Experimental Investigation of FRP-Strengthened RC Beam-Column Joints

The results of a comprehensive experimental program, aimed at providing a fundamental understanding of the behavior of shear-critical exterior reinforced concrete (RC) joints strengthened with fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) under simulated seismic load, are presented in this study. The role of various parameters on the effectiveness of FRP is examined through 2/3-scale testing of 18 exterior RC joints. Conclusions are drawn on the basis of certain load versus imposed displacement response characteristics, comprising the strength (maximum lateral load), the stiffness, and the cumulative energy dissipation capacity. The results demonstrate the important role of mechanical anchorages in limiting premature debonding, and they provide important information on the role of various parameters, including: area fraction of FRP; distribution of FRP between the beam and the column; column axial load; internal joint (steel) reinforcement; initial damage; carbon versus glass fibers; sheets versus strips; and effect of transverse beams.     

Perturbation analysis and control of two-class stochastic fluid models for communication networks

This paper uses stochastic fluid models (SFMs) for the control and optimization (rather than performance analysis) of communication network nodes processing two classes of traffic: one is uncontrolled and the other is subject to threshold-based buffer control. We derive gradient estimators for packet loss and workload related performance metrics with respect to threshold parameters. These estimators are shown to be unbiased and directly observable from a sample path without any knowledge of underlying stochastic characteristics of the traffic processes. This renders them computable in online environments and easily implementable for network management and control. We further demonstrate their use in buffer control problems where our SFM-based estimators are evaluated based on data from an actual system.     

Reconfiguration Aspects and a Reconfigurable Outer Block Interleaver for 3G Applications

Reconfiguration concept represents reconfigurable functionalities of the radio interface for mobile radio systems. Particularly for the physical layer, some possible reconfigurable architectures can be identified. We focus on outer interleaving for turbo codes, which can improve their performance in flat Rayleigh fading environment. The larger the number of columns in the outer interleaver, the better is the performance, but with the penalty of more complexity and delay. Furthermore, an incorrect choice of the number of columns can increase the bit and frame error rates. Therefore, it would be advantageous to reconfigure the outer interleaver in different operating environments with the optimum number of columns. Using two different data frame lengths, in this contribution simulation results are presented for the four possible outer block interleaver configurations specified for the 3GPP mobile standard in the case of flat Rayleigh fading channel. It is shown that different operating environments require an optimum number of columns in terms of bit error rate and frame error rate performance. Finally, frame fade duration is considered and the effect of the product of the Doppler frequency with the frame duration on the performance for the four different 3GPP outer block interleaver configurations is discussed. Costas Chaikalis was born in Athens, Greece, on March 7, 1973. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering in 1995 from Technological Educational Institute of Lamia, Greece. He also received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK in 1999 and 2003, respectively. During his doctoral studies he worked as a Research Assistant for Mobile Virtual Center of Excellence (Mobile VCE), Terminals Group, UK. Since 2003, he is a lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Lamia, Greece. His research interests are in all areas of mobile communications but especially in forward error correction coding, reconfigurable (software radio) architectures, cross layer architectures and DSP applications.     

Two-degree-of-freedom output feedback controllers for discrete-time nonlinear systems

A discrete-time, model-based output feedback control structure for nonlinear processes is developed in the present work. The structure makes use of a closed-loop observer, while at the same time it guarantees that the overall feedback controller possesses integral action. An algebraic transformation is applied on the observer states to insure that the input/output gain of the observer matches the model upon which the static state feedback control law is based. The resulting control algorithm is a two-degree-of-freedom control law, in the sense that the output and the set point are processed in different ways. The control structure is shown not only to have the same properties as the standard model-state feedback structure, but also that it emerges from a model algorithmic control framework. Finally, a simulation example using an exothermic CSTR operating at an open-loop unstable steady state is used to evaluate the closed-loop performance of the proposed method.     

A Matrix–Matrix Multiplication methodology for single/multi-core architectures using SIMD

In this paper, a new methodology for speeding up Matrix–Matrix Multiplication using Single Instruction Multiple Data unit, at one and more cores having a shared cache, is presented. This methodology achieves higher execution speed than ATLAS state of the art library (speedup from 1.08 up to 3.5), by decreasing the number of instructions (load/store and arithmetic) and the data cache accesses and misses in the memory hierarchy. This is achieved by fully exploiting the software characteristics (e.g. data reuse) and hardware parameters (e.g. data caches sizes and associativities) as one problem and not separately, giving high quality solutions and a smaller search space.     

