Losing control:the case for emergent software systems using autonomous assembly, perception and learning

Architectural self-organisation, in which different configurations of software modules are dynamically assembled based on the current context, has been shown to be an effective way for software to self-optimise over time. Current approaches to this rely heavily on human-led definitions: models, policies and processes to control how self-organisation works. We present the case for a paradigm shift to fully emergent computer software which places the burden of understanding entirely into the hands of software itself. These systems are autonomously assembled at runtime from discovered constituent parts and their internal health and external deployment environment continually monitored. An online, unsupervised learning system then uses runtime adaptation to explore alternative system assemblies and locate optimal solutions. Based on our experience to date, we define the problem space of emergent software, and we present a working case study of an emergent web server. Our results demonstrate two aspects of the problem space for this case study: that different assemblies of behaviour are optimal in different deployment environment conditions; and that these assemblies can be autonomously learned from generalised perception data while the system is online

Entre palavras e imagens : o texto multimodal em livros didáticos de português do Brasil como língua adicional

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Letras, Departamento de Línguas Estrangeiras e Tradução, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística Aplicada, 2018.Com recentes ações do Brasil no cenário mundial como, por exemplo, a operação MINUSTAH, coordenada com a Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU), no Haití, o país destacou-se como destino para o movimento de migração de refugiados, além dos estrangeiros que comumente vêm de outras nações. Esse aumento do número de migrantes por situações de catástrofe natural no país de origem, ou guerras, traz preocupações pertinentes, entre elas, o processo de ensino-aprendizagem da nova língua, como meio de inserção social no país de novo endereço, pois sem o conhecimento básico linguístico, estrangeiros serão sempre estrangeiros e o direito ao exercício de cidadania, em diversos contextos sociais, será naturalmente prejudicado. Entre as várias partes concernentes ao ensino de línguas, destacamos o material didático, que, como premissa, está no centro das práticas discursivas do ensino, pois é base para as aulas na maioria das situações. Assim, livros didáticos (LD) de Português Brasileiro como Língua Adicional (doravante PBLA) passam a ser nosso objeto de pesquisa, mais especificamente, textos multimodais destinados ao trabalho de leitura e compreensão de textos, pois entendemos que a competência em leitura e compreensão de textos é um ponto crucial no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de línguas, em termos de inserção social, uma vez que são inúmeras as práticas discursivas que dependem desse conhecimento linguístico em uma sociedade como a brasileira por exemplo. A metodologia adotada é de base qualitativa (FLICK, 1998, DENZIN, 2006), segundo a qual o processo de interpretação e reinterpretação dos dados é a tônica da pesquisa, o que favorece a realização do estudo de caso, por meio da análise documental, aqui pretendido. Diante dessa perspectiva, este trabalho visa a analisar textos multimodais em livros didáticos de PBLA, adotados normalmente em cursos regulares para o público estrangeiro que vem para a cidade de Brasília. A base teórica é composta pela Teoria da Semiótica Social (KRESS e van LEEUWEN (1996 [2006]) e pela teoria do Ensino de Línguas por Tarefas (ELT) (WILLIS, 1996). Esta pesquisa permite a observação de elementos que compõe o layout em livros de PBLA, bem como o direcionamento de escolhas e de estratégias aplicadas aos exercícios propostos. Com esses dados, podemos conhecer melhor a potencialidade de significação de imagens em textos escritos e assim levantar novos questionamentos sobre a escolha dos chamados materiais autênticos, como também obter dados que balizem o desenvolvimento de tarefas para fins específicos.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).Las recientes acciones de Brasil en el cenário mundial como, por ejemplo, la operación MINUSTAH, coordinada con la las Naciones Unidas (UN), en Haiti, el País se destacó como destino para el movimiento de migración de refugiados, además de los extranjeros que comúnmente viene de otras naciones. Este aumento del número de migraciones por situaciones de catástrofe natural en el país de origen, o guerras, genera preocupaciones pertinentes, entre ellas, el proceso de enseñanza/aprendizaje de la nueva lengua, como medio de inserción social en el nuevo país, pues sin conocimiento básico lingüístico, extranjeros serán siempre extranjeros y el derecho al ejercicio de la ciudadanía, en los más variados contextos sociales, será naturalmente perjudicado. Entre las varías partes que hacen parte de la enseñanza de lenguas, destacamos la producción de material didáctico, que como premisa, está en el centro de las practicas discursivas de la enseñanza, pues es base para las clases en la mayoría de las situaciones. Así, el Portugués Brasileño como lengua Adicional ( PBLA) en libros didácticos (LB) pasan a ser la fuente de nuestro corpus de investigación, específicamente, textos multimodales destinados al trabajo de lectura y comprensión de textos, pues comprendemos que la competencia en lectura y comprensión en lectura y comprensión de textos es un punto central en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje de lenguas, en términos de inserción social, una vez que son innúmeras las practicas discursivas que dependen de este conocimiento lingüístico en una sociedad como la brasileña, por ejemplo. La metodología adoptada es de base cualitativa, (FLICK, 1998, DENZIN, 2006), según la cual el proceso de interpretación y re interpretación de los datos es la tónica de la investigación, lo que favorece la realización del estudio de caso, por medio del análisis documental aquí pretendido. Ante esta perspectiva, este trabajo visa analizar textos multimodales en libros didácticos de PBLA, aplicados normalmente en cursos regulares para el público extranjero que se traslada para la ciudad de Brasília. La base teorica es compuesta por la Teoría de la Multimodalidad (KRESS; Van LEEUWEN (1996 [2006]) y por la Teoría de Enseñanza de Lenguas por Tareas (ELT) (WILLIS, 1996). Esta investigación permite la observación de los elementos que compone el diseño en libros de PBLA, así como, el direccionamiento de las selecciones y de estrategias aplicadas a los ejercicios propuestos. Con estos datos, podemos conocer mejor la potencialidad de significación de imágenes en textos escritos y así levantar nuevos cuestionamientos sobre la selección de los llamados materiales auténticos, como también obtener datos que orienten el desarrollo de tareas para fines específicos

