Supporting task creation inside FPGA devices

The most common model to use co-processors/accelerators is the master-slave model where the slaves (coprocessors/ accelerators) are driven by a general purpose cpu. This simplifies the management of the accelerators because they cannot actively interact with the runtime and they are just passive slaves that operate over the memory under demand. However, the master-slave model limits system possibilities and introduces synchronization overheads that could be avoided. To overcome those limitations and increase the possibilities of accelerators, we propose extending task based programming models (like OpenMP [1] or OmpSs) to support some runtime APIs inside the FPGA co-processor. As a proof-of-concept, we implemented our proposal over the OmpSs@FPGA environment [2] adding the needed infrastructure in the FPGA bitstream and modifying the existing tools to support creation of children tasks inside a task offloaded to an FPGA accelerator. In addition, we added support to synchronize the children tasks created by a FPGA task regardless they are executed in a SMP host thread or they also target another FPGA accelerator in the same co-processor

An approach to task-based parallel programming for undergraduate students

This paper presents the description of a compulsory parallel programming course in the bachelor degree in Informatics Engineering at the Barcelona School of Informatics, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC-BarcelonaTech. The main focus of the course is on the shared-memory programming paradigm, which facilitates the presentation of fundamental aspects and notions of parallel computing. Unlike the “traditional” loop-based approach, which is the focus of parallel programming courses in other universities, this course presents the parallel programming concepts using a task-based approach. Tasking allows students to explore a broader set of parallel decomposition strategies, including linear, iterative and recursive strategies, and their implementation using the current version of OpenMP (OpenMP 4.5), which offers mechanisms (pragmas and intrinsic functions) to easily map these strategies into parallel programs. Simple models to understand the benefits of a task decomposition and the trade-offs introduced by different kinds of overheads are included in the course, together with the use of tools that allow an easy exploration of different task decomposition strategies and their potential parallelism (Tareador) and instrumentation and analysis of task parallel executions on real machines (Extrae and Paraver).This work has been supported by the grant SEV-2015-0493 of the Severo Ochoa Program, awarded by the Spanish Gov- ernment, by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (contract TIN2015-65316-P) and by Generalitat de Catalunya (contracts 2014-MOOC-00057 and 2014-SGR-1051). We also thank the anonymous reviewers and editor for their comments during the review process, other professors that have been in- volved in the implementation of the course and Paul Carpenter at BSC for his corrections and suggestions to improve the text.Postprint (published version

School choice and the influence of immigration on spanish educational achievements in the 2006 Pisa

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar los efectos que la inmigración tiene en los resultados académicos de los estudiantes en España; así, se pretende indagar si la concentración de inmigrantes en determinados centros supone una caída en el rendimiento académico tanto de los alumnos españoles como de los propios inmigrantes. También se estudiará si los inmigrantes disponen de las mismas oportunidades que los alumnos nativos tanto en la selección escolar (centro público o centro concertado), como en los resultados académicos que alcanzan en comparación con los nativos. Para analizar estos aspectos se utiliza el modelo de Heckman (1979). El objetivo de esta metodología es controlar si la elección entre escuela pública o concertada es una decisión endógena que depende de determinadas variables socioeconómicas, lo cual evita los sesgos derivados de las diferentes características de los alumnos de unos y otros centros debida a dicha selección en la estimación de la función de producción educativa. Para realizar este estudio se utilizarán los datos de España del Informe pisa 2006. Los resultados muestran que la probabilidad de asistir a una escuela concertada disminuye significativamente con el nivel de ingresos familiar y con el hecho de ser inmigrante. Además, los inmigrantes escolarizados en centros públicos presentan resultados que son significativamente más bajos en las tres pruebas objetivas. Bajas concentraciones de inmigrantes en la escuela concertada conllevan efectos positivos en los resultados de los alumnos inmigrantes; sin embargo, estos desaparecen y se vuelven negativos cuando su concentración aumenta. La concentración de inmigrantes tiene un efecto significativamente negativo en los alumnos nativos, efecto que es mayor en la escuela pública que en la concertada. Es necesario hacer más investigaciones para lograr una asignación óptima de alumnos por escuela que no dañe ni la libertad de elección escolar ni la igualdad de oportunidades educativasThe aim of this paper is to examine the effects of school choice and the influence of immigration on Spanish educational achievement. Therefore, the authors seek to ascertain whether the concentration of immigrants in certain schools implies a decrease in educational achievement for Spanish students as well as for immigrant students. There is also some question about whether immigrants and native students are treated with equality of educational opportunities in both school choice (i.e., choosing between public schools and publicly financed private schools) and educational scores. The Heckman (1979) model is employed. The object of this methodology is to control whether or not the choice between public and publicly funded private schools is an endogenous decision depending on a number of socioeconomic variables. Heckman’s model makes it possible to avoid a biased estimation of the educational production function stemming from the different characteristics of students of both school types, primarily originated by school choice. Spanish data from the 2006 pisa report are used. The results show that the probability of attending a publicly financed private school decreases with family income and immigrant status. Moreover, immigrant students attending public schools display significantly lower scores on all three tests administered in the 2006 pisa. Low immigrant concentration in publicly financed private schools is found to make for positive effects on immigrant students’ scores; these effects disappear when the immigrant student percentage increases. The concentration of immigrants has a significantly negative effect on native students, and the negative effect is greater in public schools than in publicly funded private schools. More research is needed in order to find an optimal allocation of students in schools, so as to uphold both a freedom to choose one’s school and equality of educational opportunitiesLos autores agradecen los valiosos comentarios de dos evaluadores anónimos y la financiación recibida de la Fundación Alternativas y del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Proyecto eco 2009-13864-C03-02

