We would like to port this extension from Chrome to Firefox and Safari and make it work not only with Google Maps, but also other map services (e.g. Bing Maps and Open Street Map). We also would like to improve the precision of the estimations of CO2 emissions. Details of how this could be done are discussed in our wish-list of features (https://github.com/OiWorld/CarbonFootprintGoogleMaps/issues). You are also welcome and encouraged to suggest your own new features.
In your proposal, you should describe clearly which features you would like to implement, how you are planning to implement them, and how much time you expect to need for the implementation of each feature. Please write about the timeline, indicating when you are planning to implement each feature.

Benefit for the Student

The student will acquire practical experience in developing browser extensions for various browsers in Javascript and will work on a project that raises environmental awareness and is used by thousands of people.

Benefit for the Project

Carbon Footprint for Google Maps will become accessible to users of other browsers and other map services, and this will ensure that it will continue to have impact in raising environmental awareness.

Requirements

Solid knowledge of Javascript, HTML, CSS is required. You should give evidence of your knowledge by indicating previous projects where you used these languages or/and by solving the puzzles (see more information below).

Mentors

Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo, Ekaterina Lebedeva

More information

Instructions on how to improve your chances of being accepted can be found here: https://github.com/OiWorld/CarbonFootprintGoogleMaps/blob/master/GoogleSummerOfCode.md

Colibri provides a platform for smart building energy management. Semantics about the building, the building automation systems, other energy-consuming or energy-producing devices, and the environment is used to elaborate optimization strategies. Information is exchanged with the building automation systems, which influence physical processes in the building, and with external agents, such as smart grid agents or Web service providers.

In this project, a hybrid data store should be implemented in order to separate the (static) semantics and the exchanged (runtime) data for performance reasons. While semantically enriched information will be stored in a native triple store, the runtime information (e.g. sensed temperature values, received messages from smart grid agents) is rolled out in a relational database. Apache Jena is used as triple store, and PostgreSQL is used as relational database. Access to this hybrid data store should be designed as transparent as possible imitating a mere triple store. Thus, querying and modification of information is based on Semantic Web technologies instead of SQL commands. The developed data store management system needs to be able to interpret these queries and combine information from both internal data stores.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Semantic Web. Improve your experiences in Java-based software development and database systems.

Benefit for the Project

The potentially huge amount of information that needs to be processed in order to provide energy-efficient operation of buildings exceeds the capability of classical triple stores. A hybrid approach consisting of an ontology for storing semantically enriched information and a classical, relational database for plain data will overcome this issue. Colibri optimization will benefit from the performance gain.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development are necessary. In addition, skills in Semantic Web technologies (SPARQL, OWL) and relational databases are required.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Andreas Fernbach, Wolfgang Kastner

More information

https://github.com/dschachinger/colibri (Colibri)
https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-overview/ (SPARQL)
http://www.postgresql.org/ (PostgreSQL)
https://jena.apache.org/ (Apache Jena)
https://www.w3.org/TR/owl2-overview/ (OWL)

Colibri provides a platform for smart building energy management. Semantics about the building, the building automation systems, other energy-consuming or energy-producing devices, and the environment are used to elaborate optimization strategies. The decisions are propagated to the devices of the building automation systems in order to influence physical processes within the building.

Often, engineers want to simulate the behavior of building automation systems prior to the realization in a real building. This is also common practice in various other fields of engineering. The individual components can be designed, and their interconnection is simulated in an abstract way using MATLAB Simulink. In order to link the simulation with the Colibri platform, a Java-based connector is implemented in this project. This component should be able to read values from and write values to the running MATLAB Simulink simulation. These data exchange, then, needs to be propagated to the Colibri semantic core.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into emerging technologies of the Semantic Web and improve your skills in simulating real systems with MATLAB Simulink. Enhance your skills in Java-based software development.

Benefit for the Project

MATLAB Simulink simulations can be used to make design and engineering decisions regarding the functionality and type of bought and utilized, real hardware. Regarding energy efficiency of these simulated systems in combination with already running systems, these simulations need to be integrated into the Colibri platform. Colibri users would benefit from this integration as they gain knowledge about the system without buying expensive hardware in advance.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development and MATLAB Simulink modeling are required. Additionally, knowledge about building automation and control networks is highly beneficial.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Thomas Frühwirth, Wolfgang Kastner

More information

https://github.com/dschachinger/colibri (Colibri)
http://de.mathworks.com/products/simulink/ (MATLAB Simulink)

Colibri provides a platform for smart building energy management. Semantics about the building, the building automation systems, other energy-consuming or energy-producing devices, and the environment are used to elaborate optimization strategies. The decisions are propagated to the building automation systems in order to influence physical processes within the building.

With the upcoming Internet of Things, integration approaches for building automation systems emerge in order to provide interoperability between heterogeneous technologies. They provide a technology-independent and often Web service-based interface to communicate with underlying field and automation devices (e.g. heating system, temperature sensor). Within this project, a technology connector for the OASIS OBIX standard and its REST binding should be implemented. This connector maps the OBIX world to the semantic interface of Colibri. Moreover, the connector should be able to subscribe to specific resources in the OBIX system in order to receive update information. The implemented connector will be packed into a separate OSGi bundle within the Colibri platform. In summary, a link between the Colibri smart energy management system and the building automation systems behind an OBIX gateway (e.g. IoTSyS) can be established.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Internet of Things and the Semantic Web. Improve your skills in Java-based software development as well as building automation system integration technologies and RESTful Web services.

