Single machine scheduling with small operator-non-availability periods

For an industrial application in the chemical industry, we were confronted with the planning of experiments, where human intervention of a chemist is required to handle the starting and termination of each of the experiments. This gives rise to a new type of scheduling problem, namely problems of finding schedules with time periods when the tasks can neither start nor finish. We consider in this paper the natural case of small periods where the duration of the periods is smaller than any processing time. This assumption corresponds to our chemical experiments lasting several days, whereas the operator unavailability periods are typically single days or week-ends. These problems are analyzed on a single machine with the makespan as criterion.     

NSGA-II-Based Design Space Exploration for Energy and Throughput Aware Multicore Architectures

Multicore architectures are mainstream due to ever increasing demand of throughput by modern applications. However, the suboptimal utilization of available resources in these architectures may imply an inevitable energy overhead. This energy overhead can only be avoided if the multicore systems support reconfiguration of available resources as per application demand. To achieve the target objectives (i.e., Energy efficiency with Throughput maximization) in multicore systems, many decision variables need to be optimized or analyzed to find the better trade-off. Heuristic-based approaches are aimed to provide a good-enough solution instead of a lengthy exhaustive search. This paper presents an Evolutionary Algorithm (EA)-based approach, i.e., Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). Three decision variables, i.e., number of cores, cache size and frequency are used to find best solution. The proposed approach is validated over a set of parallel benchmarks using a cycle accurate simulator. The results show a significant amount of energy saving along with minimal impact on the throughput of the system.     

L approximation of a parabolic system regarded as a delay system

We present an approach to the problem of finding an L^∞ approximant of the infinite-dimensional system describing the diffusion of heat in a wall. We show that this system can be regarded as a delay system with Laplace variable √s. We are able to get results, established in Zwart et al. (1988), about partial fraction expansion for delay systems, achieved by some adjustment to the specificities of our particular case. The determination of an L^∞ approximant is realised in two steps, using the optimal Hankel-norm approximation.     

Efficient self-collision detection on smoothly discretized surface animations using geometrical shape regularity

We present a new algorithm for detecting self-collisionson highly discretized moving polygonal surfaces. If is based on geometrical shape regularity properties that permit avoiding many useless collision tests. We use an improved hierarchical representation of our surface that, besides the optimizations inherent to hierarchisation, allows us to fake adjacency information to our advantage for applying efficiently our geometrical optimizations. We reduce the computation time between each frame by building automatically the hierarchical structure once as a preprocessing task. We describe the main principles of our algorithm, followed by some performance tests.     

Multifold behavior of the information transmission by the quantum 3-switch

Quantum Information Processing - A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-019-2234-5     

Interactive sonification to assist children with autism during motor therapeutic interventions

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing - Interactive sonification is an effective tool used to guide individuals when practicing movements. Little research has shown the use of interactive sonification...     

Quantum-inspired design of resilient substitution boxes: From coding to hardware implementation

S-boxes constitute a cornerstone component in symmetric-key cryptographic algorithms, such as DES and AES encryption systems. In block ciphers, they are typically used to obscure the relationship between the plaintext and the ciphertext. Non-linear and non-correlated S-boxes are the most secure against linear and differential cryptanalysis. In this paper, we focus on a twofold objective: first, we evolve regular S-boxes with high non-linearity and low auto-correlation properties; then automatically generate evolvable hardware for the obtained S-box. Targeting the former, we use a quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm to optimize regularity, non-linearity and auto-correlation, which constitute the three main desired properties in resilient S-boxes. Pursuing the latter, we exploit the same algorithm to automatically generate the evolvable hardware designs of substitution boxes that minimize hardware space and encryption/decryption time, which form the two main hardware characteristics. We compare our results against existing and well-known designs, which were produced by using conventional methods as well as through genetic algorithm. We will show that our approach provides higher quality S-boxes coding as well as circuits.     

The making of the Xian terra‐cotta soldiers

Abstract

This paper describes the making of a short film on the Xian terra‐cotta soldiers using our integrated HU‐MANOID software. The method of creating and animating the soldiers’ faces is first presented. Then, we show how our approach, based on metaballs and spline surfaces, was used for designing and deforming soldiers’ bodies. For the animation of the bodies, we describe the motion control methods. Clothes for the soldiers are then described as well as horses and decor design. For the rendering, we explained our strategy using parallel machines. Finally, problems of integration are addressed.