Journal articles on the topic 'V distributed systems'

An interval-valued fuzzy logic controller (I-V FLC) is presented to control a class of nonlinear distributed parameter systems. The proposed FLC is inspired by human operators' knowledge or expert experience to control a distributed parameter process from the point of view of overall space domain. Based on spatial fuzzy set, the I-V FLC employs a centralized rule base over the space domain. Using spatial membership degree fusion operation, the I-V FLC can compress spatial input information into interval-valued fuzzy sets and then execute an interval-valued rule inference mechanism; thereby the I-V FLC has the capability to process spatial information over the space domain. Compared with traditional FLCs, the I-V FLC can improve its control performance due to its increased ability to express and process spatial information. The I-V FLC is successfully applied to a catalytic packed-bed reactor and compared with the traditional FLCs. The results demonstrate its effectiveness to control the unknown nonlinear distributed parameter process.

Modern industrial robotic systems are highly interconnected. They operate in a distributed environment and communicate with sensors, computer vision systems, mechatronic devices, and computational components. On the fundamental level, communication and coordination between all parties in such distributed system are characterized by discrete event behavior. The latter is largely attributed to the specifics of communication over the network, which, in terms, facilitates asynchronous programming and explicit event handling. In addition, on the conceptual level, events are an important building block for realizing reactivity and coordination. Event-driven architecture has manifested its effectiveness for building loosely-coupled systems based on publish-subscribe middleware, either general-purpose or robotic-oriented. Despite all the advances in middleware, industrial robots remain difficult to program in context of distributed systems, to a large extent due to the limitation of the native robot platforms. This paper proposes an architecture for flexible event-based control of industrial robots based on the Adept V+ platform. The architecture is based on the robot controller providing a TCP/IP server and a collection of robot skills, and a high-level control module deployed to a dedicated computing device. The control module possesses bidirectional communication with the robot controller and publish/subscribe messaging with external systems. It is programmed in asynchronous style using pyadept, a Python library based on Python coroutines, AsyncIO event loop and ZeroMQ middleware. The proposed solution facilitates integration of Adept robots into distributed environments and building more flexible robotic solutions with event-based logic.

Efficient distributed processing is vital for collaborative searching tasks of robotic swarm systems. Typically, those systems are decentralized, and the members have only limited communication and processing capacities. What is illustrated in this paper is a distributed processing paradigm for robotic swarms moving in a line or v-shape formation. The introduced concept is capable of exploits the line and v-shape formations for 2-D filtering and processing algorithms based on a modified multi-dimensional Roesser model. The communication is only between nearest adjacent members with a simple state variable. As an example, we applied a salient region detection algorithm to the proposed framework. The simulation results indicate the designed paradigm can detect salient regions by using a moving line or v-shape formation in a scanning way. The requirement of communication and processing capability in this framework is minimal, making it a good candidate for collaborative exploration of formatted robotic swarms.

OGSA-DAI (Open Grid Services Architecture Data Access and Integration) is a framework for building distributed data access and integration systems. Until recently, it lacked the built-in functionality that would allow easy creation of federations of distributed data sources. The latest release of the OGSA-DAI framework introduced the OGSA-DAI DQP (Distributed Query Processing) resource. The new resource encapsulates a distributed query processor, that is able to orchestrate distributed data sources when answering declarative user queries. The query processor has many extensibility points, making it easy to customize. We have also introduced a new OGSA-DAI V iews resource that provides a flexible method for defining views over relational data. The interoperability of the two new resources, together with the flexibility of the OGSA-DAI framework, allows the building of highly customized data integration solutions.

This paper deals with the proportional-integral control problem for a class of stochastic Markovian jum v-Krasovskii functional and free-weighting matrix method, the novel delay-dependent robust stabilization criterion for the stochastic Markovian jumping systems is formulated in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI). When the LMI is feasible, an explicit expression of the desired proportional-integral controller is given. Designed controller, based on the obtained criterion, ensures asymptotically stable in the mean square sense of the resulting closed-loop system for all admissible uncertainties and time delay.

Abstract In this paper, we deal with the distributed bilinear system $ \frac{d z(t)}{d t}= A z(t) + v(t)Bz(t), $ where A is the infinitesimal generator of a semigroup of contractions on a real Hilbert space H. The linear operator B is supposed bounded with respect to the graph norm of A. Then we give sufficient conditions for weak and strong stabilizations. Illustrating examples are provided.

In this article, the authors consider the materials of research on the construction and operation of intelligent power supply systems with a nominal voltage of up to 1000 V, containing distributed generation facilities. The author’s approach to the construction of microgrids based on multi-contact switching systems is proposed. The similarities and differences of the presented concepts are determined. The main problematic issues that arise in the process of implementing projects for the construction of microgrids and the management of electric power modes of operation are formulated. The ways of solving the problems related to the management of the modes of operation of microgrids are proposed.

In this paper we present an efficient algorithm for compile-time scheduling and clustering of parallel programs onto parallel processing systems with distributed memory, which is called The Dynamic Critical Path Scheduling DCPS. The DCPS is superior to several other algorithms from the literature in terms of computational complexity, processors consumption and solution quality. DCPS has a time complexity of O(e + v log v), as opposed to DSC algorithm O((e+v) log v) which is the best known algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of DCPS over the DSC algorithm.

