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In this letter, the characteristics of a novel switched circuit is presented. Its pseudo chaotic signal is digitally programmable. Robust synchronization between two mismatched circuits is demonstrated by simulation results. Lastly, applications of this circuit on chaotic communication are suggested.

In this paper we quantify our limited information horizon, by measuring the information necessary to locate specific nodes in a network. To investigate different ways to overcome this horizon, and the interplay between communication and topology in social networks, we let agents communicate in a model society. Thereby they build a perception of the network that they can use to create strategic links to improve their standing in the network. We observe a narrow distribution of links when the communication is low and a network with a broad distribution of links when the communication is high.

This paper addresses the problem of sharing common nonlinearity among nonautonomous and autonomous oscillators. By choosing a suitable common nonlinear element with the driving point characteristics capable of bringing out chaotic motion in a combined system, we obtain identical chaotic states. The dynamics of the coupled system is explored through numerical and experimental studies. Employing the concept of common nonlinearity, a simple chaotic communication system is modeled and its performance is verified through Multisim simulation.

The capability of seamlessly switching between two communication protocols will be very important for communication devices of the future, since it allows the end users to judiciously use whichever network is appropriate, depending on cost, signal strength or other factors such as the amount of battery life left on the device. This paper presents the groundbreaking idea of a Seamless Protocol Switching Layer (SPSL) on a hardware and software level to solve this problem. In addition, the SPSL concept is implemented by developing a prototype application, a Smart Video Phone, built using Intel XScale-based PXA255 board and ARM Linux as the operating system that can seamlessly switch between IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth technologies. Experiments show that if the signal of the Bluetooth signal goes below 40%, the switching to Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi) happens if it is available.

New trends in software development, such as agile software development, have a difficulty in conventional document-based management. Executable software has a higher priority than development documents such as detail design documents and formal bug reports. If managers depend on development reports in order to determine the project progress and the product quality, they will miss the opportunity of determining the progress and quality in agile software development. Therefore, we proposed a project reliability growth model for determining the project state without development documents. This model is based on conventional software reliability growth models. The parameters related to bugs are replaced with communication topic parameters. The concept and procedure of the model are the same as those of the software reliability growth model. By applying this model to open source projects, it is possible to detect a significant change in the project state without development documents.

The causes of architecture changes can tell about why architecture changes, and this knowledge can be captured to prevent architecture knowledge vaporization and architecture degeneration. But the causes are not always known, especially in open source software (OSS) development. This makes it very hard to understand the underlying reasons for the architecture changes and design appropriate modifications. Architecture information is communicated in development mailing lists of OSS projects. To explore the possibility of identifying and understanding the causes of architecture changes, we conducted an empirical study to analyze architecture information (i.e. architectural threads) communicated in the development mailing lists of two popular OSS projects: Hibernate and ArgoUML, verified architecture changes with source code, and identified the causes of architecture changes from the communicated architecture information. The main findings of this study are: (1) architecture information communicated in OSS mailing lists does lead to architecture changes in code; (2) the major cause for architecture changes in both Hibernate and ArgoUML is preventative changes, and the causes of architecture changes are further classified to functional requirement, external quality requirement, and internal quality requirement using the coding techniques of grounded theory; (3) more than 45% of architecture changes in both projects happened before the first stable version was released.

Attaining effective communication within and across organizational units is among the most critical challenges for success in software development organizations. This paper presents a novel model, supporting analysis of problems in inter-departmental communication events. The model was developed and designed based on industrial needs emphasizing flexibility, applicability and scalability. The model covers central communication aspects in order to provide a useful approximation of communication problems rather than in-depth modeling on message-by message basis. Other event-specific information, such as costs, can then be attached to enrich analysis and understanding. To exemplify and evaluate the model and collect feedback from industry, it was applied to 16 events at a Swedish automotive manufacturer where communication between two departments had broken down during development of software-intensive systems. The evaluation showed that the model helped structure and conduct systematic data collection and analysis of dysfunctional communication patterns. We found that insufficient understanding of the matters being communicated was prevalent, but also more specifically, requirements were insufficiently balanced, detailed and specified over the full system development cycle. Besides, the long-term cost for the company was analyzed in depth for each event, yielding a total estimated cost for the analyzed communication events of 11.2MUS$.

