A New Biobjective Model to Optimize Integrated Redundancy Allocation and Reliability-Centered Maintenance Problems in a System Using Metaheuristics

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Shima MohammadZadeh Dogahe

2015-01-01

Full Text Available A novel integrated model is proposed to optimize the redundancy allocation problem (RAP and the reliability-centered maintenance (RCM simultaneously. A system of both repairable and nonrepairable components has been considered. In this system, electronic components are nonrepairable while mechanical components are mostly repairable. For nonrepairable components, a redundancy allocation problem is dealt with to determine optimal redundancy strategy and number of redundant components to be implemented in each subsystem. In addition, a maintenance scheduling problem is considered for repairable components in order to identify the best maintenance policy and optimize system reliability. Both active and cold standby redundancy strategies have been taken into account for electronic components. Also, net present value of the secondary cost including operational and maintenance costs has been calculated. The problem is formulated as a biobjective mathematical programming model aiming to reach a tradeoff between system reliability and cost. Three metaheuristic algorithms are employed to solve the proposed model: Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II, Multiobjective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO, and Multiobjective Firefly Algorithm (MOFA. Several test problems are solved using the mentioned algorithms to test efficiency and effectiveness of the solution approaches and obtained results are analyzed.

Input relegation control for gross motion of a kinematically redundant manipulator

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Unseren, M.A.

1992-10-01

This report proposes a method for resolving the kinematic redundancy of a serial link manipulator moving in a three-dimensional workspace. The underspecified problem of solving for the joint velocities based on the classical kinematic velocity model is transformed into a well-specified problem. This is accomplished by augmenting the original model with additional equations which relate a new vector variable quantifying the redundant degrees of freedom (DOF) to the joint velocities. The resulting augmented system yields a well specified solution for the joint velocities. Methods for selecting the redundant DOF quantifying variable and the transformation matrix relating it to the joint velocities are presented so as to obtain a minimum Euclidean norm solution for the joint velocities. The approach is also applied to the problem of resolving the kinematic redundancy at the acceleration level. Upon resolving the kinematic redundancy, a rigid body dynamical model governing the gross motion of the manipulator is derived. A control architecture is suggested which according to the model, decouples the Cartesian space DOF and the redundant DOF.

The Development of Synchronization Function for Triple Redundancy System Based on SCADE

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Moupeng

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Redundancy technique is an effective approach to improve the reliability and security of flight control system, synchronization function of redundancy system is the key technology of redundancy management. The flight control computer synchronization model is developed by graphical modeling method in the SCADE development environment, the automatic code generation technology is used to generate high level reliable embedded real-time code for synchronization function, omitting the code test process, shorten the development cycle. In the practical application, the program can accomplish the functional synchronization, and lay a well foundation for the redundancy system.

Pauci ex tanto numero: reduce redundancy in multi-model ensembles

Science.gov (United States)

Solazzo, E.; Riccio, A.; Kioutsioukis, I.; Galmarini, S.

2013-08-01

We explicitly address the fundamental issue of member diversity in multi-model ensembles. To date, no attempts in this direction have been documented within the air quality (AQ) community despite the extensive use of ensembles in this field. Common biases and redundancy are the two issues directly deriving from lack of independence, undermining the significance of a multi-model ensemble, and are the subject of this study. Shared, dependant biases among models do not cancel out but will instead determine a biased ensemble. Redundancy derives from having too large a portion of common variance among the members of the ensemble, producing overconfidence in the predictions and underestimation of the uncertainty. The two issues of common biases and redundancy are analysed in detail using the AQMEII ensemble of AQ model results for four air pollutants in two European regions. We show that models share large portions of bias and variance, extending well beyond those induced by common inputs. We make use of several techniques to further show that subsets of models can explain the same amount of variance as the full ensemble with the advantage of being poorly correlated. Selecting the members for generating skilful, non-redundant ensembles from such subsets proved, however, non-trivial. We propose and discuss various methods of member selection and rate the ensemble performance they produce. In most cases, the full ensemble is outscored by the reduced ones. We conclude that, although independence of outputs may not always guarantee enhancement of scores (but this depends upon the skill being investigated), we discourage selecting the members of the ensemble simply on the basis of scores; that is, independence and skills need to be considered disjointly.

Pauci ex tanto numero: reducing redundancy in multi-model ensembles

Science.gov (United States)

Solazzo, E.; Riccio, A.; Kioutsioukis, I.; Galmarini, S.

2013-02-01

We explicitly address the fundamental issue of member diversity in multi-model ensembles. To date no attempts in this direction are documented within the air quality (AQ) community, although the extensive use of ensembles in this field. Common biases and redundancy are the two issues directly deriving from lack of independence, undermining the significance of a multi-model ensemble, and are the subject of this study. Shared biases among models will determine a biased ensemble, making therefore essential the errors of the ensemble members to be independent so that bias can cancel out. Redundancy derives from having too large a portion of common variance among the members of the ensemble, producing overconfidence in the predictions and underestimation of the uncertainty. The two issues of common biases and redundancy are analysed in detail using the AQMEII ensemble of AQ model results for four air pollutants in two European regions. We show that models share large portions of bias and variance, extending well beyond those induced by common inputs. We make use of several techniques to further show that subsets of models can explain the same amount of variance as the full ensemble with the advantage of being poorly correlated. Selecting the members for generating skilful, non-redundant ensembles from such subsets proved, however, non-trivial. We propose and discuss various methods of member selection and rate the ensemble performance they produce. In most cases, the full ensemble is outscored by the reduced ones. We conclude that, although independence of outputs may not always guarantee enhancement of scores (but this depends upon the skill being investigated) we discourage selecting the members of the ensemble simply on the basis of scores, that is, independence and skills need to be considered disjointly.

Probability Model for Data Redundancy Detection in Sensor Networks

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Suman Kumar

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Sensor networks are made of autonomous devices that are able to collect, store, process and share data with other devices. Large sensor networks are often redundant in the sense that the measurements of some nodes can be substituted by other nodes with a certain degree of confidence. This spatial correlation results in wastage of link bandwidth and energy. In this paper, a model for two associated Poisson processes, through which sensors are distributed in a plane, is derived. A probability condition is established for data redundancy among closely located sensor nodes. The model generates a spatial bivariate Poisson process whose parameters depend on the parameters of the two individual Poisson processes and on the distance between the associated points. The proposed model helps in building efficient algorithms for data dissemination in the sensor network. A numerical example is provided investigating the advantage of this model.

Analysis of transitions at two-fold redundant sites in mammalian genomes. Transition redundant approach-to-equilibrium (TREx distance metrics

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Liberles David A

2006-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The exchange of nucleotides at synonymous sites in a gene encoding a protein is believed to have little impact on the fitness of a host organism. This should be especially true for synonymous transitions, where a pyrimidine nucleotide is replaced by another pyrimidine, or a purine is replaced by another purine. This suggests that transition redundant exchange (TREx processes at the third position of conserved two-fold codon systems might offer the best approximation for a neutral molecular clock, serving to examine, within coding regions, theories that require neutrality, determine whether transition rate constants differ within genes in a single lineage, and correlate dates of events recorded in genomes with dates in the geological and paleontological records. To date, TREx analysis of the yeast genome has recognized correlated duplications that established a new metabolic strategies in fungi, and supported analyses of functional change in aromatases in pigs. TREx dating has limitations, however. Multiple transitions at synonymous sites may cause equilibration and loss of information. Further, to be useful to correlate events in the genomic record, different genes within a genome must suffer transitions at similar rates. Results A formalism to analyze divergence at two fold redundant codon systems is presented. This formalism exploits two-state approach-to-equilibrium kinetics from chemistry. This formalism captures, in a single equation, the possibility of multiple substitutions at individual sites, avoiding any need to "correct" for these. The formalism also connects specific rate constants for transitions to specific approximations in an underlying evolutionary model, including assumptions that transition rate constants are invariant at different sites, in different genes, in different lineages, and at different times. Therefore, the formalism supports analyses that evaluate these approximations. Transitions at synonymous

Compliant behaviour of redundant robot arm - experiments with null-space

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Petrović Petar B.

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents theoretical and experimental aspects of Jacobian nullspace use in kinematically redundant robots for achieving kinetostatically consistent control of their compliant behavior. When the stiffness of the robot endpoint is dominantly influenced by the compliance of the robot joints, generalized stiffness matrix can be mapped into joint space using appropriate congruent transformation. Actuation stiffness matrix achieved by this transformation is generally nondiagonal. Off-diagonal elements of the actuation matrix can be generated by redundant actuation only (polyarticular actuators, but such kind of actuation is very difficult to realize practically in technical systems. The approach of solving this problem which is proposed in this paper is based on the use of kinematic redundancy and nullspace of the Jacobian matrix. Evaluation of the developed analytical model was done numerically by a minimal redundant robot with one redundant d.o.f. and experimentally by a 7 d.o.f. Yaskawa SIA 10F robot arm. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR35007

Modified Redundancy based Technique—a New Approach to Combat Error Propagation Effect of AES

Science.gov (United States)

Sarkar, B.; Bhunia, C. T.; Maulik, U.

2012-06-01

Advanced encryption standard (AES) is a great research challenge. It has been developed to replace the data encryption standard (DES). AES suffers from a major limitation of error propagation effect. To tackle this limitation, two methods are available. One is redundancy based technique and the other one is bite based parity technique. The first one has a significant advantage of correcting any error on definite term over the second one but at the cost of higher level of overhead and hence lowering the processing speed. In this paper, a new approach based on the redundancy based technique is proposed that would certainly speed up the process of reliable encryption and hence the secured communication.

Reliability model for common mode failures in redundant safety systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fleming, K.N.

1974-12-01

A method is presented for computing the reliability of redundant safety systems, considering both independent and common mode type failures. The model developed for the computation is a simple extension of classical reliability theory. The feasibility of the method is demonstrated with the use of an example. The probability of failure of a typical diesel-generator emergency power system is computed based on data obtained from U. S. diesel-generator operating experience. The results are compared with reliability predictions based on the assumption that all failures are independent. The comparison shows a significant increase in the probability of redundant system failure, when common failure modes are considered. (U.S.)

A simulation-based optimization approach for free distributed repairable multi-state availability-redundancy allocation problems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Attar, Ahmad; Raissi, Sadigh; Khalili-Damghani, Kaveh

2017-01-01

A simulation-based optimization (SBO) method is proposed to handle multi-objective joint availability-redundancy allocation problem (JARAP). Here, there is no emphasis on probability distributions of time to failures and repair times for multi-state multi-component series-parallel configuration under active, cold and hot standby strategies. Under such conditions, estimation of availability is not a trivial task. First, an efficient computer simulation model is proposed to estimate the availability of the aforementioned system. Then, the estimated availability values are used in a repetitive manner as parameter of a two-objective joint availability-redundancy allocation optimization model through SBO mechanism. The optimization model is then solved using two well-known multi-objective evolutionary computation algorithms, i.e., non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), and Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA2). The proposed SBO approach is tested using non-exponential numerical example with multi-state repairable components. The results are presented and discussed through different demand scenarios under cold and hot standby strategies. Furthermore, performance of NSGA-II and SPEA2 are statistically compared regarding multi-objective accuracy, and diversity metrics. - Highlights: • A Simulation-Based Optimization (SBO) procedure is introduced for JARAP. • The proposed SBO works for any given failure and repair times. • An efficient simulation procedure is developed to estimate availability. • Customized NSGA-II and SPEA2 are proposed to solve the bi-objective JARAP. • Statistical analysis is employed to test the performance of optimization methods.

Testing the race model inequality in redundant stimuli with variable onset asynchrony

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gondan, Matthias

2009-01-01

distributions of response times for the single-modality stimuli. It has been derived for synchronous stimuli and for stimuli with stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). In most experiments with asynchronous stimuli, discrete SOA values are chosen and the race model inequality is separately tested for each SOA. Due...... to SOAs at which the violation of the race model prediction is expected to be large. In addition, the method enables data analysis for experiments in which stimuli are presented with SOA from a continuous distribution rather than in discrete steps.......In speeded response tasks with redundant signals, parallel processing of the signals is tested by the race model inequality. This inequality states that given a race of two signals, the cumulative distribution of response times for redundant stimuli never exceeds the sum of the cumulative...

Reliability Analysis Multiple Redundancy Controller for Nuclear Safety Systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Son, Gwangseop; Kim, Donghoon; Son, Choulwoong

2013-01-01

This controller is configured for multiple modular redundancy (MMR) composed of dual modular redundancy (DMR) and triple modular redundancy (TMR). The architecture of MRC is briefly described, and the Markov model is developed. Based on the model, the reliability and Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) are analyzed. In this paper, the architecture of MRC for nuclear safety systems is described. The MRC is configured for multiple modular redundancy (MMR) composed of dual modular redundancy (DMR) and triple modular redundancy (TMR). Markov models for MRC architecture was developed, and then the reliability was analyzed by using the model. From the reliability analyses for the MRC, it is obtained that the failure rate of each module in the MRC should be less than 2 Χ 10 -4 /hour and the MTTF average increase rate depending on FCF increment, i. e. ΔMTTF/ΔFCF, is 4 months/0.1

Redundant correlation effect on personalized recommendation

Science.gov (United States)

Qiu, Tian; Han, Teng-Yue; Zhong, Li-Xin; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Chen, Guang

2014-02-01

The high-order redundant correlation effect is investigated for a hybrid algorithm of heat conduction and mass diffusion (HHM), through both heat conduction biased (HCB) and mass diffusion biased (MDB) correlation redundancy elimination processes. The HCB and MDB algorithms do not introduce any additional tunable parameters, but keep the simple character of the original HHM. Based on two empirical datasets, the Netflix and MovieLens, the HCB and MDB are found to show better recommendation accuracy for both the overall objects and the cold objects than the HHM algorithm. Our work suggests that properly eliminating the high-order redundant correlations can provide a simple and effective approach to accurate recommendation.

Application of model-based and knowledge-based measuring methods as analytical redundancy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hampel, R.; Kaestner, W.; Chaker, N.; Vandreier, B.

1997-01-01

The safe operation of nuclear power plants requires the application of modern and intelligent methods of signal processing for the normal operation as well as for the management of accident conditions. Such modern and intelligent methods are model-based and knowledge-based ones being founded on analytical knowledge (mathematical models) as well as experiences (fuzzy information). In addition to the existing hardware redundancies analytical redundancies will be established with the help of these modern methods. These analytical redundancies support the operating staff during the decision-making. The design of a hybrid model-based and knowledge-based measuring method will be demonstrated by the example of a fuzzy-supported observer. Within the fuzzy-supported observer a classical linear observer is connected with a fuzzy-supported adaptation of the model matrices of the observer model. This application is realized for the estimation of the non-measurable variables as steam content and mixture level within pressure vessels with water-steam mixture during accidental depressurizations. For this example the existing non-linearities will be classified and the verification of the model will be explained. The advantages of the hybrid method in comparison to the classical model-based measuring methods will be demonstrated by the results of estimation. The consideration of the parameters which have an important influence on the non-linearities requires the inclusion of high-dimensional structures of fuzzy logic within the model-based measuring methods. Therefore methods will be presented which allow the conversion of these high-dimensional structures to two-dimensional structures of fuzzy logic. As an efficient solution of this problem a method based on cascaded fuzzy controllers will be presented. (author). 2 refs, 12 figs, 5 tabs

Study of redundant Models in reliability prediction of HXMT's HES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Jinming; Liu Congzhan; Zhang Zhi; Ji Jianfeng

2010-01-01

Two redundant equipment structures of HXMT's HES are proposed firstly, the block backup and dual system cold-redundancy. Then prediction of the reliability is made by using parts count method. Research of comparison and analysis is also performed on the two proposals. A conclusion is drawn that a higher reliability and longer service life could be offered by taking a redundant equipment structure of block backup. (authors)

A model for the coupling of failure rates in a redundant system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kleppmann, W.G.; Wutschig, R.

1986-01-01

A model is developed which takes into acount the coupling between failure rates or identical components in different redundancies of a safety system, i.e., the fact that the failure rates of identical components subjected to the same operating conditions will scatter less than the failure rates of any two components of the same type. It is shown that with increasing coupling the expectation value and the variance of the distribution of the failure probability of the redundant system increases. A consistent way to incorporate operating experience in a Bayesian framework is developed and the reults are presented. (orig.)

How redundant are redundant color adjectives? An efficiency-based analysis of color overspecification

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Paula eRubio-Fernández

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Color adjectives tend to be used redundantly in referential communication. I propose that redundant color adjectives are often intended to exploit a color contrast in the visual context and hence facilitate object identification, despite not being necessary to establish unique reference. Two language-production experiments investigated two types of factors that may affect the use of redundant color adjectives: factors related to the efficiency of color in the visual context and factors related to the semantic category of the noun. The results of Experiment 1 confirmed that people produce redundant color adjectives when color may facilitate object recognition; e.g., they do so more often in polychrome displays than in monochrome displays, and more often in English (pre-nominal position than in Spanish (post-nominal position. Redundant color adjectives are also used when color is a central property of the object category; e.g., people referred to the color of clothes more often than to the color of geometrical figures (Experiment 1, and they overspecified atypical colors more often than variable and stereotypical colors (Experiment 2. These results are relevant for pragmatic models of referential communication based on Gricean pragmatics and informativeness. An alternative analysis is proposed, which focuses on the efficiency and pertinence of color in a given referential situation.

Redundant interferometric calibration as a complex optimization problem

Science.gov (United States)

Grobler, T. L.; Bernardi, G.; Kenyon, J. S.; Parsons, A. R.; Smirnov, O. M.

2018-05-01

Observations of the redshifted 21 cm line from the epoch of reionization have recently motivated the construction of low-frequency radio arrays with highly redundant configurations. These configurations provide an alternative calibration strategy - `redundant calibration' - and boost sensitivity on specific spatial scales. In this paper, we formulate calibration of redundant interferometric arrays as a complex optimization problem. We solve this optimization problem via the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. This calibration approach is more robust to initial conditions than current algorithms and, by leveraging an approximate matrix inversion, allows for further optimization and an efficient implementation (`redundant STEFCAL'). We also investigated using the preconditioned conjugate gradient method as an alternative to the approximate matrix inverse, but found that its computational performance is not competitive with respect to `redundant STEFCAL'. The efficient implementation of this new algorithm is made publicly available.

Learners misperceive the benefits of redundant text in multimedia learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Fenesi, Barbara; Kim, Joseph A

2014-01-01

Research on metacognition has consistently demonstrated that learners fail to endorse instructional designs that produce benefits to memory, and often prefer designs that actually impair comprehension. Unlike previous studies in which learners were only exposed to a single multimedia design, the current study used a within-subjects approach to examine whether exposure to both redundant text and non-redundant text multimedia presentations improved learners' metacognitive judgments about presentation styles that promote better understanding. A redundant text multimedia presentation containing narration paired with verbatim on-screen text (Redundant) was contrasted with two non-redundant text multimedia presentations: (1) narration paired with images and minimal text (Complementary) or (2) narration paired with minimal text (Sparse). Learners watched presentation pairs of either Redundant + Complementary, or Redundant + Sparse. Results demonstrate that Complementary and Sparse presentations produced highest overall performance on the final comprehension assessment, but the Redundant presentation produced highest perceived understanding and engagement ratings. These findings suggest that learners misperceive the benefits of redundant text, even after direct exposure to a non-redundant, effective presentation.

Predicting genome-wide redundancy using machine learning

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Shasha Dennis E

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Gene duplication can lead to genetic redundancy, which masks the function of mutated genes in genetic analyses. Methods to increase sensitivity in identifying genetic redundancy can improve the efficiency of reverse genetics and lend insights into the evolutionary outcomes of gene duplication. Machine learning techniques are well suited to classifying gene family members into redundant and non-redundant gene pairs in model species where sufficient genetic and genomic data is available, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, the test case used here. Results Machine learning techniques that combine multiple attributes led to a dramatic improvement in predicting genetic redundancy over single trait classifiers alone, such as BLAST E-values or expression correlation. In withholding analysis, one of the methods used here, Support Vector Machines, was two-fold more precise than single attribute classifiers, reaching a level where the majority of redundant calls were correctly labeled. Using this higher confidence in identifying redundancy, machine learning predicts that about half of all genes in Arabidopsis showed the signature of predicted redundancy with at least one but typically less than three other family members. Interestingly, a large proportion of predicted redundant gene pairs were relatively old duplications (e.g., Ks > 1, suggesting that redundancy is stable over long evolutionary periods. Conclusions Machine learning predicts that most genes will have a functionally redundant paralog but will exhibit redundancy with relatively few genes within a family. The predictions and gene pair attributes for Arabidopsis provide a new resource for research in genetics and genome evolution. These techniques can now be applied to other organisms.

Quantum redundancies and local realism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Horodecki, R.; Horodecki, P.

1994-01-01

The basic properties of quantum redundancies are presented. The previous definitions of the informationally coherent quantum (ICQ) system are generalized in terms of the redundancies. The ICQ systems are also considered in the context of local realism in terms of the information integrity factor η. The classical region η≤qslant[1]/[2] for the two classes of mixed, nonfactorizable states admitting the local hidden variable model is found. ((orig.))

Solving the redundancy allocation problem with multiple strategy choices using a new simplified particle swarm optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kong, Xiangyong; Gao, Liqun; Ouyang, Haibin; Li, Steven

2015-01-01

In most research on redundancy allocation problem (RAP), the redundancy strategy for each subsystem is assumed to be predetermined and fixed. This paper focuses on a specific RAP with multiple strategy choices (RAP-MSC), in which both active redundancy and cold standby redundancy can be selected as an additional decision variable for individual subsystems. To do so, the component type, redundancy strategy and redundancy level for each subsystem should be chosen subject to the system constraints appropriately such that the system reliability is maximized. Meanwhile, imperfect switching for cold standby redundancy is considered and a k-Erlang distribution is introduced to model the time-to-failure component as well. Given the importance and complexity of RAP-MSC, we propose a new efficient simplified version of particle swarm optimization (SPSO) to solve such NP-hard problems. In this method, a new position updating scheme without velocity is presented with stochastic disturbance and a low probability. Moreover, it is compared with several well-known PSO variants and other state-of-the-art approaches in the literature to evaluate its performance. The experiment results demonstrate the superiority of SPSO as an alternative for solving the RAP-MSC. - Highlights: • A more realistic RAP form with multiple strategy choices is focused. • Redundancy strategies are to be selected rather than fixed in general RAP. • A new simplified particle swarm optimization is proposed. • Higher reliabilities are achieved than the state-of-the-art approaches.

Efficient exact optimization of multi-objective redundancy allocation problems in series-parallel systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cao, Dingzhou; Murat, Alper; Chinnam, Ratna Babu

2013-01-01

This paper proposes a decomposition-based approach to exactly solve the multi-objective Redundancy Allocation Problem for series-parallel systems. Redundancy allocation problem is a form of reliability optimization and has been the subject of many prior studies. The majority of these earlier studies treat redundancy allocation problem as a single objective problem maximizing the system reliability or minimizing the cost given certain constraints. The few studies that treated redundancy allocation problem as a multi-objective optimization problem relied on meta-heuristic solution approaches. However, meta-heuristic approaches have significant limitations: they do not guarantee that Pareto points are optimal and, more importantly, they may not identify all the Pareto-optimal points. In this paper, we treat redundancy allocation problem as a multi-objective problem, as is typical in practice. We decompose the original problem into several multi-objective sub-problems, efficiently and exactly solve sub-problems, and then systematically combine the solutions. The decomposition-based approach can efficiently generate all the Pareto-optimal solutions for redundancy allocation problems. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method over meta-heuristic methods on a numerical example taken from the literature.

A model of primate visual cortex based on category-specific redundancies in natural images

Science.gov (United States)

Malmir, Mohsen; Shiry Ghidary, S.

2010-12-01

Neurophysiological and computational studies have proposed that properties of natural images have a prominent role in shaping selectivity of neurons in the visual cortex. An important property of natural images that has been studied extensively is the inherent redundancy in these images. In this paper, the concept of category-specific redundancies is introduced to describe the complex pattern of dependencies between responses of linear filters to natural images. It is proposed that structural similarities between images of different object categories result in dependencies between responses of linear filters in different spatial scales. It is also proposed that the brain gradually removes these dependencies in different areas of the ventral visual hierarchy to provide a more efficient representation of its sensory input. The authors proposed a model to remove these redundancies and trained it with a set of natural images using general learning rules that are developed to remove dependencies between responses of neighbouring neurons. Results of experiments demonstrate the close resemblance of neuronal selectivity between different layers of the model and their corresponding visual areas.

Prioritising Redundant Network Component for HOWBAN Survivability Using FMEA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheong Loong Chan

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Deploying redundant component is the ubiquitous approach to improve the reliability and survivability of a hybrid optical wireless broadband access network (HOWBAN. Much work has been done to study the cost and impact of deploying redundant component in the network but no formal tools have been used to enable the evaluation and decision to prioritise the deployment of redundant facilities in the network. In this paper we show how FMEA (Failure Mode Effect and Analysis technique can be adapted to identify the critical segment in the network and prioritise the redundant component to be deployed to ensure network survivability. Our result showed that priority must be given to redundancy to mitigate grid power outage particularly in less developed countries which is poised for rapid expansion in broadband services.

. Redundancy and blocking in the spatial domain: A connectionist model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. P. L. Mc Laren

2002-01-01

Full Text Available How can the observations of spatial blocking (Rodrigo, Chamizo, McLaren & Mackintosh, 1997 and cue redundancy (O’Keefe and Conway, 1978 be reconciled within the framework provided by an error-correcting, connectionist account of spatial navigation? I show that an implementation of McLaren’s (1995 better beta model can serve this purpose, and examine some of the implications for spatial learning and memory.

Signal validation in nuclear power plants using redundant measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Glockler, O.; Upadhyaya, B.R.; Morgenstern, V.M.

1989-01-01

This paper discusses the basic principles of a multivariable signal validation software system utilizing redundant sensor readings of process variables in nuclear power plants (NPPs). The technique has been tested in numerical experiments, and was applied to actual data from a pressurized water reactor (PWR). The simultaneous checking within one redundant measurement set, and the cross-checking among redundant measurement sets of dissimilar process variables, results in an algorithm capable of detecting and isolating bias-type errors. A case in point occurs when a majority of the direct redundant measurements of more than one process variable has failed simultaneously by a common-mode or correlated failures can be detected by the developed approach. 5 refs

Maximization of learning speed in the motor cortex due to neuronal redundancy.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ken Takiyama

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Many redundancies play functional roles in motor control and motor learning. For example, kinematic and muscle redundancies contribute to stabilizing posture and impedance control, respectively. Another redundancy is the number of neurons themselves; there are overwhelmingly more neurons than muscles, and many combinations of neural activation can generate identical muscle activity. The functional roles of this neuronal redundancy remains unknown. Analysis of a redundant neural network model makes it possible to investigate these functional roles while varying the number of model neurons and holding constant the number of output units. Our analysis reveals that learning speed reaches its maximum value if and only if the model includes sufficient neuronal redundancy. This analytical result does not depend on whether the distribution of the preferred direction is uniform or a skewed bimodal, both of which have been reported in neurophysiological studies. Neuronal redundancy maximizes learning speed, even if the neural network model includes recurrent connections, a nonlinear activation function, or nonlinear muscle units. Furthermore, our results do not rely on the shape of the generalization function. The results of this study suggest that one of the functional roles of neuronal redundancy is to maximize learning speed.

Ethernet redundancy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Burak, K. [Invensys Process Systems, M/S C42-2B, 33 Commercial Street, Foxboro, MA 02035 (United States)

2006-07-01

We describe the Ethernet systems and their evolution: LAN Segmentation, DUAL networks, network loops, network redundancy and redundant network access. Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) is an open standard with no licensing fees and its specifications are freely available. As a result, it is the most popular data link protocol in use. It is important that the network be redundant and standard Ethernet protocols like RSTP (IEEE 802.1w) provide the fast network fault detection and recovery times that is required today. As Ethernet does continue to evolve, network redundancy is and will be a mixture of technology standards. So it is very important that both end-stations and networking devices be Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) compliant. Then when new technologies, such as the IEEE 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging protocol, come to market they can be easily deployed in the network without worry.

Ethernet redundancy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burak, K.

2006-01-01

We describe the Ethernet systems and their evolution: LAN Segmentation, DUAL networks, network loops, network redundancy and redundant network access. Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) is an open standard with no licensing fees and its specifications are freely available. As a result, it is the most popular data link protocol in use. It is important that the network be redundant and standard Ethernet protocols like RSTP (IEEE 802.1w) provide the fast network fault detection and recovery times that is required today. As Ethernet does continue to evolve, network redundancy is and will be a mixture of technology standards. So it is very important that both end-stations and networking devices be Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) compliant. Then when new technologies, such as the IEEE 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging protocol, come to market they can be easily deployed in the network without worry

Motion control of musculoskeletal systems with redundancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Hyunjoo; Durand, Dominique M

2008-12-01

Motion control of musculoskeletal systems for functional electrical stimulation (FES) is a challenging problem due to the inherent complexity of the systems. These include being highly nonlinear, strongly coupled, time-varying, time-delayed, and redundant. The redundancy in particular makes it difficult to find an inverse model of the system for control purposes. We have developed a control system for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) redundant musculoskeletal systems with little prior information. The proposed method separates the steady-state properties from the dynamic properties. The dynamic control uses a steady-state inverse model and is implemented with both a PID controller for disturbance rejection and an artificial neural network (ANN) feedforward controller for fast trajectory tracking. A mechanism to control the sum of the muscle excitation levels is also included. To test the performance of the proposed control system, a two degree of freedom ankle-subtalar joint model with eight muscles was used. The simulation results show that separation of steady-state and dynamic control allow small output tracking errors for different reference trajectories such as pseudo-step, sinusoidal and filtered random signals. The proposed control method also demonstrated robustness against system parameter and controller parameter variations. A possible application of this control algorithm is FES control using multiple contact cuff electrodes where mathematical modeling is not feasible and the redundancy makes the control of dynamic movement difficult.

Interaction control of a redundant mobile manipulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chung, J.H.; Velinsky, S.A.; Hess, R.A.

1998-01-01

This paper discusses the modeling and control of a spatial mobile manipulator that consists of a robotic manipulator mounted on a wheeled mobile platform. The Lagrange-d'Alembert formulation is used to obtain a concise description of the dynamics of the system, which is subject to nonholonomic constraints. The complexity of the model is increased by introducing kinematic redundancy, which is created when a multilinked manipulator is used. The kinematic redundancy is resolved by decomposing the mobile manipulator into two subsystems: the mobile platform and the manipulator. The redundancy resolution scheme employs a nonlinear interaction-control algorithm, which is developed and applied to coordinate the two subsystems' controllers. The subsystem controllers are independently designed, based on each subsystem's dynamic characteristics. Simulation results show the promise of the developed algorithm

Quantum Darwinism: Entanglement, branches, and the emergent classicality of redundantly stored quantum information

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Blume-Kohout, Robin; Zurek, Wojciech H.

2006-01-01

We lay a comprehensive foundation for the study of redundant information storage in decoherence processes. Redundancy has been proposed as a prerequisite for objectivity, the defining property of classical objects. We consider two ensembles of states for a model universe consisting of one system and many environments: the first consisting of arbitrary states, and the second consisting of 'singly branching' states consistent with a simple decoherence model. Typical states from the random ensemble do not store information about the system redundantly, but information stored in branching states has a redundancy proportional to the environment's size. We compute the specific redundancy for a wide range of model universes, and fit the results to a simple first-principles theory. Our results show that the presence of redundancy divides information about the system into three parts: classical (redundant); purely quantum; and the borderline, undifferentiated or 'nonredundant', information

Quantum Darwinism: Entanglement, branches, and the emergent classicality of redundantly stored quantum information

Science.gov (United States)

Blume-Kohout, Robin; Zurek, Wojciech H.

2006-06-01

We lay a comprehensive foundation for the study of redundant information storage in decoherence processes. Redundancy has been proposed as a prerequisite for objectivity, the defining property of classical objects. We consider two ensembles of states for a model universe consisting of one system and many environments: the first consisting of arbitrary states, and the second consisting of “singly branching” states consistent with a simple decoherence model. Typical states from the random ensemble do not store information about the system redundantly, but information stored in branching states has a redundancy proportional to the environment’s size. We compute the specific redundancy for a wide range of model universes, and fit the results to a simple first-principles theory. Our results show that the presence of redundancy divides information about the system into three parts: classical (redundant); purely quantum; and the borderline, undifferentiated or “nonredundant,” information.

Distributed redundancy and robustness in complex systems

KAUST Repository

Randles, Martin

2011-03-01

The uptake and increasing prevalence of Web 2.0 applications, promoting new large-scale and complex systems such as Cloud computing and the emerging Internet of Services/Things, requires tools and techniques to analyse and model methods to ensure the robustness of these new systems. This paper reports on assessing and improving complex system resilience using distributed redundancy, termed degeneracy in biological systems, to endow large-scale complicated computer systems with the same robustness that emerges in complex biological and natural systems. However, in order to promote an evolutionary approach, through emergent self-organisation, it is necessary to specify the systems in an \\'open-ended\\' manner where not all states of the system are prescribed at design-time. In particular an observer system is used to select robust topologies, within system components, based on a measurement of the first non-zero Eigen value in the Laplacian spectrum of the components\\' network graphs; also known as the algebraic connectivity. It is shown, through experimentation on a simulation, that increasing the average algebraic connectivity across the components, in a network, leads to an increase in the variety of individual components termed distributed redundancy; the capacity for structurally distinct components to perform an identical function in a particular context. The results are applied to a specific application where active clustering of like services is used to aid load balancing in a highly distributed network. Using the described procedure is shown to improve performance and distribute redundancy. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.

Parameter identifiability and redundancy: theoretical considerations.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark P Little

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Models for complex biological systems may involve a large number of parameters. It may well be that some of these parameters cannot be derived from observed data via regression techniques. Such parameters are said to be unidentifiable, the remaining parameters being identifiable. Closely related to this idea is that of redundancy, that a set of parameters can be expressed in terms of some smaller set. Before data is analysed it is critical to determine which model parameters are identifiable or redundant to avoid ill-defined and poorly convergent regression. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this paper we outline general considerations on parameter identifiability, and introduce the notion of weak local identifiability and gradient weak local identifiability. These are based on local properties of the likelihood, in particular the rank of the Hessian matrix. We relate these to the notions of parameter identifiability and redundancy previously introduced by Rothenberg (Econometrica 39 (1971 577-591 and Catchpole and Morgan (Biometrika 84 (1997 187-196. Within the widely used exponential family, parameter irredundancy, local identifiability, gradient weak local identifiability and weak local identifiability are shown to be largely equivalent. We consider applications to a recently developed class of cancer models of Little and Wright (Math Biosciences 183 (2003 111-134 and Little et al. (J Theoret Biol 254 (2008 229-238 that generalize a large number of other recently used quasi-biological cancer models. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We have shown that the previously developed concepts of parameter local identifiability and redundancy are closely related to the apparently weaker properties of weak local identifiability and gradient weak local identifiability--within the widely used exponential family these concepts largely coincide.

Synergy and redundancy in the Granger causal analysis of dynamical networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stramaglia, Sebastiano; M Cortes, Jesus; Marinazzo, Daniele

2014-01-01

We analyze, by means of Granger causality (GC), the effect of synergy and redundancy in the inference (from time series data) of the information flow between subsystems of a complex network. While we show that fully conditioned GC (CGC) is not affected by synergy, the pairwise analysis fails to prove synergetic effects. In cases when the number of samples is low, thus making the fully conditioned approach unfeasible, we show that partially conditioned GC (PCGC) is an effective approach if the set of conditioning variables is properly chosen. Here we consider two different strategies (based either on informational content for the candidate driver or on selecting the variables with highest pairwise influences) for PCGC and show that, depending on the data structure, either one or the other might be equally valid. On the other hand, we observe that fully conditioned approaches do not work well in the presence of redundancy, thus suggesting the strategy of separating the pairwise links in two subsets: those corresponding to indirect connections of the CGC (which should thus be excluded) and links that can be ascribed to redundancy effects and, together with the results from the fully connected approach, provide a better description of the causality pattern in the presence of redundancy. Finally we apply these methods to two different real datasets. First, analyzing electrophysiological data from an epileptic brain, we show that synergetic effects are dominant just before seizure occurrences. Second, our analysis applied to gene expression time series from HeLa culture shows that the underlying regulatory networks are characterized by both redundancy and synergy. (paper)

Detection of sensor failures in nuclear plants using analytic redundancy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kitamura, M.

1980-01-01

A method for on-line, nonperturbative detection and identification of sensor failures in nuclear power plants was studied to determine its feasibility. This method is called analytic redundancy, or functional redundancy. Sensor failure has traditionally been detected by comparing multiple signals from redundant sensors, such as in two-out-of-three logic. In analytic redundancy, with the help of an assumed model of the physical system, the signals from a set of sensors are processed to reproduce the signals from all system sensors

Obstacle avoidance for kinematically redundant robots using an adaptive fuzzy logic algorithm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beheshti, M.T.H.; Tehrani, A.K.

1999-05-01

In this paper the Adaptive Fuzzy Logic approach for solving the inverse kinematics of redundant robots in an environment with obstacles is presented. The obstacles are modeled as convex bodies. A fuzzy rule base that is updated via an adaptive law is used to solve the inverse kinematic problem. Additional rules have been introduced to take care of the obstacles avoidance problem. The proposed method has advantages such as high accuracy, simplicity of computations and generality for all redundant robots. Simulation results illustrate much better tracking performance than the dynamic base solution for a given trajectory in cartesian space, while guaranteeing a collision-free trajectory and observation of a mechanical joint limit

Control Systems for Hyper-Redundant Robots Based on Artificial Potential Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mihaela Florescu

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the control method of hyper-redundant robots based on the artificial potential approach. The principles of this method are shown and a suggestive example is offered. Then, the artificial potential method is applied to the case of a tentacle robot starting from the dynamic model of the robot. In addition, a series of results that are obtained through simulation is presented.

Working memory capacity and redundant information processing efficiency.

Science.gov (United States)

Endres, Michael J; Houpt, Joseph W; Donkin, Chris; Finn, Peter R

2015-01-01

Working memory capacity (WMC) is typically measured by the amount of task-relevant information an individual can keep in mind while resisting distraction or interference from task-irrelevant information. The current research investigated the extent to which differences in WMC were associated with performance on a novel redundant memory probes (RMP) task that systematically varied the amount of to-be-remembered (targets) and to-be-ignored (distractor) information. The RMP task was designed to both facilitate and inhibit working memory search processes, as evidenced by differences in accuracy, response time, and Linear Ballistic Accumulator (LBA) model estimates of information processing efficiency. Participants (N = 170) completed standard intelligence tests and dual-span WMC tasks, along with the RMP task. As expected, accuracy, response-time, and LBA model results indicated memory search and retrieval processes were facilitated under redundant-target conditions, but also inhibited under mixed target/distractor and redundant-distractor conditions. Repeated measures analyses also indicated that, while individuals classified as high (n = 85) and low (n = 85) WMC did not differ in the magnitude of redundancy effects, groups did differ in the efficiency of memory search and retrieval processes overall. Results suggest that redundant information reliably facilitates and inhibits the efficiency or speed of working memory search, and these effects are independent of more general limits and individual differences in the capacity or space of working memory.

Learning contrast-invariant cancellation of redundant signals in neural systems.

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Jorge F Mejias

Full Text Available Cancellation of redundant information is a highly desirable feature of sensory systems, since it would potentially lead to a more efficient detection of novel information. However, biologically plausible mechanisms responsible for such selective cancellation, and especially those robust to realistic variations in the intensity of the redundant signals, are mostly unknown. In this work, we study, via in vivo experimental recordings and computational models, the behavior of a cerebellar-like circuit in the weakly electric fish which is known to perform cancellation of redundant stimuli. We experimentally observe contrast invariance in the cancellation of spatially and temporally redundant stimuli in such a system. Our model, which incorporates heterogeneously-delayed feedback, bursting dynamics and burst-induced STDP, is in agreement with our in vivo observations. In addition, the model gives insight on the activity of granule cells and parallel fibers involved in the feedback pathway, and provides a strong prediction on the parallel fiber potentiation time scale. Finally, our model predicts the existence of an optimal learning contrast around 15% contrast levels, which are commonly experienced by interacting fish.

Redundancy Optimization for Error Recovery in Digital Microfluidic Biochips

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Alistar, Mirela; Pop, Paul; Madsen, Jan

2015-01-01

Microfluidic-based biochips are replacing the conventional biochemical analyzers, and are able to integrate all the necessary functions for biochemical analysis. The digital microfluidic biochips are based on the manipulation of liquids not as a continuous flow, but as discrete droplets. Research......Microfluidic-based biochips are replacing the conventional biochemical analyzers, and are able to integrate all the necessary functions for biochemical analysis. The digital microfluidic biochips are based on the manipulation of liquids not as a continuous flow, but as discrete droplets....... Researchers have proposed approaches for the synthesis of digital microfluidic biochips, which, starting from a biochemical application and a given biochip architecture, determine the allocation, resource binding, scheduling, placement and routing of the operations in the application. During the execution...... propose an online recovery strategy, which decides during the execution of the biochemical application the introduction of the redundancy required for fault-tolerance. We consider both time redundancy, i.e., re-executing erroneous operations, and space redundancy, i.e., creating redundant droplets...

Redundancy allocation problem of a system with increasing failure rates of components based on Weibull distribution: A simulation-based optimization approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guilani, Pedram Pourkarim; Azimi, Parham; Niaki, S.T.A.; Niaki, Seyed Armin Akhavan

2016-01-01

The redundancy allocation problem (RAP) is a useful method to enhance system reliability. In most works involving RAP, failure rates of the system components are assumed to follow either exponential or k-Erlang distributions. In real world problems however, many systems have components with increasing failure rates. This indicates that as time passes by, the failure rates of the system components increase in comparison to their initial failure rates. In this paper, the redundancy allocation problem of a series–parallel system with components having an increasing failure rate based on Weibull distribution is investigated. An optimization method via simulation is proposed for modeling and a genetic algorithm is developed to solve the problem. - Highlights: • The redundancy allocation problem of a series–parallel system is aimed. • Components possess an increasing failure rate based on Weibull distribution. • An optimization method via simulation is proposed for modeling. • A genetic algorithm is developed to solve the problem.

Program management aid for redundancy selection and operational guidelines

Science.gov (United States)

Hodge, P. W.; Davis, W. L.; Frumkin, B.

1972-01-01

Although this criterion was developed specifically for use on the shuttle program, it has application to many other multi-missions programs (i.e. aircraft or mechanisms). The methodology employed is directly applicable even if the tools (nomographs and equations) are for mission peculiar cases. The redundancy selection criterion was developed to insure that both the design and operational cost impacts (life cycle costs) were considered in the selection of the quantity of operational redundancy. These tools were developed as aids in expediting the decision process and not intended as the automatic decision maker. This approach to redundancy selection is unique in that it enables a pseudo systems analysis to be performed on an equipment basis without waiting for all designs to be hardened.

Self-Healing Networks: Redundancy and Structure

Science.gov (United States)

Quattrociocchi, Walter; Caldarelli, Guido; Scala, Antonio

2014-01-01

We introduce the concept of self-healing in the field of complex networks modelling; in particular, self-healing capabilities are implemented through distributed communication protocols that exploit redundant links to recover the connectivity of the system. We then analyze the effect of the level of redundancy on the resilience to multiple failures; in particular, we measure the fraction of nodes still served for increasing levels of network damages. Finally, we study the effects of redundancy under different connectivity patterns—from planar grids, to small-world, up to scale-free networks—on healing performances. Small-world topologies show that introducing some long-range connections in planar grids greatly enhances the resilience to multiple failures with performances comparable to the case of the most resilient (and least realistic) scale-free structures. Obvious applications of self-healing are in the important field of infrastructural networks like gas, power, water, oil distribution systems. PMID:24533065

How Redundant Are Redundant Color Adjectives? An Efficiency-Based Analysis of Color Overspecification

OpenAIRE

Rubio-Fern?ndez, Paula

2016-01-01

Color adjectives tend to be used redundantly in referential communication. I propose that redundant color adjectives are often intended to exploit a color contrast in the visual context and hence facilitate object identification, despite not being necessary to establish unique reference. Two language-production experiments investigated two types of factors that may affect the use of redundant color adjectives: factors related to the efficiency of color in the visual context and factors relate...

Reliability Equivalence to Symmetrical UHVDC Transmission Systems Considering Redundant Structure Configuration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xing Jiang

2018-03-01

Full Text Available In recent years, the ultra-high voltage direct current (UHVDC transmission system has been developed rapidly for its significant long-distance, high-capacity and low-loss properties. Equipment failures and overall outages of the UHVDC system have increasingly vital influence on the power supply of the receiving end grid. To improve the reliability level of UHVDC systems, a quantitative selection and configuration approach of redundant structures is proposed in this paper, which is based on multi-state reliability equivalence. Specifically, considering the symmetry characteristic of an UHVDC system, a state space model is established as a monopole rather than a bipole, which effectively reduces the state space dimensions to be considered by deducing the reliability merging operator of two poles. Considering the standby effect of AC filters and the recovery effect of converter units, the number of available converter units and corresponding probability are expressed with in universal generating function (UGF form. Then, a sensitivity analysis is performed to quantify the impact of component reliability parameters on system reliability and determine the most specific devices that should be configured in the redundant structure. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis is utilized to help determine the optimal scheme of redundant devices. Case studies are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method. Based on the numerical results, configuring a set of redundant transformers is indicated to be of the greatest significance to improve the reliability level of UHVDC transmission systems.

Multi-objective reliability redundancy allocation in an interval environment using particle swarm optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Enze; Chen, Qingwei

2016-01-01

Most of the existing works addressing reliability redundancy allocation problems are based on the assumption of fixed reliabilities of components. In real-life situations, however, the reliabilities of individual components may be imprecise, most often given as intervals, under different operating or environmental conditions. This paper deals with reliability redundancy allocation problems modeled in an interval environment. An interval multi-objective optimization problem is formulated from the original crisp one, where system reliability and cost are simultaneously considered. To render the multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm capable of dealing with interval multi-objective optimization problems, a dominance relation for interval-valued functions is defined with the help of our newly proposed order relations of interval-valued numbers. Then, the crowding distance is extended to the multi-objective interval-valued case. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed approach has been demonstrated through two numerical examples and a case study of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system in water resource management. - Highlights: • We model the reliability redundancy allocation problem in an interval environment. • We apply the particle swarm optimization directly on the interval values. • A dominance relation for interval-valued multi-objective functions is defined. • The crowding distance metric is extended to handle imprecise objective functions.

Quantifying Net Synergy/Redundancy of Spontaneous Variability Regulation via Predictability and Transfer Entropy Decomposition Frameworks.

Science.gov (United States)

Porta, Alberto; Bari, Vlasta; De Maria, Beatrice; Takahashi, Anielle C M; Guzzetti, Stefano; Colombo, Riccardo; Catai, Aparecida M; Raimondi, Ferdinando; Faes, Luca

2017-11-01

Objective: Indexes assessing the balance between redundancy and synergy were hypothesized to be helpful in characterizing cardiovascular control from spontaneous beat-to-beat variations of heart period (HP), systolic arterial pressure (SAP), and respiration (R). Methods: Net redundancy/synergy indexes were derived according to predictability and transfer entropy decomposition strategies via a multivariate linear regression approach. Indexes were tested in two protocols inducing modifications of the cardiovascular regulation via baroreflex loading/unloading (i.e., head-down tilt at -25° and graded head-up tilt at 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75°, and 90°, respectively). The net redundancy/synergy of SAP and R to HP and of HP and R to SAP were estimated over stationary sequences of 256 successive values. Results: We found that: 1) regardless of the target (i.e., HP or SAP) redundancy was prevalent over synergy and this prevalence was independent of type and magnitude of the baroreflex challenge; 2) the prevalence of redundancy disappeared when decoupling inputs from output via a surrogate approach; 3) net redundancy was under autonomic control given that it varied in proportion to the vagal withdrawal during graded head-up tilt; and 4) conclusions held regardless of the decomposition strategy. Conclusion: Net redundancy indexes can monitor changes of cardiovascular control from a perspective completely different from that provided by more traditional univariate and multivariate methods. Significance: Net redundancy measures might provide a practical tool to quantify the reservoir of effective cardiovascular regulatory mechanisms sharing causal influences over a target variable. Objective: Indexes assessing the balance between redundancy and synergy were hypothesized to be helpful in characterizing cardiovascular control from spontaneous beat-to-beat variations of heart period (HP), systolic arterial pressure (SAP), and respiration (R). Methods: Net redundancy

Collision-free inverse kinematics of the redundant seven link manipulator used in a cucumber harvesting robot

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Henten, van E.J.; Schenk, E.J.J.; Willigenburg, van L.G.; Meuleman, J.; Barreiro, P.

2010-01-01

The paper presents results of research on an inverse kinematics algorithm that has been used in a functional model of a cucumber-harvesting robot consisting of a redundant P6R manipulator. Within a first generic approach, the inverse kinematics problem was reformulated as a non-linear programming

Structural redundance of NPPs and diagnostics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Znyshev, V.V.; Sabaev, E.F.

1988-01-01

A new approach to functional diagnosis of NPP state based on structural redundance, owing to which in major of the facilities there are elements identical as to the structure and operational conditions, is suggested. The difference from zero by the given value for one parameter measured for various identical elements is an indicator of a failed element and a signal for diagnostic analysis

Modeling of the dynamics of GBB1005 Ball & Beam Educational Control System as a controlled mechanical system with a redundant coordinate

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Ya. Krasinskii

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The method of research stability and stabilization of equilibrium of systems with geometrical constraints is elaborated and used for equilibrium for real mechatronic arrangement GBB1005 Ball & Beam. For mathematical model construction is used Shul'gin's equations with redundant coordinates. The through differentiation geometrical constraints obtained kinematic (holonomic constraints is necessary add for stability analysis. Asymptotic stability equilibrium for mechanical systems with redundant coordinates is possible , in spite of formal reduction to Lyapunov's especial case, if the number zero roots is equal the number constraints . More exact nonlinear mathematical model of the mechanical component Ball &Beam is considered in this paper. One nonlinear geometric constrain in this problem is allow find the new equilibrium position. The choice of linear control subsystem is depend from the choice of redundant coordinate.

Assessment of redundant systems with imperfect coverage by means of binary decision diagrams

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Myers, Albert F. [Northrop Grumman Corporation, 1840 Century Park East, Los Angeles, CA 90067-2199 (United States)], E-mail: Al.Myers@ngc.com; Rauzy, Antoine [IML/CNRS, 163, Avenue de Luminy, 13288 Marseille Cedex 09 (France)], E-mail: arauzy@iml.univ-mrs.fr

2008-07-15

In this article, we study the assessment of the reliability of redundant systems with imperfect fault coverage. We term fault coverage as the ability of a system to isolate and correctly accommodate failures of redundant elements. For highly reliable systems, such as avionic and space systems, fault coverage is in general imperfect and has a significant impact on system reliability. We review here the different models of imperfect fault coverage. We propose efficient algorithms to assess them separately (as k-out-of-n selectors). We show how to implement these algorithms into a binary decision diagrams engine. Finally, we report experimental results on real life test cases that show on the one hand the importance of imperfect coverage and on the other hand the efficiency of the proposed approach.

An efficient simulated annealing algorithm for the redundancy allocation problem with a choice of redundancy strategies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chambari, Amirhossain; Najafi, Amir Abbas; Rahmati, Seyed Habib A.; Karimi, Aida

2013-01-01

The redundancy allocation problem (RAP) is an important reliability optimization problem. This paper studies a specific RAP in which redundancy strategies are chosen. To do so, the choice of the redundancy strategies among active and cold standby is considered as decision variables. The goal is to select the redundancy strategy, component, and redundancy level for each subsystem such that the system reliability is maximized. Since RAP is a NP-hard problem, we propose an efficient simulated annealing algorithm (SA) to solve it. In addition, to evaluating the performance of the proposed algorithm, it is compared with well-known algorithms in the literature for different test problems. The results of the performance analysis show a relatively satisfactory efficiency of the proposed SA algorithm

Reliability optimization of series–parallel systems with mixed redundancy strategy in subsystems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abouei Ardakan, Mostafa; Zeinal Hamadani, Ali

2014-01-01

Traditionally in redundancy allocation problem (RAP), it is assumed that the redundant components are used based on a predefined active or standby strategies. Recently, some studies consider the situation that both active and standby strategies can be used in a specific system. However, these researches assume that the redundancy strategy for each subsystem can be either active or standby and determine the best strategy for these subsystems by using a proper mathematical model. As an extension to this assumption, a novel strategy, that is a combination of traditional active and standby strategies, is introduced. The new strategy is called mixed strategy which uses both active and cold-standby strategies in one subsystem simultaneously. Therefore, the problem is to determine the component type, redundancy level, number of active and cold-standby units for each subsystem in order to maximize the system reliability. To have a more practical model, the problem is formulated with imperfect switching of cold-standby redundant components and k-Erlang time-to-failure (TTF) distribution. As the optimization of RAP belongs to NP-hard class of problems, a genetic algorithm (GA) is developed. The new strategy and proposed GA are implemented on a well-known test problem in the literature which leads to interesting results. - Highlights: • In this paper the redundancy allocation problem (RAP) for a series–parallel system is considered. • Traditionally there are two main strategies for redundant component namely active and standby. • In this paper a new redundancy strategy which is called “Mixed” redundancy strategy is introduced. • Computational experiments demonstrate that implementing the new strategy lead to interesting results

Synergetic and Redundant Information Flow Detected by Unnormalized Granger Causality: Application to Resting State fMRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Stramaglia, Sebastiano; Angelini, Leonardo; Wu, Guorong; Cortes, Jesus M; Faes, Luca; Marinazzo, Daniele

2016-12-01

We develop a framework for the analysis of synergy and redundancy in the pattern of information flow between subsystems of a complex network. The presence of redundancy and/or synergy in multivariate time series data renders difficulty to estimate the neat flow of information from each driver variable to a given target. We show that adopting an unnormalized definition of Granger causality, one may put in evidence redundant multiplets of variables influencing the target by maximizing the total Granger causality to a given target, over all the possible partitions of the set of driving variables. Consequently, we introduce a pairwise index of synergy which is zero when two independent sources additively influence the future state of the system, differently from previous definitions of synergy. We report the application of the proposed approach to resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the Human Connectome Project showing that redundant pairs of regions arise mainly due to space contiguity and interhemispheric symmetry, while synergy occurs mainly between nonhomologous pairs of regions in opposite hemispheres. Redundancy and synergy, in healthy resting brains, display characteristic patterns, revealed by the proposed approach. The pairwise synergy index, here introduced, maps the informational character of the system at hand into a weighted complex network: the same approach can be applied to other complex systems whose normal state corresponds to a balance between redundant and synergetic circuits.

