Collective dynamics and control of a 3-D small-world network with time delays

The paper presents a detailed analysis on the collective dynamics and delayed state feedback control of a three-dimensional delayed small-world network. The trivial equilibrium of the model is first investigated, showing that the uncontrolled model exhibits complicated unbounded behavior. Then three control strategies, namely a position feedback control, a velocity feedback control, and a hybrid control combined velocity with acceleration feedback, are then introduced to stabilize this unstable system. It is shown in these three control schemes that only the hybrid control can easily stabilize the 3-D network system. And with properly chosen delay and gain in the delayed feedback path, the hybrid controlled model may have stable equilibrium, or periodic solutions resulting from the Hopf bifurcation, or complex stranger attractor from the period-doubling bifurcation. Moreover, the direction of Hopf bifurcation and stability of the bifurcation periodic solutions are analyzed. The results are further extended to any "d" dimensional network. It shows that to stabilize a "d" dimensional delayed small-world network, at least a "d – 1" order completed differential feedback is needed. This work provides a constructive suggestion for the high dimensional delayed systems.

Evaluation of Trippple : a field analysis

This paper illustrates a field research performed with a team of experts involved in the evaluation of Trippple, a system aimed at supporting the different phases of a tourist trip, in order to provide feedback and insights, both on the functionalities already implemented (that at the time of evaluation were available only as early and very unstable prototypes), and on the functionalities still to be implemented. We show how the involvement of professionals helped to focus on challenging aspects, instead of less important, cosmetic, issues and resulted profitable in terms of early feedback, issues spotted, and improvements suggested

Applied sub-transmission & distribution reliability assessment of SEQEB network in Queensland

In this paper a combined subtransmission and distribution reliability analysis of SEQEB’s outer suburban network is presented. The reliability analysis was carried out with a commercial software package which evaluates both energy and customer indices. Various reinforcement options were investigated to ascertain the impact they have on the reliability of supply seen by the customers. The customer and energy indices produced by the combined subtransmission and distribution reliability studies contributed to optimise capital expenditure to the most effective areas of the network.

A New DER coordination in LV network based on the concept of distributed control

Given the paradigm of smart grid as the promising backbone for future network, this paper uses this paradigm to propose a new coordination approach for LV network based on distributed control algorithm. This approach divides the LV network into hierarchical communities where each community is controlled by a control agent. Different level of communication has been proposed for this structure to control the network in different operation modes.

Application-level simulation for network security

NeSSi (network security simulator) is a novel network simulation tool which incorporates a variety of features relevant to network security distinguishing it from general-purpose network simulators. Its capabilities such as profile-based automated attack generation, traffic analysis and support for detection algorithm plug-ins allow it to be used for security research and evaluation purposes. NeSSi has been successfully used for testing intrusion detection algorithms, conducting network security analysis and developing overlay security frameworks. NeSSi is built upon the agent framework JIAC, resulting in a distributed and extensible architecture. In this paper, we provide an overview of the NeSSi architecture as well as its distinguishing features and briefly demonstrate its application to current security research projects.

Extending and validating the is-impact model in Saudi Arabia : accounting for computer network quality

