Higher-Order Process Modeling: Product-Lining, Variability Modeling and Beyond

We present a graphical and dynamic framework for binding and execution of business) process models. It is tailored to integrate 1) ad hoc processes modeled graphically, 2) third party services discovered in the (Inter)net, and 3) (dynamically) synthesized process chains that solve situation-specific tasks, with the synthesis taking place not only at design time, but also at runtime. Key to our approach is the introduction of type-safe stacked second-order execution contexts that allow for higher-order process modeling. Tamed by our underlying strict service-oriented notion of abstraction, this approach is tailored also to be used by application experts with little technical knowledge: users can select, modify, construct and then pass (component) processes during process execution as if they were data. We illustrate the impact and essence of our framework along a concrete, realistic (business) process modeling scenario: the development of Springer's browser-based Online Conference Service (OCS). The most advanced feature of our new framework allows one to combine online synthesis with the integration of the synthesized process into the running application. This ability leads to a particularly flexible way of implementing self-adaption, and to a particularly concise and powerful way of achieving variability not only at design time, but also at runtime.Comment: In Proceedings Festschrift for Dave Schmidt, arXiv:1309.455

A knowledge based approach to integration of products, processes and reconfigurable automation resources

The success of next generation automotive companies will depend upon their ability to adapt to ever changing market trends thus becoming highly responsive. In the automotive sector, the assembly line design and reconfiguration is an especially critical and extremely complex job. The current research addresses some of the aspects of this activity under the umbrella of a larger ongoing research project called Business Driven Automation (BDA) project. The BDA project aims to carry out complete virtual 3D modeling-based verifications of the assembly line for new or revised products in contrast to the prevalent practice of manual evaluation of effects of product change on physical resources. [Continues.

Decoupling User Interface Design Using Libraries of Reusable Components

The integration of electronic and mechanical hardware, software and interaction design presents a challenging design space for researchers developing physical user interfaces and interactive artifacts. Currently in the academic research community, physical user interfaces and interactive artifacts are predominantly designed and prototyped either as one-off instances from the ground up, or using functionally rich hardware toolkits and prototyping systems. During this prototyping phase, undertaking an integral design of the interface or interactive artifact’s electronic hardware is frequently constraining due to the tight couplings between the different design realms and the typical need for iterations as the design matures. Several current toolkit designs have consequently embraced component-sharing and component-swapping modular designs with a view to extending flexibility and improving researcher freedom by disentangling and softening the cause-effect couplings. Encouraged by early successes of these toolkits, this research work strives to further enhance these freedoms by pursuing an alternative style and dimension of hardware modularity. Another motivation is our goal to facilitate the design and development of certain classes of interfaces and interactive artifacts for which current electronic design approaches are argued to be restrictively constraining (e.g., relating to scale and complexity). Unfortunately, this goal of a new platform architecture is met with conceptual and technical challenges on the embedded system networking front. In response, this research investigates and extends a growing field of multi-module distributed embedded systems. We identify and characterize a sub-class of these systems, calling them embedded aggregates. We then outline and develop a framework for realizing the embedded aggregate class of systems. Toward this end, this thesis examines several architectures, topologies and communication protocols, making the case for and substantial steps toward the development of a suite of networking protocols and control algorithms to support embedded aggregates. We define a set of protocols, mechanisms and communication packets that collectively form the underlying framework for the aggregates. Following the aggregates design, we develop blades and tiles to support user interface researchers

Middleware architectures for the smart grid: A survey on the state-of-the-art, taxonomy and main open issues

The integration of small-scale renewable energy sources in the smart grid depends on several challenges that must be overcome. One of them is the presence of devices with very different characteristics present in the grid or how they can interact among them in terms of interoperability and data sharing. While this issue is usually solved by implementing a middleware layer among the available pieces of equipment in order to hide any hardware heterogeneity and offer the application layer a collection of homogenous resources to access lower levels, the variety and differences among them make the definition of what is needed in each particular case challenging. This paper offers a description of the most prominent middleware architectures for the smart grid and assesses the functionalities they have, considering the performance and features expected from them in the context of this application domain

A service orientated architecture and wireless sensor network approach applied to the measurement and visualisation of a micro injection moulding process. Design, development and testing of an ESB based micro injection moulding platform using Google Gadgets and business processes for the integration of disparate hardware systems on the factory shop floor

