A constant-time dynamic storage allocator for real-time systems

Dynamic memory allocation has been used for decades. However, it has seldom been used in real-time systems since the worst case of spatial and temporal requirements for allocation and deallocation operations is either unbounded or bounded but with a very large bound. In this paper, a new allocator called TLSF (Two Level Segregated Fit) is presented. TLSF is designed and implemented to accommodate real-time constraints. The proposed allocator exhibits time-bounded behaviour, O(1), and maintains a very good execution time. This paper describes in detail the data structures and functions provided by TLSF. We also compare TLSF with a representative set of allocators regarding their temporal cost and fragmentation. Although the paper is mainly focused on timing analysis, a brief study and comparative analysis of fragmentation incurred by the allocators has been also included in order to provide a global view of the behaviour of the allocators. The temporal and spatial results showed that TLSF is also a fast allocator and produces a fragmentation close to that caused by the best existing allocators.

The Strong Property of Morphological Connected Alternated Filters

This paper studies connectivity aspects that arise in image operators that process connected components. The focus is on morphological image analysis (i.e., on increasing image operators) and, in particular, on a robustness property satisfied by certain morphological filters that is denominated the strong property. The behavior of alternated compositions of openings and closings is investigated under certain assumptions, particularly connectedness and a connected component preserving condition. It is shown that these conditions cannot in general guarantee the strong property of certain connected alternated filters because of issues related to the locality of the filters. As treated in the paper, there have been a series of misunderstandings in the literature concerning this topic, and it is important to clarify them. The root cause of those problems is discussed, and a solution is indicated. The class of connected openings and closings used to build connected alternated filters should therefore be defined to avoid such situations, since the strong property of alternated filters should be a distinctive characteristic of this class.

Solvent interactions with n ring systems in proteins

The interaction of water molecules with apolar amino acids isan important aspect of the hydrophobic effect and hence of proteinfolding. Our distributed multipole electrostatic model for waterinteracting with phenylalanine dipeptides shows that minimumenergy sites exist above the aromatic ring such that a solventmolecule can interact with the electrons, but only when thissite is not blocked by mainchain atoms or disturbed by main-chainpolar atoms. This is consistent with the experimental evidenceof others that water can hydrogen bond to aromatic n electrons.In contrast, our analysis of solvent interactions with phenylalanineresidues based on 48 high-resolution, well-refined protein structuresshows that the dominant interaction of solvent molecules iswith the edge of the ring and not with the 7i electrons. Asthe faces of phenylalanine rings tend to be buried, and solventinteractions with neighbouring polar atoms are more favourable,the interaction of water molecules with the faces of aromatic rings appears not to occur frequently in proteins     

Equivalent-optical-waveguide model for the analysis of optical waveguides by means of an asymptotic effective-index method

We present a theoretical method that makes it possible to analyze three-dimensional (3-D) integrated optical waveguides with arbitrary refractive-index profiles. With this method it is easy to obtain effective indexes, propagation constants, and coupling-switching properties of planar and channel optical waveguides. This theoretical approach involves one's modeling the original optical waveguide by means of an equivalent optical waveguide whose effective index is evaluated by the application of a technique that we call the asymptotic effective-index method. The numerical values show good convergence and accuracy for effective indexes, propagation constants, and coupling-switching characteristics. Theoretical and experimental results are given.     

Adherence rates to ferric citrate as compared to active control in patients with end stage kidney disease on dialysis

Introduction: Oral phosphate binders are the main stay of treatment of hyperphosphatemia. Adherence rates to ferric citrate, a recently approved phosphate binder, are unknown. Methods: We conducted a post‐hoc analysis to evaluate whether adherence rates were different for ferric citrate vs. active control in 412 subjects with end stage kidney disease (ESKD) who were randomized to ferric citrate vs. active control (sevelamer carbonate and/or calcium acetate). Adherence was defined as percent of actual number of pills taken to total number of pills prescribed. Findings: There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics including gender, race/ethnicity, and age between the ferric citrate and active control groups. Baseline phosphorus, calcium, and parathyroid hormone levels were similar. Mean (SD) adherence was 81.4% (17.4) and 81.7% (15.9) in the ferric citrate and active control groups, respectively (P = 0.88). Adherence remained similar between both groups after adjusting for gender, race/ethnicity, age, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and diabetic nephropathy (mean [95% CI]: 81.4% [78.2, 84.6] and 81.5% [77.7, 85.2] for ferric citrate and active control, respectively). Gender, race/ethnicity, age, and diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy did not influence adherence to the prescribed phosphate binder. Subjects with CVD had lower adherence rates to phosphate binder; this was significant only in the active control group. Discussion: Adherence rates to the phosphate binder, ferric citrate, were similar to adherence rates to active control. Similar adherence rates to ferric citrate are notable since tolerance to active control was an entry criteria and the study was open label. Gender, race/ethnicity, nor age influenced adherence.     

