PRISMA: Model-driven development of aspect-oriented software architectures

This summary presents a methodology for supporting the development of AOSAs following the MDD paradigm. This new methodology is called PRISMA and allows the code generation from models which specify functional and non-functional requirements.

Generación automática de la configuración de subestaciones eléctricas según el Estándar IEC 61850 a partir de una herramienta de diseño gráfico

La evolución de las redes eléctricas se dirige hacia lo que se conoce como “Smart Grids” o “Redes Eléctricas Inteligentes”. Estas “Smart Grids” se componen de subestaciones eléctricas, que a su vez se componen de unos dispositivos llamados IEDs (Dispositivos Electrónicos Inteligentes – Intelligent Electronic Devices). El diseño de IEDs se encuentra definido en la norma IEC 61850, que especifica además un Lenguaje de Configuración de Subestaciones (Substation Configuration Language SCL) para la definición de la configuración de subestaciones y sus IEDs. Hoy en día, este estándar internacional no sólo se utiliza para diseñar correctamente IEDs y asegurar su interoperabilidad, sino que también se utiliza para el diseño de otros dispositivos de la red eléctrica, como por ejemplo, medidores inteligentes. Sin embargo, aunque existe una tendencia cada vez mayor del uso de este estándar, la comprensión y el manejo del mismo resulta difícil debido al gran volumen de información que lo compone y del nivel de detalle que utiliza, por lo que su uso para el diseño de IEDs se hace tedioso sin la ayuda de un soporte software. Es por ello que, para facilitar la aplicación del estándar IEC 61850 en el diseño de IEDs se han desarrollado herramientas como “Visual SCL”, “SCL Explorer” o “61850 SCLVisual Design Tool”. En concreto, “61850 SCLVisual Design Tool” es una herramienta gráfica para el modelado de subestaciones electricas, generada mediante el uso de los frameworks Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) y Epsilon Generative Modeling Technologies (GMT) y desarrollada por el grupo de investigación SYST de la UPM. El objetivo de este proyecto es añadir una nueva funcionalidad a la herramienta “61850 Visual SCL DesignTool”. Esta nueva funcionalidad consiste en la generación automática de un fichero de configuración de subestaciones eléctricas según el estándar IEC 61850 a partir de de una herramienta de diseño gráfico. Este fichero, se denomina SCD (Substation Configuration Description), y se trata de un fichero XML conforme a un esquema XSD (XML Schema Definition) mediante el que se define el lenguaje de configuración de subestaciones SCL del IEC 61850. Para el desarrollo de este proyecto, es necesario el estudio del lenguaje para la configuración de subestaciones SCL, así como del lenguaje gráfico específico de dominio definido por la herramienta “61850 SCLVisual Design Tool”, la estructura de los ficheros SCD, y finalmente, del lenguaje EGL (Epsilon Generation Language) para la transformación y generación automática de código a partir de modelos EMF. ABSTRACT Electrical networks are evolving to “Smart Grids”. Smart Grids are composed of electrical substations that in turn are composed of devices called IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices). The design of IEDs is defined by the IEC 61850 standard, which also specifies a Substation Configuration Languaje (SCL) used to define the configuration of substations and their IEDs. Nowadays, this international standard is not only used to design properly IEDs and guarantee their interoperability, but it is also used to design different electrical network devices, such as, smart meters. However, although the use of this standard is growing, its compression as well as its management, is still difficult due to its large volume of information and its level of detail. As a result, designing IEDs becomes a tedious task without a software support. As a consequence of this, in order to make easier the application of the IEC 61850 standard while designing IEDs, some software tools have been developed, such as: “Visual SCL”, “SCL Explorer” or “61850 SCLVisual Design Tool”. In particular, “61850 SCLVisual Design Tool” is a graphical tool used to make electrical substations models, and developed with the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) and Epsilon Generative Modeling Technologies (GMT) by the research group SYST of the UPM. The aim of this project is to add a new functionality to “61850 Visual SCL DesignTool”. This new functionality consists of the automatic code generation of a substation configuration file according to the IEC 61850 standard. This file is called SCD (Substation Configuration Description), and it is a XML file that follows a XSD (XML Schema Definition) that defines the Substation Configuration Language (SCL) of the IEC 61850. In order to develop this project, it is necessary to study the Substation Configuration Language (SCL), the domain-specific graphical languaje defined by the tool “61850 SCLVisual Design Tool”, the structure of a SCD file, and the Epsilon Generation Language (EGL) used for the automatic code generation from EMF models

Graphs of calculations of energy deposition and air fluorescence from radiation produced by a nuclear explosion in space /

"Part of this work done under ARPA Order 631, Program Code No. 5820."

