GPU accelerated tensor contractions in the plaquette renormalization scheme

We use the graphical processing unit (GPU) to accelerate the tensor contractions, which is the most time consuming operations in the variational method based on the plaquette renormalized states. Using a frustrated Heisenberg J₁–J₂ model on a square lattice as an example, we implement the algorithm based on the compute unified device architecture (CUDA). For a single plaquette contraction with the bond dimensions C = 3 of each rank of the tensor, results are obtained 25 times faster on GPU than on a current CPU core. This makes it possible to simulate systems with the size 8 × 8 and larger, which are extremely time consuming on a single CPU. This technology successfully relieves the computing time dependence with C, while in the CPU serial computation, the total required time scales both with C and the system size.     

Exploring the Interaction between Java's Implicitly Thrown Exceptions and Instruction Scheduling

The frequent occurrence of implicitly thrown exceptions poses one of the challenges present in a Java compiler. Not only do these implicitly thrown exceptions directly affect the performance by requiring explicit checks, they also indirectly impact the performance by restricting code movement in order to satisfy the precise exception model in Java. In particular, instruction scheduling is one transformation that is restricted by implicitly thrown exceptions due to the heavy reliance on reordering instructions to exploit maximum hardware performance. The goal of this study is two-fold: first, investigate the degree to which implicitly thrown exceptions in Java hinder instruction scheduling, and second, find new techniques for allowing more efficient execution of Java programs containing implicitly thrown exceptions. Experimental results show that with aggressive scheduling techniques, such as superblock scheduling, the negative performance impact can be greatly reduced.     

Exploiting Network Locality for CC-NUMA Multiprocessors

The Journal of Supercomputing - Rapid advances in interconnection networks in multiprocessors are closing the gap between computation and communication. Given this trend, how can we utilize fast...     

Photoluminescent characterization of KNbO3:Eu

In this study, the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of europium-doped potassium niobate (KNbO₃) crystallites prepared by a vibrating milled solid-state reaction method were studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and optical spectral analysis (luminescence excitation, emission spectra and time-resolved spectra) were used to characterize the KNbO₃:Eu³⁺ powders. The results of the XRD revealed that the powders remained as a single orthorhombic structure at doping concentrations below 3 mol%. A second phase of EuNbO₄ begins to appear at 5 mol%. The ⁵D₀–⁷F₁ (593 nm) and ⁵D₀–⁷F₂ (614 nm) emission characteristics of Eu³⁺ appear at a quenching concentration of above 3 mol%. The Commission Internationale d’Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity coordinates of a Eu:KNbO₃ host excited at λ_ex = 400 nm and λ_ex = 466 nm wavelengths, both presented a red-shift when increasing the Eu³⁺ ion doping. The lifetime of the Eu³⁺ ion decreased as the doping concentration was increased from 1 to 7 mol%.     

Comparison of a‐Si and Poly‐Si for AMOLED displays

Abstract— The characteristics of OLED backplanes including the intrinsic properties of a‐Si TFTs and LTPS TFTs will be reviewed. While LTPS TFTs reveal satisfactory stability in AMOLED‐display applications, a‐Si AMOLEDs show better uniformity and are capable of driving OLEDs. However, the stability of a‐Si TFTs under long‐term operation is still unacceptable and remains to be the key issue constraining the commercialization of a‐Si TFT AMOLEDs.     

Adaptive joint beamforming and B‐MMSE detection for CDMA signal reception under multipath interference

The combination of antenna array beamforming with multiuser detection can effectively improve the detection efficiency of a wireless system under multipath interference, especially in a fast‐fading channel. This paper studies the performance of an adaptive beamformer incorporated with a block‐wise minimum mean square error(B‐MMSE) detector, which works on a unique signal frame characterized by training sequence preamble and data blocks segmented by zero‐bits. Both beam‐former weights updating and B‐MMSE detection are carried out by either least mean square (LMS) or recursive least square (RLS) algorithm. The comparison of the two adaptive algorithms applied to both beamformer and B‐MMSE detector will be made in terms of convergence behaviour and estimation mean square error. Various multipath patterns are considered to test the receiver's responding rapidity to changing multipath interference. The performance of the adaptive B‐MMSE detector is also compared with that of non‐adaptive version (i.e. through direct matrix inversion). The final performance in error probability simulation reveals that the RLS/B‐MMSE scheme outperforms non‐adaptive B‐MMSE by 1–5 dB, depending on the multipath channel delay profiles of concern. The obtained results also suggest that adaptive beamformer should use RLS algorithm for its fast and robust convergence property; while the B‐MMSE filter can choose either LMS or RLS algorithm depending on antenna array size, multipath severity and implementation complexity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A miniature generator using piezoelectric bender with elastic base

Nowadays green energy devices such as vibration generators attempt to harvest energy from environment. A lot of studies dealing with vibration generators put emphasis on mechanism designs or power generation methods, but few on lowering the resonant frequency of power generation systems. This study proposes that elastic bases attached to vibration generators can lower natural frequencies, so as to make natural frequencies closer to ambient vibration frequency. Therefore, this study investigates miniature electric generators consisting of piezoelectric benders and elastic bases. To install the elastic base, this work uses a spring with prescribed stiffness and a board with given mass between the piezoelectric bender and a vibration source to make the resonant frequency of piezoelectric benders close to the frequency of ambient vibration. Analytical derivation is carried out to obtain optimal mass and stiffness. Accordingly, more electric power can be generated from piezoelectric generators using an elastic base with appropriate mass and stiffness. According to experimental results, using an elastic base increases 376 times generated power compared with no elastic base. In the presence of the elastic base, the power increases 132% when a point mass is added.     

Spatiotemporal saliency detection and salient region determination for H.264 videos

In this study, a spatiotemporal saliency detection and salient region determination approach for H.264 videos is proposed. After Gaussian filtering in Lab color space, the phase spectrum of Fourier transform is used to generate the spatial saliency map of each video frame. On the other hand, the motion vector fields from each H.264 compressed video bitstream are backward accumulated. After normalization and global motion compensation, the phase spectrum of Fourier transform for the moving parts is used to generate the temporal saliency map of each video frame. Then, the spatial and temporal saliency maps of each video frame are combined to obtain its spatiotemporal saliency map using adaptive fusion. Finally, a modified salient region determination scheme is used to determine salient regions (SRs) of each video frame. Based on the experimental results obtained in this study, the performance of the proposed approach is better than those of two comparison approaches.