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Introduction: In recent decades, numerous large survey projects have been initiated to enhance our understanding of the cosmos. Among these, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) stands out as a flagship project of the Stage IV cosmology imaging surveys, offering an open-source framework for data management and processing adaptable to various instruments. Methods: In this paper, we introduce the 'obs_mccd' software package, designed to serve as a bridge linking raw data from generic mosaic-CCD instruments to the LSST data management framework. The package also facilitates the deployment of tailored configurations to the pipeline middleware. To validate our data processing pipeline, we processed a batch of realistic data from a commissioning wide-field telescope. Results: We established a prototype of the quality control (QC) system capable of assessing image quality parameters such as PSF size, ellipticity, and astrometric calibration. Our findings indicate that using a fifth-order polynomial for astrometric calibration effectively characterizes geometric distortion, achieving a median average geometric distortion residual of 0.011 pixel. Discussion: When comparing the performance of our pipeline to our inhouse pipeline applied to the same dataset, we observed that our new 'obs_mccd' pipeline offers improved precision, reducing the median average geometric distortion residual from 0.016 pixel to 0.011 pixel. This enhancement in performance underscores the benefits of the obs_mccd package in managing and processing data from wide-field surveys, and it opens up new avenues for scientific exploration with smaller, flexible survey systems complementing the LSST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel approach to routing architecture based on the Session–Cookie protocol. The proposed architecture performs service discovery by integrating IoTs geographic clustering technique and polymorphism mechanism. Prioritizing requests is done in cookies and the load balancing on sessions. The efficiency of the proxy server's distributed cache and service discovery is improved. Smart devices, vehicles, and people inaugurate a p2p connection to receive the service, exchange data, and share files in applications such as parking systems, navigation, and vehicle insurance companies. According to the results, the average response time and the bandwidth consumption have decreased, and the cache hit rate has reached 86%. Based on the principles of game theory, the proposed architecture in the extensive game model with imperfect information in the conditions ((mtcp, mudp), (Y, Y); λ = 1, µ = 0)) has a weak sequential equilibrium and Nash equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual simultaneous localization and mapping (V-SLAM) plays a crucial role in the field of robotic systems, especially for interactive and collaborative mobile robots. The growing reliance on robotics has increased complexity in task execution in real-world applications. Consequently, several types of VSLAM methods have been revealed to facilitate and streamline the functions of robots. This work aims to showcase the latest V-SLAM methodologies, offering clear selection criteria for researchers and developers to choose the right approach for their robotic applications. It chronologically presents the evolution of SLAM methods, highlighting key principles and providing comparative analyses between them. The paper focuses on the integration of the robotic ecosystem with a robot operating system (ROS) as Middleware, explores essential V-SLAM benchmark datasets, and presents demonstrative figures for each method's workflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, it was found that the participating students preferred to use their smartphones before any other electronic device to have carried out the chosen activities. This information showed that immediate access to schoolwork anytime anywhere has been essential for the modern student. The accessibility seen in smartphones has been a key factor influencing students' willingness to complete their studies. This information has been able to help teachers understand the potential of using smartphones as a useful tool in learning, rather than simply having a distraction or entertainment. Thus, with adequate supervision, guidance and structuring of the activities carried out by the student, Smartphones are no longer the enemies of anxiety, and have been able to become an ally in learning, whether in multimedia applications or developed for this purpose. This made it easier for the teacher to stop being the provider, coordinator and supervisor of the classroom and pass that responsibility on to the students, allowing them to use their own devices. Instead of trying to prevent students from using smartphones, it was better to be aware of this by adopting activities such as information search, collaboration with teachers and peers, practical activities used in this study, and formative assessment. In addition, an approach using software could be observed in each department of student life, whether initial, intermediate or higher level, with educational environments using middleware adaptable to each subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the challenges of implementing the CityGML standard within database environments for managing urban digital twins (UDT), with a particular focus on addressing big geodata issues. CityGML stands as a critical standard for representing and exchanging 3D urban models and thematic data, essential for effective urban planning and infrastructure management. However, integrating CityGML into databases poses challenges due to the dual requirements of geospatial and semi-structured data. While the former imposes a certain rigor in its formalism, the second benefits from more flexibility. Through a comprehensive review and benchmarking of existing database implementations, including both new distributions and those often use, 3DCityDB, CJDB, Measur3D, and Cerbere, this paper proposes a novel approach towards a multi-database CityGML environment tailored to the specific needs of UDT. The proposed solution leverages the strengths of both relational and NoSQL databases, offering a flexible and scalable architecture while ensuring data consistency, geospatial capabilities and compliance with the CityGML schema. The research hypothesis suggests integrating Cerbere, a middleware for CityGML schema compliance and transaction validation, with 3DCityDB and Measur3D (MongoDB). This approach aims to demonstrate the feasibility of managing advanced 3D data operations based on the CityGML model (3DCityDB) and scalability for big data like IoT (Measur3D) within a multi-database environment. The paper contributes to the advancement of UDT by providing a comprehensive solution for managing