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[EN] This paper presents the potential of open source software for designing educational tools in the automatization field. In particular, this paper presents a complete tool that students can use for studying and testing nonlinear control algorithms. The system has three different parts that students can evaluate and modify. Firstly, a virtual model represents the physical model and, in this case, an inverted pendulum is used. Secondly, the controller is implemented by a real-time distributed control system. Finally, the system can be managed with a JAVA application. Therefore, students have all the necessary elements to practice using nonlinear and complex systems. The main tools applied in the design are open source software and the developed platform is Generalized Public License(GPL). © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[EN] This paper presents the potential of open source software for designing educational tools in the automatization field. In particular, this paper presents a complete tool that students can use for studying and testing nonlinear control algorithms. The system has three different parts that students can evaluate and modify. Firstly, a virtual model represents the physical model and, in this case, an inverted pendulum is used. Secondly, the controller is implemented by a real-time distributed control system. Finally, the system can be managed with a JAVA application. Therefore, students have all the necessary elements to practice using nonlinear and complex systems. The main tools applied in the design are open source software and the developed platform is Generalized Public License(GPL). © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

European river basin authorities are responsible for the implementation of the new river basin management plans in accordance with the European Water Framework Directive. This paper presents a new methodology framework and approach to define and evaluate environmental flow regimes in the realistic complexities that exist with multiple water resource needs at a basin scale. This approach links river basin simulation models and habitat time series analysis to generate ranges of environmental flows (e-flows), which are evaluated by using habitat, hydropower production and reliability of water supply criteria to produce best possible alternatives. With the use of these tools, the effects of the proposed e-flows have been assessed to help in the consultation process. The possible effects analysed are impacts on water supply reliability, hydropower production and aquatic habitat. After public agreements, a heuristic optimization process was applied to maximize e-flows and habitat indicators, while maintaining a legal level of reliability for water resource demands. The final optimal e-flows were considered for the river basin management plans of the Duero river basin. This paper demonstrates the importance of considering quantitative hydrologic and ecological aspects of e-flows at the basin scale in addressing complex water resource systems. This approach merges standard methods such as physical habitat simulations and time series analyses for evaluating alternatives, with recent methods to simulate and optimize water management alternatives in river networks. It can be integrated with or used to complement other frameworks for e-flow assessments such as the In-stream Flow Incremental Methodology and Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration.

European river basin authorities are responsible for the implementation of the new river basin management plans in accordance with the European Water Framework Directive. This paper presents a new methodology framework and approach to define and evaluate environmental flow regimes in the realistic complexities that exist with multiple water resource needs at a basin scale. This approach links river basin simulation models and habitat time series analysis to generate ranges of environmental flows (e-flows), which are evaluated by using habitat, hydropower production and reliability of water supply criteria to produce best possible alternatives. With the use of these tools, the effects of the proposed e-flows have been assessed to help in the consultation process. The possible effects analysed are impacts on water supply reliability, hydropower production and aquatic habitat. After public agreements, a heuristic optimization process was applied to maximize e-flows and habitat indicators, while maintaining a legal level of reliability for water resource demands. The final optimal e-flows were considered for the river basin management plans of the Duero river basin. This paper demonstrates the importance of considering quantitative hydrologic and ecological aspects of e-flows at the basin scale in addressing complex water resource systems. This approach merges standard methods such as physical habitat simulations and time series analyses for evaluating alternatives, with recent methods to simulate and optimize water management alternatives in river networks. It can be integrated with or used to complement other frameworks for e-flow assessments such as the In-stream Flow Incremental Methodology and Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration.

The fat-tree is one of the most common topologies among the interconnection networks of the systems currently used for high-performance parallel computing. Among other advantages, fat-trees allow the use of simple but very efficient routing schemes. One of them is a deterministic routing algorithm that has been recently proposed, offering a similar (or better) performance than adaptive routing while reducing complexity and guaranteeing in-order packet delivery. However, as other deterministic routing proposals, this deterministic routing algorithm cannot react when high traffic loads or hot-spot traffic scenarios produce severe contention for the use of network resources, leading to the appearance of Head-of-Line (HoL) blocking, which spoils the network performance. In that sense, we describe in this paper two simple, cost-effective strategies for dealing with the HoL-blocking problem that may appear in fat-trees with the aforementioned deterministic routing algorithm. From the results presented in the paper, we conclude that, in the mentioned environment, these proposals considerably reduce HoL-blocking without significantly increasing switch complexity and the required silicon area.

