Central Infrastructure Research Articles

Intelligent terminal structure response on anchorage foundation stability of Undersea Data Cabins affected by turbidity flow

The construction of Undersea Data Center (UDC) infrastructure will be a crucial choice for countries worldwide in developing the numerical economy. The support structure foundation of Undersea Data Cabins serves as the safety bedrock of the entire underwater infrastructure project, This paper proposes a monitoring method that combines the support structure foundation and anchoring of UDC, develops an anchorage foundation and its intelligent terminal structure (ITS) for the UDC support structure, and conducts a physical similarity model experiment on the ITS perception of the UDC support structure anchorage foundation under extreme turbidity flow erosion. The results verify the adaptability of the ITS components installed on the UDC anchorage foundation in monitoring axial load loss. It was discovered that the axial load of the UDC anchorage foundation and the evolution of turbidity flow density under turbidity flow erosion exhibit a cubic polynomial function relationship, which can provide a quantitative relational criterion for the stability monitoring and early warning of the UDC anchorage foundation. This has significant safety implications for the development of UDC industrial clusters and commercial promotion.

Increase in Demand for Electricity Due to Rapid Increase in Data Centers to Support AI and Role of V2G in Supporting this Growth

Purpose: The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has led to unprecedented growth in data center infrastructure, significantly increasing global electricity demand. This study examines how Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology can mitigate the energy challenges associated with AI-driven data center expansion. Methodology: This paper employs a literature review of technological advancements, policy frameworks, and case studies to explore the interplay between AI-driven data center growth, electricity consumption, and the potential of V2G technology. Strategic insights are drawn to evaluate V2G’s role in energy management and grid stabilization. Findings: V2G technology provides a promising solution for peak demand management, renewable energy integration, and grid stabilization by leveraging electric vehicles as mobile energy storage units. Key findings highlight V2G's capacity to support sustainable energy practices in data centers, with examples from real-world implementations. Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy, and Practice: This paper contributes to the understanding of V2G’s transformative potential in addressing energy challenges posed by AI-driven data center expansion. It emphasizes the need for collaborative efforts in technological development, policy-making, and adoption strategies to build a resilient, sustainable infrastructure for the future.

Exploring Managers' Views on Government Support for Special Care Centres for Learners with Severe Intellectual Disabilities in Gauteng, South Africa

This study investigates managers' perceptions of the support provided by the Gauteng provincial government to Special Care Centres for Learners with Severe to Profound Intellectual Disabilities. It examines the challenges these managers face and evaluates the adequacy of governmental support from their perspective. Utilizing a Mixed Methods Research (MMR) approach with an exploratory sequential design, the research comprised two phases. In Phase 1, qualitative data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 10 managers, followed by Phase 2, where 31 participants completed a questionnaire. Out of 45 centre managers, 14 did not return the questionnaire. The findings reveal that managers struggle to obtain support from various provincial government departments. While the Departments of Education, Health, and Social Development provide assistance in accordance with policy, departments such as Transport, Cooperative Governance, and Infrastructure fail to meet their obligations. The study recommends enhanced collaboration among provincial departments to improve support for the centres, focusing on transportation for learners to and from the centres, upgrading centre infrastructure, and establishing effective communication channels between managers and government departments.

The RedFish API and vSphere Hypervisor API: A Unified Framework for Policy-Based Server Monitoring

Integrating remote monitoring systems is crucial in the ever-changing field of data center management to enhance performance and guarantee reliability. This paper outlines a comprehensive strategy for monitoring remote servers by utilizing agents that establish connections to the RedFish API (Application Programming Interface) and vSphere hypervisor API. Our solution uses the RedFish standard to provide secure and standardized management of hardware components in diverse server environments. This improves interoperability and scalability. Simultaneously, the vSphere agent enables monitoring and hardware administration in vSphere-based virtualized environments, offering crucial insights into the state of the underlying hardware. This system, which employs two agents, simplifies the management of servers and seamlessly integrates with current data center infrastructures, enhancing efficiency. The policy-based alerting system built on top of these agents offers many capabilities based on both agents leveraging their alerting systems. This, in turn, can improve the capabilities of next-generation data centers.