The development of distributed generation, mainly based on renewable energies, requires the design of control strategies to allow the regulation of electrical variables, such as power, voltage (V), and frequency (f), and the coordination of multiple generation units in microgrids or islanded systems. This paper presents a strategy to control the active and reactive power flow in the Point of Common Connection (PCC) of a renewable generation system operating in islanded mode. Voltage Source Converters (VSCs) are connected between individual generation units and the PCC to control the voltage and frequency. The voltage and frequency reference values are obtained from the P–V and Q–f droop characteristics curves, where P and Q are the active and reactive power supplied to the load, respectively. Proportional–Integral (PI) controllers process the voltage and frequency errors and set the reference currents (in the dq frame) to be imposed by each VSC. Simulation results considering high-power solar and wind generation systems are presented to validate the proposed control strategy.

In this paper, a virtual swarm intelligence (VSI)-based algorithm is proposed to coordinate a distributed multi-robot system for a collective construction task. Three phases are involved in a construction task: search, detect, and carry. Initially, robots are randomly located within a bounded area and start random search for building blocks. Once the building blocks are detected, agents need to share the information with their local neighbors. A distributed virtual pheromone-trail (DVP) based model is proposed for local communication among agents. If multiple building blocks are detected in a local area, agents need to make decisions on which agent(s) should carry which block(s). To this end, a virtual particle swarm optimization (V-PSO)-based model is developed for multi-agent behavior coordination. Furthermore, a quorum sensing (QS)-based model is employed to balance the tradeoff between exploitation and exploration, so that an optimal overall performance can be achieved. Extensive simulation results on a collective construction task have demonstrated the efficiency and robustness of the proposed VSI-based framework.

(W,Ti)C-10%Co system cermets doped with Ta, Nb or V grain growth inhibitor were prepared in this work. The effect of Ta, Nb and V on the microstructure and mechanical properties of (W0.8783Ti0.0976VB0.0242)C-10%Co systems was investigated. The results show that the three elements play an important role on the WC grain growth and shape; the cermets appeared uniformly distributed as whiskers or thin platelets. V results in the hardest material, Ta causes the material to become harder compared with (W0.9Ti0.1)C-10%Co cermets. But the hardness of cermets with Nb addition decrease because of the increasing of porosity.

This paper presents integrated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) developed to perform seismic hazard and risk assessment. The systems can perform complex interactive computations which would be difficult and time-consuming to carry out manually, such as: (i) deterministic and probabilistic earthquake hazard analysis; (ii) evaluation of different ground motion and seismic source models; (iii) assessment of the effect of local geology; (iv) generation of design-compatible time histories; and (v) damage assessment of spatially distributed structural systems. An application for the New York City metropolitan area demonstrates that despite the scarcity of recorded data, incomplete knowledge of seismic wave propagation characteristics, and sometimes insufficient geologic data, it is possible to arrive at a rational estimate of the seismic risk potential in a probabilistic manner, combining available information and uncertainties in the GIS environment.

A high penetration of distributed generators, such as solar and wind power generators in low voltage network systems, impose voltage rise problems. Reactive power control of distributed generators can contribute to mitigating the voltage rise. In the existing reactive power control, reactive power was controlled using only one local variable, such as voltage at point of connection or the active power output of distributed generator. In case of PF(P) method, which provides certain power factors, depending on the active power of distributed generator, the voltage regulation ability is strong, but network losses are large. Q(V) method, which provides a certain amount of reactive power depending on the local voltage, has few network losses, but the voltage regulation ability is weak. In this paper, a reactive power control method that combines the PF(P) method and Q(V) method was proposed. The proposed method determines the reactive power output by using the active power of the distributed generator and local voltage variables together. The proposed method improves the voltage regulation ability of the reactive power control, while reducing the network losses, as compared to the existing method. The low voltage network system was modeled and simulated to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, in terms of voltage regulation ability and network losses, and the performance of the proposed method and the existing method were compared and analyzed.

Earlier the author proposed a rather general form of describing controlled initial–boundary value problems (CIBVPs) by means of Volterra functional equations (VFE) z(t)=f(t,A[z](t),v(t) ), t≡{t^1,⋯,t^n }∈Π⊂R^n, z∈L_p^m≡(L_p (Π) )^m, where f(.,.,.):Π×R^l×R^s→R^m; v(.)∈D⊂L_k^s – control function; A:L_p^m (Π)→L_q^l (Π)- linear operator; the operator A is a Volterra operator for some system T of subsets of the set Π in the following sense: for any H∈T, the restriction A├ [z]┤|_H does not depend on the values of ├ z┤|_(Π\H); (this definition of the Volterra operator is a direct multidimensional generalization of the well-known Tikhonov definition of a functional Volterra type operator). Various CIBVP (for nonlinear hyperbolic and parabolic equations, integro-differential equations, equations with delay, etc.) are reduced by the method of conversion the main part to such functional equations. The transition to equivalent VFE-description of CIBVP is adequate to many problems of distributed optimization. In particular, the author proposed (using such description) a scheme for obtaining sufficient stability conditions (under perturbations of control) of the existence of global solutions for CIBVP. The scheme uses continuation local solutions of functional equation (that is, solutions on the sets H∈T). This continuation is realized with the help of the chain {H_1⊂H_2⊂⋯⊂H_(k-1)⊂H_k≡Π}, where H_i∈T, i=¯(1,k.) A special local existence theorem is applied. This theorem is based on the principle of contraction mappings. In the case p=q=k=∞ under natural assumptions, the possibility of applying this principle is provided by the following: the right-hand side operator F_v [z(.) ](t)≡f(t,A[z](t),v(t)) satisfies the Lipschitz condition in the operator form with the quasi-nilpotent «Lipschitz operator». This allows (using well-known results of functional analysis) to introduce in the space L_∞^m (H) such an equivalent norm in which the operator of the right-hand side will be contractive. In the general case 1≤p,q,k ≤∞, (this case covers a much wider class of CIBVP), the operator F_v; as a rule, does not satisfy such Lipschitz condition. From the results obtained by the author earlier, it follows that in this case there also exists an equivalent norm of the space L_p^m (H), for which the operator F_v is a contraction operator. The corresponding basic theorem (equivalent norm theorem) is based on the notion of equipotential quasi-nilpotency of a family of linear operators, acting in a Banach space. This article shows how this theorem can be applied to obtain sufficient stability conditions (under perturbations of control) of the existence of global solutions of VFE.