Criticality Analysis for Maintenance Purposes: A Study for Complex In‐service Engineering Assets

The purpose of this paper is to establish a basis for a criticality analysis, considered here as a prerequisite, a first required step to review the current maintenance programs, of complex in‐service engineering assets. Review is understood as a reality check, a testing of whether the current maintenance activities are well aligned to actual business objectives and needs. This paper describes an efficient and rational working process and a model resulting in a hierarchy of assets, based on risk analysis and cost–benefit principles, which will be ranked according to their importance for the business to meet specific goals. Starting from a multicriteria analysis, the proposed model converts relevant criteria impacting equipment criticality into a single score presenting the criticality level. Although detailed implementation of techniques like Root Cause Failure Analysis and Reliability Centered Maintenance will be recommended for further optimization of the maintenance activities, the reasons why criticality analysis deserves the attention of engineers and maintenance and reliability managers are precisely explained here. A case study is presented to help the reader understand the process and to operationalize the model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary Spanning and Engineering: A Qualitative Systematic Review

Background

Engineers are often expected to span organizational, cultural, stakeholder, geographic, temporal, and other boundaries. Yet, few studies on boundary spanning have appeared in the engineering education literature, suggesting the need for improved theoretical and conceptual foundations to guide empirical studies of boundary spanning in engineering.

Purpose

To develop a more comprehensive understanding of boundary spanning, this study addresses five research questions: (a) What types of boundaries have been identified as topics of interest? (b) How are boundary spanners and boundary spanning defined? (c) What types of activities and behaviors comprise or have been linked to boundary spanning? (d) What individual competencies and characteristics have been proposed or studied as important for boundary spanning? and (e) What boundary spanning themes are most prominent in studies of engineers and other technical professionals?

Scope/Method

Using a qualitative systematic review process, we identified and analyzed 72 scholarly papers from multiple disciplines. Multiple reviewers coded each paper using a hybrid deductive‐inductive content analysis process to identify key themes related to boundary spanning.

Conclusions

The analysis resulted in a framework consisting of six boundary types, three types of roles and definitions, and five types of activities. Discussion of boundary spanning competencies was limited in the collected works, and only seven papers exclusively focused on engineers. We conclude by proposing boundary spanning as an important meta‐attribute for engineers and a promising lens for investigating engineering practice. We also relate our findings to the engineering education literature and suggest directions for future research.     

Virtual worlds as knowledge management platform – a practice‐perspective

Virtual worlds, as electronic environments where individuals can interact in a realistic manner in form of avatars, are increasingly used by gamers, consumers and employees. Therefore, they provide opportunities for reinventing business processes. Especially, effective knowledge management (KM) requires the use of appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) as well as social interaction. Emerging virtual worlds enable new ways to support knowledge and knowing processes because these virtual environments consider social aspects that are necessary for knowledge creating and knowledge sharing processes. Thus, collaboration in virtual worlds resembles real‐life activities. In this paper, we shed light on the use of Second Life (SL) as a KM platform in a real‐life setting. To explore the potential and current usage of virtual worlds for knowledge and knowing activities, we conducted a qualitative study at IBM. We interviewed IBM employees belonging to a special workgroup called ‘Web 2.0/virtual worlds’ in order to gain experience in generating and exchanging knowledge by virtually collaborating and interacting. Our results show that virtual worlds – if they are able to overcome problems like platform stability, user interface or security issues – bear the potential to serve as a KM platform. They facilitate global and simultaneous interaction, create a common context for collaboration, combine different tools for communication and enhance knowledge and knowing processes.     

A proposal for student modeling based on ontologies and diagnosis rules

The advances in the educational field and the high complexity of student modeling have provoked it to be one of the aspects more investigated in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). The Student Models (SMs) should not only represent the student’s knowledge, but rather they should reflect, as faithfully as possible, the student’s reasoning process. To facilitate this goal, in this article a new approach to student modeling is proposed that benefits from the advantages of Ontological Engineering, advancing in the pursue of a more granular and complete knowledge representation. It’s focused, mainly, on the SM cognitive diagnosis process, and we present a method providing a rich diagnosis about the student’s knowledge state – especially, about the state of learning objectives reached or not. The main goal is to achieve SMs with a good adaptability to the student’s features and a high flexibility for its integration in varied ITSs.     

Moving objects forecast in image sequences using autoregressive algorithms

The objective of this paper is to present an overall approach to forecasting the future position of the moving objects of an image sequence after processing the images previous to it. The proposed method makes use of classical techniques such as optical flow to extract objects’ trajectories and velocities, and autoregressive algorithms to build the predictive model. Our method can be used in a variety of applications, where videos with stationary cameras are used, moving objects are not deformed and change their position with time. One of these applications is traffic control, which is used in this paper as a case study with different meteorological conditions to compare with.