Agent programming in the cognitive era

It is claimed that, in the nascent ‘Cognitive Era’, intelligent systems will be trained using machine learning techniques rather than programmed by software developers. A contrary point of view argues that machine learning has limitations, and, taken in isolation, cannot form the basis of autonomous systems capable of intelligent behaviour in complex environments. In this paper, we explore the contributions that agent-oriented programming can make to the development of future intelligent systems. We briefly review the state of the art in agent programming, focussing particularly on BDI-based agent programming languages, and discuss previous work on integrating AI techniques (including machine learning) in agent-oriented programming. We argue that the unique strengths of BDI agent languages provide an ideal framework for integrating the wide range of AI capabilities necessary for progress towards the next-generation of intelligent systems. We identify a range of possible approaches to integrating AI into a BDI agent architecture. Some of these approaches, e.g., ‘AI as a service’, exploit immediate synergies between rapidly maturing AI techniques and agent programming, while others, e.g., ‘AI embedded into agents’ raise more fundamental research questions, and we sketch a programme of research directed towards identifying the most appropriate ways of integrating AI capabilities into agent programs

Methods and Tools for Management of Distributed Event Processing Applications

Die Erfassung und Verarbeitung von Ereignissen aus cyber-physischen Systemen bietet Anwendern die Möglichkeit, kontinuierlich über Leistungsdaten und aufkommende Probleme unterrichtet zu werden (Situational Awareness) oder Wartungsprozesse zustandsabhängig zu optimieren (Condition-based Maintenance). Derartige Szenarien verlangen aufgrund der Vielzahl und Frequenz der Daten sowie der Anforderung einer echtzeitnahen Auswertung den Einsatz geeigneter Technologien. Unter dem Namen Event Processing haben sich dabei Technologien etabliert, die in der Lage sind, Datenströme in Echtzeit zu verarbeiten und komplexe Ereignismuster auf Basis räumlicher, zeitlicher oder kausaler Zusammenhänge zu erkennen. Gleichzeitig sind heute in diesem Bereich verfügbare Systeme jedoch noch durch eine hohe technische Komplexität der zugrunde liegenden deklarativen Sprachen gekennzeichnet, die bei der Entwicklung echtzeitfähiger Anwendungen zu langsamen Entwicklungszyklen aufgrund notwendiger technischer Expertise führt. Gerade diese Anwendungen weisen allerdings häufig eine hohe Dynamik in Bezug auf Veränderungen von Anforderungen der zu erkennenden Situationen, aber auch der zugrunde liegenden Sensordaten hinsichtlich ihrer Syntax und Semantik auf. Der primäre Beitrag dieser Arbeit ermöglicht Fachanwendern durch die Abstraktion von technischen Details, selbständig verteilte echtzeitfähige Anwendungen in Form von sogenannten Echtzeit-Verarbeitungspipelines zu erstellen, zu bearbeiten und auszuführen. Die Beiträge der Arbeit lassen sich wie folgt zusammenfassen: 1. Eine Methodik zur Entwicklung echtzeitfähiger Anwendungen unter Berücksichtigung von Erweiterbarkeit sowie der Zugänglichkeit für Fachanwender. 2. Modelle zur semantischen Beschreibung der Charakteristika von Ereignisproduzenten, Ereignisverarbeitungseinheiten und Ereigniskonsumenten. 3. Ein System zur Ausführung von Verarbeitungspipelines bestehend aus geographisch verteilten Ereignisverarbeitungseinheiten. 4. Ein Software-Artefakt zur graphischen Modellierung von Verarbeitungspipelines sowie deren automatisierter Ausführung. Die Beiträge werden in verschiedenen Szenarien aus den Bereichen Produktion und Logistik vorgestellt, angewendet und evaluiert

