Process query systems : advanced technologies for process detection and tracking

Vrijwel alles wat rondom ons heen gebeurt is van nature proces georienteerd. Het is dan niet verbazingwekkend dat het mentale omgevingsbeeld dat mensen van hun omgeving vormen hierop is gebaseerd. Zodra we iets waarnemen, en vervolgens herkennen, betekent dit dat we de waarneming begrijpen, ze bij elkaar kunnen groeperen, en voorspellen welke andere waarnemingen spoedig zullen volgen. Neem bijvoorbeeld een kamer met een televisie. Zodra we de kamer binnenkomen horen we geluiden, misschien stemmen, mischien muziek. Als we om ons heen kijken zien wij spoedig, visueel, de televisie. Omdat we het "proces" van TV goed kennen, kunnen we mentaal de geluiden bij het beeld van de televisie voegen. Ook weten we dat de telvisie aan is, en daarom verwachten we dat er nog meer geluiden zullen volgen. Zodra we de afstandsbediening oppakken en de televisie uitzetten, verwachten we dat het beeld verdwijnt en de geluiden ophouden. Als dit niet gebeurt, merken we dit direct op: we waren niet succesvol in het veranderen van de staat van het "proces TV". Over het algemeen, als onze waarnemingen niet bij een bekend proces passen zijn wij verbaasd, geinteresseerd, of zelfs bang. Dit is een goed voorbeeld van hoe mensen hun omgeving beschouwen, gebaseerd op processen classificeren we al onze waarnemingen, en zijn we in staat te voorspellen welke waarnemingen komen gaan. Computers zijn traditioneel niet in staat om herkenning op diezelfde wijze te realiseren. Computerverwerking van signalen is vaak gebaseerd op eenvoudige "signatures", ofwel enkelvoudige eigenschappen waar direct naar gezocht wordt. Vaak zijn deze systemen heel specifiek en kunnen slechts zeer beperkte voorspellingen maken inzake de waargenomen omgeving. Dit proefschrift introduceert een algemene methode waarin omgevingsbeschrijvingen worden ingevoerd als processen: een nieuwe klasse van gegevensverwerkende systemen, genaamd Process Query Systems (PQS). Een PQS stelt de gebruiker in staat om snel en efficient een robuust omgevingsbewust systeem te bouwen, dat in staat is meerdere processen en meerdere instanties van processen te detecteren en volgen. Met behulp van PQS worden verschillende systemen gepresenteerd zo divers als de beveiliging van grote computer netwerken, tot het volgen van vissen in een vistank. Het enige verschil tussen al deze systemen is de procesmodellen die ingevoerd werden in de PQS. Deze technologie is een nieuw en veelbelovend vakgebied dat het potentieel heeft zeer succesvol te worden in alle vormen van digitale signaalverwerking.UBL - phd migration 201

Coordinating decentralized learning and conflict resolution across agent boundaries

It is crucial for embedded systems to adapt to the dynamics of open environments. This adaptation process becomes especially challenging in the context of multiagent systems because of scalability, partial information accessibility and complex interaction of agents. It is a challenge for agents to learn good policies, when they need to plan and coordinate in uncertain, dynamic environments, especially when they have large state spaces. It is also critical for agents operating in a multiagent system (MAS) to resolve conflicts among the learned policies of different agents, since such conflicts may have detrimental influence on the overall performance. The focus of this research is to use a reinforcement learning based local optimization algorithm within each agent to learn multiagent policies in a decentralized fashion. These policies will allow each agent to adapt to changes in environmental conditions while reorganizing the underlying multiagent network when needed. The research takes an adaptive approach to resolving conflicts that can arise between locally optimal agent policies. First an algorithm that uses heuristic rules to locally resolve simple conflicts is presented. When the environment is more dynamic and uncertain, a mediator-based mechanism to resolve more complicated conflicts and selectively expand the agents' state space during the learning process is harnessed. For scenarios where mediator-based mechanisms with partially global views are ineffective, a more rigorous approach for global conflict resolution that synthesizes multiagent reinforcement learning (MARL) and distributed constraint optimization (DCOP) is developed. These mechanisms are evaluated in the context of a multiagent tornado tracking application called NetRads. Empirical results show that these mechanisms significantly improve the performance of the tornado tracking network for a variety of weather scenarios. The major contributions of this work are: a state of the art decentralized learning approach that supports agent interactions and reorganizes the underlying network when needed; the use of abstract classes of scenarios/states/actions that efficiently manages the exploration of the search space; novel conflict resolution algorithms of increasing complexity that use heuristic rules, sophisticated automated negotiation mechanisms and distributed constraint optimization methods respectively; and finally, a rigorous study of the interplay between two popular theories used to solve multiagent problems, namely decentralized Markov decision processes and distributed constraint optimization

