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This work takes a close look at several quite different research areas related to the design of networked embedded sensor/actuator systems. The variety of the topics illustrates the potential complexity of current sensor network applications; especially when enriched with actuators for proactivity and environmental interaction. Besides their conception, development, installation and long-term operation, we'll mainly focus on more "low-level" aspects: Compositional hardware and software design, task cooperation and collaboration, memory management, and real-time operation will be addressed from a local node perspective. In contrast, inter-node synchronization, communication, as well as sensor data acquisition, aggregation, and fusion will be discussed from a rather global network view. The diversity in the concepts was intentionally accepted to finally facilitate the reliable implementation of truly complex systems. In particular, these should go beyond the usual "sense and transmit of sensor data", but show how powerful today's networked sensor/actuator systems can be despite of their low computational performance and constrained hardware: If their resources are only coordinated efficiently!
In the last years, visual methods have been introduced in industrial software production and teaching of software engineering. In particular, the international standardization of a graphical software engineering language, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) was a reason for this tendency. Unfortunately, various problems exist in concrete realizations of tools, e.g. due to a missing compliance to the standard. One problem is the automatic layout, which is required for a consistent automatic software design. The thesis derives reasons and criteria for an automatic layout method, which produces drawings of UML class diagrams according to the UML specification and issues of human computer interaction, e.g. readability. A unique set of aesthetic criteria is combined from four different disciplines involved in this topic. Based on these aethetic rules, a hierarchical layout algorithm is developed, analyzed, measured by specialized measuring techniques and compared to related work. Then, the realization of the algorithm as a Java framework is given as an architectural description. Finally, adaptions to anticipated future changes of the UML, improvements of the framework and example drawings of the implementation are given.
Verteilte dynamische Systeme unter lokalen und globalen Gesichtspunkten zu optimieren ist eine schwierige Aufgabe. Zwar sind grundsätzliche Auswirkungen einzelner Maßnahmen häufig bekannt, durch widerstrebende Ziele, Wechselwirkungen zwischen Prozessen und Nebenwirkungen von Maßnahmen ist ein analytisches Vorgehen bei der Optimierung nicht möglich. Besonders schwierig wird es, wenn lokale Einheiten einerseits ihre Ziele und Autonomie behalten sollen, aber durch zentrale Vorgaben bzw. Anreize so gesteuert werden sollen, dass ein übergeordnetes Ziel erreicht wird. Ein praktisches Beispiel dieses allgemeinen Optimierungsproblems findet sich im Gesundheitswesen. Das Management von modernen Kliniken ist stets mit dem Problem konfrontiert, die Qualität der Pflege zu gewährleisten und gleichzeitig kosteneffizient zu arbeiten. Hier gilt es unter gegeben Rahmenbedingungen und bei Respektierung der Autonomie der Funktionseinheiten, Optimierungsmaßnahmen zu finden und durchzuführen. Vorhandene Werkzeuge zur Simulation und Modellierung bieten für diese Aufgabe keine ausreichend guten Vorgehensmodelle und Modellierungsmechanismen. Die agentenbasierte Simulation ermöglicht die Abbildung solcher Systeme und die Durchführung von Simulationsexperimenten zur Bewertung einzelner Maßnahmen. Es werden Lösungswege und Werkzeuge vorgestellt und evaluiert, die den Benutzer bei der Formalisierung des Wissens und der Modellierung solch komplexer Szenarien unterstützen und ein systematisches Vorgehen zur Optimierung ermöglichen.
Aktivitätsbasierte Verhaltensmodellierung und ihre Unterstützung bei Multiagentensimulationen
(2000)
Durch Zusammenführung traditioneller Methoden zur individuenbasierten Simulation und dem Konzept der Multiagentensysteme steht mit der Multiagentensimulation eine Methodik zur Verfügung, die es ermöglicht, sowohl technisch als auch konzeptionell eine neue Ebene an Detaillierung bei Modellbildung und Simulation zu erreichen. Ein Modell beruht dabei auf dem Konzept einer Gesellschaft: Es besteht aus einer Menge interagierender, aber in ihren Entscheidungen autonomen Einheiten, den Agenten. Diese ändern durch ihre Aktionen ihre Umwelt und reagieren ebenso auf die für sie wahrnehmbaren Änderungen in der Umwelt. Durch die Simulation jedes Agenten zusammen mit der Umwelt, in der er "lebt", wird die Dynamik im Gesamtsystem beobachtbar. In der vorliegenden Dissertation wurde ein Repräsentationsschema für Multiagentensimulationen entwickelt werden, das es Fachexperten, wie zum Beispiel Biologen, ermöglicht, selbständig ohne traditionelles Programmieren Multiagentenmodelle zu implementieren und mit diesen Experimente durchzuführen. Dieses deklarative Schema beruht auf zwei Basiskonzepten: Der Körper eines Agenten besteht aus Zustandsvariablen. Das Verhalten des Agenten kann mit Regeln beschrieben werden. Ausgehend davon werden verschiedene Strukturierungsansätze behandelt. Das wichtigste Konzept ist das der "Aktivität", einer Art "Verhaltenszustand": Während der Agent in einer Aktivität A verweilt, führt er die zugehörigen Aktionen aus und dies solange, bis eine Regel feuert, die diese Aktivität beendet und eine neue Aktivität auswählt. Durch Indizierung dieser Regeln bei den zugehörigen Aktivitäten und Einführung von abstrakten Aktivitäten entsteht ein Schema für eine vielfältig strukturierbare Verhaltensbeschreibung. Zu diesem Schema wurde ein Interpreter entwickelt, der ein derartig repräsentiertes Modell ausführt und so Simulationsexperimente mit dem Multiagentenmodell erlaubt. Auf dieser Basis wurde die Modellierungs- und Experimentierumgebung SeSAm ("Shell für Simulierte Agentensysteme") entwickelt. Sie verwendet vorhandene Konzepte aus dem visuellen Programmieren. Mit dieser Umgebung wurden Anwendungsmodelle aus verschiedenen Domänen realisiert: Neben abstrakten Spielbeispielen waren dies vor allem Fragestellungen zu sozialen Insekten, z.B. zum Verhalten von Ameisen, Bienen oder der Interaktion zwischen Bienenvölkern und Milbenpopulationen.
We use algebraic closures and structures which are derived from these in complexity theory. We classify problems with Boolean circuits and Boolean constraints according to their complexity. We transfer algebraic structures to structural complexity. We use the generation problem to classify important complexity classes.
With the introduction of OpenFlow by the Stanford University in 2008, a process began in the area of network research, which questions the predominant approach of fully distributed network control. OpenFlow is a communication protocol that allows the externalization of the network control plane from the network devices, such as a router, and to realize it as a logically-centralized entity in software. For this concept, the term "Software Defined Networking" (SDN) was coined during scientific discourse.
For the network operators, this concept has several advantages. The two most important can be summarized under the points cost savings and flexibility. Firstly, it is possible through the uniform interface for network hardware ("Southbound API"), as implemented by OpenFlow, to combine devices and software from different manufacturers, which increases the innovation and price pressure on them. Secondly, the realization of the network control plane as a freely programmable software with open interfaces ("Northbound API") provides the opportunity to adapt it to the individual circumstances of the operator's network and to exchange information with the applications it serves. This allows the network to be more flexible and to react more quickly to changing circumstances as well as transport the traffic more effectively and tailored to the user’s "Quality of Experience" (QoE).
The approach of a separate network control layer for packet-based networks is not new and has already been proposed several times in the past. Therefore, the SDN approach has raised many questions about its feasibility in terms of efficiency and applicability. These questions are caused to some extent by the fact that there is no generally accepted definition of the SDN concept to date. It is therefore a part of this thesis to derive such a definition. In addition, several of the open issues are investigated. This Investigations follow the three aspects: Performance Evaluation of Software Defined Networking, applications on the SDN control layer, and the usability of SDN Northbound-API for creation application-awareness in network operation.
Performance Evaluation of Software Defined Networking: The question of the efficiency of an SDN-based system was from the beginning one of the most important. In this thesis, experimental measurements of the performance of OpenFlow-enabled switch hardware and control software were conducted for the purpose of answering this question. The results of these measurements were used as input parameters for establishing an analytical model of the reactive SDN approach. Through the model it could be determined that the performance of the software control layer, often called "Controller", is crucial for the overall performance of the system, but that the approach is generally viable. Based on this finding a software for analyzing the performance of SDN controllers was developed. This software allows the emulation of the forwarding layer of an SDN network towards the control software and can thus determine its performance in different situations and configurations. The measurements with this software showed that there are quite significant differences in the behavior of different control software implementations. Among other things it has been shown that some show different characteristics for various switches, in particular in terms of message processing speed. Under certain circumstances this can lead to network failures.
Applications on the SDN control layer: The core piece of software defined networking are the intelligent network applications that operate on the control layer. However, their development is still in its infancy and little is known about the technical possibilities and their limitations. Therefore, the relationship between an SDN-based and classical implementation of a network function is investigated in this thesis. This function is the monitoring of network links and the traffic they carry. A typical approach for this task has been built based on Wiretapping and specialized measurement hardware and compared with an implementation based on OpenFlow switches and a special SDN control application. The results of the comparison show that the SDN version can compete in terms of measurement accuracy for bandwidth and delay estimation with the traditional measurement set-up. However, a compromise has to be found for measurements below the millisecond range.
Another question regarding the SDN control applications is whether and how well they can solve existing problems in networks. Two programs have been developed based on SDN in this thesis to solve two typical network issues. Firstly, the tool "IPOM", which enables considerably more flexibility in the study of effects of network structures for a researcher, who is confined to a fixed physical test network topology.
The second software provides an interface between the Cloud Orchestration Software "OpenNebula" and an OpenFlow controller. The purpose of this software was to investigate experimentally whether a pre-notification of the network of an impending relocation of a virtual service in a data center is sufficient to ensure the continuous operation of that service. This was demonstrated on the example of a video service.
Usability of the SDN Northbound API for creating application-awareness in network operation: Currently, the fact that the network and the applications that run on it are developed and operated separately leads to problems in network operation. SDN offers with the Northbound-API an open interface that enables the exchange between information of both worlds during operation. One aim of this thesis was to investigate whether this interface can be exploited so that the QoE experienced by the user can be maintained on high level. For this purpose, the QoE influence factors were determined on a challenging application by means of a subjective survey study. The application is cloud gaming, in which the calculation of video game environments takes place in the cloud and is transported via video over the network to the user. It was shown that apart from the most important factor influencing QoS, i.e., packet loss on the downlink, also the type of game type and its speed play a role. This demonstrates that in addition to QoS the application state is important and should be communicated to the network. Since an implementation of such a state conscious SDN for the example of Cloud Gaming was not possible due to its proprietary implementation, in this thesis the application “YouTube video streaming” was chosen as an alternative. For this application, status information is retrievable via the "Yomo" tool and can be used for network control. It was shown that an SDN-based implementation of an application-aware network has distinct advantages over traditional network management methods and the user quality can be obtained in spite of disturbances.
