Reliability consideration of a mobile communication system with network congestion

High quality traffic for networks is urgently needed for mobile communication systems. Mobile stations frequently become unavailable due to communication errors generated by network congestion. Traffic congestion in a network system may occur intermittently and continue for a length of time, sometimes causing communication errors. If congestions happens during communication, communication errors occur and the communication is rejected. This paper considers the problem of reliability in mobile communication systems during congestion by using a recovery scheme. We formulate a stochastic model of a mobile communication system which consists of mobile stations, several base stations and a switching center. When communication errors occur, the system makes a rollback recovery and returns to the recent checkpoint. We derive the mean time to take checkpoint and the expected number of rollback recoveries, handoff, and successful transmissions until communication errors occur. Further, we calculate the expected costs and discuss ways to minimize the costs by analyzing the optimal checkpoint intervals.     

Learning Syntax by Automata Induction

In this paper we propose an explicit computer model for learning natural language syntax based on Angluin's (1982) efficient induction algorithms, using a complete corpus of grammatical example sentences. We use these results to show how inductive inference methods may be applied to learn substantial, coherent subparts of at least one natural language — English — that are not susceptible to the kinds of learning envisioned in linguistic theory. As two concrete case studies, we show how to learn English auxiliary verb sequences (such as could be taking, will have been taking) and the sequences of articles and adjectives that appear before noun phrases (such as the very old big deer). Both systems can be acquired in a computationally feasible amount of time using either positive examples, or, in an incremental mode, with implicit negative examples (examples outside a finite corpus are considered to be negative examples). As far as we know, this is the first computer procedure that learns a full-scale range of noun subclasses and noun phrase structure. The generalizations and the time required for acquisition match our knowledge of child language acquisition for these two cases. More importantly, these results show that just where linguistic theories admit to highly irregular subportions, we can apply efficient automata-theoretic learning algorithms. Since the algorithm works only for fragments of language syntax, we do not believe that it suffices for all of language acquisition. Rather, we would claim that language acquisition is nonuniform and susceptible to a variety of acquisition strategies; this algorithm may be one these.     

Typed Mobile Ambients in Maude

Maude has revealed itself as a powerful tool for implementing different kinds of semantics so that quick prototypes are available for trying examples and proving properties. In this paper we show how to define in Maude two semantics for Cardelli and Gordon's Ambient Calculus. The first one is the operational (reduction) semantics which requires the definition of Maude strategies in order to avoid infinite loops. The second one is a type system defined by Cardelli and Gordon to avoid communication errors. The correctness of that system was not formally proved. We enrich the operational semantics with error rules and prove that well-typed processes do not produce such errors. The type system is highly non-deterministic. We show here one possible way of implementing such non-determinism in the rules.     

Interactions between linguistic constraints: Procedural vs. declarative approaches

The traditional approach to generation is to derive a surface string from a semantic structure through various intermediate levels using a carefully ordered set of transformation steps. We show by some examples that this approach involves a lot of specific control decisions which cannot be generalized across several languages. We present a constraint-based approach where all levels of linguistic information are represented in a single structure. All levels introduce constraints on the linguistic structure stated as a set of feature type definitions. Relationships between levels are modelled as a set of (partial) relational constraints which apply simultaneously on all levels of the linguistic structure.Research reported in this paper is partly supported by the German Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT, Bundesminister für Forschung und Technologie), under grant No. 08 B3116 3. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official policies. We would like to thank John Bateman for his helpful comments on a previous version of this paper. The responsibility for all remaining errors resides, of course, with the authors.     

Linguistic mechanisms for resource management strategies

In this paper a unified set of linguistic features for providing a very flexible range of resource management strategies is presented. These features may be embedded in an object oriented programming language with abstract data type definitions. Firstly some of the more frequently used resource management strategies are illustrated and the related problems of resource allocation, access and synchronization are discussed. Then linguistic mechanisms to allow static and dynamic resource allocation, static access control and synchronization are presented. Finally some examples, reflecting a wide range of resource management strategies, are discussed in order to illustrate the application of the proposed linguistic features.     

