Subheap-Augmented Garbage Collection

Automated memory management avoids the tedium and danger of manual techniques. However, as no programmer input is required, no widely available interface exists to permit principled control over sometimes unacceptable performance costs. This dissertation explores the idea that performance-oriented languages should give programmers greater control over where and when the garbage collector (GC) expends effort. We describe an interface and implementation to expose heap partitioning and collection decisions without compromising type safety. We show that our interface allows the programmer to encode a form of reference counting using Hayes\u27 notion of key objects. Preliminary experimental data suggests that our proposed mechanism can avoid high overheads suffered by tracing collectors in some scenarios, especially with tight heaps. However, for other applications, the costs of applying subheaps---in human effort and runtime overheads---remain daunting

Generating Labels for Regression of Subjective Constructs using Triplet Embeddings

Human annotations serve an important role in computational models where the target constructs under study are hidden, such as dimensions of affect. This is especially relevant in machine learning, where subjective labels derived from related observable signals (e.g., audio, video, text) are needed to support model training and testing. Current research trends focus on correcting artifacts and biases introduced by annotators during the annotation process while fusing them into a single annotation. In this work, we propose a novel annotation approach using triplet embeddings. By lifting the absolute annotation process to relative annotations where the annotator compares individual target constructs in triplets, we leverage the accuracy of comparisons over absolute ratings by human annotators. We then build a 1-dimensional embedding in Euclidean space that is indexed in time and serves as a label for regression. In this setting, the annotation fusion occurs naturally as a union of sets of sampled triplet comparisons among different annotators. We show that by using our proposed sampling method to find an embedding, we are able to accurately represent synthetic hidden constructs in time under noisy sampling conditions. We further validate this approach using human annotations collected from Mechanical Turk and show that we can recover the underlying structure of the hidden construct up to bias and scaling factors.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted journal pape

Performa Bangunan Yang Didesain Menurut Sni 1726-2002 Dan Sni 1726-2012 Pada Bangunan Beraturan 7- Dan 3-lantai Di Wilayah Surabaya Peta Gempa Indonesia

Gempa besar yang terjadi di Indonesia belakangan ini, mengakibatkan Perubahan pada peraturan gempa Indonesia dari SNI 1726-2002 menjadi SNI 1726-2012. Perubahan pada isi peraturan ini salah satunya mengenai besar respon spektrum desain dimana banyak wilayah menunjukan peningkatan, salah satunya di Surabaya. Hal ini menimbulkan pertanyaan bagaimana kinerja bangunan yang direncanakan berdasarkan SNI 1726-2002 dan SNI 1726-2012 jika dianalisa dengan beban gempa riwayat waktu yang disesuaikan dengan respon spektrum sesuai SNI 1726-2012. Oleh karena itu, dilakukan penelitian yang bertujuan mengevaluasi kinerja bangunan beton bertulang yang direncanakan berdasarkan SNI 1726-2002 pada sistem rangka pemikul momen khusus (SRPMK), menengah (SRPMM), dan biasa (SRPMB) dan berdasarkan SNI 1726-2012 dengan sistem SRPMK jika dianalisa dengan beban gempa riwayat waktu yang disesuaikan dengan respon spektrum sesuai SNI 1726-2012, dengan berbagai level gempa sesuai FEMA 356. Penelitian dilakukan pada bangunan beraturan 7 dan 3 lantai di wilayah Surabaya kelas tanah sedang. Kinerja bangunan diuji dengan analisis dinamis time history nonlinier menggunakan program SAP2000v.11. Hasil penelitian gedung 3 lantai menunjukan bangunan yang direncanakan tidak dapat bertahan saat diberikan beban gempa rencana SNI 1726-2012. Drift ratio bangunan 7-lantai untuk bangunan SRPMK yang didesain dengan SNI 1726-2002 dan SNI 1726-2012 menunjukan performa yang baik saat gempa menurut SNI 1726-2012 diberikan, sedangkan bangunan SRPMM dan SRPMB yang didesain dengan SNI 1726-2002 menujukan performa yang buruk karena kerusakan getas terjadi pada bagian kolom

