Nature inspired meta‐heuristic algorithms for solving the service composition problem in the cloud environments

Many sorts of services in the cloud environments must be composited based on the user's requests to meet the requirements. Thus, the distributed services are joined to the cloud services through service composition. Also, it is known as NP‐hard problems and many researchers significantly are focused on this problem in recent years. Therefore, many different nature‐inspired meta‐heuristic techniques are proposed for solving this problem. The nature‐inspired meta‐heuristic techniques have an important role in solving the service composition problem in the cloud environments, but there is not a wide‐ranging and detailed paper about reviewing and studying the important mechanisms in this field. Therefore, this study presents a comprehensive analysis of the nature‐inspired meta‐heuristic techniques for the service composition issue in the cloud computing. The review also contains a classification of the important techniques. These classifications include Ant Colony Optimization, Bee Colony Optimization, Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm, Bat Algorithm, greedy algorithm, and hybrid algorithm. An important aim of this paper is to highlight the emphasis on the optimization algorithms, and the benefits to tackle the challenges are encountered in the cloud service composition. Also, this paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of the nature‐inspired meta‐heuristic algorithms for solving the service composition problem in the cloud environments. Moreover, this paper aims to provide more efficient service composition algorithms in the future. Finally, the obtained results have shown that the discussed algorithms have an important effect in solving the cloud service composition problem, and this effect has been increased in recent years.     

Quality of service‐aware approaches in fog computing

In recent years, fog computing, a novel paradigm, has emerged for location and latency‐sensitive applications. It is a powerful complement for cloud computing that enables provisioning services and resources outside the cloud near the end devices. In a fog system, the existence of several nonhomogenous devices, which are potentially mobile, led to quality of service (QoS) worries. QoS‐aware approaches are presented in various parts of the fog system, and several different QoS factors are taken into account. In spite of the importance of QoS in fog computing, no comprehensive study on QoS‐aware approaches exists in fog computing. Hence, this paper reviews the current research used to guarantee QoS in fog computing. This paper investigates the QoS‐ensuring techniques that fall into three categories: service/resource management, communication management, and application management (published between 2013 and October 2018). Regarding the selected approaches, this paper represents merits, demerits, tools, evaluation types, and QoS factors. Finally, on the basis of the reviewed studies, we suggest some open issues and challenges which are worth further studying and researching in QoS‐aware approaches in fog computing.     

Coreless Fiber‐Based Whispering‐Gallery‐Mode Assisted Lasing from Colloidal Quantum Well Solids

Whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators are shown to hold great promise to achieve high‐performance lasing using colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) in solution phase. However, the low packing density of such colloidal gain media in the solution phase results in increased lasing thresholds and poor lasing stability in these WGM lasers. To address these issues, here optical gain in colloidal quantum wells (CQWs) is proposed and shown in the form of high‐density close‐packed solid films constructed around a coreless fiber incorporating the resulting whispering gallery modes to induce gain and waveguiding modes of the fiber to funnel and collect light. In this work, a practical method is presented to produce the first CQW‐WGM laser using an optical fiber as the WGM cavity platform operating at low thresholds of ≈188 µJ cm^?2 and ≈1.39 mJ cm^?2 under one‐ and two‐photon absorption pumped, respectively, accompanied with a record low waveguide loss coefficient of ≈7 cm^?1 and a high net modal gain coefficient of ≈485 cm^?1. The spectral characteristics of the proposed CQW‐WGM resonator are supported with a numerical model of full electromagnetic solution. This unique CQW‐WGM cavity architecture offers new opportunities to achieve simple high‐performance optical resonators for colloidal lasers.     

Designing end-to-end resource reservations in predictable distributed embedded systems

Contemporary distributed embedded systems in many domains have become highly complex due to ever-increasing demand on advanced computer controlled functionality. The resource reservation techniques can be effective in lowering the software complexity, ensuring predictability and allowing flexibility during the development and execution of these systems. This paper proposes a novel end-to-end resource reservation model for distributed embedded systems. In order to support the development of predictable systems using the proposed model, the paper provides a method to design resource reservations and an end-to-end timing analysis. The reservation design can be subjected to different optimization criteria with respect to runtime footprint, overhead or performance. The paper also presents and evaluates a case study to show the usability of the proposed model, reservation design method and end-to-end timing analysis.     

Query optimization mechanisms in the cloud environments: A systematic study

The goal of a query optimizer is to provide an optimal Query Execution Plan (QEP) by comparing alternative query plans. In a distributed database system over cloud environment, the relations required by a query plan may be stored at multiple sites. This leads to an exponential increase in the number of possible equivalent plan alternatives to find an optimal QEP. Although it is not computationally reasonable to explore exhaustively all possible plans in such large search space. Although query optimization mechanisms are important in the cloud environments, to the best of our knowledge, there exists no complete and systematic review on investigating these issues. Therefore, in this paper, four categories to study these mechanisms are considered which are search‐based, machine learning‐based, schema‐based, and security‐based mechanisms. Also, this paper represents the advantages and disadvantages of the selected query optimization techniques and investigates the metrics of their techniques. Finally, the important challenges of these techniques are reviewed to develop more efficient query optimization techniques in the future.     

On the stability and the stabilization of linear discrete repetitive processes

Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing - This article deals with stability and stabilization issues for linear two-dimensional (2D) discrete models. More precisely, we focus on repetitive...     

Uniform synchronization in multi‐agent systems with switching topologies

This paper deals with uniform synchronization analysis of multi‐agent systems with switching topologies. The agents are assumed to have general, yet identical, linear dynamics. The underlying communication topology may switch arbitrarily within a finite set of admissible topologies. We establish conditions under which the network is uniformly synchronized meaning that synchronization is valid under all possible switching scenarios. The primary conditions established are in terms of a pair of Lyapunov strict inequalities. Following those conditions, small gain and passivity types of conditions are proposed under which uniform synchronization is guaranteed. The proposed results are also extended to the case of observer‐based protocols. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhanced optical properties of ZnS–rGO nanocomposites for ultraviolet detection applications

In this research, fabrication and characterization of ultraviolet (UV) detectors based on zinc sulfide–reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposite with the focus on the wurtzite structure of zinc sulfide was carried out. The nanoparticles of ZnS were synthesized using chemical deposition method and annealed at 500?°C under flow of argon. X-ray diffraction pattern showed that ZnS with the wurtzite phase was formed at 500?°C. Here, rGO as a unique material with similar properties to graphene such as high electron transport was used in order to improve the optical properties of ZnS. For this purpose, rGO was added to ZnS with three different weight percentages of 5, 10 and 15. Scanning electron microscopy showed that ZnS nanoparticles were well placed in rGO sheets. The UV–visible spectra of the synthesized composites showed that with increasing rGO in composite, light absorption is increased. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra also showed that with increasing the percentage of rGO the generation of electron-hole in composite was increased and PL peak was enhanced. The effect of elevated generation of electron-hole pairs was apparent in optoelectrical properties of fabricated UV detectors based on the sample with higher concentration of rGO in composite. For this sample, the response time was decreased to 310 ms, and the sensitivity to UV irradiation was increased by 7.7 times.     

Design of a loop-based random access memory based on the nanoscale quantum dot cellular automata

Photonic Network Communications - The use of modern quantum dot cellular automata (QCA) on the nanoscale gives better results than complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)...