EVA: a flexible programming method for evolving systems

The authors' goal is to establish a flexible programming support for evolving systems that will enable one to modify programs using less labor, while maintaining good quality during service life. EVA (evolution mechanism for flexible agent) was developed to allow a flexible programming support system to be constructed based on their programming method for evolving systems. They consider that programming methods for evolving systems need to satisfy the following essential conditions. First, they need to make it easy to specify changes in a system in terms of new requirements. Second, they need to have a procedure for transmitting the new requirements to a program. Third, they need to be able to guarantee that the resultant program will meet the new requirements. Finally, because of the repetitive nature of much evolving systems work, they need to provide for the reuse of similar modifications during programming. In order to overcome limitations in program modification techniques which have only considered programming products, programming processes have been introduced into the method. To achieve their goal, they have formulated programming products and programming processes using such formal techniques as functional programming, type theory, modules, parameterized programming and natural deduction, and have constructed a mechanism of reusing these formal programming processes. The paper explains a case study which shows how to develop an evolving system using EVA and it discusses how one can use EVA's mechanism effectively.     

A robust multiplexer-based FPGA inspired by biological systems

Biological organisms are among the most robust systems known to man. Their robustness is based on a set of processes which cannot be adapted directly to the world of silicon but can provide an inspiration for the design of robust circuits. This paper introduces a multiplexer-based Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which we made capable of self-test and self-repair using an approach loosely based on biological mechanisms at the cellular level. The system is designed to provide on-line self-test and self-repair using a completely distributed system and a minimal amount of additional logic.     

An optimization algorithm inspired by social creativity systems

The need for efficient and effective optimization problem solving methods arouses nowadays the design and development of new heuristic algorithms. This paper present ideas that leads to a novel multiagent metaheuristic technique based on creative social systems suported on music composition concepts. This technique, called “Musical Composition Method” (MMC), which was proposed in Mora-Gutiérrez et?al. (Artif Intell Rev 2012) as well as a variant, are presented in this study. The performance of MMC is evaluated and analyzed over forty instances drawn from twenty-two benchmark global optimization problems. The solutions obtained by the MMC algorithm were compared with those of various versions of particle swarm optimizer and harmony search on the same problem set. The experimental results demonstrate that MMC significantly improves the global performances of the other tested metaheuristics on this set of multimodal functions.     

Modechart: a specification language for real-time systems

Present a specification language for real-time systems called Modechart. The semantics of Modechart is given in terms of real-time logic (RTL), which is especially amenable to reasoning about the absolute (real-time clock) timing of events. The semantics of Modechart has an important property that the translation of a Modechart specification into RTL formulas results in a hierarchical organization of the resulting RTL assertions. This gives us significant leverage in reasoning about properties of a system by allowing us to filter out assertions that concern lower levels of abstraction. Some results about desirable properties of Modechart specifications are given. A graphical implementation of Modechart has been completed     

Spectra: a specification language for reactive systems

We introduce Spectra, a new specification language for reactive systems, specifically tailored for the context of reactive synthesis. The meaning of Spectra is defined by a translation to a kernel language. Spectra comes with the Spectra Tools, a set of analyses, including a synthesizer to obtain a correct-by-construction implementation, several means for executing the resulting controller, and additional analyses aimed at helping engineers write higher-quality specifications. We present the language in detail and give an overview of its tool set. Together with the language and its tool set, we present four collections of many, non-trivial, large specifications, written by undergraduate computer science students for the development of autonomous Lego robots and additional example reactive systems. The collected specifications can serve as benchmarks for future studies on reactive synthesis. We present the specifications, with observations and lessons learned about the potential use of reactive synthesis by software engineers.

     

CSDL: a language for cooperative systems design

The aim of a cooperative system is to coordinate and support group activities. Cooperative Systems Design Language (CSDL) is an experimental language designed to support the development of cooperative systems from specification to implementation. In CSDL, a system is defined as a collection of reusable entities implementing floor control disciplines and shared workspaces. CSDL tries to address the difficulties of integrating different aspects of cooperative systems: cooperation control, communication, and system modularization. This paper presents CSDL as a specification language. Basic units are coordinators that can be combined hierarchically. A coordinator is composed of a specification, a body, and a context. The specification defines the cooperation policy; the body controls the underlying communication channels; and the context defines coordinators' interaction in modular systems     

Developing and evolving a DSL-based approach for runtime monitoring of systems of systems

Complex software-intensive systems are often described as systems of systems (SoS) due to their heterogeneous architectural elements. As SoS behavior is often only understandable during operation, runtime monitoring is needed to detect deviations from requirements. Today, while diverse monitoring approaches exist, most do not provide what is needed to monitor SoS, e.g., support for dynamically defining and deploying diverse checks across multiple systems. In this paper we report on our experiences of developing, applying, and evolving an approach for monitoring an SoS in the domain of industrial automation software, that is based on a domain-specific language (DSL). We first describe our initial approach to dynamically define and check constraints in SoS at runtime and then motivate and describe its evolution based on requirements elicited in an industry collaboration project. We furthermore describe solutions we have developed to support the evolution of our approach, i.e., a code generation approach and a framework to automate testing the DSL after changes. We evaluate the expressiveness and scalability of our new DSL-based approach using an industrial SoS. We also discuss lessons we learned. Our results show that while developing a DSL-based approach is a good solution to support industrial users, one must prepare the approach for evolution, by making it extensible and adaptable to future scenarios. Particularly, support for automated (re-)generation of tools and code after changes and automated testing are essential.     

