Real-time performance is increasingly attracting the attention of the artiicial intelligence (AI) community. In spite of their success in various applications, classical AI systems are unsatisfactory when applied to real-time applications. In this paper, we point out the problems raised by integration of real-time capabilities into multi-agent architectures. We present rst the main requirements...

Collision detection and response can make a virtual-reality application seem more believable. Unfortunately , existing collision-detection algorithms are too slow for interactive use. We present a new algorithm that is not only fast but also interruptible, allowing an application to trade quality for more speed. Our algorithm uses simple four-dimensional geometry to approximate motion, and sets...

In programming there is sometimes a need to make computation interruptible by external events. This paper argues that a dedicated language mechanism solves this need better than a pure library convention. The main issue in designing such a mechanism is specifying points of computation where it’s safe to interrupt a thread in order to execute a signal handler. The paper proposes rules for identi...

Reliable and efficient operation of deregulated electricity markets requires supply and demand elasticity. This paper presents incentive control of spinning reserves in electricity multi-markets using game theory. Interruptible load contracts (ILC) could reduce the amount of spinning reserve requirements during system contingencies such as transmission congestion. It is shown that the power uti...

Cholinesterase Activity in Female Greenhouse Workers—Influence of Work Practices and Use of Oral Contraceptives: Jesper B NIELSEN, et al. Environmental Medicine, University of Southern Denmark—Objectives—Associations between serum butyryl cholinesterase activity in female greenhouse workers and information from a questionnaire on work, use of personal protective equipment, and lifestyle were ev...

The ubiquitous presence of mobile devices has led to an inevitable increase in the number of notifications. It can be very disruptive when notifications interrupt users at an inappropriate time. For example, irrelevant notifications that arrive when you are in an important meeting could be obtrusive. Therefore, when to interrupt the user becomes a defining problem in the interaction between use...

This paper proposes a novel decision making framework for an electricity retailer to procure its electric demand in a bilateral-pool market in presence of charging and discharging of electric vehicles (EVs). The operational framework is a two-stage programming model in which at the first stage, the retailer and EV aggregator do their medium-term planning. Determination of retailer's optimum sel...

Some important developments have occurred since April 2014, when I first submitted this article for publication. Because the two-volume set of Festschrift contributions in which this article was recently published is not available online, I have decided (with permission of those involved in the Festschrift) to have my own article posted on the website of the University of Kansas Law School (www...