Landscape approaches for ecosystem management in Mediterranean Islands

This book presents a series of essays, drawing on the twm concepts of ecosystem management and landscape approaches, to elucidate and reflect on the present situation and future evolution of Mediterranean islands. This publication brings together contributions from Mediterranean individuals, non-Mediterranean individuals, islanders and non-islanders there is, after all, no geographical limit on who and what we can learn from. The essays presented here each contribute a specific perspective on the future evolution of Mediterranean islands. This book presents a series of essays, drawing on the twin concepts of ecosystem management and landscape approaches, to elucidate and reflect on the present situation and future evolution of Mediterranean islands. This publication brings together contributions from Mediterranean individuals, non-Mediterranean individuals, islanders and non-islanders; there is, after all, no geographical limit on who and what we can learn from. The essays presented here each contribute a specific perspective on the future evolution of Mediterranean islands. Following this introductory chapter, the first section of the book focuses on the contributions that can be made by the discipline of landscape ecology. loannis Vogiatzakis and Geoffrey Griffiths first explain the concepts and relevance of landscape ecology, also presenting and discussing a range of applied tools that can facilitate landscape planning in Mediterranean islands. Louis F. Cassar then reviews the 'offshoot' discipline of restoration ecology, making a strong case for offsetting the environmental damage inflicted on natural ecosystems over millennia of human occupation, with constructive efforts to effectively restore and/or rehabilitate ecosystems. The two following chapters bring the socio-economic dimension into the discussion. Godfrey Baldacchino first presents two contrasting paradigms for the development of island territories, reviewing the dual influences of ecological and economic factors, and exploring ways in which the two can be brought together in successful development strategies. Gordon Cordina and Nadia Farrugia then address the demographic dimension of development, presenting a model to explain the economic costs of high population densities on islands. The third block of chapters expands on the relevance of social and cultural dynamics to the management of Mediterranean Islands. Isil Cakcï, Nur Belkayali and Ilkden Tazebay explain the evolution of the concept of a 'cultural landscape', focusing on the challenges of managing change in landscapes with strong heritage values. The chapter concludes with a case study on the Turkish island of Gökçeada (lmbros), which is experiencing major challenges in balancing the conservation of a cultural landscape on the one hand, and the management of inevitable change, on the other. Elisabeth Conrad then discusses the role of social capital in managing the landscape resources of Mediterranean islands, reviewing the potential for this intangible social fabric to facilitate or impede the sustainable evolution of island territories. The fourth section includes four chapters, each of which addresses a different aspect relevant to policy development and implementation in Mediterranean islands. Salvino Busuttil presents an essay outlining the political influences on the management of coastal landscapes, the latter so relevant to Mediterranean island territories. The essay derives from the author's professional experience in various policy-related institutions for environmental management within the Mediterranean region. Maggie Roe then reflects on issues of landscape sustainability, focusing on the neglected aspect of intelligence. She discusses ways in which landscape research, knowledge and understanding can feed directly into frameworks for 'sustainable' landscape planning. In the subsequent chapter, Adrian Phillips takes from his substantial experience with international landscape policy, reviewing the gradual emergence of international and national landscape 'tools', to draw out lessons for application in Mediterranean islands. In the final chapter of this section, Riccardo Priore and Damiano Galla present a comprehensive discussion of the European Landscape Convention, the first international instrument to focus exclusively on landscape. The authors explain the innovative character of this convention, and discuss its potential implementation in Mediterranean islands. The publication concludes with a series of case studies, highlighting specific constraints, experiences and opportunities in different Mediterranean islands. Theano Terkenli explores the landscapes of tourism in Mediterranean islands - perhaps no other industry has played such a fundamental role in shaping the evolution of Mediterranean landscapes in recent years. The author reviews the theoretical relationship between landscape and tourism across Mediterranean islands, before focusing on the specific case of the Greek Cycladic islands. In the following chapter, Alex Camilleri, Isabella Colombini and Lorenzo Chelazzi present an in-depth review of the context and challenges being faced on a number of minor Mediterranean islands, namely those of the Tuscan archipelago (Elba, Giglio, Capraia, Montecristo, Pianosa, Gorgona and Giannutri), and Comino, the latter forming part of the Maltese archipelago. The comparison between these various islands enables an appreciation of both commonalities across these islands, as well as considerations that are specific to the context of each in dividual island. JeremyBoissevain then adopts an anthropological lens to review the cautionary tale of landscape change in Malta, exploring underlying causes of landscape destruction and limited civil engagement. In the subsequent chapter, Jala Makhzoumi outlines the richness of Mediterranean islands' rural landscapes, focusing on olive landscapes in Cyprus. Her research demonstrates the economic and ecological robustness of various olive cultivation practices, and whilst warning of several threats to such sustainable regimes, she outlines strategies for reconfiguring our approach to rural heritage, in order to integrate such assets into sustainable development strategies. Finally, Stephen Morse concludes the section with an evaluation of sustainable development indicators, and the contribution that these can make towards enhancing the management of Mediterranean island territories. He illustrates his arguments with reference to the two island states of Malta and Cyprus. To conclude, in the final chapter of this publication, we review key insights emerging from the various chapters, and summarize considerations for ecosystem management and sustainable development in Mediterranean Islands. We truly hope that this publication makes some contribution towards safeguarding the "magic' of Mediterranean islands, whilst embracing their dynamic characteristics.Published under the patronage of UNESCO and with the support of the Maltese National Commission for UNESCOpeer-reviewe

