Access mechanisms in block structured environments

Statistics from dynamic analysis of programs are used to compare the efficiency of different methods to access global variables. The method where static links are used for access is shown to be at least as efficient as the display method. The use of the linked list method also leads to a simpler runtime system and allows separately compiled modules to execute at any level in the resulting program. The results of the dynamic analysis are presented in a form which allows comparison of the access methods in language implementations on specific computers. Experience with using two different access methods in an implementation of Simula67 concludes the paper.     

Matching patient and physician preferences in designing a primary care facility network

This paper introduces an integer programming model for planning primary care facility networks, which accounts for the interests of different stakeholders while maximizing access to health care. Physician allocation to health-care facilities is explicitly modelled, which allows consideration of physician incentives in the planning phase. An illustrative case study in the Turkish primary care system is presented to show the implications of focusing on patient or physician preferences in the planning phase. A discussion of trade-offs between the different stakeholder preferences and some recommendations for modelling choices to match these preferences are provided. In the context of this case, we found that using an access measure that decays with distance, and incorporating nearest allocation constraints improves performance for all stakeholders. We also show that increasing the number of physicians may have adverse affects on access measures when physician preferences are addressed.     

Competitive dynamics in pharmaceutical markets: A case study in the chronic cardiac disease market

A modelling project involved system dynamics simulation of chronic cardiac disease in Bulgaria, examining the dynamic behaviour of a cardiac drug molecule in the market. The system dynamics model was calibrated using market data sourced from the Bulgarian National Health Care Fund, the Bulgarian Generic Pharmaceutical Association and a market research firm. The main results of the study showed that the timing of access to market was a critical driver in reducing prices and providing wider, as well as more affordable, access for patients to medicinal therapy. Our findings indicate that healthcare authorities may obtain savings while, at the same time, they may provide conditions for more patients to be treated depending on the timing of access to market of new generic drugs.     

System identification based on distribution theory and wavelet transform

A review of system identification based on distribution theory is given. By the Schwartz kernel theorem, to every continuous linear system there corresponds a unique distribution, called kernel distribution. Formulae using wavelet transform to access time--frequency information of kernel distributions are deduced. A new wavelet-based system identification method for health monitoring systems is proposed as an application of a discretized formula using stationary wavelet transform.     

Finding lower bounds on the complexity of secret sharing schemes by linear programming

Optimizing the maximum, or average, length of the shares in relation to the length of the secret for every given access structure is a difficult and long-standing open problem in cryptology. Most of the known lower bounds on these parameters have been obtained by implicitly or explicitly using that every secret sharing scheme defines a polymatroid related to the access structure. The best bounds that can be obtained by this combinatorial method can be determined by using linear programming, and this can be effectively done for access structures on a small number of participants.By applying this linear programming approach, we improve some of the known lower bounds for the access structures on five participants and the graph access structures on six participants for which these parameters were still undetermined. Nevertheless, the lower bounds that are obtained by this combinatorial method are not tight in general. For some access structures, they can be improved by adding to the linear program non-Shannon information inequalities as new constraints. We obtain in this way new separation results for some graph access structures on eight participants and for some ports of non-representable matroids. Finally, we prove that, for two access structures on five participants, the combinatorial lower bound cannot be attained by any linear secret sharing scheme.     

Population models in almost periodic environments

We establish the basic theory of almost periodic sequences on ?₊. Dichotomy techniques are then utilized to find sufficient conditions for the existence of a globally attracting almost periodic solution of a semilinear system of difference equations. These existence results are, subsequently, applied to discretely reproducing populations with and without overlapping generations. Furthermore, we access evidence for attenuance and resonance in almost periodically forced population models.     

Stochastic Discrete-Time Nash Games with Constrained State Estimators

In this paper, we consider stochastic linear-quadratic discrete-time Nash games in which two players have access only to noise-corrupted output measurements. We assume that each player is constrained to use a linear Kalman filter-like state estimator to implement his optimal strategies. Two information structures available to the players in their state estimators are investigated. The first has access to one-step delayed output and a one-step delayed control input of the player. The second has access to the current output and a one-step delayed control input of the player. In both cases, statistics of the process and statistics of the measurements of each player are known to both players. A simple example of a two-zone energy trading system is considered to illustrate the developed Nash strategies. In this example, the Nash strategies are calculated for the two cases of unlimited and limited transmission capacity constraints.     

