Model-driven engineering for mobile robotic systems: a systematic mapping study

Software and Systems Modeling - Mobile robots operate in various environments (e.g. aquatic, aerial, or terrestrial), they come in many diverse shapes and they are increasingly becoming parts of...     

Financing cleaner production investments—UNEP experience

Cleaner production (CP) can be good business. To address constraints related to financing CP and to look for ways to overcome them, the United Nations Environment Programme, Division of Technology, Industry and Economic (UNEP/DTIE), has been implementing since 1999 a project "Strategies and mechanisms for promoting cleaner production investment in developing countries". The project is coming to an end in February 2003. Through field testing and adaptation and in partnership with experts in industrialised and developing countries and economies in transition, it has generated a series of guides, checklists and training packages. Over 3,000 persons attended the over 100 1- or 2-day courses delivered by national institutions in five demonstration countries. The project has also contributed to making preventive approaches and efficient resource management part of awareness raising and training activities by some development finance institutions and the UNEP Finance Initiatives. Proposals on innovative financing schemes have been made in several workshops for banks and donors in 2002. In addition to the special financing issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production (published in March 2003), articles on links between CP, financing and accounting have been contributed to professional publications.Although the project's demonstration activities have focused on five countries in Africa, Asia and Central America, its conclusions, recommendations and outputs are of direct relevance also to other developing countries and economies in transition. The integration of preventive strategies into investment decision making processes is a challenge both in the industrialised and in developing countries in the region. This paper summarises the lessons learned through the project and presents the recommendations, tools and instruments available for adaptation and use by CP promoters, financial institutions and business schools.     

Phenotypic and genotypic biotyping of environmental strains of Vibrio cholerae non-O1 isolated in Italy

The purpose of this study was to characterize strains of Vibrio cholerae non-O1 isolated in Italy from different sources by biochemical and serological assays, antibiotic susceptibility testing, and molecular biotyping. Serotyping and genomic analysis by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis proved to be useful in discriminating the isolates. The data obtained show a wide heterogeneity at the genomic level, and in keeping with this, the serogrouping classification provided evidence of a high variability of the investigated strains. In addition, none of the strains tested produced cholera-like toxins.     

Closed-circuit system for the depuration of mussels experimentally contaminated with hepatitis A virus

In Italy, the consumption of raw or slightly cooked mussels represents the most important risk factor for the transmission of hepatitis A virus (HAV). Although there exist effective methods for the bacterial depuration of contaminated mussels, these methods are poorly effective on enteric viruses. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a closed-circuit depuration system that uses both ozone and UV light for disinfecting water and that allows salinity and temperature, important parameters for the metabolism of mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis), to be maintained at constant levels. The results showed that this depuration method decreased the viral load (from 1.72 log 50% tissue culture infective dose [TCID50] ml(-1) to <1 log TCID50 ml(-1) within 24 h and from 3.82 log TCID50 ml(-1) to <1 log TCID50 ml(-1) within 48 h). However, in both cases, after 120 h of depuration, a residual amount of virus capable of replicating in cells was detected. These results show that depuration, even if performed with advanced systems, may not guarantee the absence of virus.     

Consistency management in industrial continuous model-based development settings: a reality check

Software and Systems Modeling - This article presents the state of practice of consistency management in thirteen industrial model-based development settings. Our analysis shows a tight coupling...     

On the automated translational execution of the action language for foundational UML

To manage the rapidly growing complexity of software development, abstraction and automation have been recognised as powerful means. Among the techniques pushing for them, model-driven engineering has gained increasing attention from industry for, among others, the possibility to automatically generate code from models. To generate fully executable code, models should describe complex behaviours. While pragmatically this is achieved by employing programming languages for defining actions within models, the abstraction gap between modelling and programming languages can undermine consistency between models and code as well as analysability and reusability of models. In light of this, model-aware action languages should be preferred. This is the case of the Action Language for Foundational UML (ALF). In this paper, we provide a solution for the fully automated translational execution of ALF towards C++. Additionally, we give an insight on how to simplify the transition from the use of programming languages for modelling fine-grained behaviours to model-aware action languages in industrial MDE. The solution presented in this paper has been assessed on industrial applications to verify its applicability to complex systems as well as its scalability.     

Editorial to theme issue on model-driven engineering of component-based software systems

Software and Systems Modeling - This theme issue aims at providing a forum for disseminating latest trends in the use and combination of model-driven engineering (MDE) and component-based software...     

Contamination of mussels by hepatitis A virus: a public-health problem in southern Italy

The frequency of hepatitis A virus (HAV) contamination in mussels sold in south of Italy, where a high incidence of HAV infection both in resident people and in travelers is reported every year, was investigated during a three-year period.

Mussels, collected from the markets of five big cities, were analysed by RT-nested-PCR to detect RNA-HAV and by an integrated method, cell culture-RT-PCR, to confirm the presence of infectious virus. On a total of 180 samples, 15.6% resulted contaminated by infectious HAV.

The high percentage of mussels, potentially dangerous for consumers, and the diffuse habit to consume them raw or slightly cooked, can contribute to maintain the endemic status of HAV infection in some areas of the south of Italy.     

From low-level programming to full-fledged industrial model-based development: the story of the Rubus Component Model

Developing distributed real-time systems is a complex task that has historically entailed specialized handcraft. In this paper, we propose a retrospective on the (r)evolutionary changes that led to the transition from low-level programming to industrial full-fledged model-based development embodied by the Rubus Component Model and its tool-ecosystem. We focus on the needs, challenges, and solutions of a 15-year-long evolution journey of a software development approach that has gone from low-level and manual programming to a highly automated environment offering modeling, analysis, and development of vehicular software systems with multi-criticality for deployment on single- and multi-core platforms.