大规模集群运维自动化的探索与实践

本文从东方公司研究院的IT现状和未来设备管理入手,对大规模集群自动化运维模式和工具进行分析,提出IT运维自动化概念。通过目前存在的问题,分析运维自动化的目标和方法,介绍建立运维自动化的步骤;以图解方式介绍自动化安装、自动化配置、自动化监控等使用情况,并据此说明未来大规模集群运维自动化的远景规划。     

Automation for Contract Laboratories - Benefits from a Customer Perspective

Automation requires significant capital investment and for contract laboratories this funding may be difficult to justify. However, with increasing commitment to the automation of dosage form analysis by pharmaceutical companies and the adoption of automation earlier in the development process, outsourcing of automated methods will be an important requirement in the future. Contract laboratories that do not have automation equipment will not be able to compete as effectively for business as those that have this capability. The benefits to the customer of outsourcing automated methods will be discussed together with the potential problems for the contract laboratory in forming a strategy to meet this need. The adoption of new technology in other development functions (e.g., bioanalysis), by pharmaceutical companies and contract facilities has been very successful. The learnings from this situation will also be briefly outlined to provide some perspective around the implementation of automated methods.     

Cell Culture Automation and Quality Engineering: A Necessary Partnership to Develop Optimized Manufacturing Processes for Cell-Based Therapies

At Loughborough University, we have demonstrated that automated cell culture coupled with the application of process engineering principles will be an important tool for the successful commercial production and early-stage process development of therapeutic cell cultures. The approach is particularly powerful because the process control of the automation provides power to statistical analysis and enables large numbers of variables to be manipulated when compared to possible manual experiments. The automation platform also has the benefit of being a realistic potential production unit thereby adding relevance to the output. The tools and examples outlined are an introduction to the power of a multidisciplinary team-based approach to automated manufacturing process issues in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. These tools are also being applied to add value for other process outputs such as process time, costs, and other identified critical outputs. Through the application of these techniques, we hope to develop optimized validated processes for automatic production of multiple cell types for cell-based therapeutic applications.     

Automation in future air traffic management: effects of decision aid reliability on controller performance and mental workload

Future air traffic management concepts envisage shared decision-making responsibilities between controllers and pilots, necessitating that controllers be supported by automated decision aids. Even as automation tools are being introduced, however, their impact on the air traffic controller is not well understood. The present experiments examined the effects of an aircraft-to-aircraft conflict decision aid on performance and mental workload of experienced, full-performance level controllers in a simulated Free Flight environment. Performance was examined with both reliable (Experiment 1) and inaccurate automation (Experiment 2). The aid improved controller performance and reduced mental workload when it functioned reliably. However, detection of a particular conflict was better under manual conditions than under automated conditions when the automation was imperfect. Potential or actual applications of the results include the design of automation and procedures for future air traffic control systems.     

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools: A Survey and Some Improvements

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from W3C consist of a set of 65 checkpoints or specifications that Web pages should accomplish in order to be accessible to people with disabilities or using alternative browsers. Many of these 65 checkpoints can only be checked by a human operator, thus implying a very high cost for full evaluation. However, some checkpoints can be automatically evaluated, thus spotting accessibility barriers in a very effective manner. Well known tools like Bobby, Tawdis or WebXACT evaluate Web accessibility by using a mixture of automated, manual and semiautomated evaluations. However, the automation degree of these Web evaluations is not the same for each of these tools. Since WCAG are not written in a formalized manner, these evaluators may have different “interpretations” of what these rules mean. As a result, different evaluation results might be obtained for a single page depending on which evaluation tool is being used.Taking into account that a fully automated Web accessibility evaluation is not feasible because of the nature of WCAG, this paper evaluates the WCAG automation coverage of some well known Web accessibility evaluation tools spotting their weaknesses and differences. We also provide a formalized specification for those checkpoints where these differences have been detected, thus challenging nowaday's tools for more automated coverage.     

Automated model generation for performance engineering of building automation networks

Large technical systems need to be designed both reliable and efficient. Specialized design tools offer therefore a simplified, abstract design and extend details autonomously in the background. Analytic and simulation based models could improve the quality by testing and dimensioning the design before implementation, but setting up the necessary models is time-consuming and expensive. Therefore many developers ask for analysis tools which are able to create their models from the available information in the design tools. This paper presents such an automated modeling approach basing on an existing design database at the example of a network analysis for building automation fieldbuses. The process of automated modeling is unfolded, and the potentials and limitations are discussed.     

Discipline differences in mental models: How mechanical engineers and automation engineers evaluate machine processes

Interdisciplinary collaboration frequently comes into play when existing problems cannot be solved by one discipline alone. However, the interlocking of contributions from different disciplines is by no means trivial. This exploratory study examines one foundation of successful teamwork, namely shared mental models. To this end, we compared the contents of mental models between members of different but interdependent disciplines who collaboratively solve knowledge-intensive, creative tasks. Five automation and five mechanical engineers were recruited from a company that produces packaging machines. In semi-structured interviews, participants reported their approach to evaluating the process behavior of a packaging machine, and their mental models were represented in concept maps. Quantitative analyses revealed that the maps of automation engineers were smaller than those of mechanical engineers. In qualitative analyses, the focus on different levels of abstraction and on contents from the two disciplines was examined. Automation engineers represented a large proportion of rather abstract machine functions, whereas mechanical engineers additionally represented the physical implementation of these functions. The disciplinary focus also differed in the sense that automation engineers mainly attended to automated machine processes, while mechanical engineers attended to both mechanical and automated processes. Overall, automation engineers' focus was narrower than that of mechanical engineers. We explain these results by considering typical tasks and reasoning processes in both disciplines, and discuss how shared mental models can aid the integration of different disciplinary perspectives, for instance, during Systems Engineering.     

Pywinauto在Windows Twain Driver自动化测试中的应用研究

以Python为基础,结合对Twain Driver测试工具的具体需求,将Pywinauto引入到Twain Driver的自动化测试中。介绍了Pywinauto的基本概念,通过测试用例说明Pywinauto在自动化测试中的具体实现。应用结果表明,该方法大大提高了测试的自动化程度,极大地减少了Twain Driver测试的工作量,同时也确保了测试质量。     

Flight-deck automation: promises and problems

Modern microprocessor technology and display systems make it entirely feasible to automate many of the flight-deck functions previously performed manually. There are many benefits to be derived from automation; the question today is not whether a function can be automated, but whether it should be, due to various human factors issues. It is highly questionable whether total system safety is always enhanced by allocating functions to automatic devices rather than human operators, and there is some reason to believe that flight-deck automation may have already passed its optimum point. This is an age-old question in the human factors profession, and there are few guidelines available to the system designer.

This paper presents the state-of-the-art in human factors in flight-deck automation, identifies a number of critical problem areas, and offers broad design guidelines. Some automation-related aircraft accidents and incidents are discussed as examples of human factors problems in automated flight.     

基于STM32 的五金钳弧面磨削系统设计

以广泛应用的五金钳类工具为加工对象,以STM32F103ZET6 为硬件电路的核心 处理器,设计完成了一套自动化磨削装备人机交互操作系统,并根据该系统设计完成了机械磨 削平台。该系统集成了一套基于嵌入式系统的五金钳类工具磨削加工的自动化装备,同时嵌入 了弧面磨削的动态调节算法,可根据弧面尺寸和形状的不同,动态调节输入参数,自动计算出 插补运动的路径,完成自动化磨削加工。调试结果显示,该系统运行平稳,差补准确。