Organizations from every industry sector seek to enhance their business performance and competitiveness through the deployment of contemporary information systems (IS), such as Enterprise Systems (ERP). Investments in ERP are complex and costly, attracting scrutiny and pressure to justify their cost. Thus, IS researchers highlight the need for systematic evaluation of information system success, or impact, which has resulted in the introduction of varied models for evaluating information systems. One of these systematic measurement approaches is the IS-Impact Model introduced by a team of researchers at Queensland University of technology (QUT) (Gable, Sedera, & Chan, 2008). The IS-Impact Model is conceptualized as a formative, multidimensional index that consists of four dimensions. Gable et al. (2008) define IS-Impact as "a measure at a point in time, of the stream of net benefits from the IS, to date and anticipated, as perceived by all key-user-groups" (p.381). The IT Evaluation Research Program (ITE-Program) at QUT has grown the IS-Impact Research Track with the central goal of conducting further studies to enhance and extend the IS-Impact Model. The overall goal of the IS-Impact research track at QUT is "to develop the most widely employed model for benchmarking information systems in organizations for the joint benefit of both research and practice" (Gable, 2009). In order to achieve that, the IS-Impact research track advocates programmatic research having the principles of tenacity, holism, and generalizability through extension research strategies. This study was conducted within the IS-Impact Research Track, to further generalize the IS-Impact Model by extending it to the Saudi Arabian context. According to Hofsted (2012), the national culture of Saudi Arabia is significantly different from the Australian national culture making the Saudi Arabian culture an interesting context for testing the external validity of the IS-Impact Model. The study re-visits the IS-Impact Model from the ground up. Rather than assume the existing instrument is valid in the new context, or simply assess its validity through quantitative data collection, the study takes a qualitative, inductive approach to re-assessing the necessity and completeness of existing dimensions and measures. This is done in two phases: Exploratory Phase and Confirmatory Phase. The exploratory phase addresses the first research question of the study "Is the IS-Impact Model complete and able to capture the impact of information systems in Saudi Arabian Organization?". The content analysis, used to analyze the Identification Survey data, indicated that 2 of the 37 measures of the IS-Impact Model are not applicable for the Saudi Arabian Context. Moreover, no new measures or dimensions were identified, evidencing the completeness and content validity of the IS-Impact Model. In addition, the Identification Survey data suggested several concepts related to IS-Impact, the most prominent of which was "Computer Network Quality" (CNQ). The literature supported the existence of a theoretical link between IS-Impact and CNQ (CNQ is viewed as an antecedent of IS-Impact). With the primary goal of validating the IS-Impact model within its extended nomological network, CNQ was introduced to the research model. The Confirmatory Phase addresses the second research question of the study "Is the Extended IS-Impact Model Valid as a Hierarchical Multidimensional Formative Measurement Model?". The objective of the Confirmatory Phase was to test the validity of IS-Impact Model and CNQ Model. To achieve that, IS-Impact, CNQ, and IS-Satisfaction were operationalized in a survey instrument, and then the research model was assessed by employing the Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach. The CNQ model was validated as a formative model. Similarly, the IS-Impact Model was validated as a hierarchical multidimensional formative construct. However, the analysis indicated that one of the IS-Impact Model indicators was insignificant and can be removed from the model. Thus, the resulting Extended IS-Impact Model consists of 4 dimensions and 34 measures. Finally, the structural model was also assessed against two aspects: explanatory and predictive power. The analysis revealed that the path coefficient between CNQ and IS-Impact is significant with t-value= (4.826) and relatively strong with â = (0.426) with CNQ explaining 18% of the variance in IS-Impact. These results supported the hypothesis that CNQ is antecedent of IS-Impact. The study demonstrates that the quality of Computer Network affects the quality of the Enterprise System (ERP) and consequently the impacts of the system. Therefore, practitioners should pay attention to the Computer Network quality. Similarly, the path coefficient between IS-Impact and IS-Satisfaction was significant t-value = (17.79) and strong â = (0.744), with IS-Impact alone explaining 55% of the variance in Satisfaction, consistent with results of the original IS-Impact study (Gable et al., 2008). The research contributions include: (a) supporting the completeness and validity of IS-Impact Model as a Hierarchical Multi-dimensional Formative Measurement Model in the Saudi Arabian context, (b) operationalizing Computer Network Quality as conceptualized in the ITU-T Recommendation E.800 (ITU-T, 1993), (c) validating CNQ as a formative measurement model and as an antecedent of IS Impact, and (d) conceptualizing and validating IS-Satisfaction as a reflective measurement model and as an immediate consequence of IS Impact. The CNQ model provides a framework to perceptually measure Computer Network Quality from multiple perspectives. The CNQ model features an easy-to-understand, easy-to-use, and economical survey instrument.

Design and analysis of key management schemes for distributed wireless sensor networks

Secure communications in distributed Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) operating under adversarial conditions necessitate efficient key management schemes. In the absence of a priori knowledge of post-deployment network configuration and due to limited resources at sensor nodes, key management schemes cannot be based on post-deployment computations. Instead, a list of keys, called a key-chain, is distributed to each sensor node before the deployment. For secure communication, either two nodes should have a key in common in their key-chains, or they should establish a key through a secure-path on which every link is secured with a key. We first provide a comparative survey of well known key management solutions for WSN. Probabilistic, deterministic and hybrid key management solutions are presented, and they are compared based on their security properties and re-source usage. We provide a taxonomy of solutions, and identify trade-offs in them to conclude that there is no one size-fits-all solution. Second, we design and analyze deterministic and hybrid techniques to distribute pair-wise keys to sensor nodes before the deployment. We present novel deterministic and hybrid approaches based on combinatorial design theory and graph theory for deciding how many and which keys to assign to each key-chain before the sensor network deployment. Performance and security of the proposed schemes are studied both analytically and computationally. Third, we address the key establishment problem in WSN which requires key agreement algorithms without authentication are executed over a secure-path. The length of the secure-path impacts the power consumption and the initialization delay for a WSN before it becomes operational. We formulate the key establishment problem as a constrained bi-objective optimization problem, break it into two sub-problems, and show that they are both NP-Hard and MAX-SNP-Hard. Having established inapproximability results, we focus on addressing the authentication problem that prevents key agreement algorithms to be used directly over a wireless link. We present a fully distributed algorithm where each pair of nodes can establish a key with authentication by using their neighbors as the witnesses.

