The integration of on-line monitoring and reconfiguration functions using IEEE1149.4 into a safety critical automotive electronic control unit.

This paper presents an innovative application of IEEE 1149.4 and the integrated diagnostic reconfiguration (IDR) as tools for the implementation of an embedded test solution for an automotive electronic control unit, implemented as a fully integrated mixed signal system. The paper describes how the test architecture can be used for fault avoidance with results from a hardware prototype presented. The paper concludes that fault avoidance can be integrated into mixed signal electronic systems to handle key failure modes

Tackling Exascale Software Challenges in Molecular Dynamics Simulations with GROMACS

GROMACS is a widely used package for biomolecular simulation, and over the last two decades it has evolved from small-scale efficiency to advanced heterogeneous acceleration and multi-level parallelism targeting some of the largest supercomputers in the world. Here, we describe some of the ways we have been able to realize this through the use of parallelization on all levels, combined with a constant focus on absolute performance. Release 4.6 of GROMACS uses SIMD acceleration on a wide range of architectures, GPU offloading acceleration, and both OpenMP and MPI parallelism within and between nodes, respectively. The recent work on acceleration made it necessary to revisit the fundamental algorithms of molecular simulation, including the concept of neighborsearching, and we discuss the present and future challenges we see for exascale simulation - in particular a very fine-grained task parallelism. We also discuss the software management, code peer review and continuous integration testing required for a project of this complexity.Comment: EASC 2014 conference proceedin

Assessment and Evaluation of Sand Control Methods for a North Sea Field

Imperial Users onl

Disparate data integration case for connected factories using timestamps

Manufacturing data integration of machine, process, and sensor data from the shop floor remains an important issue to achieve the anticipated business value of fully connected factories. Integrated manufacturing data has been a hallmark of Industry 4.0 initiatives, because integrated data precipitates better decision-making for cost, schedule, and system optimizations.  In this paper, we extend work on optimizing manufacturing costs, describing an algorithm using timestamps to integrate previously unassociated quality and test information, enabling us to better identify and eliminate redundant tests.  Results are provided and discussed, and we suggest the approach described may be valuable for some types of heterogeneous manufacturing data integration where timestamps and event chronologies are available

Structural Material Property Tailoring Using Deep Neural Networks

Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are ushering in a new age of automation, as machines match or outperform human performance. Machine intelligence can enable businesses to improve performance by reducing errors, improving sensitivity, quality and speed, and in some cases achieving outcomes that go beyond current resource capabilities. Relevant applications include new product architecture design, rapid material characterization, and life-cycle management tied with a digital strategy that will enable efficient development of products from cradle to grave. In addition, there are also challenges to overcome that must be addressed through a major, sustained research effort that is based solidly on both inferential and computational principles applied to design tailoring of functionally optimized structures. Current applications of structural materials in the aerospace industry demand the highest quality control of material microstructure, especially for advanced rotational turbomachinery in aircraft engines in order to have the best tailored material property. In this paper, deep convolutional neural networks were developed to accurately predict processing-structure-property relations from materials microstructures images, surpassing current best practices and modeling efforts. The models automatically learn critical features, without the need for manual specification and/or subjective and expensive image analysis. Further, in combination with generative deep learning models, a framework is proposed to enable rapid material design space exploration and property identification and optimization. The implementation must take account of real-time decision cycles and the trade-offs between speed and accuracy

Consumer Credit Rates in the Eurozone: Evidence on the Emergence on a Single Retail Banking Market. ECRI Research Report No. 2, 1 January 2002

[From the Introduction] This study provides new evidence on the emergence of a single eurozone retail banking market with particular reference to consumer credit. Given the heterogeneous nature of consumer credit products in the eurozone, the authors reject the earlier proposition of the Cecchini study, which equates banking market integration with identical interest rates throughout the eurozone. The present study advocates the use of the co-integration methodology, which allows us to investigate integration in the presence of country-specific credit rates. The empirical results indicate only very limited evidence of an integrated retail banking market prior to 1 January 1999, pointing to the limited effectiveness of the single market cum Second Banking Directive in particular in integrating consumer credit markets. The relationship of national lending markets with the remaining eurozone lending markets, however, exhibits strong signs of structural changes that have come along with the introduction of the single currency. Regarding this period under monetary union, the results provide a first picture of an emerging uniform eurozone banking market. This tendency is more pronounced for the corporate lending market, while consumer lending markets are still more fragmented. The study identifies three possible driving forces of this integration process: cross-border borrowing and lending (arbitrage), a competitive national and international retail banking environment, and a smooth and uniform passthrough of interest rate changes onto lending rates. While the extent of cross-border retail banking is still very limited and interest rate pass-through is working most efficiently and uniformly in the more competitive corporate lending market, the authors conclude that the single currency has the potential to “complete” the single market in a very special sense. It is not so much cross-border arbitrage that has so far produced the “statistical signs” of an uniform retail banking market, but a smooth and uniform passthrough of interest rate changes induced by the single monetary policy. The lack of evidence of integration in consumer credit so far therefore also points to the relevance of competition policy for creating a uniform consumer credit market in the eurozone