Distributed receding horizon control of large-scale nonlinear systems: Handling communication delays and disturbances

This paper studies the robust distributed receding horizon control (DRHC) problem for large-scale continuous-time nonlinear systems subject to communication delays and external disturbances. A dual-mode robust DRHC strategy is designed to deal with the communication delays and the external disturbances simultaneously. The feasibility of the proposed DRHC and the stability of the closed-loop system are analyzed, and the sufficient conditions for ensuring the feasibility and stability are developed, respectively. We show that: (1) the feasibility is affected by the bounds of external disturbances, the sampling period and the bound of communication delays; (2) the stability is related to the bounds of external disturbances, the sampling period, the bound of communication delays and the minimum eigenvalues of the cooperation matrices; (3) the closed-loop system is stabilized into a robust invariant set under the proposed conditions. A simulation study is conducted to verify the theoretical results.     

Aligning principal and agent’s incentives: A principal–agent perspective of social networking sites

The viability of networked communities depends on the creation and disclosure of user-generated content and the frequency of user visitation (Facebook 10-K Annual Report, 2012). However, little is known about how to align the interests of user and social networking sites. In this study, we draw upon the principal-agent perspective to extend Pavlou et al.’s uncertainty mitigation model of online exchange relationships (2007) and propose an empirically tested model for aligning the incentives of the principal (user) and the agent (service provider). As suggested by Pavlou et al., we incorporated a multi-dimensional measure of trust: trust of provider and trust of members. The proposed model is empirically tested with survey data from 305 adults aged 20-55. The results support our model, delineating how real individuals with bounded rationality actually make decision about information disclosure under uncertainty in the social networking site context. There is show little to no relationship between online privacy concerns and information disclosure on online social network sites. Perceived benefits provide the linkage between the incentives of principal (user) and agent (provider) while usage intensity demonstrated the most significant impact on information disclosure. We argue that the phenomenon may be explained through Communication Privacy Management Theory. The present study enhances our understanding of agency theory and human judgment theory in the context of social media. Practical implications for understanding and facilitating online social exchange relationships are also discussed.     

A survey of support for structured communication in concurrency control models

The two standard models used for communication in concurrent programs, shared memory and message passing, have been the focus of much debate for a long time. Still, we believe the main issue at stake should not be the choice between these models, but rather how to ensure that communication is structured, i.e., it occurs only in syntactically restricted code regions. In this survey, we explore concurrency control models and evaluate how their characteristics contribute positively or negatively to the support for structured communication. We focus the evaluation on three properties: reasonability, which is the main property we are interested in and determines how easily programmers can reason about a concurrent program’s execution; performance, which determines whether there are any distinct features which can prevent or facilitate efficient implementations; and composability, which determines whether a model offers constructs that can be used as building blocks for coarser-grained, or higher-level, concurrency abstractions.     

Dynamic thread mapping of shared memory applications by exploiting cache coherence protocols

In current computer architectures, the communication performance between threads varies depending on the memory hierarchy. This performance difference must be considered when mapping parallel applications to processor cores. In parallel applications based on the shared memory paradigm, the communication is difficult to detect because it is implicit. Furthermore, dynamic mapping introduces several challenges, since it needs to find a suitable mapping and migrate the threads with a low overhead during the execution of the application. We propose a mechanism to detect the communication pattern of shared memory applications by monitoring cache coherence protocols. We also propose heuristics that, combined with our communication detection mechanism, allow the mapping to be performed dynamically by the operating system. Experiments with the NAS Parallel Benchmarks showed a reduction of up to 13.9% of the execution time, 30.5% of the cache misses and 39.4% of the number of invalidation messages.     