Palhaço: subversivo por natureza

Este presente trabalho pretende expor algumas idéias levantadas sobre a subversão, premissa intrínseca no jogo do Palhaço, entendendo como Palhaço, a forma clássica, que nos salta a memória como figura tradicional dos circos, arquetípica, na maioria das vezes reforçada pelo uso do nariz vermelho. Personagem cômica fruto de um trabalho de pesquisa intenso, criada a partir de uma técnica individual somada a outras técnicas que visam potencializar a expressão e a comunicação do performer atuante como Palhaço

Emergent software systems

Contemporary software systems often have millions of lines of code that interact over complex infrastructures. The development of such systems is very challenging due to the increasing complexity of services and the high level of dynamism of current operating environments. In order to support the development and management of such systems, autonomic computing concepts have gained significant importance. The majority of autonomic computing approaches show significant levels of expert dependency in designing adaptive solutions. These approaches usually rely on human-made models and policies to support and guide software adaptation at runtime. These approaches mainly suffer from: i) a significant upfront effort demanded to create such solutions, which adds to the complexity of creating autonomous systems, and ii) unreliability given the high levels of uncertainty in current operating environments, leading the system to degraded performance and error states when subjected to unpredicted operating conditions and unexpected software interactions. Motivated by the problems and limitations of state-of-the-art autonomic computing solutions, this thesis introduces the concept of Emergent Software Systems. These systems are autonomously composed at runtime from discovered components, and are autonomously optimised based on the operating conditions, being able to build their own understanding of their environment and constituent parts. This thesis defines Emergent Software Systems, presenting the challenges of implementing such approach, and presents a fully functioning emergent systems framework that demonstrates this concept in real-world, fully functioning datacentre-based software

How to Build Emergent Software Systems (Tutorial)

Emergent software systems take a reward signal, an environment signal, and a collection of possible behavioural compositions implementing the system logic in a variety of ways, to learn in real-time how to best assemble a system to maximise reward. This reduces the burden of complexity in systems building by making human programmers responsible only for developing potential building blocks while the system determines how best to use them in its deployment conditions - with no architectural models or training regimes. Instead of adaptation being a special capability, emergent systems treat adaptation as continuous self-assembly, where a system is constantly reviewing its own behavioural composition to find alternative building blocks which better suit the currently perceived environment