Information provision and network performance represented by Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram

The existence of the Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD), which relates network space-mean density and flow, has been shown in urban networks under homogeneous traffic conditions. Since the MFD represents the area-wide network traffic performances, studies on perimeter control strategies and an area traffic state estimation utilizing the MFD concept has been reported. The key requirements for the well-defined MFD is the homogeneity of the area wide traffic condition, which is not universally expected in real world. For the practical application of the MFD concept, several researchers have identified the influencing factors for network homogeneity. However, they did not explicitly take drivers’ behaviour under real time information provision into account, which has a significant impact on the shape of the MFD. This research aims to demonstrate the impact of drivers’ route choice behaviour on network performance by employing the MFD as a measurement. A microscopic simulation is chosen as an experimental platform. By changing the ratio of en-route informed drivers and pre-trip informed drivers as well as by taking different route choice parameters, various scenarios are simulated in order to investigate how drivers’ adaptation to the traffic congestion influences the network performance and the MFD shape. This study confirmed and addressed the impact of information provision on the MFD shape and highlighted the significance of the route choice parameter setting as an influencing factor in the MFD analysis.

Public service versus private interest : a comparative analysis of the Australian and British debates

This paper will compare and evaluate the effectiveness of commercial media lobbying and advocacy against public service media in two countries, the United Kingdom and Australia. The paper will focus empirically on the commercial media coverage of public service media issues in these countries (relating to the BBC and ABC respectively) over the period since the election of the Conservative-led Coalition in Britain in June 2010, and the election of the Gillard government in Australia in August 2010. Reference will be made to preceding periods as relevant to an understanding of the current environment. In both countries the main commercial media rival to public service media is News Corp and its associated organisations – News Ltd and Sky News in Australia, and News International and BSkyB in the UK. The paper will examine with analysis of print and online news and commentary content how News Corp outlets have reported and commented on the activities and plans of public service media as the latter have developed and extended their presence on digital TV and online platforms. It will also consider the responses of the ABC and BBC to these interventions. It will consider, thirdly, the responses of Australian and British governments to these debates, and the policy outcomes. This section of the paper will seek to evaluate the trajectory of the policy-public-private dynamic in recent years, and to draw conclusions as to the future direction of policy. Particular attention will be devoted to recent key moments in this unfolding dialogue. In Britain, debates around the efforts of News Corp to take over 100% of BSkyB, both before and after the breaking of the phone-hacking scandal in July 2011; in Australia, the debate around the National Broadband Network and the competitive tender process for ABC World, that country’s public service transnational broadcaster; and other key moments where rivalry between News Corp companies and public service media became mainstream news stories provoking wider public debate. The paper will conclude with recommendations as to how public service media organisations might engage constructively with commercial organisations in the future, including News Corp, and taking into account emerging technological and financial challenges to traditional rationales for public service provision.

Analysis of regionally enhanced GPS orbit and clock solutions and contribution to improvement of real-time precise point positioning

This work experimentally examines the performance benefits of a regional CORS network to the GPS orbit and clock solutions for supporting real-time Precise Point Positioning (PPP). The regionally enhanced GPS precise orbit solutions are derived from a global evenly distributed CORS network added with a densely distributed network in Australia and New Zealand. A series of computational schemes for different network configurations are adopted in the GAMIT-GLOBK and PANDA data processing. The precise GPS orbit results show that the regionally enhanced solutions achieve the overall orbit improvements with respect to the solutions derived from the global network only. Additionally, the orbital differences over GPS satellite arcs that are visible by any of the five Australia-wide CORS stations show a higher percentage of overall improvements compared to the satellite arcs that are not visible from these stations. The regional GPS clock and Uncalibrated Phase Delay (UPD) products are derived using the PANDA real time processing module from Australian CORS networks of 35 and 79 stations respectively. Analysis of PANDA kinematic PPP and kinematic PPP-AR solutions show certain overall improvements in the positioning performance from a denser network configuration after solution convergence. However, the clock and UPD enhancement on kinematic PPP solutions is marginal. It is suggested that other factors, such as effects of ionosphere, incorrectly fixed ambiguities, may be the more dominating, deserving further research attentions.

