Study of the evolution of temperature in the core of a high voltage electric cable

The core of the electric cable is a heterogeneous medium; the conducting wires are periodically distributed and the period is small compared with the diameter of the core. Moreover, the insulating medium is not perfectly thermally insulating but its thermic conductivity is small. We study the evolution of the global temperature in the core and find two different types of results, depending upon how small are the two small parameters.     

Parallel Time and Quantifier Prefixes

We characterize the amount of alternation between blocks of Boolean quantifiers (having both existential and universal), blocks of real existential quantifiers, and blocks of real universal quantifiers that can be decided in parallel polynomial time over the reals. We do so under the assumption that blocks have a uniform bound on their size, both for the case of this bound to be polynomial and constant. On the way towards this characterization we prove a real version of Savitch’s Theorem.     

BRDF Measurement Modelling using Wavelets for Efficient Path Tracing

Physically based rendering needs numerical models from real measurements, or analytical models from material definitions, of the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF). However, measured BRDF data sets are too large and provide no functionalities to be practically used in Monte Carlo path tracing algorithms. In this paper, we present a wavelet‐based generic BRDF model suitable for both physical analysis and path tracing. The model is based on the separation of spectral and geometrical aspect of the BRDF and allows a compact and efficient representation of isotropic, anisotropic and/or spectral BRDFs. After a brief survey of BRDF and wavelet theory, we present our software architecture for generic wavelet transform and how to use it to model BRDFs. Then, modelling results are presented on real and virtual BRDF measurements. Finally, we show how to exploit the multiresolution property of the wavelet encoding to reduce the variance by importance sampling in a path tracing algorithm. ACM CSS: I.3.7 Computer Graphics—Three‐Dimensional Graphics and Realism     

Logisnet: A tool for multimethod,multiple soil layers slope stability analysis

Shallow landslides and slope failures have been studied from several points of view (inventory, heuristic, statistic, and deterministic). In particular, numerous methods embedded in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications have been developed to assess slope stability. However, little work has been done on the systematic comparison of different techniques and the incorporation of vertical contrasts of geotechnical properties in multiple soil layers. In this research, stability is modeled by using LOGISNET, an acronym for Multiple Logistic Regression, Geographic Information System, and Neural Network. The main purpose of LOGISNET is to provide government planners and decision makers a tool to assess landslide susceptibility. The system is fully operational for models handling an enhanced cartographic–hydrologic model (SINMAP) and multiple logistic regression. The enhanced implementation of SINMAP was tested at regional scale in the Highway 101 corridor in Del Norte County, California, and its susceptibility map was found to have improved factor of safety estimates based on comparison with landslide inventory maps. The enhanced SINMAP and multiple logistic regression subsystems have functions that allow the user to include vertical variation in geotechnical properties through summation of forces in specific soil layers acting on failure planes for a local or regional-scale mapping. The working group of LOGISNET foresees the development of an integrated tool system to handle and support the prognostic studies of slope instability, and communicate the results to the public through maps.     

High-Quality Adaptive Soft Shadow Mapping

The recent soft shadow mapping technique [ [GBP06] ] allows the rendering in real-time of convincing soft shadows on complex and dynamic scenes using a single shadow map. While attractive, this method suffers from shadow overestimation and becomes both expensive and approximate when dealing with large penumbrae. This paper proposes new solutions removing these limitations and hence providing an efficient and practical technique for soft shadow generation. First, we propose a new visibility computation procedure based on the detection of occluder contours, that is more accurate and faster while reducing aliasing. Secondly, we present a shadow map multi-resolution strategy keeping the computation complexity almost independent on the light size while maintaining high-quality rendering. Finally, we propose a view-dependent adaptive strategy, that automatically reduces the screen resolution in the region of large penumbrae, thus allowing us to keep very high frame rates in any situation.     

The effect of nanoscale surface curvature on the oligomerization of surface-bound proteins

The influence of surface topography on protein conformation and association is used routinely in biological cells to orchestrate and coordinate biomolecular events. In the laboratory, controlling the surface curvature at the nanoscale offers new possibilities for manipulating protein–protein interactions and protein function at surfaces. We have studied the effect of surface curvature on the association of two proteins, α-lactalbumin (α-LA) and β-lactoglobulin (β-LG), which perform their function at the oil–water interface in milk emulsions. To control the surface curvature at the nanoscale, we have used a combination of polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles (NPs) and ultrathin PS films to fabricate chemically pure, hydrophobic surfaces that are highly curved and are stable in aqueous buffer. We have used single-molecule force spectroscopy to measure the contour lengths L_c for α-LA and β-LG adsorbed on highly curved PS surfaces (NP diameters of 27 and 50 nm, capped with a 10 nm thick PS film), and we have compared these values in situ with those measured for the same proteins adsorbed onto flat PS surfaces in the same samples. The L_c distributions for β-LG adsorbed onto a flat PS surface contain monomer and dimer peaks at 60 and 120 nm, respectively, while α-LA contains a large monomer peak near 50 nm and a dimer peak at 100 nm, with a tail extending out to 200 nm, corresponding to higher order oligomers, e.g. trimers and tetramers. When β-LG or α-LA is adsorbed onto the most highly curved surfaces, both monomer peaks are shifted to much smaller values of L_c. Furthermore, for β-LG, the dimer peak is strongly suppressed on the highly curved surface, whereas for α-LA the trimer and tetramer tail is suppressed with no significant change in the dimer peak. For both proteins, the number of higher order oligomers is significantly reduced as the curvature of the underlying surface is increased. These results suggest that the surface curvature provides a new method of manipulating protein–protein interactions and controlling the association of adsorbed proteins, with applications to the development of novel biosensors.     

StepNP: a system-level exploration platform for network processors

The fast-changing communications market requires high-performance yet flexible network-processing platforms. StepNP is an exploratory network processor simulation environment for exploring applications, multiprocessor network-processing architectures, and SoC tools. Supporting model interaction, instrumentation, and analysis, the platform lets R&D teams easily add new processors, coprocessors, and interconnects.     

Compilation Methods for the Address Calculation Units of Embedded Processor Systems

An essential component of today's embedded system is an instruction-set processor running real-time software. All variations of these core components contain at least the minimum data-flow processing capabilities, while a certain class contain specialized units for highly data-intensive operations for Digital Signal Processing (DSP). For the required level of memory interaction, the parallel executing Address Calculation Unit (ACU) is often used to tune the architecture to the memory access characteristics of the application. The design of the ACU is performance critical. In today's typical design flow, this design task is somewhat driven by intuition as the transformation from application algorithm to architecture is complex and the exploration space is immense. Automatic utilities to aid the designer are essential; however, the key compilation techniques which map high-level language constructs onto addressing units have lagged far behind the emergence of these units. This paper presents a new retargetable approach and prototype tool for the analysis of array references and traversals for efficient use of ACUs. In addition to being an enhancement to existing compiler systems, the ArrSyn utility may be used as an aid to architecture exploration. A simple specification of the addressing resources and basic operations drives the available transformations and allows the designer to quickly evaluate the effects on speed and code size of his/her algorithm. Thus, the designer can tune the design of the ACU toward the application constraints. ArrSyn has been successfully used together with a C compiler developed for a VLIW architecture for an MPEG audio decoding application. The combination of these methods with the C compiler showed on average a 39% speedup and 29% code size reduction for a representative set of DSP benchmarks.