Discrete event simulation and virtual reality use in industry: new opportunities and future trends

This paper reviews the area of combined discrete event simulation (DES) and virtual reality (VR) use within industry. While establishing a state of the art for progress in this area, this paper makes the case for VR DES as the vehicle of choice for complex data analysis through interactive simulation models, highlighting both its advantages and current limitations. This paper reviews active research topics such as VR and DES real-time integration, communication protocols, system design considerations, model validation, and applications of VR and DES. While summarizing future research directions for this technology combination, the case is made for smart factory adoption of VR DES as a new platform for scenario testing and decision making. It is put that in order for VR DES to fully meet the visualization requirements of both Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet visions of digital manufacturing, further research is required in the areas of lower latency image processing, DES delivery as a service, gesture recognition for VR DES interaction, and linkage of DES to real-time data streams and Big Data sets

Deliverable JRA1.1: Evaluation of current network control and management planes for multi-domain network infrastructure

This deliverable includes a compilation and evaluation of available control and management architectures and protocols applicable to a multilayer infrastructure in a multi-domain Virtual Network environment.The scope of this deliverable is mainly focused on the virtualisation of the resources within a network and at processing nodes. The virtualization of the FEDERICA infrastructure allows the provisioning of its available resources to users by means of FEDERICA slices. A slice is seen by the user as a real physical network under his/her domain, however it maps to a logical partition (a virtual instance) of the physical FEDERICA resources. A slice is built to exhibit to the highest degree all the principles applicable to a physical network (isolation, reproducibility, manageability, ...). Currently, there are no standard definitions available for network virtualization or its associated architectures. Therefore, this deliverable proposes the Virtual Network layer architecture and evaluates a set of Management- and Control Planes that can be used for the partitioning and virtualization of the FEDERICA network resources. This evaluation has been performed taking into account an initial set of FEDERICA requirements; a possible extension of the selected tools will be evaluated in future deliverables. The studies described in this deliverable define the virtual architecture of the FEDERICA infrastructure. During this activity, the need has been recognised to establish a new set of basic definitions (taxonomy) for the building blocks that compose the so-called slice, i.e. the virtual network instantiation (which is virtual with regard to the abstracted view made of the building blocks of the FEDERICA infrastructure) and its architectural plane representation. These definitions will be established as a common nomenclature for the FEDERICA project. Other important aspects when defining a new architecture are the user requirements. It is crucial that the resulting architecture fits the demands that users may have. Since this deliverable has been produced at the same time as the contact process with users, made by the project activities related to the Use Case definitions, JRA1 has proposed a set of basic Use Cases to be considered as starting point for its internal studies. When researchers want to experiment with their developments, they need not only network resources on their slices, but also a slice of the processing resources. These processing slice resources are understood as virtual machine instances that users can use to make them behave as software routers or end nodes, on which to download the software protocols or applications they have produced and want to assess in a realistic environment. Hence, this deliverable also studies the APIs of several virtual machine management software products in order to identify which best suits FEDERICA’s needs.Postprint (published version

Intelligent systems in manufacturing: current developments and future prospects

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are demanding increasing changes in manufacturing environments. Enterprises are required to constantly redesign their products and continuously reconfigure their manufacturing systems. Traditional approaches to manufacturing systems do not fully satisfy this new situation. Many authors have proposed that artificial intelligence will bring the flexibility and efficiency needed by manufacturing systems. This paper is a review of artificial intelligence techniques used in manufacturing systems. The paper first defines the components of a simplified intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS), the different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to be considered and then shows how these AI techniques are used for the components of IMS

Construction safety and digital design: a review

As digital technologies become widely used in designing buildings and infrastructure, questions arise about their impacts on construction safety. This review explores relationships between construction safety and digital design practices with the aim of fostering and directing further research. It surveys state-of-the-art research on databases, virtual reality, geographic information systems, 4D CAD, building information modeling and sensing technologies, finding various digital tools for addressing safety issues in the construction phase, but few tools to support design for construction safety. It also considers a literature on safety critical, digital and design practices that raises a general concern about ‘mindlessness’ in the use of technologies, and has implications for the emerging research agenda around construction safety and digital design. Bringing these strands of literature together suggests new kinds of interventions, such as the development of tools and processes for using digital models to promote mindfulness through multi-party collaboration on safet

eXtended Reality for Education and Training

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Alternative sweetener from curculigo fruits

This study gives an overview on the advantages of Curculigo Latifolia as an alternative sweetener and a health product. The purpose of this research is to provide another option to the people who suffer from diabetes. In this research, Curculigo Latifolia was chosen, due to its unique properties and widely known species in Malaysia. In order to obtain the sweet protein from the fruit, it must go through a couple of procedures. First we harvested the fruits from the Curculigo trees that grow wildly in the garden. Next, the Curculigo fruits were dried in the oven at 50 0C for 3 days. Finally, the dried fruits were blended in order to get a fine powder. Curculin is a sweet protein with a taste-modifying activity of converting sourness to sweetness. The curculin content from the sample shown are directly proportional to the mass of the Curculigo fine powder. While the FTIR result shows that the sample spectrum at peak 1634 cm–1 contains secondary amines. At peak 3307 cm–1 contains alkynes