Brunel University London

About: Brunel University London is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Large Hadron Collider. The organization has 10918 authors who have published 29515 publications receiving 893330 citations. The organization is also known as: Brunel & University of Brunel.

Academic Values and the University as Corporate Enterprise

Abstract: A study of the implications of quality assessment and quality assurance policies finds that higher education institutions are responding to current pressures with policies and structures that draw substantially on post-bureaucratic or ‘new public management’ thinking. In contrast, many academics are struggling to hold on to values and conceptions of professional practice that are traditionally held to depend on pre-modern forms of governance and organisation.

Robust Synchronization of an Array of Coupled Stochastic Discrete-Time Delayed Neural Networks

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the robust synchronization problem for an array of coupled stochastic discrete-time neural networks with time-varying delay. The individual neural network is subject to parameter uncertainty, stochastic disturbance, and time-varying delay, where the norm-bounded parameter uncertainties exist in both the state and weight matrices, the stochastic disturbance is in the form of a scalar Wiener process, and the time delay enters into the activation function. For the array of coupled neural networks, the constant coupling and delayed coupling are simultaneously considered. We aim to establish easy-to-verify conditions under which the addressed neural networks are synchronized. By using the Kronecker product as an effective tool, a linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach is developed to derive several sufficient criteria ensuring the coupled delayed neural networks to be globally, robustly, exponentially synchronized in the mean square. The LMI-based conditions obtained are dependent not only on the lower bound but also on the upper bound of the time-varying delay, and can be solved efficiently via the Matlab LMI Toolbox. Two numerical examples are given to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed synchronization scheme.

A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning-Based Data-Driven Method for Home Energy Management

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel framework for home energy management (HEM) based on reinforcement learning in achieving efficient home-based demand response (DR). The concerned hour-ahead energy consumption scheduling problem is duly formulated as a finite Markov decision process (FMDP) with discrete time steps. To tackle this problem, a data-driven method based on neural network (NN) and ${Q}$ -learning algorithm is developed, which achieves superior performance on cost-effective schedules for HEM system. Specifically, real data of electricity price and solar photovoltaic (PV) generation are timely processed for uncertainty prediction by extreme learning machine (ELM) in the rolling time windows. The scheduling decisions of the household appliances and electric vehicles (EVs) can be subsequently obtained through the newly developed framework, of which the objective is dual, i.e., to minimize the electricity bill as well as the DR induced dissatisfaction. Simulations are performed on a residential house level with multiple home appliances, an EV and several PV panels. The test results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed data-driven based HEM framework.

CMS Tracking Performance Results from early LHC Operation.

Abstract: The first LHC pp collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 0.9 and 2.36 TeV were recorded by the CMS detector in December 2009. The trajectories of charged particles produced in the collisions were reconstructed using the all-silicon Tracker and their momenta were measured in the 3.8 T axial magnetic field. Results from the Tracker commissioning are presented including studies of timing, efficiency, signal-to-noise, resolution, and ionization energy. Reconstructed tracks are used to benchmark the performance in terms of track and vertex resolutions, reconstruction of decays, estimation of ionization energy loss, as well as identification of photon conversions, nuclear interactions, and heavy-flavour decays.