Requirement verification in simulation-based automation testing

The emergence of the Industrial Internet results in an increasing number of complicated temporal interdependencies between automation systems and the processes to be controlled. There is a need for verification methods that scale better than formal verification methods and which are more exact than testing. Simulation-based runtime verification is proposed as such a method, and an application of Metric temporal logic is presented as a contribution. The practical scalability of the proposed approach is validated against a production process designed by an industrial partner, resulting in the discovery of requirement violations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Added IEEE copyright notic

Sitting on a gold mine: the story of the process industry's automatic formation of a digital twin

The use of a software tool chain to generate Digital Twins (DTs) automatically can speed up digitization and lower development costs. Engineering documents and system data are just two examples of source information that can be used to generate a DT. After proposing a general plan for semi-automatic generation of a DT for a process system, this work describe our efforts to extract necessary information for the generation of a DT of a process system from existing information in a factory floor like piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs). To extract initial raw model data, techniques such as image, pattern, and text recognition can be used, and then an intermediate graph model can be generated and modified based on requirements. In order to increase the system's adaptability and reliability, this research will delve deeper into the steps involved in creating and manipulating an intermediate graph model

The Role of User Guidance in the Industrial Adoption of MDE Approach

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) has emerged as an actively researched and established approach for next generation control application development. Technology transfer to the industry is a topical research problem. Since most professional factory process control engineers do not have computer science backgrounds, there is an urgent need for studies of the role of user guidance in the professional learning, and thus, of industrial adoption of MDE approaches. In this study professionals were invited to a hands-on assessment of the AUKOTON MDE approach for factory process control engineering. Qualitative empirical material was collected and analyzed to identify the role of user guidance in the context of other factors impacting industrial adoption. Challenges in adoption that could be solved by user guidance were identified with the theory of organizational knowledge creation (SECI) model

Kansainvälisen ulkoistamisen ja teknologiakehityksen vaikutukset suhteellisiin palkkaeroihin

KANSAINVÄLISEN ULKOISTAMISEN JA TEKNOLOGIAKEHITYKSEN VAIKUTUKSET SUHTEELLISIIN PALKKAEROIHIN TUTKIELMAN TAVOITTEET Tutkielmani tavoitteena on selvittää, kuinka kansainvälinen ulkoistaminen ja teknologiakehitys ovat vaikuttaneet eri koulutustasojen suhteellisiin palkkaeroihin Suomessa vuosina 1975 – 2005. LÄHDEAINEISTO Tutkielmani empiirisessä osassa käytin paneeliaineistoa 16 toimialalta Suomesta vuosilta 1975 - 2004. Aineistoni olen kerännyt Eu Klems tietokannasta ja se jakaantuu kolmeen koulutustasoon: korkeaan-, keski- ja alhaiseen tasoon. Empiirisen tutkimuksessa käytin lineaarista regressiomallia, joka pohjautuu Feenstran ja Hansonin (1999) tutkimuksessaan käyttämään malliin. TULOKSET Saamistani tuloksista kävi ilmi, etteivät kansainvälinen ulkoistaminen ja teknologiakehitys ole kasvattaneet suhteellisia palkkaeroja eri koulutustasojen omaavien työvoimien välillä. Teknologiakehitys on laskenut suhteellisia palkkaeroja sekä korkean- ja keskitason välillä että korkean- ja alhaisen tason välillä. Ulkoistamisella on ollut myös suhteellisia palkkaeroja laskeva vaikutus, mutta tähän liittyy tilastollista epävarmuutta. Tosin ulkoistamisella oli tilastollisesti merkitsevä vaikutus keskitason koulutuksen omaavan työvoiman palkkoihin. Tuloksista selvisi myös, että kansainvälisen ulkoistamisen ja teknologiakehityksen vaikutus keskitason työvoiman palkkojen keskimääräiseen vuosimuutokseen on kasvanut aineiston viimeisenä kymmenenä vuotena. Suomessa teknologiakehitys näyttäisi olleen enemmän työvoimaa tukevaa kuin taitointensiivistä teknologiakehitystä. Tämä selittäisi, miksi teknologian kehitys ei ole kasvattanut suhteellisia palkkaeroja Suomessa samalla tavoin kuin Yhdysvalloissa. Suomen kohonneella yleisellä koulutustasolla on mahdollinen vaikutus siihen, että suhteelliset palkkaerot eivät ole kasvaneet Suomessa

Applying graph matching techniques to enhance reuse of plant design information

This article investigates how graph matching can be applied to process plant design data in order to support the reuse of previous designs. A literature review of existing graph matching algorithms is performed, and a group of algorithms is chosen for further testing. A use case from early phase plant design is presented. A methodology for addressing the use case is proposed, including graph simplification algorithms and node similarity measures, so that existing graph matching algorithms can be applied in the process plant domain. The proposed methodology is evaluated empirically on an industrial case consisting of design data from several pulp and paper plants

An Artificial Intelligence Framework for Bidding Optimization with Uncertainty inMultiple Frequency Reserve Markets

