Models of everywhere revisited: a technological perspective

The concept ‘models of everywhere’ was first introduced in the mid 2000s as a means of reasoning about the environmental science of a place, changing the nature of the underlying modelling process, from one in which general model structures are used to one in which modelling becomes a learning process about specific places, in particular capturing the idiosyncrasies of that place. At one level, this is a straightforward concept, but at another it is a rich multi-dimensional conceptual framework involving the following key dimensions: models of everywhere, models of everything and models at all times, being constantly re-evaluated against the most current evidence. This is a compelling approach with the potential to deal with epistemic uncertainties and nonlinearities. However, the approach has, as yet, not been fully utilised or explored. This paper examines the concept of models of everywhere in the light of recent advances in technology. The paper argues that, when first proposed, technology was a limiting factor but now, with advances in areas such as Internet of Things, cloud computing and data analytics, many of the barriers have been alleviated. Consequently, it is timely to look again at the concept of models of everywhere in practical conditions as part of a trans-disciplinary effort to tackle the remaining research questions. The paper concludes by identifying the key elements of a research agenda that should underpin such experimentation and deployment

Control-data separation architecture for cellular radio access networks: a survey and outlook

Conventional cellular systems are designed to ensure ubiquitous coverage with an always present wireless channel irrespective of the spatial and temporal demand of service. This approach raises several problems due to the tight coupling between network and data access points, as well as the paradigm shift towards data-oriented services, heterogeneous deployments and network densification. A logical separation between control and data planes is seen as a promising solution that could overcome these issues, by providing data services under the umbrella of a coverage layer. This article presents a holistic survey of existing literature on the control-data separation architecture (CDSA) for cellular radio access networks. As a starting point, we discuss the fundamentals, concepts, and general structure of the CDSA. Then, we point out limitations of the conventional architecture in futuristic deployment scenarios. In addition, we present and critically discuss the work that has been done to investigate potential benefits of the CDSA, as well as its technical challenges and enabling technologies. Finally, an overview of standardisation proposals related to this research vision is provided

Continuous maintenance and the future – Foundations and technological challenges

High value and long life products require continuous maintenance throughout their life cycle to achieve required performance with optimum through-life cost. This paper presents foundations and technologies required to offer the maintenance service. Component and system level degradation science, assessment and modelling along with life cycle ‘big data’ analytics are the two most important knowledge and skill base required for the continuous maintenance. Advanced computing and visualisation technologies will improve efficiency of the maintenance and reduce through-life cost of the product. Future of continuous maintenance within the Industry 4.0 context also identifies the role of IoT, standards and cyber security

System Transition Concepts and Framework for Analysing Energy System Research and Governance

System transitions are complex societal co-evolutionary processes that are typically led by gradual adaptation rather than visionary management or coordination. Still, visionary coordination of policies, regulation, corporate strategies and social learning may overcome some barriers and foster new innovation efforts providing sufficient impetus towards system transition. This paper addresses ´system transition´ as a valuable perspective and develops a framework for analysing Nordic energy system research and governance. The framework integrates different transitions phases, levels and dimensions and combines them with the governance functions to provide overarching frames for understandingInnovación , Techno-institutional lock-in, Administración en un ambiente global, energy

Personalised Learning: Educational, Technological and Standardisation Perspective

The e-Learning paradigm shift capitalises on two main aspect: the elimination of the barriers of time and distance, and the personalisation of the learners’ experience. The current trend in education and training emphasises on identifying methods and tools for delivering just-in-time, on-demand knowledge experiences tailored individual learners, taking into consideration their differences in skills level, perspectives, culture and other educational contexts. This paper reviews the shift towards personalised learning, from an educational, technological and standardisation perspective.The e-Learning paradigm shift capitalises on two main aspect: the elimination of the barriers of time and distance, and the personalisation of the learners’ experience. The current trend in education and training emphasises on identifying methods and tools for delivering just-in-time, on-demand knowledge experiences tailored individual learners, taking into consideration their differences in skills level, perspectives, culture and other educational contexts. This paper reviews the shift towards personalised learning, from an educational, technological and standardisation perspective

An Ontology-Driven Methodology To Derive Cases From Structured And Unstructured Sources

