We investigate a hierarchically organized cloud infrastructure and compare distributed hierarchical control based on resource monitoring with market mechanisms for resource management. The latter do not require a model of the system, incur a low overhead, are robust, and satisfy several other desiderates of autonomic computing. We introduce several performance measures and report on simulation ...

The construction industry, one of the most important ones in the development of a country, generates unavoidable impacts on the environment. The social demand towards greater respect for the environment is a high and general outcry. Therefore, the construction industry needs to reduce the impact it produces. Proper waste management is not enough; we must take a further step in environmental man...

We discuss a technical approach, based on the method of regularized extremal shift (RES), intended to help solve problems of stable control of uncertain dynamical systems. Our goal is to demonstrate the essence and abilities of the RES technique; for this purpose we construct feedback controller for approximate tracking a prescribed trajectory of an inaccurately observed system described by a p...

A control system combining input shaping and feedback is applied to a double-pendulum bridge crane subjected to external disturbances. The external disturbances represent naturally occurring forces, such as gusting winds. The proposed control method achieves fast point-to-point response similar to open-loop input-shaping control. It also minimizes transient deflections and disturbance-induced r...

The paper describes the utility of a low cost, 1m 2 by 2m forced ventilation, micro-climate test chamber, for the support of research and teaching in mechatronics. Initially developed for the evaluation of a new ventilation rate controller, the fully instrumented chamber now provides numerous learning opportunities and individual projects for both undergraduate and postgraduate research students.

The general disenchantment with command-and-control mechanisms led to pressure to experiment with tools of deregulation which encourage the desired behaviour through financial incentives rather than through legal coercion. Eco-labelling can be seen as a representation of this trend to deregulate environmental protection by allowing industry to make the decision of whether or not to apply for th...

The USEPA is revising the Total Coliform Rule (TCR) and is considering new possible distribution system requirements as part of these revisions. As part of this process, the USEPA is publishing a series of issue papers to present available information on topics relevant to possible TCR revisions. This paper was developed as part of that effort. The objectives of the issue papers are to review t...

The USEPA is revising the Total Coliform Rule (TCR) and is considering new possible distribution system requirements as part of these revisions. As part of this process, the USEPA is publishing a series of issue papers to present available information on topics relevant to possible TCR revisions. This paper was developed as part of that effort. The objectives of the issue papers are to review t...

The paper combines analytic and numeric tools to investigate a nonlinear optimal control problem relevant to the economics of climate change. The problem describes optimal investments into pollution mitigation and environmental adaptation at a macroeconomic level. The steady-state analysis of this problem focuses on the optimal ratio between adaptation and mitigation. In particular, we analytic...