Benefit for the Project

Complexity of communication and interconnection in a certain Colibri system can be significantly reduced by connecting high-level OBIX integration gateways. The access to particular subsystems of the OBIX gateway is hidden, and generic, technology-independent communication can be used to communicate with building automation resources behind the gateway.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development and RESTful Web services are necessary. In addition, skills in information modelling are required.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Andreas Fernbach, Thomas Frühwirth

More information

https://github.com/dschachinger/colibri (Colibri)
https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/obix/ (OBIX)
https://github.com/mjung85/iotsys (IoTSyS)

Colibri provides a platform for smart building energy management. Semantics about the building, the building automation systems, other energy-consuming or energy-producing devices, and the environment are used to elaborate optimization strategies. The decisions are propagated to the building automation systems in order to influence physical processes within the building. In addition, standardized communication with the smart grid should be enabled as energy management is intrinsically tied to the power grid.

In the context of demand response programs, smart grid agents, such as grid operators or energy retailers, can communicate with customers and their buildings to ensure grid stability and coordinate energy demand and supply. Examples are the distribution of price information by energy retailers, or the negotiation of energy savings between grid operator and customer. Also regulatory interventions of grid operators to limit energy and power consumption are possible scenarios. Within this project, an OpenADR connector should be implemented to establish a standardized smart grid connection point to the Colibri core. This connector should be able to interpret signals from smart grid agents and send outgoing signals to other agents in the smart grid. On the other hand, this connector needs to implement the Colibri interface specification. The resulting connector, which will be implemented in Java, should form a separate OSGi bundle that conforms to the OpenADR standard for energy management and demand response. Thus, a link between the Colibri smart building energy management system and external smart grid agents is established.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Internet of Things, the Semantic Web, and the smart grid. Improve your experiences in Java-based software development as well as smart grid technologies and energy management standards.

Benefit for the Project

In order to provide a comprehensive management of building energy consumption and corresponding costs using Colibri, an integration of emerging smart grid technologies and standards is inevitable and essential. By means of an OpenADR connector, demand response interaction with smart grid agents can be realized in order to coordinate local energy consumption with current price information or grid constraints.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development are necessary. Moreover, basic understanding of smart grid interaction is a prerequisite.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Thomas Frühwirth, Wolfgang Kastner

More information

https://github.com/dschachinger/colibri (Colibri)
http://www.openadr.org/ (OpenADR)

Colibri provides a platform for smart building energy management. Semantics about the building, the building automation systems, other energy-consuming or energy-producing devices, and the environment are used to elaborate optimization strategies. The decisions are propagated to the building automation systems in order to influence physical processes within the building.

With the upcoming Internet of Things, integration approaches for building automation systems emerge in order to provide interoperability between heterogeneous technologies. They provide a technology-independent and often Web service-based interface to communicate with underlying field and automation devices (e.g. heating system, temperature sensor). Within this project, a technology connector according to the recently proposed RESTful BACnet Web services (BACnet/WS) extension of the BACnet standard should be implemented. This connector maps the message exchange based on BACnet/WS to the semantic interface of Colibri and vice versa. The connector needs to be able to handle BACnet/WS functionality, such as subscription to information updates. The implemented connector will be packed into a separate OSGi bundle within the Colibri platform. In summary, a link between the Colibri smart energy management system and the building automation systems behind a BACnet/WS-conform gateway can be established.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Internet of Things and the Semantic Web. Improve your skills in Java-based software development and Web service-based communication. Learn about standards for integrating building automation systems.

Benefit for the Project

Complexity of communication and interconnection in a certain Colibri system can be significantly reduced by connecting high-level BACnet/WS integration gateways. The access to particular subsystems of the BACnet/WS gateway is hidden, and generic communication instead of technology-specific protocols can be used to communicate with building automation resources behind this gateway.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development and RESTful Web service communication are necessary. Moreover, basic knowledge about building automation and control networks is beneficial.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Andreas Fernbach, Thomas Frühwirth

More information

https://github.com/dschachinger/colibri (Colibri)
http://www.bacnet.org/Addenda/Add-135-2012am-PPR1-draft-26_chair_approved.pdf (BACnet/WS)

Colibri provides a platform for smart building energy management. Semantics about the building, the building automation systems, other energy-consuming or energy-producing devices, and the environment is used to elaborate optimization strategies. For this purpose, information is exchanged with the building automation systems as well as external agents, such as smart grid agents or Web service providers.

In order to prevent the linked systems and components from direct access to the Colibri semantic core, where the information is stored, an interface is implemented in this project. Following best practice in Web service design (e.g. REST), the interface should be able to manage a small set of message types to read, write, and query information. For example, building automation systems push new sensor values towards the Colibri semantic core using a write message, or the Colibri optimization algorithm is able to use the querying functionality to retrieve necessary information.

Both the interface component and the linked components should be able to initiate an information exchange. Thus, the WebSocket protocol is utilized. As a result, the semantic interface will be able to push, for example, a new value for a light switching actuator towards the building automation system. The exchanged information and the queries within the messages are encoded using RDF and the SPARQL protocol, respectively.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Semantic Web and Web service interfaces. Improve your experiences in Java-based software development.

