Business Processes for the Crowd Computer

open7noKucherbaev, Pavel; Tranquillini, Stefano; Daniel, Florian; Casati, Fabio; Marchese, Maurizio; Brambilla, Marco; Fraternali, PieroKucherbaev, Pavel; Tranquillini, Stefano; Daniel, Florian; Casati, Fabio; Marchese, Maurizio; Brambilla, Marco; Fraternali, Pier

Process-Based Design and Integration of Wireless Sensor Network Applications

Abstract Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSNs) are distributed sensor and actuator networks that monitor and control real-world phenomena, enabling the integration of the physical with the virtual world. They are used in domains like building automation, control systems, remote healthcare, etc., which are all highly process-driven. Today, tools and insights of Business Process Modeling (BPM) are not used to model WSN logic, as BPM focuses mostly on the coordination of people and IT systems and neglects the integration of embedded IT. WSN development still requires significant special-purpose, low-level, and manual coding of process logic. By exploiting similarities between WSN applications and business processes, this work aims to create a holistic system enabling the modeling and execution of executable processes that integrate, coordinate, and control WSNs. Concretely, we present a WSNspecific extension for Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and a compiler that transforms the extended BPMN models into WSN-specific code to distribute process execution over both a WSN and a standard business process engine. The developed tool-chain allows modeling of an independent control loop for the WSN.

Crowdsourcing Processes: A Survey of Approaches and Opportunities

This article makes a case for crowdsourcing approaches that are able to manage crowdsourcing processes - that is, crowdsourcing scenarios that go beyond the mere outsourcing of multiple instances of a micro-task and instead require the coordination of multiple different crowd and machine tasks. It introduces the necessary background and terminology, identifies a set of analysis dimensions, and surveys state-of-the-art tools, highlighting strong and weak aspects and promising future research and development directions

Modeling, enacting, and integrating custom crowdsourcing processes

Crowdsourcing (CS) is the outsourcing of a unit of work to a crowd of people via an open call for contributions. Thanks to the availability of online CS platforms, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk or CrowdFlower, the practice has experienced a tremendous growth over the past few years and demonstrated its viability in a variety of fields, such as data collection and analysis or human computation. Yet it is also increasingly struggling with the inherent limitations of these platforms: each platform has its own logic of how to crowdsource work (e.g., marketplace or contest), there is only very little support for structured work (work that requires the coordination of multiple tasks), and it is hard to integrate crowdsourced tasks into stateof-the-art business process management (BPM) or information systems. We attack these three shortcomings by (1) developing a flexible CS platform (we call it Crowd Computer, or CC) that allows one to program custom CS logics for individual and structured tasks, (2) devising a BPMN-based modeling language that allows one to program CC intuitively, (3) equipping the language with a dedicated visual editor, and (4) implementing CC on top of standard BPM technology that can easily be integrated into existing software and processes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach with a case study on the crowd-based mining of mashup model patterns

Demo Abstract: From Business Process Specifications to Sensor Network Deployments

makeSenseCONE

Distributed orchestration of user interfaces

Workflow management systems focus on the coordination of people and work items, service composition approaches on the coordination of service invocations, and, recently, web mashups have started focusing on the integration and coordination of pieces of user interfaces (UIs), e.g., a Google map, inside simple web pages. While these three approaches have evolved in a rather isolated fashion although they can be seen as evolution of the componentization and coordination idea from people to services to UIs in this paper we describe a component-based development paradigm that conciliates the core strengths of these three approaches inside a single model and language. We call this new paradigm distributed UI orchestration, so as to reflect the mashup-like and process-based nature of our target applications. In order to aid developers in implementing UI orchestrations, we equip the described model and language with suitable design, deployment, and runtime instruments, covering the whole life cycle of distributed UI orchestrations. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Control and simulation of steel strips in galvanization lines

