Abstract
This paper studies the mechanical configuration and the periodic gaits of multi-legged locomotion systems based on its kinematic and dynamic models. The purpose is to determine the system performance during walking, and the best set of locomotion variables that minimize a set of optimization indices. In this perspective, two kinematic and four dynamic indices are formulated to quantitatively measure the performance of the walking robot. The kinematic indices consist of the perturbation analysis and the locomobility measure, and the dynamic performance indices of the walking robot locomotion are the mean absolute density of energy, the mean power density dispersion, the density of power lost and the mean force at the body-legs interface. A set of model-based simulation experiments reveals the system configuration and the type of movements that lead to a better performance, for a specific locomotion mode, from the viewpoint of the proposed indices.

Abstract
Shared-nothing clusters are a well known and cost-effective approach to database server scalability, in particular, with highly intensive read-only workloads typical of many 3-tier web-based applications. The common reliance oil a centralized component and a simplistic propagation strategy employed by mainstream solutions however conduct to poor scalability with traditional on-line transaction processing (OLTP), where the Update ratio is high. Such approaches also pose in additional obstacle to high availability while introducing a single point Of failure. More recently, database replication protocols based on group communication have been shown to overcome such limitations, expanding the applicability of shared-nothing Clusters to more demanding transactional workloads. These take simultaneous advantage of total order multicast and transactional semantics to improve oil mainstream solutions. However, none has already been widely deployed in a general purpose database management system. In this paper, we argue that it major hurdle for their acceptance is that these proposals have disappointing performance with specific subsets of real-world workloads. Such limitations are deep-rooted and working around them requires in-depth understanding of protocols and changes to applications. We address this issue with a novel protocol that combines multiple transaction execution mechanisms and replication techniques and then show how it avoids the identified pitfalls. Experimental results are obtained with it workload based oil the industry standard TPC-C benchmark.

Abstract

Abstract
Gupta and Magnusson [The capacitated lot-sizing and scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup costs and setup times. Computers and Operations Research 2005;32(4):727-47] develop a model for the single machine capacitated lot-sizing and scheduling problem (CLSP) with sequence dependent setup times and setup costs, incorporating all the usual features of setup carryovers. In this note we show that this model does not avoid disconnected subtours. A new set of constraints is added to the model to provide an exact formulation for this problem.

Abstract
We describe an approach of using the evaluation mechanism of the specification and verification system PVS to support formal design exploration of WSN algorithms at the early stages of their development. The specification of the algorithm is expressed with an extensible set of programming primitives, and properties of interest are evaluated with ad hoc network simulators automatically generated from the formal specification. In particular, we build on the PVSio package as the core base for the network simulator. According to requirements, properties of interest can be simulated at different levels of abstraction. We illustrate our approach by specifying and simulating a standard routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Abstract
Sea level is a key variable in the context of global climate change. Climate-induced variability is expected to affect not only the mean sea level but also the amplitude and phase of its seasonal cycle. This study addresses the changes in the amplitude and phase of the annual cycle of coastal sea level in the extra-tropical North Atlantic. The physical causes of these variations are explored by analysing the association between fluctuations in the annual amplitude of sea level and in ancillary parameters [atmospheric pressure, sea-surface temperature and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) winter index]. The annual cycle is extracted through autoregressive decomposition, in order to be able to separate variations in seasonality from long-term interannual variations in the mean. The changes detected in the annual sea level cycle are regionally coherent, and related to changes in the analysed forcing parameters. At the northern sites, fluctuations in the annual amplitude of sea level are associated with concurrent changes in temperature, while atmospheric pressure is the dominant influence for most of the sites on the western boundary. The state of the NAO influences the annual variability in the Southern Bight, possibly through NAO-related changes in wind stress and ocean circulation.