Information Exchange Requirements Research Articles

Unified monitoring and online maintenance technology of substation secondary equipment

Abstract To meet the needs of the promotion of “equipment ownership” and the implementation of a centralized monitoring mode in substations, a technical scheme of unified monitoring, online operation, and maintenance for secondary equipment in substations is proposed, considering the monitoring, operation, and maintenance requirements of secondary equipment such as protection devices and automation devices. A secondary equipment monitoring real-time gateway is arranged in Security Zone I. The comprehensive operation status data of various secondary equipment is collected, analyzed, processed, diagnosed, and applied through various apps, to realize heterogeneous access, on-demand deployment, and flexible expansion. The master station is designed with functions such as human-machine interaction and remote analysis for secondary device monitoring and operation. GSP, MQTT, and other service-oriented and message mechanism communication protocols are adopted between the substation and the master station to meet the diversified and easily expandable information exchange requirements. Through the factory test, it is verified that the scheme can realize the panoramic perception of the operation state of the secondary system and effectively improve the ability of abnormality diagnosis and processing.

Impact of task type and task complexity on negotiation of meaning in young learners of Chinese as a second language

Abstract Negotiation of meaning (NoM) has played a facilitative role in second language acquisition. However, the existing studies have primarily focused on adult English language learners. This study investigated the impact of task type and task complexity on NoM strategies among young learners of Chinese as a second language, an underexplored group. The participants were 110 students in Hong Kong aged 10–12, mainly from Pakistan, India, Philippines, and Nepal. They were asked to perform four tasks with different task types and levels of task complexity in Cantonese (the primary Chinese dialect spoken in Hong Kong). In terms of task type, the study found that required information exchange tasks (i.e., information gap tasks) produced significantly more clarification requests, confirmation checks, self-repetitions, and other repetitions in terms of total numbers and numbers per 100 Chinese characters than the optional exchange tasks (i.e., decision-making tasks). Complex tasks, on the other hand, elicited significantly more confirmation checks than simple tasks. These findings provide useful insights for designing tasks that can promote greater use of NoM strategies in classroom practice.

A neighbor discovery protocol with adaptive collision alleviation for wireless robotic networks

Recently, several movement control algorithms have been proposed to move robots to the desired locations and complete various collaborative tasks. These algorithms usually require information exchange among robots, which in turn relies on efficient neighbor discovery. However, neighbor discovery of robots is a challenging problem due to limited communication range and beacon collision. Here, how to set the time slot length and contention window to alleviate the beacon collisions is a major issue: too large or too small slot length and contention window values cannot achieve good performance in the robotic network. Therefore, we propose a neighbor discovery protocol with an adaptive collision alleviation mechanism, i.e. ND-ACA. ND-ACA adopts a simple mechanism to detect and avoid potential collisions before sending beacon, and adaptively adjusts both slot length and backoff window according to the number of historical beacon collections and beacon collisions. Extensive simulation results show the efficiency of our proposed approach. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work in the literature that explore the joint implementation effects that simultaneously consider the robot mobility model and neighbor discovery.

Minimum collisions assignment in interdependent networked systems via defective colorings

In conjunction with the traffic overload of next-generation wireless communication and computer networks, their resource-constrained nature calls for effective methods to deal with the fundamental resource allocation problem. In this context, the Minimum Collisions Assignment (MCA) problem in an interdependent networked system refers to the assignment of a finite set of resources over the nodes of the network, such that the number of collisions, i.e., the number of interdependent nodes receiving the same resource, is minimized. Given the interdependent networked system's organization in the form of a graph, there already exists a randomized algorithm that converges with high probability to an assignment of resources having zero collisions when the number of resources is larger than the maximum degree of the underlying graph. In this article, differing from the prevailing literature, we investigate the case of a resource-constrained networked system, where the number of resources is less than or equal to the maximum degree of the underlying graph. We introduce two distributed, randomized algorithms that converge in a logarithmic number of rounds to an assignment of resources over the network for which every node has at most a certain number of collisions. The proposed algorithms apply to settings where the available resources at each node are equal to three and two, respectively, while they are executed in a fully-distributed manner without requiring information exchange between the networked nodes.

