A Topological-Based Method for Allocating Sensors by Using CSP Techniques

Model-based diagnosis enables isolation of faults of a system. The diagnosis process uses a set of sensors (observations) and a model of the system in order to explain a wrong behaviour. In this work, a new approach is proposed with the aim of improving the computational complexity for isolating faults in a system. The key idea is the addition of a set of new sensors which allows the improvement of the diagnosability of the system. The methodology is based on constraint programming and a greedy method for improving the computational complexity of the CSP resolution. Our approach maintains the requirements of the user (detectability, diagnosability,. . .).Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología DPI2003-07146-C02-0

Improving the Diagnosability of Business Process Management Systems Using Test Points

The management and automation of business processes have become an essential task within IT organizations, where the diagnosis is a very important issue, since it enables fault isolation in a business process. The diagnosis process uses a set of test points (observations) and a model in order to explain a wrong behavior. In this work, an algorithm to allocate test points is presented, where the key idea is to improve the diagnosability, getting a better computational complexity for isolating faults in the activities of business processesJunta de Andalucía P08-TIC-04095Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2009-1371

Determination of an optimal test points allocation for business process analysis

The management and automation of business processes have become an essential task within IT organizations. Diagnosis enables fault isolation in a business process. The diagnosis process uses a set of test points (observations) and a model in order to explain a wrong behavior. In this work, a series of algorithms to allocate test points are presented. The key idea is to improve the diagnosability, improving the computational complexity for isolating faults in a system. The methodology is based on constraint programming.Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-04095Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2009-1371

A cognitive robotic ecology approach to self-configuring and evolving AAL systems

Robotic ecologies are systems made out of several robotic devices, including mobile robots, wireless sensors and effectors embedded in everyday environments, where they cooperate to achieve complex tasks. This paper demonstrates how endowing robotic ecologies with information processing algorithms such as perception, learning, planning, and novelty detection can make these systems able to deliver modular, flexible, manageable and dependable Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions. Specifically, we show how the integrated and self-organising cognitive solutions implemented within the EU project RUBICON (Robotic UBIquitous Cognitive Network) can reduce the need of costly pre-programming and maintenance of robotic ecologies. We illustrate how these solutions can be harnessed to (i) deliver a range of assistive services by coordinating the sensing & acting capabilities of heterogeneous devices, (ii) adapt and tune the overall behaviour of the ecology to the preferences and behaviour of its inhabitants, and also (iii) deal with novel events, due to the occurrence of new user's activities and changing user's habits

Management And Security Of Multi-Cloud Applications

Single cloud management platform technology has reached maturity and is quite successful in information technology applications. Enterprises and application service providers are increasingly adopting a multi-cloud strategy to reduce the risk of cloud service provider lock-in and cloud blackouts and, at the same time, get the benefits like competitive pricing, the flexibility of resource provisioning and better points of presence. Another class of applications that are getting cloud service providers increasingly interested in is the carriers\u27 virtualized network services. However, virtualized carrier services require high levels of availability and performance and impose stringent requirements on cloud services. They necessitate the use of multi-cloud management and innovative techniques for placement and performance management. We consider two classes of distributed applications – the virtual network services and the next generation of healthcare – that would benefit immensely from deployment over multiple clouds. This thesis deals with the design and development of new processes and algorithms to enable these classes of applications. We have evolved a method for optimization of multi-cloud platforms that will pave the way for obtaining optimized placement for both classes of services. The approach that we have followed for placement itself is predictive cost optimized latency controlled virtual resource placement for both types of applications. To improve the availability of virtual network services, we have made innovative use of the machine and deep learning for developing a framework for fault detection and localization. Finally, to secure patient data flowing through the wide expanse of sensors, cloud hierarchy, virtualized network, and visualization domain, we have evolved hierarchical autoencoder models for data in motion between the IoT domain and the multi-cloud domain and within the multi-cloud hierarchy

Consumer behavior modeling for electrical energy systems : a complex systems approach