LightDock: a new multi-scale approach to protein–protein docking

Computational prediction of protein–protein complex structure by docking can provide structural and mechanistic insights for protein interactions of biomedical interest. However, current methods struggle with difficult cases, such as those involving flexible proteins, low-affinity complexes or transient interactions. A major challenge is how to efficiently sample the structural and energetic landscape of the association at different resolution levels, given that each scoring function is often highly coupled to a specific type of search method. Thus, new methodologies capable of accommodating multi-scale conformational flexibility and scoring are strongly needed. We describe here a new multi-scale protein–protein docking methodology, LightDock, capable of accommodating conformational flexibility and a variety of scoring functions at different resolution levels. Implicit use of normal modes during the search and atomic/coarse-grained combined scoring functions yielded improved predictive results with respect to state-of-the-art rigid-body docking, especially in flexible cases.B.J-G was supported by a FPI fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. This work was supported by I+D+I Research Project grants BIO2013-48213-R and BIO2016-79930-R from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. This work is partially supported by the European Union H2020 program through HiPEAC (GA 687698), by the Spanish Government through Programa Severo Ochoa (SEV-2015-0493), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (TIN2015-65316-P) and the Departament d’Innovació, Universitats i Empresa de la Generalitat de Catalunya, under project MPEXPAR: Models de Programaciói Entorns d’Execució Paral·lels (2014-SGR-1051).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Exploring the mediating effects between transformational leadership and organizational performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the possible mediating mechanisms (human resource management (HRM), learning and innovation) that could exist in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance. This topic has been studied only by a few groups of researchers and these researchers have not analyzed all these concepts jointly. Design/methodology/approach. This research explores the relationships using partial least squares with data from 200 Spanish industrial companies. Analyzing the mentioned relationships in the Spanish context has been done by few researchers before. Findings. The study reveals that the adoption of transformational leadership styles improves performance when specific systems of HRM practices, learning and innovation are developed in an organization. Originality/value. This study, therefore, contributes to the understanding of the link between transformational leaders and performance by proposing a model in which it is evinced that this leadership style produces synergies between HRM, learning and innovation, which in the end, affect performance.The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding received from the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness (Research Project No. ECO2012-37893) and Fundación CajaMurcia-BMN

Task scheduling sensitivity to L1 cache settings on an area-constrained 32-core RISC-V processor

