Finding Subcube Heavy Hitters in Analytics Data Streams

Data streams typically have items of large number of dimensions. We study the fundamental heavy-hitters problem in this setting. Formally, the data stream consists of $d$-dimensional items $x_1,\ldots,x_m \in [n]^d$. A $k$-dimensional subcube $T$ is a subset of distinct coordinates $\{ T_1,\cdots,T_k \} \subseteq [d]$. A subcube heavy hitter query ${\rm Query}(T,v)$, $v \in [n]^k$, outputs YES if $f_T(v) \geq \gamma$ and NO if $f_T(v) < \gamma/4$, where $f_T$ is the ratio of number of stream items whose coordinates $T$ have joint values $v$. The all subcube heavy hitters query ${\rm AllQuery}(T)$ outputs all joint values $v$ that return YES to ${\rm Query}(T,v)$. The one dimensional version of this problem where $d=1$ was heavily studied in data stream theory, databases, networking and signal processing. The subcube heavy hitters problem is applicable in all these cases. We present a simple reservoir sampling based one-pass streaming algorithm to solve the subcube heavy hitters problem in $\tilde{O}(kd/\gamma)$ space. This is optimal up to poly-logarithmic factors given the established lower bound. In the worst case, this is $\Theta(d^2/\gamma)$ which is prohibitive for large $d$, and our goal is to circumvent this quadratic bottleneck. Our main contribution is a model-based approach to the subcube heavy hitters problem. In particular, we assume that the dimensions are related to each other via the Naive Bayes model, with or without a latent dimension. Under this assumption, we present a new two-pass, $\tilde{O}(d/\gamma)$-space algorithm for our problem, and a fast algorithm for answering ${\rm AllQuery}(T)$ in $O(k/\gamma^2)$ time. Our work develops the direction of model-based data stream analysis, with much that remains to be explored.Comment: To appear in WWW 201

Life cycle assessment of biogas production in small-scale household digesters in Vietnam

Small-scale household digesters have been promoted across Asia as a sustainable way of handling manure. The major advantages are that they produce biogas and reduce odor. However their disadvantages include the low recycling of nutrients, because digestate is dilute and therefore difficult to transport, and the loss of biogas as a result of cracks and the intentional release of excess biogas. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was used to assess the environmental impacts associated with biogas digesters in Vietnam. Handling 1,000 kg of liquid manure and 100 kg of solid manure in a system with a biogas digester reduced the impact potential from 4.4 kg carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents to 3.2 kg CO2 equivalents compared with traditional manure management. However, this advantage could easily be compromised if digester construction is considered in the LCA or in situations where there is an excess of biogas which is intentionally released. A sensitivity analysis showed that biogas digesters could be a means of reducing global warming if methane emissions can be kept low. In terms of eutrophication, farms with biogas digesters had 3 to 4 times greater impacts. In order to make biogas digesters sustainable, methods for recycling digestates are urgently required

Reactive ion etching of tellurite and chalcogenide waveguides using hydrogen, methane, and argon

The authors report in detail on the reactive plasma etching properties of tellurium and demonstrate a high quality etching process using hydrogen, methane, and argon. Very low loss planar ridge waveguides are demonstrated. Optical losses in tellurium dioxide waveguides below 0.1 dB/cm in most of the near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum and at 1550 nm have been achieved—the lowest ever reported by more than an order of magnitude and clearly suitable for planar integrated devices. The etch process is also shown to be suitable for chalcogenide glasses which may be of importance in applications such as phase change memory devices and nonlinear integrated optics.The support of the Australian Research Council through its Discovery Grant Program is gratefully acknowledged Grant No. DP070333

Control-oriented modelling and simulation of a variable-frequency efficiency-optimized flyback converter

Driven by the requirement for a fairly accurate and fast simulation of a variable frequency digital controlled flyback converter, this paper develops a control-oriented mathematical model, which retains the essential dynamic characteristics of the real system, but offers significant computational complexity reduction compared to a full modelling approach. In addition to the model simplification, an approach to further improve the simulation speed, through a specific implementation of the differential equation solver, is also considered. To verify the accuracy of the proposed model, different tests with both open-loop and closed-loop flyback converters are performed. The results from both simulation and experiment show good agreement in all the test cases

SWAT use of gridded observations for simulating runoff – a Vietnam river basin study