Why we talk?: altruism and multilevel selection in the origin of language

Talking entails costs of production and time, although some of the information sent to hearers will be of value to them in general. We believe that the matter of why we talk at all is a key question for the origin of language, and the answer will shed some light on the mystery of human identity. This article focuses on altruism in communication, and aims to demonstrate evolutionary scenarios based on multilevel selection. We constructed a computational model to examine these scenarios. The evolutionary experiments showed that in the case of an unstructured population, a linguistic system hardly emerged due to the dynamics between interpretable utterance that imposes a penalty and correct interpretation that yields a reward, which is similar to prey-predator dynamics. However, in the case of a multigroup population, a linguistic system emerged owing to multilevel selection among the groups. In addition, the probability of success in conversation was higher in a group in more severe environmental conditions. This result supports Bickerton’s hypothesis based on the ecological gap between human ancestors and other ape species.     

Modeling generalized implicatures using non-monotonic logics

This paper reports on an approach to model generalized implicatures using nonmonotonic logics. The approach, called compositional, is based on the idea of compositional semantics, where the implicatures carried by a sentence are constructed from the implicatures carried by its constituents, but it also includes some aspects nonmonotonic logics in order to model the defeasibility of generalized implicatures.     

A Refinement of de Bruijn's Formal Language of Mathematics

We provide a syntax and a derivation system fora formal language of mathematics called Weak Type Theory (WTT). We give the metatheory of WTT and a number of illustrative examples.WTT is a refinement of de Bruijn's Mathematical Vernacular (MV) and hence:– WTT is faithful to the mathematician's language yet isformal and avoids ambiguities.– WTT is close to the usualway in which mathematicians express themselves in writing.– WTT has a syntaxbased on linguistic categories instead of set/type theoretic constructs.More so than MV however, WTT has a precise abstractsyntax whose derivation rules resemble those of modern typetheory enabling us to establish important desirable properties of WTT such as strong normalisation, decidability of type checking andsubject reduction. The derivation system allows one to establish thata book written in WTT is well-formed following the syntax ofWTT, and has great resemblance with ordinary mathematics books.WTT (like MV) is weak as regardscorrectness: the rules of WTT only concern linguisticcorrectness, its types are purely linguistic sothat the formal translation into WTT is satisfactory as areadable, well-organized text. In WTT, logico-mathematical aspects of truth are disregarded. This separates concerns and means that WTT– can be easily understood by either a mathematician, a logician or a computerscientist, and– acts as an intermediary between thelanguage of mathematicians and that of logicians.     

A Calculus for Dynamic Reconfiguration with Low Priority Linking

Building on our previous work, we present a simple module calculus where execution steps of a module component can be interleaved with reconfiguration steps (that is, reductions at the module level), and where execution can partly control precedence between these reconfiguration steps. This is achieved by means of a low priority link operator which is only performed when a certain component, which has not been linked yet, is both available and really needed for execution to proceed, otherwise precedence is given to the outer operators. We illustrate the expressive power of this mechanism by a number of examples.We ensure soundness by combining a static type system, which prevents errors in applying module operators, and a dynamic check which raises a linkage error if the running program needs a component which cannot be provided by reconfiguration steps. In particular no linkage errors can be raised if all components are potentially available.     

面向拜占庭弹性的余度管理方案

综合化航空电子系统是新一代飞机的一个重要特征,其可靠性和稳定性对整个飞机的飞行和安全起着决定性作用.针对航电系统应当具有高可靠性的特点,提出一种分布式集群余度架构,并设计相应的余度管理方法,以容忍航电系统故障后可能出现的拜占庭错误,有效提高容错计算机的可靠性和容错能力.采用门限签名和集群选主两种方案优化提出的余度管理方法,降低集群中余度计算机之间的通信开销,避免影响航电系统的实时性,提高余度管理效率.通过模拟实验进行测试,结果验证了分布式集群余度管理方法可以有效提升航电系统的可靠性,增强拜占庭弹性,实现在n余度的航电系统中只要拜占庭节点数小于n/3,系统仍然能够正确运行,并且优化方案具有更低的通信开销和计算开销.     