Redundancy of Redundancy in Justifications of Verdicts of Polish The Constitutional Tribuna

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan Winczorek

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The results of an empirical study of 150 justifications of verdicts of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal (CT are discussed. CT justifies its decisions mostly on authoritative references to previous decisions and other doxa- type arguments. It thus does not convince the audience of a decision's validity, but rather documents it. Further, the methodology changes depending on features of the case. The results are analysed using a conceptual    framework    of sociological systems theory. It is shown that CT's justification methodology ignores the redundancy (excess of references and dependencies of the legal system, finding redundancy redundant. This is a risky strategy of decision- making, enabling political influence.

A Multi-objective PMU Placement Method Considering Observability and Measurement Redundancy using ABC Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

KULANTHAISAMY, A.

2014-05-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a Multi- objective Optimal Placement of Phasor Measurement Units (MOPP method in large electric transmission systems. It is proposed for minimizing the number of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs for complete system observability and maximizing the measurement redundancy of the system, simultaneously. The measurement redundancy means that number of times a bus is able to monitor more than once by PMUs set. A higher level of measurement redundancy can maximize the total system observability and it is desirable for a reliable power system state estimation. Therefore, simultaneous optimization of the two conflicting objectives are performed using a binary coded Artificial Bee Colony (ABC algorithm. The complete observability of the power system is first prepared and then, single line loss contingency condition is considered to the main model. The efficiency of the proposed method is validated on IEEE 14, 30, 57 and 118 bus test systems. The valuable approach of ABC algorithm is demonstrated in finding the optimal number of PMUs and their locations by comparing the performance with earlier works.

Statistical performance and information content of time lag analysis and redundancy analysis in time series modeling.

Science.gov (United States)

Angeler, David G; Viedma, Olga; Moreno, José M

2009-11-01

Time lag analysis (TLA) is a distance-based approach used to study temporal dynamics of ecological communities by measuring community dissimilarity over increasing time lags. Despite its increased use in recent years, its performance in comparison with other more direct methods (i.e., canonical ordination) has not been evaluated. This study fills this gap using extensive simulations and real data sets from experimental temporary ponds (true zooplankton communities) and landscape studies (landscape categories as pseudo-communities) that differ in community structure and anthropogenic stress history. Modeling time with a principal coordinate of neighborhood matrices (PCNM) approach, the canonical ordination technique (redundancy analysis; RDA) consistently outperformed the other statistical tests (i.e., TLAs, Mantel test, and RDA based on linear time trends) using all real data. In addition, the RDA-PCNM revealed different patterns of temporal change, and the strength of each individual time pattern, in terms of adjusted variance explained, could be evaluated, It also identified species contributions to these patterns of temporal change. This additional information is not provided by distance-based methods. The simulation study revealed better Type I error properties of the canonical ordination techniques compared with the distance-based approaches when no deterministic component of change was imposed on the communities. The simulation also revealed that strong emphasis on uniform deterministic change and low variability at other temporal scales is needed to result in decreased statistical power of the RDA-PCNM approach relative to the other methods. Based on the statistical performance of and information content provided by RDA-PCNM models, this technique serves ecologists as a powerful tool for modeling temporal change of ecological (pseudo-) communities.

Joint optimization of redundancy level and spare part inventories

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sleptchenko, Andrei; Heijden, Matthieu van der

2016-01-01

We consider a “k-out-of-N” system with different standby modes. Each of the N components consists of multiple part types. Upon failure, a component can be repaired within a certain time by switching the failed part by a spare, if available. We develop both an exact and a fast approximate analysis to compute the system availability. Next, we jointly optimize the component redundancy level with the inventories of the various spare parts. We find that our approximations are very accurate and suitable for large systems. We apply our model to a case study at a public organization in Qatar, and find that we can improve the availability-to-cost ratio by reducing the redundancy level and increasing the spare part inventories. In general, high redundancy levels appear to be useful only when components are relatively cheap and part replacement times are high. - Highlights: • We analyze a redundant system (k-out-of-N) with multiple parts and spares. • We jointly optimize the redundancy level and the spare part inventories. • We develop an exact method and an approximation to evaluate the system availability. • Adding spare parts and reducing the redundancy level cuts cost by 50% in a case study. • The availability is not very sensitive to the shape of the failure time distribution.

Utilizing Nested Normal Form to Design Redundancy Free JSON Schemas

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wai Yin Mok

2016-12-01

Full Text Available JSON (JavaScript Object Notation is a lightweight data-interchange format for the Internet. JSON is built on two structures: (1 a collection of name/value pairs and (2 an ordered list of values (http://www.json.org/. Because of this simple approach, JSON is easy to use and it has the potential to be the data interchange format of choice for the Internet. Similar to XML, JSON schemas allow nested structures to model hierarchical data. As data interchange over the Internet increases exponentially due to cloud computing or otherwise, redundancy free JSON data are an attractive form of communication because they improve the quality of data communication through eliminating update anomaly. Nested Normal Form, a normal form for hierarchical data, is a precise characterization of redundancy. A nested table, or a hierarchical schema, is in Nested Normal Form if and only if it is free of redundancy caused by multivalued and functional dependencies. Using Nested Normal Form as a guide, this paper introduces a JSON schema design methodology that begins with UML use case diagrams, communication diagrams and class diagrams that model a system under study. Based on the use cases’ execution frequencies and the data passed between involved parties in the communication diagrams, the proposed methodology selects classes from the class diagrams to be the roots of JSON scheme trees and repeatedly adds classes from the class diagram to the scheme trees as long as the schemas satisfy Nested Normal Form. This process continues until all of the classes in the class diagram have been added to some JSON scheme trees.

Case studies in configuration control for redundant robots

Science.gov (United States)

Seraji, H.; Lee, T.; Colbaugh, R.; Glass, K.

1989-01-01

A simple approach to configuration control of redundant robots is presented. The redundancy is utilized to control the robot configuration directly in task space, where the task will be performed. A number of task-related kinematic functions are defined and combined with the end-effector coordinates to form a set of configuration variables. An adaptive control scheme is then utilized to ensure that the configuration variables track the desired reference trajectories as closely as possible. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the control scheme. The scheme has also been implemented for direct online control of a PUMA industrial robot, and experimental results are presented. The simulation and experimental results validate the configuration control scheme for performing various realistic tasks.

A comparison of Heuristic method and Llewellyn’s rules for identification of redundant constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Estiningsih, Y.; Farikhin; Tjahjana, R. H.

2018-03-01

Important techniques in linear programming is modelling and solving practical optimization. Redundant constraints are consider for their effects on general linear programming problems. Identification and reduce redundant constraints are for avoidance of all the calculations associated when solving an associated linear programming problems. Many researchers have been proposed for identification redundant constraints. This paper a compararison of Heuristic method and Llewellyn’s rules for identification of redundant constraints.

Multi-objective reliability optimization of series-parallel systems with a choice of redundancy strategies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Safari, Jalal

2012-01-01

This paper proposes a variant of the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) to solve a novel mathematical model for multi-objective redundancy allocation problems (MORAP). Most researchers about redundancy allocation problem (RAP) have focused on single objective optimization, while there has been some limited research which addresses multi-objective optimization. Also all mathematical multi-objective models of general RAP assume that the type of redundancy strategy for each subsystem is predetermined and known a priori. In general, active redundancy has traditionally received greater attention; however, in practice both active and cold-standby redundancies may be used within a particular system design. The choice of redundancy strategy then becomes an additional decision variable. Thus, the proposed model and solution method are to select the best redundancy strategy, type of components, and levels of redundancy for each subsystem that maximizes the system reliability and minimize total system cost under system-level constraints. This problem belongs to the NP-hard class. This paper presents a second-generation Multiple-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm (MOEA), named NSGA-II to find the best solution for the given problem. The proposed algorithm demonstrates the ability to identify a set of optimal solutions (Pareto front), which provides the Decision Maker (DM) with a complete picture of the optimal solution space. After finding the Pareto front, a procedure is used to select the best solution from the Pareto front. Finally, the advantages of the presented multi-objective model and of the proposed algorithm are illustrated by solving test problems taken from the literature and the robustness of the proposed NSGA-II is discussed.

An improved method for calculating self-motion coordinates for redundant manipulators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reister, D.B.

1997-04-01

For a redundant manipulator, the objective of redundancy resolution is to follow a specified path in Cartesian space and simultaneously perform another task (for example, maximize an objective function or avoid obstacles) at every point along the path. The conventional methods have several drawbacks: a new function must be defined for each task, the extended Jacobian can be singular, closed cycles in Cartesian space may not yield closed cycles in joint space, and the objective is point-wise redundancy resolution (to determine a single point in joint space for each point in Cartesian space). The author divides the redundancy resolution problem into two parts: (1) calculate self-motion coordinates for all possible positions of a manipulator at each point along a Cartesian path and (2) determination of optimal self-motion coordinates that maximize an objective function along the path. This paper will discuss the first part of the problem. The path-wise approach overcomes all of the drawbacks of conventional redundancy resolution methods: no need to define a new function for each task, extended Jacobian cannot be singular, and closed cycles in extended Cartesian space will yield closed cycles in joint space

Does plant species richness guarantee the resilience of local medical systems? A perspective from utilitarian redundancy.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Flávia Rosa Santoro

Full Text Available Resilience is related to the ability of a system to adjust to disturbances. The Utilitarian Redundancy Model has emerged as a tool for investigating the resilience of local medical systems. The model determines the use of species richness for the same therapeutic function as a facilitator of the maintenance of these systems. However, predictions generated from this model have not yet been tested, and a lack of variables exists for deeper analyses of resilience. This study aims to address gaps in the Utilitarian Redundancy Model and to investigate the resilience of two medical systems in the Brazilian semi-arid zone. As a local illness is not always perceived in the same way that biomedicine recognizes, the term "therapeutic targets" is used for perceived illnesses. Semi-structured interviews with local experts were conducted using the free-listing technique to collect data on known medicinal plants, usage preferences, use of redundant species, characteristics of therapeutic targets, and the perceived severity for each target. Additionally, participatory workshops were conducted to determine the frequency of targets. The medical systems showed high species richness but low levels of species redundancy. However, if redundancy was present, it was the primary factor responsible for the maintenance of system functions. Species richness was positively associated with therapeutic target frequencies and negatively related to target severity. Moreover, information about redundant species seems to be largely idiosyncratic; this finding raises questions about the importance of redundancy for resilience. We stress the Utilitarian Redundancy Model as an interesting tool to be used in studies of resilience, but we emphasize that it must consider the distribution of redundancy in terms of the treatment of important illnesses and the sharing of information. This study has identified aspects of the higher and lower vulnerabilities of medical systems, adding

Trophic redundancy reduces vulnerability to extinction cascades.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanders, Dirk; Thébault, Elisa; Kehoe, Rachel; Frank van Veen, F J

2018-03-06

Current species extinction rates are at unprecedentedly high levels. While human activities can be the direct cause of some extinctions, it is becoming increasingly clear that species extinctions themselves can be the cause of further extinctions, since species affect each other through the network of ecological interactions among them. There is concern that the simplification of ecosystems, due to the loss of species and ecological interactions, increases their vulnerability to such secondary extinctions. It is predicted that more complex food webs will be less vulnerable to secondary extinctions due to greater trophic redundancy that can buffer against the effects of species loss. Here, we demonstrate in a field experiment with replicated plant-insect communities, that the probability of secondary extinctions is indeed smaller in food webs that include trophic redundancy. Harvesting one species of parasitoid wasp led to secondary extinctions of other, indirectly linked, species at the same trophic level. This effect was markedly stronger in simple communities than for the same species within a more complex food web. We show that this is due to functional redundancy in the more complex food webs and confirm this mechanism with a food web simulation model by highlighting the importance of the presence and strength of trophic links providing redundancy to those links that were lost. Our results demonstrate that biodiversity loss, leading to a reduction in redundant interactions, can increase the vulnerability of ecosystems to secondary extinctions, which, when they occur, can then lead to further simplification and run-away extinction cascades. Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

Redundancy in electronic health record corpora: analysis, impact on text mining performance and mitigation strategies.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Raphael; Elhadad, Michael; Elhadad, Noémie

2013-01-16

The increasing availability of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data and specifically free-text patient notes presents opportunities for phenotype extraction. Text-mining methods in particular can help disease modeling by mapping named-entities mentions to terminologies and clustering semantically related terms. EHR corpora, however, exhibit specific statistical and linguistic characteristics when compared with corpora in the biomedical literature domain. We focus on copy-and-paste redundancy: clinicians typically copy and paste information from previous notes when documenting a current patient encounter. Thus, within a longitudinal patient record, one expects to observe heavy redundancy. In this paper, we ask three research questions: (i) How can redundancy be quantified in large-scale text corpora? (ii) Conventional wisdom is that larger corpora yield better results in text mining. But how does the observed EHR redundancy affect text mining? Does such redundancy introduce a bias that distorts learned models? Or does the redundancy introduce benefits by highlighting stable and important subsets of the corpus? (iii) How can one mitigate the impact of redundancy on text mining? We analyze a large-scale EHR corpus and quantify redundancy both in terms of word and semantic concept repetition. We observe redundancy levels of about 30% and non-standard distribution of both words and concepts. We measure the impact of redundancy on two standard text-mining applications: collocation identification and topic modeling. We compare the results of these methods on synthetic data with controlled levels of redundancy and observe significant performance variation. Finally, we compare two mitigation strategies to avoid redundancy-induced bias: (i) a baseline strategy, keeping only the last note for each patient in the corpus; (ii) removing redundant notes with an efficient fingerprinting-based algorithm. (a)For text mining, preprocessing the EHR corpus with fingerprinting yields

Language as an information system: redundancy and optimization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irina Mikhaylovna Nekipelova

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The paper is devoted to research of the language system as an information system. The distinguishing feature of any natural living language system is redundant of elements of its structure. Redundancy, broken terms of universality peculiar to artificial information systems, makes language mobile in time and in space. It should be marked out informational redundancy of two types: language redundancy, when information overlay of language units within the system occurs and speech redundancy when condense of information into syntagmatic level occurs. Language redundancy is potential and speech redundancy is actual. In general, it should be noted that the language redundancy is necessary for language: complicating the relationships between language units, language redundancy creates in language situation of choice, leading to a disorder of language system, increasing of entropy and, as a result, the appearing of the information that can be accepted or cannot be by language system. Language redundancy is one of the reasons for growth of information in language. In addition, the information redundancy in language is one of the factors of language system development.

The Effects of Race Conditions When Implementing Single-Source Redundant Clock Trees in Triple Modular Redundant Synchronous Architectures

Science.gov (United States)

Berg, Melanie D.; Kim, Hak S.; Phan, Anthony M.; Seidleck, Christina M.; Label, Kenneth A.; Pellish, Jonathan A.; Campola, Michael J.

2016-01-01

We present the challenges that arise when using redundant clock domains due to their time-skew. Radiation data show that a singular clock domain provides an improved triple modular redundant (TMR) scheme over redundant clocks.

Modeling and Control of the Redundant Parallel Adjustment Mechanism on a Deployable Antenna Panel

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lili Tian

2016-10-01

Full Text Available With the aim of developing multiple input and multiple output (MIMO coupling systems with a redundant parallel adjustment mechanism on the deployable antenna panel, a structural control integrated design methodology is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the modal information from the finite element model of the structure of the antenna panel is extracted, and then the mathematical model is established with the Hamilton principle; Secondly, the discrete Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR controller is added to the model in order to control the actuators and adjust the shape of the panel. Finally, the engineering practicality of the modeling and control method based on finite element analysis simulation is verified.

Multisensory processing of redundant information in go/no-go and choice responses

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blurton, Steven Paul; Greenlee, Mark W.; Gondan, Matthias

2014-01-01

In multisensory research, faster responses are commonly observed when multimodal stimuli are presented as compared to unimodal target presentations. This so-called redundant signals effect can be explained by several frameworks including separate activation and coactivation models. The redundant ...... of redundant information provided by different sensory channels and is not restricted to simple responses. The results connect existing theories on multisensory integration with theories on choice behavior....... processes (Schwarz, 1994) within two absorbing barriers. The diffusion superposition model accurately describes mean and variance of response times as well as the proportion of correct responses observed in the two tasks. Linear superposition seems, thus, to be a general principle in integration...

Redundant actuator development study. [flight control systems for supersonic transport aircraft

Science.gov (United States)

Ryder, D. R.

1973-01-01

Current and past supersonic transport configurations are reviewed to assess redundancy requirements for future airplane control systems. Secondary actuators used in stability augmentation systems will probably be the most critical actuator application and require the highest level of redundancy. Two methods of actuator redundancy mechanization have been recommended for further study. Math models of the recommended systems have been developed for use in future computer simulations. A long range plan has been formulated for actuator hardware development and testing in conjunction with the NASA Flight Simulator for Advanced Aircraft.

A succession of theories: purging redundancy from disturbance theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Pulsford, Stephanie A; Lindenmayer, David B; Driscoll, Don A

2016-02-01

The topics of succession and post-disturbance ecosystem recovery have a long and convoluted history. There is extensive redundancy within this body of theory, which has resulted in confusion, and the links among theories have not been adequately drawn. This review aims to distil the unique ideas from the array of theory related to ecosystem change in response to disturbance. This will help to reduce redundancy, and improve communication and understanding between researchers. We first outline the broad range of concepts that have developed over the past century to describe community change in response to disturbance. The body of work spans overlapping succession concepts presented by Clements in 1916, Egler in 1954, and Connell and Slatyer in 1977. Other theories describing community change include state and transition models, biological legacy theory, and the application of functional traits to predict responses to disturbance. Second, we identify areas of overlap of these theories, in addition to highlighting the conceptual and taxonomic limitations of each. In aligning each of these theories with one another, the limited scope and relative inflexibility of some theories becomes apparent, and redundancy becomes explicit. We identify a set of unique concepts to describe the range of mechanisms driving ecosystem responses to disturbance. We present a schematic model of our proposed synthesis which brings together the range of unique mechanisms that were identified in our review. The model describes five main mechanisms of transition away from a post-disturbance community: (i) pulse events with rapid state shifts; (ii) stochastic community drift; (iii) facilitation; (iv) competition; and (v) the influence of the initial composition of a post-disturbance community. In addition, stabilising processes such as biological legacies, inhibition or continuing disturbance may prevent a transition between community types. Integrating these six mechanisms with the functional

Coherent network detection of gravitational waves: the redundancy veto

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wen Linqing; Schutz, Bernard F

2005-01-01

A network of gravitational wave detectors is called redundant if, given the direction to a source, the strain induced by a gravitational wave in one or more of the detectors can be fully expressed in terms of the strain induced in others in the network. Because gravitational waves have only two polarizations, any network of three or more differently oriented interferometers with similar observing bands is redundant. The three-armed LISA space interferometer has three outputs that are redundant at low frequencies. The two aligned LIGO interferometers at Hanford WA are redundant, and the LIGO detector at Livingston LA is nearly redundant with either of the Hanford detectors. Redundant networks have a powerful veto against spurious noise, a linear combination of the detector outputs that contains no gravitational wave signal. For LISA, this 'null' output is known as the Sagnac mode, and its use in discriminating between detector noise and a cosmological gravitational wave background is well understood. But the usefulness of the null veto for ground-based detector networks has been ignored until now. We show that it should make it possible to discriminate in a model-independent way between real gravitational waves and accidentally coincident non-Gaussian noise 'events' in redundant networks of two or more broadband detectors. It has been shown that with three detectors, the null output can even be used to locate the direction to the source, and then two other linear combinations of detector outputs give the optimal 'coherent' reconstruction of the two polarization components of the signal. We discuss briefly the implementation of such a detection strategy in realistic networks, where signals are weak, detector calibration is a significant uncertainty, and the various detectors may have different (but overlapping) observing bands

On Planning of FTTH Access Networks with and without Redundancy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Riaz, M. Tahir; Haraldsson, Gustav; Gutierrez Lopez, Jose Manuel

2010-01-01

This paper presents a planning analysis of FTTH access network with and without redundancy. Traditionally, access networks are planned only without redundancy, which is mainly due to lowering the cost of deployment. As fiber optics provide a huge amount of capacity, more and more services are being...... offered on a single fiber connection. As a single point of failure in fiber connection can cause multiple service deprivation therefore redundancy is very crucial. In this work, an automated planning model was used to test different scenarios of implementation. A cost estimation is presented in terms...... of digging and amount of fiber used. Three topologies, including the traditional one “tree topology”, were test with combination of various passive optical technologies....

Optimization of robustness of interdependent network controllability by redundant design.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zenghu Zhang

Full Text Available Controllability of complex networks has been a hot topic in recent years. Real networks regarded as interdependent networks are always coupled together by multiple networks. The cascading process of interdependent networks including interdependent failure and overload failure will destroy the robustness of controllability for the whole network. Therefore, the optimization of the robustness of interdependent network controllability is of great importance in the research area of complex networks. In this paper, based on the model of interdependent networks constructed first, we determine the cascading process under different proportions of node attacks. Then, the structural controllability of interdependent networks is measured by the minimum driver nodes. Furthermore, we propose a parameter which can be obtained by the structure and minimum driver set of interdependent networks under different proportions of node attacks and analyze the robustness for interdependent network controllability. Finally, we optimize the robustness of interdependent network controllability by redundant design including node backup and redundancy edge backup and improve the redundant design by proposing different strategies according to their cost. Comparative strategies of redundant design are conducted to find the best strategy. Results shows that node backup and redundancy edge backup can indeed decrease those nodes suffering from failure and improve the robustness of controllability. Considering the cost of redundant design, we should choose BBS (betweenness-based strategy or DBS (degree based strategy for node backup and HDF(high degree first for redundancy edge backup. Above all, our proposed strategies are feasible and effective at improving the robustness of interdependent network controllability.

Beyond redundancy how geographic redundancy can improve service availability and reliability of computer-based systems

CERN Document Server

Bauer, Eric; Eustace, Dan

2012-01-01

"While geographic redundancy can obviously be a huge benefit for disaster recovery, it is far less obvious what benefit is feasible and likely for more typical non-catastrophic hardware, software, and human failures. Georedundancy and Service Availability provides both a theoretical and practical treatment of the feasible and likely benefits of geographic redundancy for both service availability and service reliability. The text provides network/system planners, IS/IT operations folks, system architects, system engineers, developers, testers, and other industry practitioners with a general discussion about the capital expense/operating expense tradeoff that frames system redundancy and georedundancy"--

Mathematical model of process of redundant measurements with uninterrupted influence of measurand on sensing element of sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Redko V. V.

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses improvement of accuracy of measurands measurements with the use of measuring channel with nonlinear calibration curve. There is proposed a mathematical model, which describes process of redundant measurements for measuring channel when it’s measurement function is a polynomial of third power.

Software engineering : redundancy is key

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brand, van den M.G.J.; Groote, J.F.

2015-01-01

Software engineers are humans and so they make lots of mistakes. Typically 1 out of 10 to 100 tasks go wrong. The only way to avoid these mistakes is to introduce redundancy in the software engineering process. This article is a plea to consciously introduce several levels of redundancy for each

Nonlinear Redundancy Analysis. Research Report 88-1.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Burg, Eeke; de Leeuw, Jan

A non-linear version of redundancy analysis is introduced. The technique is called REDUNDALS. It is implemented within the computer program for canonical correlation analysis called CANALS. The REDUNDALS algorithm is of an alternating least square (ALS) type. The technique is defined as minimization of a squared distance between criterion…

The restricted isometry property meets nonlinear approximation with redundant frames

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gribonval, Rémi; Nielsen, Morten

2013-01-01

with a redundant frame. The main ingredients of our approach are: a) Jackson and Bernstein inequalities, associated to the characterization of certain approximation spaces with interpolation spaces; b) a proof that for overcomplete frames which satisfy a Bernstein inequality, these interpolation spaces are nothing...

Analysis of singularity in redundant manipulators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Watanabe, Koichi

2000-03-01

In the analysis of arm positions and configurations of redundant manipulators, the singularity avoidance problems are important themes. This report presents singularity avoidance computations of a 7 DOF manipulator by using a computer code based on human-arm models. The behavior of the arm escaping from the singular point can be identified satisfactorily through the use of 3-D plotting tools. (author)

Repetitive motion planning and control of redundant robot manipulators

CERN Document Server

Zhang, Yunong

2013-01-01

Repetitive Motion Planning and Control of Redundant Robot Manipulators presents four typical motion planning schemes based on optimization techniques, including the fundamental RMP scheme and its extensions. These schemes are unified as quadratic programs (QPs), which are solved by neural networks or numerical algorithms. The RMP schemes are demonstrated effectively by the simulation results based on various robotic models; the experiments applying the fundamental RMP scheme to a physical robot manipulator are also presented. As the schemes and the corresponding solvers presented in the book have solved the non-repetitive motion problems existing in redundant robot manipulators, it is of particular use in applying theoretical research based on the quadratic program for redundant robot manipulators in industrial situations. This book will be a valuable reference work for engineers, researchers, advanced undergraduate and graduate students in robotics fields. Yunong Zhang is a professor at The School of Informa...

On the value of redundancy subject to common-cause failures: Toward the resolution of an on-going debate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoepfer, V.M.; Saleh, J.H.; Marais, K.B.

2009-01-01

Common-cause failures (CCF) are one of the more critical and challenging issues for system reliability and risk analyses. Academic interest in modeling CCF, and more broadly in modeling dependent failures, has steadily grown over the years in the number of publications as well as in the sophistication of the analytical tools used. In the past few years, several influential articles have shed doubts on the relevance of redundancy arguing that 'redundancy backfires' through common-cause failures, and that the latter dominate unreliability, thus defeating the purpose of redundancy. In this work, we take issue with some of the results of these publications. In their stead, we provide a nuanced perspective on the (contingent) value of redundancy subject to common-cause failures. First, we review the incremental reliability and MTTF provided by redundancy subject to common-cause failures. Second, we introduce the concept and develop the analytics of the 'redundancy-relevance boundary': we propose this redundancy-relevance boundary as a design-aid tool that provides an answer to the following question: what level of redundancy is relevant or advantageous given a varying prevalence of common-cause failures? We investigate the conditions under which different levels of redundancy provide an incremental MTTF over that of the single component in the face of common-cause failures. Recognizing that redundancy comes at a cost, we also conduct a cost-benefit analysis of redundancy subject to common-cause failures, and demonstrate how this analysis modifies the redundancy-relevance boundary. We show how the value of redundancy is contingent on the prevalence of common-cause failures, the redundancy level considered, and the monadic cost-benefit ratio. Finally we argue that general unqualified criticism of redundancy is misguided, and efforts are better spent for example on understanding and mitigating the potential sources of common-cause failures rather than deriding the concept

Joint redundancy and imperfect preventive maintenance optimization for series–parallel multi-state degraded systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nourelfath, Mustapha; Châtelet, Eric; Nahas, Nabil

2012-01-01

This paper formulates a joint redundancy and imperfect preventive maintenance planning optimization model for series–parallel multi-state degraded systems. Non identical multi-state components can be used in parallel to improve the system availability by providing redundancy in subsystems. Multiple component choices are available in the market for each subsystem. The status of each component is considered to degrade with use. The objective is to determine jointly the maximal-availability series–parallel system structure and the appropriate preventive maintenance actions, subject to a budget constraint. System availability is defined as the ability to satisfy consumer demand that is represented as a piecewise cumulative load curve. A procedure is used, based on Markov processes and universal moment generating function, to evaluate the multi-state system availability and the cost function. A heuristic approach is also proposed to solve the formulated problem. This heuristic is based on a combination of space partitioning, genetic algorithms (GA) and tabu search (TS). After dividing the search space into a set of disjoint subsets, this approach uses GA to select the subspaces, and applies TS to each selected sub-space.

The impact of the operating environment on the design of redundant configurations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marseguerra, M.; Padovani, E.; Zio, E.

1999-01-01

Safety systems are often characterized by substantial redundancy and diversification in safety critical components. In principle, such redundancy and diversification can bring benefits when compared to single-component systems. However, it has also been recognized that the evaluation of these benefits should take into account that redundancies cannot be founded, in practice, on the assumption of complete independence, so that the resulting risk profile is strongly dominated by dependent failures. It is therefore mandatory that the effects of common cause failures be estimated in any probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). Recently, in the Hughes model for hardware failures and in the Eckhardt and Lee models for software failures, it was proposed that the stressfulness of the operating environment affects the probability that a particular type of component will fail. Thus, dependence of component failure behaviors can arise indirectly through the variability of the environment which can directly affect the success of a redundant configuration. In this paper we investigate the impact of indirect component dependence by means of the introduction of a probability distribution which describes the variability of the environment. We show that the variance of the distribution of the number, or times, of system failures can give an indication of the presence of the environment. Further, the impact of the environment is shown to affect the reliability and the design of redundant configurations

EFFICIENCY OF REDUNDANT QUERY EXECUTION IN MULTI-CHANNEL SERVICE SYSTEMS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. A. Bogatyrev

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Subject of Research.The paper deals with analysis of the effectiveness of redundant queries based on untrusted computing in computer systems, represented by multi-channel queuing systems with a common queue. The objective of research is the possibility of increasing the efficiency of service requests while performing redundant copies of requests in different devices of a multi-channel system under conditions of calculations unreliability. The redundant service of requests requires the infallibility of its implementation at least in one of the devices.Method. We have considered estimation of the average time spent in the system with and without the use of redundant requests at the presentation of a simple queuing model of the M / M / n type to analyze the effectiveness of redundant service of requests. Presented evaluation of the average waiting time in the redundant queries is the upper one, since it ignores the possibility of reducing the average waiting time as a result of the spread of the probability of time querying at different devices. The integrated efficiency of redundant service of requests is defined based on the multiplicative index that takes into account the infallibility of calculations and the average time allowance with respect to the maximum tolerated delay of service. Evaluation of error-free computing at reserved queries is received at the requirement of faultless execution of at least one copy of the request. Main Results. We have shown that the reservation of requests gives the gain in efficiency of the system at low demand rate (load. We have defined the boundaries of expediency (efficiency for redundant service of requests. We have shown the possibility of the effectiveness increasing of the adaptive changes in the multiplicity of the reservation of requests, depending on the intensity of the flow of requests. We have found out that the choice of service discipline in information service systems is largely determined by

Basic aspects of stochastic reliability analysis for redundancy systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Doerre, P.

1989-01-01

Much confusion has been created by trying to establish common cause failure (CCF) as an extra phenomenon which has to be treated with extra methods in reliability and data analysis. This paper takes another approach which can be roughly described by the statement that dependent failure is the basic phenomenon, while 'independent failure' refers to a special limiting case, namely the perfectly homogeneous population. This approach is motivated by examples demonstrating that common causes do not lead to dependent failure, so far as physical dependencies like shared components are excluded, and that stochastic dependencies are not related to common causes. The possibility to select more than one failure behaviour from an inhomogeneous population is identified as an additional random process which creates stochastic dependence. However, this source of randomness is usually treated in the deterministic limit, which destroys dependence and hence yields incorrect multiple failure frequencies for redundancy structures, thus creating the need for applying corrective CCF models. (author)

Redundancy in Nigerian Business Organizations: Alternatives ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This theoretical discourse examined the incidence of work redundancy in Nigerian organizations as to offer alternative options. Certainly, some redundancy exercises may be necessary for the survival of the organizations but certain variables may influence employees' reactions to the exercises and thus influence the ...

Sexual selection, redundancy and survival of the most beautiful

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

A model is described of a highly redundant complex organism that has overlapping banks of genes such that each vital function is specified by several different genetic systems. This generates a synergistic profile linking probability of survival to the number of deleterious mutations in the genome. Computer models show ...

Fault-Tolerant Region-Based Control of an Underwater Vehicle with Kinematically Redundant Thrusters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zool H. Ismail

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a new control approach for an underwater vehicle with a kinematically redundant thruster system. This control scheme is derived based on a fault-tolerant decomposition for thruster force allocation and a region control scheme for the tracking objective. Given a redundant thruster system, that is, six or more pairs of thrusters are used, the proposed redundancy resolution and region control scheme determine the number of thruster faults, as well as providing the reference thruster forces in order to keep the underwater vehicle within the desired region. The stability of the presented control law is proven in the sense of a Lyapunov function. Numerical simulations are performed with an omnidirectional underwater vehicle and the results of the proposed scheme illustrate the effectiveness in terms of optimizing the thruster forces.

In-flight performance optimization for rotorcraft with redundant controls

Science.gov (United States)

Ozdemir, Gurbuz Taha

A conventional helicopter has limits on performance at high speeds because of the limitations of main rotor, such as compressibility issues on advancing side or stall issues on retreating side. Auxiliary lift and thrust components have been suggested to improve performance of the helicopter substantially by reducing the loading on the main rotor. Such a configuration is called the compound rotorcraft. Rotor speed can also be varied to improve helicopter performance. In addition to improved performance, compound rotorcraft and variable RPM can provide a much larger degree of control redundancy. This additional redundancy gives the opportunity to further enhance performance and handling qualities. A flight control system is designed to perform in-flight optimization of redundant control effectors on a compound rotorcraft in order to minimize power required and extend range. This "Fly to Optimal" (FTO) control law is tested in simulation using the GENHEL model. A model of the UH-60, a compound version of the UH-60A with lifting wing and vectored thrust ducted propeller (VTDP), and a generic compound version of the UH-60A with lifting wing and propeller were developed and tested in simulation. A model following dynamic inversion controller is implemented for inner loop control of roll, pitch, yaw, heave, and rotor RPM. An outer loop controller regulates airspeed and flight path during optimization. A Golden Section search method was used to find optimal rotor RPM on a conventional helicopter, where the single redundant control effector is rotor RPM. The FTO builds off of the Adaptive Performance Optimization (APO) method of Gilyard by performing low frequency sweeps on a redundant control for a fixed wing aircraft. A method based on the APO method was used to optimize trim on a compound rotorcraft with several redundant control effectors. The controller can be used to optimize rotor RPM and compound control effectors through flight test or simulations in order to

Risk-based replacement strategies for redundant deteriorating reinforced concrete pipe networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adey, B.; Bernard, O.; Gerard, B.

2003-01-01

This paper gives an example of how predictive models of the deterioration of reinforced concrete pipes and the consequences of failure can be used to develop risk-based replacement strategies for redundant reinforced concrete pipe networks. It also shows how an accurate deterioration prediction can lead to a reduction of agency costs, and illustrates the limitation of the incremental intervention step algorithm. The main conclusion is that the use of predictive models, such as those developed by Oxand S.A., in the determination of replacement strategies for redundant reinforced concrete pipe networks can lead to a significant reduction in overall costs for the owner of the structure. (author)

Processing bimodal stimulus information under alcohol: is there a risk to being redundant?

Science.gov (United States)

Fillmore, Mark T

2010-10-01

The impairing effects of alcohol are especially pronounced in environments that involve dividing attention across two or more stimuli. However, studies in cognitive psychology have identified circumstances in which the presentation of multiple stimuli can actually facilitate performance. The "redundant signal effect" (RSE) refers to the observation that individuals respond more quickly when information is presented as redundant, bimodal stimuli (e.g., aurally and visually), rather than as a single stimulus presented to either modality alone. The present study tested the hypothesis that the response facilitation attributed to RSE could reduce the degree to which alcohol slows information processing. Two experiments are reported. Experiment 1 demonstrated the validity of a reaction time model of RSE by showing that adults (N = 15) responded more quickly to redundant, bimodal stimuli (visual + aural) versus either stimuli presented individually. Experiment 2 used the RSE model to test the reaction time performance of 20 adults following three alcohol doses (0.0 g/kg, 0.45 g/kg, and 0.65 g/kg). Results showed that alcohol slowed reaction time in a general dose-dependent manner in all three stimulus conditions with the reaction time (RT) speed-advantage of the redundant signal being maintained, even under the highest dose of alcohol. Evidence for an RT advantage to bimodal stimuli under alcohol challenges the general assumption that alcohol impairment is intensified in multistimulus environments. The current study provides a useful model to investigate how drug effects on behavior might be altered in contexts that involve redundant response signals.

Redundancy in Nigerian Business Organizations: Alternatives (Pp ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

FIRST LADY

Redundancy in Nigerian Business Organizations: Alternatives (Pp. ... When business downturns ... The galloping pace of information technologies is a harbinger of profound ... Redundant staff in public departments can also be retained as.

N + 1 redundancy on ATCA instrumentation for Nuclear Fusion

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Correia, Miguel, E-mail: miguelfc@ipfn.ist.utl.pt [Associação EURATOM/IST, Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico – Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisboa (Portugal); Sousa, Jorge; Rodrigues, António P.; Batista, António J.N.; Combo, Álvaro; Carvalho, Bernardo B.; Santos, Bruno; Carvalho, Paulo F.; Gonçalves, Bruno [Associação EURATOM/IST, Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico – Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisboa (Portugal); Correia, Carlos M.B.A. [Centro de Instrumentação, Departamento de Física, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra (Portugal); Varandas, Carlos A.F. [Associação EURATOM/IST, Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico – Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisboa (Portugal)

2013-10-15

Highlights: ► In Nuclear Fusion, demanding security and high-availability requirements call for redundancy to be available. ► ATCA standard features desirable redundancy features for Fusion instrumentation. ► The developed control and data acquisition hardware modules support additional redundancy schemes. ► Implementation of N + 1 redundancy of host processor and I/O data modules. -- Abstract: The role of redundancy on control and data acquisition systems has gained a significant importance in the case of Nuclear Fusion, as demanding security and high-availability requirements call for redundancy to be available. IPFN's control and data acquisition system hardware is based on an Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) set of I/O (DAC/ADC endpoints) and data/timing switch modules, which handle data and timing from all I/O endpoints. Modules communicate through Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe), established over the ATCA backplane and controlled by one or more external hosts. The developed hardware modules were designed to take advantage of ATCA specification's redundancy features, namely at the hardware management level, including support of: (i) multiple host operation with N + 1 redundancy – in which a designated failover host takes over data previously assigned to a suddenly malfunctioning host and (ii) N + 1 redundancy of I/O and data/timing switch modules. This paper briefly describes IPFN's control and data acquisition system, which is being developed for ITER fast plant system controller (FPSC), and analyses the hardware implementation of its supported redundancy features.

Increasing The Dexterity Of Redundant Robots

Science.gov (United States)

Seraji, Homayoun

1990-01-01

Redundant coordinates used to define additional tasks. Configuration control emerging as effective way to control motions of robot having more degrees of freedom than necessary to define trajectory of end effector and/or of object to be manipulated. Extra or redundant degrees of freedom used to give robot humanlike dexterity and versatility.

A two-stage approach for managing actuators redundancy and its application to fault tolerant flight control

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhong Lunlong

2015-04-01

Full Text Available In safety-critical systems such as transportation aircraft, redundancy of actuators is introduced to improve fault tolerance. How to make the best use of remaining actuators to allow the system to continue achieving a desired operation in the presence of some actuators failures is the main subject of this paper. Considering that many dynamical systems, including flight dynamics of a transportation aircraft, can be expressed as an input affine nonlinear system, a new state representation is adopted here where the output dynamics are related with virtual inputs associated with the intended operation. This representation, as well as the distribution matrix associated with the effectiveness of the remaining operational actuators, allows us to define different levels of fault tolerant governability with respect to actuators’ failures. Then, a two-stage control approach is developed, leading first to the inversion of the output dynamics to get nominal values for the virtual inputs and then to the solution of a linear quadratic (LQ problem to compute the solicitation of each operational actuator. The proposed approach is applied to the control of a transportation aircraft which performs a stabilized roll maneuver while a partial failure appears. Two fault scenarios are considered and the resulting performance of the proposed approach is displayed and discussed.

On Redundancy in Describing Linguistic Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladimir Borissov Pericliev

2015-12-01

Full Text Available On Redundancy in Describing Linguistic Systems The notion of system of linguistic elements figures prominently in most post-Saussurian linguistics up to the present. A “system” is the network of the contrastive (or, distinctive features each element in the system bears to the remaining elements. The meaning (valeur of each element in the system is the set of features that are necessary and jointly sufficient to distinguish this element from all others. The paper addresses the problems of “redundancy”, i.e. the occurrence of features that are not strictly necessary in describing an element in a system. Redundancy is shown to smuggle into the description of linguistic systems, this infelicitous practice illustrated with some examples from the literature (e.g. the classical phonemic analysis of Russian by Cherry, Halle, and Jakobson, 1953. The logic and psychology of the occurrence of redundancy are briefly sketched and it is shown that, in addition to some other problems, redundancy leads to a huge and unresolvable ambiguity of descriptions of linguistic systems (the Buridan’s ass problem.

Optimal redundant systems for works with random processing time

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, M.; Nakagawa, T.

2013-01-01

This paper studies the optimal redundant policies for a manufacturing system processing jobs with random working times. The redundant units of the parallel systems and standby systems are subject to stochastic failures during the continuous production process. First, a job consisting of only one work is considered for both redundant systems and the expected cost functions are obtained. Next, each redundant system with a random number of units is assumed for a single work. The expected cost functions and the optimal expected numbers of units are derived for redundant systems. Subsequently, the production processes of N tandem works are introduced for parallel and standby systems, and the expected cost functions are also summarized. Finally, the number of works is estimated by a Poisson distribution for the parallel and standby systems. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the optimization problems of redundant systems

Anthropomorphic Coding of Speech and Audio: A Model Inversion Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Bastiaan Kleijn

2005-06-01

Full Text Available Auditory modeling is a well-established methodology that provides insight into human perception and that facilitates the extraction of signal features that are most relevant to the listener. The aim of this paper is to provide a tutorial on perceptual speech and audio coding using an invertible auditory model. In this approach, the audio signal is converted into an auditory representation using an invertible auditory model. The auditory representation is quantized and coded. Upon decoding, it is then transformed back into the acoustic domain. This transformation converts a complex distortion criterion into a simple one, thus facilitating quantization with low complexity. We briefly review past work on auditory models and describe in more detail the components of our invertible model and its inversion procedure, that is, the method to reconstruct the signal from the output of the auditory model. We summarize attempts to use the auditory representation for low-bit-rate coding. Our approach also allows the exploitation of the inherent redundancy of the human auditory system for the purpose of multiple description (joint source-channel coding.

Reliability analysis of component-level redundant topologies for solid-state fault current limiter

Science.gov (United States)

Farhadi, Masoud; Abapour, Mehdi; Mohammadi-Ivatloo, Behnam

2018-04-01

Experience shows that semiconductor switches in power electronics systems are the most vulnerable components. One of the most common ways to solve this reliability challenge is component-level redundant design. There are four possible configurations for the redundant design in component level. This article presents a comparative reliability analysis between different component-level redundant designs for solid-state fault current limiter. The aim of the proposed analysis is to determine the more reliable component-level redundant configuration. The mean time to failure (MTTF) is used as the reliability parameter. Considering both fault types (open circuit and short circuit), the MTTFs of different configurations are calculated. It is demonstrated that more reliable configuration depends on the junction temperature of the semiconductor switches in the steady state. That junction temperature is a function of (i) ambient temperature, (ii) power loss of the semiconductor switch and (iii) thermal resistance of heat sink. Also, results' sensitivity to each parameter is investigated. The results show that in different conditions, various configurations have higher reliability. The experimental results are presented to clarify the theory and feasibility of the proposed approaches. At last, levelised costs of different configurations are analysed for a fair comparison.

Global Energy-Optimal Redundancy Resolution of Hydraulic Manipulators: Experimental Results for a Forestry Manipulator

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jarmo Nurmi

2017-05-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses the energy-inefficiency problem of four-degrees-of-freedom (4-DOF hydraulic manipulators through redundancy resolution in robotic closed-loop controlled applications. Because conventional methods typically are local and have poor performance for resolving redundancy with respect to minimum hydraulic energy consumption, global energy-optimal redundancy resolution is proposed at the valve-controlled actuator and hydraulic power system interaction level. The energy consumption of the widely popular valve-controlled load-sensing (LS and constant-pressure (CP systems is effectively minimised through cost functions formulated in a discrete-time dynamic programming (DP approach with minimum state representation. A prescribed end-effector path and important actuator constraints at the position, velocity and acceleration levels are also satisfied in the solution. Extensive field experiments performed on a forestry hydraulic manipulator demonstrate the performance of the proposed solution. Approximately 15–30% greater hydraulic energy consumption was observed with the conventional methods in the LS and CP systems. These results encourage energy-optimal redundancy resolution in future robotic applications of hydraulic manipulators.

The error performance analysis over cyclic redundancy check codes

Science.gov (United States)

Yoon, Hee B.

1991-06-01

The burst error is generated in digital communication networks by various unpredictable conditions, which occur at high error rates, for short durations, and can impact services. To completely describe a burst error one has to know the bit pattern. This is impossible in practice on working systems. Therefore, under the memoryless binary symmetric channel (MBSC) assumptions, the performance evaluation or estimation schemes for digital signal 1 (DS1) transmission systems carrying live traffic is an interesting and important problem. This study will present some analytical methods, leading to efficient detecting algorithms of burst error using cyclic redundancy check (CRC) code. The definition of burst error is introduced using three different models. Among the three burst error models, the mathematical model is used in this study. The probability density function, function(b) of burst error of length b is proposed. The performance of CRC-n codes is evaluated and analyzed using function(b) through the use of a computer simulation model within CRC block burst error. The simulation result shows that the mean block burst error tends to approach the pattern of the burst error which random bit errors generate.

Radiation-Tolerance Assessment of a Redundant Wireless Device

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Q.; Jiang, J.

2018-01-01

This paper presents a method to evaluate radiation-tolerance without physical tests for a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)-based monitoring device for high level radiation fields, such as those found in post-accident conditions in a nuclear power plant (NPP). This paper specifically describes the analysis of radiation environment in a severe accident, radiation damages in electronics, and the redundant solution used to prolong the life of the system, as well as the evaluation method for radiation protection and the analysis method of system reliability. As a case study, a wireless monitoring device with redundant and diversified channels is evaluated by using the developed method. The study results and system assessment data show that, under the given radiation condition, performance of the redundant device is more reliable and more robust than those non-redundant devices. The developed redundant wireless monitoring device is therefore able to apply in those conditions (up to 10 M Rad (Si)) during a severe accident in a NPP.

Flexible Procurement of Services with Uncertain Durations using Redundancy

OpenAIRE

Stein, S; Gerding, E; Rogers, A; Larson, K; Jennings, NR

2009-01-01

Emerging service-oriented technologies allow software agents to automatically procure distributed services to complete complex tasks. However, in many application scenarios, service providers demand financial remuneration, execution times are uncertain and consumers have deadlines for their tasks. In this paper, we address these issues by developing a novel approach that dynamically procures multiple, redundant services over time, in order to ensure success by the deadline. Specifically, we f...

The Birth and Death of Redundancy in Decoherence and Quantum Darwinism

Science.gov (United States)

Riedel, Charles; Zurek, Wojciech; Zwolak, Michael

2012-02-01

Understanding the quantum-classical transition and the identification of a preferred classical domain through quantum Darwinism is based on recognizing high-redundancy states as both ubiquitous and exceptional. They are produced ubiquitously during decoherence, as has been demonstrated by the recent identification of very general conditions under which high-redundancy states develop. They are exceptional in that high-redundancy states occupy a very narrow corner of the global Hilbert space; states selected at random are overwelming likely to exhibit zero redundancy. In this letter, we examine the conditions and time scales for the transition from high-redundancy states to zero-redundancy states in many-body dynamics. We identify sufficient condition for the development of redundancy from product states and show that the destruction of redundancy can be accomplished even with highly constrained interactions.

The theory of diversity and redundancy in information system security : LDRD final report.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mayo, Jackson R. (Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA); Torgerson, Mark Dolan; Walker, Andrea Mae; Armstrong, Robert C. (Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA); Allan, Benjamin A. (Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA); Pierson, Lyndon George

2010-10-01

The goal of this research was to explore first principles associated with mixing of diverse implementations in a redundant fashion to increase the security and/or reliability of information systems. Inspired by basic results in computer science on the undecidable behavior of programs and by previous work on fault tolerance in hardware and software, we have investigated the problem and solution space for addressing potentially unknown and unknowable vulnerabilities via ensembles of implementations. We have obtained theoretical results on the degree of security and reliability benefits from particular diverse system designs, and mapped promising approaches for generating and measuring diversity. We have also empirically studied some vulnerabilities in common implementations of the Linux operating system and demonstrated the potential for diversity to mitigate these vulnerabilities. Our results provide foundational insights for further research on diversity and redundancy approaches for information systems.

Intuitive theories of information: beliefs about the value of redundancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Soll, J B

1999-03-01

In many situations, quantity estimates from multiple experts or diagnostic instruments must be collected and combined. Normatively, and all else equal, one should value information sources that are nonredundant, in the sense that correlation in forecast errors should be minimized. Past research on the preference for redundancy has been inconclusive. While some studies have suggested that people correctly place higher value on uncorrelated inputs when collecting estimates, others have shown that people either ignore correlation or, in some cases, even prefer it. The present experiments show that the preference for redundancy depends on one's intuitive theory of information. The most common intuitive theory identified is the Error Tradeoff Model (ETM), which explicitly distinguishes between measurement error and bias. According to ETM, measurement error can only be averaged out by consulting the same source multiple times (normatively false), and bias can only be averaged out by consulting different sources (normatively true). As a result, ETM leads people to prefer redundant estimates when the ratio of measurement error to bias is relatively high. Other participants favored different theories. Some adopted the normative model, while others were reluctant to mathematically average estimates from different sources in any circumstance. In a post hoc analysis, science majors were more likely than others to subscribe to the normative model. While tentative, this result lends insight into how intuitive theories might develop and also has potential ramifications for how statistical concepts such as correlation might best be learned and internalized. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

Robust Redundant Input Reliable Tracking Control for Omnidirectional Rehabilitative Training Walker

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ping Sun

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The problem of robust reliable tracking control on the omnidirectional rehabilitative training walker is examined. The new nonlinear redundant input method is proposed when one wheel actuator fault occurs. The aim of the study is to design an asymptotically stable controller that can guarantee the safety of the user and ensure tracking on a training path planned by a physical therapist. The redundant degrees of freedom safety control and the asymptotically zero state detectable concept of the walker are presented, the model of redundant degree is constructed, and the property of center of gravity constant shift is obtained. A controller that can satisfy asymptotic stability is obtained using a common Lyapunov function for admissible uncertainties resulting from an actuator fault. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method and verify that the walker can provide safe sequential motion when one wheel actuator is at fault.

Computational and experimental analysis of redundancy in the central metabolism of Geobacter sulfurreducens.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Segura

2008-02-01

Full Text Available Previous model-based analysis of the metabolic network of Geobacter sulfurreducens suggested the existence of several redundant pathways. Here, we identified eight sets of redundant pathways that included redundancy for the assimilation of acetate, and for the conversion of pyruvate into acetyl-CoA. These equivalent pathways and two other sub-optimal pathways were studied using 5 single-gene deletion mutants in those pathways for the evaluation of the predictive capacity of the model. The growth phenotypes of these mutants were studied under 12 different conditions of electron donor and acceptor availability. The comparison of the model predictions with the resulting experimental phenotypes indicated that pyruvate ferredoxin oxidoreductase is the only activity able to convert pyruvate into acetyl-CoA. However, the results and the modeling showed that the two acetate activation pathways present are not only active, but needed due to the additional role of the acetyl-CoA transferase in the TCA cycle, probably reflecting the adaptation of these bacteria to acetate utilization. In other cases, the data reconciliation suggested additional capacity constraints that were confirmed with biochemical assays. The results demonstrate the need to experimentally verify the activity of key enzymes when developing in silico models of microbial physiology based on sequence-based reconstruction of metabolic networks.

Selective Redundancy Removal: A Framework for Data Hiding

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ugo Fiore

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Data hiding techniques have so far concentrated on adding or modifying irrelevant information in order to hide a message. However, files in widespread use, such as HTML documents, usually exhibit high redundancy levels, caused by code-generation programs. Such redundancy may be removed by means of optimization software. Redundancy removal, if applied selectively, enables information hiding. This work introduces Selective Redundancy Removal (SRR as a framework for hiding data. An example application of the framework is given in terms of hiding information in HTML documents. Non-uniformity across documents may raise alarms. Nevertheless, selective application of optimization techniques might be due to the legitimate use of optimization software not supporting all the optimization methods, or configured to not use all of them.

Toward an Integrated Design, Inspection and Redundancy Research Program.