The fat-tree is one of the most common topologies among the interconnection networks of the systems currently used for high-performance parallel computing. Among other advantages, fat-trees allow the use of simple but very efficient routing schemes. One of them is a deterministic routing algorithm that has been recently proposed, offering a similar (or better) performance than adaptive routing while reducing complexity and guaranteeing in-order packet delivery. However, as other deterministic routing proposals, this deterministic routing algorithm cannot react when high traffic loads or hot-spot traffic scenarios produce severe contention for the use of network resources, leading to the appearance of Head-of-Line (HoL) blocking, which spoils the network performance. In that sense, we describe in this paper two simple, cost-effective strategies for dealing with the HoL-blocking problem that may appear in fat-trees with the aforementioned deterministic routing algorithm. From the results presented in the paper, we conclude that, in the mentioned environment, these proposals considerably reduce HoL-blocking without significantly increasing switch complexity and the required silicon area.

Video streaming services have restrictive delay and bandwidth constraints. Ad hoc networks represent a hostile environment for this kind of real-time data transmission. Emerging mesh networks, where a backbone provides more topological stability, do not even assure a high quality of experience. In such scenario, mobility of terminal nodes causes link breakages until a new route is calculated. In the meanwhile, lost packets cause annoying video interruptions to the receiver. This paper proposes a new mechanism of recovering lost packets by means of caching overheard packets in neighbor nodes and retransmit them to destination. Moreover, an optimization is shown, which involves a video-aware cache in order to recover full frames and prioritize more significant frames. Results show the improvement in reception, increasing the throughput as well as video quality, whereas larger video interruptions are considerably reduced. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Video streaming services have restrictive delay and bandwidth constraints. Ad hoc networks represent a hostile environment for this kind of real-time data transmission. Emerging mesh networks, where a backbone provides more topological stability, do not even assure a high quality of experience. In such scenario, mobility of terminal nodes causes link breakages until a new route is calculated. In the meanwhile, lost packets cause annoying video interruptions to the receiver. This paper proposes a new mechanism of recovering lost packets by means of caching overheard packets in neighbor nodes and retransmit them to destination. Moreover, an optimization is shown, which involves a video-aware cache in order to recover full frames and prioritize more significant frames. Results show the improvement in reception, increasing the throughput as well as video quality, whereas larger video interruptions are considerably reduced. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper presents the results of an experimental research dealing with bond strength as a parameter for concrete quality control. To this end, a low-cost testing technique has been developed: the Bottle Bond Test (BBT). Specimens for the BBT are produced by casting concrete into empty plastic bottles (used as moulds) with a reinforcing bar longitudinally centred. The result is a bottle-shaped concrete specimen with an embedded rebar, which is pulled out to determine bond strength. Different parameters related to this test setup modify bond strength: their effect has been analyzed. An equation to relate the obtained bond strength values to concrete compressive strength is presented. This equation has been validated with real production data from a readymix concrete plant. Its accuracy and therefore the feasibility of BBT for concrete quality control have been verified. Therefore, the BBT can be an alternative to conventional concrete quality based on uniaxial compression tests.

This paper presents the results of an experimental research dealing with bond strength as a parameter for concrete quality control. To this end, a low-cost testing technique has been developed: the Bottle Bond Test (BBT). Specimens for the BBT are produced by casting concrete into empty plastic bottles (used as moulds) with a reinforcing bar longitudinally centred. The result is a bottle-shaped concrete specimen with an embedded rebar, which is pulled out to determine bond strength. Different parameters related to this test setup modify bond strength: their effect has been analyzed. An equation to relate the obtained bond strength values to concrete compressive strength is presented. This equation has been validated with real production data from a readymix concrete plant. Its accuracy and therefore the feasibility of BBT for concrete quality control have been verified. Therefore, the BBT can be an alternative to conventional concrete quality based on uniaxial compression tests.