Automated software systems generation for process-oriented organizations

Tese de doutoramento do Programa Doutoral em Tecnologias e Sistemas de InformaçãoCada vez mais, as organizações suportam as suas operações em sistemas de software. Torna-se, portanto, muito relevante o correto mapeamento das operações nos sistemas de software. Esta tese foca-se em organizações orientadas a processos de negócio, devido à relevância dada pelas normas de qualidade, pelos modelos de excelência, e pelos requisitos dos clientes, a esse tipo de estruturação interna das organizações. Nas organizações orientadas a processos de negócio existem diversos fatores, como o tempo envolvido nos projetos de implementação de processos de negócio em software, as diferenças existentes entre os modelos de processos de negócio e a sua implementação real, ou a quantidade e o tipo de recursos envolvidos nesses projetos, que fazem com que os projetos de desenvolvimento de software sejam demasiado dispendiosos, demorem demasiado tempo, e não garantam que o produto de software resultante seja o mais adequado à realidade da organização que o vai usar. Esta tese propõe que os sistemas de informação e de software devam ser desenvolvidos, desde o início, incorporando os modelos das organizações onde irão ser usados. Além disso, e como existem disponíveis modelos de referência de processos de negócio, esta tese também propõe o seu uso explícito aquando da recolha de requisitos. Assim, o objetivo principal da tese é propor uma metodologia que se inicie com modelos de processos de negócio e que termine com a geração de sistemas de software, para organizações orientadas a processos de negócio. A metodologia denomina-se BIM e é formalizada através do metamodelo EPF. Dada a abrangência dos temas a tratar, a tese foi conduzida tendo em atenção que o processo de desenvolvimento de software para suportar organizações orientadas a processos pode ser otimizado. Para melhor mostrar os diversos passos e resultados intermédios, usamos a metodologia de investigação Action Research. A tese propõe que as atividades de investigação sejam terminadas quando uma dada condição de paragem seja atingida, e para isso usa uma avaliação baseada num conjunto de indicadores para os resultados do produto e do processo, e uma adaptação do modelo de excelência EFQM para a forma como foi executado o processo de desenvolvimento. O foco das Action são os sistemas de software MES, essenciais na ligação entre sistemas de software embebido e sistemas ERP. Nesta tese, as Action iniciam-se com modelos de processos e com arquiteturas de software standard, e terminam com uma proposta de modelo de processo e com arquiteturas de software e tecnologias adaptadas à execução de processos de negócio. A tese propõe também alguns conceitos como IAvO (extensão de modelos de processos de negócio), OBO (componentes de software intermutáveis e não-proprietários), OA (aspetos organizacionais), e PF (framework de processos) para aumentarem a eficiência e eficácia na implementação em software de processos de negócio.Increasingly, organizations support their operations by using software systems, turning very relevant the proper mapping of operations into software systems. This thesis focuses on organizations oriented to business processes, due to the importance that quality norms, excellence models, and customer requirements put on this type of internal structures of organizations. Process-oriented organizations have characteristics, such as the time needed to implement business processes in software, the differences between the business process models and the real business processes, or the quantity and type of the required resources, that lead to development projects too expensive, taking too long to complete, and that do not assure that the resulting product is the most adequate to the reality of the client organization. This thesis proposes that the development of information and software system embodies, since the early stages, the models of the organization where they operate. In addition, and since business process reference models are available, the thesis also proposes to use explicitly such reference models by requirements collection time. Thus, the main goal of the thesis is to propose a methodology that picks business process reference models and ends with software systems, for process-oriented organizations. The methodology is denominated BIM and is formalized by using the EPF metamodel. Due to the wide scope of the studied areas, the thesis is tailored considering that the development process for processoriented organizations can be optimized. To express better the intermediate steps and results, we use the Action Research methodology. The thesis proposes that the research activities terminate when a stopping condition is met, based on a set of indicators for the product, and a tailoring of the EFQM model for the development process. The Actions are focused on MES, crucial for the linking of embedded software systems with ERP systems. In this thesis, the Actions start by using standard process models and software architectures, and end by using a proposed process model, and software architectures and technologies adapted to the execution of business software. The thesis also proposes new concepts like IAvO (extension to business process reference models), OBO (interchangeable and nonproprietary software components), AO (organizational aspects), and PF (process framework) to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of the implementation of business processes in software

