A new paradigm: cloud agile manufacturing

Cloud Agile Manufacturing is a new paradigm proposed in this article. The main objective of Cloud Agile Manufacturing is to offer industrial production systems as a service. Thus users can access any functionality available in the cloud of manufacturing (process design, production, management, business integration, factories virtualization, etc.) without knowledge — or at least without having to be experts — in managing the required resources. The proposal takes advantage of many of the benefits that can offer technologies and models like: Business Process Management (BPM), Cloud Computing, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Ontologies. To develop the proposal has been taken as a starting point the Semantic Industrial Machinery as a Service (SIMaaS) proposed in previous work. This proposal facilitates the effective integration of industrial machinery in a computing environment, offering it as a network service. The work also includes an analysis of the benefits and disadvantages of the proposal.

Multi-agent system for control of robots inspired on the distributed activity and hormonal regulation of humans

Robotics is an emerging field with great activity. Robotics is a field that presents several problems because it depends on a large number of disciplines, technologies, devices and tasks. Its expansion from perfectly controlled industrial environments toward open and dynamic environment presents a many new challenges. New uses are, for example, household robots or professional robots. To facilitate the low cost, rapid development of robotic systems, reusability of code, its medium and long term maintainability and robustness are required novel approaches to provide generic models and software systems who develop paradigms capable of solving these problems. For this purpose, in this paper we propose a model based on multi-agent systems inspired by the human nervous system able to transfer the control characteristics of the biological system and able to take advantage of the best properties of distributed software systems. Specifically, we model the decentralized activity and hormonal variation.

Decomposition of human behavior using model of competencies: application to robotic control system

For many years, humans and machines have shared the same physical space. To facilitate their interaction with humans, their social integration and for more rational behavior has been sought that the robots demonstrate human-like behavior. For this it is necessary to understand how human behavior is generated, discuss what tasks are performed and how relate to themselves, for subsequent implementation in robots. In this paper, we propose a model of competencies based on human neuroregulator system for analysis and decomposition of behavior into functional modules. Using this model allow separate and locate the tasks to be implemented in a robot that displays human-like behavior. As an example, we show the application of model to the autonomous movement behavior on unfamiliar environments and its implementation in various simulated and real robots with different physical configurations and physical devices of different nature. The main result of this work has been to build a model of competencies that is being used to build robotic systems capable of displaying behaviors similar to humans and consider the specific characteristics of robots.

Overcoming resistance to change in business innovation processes

This paper summarizes the experience gained in dealing with resistance to change appeared in the companies when they develop innovative processes related to the adoption of new technologies, tools, equipment, infrastructure and methodologies. Technological innovation is rapidly absorbed by society on a personal level. But at the enterprise level, resistance to innovation can occur at any hierarchical level of the company and may appear with different intensity. Depending on the type of enterprise, the hierarchical level of the employee, the intensity of resistance and other factors, the measures taken are different. In this paper we summarize our experience in the cataloging of the resistance to innovation in terms of impact on workers and showing how technology education and business training can help overcome these resistance forces. This paper describes the experience acquired over 22 projects deployed in the period 2005 to 2011 and that has affected a total of 264 workers of different cultural, technological, business and hierarchical levels.

Data normalization and integration in robotic systems using web services technologies

The robotics is one of the most active areas. We also need to join a large number of disciplines to create robots. With these premises, one problem is the management of information from multiple heterogeneous sources. Each component, hardware or software, produces data with different nature: temporal frequencies, processing needs, size, type, etc. Nowadays, technologies and software engineering paradigms such as service-oriented architectures are applied to solve this problem in other areas. This paper proposes the use of these technologies to implement a robotic control system based on services. This type of system will allow integration and collaborative work of different elements that make up a robotic system.