Overworking behaviors appear in multi-agent systems specially when there are unbalanced communication patterns. This occurs when an agent receives many messages in a short period of time in comparison to other agents. As the agent pays attention to the large amount of messages, it worsens its performance, causing the system's performance to worsen as well, while other agents with similar services can be idle. The reasons for these behaviors are varied and depend on the nature of the messages. This article presents a measurement approach that detects unbalanced overworking situations in multi-agent systems with a new metric. Moreover, this approach includes a set of recommendations that determine possible common causes of this defective behavior depending on the relations of different measurement values. These recommendations also propose a solution for repairing each cause, suppressing these unbalanced overworking situations. A tool has been developed for allowing designers to measure the agents' communications, to obtain the diagnosis, and to know the recommended solutions. The current work has been applied in two case studies, whose results advocate that the suppression of unbalanced overworking situations is strongly related to the improvement of performance in multi-agent systems. Furthermore, the experience of this approach in nine different problem domains is presented as support for the causes and solutions of the set of recommendations.

Multistage Interconnection Networks (MINs) are communication network systems that provide fast and efficient information transitions among N processors and N memory modules of systems. A typical MIN consists of layers of switching elements that are connected together in a predefined topology. The routing capability of a network depends on its specific topology. A shuffle-exchange network (SEN), a specific type of MIN that consists of 2 × 2 switching elements, has been widely considered a practical interconnection system. In this paper, a modified shuffle-exchange network with 1 × 2 switching elements at the input (source) stage, 2 × 2 switching elements at the intermediate stages, and 2 × 1 switching elements at the output (terminal) stage is proposed. The proposed network shows an improvement in the terminal reliability of SEN. The terminal reliability evaluation of the SEN and the modified SEN are demonstrated through numerical examples for different sizes of networks. The reliability evaluation of MINs is important, as it determines the usability and efficiency of the network to provide services. It is shown that the proposed modified SEN provides higher terminal reliability for network sizes larger than 4 inputs and 4 outputs (4 × 4).

This paper introduces an approach based on the 3C (communication, coordination and cooperation) collaboration model to the development of collaborative systems. The 3C model is studied by means of a detailed analysis of each of its three elements, followed by a case study of a learningware application and the methodology of a web-based course, both designed based on this model. Moreover, this paper describes a component-based system architecture following this 3C approach.

In geo-distributed cloud systems, a key challenge faced by cloud providers is to optimally tune and configure the underlying cloud infrastructure. An important problem in this context, deals with finding an optimal virtual machine (VM) placement, minimizing costs, while at the same time, ensuring good system performance. Moreover, due to the fluctuations of demand and traffic patterns, it is crucial to dynamically adjust the VM placement scheme over time. It should be noted that most of the existing studies, however, dealt with this problem either by ignoring its dynamic aspect or by proposing solutions that are not suitable for a geographically distributed cloud infrastructure. In this paper, exact as well as heuristic solutions based on Integer Linear programming (ILP) formulations are proposed. Our work focuses also on the problem of scheduling the VM migration by finding the best migration sequence of intercommunicating VMs that minimizes the resulting traffic on the backbone network. The proposed algorithms execute within a reasonable time frame to readjust VM placement scheme according to the perceived demand. Our aim is to use VM migration as a tool for dynamically adjusting the VM placement scheme while minimizing the network traffic generated by VM communication and migration. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms by performing extensive experiments and simulation.

BG Medicine announces agreement with Kindstar Diagnostics which will provide Galectin-3 testing services in China.

MicuRx lands $9.6 Million to fund China trials of antibiotic.

