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International audience ; Aerospace industry is experiencing exponential growth in the size and complexity of onboard software. It is also seeing a significant increase in errors and rework of that software. All of those factors contribute to greater cost; the current development process is reaching the limit of affordability of building safe aircraft. An international consortium of aerospace companies with government participation has initiated the System Architecture Virtual Integration (SAVI) program, whose goal is to achieve an affordable solution through a paradigm shift of―integrate then build. A key concept of this paradigm shift is an architecture- centric approach to analysis of virtually integrated system models with respect to multiple operational quality attributes such as performance, safety, and reliability. By doing so early and throughout the life cycle at different levels of fidelity, system-level faults are discovered earlier in the life cycle—reducing risk, cost, and development time. The first phase of this program demonstrated the feasibility of this new development process through a proof of concept demonstration and a return on investment analysis, which are the topics of this paper.

Following the popularity of text-based Internet chat channels and instant messaging applications, virtual interactive communities are often advertised as 'revolutionary' applications that allow large groups of people to share ideas, experiences and make new friends. What is largely unknown by the general public is that these applications share the underlying technology with networked computer games, and were founded in research for military purposes. We start this dissertation by analyzing the behavior (in terms of bandwidth usage) of applications based on networked virtual environments technology, such as networked games and virtual interactive communities. Also, the impact of common network-related problems, in this case delay and jitter, on user performance and perceived quality is quantified. Afterwards, we discuss the development of ALVIC, an Architecture for Large-scale Virtual Interactive Communities. The unique feature of ALVIC is certainly its scalability, enabling both large amounts of simultaneous users to interact, as well as allowing them to experience the vastness of a virtual world. Several building blocks make up the ALVIC framework, starting with the subsystem that enables users to view the three dimensional world on computing devices located all over the world. It is of prime importance that each of the participants is, at any one time, looking at the same world. We will describe how messages are exchanged between users, using advanced network techniques that enable efficient distribution to large groups of people. Also, a mechanism for the simulation of large audiences is described using software that emulates behavior of human users using elementary artificial intelligence techniques. Furthermore, the ability for people to interact directly, through means of video communication, is integrated into the ALVIC architecture. Especially when considering large audiences, the requirement of controlling bandwidth is stringent. Also, due to limitations in resource availability on a computer, optimizations are included to increase the subjective quality of experience. Finally, as ALVIC was designed to be used as foundation for the deployment of a range of applications, from games to teleconferencing systems, we will look at the upcoming market of mobile applications. We will show that it is feasible to deploy applications based on the ALVIC architecture on a range of devices, taking into account their individual limitations

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Arquitetura apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia ; Esta dissertação tem por objetivo caracterizar e explorar o potencial da Realidade Virtual (RV) na Arquitetura. A nível técnico, a RV é entendida como um tipo de representação arquitetónica para o projeto de Arquitetura. Sob o ponto de vista das potenciais aplicações que a RV traz para a Arquitetura, quatro diferentes direções são identificadas, como: uma possibilidade de aferir e verificar o projeto, de preservar o legado arquitetónico, de criar ambientes arquitetónicos fictícios e enquanto possibilidade para arquitetos de poderem desenvolver portefólios virtuais.O desenvolvimento deste último ponto levou à apresentação de um projeto, enquanto possível proposta de submissão ao H2020, ambicionando a criação de uma rede de laboratórios, à escala Europeia, que ficasse sob a gestão de escolas de arquitetura.Este projeto permitiria a realização de exposições de Arquitetura num formato de RV, que teriam a possibilidade de decorrer simultaneamente nos vários laboratórios de RV da Europa. Os impactos que poderiam ser atingidos e que foram identificados com esta proposta são os seguintes: aumentar a partilha de soluções arquitetónicas dentro da União Europeia, estreitar a relação entre as escolas e o público Europeu e facilitar o acesso dos arquitetos ao mercado Europeu, com um enfoque particular sobre os jovens arquitetos. A conceção desta proposta originou a necessidade de se realizar uma pesquisa de campo em seis escolas, escritórios de Arquitectura de Portugal e da Finlândia. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ; The objective of this dissertation is to characterise and explore the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) in Architecture. At a technical level VR is seen as a type of representation for architecture designs. When looking at the application potentials that VR brings to Architecture, four different directions were identified: a way of assessment and verification of the designs, a way to preserve architectural heritage, a way to create VR architectural fiction environments and a way to develop virtual portfolios for architects.The development of this last point, led to a draft H2020 proposal for creating a network of VR-labs, at an European scale, that would stay under the management of the architecture schools. This proposal will allow the organization of VR architectural exhibitions, which will take place simultaneously in all the VR-labs across Europe. The impact that may be achieved with this proposal has been identified as the following: increase the efficiency for sharing new architectural solutions and trends inside the European Union (EU), closing the relation between architecture schools and the European public and also to give Architects a faster access to the EU market, with particular relevance for young Architects. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In order to be able to measure the impact of future government proposals and policies on a large scale, policy makers need artificial environments that enable mass participation and user interaction in contexts that simulate real life societies. These environments will be used as ""sandboxes"" where potential policies will be put to force and users' reactions will be captured and analyzed in order to make estimations about the effectiveness of the policy in real societies. Virtual spaces including 3D virtual worlds and social networks are ideal for this purpose as, due to their popularity as well as their similarity to the real world, they can be seen as a simulation of society, a micro-society. The +Spaces project aims to provide the technology enabling governments to use Virtual Spaces as testing environments where prospective policies can be applied, as well as the necessary tools for capturing, processing and analyzing public reactions to them. The current paper presents a SOA based architecture that resides on top of Virtual Spaces and allows users to deploy applications that enable policy simulation, monitor and evaluate users' reactions to the new policy and present the results to the policy maker in a meaningful way. © 2011 IEEE.

