OSCAR: A Collaborative Bandwidth Aggregation System

The exponential increase in mobile data demand, coupled with growing user expectation to be connected in all places at all times, have introduced novel challenges for researchers to address. Fortunately, the wide spread deployment of various network technologies and the increased adoption of multi-interface enabled devices have enabled researchers to develop solutions for those challenges. Such solutions aim to exploit available interfaces on such devices in both solitary and collaborative forms. These solutions, however, have faced a steep deployment barrier. In this paper, we present OSCAR, a multi-objective, incentive-based, collaborative, and deployable bandwidth aggregation system. We present the OSCAR architecture that does not introduce any intermediate hardware nor require changes to current applications or legacy servers. The OSCAR architecture is designed to automatically estimate the system's context, dynamically schedule various connections and/or packets to different interfaces, be backwards compatible with the current Internet architecture, and provide the user with incentives for collaboration. We also formulate the OSCAR scheduler as a multi-objective, multi-modal scheduler that maximizes system throughput while minimizing energy consumption or financial cost. We evaluate OSCAR via implementation on Linux, as well as via simulation, and compare our results to the current optimal achievable throughput, cost, and energy consumption. Our evaluation shows that, in the throughput maximization mode, we provide up to 150% enhancement in throughput compared to current operating systems, without any changes to legacy servers. Moreover, this performance gain further increases with the availability of connection resume-supporting, or OSCAR-enabled servers, reaching the maximum achievable upper-bound throughput

A value-based corporate leadership in the areas of conflit between profit maximization and business ethics

A corporate leadership aims at maximizing profits in order to secure long-term existence. The concept of a value-based corporate leadership includes a concept of increasing value, which refers to the enhancement of shareholder value. Leadership behavior and value-based leadership is primarily based on the profit interests of a firm’s shareholders. Investments in the firm are mainly focused on increasing shareholder value. This monistic focus on maximizing profits contrasts with economic ethical guidelines, which evolves in the context of sustainable responsibility and business ethics, since these two concepts diverge due to their different objectives. To practice ethics in the capital market, it requires renunciation and long-term rethinking. Economize cost-effectively and gaining profits is the first objective of any firm. However, it is an inherent ambivalence of a mutual condition of the economy and morale, which is reflected in the market economy and in the economic middle class. Nowadays, more and more firms get involved with regard to social responsibility and corporate leadership. Monetary and material donations for public facilities are provided, volunteering or free services are offered. This selfevident, social engagement is receiving increased appeal and hearing in public. As a result, firms not only demonstrate their social responsibility, but at the same time improve their image. But is this sufficient to withstand a value-based corporate leadership in the areas of conflict between profit maximization and business ethics? A value-based corporate leadership has to succeed in connecting the responsibility of the firm and its entrepreneurial and ethical perspectives, so that it serves in a supportive way and pursues a common goal. This attitude is justified in arguing that firms are not only necessarily dependent on operating profitably, but also on gaining social acceptance, which legitimize its economic actions. A successful corporate leadership has to go hand in hand with the concepts of profit maximization and the moral commitment of a firm. Moral commitment strengthens the foundation of legitimacy of entrepreneurial actions. The later presented Holistic Value Driver Scorecard is the main content of this work and the author´s contribution to science. The aim of this work is to provide firms a managerial tool to improve their business processes and detect value drivers as well as destroyers

再生可能エネルギー駆動型無線メッシュネットワークにおける通信と電力効率の最適化に関する研究

Tohoku University加藤寧課

Optimization of combine processes using expert knowledge and methods of artificial intelligence

Combine harvesters are used to gather plants from the field and separate them into the components of value, the grain and the straw. The optimal utilization of existing combine potential is an inevitable task to maximize harvest efficiency and hence to maximize profit. The only way to optimize the threshing and separation processes during harvest is to adjust the combine settings to existing conditions. Operating permanently at optimal harvest efficiency can only be achieved by an automatic control system. However, for reasons of transparency and due to lack of sensors, the approach in this thesis is a combined development of an interactive and an automatic control system for combine process optimization. The optimization of combine processes is a multi-dimensional and multi-objective optimization problem. The objectives of optimization are the harvest quality parameters. The decision variables, the parameters that can be modified, are the combine settings. Analytical optimization methods require the existence of a model that provides function values in dependence of defined input parameters. A comprehensive quantitative model for the input-output-behavior of the combine does not exist. Alternative optimization methods that handle multi-dimensional and multi-objective optimization problems can be found in the domain of Artificial Intelligence. In this work, knowledge acquisition was performed in order to obtain expert knowledge on combine process optimization. The result is a knowledge base with six adjustment matrices for different crop and combine types. The adjustment matrices contain problem oriented setting adjustment recommendations in order to solve single issues with quality parameters. A control algorithm has been developed that is also capable of solving multiple issues at the same time, utilizing the acquired expert knowledge. The basic principle to solve the given multi-objective optimization problem is a transformation into one-dimensional single-objective optimization problems which are solved iteratively. Several methods have been developed that are applied sequentially. In simulation, the average improvement from initial settings to optimized settings, achieved by the control algorithm, is between 34.5 % and 67.6 %. This demonstrates the good performance of the control algorithm

