Tasks, cognitive agents, and KB-DSS in workflow and process management

The purpose of this paper is to propose a nonparametric interest rate term structure model and investigate its implications on term structure dynamics and prices of interest rate derivative securities. The nonparametric spot interest rate process is estimated from the observed short-term interest rates following a robust estimation procedure and the market price of interest rate risk is estimated as implied from the historical term structure data. That is, instead of imposing a priori restrictions on the model, data are allowed to speak for themselves, and at the same time the model retains a parsimonious structure and the computational tractability. The model is implemented using historical Canadian interest rate term structure data. The parametric models with closed form solutions for bond and bond option prices, namely the Vasicek (1977) and CIR (1985) models, are also estimated for comparison purpose. The empirical results not only provide strong evidence that the traditional spot interest rate models and market prices of interest rate risk are severely misspecified but also suggest that different model specifications have significant impact on term structure dynamics and prices of interest rate derivative securities.

Mapping customer needs to engineering characteristics: an aerospace perspective for conceptual design

Designing complex engineering systems, such as an aircraft or an aero-engine, is immensely challenging. Formal Systems Engineering (SE) practices are widely used in the aerospace industry throughout the overall design process to minimise the overall design effort, corrective re-work, and ultimately overall development and manufacturing costs. Incorporating the needs and requirements from customers and other stakeholders into the conceptual and early design process is vital for the success and viability of any development programme. This paper presents a formal methodology, the Value-Driven Design (VDD) methodology that has been developed for collaborative and iterative use in the Extended Enterprise (EE) within the aerospace industry, and that has been applied using the Concept Design Analysis (CODA) method to map captured Customer Needs (CNs) into Engineering Characteristics (ECs) and to model an overall ‘design merit’ metric to be used in design assessments, sensitivity analyses, and engineering design optimisation studies. Two different case studies with increasing complexity are presented to elucidate the application areas of the CODA method in the context of the VDD methodology for the EE within the aerospace secto

A graphical environment and applications for discrete event and hybrid systems in robotics and automation

technical reportIn this paper we present an overview for the development of a graphical environment for simulating, analyzing, synthesizing, monitoring, and controlling complex discrete event and hybrid systems within the robotics, automation, and intelligent system domain. We start by presenting an overview of discrete event and hybrid systems, and then discuss the proposed framework. We also present two applications within the robotics and automation domain for such complex systems. The first is for formulating an observer for manipulating agents, and the second is for designing sensing strategies for the inspection of machine parts

Technologie RFID a Blochkchain v dodavatelském řetězci

The paper discusses the possibility of combining RFID and Blockchain technology to more effectively prevent counterfeiting of products or raw materials, and to solve problems related to production, logistics and storage. Linking these technologies can lead to better planning by increasing the transparency and traceability of industrial or logistical processes or such as efficient detection of critical chain sites.Příspěvek se zabývá možností kombinace technologií RFID a Blockchain pro účinnější zabránění padělání výrobků či surovin a řešení problémů spojených s výrobou, logistikou a skladováním. Spojení těchto technologií může vést k lepšímu plánování díky vyšší transparentnosti a sledovatelnosti průmyslových nebo logistických procesů, nebo například k efektivnímu zjišťování kritických míst řetězce

Ono: an open platform for social robotics

In recent times, the focal point of research in robotics has shifted from industrial ro- bots toward robots that interact with humans in an intuitive and safe manner. This evolution has resulted in the subfield of social robotics, which pertains to robots that function in a human environment and that can communicate with humans in an int- uitive way, e.g. with facial expressions. Social robots have the potential to impact many different aspects of our lives, but one particularly promising application is the use of robots in therapy, such as the treatment of children with autism. Unfortunately, many of the existing social robots are neither suited for practical use in therapy nor for large scale studies, mainly because they are expensive, one-of-a-kind robots that are hard to modify to suit a specific need. We created Ono, a social robotics platform, to tackle these issues. Ono is composed entirely from off-the-shelf components and cheap materials, and can be built at a local FabLab at the fraction of the cost of other robots. Ono is also entirely open source and the modular design further encourages modification and reuse of parts of the platform