Cache Memory Access Patterns in the GPU Architecture

Data exchange between a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) can be very expensive in terms of performance. The characterization of data and cache memory access patterns differ between a CPU and a GPU. The motivation of this research is to analyze the cache memory access patterns of GPU architectures and to potentially improve data exchange between a CPU and GPU. The methodology of this work uses Multi2Sim GPU simulator for AMD Radeon and NVIDIA Kepler GPU architectures. This simulator, used to emulate the GPU architecture in software, enables certain code modifications for the L1 and L2 cache memory blocks. Multi2Sim was configured to run multiple benchmarks to analyze and record how the benchmarks access GPU cache memory. The recorded results were used to study three main metrics: (1) Most Recently Used (MRU) and Least Recently Used (LRU) accesses for L1 and L2 caches, (2) Inter-warp and Intra-warp cache memory accesses in the GPU architecture for different sets of workloads, and (3) To record and compare the GPU cache access patterns for certain machine learning benchmarks with its general purpose counterparts

Portable Solar Powered Weather Station for Farmers

In this paper we have proposed a design which functions as a completely solar powered wireless weather station. The model is developed in such a way that it can be operated remotely and the output reading values are displayed on an easy to read LCD display with numeric values. The weather station is completely wireless as it incorporates a remote station with sensors to keep track of the weather powered by a solar panel and a base station to record and read weather data and in true terms to make it wireless. Base station can relay weather data as well as values to the hand held devices via internet. The remote station consists of sensors to measure rainfall, temperature and relative humidity level which are important weather parameters for our farmer friends with a design to optimize cost and power   &nbsp

Effect of medical nutrition therapy on vitamin C and malondialdehyde in HIV positive malnourished children

Background: The objective is to assess the effect of medical nutrition therapy on biochemical parameters like Vitamin C and Malondialdehyde by estimating oxidative stress in HIV positive malnourished childrens’ sample. Any alteration in the antioxidant markers can help to assess the effectiveness of MNT as a therapeutic agent. There is limited data on the use of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) in India. Therefore, the study was conducted to determine the effect of prepared Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) also termed as Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) in HIV positive malnourished children.Methods: In this prospective comparative study, pre MNT and post MNT sample as well as the parameters-Malondialdehyde and Vitamin C were analyzed in 19 HIV positive malnourished children in the age group of 6-12 years at L.T.M.M. College. HIV positive malnourished children showed adverse effects on nutrition as well as immune system. Thus, to supply adequate micronutrients and macronutrients, the subjects were treated with Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT).Results: The post MNT HIV positive malnourished childrens’ samples revealed significant results than pre MNT HIV positive malnourished childrens’ samples.Conclusions: The level of antioxidant marker (vitamin C) increased and peroxidation marker (MDA) decreased post medical nutrition therapy. The increased post levels of vitamin C activity helped in the eradication of excess free radicals, thereby reducing oxidative stress and hence the oxidative damage to cells as well as inhibiting lipid peroxidation (which is indicated by decreased post level MDA).

Characteristics of Marijuana Users Compared to Multiple Drug Users

This study examines drug use behavior in a self-described sample of users. Comparisons are made between subjects whose only illicit drug use is marijuana and those who use both marijuana and other drugs. Data are from the DRUGNET study (1996, 1998, 1999), a multi-panel study conducted over the internet from 1996 - 1998. This sample was predominately white, male, young, and college educated. The majority of respondents were employed with incomes in the $50,000 -$60,000 (USD) range. A subset of respondents to the DRUGNET survey was selected for this analysis. Respondents had to be at least 18 years of age, a US citizen and report marijuana drug use (n = 283). The major finding from this study is that there were no significant differences between the two groups on any variable measured other than gender, household income and the age of onset of marijuana use. Women are more likely to report using marijuana alone while males are more likely to report using marijuana and other drugs. The individuals having low and middle class household income were more likely to report the use of marijuana and other drugs compared to the upper middles class income groups who were more likely to report the use of marijuana alone. After Bonferroni\u27s adjustment was done, it was observed that the mean age of onset for the group who used marijuana alone was greater in comparison to the group who used marijuana along with other drugs. While this study is the first one to make this comparison and may have implications for drug education, policy, and treatment. The result obtained from this study may be an artifact of the study design and/or sample

Methods for Proving Non-termination of Programs

The search for reliable and scalable automated methods for finding counterexamples to termination or alternatively proving non-termination is still widely open. The thesis studies the problem of proving non-termination of programs and presents new methods for the same. It also provides a thorough comparison of new methods along with the previous methods. In the first method, we show how the problem of non-termination proving can be reduced to a question of underapproximation search guided by a safety prover. This reduction leads to new non-termination proving implementation strategies based on existing tools for safety proving. Furthermore, our approach leads to easy support for programs with unbounded non-determinism. In the second method, we show how Max-SMT-based invariant generation can be exploited for proving non-termination of programs. The construction of the proof of non-termination is guided by the generation of quasi-invariants - properties such that if they hold at a location during execution once, then they will continue to hold at that location from then onwards. The check that quasi-invariants can indeed be reached is then performed separately. Our technique produces more generic witnesses of non-termination than existing methods. Moreover, it can handle programs with unbounded non-determinism and is more likely to converge than previous approaches. When proving non-termination using known techniques, abstractions that overapproximate the program's transition relation are unsound. In the third method, we introduce live abstractions, a natural class of abstractions that can be combined with the concept of closed recurrence sets to soundly prove non-termination. To demonstrate the practical usefulness of this new approach we show how programs with non-linear, non-deterministic, and heap-based commands can be shown non-terminating using linear overapproximations. All three methods introduced in this thesis have been implemented in different tools. We also provide experimental results which show great performance improvements over existing methods

Reducing Mining and Energy Consumption through Recycling of Fired Ceramic Waste

This research was initiated as an investigation about the afterlife of the prodigious amount of rejections witnessed post-firing process at ceramic industries in India. To further expand the optimization of application development of this waste, inspiration was drawn from Asian culture where a natural way of life was designed to reuse and recycle materials for longevity. The key idea about recycling fired ceramics was to be able to reuse the waste for multiple production cycles instead of using it once and in turn, generating more untreatable waste at the end of its lifecycle. To realize this vision, recycling was carried out as a mono‐material making it a 100% recyclable material. This paper, along with offering a corporeal solution to the material crisis intends to offer an initial nudge to open up conversations about waste pertaining to materials other than plastic and water, thus making a direct positive impact under SDG12

Disproving termination with overapproximation

When disproving termination using known techniques (e.g. recurrence sets), abstractions that overapproximate the program’s transition relation are unsound. In this paper we introduce live abstractions, a natural class of abstractions that can be combined with the recent concept of closed recurrence sets to soundly disprove termination. To demonstrate the practical usefulness of this new approach we show how programs with nonlinear, nondeterministic, and heap-based commands can be shown nonterminating using linear overapproximations