This paper focuses on delivering an effective performance qualification (PQ) control strategy for a grid connected photovoltaic (PV) system. A PV-based distributed generation system with a capacity of 10 kilo volt amps (kVA) was connected to the utility side of a power grid operating at 415 V. The power grid was modelled with a capacity of 100 kVA, 11 kV, and 100 km transmission line length. The PQ control strategy was implemented with three hysteresis-based current control techniques. To overcome the drawbacks of conventional hysteresis-control techniques, adaptive tuning of the hysteresis band was carried out, and a vector-based hysteresis current control is proposed to improve the results.

Abstract This paper presents an overview of the research work currently being performed within the frame of project DAAB and its successor DAAB-TX towards the integration of ultra-wideband transceivers operating at mm-wave frequencies and capable of data rates up to 100 Gbits $^{-1}$. Two basic system architectures are being considered: integrating a broadband antenna with a distributed amplifier and integrate antennas centered at adjacent frequencies with broadband active combiners or dividers. The paper discusses in detail the design of such systems and their components, from the distributed amplifiers and combiners, to the broadband silicon antennas and their single-chip integration. All components are designed for fabrication in a commercially available SiGe:C BiCMOS technology. The presented results represent the state of the art in their respective areas: 170 GHz is the highest reported bandwidth for distributed amplifiers integrated in Silicon; 89 GHz is the widest reported bandwidth for integrated-system antennas; the simulated performance of the two antenna integrated receiver spans 105 GHz centered at 148GHz, which would improve the state of the art by a factor in excess of 4 even against III-V implementations, if confirmed by measurements.

Scheduling tasks in heterogeneous parallel and distributed computing environments continues to be a challenging problem. In this paper, the authors investigate the Heterogeneous Earliest Finish Time (HEFT) algorithm, along with alternative scheduling policies for task prioritising phases and the Critical Path on a Processor (CPOP) for scheduling tasks on a heterogeneous multiprocessor system. The authors show that by combining the HEFT algorithm selection policy with the task duplication strategy, it is possible to further reduce the schedule length produced by both HEFT and CPOP. The process scheduling algorithm presented in this paper compares favourably with other algorithms that use a similar strategy. The proposed algorithm has a time complexity of ?(¦V¦2(p + d)), whererepresents the number of tasks, p represents the number of processors and d the maximum in-degree of tasks.

A potentially useful Cyber-Physical Systems element is a modern forward error correction (FEC) coding system, utilizing a code selected from the broad class of Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes. In this paper, development of a hardware implementation in an FPGAs of the decoder for Quasi-Cyclic (QC-LDPC) subclass of codes is presented. The decoder can be configured to support the typical decoding algorithms: Min-Sum or Normalized Min-Sum (NMS). A novel method of normalization in the NMS algorithm is proposed, one that utilizes combinational logic instead of arithmetic units. A comparison of decoders with different bit-lengths of data (beliefs that are messages propagated between computing units) is also provided. The presented decoder has been implemented with a distributed control system. Experimental studies were conducted using the Intel Cyclone V FPGA module, which is a part of the developed testing environment for LDPC coding systems.

A discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) three-phase single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC) is presented in this article. The analyzed converter operates as a high-power factor stage in AC–DC conversion systems. As its main features, it presents three controlled switches and a single control signal with simple implementation and low-current harmonic distortion. The converter topology, its design equations, and its operation modes are presented as well as a simulation analysis considering a 3 kW–220 V three-phase input to 400 V DC output converter. The experimental results are included, considering as an application the rectifier stage in low-power wind energy conversion systems (WECS) based on a 1 kW permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) with variable voltage frequencies. From the analysis performed in the paper and the simulation and experimental results revealed, it is concluded that the converter is indicated to be employed in any AC–DC low-power conversion system, such as DC distribution systems, and distributed generation or hybrid systems containing variable-frequency generation.

A 0.18 µm CMOS Binary Frequency Shift Keying Modulator with a novel frequency synthesizer structure is proposed in this paper. Based on an analog adder technique being the backbone of the synthesizer, this prototype demonstrates a compact modulator with low complexity, which achieves 1 Mbps at 400 MHz while dissipating 3.1 mW at 1.5 V supply. The proposed design is ideal for biomedical sensor network systems including distributed wearable body area network.

