Search

With the current developments in modern web browsers, WebAssembly has been a rising trend over the last four years. Aimed at replacing bits of JavaScript functionality, it attempts to bring extra features to achieve portability and sandboxing through virtualisation. After the release of the WebAssembly System Interface, more and more projects have been working on using it outside web pages and browsers, in scenarios such as embedded, serverless, or distributed computing. This is thus not only relevant to the web and its clients, but also to applications in distributed systems. Considering the novelty of the topic, there is currently very little related scientific literature. With constant changes in development, proposals and goals, there is a large gap in relevant research. We aim to help bridge this gap by focusing on Rust and Arc-Lang, a domain-specific language for data analytics, in order to provide an overview of how far the technology has progressed, in addition to what runtimes there are and how they work. We investigate what kind of use case WebAssembly could have in the context of distributed systems, as well as how it can benefit data processing pipelines. Even though the technology is still immature at first glance, it is worth checking whether its proposals have been implemented, and how its performance compared to that of native Rust can affect data processing in a pipeline. We show this by benchmarking a filter program as part of a distributed container environment, while looking at different WebAssembly compilers such as Cranelift and LLVM. Then, we compare the resulting statistics to native Rust and present a synopsis of the state of WebAssembly in a distributed context., I takt med den nuvarande utvecklingen av moderna webbläsare har WebAssembly stigit i trend under de senaste fyra åren. WebAssembly har som syfte att ersätta och utöka JavaScript med funktionalitet som är portabel och isolerad från omvärlden genom virtualisering. Efter lanseringen av WebAssembly System Interface har fler och fler projekt börjat applicera WebAssembly utanför webbsidor och webbläsare, i scenarier som inbäddade, serverlösa eller distribuerade beräkningar. Detta har gjort WebAssembly till ett språk som inte bara är relevant för webben och dess användare, utan även för applikationer i distribuerade system. Med tanke på ämnets framkant finns det för närvarande väldigt lite relaterad vetenskaplig litteratur. Ständiga förändringar i utveckling, förslag och mål har resulterat i stort gap i relevant forskning. Vi strävar efter att hjälpa till att överbrygga denna klyfta genom att studera WebAssembly i perspektivet av Rust och Arc-Lang, ett domänspecifikt språk för dataanalys, för att ge en översikt över hur långt tekniken har kommit, och samt utreda vilka exekveringssystem som finns och hur de fungerar. Vi undersöker vilken typ av användning WebAssembly kan ha i samband med distribuerade system, samt hur det kan gynna databehandlingspipelines. Även om tekniken fortfarande är ny vid första anblicken, är det värt att kontrollera om dess förslag har implementerats och hur dess prestanda gentemot Rust kan påverka databehandling i en pipeline. Vi visar detta genom att benchmarka ett filtreringsprogram som en del av en distribuerad containermiljö, samtidigt som vi tittar på olika WebAssembly-kompilatorer som exempelvis Cranelift och LLVM. Vi jämför resultaten med Rust och presenterar en sammanfattning av WebAssemblys tillstånd i sammanhanget av distribuerade system.

There has been a shift towards the software-defined vehicle in the automotive industry in recent years. In order to enable the correct behaviour of critical as well as non-critical software functions, like those found in Autonomous Driving/Driver Assistance subsystems, extensive software testing needs to be performed. The usage of embedded hardware for these tests is either very expensive or takes a prohibitively long time in relation to the fast development cycles in the industry. To reduce development bottlenecks, test frameworks executed in cloud environments that leverage the scalability of the cloud are an essential part of the development process. However, relying on more performant cloud hardware for the majority of tests means that performance problems will only become apparent in later development phases when software is deployed to the real target. However, if the performance relation between executing in the cloud and on the embedded target can be approximated with sufficient precision, the expressiveness of the executed tests can be improved. Moreover, as a fully integrated system consists of a large number of software components that, at any given time, exhibit an unknown mix of best-/average-/worst-case behaviour, it is critical to know whether the performance relation differs depending on the inputs. In this paper, we examine the relative performance differences between a physical ARM-based chipset and a cloud-based ARM-based virtual machine, using a generic benchmark and 2 algorithms representative of typical automotive workloads, modified to generate best-/average-/worst-case behaviour in a reproducible and controlled way and assess the performance differences. We determine that the performance difference factor is between 1.8 and 3.6 for synthetic benchmarks and around 2.0-2.8 for more representative benchmarks. These results indicate that it may be possible to relate cloud to embedded performance with acceptable precision, especially when workload

