Formal methods: promises and problems

Successfully applying formal methods to software development promises to move us closer to a true engineering discipline. The authors offer suggestions for overcoming the problems that have hindered the use of formal methods thus far     

Knowledge management: problems, promises, realities, and challenges

This article explores the implications of a design perspective for knowledge management (KM). We examine the major problems which our approach must address, the promises it offers, the realities we have explored in our work and the continuing challenges. The authors' KM approach assumes that knowledge is not a commodity but that it is collaboratively designed and constructed.     

Minimising human problems when introducing automation

Although considerable thought has been given to human problems arising from the use of automation, very little attention has been devoted to the human problems encountered during its introduction. This article reviews various stages of the design and installation of an automated system from the human aspect. Stress is laid on the need for ergonomics throughout all phases, from analysis of present methods and design of a new system to installation, commissioning and personnel selection and training. An essential need is to involve all levels of the new system's users, from management to operators, at the earliest opportunity.     

The promises and problems of ergonomics application in the People's Republic of China

Ergonomics or human factors, as an applied science concerning the design of interfaces between man, machine and the working environment, has shown its great capacities and potentials for improving working conditions and efficiency during its applications in most industrially developed countries (IC). As a means of improving the economy, industrialisation has been initiated in many industrially developing countries (DC). Knowledge and technology available in ICs have been transferred to DCs in order to increase the process of industrialisation. Ergonomics as a western discipline has also been transferred to many DCs during the technology transfer process. As an example of the transfer and development of ergonomics in industrially developing countries, this paper examines the development of ergonomics and its various areas of application in the People's Republic of China. After reviewing the current ergonomics situation and its applications in China from various points of view — i e, from organisation, research, education and industrial application — promises and problems associatd with the development of this new area of science are discussed.     

浅谈水厂自动化中存在的问题及解决措施

结合对宜兴水务集团水厂及泵站自控设备的管理经验,对水厂自动化从设计、设备和管理等方面进行探讨并提出解决措施。     

The wireless Internet: promises and challenges

In the 1980s, the PC migrated from the hobbyist's den to the corporate desktop, a huge development in information technology. Ten years later, that honor fell to the Internet and wireless telephones, which until now have followed separate paths. The author predicts that this decade will see the convergence of wireless communications and the Internet. Although the commercial impact of wireless communications has thus far been limited to cellular telephones, the business and technical communities anticipate rapid growth in wireless data services. Almost daily, some prominent company announces plans for a “wireless e-commerce” enhancement to its business. The author examines the outlook for wireless data. Specifically, he considers the utility of wireless data services and why they have not been widely adopted until now. He also looks at the technology trends promoting wireless Internet convergence, and the obstacles preventing their implementation. As computing becomes increasingly mobile, the limitations of third-generation cellular telephony and the wireless applications protocol become increasingly apparent. The author asserts that only a new approach can make the Internet truly wireless     

Model-driven development using UML 2.0: promises and pitfalls

Experience indicates that effective complexity management mechanisms automate mundane development tasks and provide strong support for separation of concerns. For example, current high-level programming languages and integrated development environments provide abstractions that shield developers from intricate lower-level details and offer automated support for transforming abstract representations of source code into faithful machine-executable forms. The Object Management Group initiated the Unified Modeling Language 2.0 effort to address significant problems in earlier versions. While UML 2.0 improves over earlier versions in some aspects, its size and complexity can present a problem to users, tool developers, and OMG working groups charged with evolving the standard.     

Agent virtual machine for automation controllers: Example application: Shipboard automation

We are interested in providing an agent infrastructure for truly distributed control. Requirements include multiple language implementations, so that this agent host environment can exist in both real-time controllers and contain the ability to operate with external agent systems. Our first infrastructure, the Autonomous Cooperative System (ACS), accomplished these goals, but presented other issues. Although ACS has been successfully deployed on commercial controllers, new releases of controllers will cause complications in the evolution of the software and adoption of future functionality. We need to establish a formal integration procedure of the agent functionality with the controllers and to transform the underlying system into a fully integrated and open heterogeneous system. We use a shipboard automation example to demonstrate the use of the agent virtual machine. With this system, the shipboard automation system is designed as a distributed and survivable environment, thereby spreading intelligence throughout the controllers and not in central locations.     

Mobile home automation: merging mobile value added services and home automation technologies

In this paper we study mobile home automation, a field that emerges from an integration of mobile application platforms and home automation technologies. We motivate our research and provide a conceptual introduction, which illustrates the need for such applications by a two-dimensional conceptual model of mobility. As a first steps towards a solution we take the user’s perspective and discuss different options of how he might access a mobile home automation service and the controlled devices. Subsequently, we suggest a general system architecture for mobile home automation services and discuss related design decision. This design has been implemented in a research prototype, which we named Remotile. This helps us to discuss typical components, such as modules that integrate various home automation devices. A previous version of this paper was presented at the Sixth International Conference on Mobile Business, 2007. “Andreas Rosendahl, J. Felix Hampe, and Goetz Botterweck, Mobile Home Automation, Merging Mobile Value Added Services and Home Automation Technologies, Proceedings, Sixth International Conference on Mobile Business, 8–11 July 2007, IEEE Computer Society, ISBN 0-7695-2803-1”.     

