Fast NMPC schemes for regulatory and economic NMPC – A review

In this paper, NMPC schemes based on fast update methods (fast NMPC schemes) are reviewed that strive to provide a fast but typically suboptimal update of the control variables at each sampling instant with negligible computational delay. The review focuses on schemes that employ one of two subclasses of fast update methods developed for direct solution approaches, the suboptimal update methods and the sensitivity-based update methods. The connections and similarities of the fast update methods, the elements of the fast NMPC, the control architecture as well as the fast NMPC schemes as a whole are highlighted to support the assessment of the benefits and limitations of each individual scheme. In this way, this review facilitates the choice of a suitable fast NMPC scheme within the vast amount of fast NMPC schemes available in literature.     

Predictive control,embedded cyberphysical systems and systems of systems – A perspective

Today’s world is changing rapidly due to advancements in information technology, computation and communication. Actuation, communication, sensing, and control are becoming ubiquitous. These technological advancements have led to the widespread availability of information and the possibility to connect systems in unforeseen manner. There is a strong desire for smart(er) cities, buildings, devices, factories, health monitoring – a smarter world. However, designing such a smarter world requires addressing also many challenges resulting from the emerging complex interactions and interoperation of systems. How is it possible to handle the increasing complexity during design and maintenance of such systems? How can one guarantee safety and performance of systems operating over networks which are subject to erroneous communication, delays, and failures of sensors and actuators? Is it possible to design control systems which allow for easy reconfiguration or even self-organization, for example by letting subsystems join and leave larger systems via plug and play strategies? Can one guarantee privacy of the controlled subsystems while exchanging information, which is necessary for maintaining overall system performance? We believe that predictive control is a well suited control approach to tackle some of these challenges due to its flexibility with respect to the formulation of the problem and the possibility to directly take constraints, preview information, as well as models of different complexity of the physical world into account. In this perspective we limit our attention to three areas we believe predictive control methods can provide a basis to tackle the appearing challenges: the efficient and easy implementation of predictive control on omnipresent embedded computation hardware, the question of resource and network aware control, as well as control on the network level of systems of systems. We briefly summarize results from these fields and outline some ideas on challenges, which arise.     

Bio inspired computing – A review of algorithms and scope of applications

With the explosion of data generation, getting optimal solutions to data driven problems is increasingly becoming a challenge, if not impossible. It is increasingly being recognised that applications of intelligent bio-inspired algorithms are necessary for addressing highly complex problems to provide working solutions in time, especially with dynamic problem definitions, fluctuations in constraints, incomplete or imperfect information and limited computation capacity. More and more such intelligent algorithms are thus being explored for solving different complex problems. While some studies are exploring the application of these algorithms in a novel context, other studies are incrementally improving the algorithm itself. However, the fast growth in the domain makes researchers unaware of the progresses across different approaches and hence awareness across algorithms is increasingly reducing, due to which the literature on bio-inspired computing is skewed towards few algorithms only (like neural networks, genetic algorithms, particle swarm and ant colony optimization). To address this concern, we identify the popularly used algorithms within the domain of bio-inspired algorithms and discuss their principles, developments and scope of application. Specifically, we have discussed the neural networks, genetic algorithm, particle swarm, ant colony optimization, artificial bee colony, bacterial foraging, cuckoo search, firefly, leaping frog, bat algorithm, flower pollination and artificial plant optimization algorithm. Further objectives which could be addressed by these twelve algorithms have also be identified and discussed. This review would pave the path for future studies to choose algorithms based on fitment. We have also identified other bio-inspired algorithms, where there are a lot of scope in theory development and applications, due to the absence of significant literature.     