The global ambitions of a carbon-neutral society necessitate a stable and robust smart grid that capitalises on frequency reserves of renewable energy. Frequency reserves are resources that adjust power production or consumption in real time to react to a power grid frequency deviation. Revenue generation motivates the availability of these resources for managing such deviations. However, limited research has been conducted on data-driven decisions and optimal bidding strategies for trading such capacities in multiple frequency reserves markets. We address this limitation by making the following research contributions. Firstly, a generalised model is designed based on an extensive study of critical characteristics of global frequency reserves markets. Secondly, three bidding strategies are proposed, based on this market model, to capitalise on price peaks in multi-stage markets. Two strategies are proposed for non-reschedulable loads, in which case the bidding strategy aims to select the market with the highest anticipated price, and the third bidding strategy focuses on rescheduling loads to hours on which highest reserve market prices are anticipated. The third research contribution is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based bidding optimization framework that implements these three strategies, with novel uncertainty metrics that supplement data-driven price prediction. Finally, the framework is evaluated empirically using a case study of multiple frequency reserves markets in Finland. The results from this evaluation confirm the effectiveness of the proposed bidding strategies and the AI-based bidding optimization framework in terms of cumulative revenue generation, leading to an increased availability of frequency reserves

Internet of Energy Approach for Sustainable Use of Electric Vehicles as Energy Storage of Prosumer Buildings

Vehicle-to-building (V2B) technology permits bypassing the power grid in order to supply power to a building from electric vehicle (EV) batteries in the parking lot. This paper investigates the hypothesis stating that the increasing number of EVs on our roads can be also beneficial for making buildings sustainably greener on account of using V2B technology in conjunction with local photovoltaic (PV) generation. It is assumed that there is no local battery storage other than EVs and that the EV batteries are fully available for driving, so that the EVs batteries must be at the intended state of charge at the departure time announced by the EV driver. Our goal is to exploit the potential of the EV batteries capacity as much as possible in order to permit a large area of solar panels, so that even on sunny days all PV power can be used to supply the building needs or the EV charging at the parking lot. A system architecture and collaboration protocols that account for uncertainties in EV behaviour are proposed. The proposed approach is proven in simulation covering one year period for three locations in different climatic regions of the US, resulting in the electricity bill reductions of 15.8%, 9.1% and 4.9% for California, New Jersey and Alaska, respectively. These results are compared to state-of-the-art research in combining V2B with PV or wind power generation. It is concluded that the achieved electricity bill reductions are superior to the state-of-the-art, because previous work is based on problem formulations that exploit only a part of the potential EV battery capacity. Document type: Articl

Stomatal CO2/bicarbonate sensor consists of two interacting protein kinases, Raf-like HT1 and nonkinase-activity activity requiring MPK12/MPK4

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors.The continuing rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration causes stomatal closing, thus critically affecting transpirational water loss, photosynthesis, and plant growth. However, the primary CO2 sensor remains unknown. Here, we show that elevated CO2 triggers interaction of the MAP kinases MPK4/MPK12 with the HT1 protein kinase, thus inhibiting HT1 kinase activity. At low CO2, HT1 phosphorylates and activates the downstream negatively regulating CBC1 kinase. Physiologically relevant HT1-mediated phosphorylation sites in CBC1 are identified. In a genetic screen, we identify dominant active HT1 mutants that cause insensitivity to elevated CO2. Dominant HT1 mutants abrogate the CO2/bicarbonate-induced MPK4/12-HT1 interaction and HT1 inhibition, which may be explained by a structural AlphaFold2- and Gaussian-accelerated dynamics-generated model. Unexpectedly, MAP kinase activity is not required for CO2 sensor function and CO2-triggered HT1 inhibition and stomatal closing. The presented findings reveal that MPK4/12 and HT1 together constitute the long-sought primary stomatal CO2/bicarbonate sensor upstream of the CBC1 kinase in plants.Peer reviewe

Synthesis and import of GDP-L‐fucose into the Golgi affect plant–water relations

Land plants evolved multiple adaptations to restrict transpiration. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are not sufficiently understood. We used an ozone-sensitivity forward genetics approach to identify Arabidopsis thaliana mutants impaired in gas exchange regulation. High water loss from detached leaves and impaired decrease of leaf conductance in response to multiple stomata-closing stimuli were identified in a mutant of MURUS1 (MUR1), an enzyme required for GDP-l-fucose biosynthesis. High water loss observed in mur1 was independent from stomatal movements and instead could be linked to metabolic defects. Plants defective in import of GDP-l-Fuc into the Golgi apparatus phenocopied the high water loss of mur1 mutants, linking this phenotype to Golgi-localized fucosylation events. However, impaired fucosylation of xyloglucan, N-linked glycans, and arabinogalactan proteins did not explain the aberrant water loss of mur1 mutants. Partial reversion of mur1 water loss phenotype by borate supplementation and high water loss observed in boron uptake mutants link mur1 gas exchange phenotypes to pleiotropic consequences of l-fucose and boron deficiency, which in turn affect mechanical and morphological properties of stomatal complexes and whole-plant physiology. Our work emphasizes the impact of fucose metabolism and boron uptake on plant–water relations