Improving Building Information Modeling (BIM) Implementation throughout the Construction Industry

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is extensively used in the construction industry due to its benefits throughout the Project Life Cycle (PLC). BIM can simulate buildings throughout PLC, detect and resolve problems, and improve building visualization that contributes to the representation of actual project details in the construction stage. BIM contributes to project management promotion by detecting problems that lead to conflicts, cost overruns, and time delays. This work aims to implement an effective BIM for the Iraqi construction projects’ life cycle. The methodology used is a literature review to collect the most important factors contributing to the success of BIM implementation, interview the team of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) building, and strive to improve the BEP of the CBI building. However, previous studies indicate collaborative work and communications enhance effective BIM implementation, which can improve BIM use by applying a BEP and an AEC (UK) BIM protocol that leads to positive BIM impact. BEP comprises important information and goals related to the intended project, including the BIM collaborative process (process map), information exchange requirements, BIM data management, BIM model management, and quality control, which are considered essential for enhancing BIM collaboration during PLC. This paper concludes that implementing BIM effectively requires overcoming obstacles faced by Iraqi construction projects. Effective BIM implementation requires improving collaboration and communication throughout the construction process, which could be achieved by depending on the BIM Execution Planning Guide(BEP Guide) and the AEC (UK) BIM Protocol 2012 V2.0

Rolling self-triggered distributed MPC for dynamically coupled nonlinear systems

The mutual influences caused by dynamic couplings in large-scale systems increase the difficulty in the design and analysis of distributed model predictive control (DMPC), and require information exchange among subsystems which calls for a scheduling strategy to save communication resources in communication-limited environments. To circumvent the two problems, we design a rolling self-triggered DMPC strategy for large-scale dynamically coupled systems with state and control input constraints. First, the optimal control problem where the cost is subject to the coupled dynamic and the constraints are subject to the uncoupled counterpart is proposed, forming the dual-model DMPC that is simple in design and analysis but yields good control performance. Second, the information exchange only occurs at some specified triggering instants determined by a rolling self-triggered mechanism, saving communication resources more significantly. The effectiveness of the designed strategy is verified by numerical simulations.

An Integration of Business Processes and Information Management for Improving the Efficiency and Reliability of Infrastructure

The construction industry has increasingly adopted digital construction processes and technologies, fueled in part by governmental mandates aimed at modernizing construction workflows. While these advancements promise efficiency across different phases of a project, the efficacy of the digitally generated information often remains contingent on its alignment with the specific information exchange requirements of individual organizations. Current efforts to establish interoperable data schemas have made strides, yet challenges persist, particularly when tailoring information to meet the unique needs of organizations responsible for the operation and management of built assets. This paper dissects the outcomes of standard digital construction processes applied to a linear infrastructure project, highlighting observed shortcomings such as information overload and the difficulty of adapting the information for asset management needs. Building upon these findings, this paper introduces a framework aimed at streamlining the production of essential project information. This framework was developed through a series of expert workshops and subsequently tested on a separate infrastructure project, offering insights into its potential benefits and limitations.

Emergent Quantized Communication

The field of emergent communication aims to understand the characteristics of communication as it emerges from artificial agents solving tasks that require information exchange. Communication with discrete messages is considered a desired characteristic, for scientific and applied reasons. However, training a multi-agent system with discrete communication is not straightforward, requiring either reinforcement learning algorithms or relaxing the discreteness requirement via a continuous approximation such as the Gumbel-softmax. Both these solutions result in poor performance compared to fully continuous communication. In this work, we propose an alternative approach to achieve discrete communication -- quantization of communicated message. Using message quantization allows us to train the model end-to-end, achieving superior performance in multiple setups. Moreover, quantization is a natural framework that runs the gamut from continuous to discrete communication. Thus, it sets the ground for a broader view of multi-agent communication in the deep learning era.

Quality Improvement with Outcome Data in Integrated Obstetric Care Networks: Evaluating Collaboration and Learning Across Organizational Boundaries with an Action Research Approach.