Cloud agile manufacturing

This paper proposes a new manufacturing paradigm, we call Cloud Agile Manufacturing, and whose principal objective is to offer industrial production systems as a service. Thus users can access any functionality available in the cloud of manufacturing (process design, production, management, business integration, factories virtualization, etc.) without knowledge — or at least without having to be experts — in managing the required resources. The proposal takes advantage of many of the benefits that can offer technologies and models like: Business Process Management (BPM), Cloud Computing, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Ontologies. To develop the proposal has been taken as a starting point the Semantic Industrial Machinery as a Service (SIMaaS) proposed in previous work. This proposal facilitates the effective integration of industrial machinery in a computing environment, offering it as a network service. The work also includes an analysis of the benefits and disadvantages of the proposal.

Representation of 2D objects with a topology preserving network

Comunicación presentada en el 2nd International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in Information Systems, Alicante, April, 2002.

Red de Seguimiento e indicadores en el Máster Universitario en Ingeniería de Telecomunicación

El profesorado de la red docente, que forma parte de la comisión académica del Máster, realizó durante el curso 2011/12 un proyecto para el estudio de los indicadores de calidad del Máster, en función de los indicadores de calidad de las Agencias acreditadoras y dependiendo de las tasas de éxito y eficacias durante el primer curso de implantación del Máster.

Model of Competencies for Decomposition of Human Behavior: Application to Control System of Robots

Humans and machines have shared the same physical space for many years. To share the same space, we want the robots to behave like human beings. This will facilitate their social integration, their interaction with humans and create an intelligent behavior. To achieve this goal, we need to understand how human behavior is generated, analyze tasks running our nerves and how they relate to them. Then and only then can we implement these mechanisms in robotic beings. In this study, we propose a model of competencies based on human neuroregulator system for analysis and decomposition of behavior into functional modules. Using this model allow separate and locate the tasks to be implemented in a robot that displays human-like behavior. As an example, we show the application of model to the autonomous movement behavior on unfamiliar environments and its implementation in various simulated and real robots with different physical configurations and physical devices of different nature. The main result of this study has been to build a model of competencies that is being used to build robotic systems capable of displaying behaviors similar to humans and consider the specific characteristics of robots.

A formal framework for modelling complex network management systems

Society today is completely dependent on computer networks, the Internet and distributed systems, which place at our disposal the necessary services to perform our daily tasks. Subconsciously, we rely increasingly on network management systems. These systems allow us to, in general, maintain, manage, configure, scale, adapt, modify, edit, protect, and enhance the main distributed systems. Their role is secondary and is unknown and transparent to the users. They provide the necessary support to maintain the distributed systems whose services we use every day. If we do not consider network management systems during the development stage of distributed systems, then there could be serious consequences or even total failures in the development of the distributed system. It is necessary, therefore, to consider the management of the systems within the design of the distributed systems and to systematise their design to minimise the impact of network management in distributed systems projects. In this paper, we present a framework that allows the design of network management systems systematically. To accomplish this goal, formal modelling tools are used for modelling different views sequentially proposed of the same problem. These views cover all the aspects that are involved in the system; based on process definitions for identifying responsible and defining the involved agents to propose the deployment in a distributed architecture that is both feasible and appropriate.

Mathematical modelling of the lower urinary tract

The lower urinary tract is one of the most complex biological systems of the human body as it involved hydrodynamic properties of urine and muscle. Moreover, its complexity is increased to be managed by voluntary and involuntary neural systems. In this paper, a mathematical model of the lower urinary tract it is proposed as a preliminary study to better understand its functioning. Furthermore, another goal of that mathematical model proposal is to provide a basis for developing artificial control systems. Lower urinary tract is comprised of two interacting systems: the mechanical system and the neural regulator. The latter has the function of controlling the mechanical system to perform the voiding process. The results of the tests reproduce experimental data with high degree of accuracy. Also, these results indicate that simulations not only with healthy patients but also of patients with dysfunctions with neurological etiology present urodynamic curves very similar to those obtained in clinical studies.