Orientador: Alexandre Rasi AokiCoorientador: Germano Lambert-TorresTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Tecnologia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Elétrica. Defesa : Curitiba, 27/02/2019Inclui referências: p. 141-154Resumo: Um sistema complexo é um sistema composto de muitas partes que interagem entre si, de modo que o comportamento coletivo emergente dessas partes é mais do que a soma de seus comportamentos individuais. O sistema elétrico de potência pode ser considerado um sistema complexo devido à sua diversidade de agentes heterogêneos inter-relacionados e a emergência de comportamento complexo. Sistemas de potência estão aumentando em complexidade com novos avanços relacionados à redes elétricas inteligentes tais como tecnologia de informação e comunicação, geração distribuída, veículos elétricos, armazenamento de energia e, especialmente, uma crescente interação e participação de um grande número de consumidores heterogêneos dispersos geograficamente. O sistema elétrico de potência pode ser estudado como um sistema técnico-socioeconômico complexo com múltiplas facetas, e a teoria de sistemas complexos pode fornecer uma base teórica sólida para seus desafios de modelagem e análise. O presente trabalho trata da aplicação da teoria de sistemas complexos em sistemas de potência, focando a análise no consumidor e no seu comportamento relacionado ao consumo de eletricidade, utilizando técnicas do campo da economia comportamental. Comportamentos complexos e emergentes sobre o consumo de eletricidade, bem como seu impacto nas redes elétricas, são analisados através da modelagem do comportamento dos cliente em uma simulação baseada em agentes, considerando quatro categorias de consumidores. A análise da simulação, aplicada a um estudo de caso em uma rede de distribuição de média tensão radial com dados reais, mostrou que premissas ligeiramente diferentes sobre o comportamento do consumidor no nível micro levam a resultados macro muito distintos e com comportamento não linear. Entender e modelar adequadamente o comportamento dos consumidores é de grande importância para o planejamento e operação de redes de energia, e a economia comportamental serve como uma base teórica promissora para modelar o comportamento no consumo de eletricidade. Os resultados deste trabalho mostraram que a teorias de sistemas complexos fornece ferramentas adequadas para lidar com sistemas de potência cada vez mais complexos, considerando-os não mais como um sistema independente agregado, mas como um sistema complexo integrado. Palavras-chave: distribuição de energia; consumo de eletricidade; teoria de sistemas complexos; simulação baseada em agentes; economia comportamental.Abstract: A complex system is a system composed of many interacting parts, such that the collective emergent behavior of those parts is more than the sum of their individual behaviors. Electrical energy systems may be considered a complex system due to its diversity of interrelated heterogeneous agents and emergent complex behavior. Energy systems are increasing in complexity with new advances related to the smart grid such as information and communication technology, distributed generation, electric vehicles, energy storage, and, especially, increasing interaction and participation of a large number of geographically distributed heterogeneous consumers. Power systems can be studied as a complex techno-socio-economical system with multiple facets, and Complex System Theory (CST) may provide a solid theoretical background for these modeling and analysis challenges. The present work deals with the application of CST into electrical energy systems, focusing the analysis on the consumer and their behavior on electricity consumption, using insights from the field of behavioral economics. Emergent complex behaviors on electricity consumption as well as its impact on power grids are analyzed by modeling customer behavior on an agent-based simulation, considering four different consumer categories. The analysis of the simulation, applied on a case study on a radial medium voltage distribution grid with real-world data, showed that slightly different assumptions on consumer behavior at the micro-level lead to very different and non-linear macro outcomes. To properly understand and model consumer behavior is of great importance to the planning and operation of electrical grids, and behavioral economics serves as a promising theoretical background to model behavior on electricity consumption. The results of this work showed that CST provides suitable tools to tackle electrical energy systems' increasing complexity, by considering the electrical power systems not as an aggregated independent system anymore, but as an integrated complex system. Keywords: power distribution; electricity consumption; complex systems theory; agent-based simulation; behavioral economics

Geo-distributed Edge and Cloud Resource Management for Low-latency Stream Processing

