Algorithm 1019: A Task-based Multi-shift QR/QZ Algorithm with Aggressive Early Deflation

The QR algorithm is one of the three phases in the process of computing the eigenvalues and the eigenvectors of a dense nonsymmetric matrix. This paper describes a task-based QR algorithm for reducing an upper Hessenberg matrix to real Schur form. The task-based algorithm also supports generalized eigenvalue problems (QZ algorithm) but this paper concentrates on the standard case. The task-based algorithm adopts previous algorithmic improvements, such as tightly-coupled multi-shifts and Aggressive Early Deflation (AED) , and also incorporates several new ideas that significantly improve the performance. This includes, but is not limited to, the elimination of several synchronization points, the dynamic merging of previously separate computational steps, the shortening and the prioritization of the critical path, and experimental GPU support. The task-based implementation is demonstrated to be multiple times faster than multi-threaded LAPACK and ScaLAPACK in both single-node and multi-node configurations on two different machines based on Intel and AMD CPUs. The implementation is built on top of the StarPU runtime system and is part of the open-source StarNEig library.

The Identification and Representation of Views

This chapter describes the actual work of the historian of philosophy. Ordinarily, the historian is working with a text, or even a number of texts, on the basis of which he will try to reconstruct the thought of a philosopher. This is the standard case in the history of medieval philosophy, and it is almost invariably the case for the historian of modern philosophy. In the case of ancient philosophy, however, the primary aim is not to understand certain texts, but to understand the thought of a philosopher underlying a text, if there is one. The historian has to understand and to explain a philosopher’s taking a view from the point of view of a contemporary historian of philosophy, and this means that he has to identify——to represent——the philosopher’s view not only in terms in which it is intelligible to a modern historian of philosophy, but also in terms in which it is intelligible to the historian’s modern audience. And this raises at least two questions, one concerning the translation this involves and the other concerning the language of the historian.

Comparative assessment of risk of development of purulent septic infections in children after open and closed cardiac operations for congenital diseases

Purpose of the study. Comparative assessment of the incidence of nosocomial purulent-septic infections (PSI) in children after open and closed heart surgery for congenital defects.Materials and methods. 503 medical records of children after cardiac surgery were studied. GSI was identified according to epidemiological standard case definitions.Results. It turned out that the incidence rate of PSI in children after open heart surgery is an order of magnitude higher than after minimally invasive endovascular interventions. Hospital-acquired pneumonia most often occurs in children after operations.Conclusion. The increased incidence of PSI after open heart surgery, as compared to endovascular surgery, is due to a longer surgical intervention and the subsequent longer stay of patients in the intensive care unit, where such an epidemiologically significant procedure as artificial lung ventilation is performed.

Explaining legal inconsistency

Judges, scholars, and commentators decry inconsistent areas of judicially created policy. This could hurt courts’ policy making efficacy, so why do judges allow it to happen? I show judicially-created policy can become inconsistent when judges explain rules in more abstract terms than they decide cases. To do so, I expand standard case-space models of judicial decision making to account for relationships between specific facts and broader doctrinal dimensions. This model of judicial decision making as a process of multi-step reasoning reveals that preference aggregation in such a context can lead to inconsistent collegial rules. I also outline a class of preference configurations on collegial courts (i.e., multi-member courts) in which this problem cannot arise. These results have implications for several areas of inquiry in judicial politics such as models of principal-agent relationships in judicial hierarchies and empirical research utilizing case facts as predictor variables.

The peculiarities of patients with COVID-19 infection

Background: The surge demand and decreased availability of the health workers determined the designation of the Clinical Municipal Hospital of Phthisiopneumology (CMHP) into a hospital for the case-management of COVID-19 patients during the period of December 2020 – April 2021 for the treatment of the mild cases. The aim of the study was to assess the main peculiarities of the patients with COVID-19 through a cross-sectional study developed during the period February-April 2021 in the CMHP. Material and methods: A cross-sectional, analytical and prospective study was realized, which included 145 patients with COVID-19 hospitalized in the CMHP during February-April 2021. The inclusion criteria were: patient older 18 years, COVID-19 infection diagnosed by the pulmonologist with the positive polymerase chain reaction result for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and signed informed consent. Results: The peculiarities of patients with COVID-19 were dominated by the female sex, age over 60 years, residence in the urban districts of Chisinau and the infection acquired in the Republic of Moldova. Common clinical manifestations were: high temperature, profuse sweats, asthenia and headaches, productive cough, dyspnea, loss of smell or taste, and sore throat. The typical radiological findings such ground-glass pattern or consolidation with bilateral multifocal involvement were most frequent. Were cured most of the patients and the death rate was low. Conclusions: Peculiarities and clinical manifestations of the patients admitted in CMHP were typical for the COVID-19 infection. These findings did not show the real outcome of the standard case-management of the COVID-19 due to the restricted admission criteria.

The space $D$ in several variables: random variables and higher moments

We study the Banach space $D([0,1]^m)$ of functions of several variables that are (in a certain sense) right-continuous with left limits, and extend several results previously known for the standard case $m=1$. We give, for example, a description of the dual space, and we show that a bounded multilinear form always is measurable with respect to the $\sigma$-field generated by the point evaluations. These results are used to study random functions in the space. (I.e., random elements of the space.) In particular, we give results on existence of moments (in different senses) of such random functions, and we give an application to the Zolotarev distance between two such random functions.

