A self-adapting latency/power tradeoff model for replicated search engines

For many search settings, distributed/replicated search engines deploy a large number of machines to ensure efficient retrieval. This paper investigates how the power consumption of a replicated search engine can be automatically reduced when the system has low contention, without compromising its efficiency. We propose a novel self-adapting model to analyse the trade-off between latency and power consumption for distributed search engines. When query volumes are high and there is contention for the resources, the model automatically increases the necessary number of active machines in the system to maintain acceptable query response times. On the other hand, when the load of the system is low and the queries can be served easily, the model is able to reduce the number of active machines, leading to power savings. The model bases its decisions on examining the current and historical query loads of the search engine. Our proposal is formulated as a general dynamic decision problem, which can be quickly solved by dynamic programming in response to changing query loads. Thorough experiments are conducted to validate the usefulness of the proposed adaptive model using historical Web search traffic submitted to a commercial search engine. Our results show that our proposed self-adapting model can achieve an energy saving of 33% while only degrading mean query completion time by 10 ms compared to a baseline that provisions replicas based on a previous day's traffic

Macro-micro feedback links of water management in South Africa : CGE analyses of selected policy regimes

The pressure on an already stressed water situation in South Africa is predicted to increase significantly under climate change, plans for large industrial expansion, observed rapid urbanization, and government programs to provide access to water to millions of previously excluded people. The present study employed a general equilibrium approach to examine the economy-wide impacts of selected macro and water related policy reforms on water use and allocation, rural livelihoods, and the economy at large. The analyses reveal that implicit crop-level water quotas reduce the amount of irrigated land allocated to higher-value horticultural crops and create higher shadow rents for production of lower-value, water-intensive field crops, such as sugarcane and fodder. Accordingly, liberalizing local water allocation in irrigation agriculture is found to work in favor of higher-value crops, and expand agricultural production and exports and farm employment. Allowing for water trade between irrigation and non-agricultural uses fueled by higher competition for water from industrial expansion and urbanization leads to greater water shadow prices for irrigation water with reduced income and employment benefits to rural households and higher gains for non-agricultural households. The analyses show difficult tradeoffs between general economic gains and higher water prices, making irrigation subsidies difficult to justify.Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Water Supply and Systems,Water and Industry,Water Conservation

Thermo-mechanical sensitivity calibration of nanotorsional magnetometers

We report on the fabrication of sensitive nanotorsional resonators, which can be utilized as magnetometers for investigating the magnetization dynamics in small magnetic elements. The thermo-mechanical noise is calibrated with the resonator displacement in order to determine the ultimate mechanical torque sensitivity of the magnetometer.Comment: 56th Annual Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Material

Modelling gene content across a phylogeny to determine when genes become associated

In this work, we develop a stochastic model of gene gain and loss with the aim of inferring when (if at all) in evolutionary history and association between two genes arises. The data we consider is a species tree along with information on the presence or absence of two genes in each of the species. The biological motivation for our model is that if two genes are involved in the same biochemical pathway, i.e. they are both required for some function, then the rate of gain or loss of one gene in the pathway should depend upon the presence or absence of the other gene in the pathway. However, if the two genes are not functionally linked, then the rate of gain or loss of one gene should be independent of the state of another gene. We simulate data under this model to determine under what conditions a shift from the independent rates class to the dependent rates class can be detected. For example, how large a tree is required and how large a shift in the rates is needed before Akaike information criterion (AIC) supports a model with two rate classes over a simpler model with just one rate class? If a model with two rate classes is preferred, can it correctly detect where on the evolutionary tree the shift occurred?Comment: The Eleventh International Conference on Matrix-Analytic Methods in Stochastic Models (MAM11), 2022, Seoul, Republic of Kore

A Tool for Global Resilience Analysis of Water Distribution Systems

This is a joint publication in collaboration with Centre for Water Systems at University of Exeter. This research is based on my previous work for Prof. Butler's project of "Safe and SuRe: A New Paradigm for Urban Water Management".A comprehensive assessment of resilience requires consideration of system performance under exceptional conditions, including those that are unforeseen, and can be achieved using a previously developed methodology called ‘global resilience analysis’ (GRA). GRA captures the effects of both probable and highly improbable (unknown probability) system failures and requires no knowledge of threats. Here, a simple, user-friendly tool that automates the simulations required for GRA of a water distribution system and assists comprehension of the results is presented. Provided the user can supply an Epanet .inp file for the system and that this contains demand data (an understanding of Epanet and system failure modelling is not necessary), the tool can be used to quantify the resilience of the system to pipe failure, pump failure, demand increase and contaminant intrusion. An interactive results explorer allows the user to easily identify critical system components based on the selected level of service type and failure measure (e.g. pressure, supply or contamination and failure magnitude or duration). A map of the network can be used to either color-code components based on their criticality in a single component failure analysis or to identify specific combinations of components which result in the greatest level of service failure magnitude or duration when failed simultaneously. ‘Stress-strain’ type response curves can also be automatically generated and key findings automatically extracted. Additionally, the tool enables systems to be compared on a like-for-like basis, enabling the effects of proposed interventions on resilience to be quantified and visualized

Electrical Property of Polypropylene Films Subjected to Different Temperatures and DC Electric Fields

A polypropylene (PP) film is usually used as a dielectric material in capacitors as well as cables. However, PP films may degrade because of the combined effect of temperature and electric field. In an earlier study, plain PP films and PP films loaded with nano-metric natural clay were studied under sinusoidal (AC) electric fields at power frequency and temperatures above the ambient. To better understand the electrical characteristics of PP film under various conditions, the objective of this study is to determine the time-to-breakdown of the plain PP and PP filled with 2% (wt) natural nano-clay when subjected to time-invariant (DC) electric fields at elevated temperatures. In order to achieve this objective, the effects of uniform as well as non-uniform electric fields were compared at the same temperature for the PP film. In this study, experimental results indicated that the time-to-breakdown of all PP films, plain or filled with nano-clay, decreases with the increase in electric field intensity, non-uniformity of the electric field, and temperature. It was also found that the time-to-breakdown of PP film filled with 2% (wt) natural nano-clay under DC electric field is longer and less sensitive to temperature. Furthermore, when compared with the results under the uniform electric field, PP film filled with 2% (wt) nano-metric natural clay indicates shorter time-to-failure under non-uniform DC electric fields. Finally, the morphology of the samples was observed by digital camera, optical micrography, and SEM, to better understand the mechanism of the breakdown

Longitudinal age-dependent effect on systolic blood pressure

Age-dependent genetic effects on susceptibility to hypertension have been documented. We present a novel variance-component method for the estimation of age-dependent genetic effects on longitudinal systolic blood pressure using 57,827 Affymetrix single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on chromosomes 17-22 genotyped in 2,475 members of the Offspring Cohort of the Framingham Heart Study. We used the likelihood-ratio test statistic to test the main genetic effect, genotype-by-age interaction, and simultaneously, main genetic effect and genotype-by-age interactions (2 degrees of freedom (df) test) for each SNP. Applying Bonferroni correction, three SNPs were significantly associated with longitudinal blood pressure in the analysis of main genetic effects or in combined 2-df analyses. For the associations detected using the simultaneous 2-df test, neither main effects nor genotype-by-age interaction p-values reached genome-wide statistical significance. The value of the 2-df test for screening genetic interaction effects could not be established in this study