Geometric criterion for the design of a non-oscillatory dynamical system†

The paper deals with responses of a non-linear multiple lumped dynamical system bounded in a large neighbourhood of the single, asymptotically stable equilibrium point. The sufficient, analytic criteria for the non-oscillation of such responses have been introduced in previous work (cf. Skowronaki and Shannon 1972). On the basis of the latter, the author discusses a geometric interpretation of necessary and sufficient criteria for non-oscillatory responses applied to the synthetic design of the relevant systems     

Leader’s dilemma game: An experimental design for cyber insider threat research

One of the problems with insider threat research is the lack of a complete 360° view of an insider threat dataset due to inadequate experimental design. This has prevented us from modeling a computational system to protect against insider threat situations. This paper provides a contemporary methodological approach for using online games to simulate insider betrayal for predictive behavioral research. The Leader’s Dilemma Game simulates an insider betrayal scenario for analyzing organizational trust relationships, providing an opportunity to examine the trustworthiness of focal individuals, as measured by humans as sensors engaging in computer-mediated communication. This experimental design provides a window into trustworthiness attribution that can generate a rigorous and relevant behavioral dataset, and contributes to building a cyber laboratory that advances future insider threat study.     

The problem of electronic argument: a humanist’s perspective

This article attempts to explain the absence of a new rhetoric, as repurposed for electronic media. Such a rhetoric would provide, among other things, a blueprint for electronic arguments conducted in hypermedia form. Without an electronic rhetoric, the artifacts generated in new media inevitably fall into a narrow range: e-commerce and edutainment. One role of the humanist in this technological age, whose mother tongue is the conceptual language of the technologist, is to speak in an alternative language out of which an electronic rhetoric could emerge. The hallmark of the humanist’s alternative language or vocabulary is that it does not find technological innovation synonymous with rhetorical invention.     

A generalization of Paillier’s public-key system with applications to electronic voting

We propose a generalization of Paillier’s probabilistic public-key system, in which the expansion factor is reduced and which allows to adjust the block length of the scheme even after the public key has been fixed, without losing the homomorphic property. We show that the generalization is as secure as Paillier’s original system and propose several ways to optimize implementations of both the generalized and the original scheme. We construct a threshold variant of the generalized scheme as well as zero-knowledge protocols to show that a given ciphertext encrypts one of a set of given plaintexts, and protocols to verify multiplicative relations on plaintexts. We then show how these building blocks can be used for applying the scheme to efficient electronic voting. This reduces dramatically the work needed to compute the final result of an election, compared to the previously best known schemes. We show how the basic scheme for a yes/no vote can be easily adapted to casting a vote for up to t out of L candidates. The same basic building blocks can also be adapted to provide receipt-free elections, under appropriate physical assumptions. The scheme for 1 out of L elections can be optimized such that for a certain range of the other parameter values, the ballot size is logarithmic in L.     

Computer-aided optimal design of a polar-based template digitizer-NC contouring system—I. Synthesis and contouring error minimization

This paper presents the computer-aided optimal design of a template digitizer-NC contouring system which utilizes a set of polar coordinates. The system can operate both as a copying machine or as a numerical control (NC) machine. Part I of the paper describes the proposed system and its salient features. It also analyzes the contouring error due to the incremental approximation of the contour. This error is dependent on the relative location of the contour pole from the machine pole. An objective function relating the area error to the position of the contour is derived and an optimization procedure to minimize this error is outlined. Test results of an attempt to locate the poles of three test contours for minimum error are then presented.     

Citizens’ adoption of an electronic government system: towards a unified view

Sluggish adoption of emerging electronic government (eGov) applications continues to be a problem across developed and developing countries. This research tested the nine alternative theoretical models of technology adoption in the context of an eGov system using data collected from citizens of four selected districts in the state of Bihar in India. Analysis of the models indicates that their performance is not up to the expected level in terms of path coefficients, variance in behavioural intention, or the fit indices of the models. In response to the underperformance of the alternative theoretical models to explain the adoption of an eGov system, this research develops a unified model of electronic government adoption and tests it using the same data. The results indicate that the proposed research model outperforms all alternative models of technology adoption by explaining 77 % of variance in behavioural intention, with acceptable values of fit indices and significant relationships between each pair of hypothesised factors.     

Automatic control system for a pipe’s inner surface coating

Theoretical bases for controlling the application of coatings to the inner surface of pipes and other hollow products are considered based on the stabilization of the velocity of the coating material in the product cavity taking into account temperature and viscosity. The device makes it possible to automatically compensate for the variation in the coating thickness depending on temperature taking into account the characteristics of the used control equipment. The dependence of the coating thickness on temperature and material velocity is described. The system that implements the proposed method in the MATLAB + SIMULINK shell is simulated. The optimal values of the system gain and level sensor sensitivity that minimize the dynamic error of the control system are determined.     

