This book describes state-of-the-art techniques for designing real-time computer systems. The author shows how to estimate precisely the effect of cache architecture on the execution time of a program, how to dispatch workload on multicore processors to optimize resources, while meeting deadline constraints, and how to use closed-form mathematical approaches to characterize highly variable workloads and their interaction in a networked environment. Readers will learn how to deal with unpredictable timing behaviors of computer systems on different levels of system granularity and abstraction.

Creativity in Computing and DataFlow Supercomputing, the latest release in the Advances in Computers series published since 1960, presents detailed coverage of innovations in computer hardware, software, theory, design, and applications. In addition, it provides contributors with a medium in which they can explore topics in greater depth and breadth than journal articles typically allow. As a result, many articles have become standard references that continue to be of significant, lasting value in this rapidly expanding field.

This book examines some of the underlying processes behind different forms of information management, including how we store information in our brains, the impact of new technologies such as computers and robots on our efficiency in storing information, and how information is stored in families and in society. The editors brought together experts from a variety of disciplines. While it is generally agreed that information reduces uncertainties and that the ability to store it safely is of vital importance, these authors are open to different meanings of "information": computer science considers the bit as the information block; neuroscience emphasizes the importance of information as sensory inputs that are processed and transformed in the brain; theories in psychology focus more on individual learning and on the acquisition of knowledge; and finally sociology looks at how interpersonal processes within groups or society itself come to the fore. The book will be of value to researchers and students in the areas of information theory, artificial intelligence, and computational neuroscience.

This book discusses the design and performance analysis of SDRAM controllers that cater to both real-time and best-effort applications, i.e. mixed-time-criticality memory controllers. The authors describe the state of the art, and then focus on an architecture template for reconfigurable memory controllers that addresses effectively the quickly evolving set of SDRAM standards, in terms of worst-case timing and power analysis, as well as implementation. A prototype implementation of the controller in SystemC and synthesizable VHDL for an FPGA development board are used as a proof of concept of the architecture template.

This two-part book puts the spotlight on how a real-time kernel works using Micrium's C/OS-III kernel as a reference. Part I includes an overview of the operation of real-time kernels, and walks through various aspects of C/OS-III implementation and usage. Part II provides application examples (using the versatile Renesas YRDKRX62N Evaluation Board, available separately) that enable readers to rapidly develop their own prototypes. This book is written for serious embedded systems programmers, consultants, hobbyists, and students interested in understanding the inner workings of a real-time kernel. C/OS-III is not just a great learning platform, but also a full commercial-grade software package, ready to be part of a wide range of products. C/OS-III is a highly portable, ROMable, scalable, preemptive real-time, multitasking kernel designed specifically to address the demanding requirements of today 's embedded systems. C/OS-III is the successor to the highly popular C/OS-II real-time kernel but can use most of C/OS-II 's ports with minor modifications. Some of the features of C/OS-III are:

Preemptive multitasking with round-robin scheduling of tasks at the same priority
Supports and unlimited number of tasks and other kernel objects
Rich set of services: semaphores, mutual exclusion semaphores with full priority inheritance, event flags, message queues, timers, fixed-size memory block management, and more.
Built-in performance measurements

This volume gives an overview of the state-of-the-art with respect to the development of all types of parallel computers and their application to a wide range of problem areas.

The international conference on parallel computing ParCo97 (Parallel Computing 97) was held in Bonn, Germany from 19 to 22 September 1997. The first conference in this biannual series was held in 1983 in Berlin. Further conferences were held in Leiden (The Netherlands), London (UK), Grenoble (France) and Gent (Belgium).

From the outset the aim with the ParCo (Parallel Computing) conferences was to promote the application of parallel computers to solve real life problems. In the case of ParCo97 a new milestone was reached in that more than half of the papers and posters presented were concerned with application aspects. This fact reflects the coming of age of parallel computing.

Some 200 papers were submitted to the Program Committee by authors from all over the world. The final programme consisted of four invited papers, 71 contributed scientific/industrial papers and 45 posters. In addition a panel discussion on Parallel Computing and the Evolution of Cyberspace was held. During and after the conference all final contributions were refereed. Only those papers and
posters accepted during this final screening process are included in this volume.

