129 research outputs found
Computer Aided Verification
This open access two-volume set LNCS 13371 and 13372 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 34rd International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV 2022, which was held in Haifa, Israel, in August 2022. The 40 full papers presented together with 9 tool papers and 2 case studies were carefully reviewed and selected from 209 submissions. The papers were organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Invited papers; formal methods for probabilistic programs; formal methods for neural networks; software Verification and model checking; hyperproperties and security; formal methods for hardware, cyber-physical, and hybrid systems. Part II: Probabilistic techniques; automata and logic; deductive verification and decision procedures; machine learning; synthesis and concurrency. This is an open access book
ECOS 2012
The 8-volume set contains the Proceedings of the 25th ECOS 2012 International Conference, Perugia, Italy, June 26th to June 29th, 2012. ECOS is an acronym for Efficiency, Cost, Optimization and Simulation (of energy conversion systems and processes), summarizing the topics covered in ECOS: Thermodynamics, Heat and Mass Transfer, Exergy and Second Law Analysis, Process Integration and Heat Exchanger Networks, Fluid Dynamics and Power Plant Components, Fuel Cells, Simulation of Energy Conversion Systems, Renewable Energies, Thermo-Economic Analysis and Optimisation, Combustion, Chemical Reactors, Carbon Capture and Sequestration, Building/Urban/Complex Energy Systems, Water Desalination and Use of Water Resources, Energy Systems- Environmental and Sustainability Issues, System Operation/ Control/Diagnosis and Prognosis, Industrial Ecology
Perioperative exercise programmes to promote physical activity in the medium to long term: systematic review and qualitative research
Background:
In England, more than 4 million hospital admissions lead to surgery each year. The perioperative encounter (from initial presentation in primary care to postoperative return to function) offers potential for substantial health gains in the wider sense and over the longer term.
Objectives:
The aim was to identify, examine and set in context a range of interventions applied perioperatively to facilitate physical activity in the medium to long term.
Data sources:
The following databases were searched – Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, EMBASE, PsycINFO and SPORTDiscus in October 2020. Clinical trials databases were also searched, and backward and forward citation searches were conducted.
Review methods:
We undertook a systematic review; ran database searches in October 2020; extracted data; conducted risk-of-bias assessments of studies; and used Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation assessments. We conducted focus groups and interviews with people running services designed to promote physical activity, to understand the practical and contextual factors that make such interventions ‘work’. Although the two streams of work were conducted independently, we considered overlapping themes from their findings.
Results:
In the review, we found 51 randomised controlled trials and two quasi-randomised trials; nine non-randomised studies formed a supplementary data set. Studies included 8604 adults who had undergone (or were undergoing) surgery, and compared 67 interventions facilitating physical activity. Most interventions were started postoperatively and included multiple components, grouped as follows: education and advice, behavioural mechanisms and physical activity instruction. Outcomes were often measured using different tools; pooling of data was not always feasible. Compared with usual care, interventions may have slightly increased the amount of physical activity, engagement in physical activity and health-related quality of life at the study’s end (moderate-certainty evidence). We found low-certainty evidence of an increase in physical fitness and a reduction in pain, although effects generally favoured interventions. Few studies reported adherence and adverse events; certainty of these findings was very low. Although infrequently reported, participants generally provided positive feedback. For the case studies, we conducted two online focus groups and two individual interviews between November 2020 and January 2021, with nine participants from eight services of physical activity programmes. Conceptual and practical aspects included how the promotion of physical activity can be framed around the individual to recruit and retain patients; how services benefit from committed and compassionate staff; how enthusiasts, data collection and evidence play key roles; and how digital delivery could work as part of a blended approach, but inequalities in access must be considered.
Limitations:
Outcome measures in the review varied and, despite a large data set, not all studies could be pooled. This also limited the exploration of differences between interventions; components of interventions often overlapped between studies, and we could not always determine what ‘usual care’ involved. The case study exploration was limited by COVID-19 restrictions; we were unable to visit sites and observe practice, and the range of services in the focus groups was also limited.
Conclusions:
Evidence from the review indicates that interventions delivered in the perioperative setting, aimed at enhancing physical activity in the longer term, may have overall benefit. The qualitative analysis complemented these findings and indicated that interventions should be focused around the individual, delivered locally and compassionately, and promoted by a patient’s full clinical team. There is a need to develop a core outcome set for similar studies to allow quantitative synthesis. Future work should also investigate the experiences of patients in different contexts, such as different communities, and with different surgical indications
Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems
This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2022, which was held during April 2-7, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 46 full papers and 4 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 159 submissions. The proceedings also contain 16 tool papers of the affiliated competition SV-Comp and 1 paper consisting of the competition report. TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers, and users interested in rigorously based tools and algorithms for the construction and analysis of systems. The conference aims to bridge the gaps between different communities with this common interest and to support them in their quest to improve the utility, reliability, exibility, and efficiency of tools and algorithms for building computer-controlled systems
Copper in Tambat Ali: Design, Craft, and the Transformative Properties of a Material in Pune, India
This research is an examination of the materiality of copper in the context of a design and craft community in a place called tambat ali (which in the local language Marathi translates to coppersmith alley) located in the heart of the city of Pune in Western India. For centuries, several generations of coppersmiths (tambats) have been shaping this malleable, sensorial material into a variety of objects for domestic use. Copper (tamba), in an expression of transformational materiality, has in turn, shaped the tambats into who they are as persons. In addition, the materiality of copper has engendered a unique set of skills and techniques, and it has moulded their bodies and gestures. The tambats make a variety of objects that are described as vastu in Marathi, a word that also refers to narratives that arc over the life of the material, the people, and the things themselves. For the past few years, the tambats have been collaborating with architects and industrial designers to create a variety of new copper products that are sold nationally and internationally. While industrial design practice typically tends to focus on form, user needs, or the market, in tambat ali, it starts with an emphasis on the properties of the material. Here, design unfolds in a new social context created by the presence of copper.
This thesis, with its focus on materiality, design, and craft, will attempt to show how copper has produced a materially inspired sociability, which has shaped the stories of objects, the nature of place, the practices of design and craft, and the lives of the people of tambat ali
Accelerating Network Functions using Reconfigurable Hardware. Design and Validation of High Throughput and Low Latency Network Functions at the Access Edge
Providing Internet access to billions of people worldwide is one of the main technical challenges in the current decade. The Internet access edge connects each residential and mobile subscriber to this network and ensures a certain Quality of Service (QoS). However, the implementation of access edge functionality challenges Internet service providers: First, a good QoS must be provided to the subscribers, for example, high throughput and low latency. Second, the quick rollout of new technologies and functionality demands flexible configuration and programming possibilities of the network components; for example, the support of novel, use-case-specific network protocols. The functionality scope of an Internet access edge requires the use of programming concepts, such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). The drawback of NFV-based network functions is a significantly lowered resource efficiency due to the execution as software, commonly resulting in a lowered QoS compared to rigid hardware solutions. The usage of programmable hardware accelerators, named NFV offloading, helps to improve the QoS and flexibility of network function implementations.
In this thesis, we design network functions on programmable hardware to improve the QoS and flexibility. First, we introduce the host bypassing concept for improved integration of hardware accelerators in computer systems, for example, in 5G radio access networks. This novel concept bypasses the system’s main memory and enables direct connectivity between the accelerator and network interface card. Our evaluations show an improved throughput and significantly lowered latency jitter for the presented approach. Second, we analyze different programmable hardware technologies for hardware-accelerated Internet subscriber handling, including three P4-programmable platforms and FPGAs. Our results demonstrate that all approaches have excellent performance and are suitable for Internet access creation. We present a fully-fledged User Plane Function (UPF) designed upon these concepts and test it in an end-to-end 5G standalone network as part of this contribution. Third, we analyze and demonstrate the usability of Active Queue Management (AQM) algorithms on programmable hardware as an expansion to the access edge. We show the feasibility of the CoDel AQM algorithm and discuss the challenges and constraints to be considered when limited hardware is used. The results show significant improvements in the QoS when the AQM algorithm is deployed on hardware.
