Dynamic Behavior Visualizer (DBV) is a visual analytics environment to visualize the spatial and temporal movements and behavioral changes of an individual or a group, e.g. family within a realistic urban environment. DBV is specifically designed to visualize the adaptive behavioral changes, as they pertain to the interactions with multiple inter-dependent infrastructures, in the aftermath of a large crisis, e.g. hurricane or the detonation of an improvised nuclear device. DBV is web-enabled and thus is easily accessible to any user with access to a web browser. A novel aspect of the system is its scale and fidelity. The goal of DBV is to synthesize information and derive insight from it; detect the expected and discover the unexpected; provide timely and easily understandable assessment and the ability to piece together all this information. / Master of Science

Yes / This article explores the implications of `networked¿ and `flexible¿ organisations for the work and skills of professionals. Drawing on material from four different case studies it reviews work that is out-sourced (IT professionals and housing benefit caseworkers), work done by teachers contracted to a temporary employment agency and work done through an inter-firm network (chemical production workers). In each of these cases work that was out-sourced was managed very differently to that which was undertaken in-house, with managerial monitoring replacing and reducing employees¿ discretion. New staff in these networks had fewer skills when hired and were given access to a narrower range of skills than their predecessors. By contrast, the production staff employed on permanent contracts in the inter-firm network were given (and took) significant amounts of responsibility, with positive results for both their skills and the work processes. Despite these results, out-sourcing and sub-contracting are a far more common means of securing flexibility than organisational collaboration and the implications of this for skills is considered.

Networked predictive control is a new research method for Networked Control Systems (NCS), which is able to handle network-induced problems such as time-delay, data dropouts, packets disorders, etc. while stabilizing the closed-loop system. This work is an extension and complement of networked predictive control methodology. There is always present model uncertainties or physical nonlinearity in the process of NCS. Therefore, it makes the study of the robust control of NCS and that of networked nonlinear control system (NNCS) considerably important. This work studied the following three problems: the robust control of networked predictive linear control systems, the control scheme for networked nonlinear control systems (NNCS) and the robust control of NNCS. The emphasis is on stability analysis and the design of robust control. This work adapted the two control schemes, namely, the time-driven and the event driven predictive controller for the implementation of NCS. It studied networked linear control systems and networked nonlinear control systems. Firstly, time-driven predictive controller is used to compensate for the networked-induced problems of a class of networked linear control systems while robustly stabilizing the closed-loop system. Secondly, event-driven predictive controller is applied to networked linear control system and NNCS and the work goes on to solve the robust control problem. The event-driven predictive controller brings great benefits to NCS implementation: it makes the synchronization of the clocks of the process and the controller unnecessary and it avoids measuring the exact values of the individual components of the network induced time-delay. This work developed the theory of stability analysis and robust synthesis of NCS and NNCS. The robust stability analysis and robust synthesis of a range of different system configurations have been thoroughly studied. A series of methods have been developed to handle the stability analysis and controller design for NCS and NNCS. The stability of the closed-loop of NCS has been studied by transforming it into that of a corresponding augmented system. It has been proved that if some equality conditions are satisfied then the closed-loop of NCS is stable for an upper-bounded random time delay and data dropouts. The equality conditions can be incorporated into a sub-optimal problem. Solving the sub-optimal problem gives the controller parameters and thus enables the synthesis of NCS. To simplify the calculation of solving the controller parameters, this thesis developed the relationship between networked nonlinear control system and a class of uncertain linear feedback control system. It proves that the controller parameters of some types of networked control system can be equivalently derived from the robust control of a class of uncertain linear feedback control system. The methods developed in this thesis for control design and robustness analysis have been validated by simulations or experiments.

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This thesis aims to examine the News Usage practices of young Pakistani university students in the networked news media environment. The development of internet and its subsequent technologies have played a significant role in the transition from Mass Media towards Networked Media and this transition has directly influenced news usage practices. In Pakistan, almost 99% of the sample population of this research has mobile phones. The introduction of 3G and 4G mobile technologies in 2014 and recent ICT policy initiatives suggests that there are plans to subsidize smart phones in the country, which will further boost the digital environment. The news users in Pakistan now have more choices to follow news from multiple platforms and via multiple devices. There is a networked media ecosystem around users and it is continuously evolving and consequently transforming the news media institutions and the users’ news usage experience. The practice of using news is changing and transforming the user’s news usage experience but the available theoretical framework did not adequately address this, until the emergence of the ‘Theory of Mediatization’. The four main contributors to mediatization theory have been Lundby (2014) Hepp (2009), Hjarvard, (2008), Couldry (2008) and Krotz (2007) .Building on their contribution, and including the valuable addition by Winfried Schulz (2004), I am applying the framework of mediatization to a cohort of university students in Pakistan to investigate their changing news usage practices in the networked media environment. I have adopted a mixed method approach, following the double sequential loops method.