Reconfigurable service-oriented architecture for autonomic computing

Almost a decade has passed since the objectives and benefits of autonomic computing were stated, yet even the latest system designs and deployments exhibit only limited and isolated elements of autonomic functionality. In previous work, we identified several of the key challenges behind this delay in the adoption of autonomic solutions, and proposed a generic framework for the development of autonomic computing systems that overcomes these challenges. In this article, we describe how existing technologies and standards can be used to realise our autonomic computing framework, and present its implementation as a service-oriented architecture. We show how this implementation employs a combination of automated code generation, model-based and object-oriented development techniques to ensure that the framework can be used to add autonomic capabilities to systems whose characteristics are unknown until runtime. We then use our framework to develop two autonomic solutions for the allocation of server capacity to services of different priorities and variable workloads, thus illustrating its application in the context of a typical data-centre resource management problem.

CADS*: Computer-Aided Development of self-* systems

We present the prototype tool CADS* for the computer-aided development of an important class of self-* systems, namely systems whose components can be modelled as Markov chains. Given a Markov chain representation of the IT components to be included into a self-* system, CADS* automates or aids (a) the development of the artifacts necessary to build the self-* system; and (b) their integration into a fully-operational self-* solution. This is achieved through a combination of formal software development techniques including model transformation, model-driven code generation and dynamic software reconfiguration.

CloudMPL:a domain specific language for describing management policies for an autonomic cloud infrastructure

To benefit from the advantages that Cloud Computing brings to the IT industry, management policies must be implemented as a part of the operation of the Cloud. Among others, for example, the specification of policies can be used for the management of energy to reduce the cost of running the IT system or also for security policies while handling privacy issues of users. As cloud platforms are large, manual enforcement of policies is not scalable. Hence, autonomic approaches for management policies have recently received a considerable attention. These approaches allow specification of rules that are executed via rule-engines. The process of rules creation starts by the interpretation of the policies drafted by high-rank managers. Then, technical IT staff translate such policies to operational activities to implement them. Such process can start from a textual declarative description and after numerous steps terminates in a set of rules to be executed on a rule engine. To simplify the steps and to bridge the considerable gap between the declarative policies and executable rules, we propose a domain-specific language called CloudMPL. We also design a method of automated transformation of the rules captured in CloudMPL to the popular rule-engine Drools. As the policies are changed over time, code generation will reduce the time required for the implementation of the policies. In addition, using a declarative language for writing the specifications is expected to make the authoring of rules easier. We demonstrate the use of the CloudMPL language into a running example extracted from a management energy consumption case study.

Model-driven development of sensor network applications with optimization of non-functional constraints

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) differ from conventional distributed systems in many aspects. The resource limitation of sensor nodes, the ad-hoc communication and topology of the network, coupled with an unpredictable deployment environment are difficult non-functional constraints that must be carefully taken into account when developing software systems for a WSN. Thus, more research needs to be done on designing, implementing and maintaining software for WSNs. This thesis aims to contribute to research being done in this area by presenting an approach to WSN application development that will improve the reusability, flexibility, and maintainability of the software. Firstly, we present a programming model and software architecture aimed at describing WSN applications, independently of the underlying operating system and hardware. The proposed architecture is described and realized using the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) standard in order to achieve satisfactory levels of encapsulation and abstraction when programming sensor nodes. Besides, we study different non-functional constrains of WSN application and propose two approaches to optimize the application to satisfy these constrains. A real prototype framework was built to demonstrate the developed solutions in the thesis. The framework implemented the programming model and the multi-layered software architecture as components. A graphical interface, code generation components and supporting tools were also included to help developers design, implement, optimize, and test the WSN software. Finally, we evaluate and critically assess the proposed concepts. Two case studies are provided to support the evaluation. The first case study, a framework evaluation, is designed to assess the ease at which novice and intermediate users can develop correct and power efficient WSN applications, the portability level achieved by developing applications at a high-level of abstraction, and the estimated overhead due to usage of the framework in terms of the footprint and executable code size of the application. In the second case study, we discuss the design, implementation and optimization of a real-world application named TempSense, where a sensor network is used to monitor the temperature within an area.