AstraZeneca and Ironwood announce linaclotide collaboration for China.

BGI-Shenzhen extends tender offer for Complete Genomics, Inc.

China Cord Blood Corporation continues share repurchase program.

NCKU, Science Park join hands to boost academia-industry collaboration.

Pharmaron forms strategic partnership with AstraZeneca to accelerate drug discovery.

Regulatory mechanisms of an acid-activated type VI secretion system in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

Seasonal plasticity of peripheral auditory sensitivity associated with vocal communication in frog.

In this paper, we investigate a dilemma of employing silent mode and communication mode by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in communication with its controller. In many applications, a UAV communicates with a controller to receive instructions or accurate positioning, but such active communication poses a threat that the UAV can be hijacked through spoofing. On the other hand, during a silent mode (when the UAV does not communicate with the controller), the UAV is safe from spoofing, but is not receiving updates or other important data, and can degrade the overall UAV mission. To gain insight into the UAV risk versus benefit tradeoff, a simple game-theoretic model is presented. Additionally, this paper investigates how incomplete information about the capability of the controller to quickly learn the adversary’s attack and adjust its strategy accordingly can impact the equilibrium strategies. In contrast to regular-type capability, when both the rivals maximize their payoffs simultaneously, the capability of the controller to quickly learn is modeled by having the controller apply the best-response strategy. We model this problem using a Bayesian game, where the adversary knows only a priori probabilities about what capability the controller has. Dependence of the equilibrium strategies on these a priori probabilities is illustrated.

A new interactive "wall game" is proposed to study the emergence of rules and symbols in interaction dynamics. In this game, two human players alternately configure a pattern on a board to communicate with each other. Distinct from related studies, players in this game have no explicit game scores or tasks to optimize. Any dynamics occurring in this game are therefore ad-hoc and on-going processes. There were three major findings in this paper. (i) The subjects mainly interacted in two modes: a dynamic mode where players proceed through the game without assigning any meanings to the pattern, and a metaphoric mode, where players process with narrative reflection. (ii) Subjects spontaneously switch between the two modes, but this switching is suppressed when playing alone. (iii) A transition diagram of the board pattern can be used to label the two modes, e.g. linearity of the diagram is correlated with the metaphoric mode. One of the main features of grammar is to display subjects' intentionality in a systematic way. We argue that the switching between the two modes observed in our experiment can be taken as a grammatical aspect that emerged in the process. These modes express the speaker's perspective in the same manner as grammatical elements do in natural language. The switching behavior should be seen as a process that embodies a player's intention using the medium (in this case, the patterns in the wall game), and a player's exploration of the medium is a necessary step before generating a grammar structure.

The rapid growth of the network-centered (Internet and Intranet) computing environments requires new architectures for information gathering systems. Typically, in these environments, the information resources are dynamic, heterogeneous and distributed. In addition, these computing environments are open, where information resources may be connected or disconnected at any time. This paper presents an architecture for a multi-agent information gathering system. The architecture includes three types of agents: interface, broker and resource agents. The interface agents interact with the users to fulfill their interests and preferences. The resource agents access and capture the content of the information resources. The broker agents facilitate cooperation among the information and the resource agents to achieve their desired goals. This paper provides the agents' architecture, design and implementations that enable them to cooperate, coordinate and communicate with each other to gather information in an open and dynamic environment.

This paper draws on a six-year programme of research and practice, in IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, which has been recently patented and is shortly to be offered under licence as a body of method to practitioners in the field of knowledge management. It argues that we are entering a third age of knowledge management in which the focus on tacit–explicit conversions, exemplified by the SECI model of Nonaka and Takeuchi, is no longer adequate, and leads to an excessive focus on codification, or disembodiment of knowledge from the knowledge holder. In the third generation, we recognise that people always know more than they can say, and will always say more than they can write down. This leads to a separation of context from content management and a new focus on the management of narrative, or colloquially, story. This paper summarises ways in which narrative databases can be constructed, and more critically indexed, using high-abstraction emergent properties such as archetypes and myth objects. In addition to established uses of narrative in communication management, radical new work in the application of narrative techniques to decision support, partially replacing scenario planning through the creation of context filters is also described. While some aspects are explored in depth, others are summarised and references provided by the author to other papers where more details can be found.