The practical emphasis of the conference was accentuated by an industrial exhibition where companies demonstrated the newest developments in parallel processing equipment and software. Speakers from participating companies presented papers in industrial sessions in which new developments in parallel computing were reported.

Grid and cloud computing both facilitate an increase in computing resources by the development of new connections to existing systems. Evolving Developments in Grid and Cloud Computing: Advancing Research contains investigations of grid and cloud evolution, workflow management, and the impact new computing systems have on education and industry. Targeted at both researchers and IT professionals, this book provides current trends and emerging issues in cloud and grid architectures, standards and performance analysis.

This book-presents new methods and tools for the integration and simulation of smart devices. The design approach described in this book explicitly accounts for integration of Smart Systems components and subsystems as a specific constraint. It includes methodologies and EDA tools to enable multi-disciplinary and multi-scale modeling and design, simulation of multi-domain systems, subsystems and components at all levels of abstraction, system integration and exploration for optimization of functional and non-functional metrics. By covering theoretical and practical aspects of smart device design, this book targets people who are working and studying on hardware/software modelling, component integration and simulation under different positions (system integrators, designers, developers, researchers, teachers, students etc.). In particular, it is a good introduction to people who have interest in managing heterogeneous components in an efficient and effective way on different domains and different abstraction levels. People active in smart device development can understand both the current status of practice and future research directions. * Provides a comprehensive overview of smart systems design, focusing on design challenges and cutting-edge solutions; * Enables development of a co-simulation and co-design environment that accounts for the peculiarities of the basic subsystems and components to be integrated; * Describes development of modeling and design techniques, methods and tools that enable multi-domain simulation and optimization at various levels of abstraction and across different technological domains.

Modern applications of logic, in mathematics, theoretical computer science, and linguistics, require combined systems involving many different logics working together. In this book the author offers a basic methodology for combining - or fibring - systems. This means that many existing complex systems can be broken down into simpler components, hence making them much easier to manipulate.

Readers seeking to gain a handle on the internet's global expansion will find this book rich in scholarly foundations combined with cutting-edge discussion of emerging ICTs and services and the complex societal contexts in which they are embedded. To explore possibilities to the fullest extent, a sociotechnical systems approach is employed, focusing on the interplay of technical, social, cultural, political, and economic dynamics to explore alternative futures (ones that are not part of the dominant discourse about the internet). These shared perspectives are not well addressed elsewhere in current discussions. Awareness of these dynamics, and the fluidity of the future, is important, as humankind moves forward into the uncertain future. Due to the sociotechnical complexity of the Internet, policymakers, businesspeople, and academics worldwide have struggled to keep abreast of developments. This volume's approach is intended to stimulate dialogue between academics and practitioners on a topic that will affect most aspects of human life in the near-term future.

This book introduces a new level of abstraction that closes the gap between the textual specification of embedded systems and the executable model at the Electronic System Level (ESL). Readers will be enabled to operate at this new, Formal Specification Level (FSL), using models which not only allow significant verification tasks in this early stage of the design flow, but also can be extracted semi-automatically from the textual specification in an interactive manner. The authors explain how to use these verification tasks to check conceptual properties, e.g. whether requirements are in conflict, as well as dynamic behavior, in terms of execution traces.

This thesis focuses on the problem of optimizing the quality of network multimedia services. This problem spans multiple domains, from subjective perception of multimedia quality to computer networks management. The work done in this thesis approaches the problem at different levels, developing methods for modeling the subjective perception of quality based on objectively measurable parameters of the multimedia coding process as well as the transport over computer networks. The modeling of subjective perception is motivated by work done in psychophysics, while using Machine Learning techniques to map network conditions to the human perception of video services. Furthermore, the work develops models for efficient control of multimedia systems operating in dynamic networked environments with the goal of delivering optimized Quality of Experience. Overall this thesis delivers a set of methods for monitoring and optimizing the quality of multimedia services that adapt to the dynamic environment of computer networks in which they operate.

