Optimal Alarms for Vehicular Collision Detection

An important application of intelligent vehicles is advance detection of dangerous events such as collisions. This problem is framed as a problem of optimal alarm choice given predictive models for vehicle location and motion. Techniques for real-time collision detection are surveyed and grouped into three classes: random Monte Carlo sampling, faster deterministic approximations, and machine learning models trained by simulation. Theoretical guarantees on the performance of these collision detection techniques are provided where possible, and empirical analysis is provided for two example scenarios. Results validate Monte Carlo sampling as a robust solution despite its simplicity

Evolving VirtuE

One of the most attractive aspects of virtual enterprises is their agility: the inherent ability to adapt and evolve in response to changing market conditions. Evolving VirtuE is a formal framework within which such agility can be realized. Through the concepts of enterprise time, activity logging, and log mining, the recent behavior and performance of an enterprise may be studied,and corresponding evolutionary steps can be induced. These steps may be intended to benefit the operation of individual enterprise members, as well the enterprise as a whole. In addition, we examine enterprise creation, a period of rapid evolution that concludes when the enterprise reaches stability and begins transacting its business activities.One of the most attractive aspects of virtual enterprises is their agility: the inherent ability to adapt and evolve in response to changing market conditions. Evolving VirtuE is a formal framework within which such agility can be realized. Through the concepts of enterprise time, activity logging, and log mining, the recent behavior and performance of an enterprise may be studied,and corresponding evolutionary steps can be induced. These steps may be intended to benefit the operation of individual enterprise members, as well the enterprise as a whole. In addition, we examine enterprise creation, a period of rapid evolution that concludes when the enterprise reaches stability and begins transacting its business activities.Monograph's chapter

VirtuE: a Formal Model of Virtual Enterprises for Information Markets

A vital part of a modern economy is an information market. In this market, information products are being traded in countless ways. Information is bought, modified, integrated, incorporated into other products, and then sold again. Often, the manufacturing of an information product requires the collaboration of several participants. A virtual enterprise is a community of business entities that collaborate on the manufacturing of complex products. This collaboration is often ad hoc, for a specific product only, after which the virtual enterprise may dismantle. The virtual enterprise paradigm is particularly appealing for modeling collaborations for manufacturing information products, and in this paper we present a new model, called VirtuE, for modeling such activities. VirtuE has three principal components. First, it defines a distributed infrastructure with concepts such as members, products, inventories, and production plans. Second, it defines transactions among members, to enable collaborative production of complex products. Finally, it provides means for the instrumentation of enterprises, to measure their performance and to govern their behavior.A vital part of a modern economy is an information market. In this market, information products are being traded in countless ways. Information is bought, modified, integrated, incorporated into other products, and then sold again. Often, the manufacturing of an information product requires the collaboration of several participants. A virtual enterprise is a community of business entities that collaborate on the manufacturing of complex products. This collaboration is often ad hoc, for a specific product only, after which the virtual enterprise may dismantle. The virtual enterprise paradigm is particularly appealing for modeling collaborations for manufacturing information products, and in this paper we present a new model, called VirtuE, for modeling such activities. VirtuE has three principal components. First, it defines a distributed infrastructure with concepts such as members, products, inventories, and production plans. Second, it defines transactions among members, to enable collaborative production of complex products. Finally, it provides means for the instrumentation of enterprises, to measure their performance and to govern their behavior.Non-Refereed Working Papers / of national relevance onl

Intestinal spirochaetes of the genus Brachyspira share a partially conserved 26 kilobase genomic region with Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli

Anaerobic intestinal spirochaetes of the genus Brachyspira include both pathogenic and commensal species. The two best-studied members are the pathogenic species B. hyodysenteriae (the aetiological agent of swine dysentery) and B. pilosicoli (a cause of intestinal spirochaetosis in humans and other species). Analysis of near-complete genome sequences of these two species identifi ed a highly conserved 26 kilobase (kb) region that was shared, against a background of otherwise very little sequence conservation between the two species. PCR amplification was used to identify sets of contiguous genes from this region in the related Brachyspira species B. intermedia, B. innocens, B. murdochii, B. alvinipulli, and B. aalborgi, and demonstrated the presence of at least part of this region in species from throughout the genus. Comparative genomic analysis with other sequenced bacterial species revealed that none of the completely sequenced spirochaete species from different genera contained this conserved cluster of coding sequences. In contrast, Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli contained high gene cluster conservation across the 26 kb region, against an expected background of little sequence conservation between these phylogenetically distinct species. The conserved region in B. hyodysenteriae contained five genes predicted to be associated with amino acid transport and metabolism, four with energy production and conversion, two with nucleotide transport and metabolism, one with ion transport and metabolism, and four with poorly characterised or uncertain function, including an ankyrin repeat unit at the 5’ end. The most likely explanation for the presence of this 26 kb region in the Brachyspira species and in two unrelated enteric bacterial species is that the region has been involved in horizontal gene transfer

Kinetostatic Analysis and Solution Classification of a Planar Tensegrity Mechanism

Tensegrity mechanisms have several interesting properties that make them suitable for a number of applications. Their analysis is generally challenging because the static equilibrium conditions often result in complex equations. A class of planar one-degree-of-freedom (dof) tensegrity mechanisms with three linear springs is analyzed in detail in this paper. The kinetostatic equations are derived and solved under several loading and geometric conditions. It is shown that these mechanisms exhibit up to six equilibrium configurations, of which one or two are stable. Discriminant varieties and cylindrical algebraic decomposition combined with Groebner base elimination are used to classify solutions as function of the input parameters.Comment: 7th IFToMM International Workshop on Computational Kinematics, May 2017, Poitiers, France. 201

