A method for quantitative analysis of local pattern strength and defects in surface self-assembly imaging is presented and applied to images of stripe and hexagonal ordered domains. The presented method uses "shapelet" functions which were originally developed for quantitative analysis of images of galaxies (∝ 10 20 m). In this work, they are used instead to quantify the presence of translational order in surface self-assembled films (∝ 10 −9 m) through reformulation into "steerable" filters. The resulting method is both computationally efficient (with respect to the number of filter evaluations), robust to variation in pattern feature shape, and, unlike previous approaches, is applicable to a wide variety of pattern types. An application of the method is presented which uses a nearest-neighbour analysis to distinguish between uniform (defect-free) and non-uniform (strained, defect-containing) regions within imaged self-assembled domains, both with striped and hexagonal patterns.

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The use of lectures for motivational purposes and to stress the written word were original components of the personalized system of instruction (PSI). These features assume that students have the study skills to acquire information on their own. We investigated the relation between reading ability and course performance in PSI and contingency managed lecture (CML) sections of a developmental psychology course. Results indicated that grade point average (GPA) and reading comprehension scores best predicted final exam performance in CML and that reading comprehension scores and GPA were the best predictors in PSI sections. Students in the PSI and CML sections achieved average reading scores and vocabulary subtest scores at or above grade level, but average reading rate and comprehension subtest scores were below grade level.

In the last few years, the development of programming languages for general purpose computing on Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) has led to the design and implementation of fast parallel algorithms for this architecture for a large spectrum of applications. Given the streaming-processing characteristics of GPUs, most practical applications consist of tasks that admit highly data-parallel algorithms. Many problems, however, allow for task-parallel solutions or a combination of task and data-parallel algorithms. For these, a hybrid CPU-GPU parallel algorithm that combines the highly parallel stream-processing power of GPUs with the higher scalar power of multi-cores is likely to be superior. In this paper we describe a generic translation of any recursive sequential implementation of a divide-and-conquer algorithm into an implementation that benefits from running in parallel in both multi-cores and GPUs. This translation is generic in the sense that it requires little knowledge of the particular algorithm. We then present a schedule and work division scheme that adapts to the characteristics of each algorithm and the underlying architecture, efficiently balancing the workload between GPU and CPU. Our experiments show a 4.5x speedup over a single core recursive implementation, while demonstrating the accuracy and practicality of the approach.

The increasing power and decreasing cost of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) together with the development of programming languages for General Purpose Computing on GPUs (GPGPU) have led to the development and implementation of fast parallel algorithms for this architecture for a large spectrum of applications. Given the streaming-processing characteristics of GPUs, most practical applications so far are on highly data-parallel algorithms. Many problems, however, allow for task-parallel solutions or a combination of task and data-parallel algorithms. For these, a hybrid CPU-GPU parallel algorithm that combines the highly parallel stream-processing power of GPUs with the higher scalar power of multi-cores is likely to be superior. In this paper we describe a generic translation of any recursive sequential implementation of a divide-and-conquer algorithm into an implementation that benefits from running in parallel in both multi-cores and GPUs. This translation is generic in the sense that it requires little knowledge of the particular algorithm. We then present a schedule and work division scheme that adapts to the characteristics of each algorithm and the underlying architecture, efficiently balancing the workload between GPU and CPU. Our experiments show a 4.5x speedup over a single core recursive implementation, while demonstrating the accuracy and practicality of the approach.