Covering system architecture, implementation and testing, this work is written by authors who are widely experienced with cellular radio in general and with GSM in particular. It provides a structured overview to help make sense of the GSM specifications and surveys competing cellular systems such as NADC and CDMA. Practical testing applications are explored in depth and compared with similar techniques used with analogue cellular systems.

This book presents techniques necessary to predict cardiac arrhythmias, long before they occur, based on minimal ECG data. The authors describe the key information needed for automated ECG signal processing, including ECG signal pre-processing, feature extraction and classification. The adaptive and novel ECG processing techniques introduced in this book are highly effective and suitable for real-time implementation on ASICs.

This book discusses analysis, design and optimization techniques for streaming multiprocessor systems, while satisfying a given area, performance, and energy budget. The authors describe design flows for both application-specific and general purpose streaming systems. Coverage also includes the use of machine learning for thermal optimization at run-time, when an application is being executed. The design flow described in this book extends to thermal and energy optimization with multiple applications running sequentially and concurrently.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of both theoretical and pragmatic aspects of resource-allocation and scheduling in multiprocessor and multicore hard-real-time systems. The authors derive new, abstract models of real-time tasks that capture accurately the salient features of real application systems that are to be implemented on multiprocessor platforms, and identify rules for mapping application systems onto the most appropriate models. New run-time multiprocessor scheduling algorithms are presented, which are demonstrably better than those currently used, both in terms of run-time efficiency and tractability of off-line analysis. Readers will benefit from a new design and analysis framework for multiprocessor real-time systems, which will translate into a significantly enhanced ability to provide formally verified, safety-critical real-time systems at a significantly lower cost.

This thesis takes an empirical approach to understanding of the behavior and interactions between the two main components of reinforcement learning: the learning algorithm and the functional representation of learned knowledge. The author approaches these entities using design of experiments not commonly employed to study machine learning methods. The results outlined in this work provide insight as to what enables and what has an effect on successful reinforcement learning implementations so that this learning method can be applied to more challenging problems.

This book offers readers comprehensive coverage of security policy specification using new policy languages, implementation of security policies in Systems-on-Chip (SoC) designs - current industrial practice, as well as emerging approaches to architecting SoC security policies and security policy verification. The authors focus on a promising security architecture for implementing security policies, which satisfies the goals of flexibility, verification, and upgradability from the ground up, including a plug-and-play hardware block in which all policy implementations are enclosed. Using this architecture, they discuss the ramifications of designing SoC security policies, including effects on non-functional properties (power/performance), debug, validation, and upgrade. The authors also describe a systematic approach for "hardware patching", i.e., upgrading hardware implementations of security requirements safely, reliably, and securely in the field, meeting a critical need for diverse Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Provides comprehensive coverage of SoC security requirements, security policies, languages, and security architecture for current and emerging computing devices; Explodes myths and ambiguities in SoC security policy implementations, and provide a rigorous treatment of the subject; Demonstrates a rigorous, step-by-step approach to developing a diversity of SoC security policies; Introduces a rigorous, disciplined approach to "hardware patching", i.e., secure technique for updating hardware functionality of computing devices in-field; Includes discussion of current and emerging approaches for security policy verification.

Blockchain is a technology that transcends cryptocurrencies. There are other services in different sectors of the economy that can benefit from the trust and security that blockchains offer. For example, financial institutions are using blockchains for international money transfer, and in logistics, it has been used for supply chain management and tracking of goods. As more global companies and governments are experimenting and deploying blockchain solutions, it is necessary to compile knowledge on the best practices, strategies, and failures in order to create a better awareness of how blockchain could either support or add value to other services. Cross-Industry Use of Blockchain Technology and Opportunities for the Future provides emerging research highlighting the possibilities inherent in blockchain for different sectors of the economy and the added value blockchain can provide for the future of these different sectors. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as data privacy, information sharing, and digital identity, this book is ideally designed for IT specialists, consultants, design engineers, cryptographers, service designers, researchers, academics, government officials, and industry professionals.

