OPRoS: A New Component‐Based Robot Software Platform

A component is a reusable and replaceable software module accessed through its interface. Component‐based development is expected to shorten the development period, reduce maintenance costs, and improve program reusability and the interoperability of components. This paper proposes a new robot software component platform in order to support the entire process of robot software development. It consists of specifications of a component model, component authoring tool, component composer, and component execution engine. To show its feasibility, this paper presents the analysis results of the component's communication overhead, a comparison with other robotic software platforms, and applications in commercial robots.     

A time‐efficient shrinkage algorithm for the Fourier‐based prediction enabling proactive optimisation in software‐defined networks

This paper focuses on the problem of time‐efficient traffic prediction. The prediction enables the proactive and globally scoped optimisation in software‐defined networks (SDNs). We propose the shrinkage and selection heuristic method for the trigonometric Fourier‐based traffic models in SDNs. The proposed solution allows us to optimise the network for an upcoming time window by installing flow entries in SDN nodes before the first packet of a new flow arrives. As the mechanism is designed to be a part of a sophisticated routing‐support system, several critical constraints are considered and taken into account. Specifically, the system is traffic‐ and topology‐agnostic, thus the prediction mechanism must be applicable to the networks with highly variable traffic loads (e.g., observed inside intra‐DCNs: datacentre networks). Furthermore, the system must effectively optimise routing in large‐scale SDNs comprised of numerous nodes and handling millions of flows of a dynamic nature. Therefore, the prediction must be simultaneously accurate as well as being time efficient and scalable. These requirements are met by our Fourier‐based solution, which subtracts consecutive harmonics from the original signal and compares the result with an adaptive threshold adjusted to the signal's standard deviation. The evaluation is performed by comparing the proposed heuristic with the well‐known Lasso method of proven accuracy. The results show that our solution is able to retain prediction accuracy at a comparable level. Moreover, in accordance with our main aim, we operate in a manner which is always significantly faster. In some cases, computation times are reduced by as much as 50 times.     

Quality‐of‐Service Mechanisms for Flow‐Based Routers

In this paper, we propose quality of service mechanisms for flow‐based routers which have to handle several million flows at wire speed in high‐speed networks. Traffic management mechanisms are proposed for guaranteed traffic and non‐guaranteed traffic separately, and then the effective harmonization of the two mechanisms is introduced for real networks in which both traffic types are mixed together. A simple non‐work‐conserving fair queuing algorithm is proposed for guaranteed traffic, and an adaptive flow‐based random early drop algorithm is proposed for non‐guaranteed traffic. Based on that basic architecture, we propose a dynamic traffic identification method to dynamically prioritize traffic according to the traffic characteristics of applications. In a high‐speed router system, the dynamic traffic identification method could be a good alternative to deep packet inspection, which requires handling of the IP packet header and payload. Through numerical analysis, simulation, and a real system experiment, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed mechanisms.     

一种基于构件的软件开发方法和设计过程

本文首先介绍了构件、构件类和构件库的基本概念，并提出了构件的一种新的分类，最后在这种新的构件分类下给出了这一种基于构件的软件开发方法和过程。     

Model‐based guidelines for user‐centric satellite control software development

Three persistent common problems in satellite ground control software are obsolescence, lack of desired features and flexibilities, and endless software bug fixing. The obsolescence problem occurs when computer and ground equipment hardware become obsolete, usually after only one‐third into the satellite mission lifetime. The software needs to be updated to accommodate changes on the hardware side, requiring significant work of satellite operators to test, verify, and validate these software updates. Trying to help solve these problems, we have proposed an object‐process methodology model and guidelines for developing satellite ground control software. The system makes use of a database‐driven application and concepts of object‐process orientation and modularity. In the new proposed framework, instead of coding each software function separately, the common base functions will be coded, and combining them in various ways will provide the different required functions. The formation and combination of these base functions will be governed by the main code, definitions, and database parameters. These design principles will make sure that the new software framework would provide satellite operators with the flexibility to create new features and enable software developer to find bugs quicker and fix them more effectively. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multilevel Location Trigger in Distributed Mobile Environments for Location‐Based Services

In location‐based services, most trigger technologies have been implemented on the server side by periodically requesting the locations of mobile phones from mobile network servers. However, bottlenecks and communication interruptions occur when the servers are overloaded by trigger requests. In this letter, we propose a new multilevel location trigger specification which distributes the event detecting role to mobile phones and redesigns the location triggering into a multilevel step. Our suggested location trigger specification can reduce bottlenecks caused by triggers in a mobile core network and reduce power consumption caused by embedded GPS devices in mobile phones.     

