Feeding the global city: urban transformation and urban food supply chain in 21st-century Istanbul

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the effects of urban transformation on the urban food supply chain in 21st century Istanbul. The article begins with a discussion on the particularities of the urban transformation that has shaped the city since the 1980s, emphasizing tendencies that are relevant to food consumption and supply patterns and practices. Next, 6 categories of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFVs), provisioning agents (mixed/foreign-capital supermarkets, domestic-capital supermarkets, bazaars, local suppliers, and urban and semi-urban/peripheral farmers, internet or store-based alternative food networks) are analyzed in terms of their perception of urban transformation and various challenges it poses. The article concludes with an assessment of the changes in the city’s food supply chain in light of provisioning agents’ responses to the urban transformation as a force that either enables them compete more successfully and expand their operations or pushes them to contract or even leave the provisioning sector completely.     

Impacts of user-selfishness on cooperative content caching in social wireless networks

Cooperative caching can be an effective mechanism for reducing electronic content provisioning cost in Social Wireless Networks (SWNETs). These networks are formed by a collection of mobile data enabled devices physically gathering in settings such as university campus, malls, airport and other public places. In this paper, we first propose an optimal collaborative object caching policy in order to minimize the object provisioning cost in SWNETs with homogenous user requests and a peer-rebate model for promoting collaboration. Then using an analytical model we study the impacts of user selfishness on the provisioning cost and the earned rebate when certain nodes in an SWNET selfishly deviate from the optimal policy. User selfishness is motivated in order to either increase individually earned rebate or to reduce content provisioning cost. The analytical model is validated by experimental results from simulated SWNETs using the network simulator ns2.     

Approximation analysis of multi-class closed queueing maintenance networks with a parts inventory system and two-phase Coxian time distributions

We consider a maintenance network where a set of bases is supported by a replacement parts inventory system and a centrally located repair depot. The ordering policy for the parts is the (S, Q) inventory policy. We extended the previous results to the network, where processing times at each node follow a two-phase Coxian distribution. The proposed network was modeled as a multi-class closed queueing network with a synchronization station. To make the analysis of the network computationally tractable, we developed a two-phase approximation method. In the first phase of the method, the proposed network was analyzed with the previous algorithm based on a product-form approximation. In the second phase, a sub-network was again analyzed with the procedure of a product-form approximation method such that the state space of the sub-network was reduced. In the analysis of a sub-network, a recursive method was also used to solve balance equations by exploiting the special structure of the Markov chain. The new algorithm provided a good estimation of the performance measures of interest. In addition to being accurate, the new algorithm is simple and converges rapidly.     

Energy-saving self-configuring networked data centers

In this paper, we develop the optimal minimum-energy scheduler for the dynamic online joint allocation of the task sizes, computing rates, communication rates and communication powers in virtualized Networked Data Centers (NetDCs) that operates under hard per-job delay-constraints. The referred NetDC’s infrastructure is composed by multiple frequency-scalable Virtual Machines (VMs), that are interconnected by a bandwidth and power-limited switched Local Area Network (LAN). Due to the nonlinear power-vs.-communication rate relationship, the resulting Computing-Communication Optimization Problem (CCOP) is inherently nonconvex. In order to analytically compute the exact solution of the CCOP, we develop a solving approach that relies on the following two main steps: (i) we prove that the CCOP retains a loosely coupled structure, that allows us to perform the lossless decomposition of the CCOP into the cascade of two simpler sub-problems; and, (ii) we prove that the coupling between the aforementioned sub-problems is provided by a (scalar) constraint, that is linear in the offered workload. The resulting optimal scheduler is amenable of scalable and distributed online implementation and its analytical characterization is in closed-form. After numerically testing its actual performance under randomly time-varying synthetically generated and real-world measured workload traces, we compare the obtained performance with the corresponding ones of some state-of-the-art static and sequential schedulers.     

