W.B. Teeuw

A Business Process Design Language

Business process modelling and analysis puts specific requirements on models used and the language for expressing those models. The models should be easily understandable and analysable. In this paper we study the requirements for such a language and introduce a language that satisfies those requirements to a large extent. It was developed in the Testbed project, which aims at developing a systematic approach to business process change. The language, called AMBER, has a graphical representation, and allows to model processes, data, and the organisation and people involved in a uniform and integrated way. On the basis of a formal foundation of the language, different analyses and tool support are available. We illustrate our approach with a realistic example.

An evaluation of physical disk I/Os for complex object processing

In order to obtain the performance required for nonstandard database environments, a hierarchical complex object model with object references is used as a storage structure for complex objects. Several storage models for these complex objects, as well as a benchmark to evaluate their performance, are described. A cost model for analytical performance evaluation is developed, and the analytical results are validated by means of measurements on the DASDBS, complex object storage system. The results show which storage structures for complex objects are the most efficient under which circumstances.<<ETX>>

Control versus data flow in parallel database machines

The execution of a query in a parallel database machine can be controlled in either a control flow way, or in a data flow way. In the former case a single system node controls the entire query execution. In the latter case the processes that execute the query, although possibly running on different nodes of the system, trigger each other. Lately, many database research projects focus on data flow control since it should enhance response times and throughput. The authors study control versus data flow with regard to controlling the execution of database queries. An analytical model is used to compare control and data flow in order to gain insights into the question which mechanism is better under which circumstances. Also, some systems using data flow techniques are described, and the authors investigate to which degree they are really data flow. The results show that for particular types of queries data flow is very attractive, since it reduces the number of control messages and balances these messages over the nodes. >

User Behaviour Captured by Mobile Phones

The i-Zone initiative proposes a new approach to urban mobility management by using the latest mobile ICT technologies. It is about mobile phones that measure and analyse user behaviour in order to influence travel behaviour. By providing feedback to the traveller (self monitoring), by information sharing, or by providing positive incentives to travellers by road authorities and other stakeholders, improved mobility in a city may be achieved. The information is targeted on individual travel behaviour, and thus allows a personalized approach to influence travel behaviour. This enables a shift from a focus on intelligent transport systems, with the emphasis on infrastructure and car-to-car systems, to a more human-centric approach based on ambient intelligence.

Persona-Based Adaptation in a Smart Green Home

In this paper we present the vision of the Go Green project on a smart home that is capable of decreasing energy consumption while at the same time increasing user comfort. To identify the main challenges we introduce a general model for intelligent homes that describes the current state, the target state and the transition. A key point in the projects vision is the concept of personas and entities to model groups of individuals and their preferences. A second key point is the strategy of coaching the users towards the global system goals by adapting the environment.

XoSoft : a vision for a soft modular lower limb exoskeleton

XoSoft is an EU project that proposes the development of a modular soft lower-limb exoskeleton to assist people with mobility impairments. It aims to be user friendly and comfortable to wear, with a significant impact on the person’s mobility and health, on their independence and quality of life. Being a modular system, it comprises of ankle, knee and hip elements, which can be used individually or combined and used unilaterally or bilaterally.

Towards decisive garments for heat stress risk detection

One of the numerous applications of wearable computers is providing safety in occupations where heat-related injuries are prevalent. Core temperature, as a parameter that cannot be measured by on-body sensors is a variable that is specifically interesting for realizing such applications. In the context of the design of a sensor-shirt that can be used by firefighters, in this paper we study the importance of different types of sensor measurements and their placement for estimating core temperature. We propose a model for inferring the dangerous states of core temperature. Our evaluation results show that our model can to a great extent estimate hazardous situations caused by heat accumulation.

Proactive attentive support system

In this paper we describe our endeavour of developing a proactive attentive support system (PASS). We explain that PASS is bio-inspired and can be grounded on mathematical physics. We demonstrate its successful applicability in the video surveillance domain

Critical Success Factors

Multimedia has emerged over the last few years as a major area of research and development. The range of potential applications made feasible by combining text, graphics, images, audio and video is both wide and steadily increasing. Most of the work to date has centred on stand-alone multimedia applications, such as computer-aided learning and interactive video. The combination of multimedia databases and multimedia computing with high-performance multiservice networks offers even greater potential. A wide variety of application areas for such multimedia telematics applications have been identified such as co-authoring multimedia documents, office information systems, and distance learning.

Methodology to implement an Amoeba complex object server

The paper describes the methodology used in the design of a complex object server application for the Amoeba distributed operating system. It uses the top-down design that was suggested by Parnas, in which a model is turned into an implementation by gradually adding details. The paper also describes the abstraction levels that show up if going from a specification of the behaviour towards an implementation, and shows the methodology in which performance will be measured (instead of estimated) whereas the system has not yet been functionally implemented in its entirety.<<ETX>>