aplicaciones. Provee una interfaz escrita en lenguaje C que ha de ser implementada por las distintas herramientas exportadoras y pone en común un conjunto de funciones para manipular los modelos.
JavaFMI es una herramienta que permite utilizar simulaciones que cumplen con el estándar FMI en aplicaciones Java de una manera muy simple, limpia y eficiente. Es un proyecto open source con licencia LGPL V2.1H y su código fuente se encuentra disponible para ser clonado en la pagina del proyecto. El proyecto se encuentra alojado en www.bitbucket.org/siani/javafmi y cuenta con una página de bienvenida donde se explica como se usa la librería, una página para reportar incidencias o solicitar que se implementen nuevas historias y una página donde se listan todas las versiones que hay disponibles para descargar. JavaFMI se distribuye como un fichero zip que contiene el .jar con el código compilado de la librería una carpeta lib con las dos dependencias que tiene con librerías externas y una copia de la licencia. Comparada con JFMI, con menos lineas de código, una API limpia, expresiva y auto documentada, y un rendimiento que es un 66 % mejor, JavaFMI es objetivamente la mejor herramienta Java que existe para manipular FMUs de la versión 1.0 y 2.0 del estándar FMI.

Application-oriented Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming

In the most recent years there is a renovate interest for Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) problems. This can be explained for different reasons: (i) the performance of solvers handling non-linear constraints was largely improved; (ii) the awareness that most of the applications from the real-world can be modeled as an MINLP problem; (iii) the challenging nature of this very general class of problems. It is well-known that MINLP problems are NP-hard because they are the generalization of MILP problems, which are NP-hard themselves. However, MINLPs are, in general, also hard to solve in practice. We address to non-convex MINLPs, i.e. having non-convex continuous relaxations: the presence of non-convexities in the model makes these problems usually even harder to solve. The aim of this Ph.D. thesis is to give a flavor of different possible approaches that one can study to attack MINLP problems with non-convexities, with a special attention to real-world problems. In Part 1 of the thesis we introduce the problem and present three special cases of general MINLPs and the most common methods used to solve them. These techniques play a fundamental role in the resolution of general MINLP problems. Then we describe algorithms addressing general MINLPs. Parts 2 and 3 contain the main contributions of the Ph.D. thesis. In particular, in Part 2 four different methods aimed at solving different classes of MINLP problems are presented. Part 3 of the thesis is devoted to real-world applications: two different problems and approaches to MINLPs are presented, namely Scheduling and Unit Commitment for Hydro-Plants and Water Network Design problems. The results show that each of these different methods has advantages and disadvantages. Thus, typically the method to be adopted to solve a real-world problem should be tailored on the characteristics, structure and size of the problem. Part 4 of the thesis consists of a brief review on tools commonly used for general MINLP problems, constituted an integral part of the development of this Ph.D. thesis (especially the use and development of open-source software). We present the main characteristics of solvers for each special case of MINLP.

Applying the reactive programming paradigm: Toward a more declarative application development approach

After almost 10 years from “The Free Lunch Is Over” article, where the need to parallelize programs started to be a real and mainstream issue, a lot of stuffs did happened: • Processor manufacturers are reaching the physical limits with most of their approaches to boosting CPU performance, and are instead turning to hyperthreading and multicore architectures; • Applications are increasingly need to support concurrency; • Programming languages and systems are increasingly forced to deal well with concurrency. This thesis is an attempt to propose an overview of a paradigm that aims to properly abstract the problem of propagating data changes: Reactive Programming (RP). This paradigm proposes an asynchronous non-blocking approach to concurrency and computations, abstracting from the low-level concurrency mechanisms.

Aggregate Programming in Scala: a Core Library and Actor-Based Platform for Distributed Computational Fields

La programmazione aggregata è un paradigma che supporta la programmazione di sistemi di dispositivi, adattativi ed eventualmente a larga scala, nel loro insieme -- come aggregati. L'approccio prevalente in questo contesto è basato sul field calculus, un calcolo formale che consente di definire programmi aggregati attraverso la composizione funzionale di campi computazionali, creando i presupposti per la specifica di pattern di auto-organizzazione robusti. La programmazione aggregata è attualmente supportata, in modo più o meno parziale e principalmente per la simulazione, da DSL dedicati (cf., Protelis), ma non esistono framework per linguaggi mainstream finalizzati allo sviluppo di applicazioni. Eppure, un simile supporto sarebbe auspicabile per ridurre tempi e sforzi d'adozione e per semplificare l'accesso al paradigma nella costruzione di sistemi reali, nonché per favorire la ricerca stessa nel campo. Il presente lavoro consiste nello sviluppo, a partire da un prototipo della semantica operazionale del field calculus, di un framework per la programmazione aggregata in Scala. La scelta di Scala come linguaggio host nasce da motivi tecnici e pratici. Scala è un linguaggio moderno, interoperabile con Java, che ben integra i paradigmi ad oggetti e funzionale, ha un sistema di tipi espressivo, e fornisce funzionalità avanzate per lo sviluppo di librerie e DSL. Inoltre, la possibilità di appoggiarsi, su Scala, ad un framework ad attori solido come Akka, costituisce un altro fattore trainante, data la necessità di colmare l'abstraction gap inerente allo sviluppo di un middleware distribuito. Nell'elaborato di tesi si presenta un framework che raggiunge il triplice obiettivo: la costruzione di una libreria Scala che realizza la semantica del field calculus in modo corretto e completo, la realizzazione di una piattaforma distribuita Akka-based su cui sviluppare applicazioni, e l'esposizione di un'API generale e flessibile in grado di supportare diversi scenari.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING BASED DISCRETE POWER LEVEL SMART HOME SCHEDULING USING FPGA

With the development and capabilities of the Smart Home system, people today are entering an era in which household appliances are no longer just controlled by people, but also operated by a Smart System. This results in a more efficient, convenient, comfortable, and environmentally friendly living environment. A critical part of the Smart Home system is Home Automation, which means that there is a Micro-Controller Unit (MCU) to control all the household appliances and schedule their operating times. This reduces electricity bills by shifting amounts of power consumption from the on-peak hour consumption to the off-peak hour consumption, in terms of different “hour price”. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for scheduling multi-user power consumption and implement it on an FPGA board, using it as the MCU. This algorithm for discrete power level tasks scheduling is based on dynamic programming, which could find a scheduling solution close to the optimal one. We chose FPGA as our system’s controller because FPGA has low complexity, parallel processing capability, a large amount of I/O interface for further development and is programmable on both software and hardware. In conclusion, it costs little time running on FPGA board and the solution obtained is good enough for the consumers.

A dose-controlled system for air-liquid interface cell exposure and application to zinc oxide nanoparticles