Patient-reported outcome and experience measures (PROM and PREM) are used to guide individual care and quality improvement (QI). QI with patient-reported data is preferably organized around patients, which is challenging across organisations. We aimed to investigate network-broad learning for QI with outcome data. In three obstetric care networks using individual-level PROM/PREM, a learning strategy for cyclic QI based on aggregated outcome data was developed, implemented and evaluated. The strategy included clinical, patient-reported, and professional-reported data; together translated into cases for interprofessional discussion. This study's data generation (including focus groups, surveys, observations) and analysis were guided by a theoretical model for network collaboration. The learning sessions identified opportunities and actions to improve quality and continuity of perinatal care. Professionals valued the data (especially patient-reported) combined with in-dept interprofessional discussion. Main challenges were professionals' time constraints, data infrastructure, and embedding improvement actions. Network-readiness for QI depended on trustful collaboration through connectivity and consensual leadership. Joint QI required information exchange and support including time and resources. Current fragmented healthcare organization poses barriers for network-broad QI with outcome data, but also offers opportunities for learning strategies. Furthermore, joint learning could improve collaboration to catalyse the journey towards integrated, value-based care.

Enhanced AES-256 cipher round algorithm for IoT applications

Objectives: Networks have become a significant mode of communication in recent years. As a result, internet security has become a critical requirement for secure information exchange. Cryptography is used to securely send passwords over large networks. Cryptographic algorithms are sequences of processes used to encipher and decipher messages in a cryptographic system. One of those is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which is a standard for data encryption in hardware and software to hide sensitive and vital information. The main objective is to design an AES system with modifications by the addition of primitive operations which can withstand several attacks and is more efficient.Method: AES works with three different key lengths: 128-bit keys, 192- bit keys, and 256-bit keys. The early rounds of AES have a poor diffusion rate. Better diffusion properties can be brought about by putting in additional operations in the cipher round and key generation algorithm of the conventional AES.Findings: The diffusion characteristics of the conventional AES and the proposed methodology are compared using the avalanche effect. The proposed AES algorithm shows an increased avalanche effect, which proves it to be more secure than the conventional AES. The proposed algorithm is executed on Vivado 2016.2 ISE Design Suite and the results are targeted on Zybo–Zynq Z-7010 AP SoC development board.Novelty: In addition, this paper also proposes an improved AES algorithm that was accomplished by altering the sub-bytes operation. This change was made to make it more reliant on round keys. This algorithm was also extended to a higher key length of 256 bits which makes the algorithm less vulnerable to attacks.

Socio-technical challenges towards data-driven and integrated urban water management: A socio-technical network approach

Data-driven and integrated urban water management have been proposed to reduce surface water pollution in light of climate change and urbanization impacts. Besides technological innovation, data-driven and integrated management require information exchange among many actors, e.g., operators, engineers, or authorities. With the aim of achieving a more profound understanding of socio-technical infrastructures, such as urban water systems, I draw on the approach of socio-technical networks to study actors and infrastructure elements as well as multiple relations in-between. In this article, I investigate whether underlying socio-technical dependencies influence social interactions such as information exchange. More specifically related to data-driven and integrated management, I analyze potential challenges, such as organizational fragmentation, data access, and diverging perceptions. Based on empirical data from three case studies in Switzerland, I provide inferential results obtained from fitting exponential random graph models. Findings showed that actors’ relatedness to infrastructure elements affects their information exchange. Among the cases, the presence of the three challenges varied and is potentially contingent upon system size, organizational form, or progress in terms of data-driven and integrated management. Thus, incorporating a socio-technical perspective on social actors and infrastructure elements could help to improve policy design and implementation aiming to achieve more sustainable cities.

Progressive pattern orthogonal interleaver set for interleave division multiple access based, non orthogonal multiple access schemes: Beyond 5G perspective

Abstract This communication suggests an orthogonal interleaver set for interleave division multiple access (IDMA) based non orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes from beyond 5G viewpoint to support enormous increase in user count. The method generates an orthogonal interleaver set by providing two mother interleavers as seed to generate other users’ interleaving patterns progressively. The key feature of the proposed scheme is that it reduces implementation complexity and memory requirement at the base station, while implementing iterative multiuser detection (MUD), which most of the interlaever designs suggested in literature do not consider. It provides additional security to the user data due to progressively changing mother interleavers’ pattern along with the conventional purpose of providing unique identity for individual users in the system. The proposed orthogonal interleaver set is tested through simulations under multiple IDMA system configurations. It has been observed that it preserves the bit error rate (BER) performance of the IDMA scheme along with the optimal implementation complexity and minimal information exchange requirement between base station and mobile station to share the interleaver design.

