Dynamic interval determination for pagelevel incremental checkpointing

A distributed system is composed of multiple independent machines that communicate using messages. Faults in a large distributed system are common events. Without fault tolerance mechanisms, an application running on a system has to be restarted from scratch if a fault happens in the middle of its execution, resulting in loss of useful computation. Checkpoint and Recovery mechanisms are used in distributed systems to provide fault tolerance for such applications. A checkpoint of a process is the information about the state of a process at some instant of time. A checkpoint of a distributed application is a set of checkpoints, one from each of its processes, satisfying certain constraints. If a fault occurs, the application is started from an earlier checkpoint instead of being restarted from scratch to save some of the computation. Several checkpoint and recovery protocols have been proposed in the literature. The performance of a checkpoint and recovery protocol depends upon the amount of computation it can save against the amount of overhead it incurs. Checkpointing protocols should not add much overhead to the system. Checkpoiniting overhead is mainly due to the coordination among processes and their context saving in stable storage. In coordination checkpointing, for taking single checkpoint, it will coordinate with other processes. Checkpoint initiating process coordinates with other processes through messages. If more number of messages are used for coordination then it increases the network tra±c. Which is not desirable. It is better to reduce the number of messages that are needed for checkpoint coordination. In this thesis, we present an algorithm which reduces the number of messages per process, that are needed for checkpoint Coordination and there by decreasing the network tra±c. The total running time of an application is depend on the execution time of the application and the amount of checkpointing overhead that incurs with the application. We should minimize this checkpointing overhead. Checkpointing overhead is the combination of context saving overhead and coordination overhead. Storing the context of application over stable storage also increases the overhead. In periodic interval checkpointing, sometimes processes takes checkpoints though it is not much useful. These unnecessary checkpoints increase the application's running time. We have proposed an algorithm which determines checkpointing interval dynamically, based on expected recovery time, to avoid unnecessary checkpoints. By eliminating unnecessary checkpoints, we can reduce running time of a process signi¯cantly

Antioxidant effect of Morus indica L against paraquat-induced oxidative stress in Drosophila melanogaster

BACKGROUND: Mulberry extracts and active components have numerous good neurological and biological benefits, making them promising candidates in the research for new medications to treat neurological problems. METHODS: In the present study we evaluated the neuroprotective role of mulberry fruit extract against the paraquat (PQ) induced oxidative stress in Drosophila melanogaster. After the exposure to PQ, Flies were assayed for climbing activity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and lipid peroxide (LPO) content, acetylcholine esterase activities (AChe), and also the antioxidant defense system such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase activities (CAT) and glutathione synthetase (GSH) RESULTS: In a negative geotaxis assay, MF pre-treated flies exposed to PQ showed a lower incidence of mortality and enhanced climbing activities of flies when compared to untreated flies exposed to PQ. In addition, when exposed to PQ, untreated flies resulted in a significant (p ≤ 0.05) increase in oxidative stress markers such as ROS, LPO content and AChe and decreased the antioxidant defense system such as SOD, CAT, and GSH. However, flies pre-treated with MF when exposed to PQ ameliorated oxidative stress markers and by restoring the antioxidant defense system, additionally, the pre-treatment of MF flies also reduced AChe activities. CONCLUSION: The pre-treatment of flies with MF extract has the potential to reduce PQ-induced oxidative stress due to its antioxidative nature and ability to modify the activities of antioxidant defense systems. However, further research is needed to understand the exact mechanism of its activity

Prevalence of elongation and calcification patterns of elongated styloid process in south india

Objective: Very few studies have been reported in the literature classifying the elongation and calcification patterns of styloid process. The present study was done to investigate the prevalence of elongation and calcification patterns of styloid process in patients attending a dental institution in south India. Study design: 600 digital panoramic radiographs of patients with dental problems were obtained from the outpatient department of the Dental institution. The apparent length of the styloid process was measured by a single experienced oral radiologist, with the help of the measuring tools on the accompanying software. The type of elongation and calcification patterns of each elongated styloid process was classified as per Langlai's classification with few modifications. Finally the data was subjected to statistical analysis. Results: Out of 520 measurable styloid processes (260 panoramic radiographs), 154 styloid processes had length greater than 3cm. The mean average length of elongated styloid process was 3.67±0.62 cm. No significant association was obtained between age and length of styloid process. In present study, the type of elongation pattern has no effect on the calcification pattern. Our results suggested that Type I elongated styloid processes were most likely to be completely calcified (type D), but statistically not significant. Conclusion: Type I pattern of elongation was found to be more prevalent in elder age group and was completely calcified in most of the cases. Interestingly, only three patients (out of 260) showed symptomatic elongation of styloid process. A relatively high prevalence of type IV elongation pattern (9 /154) was obtained in the present study, when compared to type III styloid process. Further large scale imaging studies are required to evaluate the presence of type IV elongation pattern in various population groups