Dependency Management 2.0 – A Semantic Web Enabled Approach

Software development and evolution are highly distributed processes that involve a multitude of supporting tools and resources. Application programming interfaces are commonly used by software developers to reduce development cost and complexity by reusing code developed by third-parties or published by the open source community. However, these application programming interfaces have also introduced new challenges to the Software Engineering community (e.g., software vulnerabilities, API incompatibilities, and software license violations) that not only extend beyond the traditional boundaries of individual projects but also involve different software artifacts. As a result, there is the need for a technology-independent representation of software dependency semantics and the ability to seamlessly integrate this representation with knowledge from other software artifacts. The Semantic Web and its supporting technology stack have been widely promoted to model, integrate, and support interoperability among heterogeneous data sources. This dissertation takes advantage of the Semantic Web and its enabling technology stack for knowledge modeling and integration. The thesis introduces five major contributions: (1) We present a formal Software Build System Ontology – SBSON, which captures concepts and properties for software build and dependency management systems. This formal knowledge representation allows us to take advantage of Semantic Web inference services forming the basis for a more flexibility API dependency analysis compared to traditional proprietary analysis approaches. (2) We conducted a user survey which involved 53 open source developers to allow us to gain insights on how actual developers manage API breaking changes. (3) We introduced a novel approach which integrates our SBSON model with knowledge about source code usage and changes within the Maven ecosystem to support API consumers and producers in managing (assessing and minimizing) the impacts of breaking changes. (4) A Security Vulnerability Analysis Framework (SV-AF) is introduced, which integrates builds system, source code, versioning system, and vulnerability ontologies to trace and assess the impact of security vulnerabilities across project boundaries. (5) Finally, we introduce an Ontological Trustworthiness Assessment Model (OntTAM). OntTAM is an integration of our build, source code, vulnerability and license ontologies which supports a holistic analysis and assessment of quality attributes related to the trustworthiness of libraries and APIs in open source systems. Several case studies are presented to illustrate the applicability and flexibility of our modelling approach, demonstrating that our knowledge modeling approach can seamlessly integrate and reuse knowledge extracted from existing build and dependency management systems with other existing heterogeneous data sources found in the software engineering domain. As part of our case studies, we also demonstrate how this unified knowledge model can enable new types of project dependency analysis

Design and development of a context sensitive rural development software application for eService provisioning

After more than a decade since South Africa realized the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the role it can play to deliver services, the country is still confronted by a number of challenges challenges that hinder the implementation of a fully-fledged ICT-based system in a form of electronic government to better deliver services and information. While rural development remains as one of the country’s greatest concerns, ICT is among approaches and perspectives that are recognized for not only accelerating rural development but also for providing the country’s economic growth. This research was set to investigate approaches to implement ICT solutions for rural development and service provisioning in the context of electronic government. The research focused more on the technical skills to implement such ICT systems for the benefit of rural development and e-government stakeholders that have an interest in design and development of an integrated and interoperable solution to accelerate service delivery, especially in rural communities. A mixed methods approach was used throughout the research accompanied by an evolutionary prototyping to development the desired prototype. A study was then conducted to gain an understanding of the state and the needs of rural communities to date. The results of the study yielded a number of urbanized service providers that rural dwellers need to timeously visit to consume services. Scenarios to design and develop the intended prototypes were then drawn from these results. The overall implementation of the prototypes produced an integrated platform that allows multiple disparate systems to communicate, share and use information. The qualities of the prototype are what this research recommends to relevant to stakeholders in order to implement an integrated and interoperable e-government system that elevates rural development programs and service delivery