No description available.

Stability analysis of networked dynamical systems has been of interest in many disciplines such as biology and physics and chemistry with applications such as LASER cooling and plasma stability. These large networks are often modeled to have a completely random (Erdös-Rényi) or semi-random (Small-World) topologies. The former model is often used due to mathematical tractability while the latter has been shown to be a better model for most real life networks. The recent emergence of cyber physical systems, and in particular the smart grid, has given rise to a number of engineering questions regarding the control and optimization of such networks. Some of the these questions are: How can the stability of a random network be characterized in probabilistic terms? Can the effects of network topology and system dynamics be separated? What does it take to control a large random network? Can decentralized (pinning) control be effective? If not, how large does the control network needs to be? How can decentralized or distributed controllers be designed? How the size of control network would scale with the size of networked system? Motivated by these questions, we began by studying the probability of stability of synchronization in random networks of oscillators. We developed a stability condition separating the effects of topology and node dynamics and evaluated bounds on the probability of stability for both Erdös-Rényi (ER) and Small-World (SW) network topology models. We then turned our attention to the more realistic scenario where the dynamics of the nodes and couplings are mismatched. Utilizing the concept of ε-synchronization, we have studied the probability of synchronization and showed that the synchronization error, ε, can be arbitrarily reduced using linear controllers. We have also considered the decentralized approach of pinning control to ensure stability in such complex networks. In the pinning method, decentralized controllers are used to control a fraction of the nodes in the network. This is different from traditional decentralized approaches where all the nodes have their own controllers. While the problem of selecting the minimum number of pinning nodes is known to be NP-hard and grows exponentially with the number of nodes in the network we have devised a suboptimal algorithm to select the pinning nodes which converges linearly with network size. We have also analyzed the effectiveness of the pinning approach for the synchronization of oscillators in the networks with fast switching, where the network links disconnect and reconnect quickly relative to the node dynamics. To address the scaling problem in the design of distributed control networks, we have employed a random control network to stabilize a random plant network. Our results show that for an ER plant network, the control network needs to grow linearly with the size of the plant network.

In order to trace the shifting cultural value(s) of photographic documentation, in this paper we present selected outcomes of a series of workshops hosted by The Photographers’ Gallery, London (TPG),which developed around the question: How can institutions engage with this expanded field of visual documentation, and what are the implications for art history and cultural memory? In the paper we consider the ways in which documentation is diffused, operationalized and valorized by different agents in contemporary visual culture.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Traditional data acquisition systems have relied on physical connections between data sources and data receivers to handle the routing of acquired data streams. However, these systems grow exponentially in complexity as the number of data sources and receivers increases. New techniques are needed to address the ever increasing complexity of data acquisition. Furthermore, more advanced mechanisms are needed that move past the limitations of traditional data models that connect each data source to exactly one data receiver. This paper presents a software framework for the playback of multiplexed data acquired from a network acquisition system. This framework uses multicast technologies to connect data sources with multiple data receivers. The network acquisition system is briefly introduced before the software framework is discussed. Both the challenges and advantages involved with creating such a system are presented. Finally, this framework is applied to an aviation telemetry example.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / In a quest to provide networked communication to test assets at all of the Major Range and Test Facility Bases (MRTFB), the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) Program was formed. A study was accomplished outlining five environments that encompass the work of these MRTFBs. The first of these environments to be advanced towards networked communication is the Aeronautical Environment. In order to develop these technologies, a test platform is proposed, realized, and tested. This airborne test platform will be used for concept and product testing and validation of the three portions of the Telemetry Network System (TmNS); the vehicle network, vNET, the radio frequency network (RF), rfNET, and the interface to the ground network, gNET. This paper will present the baseline system configuration, describe its operation, and detail RF link testing results.