The optimization paradigm in engineering design: promises and challenges

Formal design optimization involves application of mathematical optimization techniques to models derived from engineering science, often presented as computer simulations. Industry use of design optimization tools is now widespread and sophisticated. As the size and complexity of design problems addressed with these formal methods increase, so do the challenges for successful implementations. Based on the author's experiences, after briefly reviewing the mathematical challenges involved, the article describes several problem areas where optimization technology is likely to have a major impact in the development of improved artifacts in the coming years. These include conceptual and topological design, large complex systems, smart products, and enterprise-wide product design.     

Design automation in MEDEA: present and future

The semiconductor industry has been growing at an unprecedented level since its start in the early 1960s. Capitalizing on the outstanding properties of silicon and its stable oxide permitted the introduction of the CMOS industry, the leading semiconductor industry process. However, the average 15% to 16% annual growth in semiconductor sales has also presented tremendous problems of huge investments in manufacturing. Mandatory now is a rapid return of investment through advanced products (in the latest available processes) that have high added value at the system level. Sometimes the system is the product itself, which raises thoughts of new ways to design these complex systems on a single chip that mixes several functionalities. This article explores a future European evolution of design automation, discussing the present status of Europe's lack of local industrial developments as well as its tremendous knowledge reservoir. Earlier MEDEA activities paved the road to new design solutions and gave European companies the chance to influence US developments, as is evidenced by frequent technology partnerships with US software vendors. Recently, we have seen a significant increase in European start-ups in advanced design automation domains (hardware-software codesign, intellectual property reuse, deep-submicron effects)     

Building automation systems: Concepts and technology review

Despite the popularity of the subject, one surprising aspect of building automation (BA) is the scarcity of authoritative literature references regarding the topic. This situation hampers communication between developers and contributes to the well-known problem of heterogeneity where there is difficulty in integrating solutions from different manufacturers with each other.This article systematizes fundamental concepts and requirements of BA systems, defining each aspect based upon established literature standards. Using these aspects as guidelines, the main BA technology specifications available are then reviewed with respect to their coverage of features. We then proceed by showing that none of the analyzed specifications are able to totally cover the expected standard functionality span of BA. Finally, we conclude that none of the existing approaches are able to fully overcome the problem of heterogeneity by satisfactorily addressing all the aspects of BA endorsed by the standards.     

MARC: keystone for library automation

Libraries' most central and costly activity-cataloging material and maintaining the catalogs providing end-user access-had requirements that defied efficient automation until the mid-1960s, when the Library of Congress developed the MARC format for data records. The format became the foundation for automated systems for libraries that took data sharing to new levels and enabled exploitation of future computer developments to create today's online catalog environment. This article describes the complexity of the library application, how the MARC format was innovative, and why it was the foundation of automated systems development in libraries     

Pattern-based knowledge workflow automation: concepts and issues

As the result of business process automation, more and more knowledge is codified and stored in knowledge repositories and scattered in employees’ computers across functionally and geographically separated business units. While several alternative mechanisms such as chat rooms, search engines, recommender systems exist to retrieve and access knowledge, satisfying a knowledge requirement often involves the coordination of multiple tasks and the use of several technologies. However, there is no existing technology for orchestrating various collaboration, communication and information retrieval components to satisfy the knowledge needs in corporations. In order to address this gap, we propose the approach of pattern-based knowledge workflow that can enable the automation of knowledge flows across an organization. In this paper, we present an overview of the pattern-based knowledge workflow approach and propose extensions to the conventional workflow paradigm. We demonstrate the feasibility of implementing knowledge workflows by means of a Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) specification for executing knowledge workflows in a business setting. We then discuss the engineering challenges and research issues that need to be addressed to further develop this approach.

Office automation benefits: A framework

Most authors suggest that the main benefits of Office Automation are savings which are possible in work-time when using these new systems. The assumption underlying this approach is that productivity of office work is low at present, due to the fact that, to a large extent, office activities are carried out manually. Thus, in this approach, office work is analyzed as a group of time-consuming activities.This traditional approach is limited; we present here a more realistic and powerful framework by considering the real nature of different benefits resulting from the application of QA technology in the organization. In this approach, a catergorization of benefits is presented as a useful guide for anyone who has to decide on investments in new office systems.     

A virtualized test automation framework: A DellEMC case study of test automation practice

As software development life-cycles continue to shorten, the need for reliable, maintainable and scalable test automation solutions becomes more and more important. This importance arises as software, test and automation activities occur earlier in the development life cycle with the aim of providing accelerated feedback on the code and software produced. In this environment, infrastructure and development environments are made available earlier to test teams, the demand of which can create environment bottlenecks as software and automation teams also require the same resources at the same time. To help maximize the use of the underlying resources virtualization and cloud based solutions have been proposed. However, at present there is no guidance on how to design and implement a test automation solution that leverages an underlying virtualized infrastructure. In this paper a virtualized test automation framework designed and implemented by DellEMC Software Quality team in Cork, Ireland is presented along with a macro benchmark analysis of its performance over different virtualization environments.