Revisiting Actor Programming in C++

The actor model of computation has gained significant popularity over the last decade. Its high level of abstraction makes it appealing for concurrent applications in parallel and distributed systems. However, designing a real-world actor framework that subsumes full scalability, strong reliability, and high resource efficiency requires many conceptual and algorithmic additives to the original model. In this paper, we report on designing and building CAF, the "C++ Actor Framework". CAF targets at providing a concurrent and distributed native environment for scaling up to very large, high-performance applications, and equally well down to small constrained systems. We present the key specifications and design concepts---in particular a message-transparent architecture, type-safe message interfaces, and pattern matching facilities---that make native actors a viable approach for many robust, elastic, and highly distributed developments. We demonstrate the feasibility of CAF in three scenarios: first for elastic, upscaling environments, second for including heterogeneous hardware like GPGPUs, and third for distributed runtime systems. Extensive performance evaluations indicate ideal runtime behaviour for up to 64 cores at very low memory footprint, or in the presence of GPUs. In these tests, CAF continuously outperforms the competing actor environments Erlang, Charm++, SalsaLite, Scala, ActorFoundry, and even the OpenMPI.Comment: 33 page

MT and Proper Nouns : how a German Model Became a Boat Operator

Writers and translators have difficulties treating proper nouns correctly. These designations represent concepts that are very likely not common knowledge. While humans can research, machines can only apply data provided. It is therefore important that proper nouns are documented in term bases and made available to MT engines.Tant redactors com traductors tenen dificultats per realitzar el tractament correcte dels noms propis. Aquestes denominacions representen conceptes que probablement no pertanyen al coneixement comú. Mentre que els humans poden recercar el concepte, les maquines només poden aplicar les dades de què disposen. Per aquest motiu, és important que els noms propis estiguin documentats a la base de dades terminològiques i que estiguin a disposició dels motors de traducció automàtica.Tanto redactores como traductores tienen dificultades para realizar el tratamiento correcto de los nombres propios. Estas denominaciones representan conceptos que probablemente no pertenezcan al conocimiento común. Mientras que los humanos pueden investigar el concepto, las máquinas únicamente pueden aplicar los datos de los que disponen. Por este motivo, es importante que los nombres propios estén documentados en una base de datos terminológicos y que estén a disposición de los motores de traducción automática

Phenomenological and Experimental Developments in Charm Physics: The WG7 Report from CKM 2016

We present an overview of recent developments in charm physics reported in the Working~Group~7 meetings of the CKM 2016 workshop. Progresses in experimental analysis and techniques were reported by LHCb, Belle, BABAR and BESIII along with projections for the future. Developments were also reported in the phenomenological extraction of both direct and indirect CP violation from data in two-, three- and four-body hadronic decays of the $D$ mesonic system.Comment: 12 pages. WG7 report for CKM 2016. PoS(CKM2016)02

Fixed-Target CP-Violation Experiments at Fermilab

Studies of CP violation, for 30 years focused primarily on the neutral K meson, are on the threshold of a new era as experiments approach Standard-Model sensitivities in decays of beauty, charm, and hyperons. The array of heavy-quark experiments approved and planned at Fermilab may lead to a significant breakthrough in the next five to ten years.Comment: Revised and expanded for greater clarity and completeness. 15 pages, 6 PostScript figure