Showing papers presented at "Central and Eastern European Software Engineering Conference in Russia in 2016"

A SLAM research framework for ROS

Abstract: Most of the methods that try to solve the SLAM problem use a prediction-correction approach to estimate current robot pose and map and can be spitted into several groups depending on a set of sensors they use and details of their implementation (e.g. a type of map, feature usage, etc.). Methods that belong to the same group usually differ only by cost functions and ad-hoc optimizations. To the best of our knowledge, a framework that provides a common set of components in order to speed up SLAM research is not publicly available (frameworks and toolkits that simplify development of particular SLAM parts are not taken into account). The paper introduces a framework that is under development and provides a set of components that simplify creation of methods based on 2D laser scan processing. The description of tinySLAM and GMapping implementations atop of the framework is provided in order to justify its usability.

SysML as a Common Integration Platform for Co-Simulations: Example of a Cyber Physical System Design Methodology in Green Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems

Abstract: Current approaches to building Cyber Physical systems including Energy Management Systems (EMS) design often rely on large monolithic models to represent the EMS. These models are typically abstract and simple to aid with performance. However, they can lack fidelity and detail, particularly with regards to physical aspects. This makes it challenging to extract valuable and accurate data from these models, such as sustainability metrics. Our approach to this problem is to employ a Cyber-Physical Systems Model-Based Design methodology that enables the use of various specialised multi-disciplinary models through Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) and a common integration platform based on SysML. We apply the approach to a heating, ventilation and air conditioning case study and show how the resulting data can be used to evaluate a design. In addition, we discuss how the approach supports the inclusion of dedicated models for the generation of precise sustainability metrics.

Developing a High-Level Language Compiler for a Computer with Programmable Architecture

Abstract: The following work describes a project development of the C compiler for computing systems with programmable architectures. The compiler has been implemented on the base of OPS (Optimizing Parallelizing System, http://ops.rsu.ru) and a converter of C language into VHDL (C2HDL). An example of the compiler use has been presented in the article.

Handle with IT Addiction: A Browser Extension for Overcoming Excessive TV-Series Streaming

Abstract: In this paper, we address a problem of dynamically inconsistent preferences in human decision-making process. People often fail to commit to rational and welfare maximizing choices against the backdrop of numerous addictive technologies. We examine a selection of existing services and propose a concept aiming at setting customers free from their biases and allowing users to invest in their self-assessment. As an example we examine a case of TV series delivered by online streaming services. In contrast to existing solutions, which are designed mostly to access restrictions, we analyze a possible implementation of sunk cost fallacy concept. Switching users' attention away from an addictive product doesn't necessarily mean an access blocking but giving a choice: to continue consuming a product or to invest in something more useful with respect to an artificial ranking created by a commitment tool. In this work we analyze a software prototype implemented as a Google Chrome browser extension aimed at solving the problem of dynamic inconsistency for a case of TV-series online streaming.

Robust binding to syntactic elements in a changing code

Abstract: In modern Integrated Development Environments and development tools there is a functionality, which requires saving a binding to some code fragments in order to provide an ability to quickly navigate to these fragments and modify them. Most tools enable this kind of navigation only for one programming language and save minimum information, that is enough to perform a jump to the code fragment. The paper describes a model of a binding to the code, which is aimed to work with different languages and to support robust binding even if the code was modified. We provide a description of data being saved, which specifies a certain code fragments as well as algorithms, which use the data to find the location of the code fragments. The analysis of the tool based on the model on two large software projects proves that the model provides robust enough binding to the source code.

Anonymity of Tor: Myth and Reality

Abstract: Privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) are ubiquitous nowadays. They are beneficial for a wide range of users. However, PETs are not always used for legal activity. The present paper is focused on Tor users deanonimization1 using out-of-the box technologies and a basic machine learning algorithm. The aim of the work is to show that it is possible to deanonimize a small fraction of users without having a lot of resources and state-of-the-art machine learning techniques. The deanonimization is a very important task from the point of view of national security. To address this issue, we are using a website fingerprinting attack.

