Smart-Pixel Cellular Neural Networks in Analog Current-Mode CMOS Technology

This paper presents a systematic approach to design CMOS chips with concurrent picture acquisition and processing capabilities. These chips consist of regular arrangements of elementary units, called smart pixels. Light detection is made with vertical CMOS-BJT’s connected in a Darlington structure. Pixel smartness is achieved by exploiting the Cellular Neural Network paradigm [1], [2], incorporating at each pixel location an analog computing cell which interacts with those of nearby pixels. We propose a current-mode implementation technique and give measurements from two 16 x 16 prototypes in a single-poly double-metal CMOS n-well 1.6-µm technology. In addition to the sensory and processing circuitry, both chips incorporate light-adaptation circuitry for automatic contrast adjustment. They obtain smart-pixel densities up to 89 units/mm2, with a power consumption down to 105 µW/unit and image processing times below 2 µs

A Taxonomy of Workflow Management Systems for Grid Computing

With the advent of Grid and application technologies, scientists and engineers are building more and more complex applications to manage and process large data sets, and execute scientific experiments on distributed resources. Such application scenarios require means for composing and executing complex workflows. Therefore, many efforts have been made towards the development of workflow management systems for Grid computing. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy that characterizes and classifies various approaches for building and executing workflows on Grids. We also survey several representative Grid workflow systems developed by various projects world-wide to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the taxonomy. The taxonomy not only highlights the design and engineering similarities and differences of state-of-the-art in Grid workflow systems, but also identifies the areas that need further research.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figure

Approximation Algorithms for Energy Minimization in Cloud Service Allocation under Reliability Constraints

We consider allocation problems that arise in the context of service allocation in Clouds. More specifically, we assume on the one part that each computing resource is associated to a capacity constraint, that can be chosen using Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) method, and to a probability of failure. On the other hand, we assume that the service runs as a set of independent instances of identical Virtual Machines. Moreover, there exists a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the Cloud provider and the client that can be expressed as follows: the client comes with a minimal number of service instances which must be alive at the end of the day, and the Cloud provider offers a list of pairs (price,compensation), this compensation being paid by the Cloud provider if it fails to keep alive the required number of services. On the Cloud provider side, each pair corresponds actually to a guaranteed success probability of fulfilling the constraint on the minimal number of instances. In this context, given a minimal number of instances and a probability of success, the question for the Cloud provider is to find the number of necessary resources, their clock frequency and an allocation of the instances (possibly using replication) onto machines. This solution should satisfy all types of constraints during a given time period while minimizing the energy consumption of used resources. We consider two energy consumption models based on DVFS techniques, where the clock frequency of physical resources can be changed. For each allocation problem and each energy model, we prove deterministic approximation ratios on the consumed energy for algorithms that provide guaranteed probability failures, as well as an efficient heuristic, whose energy ratio is not guaranteed

Replica maintenance strategy for data grid

Data Grid is an infrastructure that manages huge amount of data files, and provides intensive computational resources across geographically distributed collaboration.Increasing the performance of such system can be achieved by improving the overall resource usage, which includes network and storage resources.Improving network resource usage is achieved by good utilization of network bandwidth that is considered as an important factor affecting job execution time.Meanwhile, improving storage resource usage is achieved by good utilization of storage space usage. Data replication is one of the methods used to improve the performance of data access in distributed systems by replicating multiple copies of data files in the distributed sites.Having distributed the replicas to various locations, they need to be monitored.As a result of dynamic changes in the data grid environment, some of the replicas need to be relocated.In this paper we proposed a maintenance replica placement strategy termed as Unwanted Replica Deletion Strategy (URDS) as a part of Replica maintenance service.The main purpose of the proposed strategy is to find the placement of unwanted replicas to be deleted.OptorSim is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy. The simulation results show that URDS requires less execution time and consumes less network usage and has a best utilization of storage space usage compared to existing approaches

An enhanced dynamic replica creation and eviction mechanism in data grid federation environment

Data Grid Federation system is an infrastructure that connects several grid systems, which facilitates sharing of large amount of data, as well as storage and computing resources. The existing mechanisms on data replication focus on finding file values based on the number of files access in deciding which file to replicate, and place new replicas on locations that provide minimum read cost. DRCEM finds file values based on logical dependencies in deciding which file to replicate, and allocates new replicas on locations that provide minimum replica placement cost. This thesis presents an enhanced data replication strategy known as Dynamic Replica Creation and Eviction Mechanism (DRCEM) that utilizes the usage of data grid resources, by allocating appropriate replica sites around the federation. The proposed mechanism uses three schemes: 1) Dynamic Replica Evaluation and Creation Scheme, 2) Replica Placement Scheme, and 3) Dynamic Replica Eviction Scheme. DRCEM was evaluated using OptorSim network simulator based on four performance metrics: 1) Jobs Completion Times, 2) Effective Network Usage, 3) Storage Element Usage, and 4) Computing Element Usage. DRCEM outperforms ELALW and DRCM mechanisms by 30% and 26%, in terms of Jobs Completion Times. In addition, DRCEM consumes less storage compared to ELALW and DRCM by 42% and 40%. However, DRCEM shows lower performance compared to existing mechanisms regarding Computing Element Usage, due to additional computations of files logical dependencies. Results revealed better jobs completion times with lower resource consumption than existing approaches. This research produces three replication schemes embodied in one mechanism that enhances the performance of Data Grid Federation environment. This has contributed to the enhancement of the existing mechanism, which is capable of deciding to either create or evict more than one file during a particular time. Furthermore, files logical dependencies were integrated into the replica creation scheme to evaluate data files more accurately

Learning by Doing vs. Learning from Others in a Principal-Agent Model

We introduce learning in a principal-agent model of stochastic output sharing under moral hazard. Without knowing the agents' preferences and technology the principal tries to learn the optimal agency contract. We implement two learning paradigms - social (learning from others) and individual (learning by doing). We use a social evolutionary learning algorithm (SEL) to represent social learning. Within the individual learning paradigm, we investigate the performance of reinforcement learning (RL), experience-weighted attraction learning (EWA), and individual evolutionary learning (IEL). Overall, our results show that learning in the principal-agent environment is very difficult. This is due to three main reasons: (1) the stochastic environment, (2) a discontinuity in the payoff space in a neighborhood of the optimal contract due to the participation constraint and (3) incorrect evaluation of foregone payoffs in the sequential game principal-agent setting. The first two factors apply to all learning algorithms we study while the third is the main contributor for the failure of the EWA and IEL models. Social learning (SEL), especially combined with selective replication, is much more successful in achieving convergence to the optimal contract than the canonical versions of individual learning from the literature. A modified version of the IEL algorithm using realized payoff evaluation performs better than the other individual learning models; however, it still falls short of the social learning's ability to converge to the optimal contract.learning, principal-agent model, moral hazard