Science.gov (United States)

1984-01-01

William Creelman William H. Silcox National Marine Service Standard Oil Company of California St. Louis, Missouri San Francisco, California .-- N...develop physical models and generic tools for analyzing the effects of redundancy, reserve strength, and residual strength on the system behavior of marine...probabilistic analyses to be applicable to real-world problems, this program needs to provide - the deterministic physical models and generic tools upon

Reliability optimization of a redundant system with failure dependencies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yu Haiyang [Institute Charles Delaunay (ICD, FRE CNRS 2848), Troyes University of Technology, Rue Marie Curie, BP 2060, 10010 Troyes (France)]. E-mail: Haiyang.YU@utt.fr; Chu Chengbin [Institute Charles Delaunay (ICD, FRE CNRS 2848), Troyes University of Technology, Rue Marie Curie, BP 2060, 10010 Troyes (France); Management School, Hefei University of Technology, 193 Tunxi Road, Hefei (China); Chatelet, Eric [Institute Charles Delaunay (ICD, FRE CNRS 2848), Troyes University of Technology, Rue Marie Curie, BP 2060, 10010 Troyes (France); Yalaoui, Farouk [Institute Charles Delaunay (ICD, FRE CNRS 2848), Troyes University of Technology, Rue Marie Curie, BP 2060, 10010 Troyes (France)

2007-12-15

In a multi-component system, the failure of one component can reduce the system reliability in two aspects: loss of the reliability contribution of this failed component, and the reconfiguration of the system, e.g., the redistribution of the system loading. The system reconfiguration can be triggered by the component failures as well as by adding redundancies. Hence, dependency is essential for the design of a multi-component system. In this paper, we study the design of a redundant system with the consideration of a specific kind of failure dependency, i.e., the redundant dependency. The dependence function is introduced to quantify the redundant dependency. With the dependence function, the redundant dependencies are further classified as independence, weak, linear, and strong dependencies. In addition, this classification is useful in that it facilitates the optimization resolution of the system design. Finally, an example is presented to illustrate the concept of redundant dependency and its application in system design. This paper thus conveys the significance of failure dependencies in the reliability optimization of systems.

Reliability optimization of a redundant system with failure dependencies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yu Haiyang; Chu Chengbin; Chatelet, Eric; Yalaoui, Farouk

2007-01-01

In a multi-component system, the failure of one component can reduce the system reliability in two aspects: loss of the reliability contribution of this failed component, and the reconfiguration of the system, e.g., the redistribution of the system loading. The system reconfiguration can be triggered by the component failures as well as by adding redundancies. Hence, dependency is essential for the design of a multi-component system. In this paper, we study the design of a redundant system with the consideration of a specific kind of failure dependency, i.e., the redundant dependency. The dependence function is introduced to quantify the redundant dependency. With the dependence function, the redundant dependencies are further classified as independence, weak, linear, and strong dependencies. In addition, this classification is useful in that it facilitates the optimization resolution of the system design. Finally, an example is presented to illustrate the concept of redundant dependency and its application in system design. This paper thus conveys the significance of failure dependencies in the reliability optimization of systems

Two-stage simplified swarm optimization for the redundancy allocation problem in a multi-state bridge system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lai, Chyh-Ming; Yeh, Wei-Chang

2016-01-01

The redundancy allocation problem involves configuring an optimal system structure with high reliability and low cost, either by alternating the elements with more reliable elements and/or by forming them redundantly. The multi-state bridge system is a special redundancy allocation problem and is commonly used in various engineering systems for load balancing and control. Traditional methods for redundancy allocation problem cannot solve multi-state bridge systems efficiently because it is impossible to transfer and reduce a multi-state bridge system to series and parallel combinations. Hence, a swarm-based approach called two-stage simplified swarm optimization is proposed in this work to effectively and efficiently solve the redundancy allocation problem in a multi-state bridge system. For validating the proposed method, two experiments are implemented. The computational results indicate the advantages of the proposed method in terms of solution quality and computational efficiency. - Highlights: • Propose two-stage SSO (SSO_T_S) to deal with RAP in multi-state bridge system. • Dynamic upper bound enhances the efficiency of searching near-optimal solution. • Vector-update stages reduces the problem dimensions. • Statistical results indicate SSO_T_S is robust both in solution quality and runtime.

A practical approach for solving multi-objective reliability redundancy allocation problems using extended bare-bones particle swarm optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Enze; Wu, Yifei; Chen, Qingwei

2014-01-01

This paper proposes a practical approach, combining bare-bones particle swarm optimization and sensitivity-based clustering for solving multi-objective reliability redundancy allocation problems (RAPs). A two-stage process is performed to identify promising solutions. Specifically, a new bare-bones multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm (BBMOPSO) is developed and applied in the first stage to identify a Pareto-optimal set. This algorithm mainly differs from other multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithms in the parameter-free particle updating strategy, which is especially suitable for handling the complexity and nonlinearity of RAPs. Moreover, by utilizing an approach based on the adaptive grid to update the global particle leaders, a mutation operator to improve the exploration ability and an effective constraint handling strategy, the integrated BBMOPSO algorithm can generate excellent approximation of the true Pareto-optimal front for RAPs. This is followed by a data clustering technique based on difference sensitivity in the second stage to prune the obtained Pareto-optimal set and obtain a small, workable sized set of promising solutions for system implementation. Two illustrative examples are presented to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach

Exploiting Redundancy in an OFDM SDR Receiver

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomas Palenik

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Common OFDM system contains redundancy necessary to mitigate interblock interference and allows computationally effective single-tap frequency domain equalization in receiver. Assuming the system implements an outer error correcting code and channel state information is available in the receiver, we show that it is possible to understand the cyclic prefix insertion as a weak inner ECC encoding and exploit the introduced redundancy to slightly improve error performance of such a system. In this paper, an easy way to implement modification to an existing SDR OFDM receiver is presented. This modification enables the utilization of prefix redundancy, while preserving full compatibility with existing OFDM-based communication standards.

Coupling ant colony and the degraded ceiling algorithm for the redundancy allocation problem of series-parallel systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nahas, Nabil; Nourelfath, Mustapha; Ait-Kadi, Daoud

2007-01-01

The redundancy allocation problem (RAP) is a well known NP-hard problem which involves the selection of elements and redundancy levels to maximize system reliability given various system-level constraints. As telecommunications and internet protocol networks, manufacturing and power systems are becoming more and more complex, while requiring short developments schedules and very high reliability, it is becoming increasingly important to develop efficient solutions to the RAP. This paper presents an efficient algorithm to solve this reliability optimization problem. The idea of a heuristic approach design is inspired from the ant colony meta-heuristic optimization method and the degraded ceiling local search technique. Our hybridization of the ant colony meta-heuristic with the degraded ceiling performs well and is competitive with the best-known heuristics for redundancy allocation. Numerical results for the 33 test problems from previous research are reported and compared. The solutions found by our approach are all better than or are in par with the well-known best solutions

Redundancy and Reliability for an HPC Data Centre

OpenAIRE

Erhan Yılmaz

2012-01-01

Defining a level of redundancy is a strategic question when planning a new data centre, as it will directly impact the entire design of the building as well as the construction and operational costs. It will also affect how to integrate future extension plans into the design. Redundancy is also a key strategic issue when upgrading or retrofitting an existing facility. Redundancy is a central strategic question to any business that relies on data centres for its operation. In th...

Quantum Darwinism in an Everyday Environment: Huge Redundancy in Scattered Photons

Science.gov (United States)

Riedel, Charles; Zurek, Wojciech

2011-03-01

We study quantum Darwinism---the redundant recording of information about the preferred states of a decohering system by its environment---for an object illuminated by a blackbody. In the cases of point-source, small disk, and isotropic illumination, we calculate the quantum mutual information between the object and its photon environment. We demonstrate that this realistic model exhibits fast and extensive proliferation of information about the object into the environment and results in redundancies orders of magnitude larger than the exactly soluble models considered to date. We also demonstrate a reduced ability to create records as initial environmental mixedness increases, in agreement with previous studies. This research is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through the LANL/LDRD program and, in part, by the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi).

An efficient heuristic versus a robust hybrid meta-heuristic for general framework of serial-parallel redundancy problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sadjadi, Seyed Jafar; Soltani, R.

2009-01-01

We present a heuristic approach to solve a general framework of serial-parallel redundancy problem where the reliability of the system is maximized subject to some general linear constraints. The complexity of the redundancy problem is generally considered to be NP-Hard and the optimal solution is not normally available. Therefore, to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, a hybrid genetic algorithm is also implemented whose parameters are calibrated via Taguchi's robust design method. Then, various test problems are solved and the computational results indicate that the proposed heuristic approach could provide us some promising reliabilities, which are fairly close to optimal solutions in a reasonable amount of time.

Double Fault Detection of Cone-Shaped Redundant IMUs Using Wavelet Transformation and EPSA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wonhee Lee

2014-02-01

Full Text Available A model-free hybrid fault diagnosis technique is proposed to improve the performance of single and double fault detection and isolation. This is a model-free hybrid method which combines the extended parity space approach (EPSA with a multi-resolution signal decomposition by using a discrete wavelet transform (DWT. Conventional EPSA can detect and isolate single and double faults. The performance of fault detection and isolation is influenced by the relative size of noise and fault. In this paper; the DWT helps to cancel the high frequency sensor noise. The proposed technique can improve low fault detection and isolation probability by utilizing the EPSA with DWT. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed fault detection method Monte Carlo numerical simulations are performed for a redundant inertial measurement unit (RIMU.

Double Fault Detection of Cone-Shaped Redundant IMUs Using Wavelet Transformation and EPSA

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Wonhee; Park, Chan Gook

2014-01-01

A model-free hybrid fault diagnosis technique is proposed to improve the performance of single and double fault detection and isolation. This is a model-free hybrid method which combines the extended parity space approach (EPSA) with a multi-resolution signal decomposition by using a discrete wavelet transform (DWT). Conventional EPSA can detect and isolate single and double faults. The performance of fault detection and isolation is influenced by the relative size of noise and fault. In this paper; the DWT helps to cancel the high frequency sensor noise. The proposed technique can improve low fault detection and isolation probability by utilizing the EPSA with DWT. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed fault detection method Monte Carlo numerical simulations are performed for a redundant inertial measurement unit (RIMU). PMID:24556675

CCF analysis of high redundancy systems safety/relief valve data analysis and reference BWR application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mankamo, T.; Bjoere, S.; Olsson, Lena

1992-12-01

Dependent failure analysis and modeling were developed for high redundancy systems. The study included a comprehensive data analysis of safety and relief valves at the Finnish and Swedish BWR plants, resulting in improved understanding of Common Cause Failure mechanisms in these components. The reference application on the Forsmark 1/2 reactor relief system, constituting of twelve safety/relief lines and two regulating relief lines, covered different safety criteria cases of reactor depressurization and overpressure protection function, and failure to re close sequences. For the quantification of dependencies, the Alpha Factor Model, the Binomial Probability Model and the Common Load Model were compared for applicability in high redundancy systems

Reliability of redundant structures of nuclear reactor protection systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vojnovic, B.

1983-01-01

In this paper, reliability of various redundant structures of PWR protection systems has been analysed. Structures of reactor tip systems as well as the systems for activation of safety devices have been presented. In all those systems redundancy is achieved by means of so called majority voting logic ('r out of n' structures). Different redundant devices have been compared, concerning probability of occurrence of safe as well as unsafe failures. (author)

The relation between the perception of safe traffic and the comprehension of road signs in conditions of ambiguous and redundant information

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kaplan, Sigal; Bortei-Doku, Shaun; Prato, Carlo G.

2018-01-01

This study proposes the investigation of the relations between the perception of safety improvement, the provision of information with road signs, the amount of provided information, and observable and unobservable traits of road users. A web-based survey collected information about the estimation...... of conflicts and the perception of safety improvement in 12 traffic locations grouped according to (i) low amount of information that generated ambiguity and (ii) high amount of information that generated redundancy. Moreover, the web-based survey gathered information about socioeconomic characteristics......) and experience with redundant information (for the purpose of having a sample familiar with one of the issues). A Structural Equation Modelling approach allowed estimating a system of relations that suggested the following: (i) the perception of safety improvement is not related only to road sign comprehension...

Quantifying the value of redundant measurements at GCOS Reference Upper-Air Network sites

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Madonna

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The potential for measurement redundancy to reduce uncertainty in atmospheric variables has not been investigated comprehensively for climate observations. We evaluated the usefulness of entropy and mutual correlation concepts, as defined in information theory, for quantifying random uncertainty and redundancy in time series of the integrated water vapour (IWV and water vapour mixing ratio profiles provided by five highly instrumented GRUAN (GCOS, Global Climate Observing System, Reference Upper-Air Network stations in 2010–2012. Results show that the random uncertainties on the IWV measured with radiosondes, global positioning system, microwave and infrared radiometers, and Raman lidar measurements differed by less than 8%. Comparisons of time series of IWV content from ground-based remote sensing instruments with in situ soundings showed that microwave radiometers have the highest redundancy with the IWV time series measured by radiosondes and therefore the highest potential to reduce the random uncertainty of the radiosondes time series. Moreover, the random uncertainty of a time series from one instrument can be reduced by ~ 60% by constraining the measurements with those from another instrument. The best reduction of random uncertainty is achieved by conditioning Raman lidar measurements with microwave radiometer measurements. Specific instruments are recommended for atmospheric water vapour measurements at GRUAN sites. This approach can be applied to the study of redundant measurements for other climate variables.

On the optimal scheduling of periodic tests and maintenance for reliable redundant components

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Courtois, Pierre-Jacques; Delsarte, Philippe

2006-01-01

Periodically, some m of the n redundant components of a dependable system may have to be taken out of service for inspection, testing or preventive maintenance. The system is then constrained to operate with lower (n-m) redundancy and thus with less reliability during these periods. However, more frequent periodic inspections decrease the probability that a component fail undetected in the time interval between successive inspections. An optimal time schedule of periodic preventive operations arises from these two conflicting factors, balancing the loss of redundancy during inspections against the reliability benefits of more frequent inspections. Considering no other factor than this decreased redundancy at inspection time, this paper demonstrates the existence of an optimal interval between inspections, which maximizes the mean time between system failures. By suitable transformations and variable identifications, an analytic closed form expression of the optimum is obtained for the general (m, n) case. The optimum is shown to be unique within the ranges of parameter values valid in practice; its expression is easy to evaluate and shown to be useful to analyze and understand the influence of these parameters. Inspections are assumed to be perfect, i.e. they cause no component failure by themselves and leave no failure undetected. In this sense, the optimum determines a lowest bound for the system failure rate that can be achieved by a system of n-redundant components, m of which require for inspection or maintenance recurrent periods of unavailability of length t. The model and its general closed form solution are believed to be new . Previous work had computed optimal values for an estimation of a time average of system unavailability, but by numerical procedures only and with different numerical approximations, other objectives and model assumptions (one component only inspected at a time), and taking into account failures caused by testing itself, repair and

A pragmatic approach to estimate alpha factors for common cause failure analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hassija, Varun; Senthil Kumar, C.; Velusamy, K.

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Estimation of coefficients in alpha factor model for common cause analysis. • A derivation of plant specific alpha factors is demonstrated. • We examine sensitivity of common cause contribution to total system failure. • We compare beta factor and alpha factor models for various redundant configurations. • The use of alpha factors is preferable, especially for large redundant systems. - Abstract: Most of the modern technological systems are deployed with high redundancy but still they fail mainly on account of common cause failures (CCF). Various models such as Beta Factor, Multiple Greek Letter, Binomial Failure Rate and Alpha Factor exists for estimation of risk from common cause failures. Amongst all, alpha factor model is considered most suitable for high redundant systems as it arrives at common cause failure probabilities from a set of ratios of failures and the total component failure probability Q T . In the present study, alpha factor model is applied for the assessment of CCF of safety systems deployed at two nuclear power plants. A method to overcome the difficulties in estimation of the coefficients viz., alpha factors in the model, importance of deriving plant specific alpha factors and sensitivity of common cause contribution to the total system failure probability with respect to hazard imposed by various CCF events is highlighted. An approach described in NUREG/CR-5500 is extended in this study to provide more explicit guidance for a statistical approach to derive plant specific coefficients for CCF analysis especially for high redundant systems. The procedure is expected to aid regulators for independent safety assessment

RedThreads: An Interface for Application-Level Fault Detection/Correction Through Adaptive Redundant Multithreading

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hukerikar, Saurabh; Teranishi, Keita; Diniz, Pedro C.; Lucas, Robert F.

2017-01-01

In the presence of accelerated fault rates, which are projected to be the norm on future exascale systems, it will become increasingly difficult for high-performance computing (HPC) applications to accomplish useful computation. Due to the fault-oblivious nature of current HPC programming paradigms and execution environments, HPC applications are insufficiently equipped to deal with errors. We believe that HPC applications should be enabled with capabilities to actively search for and correct errors in their computations. The redundant multithreading (RMT) approach offers lightweight replicated execution streams of program instructions within the context of a single application process. Furthermore, the use of complete redundancy incurs significant overhead to the application performance.

Mobility and Position Error Analysis of a Complex Planar Mechanism with Redundant Constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Qipeng; Li, Gangyan

2018-03-01

Nowadays mechanisms with redundant constraints have been created and attracted much attention for their merits. The mechanism of the redundant constraints in a mechanical system is analyzed in this paper. A analysis method of Planar Linkage with a repetitive structure is proposed to get the number and type of constraints. According to the difference of applications and constraint characteristics, the redundant constraints are divided into the theoretical planar redundant constraints and the space-planar redundant constraints. And the calculation formula for the number of redundant constraints and type of judging method are carried out. And a complex mechanism with redundant constraints is analyzed of the influence about redundant constraints on mechanical performance. With the combination of theoretical derivation and simulation research, a mechanism analysis method is put forward about the position error of complex mechanism with redundant constraints. It points out the direction on how to eliminate or reduce the influence of redundant constraints.

SEU-hardened silicon bipolar and GaAs MESFET SRAM cells using local redundancy techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hauser, J.R.

1992-01-01

Silicon bipolar and GaAs FET SRAM's have proven to be more difficult to harden with respect to single-event upset mechanisms than have silicon CMOS SRAM's. This is a fundamental property of bipolar and JFET or MESFET device technologies which do not have a high-impedance, nonactive isolation between the control electrode and the current or voltage being controlled. All SEU circuit level hardening techniques applied at the local level must use some type of information storage redundancy so that information loss on one node due to an SEU event can be recovered from information stored elsewhere in the cell. In CMOS technologies, this can be achieved by the use of simple cross-coupling resistors, whereas in bipolar and FET technologies, no such simple approach is possible. Several approaches to the use of local redundancy in bipolar and FET technologies are discussed in this paper. At the expense of increased cell complexity and increased power consumption and write time, several approaches are capable of providing complete SEU hardness at the local cell level

Analytical Redundancy Design for Aeroengine Sensor Fault Diagnostics Based on SROS-ELM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun Zhou

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Analytical redundancy technique is of great importance to guarantee the reliability and safety of aircraft engine system. In this paper, a machine learning based aeroengine sensor analytical redundancy technique is developed and verified through hardware-in-the-loop (HIL simulation. The modified online sequential extreme learning machine, selective updating regularized online sequential extreme learning machine (SROS-ELM, is employed to train the model online and estimate sensor measurements. It selectively updates the output weights of neural networks according to the prediction accuracy and the norm of output weight vector, tackles the problems of singularity and ill-posedness by regularization, and adopts a dual activation function in the hidden nodes combing neural and wavelet theory to enhance prediction capability. The experimental results verify the good generalization performance of SROS-ELM and show that the developed analytical redundancy technique for aeroengine sensor fault diagnosis based on SROS-ELM is effective and feasible.

Application study of EPICS-based redundant method for reactor control system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Ning; Han Lifeng; Chen Yongzhong; Guo Bing; Yin Congcong

2013-01-01

In the reactor control system prototype development of TMSR (Thorium Molten Salt Reactor system, CAS) project, EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) is adopted as Instrument and Control software platform. For the aim of IOC (Input/Output Controller) redundancy and data synchronization of the system, the EPICS-based RMT (Redundancy Monitor Task ) software package and its data-synchronization component CCE (Continuous Control Executive) were introduced. By the development of related IOC driver, redundant switch-over control of server IOC was implemented. The method of redundancy implementation using RMT in server and redundancy performance test for power control system are discussed in this paper. (authors)

Flat H Redundant Frangible Joint Development

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Chris

2016-01-01

Orion and Commercial Crew Program (CCP) Partners have chosen to use frangible joints for certain separation events. The joints currently available are zero failure tolerant and will be used in mission safety applications. The goal is to further develop a NASA designed redundant frangible joint that will lower flight risk and increase reliability. FY16 testing revealed a successful design in subscale straight test specimens that gained efficiency and supports Orion load requirements. Approach / Innovation A design constraint is that the redundant joint must fit within the current Orion architecture, without the need for additional vehicle modification. This limitation required a design that changed the orientation of the expanding tube assemblies (XTAs), by rotating them 90deg from the standard joint configuration. The change is not trivial and affects the fracture mechanism and structural load paths. To address these changes, the design incorporates cantilevered arms on the break plate. The shock transmission and expansion of the XTA applies force to these arms and creates a prying motion to push the plate walls outward to the point of structural failure at the notched section. The 2014 test design revealed that parts could slip during functioning wasting valuable energy needed to separate the structure with only a single XTA functioning. Dual XTA functioning fully separated the assembly showing a discrepancy can be backed up with redundancy. Work on other fully redundant systems outside NASA is limited to a few patents that have not been subjected to functionality testing Design changes to prevent unwanted slippage (with ICA funding in 2015) showed success with a single XTA. The main goal for FY 2016 was to send the new Flat H RFJ to WSTF where single XTA test failures occurred back in 2014. The plan was to gain efficiency in this design by separating the Flat H RFJ with thicker ligaments with dimensions baselined in 2014. Other modifications included geometry

REDUNDANT ARRAY CONFIGURATIONS FOR 21 cm COSMOLOGY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dillon, Joshua S.; Parsons, Aaron R., E-mail: jsdillon@berkeley.edu [Department of Astronomy, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA (United States)

2016-08-01

Realizing the potential of 21 cm tomography to statistically probe the intergalactic medium before and during the Epoch of Reionization requires large telescopes and precise control of systematics. Next-generation telescopes are now being designed and built to meet these challenges, drawing lessons from first-generation experiments that showed the benefits of densely packed, highly redundant arrays—in which the same mode on the sky is sampled by many antenna pairs—for achieving high sensitivity, precise calibration, and robust foreground mitigation. In this work, we focus on the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) as an interferometer with a dense, redundant core designed following these lessons to be optimized for 21 cm cosmology. We show how modestly supplementing or modifying a compact design like HERA’s can still deliver high sensitivity while enhancing strategies for calibration and foreground mitigation. In particular, we compare the imaging capability of several array configurations, both instantaneously (to address instrumental and ionospheric effects) and with rotation synthesis (for foreground removal). We also examine the effects that configuration has on calibratability using instantaneous redundancy. We find that improved imaging with sub-aperture sampling via “off-grid” antennas and increased angular resolution via far-flung “outrigger” antennas is possible with a redundantly calibratable array configuration.

Availability analysis of safety grade multiple redundant controller used in advanced nuclear safety systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Son, Kwang Seop; Kim, Dong Hoon; Park, Gee Yong; Kang, Hyun Gook

2018-01-01

Highlights: •The multiple redundant controller, SPLC is configured as the combination of DMR and TMR architecture. •We construct the Markov model of SPLC using the concept of the system unavailability rate. •To satisfy the availability requirement of safety grade controller, the fault coverage factor (FCF) should be ≥0.8 and the MTTR of each module should be ≤100 h when FCF is 0.9. •The availability of SPLC is better than that of PLC having iTMR architecture however it is poorer than iTMR considering the off-line test and inspection on the assumption that MTTR of each module is ≤200 h. -- Abstract: We analyze the availability of the Safety Programmable Logic Controller (SPLC) having multiple redundant architectures. In the SPLC, input/output and processor module are configured as triple modular redundancy (TMR), and backplane bus, power and communication modules are configured as dual modular redundancy (DMR). The voting logics for redundant architectures are based on the forwarding error detection. It means that the receivers perform the voting logics based on the status information of transmitters. To analyze the availability of SPLC, we construct the Markov model and simplify the model adopting the system unavailability rate. The results show that the fault coverage factor should be ≥0.8 and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) should be ≤100 h in order to satisfy the requirement that the availability of the safety grade PLC should be ≥0.995. Also we evaluate the availability of SPLC comparing to other PLCs such as simplex, processor DMR (pDMR) and independent TMR (iTMR) PLCs used in the existing nuclear safety systems. The availability of SPLC is higher than those of the simplex, pDMR but is lower than that of iTMR for one month which is the periodic off-line test and inspection. That’s why the number of redundant modules used in PLC is more dominant to increasing the availability than the number of fault masking methods such as voting logics used

Analysis and Design of Offset QPSK Using Redundant Filter Banks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fernandez-Vazquez, Alfonso; Jovanovic-Dolecek, Gordana

2013-01-01

This paper considers the analysis and design of OQPSK digital modulation. We first establish the discrete time formulation, which allows us to find the equivalent redundant filter banks. It is well known that redundant filter banks are related with redundant transformation of the Frame theory. According to the Frame theory, the redundant transformations and corresponding representations are not unique. In this way, we show that the solution to the pulse shaping problem is not unique. Then we use this property to minimize the effect of the channel noise in the reconstructed symbol stream. We evaluate the performance of the digital communication using numerical examples.

Timing control by redundant inhibitory neuronal circuits

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tristan, I.; Rulkov, N. F.; Huerta, R.; Rabinovich, M.

2014-01-01

Rhythms and timing control of sequential activity in the brain is fundamental to cognition and behavior. Although experimental and theoretical studies support the understanding that neuronal circuits are intrinsically capable of generating different time intervals, the dynamical origin of the phenomenon of functionally dependent timing control is still unclear. Here, we consider a new mechanism that is related to the multi-neuronal cooperative dynamics in inhibitory brain motifs consisting of a few clusters. It is shown that redundancy and diversity of neurons within each cluster enhances the sensitivity of the timing control with the level of neuronal excitation of the whole network. The generality of the mechanism is shown to work on two different neuronal models: a conductance-based model and a map-based model

Timing control by redundant inhibitory neuronal circuits

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tristan, I., E-mail: itristan@ucsd.edu; Rulkov, N. F.; Huerta, R.; Rabinovich, M. [BioCircuits Institute, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0402 (United States)

2014-03-15

Rhythms and timing control of sequential activity in the brain is fundamental to cognition and behavior. Although experimental and theoretical studies support the understanding that neuronal circuits are intrinsically capable of generating different time intervals, the dynamical origin of the phenomenon of functionally dependent timing control is still unclear. Here, we consider a new mechanism that is related to the multi-neuronal cooperative dynamics in inhibitory brain motifs consisting of a few clusters. It is shown that redundancy and diversity of neurons within each cluster enhances the sensitivity of the timing control with the level of neuronal excitation of the whole network. The generality of the mechanism is shown to work on two different neuronal models: a conductance-based model and a map-based model.

Redundancy for electric motors in spacecraft applications

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Robert J.; Flew, Alastair R.

1986-01-01

The parts of electric motors which should be duplicated in order to provide maximum reliability in spacecraft application are identified. Various common types of redundancy are described. The advantages and disadvantages of each are noted. The principal types are illustrated by reference to specific examples. For each example, constructional details, basic performance data and failure modes are described, together with a discussion of the suitability of particular redundancy techniques to motor types.

Dynamic Control of Kinematically Redundant Robotic Manipulators

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erling Lunde

1987-07-01

Full Text Available Several methods for task space control of kinematically redundant manipulators have been proposed in the literature. Most of these methods are based on a kinematic analysis of the manipulator. In this paper we propose a control algorithm in which we are especially concerned with the manipulator dynamics. The algorithm is particularly well suited for the class of redundant manipulators consisting of a relatively small manipulator mounted on a larger positioning part.

3D seismic denoising based on a low-redundancy curvelet transform

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cao, Jingjie; Zhao, Jingtao; Hu, Zhiying

2015-01-01

Contamination of seismic signal with noise is one of the main challenges during seismic data processing. Several methods exist for eliminating different types of noises, but optimal random noise attenuation remains difficult. Based on multi-scale, multi-directional locality of curvelet transform, the curvelet thresholding method is a relatively new method for random noise elimination. However, the high redundancy of a 3D curvelet transform makes its computational time and memory for massive data processing costly. To improve the efficiency of the curvelet thresholding denoising, a low-redundancy curvelet transform was introduced. The redundancy of the low-redundancy curvelet transform is approximately one-quarter of the original transform and the tightness of the original transform is also kept, thus the low-redundancy curvelet transform calls for less memory and computational resource compared with the original one. Numerical results on 3D synthetic and field data demonstrate that the low-redundancy curvelet denoising consumes one-quarter of the CPU time compared with the original curvelet transform using iterative thresholding denoising when comparable results are obtained. Thus, the low-redundancy curvelet transform is a good candidate for massive seismic denoising. (paper)

Comparing surgical trays with redundant instruments with trays with reduced instruments: a cost analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

John-Baptiste, A; Sowerby, L J; Chin, C J; Martin, J; Rotenberg, B W

2016-01-01

When prearranged standard surgical trays contain instruments that are repeatedly unused, the redundancy can result in unnecessary health care costs. Our objective was to estimate potential savings by performing an economic evaluation comparing the cost of surgical trays with redundant instruments with surgical trays with reduced instruments ("reduced trays"). We performed a cost-analysis from the hospital perspective over a 1-year period. Using a mathematical model, we compared the direct costs of trays containing redundant instruments to reduced trays for 5 otolaryngology procedures. We incorporated data from several sources including local hospital data on surgical volume, the number of instruments on redundant and reduced trays, wages of personnel and time required to pack instruments. From the literature, we incorporated instrument depreciation costs and the time required to decontaminate an instrument. We performed 1-way sensitivity analyses on all variables, including surgical volume. Costs were estimated in 2013 Canadian dollars. The cost of redundant trays was $21 806 and the cost of reduced trays was $8803, for a 1-year cost saving of $13 003. In sensitivity analyses, cost savings ranged from $3262 to $21 395, based on the surgical volume at the institution. Variation in surgical volume resulted in a wider range of estimates, with a minimum of $3253 for low-volume to a maximum of $52 012 for high-volume institutions. Our study suggests moderate savings may be achieved by reducing surgical tray redundancy and, if applied to other surgical specialties, may result in savings to Canadian health care systems.

The cellular robustness by genetic redundancy in budding yeast.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jingjing Li

2010-11-01

Full Text Available The frequent dispensability of duplicated genes in budding yeast is heralded as a hallmark of genetic robustness contributed by genetic redundancy. However, theoretical predictions suggest such backup by redundancy is evolutionarily unstable, and the extent of genetic robustness contributed from redundancy remains controversial. It is anticipated that, to achieve mutual buffering, the duplicated paralogs must at least share some functional overlap. However, counter-intuitively, several recent studies reported little functional redundancy between these buffering duplicates. The large yeast genetic interactions released recently allowed us to address these issues on a genome-wide scale. We herein characterized the synthetic genetic interactions for ∼500 pairs of yeast duplicated genes originated from either whole-genome duplication (WGD or small-scale duplication (SSD events. We established that functional redundancy between duplicates is a pre-requisite and thus is highly predictive of their backup capacity. This observation was particularly pronounced with the use of a newly introduced metric in scoring functional overlap between paralogs on the basis of gene ontology annotations. Even though mutual buffering was observed to be prevalent among duplicated genes, we showed that the observed backup capacity is largely an evolutionarily transient state. The loss of backup capacity generally follows a neutral mode, with the buffering strength decreasing in proportion to divergence time, and the vast majority of the paralogs have already lost their backup capacity. These observations validated previous theoretic predictions about instability of genetic redundancy. However, departing from the general neutral mode, intriguingly, our analysis revealed the presence of natural selection in stabilizing functional overlap between SSD pairs. These selected pairs, both WGD and SSD, tend to have decelerated functional evolution, have higher propensities of co

Redundant nerve roots of the cauda equina : MR findings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oh, Kyu Hyen; Lee, Jung Man; Jung, Hak Young; Lee, Young Hwan; Sung, Nak Kwan; Chung, Duck Soo; Kim, Ok Dong; Lee, Sang Kwon; Suh, Kyung Jin

1997-01-01

To evaluate MR findings of redundant nerve roots (RNR) of the cauda equina. 17 patients with RNR were studied; eight were men and nine were women, and their ages ranged from 46 to 82 (mean 63) years. Diagroses were established on the basis of T2-weighted sagittal and coronal MRI, which showed a tortuous or coiled configuration of the nerve roots of the cauda equina. MR findings were reviewed for location, magnitude, and signal intensity of redundant nerve roots, and the relationship between magnitude of redundancy and severity of lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSCS) was evaluated. In all 17 patients, MR showed moderate or severe LSCS caused by herniation or bulging of an intervertebral disc, osteophyte from the vertebral body or facet joint, thickening of the ligamentum flavum, degenerative spondylolisthesis, or a combination of these. T2-weighted sagittal and coronal MR images well clearly showed the location of RNR of the cauda equina;in 16 patients(94%), these were seen above the level of constriction of the spinal canal, and in one case, they were observed below the level of constriction. T2-weighted axial images showed the thecal sac filled with numerous nerve roots. The magnitude of RNR was mild in six cases (35%), moderate in five cases (30%), and severe in six cases (35%). Compared with normal nerve roots, the RNR signal on T2-weighted images was iso-intense. All patients with severe redundancy showed severe LSCS, but not all cases with severe LSCS showed severe redundancy. Redundant nerve roots of cauda equina were seen in relatively older patients with moderate or severe LSCS and T2-weighted MR images were accurate in identifying redundancy of nerve roots and evaluating their magnitude and location

Derivation of three closed loop kinematic velocity models using normalized quaternion feedback for an autonomous redundant manipulator with application to inverse kinematics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Unseren, M.A.

1993-04-01

The report discusses the orientation tracking control problem for a kinematically redundant, autonomous manipulator moving in a three dimensional workspace. The orientation error is derived using the normalized quaternion error method of Ickes, the Luh, Walker, and Paul error method, and a method suggested here utilizing the Rodrigues parameters, all of which are expressed in terms of normalized quaternions. The analytical time derivatives of the orientation errors are determined. The latter, along with the translational velocity error, form a dosed loop kinematic velocity model of the manipulator using normalized quaternion and translational position feedback. An analysis of the singularities associated with expressing the models in a form suitable for solving the inverse kinematics problem is given. Two redundancy resolution algorithms originally developed using an open loop kinematic velocity model of the manipulator are extended to properly take into account the orientation tracking control problem. This report furnishes the necessary mathematical framework required prior to experimental implementation of the orientation tracking control schemes on the seven axis CESARm research manipulator or on the seven-axis Robotics Research K1207i dexterous manipulator, the latter of which is to be delivered to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1993.

Derivation of three closed loop kinematic velocity models using normalized quaternion feedback for an autonomous redundant manipulator with application to inverse kinematics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Unseren, M.A.

1993-04-01

The report discusses the orientation tracking control problem for a kinematically redundant, autonomous manipulator moving in a three dimensional workspace. The orientation error is derived using the normalized quaternion error method of Ickes, the Luh, Walker, and Paul error method, and a method suggested here utilizing the Rodrigues parameters, all of which are expressed in terms of normalized quaternions. The analytical time derivatives of the orientation errors are determined. The latter, along with the translational velocity error, form a dosed loop kinematic velocity model of the manipulator using normalized quaternion and translational position feedback. An analysis of the singularities associated with expressing the models in a form suitable for solving the inverse kinematics problem is given. Two redundancy resolution algorithms originally developed using an open loop kinematic velocity model of the manipulator are extended to properly take into account the orientation tracking control problem. This report furnishes the necessary mathematical framework required prior to experimental implementation of the orientation tracking control schemes on the seven axis CESARm research manipulator or on the seven-axis Robotics Research K1207i dexterous manipulator, the latter of which is to be delivered to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1993

Practical, redundant, failure-tolerant, self-reconfiguring embedded system architecture

Science.gov (United States)

Klarer, Paul R.; Hayward, David R.; Amai, Wendy A.

2006-10-03

This invention relates to system architectures, specifically failure-tolerant and self-reconfiguring embedded system architectures. The invention provides both a method and architecture for redundancy. There can be redundancy in both software and hardware for multiple levels of redundancy. The invention provides a self-reconfiguring architecture for activating redundant modules whenever other modules fail. The architecture comprises: a communication backbone connected to two or more processors and software modules running on each of the processors. Each software module runs on one processor and resides on one or more of the other processors to be available as a backup module in the event of failure. Each module and backup module reports its status over the communication backbone. If a primary module does not report, its backup module takes over its function. If the primary module becomes available again, the backup module returns to its backup status.

Palpebral redundancy from hypothyroidism.

Science.gov (United States)

Wortsman, J; Wavak, P

1980-01-01

A patient is described with disabling palpebral edema. Primary hypothyroidism had been previously diagnosed and treated. Testing of thyroid function revealed persistence of the hypothyroidism. Treatment with L-thyroxine produced normalization of the biochemical parameters and resolution of palpebral edema. The search for hypothyrodism in patients with palpebral redundancy is emphasized.

Redundancy Factors for the Seismic Design of Ductile Reinforced Concrete Chevron Braced Frames

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eber Alberto Godínez-Domínguez

Full Text Available Abstract In this paper the authors summarize the results of a study devoted to assess, using nonlinear static analyses, the impact of increasing the structural redundancy in ductile moment-resisting reinforced concrete concentric braced frames structures (RC-MRCBFs. Among the studied variables were the number of stories and the number of bays. Results obtained were compared with the currently proposed values in the Manual of Civil Structures (MOC-08, a model code of Mexico. The studied frames have 4, 8, 12 and 16-story with a story height h=3.5 m. and a fixed length L=12 m., where 1, 2, 3 or 4 bays have to be located. RC-MRCBFs were assumed to be located in soft soil conditions in Mexico City and were designed using a capacity design methodology adapted to general requirements of the seismic, reinforced concrete and steel guidelines of Mexican Codes. From the results obtained in this study it is possible to conclude that a different effect is observed in overstrength redundancy factors respect to ductility redundancy factors due to an increase of the bay number considered. Also, the structural redundancy factors obtained for this particular structural system varies respect to the currently proposed in MOC-08.

Generalized Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric and redundancy in the generalized Einstein equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kao, W.F.; Pen, U.

1991-01-01

A nontrivial redundancy relation, due to the differential structure of the gravitational Bianchi identity as well as the symmetry of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric, in the gravitational field equation is clarified. A generalized Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric is introduced in order to properly define a one-dimensional reduced problem which offers an alternative approach to obtain the gravitational field equations on Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spaces

Reliability Analysis and Calibration of Partial Safety Factors for Redundant Structures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, John Dalsgaard

1998-01-01

Redundancy is important to include in the design and analysis of structural systems. In most codes of practice redundancy is not directly taken into account. In the paper various definitions of a deterministic and reliability based redundancy measure are reviewed. It is described how reundancy can...... be included in the safety system and how partial safety factors can be calibrated. An example is presented illustrating how redundancy is taken into account in the safety system in e.g. the Danish codes. The example shows how partial safety factors can be calibrated to comply with the safety level...

Management of redundancy in flight control systems using optimal decision theory

Science.gov (United States)

1981-01-01

The problem of using redundancy that exists between dissimilar systems in aircraft flight control is addressed. That is, using the redundancy that exists between a rate gyro and an accelerometer--devices that have dissimilar outputs which are related only through the dynamics of the aircraft motion. Management of this type of redundancy requires advanced logic so that the system can monitor failure status and can reconfigure itself in the event of one or more failures. An optimal decision theory was tutorially developed for the management of sensor redundancy and the theory is applied to two aircraft examples. The first example is the space shuttle and the second is a highly maneuvering high performance aircraft--the F8-C. The examples illustrate the redundancy management design process and the performance of the algorithms presented in failure detection and control law reconfiguration.

Multisensory processing in the redundant-target effect

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gondan, Matthias; Niederhaus, Birgit; Rösler, Frank

2005-01-01

Participants respond more quickly to two simultaneously presented target stimuli of two different modalities (redundant targets) than would be predicted from their reaction times to the unimodal targets. To examine the neural correlates of this redundant-target effect, event-related potentials...... (ERPs) were recorded to auditory, visual, and bimodal standard and target stimuli presented at two locations (left and right of central fixation). Bimodal stimuli were combinations of two standards, two targets, or a standard and a target, presented either from the same or from different locations...

Functional redundancy and food web functioning in linuron-exposed ecosystems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

De Laender, F., E-mail: frederik.delaender@ugent.be [Laboratory of Environmental Toxicity and Aquatic Ecology, Ghent University, Plateaustraat 22, 9000 Ghent (Belgium); Van den Brink, P.J., E-mail: Paul.vandenBrink@wur.nl [Department of Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen University, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen (Netherlands); Janssen, C.R., E-mail: colin.janssen@ugent.be [Laboratory of Environmental Toxicity and Aquatic Ecology, Ghent University, Plateaustraat 22, 9000 Ghent (Belgium)

2011-10-15

An extensive data set describing effects of the herbicide linuron on macrophyte-dominated microcosms was analysed with a food web model to assess effects on ecosystem functioning. We showed that sensitive phytoplankton and periphyton groups in the diets of heterotrophs were gradually replaced by more tolerant phytoplankton species as linuron concentrations increased. This diet shift - showing redundancy among phytoplankton species - allowed heterotrophs to maintain their functions in the contaminated microcosms. On an ecosystem level, total gross primary production was up to hundred times lower in the treated microcosms but the uptake of dissolved organic carbon by bacteria and mixotrophs was less sensitive. Food web efficiency was not consistently lower in the treated microcosms. We conclude that linuron predominantly affected the macrophytes but did not alter the overall functioning of the surrounding planktonic food web. Therefore, a risk assessment that protects macrophyte growth also protects the functioning of macrophyte-dominated microcosms. - Highlights: > Food web modelling reveals the functional response of species and ecosystem to linuron. > Primary production was more sensitive to linuron than bacterial production. > Linuron replaced sensitive phytoplankton by tolerant phytoplankton in heterotrophs' diets. > Linuron did not change the functioning of heterotrophs. - Food web modelling reveals functional redundancy of the planktonic community in microcosms treated with linuron.

Functional redundancy and food web functioning in linuron-exposed ecosystems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Laender, F.; Van den Brink, P.J.; Janssen, C.R.

2011-01-01

An extensive data set describing effects of the herbicide linuron on macrophyte-dominated microcosms was analysed with a food web model to assess effects on ecosystem functioning. We showed that sensitive phytoplankton and periphyton groups in the diets of heterotrophs were gradually replaced by more tolerant phytoplankton species as linuron concentrations increased. This diet shift - showing redundancy among phytoplankton species - allowed heterotrophs to maintain their functions in the contaminated microcosms. On an ecosystem level, total gross primary production was up to hundred times lower in the treated microcosms but the uptake of dissolved organic carbon by bacteria and mixotrophs was less sensitive. Food web efficiency was not consistently lower in the treated microcosms. We conclude that linuron predominantly affected the macrophytes but did not alter the overall functioning of the surrounding planktonic food web. Therefore, a risk assessment that protects macrophyte growth also protects the functioning of macrophyte-dominated microcosms. - Highlights: → Food web modelling reveals the functional response of species and ecosystem to linuron. → Primary production was more sensitive to linuron than bacterial production. → Linuron replaced sensitive phytoplankton by tolerant phytoplankton in heterotrophs' diets. → Linuron did not change the functioning of heterotrophs. - Food web modelling reveals functional redundancy of the planktonic community in microcosms treated with linuron.

Redundant measurements for controlling errors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ehinger, M.H.; Crawford, J.M.; Madeen, M.L.

1979-07-01

Current federal regulations for nuclear materials control require consideration of operating data as part of the quality control program and limits of error propagation. Recent work at the BNFP has revealed that operating data are subject to a number of measurement problems which are very difficult to detect and even more difficult to correct in a timely manner. Thus error estimates based on operational data reflect those problems. During the FY 1978 and FY 1979 R and D demonstration runs at the BNFP, redundant measurement techniques were shown to be effective in detecting these problems to allow corrective action. The net effect is a reduction in measurement errors and a significant increase in measurement sensitivity. Results show that normal operation process control measurements, in conjunction with routine accountability measurements, are sensitive problem indicators when incorporated in a redundant measurement program

Interactions between facial emotion and identity in face processing: evidence based on redundancy gains.

Science.gov (United States)

Yankouskaya, Alla; Booth, David A; Humphreys, Glyn

2012-11-01

Interactions between the processing of emotion expression and form-based information from faces (facial identity) were investigated using the redundant-target paradigm, in which we specifically tested whether identity and emotional expression are integrated in a superadditive manner (Miller, Cognitive Psychology 14:247-279, 1982). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed emotion and face identity judgments on faces with sad or angry emotional expressions. Responses to redundant targets were faster than responses to either single target when a universal emotion was conveyed, and performance violated the predictions from a model assuming independent processing of emotion and face identity. Experiment 4 showed that these effects were not modulated by varying interstimulus and nontarget contingencies, and Experiment 5 demonstrated that the redundancy gains were eliminated when faces were inverted. Taken together, these results suggest that the identification of emotion and facial identity interact in face processing.

Quantum Darwinism Requires an Extra-Theoretical Assumption of Encoding Redundancy

Science.gov (United States)

Fields, Chris

2010-10-01

Observers restricted to the observation of pointer states of apparatus cannot conclusively demonstrate that the pointer of an apparatus mathcal{A} registers the state of a system of interest S without perturbing S. Observers cannot, therefore, conclusively demonstrate that the states of a system S are redundantly encoded by pointer states of multiple independent apparatus without destroying the redundancy of encoding. The redundancy of encoding required by quantum Darwinism must, therefore, be assumed from outside the quantum-mechanical formalism and without the possibility of experimental demonstration.

Real-time instrument-failure detection in the LOFT pressurizer using functional redundancy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tylee, J.L.

1982-07-01

The functional redundancy approach to detecting instrument failures in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) pressurizer is described and evaluated. This real-time method uses a bank of Kalman filters (one for each instrument) to generate optimal estimates of the pressurizer state. By performing consistency checks between the output of each filter, failed instruments can be identified. Simulation results and actual pressurizer data are used to demonstrate the capabilities of the technique

Exploration of joint redundancy but not task space variability facilitates supervised motor learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Puneet; Jana, Sumitash; Ghosal, Ashitava; Murthy, Aditya

2016-12-13

The number of joints and muscles in a human arm is more than what is required for reaching to a desired point in 3D space. Although previous studies have emphasized how such redundancy and the associated flexibility may play an important role in path planning, control of noise, and optimization of motion, whether and how redundancy might promote motor learning has not been investigated. In this work, we quantify redundancy space and investigate its significance and effect on motor learning. We propose that a larger redundancy space leads to faster learning across subjects. We observed this pattern in subjects learning novel kinematics (visuomotor adaptation) and dynamics (force-field adaptation). Interestingly, we also observed differences in the redundancy space between the dominant hand and nondominant hand that explained differences in the learning of dynamics. Taken together, these results provide support for the hypothesis that redundancy aids in motor learning and that the redundant component of motor variability is not noise.

Sustainable Modular Adaptive Redundancy Technique Emphasizing Partial Reconfiguration for Reduced Power Consumption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Al-Haddad

2011-01-01

Full Text Available As reconfigurable devices' capacities and the complexity of applications that use them increase, the need for self-reliance of deployed systems becomes increasingly prominent. Organic computing paradigms have been proposed for fault-tolerant systems because they promote behaviors that allow complex digital systems to adapt and survive in demanding environments. In this paper, we develop a sustainable modular adaptive redundancy technique (SMART composed of a two-layered organic system. The hardware layer is implemented on a Xilinx Virtex-4 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA to provide self-repair using a novel approach called reconfigurable adaptive redundancy system (RARS. The software layer supervises the organic activities on the FPGA and extends the self-healing capabilities through application-independent, intrinsic, and evolutionary repair techniques that leverage the benefits of dynamic partial reconfiguration (PR. SMART was evaluated using a Sobel edge-detection application and was shown to tolerate stressful sequences of injected transient and permanent faults while reducing dynamic power consumption by 30% compared to conventional triple modular redundancy (TMR techniques, with nominal impact on the fault-tolerance capabilities. Moreover, PR is employed to keep the system on line while under repair and also to reduce repair time. Experiments have shown a 27.48% decrease in repair time when PR is employed compared to the full bitstream configuration case.

Human genetics of infectious diseases: Unique insights into immunological redundancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Casanova, Jean-Laurent; Abel, Laurent

2018-04-01

For almost any given human-tropic virus, bacterium, fungus, or parasite, the clinical outcome of primary infection is enormously variable, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal infection. This variability has long been thought to be largely determined by the germline genetics of the human host, and this is increasingly being demonstrated to be the case. The number and diversity of known inborn errors of immunity is continually increasing, and we focus here on autosomal and X-linked recessive traits underlying complete deficiencies of the encoded protein. Schematically, four types of infectious phenotype have been observed in individuals with such deficiencies, each providing information about the redundancy of the corresponding human gene, in terms of host defense in natural conditions. The lack of a protein can confer vulnerability to a broad range of microbes in most, if not all patients, through the disruption of a key immunological component. In such cases, the gene concerned is of low redundancy. However, the lack of a protein may also confer vulnerability to a narrow range of microbes, sometimes a single pathogen, and not necessarily in all patients. In such cases, the gene concerned is highly redundant. Conversely, the deficiency may be apparently neutral, conferring no detectable predisposition to infection in any individual. In such cases, the gene concerned is completely redundant. Finally, the lack of a protein may, paradoxically, be advantageous to the host, conferring resistance to one or more infections. In such cases, the gene is considered to display beneficial redundancy. These findings reflect the current state of evolution of humans and microbes, and should not be considered predictive of redundancy, or of a lack of redundancy, in the distant future. Nevertheless, these observations are of potential interest to present-day biologists testing immunological hypotheses experimentally and physicians managing patients with immunological or infectious

Redundancies in Data and their Effect on the Evaluation of Recommendation Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Basaran, Daniel; Ntoutsi, Eirini; Zimek, Arthur

2017-01-01

A collection of datasets crawled from Amazon, “Amazon reviews”, is popular in the evaluation of recommendation systems. These datasets, however, contain redundancies (duplicated recommendations for variants of certain items). These redundancies went unnoticed in earlier use of these datasets...... and thus incurred to a certain extent wrong conclusions in the evaluation of algorithms tested on these datasets. We analyze the nature and amount of these redundancies and their impact on the evaluation of recommendation methods. While the general and obvious conclusion is that redundancies should...

Redundancy scheme for multi-layered accelerator control system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chauhan, Amit; Fatnani, Pravin

2009-01-01

The control system for SRS Indus-2 has three-layered architecture. There are VMEbus based stations at the lower two layers that are controlled by their respective CPU board. The 'Profibus' fieldbus standard is used for communication between these VME stations distributed in the field. There is a Profibus controller board at each station to implement the communication protocol. The mode of communication is master-slave (command-response) type. This paper proposes a scheme to implement redundancy at the lower two layers namely Layer-2 (Supervisory Layer / Profibus-master) and Layer-3 (Equipment Unit Interface Layer / Profibus-slave). The redundancy is for both the CPU and the communication board. The scheme uses two CPU boards and two Profi controller boards at each L-3 station. This helps in decreasing any downtime resulting either from CPU faults or communication board faults that are placed in the field area. Redundancy of Profi boards provides two active communication channels between the stations that can be used in different ways thereby increasing the availability on a communication link. Redundancy of CPU boards provides certain level of auto fault-recovery as one CPU remains active and the other CPU remains in standby mode, which takes over the control of VMEbus in case of any fault in the main CPU. (author)

Neural redundancy applied to the parity space for signal validation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mol, Antonio Carlos de Abreu; Pereira, Claudio Marcio Nascimento Abreu; Martinez, Aquilino Senra

2005-01-01

The objective of signal validation is to provide more reliable information from the plant sensor data The method presented in this work introduces the concept of neural redundancy and applies it to the space parity method [1] to overcome an inherent deficiency of this method - the determination of the best estimative of the redundant measures when they are inconsistent. The concept of neural redundancy consists on the calculation of a redundancy through neural networks based on the time series of the own state variable. Therefore, neural networks, dynamically trained with the time series, will estimate the current value of the own measure, which will be used as referee of the redundant measures in the parity space. For this purpose the neural network should have the capacity to supply the neural redundancy in real time and with maximum error corresponding to the group deviation. The historical series should be enough to allow the estimate of the next value, during transients and at the same time, it should be optimized to facilitate the retraining of the neural network to each acquisition. In order to have the capacity to reproduce the tendency of the time series even under accident condition, the dynamic training of the neural network privileges the recent points of the time series. The tests accomplished with simulated data of a nuclear plant, demonstrated that this method applied on the parity space method improves the signal validation process. (author)

Neural redundancy applied to the parity space for signal validation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mol, Antonio Carlos de Abreu; Pereira, Claudio Marcio Nascimento Abreu [Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear (IEN), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)]. E-mail: cmnap@ien.gov.br; Martinez, Aquilino Senra [Universidade Federal, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). Coordenacao dos Programas de Pos-graduacao de Engenharia]. E-mail: aquilino@lmp.br

2005-07-01

The objective of signal validation is to provide more reliable information from the plant sensor data The method presented in this work introduces the concept of neural redundancy and applies it to the space parity method [1] to overcome an inherent deficiency of this method - the determination of the best estimative of the redundant measures when they are inconsistent. The concept of neural redundancy consists on the calculation of a redundancy through neural networks based on the time series of the own state variable. Therefore, neural networks, dynamically trained with the time series, will estimate the current value of the own measure, which will be used as referee of the redundant measures in the parity space. For this purpose the neural network should have the capacity to supply the neural redundancy in real time and with maximum error corresponding to the group deviation. The historical series should be enough to allow the estimate of the next value, during transients and at the same time, it should be optimized to facilitate the retraining of the neural network to each acquisition. In order to have the capacity to reproduce the tendency of the time series even under accident condition, the dynamic training of the neural network privileges the recent points of the time series. The tests accomplished with simulated data of a nuclear plant, demonstrated that this method applied on the parity space method improves the signal validation process. (author)

Techno-Economic Assessment of Redundancy Systems for a Cogeneration Plant

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Majid Mohd Amin Abd

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The use of distributed power generation has advantage as well as disadvantage. One of the disadvantages is that the plant requires a dependable redundancy system to provide back up of power during failure of its power generation equipment. This paper presents a study on techno-economic assessment of redundancy systems for a cogeneration plant. Three redundancy systems were investigated; using public utility, generator set and gas turbine as back up during failures. Results from the analysis indicate that using public utility provides technical as well as economic advantages in comparison to using generator set or turbine as back up. However, the economic advantage of the public utility depends on the frequency of failures the plant will experience as well on the maximum demand charge. From the break even analysis of the understudied plant, if the number of failures exceeds 3 failures per year for the case of maximum demand charge of RM56.80, it is more economical to install a generator set as redundancy. The study will be useful for the co-generator operators to evaluate the feasibility of redundancy systems.

