Monitoring framework for stream-processing networks

Vu Thien Nga Nguyen, Raimund Kirner, and Frank Penczek, 'Monitoring framework for stream-processing networks'. Paper presented at the Workshop on Feedback-Directed Compiler Optimization for Multi-Core Architectures (FD-COMA 2012), Berlin, Germany. 21-23 January 2013.In this paper we present a monitoring framework that exploits special characteristics of stream-processing networks in order to reason the performance. The novelty of the framework is to trace the non-deterministic execution which is reflected in i) the dynamic mapping and scheduling of network components at the operating system level and ii) the dynamic message routing across the network at runtime. We evaluate the efficiency with an implementation for the coordination language S-Net, showing negligible overhead in most cases

The Key to Local Development? Citizen Initiatives and their Relations with Government Institutions

Against the backdrop of changes in the practice of local and regional governance, the role of citizen initiatives in development quickly gained attention in academia and policy making. Hailed as the ultimate form of citizen participation by some, citizen initiatives maintain and create public services and goods as they fill in the gaps left by government. Yet, government institutions remain present actors in these contexts, posing important questions of roles and responsibilities in the governance of rural development. By gathering empirical data in Germany and Uganda, this thesis examines the relations between citizen initiatives and government institutions, their effect on outcomes of citizen initiatives as well as factors influencing these relations. In doing so, the thesis aims to deepen the understanding of the role of citizen initiatives in local and regional development. In addition to the obtained empirical data the thesis relies on a thorough literature review, this thesis identifies different modes of relations between state and non-state actors, that entail different possible effects on outcomes. The thesis concludes that relations between citizen initiatives and government institutions critically influence outcomes of rural development citizen initiatives, especially over the long-term. It finds that relations are complex and dynamic in the sense that different relations can be present at the same time, depending on the specific issue or the individuals involved. Relations between different state and non-state actors are critically shaped by the context-specific degree of democratization and the institutional context that comes with it, either providing supportive measures and avenues for successful collaboration or not. Yet, another finding is that personal relationships between individuals of the different actors may present bottlenecks of the general relation

S-Net for multi-memory multicores

Copyright ACM, 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Declarative Aspects of Multicore Programming: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1708046.1708054S-Net is a declarative coordination language and component technology aimed at modern multi-core/many-core architectures and systems-on-chip. It builds on the concept of stream processing to structure dynamically evolving networks of communicating asynchronous components. Components themselves are implemented using a conventional language suitable for the application domain. This two-level software architecture maintains a familiar sequential development environment for large parts of an application and offers a high-level declarative approach to component coordination. In this paper we present a conservative language extension for the placement of components and component networks in a multi-memory environment, i.e. architectures that associate individual compute cores or groups thereof with private memories. We describe a novel distributed runtime system layer that complements our existing multithreaded runtime system for shared memory multicores. Particular emphasis is put on efficient management of data communication. Last not least, we present preliminary experimental data

How Do Acts of Penance Influence Intergroup Forgiveness?

In the current paper the problems of penance and remorse in intergroup relations, as well as their influence on forgiveness are investigated. We argue that repent can be expressed in multiple ways, which vary in their effectiveness, because of differences in evaluation of their genuineness. Results obtained in an experimental study conducted among 271 Polish students suggest that indeed act of penance alone has no direct influence on willingness to forgive. On the other hand, genuineness of the outgroup conciliatory actions and remorse facilitates forgiveness. Also, it is shown that acts of penance, as well as outgroup remorse may break a negative relationship between magnitude of ingroup harm and intergroup forgiveness

S+Net: extending functional coordination with extra-functional semantics

This technical report introduces S+Net, a compositional coordination language for streaming networks with extra-functional semantics. Compositionality simplifies the specification of complex parallel and distributed applications; extra-functional semantics allow the application designer to reason about and control resource usage, performance and fault handling. The key feature of S+Net is that functional and extra-functional semantics are defined orthogonally from each other. S+Net can be seen as a simultaneous simplification and extension of the existing coordination language S-Net, that gives control of extra-functional behavior to the S-Net programmer. S+Net can also be seen as a transitional research step between S-Net and AstraKahn, another coordination language currently being designed at the University of Hertfordshire. In contrast with AstraKahn which constitutes a re-design from the ground up, S+Net preserves the basic operational semantics of S-Net and thus provides an incremental introduction of extra-functional control in an existing language.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, 3 table

Comparing BDD and SAT based techniques for model checking Chaum's Dining Cryptographers Protocol

We analyse different versions of the Dining Cryptographers protocol by means of automatic verification via model checking. Specifically we model the protocol in terms of a network of communicating automata and verify that the protocol meets the anonymity requirements specified. Two different model checking techniques (ordered binary decision diagrams and SAT-based bounded model checking) are evaluated and compared to verify the protocols

An examination of the relationship between psychological conditions and the incidence of athletic injury

The purpose if this investigation was to examine injury rates among college athletes with a diagnosed psychological condition/mental disorder. Participants were drawn from a pool of 440 male and female intercollegiate athletes (ages 18-26 years). All subjects with a psychological disorder were then identified (n=38) and placed in the diagnosis group. A second group was then selected, which consisted of matched pairs of athletes without a psychological diagnosis. Twelve sports were represented in the sample population with an equal number of male (n=26) and female (n=12) participants in each group. The athletic training database was examined via query to identify each athlete’s specific psychological diagnosis (or lack thereof), number of injuries, and injury severity per occurrence. Chi-square analysis revealed that subjects in the diagnosed group suffered a significantly higher frequency of total injuries than subjects in the non-diagnosed group. Further analysis of injury severity within the two groups showed that diagnosed males had a higher frequency of mild and moderate injuries than non-diagnosed males. A significant difference was also found between females in each group, with diagnosed females have a higher frequency of mild injuries. Examination of gender differences within each group revealed that diagnosed males had a higher frequency of mild and moderate injuries than females, while analysis of the non-diagnosed group showed a higher frequency of mild injuries in males, and moderate injuries in females. Further analysis of overall gender differences revealed that males had a higher frequency of mild and severe injuries when compared to females. The results of this study are consistent with previous research findings that suggest increased stress predisposes an athlete to injury. Future research should continue to examine the relationship between psychological conditions and the incidence of athletic injury

Planics 2.0 - A Tool for Composing Services

Proceedings of the International Workshop on Petri Nets and Software Engineering, co-located with 35th International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency (PetriNets 2014) and 14th International Conference on Application of Concurrency to System Design (ACSD 2014) Tunis, Tunisia, June 23-24, 2014.This poster reports on the current state of the PlanICS toolset, which aims at solving the Web service composition problem by dividing it into several stages. These include an abstract planning, an offer collecting, and a concrete planning

SMT-based Abstract Temporal Planning

These are the proceedings of the International Workshop on Petri Nets and Software Engineering (PNSE’14) in Tunis, Tunisia, June 23–24, 2014. It is a co-located event of Petri Nets 2014, the 35th international conference on Applications and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency and ACSD 2014, the 14th International Conference on Application of Concurrency to System Design.An abstract planning is the first phase of the web service composition in the PlanICS framework. A user query specifies the initial and the expected state of a plan in request. The paper extends PlanICS with a module for temporal planning, by extending the user query with an LTL_k-X formula specifying temporal aspects of world transformations in a plan. Our solution comes together with an example, an implementation, and experimental results