Co-evolution of RDF Datasets

Linking Data initiatives have fostered the publication of large number of RDF datasets in the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud, as well as the development of query processing infrastructures to access these data in a federated fashion. However, different experimental studies have shown that availability of LOD datasets cannot be always ensured, being RDF data replication required for envisioning reliable federated query frameworks. Albeit enhancing data availability, RDF data replication requires synchronization and conflict resolution when replicas and source datasets are allowed to change data over time, i.e., co-evolution management needs to be provided to ensure consistency. In this paper, we tackle the problem of RDF data co-evolution and devise an approach for conflict resolution during co-evolution of RDF datasets. Our proposed approach is property-oriented and allows for exploiting semantics about RDF properties during co-evolution management. The quality of our approach is empirically evaluated in different scenarios on the DBpedia-live dataset. Experimental results suggest that proposed proposed techniques have a positive impact on the quality of data in source datasets and replicas.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, Accepted in ICWE, 201

Grid-VirtuE: a layered architecture for grid virtual enterprises

A grid virtual enterprise is a community of independent enterprises concerned with a particular sector of the economy. Its members (nodes) are small or medium size enterprises (SME) engaged in bilateral transactions. An important principle of a grid virtual enterprise is the lack of any global "guiding force", with each member of the community making its own independent decisions. In this paper we describe Grid-VirtuE, a three-layer architecture for grid virtual enterprises. The top layer of the architecture, representing its ultimate purpose, is an environment in which grid virtual enterprises can be modeled and implemented. This layer is supported by middleware infrastructure for grids, providing a host of grid services, such as node-to-node communication, bilateral transactions, and data collection. The bottom layer is essentially a distributed data warehouse for storing, sharing and analyzing the large amounts of data generated by the grid. Among other functionalities, the warehouse handles the dissemination of data among the members of the grid; it confronts issues of data magnitude with an aging mechanism that aggregates old data at a lower level of detail; and it incorporates privacy-preserving features that retain the confidentiality of individual members. Warehouse information is also used for data and process mining, aimed at analyzing the behavior of the enterprise, and subsequently inducing evolutionary changes that will improve its performance.A grid virtual enterprise is a community of independent enterprises concerned with a particular sector of the economy. Its members (nodes) are small or medium size enterprises (SME) engaged in bilateral transactions. An important principle of a grid virtual enterprise is the lack of any global "guiding force", with each member of the community making its own independent decisions. In this paper we describe Grid-VirtuE, a three-layer architecture for grid virtual enterprises. The top layer of the architecture, representing its ultimate purpose, is an environment in which grid virtual enterprises can be modeled and implemented. This layer is supported by middleware infrastructure for grids, providing a host of grid services, such as node-to-node communication, bilateral transactions, and data collection. The bottom layer is essentially a distributed data warehouse for storing, sharing and analyzing the large amounts of data generated by the grid. Among other functionalities, the warehouse handles the dissemination of data among the members of the grid; it confronts issues of data magnitude with an aging mechanism that aggregates old data at a lower level of detail; and it incorporates privacy-preserving features that retain the confidentiality of individual members. Warehouse information is also used for data and process mining, aimed at analyzing the behavior of the enterprise, and subsequently inducing evolutionary changes that will improve its performance.Monograph's chapter

Discordant bioinformatic predictions of antimicrobial resistance from whole-genome sequencing data of bacterial isolates: an inter-laboratory study.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a threat to public health. Clinical microbiology laboratories typically rely on culturing bacteria for antimicrobial-susceptibility testing (AST). As the implementation costs and technical barriers fall, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has emerged as a 'one-stop' test for epidemiological and predictive AST results. Few published comparisons exist for the myriad analytical pipelines used for predicting AMR. To address this, we performed an inter-laboratory study providing sets of participating researchers with identical short-read WGS data from clinical isolates, allowing us to assess the reproducibility of the bioinformatic prediction of AMR between participants, and identify problem cases and factors that lead to discordant results. We produced ten WGS datasets of varying quality from cultured carbapenem-resistant organisms obtained from clinical samples sequenced on either an Illumina NextSeq or HiSeq instrument. Nine participating teams ('participants') were provided these sequence data without any other contextual information. Each participant used their choice of pipeline to determine the species, the presence of resistance-associated genes, and to predict susceptibility or resistance to amikacin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin and cefotaxime. We found participants predicted different numbers of AMR-associated genes and different gene variants from the same clinical samples. The quality of the sequence data, choice of bioinformatic pipeline and interpretation of the results all contributed to discordance between participants. Although much of the inaccurate gene variant annotation did not affect genotypic resistance predictions, we observed low specificity when compared to phenotypic AST results, but this improved in samples with higher read depths. Had the results been used to predict AST and guide treatment, a different antibiotic would have been recommended for each isolate by at least one participant. These challenges, at the final analytical stage of using WGS to predict AMR, suggest the need for refinements when using this technology in clinical settings. Comprehensive public resistance sequence databases, full recommendations on sequence data quality and standardization in the comparisons between genotype and resistance phenotypes will all play a fundamental role in the successful implementation of AST prediction using WGS in clinical microbiology laboratories