Efficient search based on content similarity over self-organizing P2P networks

The advent of the World Wide Web has made an enormous amount of information available to everyone and the widespread use of digital equipment enables end-users (peers) to produce their own digital content. This vast amount of information requires scalable data management systems. Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems have so far been well established in several application areas, with file-sharing being the most prominent. The next challenge that needs to be addressed is (more complex) data sharing, management and query processing, thus facilitating the delivery of a wide spectrum of novel data-centric applications to the end-user, while providing high Quality-of-Service. In this paper, we propose a self-organizing P2P system that is capable to identify peers with similar content and intentionally assign them to the same super-peer. During content retrieval, fewer super-peers need to be contacted and therefore efficient similarity search is supported, in terms of reduced network traffic and contacted peers. Our approach increases the responsiveness and reliability of a P2P system and we demonstrate the advantages of our approach using large-scale simulations.     

Intuitionistic fuzzy transformation semigroups

The idea of (faithful) intuitionistic fuzzy transformation semigroup, intuitionistic admissible relation, and intuitionistic (strong) homomorphism are introduced and their basic properties are examined.     

On-chip whole blood plasma separator based on microfiltration,sedimentation and wetting contrast

Miniaturized on-chip blood separators have a great value for point-of-care diagnosis. In our work, a combined design strategy—microfiltration, sedimentation in a retarded flow, and wetting contrast—was taken to overcome the known limitations of on-chip blood separators. Our microfluidic chip consists of a polydimethylsiloxane micropillar array and an etched glass with microchannel branches. The red blood cells are significantly slowed and gradually settled down due to micropillars and enlarged dimension of a chamber. An etched glass microchannel allows the extraction of blood plasma exclusively due to the capillary effect. The fabricated microfluidic device can separate blood plasma from a whole blood sample without any external driving force or dilution. The measured plasma separation efficiency was close to 100 % from human whole blood. Autonomous on-chip separation and collection of blood plasma was demonstrated.     

Influence of disk curvature on slider attitude under operational shock conditions for a 2.5-in. hard disk drive

Recently, the number of disks in hard disk drives has increased, and the gap between the slider and disk has decreased. These changes make the contact between the ramp and disk easily. External shock and ramp–disk contact can cause change in disk curvature. Such a change in disk curvature affects the air bearing pressure between the slider and disk. However, disk curvature has not been considered in the previous research. Thus, in this study, we investigated the influence of disk curvature on slider dynamics. Disk curvature was calculated from a transient shock analysis, and was then applied to slider dynamic analysis. As a result, disk curvature reduced the shock performance, by decreasing the minimum flying height and increasing the pitch and roll angle of the slider.     

Open generification

To what extent can software ‘travel’ to organizations and countries for which it was not designed for, and how important are local contexts for a successful design and implementation of generic software? Information systems researchers have differing views on this, some emphasizing the strengths of the generic and others the importance of contextual aspects. Contributing to this debate, Pollock and Williams have coined the term generification in order to describe how large vendors succeed in globalizing software packages through management by community, content and social authority. In this paper, we explore an approach that we call open generification, which extends Pollock and Williams' work in the sense that we acknowledge the need for and the feasibility of generic software, but propose an alternative model for the governance of it. Open generification is not about managing the community of users attached to a software package by homogenization or segmentation but aims at addressing the diverse needs of the community the software is expected to serve. Our empirical basis is a longitudinal study of the development of an open‐source health information system software (District Health Information software version 2), which is being used in more than 47 countries. Its success is attributed to a continuous interplay between generic and specific software and continuous cycles of embedding (implementing the global in the local context) and disembedding (taking local innovations into the global). We identify and discuss the contingent mechanisms of this interplay.     

Fuzzy filter for nonlinear sampled-data systems: Intelligent digital redesign approach

This paper presents a fuzzy filter design method for nonlinear sampled-data systems using an intelligent digital redesign (IDR) technique. Based on a Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy model, discretized closed-loop systems with pre-designed analog fuzzy and digital fuzzy filters are presented. An IDR problem is given to guarantee both state-matching condition and asymptotic stability. Sufficient conditions for solving the IDR problem are proposed and are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, a simulation example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Approaches to extended non-quadratic stability and stabilization conditions for discrete-time Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy systems

This paper provides simple and effective linear matrix inequality (LMI) characterizations for the stability and stabilization conditions of discrete-time Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy systems. To do this, more general classes of non-parallel distributed compensation (non-PDC) control laws and non-quadratic Lyapunov functions are presented. Unlike the conventional non-quadratic approaches using only current-time normalized fuzzy weighting functions, we consider not only the current-time fuzzy weighting functions but also the l-step-past (l?0) and one-step-ahead ones when constructing the control laws and Lyapunov functions. Consequently, by introducing additional decision variables, it can be shown that the proposed conditions include the existing ones found in the literature as particular cases. Examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approaches.     

Software modeling and analysis using a hierarchical object-oriented Petri net

Petri net is used widely to analyze and model various systems formally. Recently, many Petri nets mania devote their efforts to enhancing and extending the expressive power of Petri nets. One such effort is to extend Petri nets with object-oriented concepts. An object-oriented paradigm provides excellent concepts to model real-world problems. Object-oriented concepts allow us to build software systems easily, intuitively, and naturally. Although several high-level Petri nets with the concept of objects are suggested, these nets do not fully support the object-oriented concepts. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical object-oriented Petri net (HOONet). The formal syntax and semantics of HOONet are explained in detail. HOONet supports a wide range of object-oriented features including abstract, encapsulated and modularized objects, object interaction by message passing, inheritance, and ploymorphism. HOONet also supports a variety of modeling and analysis mechanisms such as incremental modeling of evolving systems, unfolding the HOONet to lower level Petri net, and incremental reachability analysis for HOONet models. We demonstrate the usefulness of HOONet by applying it to modeling and analysis with an example.     

Adaptive Output Feedback Control of Flexible-Joint Robots Using Neural Networks: Dynamic Surface Design Approach

In this paper, we propose a new robust output feedback control approach for flexible-joint electrically driven (FJED) robots via the observer dynamic surface design technique. The proposed method only requires position measurements of the FJED robots. To estimate the link and actuator velocity information of the FJED robots with model uncertainties, we develop an adaptive observer using self-recurrent wavelet neural networks (SRWNNs). The SRWNNs are used to approximate model uncertainties in both robot (link) dynamics and actuator dynamics, and all their weights are trained online. Based on the designed observer, the link position tracking controller using the estimated states is induced from the dynamic surface design procedure. Therefore, the proposed controller can be designed more simply than the observer backstepping controller. From the Lyapunov stability analysis, it is shown that all signals in a closed-loop adaptive system are uniformly ultimately bounded. Finally, the simulation results on a three-link FJED robot are presented to validate the good position tracking performance and robustness of the proposed control system against payload uncertainties and external disturbances.