Proceedings -- Parallel Computing.

Originally published in 2002, this book presents techniques in the application of formal methods to object-based distributed systems. A major theme of the book is how to formally handle the requirements arising from OO distributed systems, such as dynamic reconfiguration, encapsulation, subtyping, inheritance, and real-time aspects. These may be supported either by enhancing existing notations, such as UML, LOTOS, SDL and Z, or by defining fresh notations, such as Actors, Pi-calculus and Ambients. The major specification notations and modelling techniques are introduced and compared by leading researchers. The book also includes a description of approaches to the specification of non-functional requirements, and a discussion of security issues. Researchers and practitioners in software design, object-oriented computing, distributed systems, and telecommunications systems will gain an appreciation of the relationships between the major areas of concerns and learn how the use of object-oriented based formal methods provides workable solutions.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 25th Seminar on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics, SOFSEM'98, held in Jasna, Slovakia, in November 1998. The volume presents 19 invited survey articles by internationally well-known authorities together with 18 revised full research papers carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The areas covered include history of models of computation, algorithms, formal methods, practical aspects of software engineering, database systems, parallel and distributed systems, electronic commerce, and electronic documents and digital libraries.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First European Workshop on Software Architecture, EWSA 2004, held in St Andrews, Scotland, UK in May 2004 in conjunction with ICSE 2004. The 9 revised full research papers, 4 revised full experience papers, and 6 revised position papers presented together with 5 invited presentations on ongoing European projects on software architectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions. All current aspects of software architectures are addressed ranging from foundational and methodological issues to application issues of practical relevance.

This book brings together some of the latest research in robot applications, control, modeling, sensors and algorithms. Consisting of three main sections, the first section of the book has a focus on robotic surgery, rehabilitation, self-assembly, while the second section offers an insight into the area of control with discussions on exoskeleton control and robot learning among others. The third section is on vision and ultrasonic sensors which is followed by a series of chapters which include a focus on the programming of intelligent service robots and systems adaptations.

Distributed Infrastructure Support For E-Commerce And Distributed Applications is organized in three parts. The first part constitutes an overview, a more detailed motivation of the problem context, and a tutorial-like introduction to middleware systems. The second part is comprised of a set of chapters that study solutions to leverage the trade-off between a transparent programming model and application-level enabled resource control. The third part of this book presents three detailed distributed application case studies and demonstrates how standard middleware platforms fail to adequately cope with resource control needs of the application designer in these three cases: -An electronic commerce framework for software leasing over the World Wide Web; -A remote building energy management system that has been experimentally deployed on several building sites; -A wireless computing infrastructure for efficient data transfer to non-stationary mobile clients that have been experimentally validated.

Middleware is the bridge that connects distributed applications across different physical locations, with different hardware platforms, network technologies, operating systems, and programming languages. This book describes middleware from two different perspectives: from the viewpoint of the systems programmer and from the viewpoint of the applications programmer. It focuses on the use of open source solutions for creating middleware and the tools for developing distributed applications. The design principles presented are universal and apply to all middleware platforms, including CORBA and Web Services. The authors have created an open-source implementation of CORBA, called MICO, which is freely available on the web. MICO is one of the most successful of all open source projects and is widely used by demanding companies and institutions, and has also been adopted by many in the Linux community.* Provides a comprehensive look at the architecture and design of middlewarethe bridge that connects distributed software applications* Includes a complete, commercial-quality open source middleware system written in C++* Describes the theory of the middleware standard CORBA as well as how to implement a design using open source techniques

The term “mechatronics” was coined in 1969, merging “mecha” from mechanism and “tronics” from electronics, to reflect the original idea at the basis of this discipline, that is, the integration of electrical and mechanical systems into a single device. The spread of this term, and of mechatronics itself, has been growing in the years, including new aspects and disciplines, like control engineering, computer engineering and communication/information engineering. Nowadays mechatronics has a well-defined and fundamental role, in strict relation with robotics. Drawing a sharp border between mechatronics and robotics is impossible, as they share many technologies and objectives. Advanced robots could be defined as mechatronic devices equipped with a “smart brain”, but there are also up-to-date mechatronic devices, used in tight interaction with humans, that are governed by smart architectures (for example, for safety purposes). Aim of this book is to offer a wide overview of new research trends and challenges for both mechatronics and robotics, through the contribution of researchers from different institutions, providing their view on specific subjects they consider as “hot topics” in both fields, with attention to new fields of application, new challenges to the research communities and new technologies available. The reader of this book will enjoy the various contributions, as they have been prepared with actual applications in mind, along a journey from advanced actuators and sensors to human-robot interaction, through robot control, navigation, planning and programming issues. The book presents several state-of-the-art solutions, like multiple-stage actuation to cope with conflicting specification of large motion-spans, ultra-high accuracy, model-based control for high-tech mechatronic systems, modern approaches of software systems engineering to robotics, aand humanoids for human assistance. The reader can also find new techniques in approaching the design of mechatronic systems in some possible industrial and service robotics scenarios, with a particular attention for the interaction between humans and mechanisms.

USM 2000 is the third event in a series of international IFIP/GI conferences on Trends in Distributed Systems. Following the venues in Aachen, Germany (1996) and Hamburg, Germany (1998), this event in Munich considers the trend towards a Universal Service Market – USM 2000. The trend towards a universal service market has many origins, e.g., the integration of telecom and data communications, the deregulation e?orts with respect to telco markets, the globalization of information, the virtualization of companies, the requirement of a short time-to-market, the advances in network technologies, the increasing acceptance of e-commerce, and the increase in - bility. This leads to new business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) environments that o?er both challenges and opportunities to enterprises and end-users. There is the need for ubiquitous services, trading, brokering and information management, for service market and business models, and for ?e- ble infrastructures for dynamic collaboration. Researchers, service vendors, and users must cooperate to set up the app- priate requirements for a universal service market and to ?nd solutions with respect to supporting platforms, middleware, distributed applications, and m- agement. The basis for these solution is a common understanding of means for de?ning, creating, implementing, and deploying the service market. Then, s- vice market makers, service aggregators, service auctioneers, ISP, ASP, BPO, and customers can freely interact in a dynamic, open, and universal market place.