An expert system using rough sets theory for aided conceptual design of ship’s engine room automation

More and more complicated conceptual design of ship’s engine room (CDSER) heavily depends on designers’ engineering knowledge and existing ship data. To achieve intelligent design at the initial ship design stage, many researchers have made much significant progress in this field, however, most of them only focused on how to find the similar constructed ships. At present, how to utilize these existing data remains an untouched topic. In order to make good use of the existing data and reduce the dependence on designers’ experience, a novel system named Expert System for Aided Conceptual Design of Ship’s Engine Room Automation (ESACD), is elaborated in this study. With the support of the constructed Ship Data Warehouse System, two core subsystems Configuration Selection Assistant (CSA) and Design Scheme Decision Assistant (DSDA) are included in ESACD. A promising approach integrating Fuzzy c-means algorithm (FCM) and Rough Sets Theory (RST) to extract configuration rules from the stored data is adopted in CSA. According to engineers’ proposals, RST is utilized to reason knowledge in incomplete scheme information systems for getting design scheme rules in DSDA, which are useful suggestions for engineers to get better schemes at this stage. Finally, the validity and necessity of this interactive expert system are demonstrated through the CDSER of a new 50,000 DWT Handymax bulk carrier. It is proved that ESACD can efficiently facilitate rapid and intelligent design in CDSER, and reduce the cost of a new ship design.     

The BLEND system Programme for the study of some ‘electronic journals’∗

The paper describes a 3-year experimental programme organized jointly by the two universities as the Birmingham and Loughborough Electronic Network Development (BLEND). The aims are to assess the cost, efficiency and subjective impact of such a system, and to explore and evaluate alternative forms of user communication through an eletronic journal and information network. Using a host computer at Birmingham University, a community of initially about 50 scientists (Loughborough Information Network Community (LINC)) will be connnected through the public telephone network to explore various types of electronic journal. The concept of the electronic journal involves using a computer to aid the normal procedures whereby an article is written, refereed, accepted and ‘published’. The subject of this experimental programme will be ‘Computer Human Factors’. Each member will contribute at least one research article and one shorter note in each year of the project, and will also use other forms of communication such as newsletter, annotated abstracts, workshop conferences, co-operative authorship, etc. Throughout the project relevant data will be gathered to enable the assessment of system and user performance, cost, usefulness and acceptability? ? This paper has been referred, accepted and archived (in electronic form only) in the BL R&DD experimental electronic journal Computer Human Factors. .     

Band formulas for calculating the numerator’s coefficients of the transfer function of a single-input system

Based on band matrices, a new formula for finding polynomial coefficients of the numerator of the transfer function for a linear single-input single-output system is derived. Its properties are studied for analyzing and synthesizing linear systems with many outputs, as a result of which a method is developed for the synthesis of the specified polynomial of zero dynamics (specified output) for a linear system with many outputs.     

Development and application of a model for analysis and design phases of Web-based system development

The major characteristics of Web systems that shall be taken into account can be summarized as follows: First, the implementation of Web systems shall have a beneficial effect. To meet the requirements of Internet business system, the Web systems shall enable businesses to provide customers with something valuable through the Internet and profit from this process in return[1]. Second, the way to express the contents on the Web matters. To express the contents, Web systems shall introduce mu…     

A Kane’s based algorithm for closed-form dynamic analysis of a new design of a 3RSS-S spherical parallel manipulator

This paper proposes a systematic methodology to obtain a closed-form formulation for dynamics analysis of a new design of a fully spherical robot that is called a 3(RSS)-S parallel manipulator with real co-axial actuated shafts. The proposed robot can completely rotate about a vertical axis and can be used in celestial orientation and rehabilitation applications. After describing the robot and its inverse position, velocity and acceleration analysis is performed. Next, based on Kane’s method, a methodology for deriving the dynamical equations of motion is developed. The elaborated approach shows that the inverse dynamics of the manipulator can be reduced to solving a system of three linear equations in three unknowns. Finally, a computational algorithm to solve the inverse dynamics of the manipulator is advised and several trajectories of the moving platform are simulated.

     

Using agent’s type in control problems for a multi-agent hierarchical system

The feasibility of using agent’s type in solving a constrained optimization problem for a multi-agent hierarchical system is analyzed. The existence of a threshold for agent’s type, as well as certain conditions of its incorporation into system’s goal function are established.     

Discussing robot crime interviewers for children’s forensic testimonies: a relatively new field for investigation

The aim of this paper was to provide a background review to assist experimental, survey and field studies that will start emerging on the effects of robot crime interviewers on children and on forensic investigations. The paper captures topics such as describing how, historically, technology has determined our legal systems, criminal investigations and, of course, children’s forensic testimonies. It discusses studies that have already explored the idea of robot crime interviewers in the context of relevant ethical concerns as well as experimental studies on the different ways in which children react in an interview elicited by a human compared with a robot interviewer. The article continues by suggesting research methodological designs that could benefit studies exploring robot interviews with children such as a robot exposure phase prior to the main data collection, the robot’s “personality” and the instructions given to children for semi-autonomous interviewers. This is based on the available literature on human–robot interactions. There is an attempt here to provide a literature review and methodological suggestions to form future studies on robot crime interviewers.     

An integral–differential equation approach for the free vibration of a SDOF system with hysteretic damping

An integral–differential equation (IDE) in the time domain is proposed for the free vibration of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system with hysteretic damping which is different from the conventional complex stiffness model as employed in the frequency domain. The integral of the Hilbert transform is embedded in the IDE and is calculated in the Cauchy principal value sense by using a numerical folding technique. Numerical experiments show that the free vibration obtained by the frequency domain approach satisfies the IDE in the time domain. A successive iteration algorithm is employed to solve the IDE subject to forced vibration, and a convergent solution for the hysteresis loop is constructed, which matches the solution found by using the frequency domain approach. Both models, the time domain and frequency domain approaches, present the noncasual effect since they are equivalent in the mathematical sense.