Joint‐analysis of performance and energy consumption when enabling cloud elasticity for synchronous HPC applications

A key characteristic of cloud computing is elasticity, automatically adjusting system resources to an application's workload. Both reactive and horizontal approaches represent traditional means to offer this capability, in which rule‐condition‐action statements and upper and lower thresholds occur to instantiate or consolidate compute nodes and virtual machines. Although elasticity can be beneficial for many HPC (high‐performance computing) scenarios, it also imposes significant challenges in the development of applications. In addition to issues related to how we can incorporate this new feature in such applications, there is a problem associated with the performance and resource pair and, consequently, with energy consumption. Further exploring this last difficulty, we must be capable of analyzing elasticity effectiveness as a function of employed thresholds with clear metrics to compare elastic and non‐elastic executions properly. In this context, this article explores elasticity metrics in two ways: (i) the use of a cost function that combines application time with different energy models; (ii) the extension of speedup and efficiency metrics, commonly used to evaluate parallel systems, to cover cloud elasticity. To accomplish (i) and (ii), we developed an elasticity model known as AutoElastic, which reorganizes resources automatically across synchronous parallel applications. The results, obtained with the AutoElastic prototype using the OpenNebula middleware, are encouraging. Considering a CPU‐bound application, an upper threshold close to 70% was the best option for obtaining good performance with a non‐prohibitive elasticity cost. In addition, the value of 90% for this threshold was the best option when we plan an efficiency‐driven execution. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Epoxidized Soybean Oil: Evaluation of Oxidative Stabilization and Metal Quenching/Heat Transfer Performance

Vegetable and animal oils as a class of fluids have been used for hundreds of years, if not longer, as quenchants for hardening steel. However, when petroleum oils became available in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the use of these fluids as quenchants, in addition to their use in other industrial oil applications, quickly diminished. This was primarily, but not exclusively, due to their generally very poor thermal-oxidative instability and the difficulty for formulating fluid analogs with varying viscosity properties. Interest in the use of renewable fluids, such as vegetable oils, has increased dramatically in recent years as alternatives to the use of relatively non-biodegradable and toxic petroleum oils. However, the relatively poor thermal-oxidative stability has continued to be a significant reason for their general non-acceptance in the marketplace. Soybean oil (SO) is one of the most highly produced vegetable oils in Brazil. Currently, there are commercially produced epoxidized versions of SO which are available. The objective of this paper is to discuss the potential use of epoxidized SO and its heat transfer properties as a viable alternative to petroleum oils for hardening steel.     

Legacy of Cyanide and ARD at a Low-Scale Gold Mine (Furtei, Italy)

A gold deposit was exploited from 1997 to 2003 at Furtei, Sardinia (Italy). Gold and silver were recovered from oxidized ores by cyanidation; copper concentrates were separated from the sulfide ores by flotation. Following unplanned closure, sulfide-rich materials derived from mining and processing residues were left on site. During operation, cyanide solutions were disposed of in a tailings impoundment. The cyanide underwent natural degradation so that by 2011, cyanide concentrations in the tailings impoundment and seeps were below the Italian limit for industrial effluents. However, during the rainy season, sulfide-rich materials in the waste rock dumps produce extreme acidic solutions and concentrations of some dissolved contaminants, especially ammonium, aluminum, arsenic, copper, iron and manganese, still exceed discharge criteria in the tailings impoundment and seeps. Highly contaminated drainage flows downstream from the mine and poses a hazard to agricultural areas.     

Experimental and Numerical Study of High-Altitude Ignition of a Turbojet Combustor

This paper aims at contributing to the methodology used for the numerical prediction of ignition inside a combustion chamber. For this purpose, experiments are carried out in a model combustor with improved optical access. Laser tomography and high-speed video give a first insight into the unsteady airflow and the flame structure. Laser Doppler anemometry is used to measure the gas flow velocity field, and the nonreactive two-phase flow is studied in detail using particle Doppler analysis. The velocity field of the burning spray is measured using particle image velocimetry. Ignition tests are performed to evaluate the minimum global equivalence ratio. This in-depth database is used to validate RANS simulations conducted in parallel using the ONERA computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code CEDRE. The numerical model for transient, spherical kernel ignition, proposed in previous work, has been improved and fully implemented in CEDRE. A first parametric study has been conducted on a basic configuration consisting of three validation cases: a gaseous mixture, a monodisperse spray, and a polydisperse spray. These validation cases are inspired from previous studies found in the literature and give a better understanding of the basic phenomena involved in the first stages of flame propagation. This model is then used in combination with CEDRE to estimate the ignition probability of given spark-plug positions in a more realistic configuration: the MERCATO combustor.     