Optimization and performance improvement of distributed data storage in hybrid storage systems

With the rapid development of information technology, the storage and processing of massive data has become one of the important challenges facing the current computing field. Traditional centralized storage systems have been unable to meet the needs of big data applications, while distributed storage systems have become the infrastructure of modern data centers because of their high scalability and high availability. However, in practical applications, a single distributed storage model is often difficult to balance cost-effectiveness and performance requirements. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid storage system model combining local storage and cloud storage resources and discusses a series of optimization strategies for this model. The focus of the research is to improve the overall performance of the system through the design of intelligent data sharding, redundancy and fault tolerance mechanisms, and the application of effective load balancing technology. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method are verified by testing and analyzing several typical application scenarios on the experimental platform. The experimental results show that the optimized hybrid storage system not only significantly improves the speed of data access, but also effectively reduces the storage cost, demonstrating its potential in future large-scale data management.

Developing Evidence to Support Policy: Protocol for the StrAtegic PoLicy EvIdence-Based Evaluation CeNTer (SALIENT).

All federal agencies are required to support appropriation requests with evidence and evaluation (US Public Law 115-435; the Evidence Act). The StrAtegic PoLicy EvIdence-Based Evaluation CeNTer (SALIENT) is 1 of 6 centers that help the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) meet this requirement. Working with the existing VA evaluation structure, SALIENT evaluations will contribute to (1) optimize policies and programs for veteran populations; (2) improve outcomes regarding health, equity, cost, and provider well-being; (3) advance the science of dissemination and knowledge translation; and (4) expand the implementation and dissemination science workforce. We leverage the Lean Sprint methodology (iterative, incremental, rule-governed approach to clearly defined, and time-boxed work) and 3 cores to develop our evaluation plans collaboratively with operational partners and key stakeholders including veterans, policy experts, and clinicians. The Operations Core will work with evaluation teams to develop timelines, facilitate work, monitor progress, and guide quality improvement within SALIENT. The Methods Core will work with evaluation teams to identify the most appropriate qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches to address each evaluation, ensure that the analyses are conducted appropriately, and troubleshoot when problems with data acquisition and analysis arise. The Knowledge Translation (KT) Core will target key partners and decision makers using a needs-based market segmentation approach to ensure that needs are incorporated in the dissemination of knowledge. The KT Core will create communications briefs, playbooks, and other materials targeted at these market segments to facilitate implementation of evidence-based practices and maximize the impact of evaluation results. The SALIENT team has developed a center infrastructure to support high-priority evaluations, often to be responsive to shifting operational needs and priorities. Our team has engaged in our core missions and operations to rapidly evaluate a high-priority areas, develop a comprehensive Lean Sprint systems redesign approach to training, and accelerate rapid knowledge translation. With an array of interdisciplinary expertise, operational partnerships, and integrated resources, SALIENT has an established and evolving infrastructure to rapidly develop and implement high-impact evaluations. Projects are developed with sustained efficiency approaches that can pivot to new priorities as needed and effectively translate knowledge for key stakeholders and policy makers, while creating a learning health system infrastructure to foster the next generation of evaluation and implementation scientists. PRR1-10.2196/59830.

Building a successful transplant research center: Blueprints and barriers.

A successful multidisciplinary research center depends on the quality of the science being conducted and the quality of the center's design, culture, infrastructure, and institutional support. In this perspective, we describe our experience building and maintaining a multidisciplinary transplant research center with a large focus on transplant infectious diseases. We identify principles that we believe contributed to our success including: taking inventory, defining culture, creating a multidisciplinary shared leadership model, establishing expertise in a multiple method approach, investing in operations and management, building and sharing resources, and securing institutional support. We share our experience putting these principles into practice and highlight potential roadblocks.

Real-time fault-tolerant guidance for launch vehicle ascending flight under thrust drop failure

This paper presents a real-time fault-tolerant guidance method, which solves the autonomous rescue problem in the event of thrust drop failure during the final stage flight of launch vehicles. The core of the method is the online and optimal reconstruction of both the degraded target orbit and the subsequent flight trajectory. Aiming at achieving satisfied onboard computing performance and making the best use of the launcher’s residual energy, a unique relaxation-penalization model transformation method for the nonlinear orbit injection conditions is proposed, and a successive convexification algorithm is developed to solve the problem. Furthermore, both the two classic thrust drop failure situations, that is the mass flow rate drop and the specific impulse drop problems, can be resolved by the proposed algorithm. The average run-time of this orbit-trajectory joint optimization algorithm is below 150ms in an embedded ARM processor @1.5 GHz, which is adequate for onboard use. Using the above algorithm as a central infrastructure, a receding-horizon-strategy-based fault-tolerant guidance method is proposed. By performing the optimization repeatedly at a high frequency, the effects of parameter deviations and external disturbances can be absorbed for the most part, for example, the guidance algorithm is verified to be capable of tolerating at least ±5% thrust deviations. Comprehensive numerical and hardware-in-the-loop simulations are performed to demonstrate the computational performance, accuracy, and reliability of the proposed algorithms.

