Carbon Articulating Backpack Spine

In the field, firefighters and Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) personnel need to transport variable loads efficiently, safely, and comfortably while simultaneously performing certain physical tasks. Current models of external and internal framed backpacks distribute the load of a pack efficiently, but do not allow for the natural movement of the wearer. Wolfpack Gear, Inc. proposed the need for a system which both effectively carries a load and allows for the unhindered natural movement of the user. The goal of this project was to design, build, and test an articulating backpack support system. The first stage of the project comprised of the groundwork necessary to establish a design concept: defining the problem, outlining the scope of the project, researching the current market and patents, and completing an extensive brainstorming and ideation phase. The second quarter of the project focused on turning the proposed concept into a concrete design through engineering analysis, extensive solid modeling, and initial prototyping. The final phase of the project was to construct a functional prototype that was then tested and iterated upon

test of cloud federation in chain reds project

Cloud Computing is considered a successful technology, involving distributed computation infrastructures, which take advantage of the virtualization of physical resources to actuate useful scale economies. In cloud ecosystems today, attention increasingly focuses on cooperation issues, mostly in the wider context of federation. Cloud federation refers to the process of interconnecting different cloud infrastructures for resource load balancing and to manage demand spikes. One of the biggest advantages of a federated cloud consists of the possibility of distributing the workload over different cloud providers, rather than obtaining cloud services from just a single supplier. In addition, federation could be very important for Big Data, for example, to implement policies allowing migration for virtual machines involved in data analysis next to storage hosting Big Data. Federation, automation, standards, and interoperability are crucial for cloud computing services to be successful in the near future. Standards are crucial for both interoperability and federation, and federation is the first step toward interoperability. The idea we describe in this paper comes from the assumption that some of Cloud Infrastructure offering IaaS (e.g., OpenStack, OpenNebula) provide interfaces based on the OCCI standard, but lack an interconnecting cooperation/federation awareness layer. We propose a software infrastructure able to provide a homogeneous interface among different Cloud managers, in order to coordinate the IaaS resources in a transparent and distributed manner. We have implemented such software, based on CLEVER, a novel Cloud Middleware jointly developed by INFN Catania and the University of Messina, which uses XMPP as interconnecting communication protocol. We also present: an interface for the Catania Science Gateway Framework implementing a simple dashboard a testbed used in the framework of the CHAIN-REDS Project, which includes sites belonging to the EGI Federated Cloud. This work shows that cloud federation using standards is feasible

Ultralow loading electroless deposition of IrOx on nickel foam for efficient and stable water oxidation catalysis

Abstract Photocatalysis and electrolysis are crucial processes for the development of a sustainable, clean energy system, since they enable solar fuel production, such as hydrogen by water splitting, as well as CO2 reduction. In these processes efficient and robust catalysts for water oxidation are required and the reduction of employed amount of noble metals is crucial to reduce costs and increase the sustainability of the technology. To obtain extremely low iridium loading on nickel foam electrodes we have employed electroless deposition by spontaneous galvanic displacement as a simple, low cost, highly scalable technique. After deposition the Ir oxidation has been achieved by annealing in air at 250 °C. By varying the deposition parameters, an optimal condition has been achieved, with an overpotential for water oxidation of 360 mV at 10 mA cm−2 in 1.0 M KOH solution. The Ni foam coverage with Ir oxide has also a positive impact on the electrode stability, strongly decreasing the degradation rate, compared to the case of bare Ni foam. The average amount of noble metal in the best performing electrode is only 35 μg cm−2 for a 1.6 mm thick Ni foam electrode. The proposed approach is highly promising for gas diffusion electrodes, and can be implemented in electrolytic cells, as well as in fuel cells

A Model for Accomplishing and Managing Dynamic Cloud Federations

Cloud computing is not just a promising approach to the service provisioning: nowadays it represents the reference model in such field. Several cloud service providers have emerged as de facto standards and an increasing number of companies are choosing to migrate their business in the Cloud "ecosystem". Nevertheless, each provider adopts a particular interface to manage its services and uses a proprietary technology. In this paper we present a cloud federation model which is able to provide scalability and flexibility to small clouds. The idea is to benefit of renting seamless resources according to federation agreements among operators. The challenge here is to overcome all the problems raising trying to merge small clouds with heterogeneous administrative domains

