A case study on the use of machine learning techniques for supporting technology watch

Technology Watch human agents have to read many documents in order to manually categorize and dispatch them to the correct expert, that will later add valued information to each document. In this two step process, the first one, the categorization of documents, is time consuming and relies on the knowledge of a human categorizer agent. It does not add direct valued information to the process that will be provided in the second step, when the document is revised by the correct expert. This paper proposes Machine Learning tools and techniques to learn from the manually pre-categorized data to automatically classify new content. For this work a real industrial context was considered. Text from original documents, text from added value information and Semantic Annotations of those texts were used to generate different models, considering manually pre-established categories. Moreover, three algorithms from different approaches were used to generate the models. Finally, the results obtained were compared to select the best model in terms of accuracy and also on the reduction of the amount of document readings (human workload)

A Holistic and Interoperable Approach towards the Implementation of Services for the Digital Transformation of Smart Cities: The Case of Vitoria-Gasteiz

Cities in the 21st century play a major role in the sustainability and climate impact reduction challenges set by the European agenda. As the population of cities grows and their environmental impact becomes more evident, the European strategy aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—the main cause of climate change. Measures to reduce the impact of climate change include reducing energy consumption, improving mobility, harnessing resources and renewable energies, integrating nature-based solutions and efficiently managing infrastructure. The monitoring and control of all this activity is essential for its proper functioning. In this context, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a key role in the digitisation, monitoring, and managing of these different verticals. Urban data platforms support cities on extracting Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in their efforts to make better decisions. Cities must be transformed by applying efficient urban planning measures and taking into account not only technological aspects, but also by applying a holistic vision in building solutions where citizens are at the centre. In addition, standardisation of platforms where applications are integrated as one is necessary. This requires interoperability between different verticals. This article presents the information platform developed for the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain. The platform is based on the UNE 178104 standard to provide a holistic architecture that integrates information from the different urban planning measures implemented in the city. The platform was constructed in the context of the SmartEnCity project following the urban transformation strategy established by the city. The article presents the value-added solutions implemented in the platform. These solutions have been developed by applying co-creation techniques in which stakeholders have been involved throughout the process. The platform proposes a step forward towards standardization, harmonises the integration of data from multiple vertical, provides interoperability between services, and simplifies scalability and replicability due to its microservice architecture

Architecture for managing AAS-based business processes

Industries frequently encounter the need to orchestrate services provided by devices as business processes. These industrial business process models need to meet Industry 4.0 (I4.0) specifications to handle unpredictable scenarios in the manufacturing process. Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is considered the cornerstone of interoperability between machines and applications that compose manufacturing systems. AAS facilitates the digitization of physical things (assets) for virtual representation, turning an object into an I4.0 component. This paper investigates the usage of AAS in the context of business process orchestration and a proposal is presented based on those drawbacks. The contributions of this paper are 1) Present an architecture for the management of AAS-based business processes. 2) Introduce an AAS Submodel template that enables the description and registration of the RestServices of an asset. 3) Present a plugin for Camunda Modeler that enables the Service-Discovery mechanism from a chosen AAS repository and maps assets services into BPMN Service-Tasks. And, 4) Outline opportunities for future work between AAS and business process management systems with a primary focus on context-aware capabilities for enhancing the dynamicity of workflows

Web Augmentation as a Technique to Diminish User Interactions in Repetitive Tasks

The use of the World Wide Web has experienced extraordinary growth in the last decades. The Web has become the main source of information for millions of users. The number of websites offering content to users is countless. In order to personalise information according to their needs, users often have to visit multiple, unconnected pages. Users perform a number of actions to collect that information that requires concentration. If the number of Web resources is large, the activity becomes unpleasant. The problem increases when these tasks are performed frequently and repetitively. These tasks are time-consuming and lead users to experience frustration and disorientation during the activity, causing a loss of concentration that prolongs the activity over time. Web Augmentation combines different Web technologies to improve user experience on existing pages by adding content from different pages among other benefits. This article proposes Web Augmentation as a technique to reduce user interactions in repetitive tasks. To support the proposal, the paper introduces Excore, a browser extension for Web Augmentation that allows end-users to add content from different resources automatically. The article presents the benefits introduced by this approach as a response to the drawbacks experienced by users while performing their activities on the Web. The architecture of the platform and its operations are described by means of an example. A double evaluation of the extension is addressed, one qualitative and one quantitative. The results show that Excore reduces the number of interactions by 94.45% and the time to complete a task by 80.75%