Distributed Systems

'Trust' is used in a variety of ways in computing literature, and social trust is emerging as an important computational problem. In open, distributed systems, like the web, people and organizations

Stochastic resonance has been observed in many forms of systems, and has been hotly debated by scientists for over 30 years. Applications incorporating aspects of stochastic resonance may yet prove revolutionary in fields such as distributed sensor networks, nano-electronics, and biomedical prosthetics. Ideal for researchers in fields ranging from computational neuroscience through to electronic engineering, this book addresses in detail various theoretical aspects of stochastic quantization, in the context of the suprathreshold stochastic resonance effect. Initial chapters review stochastic resonance and outline some of the controversies and debates that have surrounded it. The book then discusses suprathreshold stochastic resonance, and its extension to more general models of stochastic signal quantization. Finally, it considers various constraints and tradeoffs in the performance of stochastic quantizers, before culminating with a chapter in the application of suprathreshold stochas

Modern industrial facilities, such as oil refineries, chemical factories, electric power generation plants, etc. are large, complex, distributed systems. These systems are monitored and controlled by

From the Internet's infrastructure to operating systems like GNU/Linux, the open source movement comprises some of the greatest accomplishments in computing over the past quarter century. Its story embraces technological advances, unprecedented global collaboration, and remarkable tools for facilitating distributed development. The evolution of the Internet enabled an enormous expansion of open development, allowing developers to exchange information and ideas without regard to constraints of space, time, or national boundary. The movement has had widespread impact on education and government, as well as historic cultural and commercial repercussions. Part I discusses key open source applications, platforms, and technologies used in open development. Part II explores social issues ranging from demographics and psychology to legal and economic matters. Part III discusses the Free Software Foundation, open source in the public sector (government and education), and future prospects.

From the Internet's infrastructure to operating systems like GNU/Linux, the open source movement comprises some of the greatest accomplishments in computing over the past quarter century. Its story embraces technological advances, unprecedented global collaboration, and remarkable tools for facilitating distributed development. The evolution of the Internet enabled an enormous expansion of open development, allowing developers to exchange information and ideas without regard to constraints of space, time, or national boundary. The movement has had widespread impact on education and government, as well as historic cultural and commercial repercussions. Part I discusses key open source applications, platforms, and technologies used in open development. Part II explores social issues ranging from demographics and psychology to legal and economic matters. Part III discusses the Free Software Foundation, open source in the public sector (government and education), and future prospects.

Concurrent Programming in ML focuses on the practical use of concurrency to implement naturally concurrent applications. In addition to a tutorial introduction to programming in Concurrent ML (CML), the book presents three extended examples using CML for practical systems programming: a parallel software build system, a simple concurrent window manager, and an implementation of distributed tuple spaces. CML, which is included as part of the SML of New Jersey (SML/NJ) distribution, combines the best features of concurrent programming and functional programming. This book also illustrates advanced SML programming techniques, and includes a chapter on the implementation of concurrency using features provided by the SML/NJ system. It will be of interest to programmers, students, and professional researchers working in computer language development.

The correct functioning of the mammalian brain depends on the integrated activity of myriad neuronal and non-neuronal cells. Discrete areas serve discrete functions, and dispersed or distributed communities of cells serve others. Throughout, these networks of activity are under the control of neuromodulatory systems. One goal of current neuroscientific research is to elucidate the precise methods by which these systems operate, especially during normal conscious behaviours and processes. Mircea Steriade and Denis Paré describe the neuronal properties and networks that exist within and between the cortex and two important sub-cortical structures: the thalamus and amygdala. The authors explore the changes in these properties, covering topics including morphology, electrophysiology, architecture and gating; and comparing regions and systems in both normal and diseased states. Aimed at graduates and postdoctoral researchers in neuroscience.

Formal methods is the term used to describe the specification and verification of software and software systems using mathematical logic. Various methodologies have been developed and incorporated into software tools. An important subclass is distributed systems. There are many books that look at particular methodologies for such systems, e.g. CSP, process algebra. This book offers a more balanced introduction for graduate students that describes the various approaches, their strengths and weaknesses, and when they are best used. Milner's CCS and its operational semantics are introduced, together with notions of behavioural equivalence based on bisimulation techniques and with variants of Hennessy-Milner modal logics. Later in the book, the presented theories are extended to take timing issues into account. The book has arisen from various courses taught in Iceland and Denmark and is designed to give students a broad introduction to the area, with exercises throughout.

