A Meta-Heuristic Load Balancer for Cloud Computing Systems

This paper introduces a strategy to allocate services on a cloud system without overloading the nodes and maintaining the system stability with minimum cost. We specify an abstract model of cloud resources utilization, including multiple types of resources as well as considerations for the service migration costs. A prototype meta-heuristic load balancer is demonstrated and experimental results are presented and discussed. We also propose a novel genetic algorithm, where population is seeded with the outputs of other meta-heuristic algorithms.

A Comparative Study of a Low Doppler Shift in a Carrier Tracking Loop for GPS

This paper compares a carrier tracking scenario when a received Global Positioning System (GPS) signal has low Doppler frequency. It is shown that if the Numerically Controlled Oscillator (NCO) is quantized to 1 bit, the carrier tracking loop is unable to keep track of the incoming signal which leaves the tracking loop oscillating between the upper and lower bounds of the tracking loop bandwidth. One way of overcoming this problem is presented and compared with another existing solution, found in the literature, providing comparative results from the use of real-recorded off the air GPS L1 signals. Results show that the proposed method performs better tracking performance compared with the existing solution which it requires much less hardware complexity.

The Effects of Teppanyaki Restaurant Stimuli on Diners’ Emotions and Loyalty

This research examines the influence of restaurant stimuli (i.e., chefs, service staff, other customers, food quality, and atmospherics) on diners’ emotions and loyalty to teppanyaki restaurants. In teppanyaki restaurants, chefs take orders from diners, prepare food in front of diners, and serve dishes to diners. Although the importance of chefs has been acknowledged by scholars, empirical research on the influence of chefs on diners has been scarce. To augment the literature on how chefs influence diners, this research incorporates “chef’s image” into an extended Mehrabian-Russell model (M-R model) to conceptualize diner loyalty to teppanyaki restaurants. A total of 308 diners from Taiwan were recruited. After examining their completed questionnaires, this study found that chef’s image, service quality, and food quality can affect the positive and negative emotions of diners. Moreover, other diners and restaurant atmospherics affect only the negative emotions of diners. Both positive and negative emotions can affect diner loyalty to teppanyaki restaurants. In addition, the managerial implications of this study are discussed.