Gemini: an optical interconnection network for parallel processing

The Gemini interconnect is a dual technology (optical and electrical) interconnection network designed for use in tightly-coupled multicomputer systems. It consists of a circuit-switched optical data path in parallel with a packet-switched electrical control/data path. The optical path is used for transmission of long data messages and the electrical path is used for switch control and transmission of short data messages. The paper describes the architecture of the interconnection network and related communications protocols. Fairness issues associated with network operation are addressed and a discrete-event simulation model of the entire system is described. Network performance characteristics derived from the simulation model are presented. The results show significant performance benefits when using virtual output queuing and quantify the tradeoffs between throughput and fairness in the system     

Discrete-event modelling of fire spreading

We deal here with the application of discrete-event System Specification (DEVS) formalism to implement a semi-physical fire spread model. Currently, models from physics finely representing forest fires are not efficient and still under development. If current softwares are devoted to the simulation of simple models of fire spread, nowadays there is no environment allowing us to model and simulate complex physical models of fire spread. Simulation models of such a type of models require being easily designed, modified and efficient in terms of execution time. DEVS formalism can be used to deal with these problems. This formalism enables the association of object-oriented hierarchical modelling with discrete-event techniques. Object-oriented hierarchical programming facilitates construction, maintenance and reusability of the simulation model. Discrete-events reduce the calculation domain to the active cells of the propagation domain (the heated ones).     

A hierarchical composite framework of parallel discrete event simulation for modelling complex adaptive systems

As complex adaptive systems(CAS) continue to grow in scale and complexity, and the need for system adaptability increases, systems modelling has become an essential concern. Parallel discrete event simulation became a preferred choice as logical process world view, which bridges complex system modelling and high-performance computing. To resolve the shortcoming of this world view identified with respect to modularity and scalability. A hierarchical composite modelling framework was proposed, which is a three-level architecture intended to support the composition and integration of sub-models. The bottom layer is simulation model component(SMC), which is not a model but implement some simulation-specific support functionality. The middle layer is logical process model(LP), which describes an agent which can react to the current situation by executing a sequence of SMCs. The top layer is CAS system model, which defines a CAS model consist of several LPs and also the interactions between these LPs. The hierarchical composite modelling process and parallel simulation execution strategy are discussed to support the modelling and simulation of a CAS. In order to verify its effectiveness, a complex social opinion system model is proposed based on this hierarchical composite modelling framework. The experimental results confirms the viability of utilizing multi-level architecture for simulating large scale complex adaptive systems.     

TIME WINDOWS: AUTOMATED ABSTRACTION OF CONTINUOUS-TIME MODELS INTO DISCRETE-EVENT MODELS IN HIGH AUTONOMY SYSTEMS∗

This paper describes the automated generation of time windows from continuous system simulation models. Time windows can be used to automatically generate equivalent discrete-event models at a coarser granularity level and they are instrumental to the design of event-based control systems. The generation of time windows represents one facility in the knowledge-based multifacetted modeling and simulation environment. DEVS-Schemc. In this environment, continuous-time and discrete-event models can coexist and they can be amalgamated with AI techniques. The usefulness of these concepts will be demonstrated by means of a model of a robot controlled fluid handling laboratory for Space Station Freedom to be used for research in Life Sciences, Microgravity Sciences, and Space Medicine.     

A process algebra based simulation model of a miniload-workstation order picking system

A modular discrete-event simulation model for a miniload-workstation (ML-WS) order picking system has been developed using a process algebra based simulation language. The proposed model is structured systematically such that distinctions between areas and operational layers can be clearly identified. Furthermore, subsystems and decentralized controls are applied in the model architecture. We demonstrate the modularity of the model by experiments, in which some control heuristics and the number of miniloads are altered. A realistic, industrial scale distribution center is used as the reference case for the simulation study. The resulting model architecture allows easy implementation of various system structures, design parameters, and control heuristics.     

The roles of conceptual modelling in improving construction simulation studies: A comprehensive review

The conceptual modelling phase of simulation studies has proven to be effective in enhancing the impact of simulation modelling in different domains. However, this simulation phase did not receive much attention in the construction simulation domain. The objective of this paper is to identify the roles that conceptual modelling can play in advancing the engagement, accuracy, and adoption (among other things) of discrete-event simulation studies in construction. In this paper, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is conducted, which involves a comprehensive search of databases and researchers’ profiles to identify journal papers, conference articles, books, and theses that have reported the benefits of conceptual modelling for discrete-event simulation studies. The review resulted in 82 documents that were published from 2000 to 2020. Results indicate that the benefits of conceptual modelling include facilitating communications between stakeholders, capturing sufficient information for the simulation model, improving the quality of simulation models, guiding other simulation modelling activities, and facilitating verification and validation of simulation models. By linking these benefits to the current research agenda in construction simulation, this paper shows the significance and potential of the conceptual modelling phase to enhance the impact of discrete-event simulation studies in construction.     