This paper investigates the existence and globally asymptotic stability of equilibrium solution for Riemann-Liouville fractional-order hybrid BAM neural networks with distributed delays and impulses. The factors of such network systems including the distributed delays, impulsive effects, and two different fractional-order derivatives between the U-layer and V-layer are taken into account synchronously. Based on the contraction mapping principle, the sufficient conditions are derived to ensure the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium solution for such network systems. By constructing a novel Lyapunov functional composed of fractional integral and definite integral terms, the globally asymptotic stability criteria of the equilibrium solution are obtained, which are dependent on the order of fractional derivative and network parameters. The advantage of our constructed method is that one may directly calculate integer-order derivative of the Lyapunov functional. A numerical example is also presented to show the validity and feasibility of the theoretical results.

Abstract The paper presents an analytical approach to the determination of power losses in a high-frequency transformer operating in the dual active bridge (DAB). This transformer, having two single-phase transistor bridge inverters, couples two DC circuits that significantly differ in voltages (280 V and 51 V ±20%). Power losses in the core and windings of the planar transformer 5600 VA /100 kHz were calculated taking into account changes in the value and direction of the energy flow between the coupled DC circuits. These circuits represent storage or renewable energy sources and intermediate circuits of the converters used in distributed generation systems. Calculations were performed using the Steinmetz’s and Dowell’s equations. The analytical results have been verified experimentally.

Photovoltaic (PV) systems with a battery back-up form an integral part of distributed generation systems and therefore have recently attracted a lot of interest. In this paper, we consider a system of charging a battery from a PV panel through a current mode controlled boost dc-dc converter. We analyze its complete nonlinear/nonsmooth dynamics, using a piecewise model of the converter and realistic nonlinear v–i characteristics of the PV panel. Through this study, it is revealed that system design without taking into account the nonsmooth dynamics of the converter combined with the nonlinear v–i characteristics of the PV panel can lead to unpredictable responses of the overall system with high current ripple and other undesirable phenomena. This analysis can lead to better designed converters that can operate under a wide variation of the solar irradiation and the battery's state of charge. We show that the v–i characteristics of the PV panel combined with the battery's output voltage variation can increase or decrease the converter's robustness, both under peak current mode control and average current mode control. We justify the observation in terms of the change in the discrete-time map caused by the nonlinear v–i characteristics of the PV panel. The theoretical results are validated experimentally.

This work describes the use of commercially available starch as a binder for the preparation of conductive glue and electrode materials. It is demonstrated that starch can be successfully implemented as a binder in energy storage systems with non-aqueous electrolytes. These devices are characterized by a stable cycle life (for 50,000 cycles) at a nominal voltage of 2.5 V. Moreover, the use of starch-based conductive glue improves the electrochemical performance, especially reducing the internal resistance of the device. Starch-bound electrodes display lower equivalent distributed resistance (EDR) values than electrodes using carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) as the binder. This is due to the noticeably lower pore clogging by starch. An electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) in organic electrolyte (1 mol L−1 TEABF4 in ACN) at a nominal voltage of 2.5 V can reach a specific power and energy of 100 kW kg−1 and 12 Wh kg −1, respectively. This study shows that starch-based conductive glues and electrode materials can be incorporated in EDLC systems.

Cleaner and greener energy sources have proliferated on a worldwide basis, creating distributed energy systems. Given the unreliable nature of the renewable sources such as solar and wind, they are traditionally based on inverters interfaced with legacy AC grid systems. While efficiency, output waveform quality and other technical specifications of inverters keep improving gradually, only limited attention is given to widening the input range of inverters. This paper presents a new supercapacitor assisted (SCA) technique to widen the input range of an inverter without modifying the inverter itself. Developing a prototype version of a 24 V DC input capable supercapacitor-assisted wide input (SCASWI) inverter using a supercapacitor circulation front end and a commercial 12 V DC line frequency inverter is detailed in the article, explaining how the SCASWI inverter technique doubles the input voltage while maintaining the useful characteristics of the commercial inverter. The new technique has the added advantage of DC-UPS capability based on a long-life supercapacitor module.

Water security is under severe pressures from human interventions and climate change in all over the world and improved water forecast is essential for water management. HYPE is a semi-distributed hydrographic model, running on Windows or Linux operating systems. The code of the model is written by the Fortran programming language and open source as Lesser GNU Public License. HYPE has been becoming a widely used tool in the forecasting of transboundary flows. However, the application of HYPE encounters many difficulties in processing input data and serving the construction, calibration, and validation of the model. This article introduces the development of the V-HYPE tool that helps a couple of global rainfall data and HYPE model for operational use. V-HYPE allows developing a user-friendly interface and setting parameters of the HYPE model as well as evaluating errors and transforming and visually displaying the results of the model. Besides, the V-HYPE has the ability to show related maps (i.e. sub-basins, river network, lake, and dams, etc), set up input data, automatically download global rainfall data, and visually display results on WebGIS. V-HYPE also can generate bulletins supporting for operational water resources warning and forecasting works in Vietnam. The utilities of this tool are demonstrated in the case study of Serepok river basin.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.