Effect of compatibilization on the performance of biodegradable composites using cotton fiber waste as filler

The usefulness of cotton waste as a source of reinforcing fibers for the preparation of cost‐effective and biodegradable composites has been investigated. Biodegradable polyester (bionolle 3020) is melt‐compounded together with cotton fibers. Maleic anhydride‐grafted bionolle (bionolle‐g‐MA) is used as a compatibilizer. The grafting reaction is carried out in an intensive mixer in the presence of dicumyl peroxide as initiator. The effects of fiber and compatibilizer content as well as graft content are evaluated by mechanical property measurements and scanning electron microscopy. The compatibilizer improved all mechanical properties significantly. Moreover, the water absorption and swelling of composites decreased, while the thermal stability increased slightly. Also, the biodegradation of the polyester bionolle 3020, as well as that of its composites with cotton fibers, were studied. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 88: 1825–1835, 2003     

On Evaluating SFM-Based Infinitesimal Perturbation Analysis Estimates From Discrete Event System Data

This paper investigates the evaluation of infinitesimal perturbation analysis (IPA) estimates that have been derived based on a stochastic fluid model (SFM) using data observed from the sample path of a discrete event system (DES). First, we show that a straightforward implementation of the SFM-based IPA estimates may yield biased estimates when the data are obtained from the actual DES. Then, in order to better approximate the sample path of the DES, we propose a special case of SFM where the arrival and service processes are modeled by piecewise constant on/off sources. The proposed SFM violates some of the assumptions made in [1]-[4] , and, as a result, the sample derivatives no longer exist. However, using the proposed SFM, we obtain the left and right sided sample derivative estimates. As shown in this paper, the sided sample derivatives are much better in approximating the required derivatives compared to the straightforward implementation of the SFM-based IPA estimates.     

Global stability results for systems under sampled‐data control

In this work sufficient conditions for uniform input‐to‐output stability and uniform input‐to‐state stability are presented for finite‐dimensional systems under feedback control with zero‐order hold. The conditions are expressed by means of single and vector Lyapunov functions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An optimized sequential pattern matching methodology for sequence classification

In this paper we present a novel methodology for sequence classification, based on sequential pattern mining and optimization algorithms. The proposed methodology automatically generates a sequence classification model, based on a two stage process. In the first stage, a sequential pattern mining algorithm is applied to a set of sequences and the sequential patterns are extracted. Then, the score of every pattern with respect to each sequence is calculated using a scoring function and the score of each class under consideration is estimated by summing the specific pattern scores. Each score is updated, multiplied by a weight and the output of the first stage is the classification confusion matrix of the sequences. In the second stage an optimization technique, aims to finding a set of weights which minimize an objective function, defined using the classification confusion matrix. The set of the extracted sequential patterns and the optimal weights of the classes comprise the sequence classification model. Extensive evaluation of the methodology was carried out in the protein classification domain, by varying the number of training and test sequences, the number of patterns and the number of classes. The methodology is compared with other similar sequence classification approaches. The proposed methodology exhibits several advantages, such as automated weight assignment to classes using optimization techniques and knowledge discovery in the domain of application.

Utilizing bloom filters for detecting flooding attacks against SIP based services

Any application or service utilizing the Internet is exposed to both general Internet attacks and other specific ones. Most of the times the latter are exploiting a vulnerability or misconfiguration in the provided service and/or in the utilized protocol itself. Consequently, the employment of critical services, like Voice over IP (VoIP) services, over the Internet is vulnerable to such attacks and, on top of that, they offer a field for new attacks or variations of existing ones. Among the various threats–attacks that a service provider should consider are the flooding attacks, at the signaling level, which are very similar to those against TCP servers but have emerged at the application level of the Internet architecture. This paper examines flooding attacks against VoIP architectures that employ the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as their signaling protocol. The focus is on the design and implementation of the appropriate detection method. Specifically, a bloom filter based monitor is presented and a new metric, named session distance, is introduced in order to provide an effective protection scheme against flooding attacks. The proposed scheme is evaluated through experimental test bed architecture under different scenarios. The results of the evaluation demonstrate that the required time to detect such an attack is negligible and also that the number of false alarms is close to zero.