Charging Service Compositions in a Service-Oriented Peer-to-Peer Network

Today, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, e.g., filesharing networks like Gnutella, are specialised towards specific purposes. This shortcoming is addressed by introducing a new middleware for P2P networks. The middleware supports the deployment and use of services inside a P2P network. The middleware can be adapted through plug-ins. It includes service negotiation mechanisms which support the creation of legally enforceable service level agreements (SLAs) by using strong identities. This allows to reliably compose services into new value-added services. The business model of service composers has been investigated. The question of how to charge for such service compositions is addressed by introducing an event-based charging model. The events are to be applied in a service consumer\u27s utility function as well as service composers\u27 and service providers\u27 tariff functions. Finally, the relation of these functions determines the profits of a service composer

Introduction | Approaching Potent Substances in Medicine and Ritual across Asia

Introduction to themed research articles on Approaching Potent Substances in Medicine and Ritual across Asia

New approach for determination of strain rate sensitivity of mild steel dc01 under stack compression and uniaxial tensile test

Deformation under uniaxial tensile loading with using Digital Image Correlations (DIC) is the easiest way to analyze the material behavior in sheet metal forming. In order to determine the plastic parameters such as hardening, anisotropy and strain rate sensitivity at higher strain level, equi-biaxial stress state is prerequisite. As reported in the literature, Bulge tests are frequently used for this purpose, but in this work, stack compression test is used as an alternative. In this experiment, deformation in the middle layer where the friction effect is the lowest was monitored using two pairs of DIC systems in rolling and transversal directions. Uniaxial tensile tests as well as stack compression tests were performed on mild ferritic steel DC01 at different strain rates, from 0.001 −1 to 10 −1. Strain rate sensitivity parameter was investigated at different level of strains for both experiments and strain rate sensitivity profiles were obtained. Results show a decrease of material strain rate sensitivity with increasing the true strain

Numerical construction of multipartite entanglement witnesses

Entanglement in multipartite systems is a key resource for quantum information and communication protocols, making its verification in complex systems a necessity. Because an exact calculation of arbitrary entanglement probes is impossible, we derive and implement a numerical method to construct multipartite witnesses to uncover entanglement in arbitrary systems. Our technique is based on a substantial generalization of the power iteration, an essential tool for computing eigenvalues, and it is a solver for the separability eigenvalue equations, enabling the general formulation of optimal entanglement witnesses. Beyond our rigorous derivation and direct implementation of this method, we also apply our approach to several examples of complexly quantum-correlated states and benchmark its general performance. Consequently, we provide an generally applicable numerical tool for the identification of multipartite entanglement

An intelligent agent-controlled and robot-based disassembly assistant

One key for successful and fluent human-robot-collaboration in disassembly processes is equipping the robot system with higher autonomy and intelligence. In this paper, we present an informed software agent that controls the robot behavior to form an intelligent robot assistant for disassembly purposes. While the disassembly process first depends on the product structure, we inform the agent using a generic approach through product models. The product model is then transformed to a directed graph and used to build, share and define a coarse disassembly plan. To refine the workflow, we formulate “the problem of loosening a connection and the distribution of the work” as a search problem. The created detailed plan consists of a sequence of actions that are used to call, parametrize and execute robot programs for the fulfillment of the assistance. The aim of this research is to equip robot systems with knowledge and skills to allow them to be autonomous in the performance of their assistance to finally improve the ergonomics of disassembly workstations

Towards Intelligent Robot Assistants for the non-destructive Disassembly of End of Life Products

The effective collaboration between humans and robots in complex and task rich environments like End of Life product disassembly depends on the ability of the robot to anticipate the workflow as well as the assistance the human co-worker wants. Our approach towards such an intelligent system is the development of an informed software agent that controls the robot assistance behavior. We inform the agent with procedural and declarative knowledge about the disassembly domain through models of the product structure and actor/object models. The product structure is then transformed to a directed graph and used to build, share and define a goal-orientated coarse workflow. Depending on the tasks and wanted assistance, the system can generate adaptable and detailed workflows through searching in the situation space on the basis of predefined and task dependent actions. The created detailed workflow consists of a sequence of actions that are used to call, parameterize and execute robot programs for the fulfillment of the assistance. The aim of this research is to equip robot systems with higher cognitive skills to allow them to be autonomous in the performance of their assistance to improve the ergonomics of disassembly workstations