The Distributed Maximum Power Point Tracking (DMPPT) approach is a promising solution to improve the energetic performance of mismatched PhotoVoltaic (PV) systems. However, there are still several factors that can reduce DMPPT energy efficiency, including atmospheric conditions, the efficiency of the power stage, constraints imposed by the topology, the finite rating of silicon devices, and the nonoptimal value of string voltage. In order to fully explore the advantages offered by the above solution, the implementation of a Boost based DMPPT emulator is of primary concern, especially if it behaves as a controlled voltage or current source. The repeatability of experimental tests, the tighter control of climatic conditions, the closing of the gap between the physical dimensions of a PV array and the space available in a university lab, the simplicity with which new algorithms can be tested, and the low maintenance costs are just some of the benefits offered by an emulator. This paper describes the realization and use of a Boost based Distributed Maximum Power Point Tracking (DMPPT) emulator and shows its high flexibility and potential. The device is able to emulate the output current vs. voltage (I-V) characteristics of many commercial PhotoVoltaic (PV) modules with a dedicated Boost DC/DC converter. The flexibility is guaranteed by the ability to reproduce both I = f ( V ) and V = g ( I ) characteristics at different values of not only the irradiance levels but also the maximum allowed voltage across the switching devices. The system design is based on a commercial power supply controlled by a low-cost Arduino board by Arduino (Strambino, Torino, Italy). Data acquisition is performed through a low-cost current and voltage sensor by using a multichannel board by National Instruments. Experimental results confirm the capability of the proposed device to accurately emulate the output I-V characteristic of Boost based DMPPT systems obtained by varying the atmospheric conditions, the rating of silicon devices, and the electrical topology.

This paper presents a general and efficient formulation applicable to a vast variety of rigid and flexible multibody systems. It is based on a variable-gain error correction with scaling and adaptive control of the convergence parameter. The methodology has the following distinctive features. (i) All types of holonomic and non-holonomic equality constraints as well as a class of inequalities can be treated in a plain and unified manner. (ii) Stability of the constraints is assured. (iii) The formulation has an order Ncomputational cost in terms of both the constrained and unconstrained degrees of freedom, regardless of the system topology. (iv) Unlike the traditional recursive order Nalgorithms, it is quite amenable to parallel computation. (v) Because virtually no matrix operations are involved, it can be implemented to very simple general-purpose simulation programs. Noting the advantages, the algorithm has been realized as a C++ code supporting distributed processing through the Message-Passing Interface (MPI). Versatility, dynamical validity and efficiency of the approach are demonstrated through numerical studies of several particular systems including a crawler and a flexible space structure.

Privacy protection and message authentication issues in VANETs have received great attention in academia. Many authentication schemes in VANETs have been proposed, but most of them are based on classical difficult problems such as factorization in RSA setting or Elliptic Curve setting and are therefore not quantum resistant. If a quantum computer becomes available in the next few decades, the security of these schemes will be at stake. This paper presents a vehicular lattice-based direct anonymous attestation (V-LDAA) scheme adopting an optimized signature scheme based on automorphism stability which achieves postquantum security. A distributed pseudonym update and vehicle revocation mechanism based on the lattice is introduced in this paper, which means vehicles can update their pseudonyms and revoke the identity certificate by themselves without the need for pseudonym resolutions or CRLs checking. Compared with the existing lattice-based attestation schemes in VANETs, computation costs during signing and verification operations in V-LDAA are no longer related to the number of users, which makes it suitable for large-scale VANETs. Security analysis shows that V-LDAA resists TPM theft attacks and provides users with user-controlled anonymity, user-controlled unlinkability, and unforgeability against quantum adversaries. Experimental results show that V-LDAA reduces the blind signature size by 18%. The speed of blind signing is increased by 30%, and blind verification operation is accelerated 3 times compared with the existing lattice-based direct anonymous attestation (LDAA) scheme.

Floor joists consisting of 38 × 89 mm top and bottom chords connected by galvanized steel V webs are often used in the construction of low-rise buildings where long spans are required. An experimental and theoretical program was undertaken to evaluate the performance of such joists when used in conjunction with plywood sheathing attached to the top chord to form a truss floor system. A finite-element analysis procedure for sandwich beams with faces of unequal thickness was adapted in order to predict the load-deflection curves of full-scale floor systems. The experimental program involved the testing of double-block shear specimens to determine the modulus of rigidity of the core, shear specimens to evaluate the performance of the adhesive, and four floor sections to evaluate the performance of the floor system when subjected to uniformly distributed loads. The results indicate that a modulus of rigidity can be determined from the double-block shear specimens, the adhesive performed well under a variety of environmental conditions, the sand wich beam analysis can be used to predict the load-deflection curve of the truss floor system, and the floors performed well when subjected to uniformly distributed loads. Key words: adhesive, floors, floor joists, floor trusses, metal V webs, timber.

With the development of wireless communication technology and the automobile industry, the Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks bring many conveniences to humans in terms of safety and entertainment. In the process of communication between the nodes, security problems are the main concerns. Blockchain is a decentralized distributed technology used in nonsecure environments. Using blockchain technology in the VANETs can solve the security problems. However, the characteristics of highly dynamic and resource-constrained VANETs make the traditional chain blockchain system not suitable for actual VANETs scenarios. Therefore, this paper proposes a lightweight blockchain architecture using DAG-lattice structure for VANETs, called V-Lattice. In V-Lattice, each node (vehicle or roadside unit) has its own account chain. The transactions they generated can be added to the blockchain asynchronously and parallelly, and resource-constrained vehicles can store the pruned blockchain and execute blockchain related operations normally. At the same time, in order to encourage more nodes to participate in the blockchain, a reputation-based incentive mechanism is introduced in V-Lattice. This paper uses Colored Petri Nets to verify the security of the architecture and verifies the feasibility of PoW anti-spam through experiment. The validation results show that the architecture proposed in this paper is security, and it is feasible to prevent nodes from generating malicious behaviors by using PoW anti-spam.

