Mapping a guided image filter on the HARP reconfigurable architecture using OpenCL

Intel recently introduced the Heterogeneous Architecture Research Platform, HARP. In this platform, the Central Processing Unit and a Field-Programmable Gate Array are connected through a high-bandwidth, low-latency interconnect and both share DRAM memory. For this platform, Open Computing Language (OpenCL), a High-Level Synthesis (HLS) language, is made available. By making use of HLS, a faster design cycle can be achieved compared to programming in a traditional hardware description language. This, however, comes at the cost of having less control over the hardware implementation. We will investigate how OpenCL can be applied to implement a real-time guided image filter on the HARP platform. In the first phase, the performance-critical parameters of the OpenCL programming model are defined using several specialized benchmarks. In a second phase, the guided image filter algorithm is implemented using the insights gained in the first phase. Both a floating-point and a fixed-point implementation were developed for this algorithm, based on a sliding window implementation. This resulted in a maximum floating-point performance of 135 GFLOPS, a maximum fixed-point performance of 430 GOPS and a throughput of HD color images at 74 frames per second

Convergent synthesis of dendrimers based on 1,3,3-trisubstituted 2-oxindoles

Dendrons and dendrimers were convergently prepared using an isatin as AB2 monomer by superelectrophilic arylation in trifluoromethanesulfonic acid. This strategy has the advantage that incomplete reactions of the AB2 monomer are minimized, thus simplifying purification. As the obtained dendrons/dendrimers are analogues of the hyperbranched polymers with a degree of branching of 100% developed earlier in our group, an opportunity is created to compare the latter with their structurally perfect counterparts