Automated bidding for trading grid services

For decades markets have been proposed for allocating computer resources in distributed systems like the Clusters or Grids. Nevertheless, none of these approaches has made it into practice. The reasons for the adoption failure of markets are manifold. One reason that has been hitherto rarely discussed is the bidding process. Theoretic approaches assume that the bidders know how to derive their bids exactly. This does not only include the specific computer resource, which is needed at some time in the future, but also the price. This assumption simplifies reality and can thus not contribute to the development of markets in Grid. What is needed to establish a prospering market for Grid resources are rules how to conduct the bidding. Since demand and supply are extremely dynamic in computing resources, manual bidding is too slow to accommodate abrupt shifts in demand or supply. This paper introduces a policy based autonomous agent approach for automated bidding. By means of the policies resource providers and consumers can specify the way how they trade Grid resources (e.g., resource isolation definitions, security specifications)

Negotiated economic grid brokering for quality of service

We demonstrate a Grid broker's job submission system and its selection process for finding the provider that is most likely to be able to complete work on time and on budget. We compare several traditional site selection mechanisms with an economic and Quality of Service (QoS) oriented approach. We show how a greater profit and QoS can be achieved if jobs are accepted by the most appropriate provider. We particularly focus upon the benefits of a negotiation process for QoS that enables our selection process to occur

Prostaglandin E2 Regulates AMPA Receptor Phosphorylation and Promotes Membrane Insertion in Preoptic Area Neurons and Glia during Sexual Differentiation

Sexual differentiation of the rodent brain is dependent upon the organizing actions of the steroid hormone, estradiol. In the preoptic area, a brain region critical for the expression of adult reproductive behavior, there are twice as many dendritic spine synapses per unit length on newborn male neurons compared to female neurons and this sex difference correlates with the expression of adult male copulatory behavior. The sex difference in the POA is achieved via estradiol's upregulation of the membrane-derived lipid signaling molecule prostaglandin E2 (PGE2); PGE2 is necessary and sufficient to masculinize both dendritic spine density and adult sexual behavior in rats. We have previously shown that PGE2 activates EP2 and EP4 receptors which increases protein kinase A (PKA) activity and that masculinized dendritic spine density and sex behavior are both dependent upon PKA as well as activation of AMPA type glutamate receptors. In the current experiments, we build upon this signaling cascade by determining that PGE2 induces phosphorylation of the AMPA receptor subunit, GluR1, which leads to increased AMPA receptor insertion at the membrane. Treating female pups on the day of birth with PGE2 induced the phosphorylation of GluR1 at the PKA-sensitive site within 2 hours of treatment, an effect that was blocked by co-administration of the PKA/AKAP inhibitor, HT31 with PGE2. Brief treatment of mixed neuronal/glial POA cultures with PGE2 or the cAMP/PKA stimulator, forskolin, increased membrane associated GluR1 in both neurons and glia. We speculate that PGE2 induced increases in AMPA receptor associated with the membrane underlies our previously observed increase in dendritic spine density and is a critical component in the masculinization of rodent sex behavior

A grid broker pricing mechanism for temporal and budget guarantees

We introduce a pricing mechanism for Grid computing, with the aim of showing how a broker can accept the most appropriate jobs to be computed on time and on budget. We analyse the mechanism’s performance via discrete event simulation, and illustrate its viability, the benefits of a new admission policy and to how slack relates to machine heterogeneity

SORMA - business cases for an open grid market: concept and implementation

Economic mechanisms enhance technological solutions by setting the right incentives to reveal information about demand and supply accurately. Market or pricing mechanisms are ones that foster information exchange and can therefore attain efficient allocation. By assigning a value (also called utility) to their service requests, users can reveal their relative urgency or costs to the service. The implementation of theoretical sound models induce further complex challenges. The EU-funded project SORMA analyzes these challenges and provides a prototype as a proof-of-concept. In this paper the approach within the SORMA-project is described on both conceptual and technical level

An auction-based approach for composite web service selection

Web service composition (WSC) offers a range of solutions for rapid creation of complex applications by facilitating the composition of already existing concrete web services. One critical challenge in WSC is the dynamic selection of concrete services to be bound to the abstract composite service. In our research, we identify and elaborate on the challenges involved on developing a market-based mechanism for composite service selection. We propose a combinatorial procurement auction model as a useful approach to research service selection, in order to overcome the limitations of the current optimization-based and negotiation-based solutions. The proposed auction model supports dynamic pricing for the offered web services, enables the providers to express their preferences more fully, and creates the incentive for the providers to be truthful about the offered prices

Bilderfassungs-/Auswertesystem zur intelligenten Fahrerunterstuetzung und Verkehrserfassung. Teil: Sensorchip mit konfigurierbarer Signalauslesung fuer hohe Beleuchtungsdynamik (Elektronisches Auge-BASTA) Abschlussbericht

The presented High Dynamic Range CMOS image sensor was developed as part of an image processing system for intelligent driver assistance. This image processing system uses special sensor functions like the random access to the pixels or subframes as part of its operations. The image sensors with 512 x 256 and 720 x 576 pixels are fabricated in 0,5 micron respective 0,35 micron technology and are in compliance with the automotive requirements. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: F99B1427+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman