Abstract: Business process models (BPM) can be useful for requirements elicitation, among other uses. Since the active participation of all stakeholders is a key factor for successful requirements engineering, it is important that BPM be shared by all stakeholders. Unfortunately, organizations may end up with inconsistent BPM not covering all stakeholders’ needs and constraints. The use of multiple levels of abstraction (MLA), such as at the strategic, tactical and operational levels, is often used in various process-oriented initiatives to facilitate the consolidation of various stakeholders’ needs and constraints. This article surveys the use of MLA in recent BPM research publications and reports on a BPM action-research case study conducted in a Canadian organization, with the aim of exploring the usefulness of the strategic level.

Abstract: This paper presents a preliminary study on the registration and fusion of cross-spectral imaging. The objective is to evaluate the validity of widely used computer vision approaches when they are applied at different spectral bands. In particular, we are interested in merging images from the infrared (both long wave infrared: LWIR and near infrared: NIR) and visible spectrum (VS). Experimental results with different data sets are presented.

Abstract: In open-ended domains, robots must continuously learn new object categories. When the training sets are created offline, it is not possible to ensure their representativeness with respect to the object categories and features the system will find when operating online. In the Bag of Words model, visual codebooks are usually constructed from training sets created offline. This might lead to non-discriminative visual words and, as a consequence, to poor recognition performance. This paper proposes a visual object recognition system which concurrently learns in an incremental and online fashion both the visual object category representations as well as the codebook words used to encode them. The codebook is defined using Gaussian Mixture Models which are updated using new object views. The approach contains similarities with the human visual object recognition system: evidence suggests that the development of recognition capabilities occurs on multiple levels and is sustained over large periods of time. Results show that the proposed system with concurrent learning of object categories and codebooks is capable of learning more categories, requiring less examples, and with similar accuracies, when compared to the classical Bag of Words approach using codebooks constructed offline.

Abstract: In the control of the PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell, the existence of both deliberative and reactive processes that facilitate the tasks of control resulting from a wide range of operating scenarios and range of conditions it is required. The latter is essential to adjust its parameters to the multiplicity of circumstances that may occur in the operation of the PEM stack. In this context, the design and development of an expert-agents based architecture for autonomous control of the PEM stack in top working conditions is presented. The architecture integrates perception and control algorithms using sensory and context information. It is structured in a hierarchy of levels with different time window and level of abstraction. The monitoring model and autonomic control of PEM stack has been validated with different types of PEM stacks and operating conditions demonstrating high reliability in achieving the objective of the proposed energy efficiency. Dynamic control of the wetting of the membrane is a clear example.