Towards detecting and solving aspect conflicts and interferences using unit tests

Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) is a programming paradigm that aims at solving the problem of crosscutting concerns being normally scattered throughout several units of an application.Although an important step forward in the search for modularity, by breaking the notion of encapsulation introduced by Object Oriented Programming (OOP), AOP has proven to be prone to numerous problems caused by conflicts and interferences between aspects.This paper presents work that explores the proven unit testing techniques as a mean to help developers describe the behavior of their aspects and to advise them about possible conflicts and interferences

Disciplined Reuse of Aspects (State of the Art & Work Plan)

This document describes the work plan and state of the art for the PhD work of André Restivo started in 2006. Acceptance of this document by a steering committee is mandatory for the final registration in the Doctoral Programme in Informatics Engineering (ProDEI) at the Engineering Faculty of University of Porto

Catalogue of unexpected interactions between aspects

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Development of a BIM-based simulator for workspace management in construction

openNei cantieri edili, quali contesti altamente dinamici, lo spazio richiesto dalle attività muta continuamente evidenziando la necessità di considerarlo come una risorsa limitata. Ad oggi, le aree di lavoro non sono efficacemente gestite né dalle tecniche tradizionali di pianificazione né dagli strumenti 4D più avanzati. I manager del processo costruttivo sono costretti a condurre considerazioni spaziali manualmente sulla base di schizzi 2D. Tale approccio è altamente dispendioso e soggetto ad errori; inoltre, come dimostrano le statistiche, è una delle principali cause di infortuni e riduzione della produttività. Questa tesi di dottorato affronta il problema della gestione delle aree di lavoro, proponendo un approccio che integra la fase di pianificazione con la verifica delle interferenze, condotta da un simulatore spaziale sviluppato in un motore grafico. Tale simulatore, acquisiti il modello BIM ed il cronoprogramma, individua eventuali conflitti spaziali quale risultato di computazioni geometriche e simulazioni fisiche. La criticità dei conflitti viene stimata mediante inferenza Bayesiana al fine di escludere scenari trascurabili. Successivamente, i manager del processo costruttivo, consapevoli dei possibili conflitti spaziali futuri, modificano o confermano il cronoprogramma. Questo approccio può essere applicato per identificare i conflitti spaziali sia durante la fase di pianificazione che quella di esecuzione dei lavori. In questa tesi, il simulatore spaziale proposto è stato validato con riferimento alla fase di pianificazione dei lavori di un edificio reale. I risultati hanno dimostrato la sua capacità di identificare non solo un maggior numero di conflitti, rispetto agli strumenti dello stato dell’arte, ma anche di stimare il relativo livello di criticità evitando sovrastime. In futuro, l’approccio proposto in questa tesi, adattato con minime integrazioni, potrà essere applicato a runtime per aggiornare il cronoprogramma durante l’esecuzione dei lavori.In the AEC industry, construction sites are very dynamic operating environments. Activities workspace demand continuously changes across space demanding and time, stressing the need to consider the space as a limited and renewable resource. This issue has not been fully handled yet, neither by traditional scheduling techniques nor by more advanced 4D tools. For these reasons, construction management teams usually carry out manually spatial considerations based on 2D sketches. This approach, especially in big construction projects, is highly time-demanding and error-prone causing, as demonstrated by statistics, injuries, and productivity slowdown. To cover these gaps, this study proposes a workspace management framework that integrates the work scheduling phase with spatial analysis, carried out by a spatial conflict simulator developed using a serious game engine. The simulator, given the BIM model and the construction work schedule, can detect eventual spatial interferences based on geometric computations and physics simulations. The detected conflicts are then judged applying Bayesian inference to filter non-critical scenarios and avoid overestimation. Afterwards, the construction management team, made aware of likely future spatial issues, can adjust or confirm the work schedule. This approach can provide a valuable contribution in detecting spatial conflicts during both the construction planning phase and works execution. In this study, the proposed spatial conflict simulator has been validated on the planning phase of a real use case, demonstrating its capability to not only detect an increased number of spatial issues, compared to the state-of-the-art tools, but also to esteem related criticality levels and avoid overestimations. In the future, the proposed approach, adapted with minor changes, can be applied at runtime for proactively refining the work schedule during works execution.INGEGNERIA CIVILE, AMBIENTALE, EDILE E ARCHITETTURAopenMessi, Leonard

Integer programming based solution approaches for the train dispatching problem

Railroads face the challenge of competing with the trucking industry in a fastpaced environment. In this respect, they are working toward running freight trains on schedule and reducing travel times. The planned train schedules consist of departure and arrival times at main stations on the rail network. A detailed timetable, on the other hand, consists of the departure and arrival times of each train in each track section of its route. The train dispatching problem aims to determine detailed timetables over a rail network in order to minimize deviations from the planned schedule. We provide a new integer programming formulation for this problem based on a spacetime network; we propose heuristic algorithms to solve it and present computational results of these algorithms. Our approach includes some realistic constraints that have not been previously considered as well as all the assumptions and practical issues considered by the earlier works

