Device specialization in heterogeneous multi-GPU environments

In the last few years there have been many activities towards coupling CPUs and GPUs in order to get the most from CPU-GPU heterogeneous systems. One of the main problems that prevent these systems to be exploited in a device-aware manner is the CPU-GPU communication bottleneck, which often doesn\u27t allow to produce code more efficient than the GPU-only and the CPU-only counterparts. As a consequence, most of the heterogeneous scheduling systems treat CPUs and GPUs as homogeneous nodes, electing map-like data partitioning to employ both these processing resources. We propose to study how the radical change in the connection between GPU, CPU and memory characterizing the APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) affect the architecture of a compiler and if it is possible to use all these computing resources in a device-aware manner. We investigate on a methodology to analyze the devices that populate heterogeneous multi-GPU systems and to classify general purpose algorithms in order to perform near-optimal control flow and data partitioning

Modeling web applications infrastructure with ASMs

We describe via Abstract State Machines the major ingredients of contemporary web applications: a web browser running JavaScript programs and a web server dispatching requests to one of several modules, each one representing a class of established web application frameworks. The web browser model comes in four levels, namely transport, stream, context and browser level, and is focussed on the interaction with possibly multiple servers (which requires a concurrent computation model) and on script execution (which requires a dynamic assignment of agents to programs). The server model is focussed on the Request–Reply pattern, and specifies a delegation strategy where the handling of a request is entrusted to a module. We show how several major frameworks for web applications can be described as progressive refinements of a number of basic modules. Three modules are further detailed: static file transfer, CGI and generic scripting modules

New concept in urologic surgery: The total extended genital sparing radical cystectomy in women

Introduction and objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate genital sparing radical cystectomy surgery in female patients from the point of view of both oncologic and functional outcomes (with emphasis on urinary and sexual outcomes) in a single high-volume center for the treatment of muscular invasive bladder cancer. Materials and methods: Between January 2014 and January 2018, 14 female patients underwent radical cystectomy with preservation of genital organs (the entire vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries) and orthotopic urinary neobladder (Padua neobladder). Inclusion criteria were recurrent T1G3 tumors; refractory tumors after BCG therapy without associated carcinoma in situ (CIS); T2 or T3a tumors entirely resected at endoscopic transurethral resection of the bladder and not involving urethra/bladder trigone. Exclusion criteria were: T3b or higher bladder cancer, associated CIS and involvement of urethra or bladder trigone. Oncological and histopathological outcomes (Overall Survival - OS, Recurrence Free Survival - RFS), urinary outcomes (day and night incontinence, intermittent catheterization use, Sandvik Score) and sexual outcomes (Female Sexual Function Index 19 FSFI-19) were considered. The average follow-up time was 56 months. Results: Considering oncological outcomes, histologic examination reported urothelial carcinoma in 13/14 patients; 8/13 patients (61.5%) had high grade T1 stage, 3/13 patients (23%) had high grade T2 stage and finally 2/13 patients (15.5%) had high-grade T3 stage. One patient presented with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma completely excised after surgery (PT2aN0M0). No patient developed local or metastatic recurrence (RFS 100%); OS was 100%. Considering urinary continence outcomes, 12/14 patients retained daytime and nighttime continence (85.5%); 2/14 (14.5%) complained of low stress urinary incontinence daily and nighttime urinary leakage. The Sandvik Score showed complete continence in 7/14 patients (50%); mild degree incontinence in 6/14 patients without use of incontinence devices (43%); moderate degree of incontinence in one patient (7%). The FSFI administered at 1 year from the surgery showed sexual desire in all patients (100%); subjective arousal, achievement of orgasm and sexual satisfaction in 12/14 patients (85.5%); sufficient lubrication in 11/14 patients (78.5%). Only one patient (7%) complained about dyspareunia during sexual intercourse. Conclusions: Our study aims to demonstrate that genital-sparing radical cystectomy is a safe surgery in terms of oncologic outcomes and, most importantly, that it is beneficial in terms of urinary and sexual function. Indeed, patients’ quality of life together with their psychological and emotional health should be put on the same level as oncological safety. However, it is a treatment reserved for selected patients who are strongly motivated to preserve fertility and sexual function and thoroughly informed about the benefits and complications of such a procedure

Program Generation Research at University of

about Program Generation. The main focus of our research is to find an appropriate runtime support for program manipulation and staging so that multi-staging and meta-programming are not tied to a particular language neither to have some interpreter at runtime. We already have CodeBricks, a library to perform code generation by combining pre-compiled methods. Next step will be to build a generic program transformation system in order to express persistent multi-stage computations. 1 Background: CodeBricks CodeBricks allows manipulating abstractions of code fragments, which contain Intermediate Language (IL) code, but retain enough information about high-level types to be able to perform type checking and verification. CodeBricks allows performing transformations on the code abstractions at the IL while retaining the illusion of manipulating source programs. When using a common intermediate language like ECMA CIL, as in our implementation of the library, code fragments produced by different languages can be used together. CodeBricks provides a mean for a programmer to generate low level code, by letting the compiler to take care of the nitty-gritty details, and assembling fragments of code that resemble building blocks providing suitable primitives. The approach gives the programmer detailed control on the process of code generation, while being able to perform specializations and optimizations in the code produced. For instance a Domain Specific Language can be embedded within a general purpose language, by having specific code to be produced for the Domain Specific parts of the language. CodeBricks is also able to express multi-staged computations. Manipulating code objects is a mean to produce the various versions of the program that will run at different stages. Performing such transformations at the IL level, allows stages to be run on different language processors, rather than within a single processor as in traditional source-level approaches (e.g. MetaML)

Adaptive Real Time Comment Generation for Sail Racing Scenarios

We describe a comment generation subsystem developed as part of an expert authoring system for sail racing scenarios. The result of the expert system analysis is sent to a multimedia presentation subsystem composed of a 3D player and a speaker agent. Comments output by the text-to-speech component must be carefully generated so that they are concise, relevant, non repetitive and timely since they must be synchronized with the 3D animation

Reflection Support By Means of Template Metaprogramming

. The C++ language has only a limited runtime type information system, which doesn't provide full reflection capabilities. We present a general mechanism to support reflection, exploiting template metaprogramming techniques. Two solutions are presented: a static one where metaclass information is only available at compile time to produce class specific code; and a dynamic one where metaclass objects exist at runtime. As a case study of technique we show how to build an object interface to relational database tables. By just annotating a class definition with meta information, such as storage attributes or index properties of fields, a programmer can define objects that can be stored, fetched or searched in a database table. This approach has been used in building a high-performance, full text search engine.

Template Metaprogramming an Object Interface to Relational Tables

We present a general technique to support reflection in C++, exploiting template metaprogramming techniques. The technique is used for building an object interface to relational database tables. By just annotating a class definition with meta information, such as storage attributes or index properties of fields, a programmer can define objects that can be stored, fetched or searched in a database table. A high-performance, full text search engine has been built with this technique