Memory controller for vector processor

To manage power and memory wall affects, the HPC industry supports FPGA reconfigurable accelerators and vector processing cores for data-intensive scientific applications. FPGA based vector accelerators are used to increase the performance of high-performance application kernels. Adding more vector lanes does not affect the performance, if the processor/memory performance gap dominates. In addition if on/off-chip communication time becomes more critical than computation time, causes performance degradation. The system generates multiple delays due to application’s irregular data arrangement and complex scheduling scheme. Therefore, just like generic scalar processors, all sets of vector machine – vector supercomputers to vector microprocessors – are required to have data management and access units that improve the on/off-chip bandwidth and hide main memory latency. In this work, we propose an Advanced Programmable Vector Memory Controller (PVMC), which boosts noncontiguous vector data accesses by integrating descriptors of memory patterns, a specialized on-chip memory, a memory manager in hardware, and multiple DRAM controllers. We implemented and validated the proposed system on an Altera DE4 FPGA board. The PVMC is also integrated with ARM Cortex-A9 processor on Xilinx Zynq All-Programmable System on Chip architecture. We compare the performance of a system with vector and scalar processors without PVMC. When compared with a baseline vector system, the results show that the PVMC system transfers data sets up to 1.40x to 2.12x faster, achieves between 2.01x to 4.53x of speedup for 10 applications and consumes 2.56 to 4.04 times less energy.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

ViPS: Visual processing system for medical imaging

Imaging has become an indispensable tool in modern medicine. Various powerful and expensive platforms to study medical imaging applications appear in recent years. In this article, we design and propose a Visual Processing System (ViPS) that processes medical imaging applications efficiently. ViPS provides a user-friendly programming environment and high-performance architecture to perform image analysis, features extraction and object recognition for complex real-time images or videos. The data structure of image or video is described in the program memory using pattern descriptors; ViPS uses specialized 3D memory structure to handle complex images or videos and processes them on microprocessors or application specific hardware accelerators. The proposed system is highly reliable in terms of cost, performance, and power. ViPS based system is implemented and tested on a Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA VC707 Evaluation Kit. The performance of ViPS is compared with the Intel i7 multi-core, GPU Jetson TK1 Embedded Development Kit with 192 CUDA cores based graphic systems. When compared with the Intel and GPU-based systems, the results show that ViPS performs real-time video reconstruction at 2x and 1.45x of higher frame rate, achieves 14.6x to 4.8x of speedup while executing different image processing applications and 20.3% and 12.6% of speedup for video processing algorithms respectively.Peer Reviewe

Future vector microprocessor extensions for data aggregations

As the rate of annual data generation grows exponentially, there is a demand to aggregate and summarise vast amounts of information quickly. In the past, frequency scaling was relied upon to push application throughput. Today, Dennard scaling has ceased and further performance must come from exploiting parallelism. Single instruction-multiple data (SIMD) instruction sets offer a highly efficient and scalable way of exploiting data-level parallelism (DLP). While microprocessors originally offered very simple SIMD support targeted at multimedia applications, these extensions have been growing both in width and functionality. Observing this trend, we use a simulation framework to model future SIMD support and then propose and evaluate five different ways of vectorising data aggregation. We find that although data aggregation is abundant in DLP, it is often too irregular to be expressed efficiently using typical SIMD instructions. Based on this observation, we propose a set of novel algorithms and SIMD instructions to better capture this irregular DLP. Furthermore, we discover that the best algorithm is highly dependent on the characteristics of the input. Our proposed solution can dynamically choose the optimal algorithm in the majority of cases and achieves speedups between 2.7x and 7.6x over a scalar baseline.The research leading to these results has received funding from the RoMoL ERC Advanced Grant GA no 321253 and is supported in part by the European Union (FEDER funds) under contract TTIN2015-65316-P. Timothy Hayes is supported by a FPU research grant from the Spanish MECD.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

POSTER: An Integrated Vector-Scalar Design on an In-order ARM Core

In the low-end mobile processor market, power, energy and area budgets are significantly lower than in other markets (e.g. servers or high-end mobile markets). It has been shown that vector processors are a highly energy-efficient way to increase performance; however adding support for them incurs area and power overheads that would not be acceptable for low-end mobile processors. In this work, we propose an integrated vector-scalar design for the ARM architecture that mostly reuses scalar hardware to support the execution of vector instructions. The key element of the design is our proposed block-based model of execution that groups vector computational instructions together to execute them in a coordinated manner.The research leading to these results has received funding from the RoMoL ERC Advanced Grant GA no 321253 and is supported in part by the European Union (FEDER funds) under contract TIN2015-65316-P. This research has been also supported the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR - FI-DGR 2014).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Comunidades y elites judías en la Corona de Aragón (1250-1300.

Este trabajo pretende analizar la influencia de las élites judías en las estructuras económico-administrativas del siglo XIII en Aragón, Cataluña y Valencia, durante los reinados de Jaime I y Pedro III el Grande, entre 1270 y 1285. Enfocaremos el ensayo principalmente alrededor de la participación de hombres de negocios judíos en las finanzas de la Corona, exponente del auge de las juderías más relevantes a partir de la multiplicación y privilegios que alcanzaron en la época algunas de ellas. También analizaremos la progresiva aparición de políticas antisemitas. Esta etapa constituye un ciclo importante en la historia de los judíos en la Península, la del breve tiempo en que controlaron la hacienda real de la Corona de Aragón, y que a partir del siglo XIV ya no volvería a ocurrir.<br /

Satellite derived shorelines at an Eexposed meso-tidal beach

Shoreline position data offer extremely valuable information for understanding coastal dynamism and beach changes. This research applies SHOREX system for defining the shoreline position from free mid-resolution Landsat-8 (L8) and Sentinel-2 (S2) satellite imagery. This system allows an automatic definition of Satellite Derived Shorelines (SDS) over large regions and periods. Accuracy and utility of the resulting SDS have been previously assessed with positive results at low energy, microtidal, Mediterranean beaches. This work assesses SDS extracted using SHOREX at a mesotidal and moderate to highly (during storms) energetic environment, namely at Faro Beach, a barrier beach located in Ria Formosa (Algarve, South Portugal). Accuracy was defined for 14 SDS derived from S2 and 10 from L8 by measuring the differences in position with respect to the shoreline inferred from profiles obtained on close dates (or simultaneously) to imagery acquisition. For non-simultaneous datasets, the water level was estimated for the time of the satellite images acquisition using oceanographic data and run-up formulations. The measured and estimated shoreline positions were then compared with the extracted SDS. The overall accuracy is good, with errors about 5 m RMSE, supporting the application of the used methodology to define shoreline dynamics and evolution at challenging environments, as mesotidal exposed and dynamic beaches.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [CGL2015-69906-R]; Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports [FPU15/04501]info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Genetic Association between ACE2 (rs2285666 and rs2074192) and TMPRSS2 (rs12329760 and rs2070788) Polymorphisms with Post-COVID Symptoms in Previously Hospitalized COVID-19 Survivors

The aim of the study was to identify the association between four selected COVID-19 polymorphisms of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 receptors genes with the presence of long-COVID symptomatology in COVID-19 survivors. These genes were selected as they associate with the entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the cells, so polymorphisms could be important for the prognoses of long-COVID symptoms. Two hundred and ninety-three (n = 293, 49.5% female, mean age: 55.6 ± 12.9 years) individuals who had been previously hospitalized due to COVID-19 were included. Three potential genotypes of the following single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were obtained from non-stimulated saliva samples of participants: ACE2 (rs2285666), ACE2 (rs2074192), TMPRSS2 (rs12329760), TMPRSS2 (rs2070788). Participants were asked to self-report the presence of any post-COVID defined as a symptom that started no later than one month after SARS-CoV-2 acute infection and whether the symptom persisted at the time of the study. At the time of the study (mean: 17.8, SD: 5.2 months after hospital discharge), 87.7% patients reported at least one symptom. Fatigue (62.8%), pain (39.9%) or memory loss (32.1%) were the most prevalent post-COVID symptoms. Overall, no differences in long-COVID symptoms were dependent on ACE2 rs2285666, ACE2 rs2074192, TMPRSS2 rs12329760, or TMPRSS2 rs2070788 genotypes. The four SNPs assessed, albeit previously associated with COVID-19 severity, do not predispose for developing long-COVID symptoms in people who were previously hospitalized due to COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic

Enfermedad de Wilson en España: validación de fuentes utilizadas por los Registros de Enfermedades Raras

Objetivo: evaluar las fuentes de información empleadas por los Registros Autonómicos de Enfermedades Raras (RAER) para la captación de la enfermedad de Wilson en España, calcular su prevalencia y mortalidad, y describir las características sociodemográficas de las personas afectadas. Método: estudio epidemiológico transversal, periodo 2010-2015. Se captaron los posibles casos mediante los códigos 275.1 (CIE-9-MC), E83.0 (CIE-10) y 905 ORPHA en 15 RAER y el Registro de Pacientes de Enfermedades Raras del Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Los diagnósticos fueron validados revisando la documentación clínica. Se calcularon el valor predictivo positivo (VPP) de las fuentes de información, la prevalencia, la mortalidad y la distribución de las características sociodemográficas. Resultados: El Conjunto Mínimo Básico de Datos (CMBD) fue la fuente de información más utilizada por los RAER (VPP = 39,4%), seguida del Registro de Medicamentos Huérfanos (RMH) (VPP = 81,9%). La Historia Clínica de Atención Primaria (HCAP) obtuvo un VPP del 55,9%. Las combinaciones con mayor VPP fueron las del RMH con el CMBD (VPP = 95,8%) y del RMH con la HCAP (VPP = 92,9%). Se confirmaron 514 casos, el 57,2% eran hombres, cuya edad mediana de diagnóstico fue de 21,3 años. La prevalencia fue de 1,64/100.000 habitantes en 2015 y la mortalidad del 3,0%, siendo ambas superiores en los hombres. Conclusión: se recomienda la incorporación en los RAER del RMH y de la HCAP, ya que su combinación y la del RMH con el CMBD podrían utilizarse como criterio de validación automática para la enfermedad de Wilson. La prevalencia obtenida fue similar a la de otros países próximos a España.Objective: to evaluate the sources ofinformation used by the Regional Population-based Registries of Rare Diseases (RRD) for Wilson’s Disease identification in Spain; to calculate its prevalence and mortality; and to describe the sociodemographic characteristics of those affected. Method: cross-sectional epidemiological study, period 2010-2015. Possible cases were identified by codes 275.1 (ICD-9-CM), E83.0 (ICD-10) and 905 (ORPHAcode) in: 15 participating RRD and the Rare Disease Patients Registry ofthe Carlos III Health Institute. The diagnoses were confirmed through a clinical documentation review. The positive predictive value (PPV) ofthe sources of information used by RRD and their combinations were obtained. The prevalence, mortality and the distribution of sociodemographic characteristics were calculated.Este proyecto ha sido posible gracias a los fondos recibidos por la Fundació Per Amor a l’Art (Convenio CPRESC00043)

Navigating the Landscape for Real-time Localisation and Mapping for Robotics, Virtual and Augmented Reality

Visual understanding of 3D environments in real-time, at low power, is a huge computational challenge. Often referred to as SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping), it is central to applications spanning domestic and industrial robotics, autonomous vehicles, virtual and augmented reality. This paper describes the results of a major research effort to assemble the algorithms, architectures, tools, and systems software needed to enable delivery of SLAM, by supporting applications specialists in selecting and configuring the appropriate algorithm and the appropriate hardware, and compilation pathway, to meet their performance, accuracy, and energy consumption goals. The major contributions we present are (1) tools and methodology for systematic quantitative evaluation of SLAM algorithms, (2) automated, machine-learning-guided exploration of the algorithmic and implementation design space with respect to multiple objectives, (3) end-to-end simulation tools to enable optimisation of heterogeneous, accelerated architectures for the specific algorithmic requirements of the various SLAM algorithmic approaches, and (4) tools for delivering, where appropriate, accelerated, adaptive SLAM solutions in a managed, JIT-compiled, adaptive runtime context.Comment: Proceedings of the IEEE 201