Channel‐estimate‐based frequency‐domain equalization (CE‐FDE) for broadband single‐carrier transmission

A channel‐estimate‐based frequency‐domain equalization (CE‐FDE) scheme for wireless broadband single‐carrier communications over time‐varying frequency‐selective fading channels is proposed. Adaptive updating of the FDE coefficients are based on the timely estimate of channel impulse response (CIR) to avoid error propagation that is a major source of performance degradation in adaptive equalizers using least mean square (LMS) or recursive least square (RLS) algorithms. Various time‐domain and frequency‐domain techniques for initial channel estimation and adaptive updating are discussed and evaluated in terms of performance and complexity. Performance of uncoded and coded systems using the proposed CE‐FDE with diversity combining in different time‐varying, multi‐path fading channels is evaluated. Analytical and simulation results show the good performance of the proposed scheme suitable for broadband wireless communications. For channels with high‐Doppler frequency, diversity combining substantially improves the system performance. For channels with sparse multi‐path propagation, a tap‐selection strategy used with the CE‐FDE systems can significantly reduce the complexity without sacrificing the performance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurement Accuracy of Oscillation‐Based Test of Analog‐to‐Digital Converters

Oscillation‐based testing of analog‐to‐digital converters represents a viable option for low‐cost built‐in self‐testing in mixed‐signal design. While numerous papers have addressed implementation issues, little attention has been paid to the measurement accuracy. In this letter, we highlight an inherent measurement uncertainty which has to be considered when deriving the parameters from the oscillation frequency.     

ABC方法中体系结构风格建模的研究

体系结构风格是体系结构设计的重要指导,它为设计人员的交流建立了公共的术语空间,促进了设计复用与代码复用.本文试图为体系结构风格定义提供一个通用的形式化框架,支持建模风格的结构约束、拓扑约束和交互行为约束,并且将风格所蕴含的体系结构变化性特征显式化;通过将该框架引入ABC方法,给出了一种基于风格的体系结构建模方法,并提供了图形化的建模工具.     

A Novel Photoscissile Poly(ethylene glycol)‐Based Hydrogel

A novel eight‐branched poly(ethylene glycol), PEG, macromer having a nitrocinnamate moiety as a pendant group was synthesized and found to form a photoscissile hydrogel upon exposure to 365 nm radiation in the absence of photoinitiators or catalysts. The processes of photocrosslinking and photocleavage were clearly characterized by environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM).     

Solution‐Processible Phosphorescent Blue Dendrimers Based on Biphenyl‐Dendrons and Fac‐tris(phenyltriazolyl)iridium(III) Cores

Solution‐processible saturated blue phosphorescence is an important goal for organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs). Fac‐tris(5‐aryltriazolyl)iridium(III) complexes can emit blue phosphorescence at room temperature. Mono‐ and doubly dendronized fac‐tris(1‐methyl‐5‐phenyl‐3‐n‐propyl‐1H‐[1,2,4]triazolyl)iridium(III) 1 and fac‐tris{1‐methyl‐5‐(4‐fluorophenyl)‐3‐n‐propyl‐1H‐[1,2,4]triazolyl}iridium(III) 4 with first generation biphenyl‐based dendrons were prepared. The dendrimers emitted blue light at room temperature and could be solution processed to form thin films. The doubly dendronized 3 had a film photoluminescence quantum yield of 67% and Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.17, 0.33). OLEDs comprised of a neat film of dendrimer 3 and an electron transport layer achieved a brightness of 142 cd m^?2 at 3.8 V with an external quantum efficiency of 7.9%, and CIE coordinates of (0.18, 0.35). Attachment of the fluorine atom to the emissive core had the effect of moving the luminescence to shorter wavelengths but also quenched the luminescence of the mono‐ and doubly dendronized dendrimers.     