Last, we focus on network function benchmarking, which is crucial for understanding the behavior of implementations and their optimization, e.g., Internet access creation. For this, we introduce the load generation and measurement framework P4STA, benefiting from flexible software-based load generation and hardware-assisted measuring. Utilizing programmable network switches, we achieve a nanosecond time accuracy while generating test loads up to the available Ethernet link speed
Applied Methuerstic computing
For decades, Applied Metaheuristic Computing (AMC) has been a prevailing optimization technique for tackling perplexing engineering and business problems, such as scheduling, routing, ordering, bin packing, assignment, facility layout planning, among others. This is partly because the classic exact methods are constrained with prior assumptions, and partly due to the heuristics being problem-dependent and lacking generalization. AMC, on the contrary, guides the course of low-level heuristics to search beyond the local optimality, which impairs the capability of traditional computation methods. This topic series has collected quality papers proposing cutting-edge methodology and innovative applications which drive the advances of AMC
Applied Metaheuristic Computing
For decades, Applied Metaheuristic Computing (AMC) has been a prevailing optimization technique for tackling perplexing engineering and business problems, such as scheduling, routing, ordering, bin packing, assignment, facility layout planning, among others. This is partly because the classic exact methods are constrained with prior assumptions, and partly due to the heuristics being problem-dependent and lacking generalization. AMC, on the contrary, guides the course of low-level heuristics to search beyond the local optimality, which impairs the capability of traditional computation methods. This topic series has collected quality papers proposing cutting-edge methodology and innovative applications which drive the advances of AMC
Automated Software Transplantation
Automated program repair has excited researchers for more than a decade, yet it has yet to find full scale deployment in industry. We report our experience with SAPFIX: the first deployment of automated end-to-end fault fixing, from test case design through to deployed repairs in production code. We have used SAPFIX at Facebook to repair 6 production systems, each consisting of tens of millions of lines of code, and which are collectively used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In its first three months of operation, SAPFIX produced 55 repair candidates for 57 crashes reported to SAPFIX, of which 27 have been deem as correct by developers and 14 have been landed into production automatically by SAPFIX. SAPFIX has thus demonstrated the potential of the search-based repair research agenda by deploying, to hundreds of millions of users worldwide, software systems that have been automatically tested and repaired. Automated software transplantation (autotransplantation) is a form of automated software engineering, where we use search based software engineering to be able to automatically move a functionality of interest from a ‘donor‘ program that implements it into a ‘host‘ program that lacks it. Autotransplantation is a kind of automated program repair where we repair the ‘host‘ program by augmenting it with the missing functionality. Automated software transplantation would open many exciting avenues for software development: suppose we could autotransplant code from one system into another, entirely unrelated, system, potentially written in a different programming language. Being able to do so might greatly enhance the software engineering practice, while reducing the costs. Automated software transplantation manifests in two different flavors: monolingual, when the languages of the host and donor programs is the same, or multilingual when the languages differ. This thesis introduces a theory of automated software transplantation, and two algorithms implemented in two tools that achieve this: µSCALPEL for monolingual software transplantation and τSCALPEL for multilingual software transplantation. Leveraging lightweight annotation, program analysis identifies an organ (interesting behavior to transplant); testing validates that the organ exhibits the desired behavior during its extraction and after its implantation into a host. We report encouraging results: in 14 of 17 monolingual transplantation experiments involving 6 donors and 4 hosts, popular real-world systems, we successfully autotransplanted 6 new functionalities; and in 10 out of 10 multlingual transplantation experiments involving 10 donors and 10 hosts, popular real-world systems written in 4 different programming languages, we successfully autotransplanted 10 new functionalities. That is, we have passed all the test suites that validates the new functionalities behaviour and the fact that the initial program behaviour is preserved. Additionally, we have manually checked the behaviour exercised by the organ. Autotransplantation is also very useful: in just 26 hours computation time we successfully autotransplanted the H.264 video encoding functionality from the x264 system to the VLC media player, a task that is currently done manually by the developers of VLC, since 12 years ago. We autotransplanted call graph generation and indentation for C programs into Kate, (a popular KDE based test editor used as an IDE by a lot of C developers) two features currently missing from Kate, but requested by the users of Kate. Autotransplantation is also efficient: the total runtime across 15 monolingual transplants is 5 hours and a half; the total runtime across 10 multilingual transplants is 33 hours
Applying safe flooring in housing environments related to the independent elderly : evaluating suitability flooring technology to absorb impact in the event of a fall
