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The aim of this paper is to present the concept of a simple and cheap upgrade for electric water boilers, allowing them to provide power quality services to the distribution grid. The upgrade requires only minimum additional hardware and it is easily installable. “Smart Boilers”, as the upgraded boilers are named, perform precise active and reactive power control, but most significantly mitigate line current harmonics. Αctive and reactive power control is implemented by appropriate regulation of the modulation sinewave amplitude and phase, respectively. This type of control is easily customizable in order to accommodate a variety of power quality targets, depending on the required level of services and available grid monitoring equipment. The method used for line current harmonic compensation is based on the injection of mirror harmonics created at the modulation stage of the converter. It is indifferent of harmonic source: it is equally successful at mitigating harmonics caused by the power electronic converter of the Smart Boiler, other sources of current harmonics or loads. The achieved grid services are clearly beyond the “on/off” operation of electric boilers, currently implemented by Demand Side Management (DSM) in order to shift load away from peak hours. It has been demonstrated through simulations, that Smart Boilers can assist voltage regulation at terminal buses, compensate reactive power and suppress harmonic currents at lines.

While using highly automated systems, various non-critical automated driving scenarios can be identified in which trust plays a role. In this study, we investigated the change of trust in these scenarios with a digital “Feeling of Trust” indicator, through video-based online experiments simulating automated driving. Initial results show that trust even changes in these scenarios and revealed multiple influential factors. While trust seems to drop consistently in certain cases, we found individual differences in other events. With our experimental setup and findings, we provide a tool to examine trust aspects in an online study. This contributes to the understanding of how to design human-vehicle interactions in highly automated cars with the goal to calibrate trust under ordinary non-critical events.

In current literature, one is offered a number of ways of discussing critical thinking, and furthermore, authors follow different tracks grounded in a variety of disciplines (philosophical, psychological and educational) to approach the concept. The only consensus within this topic seems to be the claim that there is no consensus concerning the definition and the construct of critical thinking. I propose that the critical thinking is a complex concept, which simultaneously involves components at three levels, at the level of the culture, the individual and the language. I call the resulting framework a multilevel model (MLM) of the critical thinking concept. The paper argues that the study of critical thinking and non-critical thinking instances within the framework of the MLM allows us a better understanding of the phenomena internationally, and in addition, that no one level can be singled out as the only appropriate level of analysis of critical thinking instances. Keywords: Critical thinking, language, emotion, context, social environment, culture.

In many public and private sectors that provide services there are physical queues. Waiting in the queue can affect the clients experience and can exhaust them as well. On the other hand, idle time in many sectors of valuable resources, such as, healthcare sectors, can be expensive. In this paper we aim to enhance the clients experience when they are looking for non critical services. The paper suggests an approach for appointments using queue management system. The customers in the queue are divided into several priority classes that is considered in computing the expected waiting time. To show the efficiency of the suggested approach, we applied it on healthcare vaccination system.

Purpose The goal of making buy-in decisions is to purchase materials at the right time with the required quantity and a minimum material cost (MC). To help achieve this goal, the purpose of this paper is to find a way of optimizing the buy-in decision with the consideration of flexible starting date of non-critical activities which makes daily demand adjustable. Design/methodology/approach First, a specific algorithm is developed to calculate a series of demand combinations modeling daily material demand for all the possible start dates. Second, future material prices are predicted by applying artificial neural network. Third, the demand combinations and predicted prices are used to generate an optimal buy-in decision. Findings By comparing MC in situation when non-critical activities always start at the earliest date to that in situations when the starting date is flexible, it is found that making material buy-in decision with the consideration of the flexibility usually helps reduce MC. Originality/value In this paper, a material buy-in decision-making method that accounts non-critical activities’ flexible starting date is proposed. A ternary cycle algorithm is developed to calculate demand combinations. The results that making material buy-in decision considering non-critical activities’ flexible starting date can reduce MC in most times indicates that contractors may consider non-critical activities’ flexibility a part of the buy-in decision-making process, so as to achieve an MC decrease and profit increase.

With the increasing load demand and the increase of interconnections to meet the load demand, the system has to be operated not only economically but also securely. Nowadays in deregulated market the transmission lines are stressed heavily because of load demand and to operate economically. N-2 contingencies are important enough to study for on line security assessment. In this paper, we had focused on contingency selection of N-2 transmission line contingencies by using contingency screening and ranking methods, so we can differentiate between critical and non critical contingencies and also measure the severity of the contingency.

One trend in the development of autonomous driving is to take the human completely out-of-the-loop. However, we believe that there are good grounds to keep the human in the loop, at some level of control (in particular tactical control), even in the case of full automation. One reason to do so is that the technology may not be flexible enough to always behave according to human needs and preferences, which may vary across people and situations. There are still many scenarios driver want to spontaneously intervene the behaviour of the system, e.g. picking up a friend in a crowded area, selecting a parking lot, that the driver would not like to follow a big truck and want to turn to another road to explore and find new places. In this paper, we present a framework of human intervention in Non-critical Spontaneous Situations (NCSSs). The framework facilitates a systematic definition of these scenarios, which ensures that all relevant aspects are addressed when eliciting requirements or validating concepts.

Part 2: Infrastructure Protection; International audience; This chapter examines potential attack vectors that exist in a nuclear power plant and correlates the likelihood of an attack from each vector. The focus is on the boron monitoring system, which directly affects the reactivity in the core; cyber attacks on this system can lead to increased core wear, unsafe reactivity levels and poor power performance. A mockup model is developed using open-source software and hardware, which is tested to evaluate the potential of cyber attacks. A man-in-the-middle attack is implemented to demonstrate a cyber attack and its potential effects. Additionally, a redundancy-based cyber attack mitigation method is implemented using a hardware device that compares the input/output values of multiple programmable logic controllers. The approach for modeling general attack and defense steps is applicable to industrial control systems in the energy sector.

The combination of the progressive growth of an aging population, increased life expectancy and a greater number of chronic diseases all contribute significantly to the growing demand for emergency medical care, and thus, causing saturation in Emergency Departments (EDs). This saturation is usually due to the admission of non-urgent patients, who constitute a high percentage of patients in an ED. The Agent-based Model (ABM) is one of the most important tools that helps to study complex systems and explores the emergent behavior of this type of department. Its simulation more accurately reflects the complexity of the operation of real systems. Our proposal is the design of an ABM to schedule the access of these non-critical patients into an ED, which can be useful for the service management dealing with the actual growing demand for emergency care. We suppose that a relocation of these non-critical patients within the expected input pattern, provided initially by historical records, enables a reduction in waiting time for all patients, and therefore, it will lead to an improvement in the quality of service. It would also allow us to avoid long waiting times. This research offers the availability of relevant knowledge for Emergency Department managers in order to help them make decisions to improve the quality of the service, in anticipation of the expected growing demand of the service in the very near future.

A lithographic illuminator lens design focused on telecentricity matching is proposed in this manuscript. Each part of the system together with original design concepts and key technology is specifically discussed in detail. The most significant discussion is about the principle and mathematical derivation of the homogenization induced discreteness on pupil pattern. The influence of such discreteness on telecentricity is thoroughly studied based on rod and diffusing components. Also, the factors that impact on telecentricity matching errors such as lens design, misalign and coating defect are discussed and deduced into formula expression. According to the simulation results, our design fully meets the target requirements and our expectation, and the viewpoints on discrete pupil pattern with its impacts on telecentricity are verified. The matching error on reticle level is superior to -1.44 mrad, and the Comprehensive telecentricity on wafer level is less than 4 mrad via simulation.

In fingerprint thinning algorithm, the thinning effect of typical serial OPTA algorithm, resulting in more burrs after thinning, and there exist many points that may affect fingerprint thinning effects. In view of above problem, a new improved algorithm is proposed, this algorithm removes the boundary points of the fingerprint image, and then it gives new removal templates and retention templates, after the first removal and retention, it again gives a remove template for remaining burrs and bifurcation points, as well as the discriminant formula of non critical points, for three different fingerprints, the thinning algorithm before improving is compared with improved thinning algorithm, the results find that the new improved thinning algorithm can greatly reduce the occurrence of burrs and other removal points in the thinning process, with good thinning effect.

