Detecting component changes at run time with behavior models

Modern software systems are composed of several services which may be developed and maintained by third parties and thus they can change independently and without notice during the system’s runtime execution. In such systems, changes may possibly be a threat to system functional correctness, and thus to its reliability. Hence, it is important to detect them as soon as they happen to enable proper reaction. Change detection can be done by monitoring system execution and comparing the observed execution traces against models of the services composing the application. Unfortunately, formal specifications for services are not usually provided and developers have to infer them. In this paper we propose a methodology which exactly addresses these issues by using software behavior models to monitor component execution and detect changes. In particular, we describe a technique to infer behavior model specifications with a dynamic black box approach, keep them up-to-date with run time observations and detect behavior changes. Finally, we present a case study to validate the effectiveness of the approach in component change detection for a component that implements a complex, real communication protocol.     

UML4IoT—A UML-based approach to exploit IoT in cyber-physical manufacturing systems

Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the world. The manufacturing industry has already identified that the IoT brings great opportunities to retain its leading position in economy and society. However, the adoption of the IoT changes the development process of the manufacturing system and raises many challenges. In this paper, the modern manufacturing system is considered as a composition of cyber-physical, cyber and human components, and IoT is used as a glue for their integration as far as their cyber interfaces are concerned. An approach based on a UML profile for the IoT is presented to fully automate the generation process of the IoT-compliant layer that is required for the cyber-physical component to be effectively integrated into the modern IoT manufacturing environment. The approach can also be applied at the source code level specification of the component in case that a UML design specification is not available. A prototype implementation of the myLiqueur production laboratory system is used to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the UML4IoT approach.     

制造业信息化建设

推进制造业信息化是落实"以信息化带动工业化"战略、走新型工业化道路的重要举措。推进制造业信息化是《国家中长期科学和技术发展规划纲要》提出的重要任务;是面向国民经济建设主战场,整合科技资源、实施"以信息化带动工业化"战略、走新型工业化道路的重要举措;是推进经济结构调整和经济增长方式转变的重要手段。制造业信息化将信息技术、自动化技术、现代管理技术与制造技术结合应用,推进设计制造数字化、生产过程智能化和企业经营管理信息化。用高新技术改造和提升制造业,促进制造业研发设计、生产制造、企业管理和市场营销的变革,带动产品设计和制造模式的创新、企业管理和经营模式的创新以及企业间协作模式的创新,是新时期我国制造业适应全球竞争环境、生存和发展的必由之路,对提升我国制造业的自主创新能力和市场竞争能力具有重要意义。     

Towards an automatic engineering change management in smart product-service systems – A DSM-based learning approach

The rapid development and implementation of smart, connected products (SCPs) in the engineering field has triggered a promising manufacturing paradigm of servitization, i.e. smart product-service systems (Smart PSS). As a complex solution bundle in both system and product level, its engineering change management differs from the existing ones mainly in two aspects. Firstly, massive in-context stakeholder-generated/product-sensed data during usage stage can be leveraged to enable its success in a data-driven manner. Secondly, the digitalized services, consisting of both hardware and software solutions, can also be changed in a more flexible way other than the physical components alone. Nevertheless, scarcely any work reports on how to conduct engineering change in such context, let alone a systematic approach to support the automatic generation of its change prediction or recommendation. Aiming to fill these gaps, this work proposes an occurrence-based design structure matrix (DSM) approach together with a three-way based cost-sensitive learning approach for automatic engineering change management in the Smart PSS environment. This informatics-based research, as an explorative study, overcomes the subjectivity and tedious assessment of the experts in the conventional approaches, and can offer useful guidelines to the manufacturing companies for managing their engineering changes for product-service innovation process.     

The application of information systems for the design and operation of flexible machining cells

The use of information systems in manufacturing applications has dramatically changed over the last few years. The design and implementation of somewhat dated relational databases has been replaced by the generation of information models, that can be simultaneously used for the development of information systems and satisfy their integration requirements. Over the last ten years the authors have been involved in a series of research programmes focusing on the design and operation of flexible machining cells. The use of information systems has been a central theme and the enabling technology to achieve a number of novel design concepts and operational strategies for such cells. The initial research was based on the utilization of relational databases to integrate a variety of modelling and design tools. However, the additional effort required to integrate such databases to manufacturing software tools, in the form of developing file translators, information gateways and interfac es, has made the authors adopt a new approach. With this approach the information requirements are represented in a neutral format within a data model, using a formal data specification language developed by the Standards for the Exchange of Product (STEP) committee. This paper describes these changes in the design and implementation of information systems in manufacturing applications, and provides an initial view of future research requirements.     