Identification of multivariable systems A critical review†

A critical survey is presented of the existing literature on the identification of multivariable systems from input-output data, along with some new directions for further research in the field. Emphasis is placed on realistic cases where the measurements are contaminated with noise     

Why provide an online review? An extended theory of planned behavior and the role of Big-Five personality traits

Online review, an important form of reputation systems, has been studied intensively because of its powerful impact on online retailers, intermediaries, and customers. However, to date, very little attention has been paid to factors that influence an individual’s intention to provide an online review. An extended theory of planned behavior and Big-Five personality framework are used in this study. We empirically examine our model by using a cross-sectional survey study, collecting data from a sample of 171 online shoppers. Results show that attitude, perceived pressure, neuroticism, and conscientiousness are significant predictors of an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Findings may help online retailers and/or intermediaries increase the number of online reviews provided, which will lead to more accurate rating information about transactions, products, or services and may serve as a stepping-stone to continuous improvements. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.     

Scalable mpNoC for massively parallel systems – Design and implementation on FPGA

The high chip-level integration enables the implementation of large-scale parallel processing architectures with 64 and more processing nodes on a single chip or on an FPGA device. These parallel systems require a cost-effective yet high-performance interconnection scheme to provide the needed communications between processors. The massively parallel Network on Chip (mpNoC) was proposed to address the demand for parallel irregular communications for massively parallel processing System on Chip (mppSoC). Targeting FPGA-based design, an efficient mpNoC low level RTL implementation is proposed taking into account design constraints. The proposed network is designed as an FPGA based Intellectual Property (IP) able to be configured in different communication modes. It can communicate between processors and also perform parallel I/O data transfer which is clearly a key issue in an SIMD system. The mpNoC RTL implementation presents good performances in terms of area, throughput and power consumption which are important metrics targeting an on chip implementation. mpNoC is a flexible architecture that is suitable for use in FPGA-based parallel systems. This paper introduces the basic mppSoC architecture. It mainly focuses on the mpNoC flexible IP based design and its implementation on FPGA. The integration of mpNoC in mppSoC is also described. Implementation results on a Stratix II FPGA device are given for three data-parallel applications ran on mppSoC. The obtained good performances justify the effectiveness of the proposed parallel network. It is shown that the mpNoC is a lightweight parallel network making it suitable for both small as well as large FPGA-based parallel systems.     

Developing physical and physiological employment standards: Translation of job analysis findings to assessments and performance standards – A systematic review

Physical employment standards (PES) are developed with the aim of ensuring that an employee's physical and physiological capacities are commensurate with the demands of their occupation. While previous commentaries and narrative reviews have provided frameworks for the development of PES, this is the first systematic review of the methods used to translate job analysis findings to PES tests and performance standards for physically demanding occupations. A search of PubMed and Google Scholar was conducted for research articles published in English up to and including March 2015. Two authors independently reviewed and extracted data.The search yielded 87 potentially eligible papers, including 60 peer reviewed journal articles and 17 technical reports. 57 papers were excluded leading to a final data set of 31 papers, representing 22 studies. Job analysis was most commonly conducted through subjective determination of job tasks followed by objective quantification and validation. Determination of criterion tasks was evenly distributed through subjective and objective methods with criterion tasks being defined most commonly as most demanding, critical and/or frequent. Generic predictive and task-related predictive tests were more commonly observed in isolation or in combination when compared to task simulation tests. Performance standards were more commonly criterion-referenced than norm-referenced with a variety of statistical methods utilised. This review provides recommendations for researchers when developing physical employment standards for a variety of occupations.     

A Design and Implementation of Secure Login System

According to the secure problems existing in the login system, a new secure scheme on login system is proposed. This scheme encryptedly transmits the input information after filtration and digestion so that it can efficiently avoid the replay-attack and the man-in-the-middle attack.     