The Sicilian Grid Infrastructure for High Performance Computing

The conjugation of High Performance Computing (HPC) and Grid paradigm with applications based on commercial software is one among the major challenges of today e-Infrastructures. Several research communities from either industry or academia need to run high parallel applications based on licensed software over hundreds of CPU cores; a satisfactory fulfillment of such requests is one of the keys for the penetration of this computing paradigm into the industry world and sustainability of Grid infrastructures. This problem has been tackled in the context of the PI2S2 project that created a regional e-Infrastructure in Sicily, the first in Italy over a regional area. Present article will describe the features added in order to integrate an HPC facility into the PI2S2 Grid infrastructure, the adoption of the InifiniBand low-latency net connection, the gLite middleware extended to support MPI/MPI2 jobs, the newly developed license server and the specific scheduling policy adopted. Moreover, it will show the results of some relevant use cases belonging to Computer Fluid-Dynamics (Fluent, OpenFOAM), Chemistry (GAMESS), Astro-Physics (Flash) and Bio-Informatics (ClustalW))

The Sicilian Grid Infrastructure for High Performance Computing

The conjugation of High Performance Computing (HPC) and Grid paradigm with applications based on commercial software is one among the major challenges of today e-Infrastructures. Several research communities from either industry or academia need to run high parallel applications based on licensed software over hundreds of CPU cores; a satisfactory fulfillment of such requests is one of the keys for the penetration of this computing paradigm into the industry world and sustainability of Grid infrastructures. This problem has been tackled in the context of the PI2S2 project that created a regional e-Infrastructure in Sicily, the first in Italy over a regional area. Present paper will describe the features added in order to integrate an HPC facility into the PI2S2 Grid infrastructure, the adoption of the InifiniBand low-latency net connection, the gLite middleware extended to support MPI/MPI2 jobs, the newly developed license server and the specific scheduling policy adopted. Moreover, it will show the results of some relevant use cases belonging to Computer Fluid-Dynamics (Fluent, OpenFOAM), Chemistry (GAMESS), Astro-Physics (Flash) and Bio-Informatics (ClustalW))

Sensori indossabili a basso costo per analisi del cammino: tool di acquisizione con interfaccia grafica user-friendly e valutazione tecnica di performance rispetto uno standard commerciale

il seguente lavoro di tesi è incentrato sullo sviluppo di un interfaccia grafica "user-friendly" in Python per la configurazione, acquisizione e gestione dei dati da sensore indossabile MetaMotionR, della mbient.inc. L'applicazione sviluppata è stata quindi utilizzata per andare ad effettuare test tecnici di caratterizzazione delle performance, messi a confronto con uno standard commerciale rappresentato dal device Opal, Apdm. Nello specifico, sono stati effettuati test per valutare: la reale frequenza di acquisizione, bias sul segnale in differenti configurazioni di fondoscala, ortogonalità degli assi. inoltre, sono stati effettuati test di performance sui task specifici di Normal walking e Tandem Walking, andando a valutare l'errore nell'identificazione di Heel Strike e Toe Off, e dei parametri temporali descrittori del ciclo del passo, considerando differenti casistiche rilevanti

Multi-Master Profibus DP Modelling and Worst Case Analysis-Based Evaluation

This paper provides an analysis of the real-time behaviour of the multimaster Profibus DP network. The analysis presented is compared with a similar work present in literature, pointing out its capability to perform a more accurate evaluation of the performance of the Profibus network. The analysis is based on the evaluation of the worst-case message response time taking into account the coexistence of high and low priority traffic. Copyright 2002 IFAC Keywords: Fieldbuses, Profibus, Real-Time Systems, Worst Case Response Time Analysis

Designing Real-Time Systems Based On Mono-Master Profibus-Dp Networks

Profibus networks are widely used as the communication infrastructure for supporting distributed computer-controlled applications. Most of the times, these applications impose strict real-time requirements. Profibus-DP has gradually become the preferred Profibus application profile. It is usually implemented as a mono-master Profibus network, and is optimised for speed and efficiency. The aim of this paper is to analyse the real-time behaviour of this class of Profibus networks. Importantly, we develop a new methodology for evaluating the worst-case message response time in systems where high-priority and cyclic low-priority Profibus traffic coexist. The proposed analysis constitutes a powerful tool to guarantee prior to runtime the real-time behaviour of a distributed computer-controlled system based on a Profibus network, where the realtime traffic is supported either by high-priority or by cyclic poll Profibus messages