The variation in cross-sectional profile of a microgroove fabricated with focused and diverging laser irradiation is demonstrated with ray tracing. To verify the result of ray tracing, stainless-steel 304 microgrooves were manufactured utilizing the conventional lens-based and optical fiber-based laser-induced etching techniques in phosphoric acid solution. Three distinctive groove geometries, i.e., a flat surface with no groove, an intermediate stage groove, and a fully developed V-groove, were rendered for numerical analysis. For focusing mode, the first and second reflections were caused by high laser intensity and the second reflected beam could lead to variation in the groove shape such as a U-shaped groove or a V-shaped groove in accordance with etchant concentration. On the contrary, a weak laser entirely distributed at the groove sidewall could not induce a chemical reaction, leading to a V-shaped groove. The effect of process variables such as laser power (intensity) and etchant concentration on the cross-sectional profiles of a groove are closely examined through the computed simulation results.

To date, discrete event stochastic simulations of large scale biological reaction systems are extremely compute-intensive and time-consuming. Besides, it has been widely accepted that spatial factor plays a critical role in the dynamics of most biological reaction systems. The NSM (the Next Sub-Volume Method), a spatial variation of the Gillespie’s stochastic simulation algorithm (SSA), has been proposed for spatially stochastic simulation of those systems. While being able to explore high degree of parallelism in systems, NSM is inherently sequential, which still suffers from the problem of low simulation speed. Fine-grained parallel execution is an elegant way to speed up sequential simulations. Thus, based on the discrete event simulation framework JAMES II, we design and implement a PDES (Parallel Discrete Event Simulation) TW (time warp) simulator to enable the fine-grained parallel execution of spatial stochastic simulations of biological reaction systems using the ANSM (the Abstract NSM), a parallel variation of the NSM. The simulation results of classical Lotka-Volterra biological reaction system show that our time warp simulator obtains remarkable parallel speed-up against sequential execution of the NSM.I.IntroductionThe goal of Systems biology is to obtain system-level investigations of the structure and behavior of biological reaction systems by integrating biology with system theory, mathematics and computer science [1][3], since the isolated knowledge of parts can not explain the dynamics of a whole system. As the complement of “wet-lab” experiments, stochastic simulation, being called the “dry-computational” experiment, plays a more and more important role in computing systems biology [2]. Among many methods explored in systems biology, discrete event stochastic simulation is of greatly importance [4][5][6], since a great number of researches have present that stochasticity or “noise” have a crucial effect on the dynamics of small population biological reaction systems [4][7]. Furthermore, recent research shows that the stochasticity is not only important in biological reaction systems with small population but also in some moderate/large population systems [7].To date, Gillespie’s SSA [8] is widely considered to be the most accurate way to capture the dynamics of biological reaction systems instead of traditional mathematical method [5][9]. However, SSA-based stochastic simulation is confronted with two main challenges: Firstly, this type of simulation is extremely time-consuming, since when the types of species and the number of reactions in the biological system are large, SSA requires a huge amount of steps to sample these reactions; Secondly, the assumption that the systems are spatially homogeneous or well-stirred is hardly met in most real biological systems and spatial factors play a key role in the behaviors of most real biological systems [19][20][21][22][23][24]. The next sub-volume method (NSM) [18], presents us an elegant way to access the special problem via domain partition. To our disappointment, sequential stochastic simulation with the NSM is still very time-consuming, and additionally introduced diffusion among neighbor sub-volumes makes things worse. Whereas, the NSM explores a very high degree of parallelism among sub-volumes, and parallelization has been widely accepted as the most meaningful way to tackle the performance bottleneck of sequential simulations [26][27]. Thus, adapting parallel discrete event simulation (PDES) techniques to discrete event stochastic simulation would be particularly promising. Although there are a few attempts have been conducted [29][30][31], research in this filed is still in its infancy and many issues are in need of further discussion. The next section of the paper presents the background and related work in this domain. In section III, we give the details of design and implementation of model interfaces of LP paradigm and the time warp simulator based on the discrete event simulation framework JAMES II; the benchmark model and experiment results are shown in Section IV; in the last section, we conclude the paper with some future work.II. Background and Related WorkA. Parallel Discrete Event Simulation (PDES)The notion Logical Process (LP) is introduced to PDES as the abstract of the physical process [26], where a system consisting of many physical processes is usually modeled by a set of LP. LP is regarded as the smallest unit that can be executed in PDES and each LP holds a sub-partition of the whole system’s state variables as its private ones. When a LP processes an event, it can only modify the state variables of its own. If one LP needs to modify one of its neighbors’ state variables, it has to schedule an event to the target neighbor. That is to say event message exchanging is the only way that LPs interact with each other. Because of the data dependences or interactions among LPs, synchronization protocols have to be introduced to PDES to guarantee the so-called local causality constraint (LCC) [26]. By now, there are a larger number of synchronization algorithms have been proposed, e.g. the null-message [26], the time warp (TW) [32], breath time warp (BTW) [33] and etc. According to whether can events of LPs be processed optimistically, they are generally divided into two types: conservative algorithms and optimistic algorithms. However, Dematté and Mazza have theoretically pointed out the disadvantages of pure conservative parallel simulation for biochemical reaction systems [31]. B. NSM and ANSM The NSM is a spatial variation of Gillespie’ SSA, which integrates the direct method (DM) [8] with the next reaction method (NRM) [25]. The NSM presents us a pretty good way to tackle the aspect of space in biological systems by partitioning a spatially inhomogeneous system into many much more smaller “homogeneous” ones, which can be simulated by SSA separately. However, the NSM is inherently combined with the sequential semantics, and all sub-volumes share one common data structure for events or messages. Thus, directly parallelization of the NSM may be confronted with the so-called boundary problem and high costs of synchronously accessing the common data structure [29]. In order to obtain higher efficiency of parallel simulation, parallelization of NSM has to firstly free the NSM from the sequential semantics and secondly partition the shared data structure into many “parallel” ones. One of these is the abstract next sub-volume method (ANSM) [30]. In the ANSM, each sub-volume is modeled by a logical process (LP) based on the LP paradigm of PDES, where each LP held its own event queue and state variables (see Fig. 1). In addition, the so-called retraction mechanism was introduced in the ANSM too (see algorithm 1). Besides, based on the ANSM, Wang etc. [30] have experimentally tested the performance of several PDES algorithms in the platform called YH-SUPE [27]. However, their platform is designed for general simulation applications, thus it would sacrifice some performance for being not able to take into account the characteristics of biological reaction systems. Using the similar ideas of the ANSM, Dematté and Mazza have designed and realized an optimistic simulator. However, they processed events in time-stepped manner, which would lose a specific degree of precisions compared with the discrete event manner, and it is very hard to transfer a time-stepped simulation to a discrete event one. In addition, Jeschke etc.[29] have designed and implemented a dynamic time-window simulator to execution the NSM in parallel on the grid computing environment, however, they paid main attention on the analysis of communication costs and determining a better size of the time-window.Fig. 1: the variations from SSA to NSM and from NSM to ANSMC. JAMES II JAMES II is an open source discrete event simulation experiment framework developed by the University of Rostock in Germany. It focuses on high flexibility and scalability [11][13]. Based on the plug-in scheme [12], each function of JAMES II is defined as a specific plug-in type, and all plug-in types and plug-ins are declared in XML-files [13]. Combined with the factory method pattern JAMES II innovatively split up the model and simulator, which makes JAMES II is very flexible to add and reuse both of models and simulators. In addition, JAMES II supports various types of modelling formalisms, e.g. cellular automata, discrete event system specification (DEVS), SpacePi, StochasticPi and etc.[14]. Besides, a well-defined simulator selection mechanism is designed and developed in JAMES II, which can not only automatically choose the proper simulators according to the modeling formalism but also pick out a specific simulator from a serious of simulators supporting the same modeling formalism according to the user settings [15].III. The Model Interface and SimulatorAs we have mentioned in section II (part C), model and simulator are split up into two separate parts. Thus, in this section, we introduce the designation and implementation of model interface of LP paradigm and more importantly the time warp simulator.A. The Mod Interface of LP ParadigmJAMES II provides abstract model interfaces for different modeling formalism, based on which Wang etc. have designed and implemented model interface of LP paradigm[16]. However, this interface is not scalable well for parallel and distributed simulation of larger scale systems. In our implementation, we accommodate the interface to the situation of parallel and distributed situations. Firstly, the neighbor LP’s reference is replaced by its name in LP’s neighbor queue, because it is improper even dangerous that a local LP hold the references of other LPs in remote memory space. In addition, (pseudo-)random number plays a crucial role to obtain valid and meaningful results in stochastic simulations. However, it is still a very challenge work to find a good random number generator (RNG) [34]. Thus, in order to focus on our problems, we introduce one of the uniform RNGs of JAMES II to this model interface, where each LP holds a private RNG so that random number streams of different LPs can be independent stochastically. B. The Time Warp SimulatorBased on the simulator interface provided by JAMES II, we design and implement the time warp simulator, which contains the (master-)simulator, (LP-)simulator. The simulator works strictly as master/worker(s) paradigm for fine-grained parallel and distributed stochastic simulations. Communication costs are crucial to the performance of a fine-grained parallel and distributed simulation. Based on the Java remote method invocation (RMI) mechanism, P2P (peer-to-peer) communication is implemented among all (master-and LP-)simulators, where a simulator holds all the proxies of targeted ones that work on remote workers. One of the advantages of this communication approach is that PDES codes can be transferred to various hardwire environment, such as Clusters, Grids and distributed computing environment, with only a little modification; The other is that RMI mechanism is easy to realized and independent to any other non-Java libraries. Since the straggler event problem, states have to be saved to rollback events that are pre-processed optimistically. Each time being modified, the state is cloned to a queue by Java clone mechanism. Problem of this copy state saving approach is that it would cause loads of memory space. However, the problem can be made up by a condign GVT calculating mechanism. GVT reduction scheme also has a significant impact on the performance of parallel simulators, since it marks the highest time boundary of events that can be committed so that memories of fossils (processed events and states) less than GVT can be reallocated. GVT calculating is a very knotty for the notorious simultaneous reporting problem and transient messages problem. According to our problem, another GVT algorithm, called Twice Notification (TN-GVT) (see algorithm 2), is contributed to this already rich repository instead of implementing one of GVT algorithms in reference [26] and [28].This algorithm looks like the synchronous algorithm described in reference [26] (pp. 114), however, they are essentially different from each other. This algorithm has never stopped the simulators from processing events when GVT reduction, while algorithm in reference [26] blocks all simulators for GVT calculating. As for the transient message problem, it can be