VM-MAD: a cloud/cluster software for service-oriented academic environments

The availability of powerful computing hardware in IaaS clouds makes cloud computing attractive also for computational workloads that were up to now almost exclusively run on HPC clusters. In this paper we present the VM-MAD Orchestrator software: an open source framework for cloudbursting Linux-based HPC clusters into IaaS clouds but also computational grids. The Orchestrator is completely modular, allowing flexible configurations of cloudbursting policies. It can be used with any batch system or cloud infrastructure, dynamically extending the cluster when needed. A distinctive feature of our framework is that the policies can be tested and tuned in a simulation mode based on historical or synthetic cluster accounting data. In the paper we also describe how the VM-MAD Orchestrator was used in a production environment at the FGCZ to speed up the analysis of mass spectrometry-based protein data by cloudbursting to the Amazon EC2. The advantages of this hybrid system are shown with a large evaluation run using about hundred large EC2 nodes.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures. Accepted at the International Supercomputing Conference ISC13, June 17--20 Leipzig, German

Improved proper motion determinations for 15 open clusters based on the UCAC4 catalog

The proper motions of 15 nearby (d < 1 kpc) open clusters were recalculated using data from the UCAC4 catalog. Only evolved or main sequence stars inside a certain radius from the center of the cluster were used. The results differ significantly from the ones presented by Dias et al. (2014). This could be explained by the different approach to taking the field star contamination into account. The present work aims to emphasize the importance of applying photometric criteria for the calculation of open cluster proper motions.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Degrees of Reality

This essay outlines a hierarchical framework of Reality that allows for degrees of Reality. I use Reality (with a capital “R”) to designate reality in a primitive, metaphysical sense. Reality, grounding, and essence are the key elements of the framework presented here. I assume that Reality must have a fundamental level and all fundamental phenomena must be Real. Moreover, I postulate that everything non-fundamental is ultimately grounded in the fundamental Real. But what about the Reality of the non-fundamental? I argue that it is possible for non-fundamental phenomena to be Real, Unreal, or Semi-Real. The framework developed here accommodates these possibilities and illuminates them using the notion of essence. I argue that the essential nature of a phenomenon determines its degree of Reality. The framework does not assume that Reality must have degrees but only that it may have degrees. Its theoretical attractiveness consists in its ability to accommodate many diverse intuitions about grounding, help us better understand and classify theories about grounding, and illuminate Reality and its possible degrees

Missing Entities: Has Panpsychism Lost the Physical World?

Panpsychists aspire to explain human consciousness, but can they also account for the physical world? In this paper, I argue that proponents of a popular form of panpsychism cannot. I pose a new challenge against this form of panpsychism: it faces an explanatory gap between the fundamental experiences it posits and some physical entities. I call the problem of explaining the existence of these physical entities within the panpsychist framework “the missing entities problem.” Spacetime, the quantum state, and quantum gravitational entities constitute three explanatory gaps as instances of the missing entities problem. Panpsychists are obliged to solve all instances of the missing entities problem; otherwise, panpsychism cannot be considered a viable theory of consciousness

Lightweight and heavyweight anti-physicalism

I define two metaphysical positions that anti-physicalists can take in response to Jonathan Schaffer’s ground functionalism. Ground functionalism is a version of physicalism where explanatory gaps are everywhere. If ground functionalism is true, arguments against physicalism based on the explanatory gap between the physical and experiential facts fail. In response, first, I argue that some anti-physicalists are already safe from Schaffer’s challenge. These anti-physicalists reject an underlying assumption of ground functionalism: the assumption that macrophysical entities are something over and above the fundamental entities. I call their position “lightweight anti-physicalism.” Second, I go on to argue that even if anti-physicalists accept Schaffer’s underlying assumption, they can still argue that the consciousness explanatory gap is especially mysterious and thus requires a special explanation. I call the resulting position “heavyweight anti-physicalism.” In both cases, the consciousness explanatory gap is a good way to argue against physicalism

Agricultural Academy

Abstrac

Diurnal distribution of the time of parturition in the Danube fine wool breed of sheep

Abstract ALEKSIEV, Y., 2007. Diurnal distribution of the time of parturition in the Danube fine wool breed of sheep. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., Diurnal distribution of the time of natural spontaneous births was studied in the Danube fine wool breed of sheep kept under conventional management system. All sheep were at equal age and were served by one ram from the same breed. The time of parturition was recorded in 374 ewes round-the-clock. A unimodal distribution of births was observed with a peak between 12:00 and 15:00 h when 18.2% of the sheep gave birth, and the lowest incidence of lambing (8.8%) was recorded between 0300 and 0600 h. More ewes (56.7%) lambed between 06:00 and 1800 h and less (43.3%) during the nighttime between 18:00 and 06:00 h. Type of birth and sex of the lambs did not have any noticeable effect on birth distribution. Despite the established differences in birth distribution under the management practice employed the circadian rhythm was not clearly emphasized. The results suggest that round the clock observation of the flock at lambing time is necessary in order to prevent mismothering and other problems typical for this period of the year

