Intuitive Instruction of Industrial Robots : A Knowledge-Based Approach

With more advanced manufacturing technologies, small and medium sized enterprises can compete with low-wage labor by providing customized and high quality products. For small production series, robotic systems can provide a cost-effective solution. However, for robots to be able to perform on par with human workers in manufacturing industries, they must become flexible and autonomous in their task execution and swift and easy to instruct. This will enable small businesses with short production series or highly customized products to use robot coworkers without consulting expert robot programmers. The objective of this thesis is to explore programming solutions that can reduce the programming effort of sensor-controlled robot tasks. The robot motions are expressed using constraints, and multiple of simple constrained motions can be combined into a robot skill. The skill can be stored in a knowledge base together with a semantic description, which enables reuse and reasoning. The main contributions of the thesis are 1) development of ontologies for knowledge about robot devices and skills, 2) a user interface that provides simple programming of dual-arm skills for non-experts and experts, 3) a programming interface for task descriptions in unstructured natural language in a user-specified vocabulary and 4) an implementation where low-level code is generated from the high-level descriptions. The resulting system greatly reduces the number of parameters exposed to the user, is simple to use for non-experts and reduces the programming time for experts by 80%. The representation is described on a semantic level, which means that the same skill can be used on different robot platforms. The research is presented in seven papers, the first describing the knowledge representation and the second the knowledge-based architecture that enables skill sharing between robots. The third paper presents the translation from high-level instructions to low-level code for force-controlled motions. The two following papers evaluate the simplified programming prototype for non-expert and expert users. The last two present how program statements are extracted from unstructured natural language descriptions

Programming Robots for Activities of Everyday Life

Text-based programming remains a challenge to novice programmers in\ua0all programming domains including robotics. The use of robots is gainingconsiderable traction in several domains since robots are capable of assisting\ua0humans in repetitive and hazardous tasks. In the near future, robots willbe used in tasks of everyday life in homes, hotels, airports, museums, etc.\ua0However, robotic missions have been either predefined or programmed usinglow-level APIs, making mission specification task-specific and error-prone.\ua0To harness the full potential of robots, it must be possible to define missionsfor specific applications domains as needed. The specification of missions of\ua0robotic applications should be performed via easy-to-use, accessible ways, and\ua0at the same time, be accurate, and unambiguous. Simplicity and flexibility in\ua0programming such robots are important, since end-users come from diverse\ua0domains, not necessarily with suffcient programming knowledge.The main objective of this licentiate thesis is to empirically understand the\ua0state-of-the-art in languages and tools used for specifying robot missions byend-users. The findings will form the basis for interventions in developing\ua0future languages for end-user robot programming.During the empirical study, DSLs for robot mission specification were\ua0analyzed through published literature, their websites, user manuals, samplemissions and using the languages to specify missions for supported robots.After extracting data from 30 environments, 133 features were identified.\ua0A feature matrix mapping the features to the environments was developedwith a feature model for robotic mission specification DSLs.Our results show that most end-user facing environments exist in the\ua0education domain for teaching novice programmers and STEM subjects. Mostof the visual languages are developed using Blockly and Scratch libraries.\ua0The end-user domain abstraction needs more work since most of the visualenvironments abstract robotic and programming language concepts but not\ua0end-user concepts. In future works, it is important to focus on the development\ua0of reusable libraries for end-user concepts; and further, explore how end-user\ua0facing environments can be adapted for novice programmers to learn\ua0general programming skills and robot programming in low resource settings\ua0in developing countries, like Uganda

Views and concerns and interrelationships : Lessons learned from developing the multi-View software engineering environment PIROL