This paper proposes an additive measure on the basis of compromise programming to evaluate fund performance from multiple criteria, of which the most usual are profitability and risk. This proposal is motivated by the fact that compromise programming is a sound decision support model to obtain scores of alternatives by minimizing weighted distances to an ideal point, the weights reflecting the investor’s preferences for the criteria. To define the distance objective function, the linear-quadratic composite metric is used, which combines advantages of linear and non-linear objective functions. A critical advantage of compromise programming for fund performance evaluation is that the model can be extended to more than two financial criteria while other measures currently used (either ratio-based or leverage-based measures) only consider two criteria, say, profitability and risk. In the application, three investor’s profiles are defined, which involve different weighting systems and lead to different fund rankings. These rankings are compared with domination relationships, the latter formulating if a fund is dominated or non-dominated by convex combinations of other funds. Numerical tables are provided with data, computational process and results, which are analysed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this work, we developed a parallel algorithm to speed up the resolution of differential matrix Riccati equations using a backward differentiation formula algorithm based on a fixed-point method. The role and use of differential matrix Riccati equations is especially important in several applications such as optimal control, filtering, and estimation. In some cases, the problem could be large, and it is interesting to speed it up as much as possible. Recently, modern graphic processing units (GPUs) have been used as a way to improve performance. In this paper, we used an approach based on general-purpose computing on graphics processing units. We used NVIDIA © GPUs with unified architecture. To do this, a special version of basic linear algebra subprograms for GPUs, called CUBLAS, and a package (three different packages were studied) to solve linear systems using GPUs have been used. Moreover, we developed a MATLAB © toolkit to use our implementation from MATLAB in such a way that if the user has a graphic card, the performance of the implementation is improved. If the user does not have such a card, the algorithm can also be run using the machine CPU. Experimental results on a NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 are shown. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper performs a comparison of multicast/broadcast services (MBS) support in Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) IEEE802.16m. Firstly, the main technical features of both standards concerning MBS operation are presented. It is shown that WiMAX offers higher unicast/MBS multiplexing flexibility as it supports both frequency and time multiplexing schemes, whereas LTE-A only includes time multiplexing. Besides, only WiMAX supports multi-antenna transmission. Next, the results of two simulation-based assessments are presented. In the former, it is considered a scenario with all cells transmitting the same MBS service. The effect of inter-site distance (ISD) on the maximum MBS data rate is evaluated. Results show that WiMAX configurations outperform LTE-A for small ISD. This is because WiMAX provides a higher number of resources dedicated to data transmission for the same bandwidth. Furthermore, some WiMAX configurations support two spatially multiplexed data streams. With higher ISDs, LTE-A outperforms single-stream WiMAX configurations. In the second assessment, a MBSFN area surrounded by interfering cells is considered to compare unicast/MBS multiplexing performance. The higher maximum MBS data rate is achieved in WiMAX with time division multiplexing, which is precisely the only alternative included in LTE-A. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper performs a comparison of multicast/broadcast services (MBS) support in Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) IEEE802.16m. Firstly, the main technical features of both standards concerning MBS operation are presented. It is shown that WiMAX offers higher unicast/MBS multiplexing flexibility as it supports both frequency and time multiplexing schemes, whereas LTE-A only includes time multiplexing. Besides, only WiMAX supports multi-antenna transmission. Next, the results of two simulation-based assessments are presented. In the former, it is considered a scenario with all cells transmitting the same MBS service. The effect of inter-site distance (ISD) on the maximum MBS data rate is evaluated. Results show that WiMAX configurations outperform LTE-A for small ISD. This is because WiMAX provides a higher number of resources dedicated to data transmission for the same bandwidth. Furthermore, some WiMAX configurations support two spatially multiplexed data streams. With higher ISDs, LTE-A outperforms single-stream WiMAX configurations. In the second assessment, a MBSFN area surrounded by interfering cells is considered to compare unicast/MBS multiplexing performance. The higher maximum MBS data rate is achieved in WiMAX with time division multiplexing, which is precisely the only alternative included in LTE-A. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this work, we developed a parallel algorithm to speed up the resolution of differential matrix Riccati equations using a backward differentiation formula algorithm based on a fixed-point method. The role and use of differential matrix Riccati equations is especially important in several applications such as optimal control, filtering, and estimation. In some cases, the problem could be large, and it is interesting to speed it up as much as possible. Recently, modern graphic processing units (GPUs) have been used as a way to improve performance. In this paper, we used an approach based on general-purpose computing on graphics processing units. We used NVIDIA © GPUs with unified architecture. To do this, a special version of basic linear algebra subprograms for GPUs, called CUBLAS, and a package (three different packages were studied) to solve linear systems using GPUs have been used. Moreover, we developed a MATLAB © toolkit to use our implementation from MATLAB in such a way that if the user has a graphic card, the performance of the implementation is improved. If the user does not have such a card, the algorithm can also be run using the machine CPU. Experimental results on a NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 are shown. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper proposes an additive measure on the basis of compromise programming to evaluate fund performance from multiple criteria, of which the most usual are profitability and risk. This proposal is motivated by the fact that compromise programming is a sound decision support model to obtain scores of alternatives by minimizing weighted distances to an ideal point, the weights reflecting the investor’s preferences for the criteria. To define the distance objective function, the linear-quadratic composite metric is used, which combines advantages of linear and non-linear objective functions. A critical advantage of compromise programming for fund performance evaluation is that the model can be extended to more than two financial criteria while other measures currently used (either ratio-based or leverage-based measures) only consider two criteria, say, profitability and risk. In the application, three investor’s profiles are defined, which involve different weighting systems and lead to different fund rankings. These rankings are compared with domination relationships, the latter formulating if a fund is dominated or non-dominated by convex combinations of other funds. Numerical tables are provided with data, computational process and results, which are analysed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The main advantage of Grid computing over other distributed computing paradigms is its capability to coordinate the access to data and resources in a virtual multi-institutional environment. To this end, the information system plays a decisive role in selecting the services that meet the applications' needs. This paper presents an information system for the Grid that provides transparent and scalable group communication services to standard Grid applications, with the objective of supporting dynamic collaborations that could help address problems that involve only some participants of a virtual organization. In particular, it enables more flexible delivery mechanisms, which allows applications to select the appropriate services before sending their data to the information system. This significantly enhances the protection of data from unauthorized access, and avoids the transmission of unnecessary messages over the network. The proposed information system is based on the use of XML technologies and replication. It introduces several new advanced features that are not currently supported as a whole by any Grid middleware, such as: several entry points to the information, persistent capabilities, support for advanced queries based on XQuery, and support for the industrial standard WS-Policy. The information system has been stress tested under realistic workloads in a Grid infrastructure with 50 sites. Scalability has been evaluated in up to 1000 messages that can be up to 10KB in size each, updated with a frequency of 5min. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The main advantage of Grid computing over other distributed computing paradigms is its capability to coordinate the access to data and resources in a virtual multi-institutional environment. To this end, the information system plays a decisive role in selecting the services that meet the applications' needs. This paper presents an information system for the Grid that provides transparent and scalable group communication services to standard Grid applications, with the objective of supporting dynamic collaborations that could help address problems that involve only some participants of a virtual organization. In particular, it enables more flexible delivery mechanisms, which allows applications to select the appropriate services before sending their data to the information system. This significantly enhances the protection of data from unauthorized access, and avoids the transmission of unnecessary messages over the network. The proposed information system is based on the use of XML technologies and replication. It introduces several new advanced features that are not currently supported as a whole by any Grid middleware, such as: several entry points to the information, persistent capabilities, support for advanced queries based on XQuery, and support for the industrial standard WS-Policy. The information system has been stress tested under realistic workloads in a Grid infrastructure with 50 sites. Scalability has been evaluated in up to 1000 messages that can be up to 10KB in size each, updated with a frequency of 5min. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[EN] The min-max windy rural postman problem is a multiple vehicle version of the windy rural postman problem, WRPP, which consists of minimizing the length of the longest route to find a set of balanced routes for the vehicles. In a previous paper, an ILP formulation and a partial polyhedral study were presented, and a preliminary branch-and-cut algorithm that produced some promising computational results was implemented. In this article, we present further results for this problem. We describe several new facet-inducing inequalities obtained from the WRPP, as well as some inequalities that have to be satisfied by any optimal solution. We present an enhanced branch-and-cut algorithm that takes advantage of both these new inequalities and high quality min-max K-WRPP feasible solutions obtained by a metaheuristic. Computational results on a large set of instances are also reported. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[EN] The min-max windy rural postman problem is a multiple vehicle version of the windy rural postman problem, WRPP, which consists of minimizing the length of the longest route to find a set of balanced routes for the vehicles. In a previous paper, an ILP formulation and a partial polyhedral study were presented, and a preliminary branch-and-cut algorithm that produced some promising computational results was implemented. In this article, we present further results for this problem. We describe several new facet-inducing inequalities obtained from the WRPP, as well as some inequalities that have to be satisfied by any optimal solution. We present an enhanced branch-and-cut algorithm that takes advantage of both these new inequalities and high quality min-max K-WRPP feasible solutions obtained by a metaheuristic. Computational results on a large set of instances are also reported. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This is the accepted version of the following article: Barceló, S., Vidal-Puig, S. and Ferrer, A. (2011), Comparison of multivariate statistical methods for dynamic systems modeling. Qual. Reliab. Engng. Int., 27: 107–124, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qre.1102., In this paper two multivariate statistical methodologies are compared in order to estimate a multi-input multi-output transfer function model in an industrial polymerization process. In these contexts, process variables are usually autocorrelated (i.e. there is time-dependence between observations), posing some problems to classical linear regression models. The two methodologies to be compared are both related to the analyses of multivariate time series: Box-Jenkins methodology and partial least squares time series. Both methodologies are compared keeping in mind different issues, such as the simplicity of the process modeling (i.e. the steps of the identification, estimation and validation of the model), the usefulness of the graphical tools, the goodness of fit, and the parsimony of the estimated models. Real data from a polymerization process are used to illustrate the performance of the methodologies under study. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This is the accepted version of the following article: Barceló, S., Vidal-Puig, S. and Ferrer, A. (2011), Comparison of multivariate statistical methods for dynamic systems modeling. Qual. Reliab. Engng. Int., 27: 107–124, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qre.1102., In this paper two multivariate statistical methodologies are compared in order to estimate a multi-input multi-output transfer function model in an industrial polymerization process. In these contexts, process variables are usually autocorrelated (i.e. there is time-dependence between observations), posing some problems to classical linear regression models. The two methodologies to be compared are both related to the analyses of multivariate time series: Box-Jenkins methodology and partial least squares time series. Both methodologies are compared keeping in mind different issues, such as the simplicity of the process modeling (i.e. the steps of the identification, estimation and validation of the model), the usefulness of the graphical tools, the goodness of fit, and the parsimony of the estimated models. Real data from a polymerization process are used to illustrate the performance of the methodologies under study. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[EN] In this paper, a generation procedure of two correlated Nakagami-m random variables for arbitrary fading parameters values (not necessary identical) is described. For the generation of two correlated Nakagami-m samples, the proposed method uses the generalized Rice distribution, which appears in the conditional distribution of two correlated Nakagami-m variables. This procedure can be applied to simulate diversity systems such as selection combiners, equal-gain combiners, and maximal-ratio combiners as well as multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) receiver systems, in Nakagami-m channels.

[EN] In this paper, a generation procedure of two correlated Nakagami-m random variables for arbitrary fading parameters values (not necessary identical) is described. For the generation of two correlated Nakagami-m samples, the proposed method uses the generalized Rice distribution, which appears in the conditional distribution of two correlated Nakagami-m variables. This procedure can be applied to simulate diversity systems such as selection combiners, equal-gain combiners, and maximal-ratio combiners as well as multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) receiver systems, in Nakagami-m channels.