Computer-Supported Collaborative Production

This paper proposes the concept of collaborative production as a focus of concern within the general area of collaborative work. We position the concept with respect to McGrath's framework for small group dynamics and the more familiar collaboration processes of awareness, coordination, and communication (McGrath 1991). After reviewing research issues and computer-based support for these interacting aspects of collaboration, we turn to a discussion of implications for how to design improved support for collaborative production. We illustrate both the challenges of collaborative production and our design implications with a collaborative map-updating scenario drawn from the work domain of geographical information systems

COTS GIS Integration and its Soap-Based Web Services

In the modern geographic information systems, COTS software has been playing a major role. However, deploying heterogeneous GIS software has the tendency to form fragmented data sets and to cause inconsistency. To accomplish data consolidation, we must achieve interoperability between different GIS tools. In my thesis project, I developed Vector and Raster Data Adapters to implement the spatial data consolidation. I deployed ArcIMS to publish the spatial data and metadata onto Internet. Furthermore, the SOAP-Based GIS Web services are implemented to achieve the enterprise information system integration. The contribution of ours in this project is we have streamlined the COTS GIS server, the J2EE coordinator server, the web service provider components, and the COTS web publishing tools into a hybrid web service architecture, in which the enterprise information system integration, the web publishing, and the business-to business online services are uniformed

COTS GIS Integration and its Soap-Based Web Services

In the modern geographic information systems, COTS software has been playing a major role. However, deploying heterogeneous GIS software has the tendency to form fragmented data sets and to cause inconsistency. To accomplish data consolidation, we must achieve interoperability between different GIS tools. In my thesis project, I developed Vector and Raster Data Adapters to implement the spatial data consolidation. I deployed ArcIMS to publish the spatial data and metadata onto Internet. Furthermore, the SOAP-Based GIS Web services are implemented to achieve the enterprise information system integration. The contribution of ours in this project is we have streamlined the COTS GIS server, the J2EE coordinator server, the web service provider components, and the COTS web publishing tools into a hybrid web service architecture, in which the enterprise information system integration, the web publishing, and the business-to business online services are uniformed

COSPO/CENDI Industry Day Conference

The conference's objective was to provide a forum where government information managers and industry information technology experts could have an open exchange and discuss their respective needs and compare them to the available, or soon to be available, solutions. Technical summaries and points of contact are provided for the following sessions: secure products, protocols, and encryption; information providers; electronic document management and publishing; information indexing, discovery, and retrieval (IIDR); automated language translators; IIDR - natural language capabilities; IIDR - advanced technologies; IIDR - distributed heterogeneous and large database support; and communications - speed, bandwidth, and wireless

A 64mW DNN-based Visual Navigation Engine for Autonomous Nano-Drones

Fully-autonomous miniaturized robots (e.g., drones), with artificial intelligence (AI) based visual navigation capabilities are extremely challenging drivers of Internet-of-Things edge intelligence capabilities. Visual navigation based on AI approaches, such as deep neural networks (DNNs) are becoming pervasive for standard-size drones, but are considered out of reach for nanodrones with size of a few cm${}^\mathrm{2}$. In this work, we present the first (to the best of our knowledge) demonstration of a navigation engine for autonomous nano-drones capable of closed-loop end-to-end DNN-based visual navigation. To achieve this goal we developed a complete methodology for parallel execution of complex DNNs directly on-bard of resource-constrained milliwatt-scale nodes. Our system is based on GAP8, a novel parallel ultra-low-power computing platform, and a 27 g commercial, open-source CrazyFlie 2.0 nano-quadrotor. As part of our general methodology we discuss the software mapping techniques that enable the state-of-the-art deep convolutional neural network presented in [1] to be fully executed on-board within a strict 6 fps real-time constraint with no compromise in terms of flight results, while all processing is done with only 64 mW on average. Our navigation engine is flexible and can be used to span a wide performance range: at its peak performance corner it achieves 18 fps while still consuming on average just 3.5% of the power envelope of the deployed nano-aircraft.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, 2 listings, accepted for publication in the IEEE Internet of Things Journal (IEEE IOTJ

Deploying RIOT operating system on a reconfigurable Internet of Things end-device

