A Virtualized SGE-based Computational Cluster for Heterogeneous Environments

The computing and modeling environment of IIASA was studied in the context of computation-intensive ad resource-demanding applications/models which are being developed and used by the researchers/scientists of IIASA. High Performance Computing applicatins can be classified into two broad computing fields; sequential distributed and parallel distributed applications and these applications has been developed for heterogeneous operating system architectures such as Linux, Windows and Solaris etc. Majority of IIASA applications/models belong to the latter class of computing and these applications are resource demanding when the extensive and repetitive use of these applications is required according to the need of some research study. Not every sequential application can be easily parallelized; therefore, instead of re-programming sequental applications into parallel ones, the idea of distributing such applications on computing cluster/grid is often an effective approach for accelerating the work. In the light of available computing resources and modest modeling environment of IIASA, the virtualization and Sun Grid Engine (batch job scheduler and manager for cluster/grid) was efficiently exploited and designed, built and tested. This resulted in a computational cluster supporting multiple operating systems and multiple sequential distributed and parallel distributed applications/models along with multiple job execution types such as binaries and JAVA

Simulation of complex environments:the Fuzzy Cognitive Agent

The world is becoming increasingly competitive by the action of liberalised national and global markets. In parallel these markets have become increasingly complex making it difficult for participants to optimise their trading actions. In response, many differing computer simulation techniques have been investigated to develop either a deeper understanding of these evolving markets or to create effective system support tools. In this paper we report our efforts to develop a novel simulation platform using fuzzy cognitive agents (FCA). Our approach encapsulates fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) generated on the Matlab Simulink platform within commercially available agent software. We firstly present our implementation of Matlab Simulink FCMs and then show how such FCMs can be integrated within a conceptual FCA architecture. Finally we report on our efforts to realise an FCA by the integration of a Matlab Simulink based FCM with the Jack Intelligent Agent Toolkit

Knowledge-based machine vision systems for space station automation

Computer vision techniques which have the potential for use on the space station and related applications are assessed. A knowledge-based vision system (expert vision system) and the development of a demonstration system for it are described. This system implements some of the capabilities that would be necessary in a machine vision system for the robot arm of the laboratory module in the space station. A Perceptics 9200e image processor, on a host VAXstation, was used to develop the demonstration system. In order to use realistic test images, photographs of actual space shuttle simulator panels were used. The system's capabilities of scene identification and scene matching are discussed

Meta-heuristic algorithms in car engine design: a literature survey

Meta-heuristic algorithms are often inspired by natural phenomena, including the evolution of species in Darwinian natural selection theory, ant behaviors in biology, flock behaviors of some birds, and annealing in metallurgy. Due to their great potential in solving difficult optimization problems, meta-heuristic algorithms have found their way into automobile engine design. There are different optimization problems arising in different areas of car engine management including calibration, control system, fault diagnosis, and modeling. In this paper we review the state-of-the-art applications of different meta-heuristic algorithms in engine management systems. The review covers a wide range of research, including the application of meta-heuristic algorithms in engine calibration, optimizing engine control systems, engine fault diagnosis, and optimizing different parts of engines and modeling. The meta-heuristic algorithms reviewed in this paper include evolutionary algorithms, evolution strategy, evolutionary programming, genetic programming, differential evolution, estimation of distribution algorithm, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, memetic algorithms, and artificial immune system