The Web as enabling technology for software development anddistribution

When confronted with a new technology, we instinctively consider it within the context of existing work and practices. Such is the case with the World Wide Web. But the Web is more than a new technology for leveraging existing work. It is, in fact, an enabling technology with the potential to change software development as dramatically as the transistor and microprocessor changed computer architecture. An enabling technology changes the fundamental assumptions ingrained in a discipline. The microprocessor, for example, changed the reliability, cost, circuit density, and performance assumptions underlying hardware design. As a result, new applications and design approaches for hardware systems became feasible. Just as the microprocessor changed the fundamental assumptions of hardware design, the Web changes some of the assumptions underlying software development. Thus it has the potential to change our notion of the software artifact and the collaborative processes used to construct it     

以代理为中心的OSGi构件资源监控方法

基于构件的软件开发和复用是提高软件开发效率和质量的有效途径,OSGi(open services gateway initiative)构件平台模型为软件构件提供了良好的生命周期管理和动态依赖管理。在构件粒度上对系统的资源进行监控能够有效增强系统的可靠性,然而目前针对OSGi平台的构件资源监控技术侧重于统计整个系统的资源消耗,未能把统计的粒度细化到构件上,且不能根据各个构件的资源消耗情况对系统进行调整。提出一种基于代理的OSGi构件资源监控方法。该方法具有以下特点:在构件粒度上统计系统的资源消耗,能够统计到每一个构件所消耗的内存和CPU时间;能够发现资源消耗异常的构件,并对其进行重启或替换,从而提高系统可靠性;具有非侵入性,即不会对构件进行任何修改,不会影响到第三方应用的逻辑结构。实验表明,该方法可以准确地统计到构件的资源消耗量,并据此对构件进行有效的调整,提高系统的可靠性。     

基于领域工程的构件化可扩展管理信息系统

为使管理信息系统（MJS）适应不断变化的用户需求,在基于领域工程的软件开发方法和构件技术基础上,对MIS的领域分析、领域设计和领域构件的实现进行详细研究;并在基于Struts、Spring和Hibernate三种组合框架支持下,利用领域模型的分层结构思想,提出了一种具有数据抽象与细粒化、松耦合层次风格相结合的软件体系结构,在此结构上结合构件技术和代码自动生成技术解决了MIS因环境或服务变化引起的系统需求变化,为MIS及相关系统因需求变化引起的领域对象及相关业务操作变化提供了一种合理的技术解决方案。     

Operational Life Testing of Electronic Components

The infant mortality rates for ICs and other components have been a major concern throughout the electronics industry. Operational Life Testing was developed by AT&T to continuously monitor the early-life failure levels of various electonic component product families at the manufacturing plant. Rapid failure-mode analysis of OLT defects and implementation of the indicated process, testing, and design changes have in resuled in significant savings and enhanced component reliability. OLT could also be applied to incoming components by a system manufacturer.     

Impact of Radio Frequency Identification Technology on Environmental Sustainability

This study is the first empirical investigation of the impact of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology utilization on a manufacturing organization’s ability to implement environmental sustainability practices and the organization’s level of environmental performance. The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationships among RFID technology utilization, environmental sustainability practices, and environmental performance. A structural model depicting the impact (direct and indirect through green supply chain management practices) on environmental performance is theorized. The efficacy of the model is assessed using a Partial-Least-Squares structural equation modeling methodology based on data from a sample of manufacturing managers. The results suggest that RFID technology utilization is positively associated with green supply chain management practices and environmental performance. This study contributes to the understanding of the impact of a specific technology, RFID, on environmental sustainability. RFID technology utilization is established as a viable component of a manufacturing organization’s environmental sustainability strategy.     

