Embedded Software Development with Digital Twins: Specific Requirements for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

The transformation to Industry 4.0 changes the way embedded software systems are developed. Digital twins have the potential for cost-effective software development and maintenance strategies. With reduced costs and faster development cycles, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have the chance to grow with new smart products. We interviewed SMEs about their current development processes. In this paper, we present the first results of these interviews. First results show that real-time requirements prevent, to date, a Software-in-the-Loop development approach, due to a lack of proper tooling. Security/safety concerns, and the accessibility of hardware are the main impediments. Only temporary access to the hardware leads to Software-in-the-Loop development approaches based on simulations/emulators. Yet, this is not in all use cases possible. All interviewees see the potential of Software-in-the-Loop approaches and digital twins with regard to quality and customization. One reason it will take some effort to convince engineers, is the conservative nature of the embedded community, particularly in SMEs.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, conference, In Proceedings Of The 2023 IEEE International Conference on Digital Twin (Digital Twin 2023

Enabling Automated Integration Testing of Smart Farming Applications via Digital Twin Prototypes

Industry 4.0 represents a major technological shift that has the potential to transform the manufacturing industry, making it more efficient, productive, and sustainable. Smart farming is a concept that involves the use of advanced technologies to improve the efficiency and sustainability of agricultural practices. Industry 4.0 and smart farming are closely related, as many of the technologies used in smart farming are also used in Industry 4.0. Digital twins have the potential for cost-effective software development of such applications. With our Digital Twin Prototype approach, all sensor interfaces are integrated into the development process, and their inputs and outputs of the emulated hardware match those of the real hardware. The emulators respond to the same commands and return identically formatted data packages as their real counterparts, making the Digital Twin Prototype a valid source of a digital shadow, i.e. the Digital Twin Prototype is a prototype of the physical twin and can replace it for automated testing of the digital twin software. In this paper, we present a case study for employing our Digital Twin Prototype approach to automated testing of software for improving the making of silage with a smart farming application. Besides automated testing with continuous integration, we also discuss continuous deployment of modular Docker containers in this context.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, conference, In the Proceedings Of The 2023 IEEE International Conference on Digital Twin (Digital Twin 2023

Continuous Software Engineering for Designing and Operating an Autonomous Ocean Observation System

The ocean is the largest ecosystem on earth, facing dramatic changes like deoxygenation, warming, acidification, and contamination by industrial pollution to name a few. To resolve major changes of the marine realm in space and time a highly cooperating network of robotic and synchronized autonomous multiple sensor systems is needed. In 2018 the Helmholtz Centres DLR, AWI, KIT, and GEOMAR formed a research alliance to investigate how robotic networks can be build to autonomously explore these environments. The vision of this Helmholtz Future Project ARCHES, is a network of heterogeneous, autonomous and interconnected robotic systems. To operate the network we develop an underwater communication framework. The centrepiece of our framework is the middleware Robot Operating System (ROS). ROS provides us interfaces and services to develop a microservice architecture with loosely coupled nodes. This project is designed using a continuous delivery workflow with automatic testing and releasing of software. We containerize the entire framework using Docker. Hence, we easily control all dependencies of our nodes, and by running the nodes in separate sandboxes, they cannot crash the entire robotic system upon failure of a single system component

lincRNAs act in the circuitry controlling pluripotency and differentiation

Although thousands of large intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) have been identified in mammals, few have been functionally characterized, leading to debate about their biological role. To address this, we performed loss-of-function studies on most lincRNAs expressed in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and characterized the effects on gene expression. Here we show that knockdown of lincRNAs has major consequences on gene expression patterns, comparable to knockdown of well-known ES cell regulators. Notably, lincRNAs primarily affect gene expression in trans. Knockdown of dozens of lincRNAs causes either exit from the pluripotent state or upregulation of lineage commitment programs. We integrate lincRNAs into the molecular circuitry of ES cells and show that lincRNA genes are regulated by key transcription factors and that lincRNA transcripts bind to multiple chromatin regulatory proteins to affect shared gene expression programs. Together, the results demonstrate that lincRNAs have key roles in the circuitry controlling ES cell state.Broad InstituteHarvard UniversityNational Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.)Merkin Family Foundation for Stem Cell Researc

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

ARCHES Digital Twin Framework

In the Helmholtz Future Project ARCHES (Autonomous Robotic Networks to Help Modern Societies) with a consortium of partners from AWI (Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research), DLR (German Aerospace Center), KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), and the GEOMAR (Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel), several Digital Twins of ocean observation systems were developed by the GEOMAR and AWI. The ARCHES Digital Twin Framework is one of the results of this project. The software is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS) and is written in Python