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Considering the flexibility of human resources in planning and scheduling industrial activities

The growing need of responsiveness for manufacturing companies facing the market volatility raises a strong demand for flexibility in their organization. This flexibility can be used to enhance the robustness of a baseline schedule for a given programme of activities. Since the company personnel are increasingly seen as the core of the organizational structures, they provide the decision-makers with a source of renewable and viable flexibility. First, this work was implemented to model the problem of multi-period workforce allocation on industrial activities with two degrees of flexibility: the annualizing of the working time, which offers opportunities of changing the schedules, individually as well as collectively. The second degree of flexibility is the versatility of operators, which induces a dynamic view of their skills and the need to predict changes in individual performances as a result of successive assignments. The dynamic nature of workforce’s experience was modelled in function of learning-by-doing and of oblivion phenomenon during the work interruption periods. We firmly set ourselves in a context where the expected durations of activities are no longer deterministic, but result from the number and levels of experience of the workers assigned to perform them. After that, the research was oriented to answer the question “What kind of problem is raises the project we are facing to schedule?”: therefore the different dimensions of the project are inventoried and analysed to be measured. For each of these dimensions, the related sensitive assessment methods have been proposed. Relying on the produced correlated measures, the research proposes to aggregate them through a factor analysis in order to produce the main principal components of an instance. Consequently, the complexity or the easiness of solving or realising a given scheduling problem can be evaluated. In that view, we developed a platform software to solve the problem and construct the project baseline schedule with the associated resources allocation. This platform relies on a genetic algorithm. The model has been validated, moreover, its parameters has been tuned to give the best performance, relying on an experimental design procedure. The robustness of its performance was also investigated, by a comprehensive solving of four hundred instances of projects, ranked according to the number of their tasks. Due to the dynamic aspect of the workforce’s experience, this research work investigates a set of different parameters affecting the development of their versatility. The results recommend that the firms seeking for flexibility should accept an amount of extra cost to develop the operators’ multi functionality. In order to control these over-costs, the number of operators who attend a skill development program should be optimised, as well as the similarity of the new developed skills relative to the principal ones, or the number of the additional skills an operator may be trained to, or finally the way the operators’ working hours should be distributed along the period of skill acquisition: this is the field of investigations of the present work which will, in the end, open the door for considering human factors and workforce’s flexibility in generating a work baseline program

Prise en compte de la flexibilité des ressources humaines dans la planification et l’ordonnancement des activités industrielles

