Gnutella's service announcement in March 2000 stirred worldwide interest by referring to P2P model. Basically, the P2P model needs not the broker "the centralized management server" that until now has figured so importantly in prevailing business models, and offers a new approach that enables peers such as end terminals to discover out and locate other suitable peers on their own without going through an intermediary server. It seems clear that the wealth of content made available by peer-to-peer systems like Gnutella and Freenet have spurred many authors into considering how meta-data might be used to support more effective search in a distributed environment. This paper has reviewed a number of these systems and attempted to identify some common themes. At this time the major division between the different approaches is the use of a hash-based routing scheme.

This paper introduces a new digital ATC (Automatic Train Control device) system. In the current ATC, the central ATC logic device calculates permissive speed of each blocking section and controls speed of all trains. On the other hand, in the new digital ATC, the central logic controller calculates each position to which a train can move safely, and sends the information on positions to all trains. On each train, the on-board equipment calculates an appropriate braking pattern with the information, and controls velocity of the train. That is, in the new system, the device on each train autonomously calculates permissive speed of that train. These special features realize ideal speed control of each train making full use of its performance for acceleration and deceleration, which in turns allows high-density train operations.

Decentralized XML databases are often used in Electronic Commerce (EC) business models such as e-brokers on the Web. To flexibly model such applications, we need a modeling language for EC business processes. To this end, we have adopted a query language approach and have designed a query language, called XBML, for decentralized XML databases used in EC businesses. In this paper, we explain and validate the functionality of XBML by specifying e-broker business models and describe the implementation of the XBML server, focusing on the distributed query processing.

System needs of growing systems including heterogeneous functions and operations are increased. High assurance system that achieves high reliability and high availability is very important for such systems. In order to realize high assurance system, we developed the assurance technology based on ADS (Autonomous Decentralized System). When a growing system changes or grows, its reliability may be lowered. In this paper, we clarify the risk factors which lower the reliability and quality of a growing system when the system is modified. We will then examine the technology to eliminate or mitigate those risk factors, and propose adaptive assurance technology that can minimize the risk. We also applied this technology to ATOS for Tokyo Metropolitan Railway Network as an example of really changing and growing system and mention its effectiveness. ATOS; Autonomous Decentralized Transport Operation Control System.

The heterogeneous autonomous decentralized system technology offers a way to integrate different types of context-related autonomous decentralized (sub) systems into a coherent system. The aim of this research is to model and evaluate the communication capacity among the subsystems connected by communication gateways of a heterogeneous autonomous decentralized system. Failures of subsystems and communication gateways in the system are taken into account. We use graphs to represent the topologies of heterogeneous autonomous decentralized systems and use the residual connectedness reliability (RCR) to characterize the communication capacity among its subsystems connected by its gateways. This model enables us to share research results obtained in residual connectedness reliability study in graph theory. Not to our surprise, we learnt soon that computing RCR of general graphs is NP-hard. But to our surprise, there exist no efficient approximation algorithms that can give a good estimation of RCR for an arbitrary graph when both vertices and edges may fail. We proposed in this paper a simulation scheme that gave us good results for small to large graphs but failed for very large graphs. Then we applied a theoretical bounding approach. We obtained expressions for upper and lower bounds of RCR for arbitrary graphs. Both upper and lower bound expressions can be computed in polynomial time. We applied these expressions to several typical graphs and showed that the differences between the upper and lower bounds tend to zero as the sizes of graphs tend to infinite. The contributions of this research are twofold, we find an efficient way to model and evaluate the communication capacity of heterogeneous autonomous decentralized systems; we contribute an efficient algorithm to estimate RCR in general graph theory.

A new architecture and methods for an enhanced autonomous decentralized production system (EADPS) are described. This EADPS was developed to ensure high flexibility of production systems consisting of intelligent devices based on the autonomous decentralized system model and to guarantee the time used for communication to simultaneously maintain high productivity. The system architecture of the EADPS guarantees the time by managing groups of nodes and the priorities in these groups. A bit-arbitration method is used to prevent collision of messages. The nodes autonomously check the waveforms in the network and terminate transmission when the nodes with a higher priority are transmitting. A parallel-filtering method is used to speed up message acceptance. The nodes check the identifiers of the messages using parallel-filtering circuits and each node determines autonomously where a message should be accepted or not. Implementing the system architecture and these methods as circuits and integrating the circuits into a chip using system LSI technologies resulted in low-cost implementation of the system. Experimental evaluation demonstrated the effectiveness of this system.

Over recent years, "Internet-able" applications and architectures have been used to support domains where there are multiple interconnected systems that are both decentralized and autonomous. In enterprise-level data management domains, both the schema of the data repository and the individual query needs of the users evolve over time. To handle this evolution, the resulting architecture must enforce the autonomy in systems that support the client needs and constraints, in addition to maintaining the autonomy in systems that support the actual data schema and extraction mechanisms. At the MITRE Corporation, this domain has been identified in the development of a composite data repository for the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD). In the development of such a repository, the supporting architecture includes specialized mechanisms to disseminate the data to a diverse evolving set of researchers. This paper presents the motivation and design of such an architecture to support these autonomous data extraction environments. This run-time configurable architecture is implemented using web-based technologies such as the Extensible Markup Language (XML), Java Servlets, Extensible Stylesheets (XSL), and a relational database management system (RDBMS).