Benefit for the Project

A clearly specified interface for accessing the semantic core of Colibri supports the development of further technology connectors in the domain of building automation systems or the smart grid. With this semantic interface, multiple systems in and around a building can be easily linked to the Colibri platform, which improves the energy management capabilities.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development are necessary. In addition, skills in Semantic Web technologies (SPARQL, OWL, and RDF) are desired, and knowledge about WebSocket communication is beneficial.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Andreas Fernbach, Wolfgang Kastner

More information

https://github.com/dschachinger/colibri (Colibri)
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6455 (WebSocket)
https://www.w3.org/RDF/ (RDF)
https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-protocol/ (SPARQL protocol)

Colibri provides a platform for smart building energy management. Semantics about the building, the building automation systems, other energy-consuming or energy-producing devices, and the environment are used to elaborate optimization strategies. The decisions are propagated to the devices of the building automation systems in order to influence physical processes within the building.

Thread is a new and innovative protocol to link these devices based on 6LowPAN and IPv6. Thus, this project aims at implementing a connector for Colibri that enables the communication via the Thread protocol. A mapping of Thread to the semantic interface of Colibri tunnels the message exchange between the two worlds. The implemented connector will be packed into a separate OSGi bundle within the Colibri platform. In summary, a link between the Colibri smart energy management system and the building automation devices using Thread can be established.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Internet of Things and the Semantic Web. Improve your skills in Java-based software development and learn about the late-breaking Thread protocol.

Benefit for the Project

Thread is going to be an important standard in the emerging Internet of Things. The Thread group consists of all key players in this field. Thus, a connector to make Colibri able to “talk Thread” would increase its applicability to a great extent.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development and standards including IPv6, 6LowPAN, and IEEE 802.15.4 are necessary.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Thomas Frühwirth, Wolfgang Kastner

More information

https://github.com/dschachinger/colibri (Colibri)
http://www.threadgroup.org/ (Thread)

The IoTSyS integration middleware provides an OBIX Web service interface to access heterogeneous building automation technologies and smart meters (e.g. KNX, BACnet, ZigBee, Wireless M-Bus, and EnOcean).

Within this project, the IoTSyS integration middleware should be extended by a RESTful BACnet Web services (BACnet/WS) interface according to the recently proposed BACnet standard’s addendum. First, the BACnet/WS object model has to be implemented as Java library comparable to the OBIX Java Toolkit already integrated in IoTSyS. Moreover, a BACnet/WS gateway component needs to be developed that makes use of this library and implements the BACnet/WS functionality. Finally, the IoTSyS integration middleware is able to communicate via both the (already existing) OBIX Web service interface and the (new) BACnet/WS Web service interface in order to serve different kinds of Web clients.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Internet of Things/Web of Things. Gain hands-on experience in Java-based software development. Learn about recent developments in building automation system integration using Web service technologies.

Benefit for the Project

As BACnet/WS becomes more prevalent in this field of application, its integration into the IoTSyS framework is beneficial in order to provide services to a wider range of potential clients.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development are required.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Andreas Fernbach

More information

https://github.com/mjung85/iotsys (IoTSyS)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/obix/ (OBIX Java Toolkit)
http://www.bacnet.org/Addenda/Add-135-2012am-PPR1-draft-26_chair_approved.pdf (BACnet/WS)

The IoTSyS integration middleware provides a Web service interface to access heterogeneous building automation technologies and smart meters (e.g. KNX, BACnet, ZigBee, Wireless M-Bus, or EnOcean). Moreover, the gateway provides a Web service protocol binding to SOAP as well as RESTful HTTP and CoAP Web service endpoints.

At present, existing building automation systems are integrated into the IoTSyS gateway by manually editing XML configuration files. In order to ease this integration process, the concepts of the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) and the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) are utilized to automatically generate executable Java source code.

Within this project, a browser-based editor should be implemented to enable the modeling of building automation systems (e.g. used devices, topological structure) in a technology-independent way. The editor will be based on an already developed meta-model that specifies the available modeling elements for building automation systems. Afterwards, the created model can be automatically transformed to Java source code, which will be loaded dynamically into the IoTSyS gateway at runtime. Thus, this model editor acts as starting point of an automated workflow to define and integrate building automation systems into the IoTSyS gateway.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Internet of Things/Web of Things. Gain hands-on experience in Java-based and Web-based software development as well as methods of Model-Driven Architecture. Use latest technologies and frameworks for HTML5-based user interface development.

Benefit for the Project

An easy as well as automatic integration of existing building automation systems into the IoTSyS gateway will highly improve the usability of the entire project.

Requirements

Strong skills in Web-based and Java-based software development are necessary. Know-how about Model-Driven Architecture, Eclipse Modeling Framework, and state-of-the-art Web technologies (e.g. JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS) is beneficial.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Andreas Fernbach

More information

https://github.com/mjung85/iotsys (IoTSyS)
http://eclipse.org/modeling/emf/ (EMF)
http://www.omg.org/mda/ (MDA)

The IoTSyS integration middleware provides a Web service interface to access heterogeneous building automation technologies and smart meters (e.g. KNX, BACnet, ZigBee, Wireless M-Bus, or EnOcean).