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF COOPERATIVE VALUES OF SOME TYPES OF COOPERATIVES IN BULGARIA

From their inception until now – the last 80 years – cooperatives are organizations that unite and balance the social and economic demands of society with the expectations of their members. Cooperative values and principles have been preserved for almost two centuries, which is proof of their sustainability and permanence. These values impress upon the societal values of freedom, equality and democracy. The aim of the present study is to study the social aspects of cooperative values in some types of cooperatives in Bulgaria. To achieve the goal, the following tasks are solved: (a) to examine the nature and character of cooperative values; and (b) to reveal the social aspects of these values by following their manifestation in individual Bulgarian cooperatives. To achieve the goal and solve the tasks, the methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, the structural-functional approach are applied. The main result of the study is that meeting the social needs of the member-cooperators in Bulgarian cooperatives occupies an important place, and for a significant part of the cooperators - a priority. From the analysis in this research, we can conclude that the social aspects of cooperative values in Bulgarian cooperatives makes them unique as a legal-organizational form, since these values are close to universal human values

EFFECT OF SHEARING ON MILK COMPOSITION IN THE TSIGAI EWES

The effect of shearing on milk yield and milk composition was studied in the Tsigai ewes. The sheep were kept indoor and shorn at the beginning of April. Ewes were milked twice daily and milk samples, from the morning yield only, were taken on the day before, and on days 2 and 14 post-shearing. Shearing had no effect on milk yield. The concentrations of milk fat and casein increased from 6.83 ± 0.44 and 3.81 ± 0.30 %, respectively, in unshorn sheep up to 7.81 ± 0.35 and 4.23 ± 0.33 % on the second post-shearing day, and continued to increase thereafter. The concentration of total solids in unshorn sheep averaged 18.26 ± 0,44 % but it increased up to 19.37 ± 0.25 % and 20.26 ± 0.66 %, respectively, on day 2 and on day 14 after shearing. There was no effect of shearing on the lactose concentrations. Renneting time progressively decreased, with changes in milk composition. The possible effects of different mechanisms involved in post-shearing adaptation on the observed changes in milk composition are discussed. Key words: sheep; shearing; milk; composition ЕФЕКТOT НА СТРИЖЕЊЕ ВРЗ СОСТАВОТ НА МЛЕКОТО КАЈ ОВЦИТЕ ЦИГАЈА Ефектот на стрижењето врз продукцијата и составот на млекото беше проучуван кај овците од расата цигаја. Овците беа чувани во штали и стрижени на почетокот на април. Молзени беа два пати дневно, а примероците на млеко само од утринското молзење беа земени ден пред стрижењето и 2-иот и 14-тиот ден по стрижењето. Стрижењето немаше ефект врз продукцијата на млеко. Концентрациите на млечната маст и казеинот пораснаа од 6,83 ± 0,44 и 3,81 ± 0,30% кај нестрижените овци до 7,81 ± 0,35 и 4,23 ± 0,33% во вториот ден по стрижењето и продолжија да се зголемуваат понатаму. Концентрацијата на вкупните суви материи кај нестрижените овци во просек изнесуваше 18,26 ± 0,44 %, но порасна до 19,37 ± 0,25% и 20,26 ± 0.66% на 2-иот и 14-тиот ден по стрижењето. Стрижењето немаше ефекти врз концентрациите на лактоза. Времето на потсирување прогресивно опадна со промените во составот на млекото. Дискутирани се можните ефекти на различни механизми вклучени во постстрижбената адаптација на наблудуваните промени во составот на млекото

Approximate Knowledge Graph Query Answering: From Ranking to Binary Classification

Large, heterogeneous datasets are characterized by missing or even erroneous information. This is more evident when they are the product of community effort or automatic fact extraction methods from external sources, such as text. A special case of the aforementioned phenomenon can be seen in knowledge graphs, where this mostly appears in the form of missing or incorrect edges and nodes. Structured querying on such incomplete graphs will result in incomplete sets of answers, even if the correct entities exist in the graph, since one or more edges needed to match the pattern are missing. To overcome this problem, several algorithms for approximate structured query answering have been proposed. Inspired by modern Information Retrieval metrics, these algorithms produce a ranking of all entities in the graph, and their performance is further evaluated based on how high in this ranking the correct answers appear. In this work we take a critical look at this way of evaluation. We argue that performing a ranking-based evaluation is not sufficient to assess methods for complex query answering. To solve this, we introduce Message Passing Query Boxes (MPQB), which takes binary classification metrics back into use and shows the effect this has on the recently proposed query embedding method MPQE.Comment: To be published in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (Springer