For the first time in a single reference, this book provides the beginner with a coherent and logical introduction to the hardware and software of the PIC32, bringing together key material from the PIC32 Reference Manual, Data Sheets, XC32 C Compiler User's Guide, Assembler and Linker Guide, MIPS32 CPU manuals, and Harmony documentation. This book also trains you to use the Microchip documentation, allowing better life-long learning of the PIC32. The philosophy is to get you started quickly, but to emphasize fundamentals and to eliminate "magic steps" that prevent a deep understanding of how the software you write connects to the hardware. Applications focus on mechatronics: microcontroller-controlled electromechanical systems incorporating sensors and actuators. To support a learn-by-doing approach, you can follow the examples throughout the book using the sample code and your PIC32 development board. The exercises at the end of each chapter help you put your new skills to practice. Coverage includes: A practical introduction to the C programming language Getting up and running quickly with the PIC32 An exploration of the hardware architecture of the PIC32 and differences among PIC32 families Fundamentals of embedded computing with the PIC32, including the build process, time- and memory-efficient programming, and interrupts A peripheral reference, with extensive sample code covering digital input and output, counter/timers, PWM, analog input, input capture, watchdog timer, and communication by the parallel master port, SPI, I2C, CAN, USB, and UART An introduction to the Microchip Harmony programming framework Essential topics in mechatronics, including interfacing sensors to the PIC32, digital signal processing, theory of operation and control of brushed DC motors, motor sizing and gearing, and other actuators such as stepper motors, RC servos, and brushless DC motors For more information on the book, and to download free sample code, please visit http://www.nu32.org

This book highlights how real-time kernels work, using Micrium s C/OS-III as a reference. The book consists of two parts: Part I describes real-time kernels in generic terms, while Part II provides practical examples using NXP s LPC1768 Microcontroller, based on the ARM Cortex M3(rev 2) architecture. A companion evaluation board (Keil MCB1700) and IDE (Keil MDK Evaluation Version) enable the reader to quickly and easily evaluate the microcontroller, tools and RTOS. A range of examples are included, providing a unique hands-on experience, and leading to a faster and better understanding of the concepts presented in the book.

This book is written for serious embedded systems programmers, consultants, hobbyists, and students interested in understanding the inner workings of a real-time kernel. C/OS-III is not just a great learning platform, but also a full commercial-grade software package, ready to be part of a wide range of products.

C/OS-III is a highly portable, ROMable, scalable, preemptive real-time, multitasking kernel designed specifically to address the demanding requirements of today s embedded systems. C/OS-III is the successor to the highly popular C/OS-II real-time kernel but can use most of C/OS-II s ports with minor modifications. Some of the features of C/OS-III are:

Preemptive multitasking with round-robin scheduling of tasks at the same priority
Supports and unlimited number of tasks and other kernel objects
Rich set of services: semaphores, mutual exclusion semaphores with full priority inheritance, event flags, message queues, timers, fixed-size memory block management, and more.
Built-in performance measurements

This book puts the spotlight on how a real-time kernel works using Micrium s C/OS-III as a reference. The book consists of two complete parts. The first describes real-time kernels in generic terms. Part II provide examples for the reader, using Texas Instruments EVM-EVALBOT, a small, robotic evaluation board. The board is based on the Stellaris LM3S9B92 which combines the popular ARM Cortex-M3(r) architecture with Ethernet MAC+PHY, USB OTG (On-The-Go), and I2S. Together with the IAR Systems Embedded Workbench for ARM development tools, the evaluation board provides everything necessary to enable the reader to be up and running quickly, as well as a fun and educational experience, resulting in a high-level of proficiency in a short time.

This book is written for serious embedded systems programmers, consultants, hobbyists, and students interested in understanding the inner workings of a real-time kernel. C/OS-III is not just a great learning platform, but also a full commercial-grade software package, ready to be part of a wide range of products.

C/OS-III is a highly portable, ROMable, scalable, preemptive real-time, multitasking kernel designed specifically to address the demanding requirements of today s embedded systems. C/OS-III is the successor to the highly popular C/OS-II real-time kernel but can use most of C/OS-II s ports with minor modifications. Some of the features of C/OS-III are:

Preemptive multitasking with round-robin scheduling of tasks at the same priority
Supports and unlimited number of tasks and other kernel objects
Rich set of services: semaphores, mutual exclusion semaphores with full priority inheritance, event flags, message queues, timers, fixed-size memory block management, and more. Built-in performance measurements