Profile-directed specialisation of custom floating-point hardware

We present a methodology for generating floating-point arithmetic hardware designs which are, for suitable applications, much reduced in size, while still retaining performance and IEEE-754 compliance. Our system uses three key parts: a profiling tool, a set of customisable floating-point units and a selection of system integration methods. We use a profiling tool for floating-point behaviour to identify arithmetic operations where fundamental elements of IEEE-754 floating-point may be compromised, without generating erroneous results in the common case. In the uncommon case, we use simple detection logic to determine when operands lie outside the range of capabilities of the optimised hardware. Out-of-range operations are handled by a separate, fully capable, floatingpoint implementation, either on-chip or by returning calculations to a host processor. We present methods of system integration to achieve this errorcorrection. Thus the system suffers no compromise in IEEE-754 compliance, even when the synthesised hardware would generate erroneous results. In particular, we identify from input operands the shift amounts required for input operand alignment and post-operation normalisation. For operations where these are small, we synthesise hardware with reduced-size barrel-shifters. We also propose optimisations to take advantage of other profile-exposed behaviours, including removing the hardware required to swap operands in a floating-point adder or subtractor, and reducing the exponent range to fit observed values. We present profiling results for a range of applications, including a selection of computational science programs, Spec FP 95 benchmarks and the FFMPEG media processing tool, indicating which would be amenable to our method. Selected applications which demonstrate potential for optimisation are then taken through to a hardware implementation. We show up to a 45% decrease in hardware size for a floating-point datapath, with a correctable error-rate of less then 3%, even with non-profiled datasets

The Trinity of Transmission Issues: Siting, Access and Pricing

Ashley Brown is not only a commissioner of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, he is also one of the most widely-respected authorities in the U.S. today on the regulation of electric utilities. He is particularly known for his vocal efforts to forge a more cooperative state-federal relationship in electrical regulation. This article is an edited excerpt from his keynote address at the PURE \u2793 Conference

The narcissistic teammate: effects of narcissistic subtypes on self-serving attributional biases

The self-serving attributional bias in collaborative group efforts is the tendency for individuals to take more personal responsibility for the group\u27s success and less personal responsibility for the group\u27s failure. Much previous research has linked narcissism with self-serving behavior. Narcissism can be broken down into the grandiose subtype, characterized by superiority and entitlement, and the vulnerable subtype, characterized by low self-esteem and preoccupation with others\u27 opinions. The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether grandiose and vulnerable narcissists engage in self- serving behavior differently in various situations. College students completed a team activity, which involved completing cognitive tasks on private computers, and received randomly generated feedback of team success or failure. Participants then took a short questionnaire with the supposed opportunity to make either public or private attributions regarding how much they contributed to the group\u27s outcome. I predicted that grandiose narcissists would be more self-serving when making public attributions about a success, while vulnerable narcissists would be more self-serving when making private attributions about a failure. Overall, the results showed some evidence of greater narcissism being associated with more self-bias in the public-success condition, but this pattern was driven more by the vulnerable than the grandiose form of narcissism. These results have important implications for any individual who must work with a narcissist in a team activity; for example, in a work environment. The complexities regarding distinctions between the different forms of narcissism are discussed --Document

Migration of Millennials and Seniors in the Mountain West

This Fact Sheet examines trends in intraregional migration of millennials and seniors since the Great Recession, with a focus on the Mountain West. The data presented were originally published in a report by the Brookings Institution, titled “How migration of millennials and seniors has shifted since the Great Recession.

Multiple categories: the equivalence of a globular and a cubical approach

We show the equivalence of two kinds of strict multiple category, namely the well known globular omega-categories, and the cubical omega-categories with connections.Comment: Latex2E, xy, 38 pages. New version 17 Dec 2001, as accepted by Advances in Mathematics: minor but useful corrections. Some pictures adde

Regulatory Risk: Is the Subject Still Relevant or Do Markets Govern?

Regulatory Risk: Economic Principles and Applications to Natural Gas Pipelines and Other Industries, by A. Lawrence Kolbe, William B. Tye and, Stewart C. Myers. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993. 345 pages. Messrs. Kolbe, Tye, and Myers are highly skilled and thoughtful economists. Their thoroughness, analytical abilities, and appreciation for economic subtleties are well demonstrated in Regulatory Risk: Economic Principles and Applications to Natural Gas Pipelines and Other Industries. The authors present a lengthy and detailed argument that in setting rates of return, regulators must specifically recognize the risk of potential disallowances on the grounds that costs have been imprudently incurred or assets have turned out not to be used and useful. In the context of the arcane world of regulated rate-of-return analysis, the work is professional, well documented, and quite systematic, particularly in regard to natural gas pipelines

Thermally Robust and Redox Active Catalysts: Studying Their Behavior for Ethylene and L-lactide Polymerization

The development of homogenous single-site catalysts has significantly impacted the field of organometallic chemistry. The well-defined structures of homogenous catalysts make it less cumbersome to understand and develop methods to tailor these compounds for specific catalytic processes. Currently, polymerization catalysis is a major division in organometallic chemistry due to the global demand for polymeric materials such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), based on their low-cost feedstock, remarkable mechanical properties, and their use in a wide range of applications. However, bioplastics have become a highly sought-after alternative to conventional petrochemical-based plastics due to their biodegradability and derivatization from renewable resources. Specifically, polylactic acid (PLA) has shown tremendous promise for a variety of applications including medical and packaging products. With such a high demand for these materials, there is a great desire to understand and to be able to control the polymerizations of monomers such as ethylene and lactide. This dissertation will describe several advances the Long group has taken toward designing advanced single-site catalysts for the polymerization of ethylene and L-lactide. In our studies, we have determined that catalyst design can have a major impact on polymerization behavior and catalyst stability. More specifically, our group has been particularly successful in (1) designing thermally robust catalysts for ethylene polymerization and (2) designing redox-switchable catalysts for L-lactide polymerization. To date, our group has published several fundamental studies encompassing thermally robust catalysts for polyethylene and the development of redox-switchable catalysts for PLA. A portion of these results will be described herein