Self-adaptive concurrent components

Selecting the optimum component implementation variant is sometimes difficult since it depends on the component’s usage context at runtime, e.g., on the concurrency level of the application using the component, call sequences to the component, actual parameters, the hardware available etc. A conservative selection of implementation variants leads to suboptimal performance, e.g., if a component is conservatively implemented as thread-safe while during the actual execution it is only accessed from a single thread. In general, an optimal component implementation variant cannot be determined before runtime and a single optimal variant might not even exist since the usage contexts can change significantly over the runtime. We introduce self-adaptive concurrent components that automatically and dynamically change not only their internal representation and operation implementation variants but also their synchronization mechanism based on a possibly changing usage context. The most suitable variant is selected at runtime rather than at compile time. The decision is revised if the usage context changes, e.g., if a single-threaded context changes to a highly contended concurrent context. As a consequence, programmers can focus on the semantics of their systems and, e.g., conservatively use thread-safe components to ensure consistency of their data, while deferring implementation and optimization decisions to context-aware runtime optimizations. We demonstrate the effect on performance with self-adaptive concurrent queues, sets, and ordered sets. In all three cases, experimental evaluation shows close to optimal performance regardless of actual contention.     

艺术设计创意研究——观《阿凡达》谈创意产业

创意产业经济成为艺术设计创意最大的动力,作为文化产业中新生力量有着巨大的发展空间,中国经济的发展已经开始从制造演化到创造的阶段,创造的根本就是创意发挥作用。艺术设计作为文化产业中的一个分支逐渐的成长和壮大起来。数字化艺术设计作为艺术设计中的一个新生力量在当今这个科技改变人们生活的社会中的作用与日俱增。电影《阿凡达》最近的上映让我们再次看到数字化艺术的魅力和强大经济效应。     

Diagnosing IC failures in a fast environment

In today's world of fast product introductions, short product life cycles, and complex ICs, manufacturers need comprehensive, accurate, and fast diagnosis of development failures and reliability hazards before launching a product. As a result, the failure analyst's role has changed from reactive to proactive. Waiting until failures come back from the field to assess the reliability of a product is no longer efficient. By that time it's too late. Devising tests that anticipate all failure modes and accelerating those failures within a reasonable length of time is also impractical if not impossible. There are too many variables and too many unknowns in the equation to use this shotgun approach. It results in too many reliability tests that produce no failures, and failure rates that too often are calculated on the basis of potentially irrelevant tests. To adequately evaluate the reliability of a component, the proactive failure analyst must first closely inspect it for both physical and electrical hazards. Combining this data with field data from products using the same technology, the analyst can run realistic tests that stress the part to failure, thus deriving an appropriate failure rate. The proactive failure analyst's role is to detect failures before they occur and assist the circuit designer in eliminating their cause before the product ships. This means that the analyst must conduct evaluation testing with an eye toward the physics of component failure. The result is improved manufacturing yield and a more robust, more reliable component in the field     

OntoProg: An ontology-based model for implementing Prognostics Health Management in mechanical machines

Trends in Prognostics Health Management (PHM) have been introduced into mechanical items of manufacturing systems to predict Remaining Useful Life (RUL). PHM as an estimate of the RUL allows Condition-based Maintenance (CBM) before a functional failure occurs, avoiding corrective maintenance that generates unnecessary costs on production lines. An important factor for the implementation of PHM is the correct data collection for monitoring a machine’s health, in order to evaluate its reliability. Data collection, besides providing information about the state of degradation of the machine, also assists in the analysis of failures for intelligent interventions. Thus, the present work proposes the construction of an ontological model for future applications such as expert system in the support in the correct decision-making, besides assisting in the implementation of the PHM in several manufacturing scenarios, to be used in the future by web semantics tools focused on intelligent manufacturing, standardizing its concepts, terms, and the form of collection and processing of data. The methodological approach Design Science Research (DSR) is used to guide the development of this study. The model construction is achieved using the ontology development 101 procedure. The main result is the creation of the ontological model called OntoProg, which presents: a generic ontology addressing by international standards, capable of being used in several types of mechanical machines, of different types of manufacturing, the possibility of storing the knowledge contained in events of real activities that allow through consultations in SPARQL for decision-making which enable timely interventions of maintenance in the equipment of a real industry. The limitation of the work is that said model can be implemented only by specialists who have knowledge in ontology.     