neglect in our implementation, because RMI based remote communication approach is synchronized, that means a simulator will not go on its processing until the remote the massage get to its destination. And because of this, the high-costs message acknowledgement, prevalent over many classical asynchronous GVT algorithms, is not needed anymore too, which should be constructive to the whole performance of the time warp simulator.IV. Benchmark Model and Experiment ResultsA. The Lotka-Volterra Predator-prey SystemIn our experiment, the spatial version of Lotka-Volterra predator-prey system is introduced as the benchmark model (see Fig. 2). We choose the system for two considerations: 1) this system is a classical experimental model that has been used in many related researches [8][30][31], so it is credible and the simulation results are comparable; 2) it is simple but helpful enough to test the issues we are interested in. The space of predator-prey System is partitioned into a2D NXNgrid, whereNdenotes the edge size of the grid. Initially the population of the Grass, Preys and Predators are set to 1000 in each single sub-volume (LP). In Fig. 2,r1,r2,r3stand for the reaction constants of the reaction 1, 2 and 3 respectively. We usedGrass,dPreyanddPredatorto stand for the diffusion rate of Grass, Prey and Predator separately. Being similar to reference [8], we also take the assumption that the population of the grass remains stable, and thusdGrassis set to zero.R1:Grass + Prey ->2Prey(1)R2:Predator +Prey -> 2Predator(2)R3:Predator -> NULL(3)r1=0.01; r2=0.01; r3=10(4)dGrass=0.0;dPrey=2.5;dPredato=5.0(5)Fig. 2: predator-prey systemB. Experiment ResultsThe simulation runs have been executed on a Linux Cluster with 40 computing nodes. Each computing node is equipped with two 64bit 2.53 GHz Intel Xeon QuadCore Processors with 24GB RAM, and nodes are interconnected with Gigabit Ethernet connection. The operating system is Kylin Server 3.5, with kernel 2.6.18. Experiments have been conducted on the benchmark model of different size of mode to investigate the execution time and speedup of the time warp simulator. As shown in Fig. 3, the execution time of simulation on single processor with 8 cores is compared. The result shows that it will take more wall clock time to simulate much larger scale systems for the same simulation time. This testifies the fact that larger scale systems will leads to more events in the same time interval. More importantly, the blue line shows that the sequential simulation performance declines very fast when the mode scale becomes large. The bottleneck of sequential simulator is due to the costs of accessing a long event queue to choose the next events. Besides, from the comparison between group 1 and group 2 in this experiment, we could also conclude that high diffusion rate increased the simulation time greatly both in sequential and parallel simulations. This is because LP paradigm has to split diffusion into two processes (diffusion (in) and diffusion (out) event) for two interactive LPs involved in diffusion and high diffusion rate will lead to high proportional of diffusion to reaction. In the second step shown in Fig. 4, the relationship between the speedups from time warp of two different model sizes and the number of work cores involved are demonstrated. The speedup is calculated against the sequential execution of the spatial reaction-diffusion systems model with the same model size and parameters using NSM.Fig. 4 shows the comparison of speedup of time warp on a64X64grid and a100X100grid. In the case of a64X64grid, under the condition that only one node is used, the lowest speedup (a little bigger than 1) is achieved when two cores involved, and the highest speedup (about 6) is achieved when 8 cores involved. The influence of the number of cores used in parallel simulation is investigated. In most cases, large number of cores could bring in considerable improvements in the performance of parallel simulation. Also, compared with the two results in Fig. 4, the simulation of larger model achieves better speedup. Combined with time tests (Fig. 3), we find that sequential simulator’s performance declines sharply when the model scale becomes very large, which makes the time warp simulator get better speed-up correspondingly.Fig. 3: Execution time (wall clock time) of Seq. and time warp with respect to different model sizes (N=32, 64, 100, and 128) and model parameters based on single computing node with 8 cores. Results of the test are grouped by the diffusion rates (Group 1: Sequential 1 and Time Warp 1. dPrey=2.5, dPredator=5.0; Group 2: dPrey=0.25, dPredator=0.5, Sequential 2 and Time Warp 2).Fig. 4: Speedup of time warp with respect to the number of work cores and the model size (N=64 and 100). Work cores are chose from one computing node. Diffusion rates are dPrey=2.5, dPredator=5.0 and dGrass=0.0.V. Conclusion and Future WorkIn this paper, a time warp simulator based on the discrete event simulation framework JAMES II is designed and implemented for fine-grained parallel and distributed discrete event spatial stochastic simulation of biological reaction systems. Several challenges have been overcome, such as state saving, roll back and especially GVT reduction in parallel execution of simulations. The Lotka-Volterra Predator-Prey system is chosen as the benchmark model to test the performance of our time warp simulator and the best experiment results show that it can obtain about 6 times of speed-up against the sequential simulation. The domain this paper concerns with is in the infancy, many interesting issues are worthy of further investigated, e.g. there are many excellent PDES optimistic synchronization algorithms (e.g. the BTW) as well. Next step, we would like to fill some of them into JAMES II. In addition, Gillespie approximation methods (tau-leap[10] etc.) sacrifice some degree of precision for higher simulation speed, but still could not address the aspect of space of biological reaction systems. The combination of spatial element and approximation methods would be very interesting and promising; however, the parallel execution of tau-leap methods should have to overcome many obstacles on the road ahead.AcknowledgmentThis work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSF) Grant (No.60773019) and the Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 200899980004). The authors would like to show their great gratitude to Dr. Jan Himmelspach and Dr. Roland Ewald at the University of Rostock, Germany for their invaluable advice and kindly help with JAMES II.ReferencesH. Kitano, "Computational systems biology." Nature, vol. 420, no. 6912, pp. 206-210, November 2002.H. Kitano, "Systems biology: a brief overview." 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