Managing Inconsistencies in Data Grid Environments

Much work has been done in the area of data access and integration using various data mapping, matching, and loading techniques. One of the main concerns when integrating data from heterogeneous data sources is data redundancy. The concern is mainly due to the different business contexts and purposes from which the data systems were originally built. A common process for accessing data from integrated databases involves the use of each data source’s own catalogue or metadata schema. In this article, the authors take the view that there is a greater chance of data inconsistencies, such as data redundancies when integrating them within a grid environment as compared to traditional distributed paradigms. The importance of improving the data search and matching process is briefly discussed, and a partial service oriented generic strategy is adopted to consolidate distinct catalogue schemas of federated databases to access information seamlessly. To this end, a proposed matching strategy between structure objects and data values across federated databases in a grid environment is presented.

Personal Storage Grid Architecture

On-demand cloud applications like online email accounts and online virtual disk space are becoming widely available in various forms. In cloud applications, one can see the importance of underlying resources, such as disk space, that is available to the end-user but not easily accessible. In the authors’ study, a modern file system developed in linux is proposed, which enables consuming of cloud applications and making the underlying disk space resource available to the end-user. This system is developed as a web service to support cross operation system support. A free online mail account was used to demonstrate this solution, and an IMAP protocol to communicate with remote data spaces was used so that this method can mount onto any email system that supports IMAP. The authors’ definition of infinite storage as the user is able to mount file systems as a single logical drive.

Predictive File Replication on the Data Grids

Most replication methods either monitor the popularity of files or use complicated functions to calculate the overall cost of whether or not a replication decision or a deletion decision should be issued. However, once the replication decision is issued, the popularity of the files is changed and may have already impacted access latency and resource usage. This article proposes a decision-tree-based predictive file replication strategy that forecasts files’ future popularity based on their characteristics on the Grids. The proposed strategy has shown superb performance in terms of mean job time and effective network usage compared with the other two replication strategies, LRU and Economic under OptorSim simulation environment.

Intelligent Industrial Data Acquisition and Energy Monitoring using Wireless Sensor Networks

Most of the application-oriented research in the field of Wireless Sensor Networks has been in remote monitoring, including environmental, building automation, and security. However, this paper presents the methodology followed for implementation of a Wireless Sensor Network based solution in a process plant for energy management and leak detection. The sensor network acquires data pertaining to detection of leakage in a plant. The network further serves effectively as a maintenance and diagnostic system that is used to manage the plant and conserve energy in a process plant. The critical design issues, testing methodologies and implementation problems pertaining to the system are also presented. Additionally, special focus has been placed on the calculations pertaining to the network life time.

Road Traffic Parameters Estimation by Dynamic Scene Analysis

Traffic congestion and violation of traffic rules are very common in most of the road transport system. Continuous monitoring is becoming difficult. To improve the quality of road transport monitoring and control, the best possible alternative is machine vision. In this review, several works by researchers on traffic analysis are detailed, studied and reviewed critically for the purpose. Further, an attempt is made to classify the different road traffic analysis approaches available in the literature. Classification is based on principle used, algorithm adopted, techniques used, technology behind and other special considerations of the researchers.

Deep Analysis of Enhanced Authentication for Next Generation Networks

Next Generation Networks (NGN) is the evolution of the telecommunication core. The user has to execute multi-pass Authentication and Key Agreement (AKA) procedures in order to get access to the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). This causes overhead on the AAA server and increases the delay of authenticating the user and that is because of unnecessary and repeated procedures and protocols. This paper presents an enhanced one-pass AKA procedure that eliminates the repeated steps without affecting the security level, in addition it reduces the Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. The presented mechanism has minimal impact on the network infrastructure and functionality and does not require any changes to the existing authentication protocols.

Efficient Communication Interfaces for Distributed Energy Resources

The IEC 61850 standard originally was developed for the substation automation. During the past years it was adapted for the integration of distributed energy resources into communication networks, however, with specific requirements. Many small and midsize manufacturers are using, as controllers, a big variety of different microprocessors with limited performances. Such controllers need an interface for IEC 61850 communication networks with a basic functionality which can be implemented with limited costs. Based on their experiences during the realization of an IEC 61850 communication stack, the authors propose ways to support these requirements. In particular, communication interfaces for photovoltaics systems and wind power plants are considered.

Modeling Scalable Grid Information Services with Colored Petri Nets

Information services play a crucial role in grid computing environments in that the state information of a grid system can be used to facilitate the discovery of resources and services available to meet user requirements and help tune the performance of the grid. This paper models PIndex, which is a grouped peer-to-peer network with Colored Petri Nets (CPNs) for scalable grid information services. Based on the CPN model, a simulator is implemented for PIndex simulation and performance evaluation. The correctness of the simulator is further verified by comparing the results computed from the CPN model with the results generated by the PIndex simulator.

Peer-to-Peer Desktop Grids Based on an Adaptive Decentralized Scheduling Mechanism

This article proposes an adaptive fuzzy logic based decentralized scheduling mechanism that will be suitable for dynamic computing environment in which matchmaking is achieved between resource requirements of outstanding tasks and resource capabilities of available workers. Feasibility of the proposed method is done via real time system. Experimental results show that implementing the proposed fuzzy matchmaking based scheduling mechanism maximized the resource utilization of executing workers without exceeding the maximum execution time of the task. It is concluded that the efficiency of FMA-based decentralized scheduling, in the case of parallel execution, is reduced by increasing the number of subtasks.

A Method of 3-D Microstructure Reconstruction in the Simulation Model of Cement Hydration

An accurate and reliable computer simulation system can help practical experiments greatly. In a cement hydration simulation system, the basic requirement is to reconstruct the 3-D microstructure of the cement particles in the initial state while mixed with water. A 2-D SEM/X-ray image is certainly achievable; however, it is not easy to obtain parallel images due to the small scale of the cement particles. In this regard, a method is proposed to reconstruct the 3-D structure from a single microstructure image. In this method, micro-particles are regenerated in a growing trees mode, which by modifying the generating probability of the leaves, the irregularity and the surface fraction of particles can be controlled. This method can fulfill the requirement for the parameters of the 3-D image while assuring that the 2-D image is in full accord.