Building operations and construction are responsible for a large part of global energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. In this paper, we present an analysis of the efficiency and productivity of the provision of school buildings by Dutch municipalities. A cost function is estimated for the years 2005–2016 using stochastic frontier methods based on data of Dutch municipalities. The results indicate that inefficiency and unproductiveness are substantial. The provision of school buildings on a more appropriate scale, detailed performance benchmarking and including more incentives for innovative behaviour may result in a more sustainable provision of school buildings and less energy use and emission of carbon dioxide., Economics of Technology and Innovation

This paper describes the implementation, testing and benchmarking of a new augmented reality prototype that gives drivers simulated direct vision, removing blind spots directly where they are present. Using augmented reality glasses and cameras we created a prototype that could effectively make parts of the truck see-through using augmented reality panels in space relative to the truck. We compare the performance of this prototype against the current standard European blind-spot mirror solution, in terms of not only judgement errors but also dangerous situations and task loads. The comparison was done on the basis of a within-subject experiment focused on right hand turning. Test results showed significantly fewer judgement errors and dangerous situations for the AR prototype when compared to mirrors, however at the cost of a slightly higher cognitive load and stress. We believe this could be caused by a learning curve difference between AR and mirrors for the professional drivers who made up our study participants. Despite the higher loads, participants perceived the AR as covering the blind spots well.

Industry is set to enter in a new revolution (Industry 4.0) backed by high inter-connectivity. Therefore, leveraging virtualization technology to deploy networks as virtualized network functions (VNFs) garnered attention. It helps the network operators and service providers to consolidate several VNFs on fewer of-The-shelf servers. This results in reducing the capital and operational expenditures while improving the resource efficiency. However, moving network functions from proprietary devices to standard servers comes with the profound cost of performance degradation. In order to overcome any performance issues to ensure service level agreement (SLA) requirements and before taking the solutions to real world, a sufficient verification and validation of VNFs is required. This is where Network Service benchmarking (NSB) plays a crucial role. NSB identifies any performance compromising bottlenecks by systematically evaluating the capacity of general purpose hardware resources, also know as network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), used to host single or multiple VNF instances. This paper presents a benchmarking methodology and framework to extract the correlation among the VNF quality of services (QoS) metrics and NFVI key performance indicators (KPls). For evaluation, VoerEir Touchstone platform is used to execute iPerf based benchmarking application to generate UDP based workload between VNFs. The results demonstrated that CPU utilization and L1-L3 cache memory are statistically correlated with packets dropped (0.43 and 0.47, respectively) and bandwidth utilization (0.99 and 0.92, respectively).

The transport industry is a primary contributor towards emissions that impact climate change. Fuel economy is also of critical importance to the profitability of road freight transport operators. Empirical evidence identified a variety of factors impacting fuel consumption, including route inclination, payload and truck driver behaviour. This creates the need for accurate fuel usage models and objective methods to distinguish the impact of drivers from other factors, in order to enable reliable driver performance assessment. We compiled a data set for 331 drivers completing 7332 trips over 21 routes to obtain evidence of the impact of route, payload and driver behaviour on fuel economy. We then extracted various regression and neural models for fuel economy and used these models to remove the impact of route inclination and payload, allowing the impact of driver performance to be measured more accurately. All models demonstrated significant out-of-sample predictive ability. Neural models in general outperformed regression models, while amongst neural models radial basis models slightly outperformed multi-layer perceptron models. The significance of compensating for factors not controlled by the driver was verified by demonstrating large differences in driver performance ranking before and after compensating for route inclination and payload

Increase in exports is essential for economic growth in developing countries. In Southern Africa the development of effective multi-national trade corridors is the single biggest stumbling block to achieve this objective. Continuous performance measurement of all key trade corridor activities will facilitate the identification and elimination of bottle necks that currently restrict the free flow of trade. This article describes a methodology to implement continuous corridor performance measurement as necessary step to achieve the larger goal of improved corridor performance and hence increase in exports. It is described how performance benchmarks for road freight transport were established by leveraging data that is available from existing systems operated by corridor users. We also discuss the challenges to establish a permanent system of corridor performance measurement that will include not only physical cargo movements but also the detailed transactions to move cargo across national borders and through ports

Benchmarking is a widely-used technique to quantify the performance of software systems. However, the design and implementation of a benchmarking study can face several challenges. In particular, the time required to perform a benchmarking study can quickly spiral out of control, owing to the number of distinct variables to systematically examine. In this paper, we propose IRIS, an IteRative and Intelligent Experiment Selection methodology, to maximize the information gain while minimizing the duration of the benchmarking process. IRIS selects the region to place the next experiment point based on the variability of both dependent, i.e., response, and independent variables in that region. It aims to identify a performance function that minimizes the response variable prediction error for a constant and limited experimentation budget. We evaluate IRIS for a wide selection of experimental, simulated and synthetic systems with one, two and three independent variables. Considering a limited experimentation budget, the results show IRIS is able to reduce the performance function prediction error up to 4:3 times compared to equal distance experiment point selection. Moreover, we show that the error reduction can further improve through system-specific parameter tuning. Analysis of the error distributions obtained with IRIS reveals that the technique is particularly effective in regions where the response variable is sensitive to changes in the independent variables

Transmit optimization and resource allocation for wireless cooperative networks with channel state information (CSI) uncertainty are important but challenging problems in terms of both the uncertainty modeling and performance optimization. In this paper, we establish a generic stochastic coordinated beamforming (SCB) framework that provides flexibility in the channel uncertainty modeling, while guaranteeing optimality in the transmission strategies. We adopt a general stochastic model for the CSI uncertainty, which is applicable for various practical scenarios. The SCB problem turns out to be a joint chance constrained program (JCCP) and is known to be highly intractable. In contrast to all of the previous algorithms for JCCP that can only find feasible but sub-optimal solutions, we propose a novel stochastic DC (difference-of-convex) programming algorithm with optimality guarantee, which can serve as the benchmark for evaluating heuristic and sub-optimal algorithms. The key observation is that the highly intractable probability constraint can be equivalently reformulated as a dc constraint. This further enables efficient algorithms to achieve optimality. Simulation results will illustrate the convergence, conservativeness, stability and performance gains of the proposed algorithm.

Diplomová práce bude věnována ověření teoretických znalostí z oblasti financí, při komparaci s praxí vybraných analyzovaných společností. Budou zde aplikována zlatá pravidla financování, poměrové ukazatele a výkonnost bude změřena prostřednictvím výkonového benchmarkingu. První část práce bude věnována teoretickému zpracování daných oblastí. Druhá část bude věnována daným analýzám. Závěrem práce budou nalezeny odpovědi na kladené otázky., My thesis will be focused on verifying of theoretical knowledge of finance while comparison with practise of chosen analysed companies. There will be applied the golden rules of financing ratio index applied and the efficency will be measured by power benchmarking. The first part of the thesis will be focused on the theoretical processing of the set range. The second part will be focused on the set analysis. In the conclusion there will be found the answers to the asked questions., Ústav podnikové ekonomiky a managementu, Studentka seznámila komisi s obsahem a cílem své diplomové práce. Cílem práce bylo zhodnocení vybraných firem z hlediska výkonnosti a navržení opatření ke zlepaení situace v podnicích. Studentka seznámila komisi se závěry práce a odpověděla na otázky položené vedoucím práce a oponentem práce:1. Čím si vysvětlíte značné výkyvy v rentabilitě společnosti Halko?2. Jaká opatření byste doporučila firmě Konsist, a.s. v oblasti přidané hodnoty na zaměstnance, kde zaznamenává od roku 2011 prudký pokles.3. Autorka v teoretické části popisuje a v praktické části i aplikuje tzv. zlaté bilanční poměrové pravidlo . Z textu práce nevyplývá, jaké byly a jakým způsobem stanovila hodnoty ročních investic za účelem propočtu tempa růstu investic. Stejně tak u dalaích vstupních hodnot, tj. tržeb, není zřejmé, které kategorie výnosů do nich autorka zahrnula. ¨4. Autorka (na str. 52) aplikovala na podnik BAK stavební společnost, a.s. Altmanův model Z score, který byl vytvořen pro akciové společnosti obchodované na akciových trzích. Tržní hodnota vlastního kapitálu, která vstupuje do propočtu, pak musí být v ČR odvozena z BCPP nebo RM systému. Zmíněná společnost ovaem nemá veřejně obchodovatelné akcie, tudíž by bylo vhodnějaí využít jiný Altmanův model, který?

This paper provides a global overview of the radiofrequency (RF) performance potential of carbon-nanotube field-effect transistors (CNFET), which for the first time includes the impact of noise. We develop noise and manufacturing process variability extensions for the Stanford CNFET compact model, implemented in Verilog-A and compatible with conventional circuit simulators. CNFET figures-of-merit (FoM) are determined both on the device and on the circuit level. Compared to silicon technology, CNFET devices show much better performance in terms of most of the RF-CMOS requirements of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. FoM projections for basic RF building blocks (low-noise amplifier and oscillator) show that good performance can already be obtained with simple circuit topologies. The main advantage of CNFET circuits yet lies in easily reaching operation frequencies of several hundreds of gigahertz, which are hard to be exploited by silicon technologies at similar technology nodes., Postprint (published version)

Diplomová práce se zabývá hodnocením konkurenceschopnosti společnosti Lékárny HERBA s.r.o. Tato společnost působí na trhu s lékárenskou péčí v lékárnách základního typu přes 20 let. První část práce vymezuje základní pojmy spojené s konkurenceschopností, jako konkurence, konkurenční výhoda či konkurenční strategie. Dále popisuje vybrané metody hodnocení konkurenceschopnosti společnosti. Druhá část se zaměřuje na charakteristiku společnosti a především na hodnocení konkurenceschopnosti společnosti Lékárny HERBA s.r.o. Následně na hodnocení konkurenceschopnosti navazuje zhodnocení provedených metod a vzájemné porovnání dosažených výsledků., Diploma thesis concentrates on the evaluation of the competitiveness of company Lékárny HERBA s.r.o. This company operates in the market with pharmaceutical care in pharmacies basic type over 20 years. The first part of the thesis defines basic the terms associated with competitiveness, as competitions, competitive advantage or competitive strategy. It also describes some methods of evaluation competitiveness. The second part concentrates on the characteristics of the company and especially the evaluation of the competitiveness of the company Lékárny HERBA s.r.o. Subsequently on the evaluation of the competitiveness follows evaluation methods performed and comparison of results achieved., Ústav podnikové ekonomiky a managementu, Název diplomové práce: Hodnocení konkurenceschopnosti vybrané lékárny. Cílem práce je hodnocení konkurenceschopnosti lékárny HERBA s. r. o. metodou finanční analýzy a benchmarkingu.Otázky vedoucí práce: 1) Na straně 66 uvádíte (obr. 4-18), že ukazatel ROS u firmy HERBA s. r. o. oproti firmě BENU ČR a. s. má poměrně strmý propad v letech 2010-2011. Čím si tuto skutečnost vysvětlujete? 2) Jak hodnotíte konkurenceschopnost lékárny HERBA s. r. o. ve srovnání s konkurenční firmou na základě využití metody benchmarkingu? Má toto hodnocení nějaká omezení? Pokud ano, tak v čem. Otázka oponenta práce: 1) Hodnota ukazatele produktivita práce ve sledované firmě neustále klesá. V rámci doporučení jste stanovila hodnotu tohoto ukazatele, kterou by firma měla během 3 let dosáhnout. Uveďte konkrétní způsoby, pomocí nichž by firma mohla produktivitu práce zlepšit.

Space heating is the largest energy end use, consuming more than 7 quintillion joules of site energy annually in the U.S. building sector. A few recent studies showed discrepancies in simulated space-heating energy use among different building energy modeling programs, and the simulated results are suspected to be underpredicting reality. While various uncertainties are associated with building simulations, especially when simulations are performed by different modelers using different simulation programs for buildings with different configurations, it is crucial to identify and evaluate key driving factors to space-heating energy use in order to support the design and operation of low-energy buildings. In this study, 10 design and operation parameters for space-heating systems of two prototypical office buildings in each of three U.S. heating climates are identified and evaluated, using building simulations with EnergyPlus, to determine the most influential parameters and their impacts on variations of space-heating energy use. The influence of annual weather change on space-heating energy is also investigated using 30-year actual weather data. The simulated space-heating energy use is further benchmarked against those from similar actual office buildings in two U.S. commercial-building databases to better understand the discrepancies between simulated and actual energy use. In summary, variations of both the simulated and actual space-heating energy use of office buildings in all three heating climates can be very large. However these variations are mostly driven by a few influential parameters related to building design and operation. The findings provide insights for building designers, owners, operators, and energy policy makers to make better decisions on energy-efficiency technologies to reduce space-heating energy use for both new and existing buildings.

This paper uses Australian data from 1984 to 1993 to show that the long-run underperformance of seasoned equity offerings is related to the definition of ‘long-run’. We demonstrate that following the period delimited by other writers as the long-run, issuing firms turn around in their performance and in fact outperform their corresponding benchmarks, sometimes more than making up for the initial losses. We show that the initial underperformance affects the issues of companies performing more than one seasoned equity offering (SEO) in a similar fashion. Our results, the first to examine Australian long-run SEO performance, show that underperformance of Australian seasoned equity issues is dependent on the definition of the ‘long-run’. (Allen and Patrick [D.E. Allen, M. Patrick, Some further Australian evidence on the long-run performance of initial public offerings: 1974–1984, Pac. Basin Financ. Markets 2A (1996) 133–155. [1]] examined long-run IPO performance.) When long-run is defined as 12 years instead of the usual 5 years, SEOs can be clearly seen to turn around their performance particularly during years six and seven. A series of regression results point to a number of factors that bear influence on the extent of the initial underperformance. Decreased ex-ante uncertainty associated with older firms causes a negative relationship between the age and the extent of underpricing. Moreover, the greater is the SEO cost specifically associated with underpricing of the new equity, the greater is the underperformance that follows the issue.

In this paper we analyse the performance of fixed interest managed funds. We examine five measurement models across three risk-free proxies, nine benchmarks (covering conditional and unconditional as well as single and multi factor definitions) over two independent periods in an effort to identify (in a consistent setting) the most accurate and least biased methodology. The use of an Australian dataset, sourced from the Australian fund-rating agency ASSIRT means that we can provide some independent results from US studies of these. There is little prior work on Australian fixed-interest managed funds. We examine three risk-free proxies, six benchmark classes encompassing twenty-one potential factors, across five models and two independent time frames. The task is complicated by two issues – an acute lack of Australian data (demanding additional bootstrap simulations and bridging tests with the US markets) and the need for a two-pass (time-series and cross-sectional) analysis, arising from the different information content benchmarks carry in these two dimensions. The results, consistent across time, show that a correct combination of a bond market variable, a mixture of interest rate factors and economic factors as well as the proxy for movements in the equity markets yield the optimal benchmark.

In this paper we analyse the performance of Australian fixed interest managed funds by examining the relative effectiveness of various indices of bond performance which are combined with various measures of: interest rate fluctuations, economic fundamentals, maturity risk, default risk, and equity market returns, in an attempt to find an ‘optimum’ index. Our dataset is sourced from the Australian fund-rating agency ASSIRT. We show that a correct combination of a bond market variable, a mixture of interest rate factors and economic factors as well as a proxy for movements in the equity markets yield the optimal benchmark.

Allen, D., & Soucik, V. (2003). Performance benchmarking Australian fixed interest funds : some optimal factors. Joondalup, Australia: Edith Cowan University.

Allen, D., & Soucik, V. (2003). Performance benchmarking Australian fixed interest funds : some optimal factors. Joondalup, Australia: Edith Cowan University.