Tars: Timeliness-aware Adaptive Replica Selection for Key-Value Stores

In current large-scale distributed key-value stores, a single end-user request may lead to key-value access across tens or hundreds of servers. The tail latency of these key-value accesses is crucial to the user experience and greatly impacts the revenue. To cut the tail latency, it is crucial for clients to choose the fastest replica server as much as possible for the service of each key-value access. Aware of the challenges on the time varying performance across servers and the herd behaviors, an adaptive replica selection scheme C3 is proposed recently. In C3, feedback from individual servers is brought into replica ranking to reflect the time-varying performance of servers, and the distributed rate control and backpressure mechanism is invented. Despite of C3's good performance, we reveal the timeliness issue of C3, which has large impacts on both the replica ranking and the rate control, and propose the Tars (timeliness-aware adaptive replica selection) scheme. Following the same framework as C3, Tars improves the replica ranking by taking the timeliness of the feedback information into consideration, as well as revises the rate control of C3. Simulation results confirm that Tars outperforms C3.Comment: 10pages,submitted to ICDCS 201

Direct observation of ordered configurations of hydrogen adatoms on graphene

Ordered configurations of hydrogen adatoms on graphene have long been proposed, calculated and searched for. Here we report direct observation of several ordered configurations of H adatoms on graphene by scanning tunneling microscopy. On the top side of the graphene plane, H atoms in the configurations appear to stick to carbon atoms in the same sublattice. A gap larger than 0.6 eV in the local density of states of the configurations was revealed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements. These findings can be well explained by density functional theory calculations based on double sided H configurations. In addition, factors that may influence H ordering are discussed

Load flow calculation for droop-controlled islanded microgrids based on direct Newton-Raphson method with step size optimisation

Load flow calculation for droop-controlled islanded microgrids (IMGs) is different from that of transmission or distribution systems due to the absence of slack bus and the variation of frequency. Meanwhile considering the common three-phase imbalance condition in low-voltage systems, a load flow algorithm based on the direct Newton-Raphson (NR) method with step size optimisation for both three-phase balanced and unbalanced droop-controlled IMGs is proposed in this study. First, the steady-state models for balanced and unbalanced droop-controlled IMGs are established based on their operational mechanisms. Then taking frequency as one of the unknowns, the non-linear load flow equations are solved iteratively by the NR method. Generally, iterative load flow algorithms are faced with challenges of convergence performance, especially for unbalanced systems. To tackle this problem, a step-size-optimisation scheme is employed to improve the convergence performance for three-phase unbalanced IMGs. In each iteration, a multiplier is deduced from the sum of higher-order terms of Taylor expansion of the load flow equations. Then the step size is optimised by the multiplier, which can help smooth the iterative process and obtain the solutions. The proposed method is performed on several balanced and unbalanced IMGs. Numerical results demonstrate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm

Automated Personal Authentication Using Both Palmprints

Abstract. To satisfy personal interests, different entertainment computing should be performed for different people (called personal entertainment computing). For personal entertainment computing, the personal identity should be first automatically authenticated. This paper proposes a novel approach for automated personal authentication by using both palmprints. The experimental results show that the fusion of the information of both palmprints can dramatically improve the authentication accuracy

Palmprint Texture Analysis Using Derivative of Gaussian Filters

This paper presents a novel approach of palmprint tex-ture analysis based on the derivative of gaussian filter. In this approach, the palmprint image is respectively prepro-cessed along horizontal and vertical direction using deriva-tive of gaussian (DoG) Filters. And then the palmprint is encoded according to the sign of the value of each pixel of the filtered images. This code is called DoGCode of the palmprint. The size of DoGCode is 256 bytes. The simi-larity of two DoGCode is measured using their Hamming distance. This approach is tested on the PolyU Palmprint Database, which containing 7605 samples from 392 palms, and the EER is 0.19%, which is comparable with the exist-ing palmprint recognition methods. 1

Numerical Study on Reasonable Entry Layout of Lower Seam in Multi-seam Mining

Abstract: According to the geological conditions of 6# coal seam and 8# coal seam in Xieqiao Coal Mine, reasonable entry layout of lower seam in multi-seam mining has been studied by FLAC3D numerical simulation. Three ways of entry layout including alternate internal entry layout, alternate exterior entry layout and overlapping entry layout has been put forward for discussing on reasonable entry layout. Then stress distribution and displacement characteristics of surrounding rock have been analyzed in the three ways of entry layout by numerical simulation, leading to the conclusion that alternate internal entry layout pattern, which make the entry located in stress reduce zone and avoid the influence of abutment pressure of upper coal seam mining to a certain extent, is a better choice for multi-seam mining. The research results herein can offer beneficial reference for entry layout with similar geological conditions in multi-seam minin

Secondary relaxation dynamics in rigid glass-forming molecular liquids with related structures

The dielectric relaxation in three glass-forming molecular liquids, 1-methylindole (1MID), 5H-5-Methyl-6,7-dihydrocyclopentapyrazine (MDCP), and Quinaldine (QN) is studied focusing on the secondary relaxation and its relation to the structural α-relaxation. All three glass-formers are rigid and more or less planar molecules with related chemical structures but have dipoles of different strengths at different locations. A strong and fast secondary relaxation is detected in the dielectric spectra of 1MID, while no resolved β-relaxation is observed in MDCP and QN. If the observed secondary relaxation in 1MID is identified with the Johari-Goldstein (JG) β-relaxation, then apparently the relation between the α- and β-relaxation frequencies of 1MID is not in accord with the Coupling Model (CM). The possibility of the violation of the prediction in 1MID as due to either the formation of hydrogen-bond induced clusters or the involvement of intramolecular degree of freedom is ruled out. The violation is explained by the secondary relaxation originating from the in-plane rotation of the dipole located on the plane of the rigid molecule, contributing to dielectric loss at higher frequencies and more intense than the JG β-relaxation generated by the out-of-plane rotation. MDCP has smaller dipole moment located in the plane of the molecule; however, presence of the change of curvature of dielectric loss, ε″(f), at some frequency on the high-frequency flank of the α-relaxation reveals the JG β-relaxation in MDCP and which is in accord with the CM prediction. QN has as large an in-plane dipole moment as 1MID, and the absence of the resolved secondary relaxation is explained by the smaller coupling parameter than the latter in the framework of the C