A component-based middleware framework for configurable and reconfigurable Grid computing

Significant progress has been made in the design and development of Grid middleware which, in its present form, is founded on Web services technologies. However, we argue that present-day Grid middleware is severely limited in supporting projected next-generation applications which will involve pervasive and heterogeneous networked infrastructures, and advanced services such as collaborative distributed visualization. In this paper we discuss a new Grid middleware framework that features (i) support for advanced network services based on the novel concept of pluggable overlay networks, (ii) an architectural framework for constructing bespoke Grid middleware platforms in terms of 'middleware domains' such as extensible interaction types and resource discovery. We believe that such features will become increasingly essential with the emergence of next-generation e-Science applications. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Compositional nonblocking verification with always enabled and selfloop-only events

This report proposes to improve compositional nonblocking verification through the use of two special event types: always enabled and selfloop-only events. Compositional verification involves abstraction to simplify parts of a system during verification. Normally, this abstraction is based on the set of events not used in the remainder of the system. Here, it is proposed to exploit more knowledge about the system and abstract events even though they are used in the remainder of the system. This can lead to more simplification than was previously possible. Abstraction rules from previous work are extended to respect the new special events and proofs show these rules still preserve nonblocking. The rules have been implemented in Waters and experimental results demonstrate that these extended simplification rules help verify several industrial-scale discrete event system models while achieving better state-space reduction than before

A Systematic Literature Review of Blockchain-Based Traceability Solutions

Blockchain technology shows great potential in providing object-related end-to-end traceability in complex multitiered supply networks. However, the first systematic literature reviews indicate the immaturity of current blockchain-based solutions and highlight difficulties in assessing their object traceability capabilities. Therefore, this paper provides a systematic literature review of blockchain-based traceability solutions and analyses their object-related mapping capabilities. As the systematic literature reveals, the vast majority of the identified traceability solutions deal with low-complexity architectures without the ability to map objects' compositional changes. Here, food and medical supply chains represent the most dominant domains. Supply chains in the automotive and manufacturing domain place the highest requirements for mapping object-related supply chain events. In this context, solutions incorporating the tokenisation of objects show the most advanced object-related mapping capabilities. However, the identified advanced solutions show limitations regarding their ability to map object deletions, aggregations, and disaggregations. Furthermore, current blockchain-based traceability solutions provide only limited validations based on industrial case studies

WComp, Middleware for Ubiquitous Computing and System Focused Adaptation

International audienceUbiquitous computing relies on computers present everywhere, at any times and in any things. Indeed with recent years advance in mobile communication technologies and the miniaturization of computer hardware, processing units are becoming invisible and a part of the environment. Middlewares for ubiquitous computing have to manage three main features specific to their environment: devices’ mobility, devices’ heterogeneity and environment’s dynamicity. The devices’ mobility, due to motion of users and their associated devices, forbids to assume that entities are known and will always be available. The second concept, entity’s heterogeneity, outlines the diversity between devices’ capabilities and functionalities provided by new smart objects. Finally, the environment high dynamicity illustrates the ubiquitous world entropy with the appearance and disappearance of devices. Devices used to create applications are thus unknown before discovering them. Then, ubiquitous computing must deal with such a dynamic software environment (called software infrastructure afterwards). As a result, future ubiquitous computing architectures must take into account those three constraints to solve ubiquitous computing challenges.Our model of middleware WComp is based on three parts: a software infrastructure, a service composition architecture, and a compositional adaptation mechanism

WComp, a Middleware for Ubiquitous Computing

International audienc

The Road to General Intelligence

Humans have always dreamed of automating laborious physical and intellectual tasks, but the latter has proved more elusive than naively suspected. Seven decades of systematic study of Artificial Intelligence have witnessed cycles of hubris and despair. The successful realization of General Intelligence (evidenced by the kind of cross-domain flexibility enjoyed by humans) will spawn an industry worth billions and transform the range of viable automation tasks.The recent notable successes of Machine Learning has lead to conjecture that it might be the appropriate technology for delivering General Intelligence. In this book, we argue that the framework of machine learning is fundamentally at odds with any reasonable notion of intelligence and that essential insights from previous decades of AI research are being forgotten. We claim that a fundamental change in perspective is required, mirroring that which took place in the philosophy of science in the mid 20th century. We propose a framework for General Intelligence, together with a reference architecture that emphasizes the need for anytime bounded rationality and a situated denotational semantics. We given necessary emphasis to compositional reasoning, with the required compositionality being provided via principled symbolic-numeric inference mechanisms based on universal constructions from category theory. • Details the pragmatic requirements for real-world General Intelligence. • Describes how machine learning fails to meet these requirements. • Provides a philosophical basis for the proposed approach. • Provides mathematical detail for a reference architecture. • Describes a research program intended to address issues of concern in contemporary AI. The book includes an extensive bibliography, with ~400 entries covering the history of AI and many related areas of computer science and mathematics.The target audience is the entire gamut of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning researchers and industrial practitioners. There are a mixture of descriptive and rigorous sections, according to the nature of the topic. Undergraduate mathematics is in general sufficient. Familiarity with category theory is advantageous for a complete understanding of the more advanced sections, but these may be skipped by the reader who desires an overall picture of the essential concepts This is an open access book

Alghe Mist

This is an overview of the source material, methodologies, artistic influences, and conceptual decisions that inform the sculptural and the photographic means of production that characterize my art practice. Research topics include model-making, the indexical relationship of the photograph and object, and a brief phenomenology of accidents, alchemy, and ambivalence in relation to specific artworks

Middleware for Work Support in Industrial Contexts (MiWSICx)

It is generally acknowledged that technological innovation is leading to an increase in the complexity of industrial work. Hence, work assistance has emerged as an important theme in the context of cyber-physical production systems and Industry 4.0 to assist workers in assembly, logistics, maintenance and supervision. Recent research in this domain has focused on demonstrating assistance applications using mobile computing devices such as tablets, smartphones, AR/VR glasses and wearables, but the aspects of technology induced complexity in industrial work distribution, concurrency, information complexity, and variability of information interaction, and their subsequent effect on human workers is yet to be tackled. This paper has two core contributions: first, it reframes the problem of complex industrial work through activity theory, which leads to a conceptual model that couples human information needs to interactive artefacts within an activity context. Second, the problem of assistance is viewed as managing information flow between multiple devices grouped into fluid and adaptive activity contexts, managed by MiWSICx, (Middleware for Work Support in Industrial Contexts) a novel, distributed middleware designed using the actor model of concurrent computation