Masking primal and dual models for data privacy in network revenue management

We study a collaborative revenue management problem where multiple decentralized parties agree to share some of their capacities. This collaboration is performed by constructing a large mathematical programming model that is available to all parties. The parties then use the solution of this model in their own capacity control systems. In this setting, however, the major concern for the parties is the privacy of their input data, along with their individual optimal solutions. We first reformulate a general linear programming model that can be used for a wide range of network revenue management problems. Then we address the data privacy concern of the reformulated model and propose an approach based on solving an equivalent data-private model constructed with input masking via random transformations. Our main result shows that, after solving the data-private model, each party can safely access only its own optimal capacity allocation decisions. We also discuss the security of the transformed problem in the considered multi-party setting. Simulation experiments are conducted to support our results and evaluate the computational efficiency of the proposed data-private model. Our work provides an analytical approach and insights on how to manage shared resources in a network problem while ensuring data privacy. Constructing and solving a collaborative network problem requires information exchange between parties that may not be possible in practice. Including data privacy in decentralized collaborative network revenue management problems with capacity sharing is new to the literature and relevant to practice.

Event-triggered scheme for finite-time distributed economic dispatch in smart grids

This paper considers the finite-time distributed economic dispatch problem in smart grids: the power generated by individual generators are designed to satisfy a certain demand while minimizing the total generation cost in a distributed manner, which guarantees the convergence in finite time. The proposed method facilitates the solution of real time power dispatch problems. First, a class of distributed economic dispatch algorithm is proposed to achieve the optimal solution in finite-time with and without capacity limitations. Second, in order to reduce the information exchange requirements, a distributed, asynchronous event-triggered communication scheme is established which is free of Zeno with guaranteed finite-time convergence. Furthermore, both proposed algorithms are robust to the time-varying communication networks. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and scalability of the distributed algorithms.

Non-cooperative differential game and feedback Nash equilibrium analysis for real-time electricity markets

Continuous liberalization of electricity markets makes a strong correlation between the economic behaviors of market participants and their profits. To guide the production of generators before the market reaches equilibrium, a new framework is proposed to model the real-time electricity market with help of optimal control theory. The market price is described as the dynamic state using a sticky price model. We establish an N-person non-cooperative differential game model, where all participants try to maximize their profits independently only by observing power prices. The existence of feedback Nash equilibrium and uniqueness of optimal price trajectory are proved in detail, which will help other scholars build an effective differential game model. To protect the privacy of all generators, a distributed algorithm is proposed based on neurodynamic and consensus theory, which only requires information exchange among neighboring participants. Furthermore, a special case of a duopoly power market is investigated in detail and we provide a feedback time-continuous solution for each generator. Compared with the commercial Cplex solver, the proposed distributed algorithm performs better in convergence speed.

Utilising Building Information Models in Facility Maintenance and Operations

Utilising the digital capital of buildings, including building information modelling (BIM), is crucial for building owners from the perspective of high-level maintenance. This case study concerns a company in which building information models are received as files complying with the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard. An analysis of the information content of the IFC files was performed to investigate whether the files, which were generated in a construction project using traditional procedures, contained relevant information for maintenance. The critical needs were evaluated based on the aspects highlighted in an online survey. As a result, essential content requirements for BIM are presented for facility maintenance and operations (FMO). It has been shown that existing building information models cannot close the information gap from a facility maintenance perspective. Still, they have significant potential due to their ability to contain technical information and provide a graphical representation. With information exchange requirements (IERs), a great deal of progress could be made by utilising BIM for FMO. A property service company’s capabilities must also be evolved before the benefits of digital capital can be reaped. This paper provides insights for developing the information content of computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) and demonstrates the crucial need to harmonise them using BIM. Finally, as a new use case for BIM, this paper presents an operations and maintenance model (OMM).