Reconstructing Indian-Australian phylogenetic link

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An early dispersal of biologically and behaviorally modern humans from their African origins to Australia, by at least 45 thousand years via southern Asia has been suggested by studies based on morphology, archaeology and genetics. However, mtDNA lineages sampled so far from south Asia, eastern Asia and Australasia show non-overlapping distributions of haplogroups within pan Eurasian M and N macrohaplogroups. Likewise, support from the archaeology is still ambiguous.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In our completely sequenced 966-mitochondrial genomes from 26 relic tribes of India, we have identified seven genomes, which share two synonymous polymorphisms with the M42 haplogroup, which is specific to Australian Aborigines.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results showing a shared mtDNA lineage between Indians and Australian Aborigines provides direct genetic evidence of an early colonization of Australia through south Asia, following the "southern route".</p

Dynamic Analysis and Control of Redundant Manipulator for Agricultural Applications in a Virtual Environment

In the development of automated manipulators for fruit and vegetable picking technologies, the challenge of ensuring an efficient, stable, and loss-free picking process has been a complex problem. In such an environment, manipulators require the most efficient and robust control for effective operations. In this paper, a serial 9-DOF redundant manipulator (1P8R) is proposed with various controllers for trajectory tracking problems in agricultural applications. The dynamic analysis of redundant manipulator has been carried out using the Recursive Newton-Euler method. The joint configurations of the robot are determined using optimization techniques for specific Task Space Locations (TSLs) by avoiding obstacles. The process of generating joint trajectories has been implemented by considering the cubic polynomial function. For the task of controlling the robot trajectory tracking in the virtual agricultural environment, different combinations of Proportional (P), Integrative (I), Derivative (D), and Feed-Forward (FF) controllers are employed, and a comparative analysis has been performed among these controllers. To verify the performance of the manipulator, simulations are carried out in a virtual environment using Simulink software. Results show that the robot is able to reach specific TSL accurately with better control and it is found that the implementation of Feed-Forward and PID-CTC controllers has better performance in a complex environment

A Survey of Cybersecurity of Digital Manufacturing

The Industry 4.0 concept promotes a digital manufacturing (DM) paradigm that can enhance quality and productivity, which reduces inventory and the lead time for delivering custom, batch-of-one products based on achieving convergence of additive, subtractive, and hybrid manufacturing machines, automation and robotic systems, sensors, computing, and communication networks, artificial intelligence, and big data. A DM system consists of embedded electronics, sensors, actuators, control software, and interconnectivity to enable the machines and the components within them to exchange data with other machines, components therein, the plant operators, the inventory managers, and customers. This article presents the cybersecurity risks in the emerging DM context, assesses the impact on manufacturing, and identifies approaches to secure DM

Report of the Task Force on Enhancing technology use in agriculture insurance

Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is a flagship scheme of the Government of India to provide insurance coverage and financial support to farmers in the event of failure of any of the notified crops, unsown area and damage to harvest produce as a result of natural calamities, pests and diseases to stabilise the income of farmers, and to encourage them to adopt modern agricultural practices. The scheme is a considerable improvement over all previous insurance schemes in India and is heavily subsidised by the state and central governments. The scheme aims to cover 50 percent of the farming households within next 3 years. During its implementation in the last one season, several challenges relating to enrolment, yield estimation, loss assessment, and claim settlement were reported by farmers, insurance companies as well as the state governments. It was also noted that several technological opportunities existed for possibly leveraging support to the Indian crop insurance program for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness. NITI Aayog of the Government of India, therefore, constituted a Task Force to deliberate on this subject and identify such potential opportunities. This report summarises the recommendations of the Task Force. The Task Force constituted to address the issue of technology support to crop insurance comprised the following 5 sub-groups: (1) Remote Sensing & Drones; (2) Decision Support Systems, Crop Modelling & Integrated Approaches; (3) IT/ICT in Insurance; (4) Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs); and (5) Technologies for Livestock and Aquaculture Insurance. Each sub-group had several discussions with experts in the respective areas, and submitted draft reports. More than 100 experts related to professional research agencies, insurance industry, banks, and the government contributed to these discussions. Technological options available in the country and abroad were considered by all groups. The Task Force together with the sub-groups then deliberated on key issues and formulated its recommendations as presented in this report. During the discussions it was realised that there were many administrative and institutional issues that needed to be addressed in PMFBY. However, the focus of the Task Force was on its main mandate, technology use in crop insurance. We hope these recommendations would help the Indian crop insurance sector take full advantage of the technological options suggested so as to increase its efficacy and effectiveness leading to reduced agrarian distress in the country