A conceptual framework for understanding neighbourhoods in the digital age

Digital platforms are a central infrastructure that has dramatically changed our daily lives. Like any other urban infrastructure and amenity, the digital platform has a heterogeneous influence on social groups. Studies exploring the influence of the digital on the mundane tend to focus on users, their socioeconomic status and their digital skills. However, digitisation is not an exogenous force; rather, it relates to culture and place. The departure point of this article is to conceptualise the idea of neighbourhood in the digital age, which offers a path towards understanding the role of the digital in our daily lives in relation to places. The article starts by discussing the neighbourhood and digitisation, addressing gaps and links that connect these themes. This discussion is followed by presentation of a framework linking the material with the virtual in understanding neighbourhoods. This framework is based on gathering data on four key issues: spatial configuration, digital infrastructure, demographic profile and digital participation in a neighbourhood. Jointly, these four issues are viewed as the means to contextualise and expand the way we think about the interplay between infrastructures and the agency of the neighbourhood’s inhabitants.

A Careful Examination of the Security and Traffic Effects Associated with the Vehicle Ad-hoc Network (VANET)

During recent years, vehicular ad hoc networks, or VANETs, have emerged as one of the most exciting and difficult study fields. VANET is regarded as a subset of MANET, or mobile ad hoc network, which is primarily used on automobiles. With the use of traffic data, VANET hopes to supply an advanced Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) with a wealth of information. Mention how daily traffic data collection helps with transportation planning, particularly with regard to intra-city communication. Two of the main issues with the existing traffic system are jams in traffic and accidents. Around the world, numerous people lose their lives or suffer severe injuries in traffic accidents each year. Human lives on the road are directly impacted by these issues. VANET can help to avert these mishaps and facilitate the efficient operation of daily traffic. Furthermore, VANET offers a plethora of intriguing applications, including real-time traffic condition monitoring, dynamic route scheduling, blind crossing prevention, safety, and more. In addition, there are certain drawbacks in terms of traffic and security. The absence of a centralised infrastructure in VANET is one of the main security issues. One of the most difficult jobs in the resultant decentralised and self- organizing VANETs is the administration of the wireless channel to make an efficient use of its capacity because there is no centralised infrastructure in charge of synchronisation and coordination of transmissions. VANET is primarily used to lower the risk of accidents in urban areas with a high volume and complexity of vehicles. We introduce the VANET Security R&D Ecosystem and examine traffic in this article. The four main components of the R&D ecosystem are end customers, government agencies, automakers, and university research. Every facet of VANET is covered in detail. Our study primarily focuses on the security and traffic within VANETs, including how data is safeguarded from vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-roadside infrastructure communications devices (V2I), access points, and other sources.

Analysis of Community Health Center Performance on Tuberculosis Control Programs

Purpose of the study: To explore and analyze the implementation of the Tuberculosis control program using the DOTS strategy at the Satelit Community Health Center. This research aims to identify factors that support and hinder the implementation of the program, evaluate the effectiveness of approaches that integrate Islamic values ​​in health education. Methodology: This research uses a qualitative method with a case study design. The population in this study were all individuals involved in the TB control program at the Satellite Health Center. The data collection technique in this research uses in-depth interviews with guided questions that have been prepared in advance. Data obtained from interviews were then analyzed using thematic analysis method. Main Findings: This research shows that the implementation of the Tuberculosis control program at the Satelit Community Health Center has gone well even though it still faces various challenges. The success of the program is greatly influenced by political commitment, the performance of the Medication Monitor (PMO), as well as adequate facilities and training support. The integration of Islamic values in health education has proven effective in increasing patient compliance and community participation. Novelty/Originality of this study: The novelty of this research lies in the holistic approach in evaluating the performance of community health centers in managing TB, which includes the use of information technology to improve data recording and reporting, intensive training for medical staff in TB case management, as well as improving the infrastructure of community health centers to support more efficient services.