A Programming Language for Sound Self-Adaptive Systems

The ability for systems to adapt at runtime by hot-swapping their logic, seamlessly and without any apparent interruption, allows a program to adjust its behavior to its context. Research in adaptive systems support has to date focused on the basic mechanics of hot-swapping code at runtime, with the soundness of a system after each hot-swap left to the developer to assure on a case-by-case basis. Providing this assurance in existing programming languages is sufficiently difficult that self-adaptive systems using hot-swapping remain largely untrusted for production use. In this context we study two research questions: (i) what is the general soundness principle for self-adaptive systems; and (ii) how can we embed this soundness principle in a general-purpose programming language? We answer these questions partly by theoretical analysis, and partly through developing a novel general-purpose programming language which embeds our soundness principle -- allowing any module to be hot-swapped with the soundness of the wider system guaranteed

Autonomous State-Management Support in Distributed Self-adaptive Systems

Modern systems are increasingly required to be adaptable in order to handle constantly changing environments. Adaptability is often based on the ability to adapt the behaviour of a running system where multiple implementations are available. Example of this are technologies such as reflective middleware and meta-models which offer control over how logic is wired together. While these technologies support high degrees of autonomous flexibility around the compute element of distributed systems, they completely neglect handling state} in an externally-managed, automated way. This paper advocates a reflective model over system state, to complement existing models that enable meta-management of behaviour. This concept has the potential to support an entirely new dimension of self-adaptive systems, offering a richer set of options to compose a system. We demonstrate a possible implementation of this concept by extending a lightweight component-based model; our implementation can transparently and generically relocate, replicate, and shard stateful components. Using a set of annotations, our framework constructs a pool of possible compositions which distribute any system using a variety of different state management options. We posit that this offers an unexplored dimension of self-adaptive systems, supporting novel concepts such as self-distributing systems which can emerge to best match their environment

Distributed Emergent Software:Assembling, Perceiving and Learning Systems at Scale

Emergent software systems take a reward signal, an environment signal, and a collection of possible behavioural compositions implementing the system logic in a variety of ways, to learn in real-time how best to assemble a system. This reduces the burden of complexity in systems building by making human programmers responsible only for developing potential building blocks while the system determines how best to use them in its deployment conditions – with no architectural models or training regimes. In this paper we generalise the approach to distributed systems, to demonstrate for the first time how a single reward signal can form the basis of complex decision making about how to compose the software running on each host machine, where to place each sub-unit of software, and how many instances of each sub-unit should be created. We provide an overview of the necessary system mechanics to support this concept, and discuss the key challenges in machine learning needed to realise it. We present our current implementation in both datacentre and pervasive computing environments, with experimental results for a baseline learning approach

REX:a development platform and online learning approach for Runtime emergent software systems

Conventional approaches to self-adaptive software architectures require human experts to specify models, policies and processes by which software can adapt to its environment. We present REX, a complete platform and online learning approach for runtime emergent software systems, in which all decisions about the assembly and adaptation of software are machine-derived. REX is built with three major, integrated layers: (i) a novel component-based programming language called Dana, enabling discovered assembly of systems and very low cost adaptation of those systems for dynamic re-assembly; (ii) a perception, assembly and learning framework (PAL) built on Dana, which abstracts emergent software into configurations and perception streams; and (iii) an online learning implementation based on a linear bandit model, which helps solve the search space explosion problem inherent in runtime emergent software. Using an emergent web server as a case study, we show how software can be autonomously self-assembled from discovered parts, and continually optimized over time (by using alternative parts) as it is subjected to different deployment conditions. Our system begins with no knowledge that it is specifically assembling a web server, nor with knowledge of the deployment conditions that may occur at runtime

Defining emergent software using continuous self-assembly, perception and learning

Architectural self-organisation, in which different configurations of software modules are dynamically assembled based on the current context, has been shown to be an effective way for software to self-optimise over time. Current approaches to this rely heavily on human-led definitions: models, policies, and processes to control how self-organisation works. We present the case for a paradigm shift to fully emergent computer software that places the burden of understanding entirely into the hands of software itself. These systems are autonomously assembled at runtime from discovered constituent parts and their internal health and external deployment environment continually monitored. An online, unsupervised learning system then uses runtime adaptation to continuously explore alternative system assemblies and locate optimal solutions. Based on our experience over the past 3 years, we define the problem space of emergent software and present a working case study of an emergent web server as a concrete example of the paradigm. Our results demonstrate two main aspects of the problem space for this case study: that different assemblies of behaviour are optimal in different deployment environment conditions and that these assemblies can be autonomously learned from generalised perception data while the system is online