A hybrid association rule mining approach for characterizing network traffic behaviour

Understanding network traffic behaviour is crucial for managing and securing computer networks. One important technique is to mine frequent patterns or association rules from analysed traffic data. On the one hand, association rule mining usually generates a huge number of patterns and rules, many of them meaningless or user-unwanted; on the other hand, association rule mining can miss some necessary knowledge if it does not consider the hierarchy relationships in the network traffic data. Aiming to address such issues, this paper proposes a hybrid association rule mining method for characterizing network traffic behaviour. Rather than frequent patterns, the proposed method generates non-similar closed frequent patterns from network traffic data, which can significantly reduce the number of patterns. This method also proposes to derive new attributes from the original data to discover novel knowledge according to hierarchy relationships in network traffic data and user interests. Experiments performed on real network traffic data show that the proposed method is promising and can be used in real applications. Copyright2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Intelligent reliability analysis with incomplete covariates

The reliability analysis is crucial to reducing unexpected down time, severe failures and ever tightened maintenance budget of engineering assets. Hazard based reliability methods are of particular interest as hazard reflects the current health status of engineering assets and their imminent failure risks. Most existing hazard models were constructed using the statistical methods. However, these methods were established largely based on two assumptions: one is the assumption of baseline failure distributions being accurate to the population concerned and the other is the assumption of effects of covariates on hazards. These two assumptions may be difficult to achieve and therefore compromise the effectiveness of hazard models in the application. To address this issue, a non-linear hazard modelling approach is developed in this research using neural networks (NNs), resulting in neural network hazard models (NNHMs), to deal with limitations due to the two assumptions for statistical models. With the success of failure prevention effort, less failure history becomes available for reliability analysis. Involving condition data or covariates is a natural solution to this challenge. A critical issue for involving covariates in reliability analysis is that complete and consistent covariate data are often unavailable in reality due to inconsistent measuring frequencies of multiple covariates, sensor failure, and sparse intrusive measurements. This problem has not been studied adequately in current reliability applications. This research thus investigates such incomplete covariates problem in reliability analysis. Typical approaches to handling incomplete covariates have been studied to investigate their performance and effects on the reliability analysis results. Since these existing approaches could underestimate the variance in regressions and introduce extra uncertainties to reliability analysis, the developed NNHMs are extended to include handling incomplete covariates as an integral part. The extended versions of NNHMs have been validated using simulated bearing data and real data from a liquefied natural gas pump. The results demonstrate the new approach outperforms the typical incomplete covariates handling approaches. Another problem in reliability analysis is that future covariates of engineering assets are generally unavailable. In existing practices for multi-step reliability analysis, historical covariates were used to estimate the future covariates. Covariates of engineering assets, however, are often subject to substantial fluctuation due to the influence of both engineering degradation and changes in environmental settings. The commonly used covariate extrapolation methods thus would not be suitable because of the error accumulation and uncertainty propagation. To overcome this difficulty, instead of directly extrapolating covariate values, projection of covariate states is conducted in this research. The estimated covariate states and unknown covariate values in future running steps of assets constitute an incomplete covariate set which is then analysed by the extended NNHMs. A new assessment function is also proposed to evaluate risks of underestimated and overestimated reliability analysis results. A case study using field data from a paper and pulp mill has been conducted and it demonstrates that this new multi-step reliability analysis procedure is able to generate more accurate analysis results.

On the use of Bluetooth MAC Scanners for live reporting of the transport network

Recently there has been significant interest of researchers and practitioners on the use of Bluetooth as a complementary transport data. However, literature is limited with the understanding of the Bluetooth MAC Scanner (BMS) based data acquisition process and the properties of the data being collected. This paper first provides an insight on the BMS data acquisition process. Thereafter, it discovers the interesting facts from analysis of the real BMS data from both motorway and arterial networks of Brisbane, Australia. The knowledge gained is helpful for researchers and practitioners to understand the BMS data being collected which is vital to the development of management and control algorithms using the data.