Triage is a well-known process of evaluating and categorizing patients' condition, widely applied in Emergency Departments (EDs) of hospitals. Since EDs are frequently overcrowded, this makes triage an extremely challenging process to make sure patients are given the appropriate medical attention in time. This paper discusses the use of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps as a Medical Decision Support System for Triage decisions. The case of non-emergent and non-urgent elderly patients is examined and the corresponding model is developed.

E. Guy, P. Punpongsanon, D. Iwai, K. Sato and T. Boubekeur, "LazyNav: 3D ground navigation with non-critical body parts," 2015 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI), 2015, pp. 43-50, doi: 10.1109/3DUI.2015.7131725., With the growing interest in natural input devices and virtual reality, mid-air ground navigation is becoming a fundamental interaction for a large collection of application scenarios. While classical input devices (e.g., mouse/keyboard, gamepad, touchscreen) have their own ground navigation standards, natural input techniques still lack acknowledged mechanisms for travelling in a 3D scene. In particular, for most applications, navigation is not the primary interaction. Thus, the user should navigate in the scene while still being able to perform other interactions with her hands, and observe the displayed content by moving her eyes and locally rotating her head. Since most ground navigation scenarios require only two degrees of freedom to move forward or backward and rotate the view to the left or to the right, we propose LazyNav a mid-air ground navigation control model which lets the users hands, eyes or local head orientation completely free, making use of a single pair of the remaining tracked body elements to tailor the navigation. To this end, we design several navigation body motions and study their desired properties, such as being easy to discover, easy to control, socially acceptable, accurate and not tiring. We also develop several assumptions about motions design for ground navigation and evaluate them. Finally, we highlight general advices on mid-air ground navigation techniques.

The paper presents results of ZigBee communication tests performed in a specifically set electromagnetic environment, with the purpose to determine the applicability of ZigBee technology in non-critical messaging for vehicular communications. Known for its low energy consumption, the ZigBee technology might be used in background messaging for cooperative driving, with the purpose to reduce the overload on the main channels used for emergency message warning, or other critical applications. In the paper are presented the test bed, results and solutions for new approaches with usability to vehicular communications.

Economic transmission planning requires intensive production cost simulations. The long simulation time however presents practical challenges and limits the scope of analyses. This paper therefore investigates transmission constraints, a major contributing factor to simulation time, and proposes a framework to identify and remove transmission constraints that are least critical to simulation results yet can reduce simulation time. Numeric tests using MISO planning models have shown the proposed method can achieve 10∼15% savings in simulation time with acceptable impact to simulation result accuracy. Applying the proposed method may save thousands of computing hours per planning cycle.

Redundancy is the main method for achieving high reliability level in networked control systems NCSs. It is often applied in network interfaces in order to maintain operability of communication subsystems even when faults occur. In most cases, redundant communication buses realize exactly the same functionality as the initial non-redundant bus. That makes the system more reliable but the additional throughput of the redundant buses is not exploited even if the system condition would allow it. The idea of taking advantage of that throughput had made the authors to work on multi-network interface node which on the other hand maintain the high reliability of the communication subsystem, and on the other, makes it possible to manage the additional communication resources more efficiently, and therefore increases some parameters of the communication network.

Timely segregation of connectivity-centric critical/non-critical nodes is extremely crucial in mobile ad hoc and sensor networks to assess network vulnerabilities against critical node failures and provide precautionary means for survivability. This paper presents a localized algorithm for segregation of critical/ n on-critical n odes (LASCNN) that opts to distinguish critical/non-critical nodes to the network connectivity based on limited topology information. Each node establishes and maintains a k-hop connection list and employ LASCNN to determine whether it is critical/non- critical. Based on the list, LASCNN marks a node as critical if its k-hop neighbor's become disconnected without the node, non-critical otherwise. Simulation experiments demonstrate the scalability of LASCNN and shows the performance is quite competitive compared to a scheme with global network information. The accuracy of LASCNN in determining critical nodes is 87% (1-hop) and 93% (2-hop) and non-critical nodes 91% (1-hop) and 93% (2-hop).