Infotainment and road safety service support in vehicular networking: From a communication perspective

Vehicular ad hoc networking is an emerging technology for future on-the-road communications. Due to the virtue of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are expected to enable a plethora of communication-based automotive applications including diverse in-vehicle infotainment applications and road safety services. Even though vehicles are organized mostly in an ad hoc manner in the network topology, directly applying the existing communication approaches designed for traditional mobile ad hoc networks to large-scale VANETs with fast-moving vehicles can be ineffective and inefficient. To achieve success in a vehicular environment, VANET-specific communication solutions are imperative. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of various radio channel access protocols and resource management approaches, and discuss their suitability for infotainment and safety service support in VANETs. Further, we present recent research activities and related projects on vehicular communications. Potential challenges and open research issues are also discussed.     

一种面向云服务提供商的资源分配机制

针对用户、服务提供商(SP)和基础设施提供商三者之间的市场行为所带来的收益问题,该文面向服务提供商提出了一种两阶段多虚拟机资源分配机制。首先,建立能力规划模型并引入粒子群算法,决策出服务提供商收益最大化的资源购买方案。然后,提出一种优化用户满意度的服务提供策略,优化了服务提供商的长期收益。最后仿真实验结果表明,该方法有效提高了服务提供商的收益,并取得了较好的用户满意度。     

基于IAR EW430开发环境的FRAM应用研究

本文基于TI的MSP-EXP430FR5739 LaunchPad硬件评估套件和IAR EW430 IDE开发环境,研究了MSP430FR5739型MCU的FRAM分区配置方法,分别采用程序代码关键字声明法及面对复杂应用满足更高定制要求时修改XLINK配置文件法共两种方法实现了分区调配,编写了相应测试程序进行实验,验证结果达到了预期.同时对实际应用中FRAM分区后应进行MPU保护做出阐述,本文提出的方法可用于MSP430FR系列其他型号MCU器件的FRAM调配.     

Building human agency: a timely manifesto

The 2009 Passive and Low Energy Architecture Conference (PLEA), held in Québec City, Canada, was themed ‘Architecture, Energy and the Occupant's Perspective’, with the ambition of positioning building inhabitants as key ‘active’ determinants of energy performance in ‘passive’ design through adaptive opportunities. Conference delegates committed to a Manifesto that embodied both the key longstanding priorities of PLEA and explicitly conveyed the priorities of the conference hosts. The Manifesto is examined in terms of how it captures and represents a shift in thinking that has occurred over the past few years, away from technological and technocratic solutions to comfort provisioning and towards reframing building energy consumption as a social and ethical challenge in which comfort plays a key role.

La Conférence 2009 sur l'Architecture Passive et Basse Energie (PLEA), qui s'est tenue à Québec, au Canada, avait pour thème « Architecture, Energie et la Perspective de l'Occupant », avec pour ambition de positionner les habitants d'immeubles comme principaux déterminants « actifs » de la performance énergétique dans un design « passif » par des opportunités d'adaptation. Les délégués de la conférence se sont engagés en faveur d'un Manifeste qui, tout à la fois, incarne les principales priorités qui sont depuis longtemps celles des Conférences PLEA et traduit explicitement les priorités des hôtes de la conférence. Cet article examine le Manifeste quant à la manière dont il appréhende et reflète le changement intervenu au cours de ces dernières années dans la manière de voir les choses, consistant à se détourner d'un confort fourni par des solutions technologiques et technocratiques et à aller dans le sens d'un recadrage de la consommation énergétique des immeubles considérée comme un défi social et éthique dans lequel le confort joue un rôle clé.

Mots clés: comportement adaptatif, agence, confort, fourniture du confort, qualité environnementale intérieure, habitants, manifeste, Conférence sur l'Architecture Passive et Basse Energie (PLEA)     

基于势能导向多下一跳路由的服务承载网构建方法

服务承载网络是基于服务构建的以满足服务端到端QoS保障为出发点的覆盖网络,是满足可重构柔性网络对业务需求支撑的有效的网络架构。基于可重构柔性网络体系框架,分析服务承载网构建的主要问题,提出了可重构柔性网络下服务承载网的构建原则,在此基础上给出了基于势能导向多下一跳路由的服务承载网构建算法,并对其进行了性能分析及仿真。仿真结果表明,该算法具有较高的构建成功率。