Coordinated beamforming, interference-aware power control, and scheduling framework for 6G wireless networks

In this study, we propose a novel sum-rate enhancement framework for future 6G multi-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) uplink networks, which exploits the coordinated beamforming, power control, and user scheduling (CBPS) technique. The proposed CBPS technique not only significantly mitigates the inter-cell interference in transmit beamforming for users but also eliminates the intra-cell interference among the users in the same cell the receive beamforming at base stations (BSs). Additionally, we propose a user scheduling algorithm that selects the users whose effective channel vectors are mutually orthogonal to each other to increase the spectral efficiency and an interference-aware power control technique for users to further reduce inter-cell interference. It is worth noting that the proposed CBPS framework does not require information exchange among the BSs and operates in a non-iterative and distributed manner based on local channel state information (CSI) at both the BSs and users. Thus, it can be implemented for practical wireless systems with low complexity. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed CBPS framework significantly outperforms conventional techniques in multi-cell environments.

Distributed Resource Allocation Optimization for User-Centric Cell-Free MIMO Networks

We develop two distributed downlink resource allocation algorithms for user-centric, cell-free, spatially-distributed, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks. In such networks, each user is served by a subset of nearby transmitters that we call distributed units or DUs. The operation of the DUs in a region is controlled by a central unit (CU). Our first scheme is implemented at the DUs, while the second is implemented at the CUs controlling these DUs. We define a hybrid quality of service metric that enables distributed optimization of system resources in a proportional fair manner. Specifically, each of our algorithms performs user scheduling, beamforming, and power control while accounting for channel estimation errors. Importantly, our algorithm does not require information exchange amongst DUs (CUs) for the DU-distributed (CU-distributed) system, while also smoothly converging. Our results show that our CU-distributed system provides 1.3- to 1.8-fold network throughput compared to the DU-distributed system, with minor increases in complexity and front-haul load - and substantial gains over benchmark schemes like local zero-forcing. We also analyze the trade-offs provided by the CU-distributed system, hence highlighting the significance of deploying multiple CUs in user-centric cell-free networks.

Analysis of Distributed-Ledger-Technology for the Exchange of Design, Production and Simulation Data in Roll Forming

Digitalization in the metal forming industry needs to be improved to achieve the goals set by Industrie 4.0. Distributed-Ledger-Technology (DLT) has been identified as a promising foundation for tackling the underlying problem of consistent information exchange. DLT-based solutions have already been developed, but none explicitly covers the roll forming use-case. This paper presents a Hyperledger-Fabric-based blockchain network to fill this research gap. This network is specifically designed for the roll forming industry, while still aiming to meet general information exchange requirements. The roll forming use-case is divided into the material supply chain and a design/simulation workflow. Participants and parameters in these two data transfer chains have been validated with the help of industry experts. Running the conceptualized network on an on-premise server has allowed for a detailed evaluation. Feedback provided by experts of the roll forming industry shows the potential of the presented network. Furthermore, the presented solution covers requirements often neglected by existing approaches like large data handling, compatibility to existing interfaces, secure communication, and access rights definition. In summary, this paper provides a pioneering implementation and evaluation of a DLT-based solution for the roll forming industry and, therefore, a foundation for the next steps towards Industrie 4.0.

An Effective Health Information Exchange Using Blockchain Technology

Abstract: There is a tremendous difficulty in sharing information between organizations. The similarity is compromised because of heterogeneous information, and an impediment to information understanding happens because of the utilization of medical care wording. Assuming design and semantics are to have concurred; however, security and information consistency concerns remain. Centralized information stores are an alluring focus for cybercrime, and patient record that is being shared and seen reliably in an organization is an enormous issue. Blockchain is a circulated record innovation applied to a great extent in the monetary area. This guarantees the honesty of exchanges without outsider approval. Its elements of decentralized exchange approval, information provenance, information sharing, and information incorporation are ideal for the requirements of health information exchange. Keywords: EHR, HIE, Blockchain, SHA Algorithm, AES Rijndael Algorithm