Asynchronous domino logic pipeline design is a latchless high throughput and low power design. In this design dual-rail domino gates are used to construct the stable critical data path and single-rail domino gates are used in non critical data paths. An 8x8 array style multiplier is used to evaluate this pipeline design. This proposed technique is general and can be used in all domino logic circuit designs. Now this can be implemented for higher order multipliers like 16x16.

The process of energy saving mechanisms is been utilized by proper planning to transmit both critical clip and non-real infor-mation by reading overheads there by reducing throughput and bandwidth in large scale critical clip networks. The existing bundle sched-uling mythologies used were based on the First -in First-out (FIFO) manner in such cases the critical information at particular instant cannot be processed quickly but proposed system is designed in such a way it consists of three tier precedence structure .the critical in-formation bundles are placed in the higher status prioritizing queue and processed immediately and sent to the destination node where oth-er information bundles are given less precedence on the basis of position for non critical information bundles. The proposed scheme, ener-gy efficient in reducing the number of transmission by using merger technique. The lowest precedence bundles are processed after the higher precedence bundles. The proposed algorithm proves its uniqueness based on end -to-end delay than Energy efficient wake up scheduling MAC (EEWS) and Traffic Adaptive MAC protocol (TAMAC)

In this paper, we present exact analysis for the worst case response time of the general multiframe (MF) task model executing on a uniprocessor according to the fixed priority scheduling scheme. The analysis is developed in four stages. Firstly, we present the basic response time analysis where we optimize the number of frames that have to be considered in such analysis; we show how their number can be significantly reduced by eliminating non critical frames that are dominated by other frames. Secondly, we extend this analysis to be applicable to MF tasks with arbitrary deadlines. Thirdly, the basic analysis is extended to cope with frame specific deadlines. Lastly, the two models of frame specific deadlines and arbitrary deadlines are combined and the relative analysis is presented. An optimal priority assignment scheme for the frame specific deadline scenario is also presented in this paper.

We relate vascular network structure to hemodynamics after vessel obstructions. We consider tree-like networks with a viscoelastic fluid with the rheological characteristics of blood. We analyze the network hemodynamic response, which is a function of the frequencies involved in the driving, and a measurement of the resistance to flow. This response function allows the study of the hemodynamics of the system, without the knowledge of a particular pressure gradient. We find analytical expressions for the network response, that explicitly show the roles played by the network structure, the degree of obstruction, and the geometrical place in which obstructions occur. Notably, we find that the sequence of resistances of the network without occlusions, strongly determines the tendencies that the response function has with the anatomical place where obstructions are located. We identify anatomical sites in a network that are critical for its overall capacity to supply blood to a tissue after obstructions. We demonstrate that relatively small obstructions in such critical sites are able to cause a much larger decrease on flow than larger obstructions placed in non-critical sites. Our results indicate that, to a large extent, the response of the network is determined locally. That is, it depends on the structure that the vasculature has around the place where occlusions are found. This result is manifest in a network that follows Murray's law, which is in reasonable agreement with several mammalian vasculatures. For this one, occlusions in early generation vessels have a radically different effect than occlusions in late generation vessels occluding the same percentage of area available to flow. This locality implies that whenever there is a tissue irrigated by a tree-like in-vivo vasculature, our model is able to interpret how important obstructions are for the irrigation of such tissue.

This book chapter deals with the problem of scheduling multiprocessor real-time tasks by an optimal EDF-based scheduling algorithm. Two forms of automatic reconfigurations which are assumed to be applied at run-time: Addition-Removal of tasks or just modifications of their temporal parameters: WCET and/or deadlines. Nevertheless, when such a scenario is applied to save the system at the occurrence of hardware-software faults, or to improve its performance, some real-time properties can be violated at run-time. We define an Intelligent Agent that automatically checks the system’s feasibility after any reconfiguration scenario was applied on a multiprocessor embedded system. Indeed, if the system is unfeasible, then the Intelligent Agent dynamically provides precious technical solutions for users to send sporadic tasks to idle times, by modifying the deadlines of tasks, the worst case execution times (WCETs), the activation time, by tolerating some non critical tasks, by sending some tasks from their current processors to be scheduled in other processors, or in the worst case by removing some soft tasks according to predefined heuristic. We implement the agent to support these services.

Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs) have matured to a point where they present a realistic technology for monitoring non critical systems in industrial, office and domestic environments. This in turn will lead to an increased number of applications using WSN technology, each requiring a unique response from the underlying network. Due to the nature of WSN communications these different network requirements are achieved using a variety of communication tools. With ever increasing number and complexity of tools available it becomes difficult to choose which tool is best suited for an application in a given deployment.

A persistent problem in verification flows is to eliminate waivers defined as patterns that are known to be safe on silicon even though they are flagged by the verification recipes. The difficulty of the problem stems from the complexity of these patterns, and thus, using a standard verification language to describe them becomes very tedious and can deliver unexpected results. In addition, these patterns have a dynamic nature, hence, updating all production verification recipes to waive these non critical patterns becomes more time consuming. In this work, we are presenting a new method to eliminate waivers directly after verification recipes have been executed, where a new rule file will be generated automatically based on the type of errors under investigation. The core of the method is based on pattern matching to compare generated errors from verifications runs with a library of pattern waivers. This flow will eliminate the need to edit any production recipe, and complicated coding will not be required. Finally, this flow is compatible with most of the technology nodes.

This paper presents a newly developed probabilistic model representing two units in parallel and one on standby system with critical and non-critical human error. Repair times of the failed system are arbitrarily distributed while all other transition time distributions are negative exponential. A general formula for the system steady-state availability is developed with the aid of the method of supplementary variables, the Markov approach and Laplace transforms. Specific plots and tables are shown to demonstrate the impact of critical and non-critical human errors on system steady-state availability.

In recent years, many researchers have proposed several algorithms to schedule critical tasks in a homogeneous multiprocessor system for obtaining a shorter scheduling length. However, for heterogeneous computing systems, such methods may lead to lengthen the execution of other non-critical tasks. In this paper, a Non-critical Path Earliest-Finish (NPEF) scheduling algorithm for heterogeneous computing systems has been proposed to eliminate the problem mentioned above. From the experimental results, the proposed method is proven to be an effective scheduling scheme in heterogeneous computing environments.

This paper presents markerClock, an augmented clock for seniors (60 y.o. and over) designed to serve as a simple and intuitive communication device. MarkerClock is designed to allow seniors to be more connected with their peer care networks. It aims at leveraging the need for institutionalized care in non critical situations. We first present the results of our preliminary user study that guided the design of markerClock. We then describe markerClock and its expected benefits. MarkerClock is designed particularly to facilitate the creation and maintenance of a shared-awareness between seniors.

Probabilistic analysis of k -out-of- N:G redundant systems with repair facilities and multiple critical and non-critical errors is presented. Failed unit (active and/or by any one of the multiple non-critical errors) will be repaired with the same constant repair rate. The system is in a failed state when any one of the multiple critical errors has occurred or ( N − k + 1) units have failed. Failed system will be repaired with repair times arbitrarily distributed. The formulas for reliability and steady-state availability are given.

The distributed operating system MELODY, was developed for supporting safety critical applications in unpredictable environments. Requirements for safety and reliability have to be accommodated, as well as things like real time responsiveness. All features have to be adaptive. While developing MELODY through a number of different phases, we created a heuristic experimental, performance-relate methodology termed Incremental experimentation. Based on this novel system building approach as well as on preliminary simulation studies for non critical tasks, the focus of the paper is on different policies of file server and task scheduler integration. This is a central issue in the MELODY concept due to the specific problems of distributed file management (where copies of different "quality" are dynamically distributed over the sites). We establish three integration policies: the Periodic, Joined, and Adjusted models, and we comparatively evaluate them in distributed environments. In particular the significant results for critical task profiles are presented and discussed.

This paper presents a newly developed method to perform reliability analysis of redundant systems with critical and non-critical human errors. The method is demonstrated using k-out-of-n units, parallel and series-parallel configurations. Time dependent analyses are developed for exponentially and Rayleigh distributed failure times. System reliability and mean time to failure formulas are presented.