Modern software cybernetics: new trends

Software cybernetics research is to apply a variety of techniques from cybernetics research to software engineering research. For more than fifteen years since 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in work relating to software cybernetics. From cybernetics viewpoint, the work is mainly on the first-order level, namely, the software under observation and control. Beyond the first-order cybernetics, the software, developers/users, and running environments influence each other and thus create feedback to form more complicated systems. We classify software cybernetics as Software Cybernetics I based on the first-order cybernetics, and as Software Cybernetics II based on the higher order cybernetics. This paper provides a review of the literature on software cybernetics, particularly focusing on the transition from Software Cybernetics I to Software Cybernetics II. The results of the survey indicate that some new research areas such as Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, cyber-physical systems, and even creative computing are related to Software Cybernetics II. The paper identifies the relationships between the techniques of Software Cybernetics II applied and the new research areas to which they have been applied, formulates research problems and challenges of software cybernetics with the application of principles of Phase II of software cybernetics; identifies and highlights new research trends of software cybernetic for further research

Modern software cybernetics: New trends

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Software cybernetics research is to apply a variety of techniques from cybernetics research to software engineering research. For more than fifteen years since 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in work relating to software cybernetics. From cybernetics viewpoint, the work is mainly on the first-order level, namely, the software under observation and control. Beyond the first-order cybernetics, the software, developers/users, and running environments influence each other and thus create feedback to form more complicated systems. We classify software cybernetics as Software Cybernetics I based on the first-order cybernetics, and as Software Cybernetics II based on the higher order cybernetics. This paper provides a review of the literature on software cybernetics, particularly focusing on the transition from Software Cybernetics I to Software Cybernetics II. The results of the survey indicate that some new research areas such as Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, cyber-physical systems, and even creative computing are related to Software Cybernetics II. The paper identifies the relationships between the techniques of Software Cybernetics II applied and the new research areas to which they have been applied, formulates research problems and challenges of software cybernetics with the application of principles of Phase II of software cybernetics; identifies and highlights new research trends of software cybernetic for further research

Dealing with uncertain entities in ontology alignment using rough sets

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Ontology alignment facilitates exchange of knowledge among heterogeneous data sources. Many approaches to ontology alignment use multiple similarity measures to map entities between ontologies. However, it remains a key challenge in dealing with uncertain entities for which the employed ontology alignment measures produce conflicting results on similarity of the mapped entities. This paper presents OARS, a rough-set based approach to ontology alignment which achieves a high degree of accuracy in situations where uncertainty arises because of the conflicting results generated by different similarity measures. OARS employs a combinational approach and considers both lexical and structural similarity measures. OARS is extensively evaluated with the benchmark ontologies of the ontology alignment evaluation initiative (OAEI) 2010, and performs best in the aspect of recall in comparison with a number of alignment systems while generating a comparable performance in precision

Challenging the Computational Metaphor: Implications for How We Think

This paper explores the role of the traditional computational metaphor in our thinking as computer scientists, its influence on epistemological styles, and its implications for our understanding of cognition. It proposes to replace the conventional metaphor--a sequence of steps--with the notion of a community of interacting entities, and examines the ramifications of such a shift on these various ways in which we think

An overview of decision table literature 1982-1995.

This report gives an overview of the literature on decision tables over the past 15 years. As much as possible, for each reference, an author supplied abstract, a number of keywords and a classification are provided. In some cases own comments are added. The purpose of these comments is to show where, how and why decision tables are used. The literature is classified according to application area, theoretical versus practical character, year of publication, country or origin (not necessarily country of publication) and the language of the document. After a description of the scope of the interview, classification results and the classification by topic are presented. The main body of the paper is the ordered list of publications with abstract, classification and comments.

