Incorporating temporal-bounded CBR techniques in real-time agents

Nowadays, MAS paradigm tries to move Computation to a new level of abstraction: Computation as interaction, where large complex systems are seen in terms of the services they offer, and consequently in terms of the entities or agents providing or consuming services. However, MAS technology is found to be lacking in some critical environments as real-time environments. An interaction-based vision of a real-time system involves the purchase of a responsibility by any entity or agent for the accomplishment of a required service under possibly hard or soft temporal conditions. This vision notably increases the complexity of these kinds of systems. The main problem in the architecture development of agents in real-time environments is with the deliberation process where it is difficult to integrate complex bounded deliberative processes for decision-making in a simple and efficient way. According to this, this work presents a temporal-bounded deliberative case-based behaviour as an anytime solution. More specifically, the work proposes a new temporal-bounded CBR algorithm which facilitates deliberative processes for agents in real-time environments, which need both real-time and deliberative capabilities. The paper presents too an application example for the automated management simulation of internal and external mail in a department plant. This example has allowed to evaluate the proposal investigating the performance of the system and the temporal-bounded deliberative case-based behaviour. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work is supported by TIN2006-14630-C03-01 projects of the Spanish government, GVPRE/2008/070 project, FEDER funds and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 under Grant CSD2007-00022.Navarro Llácer, M.; Heras Barberá, SM.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; Botti Navarro, VJ. (2011). Incorporating temporal-bounded CBR techniques in real-time agents. Expert Systems with Applications. 38(3):2783-2796. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2010.08.070S2783279638

Compound hybrid geothermal-fossil power plants: thermodynamic analyses and site-specific applications

The analysis of hybrid fossil-geothermal power plants is extended to compound hybrid systems which combine the features of previously analyzed systems: the geothermal-preheat and the fossil-superheat systems. Compound systems of the one- and two-stage type are considered. A compilation of working formulae from earlier studies is included for completeness. Results are given for parametric analyses of compound hybrid plants. System performance was determined for wellhead conditions of 150, 200, and 250/sup 0/C, and for steam fractions of 10, 20, 30, and 40%. For two-stage systems an additional cycle variable, the hot water flash fraction, was varied from 0 to 100% in increments of 25%. From the viewpoint of thermodynamics, compound hybrid plants are superior to individual all-geothermal and all-fossil plants, and are shown to have certain advantages over basic geothermal-preheat and fossil-superheat hybrid plants. The flexibility of compound hybrid systems is illustrated by showing how such plants might be used at six geothermal sites in the western United States. The question of the optimum match between the energy resources and the power plant is addressed, and an analysis given for a hypothetical geothermal resource

Global Dynamics of Three Anticompetitive Systems of Difference Equations in the Plane

We investigate the global dynamics of several anticompetitive systems of rational difference equations which are special cases of general linear fractional system of the forms ., where all parameters and the initial conditions are arbitrary nonnegative numbers, such that both denominators are positive. We find the basins of attraction of all attractors of these systems

Hybrid Solar-Geothermal Power Generation to Increase the Energy Production from a Binary Geothermal Plant

This article examines how hybridization using solar thermal energy can increase the power output of a geothermal binary power plant that is operating on geothermal fluid conditions that fall short of design values in temperature and flow rate. The power cycle consists of a subcritical organic Rankine cycle using industrial grade isobutane as the working fluid. Each of the power plant units includes two expanders, a vaporizer, a preheater and air-cooled condensers. Aspen Plus was used to model the plant; the model was validated and adjusted by comparing its predictions to data collected during the first year of operation. The model was then run to determine the best strategy for distributing the available geothermal fluid between the two units to optimize the plant for the existing degraded geofluid conditions. Two solar-geothermal hybrid designs were evaluated to assess their ability to increase the power output and the annual energy production relative to the geothermal-only case

A scheduling service for a dynamic real-time CORBA system

Distributed real time applications have presented the need to extend the Object Management Group s (OMG) Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) standard to support real time. The OMG has formed a real time special interest group (RT SIG) to specify requirements for extending CORBA for real time. One of these requirements involves providing global scheduling of all executions to support end to end timing constraints in the real time CORBA system. The paper describes the design and implementation of a real time scheduling service for a Dynamic Real Time CORBA system