Strategic justification of advanced automated technology systems using an expert system

This paper presents an application of expert systems for the strategic justification of advanced automated technology systems. This expert system is developed using the EXSYS expert system shell in the VAX-VMS mainframe environment. It considers important attributes such as suitability (measure of the AMT's compliance with corporate strategy); system capability; performance of the AMT system; and productivity including the financial benefits of the AMT.     

Walsh transform theory and its application to systems analysis and control: an overview

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the works dealing with the application and utilization of Walsh function series and transforms to a variety of systems and control applications. The works reviewed are classified in the following groups: 1. Walsh signal definition and generation, 2. Walsh transform Computation, 3. System analysis using Walsh functions, 4. System identification via Walsh functions, 5. Optimal control via Walsh functions, 6. Block-pulse functions, 7. Miscellaneous properties of Walsh functions, 8. Walsh-to-Fourier transform conversion, and 9. Walsh transform applications.     

An application of structural modeling and automated reasoning to real-time systems design

This paper presents an application of structural modeling and automated reasoning as a software development environment for real-time systems. This application satisfies two major requirements for such an environment: (1) to synthesize an absolutely correct program and, (2) to increase software productivity. The real-time systems, which consist of concurrent programs, are described by a Prolog based concurrent object-oriented language, called MENDEL/87. As a typical concurrent program consists of two parts: functional and synchronization parts; the functional part in the reusable component to be registered in a library will be generated by a structural modeling through the use of structuring functions with respect to data flows. The synchronization part will be synthesized from temporal logic specifications by the use of an automated reasoning mechanism. This paper also describes the MENDELS ZONE implemented on a Prolog machine, which is the working base for the presented application method.     

Testing real-time systems using genetic algorithms

The development of real-time systems is an essential industrial activity whose importance is increasing. The most important analytical method to assure the quality of real-time systems is dynamic testing. Testing is the only method which examines the actual run-time behaviour of real-time software, based on an execution in the real application environment. Dynamic aspects like the duration of computations, the memory actually needed, or the synchronization of parallel processes are of major importance for the correct function of real-time systems and have to be tested. A comprehensive investigation of existing software test methods shows that they mostly concentrate on testing for functional correctness. They are not suited for an examination of temporal correctness which is essential to real-time systems. Very small systems show a wide range of different execution times. Therefore, existing test procedures must be supplemented by new methods, which concentrate on determining whether the system violates its specified timing constraints. In general, this means that outputs are produced too early or their computation takes too long. The task of the tester is to find the inputs with the longest or shortest execution times to check whether they produce a temporal error. If the search for such inputs is interpreted as a problem of optimization, genetic algorithms can be used to find the inputs with the longest or shortest execution times automatically. The fitness function is the execution time measured in processor cycles. Experiments using genetic algorithms on a number of programs with up to 1511 LOC and 843 integer input parameters have successfully identified new longer and shorter paths than had been found using random testing or systematic testing. Genetic algorithms are able therefore to check large programs and they show considerable promise in establishing the validity of the temporal behaviour of real-time software.     

Constrained optimal control: an application to semiactive suspension systems

This article applies three different control techniques to the design of a quarter-car semiactive suspension system. The three techniques, originally developed to solve a constrained optimal control problem, are optimal gain switching, discontinuous variable structure control and explicit model predictive control. All of them divide the state space into convex regions and assign a linear or affine state feedback controller to each region. The partition of the state space is computed off-line. During the on-line phase, the controller switches between the subcontrollers according to the current state. All the above techniques gave satisfactory results when applied to the design of semiactive suspension systems. A detailed comparison in terms of computational complexity, performance and simplicity of the design is proposed in the article.     

Data dependent systems technique: a methodology with an application to human systems

The objective of this paper is to introduce the application of Data Dependent Systems (DDS) methodology to the field of ergonomics. Many current techniques in ergonomics utilize static models, which can have significant limitations. DDS is a stochastic modelling and analysis technique that can be used to capture the dynamics of a system through quantitative analysis of the available data. DDS has been successfully applied to the analysis of manufacturing processes and the surfaces generated by those processes. In this research, DDS was used to analyse time-based hand-skin temperature data for the evaluation of two types of glove liners to be used underneath latex gloves. DDS was able to capture the differences between the two glove liners and the two subjects. The implications of the results and the potential of the DDS methodology are discussed.     

Data dependent systems technique: a methodology with an application to human systems

The objective of this paper is to introduce the application of Data Dependent Systems (DDS) methodology to the field of ergonomics. Many current techniques in ergonomics utilize static models, which can have significant limitations. DDS is a stochastic modelling and analysis technique that can be used to capture the dynamics of a system through quantitative analysis of the available data. DDS has been successfully applied to the analysis of manufacturing processes and the surfaces generated by those processes. In this research, DDS was used to analyse time-based hand-skin temperature data for the evaluation of two types of glove liners to be used underneath latex gloves. DDS was able to capture the differences between the two glove liners and the two subjects. The implications of the results and the potential of the DDS methodology are discussed.     