Traffic Scheduling in Point-to-Multipoint OFDMA-based Systems

The new generation of wireless networks (e.g., WiMAX, LTE-Advanced, Cognitive Radio) support many high resource-consuming services (e.g., VoIP, video conference, multiplayer interactive gaming, multimedia streaming, digital video broadcasting, mobile commerce). The main problem of such networks is that the bandwidth is limited, besides to be subject to fading process, and shared among multiple users. Therefore, a combination of sophisticated transmission techniques (e.g., OFDMA) and proper packet scheduling algorithms is necessary, in order to provide applications with suitable quality of service. This Thesis addresses the problem of traffic scheduling in Point-to-Multipoint OFDMA-based systems. We formally prove that in such systems, even a simple scheduling problem of a Service Class at a time, is NP-complete, therefore, computationally intractable. An optimal solution is unfeasible in term of time, thus, fast and simple scheduling heuristics are needed. First, we address the Best Effort traffic scheduling issue, in a system adopting variable-length Frames, with the objective of producing a legal schedule (i.e., the one meeting all system constraints) of minimum length. Besides, we present fast and simple heuristics, which generate suboptimal solutions, and evaluate their performance in the average case, as in the worst one. Then, we investigate the scheduling of Real Time traffic, with the objective of meeting as many deadlines as possible, or equivalently, minimizing the packet drop ratio. Specifically, we propose two scheduling heuristics, which apply two different resource allocation mechanisms, and evaluate their average-case performance by means of a simulation experiment

Antecipação na tomada de decisão com múltiplos critérios sob incerteza

Orientador: Fernando José Von ZubenTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: A presença de incerteza em resultados futuros pode levar a indecisões em processos de escolha, especialmente ao elicitar as importâncias relativas de múltiplos critérios de decisão e de desempenhos de curto vs. longo prazo. Algumas decisões, no entanto, devem ser tomadas sob informação incompleta, o que pode resultar em ações precipitadas com consequências imprevisíveis. Quando uma solução deve ser selecionada sob vários pontos de vista conflitantes para operar em ambientes ruidosos e variantes no tempo, implementar alternativas provisórias flexíveis pode ser fundamental para contornar a falta de informação completa, mantendo opções futuras em aberto. A engenharia antecipatória pode então ser considerada como a estratégia de conceber soluções flexíveis as quais permitem aos tomadores de decisão responder de forma robusta a cenários imprevisíveis. Essa estratégia pode, assim, mitigar os riscos de, sem intenção, se comprometer fortemente a alternativas incertas, ao mesmo tempo em que aumenta a adaptabilidade às mudanças futuras. Nesta tese, os papéis da antecipação e da flexibilidade na automação de processos de tomada de decisão sequencial com múltiplos critérios sob incerteza é investigado. O dilema de atribuir importâncias relativas aos critérios de decisão e a recompensas imediatas sob informação incompleta é então tratado pela antecipação autônoma de decisões flexíveis capazes de preservar ao máximo a diversidade de escolhas futuras. Uma metodologia de aprendizagem antecipatória on-line é então proposta para melhorar a variedade e qualidade dos conjuntos futuros de soluções de trade-off. Esse objetivo é alcançado por meio da previsão de conjuntos de máximo hipervolume esperado, para a qual as capacidades de antecipação de metaheurísticas multi-objetivo são incrementadas com rastreamento bayesiano em ambos os espaços de busca e dos objetivos. A metodologia foi aplicada para a obtenção de decisões de investimento, as quais levaram a melhoras significativas do hipervolume futuro de conjuntos de carteiras financeiras de trade-off avaliadas com dados de ações fora da amostra de treino, quando comparada a uma estratégia míope. Além disso, a tomada de decisões flexíveis para o rebalanceamento de carteiras foi confirmada como uma estratégia significativamente melhor do que a de escolher aleatoriamente uma decisão de investimento a partir da fronteira estocástica eficiente evoluída, em todos os mercados artificiais e reais testados. Finalmente, os resultados sugerem que a antecipação de opções flexíveis levou a composições de carteiras que se mostraram significativamente correlacionadas com as melhorias observadas no hipervolume futuro esperado, avaliado com dados fora das amostras de treinoAbstract: The presence of uncertainty in future outcomes can lead to indecision in choice processes, especially when eliciting the relative importances of multiple decision criteria and of long-term vs. near-term performance. Some decisions, however, must be taken under incomplete information, what may result in precipitated actions with unforeseen consequences. When a solution must be selected under multiple conflicting views for operating in time-varying and noisy environments, implementing flexible provisional alternatives can be critical to circumvent the lack of complete information by keeping future options open. Anticipatory engineering can be then regarded as the strategy of designing flexible solutions that enable decision makers to respond robustly to unpredictable scenarios. This strategy can thus mitigate the risks of strong unintended commitments to uncertain alternatives, while increasing adaptability to future changes. In this thesis, the roles of anticipation and of flexibility on automating sequential multiple criteria decision-making processes under uncertainty are investigated. The dilemma of assigning relative importances to decision criteria and to immediate rewards under incomplete information is then handled by autonomously anticipating flexible decisions predicted to maximally preserve diversity of future choices. An online anticipatory learning methodology is then proposed for improving the range and quality of future trade-off solution sets. This goal is achieved by predicting maximal expected hypervolume sets, for which the anticipation capabilities of multi-objective metaheuristics are augmented with Bayesian tracking in both the objective and search spaces. The methodology has been applied for obtaining investment decisions that are shown to significantly improve the future hypervolume of trade-off financial portfolios for out-of-sample stock data, when compared to a myopic strategy. Moreover, implementing flexible portfolio rebalancing decisions was confirmed as a significantly better strategy than to randomly choosing an investment decision from the evolved stochastic efficient frontier in all tested artificial and real-world markets. Finally, the results suggest that anticipating flexible choices has lead to portfolio compositions that are significantly correlated with the observed improvements in out-of-sample future expected hypervolumeDoutoradoEngenharia de ComputaçãoDoutor em Engenharia Elétric