A novel architecture of Proxy‐LMA mobility management scheme for software‐based smart factory networking

Mobile users expect a network service, in which seamless handoff occurs while moving on a next generation wireless network. In addition, in smart factories (SFs), communication is required between factory floor and manufacturing zone, as well as connectivity towards office IT, or remote production facilities that are connected via wide area network or internet. For this purpose, interworking between heterogeneous networks is important, but there has been little research on global mobility support. Therefore, this paper proposes Proxy‐LMA technology, a mobile IP‐based global internetworking system, to improve global mobility and interoperability in the SFs network environment. The purpose of the proposed Proxy‐LMA system is to support global mobility by using mobility management protocols such as PMIPv6 and MIPv6 in heterogeneous network environment. As a result of the performance evaluation, Proxy‐LMA system is more efficient than other methods in terms of signaling cost and response delay in heterogeneous network environment. Software‐based networking in SFs enables them to easily adapt the communication network to changing requirements. Similar to cloud‐based systems, such SFs could be seen as production clusters that could be rented and configured as needed. The SF network uses software‐defined networking combined with network functions virtualization, to achieve the required flexibility. Despite the fact that the technology is nowadays not yet ready for deployment in today's manufacturing networks, a novel network architecture for SFs based on software‐defined networking and network virtualization is here proposed, to support smart services, especially for Industrie 4.0.     

Scalable Quasi‐Dynamic‐Provisioning‐Based Admission Control Mechanism in Differentiated Service Networks

The architecture in a differentiated services (DiffServ) network is based on a simple model that applies a per‐class service in the core node of the network. However, because the network behavior is simple, the network structure and provisioning is complicated. If a service provider wants dynamic provisioning or a better bandwidth guarantee, the differentiated services network must use a signaling protocol with QoS parameters or an admission control method. Unfortunately, these methods increase the complexity. To overcome the problems with complexity, we investigated scalable dynamic provisioning for admission control in DiffServ networks. We propose a new scalable qDPM² mechanism based on a centralized bandwidth broker and distributed measurement‐based admission control and movable boundary bandwidth management to support heterogeneous QoS requirements in DiffServ networks.     

Vanadium‐Based Nanomaterials: A Promising Family for Emerging Metal‐Ion Batteries

The emerging electrochemical energy storage systems beyond Li‐ion batteries, including Na/K/Mg/Ca/Zn/Al‐ion batteries, attract extensive interest as the development of Li‐ion batteries is seriously hindered by the scarce lithium resources. During the past years, large amounts of studies have focused on the investigation of various electrode materials toward emerging metal‐ion batteries to realize high energy density, high power density, and a long cycle life. In particular, vanadium‐based nanomaterials have received great attention. Vanadium‐based compounds have a big family with different structures, chemical compositions, and electrochemical properties, which provide huge possibilities for the development of emerging electrochemical energy storage. In this review, a comprehensive overview of the recent progresses of promising vanadium‐based nanomaterials for emerging metal‐ion batteries is presented. The vanadium‐based materials are classified into four groups: vanadium oxides, vanadates, vanadium phosphates, and oxygen‐free vanadium‐based compounds. The structures, electrochemical properties, and modification strategies are discussed. The structure–performance relationships and charge storage mechanisms are focused on. Finally, the perspectives about future directions of vanadium‐based nanomaterials for emerging energy storage devices are proposed. This review will provide comprehensive knowledge of vanadium‐based nanomaterials and shed light on their potential applications in emerging energy storage.     

A new approach for fast segment‐based protection in WDM mesh networks

We propose a new approach for developing segment‐based schemes for protection against single link/node failure in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) mesh networks. In the proposed approach, every request is allocated a pair of link disjoint but most coupled primary and backup paths. Two paths are said to be most coupled if they share the maximum number of end nodes of some existing requests. Coupled paths reduce the total number of hops need to be traversed by a failure signal and, hence, potentially reduces the overall recovery time. We show that the problem of finding a pair of disjoint and most coupled paths is NP‐complete. Accordingly, we propose an efficient and fast protection algorithm called SPXP—Segment Pre‐Cross‐Connected Protection, to allocate disjoint and most coupled paths. The proposed SPXP algorithm reduces the recovery time by ensuring that backup resources are pre‐configured along each backup segment and, hence, is readily available upon a failure. Simulation results for different incremental traffic models and network topologies show that, for most cases, the proposed SPXP exhibits better performance in terms of blocking probability, resource usage, and recovery time compared with existing protection schemes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Market Efficiency Analysis between Facility‐Based and Service‐Based Competition

Facility‐based competition (FBC) in the telecommunications market is considered to have lower static efficiency in the short term and higher dynamic efficiency in the long term. Under service‐based competition (SBC), the entrant can reduce its setup costs by leasing network facilities from the incumbent, which makes the entrant viable, pushes the market price down and promotes static efficiency. This paper attempts to measure static efficiency by comparing the profits of the incumbent and entrant in terms of consumer surplus and social welfare under each competition type by extending the Stackelberg model. The results, assuming a linear demand function and variation in regulatory level, show that FBC results in higher social welfare than SBC on the whole. However, SBC accompanied by strong regulation is also shown to have the potential to be superior over FBC. It is also revealed that FBC exhibits a higher producer surplus (particularly, the incumbent's producer surplus) and is, therefore, more desirable in terms of dynamic efficiency. When the entrant's cost is high in FBC, social welfare is shown to be lowered, implying that cost competitiveness is a necessary condition for social welfare.     

