Category Theory for Autonomous Robots: The Marathon 2 Use Case

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is a methodology that exploits system representation during the entire system life-cycle. The use of formal models has gained momentum in robotics engineering over the past few years. Models play a crucial role in robot design; they serve as the basis for achieving holistic properties, such as functional reliability or adaptive resilience, and facilitate the automated production of modules. We propose the use of formal conceptualizations beyond the engineering phase, providing accurate models that can be leveraged at runtime. This paper explores the use of Category Theory, a mathematical framework for describing abstractions, as a formal language to produce such robot models. To showcase its practical application, we present a concrete example based on the Marathon 2 experiment. Here, we illustrate the potential of formalizing systems -- including their recovery mechanisms -- which allows engineers to design more trustworthy autonomous robots. This, in turn, enhances their dependability and performance

Advanced solution of SIP communication server with a new approach to management

The paper deals with the development of an advanced solution for a SIP communication server. Works were carried out within the scope of Bright Embedded Solution for IP Telephony (BESIP) project. The output of the project should be a modular architecture with additional functionality such as speech quality monitoring and security of IP telephony. We sought to unify the configuration of individual components based on the NETCONF protocol. In order to be able to implement the idea into OpenWrt, we had to integrate a complex support for the NETCONF configuration protocol. Our modifications of OpenWrt in respect of NETCONF were accepted by the OpenWrt community and have been included in OpenWrt/Trunk branch. The paper explains and describes the whole concept of the BESIP project and its individual modules.Web of Science59454954

Challenging the Computational Metaphor: Implications for How We Think

This paper explores the role of the traditional computational metaphor in our thinking as computer scientists, its influence on epistemological styles, and its implications for our understanding of cognition. It proposes to replace the conventional metaphor--a sequence of steps--with the notion of a community of interacting entities, and examines the ramifications of such a shift on these various ways in which we think

Program transformations using temporal logic side conditions

This paper describes an approach to program optimisation based on transformations, where temporal logic is used to specify side conditions, and strategies are created which expand the repertoire of transformations and provide a suitable level of abstraction. We demonstrate the power of this approach by developing a set of optimisations using our transformation language and showing how the transformations can be converted into a form which makes it easier to apply them, while maintaining trust in the resulting optimising steps. The approach is illustrated through a transformational case study where we apply several optimisations to a small program

SOFTENG 2023: the ninth international conference on advances and trends in software engineering

The Ninth International Conference on Advances and Trends in Software Engineering (SOFTENG 2023), held between April 24th and April 28th, 2023, continued a series of events focusing on these challenging aspects for software development and deployment, across the whole life-cycle. Software engineering exhibits challenging dimensions in the light of new applications, devices, and services. Mobility, user-centric development, smart-devices, e-services, ambient environments, e-health and wearable/implantable devices pose specific challenges for specifying software requirements and developing reliable and safe software. Specific software interfaces, agile organization and software dependability require particular approaches for software security, maintainability, and sustainability. We take here the opportunity to warmly thank all the members of the SOFTENG 2023 technical program committee, as well as all the reviewers. The creation of such a high-quality conference program would not have been possible without their involvement. We also kindly thank all the authors who dedicated much of their time and effort to contribute to SOFTENG 2023. We truly believe that, thanks to all these efforts, the final conference program consisted of top-quality contributions. We also thank the members of the SOFTENG 2023 organizing committee for their help in handling the logistics of this event. We hope that SOFTENG 2023 was a successful international forum for the exchange of ideas and results between academia and industry and for the promotion of progress in the field of software engineering

A meta-model for dataflow-based rules in smart environments: Evaluating user comprehension and performance

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of Computer Programming Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of Computer Programming, [Volume 78, Issue 10, 1 October 2013, Pages 1930–1950] DOI 10.1016/j.scico.2012.06.010A considerable part of the behavior in smart environments relies on event-driven and rule specification. Rules are the mechanism most often used to enable user customization of the environment. However, the expressiveness of the rules available to users in editing and other tools is usually either limited or the available rule editing interfaces are not designed for end-users with low skills in programming. This means we have to look for interaction techniques and new ways to define user customization rules. This paper describes a generic and flexible meta-model to support expressive rules enhanced with data flow expressions that will graphically support the definition of rules without writing code. An empirical study was conducted on the ease of understanding of the visual data flow expressions, which are the key elements in our rule proposal. The visual dataflow language was compared to its corresponding textual version in terms of comprehension and ease of learning by teenagers in exercises involving calculations, modifications, writing and detecting equivalences in expressions in both languages. Although the subjects had some previous experience in editing mathematical expressions on spreadsheets, the study found their performance with visual dataflows to be significantly better in calculation and modification exercises. This makes our dataflow approach a promising mechanism for expressing user-customized reactive behavior in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environments. The performance of the rule matching processor was validated by means of two stress tests to ensure that the meta-model approach adopted would be able to scale up with the number of types and instances in the space. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education under the National Strategic Program of Research and Project TSI2010-20488. Our thanks also go to the high school "Collegi Parroquial D. Jose Lluch - Alboraya", especially to the teachers and students that participated in the empirical study reported in this paper. A. Catala is supported by an FPU fellowship from the Ministry of Education of Spain with reference AP2006-00181.Catalá Bolós, A.; Pons, P.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Mocholi Agües, JA.; Navarro Martínez, EM. (2013). A meta-model for dataflow-based rules in smart environments: Evaluating user comprehension and performance. Science of Computer Programming. 78(10):1930-1950. doi:10.1016/j.scico.2012.06.010S19301950781