The IoTSyS gateway is a server that provides a Web-based user interface to graphically define device interactions and complex processes using a set of basic logic or arithmetic building blocks, which are available as distinct, hard-coded elements. However, there is often the need for individual logic blocks or even complex controller components (e.g. PID controller) to realize specific functionality.

Therefore, a rule engine should be implemented within this project to enable the creation of personalized logic blocks. Input parameters (e.g. sensor values) and output parameters (e.g. controller set points) specify the interfaces of these custom blocks. In the Web interface, the functionality of blocks can be edited at runtime by means of a suitable, existing scripting language like JavaScript. The created rules and blocks are persistently stored on the IoTSyS gateway, where an appropriate framework is needed to interpret and execute the specified functionality at runtime. In the end, own rules and logic blocks can be specified in the context of IoTSyS to realize complex as well as individual building automation processes without buying expensive and highly specialized hardware.

Benefit for the Student

Dive into latest technologies and emerging protocols for the Internet of Things/Web of Things. Gain hands-on experience in Java-based and Web-based software development.

Benefit for the Project

The expressiveness of currently available, hard-coded logic blocks and virtual blocks is limited. Thus, a rule engine to define additional blocks is highly beneficial to address distinct needs of IoTSyS users.

Requirements

Strong skills in Java-based software development and Web-based scripting languages like JavaScript are required.

Mentors

Daniel Schachinger, Andreas Fernbach

More information

https://github.com/mjung85/iotsys (IoTSyS)
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/Rhino (Rhino)

The thousands of users of Mind The Word have suggested numerous features that would improve their experience while using this browser extension for learning languages. We would like to see these features implemented. Furthermore, we would be happy if you could eliminate a few bugs and improve the code quality in general. Porting this extension from Chrome to Firefox and Safari is also in our wish-list. A non-exhaustive lists of features is available here: https://github.com/OiWorld/MindTheWord/issues . You are also welcome and encouraged to suggest your own new features.

In your proposal, you should describe clearly which features you would like to implement, how you are planning to implement them, and how much time you expect to need for the implementation of each feature. Please write about the timeline, indicating when you are planning to implement each feature.

Benefit for the Student

The student will acquire practical experience in developing browser extensions in Javascript and in using machine translation web services. Moreover, he will contribute to a project that is used by thousands of people.

Benefit for the Project

Mind The Word will finally have many of the features that have been requested by users in recent years.

Requirements

Solid knowledge of Javascript, HTML, CSS is required. You should give evidence of your knowledge by indicating previous projects where you used Javascript or/and by solving the puzzles (see more information below).

Mentors

Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo, Ekaterina Lebedeva, Omesh Pandita

More information

Instructions on how to improve your chances of being accepted can be found here: https://github.com/OiWorld/MindTheWord/blob/master/GoogleSummerOfCode.md

In this project an image clustering plug-in shall be developed. Image clustering allows users to explore their photo collection based on different characteristics. On the one hand the entire collection is organized by their geograhical information using SVG maps.

Another possibility should be to cluster the collection based on a specified timeline. Thus, the clustering is performed on the date and time of the image acquisition.

Additionally, it should be possible to show photos from the collection based on a time selection.

Benefit for the Student

The student will gain knowledge in clustering and visualisation methods. Additionally she can deepen her knowledge of using OpenCV and Qt.

Benefit for the Project

An Image Clustering allows to explore large image collections based on the metadata like GPS tag or image aquisition time and date.

Requirements

Advanced knowledge in clustering and visualisation methods, good skills in C++, experience in OpenCV and writing Qt plug-ins.

Mentors

Markus Diem, Stefan Fiel, Florian Kleber

More information

http://www.nomacs.org/google-summer-of-code-2015/

A plug-in system was implemented in the GSoC 2013 by Tim Jerman which was released with nomacs 2.0. In this project an image stitching plug-in shall be developed. Image stitching allows users to combine their panorama shots or to create a high resolution image from multiple images. The stitching method should adopt a robust method such as the one presented by J. Zaragoza et al.

Benefit for the Student

The student will gain knowledge in image processing methods, especially image stitching. Additionally he can deepen his knowledge of using OpenCV.

Benefit for the Project

Panorama functionality will be added to nomacs by this plug-in. Furthermore, a plug-in keeps the basic image viewer, while users can extend functionality on their demand.

Requirements

Advanced image processing knowledge, good skills in C++, experience in writing Qt plug-ins.

Mentors

Markus Diem, Stefan Fiel, Florian Kleber

More information

http://www.nomacs.org/google-summer-of-code-2015/

Inpainting is the process of replacing lost or corrupted parts of the image data. Within this project a sophisticated algorithm should be implemented as plugin which allows users to delete unwanted content of their images (e.g. a pole, a fence or people) by selecting the region and restoring the lost information using the properties of the image. The inpainting method should adopt a robust method such as the one presented by Mansfield et al..

Sample Image

User Defined Mask

Inpainted Image

Benefit for the Student

The student will gain knowledge of in image processing methods, especially inpainting and image segmentation algorithms. Furthermore he can deepen his knowledge of using OpenCV.

Benefit for the Project

Inpainting functionality will be added to nomacs within this project. This will allow users to restore parts of the image. By implementing this functionality as plug-in it will keep the basic viewer small, while users can extend it on their demand.

Requirements

Advanced image processing knowledge, good skills in C++, experience in writing Qt plug-ins.