Stability analysis and design of reset systems: Theory and an application

This paper investigates stability analysis and design of reset control systems where the reset time instants are pre-specified. Firstly, in order to quantify stability of reset control systems, we propose an approach which does not rely on the stability of base linear systems. Based on this, some Lie-algebraic conditions for stability of reset control systems are obtained. Then, we develop a method for reset law design which aims at improving transient responses of the base linear systems. In addition, observer-based design is also considered. We prove that under some mild conditions, reset controller and observer can be designed separately. The obtained results are applied to short-span-seeking control of a kind of single stage hard disk drive servo systems. Simulations show that the proposed design is much more capable of improving transient response than traditional control design techniques.     

Windows下Android应用程序开发环境搭建详解

分析了Android移动开发平台架构和该平台的各个组成部分,在此基础上给出了Android平台架构模型。鉴于Android平台的开发环境搭建的复杂性,深入研究了其在Windows操作系统中的搭建过程,详细地探讨了Android应用程序运行所需的虚拟机创建和配置,为应用程序开发做好准备。     

Driver-centred vehicle automation: using network analysis for agent-based modelling of the driver in highly automated driving systems

To the average driver, the concept of automation in driving infers that they can become completely ‘hands and feet free’. This is a common misconception, however, one that has been shown through the application of Network Analysis to new Cruise Assist technologies that may feature on our roads by 2020. Through the adoption of a Systems Theoretic approach, this paper introduces the concept of driver-initiated automation which reflects the role of the driver in highly automated driving systems. Using a combination of traditional task analysis and the application of quantitative network metrics, this agent-based modelling paper shows how the role of the driver remains an integral part of the driving system implicating the need for designers to ensure they are provided with the tools necessary to remain actively in-the-loop despite giving increasing opportunities to delegate their control to the automated subsystems.

Practitioner Summary: This paper describes and analyses a driver-initiated command and control system of automation using representations afforded by task and social networks to understand how drivers remain actively involved in the task. A network analysis of different driver commands suggests that such a strategy does maintain the driver in the control loop.     

Architecturing large integrated complex information systems: an application to healthcare

The global enterprise-wide approaches help organizations to model and understand the enterprise key components and their relationships and manage the organizations’ transformations and change. However, many of these approaches lack of insights into how to manage complexities related to the multitude of applications developed in silos such as the various systems in health organizations that were designed independently from each other. This paper contributes to the solutions addressing this issue by proposing a methodology and tools to create foundations based on key components to help develop the information architecture at the heart of the enterprise architecture that can guarantee the evolution of the organization. These core components are a set of reusable Field Actions representing the non-contextual persistent information, a common canonical Corporate Conceptual Data Model capturing all the vital data in the organization, and Views or sub-schema of this global data model that represent information for different stakeholders in the organization. To show the effectiveness of the proposed approach and to gain more insights into its practical value, the architecturing approach is applied in the healthcare domain to create the information architecture and the enterprise architecture for the Quebec healthcare network.     

An automated approach to information systems decomposition

A method for automating the process of system decomposition is described. The method is based on a formal specification scheme, formal definition of good decomposition, heuristic rules governing the search for good candidate decompositions, and a measure of complexity that allows ranking of the candidate decompositions. The decomposition method has been implemented as a set of experimental computerized systems analysis tools and applied to a standard problem for which other designs already exist. The results are encouraging, in that decompositions generated using other methodologies map easily into those suggested by the computerized tools. Additionally, the use of the method indicates that when more than one `good' decomposition is suggested by the system, the specifications might have been incomplete. That is, the computerized tools can identify areas where more information should be sought by analysis     

Animating speech: an automated approach using speech synthesised by rules

This paper is concerned with the problem of animating computer drawn images of speaking human characters, and particularly with the problem of reducing the cost of adequate lip synchronisation. Since the method is based upon the use of speech synthesis by rules, extended to manipulate facial parameters, and there is also a need to gather generalised data about facial expressions associated with speech, these problems are touched upon as well. Useful parallels can be drawn between the problems of speech synthesis and those of facial expression synthesis. The paper outlines the background to the work, as well as the problems and some approaches to solution, and goes on to describe work in progress in the authors' laboratories that has resulted in one apparently successful approach to low-cost animated speaking faces. Outstanding problems are noted, the chief ones being the difficulty of selecting and controlling appropriate facial expression categories: the lack or naturalness of the synthetic speech; and the need to consider the body movements and speech of all characters in an animated sequence during the animation process.     

