Train service timetabling in railway open markets by particle swarm optimisation

Railway timetabling is an important process in train service provision as it matches the transportation demand with the infrastructure capacity while customer satisfaction is also considered. It is a multi-objective optimisation problem, in which a feasible solution, rather than the optimal one, is usually taken in practice because of the time constraint. The quality of services may suffer as a result. In a railway open market, timetabling usually involves rounds of negotiations among a number of self-interested and independent stakeholders and hence additional objectives and constraints are imposed on the timetabling problem. While the requirements of all stakeholders are taken into consideration simultaneously, the computation demand is inevitably immense. Intelligent solution-searching techniques provide a possible solution. This paper attempts to employ a particle swarm optimisation (PSO) approach to devise a railway timetable in an open market. The suitability and performance of PSO are studied on a multi-agent-based railway open-market negotiation simulation platform.

Understanding user differences in open-source workflow management system usage intentions

Open-source software systems have become a viable alternative to proprietary systems. We collected data on the usage of an open-source workflow management system developed by a university research group, and examined this data with a focus on how three different user cohorts – students, academics and industry professionals – develop behavioral intentions to use the system. Building upon a framework of motivational components, we examined the group differences in extrinsic versus intrinsic motivations on continued usage intentions. Our study provides a detailed understanding of the use of open-source workflow management systems in different user communities. Moreover, it discusses implications for the provision of workflow management systems, the user-specific management of open-source systems and the development of services in the wider user community.

Open source innovation in physical products : advantages and disadvantages, a corporate perspective

A better understanding of Open Source Innovation in Physical Product (OSIP) might allow project managers to mitigate risks associated with this innovation model and process, while developing the right strategies to maximise OSIP outputs. In the software industry, firms have been highly successful using Open Source Innovation (OSI) strategies. However, OSI in the physical world has not been studied leading to the research question: What advantages and disadvantages do organisations incur from using OSI in physical products? An exploratory research methodology supported by thirteen semi-structured interviews helped us build a seven-theme framework to categorise advantages and disadvantages elements linked with the use of OSIP. In addition, factors impacting advantage and disadvantage elements for firms using OSIP were identified as: „h Degree of openness in OSIP projects; „h Time of release of OSIP in the public domain; „h Use of Open Source Innovation in Software (OSIS) in conjunction with OSIP; „h Project management elements (Project oversight, scope and modularity); „h Firms. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) values; „h Value of the OSIP project to the community. This thesis makes a contribution to the body of innovation theory by identifying advantages and disadvantages elements of OSIP. Then, from a contingency perspective it identifies factors which enhance or decrease advantages, or mitigate/ or increase disadvantages of OSIP. In the end, the research clarifies the understanding of OSI by clearly setting OSIP apart from OSIS. The main practical contribution of this paper is to provide manager with a framework to better understand OSIP as well as providing a model, which identifies contingency factors increasing advantage and decreasing disadvantage. Overall, the research allows managers to make informed decisions about when they can use OSIP and how they can develop strategies to make OSIP a viable proposition. In addition, this paper demonstrates that advantages identified in OSIS cannot all be transferred to OSIP, thus OSIP decisions should not be based upon OSIS knowledge.

Estimation and control for an open-source quadcopter

This paper describes modelling, estimation and control of the horizontal translational motion of an open-source and cost effective quadcopter — the MikroKopter. We determine the dynamics of its roll and pitch attitude controller, system latencies, and the units associated with the values exchanged with the vehicle over its serial port. Using this we create a horizontal-plane velocity estimator that uses data from the built-in inertial sensors and an onboard laser scanner, and implement translational control using a nested control loop architecture. We present experimental results for the model and estimator, as well as closed-loop positioning.

Facilitating Malaysia towards innovative society : arguing the case for open access policy

The Malaysian National Innovation Model blueprint states that there is an urgent need to pursue an innovation-oriented economy to improve the nation’s capacity for knowledge, creativity and innovation. In nurturing a pervasive innovation culture, the Malaysian government has declared the year 2010 as an Innovative Year whereby creativity among its population is highly celebrated. However, while Malaysian citizens are encouraged to be creative and innovative, scientific data and information generated from publicly funded research in Malaysia is locked up because of rigid intellectual property licensing regimes and traditional publishing models. Reflecting on these circumstances, this paper looks at, and argue why, scientific data and information should be made available, accessible and re-useable freely to promote the grassroots level of innovation in Malaysia. Using innovation theory as its platform of argument, this paper calls for an open access policy for publicly funded research output to be adopted and implemented in Malaysia. Simultaneously, a normative analytic approach is used to determine the types of open access policy that ought to be adopted to spur greater innovation among Malaysians.

