Integration of GPU Computing in a Software Radio Environment

This article studies the integration of Graphics Processing Units in a Software Defined Radio environment. Two main solutions are considered, based on two levels of granularity for the parallelization. First, a fine grain parallelism solution, which is an extension of the existing solutions but adapted to operations of large computational complexity, is proposed. Second, an original solution based on coarse grain approach allowing better usage of the computing resources and easier parallelism extraction is described. For both solutions, scheduling and communication design as well as implementation are given, along with integration in the environment. Both solutions have been implemented and compared on different operations types and on multi-operations sequences. It is clearly shown that using the second solution can provide performance improvement, while the first one is not adapted to SDR applications.     

Capital and operating costs of full-scale fecal sludge management and wastewater treatment systems in Dakar, Senegal

A financial comparison of a parallel sewer based (SB) system with activated sludge, and a fecal sludge management (FSM) system with onsite septic tanks, collection and transport (C&T) trucks, and drying beds was conducted. The annualized capital for the SB ($42.66 capita(-1) year(-1)) was ten times higher than the FSM ($4.05 capita(-1) year(-1)), the annual operating cost for the SB ($11.98 capita(-1) year(-1)) was 1.5 times higher than the FSM ($7.58 capita(-1) year(-1)), and the combined capital and operating for the SB ($54.64 capita(-1) year(-1)) was five times higher than FSM ($11.63 capita(-1) year(-1)). In Dakar, costs for SB are almost entirely borne by the sanitation utility, with only 6% of the annualized cost borne by users of the system. In addition to costing less overall, FSM operates with a different business model, with costs spread among households, private companies, and the utility. Hence, SB was 40 times more expensive to implement for the utility than FSM. However, the majority of FSM costs are borne at the household level and are inequitable. The results of the study illustrate that in low-income countries, vast improvements in sanitation can be affordable when employing FSM, whereas SB systems are prohibitively expensive.     

Influence of physico-chemical,mechanical and morphological fingerpad properties on the frictional distinction of sticky/slippery surfaces

This study investigates how the fingerpad hydrolipid film, shape, roughness and rigidity influence the friction when it rubs surfaces situated in the slippery psychophysical dimension. The studied counterparts comprised two ‘real’ (physical) surfaces and two ‘virtual’ surfaces. The latter were simulated with a tactile stimulator named STIMTAC. Thirteen women and 13 men rubbed their right forefingers against the different surfaces as their arms were displaced by a DC motor providing constant velocity and sliding distance. Tangential and normal forces were measured with a specific tribometer. The fingerpad hydrolipid film was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The shape and roughness of fingers were extrapolated from replicas. Indentation measurements were carried out to determine fingerpad effective elastic modulus. A clear difference was observed between women and men in terms of friction behaviour. The concept of tactile frictional contrast (TFC) which was introduced quantifies an individual''s propensity to distinguish two surfaces frictionally. The lipids/water ratio and water amount on the finger skin significantly influenced the TFC. A correlation was observed between the TFC and fingerpad roughness, i.e. the height of the fingerpad ridges. This is essentially owing to gender differences. A significant difference between men''s and women''s finger topography was also noted, because our results suggested that men have rougher fingers than women. The friction measurements did not correlate with the fingerpad curvature nor with the epidermal ridges'' spatial period.     

A 2D unstructured multi-material Cell-Centered Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (CCALE) scheme using MOF interface reconstruction

We present an original Cell-Centered Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (CCALE) strategy using the Moment Of Fluid (MOF) interface reconstruction devoted to the numerical simulation of two-dimensional multi-material compressible fluid flows on general unstructured grids. Our methodology is assessed through several demanding two-dimensional tests and comparison with Volume Of Fluid (VOF) interface reconstruction. The corresponding numerical results provide a clear evidence of the robustness and the accuracy of this new scheme.     

A high-order one-step sub-cell force-based discretization for cell-centered Lagrangian hydrodynamics on polygonal grids

We present a one-step high-order cell-centered numerical scheme for solving Lagrangian hydrodynamics equations on unstructured grids. The underlying finite volume discretization is constructed through the use of the sub-cell force concept invoking conservation and thermodynamic consistency. The high-order extension is performed using a one-step discretization, wherein the fluxes are computed by means of a Taylor expansion. The time derivatives of the fluxes are obtained through the use of a node-centered solver which can be viewed as a two-dimensional extension of the Generalized Riemann Problem methodology introduced by Ben-Artzi and Falcovitz.     

Mixing of concrete or mortars: Dispersive aspects

This article describes an experimental methodology offering mixing efficiency criteria for granular materials in terms of their dispersion capability. This methodology is based on the analysis of the dispersion kinetics of colored, cohesive, tracer particles that progressively disagglomerate during stirring. The effects of certain critical parameters such as the mixer speed and the type of mixer are described. In terms of the mix design, the contribution of the largest particles to the dispersion kinetics, and therefore to the mixing efficiency, is highlighted. A simple comparison of the mixing efficiency of mixer/mix design/procedure sets is finally provided for such cementitious granular materials.     

Constraint-based learning for non-parametric continuous bayesian networks

Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence - Modeling high-dimensional multivariate distributions is a computationally challenging task. In the discrete case, Bayesian networks have been...