Many research studies that focus on basin hydrology have applied the SWAT model using station data to simulate runoff. But over regions lacking robust station data, there is a problem of applying the model to study the hydrological responses. For some countries and remote areas, the rainfall data availability might be a constraint due to many different reasons such as lacking of technology, war time and financial limitation that lead to difficulty in constructing the runoff data. To overcome such a limitation, this research study uses some of the available globally gridded high resolution precipitation datasets to simulate runoff. Five popular gridded observation precipitation datasets: (1) Asian Precipitation Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards the Evaluation of Water Resources (APHRODITE), (2) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), (3) Precipitation Estimation from Remote Sensing Information using Artificial Neural Network (PERSIANN), (4) Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), (5) a modified version of Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN2) and one reanalysis dataset, National Centers for Environment Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) are used to simulate runoff over the Dak Bla river (a small tributary of the Mekong River) in Vietnam. Wherever possible, available station data are also used for comparison. Bilinear interpolation of these gridded datasets is used to input the precipitation data at the closest grid points to the station locations. Sensitivity Analysis and Auto-calibration are performed for the SWAT model. The Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) and Coefficient of Determination (&lt;i&gt;R&lt;/i&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;) indices are used to benchmark the model performance. Results indicate that the APHRODITE dataset performed very well on a daily scale simulation of discharge having a good NSE of 0.54 and &lt;i&gt;R&lt;/i&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; of 0.55, when compared to the discharge simulation using station data (0.68 and 0.71). The GPCP proved to be the next best dataset that was applied to the runoff modelling, with NSE and &lt;i&gt;R&lt;/i&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; of 0.46 and 0.51, respectively. The PERSIANN and TRMM rainfall data driven runoff did not show good agreement compared to the station data as both the NSE and &lt;i&gt;R&lt;/i&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; indices showed a low value of 0.3. GHCN2 and NCEP also did not show good correlations. The varied results by using these datasets indicate that although the gauge based and satellite-gauge merged products use some ground truth data, the different interpolation techniques and merging algorithms could also be a source of uncertainties. This entails a good understanding of the response of the hydrological model to different datasets and a quantification of the uncertainties in these datasets. Such a methodology is also useful for planning on Rainfall-runoff and even reservoir/river management both at rural and urban scales

Thermal oxidation of reactively sputtered amorphous W_(80)N_(20) films

The oxidation behavior of reactively sputtered amorphous tungsten nitride of composition W_(80)N_(20) was investigated in dry and wet oxidizing ambient in the temperature range of 450 °C–575 °C. A single WO_3 oxide phase is observed. The growth of the oxide follows a parabolic time dependence which is attributed to a process controlled by the diffusivity of the oxidant in the oxide. The oxidation process is thermally activated with an activation energy of 2.5 ± 0.05 eV for dry ambient and 2.35 ± 0.05 eV for wet ambient. The pre‐exponential factor of the reaction constant for dry ambient is 1.1×10^(21) Å^2/min; that for wet ambient is only about 10 times less and is equal to 1.3×10^(20) Å^2/min

Qualification of Electrical Ground Support Equipment for New Space Programs

With the Space Shuttle program coming to an end, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is moving to a new space flight program that will allow expeditions beyond low earth orbit. The space vehicles required to comply with these missions will be carrying heavy payloads. This implies that the Earth departure stage capabilities must be of higher magnitudes, given the current propulsion technology. The engineering design of the new flight hardware comes with some structural, thermal, propulsion and other subsystems' challenges. Meanwhile, the necessary ground support equipment (GSE) used to test, validate, verify and process the flight hardware must withstand the new program specifications. This paper intends to provide the qualification considerations during implementation of new electrical GSE for space programs. A team of engineers was formed to embark on this task, and facilitate the logistics process and ensure that the electrical, mechanical and fluids subsystems conduct the proper level of testing. Ultimately, each subsystem must certify that each piece of ground support equipment used in the field is capable of withstanding the strenuous vibration, acoustics, environmental, thermal and Electromagnetic Interference (EMf) levels experienced during pre-launch, launch and post-launch activities. The benefits of capturing and sharing these findings will provide technical, cost savings and schedule impacts infon11ation to both the technical and management community. Keywords: Qualification; Testing; Ground Support Equipment; Electromagnetic Interference Testing; Vibration Testing; Acoustic Testing; Power Spectral Density