Description of
legal entity taking part in DECISIVE
Almende is SME
Almende is a research company specializing in information and communication technologies aimed at supporting self-organization. At the core of all Almende research are hybrid agent networks: humans and computers working together in one system. In 2006 Almende BV has been awarded the European Eureka status for Innovative ``market oriented R&D''. Almende is member of the European Agentlink network bringing together knowledge and expertise on multi-agent systems. Almende is also member of the Dutch DevLab initiative, in which SME's have bundled their innovative strength in the fields of embedded systems and WSN.
Almende BV researches and develops self-organized critical agent-based solutions to sustain and improve the coordination of communication and collaboration across evolving networks of humans and ICT systems. Almende applies these solutions to several application domains, including healthcare, logistics and crisis management, through commercialization in spin-off companies. Currently, Almende BV has six daughter companies including ASK Community Systems, DEAL Services, Luna.nl, Sense Observation Systems, Regas and Rotterdam Community Solutions. Almende has substantial expertise on formal modeling approaches to embedded and non-embedded software. Its expertise lies currently in three areas: Semi-automatic verification of software based on high-level behavioral models possibly enriched with information about non-functional requirements; schedulability analysis based on automata extended with timings; and formal models of trust and trustworthiness for embedded software systems with complex feature interactions.
Main tasks within the DECISIVE project
Contribute to the development of a reasoning and learning framework for embedded software systems evolution support, preferably through the application of self-organizing principles. Contribution to the derivation of high-level decision support information from low-level simulations with executable models or from run-time generated event traces. Validation by means of a case study in the context of wireless sensors and/or smartphones.
Almende has been involved in the European FP6 Project CREDO about the modelling of evolvable software services. A vast experience with and expertise on (wireless) embedded systems has been built by participating in nationally funded projects, e.g., Containers At a Network (CAN), Ambient Living with Embedded Networks (ALwEN), and Sensor Technology on Radio Modules (STORM). Almende currently participates in the Artemis project SIMPLE (development of an intelligent, self-organizing embedded middleware platform) and the FP7 IP REPLICATOR project on evolutionary self-programming and self-assembling micro-robots, and the FP7 STREP Fit4Green on energy reduction technology for large data centers.
Key personnel involved in the DECISIVE project
Andries Stam is a Senior Researcher at Almende. He has a Ph.D in Computer Science from Leiden University on the modeling of interaction in evolving distributed systems. He worked as a consultant for various companies in The Netherlands. He participated in the Dutch research project ArchiMate on Enterprise Architecture, the ITEA project Trust4all on trust principles for embedded systems, and the European CREDO project on the modeling and analysis of evolutionary structures for distributed services. Andries' research interests include model-driven software development, distributed systems, and coordination principles for evolving software systems. He has published in the areas of software engineering, coordination languages, and enterprise architecture.
Alfons H. Salden has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Utrecht University on computer vision. He has over 15 years of research experience in cognitive science, computer vision, multimedia system theory and applications, multi-scale physics, ambient intelligence, mobile computing to communication and system research. Before joining Almende, he worked at the Telematica Institute, Enschede, the Netherlands (2000-2006) on (mobile) system access and categorization of complex systems. Currently, he is Senior Researcher at Almende, responsible for project acquisition, development, management and scientific research. He has been involved in the Credo project and is currently involved in the FP7 Projects Replicator and Fit4Green.
Peet van Tooren is one of the founders and the technical director of Almende. He has a master's degree in computer science from Delft Technical University. He has worked at AND Software as a system architect, project leader, R&D manager and CTO on embedded systems, component-, object- and agent-oriented programming, interface design, next generation car navigation, a component based type-sensitive object compression library, and a vehicle routing application for car transportation.