LAUREA MAGISTRALELa zincatura a caldo è un processo industriale che prevede l'applicazione di uno strato uniforme di zinco su nastri di acciaio dello spessore desiderato. Durante il processo di galvanizzazione, le perturbazioni causate dai coltelli d'aria e da fattori esterni possono provocare deviazioni nel percorso del nastro, con il risultato di uno strato di zinco non uniforme. Per ottenere un rivestimento uniforme, è essenziale ridurre al minimo le vibrazioni del nastro implementando misure di stabilizzazione efficaci. L'obiettivo principale della ricerca è quello di creare uno strumento di facile utilizzo per simulare e prevedere in modo efficiente il comportamento di nastri realizzati con vari materiali, di diverse lunghezze e larghezze. In questa tesi è stato sviluppato un nuovo modello matematico per prevedere le vibrazioni di un nastro di acciaio durante il processo di zincatura a caldo. Il modello si basa sul metodo degli elementi finiti (FEM) e la sua validità è stata confermata dai dati acquisiti da un impianto operativo. Per lo sviluppo del modello sono stati studiati diversi metodi alternativi, come i minimi quadrati ricorsivi (RLS), le serie temporali e le equazioni algebriche differenziali (DAE) con un approccio acausale. Dopo lo sviluppo del modello, è stato progettato un controllore per stabilizzare le vibrazioni della striscia. Il controllore utilizza una tecnica di posizionamento dei poli con un osservatore di stato. I test sono stati limitati alle simulazioni. La strategia di controllo è stata studiata per operare sulle frequenze naturali del nastro d'acciaio, lasciando inalterate le altre frequenze. I risultati indicano che il modello è in grado di stimare efficacemente le frequenze naturali del nastro d'acciaio in base ai suoi parametri meccanici e alle sue dimensioni, allineandosi con i modi identificati sperimentalmente. Il metodo degli elementi finiti viene impiegato per calcolare la funzione di risposta in frequenza (FRF) del nastro in posizioni specifiche lungo il nastro e successivamente simulare il processo. Attraverso test di simulazione, il controllore dimostra la sua efficacia nello stabilizzare le vibrazioni della striscia a frequenze specifiche. L'uso di un osservatore è determinante per questo successo, in quanto compensa la natura non misurabile degli stati.Hot-dip galvanization is an industrial process involving the application of a uniform coating of zinc to steel strips with the desired thickness. Disturbances from air knives and external factors during the galvanization process can lead to deviations in the strip's path, resulting in an uneven layer of zinc. To achieve a uniform coating, it is essential to minimize the strip's vibrations by implementing effective stabilization measures. The overarching aim of the research is to establish a user-friendly tool for efficiently simulating and predicting the behavior of strips made from various materials, with different lengths and widths. In this thesis, a new mathematical model has been developed to predict the vibrations of a steel strip during the hot-dip process. The model is based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), and its validity has been confirmed through data acquired from an operational plant. Several alternative methods were investigated in the pursuit of model development, such as Recursive Least Squares (RLS), time series, and Differential Algebraic Equations (DAE) with an acausal approach. Following the model development, a controller is designed to stabilize the vibrations of the strip. Previous controllers utilized PID and PLC to control the position of steel strips. The new controller utilizes a pole placement technique with a state observer, testing has been confined to simulation. The control strategy is specifically crafted to operate on the natural frequencies of the steel strip, leaving other frequencies unaffected. The findings indicate that the model can effectively estimate natural frequencies for the steel strip based on its mechanical parameters and dimensions, aligning with experimentally identified modes. The Finite Element Method is employed to calculate the Frequency Response Function (FRF) of the strip on specific positions along the strip, and then simulate the process. Knowledge of the FRF Through simulation testing, the controller demonstrates its efficacy in stabilizing the strip's vibrations at specific frequencies. The use of an observer is instrumental in this success, compensating for the unmeasurable nature of the states

Towards Business Processes Orchestrating the Physical Enterprise with Wireless Sensor Networks

The industrial adoption of wireless sensor net- works (WSNs) is hampered by two main factors. First, there is a lack of integration of WSNs with business process modeling languages and back-ends. Second, programming WSNs is still challenging as it is mainly performed at the operating system level. To this end, we provide makeSense: a unified programming framework and a compilation chain that, from high-level business process specifications, generates code ready for deployment on WSN nodes