diverse data types, facilitating more effective urban planning, infrastructure management, and sustainable development initiatives in the context of smart cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FAIR Digital Object (FDO) is an emerging concept that is highlighted by European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) as a potential candidate for building an ecosystem of machine-actionable research outputs. In this work we systematically evaluate FDO and its implementations as a global distributed object system, by using five different conceptual frameworks that cover interoperability, middleware, FAIR principles, EOSC requirements and FDO guidelines themself. We compare the FDO approach with established Linked Data practices and the existing Web architecture, and provide a brief history of the Semantic Web while discussing why these technologies may have been difficult to adopt for FDO purposes. We conclude with recommendations for both Linked Data and FDO communities to further their adaptation and alignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choreographies are coordination plans for concurrent and distributed systems, which define the roles of the involved participants and how they are supposed to work together. In the paradigm of choreographic programming, choreographies are programs that can be compiled into executable implementations. In this article, we present Choral, the first choreographic programming language based on mainstream abstractions. The key idea in Choral is a new notion of data type, which allows for expressing that data is distributed over different roles. We use this idea to reconstruct the paradigm of choreographic programming through object-oriented abstractions. Choreographies are classes, and instances of choreographies are objects with states and behaviours implemented collaboratively by roles. Choral comes with a compiler that, given a choreography, generates an implementation for each of its roles. These implementations are libraries in pure Java, whose types are under the control of the Choral programmer. Developers can then modularly compose these libraries in their programs, to participate correctly in choreographies. Choral is the first incarnation of choreographic programming offering such modularity, which finally connects more than a decade of research on the paradigm to practical software development. The integration of choreographic and object-oriented programming yields other powerful advantages, where the features of one paradigm benefit the other in ways that go beyond the sum of the parts. On the one hand, the high-level abstractions and static checks from the world of choreographies can be used to write concurrent and distributed object-oriented software more concisely and correctly. On the other hand, we obtain a much more expressive choreographic language from object-oriented abstractions than in previous work. This expressivity allows for writing more reusable and flexible choreographies. For example, object passing makes Choral the first higher-order choreographic programming language, whereby choreographies can be parameterised over other choreographies without any need for central coordination. We also extend method overloading to a new dimension: specialisation based on data location. Together with subtyping and generics, this allows Choral to elegantly support user-defined communication mechanisms and middleware. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-chain transaction technologies have greatly promoted the scalability of cryptocurrencies, which then facilitates the development of Metaverse applications. However, existing solutions rely heavily on centralized middleware (notary) or smart contracts. These schemes lack privacy considerations, and users' cross-chain transactions are easy to master by other parties. Some signature-based payment schemes have good privacy but do not support multi-party cross-chain protocols or rely heavily on some time assumptions. The uncertainty of user behavior makes it difficult to design a secure multi-party cross-chain protocol. To solve these problems, we investigate how to design a secure multi-party cross-chain transaction protocol with offline tolerance. We propose a new signature algorithm called the pre-adaptor signature scheme, an extension of the adaptor signature scheme. The pre-adaptor signature scheme combines the multi-signature and adaptor signature schemes, which can realize the secret transmission channel between multiple parties. To provide offline tolerance, we encode our protocol into the P2SH script. Our protocol provides better privacy due to no dependence on smart contracts. The performance evaluation was conducted with ten participants. For each participant of our cross-chain protocol, the initialization and execution process can be performed in 3 milliseconds and with 6 k bytes of communication overhead at most. The cost increases linearly with the increase in the number of participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1992, Stephenson described a type of metaverse in his science fiction novel Snow Crash. Through his imagination, Stephenson is said to have directly influenced the makers of Google Earth, and, more recently, Silicon Valley’s “Metaverse”. In addition, there was a spate of literature published 15–20 years ago, related to metaverse concepts with the introduction of Second Life in June 2003 by Linden Labs. Many users experienced virtual spaces, shopped with virtual currency (Linden dollar, L ${\$}$), and even frequented virtual storefronts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) programming models, typified by systems such as Unified Parallel C (UPC) and Fortran coarrays, expose one-sided Remote Memory Access (RMA) communication as a key building block for High Performance Computing (HPC) applications. Architectural trends in supercomputing make such programming models increasingly attractive, and newer, more sophisticated models such as UPC++, Legion and Chapel that rely upon similar communication paradigms are gaining popularity.GASNet-EX is a portable, open-source, high-performance communication library designed to efficiently support the networking requirements of PGAS runtime systems and other alternative models in emerging exascale machines. The library is an evolution of the popular GASNet communication system, building upon 20 years of lessons learned. We present microbenchmark results which demonstrate the RMA performance of GASNet-EX is competitive with MPI implementations on four recent, high-impact, production HPC systems. These results are an update relative to previously published results on older systems. The networks measured here are representative of hardware currently used in six of the top ten fastest supercomputers in the world, and all of the exascale systems on the U.S. DOE road map.

