Graphite/Larc-160 technology demonstration segment test results

A structural test program was conducted on a Celion/LARC-160 graphite/polyimide technology demonstration segment (TDS) to verify the technology. The 137 x 152 cm (54 x 60 in.) TDS simulates a full-scale section of the orbiter composite body flap design incorporating three ribs and extending from the forward cove back to the rear spar. The TDS was successfully subjected to mechanical loads and thermal environments (-170 to 316 C) simulating 100 shuttle orbiter missions. Successful completion of the test program verified the design, analysis, and fabrication methodology for bonded Gr/PI honeycomb sandwich structure and demonstration that Gr/PI composite technology readiness is established

Segment Routing: a Comprehensive Survey of Research Activities, Standardization Efforts and Implementation Results

Fixed and mobile telecom operators, enterprise network operators and cloud providers strive to face the challenging demands coming from the evolution of IP networks (e.g. huge bandwidth requirements, integration of billions of devices and millions of services in the cloud). Proposed in the early 2010s, Segment Routing (SR) architecture helps face these challenging demands, and it is currently being adopted and deployed. SR architecture is based on the concept of source routing and has interesting scalability properties, as it dramatically reduces the amount of state information to be configured in the core nodes to support complex services. SR architecture was first implemented with the MPLS dataplane and then, quite recently, with the IPv6 dataplane (SRv6). IPv6 SR architecture (SRv6) has been extended from the simple steering of packets across nodes to a general network programming approach, making it very suitable for use cases such as Service Function Chaining and Network Function Virtualization. In this paper we present a tutorial and a comprehensive survey on SR technology, analyzing standardization efforts, patents, research activities and implementation results. We start with an introduction on the motivations for Segment Routing and an overview of its evolution and standardization. Then, we provide a tutorial on Segment Routing technology, with a focus on the novel SRv6 solution. We discuss the standardization efforts and the patents providing details on the most important documents and mentioning other ongoing activities. We then thoroughly analyze research activities according to a taxonomy. We have identified 8 main categories during our analysis of the current state of play: Monitoring, Traffic Engineering, Failure Recovery, Centrally Controlled Architectures, Path Encoding, Network Programming, Performance Evaluation and Miscellaneous...Comment: SUBMITTED TO IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIAL

ILP formulations for p-cycle design without candidate cycle enumeration

The concept of p-cycle (preconfigured protection cycle) allows fast and efficient span protection in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) mesh networks. To design p-cycles for a given network, conventional algorithms need to enumerate cycles in the network to form a candidate set, and then use an integer linear program (ILP) to find a set of p-cycles from the candidate set. Because the size of the candidate set increases exponentially with the network size, candidate cycle enumeration introduces a huge number of ILP variables and slows down the optimization process. In this paper, we focus on p-cycle design without candidate cycle enumeration. Three ILPs for solving the problem of spare capacity placement (SCP) are first formulated. They are based on recursion, flow conservation, and cycle exclusion, respectively. We show that the number of ILP variables/constraints in our cycle exclusion approach only increases linearly with the network size. Then, based on cycle exclusion, we formulate an ILP for solving the joint capacity placement (JCP) problem. Numerical results show that our ILPs are very efficient in generating p-cycle solutions. © 2009 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Unidirectional Quorum-based Cycle Planning for Efficient Resource Utilization and Fault-Tolerance

In this paper, we propose a greedy cycle direction heuristic to improve the generalized $\mathbf{R}$ redundancy quorum cycle technique. When applied using only single cycles rather than the standard paired cycles, the generalized $\mathbf{R}$ redundancy technique has been shown to almost halve the necessary light-trail resources in the network. Our greedy heuristic improves this cycle-based routing technique's fault-tolerance and dependability. For efficiency and distributed control, it is common in distributed systems and algorithms to group nodes into intersecting sets referred to as quorum sets. Optimal communication quorum sets forming optical cycles based on light-trails have been shown to flexibly and efficiently route both point-to-point and multipoint-to-multipoint traffic requests. Commonly cycle routing techniques will use pairs of cycles to achieve both routing and fault-tolerance, which uses substantial resources and creates the potential for underutilization. Instead, we use a single cycle and intentionally utilize $\mathbf{R}$ redundancy within the quorum cycles such that every point-to-point communication pairs occur in at least $\mathbf{R}$ cycles. Without the paired cycles the direction of the quorum cycles becomes critical to the fault tolerance performance. For this we developed a greedy cycle direction heuristic and our single fault network simulations show a reduction of missing pairs by greater than 30%, which translates to significant improvements in fault coverage.Comment: Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN), 2016 25th International Conference on. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1608.05172, arXiv:1608.05168, arXiv:1608.0517

Central and East European countries: innovation leapfrog versus “path dependence”?

Strengthening the EU economic and political environment would positively affect the global development. Albeit, building the internal life in the enlarging European society per se represents quite a challenging task. Increasing diversity engenders a huge variety of never seen before problems, which must be responded in appropriate manner. Within this multifold complexity, and despite the variety of issues related to elaboration of a new economic agenda for the member state countries this is specifically innovation path of economic development which would be emphasized as the main underlying route for approaching the prosperous future. This article highlights some problems and prospects of CEEC’ (Central and East European countries) innovation driven development.EU enlargment; comparative advantage, innovation capabilities; innovation driven path of economic development

A study of System Interface Sets (SIS) for the host, target and integration environments of the Space Station Program (SSP)

System interface sets (SIS) for large, complex, non-stop, distributed systems are examined. The SIS of the Space Station Program (SSP) was selected as the focus of this study because an appropriate virtual interface specification of the SIS is believed to have the most potential to free the project from four life cycle tyrannies which are rooted in a dependance on either a proprietary or particular instance of: operating systems, data management systems, communications systems, and instruction set architectures. The static perspective of the common Ada programming support environment interface set (CAIS) and the portable common execution environment (PCEE) activities are discussed. Also, the dynamic perspective of the PCEE is addressed