Distributed control schemes for fast arbitration in large crossbarnetworks

In a large nonblocking crossbar switch, the controller often becomes a bottleneck in terms of both performance and reliability. We present a number of schemes for distributing the setup function among multiple controllers, thus improving both the performance and the reliability of the switch. The controllers are symmetric and operate in parallel. We present four distributed control schemes that provide a range of tradeoffs in controller complexity, speed, and hardware overhead for nonblocking operation. We derive a lower bound of N(1-1/K) for the number of buses required for nonblocking operation of a crossbar switch with N ports and K controllers under certain constraints. We then describe a scheme that actually achieves this lower bound. Results from simulation indicate that the hardware overhead in terms of the extra buses needed is small for all the schemes if a small probability of blocking is acceptable     

On-line identification of hidden Markov models via recursiveprediction error techniques

An on-line state and parameter identification scheme for hidden Markov models (HMMs) with states in a finite-discrete set is developed using recursive prediction error (RPE) techniques. The parameters of interest are the transition probabilities and discrete state values of a Markov chain. The noise density associated with the observations can also be estimated. Implementation aspects of the proposed algorithms are discussed, and simulation studies are presented to show that the algorithms converge for a wide variety of initializations. In addition, an improved version of an earlier proposed scheme (the Recursive Kullback-Leibler (RKL) algorithm) is presented with a parameterization that ensures positivity of transition probability estimates     

Study on vital static properties of fine blanking of GFRP composites with that of conventional drilling

Among the high performance engineering materials, fiber-reinforced plastics play an important role. The present work is concerned with the comparison of vital static strength properties of fine blanking with conventional drilling on hand lay-up made glass fiber-reinforced plastic (GFRP) laminates of four different reinforcement lay-up sequences such as unidirectional [0/0]_n, angle ply [0?±?45]_ns, quasi-isotropic [0/45/90]_ns, and cross-ply [0/90]_n. Observation includes tensile and flexural bending strengths of the specimens without hole and with hole by conventional drilling and fine blanking. In this work, an endeavor has been made to simulate the service conditions to determine their effect on the response of composite laminates. Detailed studies on GFRP composites when subjected to different loading environments such as static loading, particularly tensile loading, and low frequency high amplitude (fatigue) loading were carried out. The response of the composite laminates to these service environments has been evaluated in terms of flexural strength and modulus. From the tensile study, it was observed that by inserting a hole at center by drilling, the strength was reduced to one third, and by inserting a hole at center by fine blanking, the strength was increased nearly 20% than that of drilling. Apart from this, the flexural test conducted on polymeric composite specimens showed that an exposure to low frequency and high amplitude loading enhances the flexural strength up to certain duration of exposure, beyond which, due to accumulation of damage within the composites, the flexural strength reduces with number of cycles. This can be attributed to possible strain-induced stiffening of fibers and interface.     

Optimal Threshold Policies for Multivariate POMDPs in Radar Resource Management

This paper deals with the management of multimode sensors such as multifunction radars. We consider the problems of multitarget radar scheduling formulated as multivariate partially observed Markov decision process (POMDPs). The aim is to compute the scheduling policy to determine which target to choose and how long to continue with this choice so as to minimize a cost function. We give sufficient conditions on the cost function, dynamics of the Markov chain target and observation probabilities so that the optimal scheduling policy has a threshold structure with respect to the multivariate TP2 ordering. This implies that the optimal parameterized policy can be estimated efficiently. We then present stochastic approximation algorithms for estimating the best multilinear threshold policy.     

Decentralized Spectrum Access Amongst Cognitive Radios—An Interacting Multivariate Global Game-Theoretic Approach

This paper studies decentralized dynamic spectrum access using the theory of multivariate global games. We consider a network of cognitive radios (CRs) where each CR obtains noisy multivariate measurements of the quality of several logical channels and needs to decide which channel to access. Assuming the CRs are rational devices, each CR determines which channel to access, based on its expected throughput and Bayesian estimate of the intention of other CRs. We formulate conditions for which the Bayesian Nash equilibrium (BNE) of the resulting global game is monotonically increasing in the quality of the logical channel. This leads to a simple characterization of the competitive optimal behavior of the system as a function of the prior probability distribution of spectrum hole occupancy, channel quality and observation noise. In obtaining the characterization of the BNE, we extend recent results in univariate global games to the multivariate case.     

Tuning radio resource in an overlay cognitive radio network for TCP: greed isn't good [Accepted from Open Call]

In this article we illustrate the performance of Transmission Control Protocol in an overlay cognitive radio network under dynamic spectrum access. We show that the performance of TCP in overlay CR networks that implement DSA to be quite different from its performance in conventional networks, which do not allow DSA. The key difference is that secondary users in an overlay CR network have to cope with a new type of loss called service interruption loss, due to the existence of primary users. We demonstrate on an NS2 simulation testbed the surprising result: Excessive radio resource usage leads to a decrease in aggregate TCP throughput. This behavior is in contrast to the behavior of TCP in conventional networks, where throughput increases monotonically with the available radio resource.     

Optimal Adaptive Modulation and Coding with Switching Costs

We present an optimal adaptive modulation and coding policy that minimizes the transmission latency and modulation/coding switching cost across a finite-state Markovian fading channel. We formulate the optimal tradeoff between transmission latency and modulation/coding switching cost as a discounted infinite horizon Markov Decision Problem (MDP). By exploiting special structures of the formulated MDP and under certain sufficient conditions, we show that optimal modulation and coding selection policies are monotone in the state variables. These monotone optimal policies are computationally inexpensive to implement and are scalable in terms of channel and switching cost parameters. Numerical results confirm the monotonicity and threshold-based structure of the optimal Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) selection policies under the proposed sufficient conditions.     

Microscopic and Spectroscopic Evaluation of Inactivation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Staphylococcus aureus</Emphasis> by Pulsed UV Light and Infrared Heating

Pulsed UV light and infrared heat-treated Staphylococcus aureus cells were analyzed using transmission electron microscopy to identify the cell damage due to the treatment process. A 5-s treatment with pulsed UV light resulted in complete inactivation of S. aureus even after enrichment. The temperature increase during the pulsed UV light treatment was insignificant, which suggested a nonthermal treatment. S. aureus was also infrared heat treated using an infrared heating system with six infrared lamps. Five milliliters of S. aureus cells in phosphate buffer was treated at 700°C lamp temperature for 20 min. The microscopic observation clearly indicated that there was cell wall damage, cytoplasmic membrane shrinkage, cellular content leakage, and mesosome disintegration after both pulsed UV light and infrared treatments. Fourier transform infrared microspectrometry was successfully used to classify the pulsed UV light and infrared heat-treated S. aureus by discriminant analysis.