Forum Session at the First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC03)

The First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC) was held in Trento, December 15-18, 2003. The focus of the conference ---Service Oriented Computing (SOC)--- is the new emerging paradigm for distributed computing and e-business processing that has evolved from object-oriented and component computing to enable building agile networks of collaborating business applications distributed within and across organizational boundaries. Of the 181 papers submitted to the ICSOC conference, 10 were selected for the forum session which took place on December the 16th, 2003. The papers were chosen based on their technical quality, originality, relevance to SOC and for their nature of being best suited for a poster presentation or a demonstration. This technical report contains the 10 papers presented during the forum session at the ICSOC conference. In particular, the last two papers in the report ere submitted as industrial papers

Tradespace and Affordability – Phase 1

One of the key elements of the SERC’s research strategy is transforming the practice of systems engineering – “SE Transformation.” The Grand Challenge goal for SE Transformation is to transform the DoD community’s current systems engineering and management methods, processes, and tools (MPTs) and practices away from sequential, single stovepipe system, hardware-first, outside-in, document-driven, point-solution, acquisition-oriented approaches; and toward concurrent, portfolio and enterprise-oriented, hardware-software-human engineered, balanced outside-in and inside-out, model-driven, set-based, full life cycle approaches.This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract H98230-08- D-0171 (Task Order 0031, RT 046).This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract H98230-08- D-0171 (Task Order 0031, RT 046)

Analysis of the IoT platforms business models

In the last decade the world of manufacturing firms is completely changed thanks to the use of new technologies. Internet of Things (IoT) is one of these technologies that not only has the potential to impact how we live, but also how the businesses are being ran. Innovative companies are adopting IoT strategies and technologies to reengineer their products and services and redefine their relationships with customers, employees and partners. The IoT market is exploding at a significant pace as consumers, businesses, and governments are recognizing the benefits of connecting devices to the Internet. The purpose of this thesis is to explore in depth the different business model utilized by different companies, with no distinction of specific industry. Moreover, this thesis aims to study the IoT platforms business models and to understand how these platforms change the market competition by leveraging the IoT technologies. In order to reach this aim a structured literature review will be performed. Then, analysing different companies by using the business model canvas approach, three business scenarios will be identified and defined, as follows: servitisation, lean and world manufacturing and, digital platforms for manufacturing. Finally, it will be applied a mathematical model in order to discuss whether and how an IoT investment can give advantage to a manufacturing firm

A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities

Examines the state of the foundation's efforts to improve educational opportunities worldwide through universal access to and use of high-quality academic content

Design and integrity of deterministic system architectures.

Architectures represented by system construction 'building block' components and interrelationships provide the structural form. This thesis addresses processes, procedures and methods that support system design synthesis and specifically the determination of the integrity of candidate architectural structures. Particular emphasis is given to the structural representation of system architectures, their consistency and functional quantification. It is a design imperative that a hierarchically decomposed structure maintains compatibility and consistency between the functional and realisation solutions. Complex systems are normally simplified by the use of hierarchical decomposition so that lower level components are precisely defined and simpler than higher-level components. To enable such systems to be reconstructed from their components, the hierarchical construction must provide vertical intra-relationship consistency, horizontal interrelationship consistency, and inter-component functional consistency. Firstly, a modified process design model is proposed that incorporates the generic structural representation of system architectures. Secondly, a system architecture design knowledge domain is proposed that enables viewpoint evaluations to be aggregated into a coherent set of domains that are both necessary and sufficient to determine the integrity of system architectures. Thirdly, four methods of structural analysis are proposed to assure the integrity of the architecture. The first enables the structural compatibility between the 'building blocks' that provide the emergent functional properties and implementation solution properties to be determined. The second enables the compatibility of the functional causality structure and the implementation causality structure to be determined. The third method provides a graphical representation of architectural structures. The fourth method uses the graphical form of structural representation to provide a technique that enables quantitative estimation of performance estimates of emergent properties for large scale or complex architectural structures. These methods have been combined into a procedure of formal design. This is a design process that, if rigorously executed, meets the requirements for reconstructability

Toward Biologically-Inspired Self-Healing, Resilient Architectures for Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems and Embedded Devices

Digital Instrumentation and Control (I&C) systems in safety-related applications of next generation industrial automation systems require high levels of resilience against different fault classes. One of the more essential concepts for achieving this goal is the notion of resilient and survivable digital I&C systems. In recent years, self-healing concepts based on biological physiology have received attention for the design of robust digital systems. However, many of these approaches have not been architected from the outset with safety in mind, nor have they been targeted for the automation community where a significant need exists. This dissertation presents a new self-healing digital I&C architecture called BioSymPLe, inspired from the way nature responds, defends and heals: the stem cells in the immune system of living organisms, the life cycle of the living cell, and the pathway from Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to protein. The BioSymPLe architecture is integrating biological concepts, fault tolerance techniques, and operational schematics for the international standard IEC 61131-3 to facilitate adoption in the automation industry. BioSymPLe is organized into three hierarchical levels: the local function migration layer from the top side, the critical service layer in the middle, and the global function migration layer from the bottom side. The local layer is used to monitor the correct execution of functions at the cellular level and to activate healing mechanisms at the critical service level. The critical layer is allocating a group of functional B cells which represent the building block that executes the intended functionality of critical application based on the expression for DNA genetic codes stored inside each cell. The global layer uses a concept of embryonic stem cells by differentiating these type of cells to repair the faulty T cells and supervising all repair mechanisms. Finally, two industrial applications have been mapped on the proposed architecture, which are capable of tolerating a significant number of faults (transient, permanent, and hardware common cause failures CCFs) that can stem from environmental disturbances and we believe the nexus of its concepts can positively impact the next generation of critical systems in the automation industry