A system development methodology for embedded applications

In recent years, Singapore’s manufacturing sector has contributed more than a quarter of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and has established global leadership positions in several manufacturing areas such as electronics, Information Technology (IT) and industrial automation. The Singapore Economic Review Committee (ERC) recommendation states that “software and embedded systems that drive products are one of the most important technologies for the manufacturing sector. “ With the increasing adoption of automated and intelligent products, embedded systems have emerged as a crucial technology for Singapore. However, the development of embedded applications is not a trivial undertaking as it can usually involve multi-discipline parties and different application platforms. Most embedded application developments use either vendor specific or desktop based methodologies. Vendor specific methodologies constrain the company to rely on the specific vendor's solutions, whereas desktop-based methodologies are not well suited to embedded application development. Therefore, this research aims to develop a standard-based system development methodology for embedded applications. The research programme comprises 5 stages. The first stage reviews the existing system development methodologies for embedded applications. The next stage formulates the proposed conceptual methodology followed by the development of the proof-of-concept tool to demonstrate the merits of the proposed approach. The methodology is then tested and evaluated respectively by using industrial experiments and feedback from a workshop. The final stage refines the methodology based on the feedback and presents the final system development methodology. The research has provided a sound foundation which future research in methodology for embedded applications to develop further.Eng

A system development methodology for embedded applications

In recent years, Singapore’s manufacturing sector has contributed more than a quarter of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and has established global leadership positions in several manufacturing areas such as electronics, Information Technology (IT) and industrial automation. The Singapore Economic Review Committee (ERC) recommendation states that “software and embedded systems that drive products are one of the most important technologies for the manufacturing sector. “ With the increasing adoption of automated and intelligent products, embedded systems have emerged as a crucial technology for Singapore. However, the development of embedded applications is not a trivial undertaking as it can usually involve multi-discipline parties and different application platforms. Most embedded application developments use either vendor specific or desktop based methodologies. Vendor specific methodologies constrain the company to rely on the specific vendor's solutions, whereas desktop-based methodologies are not well suited to embedded application development. Therefore, this research aims to develop a standard-based system development methodology for embedded applications. The research programme comprises 5 stages. The first stage reviews the existing system development methodologies for embedded applications. The next stage formulates the proposed conceptual methodology followed by the development of the proof-of-concept tool to demonstrate the merits of the proposed approach. The methodology is then tested and evaluated respectively by using industrial experiments and feedback from a workshop. The final stage refines the methodology based on the feedback and presents the final system development methodology. The research has provided a sound foundation which future research in methodology for embedded applications to develop further.Eng

Teaching Power-Sector Models Social and Political Awareness

Energy-system scenarios are widely used to relate the developments of the energy supply and the resulting carbon-emission pathways to political measures. To enable scenario analyses that adequately capture the variability of renewable-energy resources, a specialised type of power-sector model (PSM) has been developed since the beginning of this century, which uses input data with hourly resolution at the national or subnational levels. These models focus on techno-economic-system optimisation, which needs to be complemented with expert socioeconomic knowledge in order to prevent solutions that may be socially inacceptable or that oppose political goals. A way to integrate such knowledge into energy-system analysis is to use information from framework scenarios with a suitable geographical and technological focus. We propose a novel methodology to link framework scenarios to a PSM by applying complexity-management methods that enable a flexible choice of base scenarios that are tailored to suit different research questions. We explain the methodology, and we illustrate it in a case study that analyses the influence of the socioeconomic development on the European power-system transition until 2050 by linking the power-sector model, REMix (renewable-energy mix), to regional framework scenarios. The suggested approach proves suitable for this purpose, and it enables a clearer link between the impact of political measures and the power-system development

An innovative methodology for the development of information systems with an application to the Teachers Training College in Makkah Al-Mukkaramah, Saudi Arabia

