33 research outputs found
Multiscale Bone Remodelling with Spatial P Systems
Many biological phenomena are inherently multiscale, i.e. they are
characterized by interactions involving different spatial and temporal scales
simultaneously. Though several approaches have been proposed to provide
"multilayer" models, only Complex Automata, derived from Cellular Automata,
naturally embed spatial information and realize multiscaling with
well-established inter-scale integration schemas. Spatial P systems, a variant
of P systems in which a more geometric concept of space has been added, have
several characteristics in common with Cellular Automata. We propose such a
formalism as a basis to rephrase the Complex Automata multiscaling approach
and, in this perspective, provide a 2-scale Spatial P system describing bone
remodelling. The proposed model not only results to be highly faithful and
expressive in a multiscale scenario, but also highlights the need of a deep and
formal expressiveness study involving Complex Automata, Spatial P systems and
other promising multiscale approaches, such as our shape-based one already
resulted to be highly faithful.Comment: In Proceedings MeCBIC 2010, arXiv:1011.005
Analysis and verification of ECA rules in intelligent environments
Intelligent Environments (IEs) are physical spaces where Information Technology (IT) and other pervasive computing technologies are combined in order to achieve specific goals for the users and the environment. IEs have the goal of enriching user experience, increasing awareness of the environment. A number of applications are currently being deployed in domains ranging from smart homes to e-health and autonomous vehicles. Quite often IE support human activities, thus essential requirements to be ensured are correctness, reliability, safety and security. In this paper we present how a set of techniques and tools that have been developed for the verification of software can be employed in the verification of IE described by means of event-condition-action rules. More precisely, we reduce the problem of verifying key properties of these rules to satisfiability and termination problems that can be addressed using state-of-the-art Satisfiability Modulo Theory (SMT) solvers and program analysers. Our approach has been implemented in a tool called vIRONy. Our approach has been validated on a number of case studies from the literature
Bone Remodelling in BioShape
AbstractMany biological phenomena are inherently multiscale, i.e. they are characterised by interactions involving different scales at the same time. This is the case of bone remodelling, where macroscopic behaviour (at organ and tissue scale) and microstructure (at cell scale) strongly influence each other. Consequently, several approaches have been defined to model such a process at different spatial and temporal levels and, in particular, in terms of continuum properties, abstracting in this way from a realistic – and more complex – cellular scenario. While a large amount of information is available to validate such models separately, more work is needed to integrate all levels fully in a faithful multiscale model.In this scenario, we propose the use of BioShape, a 3D particle-based, scale-independent, geometry and space oriented simulator. It is used to define and integrate a cell and tissue scale model for bone remodelling in terms of shapes equipped with perception, interaction and movement capabilities. Their in-silico simulation allows for tuning continuum-based tissutal and cellular models, as well as for better understanding – both in qualitative and in quantitative terms – the blurry synergy between mechanical and metabolic factors triggering bone remodelling
Symbolic verification of event–condition–action rules in intelligent environments
In this paper we show how state-of-the art SMT-based techniques for software verification can be employed in the verification of event–condition–action rules in intelligent environments. Moreover, we exploit the specific features of intelligent environments to optimise the verification process. We compare our approach with previous work in a detailed evaluation section, showing how it improves both performance and expressivity of the language for event–condition–action rules
A Catalogue of Inter-Parameter Dependencies in RESTful Web APIs
Web services often impose dependency constraints that re strict the way in which two or more input parameters can be combined
to form valid calls to the service. Unfortunately, current specification
languages for web services like the OpenAPI Specification provide no
support for the formal description of such dependencies, which makes
it hardly possible to automatically discover and interact with services
without human intervention. Researchers and practitioners are openly
requesting support for modelling and validating dependencies among in put parameters in web APIs, but this is not possible unless we share a
deep understanding of how dependencies emerge in practice—the aim of
this work. In this paper, we present a thorough study on the presence
of dependency constraints among input parameters in web APIs in in dustry. The study is based on a review of more than 2.5K operations
from 40 real-world RESTful APIs from multiple application domains.
Overall, our findings show that input dependencies are the norm, rather
than the exception, with 85% of the reviewed APIs having some kind of
dependency among their input parameters. As the main outcome of our
study, we present a catalogue of seven types of dependencies consistently
found in RESTful web APIsMinisterio de EconomÃa y Competitividad BELI (TIN2015-70560-R)Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades Horatio RTI2018-101204-B-C21Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU17/0407
Automated analysis of inter-parameter dependencies in web APIs
Web services often impose constraintsthat restrict the way in which
two or more input parameters can be combined to form valid calls
to the service, i.e. inter-parameter dependencies. Current web API
specification languages like the OpenAPI Specification (OAS) pro vide no support for the formal description of such dependencies,
making it hardly possible to interact with the services without
human intervention. We propose specifying and automatically ana lyzing inter-parameter dependencies in web APIs. To this end, we
propose a domain-specific language to describe these dependencies,
a constraint programming-aided tool supporting their automated
analysis, and an OAS extension integrating our approach and eas ing its adoption. Together, these contributions open a new range of
possibilities in areas such as source code generation and testin
IRON: Reliable domain specific language for programming IoT devices
A domain-specific language (DSL) is a programming language that is specialized to a particular application domain. IRON is a DSL for the IoT domain which allows not only to program in an easy way using the Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules but also to prevent incorrect actions. In this paper, we formally describe the semantics of IRON. The anomalies that IRON prevents are: (i) the presence of cycles that determine the non-termination, (ii) the ambiguous actions that do not allow the definition of a final configuration, (iii) the breaking of invariances. In addition to the formal description of IRON, an interpreter was created in a host language (LUA) that captures and manages the three anomalies. This provides a general scheme for the implementation of languages based on ECA rules
Energy saving and collision-free motion planning for oblivious robots
In distributed computing, many tasks have been studied involving mobile entities - also called robots - with weak capabilities. A well-known scenario is that in which robots operate in Look-Compute-Move (LCM) cycles. During each cycle, a robot acquires a snapshot of the surrounding environment (Look phase), then executes an appropriate algorithm by using the obtained snapshot as input (Compute phase), and finally moves toward a desired destination, if any (Move phase). In this context, we consider robots that have to visit a partially ordered set of locations. A solution to the problem is the assignment to each robot of a trajectory to follow in order to visit the required locations. The resolution of the task is subject to two main constraints. Robots have to minimize the energy spent to accomplish an assigned trajectory, and they have to avoid collisions among each other. The minimization of the energy is expressed in terms of the number of turns a robot has to perform in between two different locations. This equals the number of bends the assigned trajectory contains in between such locations. In general, the problem is known to require Ω(n) bends per connection, with n being the number of locations, even if considering just two robots involved. We study the case where the locations that a single robot has to visit are represented as colored points in the Euclidean plane, and only two colors are provided. This means the partial order among the locations is just based on two colors per robot. In this case, we provide a constructive solution for two robots with five bends per connection