Maps are the main tool to represent geographical information. Users often zoom in and out to access maps at different scales. Continuous map generalization tries to make the changes between different scales smooth, which is essential to provide users with comfortable zooming experience.
In order to achieve continuous map generalization with high quality, we optimize some important aspects of maps. In this book, we have used optimization in the generalization of land-cover areas, administrative boundaries, buildings, and coastlines. According to our experiments, continuous map generalization indeed benefits from optimization.
Routing is one of the most important issues in any communication network. It defines on which path packets are transmitted from the source of a connection to the destination. It allows to control the distribution of flows between different locations in the network and thereby is a means to influence the load distribution or to reach certain constraints imposed by particular applications. As failures in communication networks appear regularly and cannot be completely avoided, routing is required to be resilient against such outages, i.e., routing still has to be able to forward packets on backup paths even if primary paths are not working any more.
Throughout the years, various routing technologies have been introduced that are very different in their control structure, in their way of working, and in their ability to handle certain failure cases. Each of the different routing approaches opens up their own specific questions regarding configuration, optimization, and inclusion of resilience issues. This monograph investigates, with the example of three particular routing technologies, some concrete issues regarding the analysis and optimization of resilience. It thereby contributes to a better general, technology-independent understanding of these approaches and of their diverse potential for the use in future network architectures.
The first considered routing type, is decentralized intra-domain routing based on administrative IP link costs and the shortest path principle. Typical examples are common today's intra-domain routing protocols OSPF and IS-IS. This type of routing includes automatic restoration abilities in case of failures what makes it in general very robust even in the case of severe network outages including several failed components. Furthermore, special IP-Fast Reroute mechanisms allow for a faster reaction on outages. For routing based on link costs, traffic engineering, e.g. the optimization of the maximum relative link load in the network, can be done indirectly by changing the administrative link costs to adequate values.
The second considered routing type, MPLS-based routing, is based on the a priori configuration of primary and backup paths, so-called Label Switched Paths. The routing layout of MPLS paths offers more freedom compared to IP-based routing as it is not restricted by any shortest path constraints but any paths can be setup. However, this in general involves a higher configuration effort.
Finally, in the third considered routing type, typically centralized routing using a Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture, simple switches only forward packets according to routing decisions made by centralized controller units. SDN-based routing layouts offer the same freedom as for explicit paths configured using MPLS. In case of a failure, new rules can be setup by the controllers to continue the routing in the reduced topology. However, new resilience issues arise caused by the centralized architecture. If controllers are not reachable anymore, the forwarding rules in the single nodes cannot be adapted anymore. This might render a rerouting in case of connection problems in severe failure scenarios infeasible.
Graphs are a frequently used tool to model relationships among entities. A graph is a binary relation between objects, that is, it consists of a set of objects (vertices) and a set of pairs of objects (edges).
Networks are common examples of modeling data as a graph. For example, relationships between persons in a social network, or network links between computers in a telecommunication network can be represented by a graph.
The clearest way to illustrate the modeled data is to visualize the graphs. The field of Graph Drawing deals with the problem of finding algorithms to automatically generate graph visualizations. The task is to find a "good" drawing, which can be measured by different criteria such as number of crossings between edges or the used area. In this thesis, we study Angular Schematization in Graph Drawing. By this, we mean drawings
with large angles (for example, between the edges at common vertices or at crossing points).
The thesis consists of three parts. First, we deal with the placement of boxes. Boxes are axis-parallel rectangles that can, for example, contain text.
They can be placed on a map to label important sites, or can be used to describe semantic relationships between words in a word network. In the second part of the thesis, we consider graph drawings visually guide the
viewer. These drawings generally induce large angles between edges that meet at a vertex. Furthermore, the edges are drawn crossing-free and in a way that
makes them easy to follow for the human eye. The third and final part is devoted to crossings with large angles. In drawings with crossings, it is important to have large angles between edges at their crossing point, preferably right angles.
The ecosystem of the high northern latitudes is affected by the recently changing environmental conditions. The Arctic has undergone a significant climatic change over the last decades. The land coverage is changing and a phenological response to the warming is apparent. Remotely sensed data can assist the monitoring and quantification of these changes. The remote sensing of the Arctic was predominantly carried out by the usage of optical sensors but these encounter problems in the Arctic environment, e.g. the frequent cloud cover or the solar geometry. In contrast, the imaging of Synthetic Aperture Radar is not affected by the cloud cover and the acquisition of radar imagery is independent of the solar illumination. The objective of this work was to explore how polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) data of TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, Radarsat-2 and ALOS PALSAR and interferometric-derived digital elevation model data of the TanDEM-X Mission can contribute to collect meaningful information on the actual state of the Arctic Environment. The study was conducted for Canadian sites of the Mackenzie Delta Region and Banks Island and in situ reference data were available for the assessment. The up-to-date analysis of the PolSAR data made the application of the Non-Local Means filtering and of the decomposition of co-polarized data necessary.
The Non-Local Means filter showed a high capability to preserve the image values, to keep the edges and to reduce the speckle. This supported not only the suitability for the interpretation but also for the classification. The classification accuracies of Non-Local Means filtered data were in average +10% higher compared to unfiltered images. The correlation of the co- and quad-polarized decomposition features was high for classes with distinct surface or double bounce scattering and a usage of the co-polarized data is beneficial for regions of natural land coverage and for low vegetation formations with little volume scattering. The evaluation further revealed that the X- and C-Band were most sensitive to the generalized land cover classes. It was found that the X-Band data were sensitive to low vegetation formations with low shrub density, the C-Band data were sensitive to the shrub density and the shrub dominated tundra. In contrast, the L-Band data were less sensitive to the land cover. Among the different dual-polarized data the HH/VV-polarized data were identified to be most meaningful for the characterization and classification, followed by the HH/HV-polarized and the VV/VH-polarized data. The quad-polarized data showed highest sensitivity to the land cover but differences to the co-polarized data were small. The accuracy assessment showed that spectral information was required for accurate land cover classification. The best results were obtained when spectral and radar information was combined. The benefit of including radar data in the classification was up to +15% accuracy and most significant for the classes wetland and sparse vegetated tundra. The best classifications were realized with quad-polarized C-Band and multispectral data and with co-polarized X-Band and multispectral data. The overall accuracy was up to 80% for unsupervised and up to 90% for supervised classifications. The results indicated that the shortwave co-polarized data show promise for the classification of tundra land cover since the polarimetric information is sensitive to low vegetation and the wetlands. Furthermore, co-polarized data provide a higher spatial resolution than the quad-polarized data.
The analysis of the intermediate digital elevation model data of the TanDEM-X showed a high potential for the characterization of the surface morphology. The basic and relative topographic features were shown to be of high relevance for the quantification of the surface morphology and an area-wide application is feasible. In addition, these data were of value for the classification and delineation of landforms. Such classifications will assist the delineation of geomorphological units and have potential to identify locations of actual and future morphologic activity.
We consider competitive location problems where two competing providers place their facilities sequentially and users can decide between the competitors. We assume that both competitors act non-cooperatively and aim at maximizing their own benefits. We investigate the complexity and approximability of such problems on graphs, in particular on simple graph classes such as trees and paths. We also develop fast algorithms for single competitive location problems where each provider places a single facilty. Voting location, in contrast, aims at identifying locations that meet social criteria. The provider wants to satisfy the users (customers) of the facility to be opened. In general, there is no location that is favored by all users. Therefore, a satisfactory compromise has to be found. To this end, criteria arising from voting theory are considered. The solution of the location problem is understood as the winner of a virtual election among the users of the facilities, in which the potential locations play the role of the candidates and the users represent the voters. Competitive and voting location problems turn out to be closely related.
Complexity and Partitions
(2001)
Computational complexity theory usually investigates the complexity of sets, i.e., the complexity of partitions into two parts. But often it is more appropriate to represent natural problems by partitions into more than two parts. A particularly interesting class of such problems consists of classification problems for relations. For instance, a binary relation R typically defines a partitioning of the set of all pairs (x,y) into four parts, classifiable according to the cases where R(x,y) and R(y,x) hold, only R(x,y) or only R(y,x) holds or even neither R(x,y) nor R(y,x) is true. By means of concrete classification problems such as Graph Embedding or Entailment (for propositional logic), this thesis systematically develops tools, in shape of the boolean hierarchy of NP-partitions and its refinements, for the qualitative analysis of the complexity of partitions generated by NP-relations. The Boolean hierarchy of NP-partitions is introduced as a generalization of the well-known and well-studied Boolean hierarchy (of sets) over NP. Whereas the latter hierarchy has a very simple structure, the situation is much more complicated for the case of partitions into at least three parts. To get an idea of this hierarchy, alternative descriptions of the partition classes are given in terms of finite, labeled lattices. Based on these characterizations the Embedding Conjecture is established providing the complete information on the structure of the hierarchy. This conjecture is supported by several results. A natural extension of the Boolean hierarchy of NP-partitions emerges from the lattice-characterization of its classes by considering partition classes generated by finite, labeled posets. It turns out that all significant ideas translate from the case of lattices. The induced refined Boolean hierarchy of NP-partitions enables us more accuratly capturing the complexity of certain relations (such as Graph Embedding) and a description of projectively closed partition classes.
Constraining graph layouts - that is, restricting the placement of vertices and the routing of edges to obey certain constraints - is common practice in graph drawing.
In this book, we discuss algorithmic results on two different restriction types:
placing vertices on the outer face and on the integer grid.
For the first type, we look into the outer k-planar and outer k-quasi-planar graphs, as well as giving a linear-time algorithm to recognize full and closed outer k-planar graphs Monadic Second-order Logic.
For the second type, we consider the problem of transferring a given planar drawing onto the integer grid while perserving the original drawings topology;
we also generalize a variant of Cauchy's rigidity theorem for orthogonal polyhedra of genus 0 to those of arbitrary genus.
In many cases, problems, data, or information can be modeled as graphs. Graphs can be used as a tool for modeling in any case where connections between distinguishable objects occur. Any graph consists of a set of objects, called vertices, and a set of connections, called edges, such that any edge connects a pair of vertices. For example, a social network can be modeled by a graph by
transforming the users of the network into vertices and friendship relations between users into edges. Also physical networks like computer networks or transportation networks, for example, the metro network of a city, can be seen as graphs.
For making graphs and, thereby, the data that is modeled, well-understandable for users, we need a visualization. Graph drawing deals with algorithms for visualizing graphs. In this thesis, especially the use of crossings and curves is investigated for graph drawing problems under additional constraints. The constraints that occur in the problems investigated in this thesis especially restrict the positions of (a part of) the vertices; this is done either as a hard constraint or as an optimization criterion.
The landscape of today’s programming languages is manifold. With the diversity of applications, the difficulty of adequately addressing and specifying the used programs increases. This often leads to newly designed and implemented domain-specific languages. They enable domain experts to express knowledge in their preferred format, resulting in more readable and concise programs. Due to its flexible and declarative syntax without reserved keywords, the logic programming language Prolog is particularly suitable for defining and embedding domain-specific languages.
