Formal Modelling and Analysis of a Self-Adaptive Robotic System

Self-adaptation is a crucial feature of autonomous systems that must cope with uncertainties in, e.g., their environment and their internal state. Self-adaptive systems are often modelled as two-layered systems with a managed subsystem handling the domain concerns and a managing subsystem implementing the adaptation logic. We consider a case study of a self-adaptive robotic system; more concretely, an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) used for pipeline inspection. In this paper, we model and analyse it with the feature-aware probabilistic model checker ProFeat. The functionalities of the AUV are modelled in a feature model, capturing the AUV's variability. This allows us to model the managed subsystem of the AUV as a family of systems, where each family member corresponds to a valid feature configuration of the AUV. The managing subsystem of the AUV is modelled as a control layer capable of dynamically switching between such valid feature configurations, depending both on environmental and internal conditions. We use this model to analyse probabilistic reward and safety properties for the AUV.Comment: This version includes an acknowledgement to the published version of the pape

Alleged Lessepsian foraminifera prove native and suggest Pleistocene range expansions into the Mediterranean Sea

Biogeographical patterns are increasingly modified by the human-driven translocation of species, a process that accelerated several centuries ago. Observational datasets, however, rarely range back more than a few decades, implying that a large part of invasion histories went unobserved. Small-sized organisms, like benthic foraminifera, are more likely to have been reported only recently due to their lower detectability compared to larger-sized organisms. Recently detected native species of tropical affinity may have thus been mistaken for non-indigenous species due to the lack of evidence of their occurrence in pre-invasion records. To uncover the unobserved past of the Lessepsian invasion—the entrance of tropical species into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal—we collected sediment cores on the southern Israeli shelf. We deployed state-of-the-art radiocarbon techniques to date 7 individual foraminiferal tests belonging to 5 alleged non-indigenous species and show that they are centuries to millennia old, thus native. Two additional species previously considered non-indigenous occurred in centennial to millennia-old sediments, suggesting their native status. The evidence of multiple tropical foraminiferal species supposed to be non-indigenous but proved native in the eastern Mediterranean suggests either survival in refugia during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (5.96−5.33 million years) or, more likely, dispersal from the tropical Atlantic and Indo-Pacific during the Pleistocene. In the interglacials of this epoch, higher sea levels may have allowed biological connectivity between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea for shallow-water species, showing that the Isthmus of Suez was possibly a more biologically porous barrier than previously considered

Food intake monitoring: Automated chew event detection in chewing sounds

The analysis of the food intake behavior has the potential to provide insights into the development of obesity and eating disorders. As an elementary part of this analysis, chewing strokes have to be detected and counted. Our approach for food intake analysis is the evaluation of chewing sounds generated during the process of eating. These sounds were recorded by microphones applied to the outer ear canal of the user. Eight different algorithms for automated chew event detection were presented and evaluated on two datasets. The first dataset contained food intake sounds from the consumption of six types of food. The second dataset consisted of recordings of different environmental sounds. These datasets contained 68 094 chew events in around 18 h recording data. The results of the automated chew event detection were compared to manual annotations. Precision and recall over 80% were achieved by most of the algorithms. A simple noise reduction algorithm using spectral sub traction was implemented for signal enhancement. Its benefit on the chew event detection performance was evaluated. A reduction of the number of false detections by 28% on average was achieved by maintaining the detection performance. The system is able to be used for calculation of the chewing frequency in laboratory settings

Formal Modelling and Analysis of a Self-Adaptive Robotic System (Artifact)

<p>This is the artifact accompanying our paper "Formal Modelling and Analysis of a Self-Adaptive Robotic System" accepted for publication at the 18th International Conference on integrated Formal Methods (iFM).</p> <p>The artifact contains all the necessary material to run it on the <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/7782241">iFM 2023 Artifact Evaluation VM</a>, as well as an extensive README file with instructions on the set-up, replication of the results of the paper, and ideas for extensions.</p> <p>The code of the artifact, without PRISM and ProFeat, can be found <a href="https://github.com/remaro-network/auv_profeat">here. </a></p&gt

Formal Modelling and Analysis of a Self-Adaptive Robotic System (Artifact)

<p>This is the artifact accompanying our paper "Formal Modelling and Analysis of a Self-Adaptive Robotic System" accepted for publication at the 18th International Conference on integrated Formal Methods (iFM).</p> <p>The artifact contains all the necessary material to run it on the <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/7782241">iFM 2023 Artifact Evaluation VM</a>, as well as an extensive README file with instructions on the set-up, replication of the results of the paper, and ideas for extensions.</p> <p>The code of the artifact, without PRISM and ProFeat, can be found <a href="https://github.com/remaro-network/auv_profeat">here. </a></p&gt

Alleged Lessepsian foraminifera prove native and suggest Pleistocene range expansions into the Mediterranean Sea

Biogeographical patterns are increasingly modified by the human-driven translocation of species, a process that accelerated several centuries ago. Observational datasets, however, rarely range back more than a few decades, implying that a large part of invasion histories went unobserved. Small-sized organisms, like benthic foraminifera, are more likely to have been reported only recently due to their lower detectability compared to larger-sized organisms. Recently detected native species of tropical affinity may have thus been mistaken for non-indigenous species due to the lack of evidence of their occurrence in pre-invasion records. To uncover the unobserved past of the Lessepsian invasion—the entrance of tropical species into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal—we collected sediment cores on the southern Israeli shelf. We deployed state-of-the-art radiocarbon techniques to date 7 individual foraminiferal tests belonging to 5 alleged non-indigenous species and show that they are centuries to millennia old, thus native. Two additional species previously considered non-indigenous occurred in centennial to millennia-old sediments, suggesting their native status. The evidence of multiple tropical foraminiferal species supposed to be non-indigenous but proved native in the eastern Mediterranean suggests either survival in refugia during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (5.96-5.33 million years) or, more likely, dispersal from the tropical Atlantic and Indo-Pacific during the Pleistocene. In the interglacials of this epoch, higher sea levels may have allowed biological connectivity between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea for shallow-water species, showing that the Isthmus of Suez was possibly a more biologically porous barrier than previously considered

Entwicklung eines Sensors zur spezifischen Proteindetektion am Beispiel von Norovirus-Kapsidprotein

The results of the development of molecular based principles for the detection of proteins are presented. These are essentially based on the evidence of the specific interaction of aptamers with proteins by means of impedimetric measurement methods and surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy. Additionally, the recombinant expression of the capsid proteins of noroviruses and their use for the selection of norovirus specific aptamers are shown