Principles of development of human-oriented information systems in enterprises

Abstract: In this paper we present the classification of corporate information systems (IS) based on differences in the types of management tasks that can be solved with the use of information technology (IT). These tasks include or resource planning, or relationship management, or work with a common information content, or ensuring the efficiency of intellectual and creative collective human activity. It is shown that IS in enterprises develop consistently in accordance with this classification. Information systems designed to support human involvement in intellectual and creative tasks can be called human-oriented information systems (HOIS). The basic principles development and operation of HOIS in enterprises are presented.

Domain-Specific Programming Technology for Heterogeneous Manycore Platforms

Abstract: Nowadays embedded systems solve tasks in various domains (avionics, space industry, automotive, mobile devices, domestic appliances and so on). Moreover, these tasks are composed in various concepts: IoT, cyber-physical systems etc.Different classes of problems of the market and its needs make manufacturers of embedded systems to design heterogeneous many/multi core hardware platforms. Such platforms includes dozens of different cores: CPU, GPU, DSP, FPGA etc. Additionally, there is a high pressure of time to market.That makes them incredibly hard to program, especially in case when more and more domain experts are involved in the solution development process. For example, domain expert has knowledge in the area of image recognition or signal processing, but usually does not fully understand the specificity of programming for various kinds of hardware cores.In this article, we propose the complex technology and tools that allows involving domain experts in software development for embedded systems. The proposed technology has various aspects and abilities that can be used to build verifiable and portable software for a wide range of heterogeneous embedded platforms.

Principles of Citizen Science in Open Educational Projects Based on Open Data

Abstract: A phenomenon of citizen science, its features and prospects are the topic of high actuality nowadays. And it seems to be natural, that citizen science and crowdsourcing techniques penetrate to such popular area as data science. This paper considers the questions about teaching data science and the areas, which borrow the techniques from data science. The review of learning outcomes, which may be gained from projects of citizen science, allows to propose educational data expeditions to be adopted into educational courses. Moreover, the paper represents the principles of citizen science as a mean of making a fully open educational project and to validate it as a learning tool.

The Online Evolution: from Early Repositories to State-of-the-Art MOOCs

Abstract: This paper summarizes the progress of the online education for the recent 15 years. The trends detected include multi-source courseware, massive education, intensive analytics, professional marketing and high portability, to name a few. Since our experience in the online education is over a decade, it makes sense to analyze how the technological progress and market pace changed the appearance and lifecycle of the online courses. We analyze the key factors that influence the learning process, make early conclusions and discuss perspectives of the rapidly emerging massive online courses.

Fast and accurate restoration of blurred image obtained by rotating the camera

Abstract: The article deals with the blurred image restoration obtained by rotating camera. The computation error analysis is provided and its influence to the quality of restored image is considered. The designed and implemented algorithm of image restoration is described in this paper. The complexity of the algorithm is C*N. This algorithm slightly accumulating computational rounding error.

Cloud Wolverine: The fastest data recovery

Abstract: Considering data recovery challenges in the cloud infrastructure, this article focuses on application of Local Reconstruction Codes (LRC) and Regenerating Codes (RC) in RAID, and suggests data placement methods for improved recovery performance in case of drive or cluster node failure.Besides, this work presents an efficient method of scaling regenerating codes that allows for RC use in dynamic clusters and optimal recovery speeds.

YoctoDB: A Partitioned Immutable Embedded Database

Abstract: YoctoDB is a small embedded engine for extremely fast partitioned immutable-after-construction databases. Several high load services at Yandex.Classifieds implement pipelined partitioned data reindexing. The result of the reindexing process is an immutable index delivered to many search machines, reopened as a part of the composite index and queried when serving user requests. Read performance, memory consumption, fast reopening and reproducible latencies are paramount for the database engine. YoctoDB has successfully provided a solution for all of these services. We describe the role of YoctoDB in the architecture of indexing and search components, it's simple data model, client API, design, implementation and use cases. We conclude the paper with limitations of the approach and directions of future development.

Streaming matching of events

Abstract: Streaming matching of events based on its content has many applications including customer subscriptions or recommendations for new ads. Customer subscriptions system requires minimal delay between event appearance and corresponding notifications. Such system should be horizontally scalable with regard to events and customers. There are many approaches to solving this task ranging from brute-force ones to utilizing some complex data structures. We present our approach integrated into several high-loaded production services at Yandex.Classifieds.