This thesis addresses the questions and challenges that arise when integrating domain-specific languages into Prolog. We compare the two approaches to define them either externally or internally, and provide assisting tools for each. The grammar of a formal language is usually defined in the extended Backus–Naur form. In this work, we handle this formalism as a domain-specific language in Prolog, and define term expansions that allow to translate it into equivalent definite clause grammars. We present the package library(dcg4pt) for SWI-Prolog, which enriches them by an additional argument to automatically process the term’s corresponding parse tree. To simplify the work with definite clause grammars, we visualise their application by a web-based tracer.
The external integration of domain-specific languages requires the programmer to keep the grammar, parser, and interpreter in sync. In many cases, domain-specific languages can instead be directly embedded into Prolog by providing appropriate operator definitions. In addition, we propose syntactic extensions for Prolog to expand its expressiveness, for instance to state logic formulas with their connectives verbatim. This allows to use all tools that were originally written for Prolog, for instance code linters and editors with syntax highlighting. We present the package library(plammar), a standard-compliant parser for Prolog source code, written in Prolog. It is able to automatically infer from example sentences the required operator definitions with their classes and precedences as well as the required Prolog language extensions. As a result, we can automatically answer the question: Is it possible to model these example sentences as valid Prolog clauses, and how?
We discuss and apply the two approaches to internal and external integrations for several domain-specific languages, namely the extended Backus–Naur form, GraphQL, XPath, and a controlled natural language to represent expert rules in if-then form. The created toolchain with library(dcg4pt) and library(plammar) yields new application opportunities for static Prolog source code analysis, which we also present.
Today’s Internet architecture was not designed from scratch but was driven by new services that emerged during its development. Hence, it is often described as patchwork where additional patches are applied in case new services require modifications to the existing architecture. This process however is rather slow and hinders the development of innovative network services with certain architecture or network requirements. Currently discussed technologies like Software-Defined Networking (SDN) or Network Virtualization (NV) are seen as key enabling technologies to overcome this rigid best effort legacy of the Internet. Both technologies offer the possibility to create virtual networks that accommodate the specific needs of certain services. These logical networks are operated on top of a physical substrate and facilitate flexible network resource allocation as physical resources can be added and removed depending on the current network and load situation. In addition, the clear separation and isolation of networks foster the development of application-aware networks that fulfill the special requirements of emerging applications. A prominent use case that benefits from these extended capabilities of the network is denoted with service component mobility. Services hosted on Virtual Machines (VMs) follow their consuming mobile endpoints, so that access latency as well as consumed network resources are reduced. Especially for applications like video streaming, which consume a large fraction of the available resources, is this an important means to relieve the resource constraints and eventually provide better service quality. Service and endpoint mobility both allow an adaptation of the used paths between an offered service, i.e., video streaming and the consuming users in case the service quality drops due to network problems. To make evidence-based adaptations in case of quality drops, a scalable monitoring component is required that is able to monitor the service quality for video streaming applications with reliable accuracy. This monograph details challenges that arise when deploying a certain service, i.e., video streaming, in a future virtualized network architecture and discusses possible solutions. In particular, this work evaluates the performance of mechanisms enabling service mobility and presents an optimized architecture for service mobility. Concerning endpoint mobility, improvements are developed that reduce the latency between endpoints and consumed services and ensure connectivity regardless of the used mobile access network. In the last part, a network-based video quality monitoring solution is developed and its accuracy is evaluated.
Das stochastische Denken, die Bernoullische Stochastik und dessen informationstechnologische Umsetzung, namens Stochastikon stellen die Grundlage für das Verständnis und die erfolgreiche Nutzung einer stochastischen Wissenschaft dar. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit erfolgt eine Klärung des Begriffs des stochastischen Denkens, eine anschauliche Darstellung der von Elart von Collani entwickelten Bernoullischen Stochastik und eine Beschreibung von Stochastikon. Dabei werden sowohl das Gesamtkonzept von Stochastikon, sowie die Ziele, Aufgaben und die Realisierung der beiden Teilsysteme namens Mentor und Encyclopedia vorgestellt. Das stochastische Denken erlaubt eine realitätsnahe Sichtweise der Dinge, d.h. eine Sichtweise, die mit den menschlichen Beobachtungen und Erfahrungen im Einklang steht und somit die Unsicherheit über zukünftige Entwicklungen berücksichtigt. Der in diesem Kontext verwendete Begriff der Unsicherheit bezieht sich ausschließlich auf zukünftige Entwicklungen und äußert sich in Variabilität. Quellen der Unsicherheit sind einerseits die menschliche Ignoranz und andererseits der Zufall. Unter Ignoranz wird hierbei die Unwissenheit des Menschen über die unbekannten, aber feststehenden Fakten verstanden, die die Anfangsbedingungen der zukünftigen Entwicklung repräsentieren. Die Bernoullische Stochastik liefert ein Regelwerk und ermöglicht die Entwicklung eines quantitativen Modells zur Beschreibung der Unsicherheit und expliziter Einbeziehung der beiden Quellen Ignoranz und Zufall. Das Modell trägt den Namen Bernoulli-Raum und bildet die Grundlage für die Herleitung quantitativer Verfahren, um zuverlässige und genaue Aussagen sowohl über die nicht-existente zufällige Zukunft (Vorhersageverfahren), als auch über die unbekannte feststehende Vergangenheit (Messverfahren). Das Softwaresystem Stochastikon implementiert die Bernoullische Stochastik in Form einer Reihe autarker, miteinander kommunizierender Teilsysteme. Ziel des Teilsystems Encyclopedia ist die Bereitstellung und Bewertung stochastischen Wissens. Das Teilsystem Mentor dient der Unterstützung des Anwenders bei der Problemlösungsfindung durch Identifikation eines richtigen Modells bzw. eines korrekten Bernoulli-Raums. Der Lösungsfindungsprozess selber enthält keinerlei Unsicherheit. Die ganze Unsicherheit steckt in der Lösung, d.h. im Bernoulli-Raum, der explizit die vorhandene Unwissenheit (Ignoranz) und den vorliegenden Zufall abdeckend enthält.
3D point clouds are a de facto standard for 3D documentation and modelling. The advances in laser scanning technology broadens the usability and access to 3D measurement systems. 3D point clouds are used in many disciplines such as robotics, 3D modelling, archeology and surveying. Scanners are able to acquire up to a million of points per second to represent the environment with a dense point cloud. This represents the captured environment with a very high degree of detail. The combination of laser scanning technology with photography adds color information to the point clouds. Thus the environment is represented more realistically. Full 3D models of environments, without any occlusion, require multiple scans. Merging point clouds is a challenging process. This thesis presents methods for point cloud registration based on the panorama images generated from the scans. Image representation of point clouds introduces 2D image processing methods to 3D point clouds. Several projection methods for the generation of panorama maps of point clouds are presented in this thesis. Additionally, methods for point cloud reduction and compression based on the panorama maps are proposed. Due to the large amounts of data generated from the 3D measurement systems these methods are necessary to improve the point cloud processing, transmission and archiving. This thesis introduces point cloud processing methods as a novel framework for the digitisation of archeological excavations. The framework replaces the conventional documentation methods for excavation sites. It employs point clouds for the generation of the digital documentation of an excavation with the help of an archeologist on-site. The 3D point cloud is used not only for data representation but also for analysis and knowledge generation. Finally, this thesis presents an autonomous indoor mobile mapping system. The mapping system focuses on the sensor placement planning method. Capturing a complete environment requires several scans. The sensor placement planning method solves for the minimum required scans to digitise large environments. Combining this method with a navigation system on a mobile robot platform enables it to acquire data fully autonomously. This thesis introduces a novel hole detection method for point clouds to detect obscured parts of a captured environment. The sensor placement planning method selects the next scan position with the most coverage of the obscured environment. This reduces the required number of scans. The navigation system on the robot platform consist of path planning, path following and obstacle avoidance. This guarantees the safe navigation of the mobile robot platform between the scan positions. The sensor placement planning method is designed as a stand alone process that could be used with a mobile robot platform for autonomous mapping of an environment or as an assistant tool for the surveyor on scanning projects.
In der Arbeit wird ein neues Konzept für Fahrsimulator-Datenbasen vorgestellt. Der Anwender entwirft eine auf seine Fragestellung zugeschnittene Datenbasis mithilfe einer einfachen Skriptsprache. Das Straßennetzwerk wird auf einer topologischen Ebene repäsentiert. In jedem Simulationsschritt wird hieraus im Sichtbarkeitsbereich des Fahrers die geometrische Repäsentation berechnet. Die für den Fahrer unsichtbaren Teile des Straßenetzwerks können während der Simulation verändert werden. Diese Veränderungen können von der Route des Fahrers oder von den in der Simulation erhobenen Messerten abhängen. Zudem kann der Anwender das Straßennetzwerk interaktiv verändern. Das vorgestellte Konzept bietet zahlreiche Möglichkeiten zur Erzeugung reproduzierbarer Szenarien für Experimente in Fahrsimulatoren.
This work is subdivided into two main areas: resilient admission control and resilient routing. The work gives an overview of the state of the art of quality of service mechanisms in communication networks and proposes a categorization of admission control (AC) methods. These approaches are investigated regarding performance, more precisely, regarding the potential resource utilization by dimensioning the capacity for a network with a given topology, traffic matrix, and a required flow blocking probability. In case of a failure, the affected traffic is rerouted over backup paths which increases the traffic rate on the respective links. To guarantee the effectiveness of admission control also in failure scenarios, the increased traffic rate must be taken into account for capacity dimensioning and leads to resilient AC. Capacity dimensioning is not feasible for existing networks with already given link capacities. For the application of resilient NAC in this case, the size of distributed AC budgets must be adapted according to the traffic matrix in such a way that the maximum blocking probability for all flows is minimized and that the capacity of all links is not exceeded by the admissible traffic rate in any failure scenario. Several algorithms for the solution of that problem are presented and compared regarding their efficiency and fairness. A prototype for resilient AC was implemented in the laboratories of Siemens AG in Munich within the scope of the project KING. Resilience requires additional capacity on the backup paths for failure scenarios. The amount of this backup capacity depends on the routing and can be minimized by routing optimization. New protection switching mechanisms are presented that deviate the traffic quickly around outage locations. They are simple and can be implemented, e.g, by MPLS technology. The Self-Protecting Multi-Path (SPM) is a multi-path consisting of disjoint partial paths. The traffic is distributed over all faultless partial paths according to an optimized load balancing function both in the working case and in failure scenarios. Performance studies show that the network topology and the traffic matrix also influence the amount of required backup capacity significantly. The example of the COST-239 network illustrates that conventional shortest path routing may need 50% more capacity than the optimized SPM if all single link and node failures are protected.
Gegenstand der Arbeit stellt eine erstmalig unternommene, architekturübergreifende Studie über feldprogrammierbare Logikbausteine zur Implementierung synchroner Schaltkreise dar. Zunächst wird ein Modell für allgemeine feldprogrammiebare Architekturen basierend auf periodischen Graphen definiert. Schließlich werden Bewertungsmaße für Architekturen und Schaltkreislayouts angegeben zur Charakterisierung struktureller Eigenschaften hinsichtlich des Verhaltens in Chipflächenverbrauch und Signalverzögerung. Ferner wird ein generisches Layout-Werkzeug entwickelt, das für beliebige Architekturen und Schaltkreise Implementierungen berechnen und bewerten kann. Abschließend werden neun ressourcenminimalistische Architekturen mit Maschen- und mit Inselstruktur einander gegenübergestellt.
Making machines understand natural language is a dream of mankind that existed
since a very long time. Early attempts at programming machines to converse with
humans in a supposedly intelligent way with humans relied on phrase lists and simple
keyword matching. However, such approaches cannot provide semantically adequate
answers, as they do not consider the specific meaning of the conversation. Thus, if we
want to enable machines to actually understand language, we need to be able to access
semantically relevant background knowledge. For this, it is possible to query so-called
ontologies, which are large networks containing knowledge about real-world entities
and their semantic relations. However, creating such ontologies is a tedious task, as often
extensive expert knowledge is required. Thus, we need to find ways to automatically
construct and update ontologies that fit human intuition of semantics and semantic
relations. More specifically, we need to determine semantic entities and find relations
between them. While this is usually done on large corpora of unstructured text, previous
work has shown that we can at least facilitate the first issue of extracting entities by
considering special data such as tagging data or human navigational paths. Here, we do
not need to detect the actual semantic entities, as they are already provided because of
the way those data are collected. Thus we can mainly focus on the problem of assessing
the degree of semantic relatedness between tags or web pages. However, there exist
several issues which need to be overcome, if we want to approximate human intuition of
semantic relatedness. For this, it is necessary to represent words and concepts in a way
that allows easy and highly precise semantic characterization. This also largely depends
on the quality of data from which these representations are constructed.
In this thesis, we extract semantic information from both tagging data created by users
of social tagging systems and human navigation data in different semantic-driven social
web systems. Our main goal is to construct high quality and robust vector representations
of words which can the be used to measure the relatedness of semantic concepts.
First, we show that navigation in the social media systems Wikipedia and BibSonomy is
driven by a semantic component. After this, we discuss and extend methods to model
the semantic information in tagging data as low-dimensional vectors. Furthermore, we
show that tagging pragmatics influences different facets of tagging semantics. We then
investigate the usefulness of human navigational paths in several different settings on
Wikipedia and BibSonomy for measuring semantic relatedness. Finally, we propose
a metric-learning based algorithm in adapt pre-trained word embeddings to datasets
containing human judgment of semantic relatedness.
This work contributes to the field of studying semantic relatedness between words
by proposing methods to extract semantic relatedness from web navigation, learn highquality
and low-dimensional word representations from tagging data, and to learn
semantic relatedness from any kind of vector representation by exploiting human
feedback. Applications first and foremest lie in ontology learning for the Semantic Web,
but also semantic search or query expansion.
Historical maps are fascinating documents and a valuable source of information for scientists of various disciplines. Many of these maps are available as scanned bitmap images, but in order to make them searchable in useful ways, a structured representation of the contained information is desirable.
This book deals with the extraction of spatial information from historical maps. This cannot be expected to be solved fully automatically (since it involves difficult semantics), but is also too tedious to be done manually at scale.
The methodology used in this book combines the strengths of both computers and humans: it describes efficient algorithms to largely automate information extraction tasks and pairs these algorithms with smart user interactions to handle what is not understood by the algorithm. The effectiveness of this approach is shown for various kinds of spatial documents from the 16th to the early 20th century.
Starfree regular languages can be build up from alphabet letters by using only Boolean operations and concatenation. The complexity of these languages can be measured with the so-called dot-depth. This measure leads to concatenation hierarchies like the dot-depth hierarchy (DDH) and the closely related Straubing-Thérien hierarchy (STH). The question whether the single levels of these hierarchies are decidable is still open and is known as the dot-depth problem. In this thesis we prove/reprove the decidability of some lower levels of both hierarchies. More precisely, we characterize these levels in terms of patterns in finite automata (subgraphs in the transition graph) that are not allowed. Therefore, such characterizations are called forbidden-pattern characterizations. The main results of the thesis are as follows: forbidden-pattern characterization for level 3/2 of the DDH (this implies the decidability of this level) decidability of the Boolean hierarchy over level 1/2 of the DDH definition of decidable hierarchies having close relations to the DDH and STH Moreover, we prove/reprove the decidability of the levels 1/2 and 3/2 of both hierarchies in terms of forbidden-pattern characterizations. We show the decidability of the Boolean hierarchies over level 1/2 of the DDH and over level 1/2 of the STH. A technique which uses word extensions plays the central role in the proofs of these results. With this technique it is possible to treat the levels 1/2 and 3/2 of both hierarchies in a uniform way. Furthermore, it can be used to prove the decidability of the mentioned Boolean hierarchies. Among other things we provide a combinatorial tool that allows to partition words of arbitrary length into factors of bounded length such that every second factor u leads to a loop with label u in a given finite automaton.
In the last 40 years, complexity theory has grown to a rich and powerful field in theoretical computer science. The main task of complexity theory is the classification of problems with respect to their consumption of resources (e.g., running time or required memory). To study the computational complexity (i.e., consumption of resources) of problems, similar problems are grouped into so called complexity classes. During the systematic study of numerous problems of practical relevance, no efficient algorithm for a great number of studied problems was found. Moreover, it was unclear whether such algorithms exist. A major breakthrough in this situation was the introduction of the complexity classes P and NP and the identification of hardest problems in NP. These hardest problems of NP are nowadays known as NP-complete problems. One prominent example of an NP-complete problem is the satisfiability problem of propositional formulas (SAT). Here we get a propositional formula as an input and it must be decided whether an assignment for the propositional variables exists, such that this assignment satisfies the given formula. The intensive study of NP led to numerous related classes, e.g., the classes of the polynomial-time hierarchy PH, P, #P, PP, NL, L and #L. During the study of these classes, problems related to propositional formulas were often identified to be complete problems for these classes. Hence some questions arise: Why is SAT so hard to solve? Are there modifications of SAT which are complete for other well-known complexity classes? In the context of these questions a result by E. Post is extremely useful. He identified and characterized all classes of Boolean functions being closed under superposition. It is possible to study problems which are connected to generalized propositional logic by using this result, which was done in this thesis. Hence, many different problems connected to propositional logic were studied and classified with respect to their computational complexity, clearing the borderline between easy and hard problems.
Globale Selbstlokalisation autonomer mobiler Roboter - Ein Schlüsselproblem der Service-Robotik
(2003)
Die Dissertation behandelt die Problemstellung der globalen Selbstlokalisation autonomer mobiler Roboter, welche folgendermaßen beschrieben werden kann: Ein mobiler Roboter, eingesetzt in einem Gebäude, kann unter Umständen das Wissen über seinen Standort verlieren. Man geht nun davon aus, dass dem Roboter eine Gebäudekarte als Modell zur Verfügung steht. Mit Hilfe eines Laser-Entfernungsmessers kann das mobile Gerät neue Informationen aufnehmen und damit bei korrekter Zuordnung zur Modellkarte geeignete hypothetische Standorte ermitteln. In der Regel werden diese Positionen aber mehrdeutig sein. Indem sich der Roboter intelligent in seiner Einsatzumgebung bewegt, kann er die ursprünglichen Sensordaten verifizieren und ermittelt im besten Fall seine tatsächliche Position.Für diese Problemstellung wird ein neuer Lösungsansatz in Theorie und Praxis präsentiert, welcher die jeweils aktuelle lokale Karte und damit alle Sensordaten mittels feature-basierter Matchingverfahren auf das Modell der Umgebung abbildet. Ein Explorationsalgorithmus bewegt den Roboter während der Bewegungsphase autonom zu Sensorpunkten, welche neue Informationen bereitstellen. Während der Bewegungsphase werden dabei die bisherigen hypothetischen Positionen bestärkt oder geschwächt, sodaß nach kurzer Zeit eine dominante Position, die tatsächliche Roboterposition,übrigbleibt.
The field of small satellite formations and constellations attracted growing attention, based on recent advances in small satellite engineering. The utilization of distributed space systems allows the realization of innovative applications and will enable improved temporal and spatial resolution in observation scenarios. On the other side, this new paradigm imposes a variety of research challenges. In this monograph new networking concepts for space missions are presented, using networks of ground stations. The developed approaches combine ground station resources in a coordinated way to achieve more robust and efficient communication links. Within this thesis, the following topics were elaborated to improve the performance in distributed space missions: Appropriate scheduling of contact windows in a distributed ground system is a necessary process to avoid low utilization of ground stations. The theoretical basis for the novel concept of redundant scheduling was elaborated in detail. Additionally to the presented algorithm was a scheduling system implemented, its performance was tested extensively with real world scheduling problems. In the scope of data management, a system was developed which autonomously synchronizes data frames in ground station networks and uses this information to detect and correct transmission errors. The system was validated with hardware in the loop experiments, demonstrating the benefits of the developed approach.
To jointly provide different services/technologies, like IP and Ethernet or IP and SDH/SONET, in a single network, equipment of multiple technologies needs to be deployed to the sites/Points of Presence (PoP) and interconnected with each other. Therein, a technology may provide transport functionality to other technologies and increase the number of available resources by using multiplexing techniques. By providing its own switching functionality, each technology creates connections in a logical layer which leads to the notion of multi-layer networks. The design of such networks comprises the deployment and interconnection of components to suit to given traffic demands. To prevent traffic loss due to failures of networking equipment, protection mechanisms need to be established. In multi-layer networks, protection usually can be applied in any of the considered layers. In turn, the hierarchical structure of multi-layer networks also bears shared risk groups (SRG). To achieve a cost-optimal resilient network, an appropriate combination of multiplexing techniques, technologies, and their interconnections needs to be found. Thus, network design is a combinatorial problem with a large parameter and solution space. After the design stage, the resources of a multi-layer network can be provided to traffic demands. Especially, dynamic capacity provisioning requires interaction of sites and layers, as well as accurate retrieval of constraint information. In recent years, generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS) and path computation elements (PCE) have emerged as possible approaches for these challenges. Like the design, the provisioning of multi-layer networks comprises a variety of optimization parameters, like blocking probability, resilience, and energy efficiency. In this work, we introduce several efficient heuristics to approach the considered optimization problems. We perform capital expenditure (CAPEX)-aware design of multi-layer networks from scratch, based on IST NOBEL phase 2 project's cost and equipment data. We comprise traffic and resilience requirements in different and multiple layers as well as different network architectures. On top of the designed networks, we consider the dynamic provisioning of multi-layer traffic based on the GMPLS and PCE architecture. We evaluate different PCE deployments, information retrieval strategies, and re-optimization. Finally, we show how information about provisioning utilization can be used to provide a feedback for network design.