Dynamic Query-Based Debugging of Object-Oriented Programs

Program errors are hard to find because of the cause-effect gap between the instant when an error occurs and when the error becomes apparent to the programmer. Although debugging techniques such as conditional and data breakpoints help in finding errors in simple cases, they fail to effectively bridge the cause-effect gap in many situations. This paper proposes two debuggers that provide programmers with an instant error alert by continuously checking inter-object relationships while the debugged program is running. We call such tool a dynamic query-based debugger. To speed up dynamic query evaluation, our debugger implemented in portable Java uses a combination of program instrumentation, load-time code generation, query optimization, and incremental reevaluation. Experiments and a query cost model show that selection queries are efficient in most cases, while more costly join queries are practical when query evaluations are infrequent or query domains are small. To enable query-based debugging in the middle of program execution in a portable way, our debugger performs efficient Java class file instrumentation. We call such debugger an on-the-fly debugger. Though the on-the-fly debugger has a higher overhead than a dynamic query-based debugger, it offers additional interactive power and flexibility while maintaining complete portability.     

Efficient Communication Strategies for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

An ad hoc wireless network is a collection of wireless mobile hosts forming a temporary network without the aid of any established infrastructure or centralized administration. This type of network is of great importance in situations where it is very difficult to provide the necessary infrastructure, but it is a challenging task to enable fast and reliable communication within such a network. In this paper we model and analyze the performance of so-called power-controlled ad hoc wireless networks: networks where the mobile hosts are able to change their transmission power. We concentrate on finding schemes for routing arbitrary permutations in these networks. In general, it is NP-hard even to find an n ^1-ε -approximation for any constant ε to the fastest possible strategy for routing a given permutation problem on n mobile hosts. However, we demonstrate here that if we allow ourselves to consider slightly less general problems, efficient solutions can be found. We first demonstrate that there is a natural class of distributed schemes for handling node-to-node communication on top of which online route selection and scheduling strategies can be constructed such that the performance of this class of schemes can be exploited in a nearly optimal way for routing permutations in any static power-controlled ad hoc network. We then demonstrate that if we restrict ourselves to the important case of routing between nodes distributed randomly in a Euclidean space, we can route in a time that is asymptotically optimal for any routing scheme. Received in final form January 31, 2000. Online publication October 10, 2000.     

Non-stationary stochastic embedding for transfer function estimation

This paper presents a consistent framework for the quantification of noise and undermodelling errors in transfer function model estimation. We use the, so-called, “stochastic embedding” approach, in which both noise and undermodelling errors are treated as stochastic processes. In contrast to previous applications of stochastic embedding, in this paper we represent the undermodelling as a multiplicative error characterised by random walk processes in the frequency domain. The benefit of the present formulation is that it significantly simplifies the estimation of the parameters of the embedded process yielding a closed-form expression for the model error quantification. Simulation and experimental examples illustrate how the random walks effectively capture typical cases of undermodelling found in practice, including underdamped modes. The examples also show how to use the method as a tool in the determination of model order and pole location in fixed denominator model structures.     

Analyses and Optimizations for Shared Address Space Programs

We present compiler analyses and optimizations for explicitly parallel programs that communicate through a shared address space. Any type of code motion on explicitly parallel programs requires a new kind of analysis to ensure that operations reordered on one processor cannot be observed by another. The analysis, calledcycle detection, is based on work by Shasha and Snir and checks for cycles among interfering accesses. We improve the accuracy of their analysis by using additional information fromsynchronization analysis, which handles post–wait synchronization, barriers, and locks. We also make the analysis efficient by exploiting the common code image property of SPMD programs. We make no assumptions on the use of synchronization constructs: our transformations preserve program meaning even in the presence of race conditions, user-defined spin locks, or other synchronization mechanisms built from shared memory. However, programs that use linguistic synchronization constructs rather than their user-defined shared memory counterparts will benefit from more accurate analysis and therefore better optimization. We demonstrate the use of this analysis for communication optimizations on distributed memory machines by automatically transforming programs written in a conventional shared memory style into a Split-C program, which has primitives for nonblocking memory operations and one-way communication. The optimizations includemessage pipelining, to allow multiple outstanding remote memory operations, conversion of two-way to one-way communication, and elimination of communication through data reuse. The performance improvements are as high as 20–35% for programs running on a CM-5 multiprocessor using the Split-C language as a global address layer. Even larger benefits can be expected on machines with higher communication latency relative to processor speed.     

