5,363 research outputs found
Enabling Personalized Composition and Adaptive Provisioning of Web Services
The proliferation of interconnected computing devices is fostering the emergence of environments where Web services made available to mobile users are a commodity. Unfortunately, inherent limitations of mobile devices still hinder the seamless access to Web services, and their use in supporting complex user activities. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of a distributed, adaptive, and context-aware framework for personalized service composition and provisioning adapted to mobile users. Users specify their preferences by annotating existing process templates, leading to personalized service-based processes. To cater for the possibility of low bandwidth communication channels and frequent disconnections, an execution model is proposed whereby the responsibility of orchestrating personalized processes is spread across the participating services and user agents. In addition, the execution model is adaptive in the sense that the runtime environment is able to detect exceptions and react to them according to a set of rules
Properties of pedestrians walking in line: Stepping behavior
In human crowds, interactions among individuals give rise to a variety of
self-organized collective motions that help the group to effectively solve the
problem of coordination. However, it is still not known exactly how humans
adjust their behavior locally, nor what are the direct consequences on the
emergent organization. One of the underlying mechanisms of adjusting individual
motions is the stepping dynamics. In this paper, we present first quantitative
analysis on the stepping behavior in a one-dimensional pedestrian flow studied
under controlled laboratory conditions. We find that the step length is
proportional to the velocity of the pedestrian, and is directly related to the
space available in front of him, while the variations of the step duration are
much smaller. This is in contrast with locomotion studies performed on isolated
pedestrians and shows that the local density has a direct influence on the
stepping characteristics. Furthermore, we study the phenomena of
synchronization -walking in lockstep- and show its dependence on flow
densities. We show that the synchronization of steps is particularly important
at high densities, which has direct impact on the studies of optimizing
pedestrians flow in congested situations. However, small synchronization and
antisynchronization effects are found also at very low densities, for which no
steric constraints exist between successive pedestrians, showing the natural
tendency to synchronize according to perceived visual signals.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Properties of pedestrians walking in line - Fundamental diagrams
We present experimental results obtained for a one-dimensional flow using
high precision motion capture. The full pedestrians' trajectories are obtained.
In this paper, we focus on the fundamental diagram, and on the relation between
the instantaneous velocity and spatial headway (distance to the predecessor).
While the latter was found to be linear in previous experiments, we show that
it is rather a piecewise linear behavior which is found if larger density
ranges are covered. Indeed, our data clearly exhibits three distinct regimes in
the behavior of pedestrians that follow each other. The transitions between
these regimes occur at spatial headways of about 1.1 and 3 m, respectively.
This finding could be useful for future modeling.Comment: 9 figures, 3 table
Entangled single-wire NiTi material: a porous metal with tunable superelastic and shape memory properties
NiTi porous materials with unprecedented superelasticity and shape memory
were manufactured by self-entangling, compacting and heat treating NiTi wires.
The versatile processing route used here allows to produce entanglements of
either superelastic or ferroelastic wires with tunable mesostructures. Three
dimensional (3D) X-ray microtomography shows that the entanglement
mesostructure is homogeneous and isotropic. The thermomechanical compressive
behavior of the entanglements was studied using optical measurements of the
local strain field. At all relative densities investigated here ( 25 -
40), entanglements with superelastic wires exhibit remarkable macroscale
superelasticity, even after compressions up to 25, large damping capacity,
discrete memory effect and weak strain-rate and temperature dependencies.
Entanglements with ferroelastic wires resemble standard elastoplastic fibrous
systems with pronounced residual strain after unloading. However, a full
recovery is obtained by heating the samples, demonstrating a large shape memory
effect at least up to 16% strain.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Acta Materiali
The experiences of women with polycystic ovary syndrome on a very low-calorie diet
The research was funded by an educational grant from LighterLife. Broom was the Medical Director for LighterLife at the time of the research. Johnson is the Head of Nutrition and Research at LighterLife. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
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Theory and application of reverberated direct and indirect noise
The generation of a temperature disturbance in a flow is accompanied by the production of acoustic waves (direct noise), and of an entropy perturbation. If this entropy perturbation is accelerated or decelerated (as is the case through a nozzle or flow restriction), additional acoustic waves are generated (indirect noise). Several studies have demonstrated this mechanism in controlled conditions by using Entropy Wave Generators, in which entropy waves are generated and convected through a nozzle, leading to direct and indirect noise. An analytical analysis of the direct and indirect noise produced by the generation and acceleration of entropy waves in a reflective environment is presented. The e ect of reverberation (repeated acoustic reflections) on low-frequency perturbations (characteristic of Entropy Wave Generators) is determined analytically.
These results are then implemented in a set of limit cases, showing the limit behaviours of such systems. The analytical model is applied to the case of the Cambridge Entropy Wave Generator experiment, in which entropy waves are generated by an electric heater and accelerated through a subsonic ori ce plate. Due to the clear time separation of direct
and indirect noise in the experimental results, direct and indirect noise transfer functions can be extracted from the experimental data for the rst time, and compared directly with existing theoretical models. The backward-propagating indirect noise generated at an ori ce plate is shown to be signi cantly higher than predicted by existing theoretical models for isentropic nozzles.EPSRC EP/K02924X/1
Particle interactions and lattice dynamics: Scenarios for efficient bidirectional stochastic transport?
Intracellular transport processes driven by molecular motors can be described
by stochastic lattice models of self-driven particles. Here we focus on
bidirectional transport models excluding the exchange of particles on the same
track. We explore the possibility to have efficient transport in these systems.
One possibility would be to have appropriate interactions between the various
motors' species, so as to form lanes. However, we show that the lane formation
mechanism based on modified attachment/detachment rates as it was proposed
previously is not necessarily connected to an efficient transport state and is
suppressed when the diffusivity of unbound particles is finite. We propose
another interaction mechanism based on obstacle avoidance that allows to have
lane formation for limited diffusion. Besides, we had shown in a separate paper
that the dynamics of the lattice itself could be a key ingredient for the
efficiency of bidirectional transport. Here we show that lattice dynamics and
interactions can both contribute in a cooperative way to the efficiency of
transport. In particular, lattice dynamics can decrease the interaction
threshold beyond which lanes form. Lattice dynamics may also enhance the
transport capacity of the system even when lane formation is suppressed.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, 2 table
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