Image Registration Using Redundant Wavelet Transforms

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Brown, Richard

2001-01-01

.... In our research, we present a fundamentally new wavelet-based registration algorithm utilizing redundant transforms and a masking process to suppress the adverse effects of noise and improve processing efficiency...

The Public Collaboration Lab—Infrastructuring Redundancy with Communities-in-Place

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam Thorpe

Full Text Available In this article we share an example of challenge-driven learning in design education and consider the contribution of such approaches to the weaving of communities-in-place. We describe the research and practice of the Public Collaboration Lab (PCL, a prototype public social innovation lab developed and tested via a collaborative action research partnership between a London borough council and an art and design university. We make the case that this collaboration is an effective means of bringing capacity in design to public service innovation, granting the redundancy of resources necessary for the experimentation, reflection, and learning that leads to innovation—particularly at a time of financial austerity. We summarize three collaborative design experiments delivered by local government officers working with student designers and residents supported by design researchers and tutors. We identify particular qualities of participatory and collaborative design that foster the construction of meaningful connections among participants in the design process—connections that have the potential to catalyze or strengthen the relationships, experiences, and understandings that contribute to enrich communities-in-place, and infrastructure community resilience in the process. Keywords: Participatory design, Public social innovation, Redundancy, Infrastructuring, Local government

A control method for manipulators with redundancy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Furusho, Junji; Usui, Hiroyuki

1989-01-01

Redundant manipulators have more ability than nonredundant ones in many aspects such as avoiding obstacles, avoiding singular states, etc. In this paper, a control algorithm for redundant manipulators working under the circumstance in the presence of obstacles is presented. First, the measure of manipulability for robot manipulators under obstacle circumstances is defined. Then, the control algorithm for the obstacle avoidance is derived by using this measure of manipulability. The obstacle avoidance and the maintenance of good posture are simultaneously achieved by this algorithm. Lastly, an experiment and simulation results using an eight degree of freedom manipulator are shown. (author)

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for parameter estimation of a novel hybrid redundant robot

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Yongbo; Wu Huapeng; Handroos, Heikki

2011-01-01

This paper presents a statistical method for the calibration of a redundantly actuated hybrid serial-parallel robot IWR (Intersector Welding Robot). The robot under study will be used to carry out welding, machining, and remote handing for the assembly of vacuum vessel of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The robot has ten degrees of freedom (DOF), among which six DOF are contributed by the parallel mechanism and the rest are from the serial mechanism. In this paper, a kinematic error model which involves 54 unknown geometrical error parameters is developed for the proposed robot. Based on this error model, the mean values of the unknown parameters are statistically analyzed and estimated by means of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach. The computer simulation is conducted by introducing random geometric errors and measurement poses which represent the corresponding real physical behaviors. The simulation results of the marginal posterior distributions of the estimated model parameters indicate that our method is reliable and robust.

Method and system for redundancy management of distributed and recoverable digital control system

Science.gov (United States)

Stange, Kent (Inventor); Hess, Richard (Inventor); Kelley, Gerald B (Inventor); Rogers, Randy (Inventor)

2012-01-01

A method and system for redundancy management is provided for a distributed and recoverable digital control system. The method uses unique redundancy management techniques to achieve recovery and restoration of redundant elements to full operation in an asynchronous environment. The system includes a first computing unit comprising a pair of redundant computational lanes for generating redundant control commands. One or more internal monitors detect data errors in the control commands, and provide a recovery trigger to the first computing unit. A second redundant computing unit provides the same features as the first computing unit. A first actuator control unit is configured to provide blending and monitoring of the control commands from the first and second computing units, and to provide a recovery trigger to each of the first and second computing units. A second actuator control unit provides the same features as the first actuator control unit.

Stabilization Methods for the Integration of DAE in the Presence of Redundant Constraints

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Neto, Maria Augusta; Ambrosio, Jorge

2003-01-01

The use of multibody formulations based on Cartesian or natural coordinates lead to sets of differential-algebraic equations that have to be solved. The difficulty in providing compatible initial positions and velocities for a general spatial multibody model and the finite precision of such data result in initial errors that must be corrected during the forward dynamic solution of the system equations of motion.As the position and velocity constraint equations are not explicitly involved in the solution procedure, any integration error leads to the violation of these equations in the long run. Another problem that is very often impossible to avoid is the presence of redundant constraints.Even with no initial redundancy it is possible for some systems to achieve singular configurations in which kinematic constraints become temporarily redundant. In this work several procedures to stabilize the solution of the equations of motion and to handle redundant constraints are revisited. The Baumgarte stabilization, augmented Lagrangian and coordinate partitioning methods are discussed in terms of their efficiency and computational costs. The LU factorization with full pivoting of the Jacobian matrix directs the choice of the set of independent coordinates, required by the coordinate partitioning method.Even when no particular stabilization method is used, a Newton-Raphson iterative procedure is still required in the initial time step to correct the initial positions and velocities, thus requiring the selection of the independent coordinates. However, this initial selection does not guarantee that during the motion of the system other constraints do not become redundant. Two procedures based on the single value decomposition and Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization are revisited for the purpose. The advantages and drawbacks of the different procedures,used separately or in conjunction with each other and their computational costs are finally discussed

Redundancy in Systems Which Entertain a Model of Themselves: Interaction Information and the Self-Organization of Anticipation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Loet Leydesdorff

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Mutual information among three or more dimensions (μ* = –Q has been considered as interaction information. However, Krippendorff [1,2] has shown that this measure cannot be interpreted as a unique property of the interactions and has proposed an alternative measure of interaction information based on iterative approximation of maximum entropies. Q can then be considered as a measure of the difference between interaction information and redundancy generated in a model entertained by an observer. I argue that this provides us with a measure of the imprint of a second-order observing system—a model entertained by the system itself—on the underlying information processing. The second-order system communicates meaning hyper-incursively; an observation instantiates this meaning-processing within the information processing. The net results may add to or reduce the prevailing uncertainty. The model is tested empirically for the case where textual organization can be expected to contain intellectual organization in terms of distributions of title words, author names, and cited references.

Sibling rivalry: related bacterial small RNAs and their redundant and non-redundant roles.

Science.gov (United States)

Caswell, Clayton C; Oglesby-Sherrouse, Amanda G; Murphy, Erin R

2014-01-01

Small RNA molecules (sRNAs) are now recognized as key regulators controlling bacterial gene expression, as sRNAs provide a quick and efficient means of positively or negatively altering the expression of specific genes. To date, numerous sRNAs have been identified and characterized in a myriad of bacterial species, but more recently, a theme in bacterial sRNAs has emerged: the presence of more than one highly related sRNAs produced by a given bacterium, here termed sibling sRNAs. Sibling sRNAs are those that are highly similar at the nucleotide level, and while it might be expected that sibling sRNAs exert identical regulatory functions on the expression of target genes based on their high degree of relatedness, emerging evidence is demonstrating that this is not always the case. Indeed, there are several examples of bacterial sibling sRNAs with non-redundant regulatory functions, but there are also instances of apparent regulatory redundancy between sibling sRNAs. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge of bacterial sibling sRNAs, and also discusses important questions about the significance and evolutionary implications of this emerging class of regulators.

Sibling rivalry: Related bacterial small RNAs and their redundant and non-redundant roles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Clayton eCaswell

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Small RNA molecules (sRNAs are now recognized as key regulators controlling bacterial gene expression, as sRNAs provide a quick and efficient means of positively or negatively altering the expression of specific genes. To date, numerous sRNAs have been identified and characterized in a myriad of bacterial species, but more recently, a theme in bacterial sRNAs has emerged: the presence of more than one highly related sRNAs produced by a given bacterium, here termed sibling sRNAs. Sibling sRNAs are those that are highly similar at the nucleotide level, and while it might be expected that sibling sRNAs exert identical regulatory functions on the expression of target genes based on their high degree of relatedness, emerging evidence is demonstrating that this is not always the case. Indeed, there are several examples of bacterial sibling sRNAs with non-redundant regulatory functions, but there are also instances of apparent regulatory redundancy between sibling sRNAs. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge of bacterial sibling sRNAs, and also discusses important questions about the significance and evolutionary implications of this emerging class of regulators.

Functional Redundancy Between Canonical Endocannabinoid Signaling Systems in the Modulation of Anxiety.

Science.gov (United States)

Bedse, Gaurav; Hartley, Nolan D; Neale, Emily; Gaulden, Andrew D; Patrick, Toni A; Kingsley, Philip J; Uddin, Md Jashim; Plath, Niels; Marnett, Lawrence J; Patel, Sachin

2017-10-01

Increasing the available repertoire of effective treatments for mood and anxiety disorders represents a critical unmet need. Pharmacological augmentation of endogenous cannabinoid (eCB) signaling has been suggested to represent a novel approach to the treatment of anxiety disorders; however, the functional interactions between two canonical eCB pathways mediated via anandamide (N-arachidonylethanolamine [AEA]) and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) in the regulation of anxiety are not well understood. We utilized pharmacological augmentation and depletion combined with behavioral and electrophysiological approaches to probe the role of 2-AG signaling in the modulation of stress-induced anxiety and the functional redundancy between AEA and 2-AG signaling in the modulation of anxiety-like behaviors in mice. Selective 2-AG augmentation reduced anxiety in the light/dark box assay and prevented stress-induced increases in anxiety associated with limbic AEA deficiency. In contrast, acute 2-AG depletion increased anxiety-like behaviors, which was normalized by selective pharmacological augmentation of AEA signaling and via direct cannabinoid receptor 1 stimulation with Δ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol. Electrophysiological studies revealed 2-AG modulation of amygdala glutamatergic transmission as a key synaptic correlate of the anxiolytic effects of 2-AG augmentation. Although AEA and 2-AG likely subserve distinct physiological roles, a pharmacological and functional redundancy between these canonical eCB signaling pathways exists in the modulation of anxiety-like behaviors. These data support development of eCB-based treatment approaches for mood and anxiety disorders and suggest a potentially wider therapeutic overlap between AEA and 2-AG augmentation approaches than was previously appreciated. Copyright © 2017 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Redundancy Elimination in DTN via ACK Mechanism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiqing Zhang

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The traditional routing protocols for delay tolerant networks (DTN usually take the strategy of spreading multiple copies of one message to the networks. When one copy reaches destination, the transmission of other copies not only waste the bandwidth but also deprive other messages of the opportunities for transmission. This paper brings up a mechanism to eliminate the redundant copies. By adding an acknowledge field to the packet header to delete redundant copies, it can degrade the network overhead while improve the delivery ratio. Simulation results confirm that the proposed method can improve the performance of epidemic and Spray and Wait routing protocol.

Design of redundant array of independent DVD libraries based on iSCSI

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yupeng; Pan, Longfa

2003-04-01

This paper presents a new approach to realize the redundant array of independent DVD libraries (RAID-LoIP) by using the iSCSI technology and traditional RAID algorithms. Our design reaches the high performance of optical storage system with following features: large storage size, highly accessing rate, random access, long distance of DVD libraries, block I/O storage, long storage life. Our RAID-LoIP system can be a good solution for broadcasting media asset storage system.

Fault Diagnosis approach based on a model-based reasoner and a functional designer for a wind turbine. An approach towards self-maintenance

Science.gov (United States)

Echavarria, E.; Tomiyama, T.; van Bussel, G. J. W.

2007-07-01

The objective of this on-going research is to develop a design methodology to increase the availability for offshore wind farms, by means of an intelligent maintenance system capable of responding to faults by reconfiguring the system or subsystems, without increasing service visits, complexity, or costs. The idea is to make use of the existing functional redundancies within the system and sub-systems to keep the wind turbine operational, even at a reduced capacity if necessary. Re-configuration is intended to be a built-in capability to be used as a repair strategy, based on these existing functionalities provided by the components. The possible solutions can range from using information from adjacent wind turbines, such as wind speed and direction, to setting up different operational modes, for instance re-wiring, re-connecting, changing parameters or control strategy. The methodology described in this paper is based on qualitative physics and consists of a fault diagnosis system based on a model-based reasoner (MBR), and on a functional redundancy designer (FRD). Both design tools make use of a function-behaviour-state (FBS) model. A design methodology based on the re-configuration concept to achieve self-maintained wind turbines is an interesting and promising approach to reduce stoppage rate, failure events, maintenance visits, and to maintain energy output possibly at reduced rate until the next scheduled maintenance.

Fault Diagnosis approach based on a model-based reasoner and a functional designer for a wind turbine. An approach towards self-maintenance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Echavarria, E; Tomiyama, T; Bussel, G J W van

2007-01-01

The objective of this on-going research is to develop a design methodology to increase the availability for offshore wind farms, by means of an intelligent maintenance system capable of responding to faults by reconfiguring the system or subsystems, without increasing service visits, complexity, or costs. The idea is to make use of the existing functional redundancies within the system and sub-systems to keep the wind turbine operational, even at a reduced capacity if necessary. Re-configuration is intended to be a built-in capability to be used as a repair strategy, based on these existing functionalities provided by the components. The possible solutions can range from using information from adjacent wind turbines, such as wind speed and direction, to setting up different operational modes, for instance re-wiring, re-connecting, changing parameters or control strategy. The methodology described in this paper is based on qualitative physics and consists of a fault diagnosis system based on a model-based reasoner (MBR), and on a functional redundancy designer (FRD). Both design tools make use of a function-behaviour-state (FBS) model. A design methodology based on the re-configuration concept to achieve self-maintained wind turbines is an interesting and promising approach to reduce stoppage rate, failure events, maintenance visits, and to maintain energy output possibly at reduced rate until the next scheduled maintenance

Finite-Horizon $H_\\infty $ Consensus for Multiagent Systems With Redundant Channels via An Observer-Type Event-Triggered Scheme.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Wenying; Wang, Zidong; Ho, Daniel W C

2018-05-01

This paper is concerned with the finite-horizon consensus problem for a class of discrete time-varying multiagent systems with external disturbances and missing measurements. To improve the communication reliability, redundant channels are introduced and the corresponding protocol is constructed for the information transmission over redundant channels. An event-triggered scheme is adopted to determine whether the information of agents should be transmitted to their neighbors. Subsequently, an observer-type event-triggered control protocol is proposed based on the latest received neighbors' information. The purpose of the addressed problem is to design a time-varying controller based on the observed information to achieve the consensus performance in a finite horizon. By utilizing a constrained recursive Riccati difference equation approach, some sufficient conditions are obtained to guarantee the consensus performance, and the controller parameters are also designed. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the desired reliability of redundant channels and the effectiveness of the event-triggered control protocol.

Kinematics analysis of a novel planar parallel manipulator with kinematic redundancy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Qu, Haibo; Guo, Sheng [Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing (China)

2017-04-15

In this paper, a novel planar parallel manipulator with kinematic redundancy is proposed. First, the Degrees of freedom (DOF) of the whole parallel manipulator and the Relative DOF (RDOF) between the moving platform and fixed base are studied. The results indicate that the proposed mechanism is kinematically redundant. Then, the kinematics, Jacobian matrices and workspace of this proposed parallel manipulator with kinematic redundancy are analyzed. Finally, the statics simulation of the proposed parallel manipulator is performed. The obtained stress and displacement distribution can be used to determine the easily destroyed place in the mechanism configurations.

Kinematics analysis of a novel planar parallel manipulator with kinematic redundancy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Qu, Haibo; Guo, Sheng

2017-01-01

In this paper, a novel planar parallel manipulator with kinematic redundancy is proposed. First, the Degrees of freedom (DOF) of the whole parallel manipulator and the Relative DOF (RDOF) between the moving platform and fixed base are studied. The results indicate that the proposed mechanism is kinematically redundant. Then, the kinematics, Jacobian matrices and workspace of this proposed parallel manipulator with kinematic redundancy are analyzed. Finally, the statics simulation of the proposed parallel manipulator is performed. The obtained stress and displacement distribution can be used to determine the easily destroyed place in the mechanism configurations

Incident detection and isolation in drilling using analytical redundancy relations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Willersrud, Anders; Blanke, Mogens; Imsland, Lars

2015-01-01

must be avoided. This paper employs model-based diagnosis using analytical redundancy relations to obtain residuals which are affected differently by the different incidents. Residuals are found to be non-Gaussian - they follow a multivariate t-distribution - hence, a dedicated generalized likelihood...... measurements available. In the latter case, isolation capability is shown to be reduced to group-wise isolation, but the method would still detect all serious events with the prescribed false alarm probability...

Distributed continuous media streaming - Using redundant hierarchy (RED-Hi) servers

OpenAIRE

Shah, Mohammad Ahmed

2014-01-01

ABSTRACT: The first part of this thesis provides a survey of continuous media serves, including discussions on streaming protocols, models and techniques. In the second part, a novel distributed media streaming system is introduced. In order to manage the traffic in a fault tolerant and effective manner a hierarchical topology, so called redundant hierarchy (RED-Hi) is used. The proposed system works in three steps, namely, object location, path reservation and object delivery. Simulations ar...

A redundancy-removing feature selection algorithm for nominal data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhihua Li

2015-10-01

Full Text Available No order correlation or similarity metric exists in nominal data, and there will always be more redundancy in a nominal dataset, which means that an efficient mutual information-based nominal-data feature selection method is relatively difficult to find. In this paper, a nominal-data feature selection method based on mutual information without data transformation, called the redundancy-removing more relevance less redundancy algorithm, is proposed. By forming several new information-related definitions and the corresponding computational methods, the proposed method can compute the information-related amount of nominal data directly. Furthermore, by creating a new evaluation function that considers both the relevance and the redundancy globally, the new feature selection method can evaluate the importance of each nominal-data feature. Although the presented feature selection method takes commonly used MIFS-like forms, it is capable of handling high-dimensional datasets without expensive computations. We perform extensive experimental comparisons of the proposed algorithm and other methods using three benchmarking nominal datasets with two different classifiers. The experimental results demonstrate the average advantage of the presented algorithm over the well-known NMIFS algorithm in terms of the feature selection and classification accuracy, which indicates that the proposed method has a promising performance.

Does functional redundancy stabilize fish communities?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rice, Jake; Daan, Niels; Gislason, Henrik

2012-01-01

Functional redundancy is a community property thought to contribute to ecosystem resilience. It is argued that trophic (or other) functional groups with more species have more linkages and opportunities to buffer variation in abundance of individual species. We explored this concept with a 30‐year...... time‐series of data on 83 species sampled in the International Bottom Trawl Survey. Our results were consistent with the hypothesis that functional redundancy leads to more stable (and by inference more resilient) communities. Over the time‐series trophic groups (assigned by diet, size (Lmax) group......, or both factors) with more species had lower coefficients of variation (CVs) in abundance and biomass than did trophic groups with fewer species. These findings are also consistent with Bernoulli’s Law of Large Numbers, a rule that does not require complex ecological and evolutionary processes to produce...

High precision redundant robotic manipulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Young, K.K.D.

1998-01-01

A high precision redundant robotic manipulator for overcoming contents imposed by obstacles or imposed by a highly congested work space is disclosed. One embodiment of the manipulator has four degrees of freedom and another embodiment has seven degrees of freedom. Each of the embodiments utilize a first selective compliant assembly robot arm (SCARA) configuration to provide high stiffness in the vertical plane, a second SCARA configuration to provide high stiffness in the horizontal plane. The seven degree of freedom embodiment also utilizes kinematic redundancy to provide the capability of avoiding obstacles that lie between the base of the manipulator and the end effector or link of the manipulator. These additional three degrees of freedom are added at the wrist link of the manipulator to provide pitch, yaw and roll. The seven degrees of freedom embodiment uses one revolute point per degree of freedom. For each of the revolute joints, a harmonic gear coupled to an electric motor is introduced, and together with properly designed based servo controllers provide an end point repeatability of less than 10 microns. 3 figs

Analysis of functional redundancies within the Arabidopsis TCP transcription factor family

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Danisman, S.; Dijk, van A.D.J.; Bimbo, A.; Wal, van der F.; Hennig, L.; Folter, de S.; Angenent, G.C.; Immink, R.G.H.

2013-01-01

Analyses of the functions of TEOSINTE-LIKE1, CYCLOIDEA, and ROLIFERATING CELL FACTOR1 (TCP) transcription factors have been hampered by functional redundancy between its individual members. In general, putative functionally redundant genes are predicted based on sequence similarity and confirmed by

Uncertain multiobjective redundancy allocation problem of repairable systems based on artificial bee colony algorithm

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Guo Jiansheng; Wang Zutong; Zheng Mingfa; Wang Ying

2014-01-01

Based on the uncertainty theory, this paper is devoted to the redundancy allocation problem in repairable parallel-series systems with uncertain factors, where the failure rate, repair rate and other relative coefficients involved are considered as uncertain variables. The availability of the system and the corresponding designing cost are considered as two optimization objectives. A crisp multiobjective optimization formulation is presented on the basis of uncertainty theory to solve this resultant problem. For solving this problem efficiently, a new multiobjective artificial bee colony algorithm is proposed to search the Pareto efficient set, which introduces rank value and crowding distance in the greedy selection strategy, applies fast non-dominated sort procedure in the exploitation search and inserts tournament selection in the onlooker bee phase. It shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms NSGA-II greatly and can solve multiobjective redundancy allocation problem efficiently. Finally, a numerical example is provided to illustrate this approach.

Equivalence of velocity-level and acceleration-level redundancy-resolution of manipulators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cai Binghuang; Zhang Yunong

2009-01-01

The equivalence of velocity-level and acceleration-level redundancy resolution of robot manipulators is investigated in this Letter. Theoretical analysis based on gradient-descent method and computer simulations based on PUMA560 robot manipulator both demonstrate the equivalence of redundancy-resolution schemes at different levels.

Reliability optimization of series-parallel systems with a choice of redundancy strategies using a genetic algorithm

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, R. [Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 11365/4563, Tehran (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada)], E-mail: tavakoli@ut.ac.ir; Safari, J. [Department of Industrial Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran (Iran, Islamic Republic of)], E-mail: jalalsafari@pideco.com; Sassani, F. [Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada)], E-mail: sassani@mech.ubc.ca

2008-04-15

This paper proposes a genetic algorithm (GA) for a redundancy allocation problem for the series-parallel system when the redundancy strategy can be chosen for individual subsystems. Majority of the solution methods for the general redundancy allocation problems assume that the redundancy strategy for each subsystem is predetermined and fixed. In general, active redundancy has received more attention in the past. However, in practice both active and cold-standby redundancies may be used within a particular system design and the choice of the redundancy strategy becomes an additional decision variable. Thus, the problem is to select the best redundancy strategy, component, and redundancy level for each subsystem in order to maximize the system reliability under system-level constraints. This belongs to the NP-hard class of problems. Due to its complexity, it is so difficult to optimally solve such a problem by using traditional optimization tools. It is demonstrated in this paper that GA is an efficient method for solving this type of problems. Finally, computational results for a typical scenario are presented and the robustness of the proposed algorithm is discussed.

Reliability optimization of series-parallel systems with a choice of redundancy strategies using a genetic algorithm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, R.; Safari, J.; Sassani, F.

2008-01-01

This paper proposes a genetic algorithm (GA) for a redundancy allocation problem for the series-parallel system when the redundancy strategy can be chosen for individual subsystems. Majority of the solution methods for the general redundancy allocation problems assume that the redundancy strategy for each subsystem is predetermined and fixed. In general, active redundancy has received more attention in the past. However, in practice both active and cold-standby redundancies may be used within a particular system design and the choice of the redundancy strategy becomes an additional decision variable. Thus, the problem is to select the best redundancy strategy, component, and redundancy level for each subsystem in order to maximize the system reliability under system-level constraints. This belongs to the NP-hard class of problems. Due to its complexity, it is so difficult to optimally solve such a problem by using traditional optimization tools. It is demonstrated in this paper that GA is an efficient method for solving this type of problems. Finally, computational results for a typical scenario are presented and the robustness of the proposed algorithm is discussed

Resolving Actuator Redundancy - Control Allocation vs. Linear Quadratic Control

OpenAIRE

Härkegård, Ola

2004-01-01

When designing control laws for systems with more inputs than controlled variables, one issue to consider is how to deal with actuator redundancy. Two tools for distributing the control effort among a redundant set of actuators are control allocation and linear quadratic control design. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between these two design tools when a quadratic performance index is used for control allocation. We show that for a particular class of linear systems, they give...

Fault detection in multiply-redundant measurement systems via sequential testing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ray, A.

1988-01-01

The theory and application of a sequential test procedure for fault detection and isolation. The test procedure is suited for development of intelligent instrumentation in strategic processes like aircraft and nuclear plants where redundant measurements are usually available for individual critical variables. The test procedure consists of: (1) a generic redundancy management procedure which is essentially independent of the fault detection strategy and measurement noise statistics, and (2) a modified version of sequential probability ratio test algorithm for fault detection and isolation, which functions within the framework of this redundancy management procedure. The sequential test procedure is suitable for real-time applications using commercially available microcomputers and its efficacy has been verified by online fault detection in an operating nuclear reactor. 15 references

Minister wants age balance to play greater role in redundancy selection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grünell, M.

2004-01-01

In May 2004, the Dutch Minister of Social Affairs proposed changes to the statutory rules on selection for redundancy, with less emphasis on the last in, first out seniority-based principle and a greater focus on distributing the redundancies between employees of different ages. The social partners

Intraguild predation reduces redundancy of predator species in multiple predator assemblage.

Science.gov (United States)

Griffen, Blaine D; Byers, James E

2006-07-01

1. Interference between predator species frequently decreases predation rates, lowering the risk of predation for shared prey. However, such interference can also occur between conspecific predators. 2. Therefore, to understand the importance of predator biodiversity and the degree that predator species can be considered functionally interchangeable, we determined the degree of additivity and redundancy of predators in multiple- and single-species combinations. 3. We show that interference between two invasive species of predatory crabs, Carcinus maenas and Hemigrapsus sanguineus, reduced the risk of predation for shared amphipod prey, and had redundant per capita effects in most multiple- and single-species predator combinations. 4. However, when predator combinations with the potential for intraguild predation were examined, predator interference increased and predator redundancy decreased. 5. Our study indicates that trophic structure is important in determining how the effects of predator species combine and demonstrates the utility of determining the redundancy, as well as the additivity, of multiple predator species.

Reliability and mass analysis of dynamic power conversion systems with parallel or standby redundancy

Science.gov (United States)

Juhasz, Albert J.; Bloomfield, Harvey S.

1987-01-01

A combinatorial reliability approach was used to identify potential dynamic power conversion systems for space mission applications. A reliability and mass analysis was also performed, specifically for a 100-kWe nuclear Brayton power conversion system with parallel redundancy. Although this study was done for a reactor outlet temperature of 1100 K, preliminary system mass estimates are also included for reactor outlet temperatures ranging up to 1500 K.

Reliability and mass analysis of dynamic power conversion systems with parallel of standby redundancy

Science.gov (United States)

Juhasz, A. J.; Bloomfield, H. S.

1985-01-01

A combinatorial reliability approach is used to identify potential dynamic power conversion systems for space mission applications. A reliability and mass analysis is also performed, specifically for a 100 kWe nuclear Brayton power conversion system with parallel redundancy. Although this study is done for a reactor outlet temperature of 1100K, preliminary system mass estimates are also included for reactor outlet temperatures ranging up to 1500 K.

Triple Modular Redundancy verification via heuristic netlist analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giovanni Beltrame

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR is a common technique to protect memory elements for digital processing systems subject to radiation effects (such as in space, high-altitude, or near nuclear sources. This paper presents an approach to verify the correct implementation of TMR for the memory elements of a given netlist (i.e., a digital circuit specification using heuristic analysis. The purpose is detecting any issues that might incur during the use of automatic tools for TMR insertion, optimization, place and route, etc. Our analysis does not require a testbench and can perform full, exhaustive coverage within less than an hour even for large designs. This is achieved by applying a divide et impera approach, splitting the circuit into smaller submodules without loss of generality, instead of applying formal verification to the whole netlist at once. The methodology has been applied to a production netlist of the LEON2-FT processor that had reported errors during radiation testing, successfully showing a number of unprotected memory elements, namely 351 flip-flops.

Redundant information encoding in QED during decoherence

Science.gov (United States)

Tuziemski, J.; Witas, P.; Korbicz, J. K.

2018-01-01

Broadly understood decoherence processes in quantum electrodynamics, induced by neglecting either the radiation [L. Landau, Z. Phys. 45, 430 (1927), 10.1007/BF01343064] or the charged matter [N. Bohr and L. Rosenfeld, K. Danske Vidensk. Selsk, Math.-Fys. Medd. XII, 8 (1933)], have been studied from the dawn of the theory. However, what happens in between, when a part of the radiation may be observed, as is the case in many real-life situations, has not been analyzed yet. We present such an analysis for a nonrelativistic, pointlike charge and thermal radiation. In the dipole approximation, we solve the dynamics and show that there is a regime where, despite the noise, the observed field carries away almost perfect and hugely redundant information about the charge momentum. We analyze a partial charge-field state and show that it approaches a so-called spectrum broadcast structure.

A novel redundant INS based on triple rotary inertial measurement units

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Gang; Li, Kui; Wang, Wei; Li, Peng

2016-10-01

Accuracy and reliability are two key performances of inertial navigation system (INS). Rotation modulation (RM) can attenuate the bias of inertial sensors and make it possible for INS to achieve higher navigation accuracy with lower-class sensors. Therefore, the conflict between the accuracy and cost of INS can be eased. Traditional system redundancy and recently researched sensor redundancy are two primary means to improve the reliability of INS. However, how to make the best use of the redundant information from redundant sensors hasn’t been studied adequately, especially in rotational INS. This paper proposed a novel triple rotary unit strapdown inertial navigation system (TRUSINS), which combines RM and sensor redundancy design to enhance the accuracy and reliability of rotational INS. Each rotary unit independently rotates to modulate the errors of two gyros and two accelerometers. Three units can provide double sets of measurements along all three axes of body frame to constitute a couple of INSs which make TRUSINS redundant. Experiments and simulations based on a prototype which is made up of six fiber-optic gyros with drift stability of 0.05° h-1 show that TRUSINS can achieve positioning accuracy of about 0.256 n mile h-1, which is ten times better than that of a normal non-rotational INS with the same level inertial sensors. The theoretical analysis and the experimental results show that due to the advantage of the innovative structure, the designed fault detection and isolation (FDI) strategy can tolerate six sensor faults at most, and is proved to be effective and practical. Therefore, TRUSINS is particularly suitable and highly beneficial for the applications where high accuracy and high reliability is required.

Objective past of a quantum universe: Redundant records of consistent histories

Science.gov (United States)

Riedel, C. Jess; Zurek, Wojciech H.; Zwolak, Michael

2016-03-01

Motivated by the advances of quantum Darwinism and recognizing the role played by redundancy in identifying the small subset of quantum states with resilience characteristic of objective classical reality, we explore the implications of redundant records for consistent histories. The consistent histories formalism is a tool for describing sequences of events taking place in an evolving closed quantum system. A set of histories is consistent when one can reason about them using Boolean logic, i.e., when probabilities of sequences of events that define histories are additive. However, the vast majority of the sets of histories that are merely consistent are flagrantly nonclassical in other respects. This embarras de richesses (known as the set selection problem) suggests that one must go beyond consistency to identify how the classical past arises in our quantum universe. The key intuition we follow is that the records of events that define the familiar objective past are inscribed in many distinct systems, e.g., subsystems of the environment, and are accessible locally in space and time to observers. We identify histories that are not just consistent but redundantly consistent using the partial-trace condition introduced by Finkelstein as a bridge between histories and decoherence. The existence of redundant records is a sufficient condition for redundant consistency. It selects, from the multitude of the alternative sets of consistent histories, a small subset endowed with redundant records characteristic of the objective classical past. The information about an objective history of the past is then simultaneously within reach of many, who can independently reconstruct it and arrive at compatible conclusions in the present.

Decoupled Sliding Mode Control for a Novel 3-DOF Parallel Manipulator with Actuation Redundancy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Niu Xuemei

2015-05-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a decoupled nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller (DNTSMC for a novel 3-DOF parallel manipulator with actuation redundancy. According to kinematic analysis, the inverse dynamic model for a novel 3-DOF redundantly actuated parallel manipulator is formulated in the task space using Lagrangian formalism and decoupled into three entirely independent subsystems under generalized coordinates to significantly reduce system complexity. Based on the dynamic model, a decoupled sliding mode control strategy is proposed for the parallel manipulator; the idea behind this strategy is to design a nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller for each subsystem, which can drive states of three subsystems to the original equilibrium points simultaneously by two intermediate variables. Additionally, a RBF neural network is used to compensate the cross-coupling force and gravity to enhance the control precision. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed DNTSMC can achieve better control performances compared with the conventional sliding mode controller (SMC and the DNTSMC without compensator.

An overview of adaptive model theory: solving the problems of redundancy, resources, and nonlinear interactions in human movement control.

Science.gov (United States)

Neilson, Peter D; Neilson, Megan D

2005-09-01

Adaptive model theory (AMT) is a computational theory that addresses the difficult control problem posed by the musculoskeletal system in interaction with the environment. It proposes that the nervous system creates motor maps and task-dependent synergies to solve the problems of redundancy and limited central resources. These lead to the adaptive formation of task-dependent feedback/feedforward controllers able to generate stable, noninteractive control and render nonlinear interactions unobservable in sensory-motor relationships. AMT offers a unified account of how the nervous system might achieve these solutions by forming internal models. This is presented as the design of a simulator consisting of neural adaptive filters based on cerebellar circuitry. It incorporates a new network module that adaptively models (in real time) nonlinear relationships between inputs with changing and uncertain spectral and amplitude probability density functions as is the case for sensory and motor signals.

Hybrid online sensor error detection and functional redundancy for systems with time-varying parameters.

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Jianyuan; Turksoy, Kamuran; Samadi, Sediqeh; Hajizadeh, Iman; Littlejohn, Elizabeth; Cinar, Ali

2017-12-01

Supervision and control systems rely on signals from sensors to receive information to monitor the operation of a system and adjust manipulated variables to achieve the control objective. However, sensor performance is often limited by their working conditions and sensors may also be subjected to interference by other devices. Many different types of sensor errors such as outliers, missing values, drifts and corruption with noise may occur during process operation. A hybrid online sensor error detection and functional redundancy system is developed to detect errors in online signals, and replace erroneous or missing values detected with model-based estimates. The proposed hybrid system relies on two techniques, an outlier-robust Kalman filter (ORKF) and a locally-weighted partial least squares (LW-PLS) regression model, which leverage the advantages of automatic measurement error elimination with ORKF and data-driven prediction with LW-PLS. The system includes a nominal angle analysis (NAA) method to distinguish between signal faults and large changes in sensor values caused by real dynamic changes in process operation. The performance of the system is illustrated with clinical data continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) sensors from people with type 1 diabetes. More than 50,000 CGM sensor errors were added to original CGM signals from 25 clinical experiments, then the performance of error detection and functional redundancy algorithms were analyzed. The results indicate that the proposed system can successfully detect most of the erroneous signals and substitute them with reasonable estimated values computed by functional redundancy system.

Developmental changes in children’s processing of redundant modifiers in definite object descriptions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ruud Koolen

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates developmental changes in children’s processing of redundant information in definite object descriptions. In two experiments, children of two age groups (six or seven, and nine or ten years old were presented with pictures of sweets. In the first experiment (pairwise comparison, two identical sweets were shown, and one of these was described with a redundant modifier. After the description, the children had to indicate the sweet they preferred most in a forced-choice task. In the second experiment (graded rating, only one sweet was shown, which was described with a redundant color modifier in half of the cases (e.g., the blue sweet and in the other half of the cases simply as the sweet. This time, the children were asked to indicate on a 5-point rating scale to what extent they liked the sweets. In both experiments, the results showed that the younger children had a preference for the sweets described with redundant information, while redundant information did not have an effect on the preferences for the older children. These results imply that children are learning to distinguish between situations in which redundant information carries an implicature and situations in which this is not the case.

A novel redundant INS based on triple rotary inertial measurement units

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Gang; Li, Kui; Wang, Wei; Li, Peng

2016-01-01

Accuracy and reliability are two key performances of inertial navigation system (INS). Rotation modulation (RM) can attenuate the bias of inertial sensors and make it possible for INS to achieve higher navigation accuracy with lower-class sensors. Therefore, the conflict between the accuracy and cost of INS can be eased. Traditional system redundancy and recently researched sensor redundancy are two primary means to improve the reliability of INS. However, how to make the best use of the redundant information from redundant sensors hasn’t been studied adequately, especially in rotational INS. This paper proposed a novel triple rotary unit strapdown inertial navigation system (TRUSINS), which combines RM and sensor redundancy design to enhance the accuracy and reliability of rotational INS. Each rotary unit independently rotates to modulate the errors of two gyros and two accelerometers. Three units can provide double sets of measurements along all three axes of body frame to constitute a couple of INSs which make TRUSINS redundant. Experiments and simulations based on a prototype which is made up of six fiber-optic gyros with drift stability of 0.05° h −1 show that TRUSINS can achieve positioning accuracy of about 0.256 n mile h −1 , which is ten times better than that of a normal non-rotational INS with the same level inertial sensors. The theoretical analysis and the experimental results show that due to the advantage of the innovative structure, the designed fault detection and isolation (FDI) strategy can tolerate six sensor faults at most, and is proved to be effective and practical. Therefore, TRUSINS is particularly suitable and highly beneficial for the applications where high accuracy and high reliability is required. (paper)

Virtual Modular Redundancy of Processor Module in the PLC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Kwang-Il; Hwang, SungJae; Yoon, DongHwa

2016-01-01

Dual Modular Redundancy (DMR) is mainly used to implement these safety control systems. DMR is conveyed when components of a system are duplicated, providing another component in case one should fault or fail. This feature has a high availability and large fault tolerant. It provides zero downtime that is required for nuclear power plants. So nuclear power plant has been commercialized by multiple redundant systems. The following paper, we propose a Virtual Modular Redundancy (VMR) rather than physical triple of the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) processor module to ensure the reliability of the nuclear power plant control system. VMR implementation minimizes design changes to continue to use the commercially available redundant system. Also, the purpose of the VMR is to improve the efficiency and reliability in many ways, such as fault tolerant and fail-safe and cost. VMR guarantees a wide range of reliable fault recovery, fault tolerance, etc. It is prevented before it causes great damages due to the continuous failure of the two modules. The reliable communication speed is slow and also it has a small bandwidth. It is a great loss in the safety control system. However, VMR aims to avoid nuclear power plants that were suspended due to fail-safe. It is not for the purpose of commonly used. Application of VMR is actually expected to require a lot of research and trial and error until they adapt to the nuclear regulatory and standards

Virtual Modular Redundancy of Processor Module in the PLC

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Kwang-Il; Hwang, SungJae; Yoon, DongHwa [SOOSAN ENS Co., Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

Dual Modular Redundancy (DMR) is mainly used to implement these safety control systems. DMR is conveyed when components of a system are duplicated, providing another component in case one should fault or fail. This feature has a high availability and large fault tolerant. It provides zero downtime that is required for nuclear power plants. So nuclear power plant has been commercialized by multiple redundant systems. The following paper, we propose a Virtual Modular Redundancy (VMR) rather than physical triple of the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) processor module to ensure the reliability of the nuclear power plant control system. VMR implementation minimizes design changes to continue to use the commercially available redundant system. Also, the purpose of the VMR is to improve the efficiency and reliability in many ways, such as fault tolerant and fail-safe and cost. VMR guarantees a wide range of reliable fault recovery, fault tolerance, etc. It is prevented before it causes great damages due to the continuous failure of the two modules. The reliable communication speed is slow and also it has a small bandwidth. It is a great loss in the safety control system. However, VMR aims to avoid nuclear power plants that were suspended due to fail-safe. It is not for the purpose of commonly used. Application of VMR is actually expected to require a lot of research and trial and error until they adapt to the nuclear regulatory and standards.

An Appraisal Model Based on a Synthetic Feature Selection Approach for Students’ Academic Achievement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ching-Hsue Cheng

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Obtaining necessary information (and even extracting hidden messages from existing big data, and then transforming them into knowledge, is an important skill. Data mining technology has received increased attention in various fields in recent years because it can be used to find historical patterns and employ machine learning to aid in decision-making. When we find unexpected rules or patterns from the data, they are likely to be of high value. This paper proposes a synthetic feature selection approach (SFSA, which is combined with a support vector machine (SVM to extract patterns and find the key features that influence students’ academic achievement. For verifying the proposed model, two databases, namely, “Student Profile” and “Tutorship Record”, were collected from an elementary school in Taiwan, and were concatenated into an integrated dataset based on students’ names as a research dataset. The results indicate the following: (1 the accuracy of the proposed feature selection approach is better than that of the Minimum-Redundancy-Maximum-Relevance (mRMR approach; (2 the proposed model is better than the listing methods when the six least influential features have been deleted; and (3 the proposed model can enhance the accuracy and facilitate the interpretation of the pattern from a hybrid-type dataset of students’ academic achievement.

Structural redundancy of data from wastewater treatment systems. Determination of individual balance equations.

Science.gov (United States)

Spindler, A

2014-06-15

Although data reconciliation is intensely applied in process engineering, almost none of its powerful methods are employed for validation of operational data from wastewater treatment plants. This is partly due to some prerequisites that are difficult to meet including steady state, known variances of process variables and absence of gross errors. However, an algorithm can be derived from the classical approaches to data reconciliation that allows to find a comprehensive set of equations describing redundancy in the data when measured and unmeasured variables (flows and concentrations) are defined. This is a precondition for methods of data validation based on individual mass balances such as CUSUM charts. The procedure can also be applied to verify the necessity of existing or additional measurements with respect to the improvement of the data's redundancy. Results are given for a large wastewater treatment plant. The introduction aims at establishing a link between methods known from data reconciliation in process engineering and their application in wastewater treatment. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Past and Present Biophysical Redundancy of Countries as a Buffer to Changes in Food Supply

Science.gov (United States)

Fader, Marianela; Rulli, Maria Cristina; Carr, Joel; Dell' Angelo, Jampel; D' Odorico, Paolo; Gephart, Jessica A.; Kummu, Matti; Magliocca, Nicholas; Porkka, Miina; Prell, Christina;

Past and present biophysical redundancy of countries as a buffer to changes in food supply

Science.gov (United States)

Fader, Marianela; Rulli, Maria Cristina; Carr, Joel; Dell'Angelo, Jampel; D'Odorico, Paolo; Gephart, Jessica A.; Kummu, Matti; Magliocca, Nicholas; Porkka, Miina; Prell, Christina; Puma, Michael J.; Ratajczak, Zak; Seekell, David A.; Suweis, Samir; Tavoni, Alessandro

2016-05-01

Spatially diverse trends in population growth, climate change, industrialization, urbanization and economic development are expected to change future food supply and demand. These changes may affect the suitability of land for food production, implying elevated risks especially for resource-constrained, food-importing countries. We present the evolution of biophysical redundancy for agricultural production at country level, from 1992 to 2012. Biophysical redundancy, defined as unused biotic and abiotic environmental resources, is represented by the potential food production of ‘spare land’, available water resources (i.e., not already used for human activities), as well as production increases through yield gap closure on cultivated areas and potential agricultural areas. In 2012, the biophysical redundancy of 75 (48) countries, mainly in North Africa, Western Europe, the Middle East and Asia, was insufficient to produce the caloric nutritional needs for at least 50% (25%) of their population during a year. Biophysical redundancy has decreased in the last two decades in 102 out of 155 countries, 11 of these went from high to limited redundancy, and nine of these from limited to very low redundancy. Although the variability of the drivers of change across different countries is high, improvements in yield and population growth have a clear impact on the decreases of redundancy towards the very low redundancy category. We took a more detailed look at countries classified as ‘Low Income Economies (LIEs)’ since they are particularly vulnerable to domestic or external food supply changes, due to their limited capacity to offset for food supply decreases with higher purchasing power on the international market. Currently, nine LIEs have limited or very low biophysical redundancy. Many of these showed a decrease in redundancy over the last two decades, which is not always linked with improvements in per capita food availability.

Kinematic control of redundant robots and the motion optimizability measure.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, L; Gruver, W A; Zhang, Q; Yang, Z

2001-01-01

This paper treats the kinematic control of manipulators with redundant degrees of freedom. We derive an analytical solution for the inverse kinematics that provides a means for accommodating joint velocity constraints in real time. We define the motion optimizability measure and use it to develop an efficient method for the optimization of joint trajectories subject to multiple criteria. An implementation of the method for a 7-dof experimental redundant robot is present.

Functional redundancy patterns reveal non-random assembly rules in a species-rich marine assemblage.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolas Guillemot

Full Text Available The relationship between species and the functional diversity of assemblages is fundamental in ecology because it contains key information on functional redundancy, and functionally redundant ecosystems are thought to be more resilient, resistant and stable. However, this relationship is poorly understood and undocumented for species-rich coastal marine ecosystems. Here, we used underwater visual censuses to examine the patterns of functional redundancy for one of the most diverse vertebrate assemblages, the coral reef fishes of New Caledonia, South Pacific. First, we found that the relationship between functional and species diversity displayed a non-asymptotic power-shaped curve, implying that rare functions and species mainly occur in highly diverse assemblages. Second, we showed that the distribution of species amongst possible functions was significantly different from a random distribution up to a threshold of ∼90 species/transect. Redundancy patterns for each function further revealed that some functions displayed fast rates of increase in redundancy at low species diversity, whereas others were only becoming redundant past a certain threshold. This suggested non-random assembly rules and the existence of some primordial functions that would need to be fulfilled in priority so that coral reef fish assemblages can gain a basic ecological structure. Last, we found little effect of habitat on the shape of the functional-species diversity relationship and on the redundancy of functions, although habitat is known to largely determine assemblage characteristics such as species composition, biomass, and abundance. Our study shows that low functional redundancy is characteristic of this highly diverse fish assemblage, and, therefore, that even species-rich ecosystems such as coral reefs may be vulnerable to the removal of a few keystone species.

Superlinearly scalable noise robustness of redundant coupled dynamical systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Kohar, Vivek; Kia, Behnam; Lindner, John F; Ditto, William L

2016-03-01

We illustrate through theory and numerical simulations that redundant coupled dynamical systems can be extremely robust against local noise in comparison to uncoupled dynamical systems evolving in the same noisy environment. Previous studies have shown that the noise robustness of redundant coupled dynamical systems is linearly scalable and deviations due to noise can be minimized by increasing the number of coupled units. Here, we demonstrate that the noise robustness can actually be scaled superlinearly if some conditions are met and very high noise robustness can be realized with very few coupled units. We discuss these conditions and show that this superlinear scalability depends on the nonlinearity of the individual dynamical units. The phenomenon is demonstrated in discrete as well as continuous dynamical systems. This superlinear scalability not only provides us an opportunity to exploit the nonlinearity of physical systems without being bogged down by noise but may also help us in understanding the functional role of coupled redundancy found in many biological systems. Moreover, engineers can exploit superlinear noise suppression by starting a coupled system near (not necessarily at) the appropriate initial condition.

Redundancy control in pathway databases (ReCiPa): an application for improving gene-set enrichment analysis in Omics studies and "Big data" biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Vivar, Juan C; Pemu, Priscilla; McPherson, Ruth; Ghosh, Sujoy

2013-08-01

Abstract Unparalleled technological advances have fueled an explosive growth in the scope and scale of biological data and have propelled life sciences into the realm of "Big Data" that cannot be managed or analyzed by conventional approaches. Big Data in the life sciences are driven primarily via a diverse collection of 'omics'-based technologies, including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, metagenomics, and lipidomics. Gene-set enrichment analysis is a powerful approach for interrogating large 'omics' datasets, leading to the identification of biological mechanisms associated with observed outcomes. While several factors influence the results from such analysis, the impact from the contents of pathway databases is often under-appreciated. Pathway databases often contain variously named pathways that overlap with one another to varying degrees. Ignoring such redundancies during pathway analysis can lead to the designation of several pathways as being significant due to high content-similarity, rather than truly independent biological mechanisms. Statistically, such dependencies also result in correlated p values and overdispersion, leading to biased results. We investigated the level of redundancies in multiple pathway databases and observed large discrepancies in the nature and extent of pathway overlap. This prompted us to develop the application, ReCiPa (Redundancy Control in Pathway Databases), to control redundancies in pathway databases based on user-defined thresholds. Analysis of genomic and genetic datasets, using ReCiPa-generated overlap-controlled versions of KEGG and Reactome pathways, led to a reduction in redundancy among the top-scoring gene-sets and allowed for the inclusion of additional gene-sets representing possibly novel biological mechanisms. Using obesity as an example, bioinformatic analysis further demonstrated that gene-sets identified from overlap-controlled pathway databases show stronger evidence of prior association

Multisensory-Based Rehabilitation Approach: Translational Insights from Animal Models to Early Intervention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giulia Purpura

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Multisensory processes permit combinations of several inputs, coming from different sensory systems, allowing for a coherent representation of biological events and facilitating adaptation to environment. For these reasons, their application in neurological and neuropsychological rehabilitation has been enhanced in the last decades. Recent studies on animals and human models have indicated that, on one hand multisensory integration matures gradually during post-natal life and development is closely linked to environment and experience and, on the other hand, that modality-specific information seems to do not benefit by redundancy across multiple sense modalities and is more readily perceived in unimodal than in multimodal stimulation. In this review, multisensory process development is analyzed, highlighting clinical effects in animal and human models of its manipulation for rehabilitation of sensory disorders. In addition, new methods of early intervention based on multisensory-based rehabilitation approach and their applications on different infant populations at risk of neurodevelopmental disabilities are discussed.

Redundancy gains in simple responses and go/no-go tasks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gondan, Matthias; Götze, C.; Greenlee, M.W.

2010-01-01

In divided-attention tasks with two classes of target stimuli, participants typically respond more quickly if both targets are presented simultaneously, as compared with single-target presentation (redundant-signals effect). Different explanations exist for this effect, including serial, parallel...... times in both the simple and go/no-go responses were well explained by a common coactivation model assuming linear superposition of modality-specific activation. In Experiment 2, the go/no-go task was made more difficult. Participants had to respond to high-frequency tones or right-tilted Gabor patches...

Mutual information and redundancy in spontaneous communication between cortical neurons.

Science.gov (United States)

Szczepanski, J; Arnold, M; Wajnryb, E; Amigó, J M; Sanchez-Vives, M V

2011-03-01

An important question in neural information processing is how neurons cooperate to transmit information. To study this question, we resort to the concept of redundancy in the information transmitted by a group of neurons and, at the same time, we introduce a novel concept for measuring cooperation between pairs of neurons called relative mutual information (RMI). Specifically, we studied these two parameters for spike trains generated by neighboring neurons from the primary visual cortex in the awake, freely moving rat. The spike trains studied here were spontaneously generated in the cortical network, in the absence of visual stimulation. Under these conditions, our analysis revealed that while the value of RMI oscillated slightly around an average value, the redundancy exhibited a behavior characterized by a higher variability. We conjecture that this combination of approximately constant RMI and greater variable redundancy makes information transmission more resistant to noise disturbances. Furthermore, the redundancy values suggest that neurons can cooperate in a flexible way during information transmission. This mostly occurs via a leading neuron with higher transmission rate or, less frequently, through the information rate of the whole group being higher than the sum of the individual information rates-in other words in a synergetic manner. The proposed method applies not only to the stationary, but also to locally stationary neural signals.

The bliss (not the problem) of motor abundance (not redundancy).

Science.gov (United States)

Latash, Mark L

2012-03-01

Motor control is an area of natural science exploring how the nervous system interacts with other body parts and the environment to produce purposeful, coordinated actions. A central problem of motor control-the problem of motor redundancy-was formulated by Nikolai Bernstein as the problem of elimination of redundant degrees-of-freedom. Traditionally, this problem has been addressed using optimization methods based on a variety of cost functions. This review draws attention to a body of recent findings suggesting that the problem has been formulated incorrectly. An alternative view has been suggested as the principle of abundance, which considers the apparently redundant degrees-of-freedom as useful and even vital for many aspects of motor behavior. Over the past 10 years, dozens of publications have provided support for this view based on the ideas of synergic control, computational apparatus of the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis, and the equilibrium-point (referent configuration) hypothesis. In particular, large amounts of "good variance"-variance in the space of elements that has no effect on the overall performance-have been documented across a variety of natural actions. "Good variance" helps an abundant system to deal with secondary tasks and unexpected perturbations; its amount shows adaptive modulation across a variety of conditions. These data support the view that there is no problem of motor redundancy; there is bliss of motor abundance.

Redundant dopaminergic activity may enable compensatory axonal sprouting in Parkinson disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Arkadir, David; Bergman, Hagai; Fahn, Stanley

2014-03-25

Neurodegenerative diseases become clinically apparent only after a substantial population of neurons is lost. This raises the possibility of compensatory mechanisms in the early phase of these diseases. The importance of understanding these mechanisms cannot be underestimated because it may guide future disease-modifying strategies. Because the anatomy and physiology of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathways have been well described, the study of Parkinson disease can offer insight into these early compensatory mechanisms. Collateral axonal sprouting of dopaminergic terminals into the denervated striatum is the most studied compensatory mechanism in animal (almost exclusively rodent) models of Parkinson disease and is correlated with behavioral recovery after partial lesions. This sprouting, however, does not respect the normal anatomy of the original nigrostriatal pathways and leads to aberrant neuronal networks. We suggest here that the unique physiologic property of the dopaminergic innervation of the striatum, namely redundancy of information encoding, is crucial to the efficacy of compensatory axonal sprouting in the presence of aberrant anatomical connections. Redundant information encoding results from the similarity of representation of salient and rewarding events by many dopaminergic neurons, from the wide axonal field of a single dopaminergic neuron in the striatum, and from the nonspecific spatial effect of dopamine on striatal neurons (volume conductance). Finally, we discuss the relevance of these findings in animal models to human patients with Parkinson disease.

Redundancy of einselected information in quantum Darwinism: The irrelevance of irrelevant environment bits

Science.gov (United States)

Zwolak, Michael; Zurek, Wojciech H.

2017-03-01

The objective, classical world emerges from the underlying quantum substrate via the proliferation of redundant copies of selected information into the environment, which acts as a communication channel, transmitting that information to observers. These copies are independently accessible, allowing many observers to reach consensus about the state of a quantum system via its imprints in the environment. Quantum Darwinism recognizes that the redundancy of information is thus central to the emergence of objective reality in the quantum world. However, in addition to the "quantum system of interest," there are many other systems "of no interest" in the Universe that can imprint information on the common environment. There is therefore a danger that the information of interest will be diluted with irrelevant bits, suppressing the redundancy responsible for objectivity. We show that mixing of the relevant (the "wheat") and irrelevant (the "chaff") bits of information makes little quantitative difference to the redundancy of the information of interest. Thus, we demonstrate that it does not matter whether one separates the wheat (relevant information) from the (irrelevant) chaff: The large redundancy of the relevant information survives dilution, providing evidence of the objective, effectively classical world.

Design method of redundancy of brace-anchor sharing supporting based on cooperative deformation

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Jun-yan; Li, Bing; Liu, Yan; Cai, Shan-bing

2017-11-01

Because of the complicated environment requirement, the support form of foundation pit is diversified, and the brace-anchor sharing support is widely used. However, the research on the force deformation characteristics and the related aspects of the cooperative response of the brace-anchor sharing support is insufficient. The application of redundancy theory in structural engineering has been more mature, but there is little theoretical research on redundancy theory in underground engineering. Based on the idea of collaborative deformation, the paper calculates the ratio of the redundancy degree of the cooperative deformation by using the local reinforcement design method and the structural component redundancy parameter calculation formula based on Frangopol. Combined with the engineering case, through the calculation of the ratio of cooperative deformation redundancy in the joint of brace-anchor sharing support. This paper explores the optimal anchor distribution form under the condition of cooperative deformation, and through the analysis and research of displacement field and stress field, the results of the collaborative deformation are validated by comparing the field monitoring data. It provides theoretical basis for the design of this kind of foundation pit in the future.

Impedance Control of a Redundant Parallel Manipulator

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Méndez, Juan de Dios Flores; Schiøler, Henrik; Madsen, Ole

2017-01-01

This paper presents the design of Impedance Control to a redundantly actuated Parallel Kinematic Manipulator. The proposed control is based on treating each limb as a single system and their connection through the internal interaction forces. The controller introduces a stiffness and damping...

An approach to the drone fleet survivability assessment based on a stochastic continues-time model

Science.gov (United States)

Kharchenko, Vyacheslav; Fesenko, Herman; Doukas, Nikos

2017-09-01

An approach and the algorithm to the drone fleet survivability assessment based on a stochastic continues-time model are proposed. The input data are the number of the drones, the drone fleet redundancy coefficient, the drone stability and restoration rate, the limit deviation from the norms of the drone fleet recovery, the drone fleet operational availability coefficient, the probability of the drone failure-free operation, time needed for performing the required tasks by the drone fleet. The ways for improving the recoverable drone fleet survivability taking into account amazing factors of system accident are suggested. Dependencies of the drone fleet survivability rate both on the drone stability and the number of the drones are analysed.

Reliability and availability of redundant systems: Computational program and the use of nomograms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Signoret, J.P.

1975-01-01

A rigorous mathematical approach to determining the reliability and availability of repairable actively redundant systems - (r/m) systems - is considered for the case where the m units comprising the system are identical and the failure and repair rates, lambda and μ respectively, are constant. The method used involves the Markov processes, operator calculus and matrix calculus. All the results of the study are handled by the FIDIAS program, which is a practical tool for calculating with a high degree of precision the reliability or availability of such (r/m) systems whatever the values of m and r. In the FIDIAS-TC version of FIDIAS it is possible to plot curves with a Benson plotter, so that nomograms are produced for rapid and simple determination of the probabilities of failure or non-availability of the (r/m) systems considered. The practical application of nomograms is of interest because (2/3) and (2/4) actively redundant systems are very often used in the control circuits of power reactors. It is shown how easily one can compare these two systems using nomograms and how one can determine lambda or μ as a function of the anticipated result

Information filtering based on corrected redundancy-eliminating mass diffusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Xuzhen; Yang, Yujie; Chen, Guilin; Medo, Matus; Tian, Hui; Cai, Shi-Min

2017-01-01

Methods used in information filtering and recommendation often rely on quantifying the similarity between objects or users. The used similarity metrics often suffer from similarity redundancies arising from correlations between objects' attributes. Based on an unweighted undirected object-user bipartite network, we propose a Corrected Redundancy-Eliminating similarity index (CRE) which is based on a spreading process on the network. Extensive experiments on three benchmark data sets-Movilens, Netflix and Amazon-show that when used in recommendation, the CRE yields significant improvements in terms of recommendation accuracy and diversity. A detailed analysis is presented to unveil the origins of the observed differences between the CRE and mainstream similarity indices.

Low-redundancy linear arrays in mirrored interferometric aperture synthesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Dong; Hu, Fei; Wu, Liang; Li, Jun; Lang, Liang

2016-01-15

Mirrored interferometric aperture synthesis (MIAS) is a novel interferometry that can improve spatial resolution compared with that of conventional IAS. In one-dimensional (1-D) MIAS, antenna array with low redundancy has the potential to achieve a high spatial resolution. This Letter presents a technique for the direct construction of low-redundancy linear arrays (LRLAs) in MIAS and derives two regular analytical patterns that can yield various LRLAs in short computation time. Moreover, for a better estimation of the observed scene, a bi-measurement method is proposed to handle the rank defect associated with the transmatrix of those LRLAs. The results of imaging simulation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

About the complete loss of functions assumed by redundant systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boaretto, Y.; Cayol, A.; Fourest, M.; Guimbail, H.

1980-04-01

Are to be taken into account situations resulting from loss of redundant safety systems. Two ways of approach were to be probed: evaluation of the failure probability and analysis of the consequences of those situations. The first way leads to improve reliability of concerned systems, the second way to set up mitigating means. Before TMI-2 occured, safety advices had already been issued about three kinds of situations: anticipated transients without scram, loss of ultimate heat sink, simultaneous loss of out-and inside power supplies. That, in some cases, something had to be done to improve safety showed the rightness of the concern. Next step is the study of the loss of both normal and emergency feedwater: The regulatory request has been issued on September 1979

ANALYSIS OF RELIABILITY OF THE PERIODICALLY AND CONTINUOUSLY CONTROLLED QUEUING SYSTEM WITH TIME REDUNDANCY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mikadze, I.; Namchevadze, T.; Gobiani, I.

2007-01-01

There is proposed a generalized mathematical model of the queuing system with time redundancy without preliminary checking of the queuing system at transition from the free state into the engaged one. The model accounts for various failures of the queuing system detected by continuous instrument control, periodic control, control during recovery and the failures revealed immediately after accumulation of a certain number of failures. The generating function of queue length in both stationary and nonstationary modes was determined. (author)

One Size Does Not Fit All: Older Adults Benefit From Redundant Text in Multimedia Instruction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Barbara eFenesi

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The multimedia design of presentations typically ignores that younger and older adults have varying cognitive strengths and weaknesses. We examined whether differential instructional design may enhance learning in these populations. Younger and older participants viewed one of three computer-based presentations: Audio only (narration, Redundant (audio narration with redundant text, or Complementary (audio narration with non–redundant text and images. Younger participants learned better when audio narration was paired with relevant images compared to when audio narration was paired with redundant text. However, older participants learned best when audio narration was paired with redundant text. Younger adults, who presumably have a higher working memory capacity, appear to benefit more from complementary information that may drive deeper conceptual processing. In contrast, older adults learn better from presentations that support redundant coding across modalities, which may help mitigate the effects of age-related decline in working memory capacity. Additionally, several misconceptions of design quality appeared across age groups: both younger and older participants positively rated less effective designs. Findings suggest that one-size does not fit all, with older adults requiring unique multimedia design tailored to their cognitive abilities for effective learning.

One size does not fit all: older adults benefit from redundant text in multimedia instruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Fenesi, Barbara; Vandermorris, Susan; Kim, Joseph A; Shore, David I; Heisz, Jennifer J

2015-01-01

The multimedia design of presentations typically ignores that younger and older adults have varying cognitive strengths and weaknesses. We examined whether differential instructional design may enhance learning in these populations. Younger and older participants viewed one of three computer-based presentations: Audio only (narration), Redundant (audio narration with redundant text), or Complementary (audio narration with non-redundant text and images). Younger participants learned better when audio narration was paired with relevant images compared to when audio narration was paired with redundant text. However, older participants learned best when audio narration was paired with redundant text. Younger adults, who presumably have a higher working memory capacity (WMC), appear to benefit more from complementary information that may drive deeper conceptual processing. In contrast, older adults learn better from presentations that support redundant coding across modalities, which may help mitigate the effects of age-related decline in WMC. Additionally, several misconceptions of design quality appeared across age groups: both younger and older participants positively rated less effective designs. Findings suggest that one-size does not fit all, with older adults requiring unique multimedia design tailored to their cognitive abilities for effective learning.

Differential coactivation in a redundant signals task with weak and strong go/no-go stimuli

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Minakata, Katsumi; Gondan, Matthias

2018-01-01

When participants respond to stimuli of two sources, response times (RT) are often faster when both stimuli are presented together relative to the RTs obtained when presented separately (redundant signals effect, RSE). Race models and coactivation models can explain the RSE. In race models......, separate channels process the two stimulus components, and the faster processing time determines the overall RT. In audiovisual experiments, the RSE is often higher than predicted by race models, and coactivation models have been proposed that assume integrated processing of the two stimuli. Where does...

One size does not fit all: older adults benefit from redundant text in multimedia instruction

OpenAIRE

Fenesi, Barbara; Vandermorris, Susan; Kim, Joseph A.; Shore, David I.; Heisz, Jennifer J.

2015-01-01

The multimedia design of presentations typically ignores that younger and older adults have varying cognitive strengths and weaknesses. We examined whether differential instructional design may enhance learning in these populations. Younger and older participants viewed one of three computer-based presentations: Audio only (narration), Redundant (audio narration with redundant text), or Complementary (audio narration with non–redundant text and images). Younger participants learned better ...

Redundant manipulator techniques for partially decentralized path planning and control of a platoon of autonomous vehicles.

Science.gov (United States)

Stilwell, Daniel J; Bishop, Bradley E; Sylvester, Caleb A

2005-08-01

An approach to real-time trajectory generation for platoons of autonomous vehicles is developed from well-known control techniques for redundant robotic manipulators. The partially decentralized structure of this approach permits each vehicle to independently compute its trajectory in real-time using only locally generated information and low-bandwidth feedback generated by a system exogenous to the platoon. Our work is motivated by applications for which communications bandwidth is severely limited, such for platoons of autonomous underwater vehicles. The communication requirements for our trajectory generation approach are independent of the number of vehicles in the platoon, enabling platoons composed of a large number of vehicles to be coordinated despite limited communication bandwidth.

Southern California Seismic Network: New Design and Implementation of Redundant and Reliable Real-time Data Acquisition Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Saleh, T.; Rico, H.; Solanki, K.; Hauksson, E.; Friberg, P.

2005-12-01

The Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN) handles more than 2500 high-data rate channels from more than 380 seismic stations distributed across southern California. These data are imported real-time from dataloggers, earthworm hubs, and partner networks. The SCSN also exports data to eight different partner networks. Both the imported and exported data are critical for emergency response and scientific research. Previous data acquisition systems were complex and difficult to operate, because they grew in an ad hoc fashion to meet the increasing needs for distributing real-time waveform data. To maximize reliability and redundancy, we apply best practices methods from computer science for implementing the software and hardware configurations for import, export, and acquisition of real-time seismic data. Our approach makes use of failover software designs, methods for dividing labor diligently amongst the network nodes, and state of the art networking redundancy technologies. To facilitate maintenance and daily operations we seek to provide some separation between major functions such as data import, export, acquisition, archiving, real-time processing, and alarming. As an example, we make waveform import and export functions independent by operating them on separate servers. Similarly, two independent servers provide waveform export, allowing data recipients to implement their own redundancy. The data import is handled differently by using one primary server and a live backup server. These data import servers, run fail-over software that allows automatic role switching in case of failure from primary to shadow. Similar to the classic earthworm design, all the acquired waveform data are broadcast onto a private network, which allows multiple machines to acquire and process the data. As we separate data import and export away from acquisition, we are also working on new approaches to separate real-time processing and rapid reliable archiving of real-time data

Dynamically redundant particle components in mixtures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lukacs, B.; Martinas, K.

1984-10-01

Examples are shown for cases in which the number of different kinds of particles in a system is not necessarily equal to the number of particle degrees of freedom in thermodynamical sense, and at the same time, the observed dynamics of the evolution of the system does not indicate a definite number of degrees of freedeom. The possibility for introducing dynamically redundant particles is discussed. (author)

Performance and delay analysis of hybrid ARQ with incremental redundancy over double rayleigh fading channels

KAUST Repository

Chelli, Ali

2014-11-01

In this paper, we study the performance of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) with incremental redundancy over double Rayleigh channels, a common model for the fading amplitude of vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems. We investigate the performance of HARQ from an information theoretic perspective. Analytical expressions are derived for the \\\\epsilon-outage capacity, the average number of transmissions, and the average transmission rate of HARQ with incremental redundancy assuming a maximum number of HARQ rounds. Moreover, we evaluate the delay experienced by Poisson arriving packets for HARQ with incremental redundancy. We provide analytical expressions for the expected waiting time, the packet\\'s sojourn time in the queue, the average consumed power, and the energy efficiency. In our study, the communication rate per HARQ round is adjusted to the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) such that a target outage probability is not exceeded. This setting conforms with communication systems in which a quality of service is expected regardless of the channel conditions. Our analysis underscores the importance of HARQ in improving the spectral efficiency and reliability of communication systems. We demonstrate as well that the explored HARQ scheme achieves full diversity. Additionally, we investigate the tradeoff between energy efficiency and spectral efficiency.

A Redundancy Mechanism Design for Hall-Based Electronic Current Transformers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kun-Long Chen

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Traditional current transformers (CTs suffer from DC and AC saturation and remanent magnetization in many industrial applications. Moreover, the drawbacks of traditional CTs, such as closed iron cores, bulky volume, and heavy weight, further limit the development of an intelligent power protection system. In order to compensate for these drawbacks, we proposed a novel current measurement method by using Hall sensors, which is called the Hall-effect current transformer (HCT. The existing commercial Hall sensors are electronic components, so the reliability of the HCT is normally worse than that of the traditional CT. Therefore, our study proposes a redundancy mechanism for the HCT to strengthen its reliability. With multiple sensor modules, the method has the ability to improve the accuracy of the HCT as well. Additionally, the proposed redundancy mechanism monitoring system provides a condition-based maintenance for the HCT. We verify our method with both simulations and an experimental test. The results demonstrate that the proposed HCT with a redundancy mechanism can almost achieve Class 0.2 for measuring CTs according to IEC Standard 60044-8.

Advantage of redundancy in the controllability of remote handling manipulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Muhammad, Ali; Mattila, Jouni; Vilenius, Matti; Siuko, Mikko; Semeraro, Luigi

2011-01-01

To carry out a variety of remote handling operations inside the ITER divertor a Water Hydraulic MANipulator (WHMAN) and its control system have been designed and developed at Tampere University of Technology. The manipulator is installed on top of Cassette Multifunctional Mover (CMM) to assist during the cassette removal and installation operations. While CMM is designed to carry heavy components such as cassettes through the service ducts relying on positioning accuracy and repeatability, WHMAN is designed to execute a mix of remote handling operations using position trajectories and master-slave telemanipulation. WHMAN is composed of eight joints: six rotational and two translational. Since a manipulator requires only six joints to acquire the desired position and orientation in operational-space, the two additional joints of WHMAN provide the redundant degrees of mobility. This paper presents how this redundancy of WHMAN can be an advantage to optimize the execution of remote handling tasks. The paper also discusses an effective way to practically exploit the redundancy. The results show that the additional degrees of freedom can be utilized to improve the dynamic behavior of the manipulator.

Continuous Estimation of Human Multi-Joint Angles From sEMG Using a State-Space Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, Qichuan; Han, Jianda; Zhao, Xingang

2017-09-01

Due to the couplings among joint-relative muscles, it is a challenge to accurately estimate continuous multi-joint movements from multi-channel sEMG signals. Traditional approaches always build a nonlinear regression model, such as artificial neural network, to predict the multi-joint movement variables using sEMG as inputs. However, the redundant sEMG-data are always not distinguished; the prediction errors cannot be evaluated and corrected online as well. In this work, a correlation-based redundancy-segmentation method is proposed to segment the sEMG-vector including redundancy into irredundant and redundant subvectors. Then, a general state-space framework is developed to build the motion model by regarding the irredundant subvector as input and the redundant one as measurement output. With the built state-space motion model, a closed-loop prediction-correction algorithm, i.e., the unscented Kalman filter (UKF), can be employed to estimate the multi-joint angles from sEMG, where the redundant sEMG-data are used to reject model uncertainties. After having fully employed the redundancy, the proposed method can provide accurate and smooth estimation results. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on the multi-joint movements of the upper limb. The maximum RMSE of the estimations obtained by the proposed method is 0.16±0.03, which is significantly less than 0.25±0.06 and 0.27±0.07 (p < 0.05) obtained by common neural networks.

Susceptibility of Redundant Versus Singular Clock Domains Implemented in SRAM-Based FPGA TMR Designs

Science.gov (United States)

Berg, Melanie D.; LaBel, Kenneth A.; Pellish, Jonathan

2016-01-01

We present the challenges that arise when using redundant clock domains due to their clock-skew. Radiation data show that a singular clock domain (DTMR) provides an improved TMR methodology for SRAM-based FPGAs over redundant clocks.

Information filtering based on corrected redundancy-eliminating mass diffusion.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuzhen Zhu

Full Text Available Methods used in information filtering and recommendation often rely on quantifying the similarity between objects or users. The used similarity metrics often suffer from similarity redundancies arising from correlations between objects' attributes. Based on an unweighted undirected object-user bipartite network, we propose a Corrected Redundancy-Eliminating similarity index (CRE which is based on a spreading process on the network. Extensive experiments on three benchmark data sets-Movilens, Netflix and Amazon-show that when used in recommendation, the CRE yields significant improvements in terms of recommendation accuracy and diversity. A detailed analysis is presented to unveil the origins of the observed differences between the CRE and mainstream similarity indices.

A Cause-Consequence Chart of a Redundant Protection System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Dan Sandvik; Platz, O.; Runge, B.

1975-01-01

A cause-consequence chart is applied in analysing failures of a redundant protection system (a core spray system in a nuclear power plant). It is shown how the diagram provides a basis for calculating two probability measures for malfunctioning of the protection system. The test policy of compone...... of components is taken into account. The possibility of using parameter variation as a basis for the choice of test policy is indicated.......A cause-consequence chart is applied in analysing failures of a redundant protection system (a core spray system in a nuclear power plant). It is shown how the diagram provides a basis for calculating two probability measures for malfunctioning of the protection system. The test policy...

Biogeographical disparity in the functional diversity and redundancy of corals.

Science.gov (United States)

McWilliam, Mike; Hoogenboom, Mia O; Baird, Andrew H; Kuo, Chao-Yang; Madin, Joshua S; Hughes, Terry P

2018-03-20

Corals are major contributors to a range of key ecosystem functions on tropical reefs, including calcification, photosynthesis, nutrient cycling, and the provision of habitat structure. The abundance of corals is declining at multiple scales, and the species composition of assemblages is responding to escalating human pressures, including anthropogenic global warming. An urgent challenge is to understand the functional consequences of these shifts in abundance and composition in different biogeographical contexts. While global patterns of coral species richness are well known, the biogeography of coral functions in provinces and domains with high and low redundancy is poorly understood. Here, we quantify the functional traits of all currently recognized zooxanthellate coral species ( n = 821) in both the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic domains to examine the relationships between species richness and the diversity and redundancy of functional trait space. We find that trait diversity is remarkably conserved (>75% of the global total) along latitudinal and longitudinal gradients in species richness, falling away only in species-poor provinces ( n < 200), such as the Persian Gulf (52% of the global total), Hawaii (37%), the Caribbean (26%), and the East-Pacific (20%), where redundancy is also diminished. In the more species-poor provinces, large and ecologically important areas of trait space are empty, or occupied by just a few, highly distinctive species. These striking biogeographical differences in redundancy could affect the resilience of critical reef functions and highlight the vulnerability of relatively depauperate, peripheral locations, which are often a low priority for targeted conservation efforts.

Analysis of informational redundancy in the protein-assembling machinery

Science.gov (United States)

Berkovich, Simon

2004-03-01

Entropy analysis of the DNA structure does not reveal a significant departure from randomness indicating lack of informational redundancy. This signifies the absence of a hidden meaning in the genome text and supports the 'barcode' interpretation of DNA given in [1]. Lack of informational redundancy is a characteristic property of an identification label rather than of a message of instructions. Yet randomness of DNA has to induce non-random structures of the proteins. Protein synthesis is a two-step process: transcription into RNA with gene splicing and formation a structure of amino acids. Entropy estimations, performed by A. Djebbari, show typical values of redundancy of the biomolecules along these pathways: DNA gene 4proteins 15-40in gene expression, the RNA copy carries the same information as the original DNA template. Randomness is essentially eliminated only at the step of the protein creation by a degenerate code. According to [1], the significance of the substitution of U for T with a subsequent gene splicing is that these transformations result in a different pattern of RNA oscillations, so the vital DNA communications are protected against extraneous noise coming from the protein making activities. 1. S. Berkovich, "On the 'barcode' functionality of DNA, or the Phenomenon of Life in the Physical Universe", Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, 2003

The Interface Between Redundant Processor Modules Of Safety Grade PLC Using Mass Storage DPRAM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hwang, Sung Jae; Song, Seong Hwan; No, Young Hun; Yun, Dong Hwa; Park, Gang Min; Kim, Min Gyu; Choi, Kyung Chul; Lee, Ui Taek

2010-01-01

Processor module of safety grade PLC (hereinafter called as POSAFE-Q) developed by POSCO ICT provides high reliability and safety. However, POSAFEQ would have suffered a malfunction when we think taking place of abnormal operation by exceptional environmental. POSAFE-Q would not able to conduct its function normally in such case. To prevent these situations, the necessity of redundant processor module has been raised. Therefore, redundant processor module, NCPU-2Q, has been developed which has not only functions of single processor module with high reliability and safety but also functions of redundant processor

An Adaptive Technique for a Redundant-Sensor Navigation System. Ph.D. Thesis

Science.gov (United States)

Chien, T. T.

1972-01-01

An on-line adaptive technique is developed to provide a self-contained redundant-sensor navigation system with a capability to utilize its full potentiality in reliability and performance. The gyro navigation system is modeled as a Gauss-Markov process, with degradation modes defined as changes in characteristics specified by parameters associated with the model. The adaptive system is formulated as a multistage stochastic process: (1) a detection system, (2) an identification system and (3) a compensation system. It is shown that the sufficient statistics for the partially observable process in the detection and identification system is the posterior measure of the state of degradation, conditioned on the measurement history.

Kinematically Optimal Robust Control of Redundant Manipulators

Science.gov (United States)

Galicki, M.

2017-12-01

This work deals with the problem of the robust optimal task space trajectory tracking subject to finite-time convergence. Kinematic and dynamic equations of a redundant manipulator are assumed to be uncertain. Moreover, globally unbounded disturbances are allowed to act on the manipulator when tracking the trajectory by the endeffector. Furthermore, the movement is to be accomplished in such a way as to minimize both the manipulator torques and their oscillations thus eliminating the potential robot vibrations. Based on suitably defined task space non-singular terminal sliding vector variable and the Lyapunov stability theory, we derive a class of chattering-free robust kinematically optimal controllers, based on the estimation of transpose Jacobian, which seem to be effective in counteracting both uncertain kinematics and dynamics, unbounded disturbances and (possible) kinematic and/or algorithmic singularities met on the robot trajectory. The numerical simulations carried out for a redundant manipulator of a SCARA type consisting of the three revolute kinematic pairs and operating in a two-dimensional task space, illustrate performance of the proposed controllers as well as comparisons with other well known control schemes.

Ageing behaviour of [(n-1)/n] active redundancy systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eid, M.Y.

1995-01-01

Ageing of systems becomes a real concern if intelligent maintenance is required. Determining the ageing behaviour of a system necessitate having a powerful calculating tool and knowing the ageing behaviour of the basic components of the systems. Consequently, time dependent failure rates are required for basic components and need to be determined for systems. As, this is the general problem in reliability analysis, only (n-1)/n active redundancy system will be examined in the paper. Systems with (n-1)/n active redundancy are commonly used in a wide range of engineering fields. This should permit a priori improving the system reliability. Still, a deeper analysis of the ageing behaviour of such systems may reveal some particular aspects. (authors). 2 refs., 5 figs

Redundancy Maintenance and Garbage Collection Strategies in Peer-to-Peer Storage Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xin; Datta, Anwitaman

Maintaining redundancy in P2P storage systems is essential for reliability guarantees. Numerous P2P storage system maintenance algorithms have been proposed in the last years, each supposedly improving upon the previous approaches. We perform a systematic comparative study of the various strategies taking also into account the influence of different garbage collection mechanisms, an issue not studied so far. Our experiments show that while some strategies generally perform better than some others, there is no universally best strategy, and their relative superiority depends on various other design choices as well as the specific evaluation criterion. Our results can be used by P2P storage systems designers to make prudent design decisions, and our exploration of the various evaluation metrics also provides a more comprehensive framework to compare algorithms for P2P storage systems. While there are numerous network simulators specifically developed even to simulate peer-to-peer networks, there existed no P2P storage simulators - a byproduct of this work is a generic modular P2P storage system simulator which we provide as open-source. Different redundancy, maintenance, placement, garbage-collection policies, churn scenarios can be easily integrated to the simulator to try out new schemes in future, and provides a common framework to compare (future) p2p storage systems designs - something which has not been possible so far.

Hybrid Taguchi DNA Swarm Intelligence for Optimal Inverse Kinematics Redundancy Resolution of Six-DOF Humanoid Robot Arms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hsu-Chih Huang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a hybrid Taguchi deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA swarm intelligence for solving the inverse kinematics redundancy problem of six degree-of-freedom (DOF humanoid robot arms. The inverse kinematics problem of the multi-DOF humanoid robot arm is redundant and has no general closed-form solutions or analytical solutions. The optimal joint configurations are obtained by minimizing the predefined performance index in DNA algorithm for real-world humanoid robotics application. The Taguchi method is employed to determine the DNA parameters to search for the joint solutions of the six-DOF robot arms more efficiently. This approach circumvents the disadvantage of time-consuming tuning procedure in conventional DNA computing. Simulation results are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness and merit of the proposed methods. This Taguchi-based DNA (TDNA solver outperforms the conventional solvers, such as geometric solver, Jacobian-based solver, genetic algorithm (GA solver and ant, colony optimization (ACO solver.

The Identity of Information: How Deterministic Dependencies Constrain Information Synergy and Redundancy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Chicharro

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Understanding how different information sources together transmit information is crucial in many domains. For example, understanding the neural code requires characterizing how different neurons contribute unique, redundant, or synergistic pieces of information about sensory or behavioral variables. Williams and Beer (2010 proposed a partial information decomposition (PID that separates the mutual information that a set of sources contains about a set of targets into nonnegative terms interpretable as these pieces. Quantifying redundancy requires assigning an identity to different information pieces, to assess when information is common across sources. Harder et al. (2013 proposed an identity axiom that imposes necessary conditions to quantify qualitatively common information. However, Bertschinger et al. (2012 showed that, in a counterexample with deterministic target-source dependencies, the identity axiom is incompatible with ensuring PID nonnegativity. Here, we study systematically the consequences of information identity criteria that assign identity based on associations between target and source variables resulting from deterministic dependencies. We show how these criteria are related to the identity axiom and to previously proposed redundancy measures, and we characterize how they lead to negative PID terms. This constitutes a further step to more explicitly address the role of information identity in the quantification of redundancy. The implications for studying neural coding are discussed.

Redundancy Determination of HVDC MMC Modules

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Chanki Kim

2015-08-01

Full Text Available An availability and a reliability prediction has been made for a high-voltage direct-current (HVDC module of VSC (Voltage Source Converter containing DC/DC converter, gate driver, capacitor and insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT. This prediction was made using published failure rates for the electronic equipment. The purpose of this prediction is to determinate the additional module redundancy of VSC and the used method is “binomial failure method”.

Redundant information from thermal illumination: quantum Darwinism in scattered photons

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jess Riedel, C; Zurek, Wojciech H, E-mail: criedel@physics.ucsb.edu [Theory Division, LANL, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States)

2011-07-15

We study quantum Darwinism, the redundant recording of information about the preferred states of a decohering system by its environment, for an object illuminated by a blackbody. We calculate the quantum mutual information between the object and its photon environment for blackbodies that cover an arbitrary section of the sky. In particular, we demonstrate that more extended sources have a reduced ability to create redundant information about the system, in agreement with previous evidence that initial mixedness of an environment slows-but does not stop-the production of records. We also show that the qualitative results are robust for more general initial states of the system.

Redundant information from thermal illumination: quantum Darwinism in scattered photons

Science.gov (United States)

Jess Riedel, C.; Zurek, Wojciech H.

2011-07-01

We study quantum Darwinism, the redundant recording of information about the preferred states of a decohering system by its environment, for an object illuminated by a blackbody. We calculate the quantum mutual information between the object and its photon environment for blackbodies that cover an arbitrary section of the sky. In particular, we demonstrate that more extended sources have a reduced ability to create redundant information about the system, in agreement with previous evidence that initial mixedness of an environment slows—but does not stop—the production of records. We also show that the qualitative results are robust for more general initial states of the system.

A heuristic for solving the redundancy allocation problem for multi-state series-parallel systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramirez-Marquez, Jose E.; Coit, David W.

2004-01-01

The redundancy allocation problem is formulated with the objective of minimizing design cost, when the system exhibits a multi-state reliability behavior, given system-level performance constraints. When the multi-state nature of the system is considered, traditional solution methodologies are no longer valid. This study considers a multi-state series-parallel system (MSPS) with capacitated binary components that can provide different multi-state system performance levels. The different demand levels, which must be supplied during the system-operating period, result in the multi-state nature of the system. The new solution methodology offers several distinct benefits compared to traditional formulations of the MSPS redundancy allocation problem. For some systems, recognizing that different component versions yield different system performance is critical so that the overall system reliability estimation and associated design models the true system reliability behavior more realistically. The MSPS design problem, solved in this study, has been previously analyzed using genetic algorithms (GAs) and the universal generating function. The specific problem being addressed is one where there are multiple component choices, but once a component selection is made, only the same component type can be used to provide redundancy. This is the first time that the MSPS design problem has been addressed without using GAs. The heuristic offers more efficient and straightforward analyses. Solutions to three different problem types are obtained illustrating the simplicity and ease of application of the heuristic without compromising the intended optimization needs

Mediated Instruction and Redundancy Remediation in Sciences in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The data were analyzed using t-test statistics. Data analysis revealed that use of mediated instruction significantly removed redundancy for science students also the use of mediated instruction influenced academic achievement of science students in secondary schools. Some of the recommendations include that science ...

Extracting conceptual models from user stories with Visual Narrator

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lucassen, Garm; Robeer, Marcel; Dalpiaz, Fabiano; van der Werf, Jan Martijn E. M.; Brinkkemper, Sjaak

2017-01-01

Extracting conceptual models from natural language requirements can help identify dependencies, redundancies, and conflicts between requirements via a holistic and easy-to-understand view that is generated from lengthy textual specifications. Unfortunately, existing approaches never gained traction

Industrial plant electrical systems: Simplicity, reliability, cost savings, redundancies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silvestri, A.; Tommazzolli, F.; Pavia Univ.

1992-01-01

This article represents a compact but complete design and construction manual for industrial plant electrical systems. It is to be used by design engineers having prior knowledge of local power supply routes and voltages and regards principally the optimum choice of internal distribution systems which can be radial or single, double ringed or with various network configurations, and with single or multiple supplies, and many or few redundancies. After giving guidelines on the choosing of these options, the manual deals with problematics relevant to suitable cable sizing. A cost benefit benefit analysis method is suggested for the choice of the number of redundancies. Recommendations are given for the choice of transformers, motorized equipment, switch boards and circuit breakers. Reference is made to Italian electrical safety and building codes

Coded aperture imaging with uniformly redundant arrays

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fenimore, E.E.; Cannon, T.M.

1980-01-01

A system is described which uses uniformly redundant arrays to image non-focusable radiation. The array is used in conjunction with a balanced correlation technique to provide a system with no artifacts so that virtually limitless signal-to-noise ratio is obtained with high transmission characteristics. The array is mosaicked to reduce required detector size over conventional array detectors. 15 claims

Evaluation of software based redundancy algorithms for the EOS storage system at CERN

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peters, Andreas-Joachim; Sindrilaru, Elvin Alin; Zigann, Philipp

2012-01-01

EOS is a new disk based storage system used in production at CERN since autumn 2011. It is implemented using the plug-in architecture of the XRootD software framework and allows remote file access via XRootD protocol or POSIX-like file access via FUSE mounting. EOS was designed to fulfill specific requirements of disk storage scalability and IO scheduling performance for LHC analysis use cases. This is achieved by following a strategy of decoupling disk and tape storage as individual storage systems. A key point of the EOS design is to provide high availability and redundancy of files via a software implementation which uses disk-only storage systems without hardware RAID arrays. All this is aimed at reducing the overall cost of the system and also simplifying the operational procedures. This paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of redundancy by hardware (most classical storage installations) in comparison to redundancy by software. The latter is implemented in the EOS system and achieves its goal by spawning data and parity stripes via remote file access over nodes. The gain in redundancy and reliability comes with a trade-off in the following areas: • Increased complexity of the network connectivity • CPU intensive parity computations during file creation and recovery • Performance loss through remote disk coupling An evaluation and performance figures of several redundancy algorithms are presented for dual parity RAID and Reed-Solomon codecs. Moreover, the characteristics and applicability of these algorithms are discussed in the context of reliable data storage systems.

Network Gateway Technology: The Issue of Redundancy towards ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Everyone connected to the Internet is concerned about two basic things: the availability of network services and the speed of the network. Network gateway redundancy technology falls within these categories and happens to be one of the newest technologies which only few companies, such as mobile companies and ...

Retraction: Redundant Publication of the article Dental caries and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Retraction: Redundant Publication of the article Dental caries and oral health practices among 12 year old children in Nairobi West and Mathira West Districts, Kenya. Gladwell Gathecha et al. The Pan African Medical Journal. 2012;12:42.

Diabetes classification using a redundancy reduction preprocessor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Áurea Celeste Ribeiro

Full Text Available Introduction Diabetes patients can benefit significantly from early diagnosis. Thus, accurate automated screening is becoming increasingly important due to the wide spread of that disease. Previous studies in automated screening have found a maximum accuracy of 92.6%. Methods This work proposes a classification methodology based on efficient coding of the input data, which is carried out by decreasing input data redundancy using well-known ICA algorithms, such as FastICA, JADE and INFOMAX. The classifier used in the task to discriminate diabetics from non-diaibetics is the one class support vector machine. Classification tests were performed using noninvasive and invasive indicators. Results The results suggest that redundancy reduction increases one-class support vector machine performance when discriminating between diabetics and nondiabetics up to an accuracy of 98.47% while using all indicators. By using only noninvasive indicators, an accuracy of 98.28% was obtained. Conclusion The ICA feature extraction improves the performance of the classifier in the data set because it reduces the statistical dependence of the collected data, which increases the ability of the classifier to find accurate class boundaries.

Network Gateway Technology: The Issue of Redundancy towards ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Internet has provided advancement in the areas of network and networking facilities. Everyone connected to the Internet is concerned about two basic things: the availability of network services and the speed of the network. Network gateway redundancy technology falls within these categories and happens to be one of ...

The Effect of Antenna Position Errors on Redundant-Baseline Calibration of HERA

Science.gov (United States)

Orosz, Naomi; Dillon, Joshua; Ewall-Wice, Aaron; Parsons, Aaron; HERA Collaboration

2018-01-01

HERA (the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array) is a large, highly-redundant radio interferometer in South Africa currently being built out to 350 14-m dishes. Its mission is to probe large scale structure during and prior to the epoch of reionization using the 21 cm hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen. The array is designed to be calibrated using redundant baselines of known lengths. However, the dishes can deviate from ideal positions, with errors on the order of a few centimeters. This potentially increases foreground contamination of the 21 cm power spectrum in the cleanest part of Fourier space. The calibration algorithm treats groups of baselines that should be redundant, but are not due to position errors, as if they actually are. Accurate, precise calibration is critical because the foreground signals are 100,000 times stronger than the reionization signal. We explain the origin of this effect and discuss weighting strategies to mitigate it.

Polarized Redundant-Baseline Calibration for 21 cm Cosmology Without Adding Spectral Structure

Science.gov (United States)

Dillon, Joshua S.; Kohn, Saul A.; Parsons, Aaron R.; Aguirre, James E.; Ali, Zaki S.; Bernardi, Gianni; Kern, Nicholas S.; Li, Wenyang; Liu, Adrian; Nunhokee, Chuneeta D.; Pober, Jonathan C.

2018-04-01

21 cm cosmology is a promising new probe of the evolution of visible matter in our universe, especially during the poorly-constrained Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization. However, in order to separate the 21 cm signal from bright astrophysical foregrounds, we need an exquisite understanding of our telescopes so as to avoid adding spectral structure to spectrally-smooth foregrounds. One powerful calibration method relies on repeated simultaneous measurements of the same interferometric baseline to solve for the sky signal and for instrumental parameters simultaneously. However, certain degrees of freedom are not constrained by asserting internal consistency between redundant measurements. In this paper, we review the origin of these degeneracies of redundant-baseline calibration and demonstrate how they can source unwanted spectral structure in our measurement and show how to eliminate that additional, artificial structure. We also generalize redundant calibration to dual-polarization instruments, derive the degeneracy structure, and explore the unique challenges to calibration and preserving spectral smoothness presented by a polarized measurement.

Synchronization and fault-masking in redundant real-time systems

Science.gov (United States)

Krishna, C. M.; Shin, K. G.; Butler, R. W.

1983-01-01

A real time computer may fail because of massive component failures or not responding quickly enough to satisfy real time requirements. An increase in redundancy - a conventional means of improving reliability - can improve the former but can - in some cases - degrade the latter considerably due to the overhead associated with redundancy management, namely the time delay resulting from synchronization and voting/interactive consistency techniques. The implications of synchronization and voting/interactive consistency algorithms in N-modular clusters on reliability are considered. All these studies were carried out in the context of real time applications. As a demonstrative example, we have analyzed results from experiments conducted at the NASA Airlab on the Software Implemented Fault Tolerance (SIFT) computer. This analysis has indeed indicated that in most real time applications, it is better to employ hardware synchronization instead of software synchronization and not allow reconfiguration.

Tabu search for the redundancy allocation problem of homogenous series-parallel multi-state systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ouzineb, Mohamed; Nourelfath, Mustapha; Gendreau, Michel

2008-01-01

This paper develops an efficient tabu search (TS) heuristic to solve the redundancy allocation problem for multi-state series-parallel systems. The system has a range of performance levels from perfect functioning to complete failure. Identical redundant elements are included in order to achieve a desirable level of availability. The elements of the system are characterized by their cost, performance and availability. These elements are chosen from a list of products available in the market. System availability is defined as the ability to satisfy consumer demand, which is represented as a piecewise cumulative load curve. A universal generating function technique is applied to evaluate system availability. The proposed TS heuristic determines the minimal cost system configuration under availability constraints. An originality of our approach is that it proceeds by dividing the search space into a set of disjoint subsets, and then by applying TS to each subset. The design problem, solved in this study, has been previously analyzed using genetic algorithms (GAs). Numerical results for the test problems from previous research are reported, and larger test problems are randomly generated. Comparisons show that the proposed TS out-performs GA solutions, in terms of both the solution quality and the execution time

Introducing "biophysical redundancy": the global status and past evolution of unused water, land and productivity resources for food production

Science.gov (United States)

Fader, Marianela

2017-04-01

Countries have different resilience to sudden and long-term changes in food demand and supply. An important part of this resilience is the degree of biophysical redundancy, defined as the potential food production of 'spare land', available water resources (i.e., not already used for human activities), as well as production increases through yield gap closure on cultivated areas and potential agricultural areas. The presentation will show the results of a recently published paper1 on the evolution of biophysical redundancy for agricultural production at country level, from 1992 to 2012. Results indicate that in 2012, the biophysical redundancy of 75 (48) countries, mainly in North Africa, Western Europe, the Middle East and Asia, was insufficient to produce the caloric nutritional needs for at least 50% (25%) of their population during a year. Biophysical redundancy has decreased in the last two decades in 102 out of 155 countries, 11 of these went from high to limited redundancy, and nine of these from limited to very low redundancy. Although the variability of the drivers of change across different countries is high, improvements in yield and population growth have a clear impact on the decreases of redundancy towards the very low redundancy category. We took a more detailed look at countries classified as 'Low Income Economies (LIEs)' since they are particularly vulnerable to domestic or external food supply changes, due to their limited capacity to offset for food supply decreases with higher purchasing power on the international market. Currently, nine LIEs have limited or very low biophysical redundancy. Many of these showed a decrease in redundancy over the last two decades, which is not always linked with improvements in per capita food availability.

Multiple Description Coding Based on Optimized Redundancy Removal for 3D Depth Map

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sen Han

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Multiple description (MD coding is a promising alternative for the robust transmission of information over error-prone channels. In 3D image technology, the depth map represents the distance between the camera and objects in the scene. Using the depth map combined with the existing multiview image, it can be efficient to synthesize images of any virtual viewpoint position, which can display more realistic 3D scenes. Differently from the conventional 2D texture image, the depth map contains a lot of spatial redundancy information, which is not necessary for view synthesis, but may result in the waste of compressed bits, especially when using MD coding for robust transmission. In this paper, we focus on the redundancy removal of MD coding based on the DCT (discrete cosine transform domain. In view of the characteristics of DCT coefficients, at the encoder, a Lagrange optimization approach is designed to determine the amounts of high frequency coefficients in the DCT domain to be removed. It is noted considering the low computing complexity that the entropy is adopted to estimate the bit rate in the optimization. Furthermore, at the decoder, adaptive zero-padding is applied to reconstruct the depth map when some information is lost. The experimental results have shown that compared to the corresponding scheme, the proposed method demonstrates better rate central and side distortion performance.

RSAT matrix-clustering: dynamic exploration and redundancy reduction of transcription factor binding motif collections.

Science.gov (United States)

Castro-Mondragon, Jaime Abraham; Jaeger, Sébastien; Thieffry, Denis; Thomas-Chollier, Morgane; van Helden, Jacques

2017-07-27

Transcription factor (TF) databases contain multitudes of binding motifs (TFBMs) from various sources, from which non-redundant collections are derived by manual curation. The advent of high-throughput methods stimulated the production of novel collections with increasing numbers of motifs. Meta-databases, built by merging these collections, contain redundant versions, because available tools are not suited to automatically identify and explore biologically relevant clusters among thousands of motifs. Motif discovery from genome-scale data sets (e.g. ChIP-seq) also produces redundant motifs, hampering the interpretation of results. We present matrix-clustering, a versatile tool that clusters similar TFBMs into multiple trees, and automatically creates non-redundant TFBM collections. A feature unique to matrix-clustering is its dynamic visualisation of aligned TFBMs, and its capability to simultaneously treat multiple collections from various sources. We demonstrate that matrix-clustering considerably simplifies the interpretation of combined results from multiple motif discovery tools, and highlights biologically relevant variations of similar motifs. We also ran a large-scale application to cluster ∼11 000 motifs from 24 entire databases, showing that matrix-clustering correctly groups motifs belonging to the same TF families, and drastically reduced motif redundancy. matrix-clustering is integrated within the RSAT suite (http://rsat.eu/), accessible through a user-friendly web interface or command-line for its integration in pipelines. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Quantitative analysis of Common cause failures in systems with a high level of redundancies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pereira Pagan, B.; Lopez Fdez-Quevedo, C.; Gomez, F.; Cuallado, G.

1996-01-01

The importance of common cause failures in plants with systems featuring a high level of redundancies, and the difficulty implied by the lack of data on specific KWU design plants have been taken into account right from the beginning of the PSA. for this reason it has been necessary to analyse the different methodologies by establishing a procedure based on the documentation available, studying its applicability and solving problems arising from of the lack of information needed to make reliable statistical estimates. It was finally decided to systematically use the alpha parameter method. In case where this was not possible, the modified Beta factor method was used, and if there were no data available for the type of component considered, generic alpha values were used. this process required the definition of certain criteria to maintain coherent parameter estimates. The final result shows the impact of the number of redundancies considered in the estimated failure probability or rare. This process is valid for any size of system modelled. (Author)

Triple3 Redundant Spacecraft Subsystems (T3RSS), Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Redefine Technologies, along with researchers at the University of Colorado, will use three redundancy methods to decrease the susceptibility of a spacecraft, on a...

Temporal information partitioning: Characterizing synergy, uniqueness, and redundancy in interacting environmental variables

Science.gov (United States)

Goodwell, Allison E.; Kumar, Praveen

2017-07-01

Information theoretic measures can be used to identify nonlinear interactions between source and target variables through reductions in uncertainty. In information partitioning, multivariate mutual information is decomposed into synergistic, unique, and redundant components. Synergy is information shared only when sources influence a target together, uniqueness is information only provided by one source, and redundancy is overlapping shared information from multiple sources. While this partitioning has been applied to provide insights into complex dependencies, several proposed partitioning methods overestimate redundant information and omit a component of unique information because they do not account for source dependencies. Additionally, information partitioning has only been applied to time-series data in a limited context, using basic pdf estimation techniques or a Gaussian assumption. We develop a Rescaled Redundancy measure (Rs) to solve the source dependency issue, and present Gaussian, autoregressive, and chaotic test cases to demonstrate its advantages over existing techniques in the presence of noise, various source correlations, and different types of interactions. This study constitutes the first rigorous application of information partitioning to environmental time-series data, and addresses how noise, pdf estimation technique, or source dependencies can influence detected measures. We illustrate how our techniques can unravel the complex nature of forcing and feedback within an ecohydrologic system with an application to 1 min environmental signals of air temperature, relative humidity, and windspeed. The methods presented here are applicable to the study of a broad range of complex systems composed of interacting variables.

Model Based Fault Detection in a Centrifugal Pump Application

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kallesøe, Carsten; Cocquempot, Vincent; Izadi-Zamanabadi, Roozbeh

2006-01-01

A model based approach for fault detection in a centrifugal pump, driven by an induction motor, is proposed in this paper. The fault detection algorithm is derived using a combination of structural analysis, observer design and Analytical Redundancy Relation (ARR) design. Structural considerations...

SNP markers retrieval for a non-model species: a practical approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shahin Arwa

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism markers are rapidly becoming the markers of choice for applications in breeding because of next generation sequencing technology developments. For SNP development by NGS technologies, correct assembly of the huge amounts of sequence data generated is essential. Little is known about assembler's performance, especially when dealing with highly heterogeneous species that show a high genome complexity and what the possible consequences are of differences in assemblies on SNP retrieval. This study tested two assemblers (CAP3 and CLC on 454 data from four lily genotypes and compared results with respect to SNP retrieval. Results CAP3 assembly resulted in higher numbers of contigs, lower numbers of reads per contig, and shorter average read lengths compared to CLC. Blast comparisons showed that CAP3 contigs were highly redundant. Contrastingly, CLC in rare cases combined paralogs in one contig. Redundant and chimeric contigs may lead to erroneous SNPs. Filtering for redundancy can be done by blasting selected SNP markers to the contigs and discarding all the SNP markers that show more than one blast hit. Results on chimeric contigs showed that only four out of 2,421 SNP markers were selected from chimeric contigs. Conclusion In practice, CLC performs better in assembling highly heterogeneous genome sequences compared to CAP3, and consequently SNP retrieval is more efficient. Additionally a simple flow scheme is suggested for SNP marker retrieval that can be valid for all non-model species.

A REDUNDANT GNSS-INS LOW-COST UAV NAVIGATION SOLUTION FOR PROFESSIONAL APPLICATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Navarro

2015-08-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the current results for the FP7 GINSEC project. Its goal is to build a pre-commercial prototype of a low-cost, accurate and reliable system for the professional UAV market. Low-cost, in this context, stands for the use of sensors in the most affordable segment of the market, especially MEMS IMUs and GNSS receivers. Reliability applies to the ability of the autopilot to cope with situations where unfavourable GNSS reception conditions or strong electromagnetic fields make the computation of the position and / or attitude of the UAV difficult. Professional and accurate mean that, at least using post-processing techniques as PPP, it will be possible to reach cm-level precisions that open the door to a range of applications demanding high levels of quality in positioning, as precision agriculture or mapping. To achieve such goal, a rigorous sensor error modelling approach, the use of redundant IMUs and a dual-GNSS receiver setup, together with close-coupling techniques and an extended Kalman filter with self-analysis capabilities have been used. Although the project is not yet complete, the results obtained up to now prove the feasibility of the aforementioned goal, especially in those aspects related to position determination. Research work is still undergoing to estimate the heading using a dual-GNNS receiver setup; preliminary results prove the validity of this approach for relatively long baselines, although positive results are expected when these are shorter than 1 m – which is a necessary requisite for small-sized UAVs.

a Redundant Gnss-Ins Low-Cost Uav Navigation Solution for Professional Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Navarro, J.; Parés, M. E.; Colomina, I.; Bianchi, G.; Pluchino, S.; Baddour, R.; Consoli, A.; Ayadi, J.; Gameiro, A.; Sekkas, O.; Tsetsos, V.; Gatsos, T.; Navoni, R.

2015-08-01

This paper presents the current results for the FP7 GINSEC project. Its goal is to build a pre-commercial prototype of a low-cost, accurate and reliable system for the professional UAV market. Low-cost, in this context, stands for the use of sensors in the most affordable segment of the market, especially MEMS IMUs and GNSS receivers. Reliability applies to the ability of the autopilot to cope with situations where unfavourable GNSS reception conditions or strong electromagnetic fields make the computation of the position and / or attitude of the UAV difficult. Professional and accurate mean that, at least using post-processing techniques as PPP, it will be possible to reach cm-level precisions that open the door to a range of applications demanding high levels of quality in positioning, as precision agriculture or mapping. To achieve such goal, a rigorous sensor error modelling approach, the use of redundant IMUs and a dual-GNSS receiver setup, together with close-coupling techniques and an extended Kalman filter with self-analysis capabilities have been used. Although the project is not yet complete, the results obtained up to now prove the feasibility of the aforementioned goal, especially in those aspects related to position determination. Research work is still undergoing to estimate the heading using a dual-GNNS receiver setup; preliminary results prove the validity of this approach for relatively long baselines, although positive results are expected when these are shorter than 1 m - which is a necessary requisite for small-sized UAVs.

Sensitivity analysis of repairable redundant system with switching failure and geometric reneging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chandra Shekhar

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This study deals with the performance modeling and reliability analysis of a redundant machining system composed of several functional machines. To analyze the more realistic scenarios, the concepts of switching failure and geometric reneging are included. The time-to-breakdown and repair time of operating and standby machines are assumed to follow the exponential distribution. For the quantitative assessment of the machine interference problem, various performance measures such as mean-time-to-failure, reliability, reneging rate, etc. have been formulated. To show the practicability of the developed model, a numerical illustration has been presented. For the practical justification and validity of the results established, the sensitivity analysis of reliability indices has been presented by varying different system descriptors.

An Approach for Removing Redundant Data from RFID Data Streams

Science.gov (United States)

Mahdin, Hairulnizam; Abawajy, Jemal

2011-01-01

Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are emerging as the primary object identification mechanism, especially in supply chain management. However, RFID naturally generates a large amount of duplicate readings. Removing these duplicates from the RFID data stream is paramount as it does not contribute new information to the system and wastes system resources. Existing approaches to deal with this problem cannot fulfill the real time demands to process the massive RFID data stream. We propose a data filtering approach that efficiently detects and removes duplicate readings from RFID data streams. Experimental results show that the proposed approach offers a significant improvement as compared to the existing approaches. PMID:22163730

An Approach for Removing Redundant Data from RFID Data Streams

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hairulnizam Mahdin

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Radio frequency identification (RFID systems are emerging as the primary object identification mechanism, especially in supply chain management. However, RFID naturally generates a large amount of duplicate readings. Removing these duplicates from the RFID data stream is paramount as it does not contribute new information to the system and wastes system resources. Existing approaches to deal with this problem cannot fulfill the real time demands to process the massive RFID data stream. We propose a data filtering approach that efficiently detects and removes duplicate readings from RFID data streams. Experimental results show that the proposed approach offers a significant improvement as compared to the existing approaches.

Functional redundancy and sensitivity of fish assemblages in European rivers, lakes and estuarine ecosystems.

Science.gov (United States)

Teichert, Nils; Lepage, Mario; Sagouis, Alban; Borja, Angel; Chust, Guillem; Ferreira, Maria Teresa; Pasquaud, Stéphanie; Schinegger, Rafaela; Segurado, Pedro; Argillier, Christine

2017-12-14

The impact of species loss on ecosystems functioning depends on the amount of trait similarity between species, i.e. functional redundancy, but it is also influenced by the order in which species are lost. Here we investigated redundancy and sensitivity patterns across fish assemblages in lakes, rivers and estuaries. Several scenarios of species extinction were simulated to determine whether the loss of vulnerable species (with high propensity of extinction when facing threats) causes a greater functional alteration than random extinction. Our results indicate that the functional redundancy tended to increase with species richness in lakes and rivers, but not in estuaries. We demonstrated that i) in the three systems, some combinations of functional traits are supported by non-redundant species, ii) rare species in rivers and estuaries support singular functions not shared by dominant species, iii) the loss of vulnerable species can induce greater functional alteration in rivers than in lakes and estuaries. Overall, the functional structure of fish assemblages in rivers is weakly buffered against species extinction because vulnerable species support singular functions. More specifically, a hotspot of functional sensitivity was highlighted in the Iberian Peninsula, which emphasizes the usefulness of quantitative criteria to determine conservation priorities.

Testing the significance of canonical axes in redundancy analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Legendre, P.; Oksanen, J.; Braak, ter C.J.F.

2011-01-01

1. Tests of significance of the individual canonical axes in redundancy analysis allow researchers to determine which of the axes represent variation that can be distinguished from random. Variation along the significant axes can be mapped, used to draw biplots or interpreted through subsequent

A penalty guided stochastic fractal search approach for system reliability optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mellal, Mohamed Arezki; Zio, Enrico

2016-01-01

Modern industry requires components and systems with high reliability levels. In this paper, we address the system reliability optimization problem. A penalty guided stochastic fractal search approach is developed for solving reliability allocation, redundancy allocation, and reliability–redundancy allocation problems. Numerical results of ten case studies are presented as benchmark problems for highlighting the superiority of the proposed approach compared to others from literature. - Highlights: • System reliability optimization is investigated. • A penalty guided stochastic fractal search approach is developed. • Results of ten case studies are compared with previously published methods. • Performance of the approach is demonstrated.

Functional over-redundancy and high functional vulnerability in global fish faunas on tropical reefs.

Science.gov (United States)

Mouillot, David; Villéger, Sébastien; Parravicini, Valeriano; Kulbicki, Michel; Arias-González, Jesus Ernesto; Bender, Mariana; Chabanet, Pascale; Floeter, Sergio R; Friedlander, Alan; Vigliola, Laurent; Bellwood, David R

2014-09-23

When tropical systems lose species, they are often assumed to be buffered against declines in functional diversity by the ability of the species-rich biota to display high functional redundancy: i.e., a high number of species performing similar functions. We tested this hypothesis using a ninefold richness gradient in global fish faunas on tropical reefs encompassing 6,316 species distributed among 646 functional entities (FEs): i.e., unique combinations of functional traits. We found that the highest functional redundancy is located in the Central Indo-Pacific with a mean of 7.9 species per FE. However, this overall level of redundancy is disproportionately packed into few FEs, a pattern termed functional over-redundancy (FOR). For instance, the most speciose FE in the Central Indo-Pacific contains 222 species (out of 3,689) whereas 38% of FEs (180 out of 468) have no functional insurance with only one species. Surprisingly, the level of FOR is consistent across the six fish faunas, meaning that, whatever the richness, over a third of the species may still be in overrepresented FEs whereas more than one third of the FEs are left without insurance, these levels all being significantly higher than expected by chance. Thus, our study shows that, even in high-diversity systems, such as tropical reefs, functional diversity remains highly vulnerable to species loss. Although further investigations are needed to specifically address the influence of redundant vs. vulnerable FEs on ecosystem functioning, our results suggest that the promised benefits from tropical biodiversity may not be as strong as previously thought.

Some approaches to system reliability improvement in engineering design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shen, Kecheng.

1990-01-01

In this thesis some approaches to system reliability improvement in engineering design are studied. In particular, the thesis aims at developing alternative methodologies for ranking of component importance which are more related to the design practice and which are more useful in system synthesis than the existing ones. It also aims at developing component reliability models by means of stress-strength interference which will enable both component reliability prediction and design for reliability. A new methodology for ranking of component importance is first developed based on the notion of the increase of the expected system yield. This methodology allows for incorporation of different improvement actions at the component level such as parallel redundancy, standby redundancy, burn-in, minimal repair and perfect replacement. For each of these improvement actions, the increase of system reliability is studied and used as the component importance measure. A possible connection between the commonly known models of component lifetimes and the stress-strength interference models is suggested. Under some general conditions the relationship between component failure rate and the stress and strength distribution characteristics is studied. A heuristic approach for obtaining bounds on failure probability through stress-strength interference is also presented. A case study and a worked example are presented, which illustrate and verify the developed importance measures and their applications in the analytical as well as synthetical work of engineering design. (author)

Redundancy-free single-particle equation-of-motion method for nuclei. Pt. 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rolnick, P.; Goswami, A.; Oregon Univ., Eugene

1986-01-01

The problem of coupling an odd nucleon to the collective states of an even core is considered in the intermediate-coupling limit. It is now well known that such intermediate-coupling calculations in spherical open-shell nuclei necessitate the inclusion of ground-state correlation or backward coupling which gives rise to an overcomplete basic set of states for the diagonalization of the hamiltonian. In a recent letter, we have derived a technique to free the single-particle equation-of-motion method of redundancy. Here we shall apply this redundancy-free equation-of-motion method to intermediate-coupling calculations in two regions of near-spherical odd-mass nuclei where forward coupling alone has not been successful. It is shown that qualitative effects of backward coupling previously reported are not spurious effects of double counting, although they are significantly modified by the removal of redundancy. We also discuss what further modifications of the theory will be needed in order to treat the dynamical interplay of collective and single-particle modes in nuclei self-consistently on the same footing. (orig.)

Detumbling control for kinematically redundant space manipulator post-grasping a rotational satellite

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Mingming; Luo, Jianjun; Yuan, Jianping; Walter, Ulrich

2017-12-01

The objective of this paper is to establish a detumbling strategy and a coordination control scheme for a kinematically redundant space manipulator post-grasping a rotational satellite. First, the dynamics of the kinematically redundant space robot after grasping the target is presented, which lays the foundation for the coordination controller design. Subsequently, optimal detumbling and motion planning strategy for the post-capture phase is proposed based on the quartic Bézier curves and adaptive differential evolution (DE) algorithm subject to the specific constraints. Both detumbling time and control torques are taken into account for the generation of the optimal detumbling strategy. Furthermore, a coordination control scheme is presented to track the designed reference path while regulating the attitude of the chaser to a desired value, which successfully dumps the initial angular velocity of the rotational satellite and controls the base attitude synchronously. Simulation results are presented for detumbling a target with rotational motion using a 7 degree-of-freedom (DOF) redundant space manipulator, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The human brain maintains contradictory and redundant auditory sensory predictions.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marika Pieszek

Full Text Available Computational and experimental research has revealed that auditory sensory predictions are derived from regularities of the current environment by using internal generative models. However, so far, what has not been addressed is how the auditory system handles situations giving rise to redundant or even contradictory predictions derived from different sources of information. To this end, we measured error signals in the event-related brain potentials (ERPs in response to violations of auditory predictions. Sounds could be predicted on the basis of overall probability, i.e., one sound was presented frequently and another sound rarely. Furthermore, each sound was predicted by an informative visual cue. Participants' task was to use the cue and to discriminate the two sounds as fast as possible. Violations of the probability based prediction (i.e., a rare sound as well as violations of the visual-auditory prediction (i.e., an incongruent sound elicited error signals in the ERPs (Mismatch Negativity [MMN] and Incongruency Response [IR]. Particular error signals were observed even in case the overall probability and the visual symbol predicted different sounds. That is, the auditory system concurrently maintains and tests contradictory predictions. Moreover, if the same sound was predicted, we observed an additive error signal (scalp potential and primary current density equaling the sum of the specific error signals. Thus, the auditory system maintains and tolerates functionally independently represented redundant and contradictory predictions. We argue that the auditory system exploits all currently active regularities in order to optimally prepare for future events.

Plant stem bark extractivism in the northeast semiarid region of Brazil: a new aport to utilitarian redundancy model.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferreira Júnior, Washington Soares; Siqueira, Clarissa Fernanda Queiroz; de Albuquerque, Ulysses Paulino

2012-01-01

We use the model of utilitarian redundancy as a basis for research. This model provides predictions that have not been tested by other research. In this sense, we sought to investigate the stem bark extraction between preferred and less-preferred species by a rural community in Caatinga environment. In addition, we sought to explain local preferences to observe if preferred plants have a higher content of tannins than less-preferred species. For this, we selected seven preferred species and seven less-preferred species from information obtained from semistructured interviews applied to 49 informants. Three areas of vegetation around the community were also selected, in which individuals were tagged, and were measured the diameter at ground level (DGL) diameter at breast height (DBH), and measurements of available and extracted bark areas. Samples of bark of the species were also collected for the evaluation of tannin content, obtained by the method of radial diffusion. From the results, the preferred species showed a greater area of bark removed. However, the tannin content showed no significant differences between preferred and less-preferred plants. These results show there is a relationship between preference and use, but this preference is not related to the total tannins content.

Plant Stem Bark Extractivism in the Northeast Semiarid Region of Brazil: A New Aport to Utilitarian Redundancy Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior

2012-01-01

Full Text Available We use the model of utilitarian redundancy as a basis for research. This model provides predictions that have not been tested by other research. In this sense, we sought to investigate the stem bark extraction between preferred and less-preferred species by a rural community in Caatinga environment. In addition, we sought to explain local preferences to observe if preferred plants have a higher content of tannins than less-preferred species. For this, we selected seven preferred species and seven less-preferred species from information obtained from semistructured interviews applied to 49 informants. Three areas of vegetation around the community were also selected, in which individuals were tagged, and were measured the diameter at ground level (DGL diameter at breast height (DBH, and measurements of available and extracted bark areas. Samples of bark of the species were also collected for the evaluation of tannin content, obtained by the method of radial diffusion. From the results, the preferred species showed a greater area of bark removed. However, the tannin content showed no significant differences between preferred and less-preferred plants. These results show there is a relationship between preference and use, but this preference is not related to the total tannins content.

Plant Stem Bark Extractivism in the Northeast Semiarid Region of Brazil: A New Aport to Utilitarian Redundancy Model

Science.gov (United States)

Ferreira Júnior, Washington Soares; Siqueira, Clarissa Fernanda Queiroz; de Albuquerque, Ulysses Paulino

2012-01-01

We use the model of utilitarian redundancy as a basis for research. This model provides predictions that have not been tested by other research. In this sense, we sought to investigate the stem bark extraction between preferred and less-preferred species by a rural community in Caatinga environment. In addition, we sought to explain local preferences to observe if preferred plants have a higher content of tannins than less-preferred species. For this, we selected seven preferred species and seven less-preferred species from information obtained from semistructured interviews applied to 49 informants. Three areas of vegetation around the community were also selected, in which individuals were tagged, and were measured the diameter at ground level (DGL) diameter at breast height (DBH), and measurements of available and extracted bark areas. Samples of bark of the species were also collected for the evaluation of tannin content, obtained by the method of radial diffusion. From the results, the preferred species showed a greater area of bark removed. However, the tannin content showed no significant differences between preferred and less-preferred plants. These results show there is a relationship between preference and use, but this preference is not related to the total tannins content. PMID:22319546

The Evolution of Functionally Redundant Species; Evidence from Beetles

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Scheffer, M.; Vergnon, R.O.H.; Nes, van E.H.; Cuppen, J.G.M.; Peeters, E.T.H.M.; Leijs, R.; Nilsson, A.N.

2015-01-01

While species fulfill many different roles in ecosystems, it has been suggested that numerous species might actually share the same function in a near neutral way. So-far, however, it is unclear whether such functional redundancy really exists. We scrutinize this question using extensive data on the

Kinematics and control of redundant robotic arm based on dielectric elastomer actuators

Science.gov (United States)

Branz, Francesco; Antonello, Andrea; Carron, Andrea; Carli, Ruggero; Francesconi, Alessandro

2015-04-01

Soft robotics is a promising field and its application to space mechanisms could represent a breakthrough in space technologies by enabling new operative scenarios (e.g. soft manipulators, capture systems). Dielectric Elastomers Actuators have been under deep study for a number of years and have shown several advantages that could be of key importance for space applications. Among such advantages the most notable are high conversion efficiency, distributed actuation, self-sensing capability, multi-degree-of-freedom design, light weight and low cost. The big potentialities of double cone actuators have been proven in terms of good performances (i.e. stroke and force/torque), ease of manufacturing and durability. In this work the kinematic, dynamic and control design of a two-joint redundant robotic arm is presented. Two double cone actuators are assembled in series to form a two-link design. Each joint has two degrees of freedom (one rotational and one translational) for a total of four. The arm is designed to move in a 2-D environment (i.e. the horizontal plane) with 4 DoF, consequently having two degrees of redundancy. The redundancy is exploited in order to minimize the joint loads. The kinematic design with redundant Jacobian inversion is presented. The selected control algorithm is described along with the results of a number of dynamic simulations that have been executed for performance verification. Finally, an experimental setup is presented based on a flexible structure that counteracts gravity during testing in order to better emulate future zero-gravity applications.

The Evolution of Functionally Redundant Species; Evidence from Beetles.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marten Scheffer

Full Text Available While species fulfill many different roles in ecosystems, it has been suggested that numerous species might actually share the same function in a near neutral way. So-far, however, it is unclear whether such functional redundancy really exists. We scrutinize this question using extensive data on the world's 4168 species of diving beetles. We show that across the globe these animals have evolved towards a small number of regularly-spaced body sizes, and that locally co-existing species are either very similar in size or differ by at least 35%. Surprisingly, intermediate size differences (10-20% are rare. As body-size strongly reflects functional aspects such as the food that these generalist predators can eat, these beetles thus form relatively distinct groups of functional look-a-likes. The striking global regularity of these patterns support the idea that a self-organizing process drives such species-rich groups to self-organize evolutionary into clusters where functional redundancy ensures resilience through an insurance effect.

State Estimation for Robots with Complementary Redundant Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniele Carnevale

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In this paper, robots equipped with two complementary typologies of redundant sensors are considered: one typology provides sharp measures of some geometrical entity related to the robot pose (e.g., distance or angle but is not univocally associated with this quantity; the other typology is univocal but is characterized by a low level of precision. A technique is proposed to properly combine these two kinds of measurement both in a stochastic and in a deterministic context. This framework may occur in robotics, for example, when the distance from a known landmark is detected by two different sensors, one based on the signal strength or time of flight of the signal, while the other one measures the phase-shift of the signal, which has a sharp but periodical dependence on the robot-landmark distance. In the stochastic case, an effective solution is a two-stage extended Kalman filter (EKF which exploits the precise periodic signal only when the estimate of the robot position is sufficiently precise. In the deterministic setting, an approach based on a switching hybrid observer is proposed, and results are analyzed via simulation examples.

A Simple Example of ``Quantum Darwinism'': Redundant Information Storage in Many-Spin Environments

Science.gov (United States)

Blume-Kohout, Robin; Zurek, Wojciech H.

2005-11-01

As quantum information science approaches the goal of constructing quantum computers, understanding loss of information through decoherence becomes increasingly important. The information about a system that can be obtained from its environment can facilitate quantum control and error correction. Moreover, observers gain most of their information indirectly, by monitoring (primarily photon) environments of the "objects of interest." Exactly how this information is inscribed in the environment is essential for the emergence of "the classical" from the quantum substrate. In this paper, we examine how many-qubit (or many-spin) environments can store information about a single system. The information lost to the environment can be stored redundantly, or it can be encoded in entangled modes of the environment. We go on to show that randomly chosen states of the environment almost always encode the information so that an observer must capture a majority of the environment to deduce the system's state. Conversely, in the states produced by a typical decoherence process, information about a particular observable of the system is stored redundantly. This selective proliferation of "the fittest information" (known as Quantum Darwinism) plays a key role in choosing the preferred, effectively classical observables of macroscopic systems. The developing appreciation that the environment functions not just as a garbage dump, but as a communication channel, is extending our understanding of the environment's role in the quantum-classical transition beyond the traditional paradigm of decoherence.

Model-based gene set analysis for Bioconductor.

Science.gov (United States)

Bauer, Sebastian; Robinson, Peter N; Gagneur, Julien

2011-07-01

Gene Ontology and other forms of gene-category analysis play a major role in the evaluation of high-throughput experiments in molecular biology. Single-category enrichment analysis procedures such as Fisher's exact test tend to flag large numbers of redundant categories as significant, which can complicate interpretation. We have recently developed an approach called model-based gene set analysis (MGSA), that substantially reduces the number of redundant categories returned by the gene-category analysis. In this work, we present the Bioconductor package mgsa, which makes the MGSA algorithm available to users of the R language. Our package provides a simple and flexible application programming interface for applying the approach. The mgsa package has been made available as part of Bioconductor 2.8. It is released under the conditions of the Artistic license 2.0. peter.robinson@charite.de; julien.gagneur@embl.de.

Performance of hybrid-ARQ with incremental redundancy over relay channels

KAUST Repository

Chelli, Ali; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2012-01-01

In this paper, we consider a relay network consisting of a source, a relay, and a destination. The source transmits a message to the destination using hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) with incremental redundancy (IR). The relay overhears

Sharing the cost of redundant items

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hougaard, Jens Leth; Moulin, Hervé

2014-01-01

We ask how to share the cost of finitely many public goods (items) among users with different needs: some smaller subsets of items are enough to serve the needs of each user, yet the cost of all items must be covered, even if this entails inefficiently paying for redundant items. Typical examples...... are network connectivity problems when an existing (possibly inefficient) network must be maintained. We axiomatize a family cost ratios based on simple liability indices, one for each agent and for each item, measuring the relative worth of this item across agents, and generating cost allocation rules...... additive in costs....

The Application of S7-400H redundant PLC in I and C system for waterworks in nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pang Yuxiang

2013-01-01

This paper introduces Siemens S7-400H redundant PLC which is employed to implement monitor and control systems for waterworks in nuclear power plant. It focuses on the configuration and realization of the redundant system. The safety and reliability of the system is improved by using redundant CPU, network and server. (authors)

Redundancy proves its worth in FR Germany [emergency power supplies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Simon, M.

1987-01-01

An analysis of loss of power events at nuclear power stations in FR Germany has confirmed the data used in the German risk study and underlined the advantages of providing a high degree of redundancy in emergency power supplies. (author)

Knowledge sharing in construction partnering projects - redundancy, boundary objects and brokers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Koch, Christian; Thuesen, Christian

2013-01-01

is on two dialogue excerpts, one on process, and one on product knowledge exchanges. The diversity and disjunctive feature of the practices form a condition of possibility for knowledge handling and synthesis into the built construct. Relation-based interaction is necessary with boundary objects and brokers......This article adopts practice-based theory for understanding inter-organisational knowledge work and extends it with a discussion of the role of redundancy. In this view, a constellation of firms is a multiple configuration of communities of practices, characterised by overlapping practises......, multiple memberships and different levels of participation, and accompanied by a governance frame. The paper discusses central mechanisms for coordinating knowledge in such a complex construction project. The knowledge relations are conceptualised through focusing on redundancy, understood as negotiated...

Design structure for in-system redundant array repair in integrated circuits

Science.gov (United States)

Bright, Arthur A.; Crumley, Paul G.; Dombrowa, Marc; Douskey, Steven M.; Haring, Rudolf A.; Oakland, Steven F.; Quellette, Michael R.; Strissel, Scott A.

2008-11-25

A design structure for repairing an integrated circuit during operation of the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit comprising of a multitude of memory arrays and a fuse box holding control data for controlling redundancy logic of the arrays. The design structure provides the integrated circuit with a control data selector for passing the control data from the fuse box to the memory arrays; providing a source of alternate control data, external of the integrated circuit; and connecting the source of alternate control data to the control data selector. The design structure further passes the alternate control data from the source thereof, through the control data selector and to the memory arrays to control the redundancy logic of the memory arrays.

Redundant sensor validation by using fuzzy logic

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Holbert, K.E.; Heger, A.S.; Alang-Rashid, N.K.

1994-01-01

This research is motivated by the need to relax the strict boundary of numeric-based signal validation. To this end, the use of fuzzy logic for redundant sensor validation is introduced. Since signal validation employs both numbers and qualitative statements, fuzzy logic provides a pathway for transforming human abstractions into the numerical domain and thus coupling both sources of information. With this transformation, linguistically expressed analysis principles can be coded into a classification rule-base for signal failure detection and identification

Simulator of a fail detector system for redundant sensors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Assumpcao Filho, E.O.; Nakata, H.

1990-01-01

A failure detection and isolation system (FDI) simulation program has been developed for IBM-PC microcomputers. The program, based on the sequencial likelihood ratio testing method developed by A. Wald, was implemented with Monte-Carlo technique. The calculated failure detection rate was favorably compared against the wind-tunnel experimental redundant temperature sensors. (author)

Electronic logic to enhance switch reliability in detecting openings and closures of redundant switches

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, James A.

1986-01-01

A logic circuit is used to enhance redundant switch reliability. Two or more switches are monitored for logical high or low output. The output for the logic circuit produces a redundant and failsafe representation of the switch outputs. When both switch outputs are high, the output is high. Similarly, when both switch outputs are low, the logic circuit's output is low. When the output states of the two switches do not agree, the circuit resolves the conflict by memorizing the last output state which both switches were simultaneously in and produces the logical complement of this output state. Thus, the logic circuit of the present invention allows the redundant switches to be treated as if they were in parallel when the switches are open and as if they were in series when the switches are closed. A failsafe system having maximum reliability is thereby produced.

The redundant target effect is affected by modality switch costs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gondan, Matthias; Lange, K.; Rösler, F.

2004-01-01

When participants have to respond to stimuli of two modalities, faster reaction times are observed for simultaneous, bimodal events than for unimodal events (the redundant target effect [RTE]). This finding has been interpreted as reflecting processing gains for bimodal relative to unimodal stimu...

Skew redundant MEMS IMU calibration using a Kalman filter

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jafari, M; Sahebjameyan, M; Moshiri, B; Najafabadi, T A

2015-01-01

In this paper, a novel calibration procedure for skew redundant inertial measurement units (SRIMUs) based on micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS) is proposed. A general model of the SRIMU measurements is derived which contains the effects of bias, scale factor error and misalignments. For more accuracy, the effect of lever arms of the accelerometers to the center of the table are modeled and compensated in the calibration procedure. Two separate Kalman filters (KFs) are proposed to perform the estimation of error parameters for gyroscopes and accelerometers. The predictive error minimization (PEM) stochastic modeling method is used to simultaneously model the effect of bias instability and random walk noise on the calibration Kalman filters to diminish the biased estimations. The proposed procedure is simulated numerically and has expected experimental results. The calibration maneuvers are applied using a two-axis angle turntable in a way that the persistency of excitation (PE) condition for parameter estimation is met. For this purpose, a trapezoidal calibration profile is utilized to excite different deterministic error parameters of the accelerometers and a pulse profile is used for the gyroscopes. Furthermore, to evaluate the performance of the proposed KF calibration method, a conventional least squares (LS) calibration procedure is derived for the SRIMUs and the simulation and experimental results compare the functionality of the two proposed methods with each other. (paper)

Feature Selection using Multi-objective Genetic Algorith m: A Hybrid Approach

OpenAIRE

Ahuja, Jyoti; GJUST - Guru Jambheshwar University of Sciecne and Technology; Ratnoo, Saroj Dahiya; GJUST - Guru Jambheshwar University of Sciecne and Technology

2015-01-01

Feature selection is an important pre-processing task for building accurate and comprehensible classification models. Several researchers have applied filter, wrapper or hybrid approaches using genetic algorithms which are good candidates for optimization problems that involve large search spaces like in the case of feature selection. Moreover, feature selection is an inherently multi-objective problem with many competing objectives involving size, predictive power and redundancy of the featu...

A large scale analysis of cDNA in Arabidopsis thaliana: generation of 12,028 non-redundant expressed sequence tags from normalized and size-selected cDNA libraries.

Science.gov (United States)

Asamizu, E; Nakamura, Y; Sato, S; Tabata, S

2000-06-30

For comprehensive analysis of genes expressed in the model dicotyledonous plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were accumulated. Normalized and size-selected cDNA libraries were constructed from aboveground organs, flower buds, roots, green siliques and liquid-cultured seedlings, respectively, and a total of 14,026 5'-end ESTs and 39,207 3'-end ESTs were obtained. The 3'-end ESTs could be clustered into 12,028 non-redundant groups. Similarity search of the non-redundant ESTs against the public non-redundant protein database indicated that 4816 groups show similarity to genes of known function, 1864 to hypothetical genes, and the remaining 5348 are novel sequences. Gene coverage by the non-redundant ESTs was analyzed using the annotated genomic sequences of approximately 10 Mb on chromosomes 3 and 5. A total of 923 regions were hit by at least one EST, among which only 499 regions were hit by the ESTs deposited in the public database. The result indicates that the EST source generated in this project complements the EST data in the public database and facilitates new gene discovery.

Redundant and physical black hole parameters: Is there an independent physical dilaton charge?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hajian, K., E-mail: kamalhajian@ipm.ir; Sheikh-Jabbari, M.M., E-mail: jabbari@theory.ipm.ac.ir

2017-05-10

Black holes as solutions to gravity theories, are generically identified by a set of parameters. Some of these parameters are associated with black hole physical conserved charges, like ADM charges. There can also be some “redundant parameters.” We propose necessary conditions for a parameter to be physical. The conditions are essentially integrability and non-triviality of the charge variations arising from “parametric variations,” variation of the solution with respect to the chosen parameters. In addition, we prove that variation of the redundant parameters which do not meet our criteria do not appear in the first law of thermodynamics. As an interesting application, we show that dilaton moduli are redundant parameters for black hole solutions to Einstein–Maxwell–(Axion)–Dilaton theories, because variations in dilaton moduli would render entropy, mass, electric charges or angular momenta non-integrable. Our results are in contrast with modification of the first law due to scalar charges suggested in Gibbons–Kallosh–Kol paper and its follow-ups. We also briefly discuss implications of our results for the attractor behavior of extremal black holes.

Zhang functions and various models

CERN Document Server

Zhang, Yunong

2015-01-01

This book focuses on solving different types of time-varying problems. It presents various Zhang dynamics (ZD) models by defining various Zhang functions (ZFs) in real and complex domains. It then provides theoretical analyses of such ZD models and illustrates their results. It also uses simulations to substantiate their efficacy and show the feasibility of the presented ZD approach (i.e., different ZFs leading to different ZD models), which is further applied to the repetitive motion planning (RMP) of redundant robots, showing its application potential.

Novel iterative reconstruction method with optimal dose usage for partially redundant CT-acquisition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bruder, H; Raupach, R; Sunnegardh, J; Allmendinger, T; Klotz, E; Stierstorfer, K; Flohr, T

2015-01-01

In CT imaging, a variety of applications exist which are strongly SNR limited. However, in some cases redundant data of the same body region provide additional quanta.Examples: in dual energy CT, the spatial resolution has to be compromised to provide good SNR for material decomposition. However, the respective spectral dataset of the same body region provides additional quanta which might be utilized to improve SNR of each spectral component. Perfusion CT is a high dose application, and dose reduction is highly desirable. However, a meaningful evaluation of perfusion parameters might be impaired by noisy time frames. On the other hand, the SNR of the average of all time frames is extremely high.In redundant CT acquisitions, multiple image datasets can be reconstructed and averaged to composite image data. These composite image data, however, might be compromised with respect to contrast resolution and/or spatial resolution and/or temporal resolution. These observations bring us to the idea of transferring high SNR of composite image data to low SNR ‘source’ image data, while maintaining their resolution.It has been shown that the noise characteristics of CT image data can be improved by iterative reconstruction (Popescu et al 2012 Book of Abstracts, 2nd CT Meeting (Salt Lake City, UT) p 148). In case of data dependent Gaussian noise it can be modelled with image-based iterative reconstruction at least in an approximate manner (Bruder et al 2011 Proc. SPIE 7961 79610J).We present a generalized update equation in image space, consisting of a linear combination of the previous update, a correction term which is constrained by the source image data, and a regularization prior, which is initialized by the composite image data. This iterative reconstruction approach we call bimodal reconstruction (BMR).Based on simulation data it is shown that BMR can improve low contrast detectability, substantially reduces the noise power and has the potential to recover spatial

Novel iterative reconstruction method with optimal dose usage for partially redundant CT-acquisition

Science.gov (United States)

Bruder, H.; Raupach, R.; Sunnegardh, J.; Allmendinger, T.; Klotz, E.; Stierstorfer, K.; Flohr, T.

2015-11-01

In CT imaging, a variety of applications exist which are strongly SNR limited. However, in some cases redundant data of the same body region provide additional quanta. Examples: in dual energy CT, the spatial resolution has to be compromised to provide good SNR for material decomposition. However, the respective spectral dataset of the same body region provides additional quanta which might be utilized to improve SNR of each spectral component. Perfusion CT is a high dose application, and dose reduction is highly desirable. However, a meaningful evaluation of perfusion parameters might be impaired by noisy time frames. On the other hand, the SNR of the average of all time frames is extremely high. In redundant CT acquisitions, multiple image datasets can be reconstructed and averaged to composite image data. These composite image data, however, might be compromised with respect to contrast resolution and/or spatial resolution and/or temporal resolution. These observations bring us to the idea of transferring high SNR of composite image data to low SNR ‘source’ image data, while maintaining their resolution. It has been shown that the noise characteristics of CT image data can be improved by iterative reconstruction (Popescu et al 2012 Book of Abstracts, 2nd CT Meeting (Salt Lake City, UT) p 148). In case of data dependent Gaussian noise it can be modelled with image-based iterative reconstruction at least in an approximate manner (Bruder et al 2011 Proc. SPIE 7961 79610J). We present a generalized update equation in image space, consisting of a linear combination of the previous update, a correction term which is constrained by the source image data, and a regularization prior, which is initialized by the composite image data. This iterative reconstruction approach we call bimodal reconstruction (BMR). Based on simulation data it is shown that BMR can improve low contrast detectability, substantially reduces the noise power and has the potential to recover

75 FR 65238 - Loan Guaranty: Elimination of Redundant Regulations; Correction

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-22

... DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 38 CFR Part 36 RIN 2900-AN71 Loan Guaranty: Elimination of... June 15, 2010 (75 FR 33704), amending its loan guaranty regulations to eliminate redundant regulations... INFORMATION CONTACT: William White, Acting Assistant Director for Loan Processing and Valuation (262...

Optimal design of a system containing mixed redundancies with respect to reliability and cost

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Misra, K.B.

1975-01-01

A nuclear system generally consists of subsystems that may employ any of the partial, standby, and active redundancies, and is, therefore, a system with mixed type of redundancies. Optimization of reliability or availability of such systems at the design stage is a difficult problem. There appears to be no published work on the optimal design of maintained systems consisting of mixed redundancies. An attempt is therefore made, to present the basis of design and the solution technique to achieve this. An algorithm is described which makes the solution of this mathematically difficult problem possible. Some examples are demonstrated. To achieve further efficiency a study was organized and the recommendations for obtaining a minimum solution time are provided. Although, in the illustration, only the linear constraints and reliability, as the only design parameter, have been considered, the algorithm works well with the nonlinear type of constraints and can be used with other design parameters also. (author)

Tomographical properties of uniformly redundant arrays

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cannon, T.M.; Fenimore, E.E.

1978-01-01

Recent work in coded aperture imaging has shown that the uniformly redundant array (URA) can image distant planar radioactive sources with no artifacts. The performance of two URA apertures when used in a close-up tomographic imaging system is investigated. It is shown that a URA based on m sequences is superior to one based on quadratic residues. The m sequence array not only produces less obnoxious artifacts in tomographic imaging, but is also more resilient to some described detrimental effects of close-up imaging. It is shown that in spite of these close-up effects, tomographic depth resolution increases as the source is moved closer to the detector

Introduction to the special issue: parsimony and redundancy in models of language.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiechmann, Daniel; Kerz, Elma; Snider, Neal; Jaeger, T Florian

2013-09-01

One of the most fundamental goals in linguistic theory is to understand the nature of linguistic knowledge, that is, the representations and mechanisms that figure in a cognitively plausible model of human language-processing. The past 50 years have witnessed the development and refinement of various theories about what kind of 'stuff' human knowledge of language consists of, and technological advances now permit the development of increasingly sophisticated computational models implementing key assumptions of different theories from both rationalist and empiricist perspectives. The present special issue does not aim to present or discuss the arguments for and against the two epistemological stances or discuss evidence that supports either of them (cf. Bod, Hay, & Jannedy, 2003; Christiansen & Chater, 2008; Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002; Oaksford & Chater, 2007; O'Donnell, Hauser, & Fitch, 2005). Rather, the research presented in this issue, which we label usage-based here, conceives of linguistic knowledge as being induced from experience. According to the strongest of such accounts, the acquisition and processing of language can be explained with reference to general cognitive mechanisms alone (rather than with reference to innate language-specific mechanisms). Defined in these terms, usage-based approaches encompass approaches referred to as experience-based, performance-based and/or emergentist approaches (Amrnon & Snider, 2010; Bannard, Lieven, & Tomasello, 2009; Bannard & Matthews, 2008; Chater & Manning, 2006; Clark & Lappin, 2010; Gerken, Wilson, & Lewis, 2005; Gomez, 2002;

Development of a super-redundant multijoint manipulator for maintenance of nuclear reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ma, Shugen; Hirose, Shigeo.

1994-01-01

A tendon-driven manipulator, the CT Arm, has a specific tendon traction transmission mechanism, in which a pair of tendons for driving a joint is pulled from base actuators via pulleys mounted on the based-side joints. The mechanism makes the most of the coupled drive function of the tendon tractions and thus enables the lightweight manipulator to exhibit enormous payload capability. By this tendon-driven mechanism, a multijoint manipulator with super-redundant degrees of freedom could be realized, which is suitable to the maintenance of nuclear reactors. In this article, we introduce the CT Arm and discuss the possibility to generate a multijoint maintenance manipulator which has a super-redundant degrees of freedom. (author)

Differential Interactions between Identity and Emotional Expression in Own and Other-Race Faces: Effects of Familiarity Revealed through Redundancy Gains

Science.gov (United States)

Yankouskaya, Alla; Humphreys, Glyn W.; Rotshtein, Pia

2014-01-01

We examined relations between the processing of facial identity and emotion in own- and other-race faces, using a fully crossed design with participants from 3 different ethnicities. The benefits of redundant identity and emotion signals were evaluated and formally tested in relation to models of independent and coactive feature processing and…

Model based fault diagnosis in a centrifugal pump application using structural analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kallesøe, C. S.; Izadi-Zamanabadi, Roozbeh; Rasmussen, Henrik

2004-01-01

A model based approach for fault detection and isolation in a centrifugal pump is proposed in this paper. The fault detection algorithm is derived using a combination of structural analysis, Analytical Redundant Relations (ARR) and observer designs. Structural considerations on the system are used...

Model Based Fault Diagnosis in a Centrifugal Pump Application using Structural Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kallesøe, C. S.; Izadi-Zamanabadi, Roozbeh; Rasmussen, Henrik

2004-01-01

A model based approach for fault detection and isolation in a centrifugal pump is proposed in this paper. The fault detection algorithm is derived using a combination of structural analysis, Analytical Redundant Relations (ARR) and observer designs. Structural considerations on the system are used...

Reliability analysis of a complex standby redundant systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Subramanian, R.; Anantharaman, V.

1995-01-01

In any redundant system, the state of the standby unit is usually taken to be hot, warm or cold. In this paper, we present a new model of a two unit standby system wherein the standby unit is put in cold state for a certain amount of time before it is allowed to become warm. Upon failure of the online unit, the standby unit, if in warm state, instantaneously starts operating online; if it is in cold state, an emergency switching is made which takes it to warm state (and hence online) either instantaneously or non-instantaneously--each with some probability; if it is under repair, the system breaks down. Assuming all the associated distributions to be general except that of the life time of the standby unit in the warm state, various reliability characteristics that are of interest to reliability engineers and system designers are derived. A comprehensive cost function is also constructed and is then optimized with respect to three different control parameters numerically. In addition numerical results are presented to illustrate the behaviour of the various reliability characteristics derived

Functional diversity and redundancy across fish gut, sediment and water bacterial communities.

Science.gov (United States)

Escalas, Arthur; Troussellier, Marc; Yuan, Tong; Bouvier, Thierry; Bouvier, Corinne; Mouchet, Maud A; Flores Hernandez, Domingo; Ramos Miranda, Julia; Zhou, Jizhong; Mouillot, David

2017-08-01

This article explores the functional diversity and redundancy in a bacterial metacommunity constituted of three habitats (sediment, water column and fish gut) in a coastal lagoon under anthropogenic pressure. Comprehensive functional gene arrays covering a wide range of ecological processes and stress resistance genes to estimate the functional potential of bacterial communities were used. Then, diversity partitioning was used to characterize functional diversity and redundancy within (α), between (β) and across (γ) habitats. It was showed that all local communities exhibit a highly diversified potential for the realization of key ecological processes and resistance to various environmental conditions, supporting the growing evidence that macro-organisms microbiomes harbour a high functional potential and are integral components of functional gene dynamics in aquatic bacterial metacommunities. Several levels of functional redundancy at different scales of the bacterial metacommunity were observed (within local communities, within habitats and at the metacommunity level). The results suggested a high potential for the realization of spatial ecological insurance within this ecosystem, that is, the functional compensation among microorganisms for the realization and maintenance of key ecological processes, within and across habitats. Finally, the role of macro-organisms as dispersal vectors of microbes and their potential influence on marine metacommunity dynamics were discussed. © 2017 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Switching algorithm for maglev train double-modular redundant positioning sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Ning; Long, Zhiqiang; Xue, Song

2012-01-01

High-resolution positioning for maglev trains is implemented by detecting the tooth-slot structure of the long stator installed along the rail, but there are large joint gaps between long stator sections. When a positioning sensor is below a large joint gap, its positioning signal is invalidated, thus double-modular redundant positioning sensors are introduced into the system. This paper studies switching algorithms for these redundant positioning sensors. At first, adaptive prediction is applied to the sensor signals. The prediction errors are used to trigger sensor switching. In order to enhance the reliability of the switching algorithm, wavelet analysis is introduced to suppress measuring disturbances without weakening the signal characteristics reflecting the stator joint gap based on the correlation between the wavelet coefficients of adjacent scales. The time delay characteristics of the method are analyzed to guide the algorithm simplification. Finally, the effectiveness of the simplified switching algorithm is verified through experiments.

Information theory and artificial grammar learning: inferring grammaticality from redundancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Jamieson, Randall K; Nevzorova, Uliana; Lee, Graham; Mewhort, D J K

2016-03-01

In artificial grammar learning experiments, participants study strings of letters constructed using a grammar and then sort novel grammatical test exemplars from novel ungrammatical ones. The ability to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical strings is often taken as evidence that the participants have induced the rules of the grammar. We show that judgements of grammaticality are predicted by the local redundancy of the test strings, not by grammaticality itself. The prediction holds in a transfer test in which test strings involve different letters than the training strings. Local redundancy is usually confounded with grammaticality in stimuli widely used in the literature. The confounding explains why the ability to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical strings has popularized the idea that participants have induced the rules of the grammar, when they have not. We discuss the judgement of grammaticality task in terms of attribute substitution and pattern goodness. When asked to judge grammaticality (an inaccessible attribute), participants answer an easier question about pattern goodness (an accessible attribute).

Switching Algorithm for Maglev Train Double-Modular Redundant Positioning Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Song Xue

2012-08-01

Full Text Available High-resolution positioning for maglev trains is implemented by detecting the tooth-slot structure of the long stator installed along the rail, but there are large joint gaps between long stator sections. When a positioning sensor is below a large joint gap, its positioning signal is invalidated, thus double-modular redundant positioning sensors are introduced into the system. This paper studies switching algorithms for these redundant positioning sensors. At first, adaptive prediction is applied to the sensor signals. The prediction errors are used to trigger sensor switching. In order to enhance the reliability of the switching algorithm, wavelet analysis is introduced to suppress measuring disturbances without weakening the signal characteristics reflecting the stator joint gap based on the correlation between the wavelet coefficients of adjacent scales. The time delay characteristics of the method are analyzed to guide the algorithm simplification. Finally, the effectiveness of the simplified switching algorithm is verified through experiments.

WATER SURFACE RECONSTRUCTION IN AIRBORNE LASER BATHYMETRY FROM REDUNDANT BED OBSERVATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Mandlburger

2017-09-01

Full Text Available In airborne laser bathymetry knowledge of exact water level heights is a precondition for applying run-time and refraction correction of the raw laser beam travel path in the medium water. However, due to specular reflection especially at very smooth water surfaces often no echoes from the water surface itself are recorded (drop outs. In this paper, we first discuss the feasibility of reconstructing the water surface from redundant observations of the water bottom in theory. Furthermore, we provide a first practical approach for solving this problem, suitable for static and locally planar water surfaces. It minimizes the bottom surface deviations of point clouds from individual flight strips after refraction correction. Both theoretical estimations and practical results confirm the potential of the presented method to reconstruct water level heights in dm precision. Achieving good results requires enough morphological details in the scene and that the water bottom topography is captured from different directions.

Development of a dexterous manipulator system with redundant degrees of freedom

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Senoh, M.; Suzuki, M.; Tsuchita, K.; Kamimura, H.; Fujii, M.; Otsu, M.

1987-01-01

To keep plant availability as high as possible, more flexible and higher performance robots are desirable. At the same time, lower radiation exposures to operating personnel can be achieved by employing more sophisticated robotic systems. A new maintenance system has been proposed to realize consecutive disassembling and inspecting tasks by a robotic approach. The maintenance system includes three subsystems: a subsystem for the minor disassembling operations in the field; a transportation subsystem, which carries disassembled machines or components from the place where they were installed to a maintenance shop; and a subsystem for consecutive disassembling and grooming operations. Of these three subsystems, the maintenance robot for the first is the most challenging, and much development work is needed in the area of maneuverability in narrow spaces and obstacle avoidance ability. A master/slave-type manipulator with redundant degrees of freedom, mounted on a vehicle that travels along a spatially located railway, has been developed

Estimation of component redundancy in optimal age maintenance

OpenAIRE

Siopa, Jorge; Garção, José; Silva, Júlio

2012-01-01

The classical Optimal Age-Replacement defines the maintenance strategy based on the equipment failure consequences. For severe consequences an early equipment replacement is recommended. For minor consequences the repair after failure is proposed. One way of reducing the failure consequences is the use of redundancies, especially if the equipment failure rate is decreasing over time, since in this case the preventive replacement does not reduce the risk of failure. The estimation of an ac...

Designing Broadband Access Networks with Triple Redundancy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Jens Myrup; Riaz, Muhammad Tahir; Knudsen, Thomas Phillip

2005-01-01

An architecture is proposed for designing broadband access networks, which offer triple redundancy to the end users, resulting in networks providing connectivity even in case of any two independent node or line failures. Two physically independent connections are offered by fiber, and the last...... provided by some wireless solution. Based on experience with planning Fiber To The Home, the architecture is designed to meet a number of demands, making it practicable and useful in realworld network planning. The proposed wired topology is planar, and suitable for being fitted onto the road network...

Construct redundancy within the Five-Factor Model as measured by the NEO PI-R: Implications for emotional intelligence and incremental coherence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

GILLES E. GIGNAC

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Self-report measures of emotional intelligence (EI have been criticized for not being associated with unique validity, independently of comprehensive measures of personality such as the NEO PI-R. In this investigation, the issue of unique validity was re-directed at personality as measured by the facets of the NEO PI-R. Specifically, based on three samples, the personality facet of Depression within the NEO PI-R was found to be so substantially predicted by ten other NEO PI-R facets as to suggest construct redundancy within the NEO PI-R (i.e., R = .93, R = .99, R = .96. Because mixed-models of EI tend to be associated with clearer construct boundaries than personality, it is suggested that EI may be associated with some scientific utility (i.e., ‘incremental coherence’, even in the total absence of any empirically demonstrable unique validity.

Inhibition and Language Pragmatic View in Redundant Data Problem Solving

Science.gov (United States)

Setti, Annalisa; Caramelli, Nicoletta

2007-01-01

The present study concerns redundant data problems, defined as problems in which irrelevant data is provided. This type of problem provides a misleading context [Pascual-Leone, J. (1987). Organismic process for neo-Piagetian theories: A dialectical causal account of cognitive development. "International Journal of Psychology," 22, 531-570] similar…

Integrating desalination to reservoir operation to increase redundancy for more secure water supply

Science.gov (United States)

Bhushan, Rashi; Ng, Tze Ling

2016-08-01

We investigate the potential of integrating desalination to existing reservoir systems to mitigate supply uncertainty. Desalinated seawater and wastewater are relatively reliable but expensive. Water from natural resources like reservoirs is generally cheaper but climate sensitive. We propose combining the operation of a reservoir and seawater and wastewater desalination plants for an overall system that is less vulnerable to scarcity and uncertainty, while constraining total cost. The joint system is modeled as a multiobjective optimization problem with the double objectives of minimizing risk and vulnerability, subject to a minimum limit on resilience. The joint model is applied to two cases, one based on the climate and demands of a location in India and the other of a location in California. The results for the Indian case indicate that it is possible for the joint system to reduce risk and vulnerability to zero given a budget increase of 20-120% under current climate conditions and 30-150% under projected future conditions. For the Californian case, this would require budget increases of 20-80% and 30-140% under current and future conditions, respectively. Further, our analysis shows a two-way interaction between the reservoir and desalination plants where the optimal operation of the former is just as much affected by the latter as the latter by the former. This highlights the importance of an integrated management approach. This study contributes to a greater quantitative understanding of desalination as a redundancy measure for adapting water supply infrastructures for a future of greater scarcity and uncertainty.

State-space Generalized Predicitve Control for redundant parallel robots

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Belda, Květoslav; Böhm, Josef; Valášek, M.

2003-01-01

Roč. 31, č. 3 (2003), s. 413-432 ISSN 1539-7734 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA101/03/0620 Grant - others:CTU(CZ) 0204512 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z1075907 Keywords : parallel robot construction * generalized predictive control * drive redundancy Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory http://library.utia.cas.cz/separaty/historie/belda-0411126.pdf

Redundant and physical black hole parameters: Is there an independent physical dilaton charge?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Hajian

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Black holes as solutions to gravity theories, are generically identified by a set of parameters. Some of these parameters are associated with black hole physical conserved charges, like ADM charges. There can also be some “redundant parameters.” We propose necessary conditions for a parameter to be physical. The conditions are essentially integrability and non-triviality of the charge variations arising from “parametric variations,” variation of the solution with respect to the chosen parameters. In addition, we prove that variation of the redundant parameters which do not meet our criteria do not appear in the first law of thermodynamics. As an interesting application, we show that dilaton moduli are redundant parameters for black hole solutions to Einstein–Maxwell–(Axion–Dilaton theories, because variations in dilaton moduli would render entropy, mass, electric charges or angular momenta non-integrable. Our results are in contrast with modification of the first law due to scalar charges suggested in Gibbons–Kallosh–Kol paper [1] and its follow-ups. We also briefly discuss implications of our results for the attractor behavior of extremal black holes.

Method and apparatus for in-system redundant array repair on integrated circuits

Science.gov (United States)

Bright, Arthur A.; Crumley, Paul G.; Dombrowa, Marc B.; Douskey, Steven M.; Haring, Rudolf A.; Oakland, Steven F.; Ouellette, Michael R.; Strissel, Scott A.

2007-12-18

Disclosed is a method of repairing an integrated circuit of the type comprising of a multitude of memory arrays and a fuse box holding control data for controlling redundancy logic of the arrays. The method comprises the steps of providing the integrated circuit with a control data selector for passing the control data from the fuse box to the memory arrays; providing a source of alternate control data, external of the integrated circuit; and connecting the source of alternate control data to the control data selector. The method comprises the further step of, at a given time, passing the alternate control data from the source thereof, through the control data selector and to the memory arrays to control the redundancy logic of the memory arrays.

Links between N-modular redundancy and the theory of error-correcting codes

Science.gov (United States)

Bobin, V.; Whitaker, S.; Maki, G.

1992-01-01

N-Modular Redundancy (NMR) is one of the best known fault tolerance techniques. Replication of a module to achieve fault tolerance is in some ways analogous to the use of a repetition code where an information symbol is replicated as parity symbols in a codeword. Linear Error-Correcting Codes (ECC) use linear combinations of information symbols as parity symbols which are used to generate syndromes for error patterns. These observations indicate links between the theory of ECC and the use of hardware redundancy for fault tolerance. In this paper, we explore some of these links and show examples of NMR systems where identification of good and failed elements is accomplished in a manner similar to error correction using linear ECC's.

Method and apparatus for in-system redundant array repair on integrated circuits

Science.gov (United States)

Bright, Arthur A [Croton-on-Hudson, NY; Crumley, Paul G [Yorktown Heights, NY; Dombrowa, Marc B [Bronx, NY; Douskey, Steven M [Rochester, MN; Haring, Rudolf A [Cortlandt Manor, NY; Oakland, Steven F [Colchester, VT; Ouellette, Michael R [Westford, VT; Strissel, Scott A [Byron, MN

2008-07-29

Disclosed is a method of repairing an integrated circuit of the type comprising of a multitude of memory arrays and a fuse box holding control data for controlling redundancy logic of the arrays. The method comprises the steps of providing the integrated circuit with a control data selector for passing the control data from the fuse box to the memory arrays; providing a source of alternate control data, external of the integrated circuit; and connecting the source of alternate control data to the control data selector. The method comprises the further step of, at a given time, passing the alternate control data from the source thereof, through the control data selector and to the memory arrays to control the redundancy logic of the memory arrays.

Fuzzy Mutual Information Based min-Redundancy and Max-Relevance Heterogeneous Feature Selection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daren Yu

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Feature selection is an important preprocessing step in pattern classification and machine learning, and mutual information is widely used to measure relevance between features and decision. However, it is difficult to directly calculate relevance between continuous or fuzzy features using mutual information. In this paper we introduce the fuzzy information entropy and fuzzy mutual information for computing relevance between numerical or fuzzy features and decision. The relationship between fuzzy information entropy and differential entropy is also discussed. Moreover, we combine fuzzy mutual information with qmin-Redundancy-Max-Relevanceq, qMax-Dependencyq and min-Redundancy-Max-Dependencyq algorithms. The performance and stability of the proposed algorithms are tested on benchmark data sets. Experimental results show the proposed algorithms are effective and stable.

Statistical Redundancy Testing for Improved Gene Selection in Cancer Classification Using Microarray Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Sunil Rao

2007-01-01

Full Text Available In gene selection for cancer classifi cation using microarray data, we define an eigenvalue-ratio statistic to measure a gene’s contribution to the joint discriminability when this gene is included into a set of genes. Based on this eigenvalueratio statistic, we define a novel hypothesis testing for gene statistical redundancy and propose two gene selection methods. Simulation studies illustrate the agreement between statistical redundancy testing and gene selection methods. Real data examples show the proposed gene selection methods can select a compact gene subset which can not only be used to build high quality cancer classifiers but also show biological relevance.

Redundancy Effect on Retention of Vocabulary Words Using Multimedia Presentation

Science.gov (United States)

Samur, Yavuz

2012-01-01

This study was designed to examine the effect of the redundancy principle in a multimedia presentation constructed for foreign language vocabulary learning on undergraduate students' retention. The underlying hypothesis of this study is that when the students are exposed to the material in multiple ways through animation, concurrent narration,…

Systematic Luby Transform codes as incremental redundancy scheme

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Grobler, TL

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Transform Codes as Incremental Redundancy Scheme T. L. Grobler y, E. R. Ackermann y, J. C. Olivier y and A. J. van Zylz Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa Email: trienkog...@gmail.com, etienne.ackermann@ieee.org yDefence, Peace, Safety and Security (DPSS) Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Pretoria 0001, South Africa zDepartment of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South...

Capillary response to skeletal muscle contraction: evidence that redundancy between vasodilators is physiologically relevant during active hyperaemia.

Science.gov (United States)

Lamb, Iain R; Novielli, Nicole M; Murrant, Coral L

2018-04-15

The current theory behind matching blood flow to metabolic demand of skeletal muscle suggests redundant interactions between metabolic vasodilators. Capillaries play an important role in blood flow control given their ability to respond to muscle contraction by causing conducted vasodilatation in upstream arterioles that control their perfusion. We sought to determine whether redundancies occur between vasodilators at the level of the capillary by stimulating the capillaries with muscle contraction and vasodilators relevant to muscle contraction. We identified redundancies between potassium and both adenosine and nitric oxide, between nitric oxide and potassium, and between adenosine and both potassium and nitric oxide. During muscle contraction, we demonstrate redundancies between potassium and nitric oxide as well as between potassium and adenosine. Our data show that redundancy is physiologically relevant and involved in the coordination of the vasodilator response during muscle contraction at the level of the capillaries. We sought to determine if redundancy between vasodilators is physiologically relevant during active hyperaemia. As inhibitory interactions between vasodilators are indicative of redundancy, we tested whether vasodilators implicated in mediating active hyperaemia (potassium (K + ), adenosine (ADO) and nitric oxide (NO)) inhibit one another's vasodilatory effects through direct application of pharmacological agents and during muscle contraction. Using the hamster cremaster muscle and intravital microscopy, we locally stimulated capillaries with one vasodilator in the absence and the presence of a second vasodilator (10 -7 m S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP), 10 -7 m ADO, 10 mm KCl) applied sequentially and simultaneously, and observed the response in the associated upstream 4A arteriole controlling the perfusion of the stimulated capillary. We found that KCl significantly attenuated SNAP- and ADO-induced vasodilatations by ∼49.7% and �

Low functional richness and redundancy of a predator assemblage in native forest fragments of Chiloe island, Chile.