In Focus of Comparing with Korean Case

This study predicts the short – term manpower demand of the shipping and port logistics industry in Malaysia by applying trend analysis and regression analysis on the relevant industrial indicators. Forecasted results are then compared to the outcomes of the forecasted result for human resource demand in Korea. Coping with Malaysia’s new port development at Straits of Malacca, the over dependency on foreign labour force is highlighted across the mass media. Hence, this study would like to draw focal attention on the urge to gather data from all relevant sub – sectors of shipping and port logistics industry in Malaysia; and then forecast in detail the total manpower demand for the abovementioned industry. On top of that, this study also aims to provide a specific overview on the changes of employment trends over the years for all sub – sectors relevant to shipping and port logistics industry in Malaysia. This study utilizes data from ‘ Economy Census Report 2011 – Transportation and Storage Services’ published by Department of Statistics Malaysia which is usually updated once in every 5 year starting from 2000 with reference to the year before. Hence, this paper has used data from year 2000 to year 2010 to forecast the required manpower for year 2011. Result shows that the total short – term forecasted human resource demand for year 2011 is 75, 956 people. Comparing to year 2010, it is a slight decrease of 0.44%. Meanwhile, the findings of this study reveals that the sub – sectors of shipping and port logistics industry in Malaysia are segregated at the moment. In general, shipping and port logistics industry in Malaysia are delegated to be under Ministry of Transport ( MOT ) Malaysia, together with road as well as air transport. Data provisions relevant to shipping and port logistics industry in Malaysia are reflected to be segregated as it is inconsistent with industrial standard of the nation. Instead, data is always provided generally under titles such as ‘ Sea Transport ’, ‘ Cargo Handling and Stevedoring Services’, ‘ Storage and Warehousing ’, ‘ Port Operations ’ and the like in various reports for ‘ Transportation and Storage Services ’. Owing to the distinctive characteristics of the mentioned businesses, this study justified that precise and comprehensive data provision in accordance to a nation’s standard industrial code as what we could find in Korean case, is very fundamental. If Malaysia aims to become unrivalled maritime nation, identifying exact talent gap by investigating all relevant sub – sectors, is necessary. On the other hand, the research limitation of this paper states that the outdated data as well as small data sample size has restricted the quality of this study. Hence, this study proposes Malaysia to constantly update the statistics for accurate short – term forecasts due to the nature of shipping and port logistics industry which is subjected to cornucopian internal and external influences in this ever – changing world. For a better understanding of the changes in employment trend over the years, we will need more data input. Specifically, bigger data sample could be attained in terms of having data for more industrial variables ( such as number of facilities and storages, sales values ) and more years. As a sum, this study intends to call for attention on the specific data provisions for a longer period of time. The former could ensure better overall understanding of the different kinds of business nature and needs within the shipping and port logistics industry; while the latter could more adequately verify the forecasting results obtained. With this, this paper wishes to provide some insights into policy implications for the development of shipping and port logistics industry. To a larger extent, devising good policies which suit the characteristics of respective sub – sectors within shipping and port logistics could definitely facilitate effective nurturing process of talented manpower for shipping and port logistics industry in long term.|본 논문은 말레이시아 (Malaysia) 해운·항만 물류산업의 단기 인력수요 예측에 관하여 연구하였다. 말레이시아 해운 항만물류 산업과 연관된 지표들을 사용하여 추세분석과 회귀분석을 통해 직접적인 단기 인력수요에 대한 예측치를 제시하였다. 