Knowledge sharing through virtual layers in regional sustainable development networks

Our research examines how the organisational structure facilitates knowledge sharing within the group. This case study examines a Victorian regional sustainable group using interviews and social network analysis to identify the group’s organisational structure and its effect on knowledge sharing between the members. Our findings indicate that while the mixed membership, lack of hierarchy and layered structure are complex, these elements work together to provide members with a rich body of knowledge. The diversity and differences in membership are complimentary and combined can provide a more in-depth understanding of the regional sustainable development issues.

Adaptive data based neural network leader-follower control of multi-agent networks

In this paper, we propose a data based neural network leader-follower control for multi-agent networks where each agent is described by a class of high-order uncertain nonlinear systems with input perturbation. The control laws are developed using multiple-surface sliding control technique. In particular, novel set of sliding variables are proposed to guarantee leader-follower consensus on the sliding surfaces. Novel switching is proposed to overcome the unavailability of instantaneous control output from the neighbor. By utilizing RBF neural network and Fourier series to approximate the unknown functions, leader-follower consensus can be reached, under the condition that the dynamic equations of all agents are unknown. An O(n) data based algorithm is developed, using only the network’s measurable input/output data to generate the distributed virtual control laws. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.

Web 2.0 virtual design studio : social networking as facilitator of design education

In 2009, Deakin University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong trailed the use of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance learning outcomes in a third-year architectural design studio that was modelled on the virtual design studios (VDSs) of the past decades. The studio developed the VDS further by integrating a social learning environment into the blended learning experience. The Web 2.0 VDS utilized the social networking site Ning.com, YouTube, Skype and various three-dimensional modelling, video and image processing, and chat software to deliver lectures, communicate learning goals, disseminate learning resources, submitting, providing feedback and comments to various design works, and assessing of students’ outcomes. This research centres on issues of learning and teaching associated with the development of a social network VDS.

Virtual design studio via social networks

With the advent of social networks, it became apparent that the social aspect of designing and learning plays a crucial role in students’ education. The ease of communication, leadership opportunity, democratic interaction, teamwork, and the sense of community are some of the aspects that are now in the centre of design interaction. Online interactions, multimedia, mobile computing and face-to-face learning create blended learning environments to which some Virtual Design Studios (VDS) have reacted. On the sample of a design studio at Deakin University the paper discusses details of the Social Network VDS, its pedagogical implications to PBL, and presents how it is successful in empowering architectural students to collaborate and communicate design proposals that integrate a variety of skills, deep learning, and construction of knowledge. It studies the effectiveness of the generated social intelligence and explores the facilitation of students’ self-directed learning. Hereby the paper studies the construction of knowledge via social interaction and how blended learning environments foster motivation and information exchange.

Network dynamics of mobile social networks

With the rapid development of smartphones and mobile Internet technology, we witness an overwhelming growth of mobile social networks (MSN), which is a type of social network, forming virtual communities among people with similar interests or commonalities. In MSNs, users play a crucial role for their development, deployment and success. Understanding the MSN user behavior therefore attracts interests of different entities - ISPs, service providers, and researchers. However, it is hard to gather a comprehensive real data set, little is known and even less has been published about MSN user activities. In this paper, we focus on analyzing MSN user behavior from the perspective of ISP network, which is seldom reported in literature. Based on the real data set collected from the mobile network gateway of a major mobile carrier who has more than five million subscribers, we present an in-depth user behavior analysis of four popular social networks. We study the MSN user behavior from six aspects: user requests, active online time, sessions, inter-session, the number of requests in a session, and inter-request. We found that power law and lognormal are two popular features of the studied objects, and exposed some interesting findings as well. We hope our work could be helpful for ISPs, MSN content providers, and researchers. © 2014 IEEE.

Dynamic virtual workspace for teleoperation of heterogeneous robots in non-deterministic environments

Robots are ever increasing in a variety of different workplaces providing an array of benefits such alternative solutions to traditional human labor. While developing fully autonomous robots is the ultimate goal in many robotic applications the reality is that there still exist many situationswere robots require some level of teleoperation in order to achieve assigned goals especially when deployed in non-deterministic environments. For instance teleoperation is commonly used in areas such as search and rescue, bomb disposal and exploration of inaccessible or harsh terrain. This is due to a range of factors such as the lack of ability for robots to quickly and reliably navigate unknown environments or provide high-level decision making especially intime critical tasks. To provide an adequate solution for such situations human-in-the-loop control is required. When developing human-in-the-loop control it is important to take advantage of the complimentary skill-sets that both humans and robots share. For example robots can performrapid calculations, provide accurate measurements through hardware such as sensors and store large amounts of data while humans provide experience, intuition, risk management and complex decision making capabilities. Shared autonomy is the concept of building robotic systems that take advantage of these complementary skills-sets to provide a robust an efficient robotic solution. While the requirement of human-in-the-loop control exists Human Machine Interaction (HMI) remains an important research topic especially the area of User Interface (UI) design.In order to provide operators with an effective teleoperation system it is important that the interface is intuitive and dynamic while also achieving a high level of immersion. Recent advancements in virtual and augmented reality hardware is giving rise to innovative HMI systems. Interactive hardware such as Microsoft Kinect, leap motion, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and even CAVE Automatic Virtual Environments [1] are providing vast improvements over traditional user interface designs such as the experimental web browser JanusVR [2]. This combined with the introduction of standardized robot frameworks such as ROS and Webots [3] that now support a large number of different robots provides an opportunity to develop a universal UI for teleoperation control to improve operator efficiency while reducing teleoperation training.This research introduces the concept of a dynamic virtual workspace for teleoperation of heterogeneous robots in non-deterministic environments that require human-in-the-loop control. The system first identifies the connected robots through the use kinematic information then determines its network capabilities such as latency and bandwidth. Given the robot type and network capabilities the system can then provide the operator with available teleoperation modes such as pick and place control or waypoint navigation while also allowing them to manipulate the virtual workspace layout to provide information from onboard camera’s or sensors.

Clouds selection for network appliances based on trust credibility

With the development of Cloud services and virtual appliances, more and more clients are willing to use these services to host their applications across different Cloud platforms. However, it becomes harder and harder for clients to select the most trustable Cloud service provider to host their applications. In this paper, we propose a Cloud provider selection model to choose the most reliable platform to deploy network appliances. This selection model is based on the trust credibility to select reliable and cost-effective Cloud providers. A preliminary evaluation is presented to show the effectiveness of our proposed trust model and selection approach.