Parallel Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Co-Processors for Engine Management

Marine diesel engines operate in highly dynamic and uncertain environments, hence they require robust and accurate speed controllers that can handle the encountered uncertainties. Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Controllers (FLCs) have shown that they can handle such uncertainties and give a superior performance to the existing commercial controllers. However, there are a number of computational bottlenecks that pose as significant barriers to the widespread deployment of type-2 FLCs in commercial embedded control systems. This paper explores the use of parallel hardware implementations of interval type-2 FLC as a means to eradicate these barriers thus producing bespoke co-processors for a soft core implementation of a FPGA based 32 bit RISC micro-processor. These co-processors will perform functions such as fuzzification and type reduction and are currently utilised as part of a larger embedded interval Type-2 Fuzzy Engine Management System (T2FEMS). Numerous timing comparisons were undertaken between the co-processors and their sequential counterparts where the type-2 co-processors reduced significantly the computational cycles required by the type-2 FLC. This reduction in computational cycles allowed the T2FEMS to produce faster control responses whilst offering a superior control performance to the commercial engine management systems. Thus the proposed co-processors enable us to fully explore the potential of interval and possibly general type-2 FLCs in commercial embedded applications. © 2007 IEEE

The Fifth International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE 09): a report

The development of intelligent environments is considered an important step towards the realization of the ambient intelligence vision. Intelligent environments are technologically augmented everyday spaces, which intuitively support human activity. The IE conferences traditionally provide a leading edge forum for researchers and engineers to present their latest research and to discuss future directions in the area of intelligent environments. This article briefly presents the content of the Fifth International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE09), which was held July 20–21 at the Castelldefels campus, of the Technical University of Catalonia, near Barcelona, Spain.Postprint (published version

A Web Based Approach to Virtual Appliance Creation, Programming and Management

The Internet and Web technology is advancing at a frantic pace, expanding into almost every aspect of our everyday life. One of the latest scientific activities for the Internet and the Web is the so-called pervasive or ubiquitous computing where networking plays a vital role in its core computational framework. In this, people are able to use the Internet and Web to manage the operation of embedded network devices, services and to coordinate their services in ways that create applications such as smart-homes, smart-offices, smart-cars etc, collectively referred to as intelligent environments. For ordinary people (non technologists) to be able to use this technology, it is required that the interaction between the users and the environment must be as transparent and simple as possible, employing intuitive and user-friendly interfaces wherever possible. A popular approach to empowering users to customise the functionality of their environments is via end-user programming. In this work-in-progress paper we describe an approach based on using a web based GUI to augment earlier work of ours concerning an end user programming paradigm known as Pervasive interactive Programming (PiP), in a way that makes it more flexible and easy to use. By doing this, we present a conceptual model and discuss the issues in developing and using this model. © 2010 IEEE

Virtual laboratories for education in science, technology, and engineering: A review

Within education, concepts such as distance learning, and open universities, are now becoming more widely used for teaching and learning. However, due to the nature of the subject domain, the teaching of Science, Technology, and Engineering are still relatively behind when using new technological approaches (particularly for online distance learning). The reason for this discrepancy lies in the fact that these fields often require laboratory exercises to provide effective skill acquisition and hands-on experience. Often it is difficult to make these laboratories accessible for online access. Either the real lab needs to be enabled for remote access or it needs to be replicated as a fully software-based virtual lab. We argue for the latter concept since it offers some advantages over remotely controlled real labs, which will be elaborated further in this paper. We are now seeing new emerging technologies that can overcome some of the potential difficulties in this area. These include: computer graphics, augmented reality, computational dynamics, and virtual worlds. This paper summarizes the state of the art in virtual laboratories and virtual worlds in the fields of science, technology, and engineering. The main research activity in these fields is discussed but special emphasis is put on the field of robotics due to the maturity of this area within the virtual-education community. This is not a coincidence; starting from its widely multidisciplinary character, robotics is a perfect example where all the other fields of engineering and physics can contribute. Thus, the use of virtual labs for other scientific and non-robotic engineering uses can be seen to share many of the same learning processes. This can include supporting the introduction of new concepts as part of learning about science and technology, and introducing more general engineering knowledge, through to supporting more constructive (and collaborative) education and training activities in a more complex engineering topic such as robotics. The objective of this paper is to outline this problem space in more detail and to create a valuable source of information that can help to define the starting position for future research

Exploratory Research on an Affective e-Learning Model

Abstract. This paper explores how emotion evolves during the learning process with the longer term aim of developing learning systems that are able to recognize and respond appropriately to emotions exhibited by learners. We undertook this research by designing and building an experimental prototype of an emotion aware learning system conducting experiments and studying the relationship between emotion and learning. We report on our initial results which not only indicate there is a usable relationship between affect and learning, but by using the emotion states in Russell's affective model, we have been able to make some significant progress towards experimental validation of Kort's learning spiral model, which has not been empirically validated to-date

Reviewing the scope and thematic focus of 100,000 publications on energy consumption, services and social aspects of climate change: a big data approach to demand-side mitigation

As current action remains insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris agreement let alone to stabilize the climate, there is increasing hope that solutions related to demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation can close the gap. However, given these topics are not investigated by a single epistemic community, the literature base underpinning the associated research continues to be undefined. Here, we aim to delineate a plausible body of literature capturing a comprehensive spectrum of demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation. As method we use a novel double-stacked expert—machine learning research architecture and expert evaluation to develop a typology and map key messages relevant for climate change mitigation within this body of literature. First, relying on the official key words provided to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by governments (across 17 queries), and on specific investigations of domain experts (27 queries), we identify 121 165 non-unique and 99 065 unique academic publications covering issues relevant for demand-side mitigation. Second, we identify a literature typology with four key clusters: policy, housing, mobility, and food/consumption. Third, we systematically extract key content-based insights finding that the housing literature emphasizes social and collective action, whereas the food/consumption literatures highlight behavioral change, but insights also demonstrate the dynamic relationship between behavioral change and social norms. All clusters point to the possibility of improved public health as a result of demand-side solutions. The centrality of the policy cluster suggests that political actions are what bring the different specific approaches together. Fourth, by mapping the underlying epistemic communities we find that researchers are already highly interconnected, glued together by common interests in sustainability and energy demand. We conclude by outlining avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration, synthetic analysis, community building, and by suggesting next steps for evaluating this body of literature