Science.gov (United States)

Farias, Ariel A; Jaksic, Fabian M

2011-07-01

1. Changes in land use and habitat fragmentation are major drivers of global change, and studying their effects on biodiversity constitutes a major research programme. However, biodiversity is a multifaceted concept, with a functional component linking species richness to ecosystem function. Currently, the interaction between functional and taxonomic components of biodiversity under realistic scenarios of habitat degradation is poorly understood. 2. The expected functional richness (FR)-species richness relationship (FRSR) is positive, and attenuated for functional redundancy in species-rich assemblages. Further, environmental filters are expected to flatten that association by sorting species with similar traits. Thus, analysing FRSR can inform about the response of biodiversity to environmental gradients and habitat fragmentation, and its expected functional consequences. 3. Top predators affect ecosystem functioning through prey consumption and are particularly vulnerable to changes in land use and habitat fragmentation, being good indicators of ecosystem health and suitable models for assessing the effects of habitat fragmentation on their FR. 4. Thus, this study analyses the functional redundancy of a vertebrate predator assemblage at temperate forest fragments in a rural landscape of Chiloe island (Chile), testing the existence of environmental filters by contrasting an empirically derived FRSR against those predicted from null models, and testing the association between biodiversity components and the structure of forest fragments. 5. Overall, contrasts against null models indicate that regional factors determine low levels of FR and redundancy for the vertebrate predator assemblage studied, while recorded linear FRSR indicates proportional responses of the two biodiversity components to the structure of forest fragments. Further, most species were positively associated with either fragment size or shape complexity, which are highly correlated. This, and the

Global Patterns in Ecological Indicators of Marine Food Webs: A Modelling Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Heymans, Johanna Jacomina; Coll, Marta; Libralato, Simone; Morissette, Lyne; Christensen, Villy

2014-01-01

Background Ecological attributes estimated from food web models have the potential to be indicators of good environmental status given their capabilities to describe redundancy, food web changes, and sensitivity to fishing. They can be used as a baseline to show how they might be modified in the future with human impacts such as climate change, acidification, eutrophication, or overfishing. Methodology In this study ecological network analysis indicators of 105 marine food web models were tested for variation with traits such as ecosystem type, latitude, ocean basin, depth, size, time period, and exploitation state, whilst also considering structural properties of the models such as number of linkages, number of living functional groups or total number of functional groups as covariate factors. Principal findings Eight indicators were robust to model construction: relative ascendency; relative overhead; redundancy; total systems throughput (TST); primary production/TST; consumption/TST; export/TST; and total biomass of the community. Large-scale differences were seen in the ecosystems of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with the Western Atlantic being more complex with an increased ability to mitigate impacts, while the Eastern Atlantic showed lower internal complexity. In addition, the Eastern Pacific was less organised than the Eastern Atlantic although both of these systems had increased primary production as eastern boundary current systems. Differences by ecosystem type highlighted coral reefs as having the largest energy flow and total biomass per unit of surface, while lagoons, estuaries, and bays had lower transfer efficiencies and higher recycling. These differences prevailed over time, although some traits changed with fishing intensity. Keystone groups were mainly higher trophic level species with mostly top-down effects, while structural/dominant groups were mainly lower trophic level groups (benthic primary producers such as seagrass and macroalgae

Global patterns in ecological indicators of marine food webs: a modelling approach.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Johanna Jacomina Heymans

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Ecological attributes estimated from food web models have the potential to be indicators of good environmental status given their capabilities to describe redundancy, food web changes, and sensitivity to fishing. They can be used as a baseline to show how they might be modified in the future with human impacts such as climate change, acidification, eutrophication, or overfishing. METHODOLOGY: In this study ecological network analysis indicators of 105 marine food web models were tested for variation with traits such as ecosystem type, latitude, ocean basin, depth, size, time period, and exploitation state, whilst also considering structural properties of the models such as number of linkages, number of living functional groups or total number of functional groups as covariate factors. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Eight indicators were robust to model construction: relative ascendency; relative overhead; redundancy; total systems throughput (TST; primary production/TST; consumption/TST; export/TST; and total biomass of the community. Large-scale differences were seen in the ecosystems of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with the Western Atlantic being more complex with an increased ability to mitigate impacts, while the Eastern Atlantic showed lower internal complexity. In addition, the Eastern Pacific was less organised than the Eastern Atlantic although both of these systems had increased primary production as eastern boundary current systems. Differences by ecosystem type highlighted coral reefs as having the largest energy flow and total biomass per unit of surface, while lagoons, estuaries, and bays had lower transfer efficiencies and higher recycling. These differences prevailed over time, although some traits changed with fishing intensity. Keystone groups were mainly higher trophic level species with mostly top-down effects, while structural/dominant groups were mainly lower trophic level groups (benthic primary producers such as

Fault diagnostics for turbo-shaft engine sensors based on a simplified on-board model.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Feng; Huang, Jinquan; Xing, Yaodong

2012-01-01

Combining a simplified on-board turbo-shaft model with sensor fault diagnostic logic, a model-based sensor fault diagnosis method is proposed. The existing fault diagnosis method for turbo-shaft engine key sensors is mainly based on a double redundancies technique, and this can't be satisfied in some occasions as lack of judgment. The simplified on-board model provides the analytical third channel against which the dual channel measurements are compared, while the hardware redundancy will increase the structure complexity and weight. The simplified turbo-shaft model contains the gas generator model and the power turbine model with loads, this is built up via dynamic parameters method. Sensor fault detection, diagnosis (FDD) logic is designed, and two types of sensor failures, such as the step faults and the drift faults, are simulated. When the discrepancy among the triplex channels exceeds a tolerance level, the fault diagnosis logic determines the cause of the difference. Through this approach, the sensor fault diagnosis system achieves the objectives of anomaly detection, sensor fault diagnosis and redundancy recovery. Finally, experiments on this method are carried out on a turbo-shaft engine, and two types of faults under different channel combinations are presented. The experimental results show that the proposed method for sensor fault diagnostics is efficient.

Fault Diagnostics for Turbo-Shaft Engine Sensors Based on a Simplified On-Board Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaodong Xing

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Combining a simplified on-board turbo-shaft model with sensor fault diagnostic logic, a model-based sensor fault diagnosis method is proposed. The existing fault diagnosis method for turbo-shaft engine key sensors is mainly based on a double redundancies technique, and this can’t be satisfied in some occasions as lack of judgment. The simplified on-board model provides the analytical third channel against which the dual channel measurements are compared, while the hardware redundancy will increase the structure complexity and weight. The simplified turbo-shaft model contains the gas generator model and the power turbine model with loads, this is built up via dynamic parameters method. Sensor fault detection, diagnosis (FDD logic is designed, and two types of sensor failures, such as the step faults and the drift faults, are simulated. When the discrepancy among the triplex channels exceeds a tolerance level, the fault diagnosis logic determines the cause of the difference. Through this approach, the sensor fault diagnosis system achieves the objectives of anomaly detection, sensor fault diagnosis and redundancy recovery. Finally, experiments on this method are carried out on a turbo-shaft engine, and two types of faults under different channel combinations are presented. The experimental results show that the proposed method for sensor fault diagnostics is efficient.

Revisions to Conventional Clock Domain Crossing Methodologies in Triple Modular Redundant Circuits

Science.gov (United States)

Berg, Melanie D.; LaBel, Kenneth A.

2018-01-01

We present updates to the conventional methodology of triple modular redundancy (TMR) insertion as it pertains to clock domain crossings (CDCs). Three types of TMR schemes and their suggested corresponding CDC revisions are discussed.

Auto-Calibration and Fault Detection and Isolation of Skewed Redundant Accelerometers in Measurement While Drilling Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Seyed Moosavi, Seyed Mohsen; Moaveni, Bijan; Moshiri, Behzad; Arvan, Mohammad Reza

2018-02-27

The present study designed skewed redundant accelerometers for a Measurement While Drilling (MWD) tool and executed auto-calibration, fault diagnosis and isolation of accelerometers in this tool. The optimal structure includes four accelerometers was selected and designed precisely in accordance with the physical shape of the existing MWD tool. A new four-accelerometer structure was designed, implemented and installed on the current system, replacing the conventional orthogonal structure. Auto-calibration operation of skewed redundant accelerometers and all combinations of three accelerometers have been done. Consequently, biases, scale factors, and misalignment factors of accelerometers have been successfully estimated. By defecting the sensors in the new optimal skewed redundant structure, the fault was detected using the proposed FDI method and the faulty sensor was diagnosed and isolated. The results indicate that the system can continue to operate with at least three correct sensors.

A tutorial on testing the race model inequality

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gondan, Matthias; Minakata, Katsumi

2016-01-01

, to faster responses to redundant signals. In contrast, coactivation models assume integrated processing of the combined stimuli. To distinguish between these two accounts, Miller (1982) derived the well-known race model inequality, which has become a routine test for behavioral data in experiments...... with redundant signals. In this tutorial, we review the basic properties of redundant signals experiments and current statistical procedures used to test the race model inequality during the period between 2011 and 2014. We highlight and discuss several issues concerning study design and the test of the race...... model inequality, such as inappropriate control of Type I error, insufficient statistical power, wrong treatment of omitted responses or anticipations and the interpretation of violations of the race model inequality. We make detailed recommendations on the design of redundant signals experiments...

Fault tolerance in protein interaction networks: stable bipartite subgraphs and redundant pathways.

Science.gov (United States)

Brady, Arthur; Maxwell, Kyle; Daniels, Noah; Cowen, Lenore J

2009-01-01

As increasing amounts of high-throughput data for the yeast interactome become available, more system-wide properties are uncovered. One interesting question concerns the fault tolerance of protein interaction networks: whether there exist alternative pathways that can perform some required function if a gene essential to the main mechanism is defective, absent or suppressed. A signature pattern for redundant pathways is the BPM (between-pathway model) motif, introduced by Kelley and Ideker. Past methods proposed to search the yeast interactome for BPM motifs have had several important limitations. First, they have been driven heuristically by local greedy searches, which can lead to the inclusion of extra genes that may not belong in the motif; second, they have been validated solely by functional coherence of the putative pathways using GO enrichment, making it difficult to evaluate putative BPMs in the absence of already known biological annotation. We introduce stable bipartite subgraphs, and show they form a clean and efficient way of generating meaningful BPMs which naturally discard extra genes included by local greedy methods. We show by GO enrichment measures that our BPM set outperforms previous work, covering more known complexes and functional pathways. Perhaps most importantly, since our BPMs are initially generated by examining the genetic-interaction network only, the location of edges in the protein-protein physical interaction network can then be used to statistically validate each candidate BPM, even with sparse GO annotation (or none at all). We uncover some interesting biological examples of previously unknown putative redundant pathways in such areas as vesicle-mediated transport and DNA repair.

A new way to improve the robustness of complex communication networks by allocating redundancy links

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shi Chunhui; Zhuo Yue; Tang Jieying; Long Keping; Peng Yunfeng

2012-01-01

We investigate the robustness of complex communication networks on allocating redundancy links. The protecting key nodes (PKN) strategy is proposed to improve the robustness of complex communication networks against intentional attack. Our numerical simulations show that allocating a few redundant links among key nodes using the PKN strategy will significantly increase the robustness of scale-free complex networks. We have also theoretically proved and demonstrated the effectiveness of the PKN strategy. We expect that our work will help achieve a better understanding of communication networks. (paper)

Non-iterative geometric approach for inverse kinematics of redundant lead-module in a radiosurgical snake-like robot.

Science.gov (United States)

Omisore, Olatunji Mumini; Han, Shipeng; Ren, Lingxue; Zhang, Nannan; Ivanov, Kamen; Elazab, Ahmed; Wang, Lei

2017-08-01

Snake-like robot is an emerging form of serial-link manipulator with the morphologic design of biological snakes. The redundant robot can be used to assist medical experts in accessing internal organs with minimal or no invasion. Several snake-like robotic designs have been proposed for minimal invasive surgery, however, the few that were developed are yet to be fully explored for clinical procedures. This is due to lack of capability for full-fledged spatial navigation. In rare cases where such snake-like designs are spatially flexible, there exists no inverse kinematics (IK) solution with both precise control and fast response. In this study, we proposed a non-iterative geometric method for solving IK of lead-module of a snake-like robot designed for therapy or ablation of abdominal tumors. The proposed method is aimed at providing accurate and fast IK solution for given target points in the robot's workspace. n-1 virtual points (VPs) were geometrically computed and set as coordinates of intermediary joints in an n-link module. Suitable joint angles that can place the end-effector at given target points were then computed by vectorizing coordinates of the VPs, in addition to coordinates of the base point, target point, and tip of the first link in its default pose. The proposed method is applied to solve IK of two-link and redundant four-link modules. Both two-link and four-link modules were simulated with Robotics Toolbox in Matlab 8.3 (R2014a). Implementation result shows that the proposed method can solve IK of the spatially flexible robot with minimal error values. Furthermore, analyses of results from both modules show that the geometric method can reach 99.21 and 88.61% of points in their workspaces, respectively, with an error threshold of 1 mm. The proposed method is non-iterative and has a maximum execution time of 0.009 s. This paper focuses on solving IK problem of a spatially flexible robot which is part of a developmental project for abdominal

A Realization Approach for Residual Expressions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skovmose Kallesøe, Carsten; Izadi-Zamanabadi, Roozbeh; Wisniewski, Rafal

2006-01-01

This paper is concerned with state space realization of inherent redundant information in subsystems, which are identified by structural analysis (SA) approach. The identified subsystems are assumed to involve algebraic variables, representing unknown signals. The proposed realization method...

The rise and fall of redundancy in decoherence and quantum Darwinism

Science.gov (United States)

Jess Riedel, C.; Zurek, Wojciech H.; Zwolak, Michael

2012-08-01

A state selected at random from the Hilbert space of a many-body system is overwhelmingly likely to exhibit highly non-classical correlations. For these typical states, half of the environment must be measured by an observer to determine the state of a given subsystem. The objectivity of classical reality—the fact that multiple observers can agree on the state of a subsystem after measuring just a small fraction of its environment—implies that the correlations found in nature between macroscopic systems and their environments are exceptional. Building on previous studies of quantum Darwinism showing that highly redundant branching states are produced ubiquitously during pure decoherence, we examine the conditions needed for the creation of branching states and study their demise through many-body interactions. We show that even constrained dynamics can suppress redundancy to the values typical of random states on relaxation timescales, and prove that these results hold exactly in the thermodynamic limit.

A design approach for ultrareliable real-time systems

Science.gov (United States)

Lala, Jaynarayan H.; Harper, Richard E.; Alger, Linda S.

1991-01-01

A design approach developed over the past few years to formalize redundancy management and validation is described. Redundant elements are partitioned into individual fault-containment regions (FCRs). An FCR is a collection of components that operates correctly regardless of any arbitrary logical or electrical fault outside the region. Conversely, a fault in an FCR cannot cause hardware outside the region to fail. The outputs of all channels are required to agree bit-for-bit under no-fault conditions (exact bitwise consensus). Synchronization, input agreement, and input validity conditions are discussed. The Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS), which is a fault-tolerant distributed architecture based on this approach, is described. A brief overview of recent applications of these systems and current research is presented.

Effect of a certain class of potential common mode failures on the reliability of redundant systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Apostolakis, G.E.

1975-11-01

This is a theoretical investigation of the importance of common mode failures on the reliability of redundant systems. These failures are assumed to be the result of fatal shocks (e.g., from earthquakes, explosions, etc.) which occur at a constant rate. This formulation makes it possible to predict analytically results obtained in the past which showed that the probability of a common mode failure of the redundant channels of the protection system of a typical nuclear power plant was orders of magnitude larger than the probability of failure from chance failures alone. Furthermore, since most reliability analyses of redundant systems do not include potential common mode failures in the probabilistic calculations, criteria are established which can be used to decide either that the common-mode-failure effects are indeed insignificant or that such calculations are meaningless, and more sophisticated methods of analysis are required, because common mode failures cannot be ignored

Auto-Calibration and Fault Detection and Isolation of Skewed Redundant Accelerometers in Measurement While Drilling Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seyed Mohsen Seyed Moosavi

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The present study designed skewed redundant accelerometers for a Measurement While Drilling (MWD tool and executed auto-calibration, fault diagnosis and isolation of accelerometers in this tool. The optimal structure includes four accelerometers was selected and designed precisely in accordance with the physical shape of the existing MWD tool. A new four-accelerometer structure was designed, implemented and installed on the current system, replacing the conventional orthogonal structure. Auto-calibration operation of skewed redundant accelerometers and all combinations of three accelerometers have been done. Consequently, biases, scale factors, and misalignment factors of accelerometers have been successfully estimated. By defecting the sensors in the new optimal skewed redundant structure, the fault was detected using the proposed FDI method and the faulty sensor was diagnosed and isolated. The results indicate that the system can continue to operate with at least three correct sensors.

The development of radiation hardened tele-robot system - Development of path-planning and control technology for tele-operated redundant manipulator

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chang, Pyung Hun; Park, Ki Cheol; Park, Suk Ho [Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Taejon (Korea)

1999-04-01

This project focuses on the development of the control system for a teleoperated redundant manipulator, which performs many tasks dexterously, while avoiding obstacles, instead of human workers in the extreme situations like nuclear power plants. To this end, four consecutive research works have been performed. First, two new methods for global path-planning have been developed to inspect the global behavior of the redundant manipulator. Second, characteristics of optimal solutions(COS) under inequality constraints have been analyzed and, using the COS, how to greatly enhance the conventional redundancy resolution methods in terms of performance and repeatability has also been proposed. Third, an effective control method for a redundant manipulator has been developed, which incorporates all kinds of physical limits into practical inequality constraints and is computationally efficient for real-time purposes. Finally, using this control method as the controller of the slave redundant manipulator and developing a master manipulator, the inertial torque and gravitation torque of which are negligible, a force-reflected teleoperation control system has been developed. Through the teleoperation control system, human operator can accurately control the position and the force of the end-effector of the slave manipulator while feeling the interaction force between the slave and the workpiece. In addition, the slave redundant manipulator autonomously can control the impedance and can optimize a given performance measure while avoiding physical limits such as joint angle limits and obstacles. 49 refs., 43 figs., 10 tabs. (Author)

Effects of redundancy in the comparison of speech and pictorial displays in the cockpit environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Byblow, W D

1990-06-01

Synthesised speech and pictorial displays were compared in a spatially compatible simulated cockpit environment. Messages of high or low levels of redundancy were presented to subjects in both modality conditions. Subjects responded to warnings presented in a warning-only condition and in a dual-task condition, in which a simulated flight task was performed with visual and manual input/output modalities. Because the amount of information presented in most real-world applications and experimental paradigms is quantifiably large with respect to present guidelines for the use of synthesised speech warnings, the low-redundancy condition was hypothesised to allow for better performance. Results showed that subjects respond quicker to messages of low redundancy in both modalities. It is suggested that speech messages with low-redundancy levels were effective in minimising message length and ensuring that messages did not overload the short-term memory required to process and maintain speech in memory. Manipulation of phrase structure was used to optimise message redundancy and enhance the conceptual compatibility of the message without increasing message length or imposing a perceptual cost or memory overload. The results also suggest that system response times were quicker when synthesised speech warnings were used. This result is consistent with predictions from multiple resource theory which states that the resources required for the perception of verbal warnings are different from those for the flight task. It is also suggested that the perception of a pictorial display requires the same resources used for the perception of the primary flight task. An alternative explanation is that pictorial displays impose a visual scanning cost which is responsible for decreased performance. Based on the findings reported here, it is suggested that speech displays be incorporated in a spatially compatible cockpit environment because they allow equal or better performance when

An examination of cue redundancy theory in cross-cultural decoding of emotions in music.

Science.gov (United States)

Kwoun, Soo-Jin

2009-01-01

The present study investigated the effects of structural features of music (i.e., variations in tempo, loudness, or articulation, etc.) and cultural and learning factors in the assignments of emotional meaning in music. Four participant groups, young Koreans, young Americans, older Koreans, and older Americans, rated emotional expressions of Korean folksongs with three adjective scales: happiness, sadness and anger. The results of the study are in accordance with the Cue Redundancy model of emotional perception in music, indicating that expressive music embodies both universal auditory cues that communicate the emotional meanings of music across cultures and cultural specific cues that result from cultural convention.

Applied stochastic modelling

CERN Document Server

Morgan, Byron JT; Tanner, Martin Abba; Carlin, Bradley P

2008-01-01

Introduction and Examples Introduction Examples of data sets Basic Model Fitting Introduction Maximum-likelihood estimation for a geometric model Maximum-likelihood for the beta-geometric model Modelling polyspermy Which model? What is a model for? Mechanistic models Function Optimisation Introduction MATLAB: graphs and finite differences Deterministic search methods Stochastic search methods Accuracy and a hybrid approach Basic Likelihood ToolsIntroduction Estimating standard errors and correlations Looking at surfaces: profile log-likelihoods Confidence regions from profiles Hypothesis testing in model selectionScore and Wald tests Classical goodness of fit Model selection biasGeneral Principles Introduction Parameterisation Parameter redundancy Boundary estimates Regression and influence The EM algorithm Alternative methods of model fitting Non-regular problemsSimulation Techniques Introduction Simulating random variables Integral estimation Verification Monte Carlo inference Estimating sampling distributi...

USING COPULAS TO MODEL DEPENDENCE IN SIMULATION RISK ASSESSMENT

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dana L. Kelly

2007-11-01

Typical engineering systems in applications with high failure consequences such as nuclear reactor plants often employ redundancy and diversity of equipment in an effort to lower the probability of failure and therefore risk. However, it has long been recognized that dependencies exist in these redundant and diverse systems. Some dependencies, such as common sources of electrical power, are typically captured in the logic structure of the risk model. Others, usually referred to as intercomponent dependencies, are treated implicitly by introducing one or more statistical parameters into the model. Such common-cause failure models have limitations in a simulation environment. In addition, substantial subjectivity is associated with parameter estimation for these models. This paper describes an approach in which system performance is simulated by drawing samples from the joint distributions of dependent variables. The approach relies on the notion of a copula distribution, a notion which has been employed by the actuarial community for ten years or more, but which has seen only limited application in technological risk assessment. The paper also illustrates how equipment failure data can be used in a Bayesian framework to estimate the parameter values in the copula model. This approach avoids much of the subjectivity required to estimate parameters in traditional common-cause failure models. Simulation examples are presented for failures in time. The open-source software package R is used to perform the simulations. The open-source software package WinBUGS is used to perform the Bayesian inference via Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling.

The common mode failures analysis of the redundent system with dependent human error

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, M.K.; Chang, S.H.

1983-01-01

Common mode failures (CMFs) have been a serious concern in the nuclear power plant. Thereis a broad category of the failure mechanisms that can cause common mode failures. This paper is a theoretical investigation of the CMFs on the unavailability of the redundent system. It is assumed that the total CMFs consist of the potential CMFs and the dependent human error CMFs. As the human error dependency is higher, the total CMFs are more effected by the dependent human error. If the human error dependence is lower, the system unavailability strongly depends on the potential CMFs, rather than the mechanical failure or the dependent human error. And it is shown that the total CMFs are dominant factor to the unavailability of the redundent system. (Author)

The conservation of redundancy in genetic systems: effects of sexual ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Unknown

probability of a fatal error is reduced by a redundant sampling system, but the chance of error rises as the sys- .... Thus every function is covered three times and every component covers a ... ples reduce the variance of the distributions in figure 3a and thereby ..... cases p = 0⋅1, q = 1000 and the value of b is adjusted to.

A LDA-based approach to promoting ranking diversity for genomics information retrieval.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yan; Yin, Xiaoshi; Li, Zhoujun; Hu, Xiaohua; Huang, Jimmy Xiangji

2012-06-11

In the biomedical domain, there are immense data and tremendous increase of genomics and biomedical relevant publications. The wealth of information has led to an increasing amount of interest in and need for applying information retrieval techniques to access the scientific literature in genomics and related biomedical disciplines. In many cases, the desired information of a query asked by biologists is a list of a certain type of entities covering different aspects that are related to the question, such as cells, genes, diseases, proteins, mutations, etc. Hence, it is important of a biomedical IR system to be able to provide relevant and diverse answers to fulfill biologists' information needs. However traditional IR model only concerns with the relevance between retrieved documents and user query, but does not take redundancy between retrieved documents into account. This will lead to high redundancy and low diversity in the retrieval ranked lists. In this paper, we propose an approach which employs a topic generative model called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to promoting ranking diversity for biomedical information retrieval. Different from other approaches or models which consider aspects on word level, our approach assumes that aspects should be identified by the topics of retrieved documents. We present LDA model to discover topic distribution of retrieval passages and word distribution of each topic dimension, and then re-rank retrieval results with topic distribution similarity between passages based on N-size slide window. We perform our approach on TREC 2007 Genomics collection and two distinctive IR baseline runs, which can achieve 8% improvement over the highest Aspect MAP reported in TREC 2007 Genomics track. The proposed method is the first study of adopting topic model to genomics information retrieval, and demonstrates its effectiveness in promoting ranking diversity as well as in improving relevance of ranked lists of genomics search

Transient Analysis of a k-out-of-n:G System with N-Policy, Repairmen’s Multiple Vacations, and Redundant Dependency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wenqing Wu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes a k-out-of-n:G repairable system with N-policy, repairmen’s multiple synchronous vacations, and redundant dependency. When there is no failed component in the system, the repairmen leave for a vacation, the duration of which follows a phase type distribution. Upon returning from vacation, they should take another vacation if there are less than N failed components waiting in the system. This pattern continues until at least N failed components are waiting. Moreover, the redundant dependency which is a special kind of failure dependency is taken into account in the multicomponent system. Under such assumptions, the availability, the rate of occurrence of failures, and the reliability of the system are derived in transient regime by applying the quasi-birth-and-death process. Furthermore, the Runge-Kutta method is carried out to numerically discuss the time-dependent behavior of the system reliability measures. Finally, a special case of the system is presented to show the validity of our model.

Fault tolerance in protein interaction networks: stable bipartite subgraphs and redundant pathways.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arthur Brady

Full Text Available As increasing amounts of high-throughput data for the yeast interactome become available, more system-wide properties are uncovered. One interesting question concerns the fault tolerance of protein interaction networks: whether there exist alternative pathways that can perform some required function if a gene essential to the main mechanism is defective, absent or suppressed. A signature pattern for redundant pathways is the BPM (between-pathway model motif, introduced by Kelley and Ideker. Past methods proposed to search the yeast interactome for BPM motifs have had several important limitations. First, they have been driven heuristically by local greedy searches, which can lead to the inclusion of extra genes that may not belong in the motif; second, they have been validated solely by functional coherence of the putative pathways using GO enrichment, making it difficult to evaluate putative BPMs in the absence of already known biological annotation. We introduce stable bipartite subgraphs, and show they form a clean and efficient way of generating meaningful BPMs which naturally discard extra genes included by local greedy methods. We show by GO enrichment measures that our BPM set outperforms previous work, covering more known complexes and functional pathways. Perhaps most importantly, since our BPMs are initially generated by examining the genetic-interaction network only, the location of edges in the protein-protein physical interaction network can then be used to statistically validate each candidate BPM, even with sparse GO annotation (or none at all. We uncover some interesting biological examples of previously unknown putative redundant pathways in such areas as vesicle-mediated transport and DNA repair.

Hybrid Analytical and Data-Driven Modeling for Feed-Forward Robot Control.

Science.gov (United States)

Reinhart, René Felix; Shareef, Zeeshan; Steil, Jochen Jakob

2017-02-08

Feed-forward model-based control relies on models of the controlled plant, e.g., in robotics on accurate knowledge of manipulator kinematics or dynamics. However, mechanical and analytical models do not capture all aspects of a plant's intrinsic properties and there remain unmodeled dynamics due to varying parameters, unmodeled friction or soft materials. In this context, machine learning is an alternative suitable technique to extract non-linear plant models from data. However, fully data-based models suffer from inaccuracies as well and are inefficient if they include learning of well known analytical models. This paper thus argues that feed-forward control based on hybrid models comprising an analytical model and a learned error model can significantly improve modeling accuracy. Hybrid modeling here serves the purpose to combine the best of the two modeling worlds. The hybrid modeling methodology is described and the approach is demonstrated for two typical problems in robotics, i.e., inverse kinematics control and computed torque control. The former is performed for a redundant soft robot and the latter for a rigid industrial robot with redundant degrees of freedom, where a complete analytical model is not available for any of the platforms.

Study on the systematic approach of Markov modeling for dependability analysis of complex fault-tolerant features with voting logics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Son, Kwang Seop; Kim, Dong Hoon; Kim, Chang Hwoi; Kang, Hyun Gook

2016-01-01

The Markov analysis is a technique for modeling system state transitions and calculating the probability of reaching various system states. While it is a proper tool for modeling complex system designs involving timing, sequencing, repair, redundancy, and fault tolerance, as the complexity or size of the system increases, so does the number of states of interest, leading to difficulty in constructing and solving the Markov model. This paper introduces a systematic approach of Markov modeling to analyze the dependability of a complex fault-tolerant system. This method is based on the decomposition of the system into independent subsystem sets, and the system-level failure rate and the unavailability rate for the decomposed subsystems. A Markov model for the target system is easily constructed using the system-level failure and unavailability rates for the subsystems, which can be treated separately. This approach can decrease the number of states to consider simultaneously in the target system by building Markov models of the independent subsystems stage by stage, and results in an exact solution for the Markov model of the whole target system. To apply this method we construct a Markov model for the reactor protection system found in nuclear power plants, a system configured with four identical channels and various fault-tolerant architectures. The results show that the proposed method in this study treats the complex architecture of the system in an efficient manner using the merits of the Markov model, such as a time dependent analysis and a sequential process analysis. - Highlights: • Systematic approach of Markov modeling for system dependability analysis is proposed based on the independent subsystem set, its failure rate and unavailability rate. • As an application example, we construct the Markov model for the digital reactor protection system configured with four identical and independent channels, and various fault-tolerant architectures. • The

Hardware for Accelerating N-Modular Redundant Systems for High-Reliability Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Dobbs, Carl, Sr.

2012-01-01

A hardware unit has been designed that reduces the cost, in terms of performance and power consumption, for implementing N-modular redundancy (NMR) in a multiprocessor device. The innovation monitors transactions to memory, and calculates a form of sumcheck on-the-fly, thereby relieving the processors of calculating the sumcheck in software

A Review of Multimedia Learning Principles: Split-Attention, Modality, and Redundancy Effects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pelin YUKSEL ARSLAN

2012-02-01

Full Text Available This study aims to present a literature review on three principles of multimedia learningincluding split attention, modality, and redundancy effects with regard to their contribution to cognitiveload theory. According to cognitive load theory, information should be presented by considering excessiveload on working memory. The first principle states that attending to two distinct sources of informationmay impose a high cognitive load, and this process is referred to as the split-attention effect (Kalyuga,Chandler & Sweller, 1991, 1992. The second principle, Modality effect claims that on-screen text shouldbe presented in an auditory form instead of visually when designing a multimedia environment (Moreno &Mayer, 1999. Using more than one sensory mode augments forceful working memory that producesprogressive effects on learning. The third principle redundancy effect occurs when information presentedrepeatedly interferes with learning. This study provides guidance how to create more effective instructionwith multimedia materials for instructional designers.

Adaptive increase in force variance during fatigue in tasks with low redundancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Tarkeshwar; S K M, Varadhan; Zatsiorsky, Vladimir M; Latash, Mark L

2010-11-26

We tested a hypothesis that fatigue of an element (a finger) leads to an adaptive neural strategy that involves an increase in force variability in the other finger(s) and an increase in co-variation of commands to fingers to keep total force variability relatively unchanged. We tested this hypothesis using a system with small redundancy (two fingers) and a marginally redundant system (with an additional constraint related to the total moment of force produced by the fingers, unstable condition). The subjects performed isometric accurate rhythmic force production tasks by the index (I) finger and two fingers (I and middle, M) pressing together before and after a fatiguing exercise by the I finger. Fatigue led to a large increase in force variance in the I-finger task and a smaller increase in the IM-task. We quantified two components of variance in the space of hypothetical commands to fingers, finger modes. Under both stable and unstable conditions, there was a large increase in the variance component that did not affect total force and a much smaller increase in the component that did. This resulted in an increase in an index of the force-stabilizing synergy. These results indicate that marginal redundancy is sufficient to allow the central nervous system to use adaptive increase in variability to shield important variables from effects of fatigue. We offer an interpretation of these results based on a recent development of the equilibrium-point hypothesis known as the referent configuration hypothesis. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

A new method for explicit modelling of single failure event within different common cause failure groups

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kančev, Duško; Čepin, Marko

2012-01-01

Redundancy and diversity are the main principles of the safety systems in the nuclear industry. Implementation of safety components redundancy has been acknowledged as an effective approach for assuring high levels of system reliability. The existence of redundant components, identical in most of the cases, implicates a probability of their simultaneous failure due to a shared cause—a common cause failure. This paper presents a new method for explicit modelling of single component failure event within multiple common cause failure groups simultaneously. The method is based on a modification of the frequently utilised Beta Factor parametric model. The motivation for development of this method lays in the fact that one of the most widespread softwares for fault tree and event tree modelling as part of the probabilistic safety assessment does not comprise the option for simultaneous assignment of single failure event to multiple common cause failure groups. In that sense, the proposed method can be seen as an advantage of the explicit modelling of common cause failures. A standard standby safety system is selected as a case study for application and study of the proposed methodology. The results and insights implicate improved, more transparent and more comprehensive models within probabilistic safety assessment.

Mature neurons dynamically restrict apoptosis via redundant premitochondrial brakes.

Science.gov (United States)

Annis, Ryan P; Swahari, Vijay; Nakamura, Ayumi; Xie, Alison X; Hammond, Scott M; Deshmukh, Mohanish

2016-12-01

Apoptotic cell death is critical for the early development of the nervous system, but once the nervous system is established, the apoptotic pathway becomes highly restricted in mature neurons. However, the mechanisms underlying this increased resistance to apoptosis in these mature neurons are not completely understood. We have previously found that members of the miR-29 family of microRNAs (miRNAs) are induced with neuronal maturation and that overexpression of miR-29 was sufficient to restrict apoptosis in neurons. To determine whether endogenous miR-29 alone was responsible for the inhibition of cytochrome c release in mature neurons, we examined the status of the apoptotic pathway in sympathetic neurons deficient for all three miR-29 family members. Unexpectedly, we found that the apoptotic pathway remained largely restricted in miR-29-deficient mature neurons. We therefore probed for additional mechanisms by which mature neurons resist apoptosis. We identify miR-24 as another miRNA that is upregulated in the maturing cerebellum and sympathetic neurons that can act redundantly with miR-29 by targeting a similar repertoire of prodeath BH3-only genes. Overall, our results reveal that mature neurons engage multiple redundant brakes to restrict the apoptotic pathway and ensure their long-term survival. © 2016 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.

Comparative efficacy and safety of different circumcisions for patients with redundant prepuce or phimosis: A network meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Chuiguo; Song, Pan; Xu, Changbao; Wang, Ruofan; Wei, Lei; Zhao, Xinghua

2017-07-01

Phimosis and redundant prepuce are defined as the inability of the foreskin to be retracted behind the glans penis in uncircumcised males. To synthesize the evidence and provide the hierarchies of different circumcisions for phimosis and redundant prepuce, we performed an overall network meta-analysis (NMA) based on their comparative efficacy and safety. Electronic databases including PubMed, Embase, Wan Fang, VIP, CNKI and CBM database were researched from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for redundant prepuce or phimosis. We conducted the direct and indirect comparisons by aggregate data drug information system (ADDIS) software. Moreover, consistency models were applied to assess the differences among the male circumcision practices, and the ranks based on probabilities of intervention for the different endpoints were performed. Node-splitting analysis was used to test inconsistency. Eighteen RCTs were included with 6179 participants. Compared with the conventional circumcision(CC), two new styles of circumcisions, the disposable circumcision suture device(DCSD) and Shang Ring circumcision(SRC), provided significantly shorter operation time[DCSD: standardized mean difference (SMD) = -20.60, 95% credible interval(CI) (-23.38, -17.82); SRC: SMD = -19.16, 95%CI (-21.86, -16.52)], shorter wound healing time [DCSD:SMD = -4.19, 95%CI (-8.24,-0.04); SRC: SMD = 4.55, 95%CI (1.62, 7.57); ] and better postoperative penile appearance [DCSD: odds ratios odds ratios (OR) = 11.42, 95%CI (3.60, 37.68); SRC: OR = 3.85,95%CI (1.29, 12.79)]. Additionally, DCSD showed a lower adverse events rate than other two treatments. However, no significant difference was shown in all surgeries for 24 h postoperative pain score. Node-splitting analysis showed that no significant inconsistency was existed (P > 0.05). Based on the results of NMA, DCSD may be a most effective and safest choice for phimosis and redundant prepuce. DCSD has the advantages of a shorter operation

Sensory redundancy management: The development of a design methodology for determining threshold values through a statistical analysis of sensor output data

Science.gov (United States)

Scalzo, F.

1983-01-01

Sensor redundancy management (SRM) requires a system which will detect failures and reconstruct avionics accordingly. A probability density function to determine false alarm rates, using an algorithmic approach was generated. Microcomputer software was developed which will print out tables of values for the cummulative probability of being in the domain of failure; system reliability; and false alarm probability, given a signal is in the domain of failure. The microcomputer software was applied to the sensor output data for various AFT1 F-16 flights and sensor parameters. Practical recommendations for further research were made.

Does functional redundancy stabilize fish communities?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rice, Jake; Daan, Niels; Gislason, Henrik

2013-01-01

in abundance or biomass could be accounted for by the Law of Large Numbers, providing no evidence that specific ecological processes or co-adaptations are necessary to produce this effect. This implies that successful conservation policies to maintain the resilience of a marine fish community could be based......Functional redundancy of species sharing a feeding strategy and/or maximum size has been hypothesized to contribute to increased resilience of marine fish communities (the “portfolio effect”). A consistent time-series of survey data of fish in the North Sea was used to examine if trophic functional...... groups or maximum length of species (Lmax) groups with larger numbers of species had lower coefficients of variation in abundance and biomass over time than did groupings with fewer species. Results supported this hypothesis. However, the stabilizing effect of numbers of species in a group on variation...

Hybrid Analytical and Data-Driven Modeling for Feed-Forward Robot Control †

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René Felix Reinhart

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Feed-forward model-based control relies on models of the controlled plant, e.g., in robotics on accurate knowledge of manipulator kinematics or dynamics. However, mechanical and analytical models do not capture all aspects of a plant’s intrinsic properties and there remain unmodeled dynamics due to varying parameters, unmodeled friction or soft materials. In this context, machine learning is an alternative suitable technique to extract non-linear plant models from data. However, fully data-based models suffer from inaccuracies as well and are inefficient if they include learning of well known analytical models. This paper thus argues that feed-forward control based on hybrid models comprising an analytical model and a learned error model can significantly improve modeling accuracy. Hybrid modeling here serves the purpose to combine the best of the two modeling worlds. The hybrid modeling methodology is described and the approach is demonstrated for two typical problems in robotics, i.e., inverse kinematics control and computed torque control. The former is performed for a redundant soft robot and the latter for a rigid industrial robot with redundant degrees of freedom, where a complete analytical model is not available for any of the platforms.

Hybrid Analytical and Data-Driven Modeling for Feed-Forward Robot Control †

Science.gov (United States)

Reinhart, René Felix; Shareef, Zeeshan; Steil, Jochen Jakob

2017-01-01

Feed-forward model-based control relies on models of the controlled plant, e.g., in robotics on accurate knowledge of manipulator kinematics or dynamics. However, mechanical and analytical models do not capture all aspects of a plant’s intrinsic properties and there remain unmodeled dynamics due to varying parameters, unmodeled friction or soft materials. In this context, machine learning is an alternative suitable technique to extract non-linear plant models from data. However, fully data-based models suffer from inaccuracies as well and are inefficient if they include learning of well known analytical models. This paper thus argues that feed-forward control based on hybrid models comprising an analytical model and a learned error model can significantly improve modeling accuracy. Hybrid modeling here serves the purpose to combine the best of the two modeling worlds. The hybrid modeling methodology is described and the approach is demonstrated for two typical problems in robotics, i.e., inverse kinematics control and computed torque control. The former is performed for a redundant soft robot and the latter for a rigid industrial robot with redundant degrees of freedom, where a complete analytical model is not available for any of the platforms. PMID:28208697

Redundant Sb condensation on GaSb epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy during cooling procedure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arpapay, B.; Şahin, S.; Arıkan, B.; Serincan, U.

2014-01-01

The effect of four different cooling receipts on the surface morphologies of unintentionally-doped GaSb epilayers on GaSb (100) substrates grown by molecular beam epitaxy is reported. Those receipts include three different Sb beam equivalent pressure (BEP) levels and two different termination temperatures. Surface morphologies of epilayers were examined by wet etching, surface profiler, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The results demonstrate that during the cooling period, a Sb BEP of 4.00 × 10 −4 Pa at a termination temperature of 400 °C induces a smooth surface without Sb condensation whereas same Sb BEP at a termination temperature of 350 °C forms a 300 nm thick Sb layer on the surface. In addition, it is revealed that by applying a wet etching procedure and using a surface profiler it is possible to identify this condensed layer from the two-sloped feature of mesa profile. - Highlights: • Sb beam flux termination temperature is crucial for redundant Sb condensation. • Sb beam flux level has a role on the thickness of redundant condensed Sb layer. • Redundant Sb layer thickness can be measured by two-sloped mesa structure

Development of a Kalman Filter in the Gauss-Helmert Model for Reliability Analysis in Orientation Determination with Smartphone Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Ettlinger, Andreas; Neuner, Hans; Burgess, Thomas

2018-01-31

The topic of indoor positioning and indoor navigation by using observations from smartphone sensors is very challenging as the determined trajectories can be subject to significant deviations compared to the route travelled in reality. Especially the calculation of the direction of movement is the critical part of pedestrian positioning approaches such as Pedestrian Dead Reckoning ("PDR"). Due to distinct systematic effects in filtered trajectories, it can be assumed that there are systematic deviations present in the observations from smartphone sensors. This article has two aims: one is to enable the estimation of partial redundancies for each observation as well as for observation groups. Partial redundancies are a measure for the reliability indicating how well systematic deviations can be detected in single observations used in PDR. The second aim is to analyze the behavior of partial redundancy by modifying the stochastic and functional model of the Kalman filter. The equations relating the observations to the orientation are condition equations, which do not exhibit the typical structure of the Gauss-Markov model ("GMM"), wherein the observations are linear and can be formulated as functions of the states. To calculate and analyze the partial redundancy of the observations from smartphone-sensors used in PDR, the system equation and the measurement equation of a Kalman filter as well as the redundancy matrix need to be derived in the Gauss-Helmert model ("GHM"). These derivations are introduced in this article and lead to a novel Kalman filter structure based on condition equations, enabling reliability assessment of each observation.

Functional Redundancy of ERK1 and ERK2 MAP Kinases during Development

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Christophe Frémin

2015-08-01

Full Text Available ERK1 and ERK2 are the effector kinases of the ERK1/2 MAP-kinase signaling pathway, which plays a central role in transducing signals controlling cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival. Deregulated activity of the ERK1/2 pathway is linked to a group of developmental syndromes and contributes to the pathogenesis of various human diseases. One fundamental question that remains unaddressed is whether ERK1 and ERK2 have evolved unique physiological functions or whether they are used redundantly to reach a threshold of global ERK activity. Here, we show that the extent of development of the mouse placenta and embryo bearing different combinations of Erk1 and Erk2 alleles is strictly correlated with total ERK1/2 activity. We further demonstrate that transgenic expression of ERK1 fully rescues the embryonic and placental developmental defects associated with the loss of ERK2. We conclude that ERK1 and ERK2 exert redundant functions in mouse development.

A GA based penalty function technique for solving constrained redundancy allocation problem of series system with interval valued reliability of components

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, R. K.; Bhunia, A. K.; Roy, D.

2009-10-01

In this paper, we have considered the problem of constrained redundancy allocation of series system with interval valued reliability of components. For maximizing the overall system reliability under limited resource constraints, the problem is formulated as an unconstrained integer programming problem with interval coefficients by penalty function technique and solved by an advanced GA for integer variables with interval fitness function, tournament selection, uniform crossover, uniform mutation and elitism. As a special case, considering the lower and upper bounds of the interval valued reliabilities of the components to be the same, the corresponding problem has been solved. The model has been illustrated with some numerical examples and the results of the series redundancy allocation problem with fixed value of reliability of the components have been compared with the existing results available in the literature. Finally, sensitivity analyses have been shown graphically to study the stability of our developed GA with respect to the different GA parameters.

Research on a six-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor system at dual-redundant and fault tolerant modes in aviation application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaolin KUANG

2017-08-01

Full Text Available With the development of more/all electrical aircraft technology, an electro-mechanical actuator (EMA is more and more used in an aircraft actuation system. The motor system, as the crucial part of an EMA, usually adopts the redundancy technology or fault tolerance technology to improve the reliability. To compare the performances of these two motor systems, a 10-pole/12-slot six-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM is designed with the concentrated single-layer winding, which is able to operate at dual-redundant and fault tolerant modes. Furthermore, the position servo performances of the six-phase PMSM at dual-redundant and fault tolerant modes are analyzed, including the normal and fault conditions. In addition, a variable structure proportional-integral-derivative (PID control strategy is proposed to solve the performance degradation problem caused by phase current saturation. Simulation and experimental results show that the fault tolerant PMSM has a better position servo performance than the dual-redundant PMSM, and the variable structure PID control strategy is able to improve the performance due to phase current saturation.

Inverse kinematics of redundant systems driver IKORv1.0-2.0 (full space parameterization with orientation control, platform mobility, and portability)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hacker, C.J.; Fries, G.A.; Pin, F.G.

1997-01-01

Few optimization methods exist for path planning of kinematically redundant manipulators. Among these, a universal method is lacking that takes advantage of a manipulator`s redundancy while satisfying possibly varying constraints and task requirements. Full Space Parameterization (FSP) is a new method that generates the entire solution space of underspecified systems of algebraic equations and then calculates the unique solution satisfying specific constraints and optimization criteria. The FSP method has been previously tested on several configurations of the redundant manipulator HERMIES-III. This report deals with the extension of the FSP driver, Inverse Kinematics On Redundant systems (IKOR), to include three-dimensional manipulation systems, possibly incorporating a mobile platform, with and without orientation control. The driver was also extended by integrating two optimized versions of the FSP solution generator as well as the ability to easily port to any manipulator. IKOR was first altered to include the ability to handle orientation control and to integrate an optimized solution generator. The resulting system was tested on a 4 degrees-of-redundancy manipulator arm and was found to successfully perform trajectories with least norm criteria while avoiding obstacles and joint limits. Next, the system was adapted and tested on a manipulator arm placed on a mobile platform yielding 7 degrees of redundancy. After successful testing on least norm trajectories while avoiding obstacles and joint limits, IKORv1.0 was developed. The system was successfully verified using comparisons with a current industry standard, the Moore Penrose Pseudo-Inverse. Finally, IKORv2.0 was created, which includes both the one shot and two step methods, manipulator portability, integration of a second optimized solution generator, and finally a more robust and usable code design.

Multi-objective hierarchical genetic algorithms for multilevel redundancy allocation optimization

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kumar, Ranjan [Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 (Japan)], E-mail: ranjan.k@ks3.ecs.kyoto-u.ac.jp; Izui, Kazuhiro [Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 (Japan)], E-mail: izui@prec.kyoto-u.ac.jp; Yoshimura, Masataka [Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 (Japan)], E-mail: yoshimura@prec.kyoto-u.ac.jp; Nishiwaki, Shinji [Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 (Japan)], E-mail: shinji@prec.kyoto-u.ac.jp

2009-04-15

Multilevel redundancy allocation optimization problems (MRAOPs) occur frequently when attempting to maximize the system reliability of a hierarchical system, and almost all complex engineering systems are hierarchical. Despite their practical significance, limited research has been done concerning the solving of simple MRAOPs. These problems are not only NP hard but also involve hierarchical design variables. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been applied in solving MRAOPs, since they are computationally efficient in solving such problems, unlike exact methods, but their applications has been confined to single-objective formulation of MRAOPs. This paper proposes a multi-objective formulation of MRAOPs and a methodology for solving such problems. In this methodology, a hierarchical GA framework for multi-objective optimization is proposed by introducing hierarchical genotype encoding for design variables. In addition, we implement the proposed approach by integrating the hierarchical genotype encoding scheme with two popular multi-objective genetic algorithms (MOGAs)-the strength Pareto evolutionary genetic algorithm (SPEA2) and the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). In the provided numerical examples, the proposed multi-objective hierarchical approach is applied to solve two hierarchical MRAOPs, a 4- and a 3-level problems. The proposed method is compared with a single-objective optimization method that uses a hierarchical genetic algorithm (HGA), also applied to solve the 3- and 4-level problems. The results show that a multi-objective hierarchical GA (MOHGA) that includes elitism and mechanism for diversity preserving performed better than a single-objective GA that only uses elitism, when solving large-scale MRAOPs. Additionally, the experimental results show that the proposed method with NSGA-II outperformed the proposed method with SPEA2 in finding useful Pareto optimal solution sets.

Multi-objective hierarchical genetic algorithms for multilevel redundancy allocation optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kumar, Ranjan; Izui, Kazuhiro; Yoshimura, Masataka; Nishiwaki, Shinji

2009-01-01

Multilevel redundancy allocation optimization problems (MRAOPs) occur frequently when attempting to maximize the system reliability of a hierarchical system, and almost all complex engineering systems are hierarchical. Despite their practical significance, limited research has been done concerning the solving of simple MRAOPs. These problems are not only NP hard but also involve hierarchical design variables. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been applied in solving MRAOPs, since they are computationally efficient in solving such problems, unlike exact methods, but their applications has been confined to single-objective formulation of MRAOPs. This paper proposes a multi-objective formulation of MRAOPs and a methodology for solving such problems. In this methodology, a hierarchical GA framework for multi-objective optimization is proposed by introducing hierarchical genotype encoding for design variables. In addition, we implement the proposed approach by integrating the hierarchical genotype encoding scheme with two popular multi-objective genetic algorithms (MOGAs)-the strength Pareto evolutionary genetic algorithm (SPEA2) and the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). In the provided numerical examples, the proposed multi-objective hierarchical approach is applied to solve two hierarchical MRAOPs, a 4- and a 3-level problems. The proposed method is compared with a single-objective optimization method that uses a hierarchical genetic algorithm (HGA), also applied to solve the 3- and 4-level problems. The results show that a multi-objective hierarchical GA (MOHGA) that includes elitism and mechanism for diversity preserving performed better than a single-objective GA that only uses elitism, when solving large-scale MRAOPs. Additionally, the experimental results show that the proposed method with NSGA-II outperformed the proposed method with SPEA2 in finding useful Pareto optimal solution sets

Design of tailor-made chemical blend using a decomposition-based computer-aided approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yunus, Nor Alafiza; Gernaey, Krist; Manan, Z.A.

2011-01-01

Computer aided techniques form an efficient approach to solve chemical product design problems such as the design of blended liquid products (chemical blending). In chemical blending, one tries to find the best candidate, which satisfies the product targets defined in terms of desired product...... methodology for blended liquid products that identifies a set of feasible chemical blends. The blend design problem is formulated as a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) model where the objective is to find the optimal blended gasoline or diesel product subject to types of chemicals...... and their compositions and a set of desired target properties of the blended product as design constraints. This blend design problem is solved using a decomposition approach, which eliminates infeasible and/or redundant candidates gradually through a hierarchy of (property) model based constraints. This decomposition...

Functional redundancy and complementarities of seed dispersal by the last neotropical megafrugivores.

Science.gov (United States)

Bueno, Rafael S; Guevara, Roger; Ribeiro, Milton C; Culot, Laurence; Bufalo, Felipe S; Galetti, Mauro

2013-01-01

Functional redundancy has been debated largely in ecology and conservation, yet we lack detailed empirical studies on the roles of functionally similar species in ecosystem function. Large bodied frugivores may disperse similar plant species and have strong impact on plant recruitment in tropical forests. The two largest frugivores in the neotropics, tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) and muriquis (Brachyteles arachnoides) are potential candidates for functional redundancy on seed dispersal effectiveness. Here we provide a comparison of the quantitative, qualitative and spatial effects on seed dispersal by these megafrugivores in a continuous Brazilian Atlantic forest. We found a low overlap of plant species dispersed by both muriquis and tapirs. A group of 35 muriquis occupied an area of 850 ha and dispersed 5 times more plant species, and 13 times more seeds than 22 tapirs living in the same area. Muriquis dispersed 2.4 times more seeds in any random position than tapirs. This can be explained mainly because seed deposition by muriquis leaves less empty space than tapirs. However, tapirs are able to disperse larger seeds than muriquis and move them into sites not reached by primates, such as large forest gaps, open areas and fragments nearby. Based on published information we found 302 plant species that are dispersed by at least one of these megafrugivores in the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Our study showed that both megafrugivores play complementary rather than redundant roles as seed dispersers. Although tapirs disperse fewer seeds and species than muriquis, they disperse larger-seeded species and in places not used by primates. The selective extinction of these megafrugivores will change the spatial seed rain they generate and may have negative effects on the recruitment of several plant species, particularly those with large seeds that have muriquis and tapirs as the last living seed dispersers.