An M/G/1 Retrial Queueing System with Two-Phase Service and Preemptive Resume

An M/G/1 retrial queueing system with additional phase of service and possible preemptive resume service discipline is considered. For an arbitrarily distributed retrial time distribution, the necessary and sufficient condition for the system stability is obtained, assuming that only the customer at the head of the orbit has priority access to the server. The steady-state distributions of the server state and the number of customers in the orbit are obtained along with other performance measures. The effects of various parameters on the system performance are analysed numerically. A general decomposition law for this retrial queueing system is established.     

Selecting the location of minihubs for freight delivery in congested downtown areas

The delivery of freight in urban areas has to face many restrictions and regulations that constrain the efficient flow of goods. One of the most common regulations in medium and large cities is the establishment of access time windows, whereby delivery vehicles can only access the most central and congested areas of the city during a pre-specified period of the day. To avoid the costs imposed on carriers by this regulation while maintaining the social and environmental sustainability benefits, we propose here the establishment of a system of mini-hubs where delivery vehicles may park for the final deliveries to be completed on foot. Given that the optimal location of these mini-hubs is essential for the operation of the system, we formulate a location model and apply a computational process based on genetic algorithms to optimize it. We apply this procedure to a case study in the Spanish city of Seville, showing the effect of mini-hubs on the costs of the overall delivery system.     

Unconditionally secure key assignment schemes

In this paper we propose an information-theoretic approach to the access control problem in a scenario where a group of users is divided into a number of disjoint classes. The set of rules that specify the information flow between different user classes in the system defines an access control policy. An access control policy can be implemented by using a key assignment scheme, where a trusted central authority (CA) assigns an encryption key and some private information to each class.We consider key assignment schemes where the key assigned to each class is unconditionally secure with respect to an adversary controlling a coalition of classes of a limited size. Our schemes are characterized by a security parameter r, the size of the adversary coalition. We show lower bounds on the size of the private information that each class has to store and on the amount of randomness needed by the CA to set up any key assignment scheme. Finally, we propose some optimal constructions for unconditionally secure key assignment schemes.     

Perfect Secret Sharing Schemes on Five Participants

A perfect secret sharing scheme is a system for the protection of a secret among a number of participants in such a way that only certain subsets of these participants can reconstruct the secret, and the remaining subsets can obtain no additional information about the secret. The efficiency of a perfect secret sharing scheme can be assessed in terms of its information rates. In this paper we discuss techniques for obtaining bounds on the information rates of perfect secret sharing schemes and illustrate these techniques using the set of monotone access structures on five participants. We give a full listing of the known information rate bounds for all the monotone access structures on five participants.     

Direct selling by suppliers improves system-wide information flow

Consider a bilateral monopoly selling to a market with uncertain demand. The retailer has access to a demand signal. The supplier can add a direct channel, which grants it market access as well. The supplier and the retailer can acquire signals from each other with payments. We show that direct selling by the supplier improves information flow to realize system-wide information transparency, which has mixed effects on the profits for the retailer and the system.     

IMENSE: An e-infrastructure environment for patient specific multiscale data integration,modelling and clinical treatment

Secure access to patient data and analysis tools to run on that data will revolutionize the treatment of a wide range of diseases, by using advanced simulation techniques to underpin the clinical decision making process. To achieve these goals, suitable e-Science infrastructures are required to allow clinicians and researchers to trivially access data and launch simulations. In this paper we describe the open source Individualized MEdiciNe Simulation Environment (IMENSE), which provides a platform to securely manage clinical data, and to perform wide ranging analysis on that data, ultimately with the intention of enhancing clinical decision making with direct impact on patient health care. We motivate the design decisions taken in the development of the IMENSE system by considering the needs of researchers in the ContraCancrum project, which provides a paradigmatic case in which clinicians and researchers require coordinated access to data and simulation tools. We show how the modular nature of the IMENSE system makes it applicable to a wide range of biomedical computing scenarios, from within a single hospital to major international research projects.     

