From offline toward real-time: A hybrid systems model checking and CPS co-design approach for Medical Device Plug-andPlay (MDPnP

Abstract—Hybrid systems model checking is a great success in guaranteeing the safety of computerized control cyber-physical systems (CPS). However, when applying hybrid systems model checking to Medical Device Plug-and-Play (MDPnP) CPS, we encounter two challenges due to the complexity of human body: i) there are no good offline differential equation based models for many human body parameters; ii) the complexity of human body can result in many variables, complicating the system model. In an attempt to address the challenges, we propose to alter the traditional approach of offline hybrid systems model checking of time-unbounded (i.e., infinite-horizon, a.k.a., long-run) future behavior to online hybrid systems model checking of time-bounded (i.e., finite-horizon, a.k.a., short-run) future behavior. According to this proposal, online model checking runs as a real-time task to prevent faults. To meet the real-time requirements, certain design patterns must be followed, which brings up the co-design issue. We propose two sets of system co-design patterns for hard real-time and soft real-time respectively. To evaluate our proposals, a case study on laser tracheotomy MDPnP is carried out. The study shows the necessity of online model checking. Furthermore, test results based on real-world human subject trace show the feasibility and effectiveness of our proposed co-design.

O2ATH: An OpenMP Offloading Toolkit for the Sunway Heterogeneous Manycore Platform

The next generation Sunway supercomputer employs the SW26010pro processor, which features a specialized on-chip heterogeneous architecture. Applications with significant hotspots can benefit from the great computation capacity improvement of Sunway many-core architectures by carefully making intensive manual many-core parallelization efforts. However, some legacy projects with large codebases, such as CESM, ROMS and WRF, contain numerous lines of code and do not have significant hotspots. The cost of manually porting such applications to the Sunway architecture is almost unaffordable. To overcome such a challenge, we have developed a toolkit named O2ATH. O2ATH forwards GNU OpenMP runtime library calls to Sunway's Athread library, which greatly simplifies the parallelization work on the Sunway architecture.O2ATH enables users to write both MPE and CPE code in a single file, and parallelization can be achieved by utilizing OpenMP directives and attributes. In practice, O2ATH has helped us to port two large projects, CESM and ROMS, to the CPEs of the next generation Sunway supercomputers via the OpenMP offload method. In the experiments, kernel speedups range from 3 to 15 times, resulting in 3 to 6 times whole application speedups.Furthermore, O2ATH requires significantly fewer code modifications compared to manually crafting CPE functions.This indicates that O2ATH can greatly enhance development efficiency when porting or optimizing large software projects on Sunway supercomputers.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables

Metagenomic insights into the relationship between gut microbiota and residual feed intake of small-sized meat ducks

IntroductionThe objective of this study was to determine the regulatory effects of gut microbiota on the feed efficiency (FE) of small-sized meat ducks by evaluating correlations between gut microbiota and residual feed intake (RFI).MethodsA total of 500 21-day-old healthy male ducks with similar initial body weights (645 ± 15.0 g) were raised contemporaneously in the same experimental facility until slaughter at 56 days of age. In total, nine low-RFI (LR) and nine high-RFI (HR) birds were selected for further gut microbiota composition and functional analyses based on the production performance, and the RFI was calculated from 22 to 56 days of age.ResultsGrowth performance results indicated a significantly lower RFI, feed conversion ratio, feed intake, and average daily feed intake in the LR ducks (P < 0.05). Taxonomy results of gut microbiota showed the identification of 19 kinds of phyla and more than 250 kinds of genera in all samples. No significant discrepancies in cecal bacterial α-diversity were discovered between the LR and HR groups, which indicated that the microbial modulatory effects on RFI may be attributed to the bacterial composition, rather than the species diversity. Differential analysis of bacterial communities between the LR and HR groups showed a significant increment of Firmicutes and a significant decline of Bacteroidetes in the LR group (P < 0.05). Specifically, genera of Erysipelatoclostridium, Parasutterella, Fournierella, and Lactococcus significantly proliferated, while Bacteroides significantly decreased in the LR group (P < 0.05). Furthermore, correlation analysis showed that the RFI was significantly correlated with carbohydrate metabolism-related bacteria including Bacteroides, Alistipes, Bifidobacterium, Ruminiclostridium_9, Sellimonas, Oscillibacter, Escherichia-Shigella, Lactococcus, and Streptococcus.ConclusionIn conclusion, the communities related to carbohydrate metabolism had positive regulatory effects on the FE of small-sized meat ducks, promoting it by improving the relative abundance and utilization of these communities. The present study provides valuable insight into the dynamics of gut microbiota underlying the variations in the FE of small-sized meat ducks

Auge, decadencia y revitalización: la evolución de la comunidad china en Cuba, 1920-2005

En orden cronológico, este trabajo revisa la evolución de la comunidad china en Cuba, con énfasis en La Habana, bajo el entrelazamiento de los impactos de factores externos y las transformaciones internas desde 1920 hasta 2005. Este periodo se divide en tres etapas que corresponden a las tres fases respectivas de auge, decadencia y revitalización de dicha comunidad en su historia: de la década de 1920 a la víspera de la Revolución Cubana; del triunfo de la Revolución del 1959 a los finales de la década de 1980; de la década de 1990 al principios del siglo XXI. Teniendo en cuenta la propia evolución política y económica de Cuba y situándola en el contexto internacional, el trabajo analiza y compara los cambios que viene experimentando la comunidad china en los ámbitos demográfico, económico y sociocultural a lo largo del tiempo de estudio. A la vez, presta atención especial a las asociaciones chinas establecidas en la capital cubana, enfocando un análisis sobre la evolución de la membresía, la situación financiera, las funciones que vienen desempeñando en los tres períodos arriba mencionados. La investigación se basa en las fuentes recopiladas en los archivos y bibliotecas cubanas y chinas, así como las visitas in situ al Barrio Chino habanero y entrevistas con los miembros de las asociaciones. El trabajo tiene como objetivo fundamental explicar cómo tuvieron lugar las transformaciones comunitarias bajo la influencia superpuesta de los factores macroscópicos, tales como las modificaciones de las políticas migratorias cubanas, los cambios en el sistema político cubano, las alteraciones de los vínculos bilaterales entre el país de acogida, Cuba, y el de origen de los inmigrantes, China.In chronological order, this thesis reviews the evolution of the Chinese community in Cuba, with emphasis on Havana, under the intertwining of the impacts of external factors and internal transformations from 1920 to 2005. This period is divided into three stages: from the 1920s to the eve of the Cuban Revolution; from the triumph of the 1959 Revolution to the end of the 1980s; from the 1990s to the beginning of the 21st century, that correspond to the three phases described as the boom, the decline and the revitalization of the said community in its history. Taking into account the political and economic evolution of Cuba and placing it in the international context, this work analyzes and compares the changes that the Cuban Chinese community has been experiencing in the demographic, economic and sociocultural fields throughout the study period. The thesis also pays special attention to the Chinese associations established in the Cuban capital, focusing on an analysis on the evolution of the membership, the financial situation, the functions they have been performing in the three periods mentioned above. Based on the sources collected in Cuban and Chinese archives and libraries, as well as on-site visits to Havana's Chinatown and interviews with members of the related associations, the main objective of this thesis is to explain how community transformations took place under the influence superimposed on macroscopic factors, such as changes in Cuban migration policies, changes in the Cuban political system, alterations in bilateral ties between the host country, Cuba, and the country of origin of the immigrants, China