Uncoupled PID Control of Coupled Multi-Agent Nonlinear Uncertain systems

In this paper, PID (proportional-integral-derivative) controllers will be designed to solve the tracking problem for a class of coupled multi-agent systems, where each agent is described by a second-order high-dimensional nonlinear uncertain dynamical system, which only has access to its own tracking error information and does not need to communicate with others. This paper will show that a 3-dimensional manifold can be constructed based on the information about the Lipschitz constants of the system nonlinear dynamics, such that whenever the three parameters of each PID controller are chosen from the manifold, the whole multi-agent system can be stabilized globally and the tracking error of each agent approaches to zero asymptotically. For a class of coupled first-order multi-agent nonlinear uncertain systems, a PI controller will be designed to stabilize the whole system.     

Emergence: A Systems Theory’s Challenge to Ethics

The paper reconstructs Niklas Luhmann’s diagnosis of the dysfunctional character of moral communication in the modern society by emphasizing the emergent character of today’s moral problems. In the systems-theoretic literature, emergence means the irreducibility of the properties of the whole to the characteristics of its parts. Two arguments have been advanced. First, the dysfunctional character of moral communication has been traced back to the emergent character of many moral problems. Moral communication has thus been shown to be not inherently dysfunctional, but rather needful of semantic forms that take account of the emergent properties of the economic and other social systems. Second, these properties highlight the moral aspect of the precariousness of system–environment relations as seen by Luhmann. As a moral problem, this precariousness can be resolved through greater sensitivity of social systems to their environment, social and natural alike. Accordingly, the emergent properties of the economic and other social systems can be captured by recasting the concept of responsibility as the individual-level or organizational-level projection of the environmental sensitivity of these systems.     

Bounding the inefficiency of the C-logit stochastic user equilibrium assignment

Compared with standard logit-based stochastic user equilibrium assignment model, the C-logit model describes route choice behavior in a more realistic way by considering the overlapping effect between routes. This paper investigates the inefficiency upper bounds of this model against the deterministic system optimum and the C-logit stochastic system optimum in terms of the total network travel time. It is found that the commonality factor of overlapping routes significantly affects the inefficiency bound, besides link congestion degree, total demand and the number of feasible routes. If the commonality factor is not considered, the efficiency loss resulting from selfishly stochastic travel behavior will be to large extent underestimated.     

Morphology of tube-like threads related to Limnochares aquatica (L., 1758) (Acariformes: Hydrachnidia: Limnocharidae) in the laboratory

Water mites Limnochares aquatica (L., 1758) during maintenance in the laboratory for a long period of time in constant conditions periodically produced certain whitish flocculent material consisting of long rigid unbranched tube-like threads 1.3 ± 0.3 µm in diameter crossing freely. These threads were studied using light-optical as well as transmission electron microscopical and scanning electron microscopical methods. Microbiological staining was also applied to the threads to exclude their bacterial or fungal origin. The thread wall is built of fine fibrils arranged at different angles to the long axis of threads that is reflected in a certain stratification of the wall. Threads are mostly hollow or may contain electron-dense homogeneous material. No cell components are present in the thread composition. Numerous dermal glands with their small slit-like orifice scattered throughout the mite body surface are thought to produce these threads. Most probably the thread formation is a reaction of mites to stress under laboratory conditions, and this is expected to be a type of defensive reaction.     

Carbon nanotubes as anti-bacterial agents

Multidrug-resistant bacterial infections that have evolved via natural selection have increased alarmingly at a global level. Thus, there is a strong need for the development of novel antibiotics for the treatment of these infections. Functionalized carbon nanotubes through their unique properties hold great promise in the fight against multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. This new family of nanovectors for therapeutic delivery proved to be innovative and efficient for the transport and cellular translocation of therapeutic molecules. The current review examines the latest progress in the antibacterial activity of carbon nanotubes and their composites.     

A forensic method for efficient file extraction in HDFS based on three-level mapping

The large scale and distribution of cloud computing storage have become the major challenges in cloud forensics for file extraction. Current disk forensic methods do not adapt to cloud computing well and the forensic research on distributed file system is inadequate. To address the forensic problems, this paper uses the Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) as a case study and proposes a forensic method for efficient file extraction based on three-level (3L) mapping. First, HDFS is analyzed from overall architecture to local file system. Second, the 3L mapping of an HDFS file from HDFS namespace to data blocks on local file system is established and a recovery method for deleted files based on 3L mapping is presented. Third, a multi-node Hadoop framework via Xen virtualization platform is set up to test the performance of the method. The results indicate that the proposed method could succeed in efficient location of large files stored across data nodes, make selective image of disk data and get high recovery rate of deleted files.     

Cobalt doped titanate nanotubes: Synthesis and properties

Cobalt oxide doped titanate nanotubes are synthesized with a simple hydrothermal treatment of mixed Co_3O_4 and TiO_2 powders. The formed tubular nanostructure, chemical composition,and the elemental distribution are analyzed using TEM, BET, FTIR, XRD, and XPS. The electrocatalytic activity towards oxygen evolution reactions and photodegradation against Rhodamine B are investigated. It has been found out that the oxygen evolutions starts at 0.8 V and reaches 0.98 mA ·cm~(–1) at 1.4 V vs. SCE. For photodegradation of Rhodamine B, the concentration decreased to 24% after 1 h irradiation using the sample with a mass percentage of 5% cobalt. The results demonstrate that the cobalt oxide doped titanate nanotubes are good candidates as electrocatalysts and photocatalytic materials.     

Secure pairing with wearable devices by using ambient sound and light

Wearable devices usually work together with smart phones. To ensure only legitimate smart phones can read the data, they must conduct pairing to establish a shared key. Traditional pairing methods require that the pairing devices have a keyboard or screen for user interaction. However, due to the size limitation, keyboards or screens are hard to be installed in the wearable devices. To solve this problem, we propose a novel pairing method by using ambient sound and light. In this new scheme, any pairing request from smart phone will trigger wearable device vibration. Only after users press the confirm key on the device can the pairing process continues. Then pairing devices collect ambient sound and light at the predetermined time and establish a shared key by using the Diffie-Hellman protocol. To protect against potential man-in-the-middle attacks in the key establishment process, an improved interlock protocol with sound and light comparison is conducted to authenticate the key. If both the sound and light collected by the pairing devices are similar enough, the key is accepted. Otherwise, it is rejected. Compared with current context based pairing methods, our scheme does not impose strict synchronization on devices to collect ambient context data. Moreover, our scheme need not collect and exchange contextual information for multiple times to resist offline brute force attacks. The experimental results and security analysis prove the effectiveness of our scheme.