Hierarchical discrete-event simulation on hypercube architectures

The simulation of systems that include components at varying levels of abstraction is addressed. A performance model of a hierarchical discrete-event simulation algorithm running on a hypercube architecture is presented. The model allows the performance impact of decisions made in the design of the parallel processor as well as in the design of the simulation algorithm to be examined. Three static component partitioning strategies are considered: random partitioning, heuristic partitioning, and simulated annealing. The performance model is applied to digital system simulation     

Object-oriented models for advanced automation engineering

The paper focuses on how the object-oriented paradigm can be exploited as a valid modelling technique in many engineering fields and, in particular, in advanced automation engineering. The most typical features of object-oriented modelling techniques include encapsulation of data, functions to access such data into objects, and hierarchical composition of objects. On the other hand, the large majority of complex systems, like industrial plants and distributed control systems, can be decomposed into a hierarchical structure that facilitates system comprehension, design and control. Consequently, the object-oriented modelling technique is suited to real-world modelling, in particular in representing the hybrid dynamics (continuous-time, discrete-time and discrete-event) of industrial plants.     

离散事件系统规范DEVS研究

离散事件系统是一类常见的系统，如何对这类系统进行描述与建模是离散事件系统仿真研究的核心内容。离散事件系统规范DEVS是一种离散事件系统形式化描述方法，它具有层次化和模块化的特点，利用该方法可对复杂的离散事件系统进行建模、设计、分析和仿真。该文详细介绍了DEVS基本模型和耦合模型，给出了DEVS在耦合运算下的封闭性构造证明，并提出了一种具有嵌套层次结构的DEVS耦合模型实现算法，该算法对基于DEVS描述的离散事件系统的仿真实现具有一定参考价值。     

SYSTEM THEORETIC FORMALISMS FOR COMBINED DISCRETE-CONTINUOUS SYSTEM SIMULATION

In this paper we present an approach to combined discrete-continuous modelling which can be used to model and simulate an intelligent multi-layer control architecture as can be found in high autonomy systems. The modelling approach is based on system theoretical concepts; the three system specification formalisms-differential equation, discrete time, and the discrete event system specification formalism-have been combined to facilitate multi-formalisms modelling. Simulation concepts are based on the abstract simulator concept for discrete event simulation developed by Zeigler. Similar simulation methods have been developed to simulate modular, hierarchical discrete time and differential equation specified systems as well as multi-formalism models. Included in the paper are several examples of multi-formalism models together with the simulation results from the STIMS environment-an implementation of the modelling and simulation concepts in Interlisp-D/LOOPS.     

Computational speed and high-frequency trading profitability: an ecological perspective

High-frequency traders (HFTs) account for a considerable component of equity trading but we know little about the source of their trading profits and to what extend IT based differentiators such as news processing power and ultra-low latency has contributed to competitive advantage within HFT realm. Given a fairly modest amount of empirical evidence on the subject, we study the effects of computational speed on HFTs’ profits through an experimental artificial agent-based equity market. Our approach relies on an ecological modelling inspired from the r/K selection theory, and is designed to assess the relative financial performance of two classes of aggressive HFT agents endowed with dissimilar computational capabilities. We use a discrete-event news simulation system to capture the information processing disparity and order transfer delay, and simulate the dynamics of the market. Through Monte Carlo simulation we obtain in our empirical setting robust estimates of the expected outcome.     

Site and query scheduling policies in multicomputer databasesystems

We study run-time issues, such as site allocation and query scheduling policies, in executing read-only queries in a hierarchical, distributed memory, multicomputer system. The particular architecture considered is based on the hypercube interconnection. The data are stored in a base cube, which is controlled by a control cube and host node hierarchy. Input query trees are transformed into operation sequence trees, and the operation sequences become the units of scheduling. These sequences are scheduled dynamically at run-time. Algorithms for dynamic site allocation are provided. Several query scheduling policies that support interquery concurrency are also studied. Average query completion times and initiation delays are obtained for the various policies using simulations     

Automatic generation of IDEF0 models

This paper looks into a new area for knowledge-based system application, that of manufacturing modelling. Manual generation of IDEF0 models of manufacturing systems is time-consuming and inconsistent. However, the process can be automated to improve timeliness and consistency. In this paper, a knowledge-based manufacturing modelling system for the automatic generation of IDEF0 models is proposed. The system will not only greatly reduce the IDEF0 modelling time but will also eliminate the inconsistency problem of conventional IDEF0 modelling systems. The paper explains the knowledge-based approach and identifies the kinds of domain knowledge that are required for the construction of the knowledge-based manufacturing modelling system.     

