125,715 research outputs found
Gathering in Dynamic Rings
The gathering problem requires a set of mobile agents, arbitrarily positioned
at different nodes of a network to group within finite time at the same
location, not fixed in advanced.
The extensive existing literature on this problem shares the same fundamental
assumption: the topological structure does not change during the rendezvous or
the gathering; this is true also for those investigations that consider faulty
nodes. In other words, they only consider static graphs. In this paper we start
the investigation of gathering in dynamic graphs, that is networks where the
topology changes continuously and at unpredictable locations.
We study the feasibility of gathering mobile agents, identical and without
explicit communication capabilities, in a dynamic ring of anonymous nodes; the
class of dynamics we consider is the classic 1-interval-connectivity.
We focus on the impact that factors such as chirality (i.e., a common sense
of orientation) and cross detection (i.e., the ability to detect, when
traversing an edge, whether some agent is traversing it in the other
direction), have on the solvability of the problem. We provide a complete
characterization of the classes of initial configurations from which the
gathering problem is solvable in presence and in absence of cross detection and
of chirality. The feasibility results of the characterization are all
constructive: we provide distributed algorithms that allow the agents to
gather. In particular, the protocols for gathering with cross detection are
time optimal. We also show that cross detection is a powerful computational
element.
We prove that, without chirality, knowledge of the ring size is strictly more
powerful than knowledge of the number of agents; on the other hand, with
chirality, knowledge of n can be substituted by knowledge of k, yielding the
same classes of feasible initial configurations
Tight Bounds for Black Hole Search with Scattered Agents in Synchronous Rings
We study the problem of locating a particularly dangerous node, the so-called
black hole in a synchronous anonymous ring network with mobile agents. A black
hole is a harmful stationary process residing in a node of the network and
destroying destroys all mobile agents visiting that node without leaving any
trace. We consider the more challenging scenario when the agents are identical
and initially scattered within the network. Moreover, we solve the problem with
agents that have constant-sized memory and carry a constant number of identical
tokens, which can be placed at nodes of the network. In contrast, the only
known solutions for the case of scattered agents searching for a black hole,
use stronger models where the agents have non-constant memory, can write
messages in whiteboards located at nodes or are allowed to mark both the edges
and nodes of the network with tokens. This paper solves the problem for ring
networks containing a single black hole. We are interested in the minimum
resources (number of agents and tokens) necessary for locating all links
incident to the black hole. We present deterministic algorithms for ring
topologies and provide matching lower and upper bounds for the number of agents
and the number of tokens required for deterministic solutions to the black hole
search problem, in oriented or unoriented rings, using movable or unmovable
tokens
Bounded Distributed Flocking Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots
There have been numerous studies on the problem of flocking control for
multiagent systems whose simplified models are presented in terms of point-mass
elements. Meanwhile, full dynamic models pose some challenging problems in
addressing the flocking control problem of mobile robots due to their
nonholonomic dynamic properties. Taking practical constraints into
consideration, we propose a novel approach to distributed flocking control of
nonholonomic mobile robots by bounded feedback. The flocking control objectives
consist of velocity consensus, collision avoidance, and cohesion maintenance
among mobile robots. A flocking control protocol which is based on the
information of neighbor mobile robots is constructed. The theoretical analysis
is conducted with the help of a Lyapunov-like function and graph theory.
Simulation results are shown to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed
distributed flocking control scheme
Self-forgiveness and the moral perspective of humility: Ian McEwan's Atonement
Reflection on Briony Tallis in Ian McEwan’s Atonement can help us understand two key aspects of self-forgiveness. First, she illustrates an unorthodox conception of humility that aids the process of responsible self-forgiveness. Second, she fleshes out a self-forgiveness that includes continued self-reproach. While Briony illustrates elements of the self-absorption about which critics of continued self-reproach (such as Margaret Holmgren) are rightly concerned, she also shows a way of getting beyond this, such that the delicate balance between self-forgiveness and self-condemnation is upheld. Atonement also shows the significance for the task of self-forgiveness of a particular kind of narrative continuity.Peer reviewe
Performance Limits and Geometric Properties of Array Localization
Location-aware networks are of great importance and interest in both civil
and military applications. This paper determines the localization accuracy of
an agent, which is equipped with an antenna array and localizes itself using
wireless measurements with anchor nodes, in a far-field environment. In view of
the Cram\'er-Rao bound, we first derive the localization information for static
scenarios and demonstrate that such information is a weighed sum of Fisher
information matrices from each anchor-antenna measurement pair. Each matrix can
be further decomposed into two parts: a distance part with intensity
proportional to the squared baseband effective bandwidth of the transmitted
signal and a direction part with intensity associated with the normalized
anchor-antenna visual angle. Moreover, in dynamic scenarios, we show that the
Doppler shift contributes additional direction information, with intensity
determined by the agent velocity and the root mean squared time duration of the
transmitted signal. In addition, two measures are proposed to evaluate the
localization performance of wireless networks with different anchor-agent and
array-antenna geometries, and both formulae and simulations are provided for
typical anchor deployments and antenna arrays.Comment: to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor
ON CONSTRUCTIVE-ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY OF COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY: A JOURNAL THEME INTRODUCTION [abstract]
In this journal theme introduction, first, I explain how comparative philosophy as explored in the journal Comparative Philosophy is understood and how it is intrinsically related to the constructive engagement strategy. Second, to characterize more clearly and accurately some related methodological points of the constructive-engagement strategy, and also to explain how constructive engagement is possible, I introduce some needed conceptual and explanatory resources and a meta-methodological framework and endeavor to identify adequacy conditions for methodological guiding principles in comparative studies. Third, as a case analysis, I show how the constructive-engagement reflective practice bears on recent studies of Chinese and comparative Chinese-Western philosophy, especially in the past decade, for two purposes: to illustrate the foregoing theoretic characterization of the constructive engagement strategy, and to identify and explain some constructive morals that might have general significance for comparative studies
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