Experimental validation of an optical and thermal model of a linear Fresnel collector system

This paper describes the design and validation of a mathematical model for a solar Fresnel collector. The function of the model is to simulate the optical and thermal dynamics of a Fresnel system for heating water. The model is validated using real data gathered from a cooling plant with double effect absorption chiller located in the School of Engineering University of Seville, Spain (Experimental cooling plant is also described in the paper). Comparison of calculated and plant measured data shows that the error is lower than 3% in the optical model and within 7% in the thermal model.The model uses a new approach to include a solar tracking mirror mechanism in one axis. This tracking has been designed to maximise the reception of available solar radiation by the absorption pipe. The thermal model used is based around classical models for solar receivers and it is validated with real operating data gathered from a supervisor system.The Fresnel model has been designed with sufficient flexibility to consider different geometries and thermal parameters, and may be used to simulate the performance of a proposed Fresnel collector system at any location.     

High-temperature elastic moduli of thermoelectric SnTe1±x – y SiC nanoparticulate composites

In waste heat recovery applications, thermoelectric (TE) generators are subjected to thermal gradients and thermal transients, creating mechanical stresses in the TE legs. Such stresses are functions of the elastic moduli of the TE material. For SnTe_1±x matrices (where x = 0.0 or 0.016) composite specimens with 0–4 vol% SiC nanoparticle (SiC_NP) additions, the elastic moduli (Young’s modulus, shear modulus, and Poisson’s ratio) were measured by resonant ultrasound spectroscopy from room temperature (RT) to 663 K. The effects of matrix composition and the SiC_NP additions on the RT intercepts and the slopes of the elastic modulus as a function of temperature are also discussed.     

The thermal expansion coefficient as a key design parameter for thermoelectric materials and its relationship to processing-dependent bloating

The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) is a key design parameter for thermoelectric (TE) materials, especially in energy harvesting applications since stresses generated by CTE mismatch, thermal gradients, and thermal transients scale with the CTE of the TE material. For the PbTe–PbS-based TE material (Pb_0.95Sn_0.05Te)_0.92(PbS)_0.08—0.055 % PbI₂ over the temperature ranges of 293–543 and 293–773 K, a CTE, α_avg, of 21.4 ± 0.3 × 10^?6 K^?1 was measured using (1) dilatometry and (2) high-temperature X-ray diffraction (HT-XRD) for powder and bulk specimens. The CTE values measured via dilatometry and HT-XRD are similar to the literature values for other Pb-based chalcogenides. However, the processing technique was found to impact the thermal expansion such that bloating (which leads to a hysteresis in thermal expansion) occurred for hot pressed billets heated to temperatures >603 K while specimens fabricated by pulsed electric current sintering and as-cast specimens did not show a bloating-modified thermal expansion even for temperatures up to 663 K. The relationship of bloating to the processing techniques is discussed, along with a possible mechanism for inhibiting bloating in powder processed specimens.     

Lean,Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma: an analysis based on operations strategy

There is a growing need for operations management models that contribute to the continuous improvement of company processes, among them we highlight lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and, more recently, Lean Six Sigma (LSS). This article aims (1) to identify and analyse the differences and complementarities in the production decision areas for each one of the three models; (2) to identify the competitive priorities that lead to the best performance as a result of policies followed in the decision areas as a result of the adopted model. First, a theoretical conceptual model was developed based on a review of the literature, followed by a exploratory research questions applied to manufacturing companies that use the lean, Six Sigma or LSS manufacturing models in southern Brazil. The main results show that there are differences in the models in relation to the importance of the decision areas and the performance achieved in the competitive priorities. Individually, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and LSS have varying degrees of importance in the Facilities, Vertical Integration and Production Planning and Control decision areas. The performance dimensions with the best performance are speed, quality, reliability and cost.     

Implementing a non-local xor function with quantum communication

The or-exclusive function (xor) is one of the most important logical functions, and can be used in several protocols and algorithms, as encryption and error correction. This paper discusses several ways to implement the xor function, in a secure way using quantum communication, between users of a network. It is shown how to implement it using bipartite, tripartite and four-partite maximally entangled states, as well using an optical interferometer and strongly attenuated coherent states. Some protocols for secure communication using the xor, as quantum key distribution, are also proposed.