Maneuvering control simulation of underwater vehicle based on combined discrete-event and discrete-time modeling

When designing or acquiring underwater vehicles such as submarines and torpedoes, it is necessary to predict their performance precisely and perform tests repeatedly using modeling and simulation at both the engineering level and the tactical engagement level. For simulation performed for analysis purposes at the engineering level, which requires a considerable amount of computation power, a discrete-time system simulation that computes significant values at every single unit time using the established mathematical model or engineering model is mainly employed. To simulate a complex or complicated task such as a traffic analysis or tactical measure of effectiveness (MOE) analysis at the engagement level, it is appropriate to use a discrete-event system simulation that causes transition between model states through the triggering of events on the basis of the passing of messages between simplified mathematical models coupled in various ways. In this paper, we studied a maneuvering control of underwater vehicle from the perspective of a combined discrete-event and discrete-time system simulation; the simulation model is established on the basis of discrete-event system specification (DEVS) formalism, which is a representative modeling formalism of a discrete-event system simulation. In detail, the simulation includes DEVS modeling implementations of simulation execution time control and discrete-time step size control in real time at the time of performing a discrete-time system simulation for the purpose of three-dimensional visualization or carrying out a performance analysis using the DEVS model. This hybrid approach makes possible to build a simulation-based expert system which supports the decision making for the acquisition of an underwater vehicle.     

A knowledge-based simulation environment for hierarchical flexiblemanufacturing

This article presents an approach to embedding expert systems within an object oriented simulation environment. The basic idea is to create classes of expert system models that can be interfaced with other model classes. An expert system shell is developed within a knowledge-based design and simulation environment which combines artificial intelligence and systems modeling concepts. In the given framework, interruptible and distributed expert systems can be defined as components of simulations models. This facilitates simulation modeling of knowledge-based controls for flexible manufacturing and many other autonomous intelligent systems. Moreover, the structure of a system can be specified using a recursive system entity structure (SES) and unfolded to generate a family of hierarchical structures using an extension of SES pruning called recursive pruning. This recursive generation of hierarchical structures is especially appropriate for design of multilevel flexible factories. The article illustrates the utility of the proposed framework within the flexible manufacturing context     

DISTRIBUTED SIMULATION OF HIGH-LEVEL ALGEBRAIC PETRI NETS WITH LIMITED CAPACITY PLACES

The aim of this paper is to search for techniques to accelerate simulations exploiting the parallelism available in current multicomputers, and to use these techniques to study a class of Petri nets called high-level algebraic nets. These nets exploit the rich theory of algebraic specifications for high-level Petri nets. They also gain a great deal of modelling power by representing dynamically changing items as structured tokens whereas algebraic specifications turned out to be an adequate and flexible instrument for handling structured items. We focus on ECATNets (Extended Concurrent Algebraic Term Nets), a kind of high-level algebraic Petri nets with limited capacity places

Three distributed simulation techniques have been considered: asynchronous conservative, asynchronous optimistic and synchronous. These algorithms have been implemented in a network of workstations with MPI (Message Passing Interface). The influence that factors such as the characteristics of the simulated models, the organisation of the simulators and the characteristics of the target multicomputer have in the performance of the simulations have been measured and characterized

It is concluded that distributed simulation of ECATNets on a multicomputer system can in fact gain speedup over the sequential simulation, and this can be achieved even for small scale simulation models.     

Integrating continuous-time and discrete-event concepts in modelling and simulation of manufacturing machines

Using simulation models for the development and testing of control systems can have significant advantages over using real machines. This paper demonstrates the suitability of the χ language for modelling, simulation and control of manufacturing machines. The language integrates a small number of powerful orthogonal continuous-time and discrete-event concepts. The continuous-time part of χ is based on DAEs; the discrete-event part is based on a CSP-like concurrent programming language. Models are specified in a symbolic mathematical notation. A case study is presented of a transport system consisting of conveyor belts.     

The M-machine multicomputer

The M-Machine is an experimental multicomputer being developed to test architectural concepts motivated by the constraints of modern semiconductor technology and the demands of programming systems. The M-Machine computing nodes are connected with a 3-D mesh network; each node is a multithreaded processor incorporating 9 function units, on-chip cache, and local memory. The multiple function units are used to exploit both instruction-level and thread-level parallelism. A user accessible message passing system yields fast communication and synchronization between nodes. Rapid access to remote memory is provided transparently to the user with a combination of hardware and software mechanisms. This paper presents the architecture of the M-Machine and describes how its mechanisms attempt to maximize both single thread performance and overall system throughput. The architecture is complete and the MAP chip, which will serve as the M-Machine processing node, is currently being implemented.