Optimal infrastructure design and expansion of broadband wireless access networks

This paper investigates the important infrastructure design and expansion problem for broadband wireless access networks subject to user demand constraints and system capacity constraints. For the problem, an integer program is derived and a heuristic solution procedure is proposed based on Lagrangean relaxation. In the computational experiments, our Lagrangean relaxation based algorithm can solve this complex design and expansion problem quickly and near optimally. Based on the test results, it is suggested that the proposed algorithm may be practically used for the infrastructure design and expansion problem for broadband wireless access networks.     

On the characterization of Aloha in underwater wireless networks

Standard analyses of wireless random access protocols that are available in the literature assume negligible propagation delay between any two nodes. This assumption holds good in reasonably short-range terrestrial RF (radio frequency) wireless networks. On the contrary, in wireless communications involving acoustic wave propagation, as in underwater wireless networks, even short distance propagation has appreciably large propagation delay. This observation has led to several recent simulation and experimental studies on underwater Aloha and slotted-Aloha (S-Aloha) protocols and also a few new proposals on random access protocols for underwater wireless ad hoc networks (UWN). To study the efficiency of more advanced multiaccess communication protocols for UWN, it is important to benchmark their performances with respect to the two basic random access protocols, Aloha and S-Aloha. This paper provides an analytic framework to capture the performance of Aloha and S-Aloha protocols in an underwater environment with high and random internodal signal propagation delay. The performance of underwater Aloha and S-Aloha are contrasted with those in short-range terrestrial RF wireless networks. The analysis shows that random internodal propagation delay has no effect on the underwater Aloha performance. It also sheds light on the throughput degradation of underwater S-Aloha with a slotting concept that achieves RF S-Aloha equivalent one-slot vulnerability. Additionally, a modified slotting concept is introduced where the slot size is judiciously reduced such that even by allowing some collisions the overall system throughput can be increased. Our calculations show that, with the modified slotting approach up to 17% throughput performance gain can be achieved over the naive (RF S-Aloha equivalent) slotting approach in UWN. Our analytic results are supported by discrete event simulations.     

Transparent Rule Based CAS to Support Formalization of Knowledge

The complexity of computer algebra systems hinders many students to develop an adequate mental model of such a system. As a result, they are often suspicious about the results and the didactical benefit is limited. The paper suggests that it is possible to design a transparent version of a computer algebra system that gives students a transparent access to the inner working of such a system. Didactical uses of such a system are discussed.     

Multiserver queue with addressed retrials

This paper presents a multiserver retrial queueing system with servers kept apart, thereby rendering it impossible for one to know the status (idle/busy) of the others. Customers proceeding to one channel will have to go to orbit if the server in it is busy and retry after some time to some channel, not necessarily the one already tried. Each orbital customer, independently of others, chooses the server randomly according to some specified probability distribution. Further this distribution is identical for all customers. We assume that the same ‘orbit’ is used by all retrial customers, between repeated attempts, to access the servers. We derive the system state probability distribution under Poisson arrival process of external customers, exponentially distributed service times and linear retrial rates to access the servers. Several system state characteristics are obtained and numerical illustrations provided. AMS subject classification: Primary 60K25 60K20     

Analysis of finite capacity discrete-time <Emphasis Type="Italic">GI</Emphasis>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">Geo</Emphasis>/1 queueing system with multiple vacations

This paper investigates a discrete-time single-server finite-buffer queueing system with multiple vacations in which arrivals occur according to a discrete-time renewal process. Service and vacation times are mutually independent and geometrically distributed. We obtain steady-state system length distributions at prearrival, arbitrary and outside observer's observation epochs under the late arrival system with delayed access and early arrival system. The analysis of actual waiting-time for both the systems has also been carried out. The model has potential application in high-speed computer network, digital communication systems and other related areas.     

云计算技术在输电线路状态监测系统中的应用

在分析输电线路状态监测系统特点的基础上,提出了在系统中引入云计算存储与并行处理技术的设计方案,将关系型数据库与开源的Hadoop云计算平台结合使用,解决了关系型数据库在系统使用中存储和访问效率等方面的问题.介绍了所开发的原型系统提供的服务及其主要功能,并针对系统中的典型应用进行了性能测试.测试结果表明所提方案可以满足输电线路状态监测系统对数据存储与读取、分析的性能要求.