Parallel definition of tear film maps on distributed-memory clusters for the support of dry eye diagnosis

[Abstract] Background and objectives The analysis of the interference patterns on the tear film lipid layer is a useful clinical test to diagnose dry eye syndrome. This task can be automated with a high degree of accuracy by means of the use of tear film maps. However, the time required by the existing applications to generate them prevents a wider acceptance of this method by medical experts. Multithreading has been previously successfully employed by the authors to accelerate the tear film map definition on multicore single-node machines. In this work, we propose a hybrid message-passing and multithreading parallel approach that further accelerates the generation of tear film maps by exploiting the computational capabilities of distributed-memory systems such as multicore clusters and supercomputers. Methods The algorithm for drawing tear film maps is parallelized using Message Passing Interface (MPI) for inter-node communications and the multithreading support available in the C++11 standard for intra-node parallelization. The original algorithm is modified to reduce the communications and increase the scalability. Results The hybrid method has been tested on 32 nodes of an Intel cluster (with two 12-core Haswell 2680v3 processors per node) using 50 representative images. Results show that maximum runtime is reduced from almost two minutes using the previous only-multithreaded approach to less than ten seconds using the hybrid method. Conclusions The hybrid MPI/multithreaded implementation can be used by medical experts to obtain tear film maps in only a few seconds, which will significantly accelerate and facilitate the diagnosis of the dry eye syndrome.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2013-42148-PPortugal. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006961Portugal. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; UID/EEA/50014/2013Portugal. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; SFRH/BPD/111177/2015

Development of a Fabrication Technique for Soft Planar Inflatable Composites

Soft robotics is a rapidly growing field in robotics that combines aspects of biologically inspired characteristics to unorthodox methods capable of conforming and/or adapting to unknown tasks or environments that would otherwise be improbable or complex with conventional robotic technologies. The field of soft robotics has grown rapidly over the past decade with increasing popularity and relevance to real-world applications. However, the means of fabricating these soft, compliant and intricate robots still poses a fundamental challenge, due to the liberal use of soft materials that are difficult to manipulate in their original state such as elastomers and fabric. These material properties rely on informal design approaches and bespoke fabrication methods to build soft systems. As such, there are a limited variety of fabrication techniques used to develop soft robots which hinders the scalability of robots and the time to manufacture, thus limiting their development. This research focuses towards developing a novel fabrication method for constructing soft planar inflatable composites. The fundamental method is based on a sub-set of additive manufacturing known as composite layering. The approach is designed from a planar manner and takes layers of elastomeric materials, embedded strain-limiting and mask layers. These components are then built up through a layer-by-layer fabrication method with the use of a bespoke film applicator set-up. This enables the fabrication of millimetre-scale soft inflatable composites with complex integrated masks and/or strain-limiting layers. These inflatable composites can then be cut into a desired shape via laser cutting or ablation. A design approach was also developed to expand the functionality of these inflatable composites through modelling and simulation via finite element analysis. Proof of concept prototypes were designed and fabricated to enable pneumatic driven actuation in the form of bending soft actuators, adjustable stiffness sensor, and planar shape change. This technique highlights the feasibility of the fabrication method and the value of its use in creating multi-material composite soft actuators which are thin, compact, flexible, and stretchable and can be applicable towards real-world application

The Funambulist Papers, Volume 1

This book is a collection of thirty-five texts from the first series of guest writers’ essays, written specifically for The Funambulist weblog from June 2011 to November 2012. The idea of complementing Lambert’s own texts on his blog with those written by others originated from the idea that having friends communicate with each other about their work could help develop mutual interests and provide a platform to address an audience. Thirty-nine authors of twenty-three nationalities were given the opportunity to write essays about a part of their work that might fit with the blog’s editorial line. Overall, two ‘families’ of texts emerged, collected in two distinct parts in this volume. The first part, The Power of the Line, explores the legal, geographical and historical politics of various places of the world. The second part, Architectural Narratives, approaches architecture in a mix of things that were once called philosophy, literature and art. This dichotomy represents the blog’s editorial line and can be reconciled by the obsession of approaching architecture without care for the limits of a given discipline. This method, rather than adopting the contemporary architect’s syndrome that consists in talking about everything but being an expert in nothing, attempts to consider architecture as something embedded within (geo)political, cultural, social, historical, biological, and dromological mechanisms that widely exceed what is traditionally understood as the limits of its expertise