Le besoin croissant de réactivité dans les différents secteurs industriels face à la volatilité des marchés soulève une forte demande de la flexibilité dans leur organisation. Cette flexibilité peut être utilisée pour améliorer la robustesse du planning de référence d’un programme d’activités donné. Les ressources humaines de l’entreprise étant de plus en plus considérées comme le coeur des structures organisationnelles, elles représentent une source de flexibilité renouvelable et viable. Tout d’abord, ce travail a été mis en oeuvre pour modéliser le problème d’affectation multi-périodes des effectifs sur les activités industrielles en considérant deux dimensions de la flexibilité: L’annualisation du temps de travail, qui concerne les politiques de modulation d’horaires, individuels ou collectifs, et la polyvalence des opérateurs, qui induit une vision dynamique de leurs compétences et la nécessité de prévoir les évolutions des performances individuelles en fonction des affectations successives. La nature dynamique de l’efficacité des effectifs a été modélisée en fonction de l’apprentissage par la pratique et de la perte de compétence pendant les périodes d’interruption du travail. En conséquence, nous sommes résolument placés dans un contexte où la durée prévue des activités n’est plus déterministe, mais résulte du nombre des acteurs choisis pour les exécuter, en plus des niveaux de leur expérience. Ensuite, la recherche a été orientée pour répondre à la question : « quelle genre, ou quelle taille, de problème pose le projet que nous devons planifier? ». Par conséquent, les différentes dimensions du problème posé sont classées et analysés pour être évaluées et mesurées. Pour chaque dimension, la méthode d’évaluation la plus pertinente a été proposée : le travail a ensuite consisté à réduire les paramètres résultants en composantes principales en procédant à une analyse factorielle. En résultat, la complexité (ou la simplicité) de la recherche de solution (c’est-à-dire de l’élaboration d’un planning satisfaisant pour un problème donné) peut être évaluée. Pour ce faire, nous avons développé une plate-forme logicielle destinée à résoudre le problème et construire le planning de référence du projet avec l’affectation des ressources associées, plate-forme basée sur les algorithmes génétiques. Le modèle a été validé, et ses paramètres ont été affinés via des plans d’expériences pour garantir la meilleure performance. De plus, la robustesse de ces performances a été étudiée sur la résolution complète d’un échantillon de quatre cents projets, classés selon le nombre de leurs tâches. En raison de l’aspect dynamique de l’efficacité des opérateurs, le présent travail examine un ensemble de facteurs qui influencent le développement de leur polyvalence. Les résultats concluent logiquement qu’une entreprise en quête de flexibilité doit accepter des coûts supplémentaires pour développer la polyvalence de ses opérateurs. Afin de maîtriser ces surcoûts, le nombre des opérateurs qui suivent un programme de développement des compétences doit être optimisé, ainsi que, pour chacun d’eux, le degré de ressemblance entre les nouvelles compétences développées et les compétences initiales, ou le nombre de ces compétences complémentaires (toujours pour chacun d’eux), ainsi enfin que la façon dont les heures de travail des opérateurs doivent être réparties sur la période d’acquisition des compétences. Enfin, ce travail ouvre la porte pour la prise en compte future des facteurs humains et de la flexibilité des effectifs pendant l’élaboration d’un planning de référence. ABSTRACT : The growing need of responsiveness for manufacturing companies facing the market volatility raises a strong demand for flexibility in their organization. This flexibility can be used to enhance the robustness of a baseline schedule for a given programme of activities. Since the company personnel are increasingly seen as the core of the organizational structures, they provide the decision-makers with a source of renewable and viable flexibility. First, this work was implemented to model the problem of multi-period workforce allocation on industrial activities with two degrees of flexibility: the annualizing of the working time, which offers opportunities of changing the schedules, individually as well as collectively. The second degree of flexibility is the versatility of operators, which induces a dynamic view of their skills and the need to predict changes in individual performances as a result of successive assignments. The dynamic nature of workforce’s experience was modelled in function of learning-by-doing and of oblivion phenomenon during the work interruption periods. We firmly set ourselves in a context where the expected durations of activities are no longer deterministic, but result from the number and levels of experience of the workers assigned to perform them. After that, the research was oriented to answer the question “What kind of problem is raises the project we are facing to schedule?”: therefore the different dimensions of the project are inventoried and analysed to be measured. For each of these dimensions, the related sensitive assessment methods have been proposed. Relying on the produced correlated measures, the research proposes to aggregate them through a factor analysis in order to produce the main principal components of an instance. Consequently, the complexity or the easiness of solving or realising a given scheduling problem can be evaluated. In that view, we developed a platform software to solve the problem and construct the project baseline schedule with the associated resources allocation. This platform relies on a genetic algorithm. The model has been validated, moreover, its parameters has been tuned to give the best performance, relying on an experimental design procedure. The robustness of its performance was also investigated, by a comprehensive solving of four hundred instances of projects, ranked according to the number of their tasks. Due to the dynamic aspect of the workforce’s experience, this research work investigates a set of different parameters affecting the development of their versatility. The results recommend that the firms seeking for flexibility should accept an amount of extra cost to develop the operators’ multi functionality. In order to control these over-costs, the number of operators who attend a skill development program should be optimised, as well as the similarity of the new developed skills relative to the principal ones, or the number of the additional skills an operator may be trained to, or finally the way the operators’ working hours should be distributed along the period of skill acquisition: this is the field of investigations of the present work which will, in the end, open the door for considering human factors and workforce’s flexibility in generating a work baseline program

Improving Application Performance in the Emerging Hyper-converged Infrastructure

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.April 2019. Major: Computer Science. Advisor: David Du. 1 computer file (PDF); viii, 118 pages.In today's world, the hyper-converged infrastructure is emerging as a new type of infrastructure. In the hyper-converged infrastructure, service providers deploy compute, network and storage services on inexpensive hardware rather than expensive proprietary hardware. It allows the service providers to customize the services they can provide by deploying applications in Virtual Machines (VMs) or containers. They can have controls on all resources including compute, network and storage. In this hyper-converged infrastructure, improving the application performance is an important issue. Throughout my Ph.D. research, I have been studying how to improve the performance of applications in the emerging hyper-converged infrastructure. I have been focusing on improving the performance of applications in VMs and in containers when accessing data, and how to improve the performance of applications in the networked storage environment. In the hyper-converged infrastructure, administrators can provide desktop services by deploying Virtual Desktop Infrastructure application (VDI) based on VMs. We first investigate how to identify storage requirements and determine how to meet such requirements with minimal storage resources for VDI application. We create a model to describe the behavior of VDI, and collect real VDI traces to populate this model. The model allows us to identify the storage requirements of VDI and determine the potential bottlenecks in storage. Based on this information, we can tell what capacity and minimum capability a storage system needs in order to support and satisfy a given VDI configuration. We show that our model can describe more fine-grained storage requirements of VDI compared with the rules of thumb which are currently used in industry. In the hyper-converged infrastructure, more and more applications are running in containers. We design and implement a system, called k8sES (k8s Enhanced Storage), that efficiently supports applications with various storage SLOs (Service Level Objectives) along with all other requirements deployed in the Kubernetes environment which is based on containers. Kubernetes (k8s) is a system for managing containerized applications across multiple hosts. The current storage support for containerized applications in k8s is limited. To satisfy users' SLOs, k8s administrators must manually configure storage in advance, and users must know the configurations and capabilities of different types of the provided storage. In k8sES, storage resources are dynamically allocated based on users' requirements. Given users' SLOs, k8sES will select the correct node and storage that can meet their requirements when scheduling applications. The storage allocation mechanism in k8sES also improves the storage utilization efficiency. In addition, we provide a tool to monitor the I/O activities of both applications and storage devices in Kubernetes. With the capabilities of controlling client, network and storage with hyper-convergence, we study how to coordinate different components along the I/O path to ensure latency SLOs for applications in the networked storage environment. We propose and implement JoiNS, a system trying to ensure latency SLOs for applications that access data on remote networked storage. JoiNS carefully considers all the components along the I/O path and controls them in a coordinated fashion. JoiNS has both global network and storage visibility with a logically centralized controller which keeps monitoring the status of each involved component. JoiNS coordinates these components and adjusts the priority of I/Os in each component based on the latency SLO, network and storage status, time estimation, and characteristics of each I/O request

Intelligent adaptive bandwidth provisioning for quality of service in umts core networks

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN