Computers, Volume 1, Issue 1 (December 2012) – 3 articles , Pages 1-40

The Smart Grid vision imposes a new approach towards energy supply that is more affordable, reliable and sustainable. The core of this new vision is the use of advanced technology to monitor power system dynamics in real time and identify system in stability. In order to implement strategic vision for energy management, it is possible to identify three main areas of investigation such as smart generation, smart grid and smart customer. Focusing on the latter topic, in this paper we present an application specifically designed to monitor an industrial site with particular attention to power consumption. This solution is a real time analysis tool, able to produce useful results to have a strategic approach in the energy market and to provide statistic analysis useful for the future choices of the industrial company. The application is based on a three layers architecture. The technological layer uses a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to acquire data from the electrical substations. The middleware layer faces the integration problems by processing the raw data. The application layer manages the data acquired from the sensors. This WSN based architecture represents an interesting example of a low cost and non-invasive monitoring application to keep the energy consumption of an industrial site under control. Some of the added value features of the proposed solution are the routing network protocol, selected in order to have an high availability of the WSN, and the use of the WhereX middleware, able to easily implement integration among the different architectural parts. Full article

In distributed computing systems, if an elected leader node fails, the other nodes of the system need to elect another leader. The bully algorithm is a classical approach for electing a leader in a synchronous distributed computing system. This paper presents an enhancement of the bully algorithm, requiring less time complexity and minimum message passing. This significant gain has been achieved by introducing node sets and tie breaker time. The latter provides a possible solution to simultaneous elections initiated by different nodes. In comparison with the classical algorithm and its existing modifications, this proposal generates minimum messages, stops redundant elections, and maintains fault-tolerant behaviour of the system. Full article

For the past seven decades, computers have radically changed the world we live in. From machines for calculation, computers are now platforms for information processing and computation, supporting the entire spectrum of human endeavour. While computer science is a relatively young field, it is shaping how people live in our modern world. There is not an area of human society that has not been affected by computers and the power they afford us. Computer science touches on every facet of science, art, engineering and economics. Its impact ranges from electronic commerce to improved medical devices; and from enhanced communication to new forms of media and entertainment. The future, with ubiquitous computational power and natural user interfaces, will extend and enhance all human capabilities. To reach this future we need to quickly and freely disseminate our cutting edge research results globally, and this journal aims to help us achieve that. [...] Full article