Software-Entwicklungsumgebungen sind komplexe Systeme mit besonderen Anforderungen an Modularität und Anpaßbarkeit. Diese Arbeit beschreibt die Entwicklung der Umgebung PIROL. Die Beschreibung ist dabei in eine Abfolge der folgenden 12 Themen gegliedert. (1) Metamodellierung ist das Grundkonzept, nach dem PIROL seine Daten gemäß einem objektorientierten Datenmodell zerlegt, so daß beliebige Werkzeuge auch auf die Daten anderer Werkzeuge auf sinnvolle Art und Weise zuzugreifen können. (2) Das Metamodell wird zur persistenten Speicherung der Daten auf Konzepte des Repositories H-PCTE abgebildet. (3) Die Granularität eines Metamodells ist für die Effektivität und Effizienz des Gesamtsystems entscheidend. PIROL unterstützt hybride Modellierung als Kompromiß beider Extreme. (4) Durch Methoden des Metamodells wird Verhaltensmodellierung für verschiedenste Aufgaben unterstützt. (5) Ausnahmebehandlung wird systematisch unterstützt. (6) Verschiedene Mechanismen zur Wahrung der Datenintegrität sind enthalten. (7) Das System wurde nach einer Client-Server Architektur entwickelt, deren zentrale Komponente eine "Workbench" ist, die die Repository-Sprache Lua/P ausführt. (8) Steuerungsintegration erlaubt durch verteilte Steuerflüsse das enge Zusammenspiel lose gekoppelter Komponenten. (9) Die koordinierte Zusammenarbeit mehrerer Benutzer wird unterstützt. (10) Die logische Unabhängigkeit von Werkzeugen wird durch das neue Konzept der Dynamic View Connectors erreicht. (11) Allgemeine Dienste sind in der Umgebung einheitlich verfügbar. (12) Das System unterstützt die Weiterentwicklung. All diese Themengebiete sind sehr eng miteinander verzahnt und die Darstellung ist zu großem Teil der gegenseitigen Beeinflussung gewidmet. Es wird gezeigt, wie eine Großzahl der Entwurfsentscheidungen genau aus diesen Beeinflussungen motiviert sind. Die Beschreibung folgt damit dem Konzept der "Concern Interaction Matrix", das hier zur Bewältigung von Komplexität vorgeschlagen wird. Dabei werden Charakteristika einzelner Anliegen und einzelner Zusammenhänge herausgearbeitet. Die Beschreibung PIROLs wird durch die Liste der integrierten Werkzeuge, Ansätze von Laufzeit-Messungen und einige Betrachtungen zur Beurteilung abgerundet. Abschließend werden verschiedene Konzepte rund um den Begriff "Sichten" erörtert. Sichten sind ein zentrale Anliegen von PIROL. Außerdem generalisiert die Diskussion über die mehrdimensionale Darstellung des Hauptteiles. Es werden Begrifflichkeit, Konzepte und Techniken für Sichten in der Softwaretechnik vorgestellt und diskutiert. Dabei wird die Brücke geschlagen von Sichten in objektorientierten Datenbanken, über aspekt-orientierte Softwareentwicklung bis hin zum allgemeinen "Concern Modeling", zu dem die o.g. Methode einen Beitrag leisten soll. Sichten werden dabei als ein zentrales Konzept der Softwaretechnik neben Abstraktion und Zerlegung beurteilt. Dynamic View Connectors sind ein wesentlicher Beitrag von PIROL, durch den Datenbanksichten und aspektorientierte Programmierung zusammengeführt werden. Zwar ist der Sichten-Begriff längst nicht so scharf definiert, wie die Begriffe Abstraktion und Zerlegung, aber gerade die Überlappungen und Diskrepanzen, die durch Sichten abgebildet werden können, machen dies Konzept zu einem starken Strukturierungsprinzip, das zwar einigen Aufwand zur Behandlung von Inkonsistenzen erfordert, aber andererseits hilft, komplexe Systeme handhabbar und wartbar zu gestalten.Software engineering environments are complex systems with special requirements regarding modularity and adaptability. This thesis describes the development of the environment PIROL. The description is structured as a sequence of the following 12 concerns: (1) Meta modeling is the basic concept by which PIROL decomposes its data in accordance to an object-oriented data model. This allows arbitrary tools to access data of other tools in a meaningful way. (2) For persistent storage the model is mapped to the concepts of the repository H-PCTE. (3) The granularity of a meta model determines effectiveness and efficiency of the system. PIROL supports hybrid modeling as a compromise between extremes. (4) By methods of the meta model behavior modeling is supported for a wide range of tasks. (5) Exception handling is supported systematically. (6) Several mechanisms for preserving data integrity are integrated. (7) The system follows a client-server architecture. As its, central component the "workbench" executes the repository language LuaP. (8) Control integration allows for close cooperation of loosely coupled components by means of distributed control flows. (9) The coordinated cooperation of multiple users is supported. (10) Logical independence of tools is achieved by the novel concept of Dynamic View Connectors. (11) Common services are available throughout the environment in a uniform way. (12) The system is prepared for evolution. All these concerns are tightly interlocked. A considerable share of the presentation is dedicated to such mutual interactions. Is is shown, how a large number of design decisions is motivated exactly by these interactions. The description follows the concept of a "Concern Interaction Matrix" which is proposed for managing complexity. Characteristics of concerns and their interactions are elaborated. The description of PIROL is completed by a list of integrated tools, initial performance measurements and evaluation. Finally, several concepts relating to the notion of "views" are discussed. Views are a central concern of PIROL. Furthermore, the discussion generalizes over the multi-dimensional presentation in the body of this thesis. Notions, concepts and techniques for views in software engineering are presented and discussed. This discussion connects views in object-oriented databases, aspect-oriented software development and general "concern modeling", to which the method of "Concern Interaction Matrices" contributes. Views are regarded as a central concept of software engineering at the same level as abstraction and decomposition. Dynamic View Connectors are a significant contribution of PIROL that combines database views and aspect-oriented programming. The notion of "views" is defined with far less precision than abstraction and decomposition, but indeed by the overlap and mismatches, which can be captured by views, this concept is a strong principle for structuring software and information. Effort is needed for handling inconsistencies as they may arise, but after all, views are a suitable means for managing the complexity of systems and for designing these systems for evolution

B!SON: A Tool for Open Access Journal Recommendation

Finding a suitable open access journal to publish scientific work is a complex task: Researchers have to navigate a constantly growing number of journals, institutional agreements with publishers, funders’ conditions and the risk of Predatory Publishers. To help with these challenges, we introduce a web-based journal recommendation system called B!SON. It is developed based on a systematic requirements analysis, built on open data, gives publisher-independent recommendations and works across domains. It suggests open access journals based on title, abstract and references provided by the user. The recommendation quality has been evaluated using a large test set of 10,000 articles. Development by two German scientific libraries ensures the longevity of the project

Generation and Applications of Knowledge Graphs in Systems and Networks Biology

The acceleration in the generation of data in the biomedical domain has necessitated the use of computational approaches to assist in its interpretation. However, these approaches rely on the availability of high quality, structured, formalized biomedical knowledge. This thesis has the two goals to improve methods for curation and semantic data integration to generate high granularity biological knowledge graphs and to develop novel methods for using prior biological knowledge to propose new biological hypotheses. The first two publications describe an ecosystem for handling biological knowledge graphs encoded in the Biological Expression Language throughout the stages of curation, visualization, and analysis. Further, the second two publications describe the reproducible acquisition and integration of high-granularity knowledge with low contextual specificity from structured biological data sources on a massive scale and support the semi-automated curation of new content at high speed and precision. After building the ecosystem and acquiring content, the last three publications in this thesis demonstrate three different applications of biological knowledge graphs in modeling and simulation. The first demonstrates the use of agent-based modeling for simulation of neurodegenerative disease biomarker trajectories using biological knowledge graphs as priors. The second applies network representation learning to prioritize nodes in biological knowledge graphs based on corresponding experimental measurements to identify novel targets. Finally, the third uses biological knowledge graphs and develops algorithmics to deconvolute the mechanism of action of drugs, that could also serve to identify drug repositioning candidates. Ultimately, the this thesis lays the groundwork for production-level applications of drug repositioning algorithms and other knowledge-driven approaches to analyzing biomedical experiments

CLARIN

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure – CLARIN – for the humanities. It covers a broad range of CLARIN language resources and services, its underlying technological infrastructure, the achievements of national consortia, and challenges that CLARIN will tackle in the future. The book is published 10 years after establishing CLARIN as an Europ. Research Infrastructure Consortium

CLARIN. The infrastructure for language resources

CLARIN, the "Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure", has established itself as a major player in the field of research infrastructures for the humanities. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the organization, its members, its goals and its functioning, as well as of the tools and resources hosted by the infrastructure. The many contributors representing various fields, from computer science to law to psychology, analyse a wide range of topics, such as the technology behind the CLARIN infrastructure, the use of CLARIN resources in diverse research projects, the achievements of selected national CLARIN consortia, and the challenges that CLARIN has faced and will face in the future. The book will be published in 2022, 10 years after the establishment of CLARIN as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium by the European Commission (Decision 2012/136/EU)

CLARIN

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure – CLARIN – for the humanities. It covers a broad range of CLARIN language resources and services, its underlying technological infrastructure, the achievements of national consortia, and challenges that CLARIN will tackle in the future. The book is published 10 years after establishing CLARIN as an Europ. Research Infrastructure Consortium

ROS engineering workbench based on semantically enriched app models for improved reusability

In this work, the ReApp Engineering Workbench and its underlying semantically enriched app models are presented. The usage of a model, which describes the apps functionality, interfaces and other attributes, allows the utilization of engineering tools for code generation and automated testing. Further, it ensures the compatibility of the generated interfaces, which in turn enhances the reusability of the developed apps in larger applications

FAIR and bias-free network modules for mechanism-based disease redefinitions

Even though chronic diseases are the cause of 60% of all deaths around the world, the underlying causes for most of them are not fully understood. Hence, diseases are defined based on organs and symptoms, and therapies largely focus on mitigating symptoms rather than cure. This is also reflected in the most commonly used disease classifications. The complex nature of diseases, however, can be better defined in terms of networks of molecular interactions. This research applies the approaches of network medicine – a field that uses network science for identifying and treating diseases – to multiple diseases with highly unmet medical need such as stroke and hypertension. The results show the success of this approach to analyse complex disease networks and predict drug targets for different conditions, which are validated through preclinical experiments and are currently in human clinical trials