95 research outputs found
Using Bad Learners to find Good Configurations
Finding the optimally performing configuration of a software system for a
given setting is often challenging. Recent approaches address this challenge by
learning performance models based on a sample set of configurations. However,
building an accurate performance model can be very expensive (and is often
infeasible in practice). The central insight of this paper is that exact
performance values (e.g. the response time of a software system) are not
required to rank configurations and to identify the optimal one. As shown by
our experiments, models that are cheap to learn but inaccurate (with respect to
the difference between actual and predicted performance) can still be used rank
configurations and hence find the optimal configuration. This novel
\emph{rank-based approach} allows us to significantly reduce the cost (in terms
of number of measurements of sample configuration) as well as the time required
to build models. We evaluate our approach with 21 scenarios based on 9 software
systems and demonstrate that our approach is beneficial in 16 scenarios; for
the remaining 5 scenarios, an accurate model can be built by using very few
samples anyway, without the need for a rank-based approach.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure
Building Confidence in Quantitative Systems Pharmacology Models : An Engineer's Guide to Exploring the Rationale in Model Design and Development
This tutorial promotes good practice for exploring the rationale of systems pharmacology models. A safety systems engineering inspired notation approach provides much needed rigor and transparency in development and application of models for therapeutic discovery and design of intervention strategies. Structured arguments over a model's development, underpinning biological knowledge, and analyses of model behaviors are constructed to determine the confidence that a model is fit for the purpose for which it will be applied
Mathematical modeling of the West Africa Ebola epidemic
As of November 2015, the Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic that began in West Africa in late 2013 is waning. The human toll includes more than 28,000 EVD cases and 11,000 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the most heavily-affected countries. We reviewed 66 mathematical modeling studies of the EVD epidemic published in the peer-reviewed literature to assess the key uncertainties models addressed, data used for modeling, public sharing of data and results, and model performance. Based on the review, we suggest steps to improve the use of modeling in future public health emergencies. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09186.00
Non-intrusive imaging measurements of the morphological evolution of a channel during a dam-break flow
Sonixplorer:
Music can be described best by music. However, current research in the design of user interfaces for the exploration of music collections has mainly focused on visualization aspects ignoring possible benefits from spatialized music playback. We describe our first development steps towards two novel user-interface designs: The Sonic Radar arranges a fixed number of prototypes resulting from a content-based clustering process in a circle around the user's standpoint. To derive an auralization of the scene, we introduce the concept of an aural focus of perception that adapts well-known principles from the visual domain
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