Seminars

Building safety-critical real-time systems out of inexpensive, non-realtime, COTS components is challenging. Although COTS components generally offer high performance, they can occasionally incur significant timing delays. To prevent this, we propose two approaches: 1) a new "clean slate" real-time, memory-centric scheduling paradigm, named PRedictable Execution Model (PREM); and 2) a framework of novel application-transparent, kernel-level techniques to perform fine-grained resource reservation of cache space and memory bandwidth in multi-core real-time systems.

We have…

It has long been recognized that ubiquitous information access brings enormous benefits but also creates a plethora of devices and services that are competing for our attention. With mobile devices this is a particular serious concern for drivers, pedestrians, and other traffic participants, but understanding attention patterns can also be beneficial for entertainment services. In this talk, I will discuss our work towards mobile devices that can accurately track user attention - from devices that determine when we drive, over devices that recognize their users by touch, to devices that…

Compared to typical single-agent decision problems, general sum games offer a panoply of strategies for maximizing utiity. In many games, such as the well-known Prisoner's dilemma, agents must work together, bearing some individual risk, to arrive at mutually beneficial outcomes. In this talk, I will discuss several algorithmic approaches that have been developed to identify cooperative strategies in non-cooperative games.  I will describe an analysis of value-function-based reinforcement learning, the pivotal role of assumptions about the opponent, the computational benefits of side…

Partial-program synthesis is a technique that allows programmer to specify only part of the program imperatively and the rest of the requirements declaratively. In the domain of concurrency, the input usually consists of a non-deterministic partial program where the programmer omits synchronization constructs. The synthesizer fills in the appropriate synchronization to keep the program correct. However, a major hurdle to adoption of these techniques is the performance of the synthesized program. In this talk, I will present two different approaches we have explored for making synthesis for…

The tremendous technological convergence of microfabrication technology, wireless communication technology, and low-power circuitry has opened the possibility of widespread use of microfabricated implantable wireless microsystems. A typical operational mode for these microsystems is to transduce a physiological parameter relevant to a disease state of interest, and wirelessly communicate this parameter external to the body to guide therapy. For chronic disease states, long-term, permanent sensors are of interest; while for acute disease states, biodegradable wireless microsystems may be of…