Breeding of Spanish Sparrow in Bahrain

The Spanish Sparrow Passer hispaniolensis is found from Europe and North Africa to western China and Afghanistan. This species shows complex movement patterns, some southern populations are sedentary while others are partially migratory or nomadic. North-ease African birds are considered to be winter visitors from breeding populations in the east of the birds’ range. Birds in the Middle East were considered to be primarily winter visitors to southern Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait and north-west Saudi Arabia (Snow \u26 Perrins, 1998; Beaman \u26 Madge, 1998). During the latter half of the 20th Century it began to establish itself as an irregular breeder in Arabia. It has continued to expand its range during this century with records of breeding in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates along the western coastal zone of the Arabian Gulf, while most recently two colonies were recorded from Qatar in 2007 (Jennings, in prep

Simulasi dan Analisis Speaker Recognition Menggunakan Metode Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) dan Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)

This essay discusses about speaker recognition, a system that recognize subject identity by their voice. First, subject’s voice features are extracted using MFCC (Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients) method. Steps in the MFCC are pre-emphasis, framing, windowing, FFT (Fast Fourier Transform), mel scaling and DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform), which produce feature vector called cepstrums. These cepstrums are then modelled using GMM (Gaussian Mixture Model). Steps in th GMM are Expectation-step and Maximization-step, which produce gaussian distribution along with its parameters, mean (µ) and variance (?^2) which are different for every subjects. Classification step is done by comparing between training data parameters and testing data parameters. If the comparation gets high score, it means two datas are match, vice versa. Previous research done by student group at Preston University and Jinnah Women University, Pakistan, with title “Speaker Identification Using GMM with MFCC” gets accuration score 87,5% using feature extraction method MFCC, clustering method K-Means, modelling method GMM and classification by log probability. In this essay, we will pass the clustering step and classify by doing comparation between gaussian distribution using parameter mean (µ) and variance (?^2), which is the fastest and easiest way. In this essay, we do the best thing to get as close as possible with previous research accuration score knowing that the classification step can be called the ‘rough’ one in GMM usage so we are not expecting high, even though there are so many factors that can influence the simulation accuracy. Keywords : MFCC, GMM, Speaker Recognitio

Evaluation of DVFS techniques on modern HPC processors and accelerators for energy-aware applications

Energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important for computing systems, in particular for large scale HPC facilities. In this work we evaluate, from an user perspective, the use of Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) techniques, assisted by the power and energy monitoring capabilities of modern processors in order to tune applications for energy efficiency. We run selected kernels and a full HPC application on two high-end processors widely used in the HPC context, namely an NVIDIA K80 GPU and an Intel Haswell CPU. We evaluate the available trade-offs between energy-to-solution and time-to-solution, attempting a function-by-function frequency tuning. We finally estimate the benefits obtainable running the full code on a HPC multi-GPU node, with respect to default clock frequency governors. We instrument our code to accurately monitor power consumption and execution time without the need of any additional hardware, and we enable it to change CPUs and GPUs clock frequencies while running. We analyze our results on the different architectures using a simple energy-performance model, and derive a number of energy saving strategies which can be easily adopted on recent high-end HPC systems for generic applications

On the accuracy and usefulness of analytic energy models for contemporary multicore processors

This paper presents refinements to the execution-cache-memory performance model and a previously published power model for multicore processors. The combination of both enables a very accurate prediction of performance and energy consumption of contemporary multicore processors as a function of relevant parameters such as number of active cores as well as core and Uncore frequencies. Model validation is performed on the Sandy Bridge-EP and Broadwell-EP microarchitectures. Production-related variations in chip quality are demonstrated through a statistical analysis of the fit parameters obtained on one hundred Broadwell-EP CPUs of the same model. Insights from the models are used to explain the performance- and energy-related behavior of the processors for scalable as well as saturating (i.e., memory-bound) codes. In the process we demonstrate the models' capability to identify optimal operating points with respect to highest performance, lowest energy-to-solution, and lowest energy-delay product and identify a set of best practices for energy-efficient execution

Speeding up Energy System Models - a Best Practice Guide

Background Energy system models (ESM) are widely used in research and industry to analyze todays and future energy systems and potential pathways for the European energy transition. Current studies address future policy design, analysis of technology pathways and of future energy systems. To address these questions and support the transformation of today’s energy systems, ESM have to increase in complexity to provide valuable quantitative insights for policy makers and industry. Especially when dealing with uncertainty and in integrating large shares of renewable energies, ESM require a detailed implementation of the underlying electricity system. The increased complexity of the models makes the application of ESM more and more difficult, as the models are limited by the available computational power of today’s decentralized workstations. Severe simplifications of the models are common strategies to solve problems in a reasonable amount of time – naturally significantly influencing the validity of results and reliability of the models in general. Solutions for Energy-System Modelling Within BEAM-ME a consortium of researchers from different research fields (system analysis, mathematics, operations research and informatics) develop new strategies to increase the computational performance of energy system models and to transform energy system models for usage on high performance computing clusters. Within the project, an ESM will be applied on two of Germany’s fastest supercomputers. To further demonstrate the general application of named techniques on ESM, a model experiment is implemented as part of the project. Within this experiment up to six energy system models will jointly develop, implement and benchmark speed-up methods. Finally, continually collecting all experiences from the project and the experiment, identified efficient strategies will be documented and general standards for increasing computational performance and for applying ESM to high performance computing will be documented in a best-practice guide

Energieeffizienz von Prozessoren in High Performance Computinganwendungen der Ingenieurwissenschaften

Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit steht die Frage nach Energieeffizienz im Hochleistungsrechnen (HPC) mit Schwerpunkt auf Zusammenhänge zwischen der elektrischen Leistung der Prozessoren und deren Rechenleistung. In Kapitel 1, Einleitung der folgenden Abhandlungen, werden die Motivation und der Stand der Technik auf dem Gebiet der Strommessung und der Energieeffizienz im HPC und dessen Komponenten erläutert. In den Folgenden Kapiteln 2 und 3 wird eine am Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Stuttgart (HLRS) entwickelte Messtechnik detailliert diskutiert, die für die Strommessungen im Testcluster angewendet wird. Das Messverfahren der unterschiedlichen Hardwarekomponenten und die Abhängigkeit zwischen deren Stromversorgung, Messgenauigkeit und Messfrequenz werden dargelegt. Im Kapitel 4 der Arbeit beschreibe ich, welchen Zusammenhang es zwischen dem Stromverbrauch eines Prozessors, dessen Konfiguration und darauf ausgeführten Algorithmen gibt. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf den Zusammenhängen zwischen CPU-Frequenz, Grad der Parallelisierung, Rechenleistung und elektrischer Leistung. Für den Effizienzvergleich zwischen den Prozessoren und Algorithmen benutze ich ein Verfahren, das auf eine Approximation in der analytischen Form der Rechen- und der elektrischen Leistung der Prozessoren basiert. In diesem Kapitel wird außerdem gezeigt, dass die Koeffizienten der Approximation, die mehrere Hinweise auf Software und Hardware-Eigenschaften geben, als Basis für die Ausarbeitung eines erweiterten Modells dienen können. Wie im weiteren Verlauf gezeigt wird, berücksichtigen die existierenden Modelle der Rechen- und der elektrischen Leistung nur zum Teil die unterschiedlichen Frequenz-Domains der Hardwarekomponenten. Im Kapitel 5 wird eine Erweiterung des existierenden Modells der Rechenleistung erläutert, mit dessen Hilfe die entsprechenden neuen Eigenschaften der CPU-Architektur teilweise erklärt werden könnten. Die daraus gewonnenen Erkenntnisse sollen helfen, ein Modell zu entwickeln, das sowohl die Rechen- als auch die elektrische Leistung beschreibt. In Kapitel 6 beschreibe ich die Problemstellung der Energieeffizienz eines Hochleistungsrechners. Unter anderem werden die in dieser Arbeit entwickelten Methoden auf eine HPC-Platform evaluiert

Music in Soweto

A talk by Khabi Mngoma about music in Soweto, given for the Institute for the Study of Man in Africa (ISMA)For further details refer to the ILAM Document Collection: Hugh Tracey Broadcast

Lived experiences of female undergraduate students who have undergone termination of pregnancy (Top) at a university in Gauteng

Abstract: Termination of pregnancy (TOP) is one of the options or solution female undergraduate students consider when faced with the crisis of an unplanned pregnancy. Literature has shown that young women under the age of 25 years (a prevalent age group among female university students) who have undergone TOP may initially experience temporary relief after the TOP. However, later they can experience feelings ranging from regret, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to a diagnosis of mental illness. TOP in South Africa has been legalised, but the controversy and stigma surrounding the topic of TOP delays treatment which impacts on women’s mental and physical health issues. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of female undergraduate students who have undergone TOP in order to develop the recommendations towards the integrated post-TOP health care at the Campus Health Services within the university were this study was conducted. The objectives of this study were: To explore and describe the lived experiences of female undergraduate students who have undergone TOP. Based on the research findings, to provide recommendations towards the enhancement of integrated post-TOP health care within Campus Health Services in the university where the study was conducted. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design and phenomenological approach was employed. A purposive sample of nine female undergraduate students who had undergone TOP between 2 weeks to 24 months before the start of the study volunteered to participate in this study. In-depth individual interviews were conducted until data saturation using an audio-tape to capture individual interview discussions. All audio tapes where transcribed. Tesch’s method of thematic data analysis was utilised. The central theme identified after data analysis was that the female undergraduate students, as individuals, experienced challenges related to their internal and external world before, during and after TOP that they had no control of. From the central theme,..M.Cur. (Community Nursing Sciences

High Performance Computing for Energy System Modelling

The common approach to solve linear program (LP) arising from an energy system model (ESM) is based on the shared memory paradigm. However, the apparent simplicity of the non-uniform memory access architecture (NUMA) limits the scalability of the underlying hardware components, such as the memory and compute units. On the other hand, increasing of the resolution in spatial and temporal data of ESM requires more and more computational resources. High Performance Computing (HPC) provides a technical solution to overcome these limitations. Use of HPC demands changes to the existing ESM solving framework. This talk presents the latest results obtained in the BEAM-ME project. We discuss the central questions that came up during integration of the parallel optimization solver PIPS in the framework of GAMS language, which is widely used in the field of ESM. Based on a block structured (stochastic) linear problem, the results regarding the scalability and efficiency of the HPC solution were obtained on two Petaflops supercomputers: Hazel Hen, a Cray XC40-system, at High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) and JURECA, a fat-tree EDR-InfiniBand cluster, at Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC)