QoS guarantee with adaptive transmit power and message rate control for DSRC vehicle network based road safety applications

Quality of services (QoS) support is critical for dedicated short range communications (DSRC) vehicle networks based collaborative road safety applications. In this paper we propose an adaptive power and message rate control method for DSRC vehicle networks at road intersections. The design objective is to provide high availability and low latency channels for high priority emergency safety applications while maximizing channel utilization for low priority routine safety applications. In this method an offline simulation based approach is used to find out the best possible configurations of transmit power and message rate for given numbers of vehicles in the network. The identified best configurations are then used online by roadside access points (AP) according to estimated number of vehicles. Simulation results show that this adaptive method significantly outperforms a fixed control method. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Enterprise management and ERP development:case study of Zoomlion using dynamic enterprise reference grid

The enterprise management approach provides a holistic view of organizations and their related information systems. In order to cope with the globalization, virtualization, and volatile competitive environment, traditional firms are seeking to reconstruct their organizational structures and establish new IS architectures to transform from single autonomous entities into more open enterprises supported by new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. This paper reports on ERP engage-abilities within three different enterprise management patterns based on the theoretical foundations of the "Dynamic Enterprise Reference Grid". An exploratory inductive study in Zoomlion using the narrative research approach has been conducted. Also, this research delivers a conceptual framework to demonstrate the adoption of ERP in the three enterprise management structures and points to a new architectural type (ERPIII) for operating in the virtual enterprise paradigm. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

An Assessment to Toxicological Risk of Pesticide Exposure

On the one hand, pesticides may be absorbed into the body orally, dermally, ocularly and by inhalation and the human exposure may be dietary, recreational and/or occupational where toxicity could be acute or chronic. On the other hand, the environmental fate and toxicity of the pesticide is contingent on the physico-chemical characteristics of pesticide, the soil composition and adsorption. Human toxicity is also dependent on the exposure time and individual’s susceptibility. Therefore, this work will focus on the development of an Artificial Intelligence based diagnosis support system to assess the pesticide toxicological risk to humanoid, built under a formal framework based on Logic Programming to knowledge representation and reasoning, complemented with an approach to computing grounded on Artificial Neural Networks. The proposed solution is unique in itself, once it caters for the explicit treatment of incomplete, unknown, or even self-contradictory information, either in terms of a qualitative or quantitative setting.

Optimal intelligent supervisory control system in cyber-physical intelligence

This paper studies Optimal Intelligent Supervisory Control System (OISCS) model for the design of control systems which can work in the presence of cyber-physical elements with privacy protection. The development of such architecture has the possibility of providing new ways of integrated control into systems where large amounts of fast computation are not easily available, either due to limitations on power, physical size or choice of computing elements.

Combining artificial intelligence techniques for the training of power system control centre operators

Control Centre operators are essential to assure a good performance of Power Systems. Operators’ actions are critical in dealing with incidents, especially severe faults, like blackouts. In this paper we present an Intelligent Tutoring approach for training Portuguese Control Centre operators in incident analysis and diagnosis, and service restoration of Power Systems, offering context awareness and an easy integration in the working environment.

A flexibility reference model to achieve leagility in virtual organizations

The paper proposes a Flexibility Requirements Model and a Factory Templates Framework to support the dynamic Virtual Organization decision-makers in order to reach effective response to the emergent business opportunities ensuring profitability. Through the construction and analysis of the flexibility requirements model, the network managers can achieve and conceive better strategies to model and breed new dynamic VOs. This paper also presents the leagility concept as a new paradigm fit to equip the network management with a hybrid approach that better tackle the performance challenges imposed by the new and competitive business environments.

ESEIG Mobile: an m-learning approach in a superior school

In recent years, mobile learning has emerged as an educational approach to decrease the limitation of learning location and adapt the teaching-learning process to all type of students. However, the large number and variety of Web-enabled devices poses challenges for Web content creators who want to automatic get the delivery context and adapt the content to mobile devices. In this paper we study several approaches to adapt the learning content to mobile phones. We present an architecture for deliver uniform m-Learning content to students in a higher School. The system development is organized in two phases: firstly enabling the educational content to mobile devices and then adapting it to all the heterogeneous mobile platforms. With this approach, Web authors will not need to create specialized pages for each kind of device, since the content is automatically transformed to adapt to any mobile device capabilities from WAP to XHTML MP-compliant devices.

A survey on e-learning content standardization

eLearning has been evolved in a gradual and consistent way. Along with this evolution several specialized and disparate systems appeared to fulfill the needs of teachers and students such as repositories of learning objects, intelligent tutors, or automatic evaluators. This heterogeneity poses issues that are necessary to address in order to promote interoperability among systems. Based on this fact, the standardization of content takes a leading role in the eLearning realm. This article presents a survey on current eLearning content standards. It gathers information on the most emergent standards and categorizes them according three distinct facets: metadata, content packaging and educational design.

Elspot: Nord Pool Spot Integration in MASCEM Electricity Market Simulator

The energy sector in industrialized countries has been restructured in the last years, with the purpose of decreasing electricity prices through the increase in competition, and facilitating the integration of distributed energy resources. However, the restructuring process increased the complexity in market players' interactions and generated emerging problems and new issues to be addressed. In order to provide players with competitive advantage in the market, decision support tools that facilitate the study and understanding of these markets become extremely useful. In this context arises MASCEM (Multi-Agent Simulator of Competitive Electricity Markets), a multi-agent based simulator that models real electricity markets. To reinforce MASCEM with the capability of recreating the electricity markets reality in the fullest possible extent, it is crucial to make it able to simulate as many market models and player types as possible. This paper presents a new negotiation model implemented in MASCEM based on the negotiation model used in day-ahead market (Elspot) of Nord Pool. This is a key module to study competitive electricity markets, as it presents well defined and distinct characteristics from the already implemented markets, and it is a reference electricity market in Europe (the one with the larger amount of traded power).

Particle Swarm Optimization of Electricity Market Negotiating Players Portfolio

Energy systems worldwide are complex and challenging environments. Multi-agent based simulation platforms are increasing at a high rate, as they show to be a good option to study many issues related to these systems, as well as the involved players at act in this domain. In this scope the authors’ research group has developed a multi-agent system: MASCEM (Multi- Agent System for Competitive Electricity Markets), which performs realistic simulations of the electricity markets. MASCEM is integrated with ALBidS (Adaptive Learning Strategic Bidding System) that works as a decision support system for market players. The ALBidS system allows MASCEM market negotiating players to take the best possible advantages from each market context. However, it is still necessary to adequately optimize the players’ portfolio investment. For this purpose, this paper proposes a market portfolio optimization method, based on particle swarm optimization, which provides the best investment profile for a market player, considering different market opportunities (bilateral negotiation, market sessions, and operation in different markets) and the negotiation context such as the peak and off-peak periods of the day, the type of day (business day, weekend, holiday, etc.) and most important, the renewable based distributed generation forecast. The proposed approach is tested and validated using real electricity markets data from the Iberian operator – MIBEL.

Odin: a service for gamification of learning activities

Existing gamification services have features that preclude their use by e-learning tools. Odin is a gamification service that mimics the API of state-of-the-art services without these limitations. This paper describes Odin, its role in an e-learning system architecture requiring gamification, and details its implementation. The validation of Odin involved the creation of a small e-learning game, integrated in a Learning Management System (LMS) using the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) specification.

Knowledge repository framework for crowdsourcing innovation intermediary: a proposal

A crowdsourcing innovation intermediary performs mediation activities between companies that have a problem to solve or that seek a business opportunity, and a group of people motivated to present ideas based on their knowledge, experience and wisdom, taking advantage of technology sharing and collaboration emerging from Web2.0. As far as we know, most of the present intermediaries don´t have, yet, an integrated vision that combines the creation of value through community development, brokering and technology transfer. In this paper we present a proposal of a knowledge repository framework for crowdsourcing innovation that enables effective support and integration of the activities developed in the process of value creation (community building, brokering and technology transfer), modeled using ontology engineering methods.

The non-emergency patient transport modelled as a team orienteering problem

This work presents an improved model to solve the non-emergency patients transport (NEPT) service issues given the new rules recently established in Portugal. The model follows the same principle of the Team Orienteering Problem by selecting the patients to be included in the routes attending the maximum reduction in costs when compared with individual transportation. This model establishes the best sets of patients to be transported together. The model was implemented in AMPL and a compact formulation was solved using NEOS Server. A heuristic procedure based on iteratively solving Orienteering Problems is presented, and this heuristic provides good results in terms of accuracy and computation time. Euclidean instances as well as asymmetric real data gathered from Google maps were used, and the model has a promising performance mainly with asymmetric cost matrices.

Systematic Construction of Goal-Oriented COTS Taxonomies

Informe de investigación realizado a partir de una estancia en el Department of Computer and Information Science de la Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Noruega, entre setiembre i diciembre de 2006. El uso de componentes de software llamados Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) en el desarrollo de sistemas basados en componentes implica varios retos. Uno de ellos es la falta de información disponible y adecuada para dar soporte al proceso de selección de componentes a ser integrados. Para lidiar con estos problemas, se esta desarrollando un trabajo de tesis que propone un método llamado GOThIC (Goal-Oriented Taxonomy and reuse Infrastructure Construction). El método está orientado a construir una infrastructura de reuse para facilitar la búsqueda y reuse de componentes COTS. La estancia en la NTNU, reportada en este documento, tuvo como objetivo primordial las mejora del método y la obtención de datos empíricos para darle soporte. Algunos de los principales resultados fueron la obtención de datos empíricos fundamentando la utilización del método en ámbitos industriales de selección de componentes COTS, así como una nueva estrategia para conseguir de forma factible e incremental, la federación y reuso de los diferentes esfuerzos existentes para encontrar, seleccionar y mantener componentes COTS y Open Source (OSS) -comúnmente llamados componentes Off-The-Shelf (OTS) - en forma estructurada.