Methods of Technical Prognostics Applicable to Embedded Systems

Hlavní cílem dizertace je poskytnutí uceleného pohledu na problematiku technické prognostiky, která nachází uplatnění v tzv. prediktivní údržbě založené na trvalém monitorování zařízení a odhadu úrovně degradace systému či jeho zbývající životnosti a to zejména v oblasti komplexních zařízení a strojů. V současnosti je technická diagnostika poměrně dobře zmapovaná a reálně nasazená na rozdíl od technické prognostiky, která je stále rozvíjejícím se oborem, který ovšem postrádá větší množství reálných aplikaci a navíc ne všechny metody jsou dostatečně přesné a aplikovatelné pro embedded systémy. Dizertační práce přináší přehled základních metod použitelných pro účely predikce zbývající užitné životnosti, jsou zde popsány metriky pomocí, kterých je možné jednotlivé přístupy porovnávat ať už z pohledu přesnosti, ale také i z pohledu výpočetní náročnosti. Jedno z dizertačních jader tvoří doporučení a postup pro výběr vhodné prognostické metody s ohledem na prognostická kritéria. Dalším dizertačním jádrem je představení tzv. částicového filtrovaní (particle filtering) vhodné pro model-based prognostiku s ověřením jejich implementace a porovnáním. Hlavní dizertační jádro reprezentuje případovou studii pro velmi aktuální téma prognostiky Li-Ion baterii s ohledem na trvalé monitorování. Případová studie demonstruje proces prognostiky založené na modelu a srovnává možné přístupy jednak pro odhad doby před vybitím baterie, ale také sleduje možné vlivy na degradaci baterie. Součástí práce je základní ověření modelu Li-Ion baterie a návrh prognostického procesu.The main aim of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive overview of technical prognosis, which is applied in the condition based maintenance, based on continuous device monitoring and remaining useful life estimation, especially in the field of complex equipment and machinery. Nowadays technical prognosis is still evolving discipline with limited number of real applications and is not so well developed as technical diagnostics, which is fairly well mapped and deployed in real systems. Thesis provides an overview of basic methods applicable for prediction of remaining useful life, metrics, which can help to compare the different approaches both in terms of accuracy and in terms of computational/deployment cost. One of the research cores consists of recommendations and guide for selecting the appropriate forecasting method with regard to the prognostic criteria. Second thesis research core provides description and applicability of particle filtering framework suitable for model-based forecasting. Verification of their implementation and comparison is provided. The main research topic of the thesis provides a case study for a very actual Li-Ion battery health monitoring and prognostics with respect to continuous monitoring. The case study demonstrates the prognostic process based on the model and compares the possible approaches for estimating both the runtime and capacity fade. Proposed methodology is verified on real measured data.

Federated Embedded Systems – a review of the literature in related fields

This report is concerned with the vision of smart interconnected objects, a vision that has attracted much attention lately. In this paper, embedded, interconnected, open, and heterogeneous control systems are in focus, formally referred to as Federated Embedded Systems. To place FES into a context, a review of some related research directions is presented. This review includes such concepts as systems of systems, cyber-physical systems, ubiquitous computing, internet of things, and multi-agent systems. Interestingly, the reviewed fields seem to overlap with each other in an increasing number of ways

Database Systems - Present and Future

The database systems have nowadays an increasingly important role in the knowledge-based society, in which computers have penetrated all fields of activity and the Internet tends to develop worldwide. In the current informatics context, the development of the applications with databases is the work of the specialists. Using databases, reach a database from various applications, and also some of related concepts, have become accessible to all categories of IT users. This paper aims to summarize the curricular area regarding the fundamental database systems issues, which are necessary in order to train specialists in economic informatics higher education. The database systems integrate and interfere with several informatics technologies and therefore are more difficult to understand and use. Thus, students should know already a set of minimum, mandatory concepts and their practical implementation: computer systems, programming techniques, programming languages, data structures. The article also presents the actual trends in the evolution of the database systems, in the context of economic informatics.database systems - DBS, database management systems – DBMS, database – DB, programming languages, data models, database design, relational database, object-oriented systems, distributed systems, advanced database systems

Generating citizen trust in e-government using a trust verification agent: A research note

Generating Citizen Trust in e-Government using a Trust Verification AgentThis is an eGISE network paper. It is motivated by a concern about the extent to which trust issues inhibit a citizen’s take-up of online public sector services or engagement with public decision and policy making. A citizen’s decision to use online systems is influenced by their willingness to trust the environment and agency involved. This project addresses one aspect of individual “trust” decisions by providing support for citizens trying to evaluate the implications of the security infrastructure provided by the agency. Based on studies of the way both groups (citizens and agencies) express their concerns and concepts in the security area, the project will develop a software tool – a trust verification agent (TVA) - that can take an agency’s security statements (or security audit) and infer how effectively this meets the security concerns of a particular citizen. This will enable citizens to state their concerns and obtain an evaluation of the agency’s provision in appropriate “citizen friendly” language. Further, by employing rule-based expert systems techniques the TVA will also be able to explain its evaluation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK (grant GR/T27020/01