Aplicat embargament des de la data de defensa fins el dia 3/6/2022This research has been developed with the intention of investigating a different generation of pavements. Most of the current pavements have the same basic standard characteristics and this ensures that living conditions are comfortable, safe, and pleasant for the majority of citizens. But a small group of pavements is designed with a specific purpose: to reduce injuries related to people's falls to the ground; They are called CF (compliant flooring in English). A detailed study of CF flooring systems is warranted to assess their usability for vulnerable groups such as the elderly. This study is structured in six chapters. The first chapter has dealt mainly with bibliographic studies and statistical data consulted on official and international websites. This section evaluates the importance of the increase in the elderly population, life expectancy, and threats to the safety and health of the elderly, especially, and their secondary effects. The scope of the research has been carried out internationally, in Europe and within Spain, and finally, specifically for Catalonia. The second chapter presents a brief overview of the interior flooring, specifically considering its comfort and safety during use. The importance and direct relationship between the sole of the foot and the gait mechanism with respect to the type of pavement have been verified. Many factors that influence this have been investigated, such as the physics and biomechanics of the body when walking, the kinematics of falls, and the dynamics of impact. In addition, a general description of the behavior of materials for use in pavements has been made to better understand the behavior of CF systems. In addition, the most suitable strategies to cope with falls and reduce injuries are discussed. Examining other products with appreciable energy-absorbing and shock-reducing capabilities has been helpful in the proposed pre-designs, all of which have been made based on numerical analysis and related standards. The third chapter is already dedicated to the study of technology and research on the most suitable CF systems; studies from academic, commercial, and architecture departments, in general, are included. In this section, some standard tests related to the various selected materials are developed and several examples of similar products are studied. The fourth chapter includes field research (on-site) and analysis of case studies. Several notable flooring companies around the world were contacted by mail, specifically examining those products whose manufacturers claimed to be shock absorbers. This part of the investigation was slowed down by the delay in shipments. Once they arrived, a real environment was sought where they could obtain the opinion of the elderly and the personnel assigned to their care. All the practice tests were carried out in a residence for the elderly in Barcelona for about two months, focusing on the study of the current pavements of the center and the current derived problems related to users.This entire process was completed by interviewing users and caregivers with predefined questionnaires. It should be noted that this allowed us to contrast the quantitative characteristics of the study in combination with the elements of qualitative research. Chapter Five deals with the results, discussions, suggestions for installation and improvement of pavement safety in risk areas. Simulations were also carried out on a possible base structure of the pavements with the finite element method (FEM). Chapter six presents guidelines for future developments. The author further investigated the materials and their structure and is presented them as a basis for future technical developments.The author considers that, with more detailed studies, it would be possible to use as CF system other materials, either natural or recycled based on agricultural products, which would increase the diversity of the CF system offer and promote more sustainable architectureEsta investigación se ha desarrollado con la intención de investigar una generación diferente de pavimentos. La mayorÃa de los actuales pavimentos tienen las mismas caracterÃsticas básicas estándar y ello garantiza que las condiciones de vida sean cómodas, seguras y agradables para la mayorÃa de los ciudadanos. Pero un grupo reducido de pavimentos está diseñado con un propósito especÃfico: reducir las lesiones relacionadas con las caÃdas al suelo de las personas; son los denominados CF (compliant flooring en inglés). Un estudio detallado de los sistemas de pavimentos CF está justificado para evaluar su posibilidad de uso para grupos vulnerables como los ancianos. Este estudio se estructura en seis capÃtulos. En el primer capÃtulo se han abordado principalmente los estudios bibliográficos y datos estadÃsticos consultados en sitios web oficiales e internacionales. En esta sección se evalúa la importancia del aumento de la población anciana. El ámbito de la investigación se ha realizado a nivel internacional, en Europa y dentro de España, y finalmente, especÃficamente para Cataluña. El segundo capÃtulo se presenta una breve panorámica del pavimento interior. Se ha constatado la importancia y relación directa entre la planta del pie y el mecanismo de andar con respecto al tipo de pavimento. Se han investigado muchos factores que influyen en ello. Además, se ha realizado una descripción general del comportamiento de los materiales al uso en pavimentos para comprender mejor el comportamiento de los sistemas de CF. Además, se discuten las estrategias más idóneas para hacer frente a las caÃdas y reducir las lesiones. Examinar otros productos con apreciables capacidades de amortiguación de energÃa y reducción de impactos ha sido de gran ayuda en los prediseños propuestos, todos los cuales se han realizado sobre la base de análisis numérico y los estándares relacionados. El tercer capÃtulo está dedicado ya al estudio de la tecnologÃa y la investigación sobre los sistemas de C más idóneos; se incluyen estudios procedentes de departamentos académicos, comerciales y de arquitectura en general. En esta sección se desarrollan algunas pruebas estándar relacionadas con los diversos materiales seleccionados y se estudian varios ejemplos de productos similares. El cuarto capÃtulo incluye investigación de campo (in situ) y análisis de estudios de casos. Se contactó por correo con varias empresas notables de pavimentos en todo el mundo, y se examinaron especÃficamente aquellos productos cuyos fabricantes afirmaban ser amortiguadores. Esta parte de la investigación se vio ralentizada por la demora en los envÃos. Una vez llegados se buscó un ámbito real donde poder recabar la opinión de las personas mayores y del personal adscrito a su cuidado. Todas las pruebas prácticas se realizaron en una residencia de ancianos de Barcelona durante unos dos meses, centrándose en el estudio de los actuales pavimentos del centro y los problemas actuales derivados relacionados con los usuarios. Todo este proceso se completó mediante entrevistas a usuarios y cuidadores con cuestionarios predefinidos. El CapÃtulo Cinco se refiere a los resultados, discusiones, sugerencias para la instalación y mejora de la seguridad del pavimento en áreas de riesgo. También se realizaron simulaciones sobre una posible estructura base de los pavimentos con el método elemento finito (FEM). El capÃtulo seis presenta directrices para desarrollos futuros. El autor investigó más a fondo sobre los materiales y su estructura, y se presenta como una base para desarrollos técnicos futuros. El autor considera que, con estudios más detallados, serÃa posible utilizar como CF otros materiales, bien naturales o reciclados a base de productos agrÃcolas, lo cual aumentarÃa la diversidad de la oferta de CF y fomentarÃa la arquitectura más sostenible.Postprint (published version
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