While teleoperation of technical highly sophisticated systems has already been a wide field of research, especially for space and robotics applications, the automation industry has not yet benefited from its results. Besides the established fields of application, also production lines with industrial robots and the surrounding plant components are in need of being remotely accessible. This is especially critical for maintenance or if an unexpected problem cannot be solved by the local specialists.
Special machine manufacturers, especially robotics companies, sell their technology worldwide. Some factories, for example in emerging economies, lack qualified personnel for repair and maintenance tasks. When a severe failure occurs, an expert of the manufacturer needs to fly there, which leads to long down times of the machine or even the whole production line. With the development of data networks, a huge part of those travels can be omitted, if appropriate teleoperation equipment is provided.
This thesis describes the development of a telemaintenance system, which was established in an active production line for research purposes. The customer production site of Braun in Marktheidenfeld, a factory which belongs to Procter & Gamble, consists of a six-axis cartesian industrial robot by KUKA Industries, a two-component injection molding system and an assembly unit. The plant produces plastic parts for electric toothbrushes.
In the research projects "MainTelRob" and "Bayern.digital", during which this plant was utilised, the Zentrum für Telematik e.V. (ZfT) and its project partners develop novel technical approaches and procedures for modern telemaintenance. The term "telemaintenance" hereby refers to the integration of computer science and communication technologies into the maintenance strategy. It is particularly interesting for high-grade capital-intensive goods like industrial robots. Typical telemaintenance tasks are for example the analysis of a robot failure or difficult repair operations. The service department of KUKA Industries is responsible for the worldwide distributed customers who own more than one robot. Currently such tasks are offered via phone support and service staff which travels abroad. They want to expand their service activities on telemaintenance and struggle with the high demands of teleoperation especially regarding security infrastructure. In addition, the facility in Marktheidenfeld has to keep up with the high international standards of Procter & Gamble and wants to minimize machine downtimes. Like 71.6 % of all German companies, P&G sees a huge potential for early information on their production system, but complains about the insufficient quality and the lack of currentness of data.
The main research focus of this work lies on the human machine interface for all human tasks in a telemaintenance setup. This thesis provides own work in the use of a mobile device in context of maintenance, describes new tools on asynchronous remote analysis and puts all parts together in an integrated telemaintenance infrastructure. With the help of Augmented Reality, the user performance and satisfaction could be raised. A special regard is put upon the situation awareness of the remote expert realized by different camera viewpoints. In detail the work consists of:
- Support of maintenance tasks with a mobile device
- Development and evaluation of a context-aware inspection tool
- Comparison of a new touch-based mobile robot programming device to the former teach pendant
- Study on Augmented Reality support for repair tasks with a mobile device
- Condition monitoring for a specific plant with industrial robot
- Human computer interaction for remote analysis of a single plant cycle
- A big data analysis tool for a multitude of cycles and similar plants
- 3D process visualization for a specific plant cycle with additional virtual information
- Network architecture in hardware, software and network infrastructure
- Mobile device computer supported collaborative work for telemaintenance
- Motor exchange telemaintenance example in running production environment
- Augmented reality supported remote plant visualization for better situation awareness
Der große Vorteil eines q-Gramm Indexes liegt darin, dass es möglich ist beliebige Zeichenketten in einer Dokumentensammlung zu suchen. Ein Nachteil jedoch liegt darin, dass bei größer werdenden Datenmengen dieser Index dazu neigt, sehr groß zu werden, was mit einem deutlichem Leistungsabfall verbunden ist. In dieser Arbeit wird eine neuartige Technik vorgestellt, die die Leistung eines q-Gramm Indexes mithilfe zusätzlicher M-Matrizen für jedes q-Gramm und durch die Kombination mit einem invertierten Index erhöht. Eine M-Matrix ist eine Bit-Matrix, die Informationen über die Positionen eines q-Gramms enthält. Auch bei der Kombination von zwei oder mehreren Q-Grammen bieten diese M-Matrizen Informationen über die Positionen der Kombination. Dies kann verwendet werden, um die Komplexität der Zusammenführung der q-Gramm Trefferlisten für eine gegebene Suchanfrage zu reduzieren und verbessert die Leistung des n-Gramm-invertierten Index. Die Kombination mit einem termbasierten invertierten Index beschleunigt die durchschnittliche Suchzeit zusätzlich und vereint die Vorteile beider Index-Formate. Redundante Informationen werden in dem q-Gramm Index reduziert und weitere Funktionalität hinzugefügt, wie z.B. die Bewertung von Treffern nach Relevanz, die Möglichkeit, nach Konzepten zu suchen oder Indexpartitionierungen nach Wichtigkeit der enthaltenen Terme zu erstellen.
Modern software is often realized as a modular combination of subsystems for, e. g.,
knowledge management, visualization, verification, or the interaction with users. As
a result, software libraries from possibly different programming languages have to
work together. Even more complex the case is if different programming paradigms
have to be combined. This type of diversification of programming languages and
paradigms in just one software application can only be mastered by mechanisms
for a seamless integration of the involved programming languages. However, the
integration of the common logic programming language Prolog and the popular
object-oriented programming language Java is complicated by various interoperability
problems which stem on the one hand from the paradigmatic gap between the
programming languages, and on the other hand, from the diversity of the available
Prolog systems.
The subject of the thesis is the investigation of novel mechanisms for the integration
of logic programming in Prolog and object–oriented programming in Java. We are
particularly interested in an object–oriented, uniform approach which is not specific
to just one Prolog system. Therefore, we have first identified several important
criteria for the seamless integration of Prolog and Java from the object–oriented
perspective. The main contribution of the thesis is a novel integration framework
called the Connector Architecture for Prolog and Java (CAPJa). The framework is
completely implemented in Java and imposes no modifications to the Java Virtual
Machine or Prolog. CAPJa provides a semi–automated mechanism for the integration
of Prolog predicates into Java. For compact, readable, and object–oriented
queries to Prolog, CAPJa exploits lambda expressions with conditional and relational
operators in Java. The communication between Java and Prolog is based
on a fully automated mapping of Java objects to Prolog terms, and vice versa. In
Java, an extensible system of gateways provides connectivity with various Prolog
system and, moreover, makes any connected Prolog system easily interchangeable,
without major adaption in Java.
This work is composed of three main parts: remote control of mobile systems via Internet, ad-hoc networks of mobile robots, and remote control of mobile robots via 3G telecommunication technologies. The first part gives a detailed state of the art and a discussion of the problems to be solved in order to teleoperate mobile robots via the Internet. The focus of the application to be realized is set on a distributed tele-laboratory with remote experiments on mobile robots which can be accessed world-wide via the Internet. Therefore, analyses of the communication link are used in order to realize a robust system. The developed and implemented architecture of this distributed tele-laboratory allows for a smooth access also with a variable or low link quality. The second part covers the application of ad-hoc networks for mobile robots. The networking of mobile robots via mobile ad-hoc networks is a very promising approach to realize integrated telematic systems without relying on preexisting communication infrastructure. Relevant civilian application scenarios are for example in the area of search and rescue operations where first responders are supported by multi-robot systems. Here, mobile robots, humans, and also existing stationary sensors can be connected very fast and efficient. Therefore, this work investigates and analyses the performance of different ad-hoc routing protocols for IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks in relevant scenarios. The analysis of the different protocols allows for an optimization of the parameter settings in order to use these ad-hoc routing protocols for mobile robot teleoperation. Also guidelines for the realization of such telematics systems are given. Also traffic shaping mechanisms of application layer are presented which allow for a more efficient use of the communication link. An additional application scenario, the integration of a small size helicopter into an IP based ad-hoc network, is presented. The teleoperation of mobile robots via 3G telecommunication technologies is addressed in the third part of this work. The high availability, high mobility, and the high bandwidth provide a very interesting opportunity to realize scenarios for the teleoperation of mobile robots or industrial remote maintenance. This work analyses important parameters of the UMTS communication link and investigates also the characteristics for different data streams. These analyses are used to give guidelines which are necessary for the realization of or industrial remote maintenance or mobile robot teleoperation scenarios. All the results and guidelines for the design of telematic systems in this work were derived from analyses and experiments with real hardware.
In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird das Problem der Kalibrierung Agenten-basierter Simulationen (ABS) behandelt, also das Problem, die Parameterwerte eines Agenten-basierten Simulationsmodells so einzustellen, dass valides Simulationsverhalten erreicht wird. Das Kalibrierungsproblem für Simulationen an sich ist nicht neu und ist im Rahmen klassischer Simulationsparadigmen, wie z.B. der Makro-Simulation, fester Bestandteil der Forschung. Im Vergleich zu den dort betrachteten Kalibrierungsproblemen zeichnet sich das Kalibrierungsproblem für ABS jedoch durch eine Reihe zusätzlicher Herausforderungen aus, welche die direkte Anwendung existierender Kalibrierungsverfahren in begrenzter Zeit erschweren, bzw. nicht mehr sinnvoll zulassen. Die Lösung dieser Probleme steht im Zentrum dieser Dissertation: Das Ziel besteht darin, den Nutzer bei der Kalibrierung von ABS auf der Basis von unzureichenden, potentiell fehlerhaften Daten und Wissen zu unterstützen. Dabei sollen drei Hauptprobleme gelöst werden: 1)Vereinfachung der Kalibrierung großer Agenten-Parametermengen auf der Mikro- Ebene in Agenten-basierten Simulationen durch Ausnutzung der spezifischen Struktur von ABS (nämlich dem Aufbau aus einer Menge von Agentenmodellen). 2)Kalibrierung Agenten-basierter Simulationen, so dass auf allen relevanten Beobachtungsebenen valides Simulationsverhalten erzeugt wird (mindestens Mikro und Makro-Ebene). Als erschwerende Randbedingung muss die Kalibrierung unter der Voraussetzung einer Makro-Mikro-Wissenslücke durchgeführt werden. 3)Kalibrierung Agenten-basierter Simulationen auf der Mikro-Ebene unter der Voraussetzung, dass zur Kalibrierung einzelner Agentenmodelle nicht ausreichend und potentiell verfälschte Daten zur Verhaltensvalidierung zur Verfügung stehen. Hierzu wird in dieser Arbeit das sogenannte Makro-Mikro-Verfahren zur Kalibrierung von Agenten-basierten Simulationen entwickelt. Das Verfahren besteht aus einem Basisverfahren, das im Verlauf der Arbeit um verschiedene Zusatzverfahren erweitert wird. Das Makro-Mikro-Verfahren und seine Erweiterungen sollen dazu dienen, die Modellkalibrierung trotz stark verrauschter Daten und eingeschränktem Wissen über die Wirkungszusammenhänge im Originalsystem geeignet zu ermöglichen und dabei den Kalibrierungsprozess zu beschleunigen: 1) Makro-Mikro-Kalibrierungsverfahren: Das in dieser Arbeit entwickelte Makro- Mikro-Verfahren unterstützt den Nutzer durch eine kombinierte Kalibrierung auf der Mikro- und der Makro-Beobachtungsebene, die gegebenenfalls durch Zwischenebenen erweitert werden kann. Der Grundgedanke des Verfahrens besteht darin, das Kalibrierungsproblem in eines auf aggregierter Verhaltensebene und eines auf der Ebene des Mikro-Agentenverhaltens aufzuteilen. Auf der Makro-Ebene wird nach validen idealen aggregierten Verhaltensmodellen (IVM) der Agenten gesucht. Auf der Mikro-Ebene wird versucht die individuellen Modelle der Agenten auf Basis des erwünschten Gesamtverhaltens und der ermittelten IVM so zu kalibrieren, das insgesamt Simulationsverhalten entsteht, das sowohl auf Mikro- als auch auf Makro-Ebene valide ist. 2) Erweiterung 1: Robuste Kalibrierung: Um den Umgang mit potentiell verrauschten Validierungskriterien (d.h. mit verrauschten Daten über ein Originalsystem, auf denen die Validierungskriterien der Simulation beruhen) und Modellteilen während der Kalibrierung von ABS zu ermöglichen, wird eine robuste Kalibrierungstechnik zur Anwendung im Makro-Mikro-Verfahren entwickelt. 3) Erweiterung 2: Kalibrierung mit Heterogenitätssuche: Als zweite Erweiterung des Makro-Mikro-Verfahrens wird ein Verfahren entwickelt, das das Problem des unklaren Detaillierungsgrades von ABS auf der Ebene der Parameterwerte adressiert. Prinzipiell kann zwar jeder Agent unterschiedliche Parameterwerte verwenden, obwohl eine geringere Heterogenität zur Erzeugung validen Verhaltens ausreichend wäre. Die entwickelte Erweiterung versucht, während der Kalibrierung, eine geeignete Heterogenitätsausprägung für die Parameterwerte der Agenten zu ermitteln. Unter einer Heterogenitätsausprägung wird dabei eine Einteilung der simulierten Agenten in Gruppen mit jeweils gleichen Parameterwerten verstanden. Die Heterogenitätssuche dient dazu, einen Kompromiss zu finden zwischen der Notwendigkeit, sehr große Parametersuchräume durchsuchen zu müssen und gleichzeitig den Suchraum so klein wie möglich halten zu wollen.