ABPgame+ o cómo hacer del último curso de ingeniería una primera experiencia profesional

Algunos de los aspectos clave en el desarrollo profesional de un ingeniero son su capacidad para trabajar en equipo, para integrar diferentes puntos de vista y para desarrollar grandes proyectos con un alto nivel de incertidumbre. Los planes de estudio de las titulaciones que preparan a estos futuros ingenieros no pueden permanecer ajenos a estas necesidades y deben plantear situaciones lo más cercanas posible a la realidad que se encontrarán nuestros egresados en su vida laboral. Estas razones, nos han llevado a plantear una experiencia innovadora en una titulación de nueva implantación como es el Grado en Ingeniería Multimedia. Hemos elegido, para ello, la metodología del Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos (ABP), aplicada al itinerario de Creación y Entretenimiento Digital en cuarto curso, donde los estudiantes, agrupados en equipos, desarrollan un único gran proyecto durante el año, que es un videojuego. Queremos destacar dos consecuencias de esta experiencia: primero, el papel fundamental de la asignatura Proyectos Multimedia, sirviendo de apoyo al resto de asignaturas al llevar el peso de la gestión de los equipos y del seguimiento del proyecto. Y después, que los estudiantes pueden obtener un producto terminado al final del curso que les permita inaugurar su portafolio profesional.

Portal de Recursos Docentes con Perspectiva de Género para la Docencia Universitaria

En este trabajo abordamos el desarrollo de un Portal de Recursos Docentes con Perspectiva de Género para la Docencia Universitaria promovido desde la Unidad de Igualdad de la Universidad de Alicante y financiado por el Instituto de la Mujer, donde se ha creado una biblioteca digital que recoge un gran número de recursos digitales para ayudar y extender la inclusión de la perspectiva de género en la docencia universitaria. En el presente artículo se recoge cuál ha sido el proceso para recopilar los recursos, cómo se ha creado la biblioteca digital y de qué manera su puesta en marcha ha favorecido la inclusión de perspectiva de género en una asignatura de Ingeniería Informática.

Estrategia MOOC en la Universidad de Alicante para la Educación Digital del Futuro. UA|edf

La Universidad de Alicante es una de las instituciones de educación superior que ha querido recoger el guante lanzado por la reciente aparición de los cursos en abierto, en línea y masivos (MOOC — Massive Open Online Course) para emprender una iniciativa propia que hemos denominado Educación Digital para el Futuro (UA|edf). Pero antes de tomar decisiones, había que analizar el estado de la situación y, sobre todo, su posible evolución. En este trabajo se expone de forma sintetizada el estudio realizado, se describe la estrategia de implementación adoptada en nuestra institución junto con las decisiones funcionales, técnicas y tecnológicas empleadas para su rápida puesta en marcha y, para finalizar, se discute una política de federación con otras instituciones cuya finalidad es alcanzar una propuesta realista y sostenible.

SOA-Based Model for Value-Added ITS Services Delivery

Integration is currently a key factor in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), especially because of the ever increasing service demands originating from the ITS industry and ITS users. The current ITS landscape is made up of multiple technologies that are tightly coupled, and its interoperability is extremely low, which limits ITS services generation. Given this fact, novel information technologies (IT) based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm have begun to introduce new ways to address this problem. The SOA paradigm allows the construction of loosely coupled distributed systems that can help to integrate the heterogeneous systems that are part of ITS. In this paper, we focus on developing an SOA-based model for integrating information technologies (IT) into ITS to achieve ITS service delivery. To develop our model, the ITS technologies and services involved were identified, catalogued, and decoupled. In doing so, we applied our SOA-based model to integrate all of the ITS technologies and services, ranging from the lowest-level technical components, such as roadside unit as a service (RS S), to the most abstract ITS services that will be offered to ITS users (value-added services). To validate our model, a functionality case study that included all of the components of our model was designed.