OPPORTUNITIES AND RESULTS OF INTEGRATION OF KAZAKHSTAN'S TRANSPORT SYSTEM WITH INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

The article examines the transport and transit industry of Kazakhstan, strategic planning for improving the logistics infrastructure, creating a network of multimodal transport and logistics centers integrated into regional transport and logistics systems, ensuring close integration of the Kazakh transport system as an equal partner with international transport systems. The main components of the logistics infrastructure of multimodal transport and logistics centers, international transport corridors that ensure coordinated interaction of modes of transport and other participants in the transport and logistics process in Kazakhstan are considered as strategic points for the development of the economy of Kazakhstan. Modern international transport corridors are becoming the main core of the effective development of interstate economic relations in the era of globalization of the world economy. This industry is considered as an important factor of socio-economic prosperity and the Republic of Kazakhstan, which is heading towards an innovative path of development. Because international transport corridors are one of the most important industries that contributes to the prosperity of the global economy, facilitating trade and exchange of goods between countries of the world.

Rail Structural Health Monitoring using ultrasonic guided waves: system design and deployment

Railways are a central industrial infrastructure enabling people and goods transportation all across the globe and their use is due to increase in the forthcoming years to reduce the overall carbon footprint of our modern societies. Hence the need to ensure their reliable use, as traffic interruptions or accidents can have dire social, economic and environmental impacts. In particular, rail breaks can produce such incidents and need to be monitored and prevented if possible. Ultrasonic guided waves are a promising physical phenomenon to monitor rails as they can enable the monitoring of long portions with a limited number of sensors. This talk will present a SHM system relying on such waves for rail monitoring which has been deployed for industrial tests on a subway line. The electronics, the sensors and their coupling to the rail were optimized to ensure the measurement of guided waves after a long-range propagation throughout the life of the system. Indeed, specific couplings are needed to enable long-time coupling, and so ultrasound sensitivity of the system, while the rails are bearing high loads or dilating due to temperature changes. An experimental campaign was carried out to evaluate the sensitivity of the system to rail breaks, and to demonstrate its detection under representative, uncontrolled environmental conditions. Particular considerations linked to pulse-echo inspections, inducing a sensitivity to cut-off frequencies and zero-group velocity modes, will be presented.

Edge Server Deployment for Health Monitoring With Reinforcement Learning in Internet of Medical Things

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has recently gained a lot of interest in the health care industry. IoMT enables real-time and omnipresent monitoring of a patient's health status, resulting in massive amounts of medical data being generated. The centralized massive data processing places enormous strain on the typical cloud computing, rendering it incapable of supporting a variety of real-time health care applications. Therefore, edge computing that moves application programs and data processing from central infrastructure to the edge nodes has attracted wide attention. However, adopting existing edge server (ES) deployment strategies for IoMT is not suitable due to the decentralized and high real-time service requirements of IoMT systems. In particular, traditional ES deployment strategies in IoMT system confront major load imbalance across ESs, latency issues, and energy consumption concerns. To address these challenges, a deployment strategy of ESs based on the state-action-reward-state-action (SARSA) learning, named ESL, is designed. Specifically, ESs are quantified by evaluating the silhouette coefficient (SC) and the sum of squared errors. Then, through fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm, the preliminary division of health monitoring units (HMUs) and the initial locations of ESs are obtained. Finally, SARSA learning is adopted to determine the deployment of ESs. Furthermore, extensive experiments and analyses confirm that ESL achieves the core objective of optimizing load balancing among ESs while also optimizing request-response latency and request processing energy consumption.

Trends in Hybrid Renewable Energy System (HRES) Applications: A Review

Microgrids and hybrid renewable energy systems play a crucial role in today’s energy transition. They enable local power generation and distribution, reducing dependence on large centralized infrastructures, can operate independently or connected to a grid, and can provide backup power, thus increasing system resilience. In addition, they combine multiple renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, and biomass, to maximize the efficiency and reliability of the supply, and are also adaptable to location-specific conditions, taking advantage of locally available energy resources and reducing the need for energy imports. Moreover, they contribute to decarbonization goals by offering a cleaner and more sustainable alternative. In this article, a documentary review is presented on the interaction of Homer Pro software 3.16.2 (July 2023), used for the design of hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES), with other methods of optimization or sizing. Allusion is made to the type of architecture in the most prominent clean and fossil source configurations, the levelized cost, net annual cost, and maintenance and capital investment cost. A comparison is made among the works reported in the last five years regarding the use of this software tool, based on load demand, geographical area, renewable energy sources, fossil sources, and objective functions, applied to the educational, rural, and industrial sectors. It is shown that India is one of the countries that has reported the most number of HRES techno-economic environmental analysis works, and that the case studies have focused approximately 47% on rural areas, 20% on educational agencies, 14% on commerce and industry, and 29% on urban buildings.