Lessons Learned from AIV in ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! Educational CubeSat Programme

‘Fly Your Satellite!’ (FYS) is a recurring hands-on programme conducted by the ESA (European Space Agency) Academy Unit of ESA’s Education Office. Fly Your Satellite! was established to support university student teams in the development of their own CubeSats by enabling a transfer of knowledge and experience from ESA specialists to students. Selected teams are guided through project reviews and supervised through design consolidation and verification activities, conducted according to ESA professional practice and to standards tailored to fit the scope of university CubeSat projects. This paper focuses on key lessons learned and issues identified during the ongoing verification activities of the CubeSats in the second cycle of FYS (FYS2), and on how that experience is used to the benefit of participants of future cycles, including the teams in the third cycle (FYS3), who are now in the late stages of their Critical Design Review. Special attention is given to the lessons learned during the manufacturing, assembly, integration and testing phases as experience shows that first-time developers tend to underestimate the number of issues which arise when the design is translated from documentation and models into physical hardware. The lessons learned are categorised into the topics of Development, AIV, Project Management, and Product Assurance. In the Development category, the lessons learns suggest attention should be focused on emphasizing the importance of development models and FlatSats for early testing, proactive development of aspects which don’t appear to be immediately critical or appear to be on the project’s critical path (such as software and test GSE), and anticipating the need for compatibility with a range of possible orbit scenarios. The Assembly, Integration, and Verification category contains a large variety of lessons learned from the preparation for AIV activities, anomalies encountered, and reflection on what was done well in the programme. These lessons cover topics such as dimensional requirement non-conformances, electromagnetic interferences, and recommendations for system level testing preparation. Lessons learned for the Project Management category mostly arise from the understandable lack of (space) project management experience of the student teams, and the discussion focuses on possible mitigation approaches that can be implemented. Specific topics covered include delayed project schedules, management of student resources, risk management, and experiences with legal and regulatory requirements. The lessons learned on Product Assurance stem primarily from the difficulties in applying standard methodologies to educational small spacecraft projects. Problems with configuration control, clean room practices, and anomaly investigation methods are discussed, with recommendations for how student teams could solve such issues, primarily through the creation of additional documentation to track modifications and processes implemented

3D-in-2D Displays for ATC.

This paper reports on the efforts and accomplishments of the 3D-in-2D Displays for ATC project at the end of Year 1. We describe the invention of 10 novel 3D/2D visualisations that were mostly implemented in the Augmented Reality ARToolkit. These prototype implementations of visualisation and interaction elements can be viewed on the accompanying video. We have identified six candidate design concepts which we will further research and develop. These designs correspond with the early feasibility studies stage of maturity as defined by the NASA Technology Readiness Level framework. We developed the Combination Display Framework from a review of the literature, and used it for analysing display designs in terms of display technique used and how they are combined. The insights we gained from this framework then guided our inventions and the human-centered innovation process we use to iteratively invent. Our designs are based on an understanding of user work practices. We also developed a simple ATC simulator that we used for rapid experimentation and evaluation of design ideas. We expect that if this project continues, the effort in Year 2 and 3 will be focus on maturing the concepts and employment in a operational laboratory settings

The Path to Clinical Proteomics Research: Integration of Proteomics, Genomics, Clinical Laboratory and Regulatory Science

Better biomarkers are urgently needed to cancer detection, diagnosis, and prognosis. While the genomics community is making significant advances in understanding the molecular basis of disease, proteomics will delineate the functional units of a cell, proteins and their intricate interaction network and signaling pathways for the underlying disease. Great progress has been made to characterize thousands of proteins qualitatively and quantitatively in complex biological systems by utilizing multi-dimensional sample fractionation strategies, mass spectrometry and protein microarrays. Comparative/quantitative analysis of high-quality clinical biospecimen (e.g., tissue and biofluids) of human cancer proteome landscape has the potential to reveal protein/peptide biomarkers responsible for this disease by means of their altered levels of expression, post-translational modifications as well as different forms of protein variants. Despite technological advances in proteomics, major hurdles still exist in every step of the biomarker development pipeline. The National Cancer Institute's Clinical Proteomic Technologies for Cancer initiative (NCI-CPTC) has taken a critical step to close the gap between biomarker discovery and qualification by introducing a pre-clinical "verification" stage in the pipeline, partnering with clinical laboratory organizations to develop and implement common standards, and developing regulatory science documents with the US Food and Drug Administration to educate the proteomics community on analytical evaluation requirements for multiplex assays in order to ensure the safety and effectiveness of these tests for their intended use