Measurement, modelling and capacity analysis for novel, fixed multi-user single-antenna MIMO-OFDM system, in rural environments

High-speed broadband internet access is widely recognised as a catalyst to social and economic development. However, the provision of broadband Internet services with the existing solutions to rural population, scattered over an extensive geographical area, remains both an economic and technical challenge. As a feasible solution, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) proposed a highly spectrally efficient, innovative and cost-effective fixed wireless broadband access technology, which uses analogue TV frequency spectrum and Multi-User MIMO (MUMIMO) technology with Orthogonal-Frequency-Division-Multiplexing (OFDM). MIMO systems have emerged as a promising solution for the increasing demand of higher data rates, better quality of service, and higher network capacity. However, the performance of MIMO systems can be significantly affected by different types of propagation environments e.g., indoor, outdoor urban, or outdoor rural and operating frequencies. For instance, large spectral efficiencies associated with MIMO systems, which assume a rich scattering environment in urban environments, may not be valid for all propagation environments, such as outdoor rural environments, due to the presence of less scatterer densities. Since this is the first time a MU-MIMO-OFDM fixed broadband wireless access solution is deployed in a rural environment, questions from both theoretical and practical standpoints arise; For example, what capacity gains are available for the proposed solution under realistic rural propagation conditions?. Currently, no comprehensive channel measurement and capacity analysis results are available for MU-MIMO-OFDM fixed broadband wireless access systems which employ large scale multiple antennas at the Access Point (AP) and analogue TV frequency spectrum in rural environments. Moreover, according to the literature, no deterministic MU-MIMO channel models exist that define rural wireless channels by accounting for terrain effects. This thesis fills the aforementioned knowledge gaps with channel measurements, channel modeling and comprehensive capacity analysis for MU-MIMO-OFDM fixed wireless broadband access systems in rural environments. For the first time, channel measurements were conducted in a rural farmland near Smithton, Tasmania using CSIRO's broadband wireless access solution. A novel deterministic MU-MIMO-OFDM channel model, which can be used for accurate performance prediction of rural MUMIMO channels with dominant Line-of-Sight (LoS) paths, was developed under this research. Results show that the proposed solution can achieve 43.7 bits/s/Hz at a Signal-to- Noise Ratio (SNR) of 20 dB in rural environments. Based on channel measurement results, this thesis verifies that the deterministic channel model accurately predicts channel capacity in rural environments with a Root Mean Square (RMS) error of 0.18 bits/s/Hz. Moreover, this study presents a comprehensive capacity analysis of rural MU-MIMOOFDM channels using experimental, simulated and theoretical models. Based on the validated deterministic model, further investigations on channel capacity and the eects of capacity variation, with different user distribution angles (θ) around the AP, were analysed. For instance, when SNR = 20dB, the capacity increases from 15.5 bits/s/Hz to 43.7 bits/s/Hz as θ increases from 10° to 360°. Strategies to mitigate these capacity degradation effects are also presented by employing a suitable user grouping method. Outcomes of this thesis have already been used by CSIRO scientists to determine optimum user distribution angles around the AP, and are of great significance for researchers and MU-MUMO-OFDM system developers to understand the advantages and potential capacity gains of MU-MIMO systems in rural environments. Also, results of this study are useful to further improve the performance of MU-MIMO-OFDM systems in rural environments. Ultimately, this knowledge contribution will be useful in delivering efficient, cost-effective high-speed wireless broadband systems that are tailor-made for rural environments, thus, improving the quality of life and economic prosperity of rural populations.

A transcription factor map as revealed by a genome-wide gene expression analysis of whole-blood mRNA transcriptome in multiple sclerosis

Background Several lines of evidence suggests that transcription factors are involved in the pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) but a complete mapping the whole network has been elusive. One of the reasons is that there are several clinical subtypes of MS and transcription factors which may be involved in one subtype may not be in others. We investigated the possibility that this network could be mapped using microarray technologies and modern bioinformatics methods on a dataset from whole blood in 99 untreated MS patients (36 Relapse Remitting MS, 43 Primary Progressive MS, and 20 Secondary Progressive MS) and 45 age-matched healthy controls, Methodology/Principal Findings We have used two different analytical methodologies: a differential expression analysis and a differential co-expression analysis, which have converged on a significant number of regulatory motifs that seem to be statistically overrepresented in genes which are either differentially expressed (or differentially co-expressed) in cases and controls (e.g. V$KROX_Q6, p-value < 3.31E-6; V$CREBP1_Q2, p-value < 9.93E-6, V$YY1_02, p-value < 1.65E-5). Conclusions/significance: Our analysis uncovered a network of transcription factors that potentially dysregulate several genes in MS or one or more of its disease subtypes. Analysing the published literature we have found that these transcription factors are involved in the early T-lymphocyte specification and commitment as well as in oligodendrocytes dedifferentiation and development. The most significant transcription factors motifs were for the Early Growth response EGR/KROX family, ATF2, YY1 (Yin and Yang 1), E2F-1/DP-1 and E2F-4/DP-2 heterodimers, SOX5, and CREB and ATF families.