Mentors

Markus Diem, Stefan Fiel, Florian Kleber

More information

http://www.nomacs.org/google-summer-of-code-2015/

One of the functionalities that OpenEngSB provides is the ability to version data models. An important aspect in that context is to derive the differences between the version of the model to be commited and the last version of the corresponding model already in the system under version control. However, it is a crucial aspect that the semantics of the model is considered during the process so that differences can be made clear and visualized to the end user the similiar way he is used to from the engineering tools that export that model.
An example for a model that would need more than just a textual representation of differences, is COLLADA (COLLAborative Design Activity) - it is an interchange xml file format for interactive 3D applications. The task would be to design concepts, methods and then to develop solutions for deriving the differences between COLLADA models, to categorize those differences according to defined metrics, and then to visualize those differences in both a textual and 3D representation.

Benefit for the Student

Student will gain knowledge about EMF-related technologies like EMF Compare, visualization techniques and framework solutions.

Benefit for the Project

Being able to provide tool support that helps end users to capture differences between complex models and decide on the changes that should be versioned.

Requirements

Experience in Java programming; basic knowledge with EMF and Apache Wicket is desired.

Mentors

Richard Mordinyi, Stefan Scheiber, Marta Sabou

More information

One of the functionalities that OpenEngSB provides is the ability to version data models. An important aspect in that context is to derive the differences between the version of the model to be commited and the last version of the corresponding model already in the system under version control. However, while simple models may be visualized in a table view, there is the need to visualize differences of complex models in a tree view.
The task would be to design concepts, methods and then to develop solutions for deriving the differences between complex data models, to categorize those differences according to defined metrics, and then to visualize those differences in a way that allows end users to make decisions about which changes to keep and which updates to discard.

Benefit for the Student

Student will gain knowledge about EMF-related technologies like EMF Compare, visualization techniques and framework solutions.

Benefit for the Project

Being able to provide tool support that helps end users to capture differences between complex models and decide on the changes that should be versioned.

Requirements

Experience in Java programming; basic knowledge with EMF and Apache Wicket is desired.

Mentors

Richard Mordinyi, Stefan Scheiber, Marta Sabou

More information

Engineering workflows reflect process steps facilitating the integration of engineering tools and describe operations at project level. Described engineering workflow rules encapsulate knowledge on the sequence of work tasks across tools in the engineering team and allow the flexible coordination of automated process steps. The focus is twofold: first, it requires the integration of Camunda - a workflow management system for BPM processes, and second the collection and observation of log entries and framework specific events for the purpose of validating executed processes with designed ones.

Benefit for the Student

Student will gain knowledge in a wide range of technologies, like OSGi, BPMN, Camunda.

Benefit for the Project

Capability of validating workflows run in a heterogeneous engineering environment.

Requirements

Excellent skills in Java are essential. Useful would be knowledge about Apache karaf, BPMN, and process mining tools like ProM.

Mentors

Dietmar Winkler, Richard Mordinyi, Stefan Scheiber

More information

Changes of engineering plans in the distributed and parallel engineering of industrial plants often have an impact on plans in related disciplines. Isolated and specific software tools and data models do not fit together seamlessly.
For the moment, end users have to use the OESB-UI to make use of OESB capabilities. For instance, by upload engineering data, changes are propagated to other project participants by considering their role in the project.
The aim of this task is the development of the “OESB Client” that enables efficient and user-friendly exchange of data between heterogeneous software tools without the need for the OESB-UI. The idea is to have a client that runs in the background on the local machine of the end user by automating processes and communication with OESB server e.g.,  needed to capture and propagate changes as well as resolving conflicts. This should increase acceptance of OESB capabilities since the complexity of using OESB for the end user is minimized.

Benefit for the Student

Student will gain knowledge in a wide range of technologies, like OSGi, RCP, EMF.

Benefit for the Project

Improving user acceptance by moving technology into background.

Requirements

Excellent skills in Java are essential. Useful would be knowledge about Eclipse RCP, Apache ActiveMQ, and Git.

Mentors

Stefan Scheiber, Dietmar Winkler, Richard Mordinyi

More information

During the design phase of complex engineering systems different engineers contribute with their results developed in local development spaces. Resulting artefacts may consists of various files and modelling structures linking to related files. At the end contributing local artefacts should be linked with the overall system and made available to the entire project. The structure of the overall system and its linking points are defined by a special plant engineer.

The challenge is to provide an efficient versioning of changes in local development spaces, links between local spaces and overall system, and overall system structure. In general, the goal is to link elements of different data models and distinguish between private and public development results while keeping such information under version control.

Using semantic web technologies, the resulting outcome is a prototype that is able to

• version linking models
• facilitate private and public work spaces
• provide features like: branching and conflict detection

Benefit for the Student

• the student will be given a chance to be involved in a real industrial use case with the supervision of experience mentor(s)
• try out and experience a relatively new technologies in action (e.g, ontology, EMF, OSGi)

Benefit for the Project

• depending on the quality of the resulted software, it could be included as part of the new architecture of OpenEngSB. 
• information linking is one of features that expected to be released within OpenEngSB in 2015.

Requirements

The ideal candidates for this project must have a solid

• Java knowledge with OSGi
• Semantic modelling experience with ontology / semantic web technology stack

Experience with EMF is a plus. 