Continuous Integration Testing of Embedded Software with Digital Twin Prototypes

Digital Twins may be employed for developing embedded software and can be classified in three subcategories by their level of integration with the corresponding physical objects/twins. We introduce and report on experience with a new category: the Digital Twin Prototype. Digital Twin Prototypes support engineers to test embedded software systems, without the need of a connection to a physical object. In CI/CD pipelines they can be used for integration testing and thus, allow for an agile verification and validation process. We developed and evaluated this approach to create an underwater network of ocean observation systems. The feasibility was shown in a demonstration mission in the Baltic Sea in October 2020

Prototyping Autonomous Robotic Networks on Different Layers of RAMI 4.0 with Digital Twins

In this decade, the amount of (industrial) Internet of Things devices will increase tremendously. Today, there exist no common standards for interconnection, observation, or the monitoring of these devices. In context of the German "Industrie 4.0"strategy the Reference Architectural Model Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) was introduced to connect different aspects of this rapid development. The idea is to let different stakeholders of these products speak and understand the same terminology. In this paper, we present an approach using Digital Twins to prototype different layers along the axis of the RAMI 4.0, by the example of an autonomous ocean observation system developed in the project ARCHES

p55, the Drosophila Ortholog of RbAp46/RbAp48, Is Required for the Repression of dE2F2/RBF-Regulated Genes

Many proteins have been proposed to be involved in retinoblastoma protein (pRB)-mediated repression, but it is largely uncertain which cofactors are essential for pRB to repress endogenous E2F-regulated promoters. Here we have taken advantage of the stream-lined Drosophila dE2F/RBF pathway, which has only two E2Fs (dE2F1 and dE2F2), and two pRB family members (RBF1 and RBF2). With RNA interference (RNAi), we depleted potential corepressors and looked for the elevated expression of groups of E2F target genes that are known to be directly regulated by RBF1 and RBF2. Previous studies have implicated histone deacetylase (HDAC) and SWI/SNF chromatin-modifying complexes in pRB-mediated repression. However, our results fail to support the idea that the SWI/SNF proteins are required for RBF-mediated repression and suggest that a requirement for HDAC activities is likely to be limited to a subset of targets. We found that the chromatin assembly factor p55/dCAF-1 is essential for the repression of dE2F2-regulated targets. The removal of p55 deregulated the expression of E2F targets that are normally repressed by dE2F2/RBF1 and dE2F2/RBF2 complexes in a cell cycle-independent manner but had no effect on the expression of E2F targets that are normally coupled with cell proliferation. The results indicate that the mechanisms of RBF regulation at these two types of E2F targets are different and suggest that p55, and perhaps p55's mammalian orthologs RbAp46 and RbAp48, have a conserved function in repression by pRB-related proteins

Phase 1B Study of Momelotinib Combined With Trametinib in Metastatic, Kirsten Rat Sarcoma Viral Oncogene Homolog-Mutated Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer After Platinum-Based Chemotherapy Treatment Failure.

IntroductionSpecific treatment options are lacking for Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS)-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) despite treatment advances in other mutation-driven subgroups.Patients and methodsIn this study we evaluated the multitargeted Janus kinase/TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) inhibitor momelotinib combined with the mitogen/extracellular signal-related kinase (MEK)1/MEK2 inhibitor trametinib in patients with platinum-treated, refractory, metastatic, KRAS-mutated NSCLC. Dose escalations (3 + 3 design) were conducted with momelotinib in combination with trametinib 1.0 mg once daily, then with trametinib in combination with the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of momelotinib. MTD was determined from dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) during patients' first 28-day cycle. Safety was the primary end point, and efficacy parameters, including disease control rate (DCR) at 8 weeks, were secondary end points.ResultsTwenty-one patients were enrolled (median age: 68 years; 14 [66.7%] female). The MTD was momelotinib 150 mg twice daily in combination with trametinib 1.0 mg once daily. DLTs that determined the MTD were increased alanine aminotransferase and fatigue. The most common adverse events of any grade were nausea (n = 14 [66.7%]), diarrhea (n = 11 [52.4%]), and fatigue (n = 11 [52.4%]). The most common Grade ≥3 event was hypoxia (n = 3 [14.3%]). No patients achieved objective response. DCR at 8 weeks was 12 patients (57.1%) (90% confidence interval [CI], 37.2%-75.5%). Median progression-free and overall survival were 3.6 months (90% CI, 2.2-5.6 months) and 7.4 months (90% CI, 4.0-15.3 months), respectively. Maximum momelotinib plasma concentrations were reached 1 to 2 hours after dosing, but were insufficient to achieve significant TBK1 inhibition.ConclusionThe additional use of momelotinib with trametinib does not improve on the activity of single-agent trametinib in KRAS-mutated NSCLC on the basis of historic data