Why study movement variability in autism?

Autism has been defined as a disorder of social cognition, interaction and communication where ritualistic, repetitive behaviors are commonly observed. But how should we understand the behavioral and cognitive differences that have been the main focus of so much autism research? Can high-level cognitive processes and behaviors be identified as the core issues people with autism face, or do these characteristics perhaps often rather reflect individual attempts to cope with underlying physiological issues? Much research presented in this volume will point to the latter possibility, i.e. that people on the autism spectrum cope with issues at much lower physiological levels pertaining not only to Central Nervous Systems (CNS) function, but also to peripheral and autonomic systems (PNS, ANS) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013). The question that we pursue in this chapter is what might be fruitful ways of gaining objective measures of the large-scale systemic and heterogeneous effects of early atypical neurodevelopment; how to track their evolution over time and how to identify critical changes along the continuum of human development and aging. We suggest that the study of movement variability—very broadly conceived as including all minute fluctuations in bodily rhythms and their rates of change over time (coined micro-movements (Figure 1A-B) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013))—offers a uniquely valuable and entirely objectively quantifiable lens to better assess, understand and track not only autism but cognitive development and degeneration in general. This chapter presents the rationale firstly behind this focus on micro-movements and secondly behind the choice of specific kinds of data collection and statistical metrics as tools of analysis (Figure 1C). In brief the proposal is that the micro-movements (defined in Part I – Chapter 1), obtained using various time scales applied to different physiological data-types (Figure 1), contain information about layered influences and temporal adaptations, transformations and integrations across anatomically semi-independent subsystems that crosstalk and interact. Further, the notion of sensorimotor re-afference is used to highlight the fact that these layered micro-motions are sensed and that this sensory feedback plays a crucial role in the generation and control of movements in the first place. In other words, the measurements of various motoric and rhythmic variations provide an access point not only to the “motor systems”, but also access to much broader central and peripheral sensorimotor and regulatory systems. Lastly, we posit that this new lens can also be used to capture influences from systems of multiple entry points or collaborative control and regulation, such as those that emerge during dyadic social interactions

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Control of Microgrids: A Review

A microgrid is widely accepted as a prominent solution to enhance resilience and performance in distributed power systems. Microgrids are flexible for adding distributed energy resources in the ecosystem of the electrical networks. Control techniques are used to synchronize distributed energy resources (DERs) due to their turbulent nature. DERs including alternating current, direct current and hybrid load with storage systems have been used in microgrids quite frequently due to which controlling the flow of energy in microgrids have been complex task with traditional control approaches. Distributed as well central approach to apply control algorithms is well-known methods to regulate frequency and voltage in microgrids. Recently techniques based of artificial intelligence are being applied for the problems that arise in operation and control of latest generation microgrids and smart grids. Such techniques are categorized in machine learning and deep learning in broader terms. The objective of this research is to survey the latest strategies of control in microgrids using the deep reinforcement learning approach (DRL). Other techniques of artificial intelligence had already been reviewed extensively but the use of DRL has increased in the past couple of years. To bridge the gap for the researchers, this survey paper is being presented with a focus on only Microgrids control DRL techniques for voltage control and frequency regulation with distributed, cooperative and multi agent approaches are presented in this research

Unattended network operations technology assessment study. Technical support for defining advanced satellite systems concepts

The results are summarized of an unattended network operations technology assessment study for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI). The scope of the work included: (1) identified possible enhancements due to the proposed Mars communications network; (2) identified network operations on Mars; (3) performed a technology assessment of possible supporting technologies based on current and future approaches to network operations; and (4) developed a plan for the testing and development of these technologies. The most important results obtained are as follows: (1) addition of a third Mars Relay Satellite (MRS) and MRS cross link capabilities will enhance the network's fault tolerance capabilities through improved connectivity; (2) network functions can be divided into the six basic ISO network functional groups; (3) distributed artificial intelligence technologies will augment more traditional network management technologies to form the technological infrastructure of a virtually unattended network; and (4) a great effort is required to bring the current network technology levels for manned space communications up to the level needed for an automated fault tolerance Mars communications network

Overlay Networks for Edge Management

Experiments presented in this paper were carried out using the Grid'5000 testbed, supported by a scientific interest group hosted by Inria and including CNRS, RENATER and several Universities as well as other organizations (see https://www.grid5000.fr).Edge computing has emerged as a solution to address existing limitations of cloud computing for bandwidth-heavy and time-sensitive applications, by moving (some) computations from bandwidth saturated Cloud infrastructures closer to client devices, where data is effectively produced and consumed. However, existing materializations of the edge computing paradigm take limited advantage of computational and storage power that exists in the edge and between client devices and the cloud. Most of these leverage static hierarchical topologies (e.g., Fog Computing) to pre-process data before sending it to the Cloud, which limits the advantages that can be extracted from the edge computing paradigm. In the past, peer-to-peer systems have sought to tackle the challenges of increasing scalability and availability for very large systems, with a large number of solutions being proposed namely, distributed overlay networks for resource management. In this paper, we argue that the clever adaptation of peer-to-peer solutions can enable novel applications to fully exploit the potential of the edge. In particular, we study the viability of taking advantage of specialized overlay networks in edge environments to enable the management of a large number of computational resources. Contrary to previous proposals, that assume the environment to be composed of mostly homogeneous devices, our proposal embraces existing heterogeneity and exploits the location of computational resources to devise a (partially) self-organizing overlay network that can be exploited both to provide membership information to applications, but also do efficiently disseminate management information across edge devices. We have conducted an experimental evaluation using container-based emulation in an heterogeneous network composed by 100 devices, with results showing that our protocol is able to maximize the bandwidth usage of the system, allowing more data to flow throughout the network, while retaining high robustness to failures.authorsversionpublishe

Forecasting in Mathematics

Mathematical probability and statistics are an attractive, thriving, and respectable part of mathematics. Some mathematicians and philosophers of science say they are the gateway to mathematics’ deepest mysteries. Moreover, mathematical statistics denotes an accumulation of mathematical discussions connected with efforts to most efficiently collect and use numerical data subject to random or deterministic variations. Currently, the concept of probability and mathematical statistics has become one of the fundamental notions of modern science and the philosophy of nature. This book is an illustration of the use of mathematics to solve specific problems in engineering, statistics, and science in general