Due to the advancements in Information Technology, such as the Internet and the presence of fierce competition in the market, the business environment is changing rapidly. To cope with these dynamic changes, heterogeneous systems are now required to integrate in order to form alliances with different business units or within individual business units. Since business operations can not be stopped to carry out these changes in the existing systems, the systems are required to integrate flexibly, preserving each constituent's individual characteristics. By implementing Atomic Action through a gateway and across constituent systems in a Heterogeneous Autonomous Decentralized System (HADS), higher degrees of assurance can be achieved through cooperation. However, if all the transactions are passed through a gateway, the response time worsens and the result cannot be obtained within an appropriate timeframe. Hence, a new technique of suppressing the flow passing through the gateway, while achieving a maximum number of successful transaction within the appropriate timeframe, is required.

The available bit rate (ABR) is an ATM service category that provides an economical support of connections having vague requirements. An ABR session may specify its peak cell rate (PCR) and minimum cell rate (MCR), and available bandwidth is allocated to competing sessions based on the max-min policy. In this paper, we investigate the ABR traffic control from a different point of view: Based on the decentralized bandwidth allocation model studied in [9], we prove that the max-min rate vector is the equilibrium of a certain system of noncooperative optimizations. This interpretation suggests a new framework for ABR traffic control that allows the max-min optimality to be achieved and maintained by end-systems, and not by network switches. Moreover, in the discussion, we consider the constrained version of max-min fairness and develop an efficient algorithm with theoretical justification to determine the optimal rate vector.

In this paper, we present a dynamic output feedback controller design technique for robust decentralized stabilization of uncertain large-scale systems with time-delay in the subsystem interconnections. Based on Lyapunov second method, a sufficient condition for the stability, is derived in terms of three linear matrix inequalities (LMI). The solutions of the LMIs can be easily obtained using efficient convex optimization techniques. A numerical example is given to illustrate the proposed method.

This paper treats meta-heuristics for combinatorial optimization problems. The parallelization of meta-heuristics is then discussed in which we show that parallel processing has possibility of not only speeding up but also improving solution quality. Finally we extend the discussion of the combinatorial optimization into autonomous decentralized systems, say autonomous decentralized optimization. This notion becomes very important with the advancement of the network-connected system architecture.

This paper deals with the decentralized supervisory control problems of uncertain discrete event systems which are represented as a set of some possible models. For a given global specification, this paper provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of local supervisors to achieve the specification under model uncertainty.

We consider a discrete event system controlled by a decentralized supervisor consisting of n local supervisors. Given a nonempty and closed language as the upper bound specification, we consider a problem to synthesize a reliable decentralized supervisor such that the closed-loop behavior is still legal under possible failures of any less than or equal to n-k (1 k n) local supervisors. We synthesize two such reliable decentralized supervisors. One is synthesized based on a suitably defined normal sublanguage. The other is the fully decentralized supervisor induced by a suitably defined centralized supervisor. We then show that the generated languages under the control actions of these two decentralized supervisors are incomparable.

A new method of sequential control has been developed in order to increase the productivity and flexibility of production systems. This advanced sequential control (ASC) method is proposed for sequential control systems based on the autonomous decentralized system (ADS) architecture. The ADS defines the system software and message formats and makes it easy to expand the number of devices and software modules. The ASC method increases productivity because it minimizes the processing and adjustment times of production lines by adjusting the starting times of production processes automatically. Experimental evaluation results of the ASC method showed that it increases the productivity of production systems. It is also applied to an actual production system and the results are reported.

In this paper, we study decentralized supervisory control of discrete event systems where local disabling actions are fused by the OR rule. We generalize an on-line procedure for synthesizing decentralized supervisors proposed by Prosser. By using the generalized procedure, we can achieve a sublanguage of a specification which is not achieved by a class of decentralized supervisors synthesized by the Prosser's procedure.

