SMT-Based Contention-Free Task Mapping and Scheduling on 2D/3D SMART NoC with Mixed Dimension-Order Routing

SMART NoCs achieve ultra-low latency by enabling single-cycle multiple-hop transmission via bypass channels. However, contention along bypass channels can seriously degrade the performance of SMART NoCs by breaking the bypass paths. Therefore, contention-free task mapping and scheduling are essential for optimal system performance. In this article, we propose an SMT (Satisfiability Modulo Theories)-based framework to find optimal contention-free task mappings with minimum application schedule lengths on 2D/3D SMART NoCs with mixed dimension-order routing. On top of SMT’s fast reasoning capability for conditional constraints, we develop efficient search-space reduction techniques to achieve practical scalability. Experiments demonstrate that our SMT framework achieves 10× higher scalability than ILP (Integer Linear Programming) with 931.1× (ranges from 2.2× to 1532.1×) and 1237.1× (ranges from 4× to 4373.8×) faster average runtimes for finding optimum solutions on 2D and 3D SMART NoCs and our 2D and 3D extensions of the SMT framework with mixed dimension-order routing also maintain the improved scalability with the extended and diversified routing paths, resulting in reduced application schedule lengths throughout various application benchmarks.

A Preliminary Assessment of Rural Corruption in China

Rural-related corruption in China manifests itself differently in terms of different forms and intensity over time. The preliminary findings indicate that rural-related corruption in China is a particular type of white-collar crime. It embraces a mixed dimension of political crime, economic crime, corporate crime, environmental crime, and crimes within social control systems, such as the police. The time series analysis demonstrates an increase of diversity and intensity of this corruption. It also shows that rural corruption is dynamic and its dynamics have evolved significantly over time. An analysis of the historical context identifies three distinctive stages of rural-related corruption (1995-2007; 2008-2012, and 2013-2017), from acknowledgement of the issue, to issue outbreak, to a "rampant" stage, all with consistent determinants and explanations. Evidence shows that Chinese national land use policy is among the leading explanations of rural corruption. The majority of other types of rural corruption also are rooted in land-related issues. The causes of corruption in rural China have both institutional and individual behavioral explanations, which distinguishes them from the explanations of general corruption. General criminological explanations of corruption must be modified to fit a rural context and the unique histories of particular society, which in this case, is China.

Technology and the Ontology of the Virtual

This chapter offers a critical analysis of the current impact of digital technologies on the ontology of the virtual. In particular, it investigates the potential challenges to traditional metaphysics and ontology raised by the ongoing digitization of reality, which promises to increasingly result in the creation of new virtual, augmented, and mixed realities. Such realities have a profound impact both on us and on our world, since they augment, enhance, re-engineer, or subject to judgement our experience of reality. It is thus worth reflecting on how the real and the virtual currently interact and influence one another, and how they may eventually evolve into a supervening, mixed dimension.