Evolutionary computing in recommender systems: a review of recent research

One of the main current applications of intelligent systems is recommender systems (RS). RS can help users to find relevant items in huge information spaces in a personalized way. Several techniques have been investigated for the development of RS. One of them is evolutionary computational (EC) techniques, which is an emerging trend with various application areas. The increasing interest in using EC for web personalization, information retrieval and RS fostered the publication of survey papers on the subject. However, these surveys have analyzed only a small number of publications, around ten. This study provides a comprehensive review of more than 65 research publications focusing on five aspects we consider relevant for such: the recommendation technique used, the datasets and the evaluation methods adopted in their experimental parts, the baselines employed in the experimental comparison of proposed approaches and the reproducibility of the reported experiments. At the end of this review, we discuss negative and positive aspects of these papers, as well as point out opportunities, challenges and possible future research directions. To the best of our knowledge, this review is the most comprehensive review of various approaches using EC in RS. Thus, we believe this review will be a relevant material for researchers interested in EC and RS.     

Formal modeling of evolving self-adaptive systems

In this paper, we present a formal model, named PobSAM (Policy-based Self-Adaptive Model), for developing and modeling self-adaptive evolving systems. In this model, policies are used as a mechanism to direct and adapt the behavior of self-adaptive systems. A PobSAM model is a collection of autonomous managers and managed actors. The managed actors are dedicated to the functional behavior while the autonomous managers govern the behavior of managed actors by enforcing suitable policies. A manager has a set of configurations including two types of policies: governing policies and adaptation policies. To adapt the system behavior in response to the changes, the managers switch among different configurations. We employ the combination of an algebraic formalism and an actor-based model to specify this model formally. Managed actors are expressed by an actor model. Managers are modeled as meta-actors whose configurations are described using a multi-sorted algebra called CA. We provide an operational semantics for PobSAM using labeled transition systems. Furthermore, we provide behavioral equivalence of different sorts of CA in terms of splitting bisimulation and prioritized splitting bisimulation. Equivalent managers send the same set of messages to the actors. Using our behavioral equivalence theory, we can prove that the overall behavior of the system is preserved by substituting a manager by an equivalent one.     

Bond computing systems: a biologically inspired and high-level dynamics model for pervasive computing

Targeting at modeling the high-level dynamics of pervasive computing systems, we introduce bond computing systems (BCS) consisting of objects, bonds and rules. Objects are typed but addressless representations of physical or logical (computing and communicating) entities. Bonds are typed multisets of objects. In a BCS, a configuration is specified by a multiset of bonds, called a collection. Rules specify how a collection evolves to a new one. A BCS is a variation of a P system introduced by Gheorghe Paun where, roughly, there is no maximal parallelism but with typed and unbounded number of membranes, and hence, our model is also biologically inspired. In this paper, we focus on regular bond computing systems (RBCS), where bond types are regular, and study their computation power and verification problems. Among other results, we show that the computing power of RBCS lies between linearly bounded automata (LBA) and LBC (a form of bounded multicounter machines) and hence, the regular bond-type reachability problem (given an RBCS, whether there is some initial collection that can reach some collection containing a bond of a given regular type) is undecidable. We also study a restricted model (namely, B-boundedness) of RBCS where the reachability problem becomes decidable.     

Integrative connectionist learning systems inspired by nature: current models, future trends and challenges

The so far developed and widely utilized connectionist systems (artificial neural networks) are mainly based on a single brain-like connectionist principle of information processing, where learning and information exchange occur in the connections. This paper extends this paradigm of connectionist systems to a new trend—integrative connectionist learning systems (ICOS) that integrate in their structure and learning algorithms principles from different hierarchical levels of information processing in the brain, including neuronal-, genetic-, quantum. Spiking neural networks (SNN) are used as a basic connectionist learning model which is further extended with other information learning principles to create different ICOS. For example, evolving SNN for multitask learning are presented and illustrated on a case study of person authentification based on multimodal auditory and visual information. Integrative gene-SNN are presented, where gene interactions are included in the functioning of a spiking neuron. They are applied on a case study of computational neurogenetic modeling. Integrative quantum-SNN are introduced with a quantum Hebbian learning, where input features as well as information spikes are represented by quantum bits that result in exponentially faster feature selection and model learning. ICOS can be used to solve more efficiently challenging biological and engineering problems when fast adaptive learning systems are needed to incrementally learn in a large dimensional space. They can also help to better understand complex information processes in the brain especially how information processes at different information levels interact. Open questions, challenges and directions for further research are presented.     