Grab and Go Systems: a CPO approach to concurrent web and grid-based computation

A useful property of web–based information systems [1] is the ability to display partial information. For example, a web program can display a sequence of fuzzy images which is extended by the production of improved images as execution of the program proceeds. A sequence of improving approximations to an image can be modelled by the elements of a complete partial order (CPO). CPOs can also be used to model grid-based computations. For example, consider a collection of iterative processes, each with identical functionality, which individually generate a series of improving approximations towards a desired goal. Sharing approximations from time to time among the processes may produce faster convergence than could be achieved by any of the processes separately. Each process in the collection has the potential to exchange partial information with its companions so that all may make use of the best information available.In this paper a non-blocking communication abstraction, based on CPOs, is used to develop a model of iterative web- and grid-based computations. The abstraction is novel in that it may not directly match a send communication in one process with a corresponding receive communication in another; rather, a receive communication is identified with taking the least upper bound of the set of messages available at an input port - this set may be empty, contain exactly one messsage or contain multiple messages. In all cases the receiver does not wait but gathers the best available information and proceeds with its computation. Thus, the abstraction corresponds to a loosely coupled model of distributed computation. The applicability of the model is illustrated by a number of disparate examples of distributed iterative computation.     

SimCheck: a contract type system for Simulink

Matlab Simulink™ is a member of a class of visual languages that are used for modeling and simulating physical and cyber-physical system. A Simulink model consists of blocks with input and output ports connected using links that carry signals. We provide a contract-based type system of Simulink with annotations and dimensions/units associated with ports and links. These contract types can capture invariants on signals as well as relations between signals. We define a contract-based verifier that checks the well formedness of Simulink blocks with respect to these contracts. This verifier generates proof obligations that are solved by SRI’s Yices solver for satisfiability modulo theories (SMT). This translation can be used to detect basic type errors and violation of contracts, demonstrate counterexamples, generate test cases, or prove the absence of contract-based type errors. Our work is an initial step toward the symbolic analysis of Matlab Simulink models.     

A neural network simulation method of aphasic naming errors: Properties and behaviour

Aphasia is a language disorder caused by brain damage. Naming errors which are common in aphasia are applied to reveal the type and the effects of a disorder. Naming in this research field refers to psycholinguistic tests where a subject is asked to say the name of an object presented as a picture to him or her. We have earlier presented a simulation model on the basis of neural networks [1,2]. The model is further developed here, and its properties and behaviour are described in the present paper. The simulation model includes a bounded set of Finnish words in their base lingual form. The principle of activation spreading is used to process naming errors with the method to simulate actual aphasic errors. All computation in the model is executed with words as text or with textual components of words, although the system processes naming errors, i.e. human speech.This work was partially supported by the Academy of Finland.     

An Approximation Algorithm for Circular Arc Colouring

We consider the problem of colouring a family of n arcs of a circle. This NP-complete problem, which occurs in routing and network design problems, is modelled as a 0-1 integer multicommodity flow problem. We present an algorithm that routes the commodities in the network by augmenting the network with some extra edges which correspond to extra colours. The algorithm, which relies on probabilistic techniques such as randomized rounding and path selection, is a randomized approximation algorithm which has an asymptotic performance ratio of 1+1/e (approximately 1.37) except when the minimum number of colours required is very small (O(\ln n) ). This is an improvement over the best previously known result [7], which is a deterministic approximation algorithm with a performance ratio of 3/2. The substantial improvement is valuable, for instance in wavelength allocation strategies in communication networks where bandwidth is a precious resource. Received October 25, 1998; revised August 26, 1999, and April 17, 2000.     

Fuzzy configuration of matching runtime implementation strategies

 With applications currently growing in complexity and range, increasing numbers of configuration problems are arising in compilers. Already many software systems offer multiple specialized implementation strategies and substrategies, differing in terms of applicability and/or cost, depending on the application context. Configurations then have to be created from the different strategies available in accordance with the application characteristics, the global optimization objective, and potential constraints on the strategies' combinability. In many cases, this results in a combinatorial, i.e., discrete, optimization problem. Proper solutions for automating the configuration while limiting the complexity of the solution search are still being sought. We address here the field of parallel/distributed processing and the configuration of runtime implementation strategies, such as for communication or dynamic load balancing. We present a rule-based approach, integrating fuzzy methodologies for the classification of application characteristics and for gradual selection preference in rules. In this way we exploit available knowledge about the correlation of the problem and solution space, and apply soft computing methods to obtain an approximate, rather than perfect, solution approach, thus helping to limit the configuration complexity. Our approach extends standard fuzzy inference by a multistage organization, and – with proper organization of rules, characteristics and strategies – performs hierarchical fuzzy inference. The approach is demonstrated on concrete configuration examples in parallel compilers.