The problem-solving capability of a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) system largely depends on the richness of its knowledge stored in the form of cases, i.e. the CaseBase (CB). Populating and subsequently maintaining a critical mass of cases in a CB is a tedious manual activity demanding vast human and operational resources. The need for human involvement in populating a CB can be drastically reduced as case-like knowledge already exists in the form of databases and documents and harnessed and transformed into cases that can be operationalized. Nevertheless, the transformation process poses many hurdles due to the disparate structure and the heterogeneous coding standards used. The featured work aims to address knowledge creation from heterogeneous sources and structures. To meet this end, this thesis presents a Multi-Source Case Acquisition and Transformation Info-Structure (MUSCATI). MUSCATI has been implemented as a multi-layer architecture using state-of-the-practice tools and can be perceived as a functional extension to traditional CBR-systems. In principle, MUSCATI can be applied in any domain but in this thesis healthcare was chosen. Thus, Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) were used as the source to generate the knowledge. The results from the experiments showed that the volume and diversity of cases improves the reasoning outcome of the CBR engine. The experiments showed that knowledge found in medical records (regardless of structure) can be leveraged and standardized to enhance the (medical) knowledge of traditional medical CBR systems. Subsequently, the Google search engine proved to be very critical in “fixing” and enriching the domain ontology on-the-fly

ERIGrid Holistic Test Description for Validating Cyber-Physical Energy Systems

Smart energy solutions aim to modify and optimise the operation of existing energy infrastructure. Such cyber-physical technology must be mature before deployment to the actual infrastructure, and competitive solutions will have to be compliant to standards still under development. Achieving this technology readiness and harmonisation requires reproducible experiments and appropriately realistic testing environments. Such testbeds for multi-domain cyber-physical experiments are complex in and of themselves. This work addresses a method for the scoping and design of experiments where both testbed and solution each require detailed expertise. This empirical work first revisited present test description approaches, developed a newdescription method for cyber-physical energy systems testing, and matured it by means of user involvement. The new Holistic Test Description (HTD) method facilitates the conception, deconstruction and reproduction of complex experimental designs in the domains of cyber-physical energy systems. This work develops the background and motivation, offers a guideline and examples to the proposed approach, and summarises experience from three years of its application.This work received funding in the European Community’s Horizon 2020 Program (H2020/2014–2020) under project “ERIGrid” (Grant Agreement No. 654113)

European governance challenges in bio-engineering : making perfect life : bio-engineering (in) the 21st century : final report

In the STOA project Making Perfect Life four fields were studied of 21st century bio-engineering: engineering of living artefacts, engineering of the body, engineering of the brain, and engineering of intelligent artefacts. This report describes the main results of the project. It shows how developments in the four fields of bio-engineering are shaped by two megatrends: "biology becoming technology" and "technology becoming biology". These developments result in a broadening of the bio-engineering debate in our society. The report addresses the long term views that are inspiring this debate and discusses a multitude of ethical, legal and social issues that arise from bio-engineering developments in the fields described. Against this background four specific developments are studied in more detail: the rise of human genome sequencing, the market introduction of neurodevices, the capturing by information technology of the psychological and physiological states of users, and the pursuit of standardisation in synthetic biology. These developments are taken in this report as a starting point for an analysis of some of the main European governance challenges in 21st century bio-engineering

European governance challenges in bio-engineering : making perfect life : bio-engineering (in) the 21st century : final report

In the STOA project Making Perfect Life four fields were studied of 21st century bio-engineering: engineering of living artefacts, engineering of the body, engineering of the brain, and engineering of intelligent artefacts. This report describes the main results of the project. It shows how developments in the four fields of bio-engineering are shaped by two megatrends: "biology becoming technology" and "technology becoming biology". These developments result in a broadening of the bio-engineering debate in our society. The report addresses the long term views that are inspiring this debate and discusses a multitude of ethical, legal and social issues that arise from bio-engineering developments in the fields described. Against this background four specific developments are studied in more detail: the rise of human genome sequencing, the market introduction of neurodevices, the capturing by information technology of the psychological and physiological states of users, and the pursuit of standardisation in synthetic biology. These developments are taken in this report as a starting point for an analysis of some of the main European governance challenges in 21st century bio-engineering