Evolutionary cryptography theory based generating method for a secure Koblitz elliptic curve and its improvement by a hidden Markov models

Considering potential attacks from cloud-computing and quantum-computing,it is becoming nec-essary to provide higher security elliptic curves.The hidden Markov models are introduced for designing the trace-vector computation algorithm to accelerate the search for elliptic curve (EC) base-points.We present a new algorithm for secure Koblitz EC generation based on evolutionary cryptography theory.The algorithm is tested by selecting a secure Koblitz EC over the field F(2 2000),with experiments showing that both the base field and base point of the secure curve generated exceed the parameter range for Koblitz curves recommended by NIST.The base fields generated go beyond 1900 bits,which is higher than the 571 bits recommended by NIST.We also find new secure curves in the range F(2 163)-F(2 571) recommended by NIST.We perform a detailed security analysis of those secure curves,showing that those we propose satisfy the same security criteria as NIST.     

汇编程序流程图生成算法研究与实现

程序流程图显示程序的控制流逻辑,它的生成主要涉及逻辑控制的刻画.针对汇编语言特点和依据伪深度搜索思想,给出汇编程序流程图生成算法:对汇编源程序进行分析,在源程序中划分出原子子程序,先对第一个原子子程序语句根据特定的方法进行分类处理,产生原子子程序流程图,然后根据一定的规则进一步确定新原子子程序,用同样的方法产生此原子子程序流程图,重复这一过程直到所有源代码的流程图产生完毕.实践结果表明,该算法能有效产生汇编程序流程图.     

Exploitation of a microfluidic device capable of generating size-tunable droplets for gene delivery

This study presents a new microfluidic chip that generates micro-scale emulsion droplets for gene delivery applications. Compared with conventional methods of droplet formation, the proposed chip can create uniform droplets (size variation <7.1%) and hence enhance the efficiency of the subsequent gene delivery. A new microfluidic chip was developed in this study, which used a new design with a pneumatic membrane chamber integrated into a T-junction microchannel. Traditionally, the size of droplets was controlled by the flow rate ratio of the continuous and disperse phase flows, which can be controlled by syringe pumps. In this study, a pneumatic chamber near the intersection of the T-junction channel was designed to locally change the flow velocity and the shear force. When the upper air chamber was filled with compressed air, the membrane was deflected and then the droplet size could be fine-tuned accordingly. Experimental data showed that using the new design, the higher the air pressure applied to the active tunable membrane, the smaller the droplet size. Finally, droplets were used as carriers for DNA to be transfected into the Cos-7 cells. It was also experimentally found that the size of the emulsion droplets plays an important role on the efficiency of the gene delivery. The preliminary results of this paper have been presented at the 2007 IEEE International Conference of Nano/Molecular Medicine and Engineering (IEEE NANOMED 2007), Macau, China, 6–9 August, 2007.     

A software tool for generating graphics by means of P systems

The hand-made graphical representation of the configuration of a P system becomes a hard task when the number of membranes and objects increases. In this paper we present a new software tool, called JPLANT, for computing and representing the evolution of a P system model with membrane creation. We also present some experiments performed with JPLANT and point out new lines for the research in computer graphics with membrane systems.     

一种雾化式气味生成装置的设计与实现

为了满足人类嗅觉感官体验,设计了一种雾化式气味生成装置系统,即采用超声波雾化片实现气味释放,系统包含气味生成装置端和微信小程序操作端两部分,二者通过蓝牙连接来完成数据传输。气味生成装置预置了8种可选气味,通过操控微信小程序发送指定指令就可生成目标气味。初步实验结果表明,该气味生成装置系统可准确生成目标气味,满足用户需求。     

RELAX: a language to address uncertainty in self-adaptive systems requirement

Self-adaptive systems have the capability to autonomously modify their behavior at run-time in response to changes in their environment. Self-adaptation is particularly necessary for applications that must run continuously, even under adverse conditions and changing requirements; sample domains include automotive systems, telecommunications, and environmental monitoring systems. While a few techniques have been developed to support the monitoring and analysis of requirements for adaptive systems, limited attention has been paid to the actual creation and specification of requirements of self-adaptive systems. As a result, self-adaptivity is often constructed in an ad-hoc manner. In order to support the rigorous specification of adaptive systems requirements, this paper introduces RELAX, a new requirements language for self-adaptive systems that explicitly addresses uncertainty inherent in adaptive systems. We present the formal semantics for RELAX in terms of fuzzy logic, thus enabling a rigorous treatment of requirements that include uncertainty. RELAX enables developers to identify uncertainty in the requirements, thereby facilitating the design of systems that are, by definition, more flexible and amenable to adaptation in a systematic fashion. We illustrate the use of RELAX on smart home applications, including an adaptive assisted living system.