Antonio Gramsci coined the term "subaltern" to reveal the presence of small social groups of people on the fringes of history. Subaltern can be perceived as negative space or position of disempowerment, a position without social or political agency, and access to the power or hegemony. Today the emergence of ubiquitous computing, virtual social network, and globalized image culture has created a new group of subalterns in the virtual world. Amounts of tweets, likes, views, shares etc. have started to appear as a dominating factor in determining the "status" of a person in the virtual world and hence, have created a virtual hegemony, where the new subalterns do not have any voice/control over any kind of virtual standardization (mostly westernized). Moreover, to become a part of the virtual community, they oen feel forced to bring changes in their physical life and space, sometimes even by losing their cultural identities. is thesis explores, questions, and reimagines such virtual subaltern scenario in a form of architectural experimentation. As the context, the mushroomed middle-income apartment housing of Dhaka city (the capital of Bangladesh) has been chosen for its history of postcolonial struggle, existing resource constraints, and dense active participation in virtual social media (2 million active Facebook users in 2017). To project a certain "standard" image of their living space in virtual world, the apartment dwellers are changing the way they occupy their home traditionally. Instead of having home (single/multifamily) as a unified architectural entity, now there is a "front stage", where documentation for social media takes place and a backstage – the real home. Based on 4 different scenarios/cases from the context, this thesis develops a series of speculative visual representations of apartment spaces/complex, which reveals conflicts between the cultural identity of the subalterns and the dichotomy of front and backstage. Rather than trying to solve such conflict as an architectural problem, the speculations offer radical alternatives to provoke response from the subalterns and to raise critical thoughts around such virtual domination.

In the Department of Defense (DoD), US Army Medical Command is now embarking on an extremely exciting new project—creating a virtual radiology environment (VRE) for the management of radiology examinations. The business of radiology in the military is therefore being reengineered on several fronts by the VRE Project. In the VRE Project, a set of intelligent agent algorithms determine where examinations are to routed for reading bases on a knowledge base of the entire VRE. The set of algorithms, called the Meta-Manager, is hierarchical and uses object-based communications between medical treatment facilities (MTFs) and medical centers that have digital imaging network picture archiving and communications systems (DIN-PACS) networks. The communications is based on use of common object request broker architecture (CORBA) objects and services to send patient demographics and examination images from DIN-PACS networks in the MTFs to the DIN-PACS networks at the medical centers for diagnosis. The Meta-Manager is also responsible for updating the diagnosis at the originating MTF. CORBA services are used to perform secure message communications between DIN-PACS nodes in the VRE network. The Meta-Manager has a fail-safe architecture that allows the master Meta-Manager function to float to regional Meta-Manager sites in case of server failure. A prototype of the CORBA-based Meta-Manager is being developed by the University of Arizona's Computer Engineering Research Laboratory using the unified modeling language (UML) as a design tool. The prototype will implement the main functions described in the Meta-Manager design specification. The results of this project are expected to reengineer the process of radiology in the military and have extensions to commercial radiology environments.

Service based architecture (SBA) is a paradigm shift from Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to microservices, combining their principles. Network virtualization enables the application of SBA in cellular systems. To better guide the software design of this virtualized cellular system with SBA, this paper presents a software perspective and a positional approach to using fundamental development principles for adapting SBA in virtualized Radio Access Networks (vRANs). First, we present the motivation for using an SBA in cellular radio systems. Then, we explore the critical requirements, key principles, and components for the software to provide radio services in SBA. We also explore the potential of applying SBA-based Radio Access Network (RAN) by comparing the functional split requirements of 5G RAN with existing open-source software and accelerated hardware implementations of service bus, and discuss the limitations of SBA. Finally, we present some discussions, future directions, and a roadmap of applying such a high-level design perspective of SBA to next-generation RAN infrastructure. ; This work was supported in part by the European Union (EU) H2020 5GROWTH Project under Grant 856709, in part by the Generalitat de Catalunya under Grant 2017 SGR 1195, and in part by the National Program on Equipment and Scientific and Technical Infrastructure under the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) under Grant EQC2018-005257-P.

The city of Pavia, longbard capital, is characterized between its historical and artistic values also in the identity of fortified city. The presence of a military wall system originates from the Roman foundation, evolving through the Middle Ages and the Spanish domination with the development of three different circles around the historic center, background of central political events in Italian history in Europe. Through its morphological, stylistic and monumental features, the city wall and gates have influenced urban development and civil and religious heritage, developing a deep system of interaction between city, population and history that has left a marked sign both in the architectural form and in local cultural traditional systems. The implementation of Post-War Regulatory Plans has led to expansion policies careless of the fortified historical identity of the city, sacrificing military memory in terms of expansion and infrastructural actions and leaving to destruction the remaining ruins. In the context of enhancement of Pavia "historical city" identity, the cultural promotion goes through proposals for digital investigation and 3D Structure from Motion documentation of ancient urban walls, with morphological and architectural systems of analysis integrated to historical research, identifying protocols of Virtualization towards possible restoration, urban recovery and cultural enhancement actions.

Aim. The aim of the research is to show the applications of art reception in computer games. Moreover it is important to show the game as a visual object worth to analysis for art historian, because of complex structure and relations with traditional artistic media like architecture and painting. Many disciplines, like ludology, narratology and culture study research computer games, but we can see a large lack in the state of research in visual aspects of games, which should be supplemented.
Methods. The subject of study are five games belonging to different game genres. The first, Assasin's Creed II is set in a historical context, the next Witcher III and Dark Souls embedded in the realities of fantasy and finally, two games in an independent games category. The basic method is iconographic identification of the object and comparative difference and similarity between original source of inspiration and transposition of this in computer media. Therefore basic tools gained from history of art are used, which are necessary for visual analysis of a piece of art. Also important is notion of a commonplace forming a frame for images from different media.
Results. Indicated examples show that classic art has a strong influence on numerous computer games. The citations and allusions from art brings an additional narration completing the story in the game. Objects of architecture or paintings also give symbolic meanings, influencing the interpretation of the whole game. Game developers oscillate between education in the history of art and the use of these references to create your own world.
Conclusion. The examples presented in the article are only part of the rich area of art inspirations that can be found in many games. This should become a contribution to further research, not only taking into account the indicated types of references, but also the visuality of the games themselves The visual complexity of the games would require separate, more extensive research that would bring a lot into the perception of games and researching them

The maintenance of military aircraft is complex and exhaustive, requiring an accurate training program. This process is not fault tolerant and requires certification renewal periodically. Furthermore, the process involves many professionals and resources, requiring phases of maintenance and verification of the tasks. Cooperation between professionals in the overall process is essential and requires strong team coordination. It is a highly costly process, since aircrafts are scarce and their readiness is essential for missions, and it requires a scheduling effort between all team members and aircrafts. The availability of tools that allow intensive training without aircraft presence is an asset to the maintenance squadrons. Virtual worlds have simulation and collaboration capabilities to implement this process. This paper presents a software architecture developed for training engine maintenance squadrons for certification, using virtual worlds platforms. This architecture is being tested in cooperation with the Portuguese Air Force and an engine maintenance squadron of F-16 aircrafts.