BACKGROUND: Engineered nanoparticles are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and their toxicological effects on human health, as well as on the ecosystem, have become a concern. Since initial contact with nanoparticles occurs at the epithelium in the lungs (or skin, or eyes), in vitro cell studies with nanoparticles require dose-controlled systems for delivery of nanoparticles to epithelial cells cultured at the air-liquid interface. RESULTS: A novel air-liquid interface cell exposure system (ALICE) for nanoparticles in liquids is presented and validated. The ALICE generates a dense cloud of droplets with a vibrating membrane nebulizer and utilizes combined cloud settling and single particle sedimentation for fast (~10 min; entire exposure), repeatable (<12%), low-stress and efficient delivery of nanoparticles, or dissolved substances, to cells cultured at the air-liquid interface. Validation with various types of nanoparticles (Au, ZnO and carbon black nanoparticles) and solutes (such as NaCl) showed that the ALICE provided spatially uniform deposition (<1.6% variability) and had no adverse effect on the viability of a widely used alveolar human epithelial-like cell line (A549). The cell deposited dose can be controlled with a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) over a dynamic range of at least 0.02-200 mug/cm(2). The cell-specific deposition efficiency is currently limited to 0.072 (7.2% for two commercially available 6-er transwell plates), but a deposition efficiency of up to 0.57 (57%) is possible for better cell coverage of the exposure chamber. Dose-response measurements with ZnO nanoparticles (0.3-8.5 mug/cm(2)) showed significant differences in mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory (IL-8) and oxidative stress (HO-1) markers when comparing submerged and air-liquid interface exposures. Both exposure methods showed no cellular response below 1 mug/cm(2 )ZnO, which indicates that ZnO nanoparticles are not toxic at occupationally allowed exposure levels. CONCLUSION: The ALICE is a useful tool for dose-controlled nanoparticle (or solute) exposure of cells at the air-liquid interface. Significant differences between cellular response after ZnO nanoparticle exposure under submerged and air-liquid interface conditions suggest that pharmaceutical and toxicological studies with inhaled (nano-)particles should be performed under the more realistic air-liquid interface, rather than submerged cell conditions.

A mixed-integer linear programming approach to the optimization of event-bus schedules: a scheduling application in the tourism sector

This paper deals with “The Enchanted Journey,” which is a daily event tour booked by Bollywood-film fans. During the tour, the participants visit original sites of famous Bollywood films at various locations in Switzerland; moreover, the tour includes stops for lunch and shopping. Each day, up to five buses operate the tour. For operational reasons, however, two or more buses cannot stay at the same location simultaneously. Further operative constraints include time windows for all activities and precedence constraints between some activities. The planning problem is how to compute a feasible schedule for each bus. We implement a two-step hierarchical approach. In the first step, we minimize the total waiting time; in the second step, we minimize the total travel time of all buses. We present a basic formulation of this problem as a mixed-integer linear program. We enhance this basic formulation by symmetry-breaking constraints, which reduces the search space without loss of generality. We report on computational results obtained with the Gurobi Solver. Our numerical results show that all relevant problem instances can be solved using the basic formulation within reasonable CPU time, and that the symmetry-breaking constraints reduce that CPU time considerably.

Interfacing prolog and VRML and its application to constraint visualization

A number of data description languages initially designed as standards for trie WWW are currently being used to implement user interfaces to programs. This is done independently of whether such programs are executed in the same or a different host as trie one running the user interface itself. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a portable, standardized, and easy to use solution for the application programmer, and a familiar behavior for the user, typically well versed in the use of WWW browsers. Among the proposed standard description languages, VRML is a aimed at representing three dimensional scenes including hyperlink capabilities. VRML is already used as an import/export format in many 3-D packages and tools, and has been shown effective in displaying complex objects and scenarios. We propose and describe a Prolog library which allows parsing and checking VRML code, transforming it, and writing it out as VRML again. The library converts such code to an internal representation based on first order terms which can then be arbitrarily manipulated. We also present as an example application the use of this library to implement a novel 3-D visualization for examining and understanding certain aspects of the behavior of CLP(FD) programs.

A documentation generator for logic programming systems

We describe lpdoc, a tool which generates documentation manuals automatically from one or more logic program source files, written in ISO-Prolog, Ciao, and other (C)LP languages. It is particularly useful for documenting library modules, for which it automatically generates a rich description of the module interface. However, it can also be used quite successfully to document full applications. The documentation can be generated in many formats including t e x i n f o, dvi, ps, pdf, inf o, html/css, Unix nrof f/man, Windows help, etc., and can include bibliographic citations and images, lpdoc can also genérate "man" pages (Unix man page format), nicely formatted plain ascii "readme" files, installation scripts useful when the manuals are included in software distributions, brief descriptions in html/css or inf o formats suitable for inclusión in on-line Índices of manuals, and even complete WWW and inf o sites containing on-line catalogs of documents and software distributions. A fundamental advantage of using lpdoc is that it helps maintaining a true correspondence between the program and its documentation, and also identifying precisely to what versión of the program a given printed manual corresponds. The quality of the documentation generated can be greatly enhanced by including within the program text assertions (declarations with types, modes, etc. ...) for the predicates in the program, and machine-readable comments. These assertions and comments are written using the Ciao system assertion language. A simple compatibility library allows conventional (C)LP systems to ignore these assertions and comments and treat normally programs documented in this way. The lpdoc manual, all other Ciao system manuals, and most of this paper, are generated by lpdoc.