High-performance applications are highly sensitive to memory performance characteristics. While programs with comparatively low memory-to-computation ratio are less likely to be hampered by limited memory bandwidth, most parallel applications will be severely impacted by the absence of hardware support for low-latency inter-thread synchronization and data sharing. In this paper, we report a design exploration that sought to identify the cache configuration that maximizes performance of task parallel OpenMP workloads running on a Linux-capable 32-core RISC-V system. We show that, under the constraints of a U200 Alveo FPGA, the best single-level cache configuration consists in 160 KB of coherent, core-private data caches, with a 32/128 split among instruction and program data. With such configuration, we have achieved speedups of up to 28x and 19x for the nbody and cholesky applications, respectively

propuesta arquitectónica del Centro Integral Comunitario

Proyecto de graduación (Licenciatura en Arquitectura y Urbanismo) Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Escuela de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, 2019.Nowadays, Costa Rica experiences an increase in both its senior and disabled population. Consequently, an obligation to cover the new needs of these citizens emerges. Arquitechture must act as a brigde to link all knowledge in favor of a sustainable development and articulated spaces aiming to solve the needs of people in the future. This must be done based on the principles of inclusion and equality in which everyone can have access to the same opportunities. In this line, this dissertation project has its foundations in the elements and proposals presented by the Diseño para Todos. Following its parameters, thinking about serving the present and upcoming demands, the communal necessities, and the inexistent community social equipment, an arquitectonic proposal was formulated for the community integral center in El Edén, located in Purral, Goicoechea.Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. Escuela de Arquitectura y Urbanism

ikeComercial: Gestión de ventas en Android

En este Proyecto Fin de Carrera se ha desarrollado una aplicación móvil en Android para la gestión de ventas de aquellos comerciales de empresas que tienen que visitar periódicamente a sus clientes suministrándoles los productos que provee su empresa. Así pues, este proyecto trata de sustituir a los dispositivos PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), proporcionando no sólo lo que una PDA puede aportar al comercial, sino también beneficiándonos de todas las nuevas capacidades que nos ofrece un smartphone

Estructuración de ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) renta variable de Latinoamérica –LATAM (Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México Y Perú)

En el presente trabajo se evalúan las ventajas y desventajas del Exchange Traded Funds (ETF`s) considerando que tienen ciertas características que los diferencian de los títulos tradicionales, entre ellas la diversificación, siendo la más importante debido a que genera menor riesgo en el capital invertido para los inversionistas; por lo tanto, se determina un portafolio eficiente, integrado por las economías con mayor estabilidad del Mercado (Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México y Perú) mediante la aplicación de la teoría moderna de portafolios de Markowitz. De acuerdo a los resultados obtenidos, los cuales se analizan desde el desempeño alcanzado por cada uno de los países, comparándolos entre ellos y con el rendimiento del mercado LATAM para el periodo de tiempo comprendido entre 2008 y 2014, se refleja que el portafolio ETF LATAM tiene una rentabilidad del 7,97% y un porcentaje de riesgo anual de 16, 03%, lo cual, comparado con el comportamiento de los demás países resulta más atractivo para los inversionistas porque concentra todos los sectores económicos.In this paper the advantages and disadvantages of the Exchange are evaluated Traded Funds (ETF `s) considering that they have certain characteristics that differ from traditional titles, including diversification, the most important because it generates fewer risks in invested capital to investors; therefore, an efficient portfolio, composed of more stable economies Market (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru) through the application of modern portfolio theory of Markowitz is determined. According to the results, which are analyzed from the performance achieved by each of the countries, comparing them with each other and LATAM market performance for the period of time between 2008 and 2014, reflects the ETF portfolio LATAM has a yield of 7.97% and a percentage of annual risk of 16, 03%, which, compared with the behavior of other countries more attractive to investors because it concentrates all economic sectors

Improving resource usage in large FPGA accelerators

In modern FPGA devices, place and route has become a difficult task for the underlying FPGA implementation tools. This is caused by an increase of device size and complexity. As devices grow in size and number of resources, their topology also grows in complexity. Larger devices are divided in different regions. While this allows to pack a larger number of resources in a single device, it creates a new set of challenges in order to obtain good quality of results while using as many resources as possible. Devices such as Xilinx’s Alveo accelerators are comprised of multiple regions called Super Logic Regions (SLR). Crossing from one region to another adds some delay to signal propagation. This can hurt overall timing if implementation tool decides to scatter a single accelerator among different SLRs. Thus, the design may not reach operating frequencies expected by the user. In a similar fashion as the SLRs, they usually have multiple independent memory banks that interface with DDR modules. This requires memory allocations and interconnection to be manually managed by the user, causing extra burden to users. Otherwise, the design will not be able to take profit of the aggregated available bandwidth. We propose methods to improve resource and bandwidth usage that allow a user to direct how a design is built and implemented while maintaining device abstraction and minimal development overhead