Tracing vs. Partial Evaluation: Comparing Meta-Compilation Approaches for Self-Optimizing Interpreters

Tracing and partial evaluation have been proposed as meta-compilation techniques for interpreters to make just-in-time compilation language-independent. They promise that programs executing on simple interpreters can reach performance of the same order of magnitude as if they would be executed on state-of-the-art virtual machines with highly optimizing just-in-time compilers built for a specific language. Tracing and partial evaluation approach this meta-compilation from two ends of a spectrum, resulting in different sets of tradeoffs. This study investigates both approaches in the context of self-optimizing interpreters, a technique for building fast abstract-syntax-tree interpreters. Based on RPython for tracing and Truffle for partial evaluation, we assess the two approaches by comparing the impact of various optimizations on the performance of an interpreter for SOM, an object-oriented dynamically-typed language. The goal is to determine whether either approach yields clear performance or engineering benefits. We find that tracing and partial evaluation both reach roughly the same level of performance. SOM based on meta-tracing is on average 3x slower than Java, while SOM based on partial evaluation is on average 2.3x slower than Java. With respect to the engineering, tracing has however significant benefits, because it requires language implementers to apply fewer optimizations to reach the same level of performance

Public perception of organised crime in Southern Italy [supporting data]

A full list of materials and the datasets of published measures included in Travaglino & Drury (in press), European Journal of Social Psychology

Data supporting the thesis Conducting creative agency: the aesthetics and ethics of participatory performance

Thesis abstract: The current vogue for experiential performance in contemporary theatre has led to a rise in interactive, immersive and participatory approaches that focus on creating work that attempts to involve and respond to the audience as individuals. This development has in turn led to an interrogation and redefinition of aesthetics, for instance in Claire Bishop's Artificial Hells (2012), which examines spectatorship in participatory art. This thesis examines the aesthetics and ethics of participatory performance and argues that agency is fundamental to both. The research builds on Gareth White's Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation (2013) and develops the discourse on participation by proposing a contextual understanding of agency that differentiates between the act and the experience of it. The main research question of this thesis is: How does participatory performance operate as an aesthetic form? The thesis also examines how participation implicates ethics and the way that agency becomes both an aesthetic and ethical concern. In answering the main research question, the thesis also considers ways to analyse and evaluate participatory performance that take into consideration the different contexts of the participant's (inside) experience and (outside) observation of their decisions and contributions. This research has taken a mixed-methods approach to enable a comprehensive response to the research question and employs audience research (implemented on three case studies) and practice-based research. Alongside these, the thesis draws on enactive and embodied cognition (Johnson, 2007; Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008; Fuchs and De Jaegher, 2009) to provide a nuanced perspective on agency, intersubjectivity and experience. The aesthetics of participation, and model for the analysis of participatory performance, I propose in this thesis focus on four key aesthetic elements: the intersubjective relationships between performer and participant (as well as between participants); the participant's embodied experience of doing within the performance; the creative contribution they make; and the demand characteristics of being a participant

Novel segmentation strategies for fully-automated analysis of yeast images

Image data and ground truths associated with O'Brien et al

Analog Vs Next Generation Digital FH dataset

In this paper we investigate two promising approaches to reduce the optical bandwidth utilization in the mobile fronthaul of next-generation cloud radio access networks. We analyze and compare the performance of an analog radio-over-fiber and a new digital fronthaul in a chromatic dispersion-limited scenario. The former uses several analog channels, generated by up- and down-converting of baseband signals, and the latter utilizes simple OOK NRZ for the transmission to the remote radio head. Both principles are applied to a custom millimeter-wave system, consisting of several analog channels with baseband bandwidths as expected for 5G. The performance of both concepts at transmission rates of up to 100 Gb/s and 100 km of fiber is evaluated. We will show that both approaches are suitable for transmission distances typical for fronthaul and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, an optimized bandwidth concept for the analog radio-over-fiber system is presented, which enables transmission distances on the scale of metro networks

Rotaru et al dataset

This dataset is deposited by the authors of manuscript “Learning Abstract Words and Concepts: Insights from Real and Simulated Developmental Language Disorder” submitted to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. This dataset includes the data reported in ‘Part I: Are Abstract Words More Impaired than Concrete Words in Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)’ of the manuscript, and in Supplementary materials