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e ComputadoresThe Internet of Everything (IoE) is enabling the connection of an infinity of physical objects to the Internet, and has the potential to connect every single existing object in the world. This empowers a market with endless opportunities where the big players are forecasting, by 2020, more than 50 billion connected devices, representing an 8 trillion USD market. The IoE is a broad concept that comprises several technological areas and will certainly, include more in the future. Some of those already existing fields are the Internet of Energy related with the connectivity of electrical power grids, Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), for instance, enables patient monitoring, Internet of Industrial Things (IoIT), which is dedicated to industrial plants, and the Internet of Things (IoT) that focus on the connection of everyday objects (e.g. home appliances, wearables, transports, buildings, etc.) to the Internet. The diversity of scenarios where IoT can be deployed, and consequently the different constraints associated to each device, leads to a heterogeneous network composed by several communication technologies and protocols co-existing on the same physical space. Therefore, the key requirements of an IoT network are the connectivity and the interoperability between devices. Such requirement is achieved by the adoption of standard protocols and a well-defined lightweight network stack. Due to the adoption of a standard network stack, the data processed and transmitted between devices tends to increase. Because most of the devices connected are resource constrained, i.e., low memory, low processing capabilities, available energy, the communication can severally decrease the device’s performance. Hereupon, to tackle such issues without sacrificing other important requirements, this dissertation aims to deploy an operating system (OS) for IoT, the RIOT-OS, while providing a study on how network-related tasks can benefit from hardware accelerators (deployed on reconfigurable technology), specially designed to process and filter packets received by an IoT device.O conceito Internet of Everything (IoE) permite a conexão de uma infinidade de objetos à Internet e tem o potencial de conectar todos os objetos existentes no mundo. Favorecendo assim o aparecimento de novos mercados e infinitas possibilidades, em que os grandes intervenientes destes mercados preveem até 2020 a conexão de mais de 50 mil milhões de dispositivos, representando um mercado de 8 mil milhões de dólares. IoE é um amplo conceito que inclui várias áreas tecnológicas e irá certamente incluir mais no futuro. Algumas das áreas já existentes são: a Internet of Energy relacionada com a conexão de redes de transporte e distribuição de energia à Internet; Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), que possibilita a monotorização de pacientes; Internet of Industrial Things (IoIT), dedicada a instalações industriais e a Internet of Things (IoT), que foca na conexão de objetos do dia-a-dia (e.g. eletrodomésticos, wearables, transportes, edifícios, etc.) à Internet. A diversidade de cenários à qual IoT pode ser aplicado, e consequentemente, as diferentes restrições aplicadas a cada dispositivo, levam à criação de uma rede heterogénea composto por diversas tecnologias de comunicação e protocolos a coexistir no mesmo espaço físico. Desta forma, os requisitos chave aplicados às redes IoT são a conectividade e interoperabilidade entre dispositivos. Estes requisitos são atingidos com a adoção de protocolos standard e pilhas de comunicação bem definidas. Com a adoção de pilhas de comunicação standard, a informação processada e transmitida entre dispostos tende a aumentar. Visto que a maioria dos dispositivos conectados possuem escaços recursos, i.e., memória reduzida, baixa capacidade de processamento, pouca energia disponível, o aumento da capacidade de comunicação pode degradar o desempenho destes dispositivos. Posto isto, para lidar com estes problemas e sem sacrificar outros requisitos importantes, esta dissertação pretende fazer o porting de um sistema operativo IoT, o RIOT, para uma solução reconfigurável, o CUTE mote. O principal objetivo consiste na realização de um estudo sobre os benefícios que as tarefas relacionadas com as camadas de rede podem ter ao serem executadas em hardware via aceleradores dedicados. Estes aceleradores são especialmente projetados para processar e filtrar pacotes de dados provenientes de uma interface radio em redes IoT periféricas

SAFEXPLAIN: Safe and Explainable Critical Embedded Systems Based on AI

Deep Learning (DL) techniques are at the heart of most future advanced software functions in Critical Autonomous AI-based Systems (CAIS), where they also represent a major competitive factor. Hence, the economic success of CAIS industries (e.g., automotive, space, railway) depends on their ability to design, implement, qualify, and certify DL-based software products under bounded effort/cost. However, there is a fundamental gap between Functional Safety (FUSA) requirements on CAIS and the nature of DL solutions. This gap stems from the development process of DL libraries and affects high-level safety concepts such as (1) explainability and traceability, (2) suitability for varying safety requirements, (3) FUSA-compliant implementations, and (4) real-time constraints. As a matter of fact, the data-dependent and stochastic nature of DL algorithms clashes with current FUSA practice, which instead builds on deterministic, verifiable, and pass/fail test-based software. The SAFEXPLAIN project tackles these challenges and targets by providing a flexible approach to allow the certification - hence adoption - of DL-based solutions in CAIS building on: (1) DL solutions that provide end-to-end traceability, with specific approaches to explain whether predictions can be trusted and strategies to reach (and prove) correct operation, in accordance to certification standards; (2) alternative and increasingly sophisticated design safety patterns for DL with varying criticality and fault tolerance requirements; (3) DL library implementations that adhere to safety requirements; and (4) computing platform configurations, to regain determinism, and probabilistic timing analyses, to handle the remaining non-determinism.The research leading to these results has received funding from the Horizon Europe Programme under the SAFEXPLAIN Project (www.safexplain.eu), grant agreement num. 101069595. BSC authors have also been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under grant PID2019- 107255GBC21/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.Peer Reviewed"Article signat per 22 autors/es: Jaume Abella, Jon Perez, Cristofer Englund, Bahram Zonooz, Gabriele Giordana, Carlo Donzella, Francisco J. Cazorla, Enrico Mezzetti, Isabel Serra, Axel Brando, Irune Agirre, Fernando Eizaguirre, Thanh Hai Bui, Elahe Arani, Fahad Sarfraz, Ajay Balasubramaniam, Ahmed BadarIlaria Bloise, Lorenzo Feruglio, Ilaria Cinelli, Davide Brighenti, Davide Cunial"Postprint (author's final draft