Exposing errors related to weak memory in GPU applications

© 2016 ACM.We present the systematic design of a testing environment that uses stressing and fuzzing to reveal errors in GPU applications that arise due to weak memory effects. We evaluate our approach on seven GPUS spanning three NVIDIA architectures, across ten CUDA applications that use fine-grained concurrency. Our results show that applications that rarely or never exhibit errors related to weak memory when executed natively can readily exhibit these errors when executed in our testing environment. Our testing environment also provides a means to help identify the root causes of such errors, and automatically suggests how to insert fences that harden an application against weak memory bugs. To understand the cost of GPU fences, we benchmark applications with fences provided by the hardening strategy as well as a more conservative, sound fencing strategy

Cervical artery dissection: An atypical presentation with Ehlers-Danlos-like collagen pathology?

The authors took skin biopsies of the macroscopically normal skin of seven consecutive patients with spontaneous cervical artery dissection (SCAD). Histologically, alterations of the collagen and elastic fiber networks were found in six patients. In five, the histologic, immunohistochemical, and ultrastructural changes were similar to those usually found in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). This suggests that SCAD is frequently associated with the dermal alterations seen in EDS

Message from the EDOC 2020 Workshop, Demo, and Doctoral Consortium Chairs

International audienceFor over twenty years the EDOC conference has been the primary annual event for disseminating and discussing the latest developments in the area of enterprise computing. The workshop program is an important satellite event of the EDOC conference. Workshops cover more focused topics and allow for the presentation and discussion of work that is in the earlier development stages. As such, the workshops provide an excellent forum for discussing topics from the area of enterprise computing that have the potential to become important research streams within the next few years, and for discussing topics that are already important in a smaller and more focused setting. In addition to the workshop program, the EDOC Demonstration track offers an exciting and highly interactive outlet for researchers and practitioners to present prototypes and applications in the context of enterprise computing. Four demonstrations are presented this year. 2020 is the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a strong impact on research and social life. Despite the challenges of new organization (the conference and the workshops will be held on-line), we are proud to present an interesting program and the four workshops that will be held in conjunction with EDOC this year:• The workshop on Trends in Enterprise Architecture Research, (TEAR)• The workshop on Service-oriented Enterprise Architecture for Enterprise Engineering (SoEA4EE)• The workshop on Privacy and Security in Enterprise Modeling (PriSEM)• The workshop on Frontiers of Process Aware Systems (FoPAS).[...

Singularities and Topology of Meromorphic Functions

We present several aspects of the "topology of meromorphic functions", which we conceive as a general theory which includes the topology of holomorphic functions, the topology of pencils on quasi-projective spaces and the topology of polynomial functions.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figur

Sparse PLS discriminant analysis: biologically relevant feature selection and graphical displays for multiclass problems

Background: Variable selection on high throughput biological data, such as gene expression or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), becomes inevitable to select relevant information and, therefore, to better characterize diseases or assess genetic structure. There are different ways to perform variable selection in large data sets. Statistical tests are commonly used to identify differentially expressed features for explanatory purposes, whereas Machine Learning wrapper approaches can be used for predictive purposes. In the case of multiple highly correlated variables, another option is to use multivariate exploratory approaches to give more insight into cell biology, biological pathways or complex traits.Results: A simple extension of a sparse PLS exploratory approach is proposed to perform variable selection in a multiclass classification framework.Conclusions: sPLS-DA has a classification performance similar to other wrapper or sparse discriminant analysis approaches on public microarray and SNP data sets. More importantly, sPLS-DA is clearly competitive in terms of computational efficiency and superior in terms of interpretability of the results via valuable graphical outputs. sPLS-DA is available in the R package mixOmics, which is dedicated to the analysis of large biological data sets

Fibonacci numbers and self-dual lattice structures for plane branches

Consider a plane branch, that is, an irreducible germ of curve on a smooth complex analytic surface. We define its blow-up complexity as the number of blow-ups of points necessary to achieve its minimal embedded resolution. We show that there are $F_{2n-4}$ topological types of blow-up complexity $n$, where $F_{n}$ is the $n$-th Fibonacci number. We introduce complexity-preserving operations on topological types which increase the multiplicity and we deduce that the maximal multiplicity for a plane branch of blow-up complexity $n$ is $F_n$. It is achieved by exactly two topological types, one of them being distinguished as the only type which maximizes the Milnor number. We show moreover that there exists a natural partial order relation on the set of topological types of plane branches of blow-up complexity $n$, making this set a distributive lattice, that is, any two of its elements admit an infimum and a supremum, each one of these operations beeing distributive relative to the second one. We prove that this lattice admits a unique order-inverting bijection. As this bijection is involutive, it defines a duality for topological types of plane branches. The type which maximizes the Milnor number is also the maximal element of this lattice and its dual is the unique type with minimal Milnor number. There are $F_{n-2}$ self-dual topological types of blow-up complexity $n$. Our proofs are done by encoding the topological types by the associated Enriques diagrams.Comment: 21 pages, 16 page

Sex-Mediated Response to the Beta-Blocker Landiolol in Sepsis: An Experimental, Randomized Study

OBJECTIVES: To investigate any gender effect of the beta-1 adrenergic blocker, landiolol, on cardiac performance and energy metabolism in septic rats, and to explore the expression of genes and proteins involved in this process. DESIGN: Randomized animal study. SETTING: University research laboratory. SUBJECTS: Male and female Wistar rats. INTERVENTIONS: One hour after cecal ligation and puncture, male and female rats were randomly allocated to the following groups: sham male, cecal ligation and puncture male, cecal ligation and puncture + landiolol male, sham female, cecal ligation and puncture female, and cecal ligation and puncture + landiolol female. Cardiac MRI was carried out 18 hours after cecal ligation and puncture to assess in vivo cardiac function. Ex vivo cardiac function measurement and P magnetic resonance spectroscopy were subsequently performed using an isovolumic isolated heart preparation. Finally, we assessed cardiac gene and protein expression. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: In males, landiolol increased indexed stroke volume by reversing the indexed end-diastolic volume reduction without affecting left ventricle ejection fraction. In females, landiolol did not increase indexed stroke volume and indexed end-diastolic volume but decreased left ventricle ejection fraction. Landiolol had no effect on ex vivo cardiac function and on high-energy phosphate compounds. The effect of landiolol on the gene expression of natriuretic peptide receptor 3 and on protein expression of phosphorylated-AKT:AKT ratio and endothelial nitric oxide synthase was different in males and females. CONCLUSIONS: Landiolol improved the in vivo cardiac performance of septic male rats while deleterious effects were reported in females. Expression of natriuretic peptide receptor 3, phosphorylated-AKT:AKT, and endothelial nitric oxide synthase are signaling pathways to investigate to better understand the sex differences in sepsis

Feasible combinatorial matrix theory

We show that the well-known Konig's Min-Max Theorem (KMM), a fundamental result in combinatorial matrix theory, can be proven in the first order theory \LA with induction restricted to $\Sigma_1^B$ formulas. This is an improvement over the standard textbook proof of KMM which requires $\Pi_2^B$ induction, and hence does not yield feasible proofs --- while our new approach does. \LA is a weak theory that essentially captures the ring properties of matrices; however, equipped with $\Sigma_1^B$ induction \LA is capable of proving KMM, and a host of other combinatorial properties such as Menger's, Hall's and Dilworth's Theorems. Therefore, our result formalizes Min-Max type of reasoning within a feasible framework