TILAK: A token‐based prevention approach for topology discovery threats in SDN

Software‐defined networks (SDNs) decouple the data plane from the control plane. Thus, it provides logically centralized visibility of the entire networking infrastructure to the controller. It enables the applications running on top of the control plane to innovate through network management and programmability. To envision the centralized control and visibility, the controller needs to discover the networking topology of the entire SDN infrastructure. However, discovering and maintaining a global view of the underlying network topology is a challenging task because of (i) frequently changing network topology caused by migration of the virtual machines in the data centers, mobile, end hosts and change in the number of data plane switches because of technical faults or network upgrade; (ii) lack of authentication mechanisms and scarcity in SDN standards; and (iii) availability of security solutions during topology discovery process. To this end, the aim of this paper is threefold. First, we investigate the working methodologies used to achieve global view by different SDN controllers, specifically, POX, Ryu, OpenDaylight, Floodlight, Beacon, ONOS, and HPEVAN. Second, we identify vulnerabilities that affect the topology discovery process in the above controller implementation. In particular, we provide a detailed analysis of the threats namely link layer discovery protocol (LLDP) poisoning, LLDP flooding, and LLDP replay attack concerning these controllers. Finally, to countermeasure the identified risks, we propose a novel mechanism called TILAK which generates random MAC destination addresses for LLDP packets and use this randomness to create a flow entry for the LLDP packets. It is a periodic process to prevent LLDP packet‐based attacks that are caused only because of lack of verification of source authentication and integrity of LLDP packets. The implementation results for TILAK confirm that it covers targeted threats with lower resource penalty.     

SATS: Structure‐Aware Touch‐Based Scrolling

Non‐linear document navigation refers to the process of repeatedly reading a document at different levels to provide an overview, including selective reading to search for useful information within a document under time constraints. Currently, this function is not supported well by small‐screen tablets. In this study, we propose the concept of structure‐aware touch‐based scrolling (SATS), which allows structural document navigation using region‐dependent touch gestures for non‐sequential navigation within tablets or tablet‐sized e‐book readers. In SATS, the screen is divided into four vertical sections representing the different structural levels of a document, where dragging into the different sections allows navigating from the macro to micro levels. The implementation of a prototype is presented, as well as details of a comparative evaluation using typical non‐sequential navigation tasks performed under time constraints. The results showed that SATS obtained better performance, higher user satisfaction, and a lower usability workload compared with a conventional structural overview interface.     

Tungsten‐Based Materials for Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Lithium‐ion batteries are widely used as reliable electrochemical energy storage devices due to their high energy density and excellent cycling performance. The search for anode materials with excellent electrochemical performances remains critical to the further development of lithium‐ion batteries. Tungsten‐based materials are receiving considerable attention as promising anode materials for lithium‐ion batteries owing to their high intrinsic density and rich framework diversity. This review describes the advances of exploratory research on tungsten‐based materials (tungsten oxide, tungsten sulfide, tungsten diselenide, and their composites) in lithium‐ion batteries, including synthesis methods, microstructures, and electrochemical performance. Some personal prospects for the further development of this field are also proposed.     

A Low‐Complexity 128‐Point Mixed‐Radix FFT Processor for MB‐OFDM UWB Systems

In this paper, we present a fast Fourier transform (FFT) processor with four parallel data paths for multiband orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing ultra‐wideband systems. The proposed 128‐point FFT processor employs both a modified radix‐2⁴ algorithm and a radix‐2³ algorithm to significantly reduce the numbers of complex constant multipliers and complex booth multipliers. It also employs substructure‐sharing multiplication units instead of constant multipliers to efficiently conduct multiplication operations with only addition and shift operations. The proposed FFT processor is implemented and tested using 0.18 µm CMOS technology with a supply voltage of 1.8 V. The hardware‐ efficient 128‐point FFT processor with four data streams can support a data processing rate of up to 1 Gsample/s while consuming 112 mW. The implementation results show that the proposed 128‐point mixed‐radix FFT architecture significantly reduces the hardware cost and power consumption in comparison to existing 128‐point FFT architectures.