Volume 17 (2015): Issue 1 (May 2015)

The paper presents an overview of the eINTERASIA international project aimed at supporting international cooperation with Central Asian countries by transfer, adaptation and dissemination of European research results in the area of Information Technology and Applied Software.

Information Technology Transfer Concept (TTC) based on InnoSPICE approach and Capability Maturity Model has been developed.

The concept of showroom as part of the implementation of TTC has been introduced in the selected Central Asian countries. Technological platforms for demonstrators of Virtual Reality-Based scenarios from Fraunhofer IFF were adapted and installed in the region of Central Asia.

Several EU research projects are selected for adaptation and validation in Central Asian countries. Special attention is devoted to demonstrate transfer and adaptation processes in the area of web-based transport logistics.

Innovation and technology transfer consist mainly of process-oriented activities and can be described in process-oriented terms by an innovation and technology transfer process capability model such as InnoSPICE. To verify such a thesis, an extended validation of the InnoSPICE adequacy for different factual innovation and technology transfer activities is needed. The purpose of this paper is to validate the InnoSPICE model for technology transfer led by a technology developer based on capability assessment of technology transfer process for several various research results.

Scientific results benefit from more tangible stakeholder communication. Showrooms are a tool to transform abstract scientific concepts into solution-oriented and less complex demonstrators. The basic idea of a showroom implies a smart expo and meeting place to demonstrate the latest technological developments in a comprehensive and interactive manner and to stimulate transfer of scientific results to practice. Presentation of new technologies can be an eye opener of what can already be done today. But it is just more than this as it can put discussion with interested stakeholders to a new level - allowing to think beyond this - paving the ground for innovation. This way a showroom stimulates very substantial discussion about future ideas with real involvement of industry and society. Involving the public via a showroom environment is also helpful for the diffusion of new ideas, leading to potential faster market take-up, when new solutions are put into reality. Furthermore the interaction with the public is a stimulus also for the scientist, raising a much better understanding about current and future needs.

Capability is understood as a measure of the ability of an entity (organization, person, system) to achieve its objectives in relation to its overall mission professional science communication is part of the capability of, e.g., a university. Innovation capability in this sense refers to the ability of a set of regional stakeholders from academia, political authorities, public administrations and industry to innovate in synergy for economic and societal development – showrooms are an important tool to achieve this.

Effective applied research is based on close collaboration between research and industry, which taking the findings of basic research on customer demands as its starting point, creates a new means for developing and marketing innovative products. What is more, growing demands for innovative and sustainable results of research and development are prompting the examination of global trends such as demographic change, growing megacities, rising energy consumption and increasing traffic and the resultant social challenges. These trends and increasing traffic in particular are giving rise to new fields of work, especially for digital technologies, as a social responsibility, e.g., in driver assistance and traffic control systems that increase safety.

This paper examines a means by which digital engineering, virtual and augmented reality technologies can support the creation of sustainable smart manufacturing and smart logistics processes as well as on-the-job training and qualification and knowledge transfer.

The paper presents a Web Based Framework (WBF)/Web portal to support business processes in transport logistics.

The proposed portal has been developed using graph and multi-agent models and GeoData approach.

It is one of the main results of international project eINTERASIA supported by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Commission.

The paper presents a mechanism and an implemented tool for multi-agent based cargo auctions. The auction automates negotiations between a particular client and multiple logistics companies. The user can define his priorities in terms of six different criteria and find the most appropriate offer as a result of an auction. The developed marketplace is part of the eINTERASIA e-logistics portal and, thus, available online for both the client and the logistics companies.

Transfer of information-based services to an electronic environment is the accomplished fact. Some of such services lead to creation of electronic documents that are signed by qualified e-signature and have legal value equal to hand-signed documents. In fact, the documents are created not for private use but for an exchange with the others. The main challenge of the electronic document usage is their interoperability. An electronic document is a dual technical and legal artefact that depends on a national legislation system and “lives” within a national platform of electronic documents. Therefore, an electronic document is not a subject of technical standardization only. The paper introduces a new concept for an electronic document cross-border interoperability solution based on creation of original copies for each national electronic document platform of the document signatories.

The paper provides collection of experience of developing models and methods for implementation of software configuration management process. Nowadays, during the age of agility, startup of new software development projects is like an explosion. Sometimes, in a few days a customer is willing to get the first release, but formalized and reusable process for its creating is not ready yet. Software configuration management controls the evolution of software items and supports building and deployment process for product releases. Models and methods for implementation of software configuration management are presented in the paper. Unlike other approaches, the provided models and methods are related to decrease software configuration management implementation time in new projects. The paper provides a simplified use case to illustrate practical application of the mentioned methods and models.

The process capability modeling has become a tool for systematization and codifying knowledge of process-oriented activities. Enterprise SPICE defines a domain independent integrated model for enterprise-wide assessment and continuous improvement. This paper presents the complete export process capability assessment model containing the export body of knowledge expressed in terms of SPICE conformant processes, their outcomes and base practices. The purpose of the developed model is to enable use of domain independent Enterprise SPICE model for the export process improvement.

With the proliferation of mobile and distributed systems capable of providing its geoposition and even the geoposition of any other element, commonly called point of interest, developers have created a multitude of new software applications. For this purpose, different technologies such as the GPS or mobile networks are used. There are different languages or formats used to define these points of interest and some applications that facilitate such work. However, there is no globally accepted standard language, which complicates the intercommunication, portability and re-usability of the definitions of points of interest currently in use. In this paper, we take the first steps towards a language and a development environment independent of the underlying technologies, allowing developers to define the points of interest in a simple and fast way, and automatically generate other different formats from the same definition that can be considered a bridge among current technologies. We use the Model-Driven Engineering approach, focusing on the creation of models to abstract the definition of systems from the underlying technologies.

To contribute to the analysis of tools that attempt to acquire a Computation Independent Model (CIM) from the domain system, the author explores the Integrated Domain Modeling toolset and explains how it automatically acquires a formal CIM from description of a business system in the form of textual business use cases. This paper recognizes the computation independent nature of a Topological Functioning Model and suggests it to be used as a CIM within a Model Driven Architecture. The author of this paper shares her experience of using the toolset and mentions several lessons learned during the usage process as well as her suggestions for improvements.

The approach called Topological Functioning Modeling for Model Driven Architecture (TFM4MDA) uses a Topological Functioning Model (TFM) as a formal Computation Independent Model (CIM) within the Model Driven Architecture (MDA). The object of this research is the construction of a UML class diagram on the Platform Independent Model (PIM) level in conformity with the TFM. Nowadays this transformation is executed manually. Manual creation of models is time-consuming and there is a risk of making mistakes. These drawbacks increase expenses and reduce efficiency of TFM4MDA approach. That is why automation of transformation is useful. The paper presents an algorithm for the transformation which is written in a pseudocode and can be implemented as a tool.