Factory shop floors of the future will see a significant increase in interconnected devices for monitoring and control. However, if a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) is implemented on all such devices then this will result in a large number of permutations of services and composite services. These services combined with other business level components can pose a huge challenge to manage as it is often difficult to keep an overview of all the devices, equipment and services. This thesis proposes an SOA based novel assimilation architecture for integrating disparate industrial hardware based processes and business processes of an enterprise in particular the plastics machinery environment. The key benefits of the proposed architecture are the reduction of complexity when integrating disparate hardware platforms; managing the associated services as well as allowing the Micro Injection Moulding (µIM) process to be monitored on the web through service and data integration. An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) based middleware layer integrates the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based environmental and simulated machine process systems with frontend Google Gadgets (GGs) based web visualisation applications. A business process framework is proposed to manage and orchestrate the resulting services from the architecture. Results from the analysis of the WSN kits in terms of their usability and reliability showed that the Jennic WSN was easy to setup and had a reliable communication link in the polymer industrial environment with the PER being below 0.5%. The prototype Jennic WSN based µIM process monitoring system had limitations when monitoring high-resolution machine data, therefore a novel hybrid integration architecture was proposed. The assimilation architecture was implemented on a distributed server based test bed. Results from test scenarios showed that the architecture was highly scalable and could potentially allow a large number of disparate sensor based hardware systems and services to be hosted, managed, visualised and linked to form a cohesive business process

Control Software for Reconfigurable Coprocessors

On-line data processing at the ATLAS general purpose particle detector, which is currently under construction at Geneva, generates demands on computing power that are difficult to satisfy with commodity CPU-based computers. One of the most demanding applications is the recognition of particle tracks that originate from B-quark decays. However, this and many others applications can benefit from parallel execution on field programmable gate arrays (FPGA). After the demonstration of accelerated track recognition with big FPGA-based custom computers, the development of FPGA based coprocessors started in the late 1990's. Applications of FPGA coprocessors are usually partitioned between the host and the tightly coupled coprocessor. The objective of the research that I present in this thesis was the development of software that mediates to applications the access to FPGA coprocessors. I used a software process based on iterative prototyping to cope with the expected changing requirements. Also, I used a strict bottom-up design to create classes that model devices on the coprocessors. Using these low-level classes, I developed tools which were used for bootstrapping, debugging, and firmware update of the coprocessors during their development and maintenance. Measurements show that the software overhead introduced by object-oriented programming and software layering is small. The software-support for six different coprocessors was partitioned into corresponding independent packages, which reuse a set of packages that provide common and basic functions. The steady evolution and use of the software during more than four years shows that the software is maintainable, adaptable, and usable