The Funambulist Papers, Volume 1

This book is a collection of thirty-five texts from the first series of guest writers’ essays, written specifically for The Funambulist weblog from June 2011 to November 2012. The idea of complementing Lambert’s own texts on his blog with those written by others originated from the idea that having friends communicate with each other about their work could help develop mutual interests and provide a platform to address an audience. Thirty-nine authors of twenty-three nationalities were given the opportunity to write essays about a part of their work that might fit with the blog’s editorial line. Overall, two ‘families’ of texts emerged, collected in two distinct parts in this volume. The first part, The Power of the Line, explores the legal, geographical and historical politics of various places of the world. The second part, Architectural Narratives, approaches architecture in a mix of things that were once called philosophy, literature and art. This dichotomy represents the blog’s editorial line and can be reconciled by the obsession of approaching architecture without care for the limits of a given discipline. This method, rather than adopting the contemporary architect’s syndrome that consists in talking about everything but being an expert in nothing, attempts to consider architecture as something embedded within (geo)political, cultural, social, historical, biological, and dromological mechanisms that widely exceed what is traditionally understood as the limits of its expertise

Optics in Our Time

Optics, Lasers, Photonics, Optical Devices; Quantum Optics; Popular Science in Physics; History and Philosophical Foundations of Physic

Media Infrastructures and the Politics of Digital Time

Digital media everyday inscribe new patterns of time, promising instant communication, synchronous collaboration, intricate time management, and profound new advantages in speed. The essays in this volume reconsider these outward interfaces of convenience by calling attention to their supporting infrastructures, the networks of digital time that exert pressures of conformity and standardization on the temporalities of lived experience and have important ramifications for social relations, stratifications of power, practices of cooperation, and ways of life. Interdisciplinary in method and international in scope, the volume draws together insights from media and communication studies, cultural studies, and science and technology studies while staging an important encounter between two distinct approaches to the temporal patterning of media infrastructures, a North American strain emphasizing the social and cultural experiences of lived time and a European tradition, prominent especially in Germany, focusing on technological time and time-critical processes

Machine Learning in Image Analysis and Pattern Recognition

This book is to chart the progress in applying machine learning, including deep learning, to a broad range of image analysis and pattern recognition problems and applications. In this book, we have assembled original research articles making unique contributions to the theory, methodology and applications of machine learning in image analysis and pattern recognition

On Security and Privacy for Networked Information Society : Observations and Solutions for Security Engineering and Trust Building in Advanced Societal Processes