A roadmap for implementing new manufacturing technology based on STEP-NC

Manufacturing is changing. New ideas of control, the maturity of CAM techniques and computer technology have enabled the definition of an advanced machine tool control standard, STEP-NC. STEP-NC is one part of a larger manufacturing picture with links to different manufacturing applications using the STEP suite of standards. STEP-NC is the key to a door behind which there is a rich field of research on manufacturing techniques and opportunities for lean, intelligent and flexible manufacturing. The problem is to pass through that door. Many potential users are waiting for a lead from control developers. Control developers are waiting for market interest. Existing legacy machinery and investment in traditional machining add inertia. Instead of having a clear development path, manufacturing has become something of a Gordian knot waiting to be disentangled. New research projects are addressing these issues as well, but this paper takes a different route in showing how strategic planning can lead to adoption of the new techniques in a phased way, a so-called ‘Roadmap’. The contribution of this paper is the manner in which the overall task of implementation has been subdivided into tasks and phases to achieve the introduction of the new technology.     

提高计算机网络可靠性的方法分析

在信息化时代下,计算机网络技术的迅速发展改变了人们工作、学习以及生活的方式与习惯,人们对计算机网 络的依赖性在不断增强。而对于计算机网络本身的运行环境而言,一系列安全隐患问题的存在致使计算机网络安全问题随之 呈现在大众面前,如何提高计算机网络的可靠性,以实现对计算机网络安全风险隐患的有效规避,亟待解决。本文针对如何提 高计算机网络的可靠性进行了研究与探讨,并提出了一系列解决对策与方法,以供参考。     

User-Centered Design at IBM Consulting

IBM's traditions in human factors are rooted as far back as the 1950s. This article traces and describes how the challenges to the discipline have changed over the last 40 years, based on the personal and professional experiences of the authors. During that span of time, the focus of attention has shifted from traditional knobs and dials hardware, to system and application software, and now to consulting services.

This article discusses these changes and describes how user-centered design (UCD) has become a key component of the IBM Global Services (GS) information technology consulting approach. The UCD component of the GS method is described and illustrated with 2 case study samples from recent engagements.     

Does social capital matter? A quantitative approach to examining technology infusion in schools

Changing teachers’ perceptions about the value of technology and equipping them with appropriate knowledge and skills in pedagogical use of technology is often regarded as a key determinant of success in technology infusion in schools. However, recent studies have indicated that changing teachers’ epistemological beliefs about the use of technology in teaching and learning may not necessarily bring about change in their practice, and that technology implementation in schools can be affected by other instrumental forces, such as collegial trust, support for risk taking and access to expertise within an organization. In this article, we delineate collegial trust, access to expertise, willingness to take risks, etc. as manifestations of social capital in an organization. We argue that social capital plays a pivotal role in leveraging pedagogical change in schools. To gauge teachers’ self‐perceived change in their pedagogical use of technology, we take a constructivist perspective to explore how technology serves as a tool for facilitating students to articulate their thoughts, to explore and construct knowledge, and to become more autonomous in learning. The results of our questionnaire survey indicate that (1) the social capital of a school had a strong direct effect on teachers’ self‐perceived changes in their pedagogical use of technology, and that the effect of social capital on pedagogical change outweighed that of teachers’ perceived effectiveness of professional development; (2) teachers’ receptivity towards technology use had a direct effect on their perceived effectiveness of professional development but a very weak effect on fostering changes in their pedagogical use of technology; and (3) the social capital of a school had a direct influence on teachers’ receptivity towards technology use and their perceived effectiveness of professional development. To further unfold the complexity of technology implementation, more in‐depth qualitative studies on how social forces shape the change process are deemed necessary.     

The role of error in organizing behaviour

During recent years, the significance of the concept of human error has changed considerably. The reason for this has partly been an increasing interest of psychological research in the analysis of complex real-life phenomena, and partly the changes of modern work conditions caused by advanced information technology. Consequently, the topic of the present contribution is not a definition of the concept or a proper taxonomy. Instead, a review is given of two professional contexts for which the concept of error is important. Three cases of analysis of human-system interaction are reviewed: (1) traditional task analysis and human reliability estimation; (2) causal analysis of accidents after the fact; and, finally, (3) design of reliable work conditions in modern socio-technical systems. It is concluded that ‘;errors’ cannot be studied as a separate category of behaviour fragments; the object of study should be cognitive control of behaviour in complex environments.