그리고 말레이시아 해운 항만물류 산업의 인력수요 예측결과를 한국의 해운 항만물류 산업 인력수요 예측결과와 비교하였다. 말라카 해협의 항만개발이 진행됨에 따라 해운 항만물류 산업의 인력수요가 증가하고 있는데, 외국인 노동력자에 대한 의존도가 높은 것이 문제점으로 지적되고 있다. 이러한 상황에서 본 연구는 말레이시아의 해운·항만 물류산업의 인력수요 예측 정확성을 높이기 위해 관련 데이터들을 수집하여 해운 항만물류 산업의 미래 인력수요를 예측해 보고자 하였다. 이 연구는 말레이시아 해운 항마물류 산업의 세부 업종별 소요인력 추세를 분석하고 이를 통해 산업의 전반적인 인력수요를 예측하였다. 말레이시아의 해운·항만 물류산업들은 독립된 산업영역을 구축하고 있지 않다. 말레이시아의 해운 항만 물류산업은 내륙 및 항공 운송산업과 함께 교통부 (Ministry of Transport; MOT)에서 총괄하여 주관하고 있다. 말레이시아 교통부의 해운·항만 물류산업 유관분야에 관해 집계되는 데이터들은 일반적으로 ‘해상운송업’, ‘화물하역 서비스업’, ‘물류창고업’, ‘항만관리 및 운영업’, 그리고 ‘운송 및 보관 서비스업’을 포함하고 있다. 해운 항만물류 산업은 다양한 업종을 포함하고 있으므로, 타 산업과 달리 산업의 세부분류에 따른 데이터의 정의 및 분류를 명확히 할 필요가 있다. 이를 위해 본 연구에서는 말레이시아 해운 항만물류 산업의 세부분류의 구분을 한국의 표준산업분류 코드에 기초하여 해당 데이터들을 분류하였다. 말레이시아가 해양강국을 지향한다면 해운 항만물류 산업의 세부업종별 인력 수요와 공급에 대한 조사를 통해 수급상의 정확한 갭을 확인하여야 할 것이다. 또한, 본연구는 말레이시아 해운 항만물류 산업의 단기 인력수요 예측의 정확성을 높이기 위해서 관련 최신 통계자료들을 지속적으로 집계하여 갱신할 필요가 있다는 것을 제안하였다. 해운·항만 물류산업은 급변하고 있는 세계경기에 따라 지속적으로 대·내외적인 영향을 받고 있다. 그러므로 해운 망만물류 산업의 변화의 추세와 미래동향을 정확히 알기 위해서는 산업 내외의 다양한 관련지표의 수집 뿐만 아니라 이들 데이터를 장기간에 걸쳐 확보하는 것이 필수적이다. 결론적으로 본 연구는 장기간에 걸친 양질의 세분화된 데이터의 수집 및 확보 필요성을 강조한다. 말레이시아 해운 항만물류 산업의 세부 업종별 테이터는 다양한 업종의 사업특성과 요구사항을 잘 이해할 수 있도록 해주며, 장기간의 데이터는 예측결과의 정확성을 높여준다. 이 연구는 말레이시아 해운 항만물류 산업에 대한 정책의 실행 방향성을 제시하였다. 본 연구를 통해 장기적인 관점에서 말레이시아 해운·항만 물류산업의 효과적인 인력양성이 촉진될 것으로 기대한다.Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Importance and Objectives of this Research 1 1.2 Methodology and Scope of Research 5 Chapter 2 Literature Review 7 2.1 Theoretical Discussion of Industrial Human Resource Supply and Demand 7 2.1.1 The importance of Human Resource Planning 7 2.1.2 Methodology of Forecasting Human Resource Demand 12 2.1.3 Overview Projections of Human Resource Forecasting across Nations and the Major Labour Market Models 26 2.1.4 Functions of Labour Market Outlook 34 2.1.5 Previous Researches Pertinent to Forecasting Human Resource Demand and Supply Plan 36 2.2 Human Resource Forecasting of Maritime Industry 41 2.2.1 Forecasted Seafarers Shortage by BIMCO / ICS 41 2.3 Human Resource Forecasting in Malaysia 45 2.3.1 The Beginning of Human Resource Planning 45 2.3.2 Agencies Related to Labour Force of Malaysia 46 2.3.3 Structure of Malaysia’s Current Workforce 49 Chapter 3 Malaysia’s Shipping and Port Logistics 50 3.1 Overview of the Maritime Industry of Malaysia 50 3.1.1 Overview of the Maritime Industry of Malaysia 50 3.1.2 Illustration of Malaysia’s Maritime Industry Structure, Maritime Governance Structure, Maritime Cluster as well as Maritime Ancillary and Support Industries 52 3.1.3 Malaysia’s Merchant Fleet Size by Deadweight Tonnes 57 3.2 Economic Contribution of Maritime Industry in Malaysia 58 3.3 Malaysia’s Port and Logistics 64 3.4 Issues Encountered & Future Needed Developments 69 3.5 The Main Challenge - Over – reliance on Foreign Seafarers / Shortage of Local Qualified Seafarers 71 Chapter 4 Data Analysis 73 4.1 Data Inputs for the 5 Sub – sectors with Meaningful Data 74 4.2 Data Analysis of Forecasting Human Resource Demand in Shipping and Port Logistics Malaysia 84 4.2.1 Sea Transport 84 4.2.2 Cargo Handling and Stevedoring Services 87 4.2.3 Storage and Warehousing 90 4.2.4 Port Operation 93 4.2.5 Shipping and Forwarding Companies 96 4.2.6 Summary of the Short – term Forecasted Human Resource Demand for Shipping and Port Logistics Malaysia in 2011 99 4.3 Comparison between Malaysia’s and Korea’s Human Resource Forecast 100 4.3.1 Comparison of Classifications of Sub – sectors for Shipping and Port Logistics in Malaysia and Korea 100 4.3.2 Comparison between Malaysia and Korea Regarding the Input Factors for Human Resource Demand Forecast of Shipping and Port Logistics Industry ( According to Each Sub – sectors ) 103 4.3.3 Comparison between Malaysia and Korea Regarding the Forecasting Approaches and Summary of Meaningful Results of Human Resource Demand Forecasts for Shipping and Port Logistics Industry ( According to Each Sub – sectors ) 105 4.4 Discussion and Implementation 107 4.5 Planning Human Resource Supply 113 Chapter 5 Conclusion 116 5.1 Review of Findings 116 5.2 Research Limitations 117 5.3 Implications and Recommendations for Future Research 121 Reference 123Maste