Secure Web Service Clients on Mobile Devices

Enterprise apps on mobile devices typically need to communicate with other system components by consuming web services. Since most of the current mobile device platforms (such as Android) do not provide built-in features for consuming SOAP services, extensions have to be designed. Additionally in order to accommodate the typical enhanced security requirements of enterprise apps, it is important to be able to deal with SOAP web service security extensions on client side. In this article we show that neither the built-in SOAP capabilities for Android web service clients are sufficient for enterprise apps nor are the necessary security features supported by the platform as is. After discussing different existing extensions making Android devices SOAP capable we explain why none of them is really satisfactory in an enterprise context. Then we present our own solution which accommodates not only SOAP but also the WS-Security features on top of SOAP. Our solution heavily relies on code generation in order to keep the flexibility benefits of SOAP on one hand while still keeping the development effort manageable for software development. Our approach provides a good foundation for the implementation of other SOAP extensions apart from security on the Android platform as well. In addition our solution based on the gSOAP framework may be used for other mobile platforms in a similar manner.

The Use of Proof Planning Critics to Diagnose Errors in the Base Cases of Recursive Programs

This paper reports the use of proof planning to diagnose errors in program code. In particular it looks at the errors that arise in the base cases of recursive programs produced by undergraduates. It describes two classes of error that arise in this situation. The use of test cases would catch these errors but would fail to distinguish between them. The system adapts proof critics, commonly used to patch faulty proofs, to diagnose such errors and distinguish between the two classes. It has been implemented in Lambda-clam, a proof planning system, and applied successfully to a small set of examples.

REAL TIME FUZZY CONTROLLER FOR QUADROTOR STABILITY CONTROL

In this report, we develop an intelligent adaptive neuro-fuzzy controller by using adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) techniques. We begin by starting with a standard proportional-derivative (PD) controller and use the PD controller data to train the ANFIS system to develop a fuzzy controller. We then propose and validate a method to implement this control strategy on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. An analysis is made into the choice of filters for attitude estimation. These choices are limited by the complexity of the filter and the computing ability and memory constraints of the micro-controller. Simplified Kalman filters are found to be good at estimation of attitude given the above constraints. Using model based design techniques, the models are implemented on an embedded system. This enables the deployment of fuzzy controllers on enthusiast-grade controllers. We evaluate the feasibility of the proposed control strategy in a model-in-the-loop simulation. We then propose a rapid prototyping strategy, allowing us to deploy these control algorithms on a system consisting of a combination of an ARM-based microcontroller and two Arduino-based controllers. We then use a combination of the code generation capabilities within MATLAB/Simulink in combination with multiple open-source projects in order to deploy code to an ARM CortexM4 based controller board. We also evaluate this strategy on an ARM-A8 based board, and a much less powerful Arduino based flight controller. We conclude by proving the feasibility of fuzzy controllers on Commercial-off the shelf (COTS) hardware, we also point out the limitations in the current hardware and make suggestions for hardware that we think would be better suited for memory heavy controllers.

Generation of reduced certificates in abstraction-carrying code

Abstraction-Carrying Code (ACC) has recently been proposed as a framework for mobile code safety in which the code supplier provides a program together with an abstraction whose validity entails compliance with a predefined safety policy. The abstraction plays thus the role of safety certifícate and its generation is carried out automatically by a fixed-point analyzer. The advantage of providing a (fixedpoint) abstraction to the code consumer is that its validity is checked in a single pass of an abstract interpretation-based checker. A main challenge is to reduce the size of certificates as much as possible while at the same time not increasing checking time. In this paper, we first introduce the notion of reduced certifícate which characterizes the subset of the abstraction which a checker needs in order to validate (and re-construct) the full certifícate in a single pass. Based on this notion, we then instrument a generic analysis algorithm with the necessary extensions in order to identify the information relevant to the checker.

An approach to verifying and debugging simulation models governed by ordinary differential equations: Part 1. Methodology for residual generation

For dynamic simulations to be credible, verification of the computer code must be an integral part of the modelling process. This two-part paper describes a novel approach to verification through program testing and debugging. In Part 1, a methodology is presented for detecting and isolating coding errors using back-to-back testing. Residuals are generated by comparing the output of two independent implementations, in response to identical inputs. The key feature of the methodology is that a specially modified observer is created using one of the implementations, so as to impose an error-dependent structure on these residuals. Each error can be associated with a fixed and known subspace, permitting errors to be isolated to specific equations in the code. It is shown that the geometric properties extend to multiple errors in either one of the two implementations. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

Veterans counseling program : status report on the implementation of Iowa Code 35.12, Veterans Counseling & Outreach Program, 2008

This report gives an overview, background and progress on the implementation of the Veterans Counseling Program established pursuant to Iowa Code 35.12, as enacted by 2007 Iowa Acts, House FIle 817.