In many applications, radio frequency (RF) signals need to be transmitted and processed without being digitalized. Optical fiber provides a transmission medium in which RF modulated optical carriers can be transmitted and distributed with very low loss, making it more efficient and less costly than conventional electronic systems. This volume presents a review of RF photonic components, transmission systems, and signal processing examples in optical fibers from leading academic, government, and industry scientists working in this field. It also introduces the reader to various related technologies such as direct modulation of laser sources, external modulation techniques, and detectors. The text is aimed at engineers and scientists engaged in the research and development of optical fibers and analog RF applications. With an emphasis on design, performance and practical application, this book will be of particular interest to those developing systems based on this technology.

This book takes a holistic view on mobile and distributed computing systems. It presents innovative solutions at all system layers. These range from hardware over vertical and horizontal infrastructur

Modern communications technology demands smaller, faster and more efficient circuits. This book reviews the fundamentals of electromagnetism in passive and active circuit elements, highlighting various effects and potential problems in designing a new circuit. The author begins with a review of the basics - the origin of resistance, capacitance, and inductance - then progresses to more advanced topics such as passive device design and layout, resonant circuits, impedance matching, high-speed switching circuits, and parasitic coupling and isolation techniques. Using examples and applications in RF and microwave systems, the author describes transmission lines, transformers, and distributed circuits. State-of-the-art developments in Si based broadband analog, RF, microwave, and mm-wave circuits are reviewed. With up-to-date results, techniques, practical examples, illustrations and worked examples, this book will be valuable to advanced undergraduate and graduate students of electrical

In the context of Distributed and Real-time Embedded Systems (DRES), system developers are faced with reducing system development cost and time while developing correct (relating to safe and QoS prope

This excellent title introduces the concept of mission-oriented sensor networks as distributed dynamic systems of interacting sensing devices that are networked to jointly execute complex real-time mi

Heterogeneous catalysis is widely used in chemical, refinery, and pollution-control processes. For this reason, achieving optimal performance of catalysts is a significant issue for chemical engineers and chemists. This book addresses the question of how catalytic material should be distributed inside a porous support in order to obtain optimal performance. It treats single and multiple reaction systems, isothermal and nonisothermal conditions, pellets, monoliths, fixed-bed reactors, and membrane reactors. The effects of physicochemical and operating parameters are analyzed to gain insight into the underlying phenomena governing the performance of optimally designed catalysts. Throughout, the authors offer a balanced treatment of theory and experiment. Particular attention is given to problems of commercial importance. With its thorough treatment of the design, preparation, and utilization of supported catalysts, this book will be an ideal resource for graduate students, researchers, a

Scattering-based numerical methods are increasingly applied to the numerical simulation of distributed time-dependent physical systems. These methods, which possess excellent stability and stability v

Epistemic logic has grown from its philosophical beginnings to find diverse applications in computer science as a means of reasoning about the knowledge and belief of agents. This book, based on courses taught at universities and summer schools, provides a broad introduction to the subject; many exercises are included together with their solutions. The authors begin by presenting the necessary apparatus from mathematics and logic, including Kripke semantics and the well-known modal logics K, T, S4 and S5. Then they turn to applications in the contexts of distributed systems and artificial intelligence: topics that are addressed include the notions of common knowledge, distributed knowledge, explicit and implicit belief, the interplays between knowledge and time, and knowledge and action, as well as a graded (or numerical) variant of the epistemic operators. The problem of logical omniscience is also discussed extensively. Halpern and Moses' theory of honest formulae is covered, and a d

This 2002 book investigates the opportunities in building intelligent decision support systems offered by multi-agent distributed probabilistic reasoning. Probabilistic reasoning with graphical models, also known as Bayesian networks or belief networks, has become increasingly an active field of research and practice in artificial intelligence, operations research and statistics. The success of this technique in modeling intelligent decision support systems under the centralized and single-agent paradigm has been striking. Yang Xiang extends graphical dependence models to the distributed and multi-agent paradigm. He identifies the major technical challenges involved in such an endeavor and presents the results. The framework developed in the book allows distributed representation of uncertain knowledge on a large and complex environment embedded in multiple cooperative agents, and effective, exact and distributed probabilistic inference.

