Self-Evaluation Applied Mathematics 2003-2008 University of Twente

This report contains the self-study for the research assessment of the Department of Applied Mathematics (AM) of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) at the University of Twente (UT). The report provides the information for the Research Assessment Committee for Applied Mathematics, dealing with mathematical sciences at the three universities of technology in the Netherlands. It describes the state of affairs pertaining to the period 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2008

A bibliography on formal methods for system specification, design and validation

Literature on the specification, design, verification, testing, and evaluation of avionics systems was surveyed, providing 655 citations. Journal papers, conference papers, and technical reports are included. Manual and computer-based methods were employed. Keywords used in the online search are listed

Bibliographic Review on Distributed Kalman Filtering

In recent years, a compelling need has arisen to understand the effects of distributed information structures on estimation and filtering. In this paper, a bibliographical review on distributed Kalman filtering (DKF) is provided.\ud The paper contains a classification of different approaches and methods involved to DKF. The applications of DKF are also discussed and explained separately. A comparison of different approaches is briefly carried out. Focuses on the contemporary research are also addressed with emphasis on the practical applications of the techniques. An exhaustive list of publications, linked directly or indirectly to DKF in the open literature, is compiled to provide an overall picture of different developing aspects of this area

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

European Union Acts project MIDAS: objectives and progress to date

Introduction to the ACTS program: Advanced Communications and Technology and Services, known simply as ACTS, is one of the specific programmes of the "Fourth Framework Programme of European Community activities in the field of research and technological development and demonstration (1994-1998)". It provides the main focus of the European Unions research effort to accelerate deployment of advanced communications infrastructures and services, and is complemented by extensive European research in the areas of information technology and telematics. The stated objectives of ACTS are to "develop advanced communication systems and services for economic development and social cohesion within Europe, taking account of the rapid evolution of technologies, the changing regulatory situation and opportunities for development of advanced transeuropean networks and services". Within ACTS, the emphasis of the work has shifted from the exploration of fundamental concepts and detailed system engineering, as it had been in earlier programs such as RACE (Research and development in Advanced Communication technologies for Europe), to issues relating to implementation of advanced systems and generic services, and applications which demonstrate the potential use of advanced communications in Europe. A key feature of the ACTS program is that the research be undertaken in the context of real-world trials. Work within the program is divided into six technical areas: Interactive digital multimedia services, photonic technologies, high speed networking, mobility and personal communication networks, intelligence in networks and services and quality, safety and security of communication systems and services. The total EU budget for the ACTS program is approximately 670 MECU, covering around 160 projects, with over 1000 individual organisations participating within the program, thereby illustrating the scale of the activities. MIDAS is one of five projects in the technical area of photonic technologies concerned with high speed transmission, the others being ESTHER, UPGRADE, HIGHWAY and SPEED, each concerned with various aspects or approaches to the development of 40 GBit/s transmission systems within the European arena. A full list of project descriptions and objectives, as well as those of the ACTS program as a whole, are to be found in Ref [1]. The MIDAS consortium consists of the following organisations: Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), CSELT (Italy), Thomson LCR (France), United Monolithic Semiconductor (France), Telia (Sweden), Kings College London (UK), University of Athens (Greece), ORC University of Southampton (UK). The project started in September 1995 and is currently scheduled to finish in September 1998

Regional and Sub-Global Climate Blocs.A Game-Theoretic Perspective on Bottom-up Climate Regimes

No international regime on climate change is going to be fully effective in controlling GHG emissions without the involvement of countries such as China, India, the United States, Australia, and possibly other developing countries. This highlights an unambiguous weakness of the Kyoto Protocol, where the aforementioned countries either have no binding emission targets or have decided not to comply with their targets. Therefore, when discussing possible post-Kyoto scenarios, it is crucial to prioritise participation incentives for all countries, especially those without explicit or with insufficient abatement targets. This paper offers a bottom-up game-theoretic perspective on participation incentives. Rather than focusing on issue linkage, transfers or burden sharing as tools to enhance the incentives to participate in a climate agreement, this paper aims at exploring whether a different policy approach could lead more countries to adopt effective climate control policies. This policy approach is explicitly bottom-up, namely it gives each country the freedom to sign agreements and deals, bilaterally or multilaterally, with other countries, without being constrained by any global protocol or convention. This study provides a game-theoretic assessment of this policy approach and then evaluates empirically the possible endogenous emergence of single or multiple climate coalitions. Welfare and technological consequences of different multiple bloc climate regimes will be assessed and their overall environmental effectiveness will be discussed.Agreements, Climate, Incentives, Negotiations, Policy