Our society has developed into a networked information society, in which all aspects of human life are interconnected via the Internet — the backbone through which a significant part of communications traffic is routed. This makes the Internet arguably the most important piece of critical infrastructure in the world. Securing Internet communications for everyone using it is extremely important, as the continuing growth of the networked information society relies upon fast, reliable and secure communications. A prominent threat to the security and privacy of Internet users is mass surveillance of Internet communications. The methods and tools used to implement mass surveillance capabilities on the Internet pose a danger to the security of all communications, not just the intended targets. When we continue to further build the networked information upon the unreliable foundation of the Internet we encounter increasingly complex problems,which are the main focus of this dissertation. As the reliance on communication technology grows in a society, so does the importance of information security. At this stage, information security issues become separated from the purely technological domain and begin to affect everyone in society. The approach taken in this thesis is therefore both technical and socio-technical. The research presented in this PhD thesis builds security in to the networked information society and provides parameters for further development of a safe and secure networked information society. This is achieved by proposing improvements on a multitude of layers. In the technical domain we present an efficient design flow for secure embedded devices that use cryptographic primitives in a resource-constrained environment, examine and analyze threats to biometric passport and electronic voting systems, observe techniques used to conduct mass Internet surveillance, and analyze the security of Finnish web user passwords. In the socio-technical domain we examine surveillance and how it affects the citizens of a networked information society, study methods for delivering efficient security education, examine what is essential security knowledge for citizens, advocate mastery over surveillance data by the targeted citizens in the networked information society, and examine the concept of forced trust that permeates all topics examined in this work.Yhteiskunta, jossa elämme, on muovautunut teknologian kehityksen myötä todelliseksi tietoyhteiskunnaksi. Monet verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan osa-alueet ovat kokeneet muutoksen tämän kehityksen seurauksena. Tämän muutoksen keskiössä on Internet: maailmanlaajuinen tietoverkko, joka mahdollistaa verkottuneiden laitteiden keskenäisen viestinnän ennennäkemättömässä mittakaavassa. Internet on muovautunut ehkä keskeisimmäksi osaksi globaalia viestintäinfrastruktuuria, ja siksi myös globaalin viestinnän turvaaminen korostuu tulevaisuudessa yhä enemmän. Verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan kasvu ja kehitys edellyttävät vakaan, turvallisen ja nopean viestintäjärjestelmän olemassaoloa. Laajamittainen tietoverkkojen joukkovalvonta muodostaa merkittävän uhan tämän järjestelmän vakaudelle ja turvallisuudelle. Verkkovalvonnan toteuttamiseen käytetyt menetelmät ja työkalut eivät vain anna mahdollisuutta tarkastella valvonnan kohteena olevaa viestiliikennettä, vaan myös vaarantavat kaiken Internet-liikenteen ja siitä riippuvaisen toiminnan turvallisuuden. Kun verkottunutta tietoyhteiskuntaa rakennetaan tämän kaltaisia valuvikoja ja haavoittuvuuksia sisältävän järjestelmän varaan, keskeinen uhkatekijä on, että yhteiskunnan ydintoiminnot ovat alttiina ulkopuoliselle vaikuttamiselle. Näiden uhkatekijöiden ja niiden taustalla vaikuttavien mekanismien tarkastelu on tämän väitöskirjatyön keskiössä. Koska työssä on teknisen sisällön lisäksi vahva yhteiskunnallinen elementti, tarkastellaan tiukan teknisen tarkastelun sijaan aihepiirä laajemmin myös yhteiskunnallisesta näkökulmasta. Tässä väitöskirjassa pyritään rakentamaan kokonaiskuvaa verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan turvallisuuteen, toimintaan ja vakauteen vaikuttavista tekijöistä, sekä tuomaan esiin uusia ratkaisuja ja avauksia eri näkökulmista. Työn tavoitteena on osaltaan mahdollistaa entistä turvallisemman verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan rakentaminen tulevaisuudessa. Teknisestä näkökulmasta työssä esitetään suunnitteluvuo kryptografisia primitiivejä tehokkaasti hyödyntäville rajallisen laskentatehon sulautetuviiille järjestelmille, analysoidaan biometrisiin passeihin, kansainväliseen passijärjestelmään, sekä sähköiseen äänestykseen kohdistuvia uhkia, tarkastellaan joukkovalvontaan käytettyjen tekniikoiden toimintaperiaatteita ja niiden aiheuttamia uhkia, sekä tutkitaan suomalaisten Internet-käyttäjien salasanatottumuksia verkkosovelluksissa. Teknis-yhteiskunnallisesta näkökulmasta työssä tarkastellaan valvonnan teoriaa ja perehdytään siihen, miten valvonta vaikuttaa verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan kansalaisiin. Lisäksi kehitetään menetelmiä parempaan tietoturvaopetukseen kaikilla koulutusasteilla, määritellään keskeiset tietoturvatietouden käsitteet, tarkastellaan mahdollisuutta soveltaa tiedon herruuden periaatetta verkottuneen tietoyhteiskunnan kansalaisistaan keräämän tiedon hallintaan ja käyttöön, sekä tutkitaan luottamuksen merkitystä yhteiskunnan ydintoimintojen turvallisuudelle ja toiminnalle, keskittyen erityisesti pakotetun luottamuksen vaikutuksiin

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC

Engineering and built environment project conference 2015: book of abstracts - Toowoomba, Australia, 21-25 September 2015

Book of Abstracts of the USQ Engineering and Built Environment Conference 2015, held Toowoomba, Australia, 21-25 September 2015. These proceedings include extended abstracts of the verbal presentations that are delivered at the project conference. The work reported at the conference is the research undertaken by students in meeting the requirements of courses ENG4111/ENG4112 Research Project for undergraduate or ENG8411/ENG8412 Research Project and Dissertation for postgraduate students