Smart manufacturing process and system automation – A critical review of the standards and envisioned scenarios

Smart manufacturing is arriving. It promises a future of mass-producing highly personalized products via responsive autonomous manufacturing operations at a competitive cost. Of utmost importance, smart manufacturing requires end-to-end integration of intra-business and inter-business manufacturing processes and systems. Such end-to-end integration relies on standards-compliant and interoperable interfaces between different manufacturing stages and systems. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of the current landscape of manufacturing automation standards, with a focus on end-to-end integrated manufacturing processes and systems towards mass personalization and responsive factory automation. First, we present an authentic vision of smart manufacturing and the unique needs for next-generation manufacturing automation. A comprehensive review of existing standards for enabling manufacturing process automation and manufacturing system automation is presented. Subsequently, focusing on meeting changing demands of efficient production of highly personalized products, we detail several future-proofing manufacturing automation scenarios via integrating various existing standards. We believe that existing automation standards have provided a solid foundation for developing smart manufacturing solutions. Faster, broader and deeper implementation of smart manufacturing automation can be anticipated via the dissemination, adoption, and improvement of relevant standards in a need-driven approach.     

The relationship between online game playing motivation and selection of online game characters – the case of Taiwan

The alarming growth rate in the online game industry calls for a need of understanding the determinants of online gamers’ behaviour. Investigating how online gamers choose different online characters assists online game vendors to design characters that match the needs of different online gamers. Recently, numerous online game designers have introduced celebrity figures as characters for certain online games. The popularity of those celebrities has resulted in greater awareness of these games, and hopefully further increases the playability of online games. While different online gamers are motivated by different desires for playing, it is insufficiently researched whether these online celebrity characters have actually altered players’ choice in giving preference to these games. Thus, this study conducts an experimental design to study the reasons behind players’ choice of characters by studying how online games perceive the interpersonal attractiveness of celebrity online characters, and how online gamers with different playing motivations display different behaviours in their choice of online game characters. Results from the survey filled out by participants after the experiments show that the attractiveness of celebrity online characters is significantly higher than that of non-celebrity characters. Further, online game players with a social playing motivation tend to choose celebrities as their online game characters.     

A long-term evaluation of the stage of change approach and compensable injury outcomes – a cluster-randomised trial

Abstract

This study investigated the long-term injury outcomes for workers in companies from a range of industries which had been randomly allocated to receive ergonomics interventions tailored according to the stage of change (SOC) approach or standard ergonomics advice. Differences in compensable injury outcomes between the groups were analysed using logistic regression models. Questionnaire results from face-to-face interviews to assess musculoskeletal pain and discomfort (MSPD), job satisfaction and other factors were also analysed. Although not significant at the 0.05 level, after adjusting for workgroup clustering, workers in receipt of tailored advice were 55% (OR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.19–1.08) less likely to report a compensable injury than those in receipt of standard ergonomics advice. Workload, job satisfaction and MSPD were significantly correlated with injury outcomes. The observed outcomes support the potential value of the SOC approach, as well as highlighting the need to consider workload, job satisfaction and MSPD when planning injury prevention programmes.

Practitioner Summary: This study investigated compensable injury outcomes for workers who had received ergonomics advice tailored according to the stage of change (SOC) approach compared with standard ergonomics advice. The results support the potential value of the SOC approach and highlight the need to consider workload, job satisfaction and musculoskeletal pain and discomfort when planning injury prevention interventions.     

Customer participation,value co-creation and customer loyalty – A case of airline online check-in system

Information communication technologies and self-service technologies, such as self-check-in kiosks or online check-in systems, are widely used in the air transport industry. This study proposes a conceptual model to investigate the relationships among customer participation, co-created values and customer loyalty in an air transport context, and empirically tests the model by using questionnaire survey data collected from Taiwanese airline passengers. In particular, three perceived values (i.e. enjoyment value, economic value and relational value) are specified to represent the passengers' co-created values. The empirical results support the following hypotheses. Customer participation in using an online check-in system is positively related to all three values, which further lead to satisfaction with respect to the system. System satisfaction is also related to satisfaction with respect to the company, and both system satisfaction and company satisfaction have positive effects on customer loyalty.     