The main aim of the Teachers' Training College (ITC) in Makkah Al-Mukkaramah, Saudi Arabia, is to develop an interest in scientific research and reading, and to conduct meaningful conversations so that pupils are trained to be good housewives, experienced researchers and professional educators in order to use their abilities to develop the Saudi community scientifically, socially, mentally and physically. The information system at TTC has a number of problems, particularly difficulties which are connected to the rapid increase in student records, the duplication of records, the fact that student information is distributed in different departments, the lack of information control, the insufficient number of information professionals, the lack of training, the shortcomings in satisfying user needs, deficiencies in the ICT infrastructure, and the absence of security planning. The senior management of the Teachers' Training College knows that the organisation has information-related problems, with information overload being a particularly prominent issue. However, these managers seem powerless to identify the root causes, being neither able to identify the source of the problems nor the people responsible for them. This research aims to study the methodological context in which recommendations for change can be made, and to apply an appropriate methodology (or multimethodology) to the development of an information system for use in the Teachers' Training College in Makkah Al-Mukkaramah. [Continues.

DEVELOPMENT PATTERN OF KAMPUNG AGRO INNOVATION SYSTEM IN BANJAR CITY

The agribusiness sector which collaborates with the tourism sector is one of the solutions in the improvement effort of Indonesia's economy. There are various ways to unite the agribusiness and tourism sectors, one of which is the development of tourism villages. Kampung Agro is a tourist village in Banjar City that allows visitors to learn to choose and pick their ready-to-harvest honey star fruit which then can be consumed directly. However, various problems still hinder the development of Kampung Agro. The management of Agro Village still relies on traditional methods without involving any innovation or technology, mainly due to the lack of coordination with farmers and minimal involvement of various stakeholders. The development of Agro Village should be carried out through a collective effort involving various stakeholders who are involved in it. This study aims to construct the development pattern of the Kampung Agro innovation system in Banjar City. The research method used is a case study with a qualitative approach data obtained from primary and secondary sources. This study used the Soft System Methodology (SSM) analytical tool approach. The results showed that in the development of Kampung Agro it is necessary to apply a pattern that involves various parties, including managers, Banjar City Government, academics, business actors and the media to make various efforts through their duties and functions. The parties involved need to collaborate in the management of Agro Village through collective efforts by implementing various actions in accordance with recommended improvement measures. There is a need for support and involvement from the Banjar City Government, in the form of education, assistance policies, as well as mentoring and supervision

Cooperative control theory and integrated flight and propulsion control

The major contribution of this research was the exposition of the fact that airframe and engine interactions could be present, and their effects could include loss of stability and performance of the control systems. Also, the significance of two directional, as opposed to one-directional, coupling was identified and explained. A multivariable stability and performance analysis methodology was developed, and applied to several candidate aircraft configurations. In these example evaluations, the significance of these interactions was underscored. Also exposed was the fact that with interactions present along with some integrated control approaches, the engine command/limiting logic (which represents an important nonlinear component of the engine control system) can impact closed-loop airframe/engine system stability. Finally, a brief investigation of control-law synthesis techniques appropriate for the class of systems was pursued, and it was determined that multivariable techniques, including model-following formulations of LQG and/or H infinity methods, showed promise. However, for practical reasons, decentralized control architectures are preferred, which is an architecture incompatible with these synthesis methods. The major contributions of the second phase of the grant was the development of conditions under which no decentralized controller could achieve closed loop system requirements on stability and/or performance. Sought were conditions that depended only on properties of the plant and the requirement, and independent of any particular control law or synthesis approach. Therefore, they could be applied a priori, before synthesis of a candidate control law. Under this grant, such conditions were found regarding stability, and encouraging initial results were obtained regarding performance

An object-based codesign methodology.

The research into Codesign of Hardware and Software stems from the development of embedded systems, on which various systems restrictions are imposed. Typical restrictions can be the overall time (latency) to complete an assigned function and the space/power limits within the system. Although software can be used to undertake most tasks in an embedded system, ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) hardware components sometimes have to be recruited to meet the system constraints. Designing the restricted embedded system with both software and hardware components in it involves the analysis of not only individual hardware/software components but also their mutual influences. Using co-design principles, the approach is to consider both hardware and software from a coherent viewpoint.This thesis presents the results from our research project in the area of Codesign of Hardware and Software. In this project, we investigated previously published codesign approaches and their methodological supports. The investigation has identified shortcomings and problems with the existing codesign methodologies. A new object-based codesign approach (Co-PARSE) is thus developed in this project, which is supported by successive phases, guidelines, and techniques. This methodology offers a coherent design framework for real-time embedded systems and incorporates the criteria of system performance and hardware cost. Tools have been developed to facilitate the use of the methodology. Within the methodology, a high-level system modeling and specification approach has been developed and formalised in the Co-BSL (Codesign Behavior Specification Language). The means of transforming Co-BSL specifications to C and VHDL implementations is defined, and a library of VHDL components provided. The thesis documents the partitioning approach taken within the methodology and proposes a new multi-layered bus architecture as a basis for more flexible and efficient implementations. A means of simulating the performance characteristics of this architecture under different configurations is provided, and examples of simulation results are presented. A new embedded system (the Radio Data Computing System) is designed and simulated in the Co-PARSE methodology and simulation results analysed. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of the work carried out in the project and proposals for extending the results obtained in future research.The major contributions reported in this thesis can be summarised as follows. First, the unified system specification means has been designed, which is embodied in the Co-BSL. It captures overall dynamic aspects and performance constraints in the system under development. This high-level specification language is independent of implementation and does not bias the designer towards the use of hardware or software components at this early stage. Second, within Co-PARSE, the target architecture of the system under development has been exploited to improve the system performance and at the same time to reduce hardware cost. This novel concept has been realised by the introduction of an asynchronous bus protocol and the multi-layer bus communication structure. Third, in order to evaluate the strength and practicability of the Co-PARSE methodology, an extensive case study has been carried out. The new RDC (Radio Dada Computing) System has been designed in the proposed codesign approach. Codesign phases are subsequently applied and the guidelines and tools that are specially developed in support of the methodology are fully utilized

A Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems: Computational Creativity Evaluation Based on What it is to be Creative

Computational creativity is a flourishing research area, with a variety of creative systems being produced and developed. Creativity evaluation has not kept pace with system development with an evident lack of systematic evaluation of the creativity of these systems in the literature. This is partially due to difficulties in defining what it means for a computer to be creative; indeed, there is no consensus on this for human creativity, let alone its computational equivalent. This paper proposes a Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems (SPECS). SPECS is a three-step process: stating what it means for a particular computational system to be creative, deriving and performing tests based on these statements. To assist this process, the paper offers a collection of key components of creativity, identified empirically from discussions of human and computational creativity. Using this approach, the SPECS methodology is demonstrated through a comparative case study evaluating computational creativity systems that improvise music

Event-based media monitoring methodology for Human Rights Watch

Executive Summary This report, prepared by a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota for Human Rights Watch (HRW), investigates the use of event-based media monitoring (EMM) to review its application, identify its strengths and weaknesses, and offer suggestions on how HRW can better utilize EMM in its own work. Media monitoring systems include both human-operated (manual) and automated systems, both of which we review throughout the report. The process begins with the selection of news sources, proceeds to the development of a coding manual (for manual searches) or “dictionary” (for automated searches), continues with gathering data, and concludes with the coding of news stories. EMM enables the near real-time tracking of events reported by the media, allowing researchers to get a sense of the scope of and trends in an event, but there are limits to what EMM can accomplish on its own. The media will only cover a portion of a given event, so information will always be missing from EMM data. EMM also introduces research biases of various kinds; mitigating these biases requires careful selection of media sources and clearly defined coding manuals or dictionaries. In manual EMM, coding the gathered data requires human researchers to apply codebook rules in order to collect consistent data from each story they read. In automated EMM, computers apply the dictionary directly to the news stories, automatically picking up the desired information. There are trade-offs in each system. Automated EMM can code stories far more quickly, but the software may incorrectly code stories, requiring manual corrections. Conversely, manual EMM allows for a more nuanced analysis, but the investment of time and effort may diminish the tool’s utility. We believe that both manual and automated EMM, when deployed correctly, can effectively support human rights research and advocacy