Hörsaalmanagement

An innovative system for efficient lecture-room scheduling is introduced. The core of the system is a new mathematical model. For the solution a column generation approach is presented. A numerical investigation shows that the approach has a very high solution quality. All considered instances of the problem are solved almost optimally within reasonable time. For the application an internet-based system has been developed. All processes of information, communication, and scheduling are implemented in the system.     

A thermodynamic model of the Z-phase Cr(V, Nb)N

Precipitation of large Z-phase particles, Cr(V, Nb)N, replacing fine MX carbonitrides, Nb(C, N) or V(N, C), has recently been identified as a major cause for premature breakdown in long-term creep strength of a number of new 9%–12% Cr martensitic steels, especially the high Cr variants.

A thermodynamic model of the Z-phase has been developed based on the regular solution model. The model predicts Z-phase to be stable and to fully replace the MX particles in most of the new 9%–12% Cr steels, which is in good agreement with experimental observations.

The rate of precipitation of Z-phase is a crucial factor for the long-term creep stability of these steels. Driving force calculations with the model allow estimates of the influence of the individual alloying elements on the rate of Z-phase precipitation, and can thus contribute useful information for alloy design to delay and retard Z-phase precipitation.

According to these calculations, particularly Cr has a strong accelerating effect on Z-phase precipitation.     

Software Tools for DNA Sequence Design

The design of DNA sequences is a key problem for implementing molecular self-assembly with nucleic acid molecules. These molecules must meet several physical, chemical and logical requirements, mainly to avoid mishybridization. Since manual selection of proper sequences is too time-consuming for more than a handful of molecules, the aid of computer programs is advisable. In this paper two software tools for designing DNA sequences are presented, the DNASequenceGenerator and the DNASequenceCompiler. Both employ an approach of sequence dissimilarity based on the uniqueness of overlapping subsequences and a graph based algorithm for sequence generation. Other sequence properties like melting temperature or forbidden subsequences are also regarded, but not secondary structure errors or equilibrium chemistry. Fields of application are DNA computing and DNA-based nanotechnology. In the second part of this paper, sequences generated with the DNASequenceGenerator are compared to those from several publications of other groups, an example application for the DNASequenceCompiler is presented, and the advantages and disadvantages of the presented approach are discussed.     

Efficient co-processor utilization in database query processing

Specialized processing units such as GPUs or FPGAs provide great opportunities to speed up database operations by exploiting parallelism and relieving the CPU. However, distributing a workload on suitable (co-)processors is a challenging task, because of the heterogeneous nature of a hybrid processor/co-processor system. In this paper, we present a framework that automatically learns and adapts execution models for arbitrary algorithms on any (co-)processor. Our physical optimizer uses the execution models to distribute a workload of database operators on available (co-)processing devices. We demonstrate its applicability for two common use cases in modern database systems. Additionally, we contribute an overview of GPU-co-processing approaches, an in-depth discussion of our framework's operator model, the required steps for deploying our framework in practice and the support of complex operators requiring multi-dimensional learning strategies.