Given the emerging nature of the knowledge management (KM) profession and the differing schools of thought on KM by academics and practitioners, designing a curriculum in KM poses substantial challenges. One of these challenges is to be able to determine the optimal mix of subjects from the various disciplines that best meets the objective of developing the requisite professional competencies of knowledge professional. A two-pronged methodology was adopted for this study comprising a survey research to gather perceptions on KM and KM education as well as an investigation of relevant web sites on the Internet for existing postgraduate programs. The latter was used to support a comparative review of the courses' objectives and curriculum, where available. The study established that the adoption of KM in Singapore was most significant in large organizations and the public sector. However, there were differing perceptions as to who in an organization should be responsible for KM and what full-time KM roles should be in-scaled. Nonetheless, the findings did suggest that there is a potential market for knowledge professionals and reinforced the fact that KM is indeed interdisciplinary and drew upon the theories and practices of a number of disciplines such as information technology, information science, communication, business, and management.

Knowledge-based economy and globalization have led to changes in organizational structure (e.g. decentralization, project and matrix teams, flatter structure) and the rise of a multicultural, diverse workforce. As such, organizations are reevaluating their strategies, and one of the trends is to adopt organizational culture as a knowledge-management tool. The purpose of this paper is to lay down a persuasive communication-based model for cultivating a synergetic, multicultural work environment that allows for knowledge sharing and transfer. This model can be broken down into three components: (1) cultivation of a well-defined organizational culture; (2) development of cross-cultural skills and flexibilities; and (3) establishment of a cross-cultural mediation process. It highlights some issues and areas for consideration during assessment, planning (such as message, spokesperson, measurable objectives), implementation, and evaluation

This paper investigates and evaluates the process of knowledge transfer in construction projects. Due to the highly competitive nature of business environments, knowledge transfer between organisations has become increasingly popular in recent years. However, although organisations can realise remarkable benefits by transferring knowledge from one unit to another, successful knowledge transfer can be difficult to achieve. The discussions presented in the paper are mainly based on findings of two case studies. The two cases were selected from Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects in the UK. According to the case study findings, different stages of a knowledge transfer process can be overlapped, omitted, repeated as well as intermitted and then restarted. One of the significant findings of the case studies was the role of the "knowledge mediator". In selected case studies, there were external consultants and expert staff in the form of knowledge mediators. The importance of their roles was frequently highlighted by the interview participants. They were not only facilitating the close liaison between the knowledge source and the receiver, but also their role was strongly associated with practices of translation and interpretation. This combined role of mediator/translator, therefore, appears to be particularly significant for inter-organisational knowledge transfer in PFI projects.

KM principles often apply to large companies (more than 200 employees), where issues of general management and skill sets, as well as resources, often require comprehensive and multi-department solutions. However, many small businesses experience the same issues of knowledge sharing and management, but may find boundaries in the development and implementation of programs. How can small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) benefit from KM principles? What areas in the traditional literature immediately apply, and what boundaries arise? Often encompassing multiple roles, managerial practices, and efforts in microcosm, how can these smaller companies provide the structure and impact needed to make KM principles work for them? This work analyses the problems that small businesses face in the collection, dissemination, and storage of company knowledge, including issues of technology, communities of practice, and "stickiness" for best-practice goals. The definitions of small business, as outlined by the European Commission and U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), will serve as a useful tool for scope and discussion. This research will explore three key classifications of traits — structural or systemic, communication, and qualitative — through a review of the areas in which the challenges of small businesses, because of their size, imply somewhat different approaches to KM.