The proliferation of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices is rapidly increasing the demands for efficient processing of low latency stream data generated close to the edge of the network. Edge Computing provides a layer of infrastructure to fill latency gaps between the IoT devices and the back-end cloud computing infrastructure. A large number of IoT applications require continuous processing of data streams in real-time. Edge computing-based stream processing techniques that carefully consider the heterogeneity of the computing and network resources available in the geo-distributed infrastructure provide significant benefits in optimizing the throughput and end-to-end latency of the data streams. Managing geo-distributed resources operated by individual service providers raises new challenges in terms of effective global resource sharing and achieving global efficiency in the resource allocation process. In this dissertation, we present a distributed stream processing framework that optimizes the performance of stream processing applications through a careful allocation of computing and network resources available at the edge of the network. The proposed approach differentiates itself from the state-of-the-art through its careful consideration of data locality and resource constraints during physical plan generation and operator placement for the stream queries. Additionally, it considers co-flow dependencies that exist between the data streams to optimize the network resource allocation through an application-level rate control mechanism. The proposed framework incorporates resilience through a cost-aware partial active replication strategy that minimizes the recovery cost when applications incur failures. The framework employs a reinforcement learning-based online learning model for dynamically determining the level of parallelism to adapt to changing workload conditions. The second dimension of this dissertation proposes a novel model for allocating computing resources in edge and cloud computing environments. In edge computing environments, it allows service providers to establish resource sharing contracts with infrastructure providers apriori in a latency-aware manner. In geo-distributed cloud environments, it allows cloud service providers to establish resource sharing contracts with individual datacenters apriori for defined time intervals in a cost-aware manner. Based on these mechanisms, we develop a decentralized implementation of the contract-based resource allocation model for geo-distributed resources using Smart Contracts in Ethereum

Spatial coverage in routing and path planning problems

Routing and path planning problems that involve spatial coverage have received increasing attention in recent years in different application areas. Spatial coverage refers to the possibility of considering nodes that are not directly served by a vehicle as visited for the purpose of the objective function or constraints. Despite similarities between the underlying problems, solution approaches have been developed in different disciplines independently, leading to different terminologies and solution techniques. This paper proposes a unified view of the approaches: Based on a formal introduction of the concept of spatial coverage in vehicle routing, it presents a classification scheme for core problem features and summarizes problem variants and solution concepts developed in the domains of operations research and robotics. The connections between these related problem classes offer insights into common underlying structures and open possibilities for developing new applications and algorithms

Schedulability analysis and optimization of time-partitioned distributed real-time systems

RESUMEN: La creciente complejidad de los sistemas de control modernos lleva a muchas empresas a tener que re-dimensionar o re-diseñar sus soluciones para adecuarlas a nuevas funcionalidades y requisitos. Un caso paradigmático de esta situación se ha dado en el sector ferroviario, donde la implementación de las aplicaciones de señalización se ha llevado a cabo empleando técnicas tradicionales que, si bien ahora mismo cumplen con los requisitos básicos, su rendimiento temporal y escalabilidad funcional son sustancialmente mejorables. A partir de las soluciones propuestas en esta tesis, además de contribuir a la validación de sistemas que requieren certificación de seguridad funcional, también se creará la tecnología base de análisis de planificabilidad y optimización de sistemas de tiempo real distribuidos generales y también basados en particionado temporal, que podrá ser aplicada en distintos entornos en los que los sistemas ciberfísicos juegan un rol clave, por ejemplo en aplicaciones de Industria 4.0, en los que pueden presentarse problemas similares en el futuro.ABSTRACT:he increasing complexity of modern control systems leads many companies to have to resize or redesign their solutions to adapt them to new functionalities and requirements. A paradigmatic case of this situation has occurred in the railway sector, where the implementation of signaling applications has been carried out using traditional techniques that, although they currently meet the basic requirements, their time performance and functional scalability can be substantially improved. From the solutions proposed in this thesis, besides contributing to the assessment of systems that require functional safety certification, the base technology for schedulability analysis and optimization of general as well as time-partitioned distributed real-time systems will be derived, which can be applied in different environments where cyber-physical systems play a key role, for example in Industry 4.0 applications, where similar problems may arise in the future