Data mining has proved its significance in various domains and applications. As an important subfield of the general data mining task, subgroup mining can be used, e.g., for marketing purposes in business domains, or for quality profiling and analysis in medical domains. The goal is to efficiently discover novel, potentially useful and ultimately interesting knowledge. However, in real-world situations these requirements often cannot be fulfilled, e.g., if the applied methods do not scale for large data sets, if too many results are presented to the user, or if many of the discovered patterns are already known to the user. This thesis proposes a combination of several techniques in order to cope with the sketched problems: We discuss automatic methods, including heuristic and exhaustive approaches, and especially present the novel SD-Map algorithm for exhaustive subgroup discovery that is fast and effective. For an interactive approach we describe techniques for subgroup introspection and analysis, and we present advanced visualization methods, e.g., the zoomtable that directly shows the most important parameters of a subgroup and that can be used for optimization and exploration. We also describe various visualizations for subgroup comparison and evaluation in order to support the user during these essential steps. Furthermore, we propose to include possibly available background knowledge that is easy to formalize into the mining process. We can utilize the knowledge in many ways: To focus the search process, to restrict the search space, and ultimately to increase the efficiency of the discovery method. We especially present background knowledge to be applied for filtering the elements of the problem domain, for constructing abstractions, for aggregating values of attributes, and for the post-processing of the discovered set of patterns. Finally, the techniques are combined into a knowledge-intensive process supporting both automatic and interactive methods for subgroup mining. The practical significance of the proposed approach strongly depends on the available tools. We introduce the VIKAMINE system as a highly-integrated environment for knowledge-intensive active subgroup mining. Also, we present an evaluation consisting of two parts: With respect to objective evaluation criteria, i.e., comparing the efficiency and the effectiveness of the subgroup discovery methods, we provide an experimental evaluation using generated data. For that task we present a novel data generator that allows a simple and intuitive specification of the data characteristics. The results of the experimental evaluation indicate that the novel SD-Map method outperforms the other described algorithms using data sets similar to the intended application concerning the efficiency, and also with respect to precision and recall for the heuristic methods. Subjective evaluation criteria include the user acceptance, the benefit of the approach, and the interestingness of the results. We present five case studies utilizing the presented techniques: The approach has been successfully implemented in medical and technical applications using real-world data sets. The method was very well accepted by the users that were able to discover novel, useful, and interesting knowledge.
Die Entwicklung eines wissensbasierten Systems, speziell eines Diagnosesystems, ist eine Teildisziplin der künstlichen Intelligenz und angewandten Informatik. Im Laufe der Forschung auf diesem Gebiet wurden verschiedene Lösungsansätze mit unterschiedlichem Erfolg bei der Anwendung in der Kraftfahrzeugdiagnose entwickelt. Diagnosesysteme in Vertragswerkstätten, das heißt in Fahrzeughersteller gebundenen Werkstätten, wenden hauptsächlich die fallbasierte Diagnostik an. Zum einen hält sich hier die Fahrzeugvielfalt in Grenzen und zum anderen besteht eine Meldepflicht bei neuen, nicht im System vorhandenen Fällen. Die freien Werkstätten verfügen nicht über eine solche Datenbank. Somit ist der fallbasierte Ansatz schwer umsetzbar. In freien Werkstätten - Fahrzeughersteller unabhängigen Werkstätten - basiert die Fehlersuche hauptsächlich auf Fehlerbäumen. Wegen der wachsenden Fahrzeugkomplexität, welche wesentlich durch die stark zunehmende Anzahl der durch mechatronische Systeme realisierten Funktionen bedingt ist, und der steigenden Typenvielfalt ist die geführte Fehlersuche in freien Werkstätten nicht immer zielführend. Um die Unterstützung des Personals von freien Werkstätten bei der zukünftigen Fehlersuche zu gewährleisten, werden neue Generationen von herstellerunabhängigen Diagnosetools benötigt, die die Probleme der Variantenvielfalt und Komplexität lösen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Lösungsansatz vorgestellt, der einen qualitativen, modellbasierten Diagnoseansatz mit einem auf heuristischem Diagnosewissen basierenden Ansatz vereint. Neben der Grundlage zur Wissenserhebung werden in dieser Arbeit die theoretische Grundlage zur Beherrschung der Variantenvielfalt sowie die Tests für die erstellten Diagnosemodelle behandelt. Die Diagnose ist symptombasiert und die Inferenzmechanismen zur Verarbeitung des Diagnosewissens sind eine Kombination aus Propagierung der abweichenden physikalischen Größen im Modell und der Auswertung des heuristischen Wissens. Des Weiteren werden in dieser Arbeit verschiedene Aspekte der Realisierung der entwickelten theoretischen Grundlagen dargestellt, zum Beispiel: Systemarchitektur, Wissenserhebungsprozess, Ablauf des Diagnosevorgangs in den Werkstätten. Die Evaluierung der entwickelten Lösung bei der Wissenserhebung in Form von Modellerstellungen und Modellierungsworkshops sowie Feldtests dient nicht nur zur Bestätigung des entwickelten Ansatzes, sondern auch zur Ideenfindung für die Integration der entwickelten Tools in die existierende IT-Infrastruktur.
The holy grail of structural biology is to study a protein in situ, and this goal has been fast approaching since the resolution revolution and the achievement of atomic resolution. A cell's interior is not a dilute environment, and proteins have evolved to fold and function as needed in that environment; as such, an investigation of a cellular component should ideally include the full complexity of the cellular environment. Imaging whole cells in three dimensions using electron cryotomography is the best method to accomplish this goal, but it comes with a limitation on sample thickness and produces noisy data unamenable to direct analysis. This thesis establishes a novel workflow to systematically analyse whole-cell electron cryotomography data in three dimensions and to find and identify instances of protein complexes in the data to set up a determination of their structure and identity for success. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a very small parasitic bacterium with fewer than 700 protein-coding genes, is thin enough and small enough to be imaged in large quantities by electron cryotomography, and can grow directly on the grids used for imaging, making it ideal for exploratory studies in structural proteomics. As part of the workflow, a methodology for training deep-learning-based particle-picking models is established.
As a proof of principle, a dataset of whole-cell Mycoplasma pneumoniae tomograms is used with this workflow to characterize a novel membrane-associated complex observed in the data. Ultimately, 25431 such particles are picked from 353 tomograms and refined to a density map with a resolution of 11 Å. Making good use of orthogonal datasets to filter search space and verify results, structures were predicted for candidate proteins and checked for suitable fit in the density map. In the end, with this approach, nine proteins were found to be part of the complex, which appears to be associated with chaperone activity and interact with translocon machinery.
Visual proteomics refers to the ultimate potential of in situ electron cryotomography: the comprehensive interpretation of tomograms. The workflow presented here is demonstrated to help in reaching that potential.
Deep learning enables enormous progress in many computer vision-related tasks. Artificial Intel- ligence (AI) steadily yields new state-of-the-art results in the field of detection and classification. Thereby AI performance equals or exceeds human performance. Those achievements impacted many domains, including medical applications.
One particular field of medical applications is gastroenterology. In gastroenterology, machine learning algorithms are used to assist examiners during interventions. One of the most critical concerns for gastroenterologists is the development of Colorectal Cancer (CRC), which is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Detecting polyps in screening colonoscopies is the essential procedure to prevent CRC. Thereby, the gastroenterologist uses an endoscope to screen the whole colon to find polyps during a colonoscopy. Polyps are mucosal growths that can vary in severity.
This thesis supports gastroenterologists in their examinations with automated detection and clas- sification systems for polyps. The main contribution is a real-time polyp detection system. This system is ready to be installed in any gastroenterology practice worldwide using open-source soft- ware. The system achieves state-of-the-art detection results and is currently evaluated in a clinical trial in four different centers in Germany.
The thesis presents two additional key contributions: One is a polyp detection system with ex- tended vision tested in an animal trial. Polyps often hide behind folds or in uninvestigated areas. Therefore, the polyp detection system with extended vision uses an endoscope assisted by two additional cameras to see behind those folds. If a polyp is detected, the endoscopist receives a vi- sual signal. While the detection system handles the additional two camera inputs, the endoscopist focuses on the main camera as usual.
The second one are two polyp classification models, one for the classification based on shape (Paris) and the other on surface and texture (NBI International Colorectal Endoscopic (NICE) classification). Both classifications help the endoscopist with the treatment of and the decisions about the detected polyp.