International Children and the Institutional Infrastructures of Schools in Finland

Growing numbers of children are moving between countries because of their parent(s)’ careers. The temporary labour migration of highly educated professionals – sometimes called career expatriates or transnational corporate elites (Amit 2002; Fechter 2007) – is increasing in various parts of the world. Finland, among many countries, welcomes such professionals both because they offer skills that are needed in the global competitive markets and because the country’s domestic population is ageing. Often, these professionals do not intend to stay permanently but rather to return to their native countries or move on to other locations after a few years. The international professionals are often accompanied by their spouses and children. In this paper, I focus on a central institutional infrastructure in these children’s lives, namely education and schools. I elaborate on international schools in Finland, and on the children’s position within this infrastructure. The paper is based on extensive ethnographic research in an international school in a Finnish town.

Organization of the cross-border marketing center: functions, tasks and areas of activity

Organization of the cross-border marketing center: functions, tasks and areas of activity

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PROACTIVE ROUTING PROTOCOLS (DSDV, OLSR) & REACTIVE ROUTING PROTOCOLS (AODV, DSR) IN MANET USING NS-3

The abstract outlines a comprehensive analysis focusing on routing protocols in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). Ad-hoc networks are dynamic wireless networks without a central infrastructure. This analysis compares two types of routing protocols—proactive (table-driven) and reactive (on-demand)—using simulation analysis. The protocols DSDV, OLSR, AODV, and DSR are evaluated using NS-3, considering various performance metrics under different scenarios. The research aims to provide insights into protocol strengths and weaknesses, aiding network protocol selection and potential enhancements. This investigation contributes to understanding routing behaviours in ever-changing MANETs, benefiting network design and optimization efforts. Keywords: MANET (Mobile Ad Hoc Network), DSDV (Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector), OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing), AODV (Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector), DSR (Dynamic Source Routing), Routing Information Protocol (RIP)

Improving Mobile Ad hoc Networks through an investigation of AODV, DSR, and MP-OLSR Routing Protocols


 Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) pose a dynamically organized wireless network, posing a challenge to establishing quality of service (QoS) due to limitations in bandwidth and the ever-changing network topology. These networks are created by assembling nodes systematically, lacking a central infrastructure, and dynamically linking devices such as mobile phones and tablets. Nodes employ diverse methods for service delivery, all while giving priority to network performance. The effectiveness of protocols is crucial in determining the most efficient paths between source and destination nodes, ensuring the timely delivery of messages. Collaborative agreements with MANETs improve accessibility, allow for partial packet delivery and manage network load, ultimately minimizing delays and contributing to exceptional carrier performance. This article conducts a comparative analysis of simulation parameters for AODV, DSR, and MP-OLSR protocols to explore QoS limitations associated with different routing protocols. The study primarily focuses on evaluating various quality metrics for service improvement, assessing protocol performance. Simulation results underscore the DSR protocol's 80% superior throughput compared to AODV and MP-OLSR. However, in terms of delay and packet delivery ratio, the hybrid protocol outperforms both AODV and DSR protocols. These findings provide a distinct perspective for testing the compliance services of MANETs.

345 Analysis of the Caribbean Neurosurgery Workforce: Scope of Practice, Challenges and Ways Forward

INTRODUCTION: There are close to 45 neurosurgeons for 16 million people in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region. The aim of our study is to understand the current scope of practice for neurosurgical providers in the Caribbean, as very sparse information has been published. METHODS: This study surveyed neurosurgeons within Caribbean and CARICOM countries online using qualitative and quantitative methods via Qualtrics. RESULTS: Of 38 countries within the Caribbean, 26 (68%) were surveyed of which 18 (69%) replied. In total 61 neurosurgeons were identified, with a majority of general neurosurgeons (56%). Remarkably, the majority of countries failed to meet the threshold workforce density for safe health care - either expressed by FTE neurosurgeons or neurosurgical centers. Most neurosurgical practices denied receiving or sending medical referrals. If otherwise, most referrals took longer than 8 hours without significant difference regarding the destination. Lastly, challenges confronting neurosurgical advancement were found in: technology and equipment (40%), trained personnel (31%), hospital or medical center infrastructure (14%), neurosurgical education and training (44%). CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive qualitative and quantitative study exploring the current status of the Caribbean neurosurgery workforce, the challenges and the potential ways forward. Arming the local providers with improved resources and support would only serve to add value to the region thus making excellent patient care the standard for a region in need of just that.