For many military and civilian large-scale, real-world systems of interest, data are first acquired asynchronously, i. e. at irregular intervals of time, at geographically-dispersed sites, processed utilizing decision-making algorithms, and the processed data then disseminated to other appropriate sites. The term real-world refers to systems under computer control that relate to everyday life and are beneficial to the society in the large. The traditional approach to such problems consists of designing a central entity which collects all data, executes a decision making algorithm sequentially to yield the decisions, and propagates the decisions to the respective sites. Centralized decision making algorithms are slow and highly vulnerable to natural and artificial catastrophes. Recent literature includes successful asynchronous, distributed, decision making algorithm designs wherein the local decision making at every site replaces the centralized decision making to achieve faster response, higher reliability, and greater accuracy of the decisions. Two key issues include the lack of an approach to synthesize asynchronous, distributed, decision making algorithms, for any given problem, and the absence of a comparative analysis of the quality of their decisions. This paper proposes MFAD, a Mathematical Framework for Asynchronous, Distributed Systems, that permits the description of centralized decision-making algorithms and facilities the synthesis of distributed decision-making algorithms. MFAD is based on the Kohn-Nerode distributed hybrid control paradigm. It has been a belief that since the centralized control gathers every necessary data from all entities in the system and utilizes them to compute the decisions, the decisions may be "globally" optimal. In truth, however, as the frequency of the sensor data increases and the environment gets larger, dynamic, and more complex, the decisions are called into question. In the distributed decision-making system, the centralized decision-making is replaced by those of the constituent entities that aim at minimizing a Lagrangian, i. e. a local, non-negative cost criterion, subject to the constraints imposed by the global goal. Thus, computations are carried out locally, utilizing locally obtained dataand appropriate information that is propagated from other sites. It is hypothesized that with each entity engaged in optimizing its individual behavior, asynchronously, concurrently, and independent of other entities, the distributed system will approach "global" optimal behavior. While it does not claim that such algorithms may be synthesized for all centralized real-world systems, this paper implements both the centralized and distributed paradigms for a representative military battlefield command, control, and communication (C3) problem. It also simulates them on a testbed of a network of workstations for a comparative performance evaluation of the centralized and decentralized paradigms in the MFAD framework. While the performance results indicate that the decentralized approach consistently outperforms the centralized scheme, this paper aims at developing a quantitative evaluation of the quality of decisions under the decentralized paradigm. To achieve this goal, it introduces a fundamental concept, embodied through a hypothetical entity termed "Perfect Global Optimization Device (PGOD)," that generates perfect or ideal decisions. PGOD possesses perfect knowledge, i. e. the exact state information of every entity of the entire system, at all times, unaffected by delay. PGOD utilizes the same decision-making algorithm as the centralized paradigm and generates perfect globally-optimal decisions which, though unattainable, provide a fundamental and absolute basis for comparing the quality of decisions. Simulation results reveal that the quality of decisions in the decentralized paradigm are superior to those of the centralized approach and that they approach PGOD's decisions.

In this paper, a new approach is proposed for solving a real scheduling problem in a metal mold assembly process. This process is of a job-shop type, and the problem is large-scale and has complicated constraints. In this problem precedence relations exist not only among operations but also among jobs. The system has several types of single function machines and a type of multi-function machine. Furthermore, the number of machines belonging to each type is not single but plural. Therefore the selection of machine is necessary for executing each operation. An autonomous decentralized scheduling method is applied to this problem. In this method, a number of decision makers called modules cooperate with one another in order to attain the goal of the overall system. They determine the scheduling plan on the basis of their cooperation and the satisfaction of their own objective function levels. Particularly, the practicability of this method is considered through numerical results.

High accuracy, high reliability, and high performance have to be simultaneously satisfied to achieve high productivity of the latest processing equipment. High flexibility is also required because many options are available and processing equipment is modified frequently. A high-assurance-system (HAS) model for processing equipment has been developed according to the concept of an Autonomous Decentralized System (ADS). Heterogeneous devices, that have same function and diverse qualities, are utilized to assure the different requirements of high accuracy, high reliability, and high performance simultaneously. The Data Property (DP) and Assurance Manager (AM) are proposed in this model. Different accuracy, reliability, and performance indices characterize each device, and the DP describes the differences of the properties of the data transmitted from these heterogeneous devices. The AM assures not only high reliability but also high performance and high accuracy by utilizing the heterogeneity of data described by the DP. The HAS model was applied to a device-level system used in processing equipment, and its effectiveness was verified by simulating a pressure-control system.

A large-scale primarily public system requires in addition to high reliability, a broad range of applications from control to information services. As construction is phased-in this system must be flexible, changeable and able to grows as the needs arise. However, a changing a system may lead to loss of reliability. A system that is able to change and grow in a reliable and stable manner is called an assurance system and the technology it uses is called assurance technology. This paper describes the basic technology, phased-in system construction and so on of assurance technology based on an autonomous decentralized system. It further discusses application of assurance technology to ATOS as an example of a large-scale transport operation control system. Note: ATOS; Autonomous Decentralized Transport Operation Control System

To develop distributed applications requires to consider not only functional requirements but also non-functional requirements such as distributions, synchronizations, and scheduling policies. Specifying such non-functional requirements is necessary for supporting on-line capabilities of Autonomous Decentralized Systems (ADS). However, the existing design notations and methods do not address such needs sufficiently enough to develop ADS applications systematically using object-oriented technique. In this paper, we propose an object-oriented design-level support for specifying concurrent, distributed, and autonomous object behaviors in developing dynamic distributed applications. We develop a high-level meta-object protocol called diMOP to deal with object distributions, method synchronizations, and method scheduling policies. In addition, we develop Class Diagram Supporting diMOP (CDSM) and Dynamically Configurable Object Statemachine (DCOS) for specifying non-functional behaviors and dynamic configuration behaviors, by extending the ordinary class diagram and state diagram of UML. A development environment called diMOPer is implemented to support our approach.