From ethics to standards – A path via responsible AI to cyber-physical production systems

The central claim of the paper is that the development and control of Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) requires a systematic approach to handle and include explicit ethical considerations. Since the contribution of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, and of agent-based models in particular, was instrumental in the evolution of CPPSs, approaches of ethical AI should be endorsed in CPPS development by design. The paper discusses recent advances for ethical AI and suggests a pathway from ethical norms towards standards. As it is argued, taking the responsible AI approach is promising when tackling the main ethic-related challenges of Cyber-Physical Production Systems. We expose a number of dilemmas to be resolved so that AI systems incorporated in CPPS cause no damages either in humans, equipment or in the environment and increase the trust in the users of current and future AI technologies.     

An Intelligent Tool to Support Requirements Analysis and Conceptual Design of Database Design

As an application of artificial intelligence and expert system technology to database design,this paper presents an intelligent design tool NITDT,which comprises a requirements specification language NITSL,a knowledge representation language NITKL,and an inference engine with uncertainty reasoning capability.NITDT now covers the requirements analysis and conceptual design of database design.However,it is possible to be integrated with another database design tool,NITDBA,developed also at NIT to become an integrated design tool supporting the whole process of database design.     

Correlating mobile phone usage and travel behavior – A case study of Harbin,China

Information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as mobile phones and the Internet, are increasingly pervasive in modern society. These technologies provide new resources for spatio-temporal data mining and geographic knowledge discovery. Since the development of ICTs also impacts physical movement of individuals in societies, much of the existing research has focused on examining the correlation between ICT and human mobility. In this paper, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of how usage of mobile phones correlates with individual travel behavior by exploring the correlation between mobile phone call frequencies and three indicators of travel behavior: (1) radius, (2) eccentricity, and (3) entropy. The methodology is applied to a large dataset from Harbin city in China. The statistical analysis indicates a significant correlation between mobile phone usage and all of the three indicators. In addition, we examine and demonstrate how explanatory factors, such as age, gender, social temporal orders and characteristics of the built environment, impact the relationship between mobile phone usage and individual activity behavior.     

Hybrid systems of differential-algebraic equations – Analysis and numerical solution

We consider hybrid systems of differential-algebraic equations and present a general framework for general nonlinear over- and underdetermined hybrid systems that allows the analysis of existence and uniqueness and the application of index reduction methods for hybrid differential-algebraic systems. A particular difficulty in the numerical simulation of hybrid systems is (numerical) chattering, i.e., fast oscillations between modes of operations. A regularization technique using sliding modes allows us to regularize the system behavior in the case of chattering. Further, we show how chattering behavior during the numerical solution can be prevented using sliding mode simulation. The advantage of the sliding mode simulation is illustrated by numerical examples.     

Differentiation of online text-based advertising and the effect on users’ click behavior

Online syndicated text-based advertising is ubiquitous on news sites, blogs, personal websites, and on search result pages. Until recently, a common distinguishing feature of these text-based advertisements has been their background color. Following intervention by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the format of these advertisements has undergone a subtle change in their design and presentation. Using three empirical experiments, we investigate the effect of industry-standard advertising practices on click rates, and demonstrate changes in user behavior when this familiar differentiator is modified. Using three large-scale experiments (N₁ = 101, N₂ = 84, N₃ = 176) we find that displaying advertisement and content results with a differentiated background results in significantly lower click rates. Our results demonstrate the strong link between background color differentiation and advertising, and reveal how alternative differentiation techniques influence user behavior.     

Design and architecture of an interactive eTextbook – The OpenDSA system

The OpenDSA Project seeks to provide complete instructional materials for data structures and algorithms (DSA) courses. Our vision for a highly interactive eTextbook involves the use of many algorithm visualizations (AVs) and a wide range of interactive exercises with automated assessment. To realize this vision we require a mix of third-party and custom software components that make up a client/server-based web application. The massive amount content development required compels us to adopt an appropriate mix of open-source practices that will encourage broad contribution to the project. In this paper we describe the OpenDSA system architecture and the design goals that led to the present version of the system.