Immigrants’ Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Case of the Chinese in Portugal

Why do some foreign nationalities seem to have entrepreneurial initiatives and others don’t? Why do certain foreign communities tend to build an ethnic economy, and others melt in the economy of the reception country? The analysis made so far of the modes of incorporation of the different Chinese immigrant communities in Portugal allowed to evidence that, unlike what some authors defend, it is not only the cultural factors that channel immigrants into certain segments of the labour market. Several structural factors associated to these immigrants’ arrival should be considered: the immigration policy of the host society; the reasons that generated the migratory flow; the existence of a co-ethnic community in the country and its economic incorporation; the operation of social networks; the possibility to acquire capital among the community (informal resources); and the potential market of the host society. Furthermore, in Portugal, as in Southern Europe, the informal economy can be an opportunity to self-employment - not so easy in North European countries where institutional control is stronger and competition is higher.Immigrants, Entrepreneurship, Structural opportunities, Ethnic resources

Delay Distribution Based Remote Data Fetch Scheme for Hadoop Clusters in Public Cloud

Apache Hadoop and its ecosystem have become the de facto platform for processing large-scale data, or Big Data, because it hides the complexity of distributed computing, scheduling, and communication while providing fault-tolerance. Cloud-based environments are becoming a popular platform for hosting Hadoop clusters due to their low initial cost and limitless capacity. However, cloud-based Hadoop clusters bring their own challenges due to contradictory design principles. Hadoop is designed on the shared-nothing principle while cloud is based on the concepts of consolidation and resource sharing. Most of Hadoop\u27s features are designed for on-premises data centers where the cluster topology is known. Hadoop depends on the rack assignment of servers (configured by the cluster administrator) to calculate the distance between servers. Hadoop calculates the distance between servers to find the best remote server from which to fetch data from when fetching non-local data. However, public cloud environment providers do not share rack information of virtual servers with their tenants. Lack of rack information of servers may allow Hadoop to fetch data from a remote server that is on the other side of the data center. To overcome this problem, we propose a delay distribution based scheme to find the closest server to fetch non-local data for public cloud-based Hadoop clusters. The proposed scheme bases server selection on the delay distributions between server pairs. Delay distribution is calculated measuring the round-trip time between servers periodically. Our experiments observe that the proposed scheme outperforms conventional Hadoop nearly by 12% in terms of non-local data fetch time. This reduction in data fetch time will lead to a reduction in job run time, especially in real-world multi-user clusters where non-local data fetching can happen frequently

Renewable energy for Latium: looking for innovative technologies in PV and solar thermal field.

European METTTES Project, financed within the FP6-2005-INNOV-7 call, aimed to test a new methodology to encourage the launch of transnational collaborations technology based among European small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and/or research organizations, focusing its attention on regional technology demand, influenced by changes in regulations and standards and fostered by local incentives. METTTES considered European directives, national, regional and local measures (i.e. incentives, projects, etc.) potentially influencing companies’ behavior. In addition, METTTES has also taken into account the IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) Directive 96/61/EC, whose purpose is to achieve an integrated pollution prevention and control from the industrial activities. At the end of these analysis, METTTES derived the technology demand not from the needs of individual enterprises, but instead from the regional system. A certain number of Regional Demand Profiles (RDPs) on particular interesting industrial fields have been collected at European level; the documentation includes a comprehensive analysis and detailed presentation of current regional technology demands and forecasts as well as foresight regarding future demands triggered by legal requirements new administrative regulations or national environmental policy and BATs analysis. Each RDP document has been edited with the collaboration of local stakeholders and administrations and by auditing involving SMEs. Results of each RDP have been high quality Technology Requests (TRs) expressed by local companies which seek technological collaboration. For Latium Region this task has been performed by CNR in the sector of PV and solar thermal technologies