The key algorithms of the thesis achieve state-of-the-art performance. Outstandingly, the polyp detection system tested on a highly demanding video data set shows an F1 score of 90.25 % while working in real-time. The results exceed all real-time systems in the literature. Furthermore, the first preliminary results of the clinical trial of the polyp detection system suggest a high Adenoma Detection Rate (ADR). In the preliminary study, all polyps were detected by the polyp detection system, and the system achieved a high usability score of 96.3 (max 100). The Paris classification model achieved an F1 score of 89.35 % which is state-of-the-art. The NICE classification model achieved an F1 score of 81.13 %.
Furthermore, a large data set for polyp detection and classification was created during this thesis. Therefore a fast and robust annotation system called Fast Colonoscopy Annotation Tool (FastCAT) was developed. The system simplifies the annotation process for gastroenterologists. Thereby the
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gastroenterologists only annotate key parts of the endoscopic video. Afterward, those video parts are pre-labeled by a polyp detection AI to speed up the process. After the AI has pre-labeled the frames, non-experts correct and finish the annotation. This annotation process is fast and ensures high quality. FastCAT reduces the overall workload of the gastroenterologist on average by a factor of 20 compared to an open-source state-of-art annotation tool.
With the progress in robotics research the human machine interfaces reach more and more the status of being the major limiting factor for the overall system performance of a system for remote navigation and coordination of robots. In this monograph it is elaborated how mixed reality technologies can be applied for the user interfaces in order to increase the overall system performance. Concepts, technologies, and frameworks are developed and evaluated in user studies which enable for novel user-centered approaches to the design of mixed-reality user interfaces for remote robot operation. Both the technological requirements and the human factors are considered to achieve a consistent system design. Novel technologies like 3D time-of-flight cameras are investigated for the application in the navigation tasks and for the application in the developed concept of a generic mixed reality user interface. In addition it is shown how the network traffic of a video stream can be shaped on application layer in order to reach a stable frame rate in dynamic networks. The elaborated generic mixed reality framework enables an integrated 3D graphical user interface. The realized spatial integration and visualization of available information reduces the demand for mental transformations for the human operator and supports the use of immersive stereo devices. The developed concepts make also use of the fact that local robust autonomy components can be realized and thus can be incorporated as assistance systems for the human operators. A sliding autonomy concept is introduced combining force and visual augmented reality feedback. The force feedback component allows rendering the robot's current navigation intention to the human operator, such that a real sliding autonomy with seamless transitions is achieved. The user-studies prove the significant increase in navigation performance by application of this concept. The generic mixed reality user interface together with robust local autonomy enables a further extension of the teleoperation system to a short-term predictive mixed reality user interface. With the presented concept of operation, it is possible to significantly reduce the visibility of system delays for the human operator. In addition, both advantageous characteristics of a 3D graphical user interface for robot teleoperation- an exocentric view and an augmented reality view – can be combined.
In the future Internet, the people-centric communication paradigm will be complemented by a ubiquitous communication among people and devices, or even a communication between devices. This comes along with the need for a more flexible, cheap, widely available Internet access. Two types of wireless networks are considered most appropriate for attaining those goals. While wireless sensor networks (WSNs) enhance the Internet’s reach by providing data about the properties of the environment, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) extend the Internet access possibilities beyond the wired backbone. This monograph contains four chapters which present modeling and optimization methods for WSNs and WMNs. Minimizing energy consumptions is the most important goal of WSN optimization and the literature consequently provides countless energy consumption models. The first part of the monograph studies to what extent the used energy consumption model influences the outcome of analytical WSN optimizations. These considerations enable the second contribution, namely overcoming the problems on the way to a standardized energy-efficient WSN communication stack based on IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee. For WMNs both problems are of minor interest whereas the network performance has a higher weight. The third part of the work, therefore, presents algorithms for calculating the max-min fair network throughput in WMNs with multiple link rates and Internet gateway. The last contribution of the monograph investigates the impact of the LRA concept which proposes to systematically assign more robust link rates than actually necessary, thereby allowing to exploit the trade-off between spatial reuse and per-link throughput. A systematical study shows that a network-wide slightly more conservative LRA than necessary increases the throughput of a WMN where max-min fairness is guaranteed. It moreover turns out that LRA is suitable for increasing the performance of a contention-based WMN and is a valuable optimization tool.
This work focuses on coordination methods and the control of motion in groups of nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots, in particular of the car-like type. These kind of vehicles are particularly restricted in their mobility. In the main part of this work the two problems of formation motion coordination and of rendezvous in distributed multi-vehicle systems are considered. We introduce several enhancements to an existing motion planning approach for formations of nonholonomic mobile robots. Compared to the original method, the extended approach is able to handle time-varying reference speeds as well as adjustments of the formation's shape during reference trajectory segments with continuously differentiable curvature. Additionally, undesired discontinuities in the speed and steering profiles of the vehicles are avoided. Further, the scenario of snow shoveling on an airfield by utilizing multiple formations of autonomous snowplows is discussed. We propose solutions to the subproblems of motion planning for the formations and tracking control for the individual vehicles. While all situations that might occur have been tested in a simulation environment, we also verified the developed tracking controller in real robot hardware experiments. The task of the rendezvous problem in groups of car-like robots is to drive all vehicles to a common position by means of decentralized control laws. Typically there exists no direct interaction link between all of the vehicles. In this work we present decentralized rendezvous control laws for vehicles with free and with bounded steering. The convergence properties of the approaches are analyzed by utilizing Lyapunov based techniques. Furthermore, they are evaluated within various simulation experiments, while the bounded steering case is also verified within laboratory hardware experiments. Finally we introduce a modification to the bounded steering system that increases the convergence speed at the expense of a higher traveled distance of the vehicles.
Die Realisierung einer koordinierten und effektiven Fortbewegung für einen mobilen Roboter in natürlichen, sich kontinuierlich verändernden Umgebungen unter sich ebenso bewegenden Hindernissen ist eine komplexe Aufgabe, die die Lösung einer Reihe von Unterproblemen voraussetzt. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich sowohl mit den Themen der Wahrnehmung und Fortbewegung in veränderlichen Umgebungen, als auch mit Methoden zur Analyse der Hindernisbewegungen in Zusammenhang mit der Roboterbewegung selbst. Die Wahrnehmung wird in erster Linie anhand von Laserscannern betrachtet, und ein entsprechendes Verfahren zur Hindernisdetektion und -verfolung wird vorgestellt. Dabei werden Verfahren der globalen Netzwerkoptimierung eingesetzt, um Korrespondenzen zwischen Objekten aus den Einzelbildern herzustellen, was sich positiv auf die Robustheit gegenüber Störungen durch sporadische kleine Objekte auswirkt. Die Navigation basiert auf einer Adaption des sog. "Velocity Obstacle" Ansatzes auf die vorhandene Fahrzeugkinematik, und eine kooperative Bewegungskoordination (Roboter begleitet Mensch) wird durch eine geeignete Auswahlregel für kollisionsfreie Geschwindigkeiten realisiert. Anschließend werden verschiedene Distanzmaße eingeführt, anhand derer sich etwa der Pfad des Roboters mit dem Pfad seiner Begleitperson vergleichen lässt. Weiter wird eine Klassifizierung von Situationen vorgenommen, in die der Roboter potentiell involviert sein kann, und nach einer Übersicht über existierende Ansätze zur automatischen Intentionserkennung wird ein praktikabler Ansatz zur Erkennung gezielter Behinderungen eines mobilen Roboters vorgestellt. Die Arbeit schließt mit einem neuen Ansatz der Bewegungsplanung in dynamischen Umgebungen, der auf rekursiven Modellen des Roboters von seinem Gegenüber basiert, d.h. der Roboter berechnet zunächst, wie er sich in der Situation des (intelligenten, beweglichen) Hindernisses fortbewegen würde, und bezieht dies in die Entscheidung über die eigene Fortbewegung mit ein. Je nach Rekursionstiefe entstehen hierdurch Verhaltensweisen unterschiedlichen Charakters für den Roboter.
Imagine a technology that automatically creates a full 3D thermal model of an environment and detects temperature peaks in it. For better orientation in the model it is enhanced with color information. The current state of the art for analyzing temperature related issues is thermal imaging. It is relevant for energy efficiency but also for securing important infrastructure such as power supplies and temperature regulation systems. Monitoring and analysis of the data for a large building is tedious as stable conditions need to be guaranteed for several hours and detailed notes about the pose and the environment conditions for each image must be taken. For some applications repeated measurements are necessary to monitor changes over time. The analysis of the scene is only possible through expertise and experience.
This thesis proposes a robotic system that creates a full 3D model of the environment with color and thermal information by combining thermal imaging with the technology of terrestrial laser scanning. The addition of a color camera facilitates the interpretation of the data and allows for other application areas. The data from all sensors collected at different positions is joined in one common reference frame using calibration and scan matching. The first part of the thesis deals with 3D point cloud processing with the emphasis on accessing point cloud data efficiently, detecting planar structures in the data and registering multiple point clouds into one common coordinate system. The second part covers the autonomous exploration and data acquisition with a mobile robot with the objective to minimize the unseen area in 3D space. Furthermore, the combination of different modalities, color images, thermal images and point cloud data through calibration is elaborated. The last part presents applications for the the collected data. Among these are methods to detect the structure of building interiors for reconstruction purposes and subsequent detection and classification of windows. A system to project the gathered thermal information back into the scene is presented as well as methods to improve the color information and to join separately acquired point clouds and photo series.
A full multi-modal 3D model contains all the relevant geometric information about the recorded scene and enables an expert to fully analyze it off-site. The technology clears the path for automatically detecting points of interest thereby helping the expert to analyze the heat flow as well as localize and identify heat leaks. The concept is modular and neither limited to achieving energy efficiency nor restricted to the use in combination with a mobile platform. It also finds its application in fields such as archaeology and geology and can be extended by further sensors.
Network planning has come to great importance during the past decades. Today's telecommunication, traffic systems, and logistics would not have been evolved to the current state without careful analysis of the underlying network problems and precise implementation of the results obtained from those examinations. Graphs with node and arc attributes are a very useful tool to model realistic applications, while on the other hand they are well understood in theory. We investigate network design problems which are motivated particularly from applications in communication networks and logistics. Those problems include the search for homogeneous subgraphs in edge labeled graphs where either the total number of labels or the reload cost are subject to optimize. Further, we investigate some variants of the dial a ride problem. On the other hand, we use node and edge upgrade models to deal with the fact that in many cases one prefers to change existing networks rather than implementing a newly computed solution from scratch. We investigate the construction of bottleneck constrained forests under a node upgrade model, as well as several flow cost problems under a edge based upgrade model. All problems are examined within a framework of multi-criteria optimization. Many of the problems can be shown to be NP-hard, with the consequence that, under the widely accepted assumption that P is not equal to NP, there cannot exist efficient algorithms for solving the problems. This motivates the development of approximation algorithms which compute near-optimal solutions with provable performance guarantee in polynomial time.