Interactividad programada en el Game Engine de Blender

Con este proyecto se ha desarrollado una guía introductoria a uno de los aspectos más complejos y especializados de Blender, que es el control de su motor de videojuegos mediante programas escritos en Python. Está orientado a lectores que tienen un conocimiento amplio sobre el manejo de Blender, su interfaz y el funcionamiento de sus diferentes elementos, así como una mínima experiencia en cuanto a programación. Se ha organizado en una parte descriptiva, centrada en el lenguaje Python y en las bases de su uso para programar el motor de videojuegos (Game Engine) de Blender, y otra de práctica guiada, que constituye la mayoría del proyecto, donde se estudian de manera progresiva ejemplos concretos de uso del mismo. En la parte descriptiva se ha tratado tanto el funcionamiento más básico del lenguaje Python, especialmente las características que difieren de otros lenguajes de programación tradicionales, como su relación con Blender en particular, explicando las diferentes partes de la API de Blender para Python, y las posibles estrategias de uso. La parte práctica guiada, dado que esta interacción entre Blender y Python ofrece un rango de posibilidades muy amplio, se ha centrado en tres áreas concretas que han sido investigadas en profundidad: el control del objeto protagonista, de la cámara y la implementación de un mapa de orientación. Todas ellas se han centrado en torno a un ejemplo común, que consiste en un videojuego muy básico, y que, gracias a los ficheros de Blender que acompañan a esta memoria, sirve para apoyar las explicaciones y poder probar su efecto directamente. Por una parte, estos tres aspectos prácticos se han explicado exhaustivamente, y se han llevado hasta un nivel relativamente alto. Asimismo se han intentado minimizar las dependencias, tanto entre ellos como con la escena que se ha usado como ejemplo, de manera que sea sencillo usar los programas generados en otras aplicaciones. Por otra, la mayoría de los problemas que ha sido necesario resolver durante el desarrollo no son específicos de ninguna de las tres áreas, sino que son de carácter general, por lo que sus explicaciones podrán usarse al afrontar otras situaciones. ABSTRACT. This Thesis consists of an introductory guide to one of the most complex and specific parts of Blender, which is the control of its game engine by means of programs coded in Python. The dissertation is orientated towards readers who have a good knowledge of Blender, its interface and how its different systems work, as well as basic programming skills. The document is composed of two main sections, the first one containing a description of Python’s basics and its usage within Blender, and the second consisting of three practical examples of interaction between them, guided and explained step by step. On the first section, the fundamentals of Python have been covered in the first place, focusing on the characteristics that distinguish it from other programming languages. Then, Blender’s API for Python has also been introduced, explaining its different parts and the ways it can be used in. Since the interaction between Blender and Python offers a wide range of possibilities, the practical section has been centered on three particular areas. Each one of the following sections has been deeply covered: how to control the main character object, how to control the camera, and how to implement and control a mini-map. Furthermore, a demonstrative videogame has been generated for the reader to be able to directly test the effect of what is explained in each section. On the one hand, these three practical topics have been thoroughly explained, starting from the basis and gradually taking them to a relatively advanced level. The dependences among them, or between them and the demonstrative videogame, have been minimised so that the scripts or ideas can be easily used within other applications. On the other hand, most of the problems that have been addressed are not exclusively related to these areas, but will most likely appear in different situations, thus enlarging the field in which this Thesis can be used.