浅谈某机场集团气象数据库资料引接方案设计

通过分析某机场集团气象数据库资料引接项目的背景,结合项目建设目标,设计出能够充分利用现有机场集团软硬件资源,投资成本最小化的设计方案,并对引接项目的总体设计方案及系统配置进行详细论述,最后从网络、硬件和软件方面对引接方案的安全性进行评估,得出方案可行的结论。     

面向安全的WTLS扩展协议的改进与仿真

针对WTLS可能受到的几种主动攻击进行分析,而新一代移动商务的发展也对WTLS的安全性提出更高的要求,为此需要找出WTLS的安全漏洞,在这个基础上对扩展WTLS协议进行分析以及改进,使得协议具有更高的安全性能。分析WAP安全架构中WTLS的安全性问题,根据数据的机密性、完整性在移动电话和其他无线终端中完成授权鉴定,在此基础上针对漏洞提出解决方案,改进后的协议增加一个颁发证书的过程。通过案例证明该协议的安全性。仿真实验数据表明,WTLS协议是一个更高安全性的协议,在无线通信网络中有着重要的价值和研究意义。     

Enabling customers engagement and collaboration for small and medium-sized enterprises in ubiquitous multi-channel ecosystems

Over the last few years, we have encountered an exponential growth in online communication opportunities. Organizations have more and more ways to connect and engage with their current or future customers. The existence of more opportunities in connecting to people can be both an enabler and a burden. Being present at a multitude of different channels requires the effective management of a very large number of adapted contents, formats, and interaction patterns fulfilling the communication and cooperation needs of distributed target groups. In this respect, we integrate existing fragmented communication and monitoring approaches into a full-fledged communication model as a basis for an adequate engagement approach. We describe applications of our approach in both the eTourism and manufacturing domain. In this paper, we introduce an approach that will enable communication, collaboration and value exchange of users through a multitude of online interaction possibilities based on the use of semantic technology. Finally, we also compare our approach with existing solutions with respect to the identified challenges in this subject.     

Decentralized control: Status and outlook

This paper reviews state of the art in the area of decentralized networked control systems with an emphasis on event-triggered approach. The models or agents with the dynamics of linear continuous-time time-invariant state-space systems are considered. They serve for the framework for network phenomena within two basic structures. The I/O-oriented systems as well as the interaction-oriented systems with disjoint subsystems are distinguished. The focus is laid on the presentation of recent decentralized control design and co-design methods which offer effective tools to overcome specific difficulties caused mainly by network imperfections. Such side-effects include communication constraints, variable sampling, time-varying transmission delays, packet dropouts, and quantizations. Decentralized time-triggered methods are briefly discussed. The review is deals mainly with decentralized event-triggered methods. Particularly, the stabilizing controller–observer event-based controller design as well as the decentralized state controller co-design are presented within the I/O-oriented structures of large scale complex systems. The sampling instants depend in this case only on a local information offered by the local feedback loops. Minimum sampling time conditions are discussed. Special attention is focused on interaction-oriented system architecture. Model-based approach combined with event-based state feedback controller design is presented, where the event thresholds are fully decentralized. Finally, several selected open decentralized control problems are briefly offered as recent research challenges.     

感性的科技——浅析可穿戴设备的未来发展趋势

2013年被称为可穿戴设计元年,在发展过程中,其始终未能成为生活中的必需品,是因为忽略了最重要的两个方面：一是找到最恰当的人机交互关系;二是满足用户真正的需求。而满足了这两方面就可以帮助建立更亲密的,回归原本的,人与人之间的沟通,＂以人为本＂的理念更促进了可穿戴设计内部操作关系与外在表现形式的研究和探索。而数据背后的分析服务不仅能增强用户对于可穿戴设计更完整更智能的体验,更有利于可穿戴设计企业更长久更完善的商业发展。     

基于ARM及嵌入式操作系统的电力通信管理机设计

针对变电站自动化系统中不同通信网络和通信协议间的互操作问题,提出了采用通信处理机的解决方案。基于ARM平台采用嵌入式以太网技术和嵌入式实时操作系统,设计了一种具有多种通信接口、能实现异种网络互联的通信管理机,阐述了通信管理机的功能和设计原则,介绍了系统的软、硬件设计实现。现场实际运行证明,设计的通信管理机功能上具备实时、可靠、可扩展、丰富网络支持等属性,运行稳定,是通信管理机发展的新方向。