Mapping Abstract Complex Workflows onto Grid Environments

In this paper we address the problem of automatically generating job workflows for the Grid. These workflows describe the execution of a complex application built from individual application components. In our work we have developed two workflow generators: the first (the Concrete Workflow Generator CWG) maps an abstract workflow defined in terms of application-level components to the set of available Grid resources. The second generator (Abstract and Concrete Workflow Generator, ACWG) takes a wider perspective and not only performs the abstract to concrete mapping but also enables the construction of the abstract workflow based on the available components. This system operates in the application domain and chooses application components based on the application metadata attributes. We describe our current ACWG based on AI planning technologies and outline how these technologies can play a crucial role in developing complex application workflows in Grid environments. Although our work is preliminary, CWG has already been used to map high energy physics applications onto the Grid. In one particular experiment, a set of production runs lasted 7 days and resulted in the generation of 167,500 events by 678 jobs. Additionally, ACWG was used to map gravitational physics workflows, with hundreds of nodes onto the available resources, resulting in 975 tasks, 1365 data transfers and 975 output files produced.     

Beach sands along the California coast are diffuse sources of fecal bacteria to coastal waters

Fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) are nearly ubiquitous in California (CA) beach sands. Sands were collected from 55 beaches along the CA coast. Ninety-one percent of the beaches had detectable enterococci (ENT) while 62% had detectable E. coli (EC) in their sands. The presence of a putative bacterial source (such as a river), the degree of wave shelter, and surrounding land use explained a significant (p < 0.05) fraction of the variation in both ENT and EC densities between beaches. Sand characteristics including moisture content, organic carbon, and percentfines, significantly (p < 0.05) influenced only EC densities in beach sand. We assayed 34 of 163 sand samples for salmonellae, but did not detect this bacterial pathogen. The potential for FIB to be transported from the sand to sea was investigated at a single wave-sheltered beach with high densities of ENT in beach sand: Lovers Point, CA (LP). We collected samples of exposed and submerged sands as well as water over a 24 h period in order to compare the disappearance or appearance of ENT in sand and the water column. Exposed sands had significantly higher densities of ENT than submerged sands with the highest densities located near the high tide line. Water column ENT densities began low, increased sharply during the first flood tide and slowly decreased over the remainder of the study. During the first flood tide, the number of ENT that entered the water column was nearly equivalent to the number of ENT lost from exposed sands when they were submerged by seawater. The decrease in nearshore ENT concentrations after the initial influx can be explained by ENT die-off and dilution with clean ocean water. While some ENT in the water and sand at LP might be of human origin because they were positive for the esp gene, others lacked the esp gene and were therefore equivocal with respect to their origin. Follow-up sampling at LP revealed the presence of the human specific Bacteroides marker in water and sand.     

RF CMOS on high-resistivity substrates for system-on-chip applications

The use of a high-resistivity substrate extends the capability of standard digital CMOS technology to enable the integration of high-performance RF passive components. The impact of substrate resistivity on the key components of RF CMOS for system-on-chip (SoC) applications is discussed. The comparison includes the transistor, transmission line, inductor, capacitor and varactor, as well as the noise isolation. We also discuss the integration issues including latch-up and well-well isolation in a 0.35-/spl mu/m Cu metal pitch, 0.1-/spl mu/m-gate-length RF CMOS technology.     

Mycoplasma felis septic arthritis in a patient with hypogammaglobulinemia

Atypical Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection developed in a patient under intermittent administration of FK506 (one dose in 10 days) after living-related liver transplantation. The clinical course was similar to severe chronic active EBV infection syndrome (SCAEBV), which is characterized by extremely high titers of antibody to EBV antigens. The clinical symptoms improved without graft rejection even after the cessation of FK506; however, the titers of antibody to EBV antigens remained at high levels. It was considered that: (i) even intermittent use of FK506 could influence the immune response, which then induced atypical EBV infection similar to SCAEBV; and (ii) the impaired immune response, especially to EBV antigens, remained after complete cessation of FK506.     

The influence of anneal on the structural and magnetic properties of the electrodeposited thin-film alloy Cu94Co6

Magnetic measurements have been made in the temperature range 2 to 300 K and in fields up to 5 T on the electrodeposited, thin-film alloy Cu₉₄Co₆. The unannealed alloy, which magnetic measurements suggest consists of face-centred cubic (f.c.c.) Co-rich particles in an f.c.c. Cu-rich matrix, exhibits superparamagnetism and has a maximum blocking temperature, as determined from hysteresis loops, of 55±5 K. Low-field susceptibility measurements give an interaction energy of 1.7×10^–3 eV. Samples have been annealed at temperatures up to 600 °C. The effect of anneal is to produce a strong increase of remanence and maximum blocking temperature, which corresponds to a growth in particle size, together with an increase in the interaction energy. After the final anneal to 600 °C, the blocking temperature is well above 300 K and the sample shows ferromagnetic behaviour. Detailed electron microscopy measurements have also been made in order to determine the structure of the film and its modification on anneal.     

Structure of round-off noise in single-bit second-order sigma-deltamodulators with zero input

Single-bit sigma-delta modulators are used for A-D conversion in a wide variety of systems. Analysis of first-order systems has made much progress, but the analysis of second-order systems is conventionally based on an approximate white-noise model of round-off noise. The present paper applies a new method of analysing second-order systems. It shows that, with zero input, the behaviour for each sample is equivalent to a two-dimensional discontinuous mapping Φ. It derives an invariant form under Φ and describes some of its properties. The motivation is the suggestion that the invariant form is a useful approximation to the probability distribution of round-off noise     

Convection in a fluid-saturated porous medium due to internal heat generation

Two-dimensional convective motions driven by uniformly distributed internal heat sources in a fluid-saturated porous medium are analyzed in the large Rayleigh number limit. An integral method is used to obtain a simple analytical representation of the flow field within a rectangular cavity whose vertical side walls are isothermal and whose horizontal boundaries are adiabatic. The results are in excellent agreement with numerical computations based on a finite-difference technique.     

Epistemological and moral development in girls from a traditional and a progressive high school.

To investigate the relation between high school program and stage of epistemological and moral development of 48 female high school students, a 2?×?2 design was used, with grade (sophomores vs seniors) and school (traditional vs progressive) as the independent variables and stage of moral judgment of L. Kohlberg's (1969) scale and epistemological position on W. G. Perry's (1970) scale as the dependent variables. Overall, on both scales, mean scores were higher for seniors than for sophomores and higher for progressive than for traditional school students. On both scales, progressive school seniors scored higher than traditional school seniors; the 2 sophomore groups did not differ. Seniors scored significantly higher than sophomores only at the progressive school. Correlations between the 2 measures were positive and significant. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)