Information design in service systems and online markets

In mechanism design, the firm has an advantage over its customers in its knowledge of the state of the system, which can affect the utilities of all players. This poses the question: how can the firm utilize that information (and not additional financial incentives) to persuade customers to take actions that lead to higher revenue (or other firm utility)? When the firm is constrained to ``cheap talk,'' and cannot credibly commit to a manner of signaling, the firm cannot change customer behavior in a meaningful way. Instead, we allow firm to commit to how they will signal in advance. Customers can then trust the signals they receive and act on their realization. This thesis contains the work of three papers, each of which applies information design to service systems and online markets. We begin by examining how a firm could signal a queue's length to arriving, impatient customers in a service system. We show that the choice of an optimal signaling mechanism can be written as a infinite linear program and then show an intuitive form for its optimal solution. We show that with the optimal fixed price and optimal signaling, a firm can generate the same revenue as it could with an observable queue and length-dependent variable prices. Next, we study demand and inventory signaling in online markets: customers make strategic purchasing decisions, knowing the price will decrease if an item does not sell out. The firm aims to convince customers to buy now at a higher price. We show that the optimal signaling mechanism is public, and sends all customers the same information. Finally, we consider customers whose ex ante utility is not simply their expected ex post utility, but instead a function of its distribution. We bound the number of signals needed for the firm to generate their optimal utility and provide a convex program reduction of the firm's problem