Dynamically Reconfigurable Active Cache Modeling

This thesis presents a novel dynamically reconfigurable active L1 instruction and data cache model, called DRAC. Employing cache, particularly L1, can speed up memory accesses, reduce the effects of memory bottleneck and consequently improve the system performance; however, efficient design of a cache for embedded systems requires fast and early performance modeling. Our proposed model is cycle accurate instruction and data cache emulator that is designed as an on-chip hardware peripheral on FPGA. The model can also be integrated into multicore emulation system and emulate multiple caches of the cores. DRAC model is implemented on Xilinx Virtex 5 FPGA and validated using several benchmarks. Our experimental results show the model can accurately estimate the execution time of a program both as a standalone and multicore cache emulator. We have observed 2.78% average error and 5.06% worst case error when DRAC is used as a standalone cache model in a single core design. We also observed 100% relative accuracy in design space exploration and less than 13% absolute worst case timing estimation error when DRAC is used as multicore cache emulator

Analysis of cache usability on modern real-time systems

Cache memories are used in the microprocessors to close the speed gap between the processor and the main memory. Caches can minimize the memory access time by keeping a copy of the highly demanded data closer to the processor. As a result, the overall program execution time is reduced. In safety-critical real-time systems, a worst-case analysis is required, and therefore the cache memories play an essential role in the estimation of the application's worst-case execution time. A simulation tool for the cache structure was developed to provide estimated measurements for both cache predictability and the worst-case memory access time based on the used architectural model. This may help to draw some conclusions about the actual cache operation. The simulation supports several modern uni-core and multi-core architectures, including some used in real-time systems. It also allows configuring different cache structures and hierarchies. The cache architecture, configuration and memory accesses from a simulated running application are specified by the user via an input file. The simulation provides a list of traces for every access. The cache predictability can be formulated as hit and miss rates. At the same time, the traces can be used to estimate total memory access time

Temperature, energy and performance: addressing embedded system challenges through fast cache simulation

Temperature, energy and performance are essential design considerations during the conception of modern digital systems. The work presented in this thesis focusses on three aspects that can be used to overcome these limitations. First an evaluation of the suitability of the dynamic application adaptation method is researched with the aim of using it to control the temperature of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. Despite the use of an extremely adaptive custom JPEG encoder, it was determined that application adaptation alone is ineffective in an FPGA for thermal management. Next, a study is performed which aims to assess which components are principally responsible for the rise in temperatures in FPGAs. It was found that the external memory interface is a significant heat-source in FPGA-based embedded systems, and that device temperature correlates with CPU cache miss rate. The third and main aspect covered in this dissertation is the speeding up of CPU cache simulation. Single pass cache simulation is a tool that can be employed at design time to select a cache yielding acceptable temperature, system performance and energy consumption. Three Multiple cAche Simulators in Hardware (MASH) or in Software (MASS) are proposed for three cache replacement policies: MASH{lru} for the Least Recently Used (LRU) cache algorithm, MASH{fifo} for First In First Out (FIFO) and MASS{plrut} for Pseudo Least Recently Used tree (PLRUt). The former two are novel in that they are implemented in hardware and are respectively 53x and 11.10x faster than software counterparts. The PLRUt simulator presents for the first time an optimised hash table-based algorithm yielding a speedup of 1.93x over an unoptimised solution. All cache simulators employ cache properties specific to their replacement policies to improve simulator characteristics. Additionally, it is shown that the hardware (or MASH) simulators can be implemented in-system alongside an embedded system, allowing for the direct trace extraction and cache simulation from within an FPGA. Using in-system simulation, large speedups can be achieved as trace generation and multiple cache simulation happen at the same time at high frequencies

NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

This document is a collection of technical reports on research conducted by the participants in the 1996 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). This was the twelfth year that a NASA/ASEE program has been conducted at KSC. The 1996 program was administered by the University of Central Florida in cooperation with KSC. The program was operated under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) with sponsorship and funding from the Office of Educational Affairs, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC and KSC. The KSC Program was one of nine such Aeronautics and Space Research Program funded by NASA in 1996. The NASA/ASEE Program is intended to be a two-year program to allow in-depth research by the University faculty member. The editors of this document were responsible for selecting appropriately qualified faculty to address some of the many problems of current interest to NASA/KSC

Global Forest Monitoring from Earth Observation

Covering recent developments in satellite observation data undertaken for monitoring forest areas from global to national levels, this book highlights operational tools and systems for monitoring forest ecosystems. It also tackles the technical issues surrounding the ability to produce accurate and consistent estimates of forest area changes, which are needed to report greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use changes. Written by leading global experts in the field, this book offers a launch point for future advances in satellite-based monitoring of global forest resources. It gives readers a deeper understanding of monitoring methods and shows how state-of-art technologies may soon provide key data for creating more balanced policies

Peace as complex legitimacy: Politics, space and discourse in Tajkistan's peacebuilding process, 2000-2005.

This dissertation explores the process of building peace in terms of the making of complex legitimacy in post-Soviet, post-conflict Tajikistan. Since 2000, Tajikistan's citizens have seen major political violence end, order across the country return and the peace agreement between the parties of the 1990s civil war hold. Superficially, Tajikistan appears to be a case of successful international interventions based on neoliberal internationalist assumptions. Yet, puzzlingly, the inter-Tajik peace is interpreted in a variety of often contradictory ways and correlates with authoritarian government and the tenure of a new oligarchy. On closer inspection it is evident that neoliberal international interventions in Tajikistan have largely failed to achieve the aims of peacebuilding. However, I argue they have served to facilitate an increasingly authoritarian peace and have indirectly fostered popular accommodation and avoidance strategies, as well as localised resistance. Moreover, this peace is founded upon complex relations of legitimacy. It is the product of discourse (the formation of community through communication), politics (the acquisition of power and authority in that community), and space (the differentiation of that community from other communities). I study the political relations between three discourse/spaces ('selves') of Tajikistan from 2000 to 2005: those of subordinates, elites, and the international community. In addition to the discourse and spaces of neoliberal international peacebuilding, are those of popular tinji (Tajik: 'peacefulness'/ 'wellness') and elite mirostroitelstvo (Russian: 'peacebuilding'). In studying the relationships between subordinate, elite and international actors I show how they both accommodate one another via discursive re-interpretation, and avoid each other by retreating into their own 'hidden' spaces and transcripts. These intrinsically political practices have specific material impacts on people's lives. Moreover, I show how they have constituted new forms of authority, livelihoods and sovereignty. In each of these cases, subordinates resign themselves to power and 'peacefulness' and get on with their lives. These practices constitute peace as complex legitimacy

GSI Scientific Report 2016

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Business Cycles in Economics

The business cycles are generated by the oscillating macro-/micro-/nano- economic output variables in the economy of the scale and the scope in the amplitude/frequency/phase/time domains in the economics. The accurate forward looking assumptions on the business cycles oscillation dynamics can optimize the financial capital investing and/or borrowing by the economic agents in the capital markets. The book's main objective is to study the business cycles in the economy of the scale and the scope, formulating the Ledenyov unified business cycles theory in the Ledenyov classic and quantum econodynamics