Street computing : towards an integrated open data Application Programming Interface (API) for cities

This special issue of the Journal of Urban Technology brings together five articles that are based on presentations given at the Street Computing workshop held on 24 November 2009 in Melbourne in conjunction with the Australian Computer-Human Interaction conference (OZCHI 2009). Our own article introduces the Street Computing vision and explores the potential, challenges and foundations of this research vision. In order to do so, we first look at the currently available sources of information and discuss their link to existing research efforts. Section 2 then introduces the notion of Street Computing and our research approach in more detail. Section 3 looks beyond the core concept itself and summarises related work in this field of interest.

Effect of MHD and heat generation on natural convection flow in an open square cavity under microgravity condition

Purpose - Thermo-magnetic convection and heat transfer of paramagnetic fluid placed in a micro-gravity condition (g = 0) and under a uniform vertical gradient magnetic field in an open square cavity with three cold sidewalls have been studied numerically. Design/methodology/approach - This magnetic force is proportional to the magnetic susceptibility and the gradient of the square of the magnetic induction. The magnetic susceptibility is inversely proportional to the absolute temperature based on Curie’s law. Thermal convection of a paramagnetic fluid can therefore take place even in zero-gravity environment as a direct consequence of temperature differences occurring within the fluid due to a constant internal heat generation placed within a magnetic field gradient. Findings - Effects of magnetic Rayleigh number, Ra, Prandtl number, Pr, and paramagnetic fluid parameter, m, on the flow pattern and isotherms as well as on the heat absorption are presented graphically. It is found that the heat transfer rate is suppressed in increased of the magnetic Rayleigh number and the paramagnetic fluid parameter for the present investigation. Originality/value - It is possible to control the buoyancy force by using the super conducting magnet. To the best knowledge of the author no literature related to magnetic convection for this configuration is available.

Strategic project evaluation for open pit mining ventures using real options and allied econometric techniques

Open pit mine operations are complex businesses that demand a constant assessment of risk. This is because the value of a mine project is typically influenced by many underlying economic and physical uncertainties, such as metal prices, metal grades, costs, schedules, quantities, and environmental issues, among others, which are not known with much certainty at the beginning of the project. Hence, mining projects present a considerable challenge to those involved in associated investment decisions, such as the owners of the mine and other stakeholders. In general terms, when an option exists to acquire a new or operating mining project, , the owners and stock holders of the mine project need to know the value of the mining project, which is the fundamental criterion for making final decisions about going ahead with the venture capital. However, obtaining the mine project’s value is not an easy task. The reason for this is that sophisticated valuation and mine optimisation techniques, which combine advanced theories in geostatistics, statistics, engineering, economics and finance, among others, need to be used by the mine analyst or mine planner in order to assess and quantify the existing uncertainty and, consequently, the risk involved in the project investment. Furthermore, current valuation and mine optimisation techniques do not complement each other. That is valuation techniques based on real options (RO) analysis assume an expected (constant) metal grade and ore tonnage during a specified period, while mine optimisation (MO) techniques assume expected (constant) metal prices and mining costs. These assumptions are not totally correct since both sources of uncertainty—that of the orebody (metal grade and reserves of mineral), and that about the future behaviour of metal prices and mining costs—are the ones that have great impact on the value of any mining project. Consequently, the key objective of this thesis is twofold. The first objective consists of analysing and understanding the main sources of uncertainty in an open pit mining project, such as the orebody (in situ metal grade), mining costs and metal price uncertainties, and their effect on the final project value. The second objective consists of breaking down the wall of isolation between economic valuation and mine optimisation techniques in order to generate a novel open pit mine evaluation framework called the ―Integrated Valuation / Optimisation Framework (IVOF)‖. One important characteristic of this new framework is that it incorporates the RO and MO valuation techniques into a single integrated process that quantifies and describes uncertainty and risk in a mine project evaluation process, giving a more realistic estimate of the project’s value. To achieve this, novel and advanced engineering and econometric methods are used to integrate financial and geological uncertainty into dynamic risk forecasting measures. The proposed mine valuation/optimisation technique is then applied to a real gold disseminated open pit mine deposit to estimate its value in the face of orebody, mining costs and metal price uncertainties.