Mentors

Richard Mordinyi, Stefan Scheiber, Marta Sabou

More information

Integrating heterogeneous data from different sources is a core aspect of the OpenEngSB, which is currently faciliated by an entity-attribute-value data model over a relational database. The RDBMS and the used data model for versioning impose various limitations, especially regarding the volume of data, horizontal scaling, querying but set also additional preconditions for data models to be placed under version control during the software engineering process. Experience has shown that, any single storage system is not capable of satisfying all requirements towards persistence solutions in Automation Systems Engineering environments, especially regarding versioning of integrated data and querying historic data.

The goal is to build a scalable storage for versioning any kind of information / data. Most likely it requires the design and implementation of a polyglot persistence application layer that leverages the strengths of different traditional and non-traditional storage systems.

The resulting outcome is a prototype that is able to

• any kind of information
  • in case there is no model available, information is treated as a BLOB limiting change analysis between versions to a very minimum (like user and time)
  • model-based versioning is favoured
• a volatile data model (introduce and change concepts at runtime)
• efficient storage of tree based structures
• a history of changes of individuals
• efficient querying on current data and historic information
• OSGi compatible

Benefit for the Student

Gain experience of traditional database systems and dive into the lates emerging non-traditional persistence solutions. Gain extensive hands on experience on how to use their Java APIs.Apply methods of Software Architecture to integrate the different systems.

Benefit for the Project

By now, persistence solutions for integrated and versioned data have been working on a single database system (either a RDBMS, NoSQL or Ontology Store), which individually imposes several limitations. A scalable solution that leverages the strenghts of different storage systems and offers solutions to these limitations would be a huge gain for the project.

Requirements

Excellent skills in Java based software development are essential knowledge about data storage technologies (RDBMS, NoSQL derivates), as well as their theory is necessary interest in emerging persistence solutions is welcome know-how about OSGi and enterprise software integration is a benefit.

Mentors

Richard Mordinyi, Stefan Scheiber, Dietmar Winkler

More information

The OpenEngSB project provides an easy-to-use and easy-to-adapt platform for tool integration while considering technical and semantical heterogeneity of the tools to be integrated. An example project are heterogeneous engineering teams, e.g., in project consortia, who typically use local and isolated software tools for various tasks. Critical parameters, which are available only in local applications, hinder collaboration and project management. A correct mapping of data from operation with engineering knowledge from development is essential.
The aim of this task is the design of concepts and methods for, and the development of a process support for defining, managing and sharing critical model parameters with other project members. Such parameters intend to continuously monitor model elements and enable the prompt response to changed artifacts.

Benefit for the Student

Student will gain knowledge in a wide range of technologies, like OSGi, EMF, Apache Wicket.

Benefit for the Project

Increasing user acceptance by improving process support.

Requirements

Excellent skills in Java are essential. Useful would be knowledge about Apache Wciket and Git.

Mentors

Dietmar Winkler, Stefan Scheiber, Richard Mordinyi

More information

One of the functionalities that OpenEngSB provides is the ability to execute comprehensive queries over several data models and corresponding data at the same time. Due to that various consistency checks can be performed over the heterogeneous data sets coming from different engineering disciplines (e.g., mechanical, electrical and software engineering). However, currently an assistance of a Semantic Web expert is needed to transform the consistency checks (formulated in natural language by domain experts) into SPARQL queries. This impedes the acceptance of the platform by industrial users as they typically do not possess expertise with Semantic Web technology.
To address this problem we would like to investigate, what typical consistency checks (or parts of the checks) can be identified for industrial automation systems engineering. Based on these identified typical checks semantic querying templates – parameterized building blocks for constructing queries – will be formulated and expressed in SPARQL. The domain under consideration is automation systems engineering, where typically stakeholders coming from mechanical, electrical and software engineering have to collaborate. In the end the domain users will be able to choose from a catalogue of typical consistency checks, set specific values of corresponding parameters and automatically get the corresponding executable SPARQL query.

Benefit for the Student

Student will gain knowledge about different Semantic Web technologies, focusing in particular on querying over several models and SPARQL querying language; as well as about approaches for consistency checking in industrial automation systems engineering.

Benefit for the Project

Being able to automatically obtain executable SPARQL queries for a selected typical problem will help to hide the complexity of the Semantic Web technology from the user, thus facilitating the usage of the OpenEngSB by domain experts.

Requirements

Experience in Java programming; basic knowledge of Semantic Web technologies (OWL, SPARQL) is desirable.

Mentors

Richard Mordinyi, Marta Sabou

More information

Description

One central idea behind the openKB4BMS project is to automatically instantiate the knowledge base on already existing configuration data from the underlying automation systems and the integration layer, respectively. Since for all the information representations needed for this project (OPC UA, oBIX, OWL), XML formats exist, XSL transformation (XSLT) is the method of choice. The goal of this task is to extend the already existing oBIX to OWL transformation stylesheet and define a OPC UA to OWL stylesheet from scratch.

Benefit for the Student

Get in touch with leading research topics in building automation and gain hands-on experience with state-of-the-art semantic web technologies.

Benefit for the Project

Extending the automated engineering process of openKB4BMS is a key goal of the project. This way, already existing information from OPC UA information models can be reused to instantiate the knowledge base.

Requirements

Knowledge in Webservices programming, ontology design and functional programming (XSLT).

Mentors

Andreas Fernbach, Thomas Frühwirth

Description

The interfaces openKB4BMS provides downwards to the integration and automation layer are currently implemented very rudimentary. Besides the already working oBIX interface, it is planned to extend the Apache Jena-based runtime components by OPC UA client functionality like illustrated in the system architecture figure. This way, the connectivity of openKB4BMS would be significantly increased. To this aim, an existing open source OPC UA client SDK shall be integrated into the project.

Benefit for the Student

Get in touch with leading research topics in building automation and gain hands-on experience with state-of-the-art semantic web technologies.

Benefit for the Project

OPC UA is the most important and widely used open integration standard in automation systems. Extending openKB4BMS by an OPC UA connector opens a great field of application for the project by making runtime interaction with OPC UA systems possible.

Requirements

Advanced skills in Java-based software development, Webservices and ontologies.

Mentors

Andreas Fernbach, Thomas Frühwirth

The aim of this project is to parallelize the simulation of the OpenPixi simulator. The Colored-Particle-In-Cell simulations use a large number of color-charged particles within a fixed grid of chromo-electric and magnetic fields. There already exists a parallel implemenation of an earlier version of the code which used the IBIS framework for internode communication (see GSoC blog), but the single process code has changed in the meantime so that a major redesign seems necessary. Also, in the meantime, a Java interface for Open MPI has become available which should be used for a new implementation of parallelization. Special attention should be paid to possible optimiziation strategies. Different implementation variants should be tested and profiled for speed comparison. In any case, automatable test cases must ensure that the results agree with the single process version of the code.

Benefit for the Student

The student will learn about physics simulations and how to parallelize them for best performance.

Benefit for the Project

The project will receive a fast parallel implementation of existing routines.

Requirements

Good knowledge of Java and Open MPI is of advantage.

Mentors

Andreas Ipp, Daniil Gelfand, David Müller

More information

For the application process, please fix one of the issues at GitHub, or provide an executable demo that includes the Java interface for Open MPI in OpenPixi.

The aim of this project is to improve the real-time visualization of the OpenPixi simulator. The Colored-Particle-In-Cell simulation consists of a large number of particles that are simulated on a background grid of chromo-electric and magnetic fields. Part of the task is to refactor the existing code into a more structured Model-View-Controller pattern and to combine and streamline the code of existing panels. Additional mouse-interaction could be added for e.g. selecting ranges or zooming of regions of interest. A main goal will be to adapt the 3-D view of the scene from Java Swing to JOGL and to implement various ways of displaying particles and fields. Additionally to building upon internal graphical routines, it could be worthwhile to explore existing Java visualization libraries like JZY3D for certain kinds of visualization.

Benefit for the Student

The student will learn about the visualization of a physics simulation.

Benefit for the Project

The project will benefit from additional ways of visualizing a large amount of scientific data.

Requirements

Good knowledge of Java and JOGL is of advantage.

Mentors

Andreas Ipp, Daniil Gelfand, David Müller

More information

For the application process, please fix one of the issues at GitHub, or provide an extension to one of the JOGL panels in OpenPixi.

Data privacy has become one of the hot topics in society, but also in reseach. In the light of data available to the public or to researchers, data privacy should ensure that individuals cannot be identified.
The state-of-the art software tools for data anonymization of complex and big data are open-source: the R package sdcMicro for data anonymization, and the R package simPop for simulating synthetic confidential data.
These software tools are used by various national and international institutions. The aim of this project is to raise the code quality of these anonymization software products. To do so, Integrated test should be implemented also to ensure to avoid bugs when changing parts of a code. The integrated test battery should automatically test every modular part of the code.

Benefit for the Student

The student will gain fundamental and deep knowledge in the statistical environment and programming language R as well as the student will learn statistical methods on data privacy. In addition, the student will use modern integrated test tools such as the testhat package of R and travis (https://travis-ci.org/).

Benefit for the Project

The code and code complexity of the state-of-the-art software sdcMicro and simPop have been significantly grown over the last years. Both software packages are implemented in an object-oriented manner, and every part of the code have potential influence on other parts. Changing parts of the code may likely result in bugs that are possible overseen. A integrated test battery of independent tests that test each part of the code will ensure that bugs will be identified immediately. In addition, by creating tests, ideas and possibilities of splitting the code into modular parts will naturally be detected.

Requirements

Excellent programming background and at least basic knowledge in the statistical environment R. Knowledge in data privacy methods and statistical modelling are not mandatory but a benefit.

Mentors

Matthias Templ, Peter Filzmoser

More information

http://www.jstatsoft.org/article/view/v067i04
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sdcMicro/index.html
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/simPop/index.html

For meshing infrastructure software it is of importance to support may mesh formats for reading and writing. ViennaMesh heavily relies on the data structure library ViennaGrid, where reader and writer for some file formats, like VTK, STL, ..., have already been implemented. However, additional file formats would increase the flexibility for the ViennaMesh software. Especially, file formats for finite element method simulation software tool are of interest.

In particular, reader and writer for the following file formats should be implemented:

• Abaqus [1]
• Calculix [2]
• Wavefront OBJ [3]
• Polygon File Format [4]

Benefit for the Student

The student will get in touch with the challenging topic of 3D meshing and will learn the importance of file IO interfacing.

Benefit for the Project

With these file reader and writer, ViennaMesh pipelines can interface other simulation software packages making meshes generated by ViennaMesh available to them.

Requirements

The student has to provide good skills in C++ and interest in geometry and computer science, mathematical and geometric knowledge is advantageous.

Mentors

Florian Rudolf, Josef Weinbub

More information

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaqus
[2] http://www.calculix.de/
[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefront_OBJ
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLY_%28file_format%29

Mesh coarsening is an important process for reducing the complexity and/or the mesh element count. Simplification reduces memory usage as well as increases the performance of algorithms operating on a simplified mesh. Especially meshes, which where generated based on 3D scans, often have an unnecessary high element count and benefit from surface simplification.

There are several mesh coarsening algorithms available and some of them even are implemented in open source meshing software tools. The goal of this project idea is to evaluate different implementations and interface them with ViennaMesh. Possible candidates include

• CGAL [1]
• ACVD [2]
• QSlim [3]
• Tetgen [4]

image by CGAL [1]

Benefit for the Student

The student will get in touch with the challenging topic of 3D meshing and will learn the important aspects of mesh simplification.

Benefit for the Project

With these mesh simplification modules, ViennaMesh is able to simplify meshes for performance increases or complexity decreases.

Requirements

The student has to provide good skills in C++ and interest in geometry and computer science, mathematical and geometric knowledge is advantageous.

Mentors

Florian Rudolf, Josef Weinbub

More information

[1] http://doc.cgal.org/latest/Surface_mesh_simplification/index.html#Chapter_Triangulated_Surface_Mesh_Simplification
[2] http://www.creatis.insa-lyon.fr/site/en/acvd
[3] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~./garland/quadrics/qslim.html
[4] http://wias-berlin.de/software/tetgen/

In scientific computing, many mesh related algorithms have a great need for meshes with high quality. Although the type of quality of a mesh depends on the algorithm operating on it, most requirements are similar. Especially size and shape of mesh elements is a central topic when speaking of mesh quality. Mesh generators often struggle with constraints and tend to produce low quality mesh elements. To compensate this, mesh optimizer are invented. These algorithms take a mesh and try to optimize the quality of this mesh. Popular mesh optimizers like Stellar or Mesquite were implemented.

The goal is to write an interface for such libraries to ViennaMesh. Additionally some low-level optimizations based on the ViennaGrid data structure might be implemented.

Benefit for the Student

The student will get in touch with the challenging topic of 3D meshing and will learn the importance of good mesh quality.

Benefit for the Project

With these mesh optimization modules, ViennaMesh is able to perform basic automatic mesh generation and produce meshes with high quality.

Requirements

The student has to provide good skills in C++ and interest in geometry and computer science, mathematical and geometric knowledge is advantageous.

Mentors

Florian Rudolf, Josef Weinbub

More information

The WEKA open-source software is a state-of-the-art integrated development environment that is very popular among data mining researchers and practitioners. WEKA is implemented in Java.
Multi-class classification is one of the central tasks in data mining, and is concerned with automatically classifying a given sample (e.g. a handwritten digit) in one of pre-defined classes (e.g. numeric digits).
WEKA features a variety of classification algorithms that compute scores of the samples to belong to the classes.
Example for such algorithms are Bayesian Classifiers, Hidden Markov Models and Neural Networks.

Visualization is a very valuable tool to aid classifier designers in analyzing the performance of their algorithms, find sources of classification errors (i.e. false negatives, false positives), and investigate how these errors can be reduced using available data features. Recent research in visualization proposes new ways to analyze probablistic classification results using interactive visualization (see figure below).

The purpose of this work is to implement parts of the proposed visualizations in the WEKA environment, using Java.
An existing Java-based prototypical implementation of these visualization will be provided.
Data mining experts should be able to visualize the classification results of any probabilistic classifiers they apply in WEKA, and to interactively select certain samples in the visualization for further investigation and detailed feature analysis.

Benefit for the Student

• Learning the WEKA environment, the mainstream open-source data mining software
• Gaining experience in developing a plugin to a large open-source project such as WEKA
• Learning how to develop and apply interactive visualizations to support solving real problems.
• Gaining experience in implementing new research results in a software project

Benefit for the Project

• Providing a new interactive visualization functionality for WEKA
• Enabling advanced analysis of classification performance in WEKA
• Making research results accessible to data mining practioners who use WEKA

Requirements

• Solid programming skills in Java, preferably with documented participation in open-source development.
• Solid understanding of classification, preferably through documented participation in data mining courses
• Experience in developing interactive user interfaces, preferably with good knowledge about the Java2d graphics library or similar.

Mentors

Bilal Alsallakh

More information

Overview of the topic: http://www.cvast.tuwien.ac.at/ConfusionAnalysis
Article describing the visualization: http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_229886.pdf
Demonstration video: https://youtu.be/QUZfPImmeEs
The Developer version of WEKA (http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/downloading.html
The WEKA Manual (Ch. 17 Extending WEKA): http://www.cs.uu.nl/docs/vakken/dm/WekaManual.pdf
Adding tabs in WEKA Explorer:http://weka.wikispaces.com/Adding+tabs+in+the+Explorer
Explorer error visualization plugins: http://weka.wikispaces.com/Explorer+error+visualization+plugins