Enterprise Interoperability (EI) is a well established applied systems' research area, studying the problems related with the lack of systems and applications' interoperability in the organizations and proposing novel methods and frameworks to contribute with innovative solutions for EI problems. Collaborative networked environments emerged with the spread of the internet, contributing to overcome past communication barriers, and identifying interoperability as an essential property. With an increasingly complex and dynamic global market, models change frequently to answer new customer requirements, and seamless networked business environments is a requirement. Scientific foundations for EI are envisaged to roadmap such general knowledge covering the general laws of the operation on EI. This paper draws concepts from the complex systems science and proposes a formal model on seamless networked business for sustainable systems interoperability in dynamic networks.

This paper describes a variable width short pulse generator circuit for UWB radar applications, designed in a 0.18μm CMOS technology. This circuit is capable of generating pulses with a duration from 0.7 ns to 3.5 ns and an amplitude of 0.7 V with a 50 Ω load. The power supply voltage can be as low as 1.5 V and uses only 2.3 mA of power supply current.

This paper presents the Split and Merge method, an approach to provide secure communication over the Internet using software agents. Instead of relying exclusively on the traditional approaches of ciphering the message at the source and then sending it over a communication channel, the Split and Merge method focuses on denying access to the message itself. This is achieved by splitting the message in parts and sending them to the destination through different routes, in an ad-hoc network of agents. The method is detailed in the paper and the current implementation using multi agent systems is presented. The solutions found to deal with error detection and correction (loss of message fragments, message integrity and node misbehavior) are then discussed and further research directions are presented.

A knowledge-based approach for the automatic symbolic characterization of SC circuits is presented considering the effect of non-ideal finite gain operational amplifiers. This includes conventional filtering structures above second order as well as generalized multirate structures with switching waveforms performing multiple sampling-discharge operations per clock period.

Signal flow graphs (SFG's) are a powerful technique to analyze switched-capacitor (SC) circuits in a way that provides in-depth information about their operation and direct access to the corresponding symbolic z-transfer functions. Due to lengthy and error-prone symbolic manipulations this is manually manageable for simple first- or second-order circuits, but becomes unpractical for manipulating higher-order circuits which can not be decomposed into first- and second-order ones. Hence, there is an important need to provide designers with a computer-aided tool for the SFG symbolic analysis of a broad class of SC filtering networks, as described in this paper. Rule-based techniques are employed to capture from arbitrary circuit schematic and timing diagrams the corresponding symbolic SFG leading to the automatic generation of the associated z-transfer function. Symbols can then be instantiated to numerical values to obtain measurable data on a variety of performance indicators such as total capacitor area and capacitance spread as well as the resulting nominal frequency response and its variability against component errors. This is illustrated considering a variety of examples of SC filtering networks including, besides the more traditional filters, both finite and infinite impulse response decimators.>

Handwritten characters are forms. Thus they are accessible to form description methods. The authors present a universal shape characterization method applied to the domain of off-line handwritten characters. The test universe is restricted to the ten Arabic numerals but can be extended to any other characters. The authors point out previous work in the area of 2D shape classification and handwriting recognition. The theoretical concept of the authors' shape descriptor is introduced together with a recipe to apply it in the real case of discrete binary images. Results of classification experiments are presented.>

An architecture for the control of an autonomous vehicle for underwater operation is described, focusing on the important characteristics for autonomy. This approach considers a layered structure of interacting and concurrent modules, called behaviours, each one trying to perform its own independent activity, altogether producing an 'intelligent' global behaviour for the vehicle. The behaviours are kept simple, and their short term memory and combined performance suggest a reactive system. A layer for avoiding traps and deadlock situations is proposed, as a means of producing some sort of planning, which is not typical of reactive architectures. Explanations of natural systems are analyzed and exploited as guides for the design of autonomous underwater vehicles. The world model of the AUV is defined and divided in two major components. Its integration in the control architecture is described. The interface with the user is an important issue in this type of vehicles and therefore its support, namely at the world model is discussed. A simple case study in the end tries to illustrate the presented approach.>

Describes an algorithm for the design of a decision tree applied to the identification of objects where the action is built-in. The authors' main interest is the design of a decision tree with action applied to the sensorial integration problem, for instance a tactile application or vision system with the ability to change the light conditions, but it can be generalized to other applications. The knowledge representation is supported by a graph where each node represents a world state and where the arcs represent the actions of the world. Each world state is composed by a set of knowledge states. The intermediate and terminal knowledge states are in a world state. The intermediate states are defined considering that the knowledge of the possible classification object is incomplete. The terminal state means that the classification is done. Associated to each knowledge state there is the definition of a set of features its values and a training set. The training set is a table with feature values in which classification is known.>