Microstrip to parallel strip balun as spiral antenna feed

This paper presents the design and implementation of a microstrip to parallel strip balun which are frequently used as balanced antennas feed. This wideband balun transition is composed of a parallel strip which is connected to the spiral antenna and a microstrip line where the width of the ground plane is gradually reduced to eventually resemble the parallel strip. The taper accomplishes the mode and impedance transformation. This balun has significantly improved bandwidth characteristics. The entire circuit was fabricated on RT Duriod 5880 substrate. The circuit designs were simulated and optimised using CST Microwave Studio and the simulated results are compared with the measured results. The back-to-back microstrip to parallel strip has a return loss of better than 10 dB over a wide bandwidth from 1.75 to 15 GHz. The performance of the proposed balun was validated with the spiral antenna. The measured results were compared with the simulated results and it shows that the antenna operates well in wideband frequency range from 2.5 to 15 GHz.

Patterns-based evaluation of open source BPM systems: The cases of jBPM, OpenWFE, and Enhydra Shark

In keeping with the proliferation of free software development initiatives and the increased interest in the business process management domain, many open source workflow and business process management systems have appeared during the last few years and are now under active development. This upsurge gives rise to two important questions: What are the capabilities of these systems? and How do they compare to each other and to their closed source counterparts? In other words: What is the state-of-the-art in the area?. To gain an insight into these questions, we have conducted an in-depth analysis of three of the major open source workflow management systems – jBPM, OpenWFE, and Enhydra Shark, the results of which are reported here. This analysis is based on the workflow patterns framework and provides a continuation of the series of evaluations performed using the same framework on closed source systems, business process modelling languages, and web-service composition standards. The results from evaluations of the three open source systems are compared with each other and also with the results from evaluations of three representative closed source systems: Staffware, WebSphere MQ, and Oracle BPEL PM. The overall conclusion is that open source systems are targeted more toward developers rather than business analysts. They generally provide less support for the patterns than closed source systems, particularly with respect to the resource perspective, i.e. the various ways in which work is distributed amongst business users and managed through to completion.

Impacts of experimental warming and fire on phenology of subalpine open-heath species

The present study examined experimentally the phenological responses of a range of plant species to rises in temperature. We used the climate-change field protocol of the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX), which measures plant responses to warming of 1 to 2°C inside small open-topped chambers. The field study was established on the Bogong High Plains, Australia, in subalpine open heathlands; the most common treeless plant community on the Bogong High Plains. The study included areas burnt by fire in 2003, and therefore considers the interactive effects of warming and fire, which have rarely been studied in high mountain environments. From November 2003 to March 2006, various phenological phases were monitored inside and outside chambers during the snow-free periods. Warming resulted in earlier occurrence of key phenological events in 7 of the 14 species studied. Burning altered phenology in 9 of 10 species studied, with both earlier and later phenological changes depending on the species. There were no common phenological responses to warming or burning among species of the same family, growth form or flowering type (i.e. early or late-flowering species), when all phenological events were examined. The proportion of plants that formed flower buds was influenced by fire in half of the species studied. The findings support previous findings of ITEX and other warming experiments; that is, species respond individualistically to experimental warming. The inter-year variation in phenological response, the idiosyncratic nature of the responses to experimental warming among species, and an inherent resilience to fire, may result in community resilience to short-term climate change. In the first 3 years of experimental warming, phenological responses do not appear to be driving community-level change. Our findings emphasise the value of examining multiple species in climate-change studies.

Reduced-Size microstrip patch antenna for Bluetooth applications

A novel reduced-size microstrip rectangular patch antenna for Bluetooth operation is presented in this paper. The proposed antenna operates in the 2400 to 2484 MHz ISM Band. Although an air substrate is introduced, antenna occupies a small volume of 33.3×6.6×0.8 mm3. The gain and the impedance bandwidth of the antenna are predicted using a commercial Finite Element Method software package. The predicted results show good agreement with measured data.