Die Dissertation befaßt sich mit der Entwicklung einer multimedialen, datenbankgestützten Lehr- und Lernplattform. Die entwickelten Module ermöglichen und erweitern nicht nur die Möglichkeit des Selbststudiums für den Studenten sondern erleichtern auch die Arbeit der Dozenten. Außerdem wird auch die Zusammenarbeit und der Austausch von Lernobjekten zwischen verschiedenen Institutionen ermöglicht. In der Lehr- und Lernplattform können verschiedene Lernobjekt-Typen verwaltet werden. Exemplarisch wurden die Typen Bilder, 3D-Animationen, Vorlesungen, Lerntexte, Fallbeispiele und Quizelemente integriert. Die Lehr- und Lernplattform besteht aus drei Bausteinen: 1. In der Lernobjekt-Datenbank werden alle Lernobjekt-Typen und Lernobjekte verwaltet. 2. Autorenwerkzeuge dienen zur Erstellung von Lernobjekten. 3. In der Lernplattform werden die Lernobjekte den Studenten zum (Selbst-)Lernen präsentiert. Neben den Vorteilen, die der Einsatz von E-Learning im allgemeinen bietet, wie die flexible Lernorganisation oder die Nutzung von Lerninhalten unabhängig von Ort und Zeit, zeichnet sich die entwickelte Lehr- und Lernplattform besonders durch folgende Punkte aus: Generierung von Lerninhalten höherer Qualität durch multizentrische Expertenbündelung und Arbeitsteilung, Erweiterbarkeit auf andere, neue Lernobjekt-Typen, Verwaltbarkeit, Konsistenz, Flexibilität, geringer Verwaltungsaufwand, Navigationsmöglichkeiten für den Studenten, Personalisierbarkeit und Konformität zu internationalen Standards. Sowohl bei der Modellierung als auch bei der Umsetzung wurde darauf geachtet, möglichst gut die Anforderungen der Dermatologie bei gleichzeitiger Erweiterbarkeit auf andere, ähnliche Szenarien zu erfüllen. Besonders einfach sollte die Anpassung der Plattform für andere bildorientierte Disziplinen sein.
Practical optimization problems often comprise several incomparable and conflicting objectives. When booking a trip using several means of transport, for instance, it should be fast and at the same time not too expensive. The first part of this thesis is concerned with the algorithmic solvability of such multiobjective optimization problems. Several solution notions are discussed and compared with respect to their difficulty. Interestingly, these solution notions are always equally difficulty for a single-objective problem and they differ considerably already for two objectives (unless P = NP). In this context, the difference between search and decision problems is also investigated in general. Furthermore, new and improved approximation algorithms for several variants of the traveling salesperson problem are presented. Using tools from discrepancy theory, a general technique is developed that helps to avoid an obstacle that is often hindering in multiobjective approximation: The problem of combining two solutions such that the new solution is balanced in all objectives and also mostly retains the structure of the original solutions. The second part of this thesis is dedicated to several aspects of systems of equations for (formal) languages. Firstly, conjunctive and Boolean grammars are studied, which are extensions of context-free grammars by explicit intersection and complementation operations, respectively. Among other results, it is shown that one can considerably restrict the union operation on conjunctive grammars without changing the generated language. Secondly, certain circuits are investigated whose gates do not compute Boolean values but sets of natural numbers. For these circuits, the equivalence problem is studied, i.\,e.\ the problem of deciding whether two given circuits compute the same set or not. It is shown that, depending on the allowed types of gates, this problem is complete for several different complexity classes and can thus be seen as a parametrized) representative for all those classes.
Given points in the plane, connect them using minimum ink. Though the task seems simple, it turns out to be very time consuming. In fact, scientists believe that computers cannot efficiently solve it. So, do we have to resign? This book examines such NP-hard network-design problems, from connectivity problems in graphs to polygonal drawing problems on the plane. First, we observe why it is so hard to optimally solve these problems. Then, we go over to attack them anyway. We develop fast algorithms that find approximate solutions that are very close to the optimal ones. Hence, connecting points with slightly more ink is not hard.
Consider the situation where two or more images are taken from the same object. After taking the first image, the object is moved or rotated so that the second recording depicts it in a different manner. Additionally, take heed of the possibility that the imaging techniques may have also been changed. One of the main problems in image processing is to determine the spatial relation between such images. The corresponding process of finding the spatial alignment is called “registration”. In this work, we study the optimization problem which corresponds to the registration task. Especially, we exploit the Lie group structure of the set of transformations to construct efficient, intrinsic algorithms. We also apply the algorithms to medical registration tasks. However, the methods developed are not restricted to the field of medical image processing. We also have a closer look at more general forms of optimization problems and show connections to related tasks.
In the course of the growth of the Internet and due to increasing availability of data, over the last two decades, the field of network science has established itself as an own area of research. With quantitative scientists from computer science, mathematics, and physics working on datasets from biology, economics, sociology, political sciences, and many others, network science serves as a paradigm for interdisciplinary research.
One of the major goals in network science is to unravel the relationship between topological graph structure and a network’s function. As evidence suggests, systems from the same fields, i.e. with similar function, tend to exhibit similar structure. However, it is still vague whether a similar graph structure automatically implies likewise function. This dissertation aims at helping to bridge this gap, while particularly focusing on the role of triadic structures.
After a general introduction to the main concepts of network science, existing work devoted to the relevance of triadic substructures is reviewed. A major challenge in modeling triadic structure is the fact that not all three-node subgraphs can be specified independently
of each other, as pairs of nodes may participate in multiple of those triadic subgraphs.
In order to overcome this obstacle, we suggest a novel class of generative network models based on so called Steiner triple systems. The latter are partitions of a graph’s vertices into pair-disjoint triples (Steiner triples). Thus, the configurations on Steiner triples can be specified independently of each other without overdetermining the network’s link
structure.
Subsequently, we investigate the most basic realization of this new class of models. We call it the triadic random graph model (TRGM). The TRGM is parametrized by a probability distribution over all possible triadic subgraph patterns. In order to generate a network instantiation of the model, for all Steiner triples in the system, a pattern is drawn from the distribution and adjusted randomly on the Steiner triple. We calculate the degree distribution of the TRGM analytically and find it to be similar to a Poissonian distribution. Furthermore, it is shown that TRGMs possess non-trivial triadic structure. We discover inevitable correlations in the abundance of certain triadic subgraph
patterns which should be taken into account when attributing functional relevance to particular motifs – patterns which occur significantly more frequently than expected at random. Beyond, the strong impact of the probability distributions on the Steiner triples on the occurrence of triadic subgraphs over the whole network is demonstrated. This interdependence allows us to design ensembles of networks with predefined triadic substructure. Hence, TRGMs help to overcome the lack of generative models needed for assessing the relevance of triadic structure.
We further investigate whether motifs occur homogeneously or heterogeneously distributed over a graph. Therefore, we study triadic subgraph structures in each node’s neighborhood individually. In order to quantitatively measure structure from an individual node’s perspective, we introduce an algorithm for node-specific pattern mining for both directed unsigned, and undirected signed networks. Analyzing real-world datasets, we find that there are networks in which motifs are distributed highly heterogeneously, bound to the proximity of only very few nodes. Moreover, we observe indication for the potential sensitivity of biological systems to a targeted removal of these critical vertices. In addition, we study whole graphs with respect to the homogeneity and homophily of their node-specific triadic structure. The former describes the similarity of subgraph distributions in the neighborhoods of individual vertices. The latter quantifies whether connected vertices
are structurally more similar than non-connected ones. We discover these features to be characteristic for the networks’ origins. Moreover, clustering the vertices of graphs regarding their triadic structure, we investigate structural groups in the neural network of C. elegans, the international airport-connection network, and the global network of diplomatic sentiments between countries. For the latter we find evidence for the instability of triangles considered socially unbalanced according to sociological theories.
Finally, we utilize our TRGM to explore ensembles of networks with similar triadic substructure in terms of the evolution of dynamical processes acting on their nodes. Focusing on oscillators, coupled along the graphs’ edges, we observe that certain triad motifs impose a clear signature on the systems’ dynamics, even when embedded in a larger
network structure.
Operators of Higher Order
(1998)
Motivated by results on interactive proof systems we investigate the computational power of quantifiers applied to well-known complexity classes.
In special, we are interested in existential, universal and probabilistic bounded error quantifiers ranging over words and sets of words, i.e. oracles if we think in a Turing machine model.
In addition to the standard oracle access mechanism, we also consider quantifiers ranging over oracles to which access is restricted in a certain way.
At the center of the Internet’s protocol stack stands the Internet Protocol (IP) as a common denominator that enables all communication. To make routing efficient, resilient, and scalable, several aspects must be considered. Care must be taken that traffic is well balanced to make efficient use of the existing network resources, both in failure free operation and in failure scenarios.
Finding the optimal routing in a network is an NP-complete problem. Therefore, routing optimization is usually performed using heuristics. This dissertation shows that a routing optimized with one objective function is often not good when looking at other objective functions. It can even be worse than unoptimized routing with respect to that objective function. After looking at failure-free routing and traffic distribution in different failure scenarios, the analysis is extended to include the loop-free alternate (LFA) IP fast reroute mechanism. Different application scenarios of LFAs are examined and a special focus is set on the fact that LFAs usually cannot protect all traffic in a network even against single link failures. Thus, the routing optimization for LFAs is targeted on both link utilization and failure coverage. Finally, the pre-congestion notification mechanism PCN for network admission control and overload protection is analyzed and optimized. Different design options for implementing the protocol are compared, before algorithms are developed for the calculation and optimization of protocol parameters and PCN-based routing.
The second part of the thesis tackles a routing problem that can only be resolved on a global scale. The scalability of the Internet is at risk since a major and intensifying growth of the interdomain routing tables has been observed. Several protocols and architectures are analyzed that can be used to make interdomain routing more scalable. The most promising approach is the locator/identifier (Loc/ID) split architecture which separates routing from host identification. This way, changes in connectivity, mobility of end hosts, or traffic-engineering activities are hidden from the routing in the core of the Internet and the routing tables can be kept much smaller. All of the currently proposed Loc/ID split approaches have their downsides. In particular, the fact that most architectures use the ID for routing outside the Internet’s core is a poor design, which inhibits many of the possible features of a new routing architecture. To better understand the problems and to provide a solution for a scalable routing design that implements a true Loc/ID split, the new GLI-Split protocol is developed in this thesis, which provides separation of global and local routing and uses an ID that is independent from any routing decisions.
Besides GLI-Split, several other new routing architectures implementing Loc/ID split have been proposed for the Internet. Most of them assume that a mapping system is queried for EID-to-RLOC mappings by an intermediate node at the border of an edge network. When the mapping system is queried by an intermediate node, packets are already on their way towards their destination, and therefore, the mapping system must be fast, scalable, secure, resilient, and should be able to relay packets without locators to nodes that can forward them to the correct destination. The dissertation develops a classification for all proposed mapping system architectures and shows their similarities and differences. Finally, the fast two-level mapping system FIRMS is developed. It includes security and resilience features as well as a relay service for initial packets of a flow when intermediate nodes encounter a cache miss for the EID-to-RLOC mapping.