PARMA-CC: Parallel Multiphase Approximate Cluster Combining

Clustering is a common component in data analysis applications. Despite the extensive literature, the continuously increasing volumes of data produced by sensors (e.g. rates of several MB/s by 3D scanners such as LIDAR sensors), and the time-sensitivity of the applications leveraging the clustering outcomes (e.g. detecting critical situations, that are known to be accuracy-dependent), demand for novel approaches that respond faster while coping with large data sets. The latter is the challenge we address in this paper. We propose an algorithm, PARMA-CC, that complements existing density-based and distance-based clustering methods. PARMA-CC is based on approximate, data parallel cluster combining, where parallel threads can compute summaries of clusters of data (sub)sets and, through combining, together construct a comprehensive summary of the sets of clusters. By approximating clusters with their respective geometrical summaries, our technique scales well with increased data volumes, and, by computing and efficiently combining the summaries in parallel, it enables latency improvements. PARMA-CC combines the summaries using special data structures that enable parallelism through in-place data processing. As we show in our analysis and evaluation, PARMA-CC can complement and outperform well-established methods, with significantly better scalability, while still providing highly accurate results in a variety of data sets, even with skewed data distributions, which cause the traditional approaches to exhibit their worst-case behaviour. In the paper we also describe how PARMA-CC can facilitate time-critical applications through appropriate use of the summaries

ESROCOS: a robotic operating system for space and terrestrial applications

ESROCOS (http://www.h2020-esrocos.eu) is a European Project in the frame of the PERASPERA SRC, (http://www.h2020-peraspera.eu/), targeting the design of a Robot Control Operating Software (RCOS) for space robotics applications. The goal of the ESROCOS project is to provide an open-source framework to assist in the development of flight software for space robots, providing adequate features and performance with space-grade Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety (RAMS) properties. This paper presents the ESROCOS project and summarizes the approach and the current status

Research On and Activities For Mathematically Gifted Students

This Topical Survey offers a brief overview of the current state of research on and activities for mathematically gifted students around the world. This is of interest to a broad readership, including educational researchers, research mathematicians, mathematics teachers, teacher educators, curriculum designers, doctoral students, and other stakeholders. It first discusses research concerning the nature of mathematical giftedness, including theoretical frameworks and methodologies that are helpful in identifying and/or creating mathematically gifted students, which is described in this section. It also focuses on research on and the development of mathematical talent and innovation in students, including connections between cognitive, social and affective aspects of mathematically gifted students. Exemplary teaching and learning practices, curricula and a variety of programs that contribute to the development of mathematical talent, gifts, and passion are described as well as the pedagogy and mathematics content suitable for educating pre-service and in-service teachers of mathematically gifted students. The final section provides a brief summary of the paper along with suggestions for the research, activities, and resources that should be available to support mathematically gifted students and their teachers, parents, and other stakeholders

A Decision Support System for Earthwork Activities in Construction Logistics

Making decisions in a complex system such as the construction of a highway is a hard task that involves a combinatorial set of possibilities, concerning thousands of interrelated activities and resources over several years. In this paper we describe a decision support system (DSS) developed to assist project managers in decision making for the construction of the Autostrada Pedemontana Lombarda highway, in Italy. The considered problem evaluates the earthwork activities in de- tail and defines the minimum cost earthwork plan satisfying all constraints. The proposed DSS involves the use of linear programming to solve the earthwork pro- blem in a two-phase approach: in the first phase, an aggregate model determines the feasibility of the overall project, whereas in the second phase, disaggregate models determine the actual flows of each material. The DSS gathers the needed informa- tion directly from the master plan commonly used by the company and provides as output a set of visual solutions. The solution are yielded in short times and can be run many times with different data sets supporting a fast evaluation of different decisions. The provided solutions are also optimized and could substitute the previ- ous manual results. The DSS has been proved to be very effective for assisting the project managers of the above highway construction and is currently in use in other project

The Polaris Internal Representation

The Polaris Program Manipulation System is a production quality tool for source-to-source transformations and complex analysis of Fortran code. In this paper we describe the motivations for and the design of Polaris' internal representation. The internal representation is composed of a basic abstract syntax tree on top of which exist many layers of functionality. This functionality allows complex operations on the data structure as well as allowing it to emulate other internal representations. Further, the internal representation is designed to enforce the consistency of the state of the internal structure in terms of both the correctness of the data structure and the correctness of the Fortran code being manipulated. In addition, operations on the internal representation result in the automatic updating of affected data structures such as flow information. We describe how the system's philosophies developed from its predecessor, the Delta prototyping system, and how they were implemen..