IMPROVED MIN-SUM DECODING ALGORITHM FOR IRREGULAR LDPC CODES

Aналитический подход к определению оптимальной функции постобработки для минимальной операции в алгоритме MIN-SUM, ранее полученный для обычных кодов проверки на четность с низкой плотностью (LDPC-коды), распространяется на нерегулярные коды LDPC. Оптимальное выражение постобработки для нестандартного случая варьируется от одного контрольного узла к другому, а также от одной итерации к следующей. Для практического использования необходимо аппроксимировать эту оптимальную функцию. В отличие от обычного случая, когда можно было бы использовать уникальную функцию постобработки на протяжении всего процесса декодирования без потери производительности битовых ошибок, для нерегулярных кодов критически важно варьировать постобработку от одной итерации к следующей, чтобы добиться хорошей производительности. С использованием этого подхода было выявлено, что качество битовых ошибок от алгоритма распространения доверия соответствует улучшению на 1 дБ по сравнению с MIN-SUM алгоритмом без постобработки. Сначала будет представлен обзор подхода и представлена аналитическая основа для оптимальной постобработки. Далее будет представлена оптимальная функция постобработки для нерегулярных кодов и обсуждены возможные упрощения. И наконец, показаны результаты моделирования и преимущества аппроксимации We extended an analytical approach to determining the optimal post-processing function for the minimum operation in the MIN-SUM algorithm, previously obtained for conventional low density parity check codes (LDPC codes), to irregular LDPC codes. The optimal post-processing expression for the non-standard case varies from one control node to another, as well as from one iteration to the next. For practical use, it is necessary to approximate this optimal function. Unlike the usual case where one could use a unique post-processing function throughout the entire decoding process without sacrificing bit code performance, it is critical for irregular codes to distinguish post-processing from one iteration to the next in order to achieve good performance. Using this approach, we found that the quality of bit errors from the trust algorithm corresponds to an improvement of 1 level compared to the MIN-SUM algorithm without post-processing. First, we provide an overview and analytical framework for optimal post-processing. Then, we present the optimal post-processing function for irregular codes and discuss possible simplifications. Finally, we show the simulation results and the benefits of the approximation

Robust Control of a Class of Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems: Design and Experimental Results on a Real-Time Emulator

The aim of this study is to develop a new observer-based stabilization strategy for a class of Lipschitz uncertain systems. This new strategy improves the performances of existing methods and ensures better convergence conditions. Sliding window approach involves previous estimated states and measurements in the observer and the control law structures which increase the number of decision variables in the constraint to be solved and offers less restrictive Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) conditions. The established sufficient stability conditions are in the form of Bilinear Matrix Inequality (BMI) which is solved in two steps. First, by using a slack variable technique and an appropriate reformulation of the Young’s inequality. Second, by introducing a useful approach to transform the obtained constraint to a more suitable one easily tractable by standard software algorithms. A comparison with the standard case is provided to show the superiority of the proposed H∞ observer-based controller which offers greater degree of freedom. The accuracy and the potential of the proposed process are shown through real time implementation of the one-link flexible joint robot to ARDUINO UNO R3 device and numerical comparison with some existing results.

Exiles as Principled Disobedients

This chapter begins an enquiry into political methods, focusing on disruptive protest and principled disobedience, which has featured in the different case studies examined in the book. Standardly, principled disobedience is justified because of its role in enhancing democratic deliberation and justice in the society it disrupts. Exile protest targets wrongdoing in another society that might have no connection to the place in which the protest takes place. I argue that, even though the paradigm case of exile disobedience does not fit the standard case, it can still perform these ameliorative functions in receiving communities and still be justified. And, even when it does not, I argue that exiles’ communities of residence have a duty to accommodate exile protest. Exile politics may also perform a corrective function in exiles’ communities of residence, which also present constraints on how exile politics ought to be carried out.

A method to estimate probability of disease and vaccine efficacy from clinical trial immunogenicity data

Vaccine efficacy is often assessed by counting disease cases in a clinical trial. A new quantitative framework proposed here (“PoDBAY,” Probability of Disease Bayesian Analysis), estimates vaccine efficacy (and confidence interval) using immune response biomarker data collected shortly after vaccination. Given a biomarker associated with protection, PoDBAY describes the relationship between biomarker and probability of disease as a sigmoid probability of disease (“PoD”) curve. The PoDBAY framework is illustrated using clinical trial simulations and with data for influenza, zoster, and dengue virus vaccines. The simulations demonstrate that PoDBAY efficacy estimation (which integrates the PoD and biomarker data), can be accurate and more precise than the standard (case-count) estimation, contributing to more sensitive and specific decisions than threshold-based correlate of protection or case-count-based methods. For all three vaccine examples, the PoD fit indicates a substantial association between the biomarkers and protection, and efficacy estimated by PoDBAY from relatively little immunogenicity data is predictive of the standard estimate of efficacy, demonstrating how PoDBAY can provide early assessments of vaccine efficacy. Methods like PoDBAY can help accelerate and economize vaccine development using an immunological predictor of protection. For example, in the current effort against the COVID-19 pandemic it might provide information to help prioritize (rank) candidates both earlier in a trial and earlier in development.