Design behaviors : programming the material world for responsive architecture

The advances of material science, coupled with computation and digital technologies, and applied to the architectural discipline have brought to life unprecedented possibilities for the design and making of responsive, collectively created and intelligent environments. Over the last two decades, research and applications of novel active materials, together with digital technologies such as Ubiquitous Computing, Human-Computer Interaction, and Artificial Intelligence, have introduced a model of Materially Responsive Architecture that presents unique possibilities for designing novel performances and behaviors of the architectural Beyond the use of mechanical systems, sensors, actuators or wires, often plugged into traditional materials to animate space, this dissertation proves that matter itself, can be the agent to achieve monitoring, reaction or adaptation with no need of any additional mechanics, electrical or motorized systems. Materials, therefore, become bits and information uniting with the digital world, while computational processes, such as algorithmic control, circular feedback, input or output, both drive and are driven by the morphogenetic capacities of matter, uniting, therefore, with the material world. Through the applications and implications of Materially Responsive Architecture we are crossing a threshold in design where physicality follows and reveals information through time and through dynamic configurations. Design is not limited to a finalised form but rather associated to a performance, where the final formal outcome consists in a series of animated and organic topologies rather than static geometries and structures. This new paradigm, is referred to, in this thesis, as the Design Behaviors paradigm (in the double sense of "behaviors of design" and "designing behaviors"), and is characterized by unique exchanges and dialogues between users and the environment, facilitated by the conjunction of human, material and computational intelligence. Buildings, objects and spaces are able to reconfigure themselves, in both atomic and macro scale, to support environmental changes and users' needs, behavioral and occupational patterns. At the same time the Design Behaviors paradigm places not only matter and the environment at the center of design and morphogenesis, but also the users, that become active participants of their built environment and play the final creative role. This paradigm shift, boosts new relations among the human's perception and body and the inhabited space. The new design paradigm is also a new cultural one, in which statics, repetition and Cartesian grids, traditionally related with safety, orientation and comfort, give way to motion, unpredictability and organic principles of evolution. Materially Responsive Architecture and the Design Behaviors paradigm define uniquely enhanced "environments" and "ecologies" where human, nature, artifice and technology collectively and evolutionally co-exist within a framework of increased consciousness and awareness. This thesis argues that, while there is no doubt that our future cities will consist in an extensive layer of distributed sensors, actuators and digital interfaces, they will also consist in an additional layer of novel materials, that are dynamic and soft, rather than rigid and hard, able to sense as sensors, actuate as motors, and be programmed as a software. The new materiality of our cities relies on the advances of material science, coupled with the cybernetic and computational power, and can be actuated by the environment to change states (Re-Active Matter), can be controlled by the users to respond (Co-Active Matter), and eventually can be designed and programmed to learn and evolve as living organisms do (Self-Active Matter). The physical space of the city is, thus, the seamless intertwining of digital and material content, becoming an active agent in the dynamic relationship between the environment and humans.Los avances en la ciencia de los materiales, junto con la computación y las tecnologías digitales, y aplicados a la disciplina arquitectónica, han dado vida a posibilidades sin precedentes para el diseño y la realización de entornos responsivos, inteligentes y creados de forma colectiva. En las últimas dos décadas, la investigación y aplicación de nuevos materiales activos junto con tecnologías digitales como la Computación Ubicua, la Interacción Hombre-Ordenador y la Inteligencia Artificial, han introducido el modelo de Materially Responsive Architecture (Arquitectura Materialmente Responsiva), que presenta posibilidades únicas para el diseño de nuevas actuaciones y comportamientos del espacio arquitectónico. Más allá del uso de sistemas mecánicos, sensores, o motores, a menudo conectados a materiales tradicionales para activar el espacio, esta disertación demuestra que la materia en sí misma puede ser el agente que consiga monitoreo o reactividad sin necesidad de añadir ningún sistema mecánico o eléctrico. Los materiales, en este caso, se convierten en bits e información fundiéndose con el mundo digital, mientras que los procesos computacionales, como el feedback circular y el input o output, a la vez impulsan y son impulsados por la capacidad morfogenética de la materia, uniéndose, por lo tanto, con el mundo material. A través de las aplicaciones y las implicaciones de la Materially Responsive Architecture, estamos cruzando un umbral en el diseño donde el mundo físico sigue y revela información a través de configuraciones dinámicas en el tiempo. El diseño no se limita a una forma finalizada, sino se relaciona a una performance, donde el resultado formal final consiste en una serie de topologías orgánicas y animadas en lugar de estructuras y geometrías estáticas. En esta tesis doctoral, este nuevo paradigma se denomina paradigma de Design Behaviours (en el doble sentido de "comportamientos de diseño" y de "diseño de comportamientos") y se caracteriza por intercambios únicos entre el usuario y el entorno, facilitados por la conjunción de inteligencia humana, material y computacional. Los edificios, objetos y espacios pueden reconfigurarse a sí mismos, tanto a nivél atómico como a macro escala, para responder a los cambios ambientales y a las necesidades de los usuarios. Al mismo tiempo, el paradigma Design Behaviors coloca en el centro del diseño y la morfogénesis no solo la materia y el medio ambiente, sino también a los usuarios, que se convierten en participantes de su entorno construido y desempeñan el papel creativo final. El nuevo paradigma define "entornos" y "ecologías" aumentados de manera singular, donde el ser humano, la naturaleza, el artificio y la tecnología coexisten de manera colectiva y evolutiva dentro de un marco de mayor conciencia consciente. El nuevo paradigma de diseño es también un nuevo paradigma cultural, en el que las redes estáticas, repetitivas y cartesianas, tradicionalmente relacionadas con la seguridad, la orientación y el confort, dan paso al movimiento, la imprevisibilidad y la evolución orgánica. Esta tesis sostiene que, si bien no hay duda de que nuestras ciudades futuras consistirán en una capa extensa de sensores distribuidos e interfaces digitales, también contarán con una capa adicional de materiales dinámicos y suaves, en lugar de rígidos y duros, capaces de sentir como sensores, actuar como motores y ser programados como un software. La nueva materialidad de nuestras ciudades puede ser activada por el medio ambiente para cambiar su estado (Re-Active Matter), puede ser controlada por los usuarios para responderles (Co-Active Matter), y eventualmente puede diseñarse y programarse para aprender y evolucionar por sí misma así como lo hacen los organismos vivos (Self-Active Matter). El espacio físico de la ciudad es, por lo tanto, el entrelazado holístico entre contenido digital y material, convirtiéndose en un agente activo en la relación dinámica entre el medio ambiente y los humanos