Functional Redundancy and Complementarities of Seed Dispersal by the Last Neotropical Megafrugivores

Science.gov (United States)

Bueno, Rafael S.; Guevara, Roger; Ribeiro, Milton C.; Culot, Laurence; Bufalo, Felipe S.; Galetti, Mauro

2013-01-01

Background Functional redundancy has been debated largely in ecology and conservation, yet we lack detailed empirical studies on the roles of functionally similar species in ecosystem function. Large bodied frugivores may disperse similar plant species and have strong impact on plant recruitment in tropical forests. The two largest frugivores in the neotropics, tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) and muriquis (Brachyteles arachnoides) are potential candidates for functional redundancy on seed dispersal effectiveness. Here we provide a comparison of the quantitative, qualitative and spatial effects on seed dispersal by these megafrugivores in a continuous Brazilian Atlantic forest. Methodology/Principal Findings We found a low overlap of plant species dispersed by both muriquis and tapirs. A group of 35 muriquis occupied an area of 850 ha and dispersed 5 times more plant species, and 13 times more seeds than 22 tapirs living in the same area. Muriquis dispersed 2.4 times more seeds in any random position than tapirs. This can be explained mainly because seed deposition by muriquis leaves less empty space than tapirs. However, tapirs are able to disperse larger seeds than muriquis and move them into sites not reached by primates, such as large forest gaps, open areas and fragments nearby. Based on published information we found 302 plant species that are dispersed by at least one of these megafrugivores in the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Conclusions/Significance Our study showed that both megafrugivores play complementary rather than redundant roles as seed dispersers. Although tapirs disperse fewer seeds and species than muriquis, they disperse larger-seeded species and in places not used by primates. The selective extinction of these megafrugivores will change the spatial seed rain they generate and may have negative effects on the recruitment of several plant species, particularly those with large seeds that have muriquis and tapirs as the last living seed dispersers. PMID

Functional redundancy and complementarities of seed dispersal by the last neotropical megafrugivores.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rafael S Bueno

Full Text Available Functional redundancy has been debated largely in ecology and conservation, yet we lack detailed empirical studies on the roles of functionally similar species in ecosystem function. Large bodied frugivores may disperse similar plant species and have strong impact on plant recruitment in tropical forests. The two largest frugivores in the neotropics, tapirs (Tapirus terrestris and muriquis (Brachyteles arachnoides are potential candidates for functional redundancy on seed dispersal effectiveness. Here we provide a comparison of the quantitative, qualitative and spatial effects on seed dispersal by these megafrugivores in a continuous Brazilian Atlantic forest.We found a low overlap of plant species dispersed by both muriquis and tapirs. A group of 35 muriquis occupied an area of 850 ha and dispersed 5 times more plant species, and 13 times more seeds than 22 tapirs living in the same area. Muriquis dispersed 2.4 times more seeds in any random position than tapirs. This can be explained mainly because seed deposition by muriquis leaves less empty space than tapirs. However, tapirs are able to disperse larger seeds than muriquis and move them into sites not reached by primates, such as large forest gaps, open areas and fragments nearby. Based on published information we found 302 plant species that are dispersed by at least one of these megafrugivores in the Brazilian Atlantic forest.Our study showed that both megafrugivores play complementary rather than redundant roles as seed dispersers. Although tapirs disperse fewer seeds and species than muriquis, they disperse larger-seeded species and in places not used by primates. The selective extinction of these megafrugivores will change the spatial seed rain they generate and may have negative effects on the recruitment of several plant species, particularly those with large seeds that have muriquis and tapirs as the last living seed dispersers.

Soft computing approach for reliability optimization: State-of-the-art survey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gen, Mitsuo; Yun, Young Su

2006-01-01

In the broadest sense, reliability is a measure of performance of systems. As systems have grown more complex, the consequences of their unreliable behavior have become severe in terms of cost, effort, lives, etc., and the interest in assessing system reliability and the need for improving the reliability of products and systems have become very important. Most solution methods for reliability optimization assume that systems have redundancy components in series and/or parallel systems and alternative designs are available. Reliability optimization problems concentrate on optimal allocation of redundancy components and optimal selection of alternative designs to meet system requirement. In the past two decades, numerous reliability optimization techniques have been proposed. Generally, these techniques can be classified as linear programming, dynamic programming, integer programming, geometric programming, heuristic method, Lagrangean multiplier method and so on. A Genetic Algorithm (GA), as a soft computing approach, is a powerful tool for solving various reliability optimization problems. In this paper, we briefly survey GA-based approach for various reliability optimization problems, such as reliability optimization of redundant system, reliability optimization with alternative design, reliability optimization with time-dependent reliability, reliability optimization with interval coefficients, bicriteria reliability optimization, and reliability optimization with fuzzy goals. We also introduce the hybrid approaches for combining GA with fuzzy logic, neural network and other conventional search techniques. Finally, we have some experiments with an example of various reliability optimization problems using hybrid GA approach

Notice of Violation of IEEE Publication PrinciplesJoint Redundant Residue Number Systems and Module Isolation for Mitigating Single Event Multiple Bit Upsets in Datapath

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Lei; Hu, Jianhao

2010-12-01

Notice of Violation of IEEE Publication Principles"Joint Redundant Residue Number Systems and Module Isolation for Mitigating Single Event Multiple Bit Upsets in Datapath"by Lei Li and Jianhao Hu,in the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol.57, no.6, Dec. 2010, pp. 3779-3786After careful and considered review of the content and authorship of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE's Publication Principles.This paper contains substantial duplication of original text from the paper cited below. The original text was copied without attribution (including appropriate references to the original author(s) and/or paper title) and without permission.Due to the nature of this violation, reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper, and future references should be made to the following articles:"Multiple Error Detection and Correction Based on Redundant Residue Number Systems"by Vik Tor Goh and M.U. Siddiqi,in the IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol.56, no.3, March 2008, pp.325-330"A Coding Theory Approach to Error Control in Redundant Residue Number Systems. I: Theory and Single Error Correction"by H. Krishna, K-Y. Lin, and J-D. Sun, in the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing, vol.39, no.1, Jan 1992, pp.8-17In this paper, we propose a joint scheme which combines redundant residue number systems (RRNS) with module isolation (MI) for mitigating single event multiple bit upsets (SEMBUs) in datapath. The proposed hardening scheme employs redundant residues to improve the fault tolerance for datapath and module spacings to guarantee that SEMBUs caused by charge sharing do not propagate among the operation channels of different moduli. The features of RRNS, such as independence, parallel and error correction, are exploited to establish the radiation hardening architecture for the datapath in radiation environments. In the proposed

Sensitivity Analysis of the Influence of Structural Parameters on Dynamic Behaviour of Highly Redundant Cable-Stayed Bridges

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. Asgari

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The model tuning through sensitivity analysis is a prominent procedure to assess the structural behavior and dynamic characteristics of cable-stayed bridges. Most of the previous sensitivity-based model tuning methods are automatic iterative processes; however, the results of recent studies show that the most reasonable results are achievable by applying the manual methods to update the analytical model of cable-stayed bridges. This paper presents a model updating algorithm for highly redundant cable-stayed bridges that can be used as an iterative manual procedure. The updating parameters are selected through the sensitivity analysis which helps to better understand the structural behavior of the bridge. The finite element model of Tatara Bridge is considered for the numerical studies. The results of the simulations indicate the efficiency and applicability of the presented manual tuning method for updating the finite element model of cable-stayed bridges. The new aspects regarding effective material and structural parameters and model tuning procedure presented in this paper will be useful for analyzing and model updating of cable-stayed bridges.

A cloud-based data network approach for translational cancer research.

Science.gov (United States)

Xing, Wei; Tsoumakos, Dimitrios; Ghanem, Moustafa

2015-01-01

We develop a new model and associated technology for constructing and managing self-organizing data to support translational cancer research studies. We employ a semantic content network approach to address the challenges of managing cancer research data. Such data is heterogeneous, large, decentralized, growing and continually being updated. Moreover, the data originates from different information sources that may be partially overlapping, creating redundancies as well as contradictions and inconsistencies. Building on the advantages of elasticity of cloud computing, we deploy the cancer data networks on top of the CELAR Cloud platform to enable more effective processing and analysis of Big cancer data.

Unified performance analysis of hybrid-ARQ with incremental redundancy over free-space optical channels

KAUST Repository

Zedini, Emna; Chelli, Ali; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2014-01-01

In this paper, we carry out a unified performance analysis of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) with incremental redundancy (IR) from an information theoretic perspective over a point-to-point free-space optical (FSO) system. First, we

Developmental Changes in Children’s Processing of Redundant Modifiers in Definite Object Descriptions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koolen, Ruud; Krahmer, Emiel; Swerts, Marc

2016-01-01

This paper investigates developmental changes in children’s processing of redundant information in definite object descriptions. In two experiments, children of two age groups (6 or 7, and 9 or 10 years old) were presented with pictures of sweets. In the first experiment (pairwise comparison), two

Redundant control of migration and adhesion by ERM proteins in vascular smooth muscle cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baeyens, Nicolas; Latrache, Iman; Yerna, Xavier; Noppe, Gauthier; Horman, Sandrine; Morel, Nicole

2013-01-01

Highlights: •The three ERM proteins are expressed in vascular smooth muscle cell. •ERM depletion inhibited PDGF-evoked migration redundantly. •ERM depletion increased cell adhesion redundantly. •ERM depletion did not affect PDGF-evoked Ca signal, Rac1 activation, proliferation. •ERM proteins control PDGF-induced migration by regulating adhesion. -- Abstract: Ezrin, radixin, and moesin possess a very similar structure with a C-terminal actin-binding domain and a N-terminal FERM interacting domain. They are known to be involved in cytoskeleton organization in several cell types but their function in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) is still unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of ERM proteins in cell migration induced by PDGF, a growth factor involved in pathophysiological processes like angiogenesis or atherosclerosis. We used primary cultured VSMC obtained from rat aorta, which express the three ERM proteins. Simultaneous depletion of the three ERM proteins with specific siRNAs abolished the effects of PDGF on cell architecture and migration and markedly increased cell adhesion and focal adhesion size, while these parameters were only slightly affected by depletion of ezrin, radixin or moesin alone. Rac1 activation, cell proliferation, and Ca 2+ signal in response to PDGF were unaffected by ERM depletion. These results indicate that ERM proteins exert a redundant control on PDGF-induced VSMC migration by regulating focal adhesion turn-over and cell adhesion to substrate

Redundant control of migration and adhesion by ERM proteins in vascular smooth muscle cells

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baeyens, Nicolas; Latrache, Iman; Yerna, Xavier [Laboratory of Cell Physiology, IoNS, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium); Noppe, Gauthier; Horman, Sandrine [Pôle de Recherche Cardiovasculaire, IREC, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium); Morel, Nicole, E-mail: nicole.morel@uclouvain.be [Laboratory of Cell Physiology, IoNS, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium)

2013-11-22

Highlights: •The three ERM proteins are expressed in vascular smooth muscle cell. •ERM depletion inhibited PDGF-evoked migration redundantly. •ERM depletion increased cell adhesion redundantly. •ERM depletion did not affect PDGF-evoked Ca signal, Rac1 activation, proliferation. •ERM proteins control PDGF-induced migration by regulating adhesion. -- Abstract: Ezrin, radixin, and moesin possess a very similar structure with a C-terminal actin-binding domain and a N-terminal FERM interacting domain. They are known to be involved in cytoskeleton organization in several cell types but their function in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) is still unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of ERM proteins in cell migration induced by PDGF, a growth factor involved in pathophysiological processes like angiogenesis or atherosclerosis. We used primary cultured VSMC obtained from rat aorta, which express the three ERM proteins. Simultaneous depletion of the three ERM proteins with specific siRNAs abolished the effects of PDGF on cell architecture and migration and markedly increased cell adhesion and focal adhesion size, while these parameters were only slightly affected by depletion of ezrin, radixin or moesin alone. Rac1 activation, cell proliferation, and Ca{sup 2+} signal in response to PDGF were unaffected by ERM depletion. These results indicate that ERM proteins exert a redundant control on PDGF-induced VSMC migration by regulating focal adhesion turn-over and cell adhesion to substrate.

A Dynamic Linear Hashing Method for Redundancy Management in Train Ethernet Consist Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaobo Nie

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Massive transportation systems like trains are considered critical systems because they use the communication network to control essential subsystems on board. Critical system requires zero recovery time when a failure occurs in a communication network. The newly published IEC62439-3 defines the high-availability seamless redundancy protocol, which fulfills this requirement and ensures no frame loss in the presence of an error. This paper adopts these for train Ethernet consist network. The challenge is management of the circulating frames, capable of dealing with real-time processing requirements, fast switching times, high throughout, and deterministic behavior. The main contribution of this paper is the in-depth analysis it makes of network parameters imposed by the application of the protocols to train control and monitoring system (TCMS and the redundant circulating frames discarding method based on a dynamic linear hashing, using the fastest method in order to resolve all the issues that are dealt with.

False targets vs. redundancy in homogeneous parallel systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Levitin, Gregory; Hausken, Kjell

2009-01-01

System defense against natural threats and disasters that have a stochastic nature includes providing redundancy and protecting system elements. The defense against strategic intentional attacks can also include deploying false targets aimed at misleading the attacker. Distribution of the available resources among different defensive means is an important problem that arises in organizing the defense of complex civil infrastructures, industrial systems or military objects. The article considers defense resource allocation in a system exposed to external intentional attack. The expected damage caused by the attack is evaluated as system unsupplied demand. The defender distributes its limited resource between deploying redundant genuine elements and false elements, both of which are targets of attack. The attacker attacks a subset of the elements and distributes its limited resource evenly among the attacked elements. Two cases are considered: in the first one the number of attacked elements and the vulnerability of each genuine element are fixed and the defense resource distribution is determined as a solution of an optimization problem; in the second one the number of attacked elements is the attacker's free choice variable and the element's vulnerability depends on a contest determined by the defender's and attacker's resources allocated to each element. The defender's optimal resource distribution strategy is determined as a solution of a two-period minmax game. It is shown that the optimal number of genuine elements decreases monotonically with the growth of the element cost and vulnerability, whereas the optimal number of false elements demonstrates non-monotonic behavior. The contest intensity is an important factor influencing the optimal defense resource distribution. It cannot be ignored when the defense strategy is determined, and it thus also impacts the attack strategy

Redundant arrays of IDE drives

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

D.A. Sanders et al.

2002-01-02

The authors report tests of redundant arrays of IDE disk drives for use in offline high energy physics data analysis. Parts costs of total systems using commodity EIDE disks are now at the $4000 per Terabyte level. Disk storage prices have now decreased to the point where they equal the cost per Terabyte of Storage Technology tape silos. The disks, however, offer far better granularity; even small institutions can afford to deploy systems. The tests include reports on software RAID-5 systems running under Linux 2.4 using Promise Ultra 100{trademark} disk controllers. RAID-5 protects data in case of a single disk failure by providing parity bits. Tape backup is not required. Journaling file systems are used to allow rapid recovery from crashes. The data analysis strategy is to encapsulate data and CPU processing power. Analysis for a particular part of a data set takes place on the PC where the data resides. The network is only used to put results together. They explore three methods of moving data between sites; internet transfers, not pluggable IDE disks in FireWire cases, and DVD-R disks.

Redundant arrays of IDE drives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanders, D.A.

2002-01-01

The authors report tests of redundant arrays of IDE disk drives for use in offline high energy physics data analysis. Parts costs of total systems using commodity EIDE disks are now at the $4000 per Terabyte level. Disk storage prices have now decreased to the point where they equal the cost per Terabyte of Storage Technology tape silos. The disks, however, offer far better granularity; even small institutions can afford to deploy systems. The tests include reports on software RAID-5 systems running under Linux 2.4 using Promise Ultra 100trademark disk controllers. RAID-5 protects data in case of a single disk failure by providing parity bits. Tape backup is not required. Journaling file systems are used to allow rapid recovery from crashes. The data analysis strategy is to encapsulate data and CPU processing power. Analysis for a particular part of a data set takes place on the PC where the data resides. The network is only used to put results together. They explore three methods of moving data between sites; internet transfers, not pluggable IDE disks in FireWire cases, and DVD-R disks

Verification of Triple Modular Redundancy Insertion for Reliable and Trusted Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Berg, Melanie; LaBel, Kenneth

2016-01-01

If a system is required to be protected using triple modular redundancy (TMR), improper insertion can jeopardize the reliability and security of the system. Due to the complexity of the verification process and the complexity of digital designs, there are currently no available techniques that can provide complete and reliable confirmation of TMR insertion. We propose a method for TMR insertion verification that satisfies the process for reliable and trusted systems.

Coordination of dual robot arms using kinematic redundancy

Science.gov (United States)

Suh, Il Hong; Shin, Kang G.

1988-01-01

A method is developed to coordinate the motion of dual robot arms carrying a solid object, where the first robot (leader) grasps one end of the object rigidly and the second robot (follower) is allowed to change its grasping position at the other end of the object along the object surface while supporting the object. It is shown that this flexible grasping is equivalent to the addition of one more degree of freedom (dof), giving the follower more maneuvering capabilities. In particular, motion commands for the follower are generated by using kinematic redundancy. To show the utility and power of the method, an example system with two PUMA 560 robots carrying a beam is analyzed.

Redundant filtration system of the fuel buildings,units 1 and 2 Almaraz NPP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lopez Tanco, J.

2011-01-01

The project redundant filtering fuel buildings in units 1 and 2 of Almaraz NPP, will compliance to the requirements established in the complementary technical instructions to the authorization of exploitation of Almaraz NPP, established by the CSN and will consist of the installation of a new filtration unit.

Redundancy and divergence in the amyloid precursor protein family.

Science.gov (United States)

Shariati, S Ali M; De Strooper, Bart

2013-06-27

Gene duplication provides genetic material required for functional diversification. An interesting example is the amyloid precursor protein (APP) protein family. The APP gene family has experienced both expansion and contraction during evolution. The three mammalian members have been studied quite extensively in combined knock out models. The underlying assumption is that APP, amyloid precursor like protein 1 and 2 (APLP1, APLP2) are functionally redundant. This assumption is primarily supported by the similarities in biochemical processing of APP and APLPs and on the fact that the different APP genes appear to genetically interact at the level of the phenotype in combined knockout mice. However, unique features in each member of the APP family possibly contribute to specification of their function. In the current review, we discuss the evolution and the biology of the APP protein family with special attention to the distinct properties of each homologue. We propose that the functions of APP, APLP1 and APLP2 have diverged after duplication to contribute distinctly to different neuronal events. Our analysis reveals that APLP2 is significantly diverged from APP and APLP1. Copyright © 2013 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Time efficient signed Vedic multiplier using redundant binary representation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ranjan Kumar Barik

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This study presents a high-speed signed Vedic multiplier (SVM architecture using redundant binary (RB representation in Urdhva Tiryagbhyam (UT sutra. This is the first ever effort towards extension of Vedic algorithms to the signed numbers. The proposed multiplier architecture solves the carry propagation issue in UT sutra, as carry free addition is possible in RB representation. The proposed design is coded in VHDL and synthesised in Xilinx ISE 14.4 of various FPGA devices. The proposed SVM architecture has better speed performances as compared with various state-of-the-art conventional as well as Vedic architectures.

A case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)

Science.gov (United States)

Patterson, David A.; Gibson, Garth; Katz, Randy H.

1988-01-01

Increasing performance of CPUs and memories will be squandered if not matched by a similar performance increase in I/O. While the capacity of Single Large Expensive Disks (SLED) has grown rapidly, the performance improvement of SLED has been modest. Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID), based on the magnetic disk technology developed for personal computers, offers an attractive alternative to SLED, promising improvements of an order of magnitude in performance, reliability, power consumption, and scalability. This paper introduces five levels of RAIDs, giving their relative cost/performance, and compares RAID to an IBM 3380 and a Fujitsu Super Eagle.

Redundant imprinting of information in nonideal environments: Objective reality via a noisy channel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zwolak, Michael; Quan, H. T.; Zurek, Wojciech H.

2010-01-01

Quantum Darwinism provides an information-theoretic framework for the emergence of the objective, classical world from the quantum substrate. The key to this emergence is the proliferation of redundant information throughout the environment where observers can then intercept it. We study this process for a purely decohering interaction when the environment, E, is in a nonideal (e.g., mixed) initial state. In the case of good decoherence, that is, after the pointer states have been unambiguously selected, the mutual information between the system, S, and an environment fragment, F, is given solely by F's entropy increase. This demonstrates that the environment's capacity for recording the state of S is directly related to its ability to increase its entropy. Environments that remain nearly invariant under the interaction with S, either because they have a large initial entropy or a misaligned initial state, therefore have a diminished ability to acquire information. To elucidate the concept of good decoherence, we show that, when decoherence is not complete, the deviation of the mutual information from F's entropy change is quantified by the quantum discord, i.e., the excess mutual information between S and F is information regarding the initial coherence between pointer states of S. In addition to illustrating these results with a single-qubit system interacting with a multiqubit environment, we find scaling relations for the redundancy of information acquired by the environment that display a universal behavior independent of the initial state of S. Our results demonstrate that Quantum Darwinism is robust with respect to nonideal initial states of the environment: the environment almost always acquires redundant information about the system but its rate of acquisition can be reduced.

Video rate morphological processor based on a redundant number representation

Science.gov (United States)

Kuczborski, Wojciech; Attikiouzel, Yianni; Crebbin, Gregory A.

1992-03-01

This paper presents a video rate morphological processor for automated visual inspection of printed circuit boards, integrated circuit masks, and other complex objects. Inspection algorithms are based on gray-scale mathematical morphology. Hardware complexity of the known methods of real-time implementation of gray-scale morphology--the umbra transform and the threshold decomposition--has prompted us to propose a novel technique which applied an arithmetic system without carrying propagation. After considering several arithmetic systems, a redundant number representation has been selected for implementation. Two options are analyzed here. The first is a pure signed digit number representation (SDNR) with the base of 4. The second option is a combination of the base-2 SDNR (to represent gray levels of images) and the conventional twos complement code (to represent gray levels of structuring elements). Operation principle of the morphological processor is based on the concept of the digit level systolic array. Individual processing units and small memory elements create a pipeline. The memory elements store current image windows (kernels). All operation primitives of processing units apply a unified direction of digit processing: most significant digit first (MSDF). The implementation technology is based on the field programmable gate arrays by Xilinx. This paper justified the rationality of a new approach to logic design, which is the decomposition of Boolean functions instead of Boolean minimization.

The Msi Family of RNA-Binding Proteins Function Redundantly as Intestinal Oncoproteins

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ning Li

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Members of the Msi family of RNA-binding proteins have recently emerged as potent oncoproteins in a range of malignancies. MSI2 is highly expressed in hematopoietic cancers, where it is required for disease maintenance. In contrast to the hematopoietic system, colorectal cancers can express both Msi family members, MSI1 and MSI2. Here, we demonstrate that, in the intestinal epithelium, Msi1 and Msi2 have analogous oncogenic effects. Further, comparison of Msi1/2-induced gene expression programs and transcriptome-wide analyses of Msi1/2-RNA-binding targets reveal significant functional overlap, including induction of the PDK-Akt-mTORC1 axis. Ultimately, we demonstrate that concomitant loss of function of both MSI family members is sufficient to abrogate the growth of human colorectal cancer cells, and Msi gene deletion inhibits tumorigenesis in several mouse models of intestinal cancer. Our findings demonstrate that MSI1 and MSI2 act as functionally redundant oncoproteins required for the ontogeny of intestinal cancers.

Optimally efficient swimming in hyper-redundant mechanisms: control, design, and energy recovery

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wiens, A J; Nahon, M

2012-01-01

Hyper-redundant mechanisms (HRMs), also known as snake-like robots, are highly adaptable during locomotion on land. Researchers are currently working to extend their capabilities to aquatic environments through biomimetic undulatory propulsion. In addition to increasing the versatility of the system, truly biomimetic swimming could also provide excellent locomotion efficiency. Unfortunately, the complexity of the system precludes the development of a functional solution to achieve this. To explore this problem, a rapid optimization process is used to generate efficient HRM swimming gaits. The low computational cost of the approach allows for multiple optimizations over a broad range of system conditions. By observing how these conditions affect optimal kinematics, a number of new insights are developed regarding undulatory swimming in robotic systems. Two key conditions are varied within the study, swimming speed and energy recovery. It is found that the swimmer mimics the speed control behaviour of natural fish and that energy recovery drastically increases the system's efficiency. Remarkably, this efficiency increase is accompanied by a distinct change in swimming kinematics. With energy recovery, the swimmer converges to a clearly anguilliform gait, without, it tends towards the carangiform mode. (paper)

Ambiguity attacks on robust blind image watermarking scheme based on redundant discrete wavelet transform and singular value decomposition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khaled Loukhaoukha

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Among emergent applications of digital watermarking are copyright protection and proof of ownership. Recently, Makbol and Khoo (2013 have proposed for these applications a new robust blind image watermarking scheme based on the redundant discrete wavelet transform (RDWT and the singular value decomposition (SVD. In this paper, we present two ambiguity attacks on this algorithm that have shown that this algorithm fails when used to provide robustness applications like owner identification, proof of ownership, and transaction tracking. Keywords: Ambiguity attack, Image watermarking, Singular value decomposition, Redundant discrete wavelet transform

Redundancy of Supply in the International Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Market: Are Fabrication Services Assured?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seward, Amy M.; Toomey, Christopher; Ford, Benjamin E.; Wood, Thomas W.; Perkins, Casey J.

2011-01-01

For several years, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been assessing the reliability of nuclear fuel supply in support of the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. Three international low enriched uranium reserves, which are intended back up the existing and well-functioning nuclear fuel market, are currently moving toward implementation. These backup reserves are intended to provide countries credible assurance that of the uninterrupted supply of nuclear fuel to operate their nuclear power reactors in the event that their primary fuel supply is disrupted, whether for political or other reasons. The efficacy of these backup reserves, however, may be constrained without redundant fabrication services. This report presents the findings of a recent PNNL study that simulated outages of varying durations at specific nuclear fuel fabrication plants. The modeling specifically enabled prediction and visualization of the reactors affected and the degree of fuel delivery delay. The results thus provide insight on the extent of vulnerability to nuclear fuel supply disruption at the level of individual fabrication plants, reactors, and countries. The simulation studies demonstrate that, when a reasonable set of qualification criteria are applied, existing fabrication plants are technically qualified to provide backup fabrication services to the majority of the world's power reactors. The report concludes with an assessment of the redundancy of fuel supply in the nuclear fuel market, and a description of potential extra-market mechanisms to enhance the security of fuel supply in cases where it may be warranted. This report is an assessment of the ability of the existing market to respond to supply disruptions that occur for technical reasons. A forthcoming report will address political disruption scenarios.

Commercialization of JPL Virtual Reality calibration and redundant manipulator control technologies

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Won S.; Seraji, Homayoun; Fiorini, Paolo; Brown, Robert; Christensen, Brian; Beale, Chris; Karlen, James; Eismann, Paul

1994-01-01

Within NASA's recent thrust for industrial collaboration, JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) has recently established two technology cooperation agreements in the robotics area: one on virtual reality (VR) calibration with Deneb Robotics, Inc., and the other on redundant manipulator control with Robotics Research Corporation (RRC). These technology transfer cooperation tasks will enable both Deneb and RRC to commercialize enhanced versions of their products that will greatly benefit both space and terrestrial telerobotic applications.

Functional redundancy and/or ongoing pseudogenization among F-box protein genes expressed in Arabidopsis male gametophyte.

Science.gov (United States)

Ikram, Sobia; Durandet, Monique; Vesa, Simona; Pereira, Serge; Guerche, Philippe; Bonhomme, Sandrine

2014-06-01

F-box protein genes family is one of the largest gene families in plants, with almost 700 predicted genes in the model plant Arabidopsis. F-box proteins are key components of the ubiquitin proteasome system that allows targeted protein degradation. Transcriptome analyses indicate that half of these F-box protein genes are found expressed in microspore and/or pollen, i.e., during male gametogenesis. To assess the role of F-box protein genes during this crucial developmental step, we selected 34 F-box protein genes recorded as highly and specifically expressed in pollen and isolated corresponding insertion mutants. We checked the expression level of each selected gene by RT-PCR and confirmed pollen expression for 25 genes, but specific expression for only 10 of the 34 F-box protein genes. In addition, we tested the expression level of selected F-box protein genes in 24 mutant lines and showed that 11 of them were null mutants. Transmission analysis of the mutations to the progeny showed that none of the single mutations was gametophytic lethal. These unaffected transmission efficiencies suggested leaky mutations or functional redundancy among F-box protein genes. Cytological observation of the gametophytes in the mutants confirmed these results. Combinations of mutations in F-box protein genes from the same subfamily did not lead to transmission defect either, further highlighting functional redundancy and/or a high proportion of pseudogenes among these F-box protein genes.

A polar-region-adaptable systematic bias collaborative measurement method for shipboard redundant rotational inertial navigation systems

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Lin; Wu, Wenqi; Wei, Guo; Lian, Junxiang; Yu, Ruihang

2018-05-01

The shipboard redundant rotational inertial navigation system (RINS) configuration, including a dual-axis RINS and a single-axis RINS, can satisfy the demand of marine INSs of especially high reliability as well as achieving trade-off between position accuracy and cost. Generally, the dual-axis RINS is the master INS, and the single-axis RINS is the hot backup INS for high reliability purposes. An integrity monitoring system performs a fault detection function to ensure sailing safety. However, improving the accuracy of the backup INS in case of master INS failure has not been given enough attention. Without the aid of any external information, a systematic bias collaborative measurement method based on an augmented Kalman filter is proposed for the redundant RINSs. Estimates of inertial sensor biases can be used by the built-in integrity monitoring system to monitor the RINS running condition. On the other hand, a position error prediction model is designed for the single-axis RINS to estimate the systematic error caused by its azimuth gyro bias. After position error compensation, the position information provided by the single-axis RINS still remains highly accurate, even if the integrity monitoring system detects a dual-axis RINS fault. Moreover, use of a grid frame as a navigation frame makes the proposed method applicable in any area, including the polar regions. Semi-physical simulation and experiments including sea trials verify the validity of the method.

Redundant imprinting of information in non-ideal environments: Quantum Darwinism via a noisy channel

Science.gov (United States)

Zwolak, Michael; Quan, Haitao; Zurek, Wojciech

2011-03-01

Quantum Darwinism provides an information-theoretic framework for the emergence of the classical world from the quantum substrate. It recognizes that we - the observers - acquire our information about the ``systems of interest'' indirectly from their imprints on the environment. Objectivity, a key property of the classical world, arises via the proliferation of redundant information into the environment where many observers can then intercept it and independently determine the state of the system. While causing a system to decohere, environments that remain nearly invariant under the Hamiltonian dynamics, such as very mixed states, have a diminished ability to transmit information about the system, yet can still acquire redundant information about the system [1,2]. Our results show that Quantum Darwinism is robust with respect to non-ideal initial states of the environment. This research is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through the LANL/LDRD Program.

The application of redundancy-related basic safety principles to the 1400 MWE reactor core standby cooling system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bertrand, R.

1990-01-01

This memorandum shall provide the background for the work of the European Community Commission which is to analyze safety principles relating to redundancy. The redundancy-related basic safety principles applied in French nuclear power plants are the following: . the single-failure criterion, . provisions additional to application of the single-failure criterion. These are mainly provisions made at the design stage to minimize risks associated with common cause failures or the risks of human error which can lead to such failures: - protection against hazards of internal and external origin, - the geographical or physical separation of equipment, - the independence of electrical power supplies and distribution systems, - the additional resources and associated operating procedures making it possible to accommodate total loss of the safety systems. The scope also includes the operating rules which ensure availability of redundant safety-related equipment. The provisions relating to the single-failure criterion are detailed in Basic Safety Rule 1.3.A appended. The application of these principles proposed by the operating organization and accepted by the safety authorities for the design and operation of the standby core cooling system (System RIS) is explained

Improving the Earthquake Resilience of Buildings The worst case approach

CERN Document Server

Takewaki, Izuru; Fujita, Kohei

2013-01-01

Engineers are always interested in the worst-case scenario. One of the most important and challenging missions of structural engineers may be to narrow the range of unexpected incidents in building structural design. Redundancy, robustness and resilience play an important role in such circumstances. Improving the Earthquake Resilience of Buildings: The worst case approach discusses the importance of worst-scenario approach for improved earthquake resilience of buildings and nuclear reactor facilities. Improving the Earthquake Resilience of Buildings: The worst case approach consists of two parts. The first part deals with the characterization and modeling of worst or critical ground motions on inelastic structures and the related worst-case scenario in the structural design of ordinary simple building structures. The second part of the book focuses on investigating the worst-case scenario for passively controlled and base-isolated buildings. This allows for detailed consideration of a range of topics includin...

Too Few Apples: The Challenge of Declining Enrolments and Teacher Redundancy in Canada.

Science.gov (United States)

Chamberlin, Richard J.

This study provides a review of the nature and success of programs dealing with excess teacher supply. The causes and effects of teacher redundancy are discussed, and methods of supply and demand planning are examined. Strategies to deal with inservice retraining and programs that present career alternatives are reviewed. Among the solutions…

A particle-based simplified swarm optimization algorithm for reliability redundancy allocation problems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Chia-Ling

2015-01-01

This paper proposes a new swarm intelligence method known as the Particle-based Simplified Swarm Optimization (PSSO) algorithm while undertaking a modification of the Updating Mechanism (UM), called N-UM and R-UM, and simultaneously applying an Orthogonal Array Test (OA) to solve reliability–redundancy allocation problems (RRAPs) successfully. One difficulty of RRAP is the need to maximize system reliability in cases where the number of redundant components and the reliability of corresponding components in each subsystem are simultaneously decided with nonlinear constraints. In this paper, four RRAP benchmarks are used to display the applicability of the proposed PSSO that advances the strengths of both PSO and SSO to enable optimizing the RRAP that belongs to mixed-integer nonlinear programming. When the computational results are compared with those of previously developed algorithms in existing literature, the findings indicate that the proposed PSSO is highly competitive and performs well. - Highlights: • This paper proposes a particle-based simplified swarm optimization algorithm (PSSO) to optimize RRAP. • Furthermore, the UM and an OA are adapted to advance in optimizing RRAP. • Four systems are introduced and the results demonstrate the PSSO performs particularly well

Self-checking in a logic protection system using a redundant computer structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Darier, P.; Lallement, D.

1978-01-01

The logic protection system described has a parallel and redundant computer structure. Each assembly consists of an analog and digital acquisition module, a processing unit and a simple and reliable logical decision device adapted to the redundancy of the system (two-out-of-three or two-out-of-four). Each processing unit monitors all the detection units, processes the values received and works out the corresponding decisions. The decisions are collated in the final stage in a majority decision element which sets the protective action in motion. At all levels the quality of data transmission and validity of processing are tested in order that the best strategy may be applied in the event of damage to the system. Several self-checking techniques were used: they include a set of electronic test modules connected to the processing unit, on-line system testing and control software and time control devices which provide a final verification of the overall operation of the system. Self-checking and test operations are performed regularly throughout surveillance cycles. Problems of fault detection and of protection against the effects of faults are examined from the aspect of hardware and software. (author)

Performance and delay analysis of hybrid ARQ with incremental redundancy over double rayleigh fading channels

KAUST Repository

Chelli, Ali; Zedini, Emna; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim; Barry, John R.; Pä tzold, Matthias

2014-01-01

the performance of HARQ from an information theoretic perspective. Analytical expressions are derived for the \\epsilon-outage capacity, the average number of transmissions, and the average transmission rate of HARQ with incremental redundancy assuming a maximum

Global energy modeling - A biophysical approach

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dale, Michael

2010-09-15

This paper contrasts the standard economic approach to energy modelling with energy models using a biophysical approach. Neither of these approaches includes changing energy-returns-on-investment (EROI) due to declining resource quality or the capital intensive nature of renewable energy sources. Both of these factors will become increasingly important in the future. An extension to the biophysical approach is outlined which encompasses a dynamic EROI function that explicitly incorporates technological learning. The model is used to explore several scenarios of long-term future energy supply especially concerning the global transition to renewable energy sources in the quest for a sustainable energy system.

Polycomb complexes act redundantly to repress genomic repeats and genes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Leeb, Martin; Pasini, Diego; Novatchkova, Maria

2010-01-01

Polycomb complexes establish chromatin modifications for maintaining gene repression and are essential for embryonic development in mice. Here we use pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells to demonstrate an unexpected redundancy between Polycomb-repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and PRC2 during...... the formation of differentiated cells. ES cells lacking the function of either PRC1 or PRC2 can differentiate into cells of the three germ layers, whereas simultaneous loss of PRC1 and PRC2 abrogates differentiation. On the molecular level, the differentiation defect is caused by the derepression of a set...

Fault-tolerant design approach for reliable offshore multi-megawatt variable frequency converters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Vedachalam

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Inverters play a key role in realizing reliable multi-megawatt power electronic converters used in offshore applications, as their failure leads to production losses and impairs safety. The performance of high power handing semiconductor devices with high speed control capabilities and redundant configurations helps in realizing a fault-tolerant design. This paper describes the reliability modeling done for an industry standard, 3-level neutral point clamped multi-megawatt inverter, the significance of semiconductor redundancy in reducing inverter failure rates, and proposes methods for achieving static and dynamic redundancy in series connected press pack type insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT. It is identified that, with the multi megawatt inverter having 3+2 IGBT in each half leg with dynamic redundancy incorporated, it is possible to reduce the failure rate of the inverter from 53.8% to 15% in 5 years of continuous operation. The simulation results indicate that with dynamic redundancy, it is possible to force an untriggered press pack IGBT to short circuit in <1s, when operated with a pulse width modulation frequency of 1kHz.

The Process-Oriented Simulation (POS) model for common cause failures: recent progress

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berg, H.P.; Goertz, R.; Schimetschka, E.; Kesten, J.

2006-01-01

A common-cause failure (CCF) model based on stochastic simulation has been developed to complement the established approaches and to overcome some of their shortcomings. Reflecting the models proximity to the CCF process it was called Process Oriented Simulation (POS) Model. In recent years, some progress has been made to render the POS model fit for practical applications comprising the development of parameter estimates and a number of test applications in areas where results were already available - especially from CCF benchmarks - and comparison can provide insights in strong and weak points of the different approaches. In this paper, a detailed description of the POS model is provided together with the approach to parameter estimation and representative test applications. It is concluded, that the POS model has a number of strengths - especially the feature to provide reasonable extrapolation to CCF groups with high degrees of redundancy - and thus a considerable potential to complement the insights obtained from existing modeling. (orig.)

Redundancy in Anaerobic Digestion Microbiomes during Disturbances by the Antibiotic Monensin

Science.gov (United States)

Spirito, Catherine M.; Daly, Sarah E.; Werner, Jeffrey J.

2018-01-01

ABSTRACT The antibiotic monensin is fed to dairy cows to increase milk production efficiency. A fraction of this monensin is excreted into the cow manure. Previous studies have found that cow manure containing monensin can negatively impact the performance of anaerobic digesters, especially upon first introduction. Few studies have examined whether the anaerobic digester microbiome can adapt to monensin during the operating time. Here, we conducted a long-term time series study of four lab-scale anaerobic digesters fed with cow manure. We examined changes in both the microbiome composition and function of the anaerobic digesters when subjected to the dairy antibiotic monensin. In our digesters, monensin was not rapidly degraded under anaerobic conditions. The two anaerobic digesters that were subjected to manure from monensin feed-dosed cows exhibited relatively small changes in microbiome composition and function due to relatively low monensin concentrations. At higher concentrations of monensin, which we dosed directly to control manure (from dairy cows without monensin), we observed major changes in the microbiome composition and function of two anaerobic digesters. A rapid introduction of monensin to one of these anaerobic digesters led to the impairment of methane production. Conversely, more gradual additions of the same concentrations of monensin to the other anaerobic digester led to the adaptation of the anaerobic digester microbiomes to the relatively high monensin concentrations. A member of the candidate OP11 (Microgenomates) phylum arose in this anaerobic digester and appeared to be redundant with certain Bacteroidetes phylum members, which previously were dominating. IMPORTANCE Monensin is a common antibiotic given to dairy cows in the United States and is partly excreted with dairy manure. An improved understanding of how monensin affects the anaerobic digester microbiome composition and function is important to prevent process failure for farm

Safety Concepts in Structural Glass Engineering : Towards an Integrated Approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bos, F.P.

2009-01-01

This dissertation proposes the Integrated Approach to Structural Glass Safety, based on four clearly defined element safety properties, damage sensitivity, relative resistance, redundancy, and fracture mode. The Element Safety Diagram (ESD) is introduced to provide an easy-to-read graphical

Redundant mechanisms are involved in suppression of default cell fates during embryonic mesenchyme and notochord induction in ascidians.

Science.gov (United States)

Kodama, Hitoshi; Miyata, Yoshimasa; Kuwajima, Mami; Izuchi, Ryoichi; Kobayashi, Ayumi; Gyoja, Fuki; Onuma, Takeshi A; Kumano, Gaku; Nishida, Hiroki

2016-08-01

During embryonic induction, the responding cells invoke an induced developmental program, whereas in the absence of an inducing signal, they assume a default uninduced cell fate. Suppression of the default fate during the inductive event is crucial for choice of the binary cell fate. In contrast to the mechanisms that promote an induced cell fate, those that suppress the default fate have been overlooked. Upon induction, intracellular signal transduction results in activation of genes encoding key transcription factors for induced tissue differentiation. It is elusive whether an induced key transcription factor has dual functions involving suppression of the default fates and promotion of the induced fate, or whether suppression of the default fate is independently regulated by other factors that are also downstream of the signaling cascade. We show that during ascidian embryonic induction, default fates were suppressed by multifold redundant mechanisms. The key transcription factor, Twist-related.a, which is required for mesenchyme differentiation, and another independent transcription factor, Lhx3, which is dispensable for mesenchyme differentiation, sequentially and redundantly suppress the default muscle fate in induced mesenchyme cells. Similarly in notochord induction, Brachyury, which is required for notochord differentiation, and other factors, Lhx3 and Mnx, are likely to suppress the default nerve cord fate redundantly. Lhx3 commonly suppresses the default fates in two kinds of induction. Mis-activation of the autonomously executed default program in induced cells is detrimental to choice of the binary cell fate. Multifold redundant mechanisms would be required for suppression of the default fate to be secure. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reliability models for a nonrepairable system with heterogeneous components having a phase-type time-to-failure distribution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Heungseob; Kim, Pansoo

2017-01-01

This research paper presents practical stochastic models for designing and analyzing the time-dependent reliability of nonrepairable systems. The models are formulated for nonrepairable systems with heterogeneous components having phase-type time-to-failure distributions by a structured continuous time Markov chain (CTMC). The versatility of the phase-type distributions enhances the flexibility and practicality of the systems. By virtue of these benefits, studies in reliability engineering can be more advanced than the previous studies. This study attempts to solve a redundancy allocation problem (RAP) by using these new models. The implications of mixing components, redundancy levels, and redundancy strategies are simultaneously considered to maximize the reliability of a system. An imperfect switching case in a standby redundant system is also considered. Furthermore, the experimental results for a well-known RAP benchmark problem are presented to demonstrate the approximating error of the previous reliability function for a standby redundant system and the usefulness of the current research. - Highlights: • Phase-type time-to-failure distribution is used for components. • Reliability model for nonrepairable system is developed using Markov chain. • System is composed of heterogeneous components. • Model provides the real value of standby system reliability not an approximation. • Redundancy allocation problem is used to show usefulness of this model.

Different-Level Simultaneous Minimization Scheme for Fault Tolerance of Redundant Manipulator Aided with Discrete-Time Recurrent Neural Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Long; Liao, Bolin; Liu, Mei; Xiao, Lin; Guo, Dongsheng; Yan, Xiaogang

2017-01-01

By incorporating the physical constraints in joint space, a different-level simultaneous minimization scheme, which takes both the robot kinematics and robot dynamics into account, is presented and investigated for fault-tolerant motion planning of redundant manipulator in this paper. The scheme is reformulated as a quadratic program (QP) with equality and bound constraints, which is then solved by a discrete-time recurrent neural network. Simulative verifications based on a six-link planar redundant robot manipulator substantiate the efficacy and accuracy of the presented acceleration fault-tolerant scheme, the resultant QP and the corresponding discrete-time recurrent neural network.

Redundancy control in music performance : towards an understanding of the role of constraint satisfaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Heijink, H.J.I.C.M.

2002-01-01

We investigated two redundancy control problems related to music performance, one in computer science and one in motor control research, viz., score-performance matching and guitar fingering. In score-performance matching, a score and a performance have to be compared note by note to find the

Response diversity, functional redundancy, and post-logging productivity in northern temperate and boreal forests.

Science.gov (United States)

Correia, David Laginha Pinto; Raulier, Frédéric; Bouchard, Mathieu; Filotas, Élise

2018-04-19

The development of efficient ecosystem resilience indicators was identified as one of the key research priorities in the improvement of existing sustainable forest management frameworks. Two indicators of tree diversity associated with ecosystem functioning have recently received particular attention in the literature: functional redundancy (FR) and response diversity (RD). We examined how these indicators could be used to predict post-logging productivity in forests of Québec, Canada. We analysed the relationships between pre-logging FR and RD, as measured with sample plots, and post-logging productivity, measured as seasonal variation in enhanced vegetation index obtained from MODIS satellite imagery. The effects of the deciduous and coniferous tree components in our pre-disturbance diversity assessments were isolated in order to examine the hypothesis that they have different impacts on post-disturbance productivity. We also examined the role of tree species richness and species identity effects. Our analysis revealed the complementary nature of traditional biodiversity indicators and trait-based approaches in the study of biodiversity-ecosystem-functioning relationships in dynamic ecosystems. We report a significant and positive relationship between pre-disturbance deciduous RD and post-disturbance productivity, as well as an unexpected significant negative effect of coniferous RD on productivity. This negative relationship with post-logging productivity likely results from slower coniferous regeneration speeds and from the relatively short temporal scale examined. Negative black-spruce-mediated identity effects were likely associated with increased stand vulnerability to paludification and invasion by ericaceous shrubs that slow down forest regeneration. Response diversity outperformed functional redundancy as a measure of post-disturbance productivity most likely due to the stand-replacing nature of the disturbance considered. To the best of our knowledge

Comparisons of Multilevel Modeling and Structural Equation Modeling Approaches to Actor-Partner Interdependence Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Sehee; Kim, Soyoung

2018-01-01

There are basically two modeling approaches applicable to analyzing an actor-partner interdependence model: the multilevel modeling (hierarchical linear model) and the structural equation modeling. This article explains how to use these two models in analyzing an actor-partner interdependence model and how these two approaches work differently. As an empirical example, marital conflict data were used to analyze an actor-partner interdependence model. The multilevel modeling and the structural equation modeling produced virtually identical estimates for a basic model. However, the structural equation modeling approach allowed more realistic assumptions on measurement errors and factor loadings, rendering better model fit indices.

A Hidden Markov Models Approach for Crop Classification: Linking Crop Phenology to Time Series of Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sofia Siachalou

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Vegetation monitoring and mapping based on multi-temporal imagery has recently received much attention due to the plethora of medium-high spatial resolution satellites and the improved classification accuracies attained compared to uni-temporal approaches. Efficient image processing strategies are needed to exploit the phenological information present in temporal image sequences and to limit data redundancy and computational complexity. Within this framework, we implement the theory of Hidden Markov Models in crop classification, based on the time-series analysis of phenological states, inferred by a sequence of remote sensing observations. More specifically, we model the dynamics of vegetation over an agricultural area of Greece, characterized by spatio-temporal heterogeneity and small-sized fields, using RapidEye and Landsat ETM+ imagery. In addition, the classification performance of image sequences with variable spatial and temporal characteristics is evaluated and compared. The classification model considering one RapidEye and four pan-sharpened Landsat ETM+ images was found superior, resulting in a conditional kappa from 0.77 to 0.94 per class and an overall accuracy of 89.7%. The results highlight the potential of the method for operational crop mapping in Euro-Mediterranean areas and provide some hints for optimal image acquisition windows regarding major crop types in Greece.

An analytical and experimental study of the behaviour of redundant controllers applied to a nuclear plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lawrence, L.A.J.

1964-02-01

The behaviour of a number of configurations of redundant controllers is examined and the design problems discussed in relation to the engineering of reliable control rod drive systems for nuclear plant. (author)

A Multi-Model Approach for System Diagnosis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Niemann, Hans Henrik; Poulsen, Niels Kjølstad; Bækgaard, Mikkel Ask Buur

2007-01-01

A multi-model approach for system diagnosis is presented in this paper. The relation with fault diagnosis as well as performance validation is considered. The approach is based on testing a number of pre-described models and find which one is the best. It is based on an active approach......,i.e. an auxiliary input to the system is applied. The multi-model approach is applied on a wind turbine system....

Microsatellite-aided detection of genetic redundancy improves management of the International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad

Science.gov (United States)

Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.), the tree from which cocoa butter and chocolate is derived, is conserved in field genebanks. The largest of these ex situ collections in the public domain is the International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad (ICG,T). Reduction of genetic redundancy is essential to improve the acc...

Preliminary results from comparisons of redundant tiltmeters at three sites in central california

Science.gov (United States)

Mortensen, C.E.; Johnston, M.J.S.

1979-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey has been operating a network of shallow-borehole tiltmeters in central California since June 1973. At six sites redundant instruments have been installed as a check on data coherency. These include the Sage Ranch, Tres Pinos, New Idria, Aromas, Bear Valley and San Juan Bautista tiltmeter sites. Preliminary results from the comparison of redundant data from the Aromas, Bear Valley and San Juan Bautista sites for periods of eight, three and seven months respectively, suggest that short period tilt signals in the range 5 min < T < 3-5 h and ranging in amplitude from 5 ?? 10-8 to 10-6 rad, but not including step offsets, show excellent agreement on closely spaced instruments. Agreement is not as good in this period range for instruments at San Juan Bautista with a separation of 200 m. Signals of interest observed in this period range include coseismic tilts, teleseisms and tilts associated with creep events. Tilt signals in the period range 3-5 h < T < 2- 5 weeks are not always coherent at all three of the redundant tilt sites studied. Tilt signals in this period range have amplitudes up to 5 ?? 10-6 rad and wavelengths down to at least the instrument separation at the closely spaced sites (~several meters). Regarding longerterm coherency, the instruments at San Juan Bautista with 200-m spacing, agree within 0.5 ??rad for the N-S component and 0.7 jurad for the E-W component for a period of two months. The closely spaced redundant instruments at Aromas agree within 2 ??rad for the N-S component and 1 ??rad for the E-W component for the eight-month period of operation. Data from the three sites have been checked for effects of temperature, atmospheric pressure and rainfall. The latter appears to be critically site dependent. The worst case tilts for 1 inch of rainfall can be more than 1 jurad with a duration of a few days to a week. Typical rain-induced tilts are less than 0.3 ??rad for 1 inch of rain. The two instruments at the Sage Ranch

NMR-MPar: A Fault-Tolerance Approach for Multi-Core and Many-Core Processors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vanessa Vargas

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Multi-core and many-core processors are a promising solution to achieve high performance by maintaining a lower power consumption. However, the degree of miniaturization makes them more sensitive to soft-errors. To improve the system reliability, this work proposes a fault-tolerance approach based on redundancy and partitioning principles called N-Modular Redundancy and M-Partitions (NMR-MPar. By combining both principles, this approach allows multi-/many-core processors to perform critical functions in mixed-criticality systems. Benefiting from the capabilities of these devices, NMR-MPar creates different partitions that perform independent functions. For critical functions, it is proposed that N partitions with the same configuration participate of an N-modular redundancy system. In order to validate the approach, a case study is implemented on the KALRAY Multi-Purpose Processing Array (MPPA-256 many-core processor running two parallel benchmark applications. The traveling salesman problem and matrix multiplication applications were selected to test different device’s resources. The effectiveness of NMR-MPar is assessed by software-implemented fault-injection. For evaluation purposes, it is considered that the system is intended to be used in avionics. Results show the improvement of the application reliability by two orders of magnitude when implementing NMR-MPar on the system. Finally, this work opens the possibility to use massive parallelism for dependable applications in embedded systems.

Application of the NSGA-II algorithm to a multi-period inventory-redundancy allocation problem in a series-parallel system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alikar, Najmeh; Mousavi, Seyed Mohsen; Raja Ghazilla, Raja Ariffin; Tavana, Madjid; Olugu, Ezutah Udoncy

2017-01-01

In this paper, we formulate a mixed-integer binary non-linear programming model to study a series-parallel multi-component multi-periodic inventory-redundancy allocation problem (IRAP). This IRAP is a novel redundancy allocation problem (RAP) because components (products) are purchased under an all unit discount (AUD) policy and then installed on a series-parallel system. The total budget available for purchasing the components, the storage space, the vehicle capacities, and the total weight of the system are limited. Moreover, a penalty function is used to penalize infeasible solutions, generated randomly. The overall goal is to find the optimal number of the components purchased for each subsystem so that the total costs including ordering cost, holding costs, and purchasing cost are minimized while the system reliability is maximized, simultaneously. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II), a multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), and a multi-objective harmony search (MOHS) algorithm are applied to obtain the optimal Pareto solutions. While no benchmark is available in the literature, some numerical examples are generated randomly to evaluate the results of NSGA-II on the proposed IRAP. The results are in favor of NSGA-II. - Highlights: • An inventory control system employing an all-unit discount policy is considered in the proposed model. • The proposed model considers limited total budget, storage space, transportation capacity, and total weight. Moreover, a penalty function is used to penalize infeasible solutions. • The overall goal is to find the optimal number components purchased for each subsystem so that the total costs including ordering cost, holding cost and purchasing cost are minimized and the system reliability are maximized, simultaneously. • A NSGA-II algorithm is derived where a multi-objective particle swarm optimization and a multi-objective harmony search algorithm are used to evaluate the NSGA-II results.

The Redundancy Effect on Retention and Transfer for Individuals with High Symptoms of ADHD

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Victoria; Lewis, David; Toussaint, Mario

2016-01-01

The multimedia elements of text and audio need to be carefully integrated together to maximize the impact of those elements for learning in a multimedia environment. Redundancy information presented through audio and visual channels can inhibit learning for individuals diagnosed with ADHD, who may experience challenges in the processing of…