This paper aims to address compatibility among multiple types of encoding boards to streamline the design, construction, and maintenance processes of the automatic video surveillance and recording subsystem within locomotive on-board safety protection systems (referred to as the "6A video subsystem"). It proposes a design solution that uses middleware to shield the differences between underlying software and hardware. By analyzing and delving into aspects such as board identification, video stream acquisition, relationship decoupling, differential registration, and dynamic library loading, the design incorporates independent middleware to achieve compatibility among multiple types of video encoding boards. Verification and application results underscored the efficacy of the proposed solution in addressing dynamic replacements and compatibility across different types of video encoding boards without necessitating a restart of the 6A video subsystem, thereby improving operational efficiency in batch application and maintenance of the 6A video subsystem. Specifically, the troubleshooting time for a single locomotive was reduced to 1/3 compared to scenarios without this design. Moreover, the convenient interchange of multiple types of video encoding boards can significantly reduce system maintenance costs by eliminating the need for complete replacements of the 6A video subsystem.

Neighbor discovery (ND) is crucial in deploying wireless sensor networks. Despite the considerable research on ND, most studies focus on networks composed of only two nodes. However, for cases in which more than two nodes are involved, the probability of collision increases, potentially preventing a node from discovering all its neighbors. This problem is especially aggravated for ND protocols that exhibit periodic behaviors that can lead to recurring collisions. This behavior is typical of deterministic ND protocols, in which its inherent operation forces regular on/off patterns and cyclical collisions. To address this problem, this paper introduces AMIND, a new middleware capable of disrupting the cyclic behavior of deterministic ND protocols. It achieves this goal by introducing random shifts in their operation, significantly increasing the number of nodes discovered compared to the existing ND protocols. As a result, AMIND allows a node to discover unknown neighbors after each shift. Simulation results show that the proposed middleware enhances node discoveries that previous ND protocols can achieve, even in scenarios with high collision rates.

Smart city middleware serves as a foundational tool in the evolution of urban digitalization, acting as an intermediary software layer that simplifies the development, deployment, and management of applications tailored for smart urban environments. However, the development of effective middleware for smart cities is challenging. The present research embarks on a comprehensive exploration of the smart city middleware landscape, unraveling the intricacies of its development and the challenges faced therein. Rooted in the assessment of 20 distinct middleware solutions, our study highlights the pivotal technologies, features and functionalities that are imperative for a middleware to effectively support a city’s digital transformation. The functional and non-functional requirements form the nucleus of our evaluation. We also explore the architectural styles pivotal to middleware development and the programming paradigms shaping smart city application development. Our study highlights challenges in using middleware for smart city applications, such as interoperability, scalability, security amidst big data, context management, reliability, quality of service, energy efficiency, and compliance with technological standards and regulations. Based on the detailed analysis, we propose a conceptual framework for smart city middleware, shaped by the challenges and requirements identified in existing literature and middleware solutions. This framework is designed to reflect the diverse demands and complexities of urban digital transformation, and guide smart city middleware development accordingly. As a result, this research stands as a reference study for software developers, urban planners, and researchers, outlining the current state and future directions in the domain of smart city middleware.

As the adoption of large-scale model-based AI grows, the field of robotics is undergoing significant changes. The emergence of cloud robotics, where advanced tasks are offloaded to fog or cloud servers, is gaining attention. However, the widely used Robot Operating System (ROS) does not support communication between robot software across different networks. This paper introduces ROS Gateway, a middleware designed to improve the usability and extend the communication range of ROS in multi-network environments, which is important for processing sensor data in cloud robotics. We detail its structure, protocols, and algorithms, highlighting improvements over traditional ROS configurations. The ROS Gateway efficiently handles high-volume data from advanced sensors such as depth cameras and LiDAR, ensuring reliable transmission. Based on the rosbridge protocol and implemented in Python 3, ROS Gateway is compatible with rosbridge-based tools and runs on both x86 and ARM-based Linux environments. Our experiments show that the ROS Gateway significantly improves performance metrics such as topic rate and delay compared to standard ROS setups. We also provide predictive formulas for topic receive rates to guide the design and deployment of robotic applications using ROS Gateway, supporting performance estimation and system optimization. These enhancements are essential for developing responsive and intelligent robotic systems in dynamic environments.