Evaluation of malware phylogeny modelling systems using automated variant generation

A malware phylogeny model is an estimation of the derivation relationships between a set of malware samples. Systems that construct phylogeny models are expected to be useful for malware analysts. While several such systems have been proposed, little is known about the consistency of their results on different data sets, about their generalizability across different types of malware evolution. This paper explores these issues using two artificial malware history generators: systems that simulate malware evolution according to different evolution models. A quantitative study was conducted using two phylogeny model construction systems and multiple samples of artificial evolution. High variability was found in the quality of their results on different data sets, and the systems were shown to be sensitive to the characteristics of evolution in the data sets. The results call into question the adequacy of evaluations typical in the field, raise pragmatic concerns about tool choice for malware analysts, and underscore the important role that model-based simulation is expected to play in evaluating and selecting suitable malware phylogeny construction systems.     

Intelligent automated control of life support systems using proportional representations

Effective automatic control of Advanced Life Support Systems (ALSS) is a crucial component of space exploration. An ALSS is a coupled dynamical system which can be extremely sensitive and difficult to predict. As a result, such systems can be difficult to control using deliberative and deterministic methods. We investigate the performance of two machine learning algorithms, a genetic algorithm (GA) and a stochastic hill-climber (SH), on the problem of learning how to control an ALSS, and compare the impact of two different types of problem representations on the performance of both algorithms. We perform experiments on three ALSS optimization problems using five strategies with multiple variations of a proportional representation for a total of 120 experiments. Results indicate that although a proportional representation can effectively boost GA performance, it does not necessarily have the same effect on other algorithms such as SH. Results also support previous conclusions that multivector control strategies are an effective method for control of coupled dynamical systems.     

Two-dimensional shape decomposition using fuzzy subset theory applied to automated chromosome analysis

This paper describes a technique to transform a two-dimensional shape into a generalized fuzzy binary relation whose clusters represent the meaningful simple parts of the shape. The fuzzy binary relation is defined on the set of convex and concave boundary points, implying a piecewise linear approximation of the boundary, and describes the dissemblance of two vertices to a common cluster. Next some fuzzy subsets are defined over the points which determine the connection between the clusters.The decomposition method first determines nearly convex regions, which are subgraphs of the total graph, and then selects the greatest nearly convex region which satisfies best the defined fuzzy subsets and relations. Using this procedure on touching chromosomes defining the simple parts to be the separated chromosomes, the decomposition often corresponds well to the decomposition that a human might make.     

SVM sensitivity analysis: an application to currency crises aftermaths

A currency crisis is an economic event where a country's fixed exchange rate is under pressure by speculators. In some cases, currency crises are followed by strong recessions (e.g., recent Asian and Argentinean crises), but in other cases they are not. This paper seeks to determine what are the most significant factors in explaining the consequences of currency crises on the economy. This paper collects data on 25 variables for 64 currency crises between 1970 and 1999. This research uses a novel algorithm with support vector machines (SVM) for selecting significant variables. This algorithm works well with datasets characterized by nonlinearity and low variable-observation ratio. Variables of banking size and fragility, international trade, and devaluation were the most significant. Variables of banking supervision, economic development, and IMF intervention were found less significant. The variable selection results of the algorithm were compared with all-best subsets variable selection. The results of our algorithm are more consistent with the economic literature than the results from all-best subsets.     

The application of simulation techniques to information systems analysis

This paper describes the application of a computer simulation model as a tool to aid in the analysis and design of an information system. Unique to the study is the adaptation of an existing production control simulation model for the purpose of analyzing flows in a hierarchical computer network.The existing simulation model and its method of adaptation are presented. The results of the simulation analysis are utilized by a newly developed file allocation algorithm in the design of a hierarchical information system. The study was performed under close cooperation with several steel manufacturers and initiated under NSF grant ATA 73-07822 AO1.     

Alarm-initiated activities: an analysis of alarm handlingby operators using text-based alarm systems in supervisory control systems

Alarms constitute a significant aspect of the operator-system interface in human supervisory control tasks: they have the potential to display information that is of critical importance to overall system safety and integrity. This paper considers the trend toward the use of visual display terminals for the presentation of alarms, specifically in the use of scrolling text displays. It is suggested that this form of information display may not best serve all aspects of alarm handling. To illustrate why this is so, an analysis of human alarm handling activities is presented. The focus on text-based displays and annunciators allows the authors to concentrate on a number of problems associated with the alarm design using a specific medium. From this discussion, the alarm initiated activities model is developed. By considering the activities that people engage in when dealing with alarms, an insight is offered into the information requirements that can be used to inform the design of alarm systems.