Total intracorporeal robot kidney autotransplantation : case report and description of surgical technique

Introduction and Objectives: Kidney autotransplantation can be performed in patients with complex renal or ureteral pathology not suitable for in situ reconstruction, such as renal vasculature anomalies, patients with proximal or long complex ureteral strictures, or complex oncological cases. Robot-assisted surgery allows for a high-quality vascular and ureteral anastomosis and faster patient recovery. Robot-assisted kidney autotransplantation (RAKAT) is performed in two phases: nephrectomy and pelvic transplantation. In-between, extraction of the kidney allows for vascular reconstruction or kidney modification on the bench and safe cold ischemia can be established. If no bench reconstruction is needed, total intracorporeal RAKAT (tiRAKAT) is feasible. One case report in Europe has been described; however, to our knowledge no surgical video is available. Methods: A 58 year-old woman suffered from right mid- and distal ureteral stenosis following pelvic radiotherapy 10 years prior for cervical cancer. A JJ stent was placed, but she suffered from recurrent urinary tract infections, and ultimately a nephrostomy was placed. Renogram demonstrated 43% relative right kidney function. As her bladder volume was low following radiotherapy, no Boari flap was possible and the patient refused life-long nephrostomy or nephrectomy. Therefore, tiRAKAT was performed using the DaVinci Xi system. Results: We describe our surgical technique including a video. Surgical time (skin-to-skin) was 5 h and 45 min. Warm ischemia time was 4 min, cold ischemia 55 min, and rewarming ischemia 15 min. The abdominal catheter and bladder catheter were removed on the first and second postoperative day, respectively. The JJ stent was removed after 4 weeks. The patient suffered from pulmonary embolism on the second postoperative day, for which therapeutic low molecular weight heparin was started. No further complications occurred during the first 90 postoperative days. After 7 months, overall kidney function remained stable, right kidney function dropped non-significantly from 27 to 25.2 mL/min (-6.7%) on renal scintigraphy. Conclusion: We demonstrated feasibility and, for the first time, a surgical video of tiRAKAT highlighting patient positioning, trocar placement, and intracorporeal cold ischemia technique

Robot competitions trick students into learning

It has been shown in the past that robots help to bring theoretical concepts into practice, while at the same time increasing the motivation of the students. Despite these benefits, robots are hardly ever integrated in education programs and at the same time students feel that they have the competences nor the infrastructure to build a robot on their own. Therefore the workgroup electronics (WELEK) of Ghent University gives students the opportunity to build a robot by organizing workshops and competitions. Up until now, four competitions were organized in which over 200 students voluntarily participated. This paper describes our approach in the hope that it will inspire other educators to do the same thing. We also measured the effectiveness of our competitions by sending each of the participants a questionnaire. The results confirm that students acquire relevant technical competences by building a robot, learn to work as a team and are challenged to use their creativity

Robot-Assisted Kidney Transplantation

Robot-assisted kidney transplantation (RAKT) has recently been introduced to reduce the morbidity of open kidney transplantation (KT). Robot-assisted surgery has been able to overcome many of the limitations of classical laparoscopy, certainly in complex and technically demanding procedures, such as vascular and ureteral anastomosis. Since the first RAKT in 2010, this technique has been standardized and evaluated in highly experienced robot and KT centers around the world. In Europe, the European Association of Urology Robotic Urology Section (ERUS) created an RAKT working group in 2016 in order to prospectively follow the outcomes of RAKT. When performed by surgeons with both robotic and KT experience, RAKT has been proven to be safe and reproducible in selected cases and yield excellent graft function with a low complication rate. Multiple institutions have now adopted RAKT, and its use will likely increase in the near future. However, structured training and proctoring will be mandatory for those embarking on RAKT in order to help them negotiate the learning curve and avoid technical mistakes. This chapter will describe RAKT from living and deceased donors and its application in kidney autotransplantation (KAT)

Stress-Induced Out-of-Context Activation of Memory

An intensely stressful experience can itself activate memories that are unrelated to the stressful experience. This previously unknown property of stress could help explain how traumatic memories become pathological