As networks, devices, and systems continue to evolve, software engineers face the unique challenge of creating reliable distributed applications within frequently changing environments. "C++ Network P

Heterogeneous catalysis is widely used in chemical, refinery, and pollution-control processes. For this reason, achieving optimal performance of catalysts is a significant issue for chemical engineers and chemists. This book addresses the question of how catalytic material should be distributed inside a porous support in order to obtain optimal performance. It treats single and multiple reaction systems, isothermal and nonisothermal conditions, pellets, monoliths, fixed-bed reactors, and membrane reactors. The effects of physicochemical and operating parameters are analyzed to gain insight into the underlying phenomena governing the performance of optimally designed catalysts. Throughout, the authors offer a balanced treatment of theory and experiment. Particular attention is given to problems of commercial importance. With its thorough treatment of the design, preparation, and utilization of supported catalysts, this book will be an ideal resource for graduate students, researchers, a

This is the first comprehensive introduction to multiagent systems and contemporary distributed artificial intelligence that is suitable as a textbook.

Concurrent Programming in ML focuses on the practical use of concurrency to implement naturally concurrent applications. In addition to a tutorial introduction to programming in Concurrent ML (CML), the book presents three extended examples using CML for practical systems programming: a parallel software build system, a simple concurrent window manager, and an implementation of distributed tuple spaces. CML, which is included as part of the SML of New Jersey (SML/NJ) distribution, combines the best features of concurrent programming and functional programming. This book also illustrates advanced SML programming techniques, and includes a chapter on the implementation of concurrency using features provided by the SML/NJ system. It will be of interest to programmers, students, and professional researchers working in computer language development.

Revised and updated since their original presentation, the 24 papers provide researchers with a broad perspective of recent developments in the field. They discuss novel systems, distributed and feder

This book was originally published in 1995. At the time of publication, distributed file systems were monolithic and only supported single file abstractions. Network storage devices needed to be able to accommodate emerging information media such as digital audio and video, with data radically different in characteristics to traditional text and binary that file systems were optimised for. By combining emerging and traditional media, information could be recorded and presented in the most suitable way, and the value of a piece of information could be further enhanced by linking together related pieces. However composite data and cross-reference between data items raised a number of system issues that had not been addressed properly before. In this book Dr Lo defined a multi-service storage architecture that could meet the needs of existing and emerging applications and support multiple file abstractions. He also explored a number of related design issues.

The key to the successful development of distributed measurement and control systems is the communications link. Emphasising the importance of communications standards, this topical text describes and

A practical treatment of Weibull distribution as applied to radar systems. Topics include general derivation of Weibull distribution, measurements of Weibull-distributed clutter, comparison of Weibull

The question why certain kinds of legal institutions are found in certain kinds of societies has been little explored by anthropologists. In this book Katherine Newman examines a sample of some sixty different preindustrial societies, distributed across the world, in an attempt to explain why their legal systems vary. The key to understanding this variation, Professor Newman argues, is to be found in economic organization. Adopting a Marxian, or materialist, approach, she draws on original ethnographic sources for each culture in order to investigate how legal processes and institutions regulate basic aspects of economic life in societies with differing types of economic organization. She also examines the commonalities of law within various preindustrial 'modes of production' and shows that the patterning of legal institutions arises from underlying tensions in production systems. In offering an explanation of the distribution of legal institutions across preindustrial societies, as w

In this survey of political participation in seven nations - Nigeria, Austria, Japan, India, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and the United States - the authors examine the relationship between social, economic, and educational factors and political participation. The book provides insight into an ongoing debate among political scientists and sociologist: why is political participation in some nations distributed evenly across economic, social, and educational lines, whereas other nations foster participation only by their privileged classes? The book treats politics not only as a dependent variable influenced by socioeconomic factors, but also as an independent variable that affects levels of political participation through variations in party systems and linkages between parties and other organizations.

Computer systems consisting of many machines will be the norm within a few years. However, making a collection of machines appear as a single, coherent system - in which the location of files, servers

Coordinating Distributed Objects presents a novel object-oriented methodology to simplify the construction of distributed software systems. The methodology is based on a programming construct, called

This book showcases the strengths of Linear Programming models for Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), such as the Smart Grids. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) consist of computational components interconnecte

This book covers the tools, development frameworks, and advanced concepts in cross-platform programming techniques used in the construction of distributed systems. It describes how to specify a roadma

Modern Control of Power Electronics Systems deals with control and modulation of power converters for electrical drives, distributed generation and active power filtering. It covers a wider range of p

Successful HVAC systems are the key to successful buildings. In a central system, air can be conditioned in a remote location in the air-handling units and distributed to the various rooms by ductwork

Process Control Systems (PCS) are distributed control systems (DCS) that are specialized to meet the requirements of the process industries. Many processes and plants of that domain have high safety a

Distributed business component computing--the assembling of business components into electronic business processes, which interact via the Internet--caters to a new breed of enterprise systems that ar