Showing papers on "Service (systems architecture) published in 2010"

Sentiment knowledge discovery in twitter streaming data

Abstract: Micro-blogs are a challenging new source of information for data mining techniques. Twitter is a micro-blogging service built to discover what is happening at any moment in time, anywhere in the world. Twitter messages are short, and generated constantly, and well suited for knowledge discovery using data stream mining. We briefly discuss the challenges that Twitter data streams pose, focusing on classification problems, and then consider these streams for opinion mining and sentiment analysis. To deal with streaming unbalanced classes, we propose a sliding window Kappa statistic for evaluation in time-changing data streams. Using this statistic we perform a study on Twitter data using learning algorithms for data streams.

A framework for organizing the tools and techniques of participatory design

Abstract: The field of Participatory Design (PD) has grown rapidly over the last 20 to 30 years. For more than two decades non-designers have been increasingly involved in various design activities through a large number of participatory design projects all over the world. The project aims in PD have developed from being mainly about ICT development to today include, for instance, space design, product development, industrial design, architecture, service- and transformation design. As every project is unique, it is necessary to decide which design approach(es), methods, tools and techniques to use in a specific project. Thus many practices for how to involve people in designing have been used and developed during the years. There is some confusion as to which tools and techniques to use, when, and for what purpose. Therefore we are proposing a framework to help organize the proliferation of tools, techniques and methods in hopes that the PD community will benefit by discussing relevant applications and identifying potential areas for further exploration.

Netalyzr: illuminating the edge network

Abstract: In this paper we present Netalyzr, a network measurement and debugging service that evaluates the functionality provided by people's Internet connectivity. The design aims to prove both comprehensive in terms of the properties we measure and easy to employ and understand for users with little technical background. We structure Netalyzr as a signed Java applet (which users access via their Web browser) that communicates with a suite of measurement-specific servers. Traffic between the two then probes for a diverse set of network properties, including outbound port filtering, hidden in-network HTTP caches, DNS manipulations, NAT behavior, path MTU issues, IPv6 support, and access-modem buffer capacity. In addition to reporting results to the user, Netalyzr also forms the foundation for an extensive measurement of edge-network properties. To this end, along with describing Netalyzr 's architecture and system implementation, we present a detailed study of 130,000 measurement sessions that the service has recorded since we made it publicly available in June 2009.

Structure of Competitive Transit Networks

Abstract: This paper describes the network shapes and operating characteristics that allow a transit system to deliver an accessibility level competitive with that of the automobile. To provide exhaustive results for service regions of different sizes and demographics, the paper idealizes these regions as squares with uniform demand, and their possible networks as a broad and realistic family that combines the grid and the hub-and-spoke concepts. The paper also shows how to use these results to generate master plans of transit systems for real cities. The analysis reveals which network structure and technology (Bus, Bus Rapid Transit, or Metro) delivers the desired performance with the least cost. It is found that the more expensive the system's infrastructure, the more it should tilt toward the hub-and-spoke concept. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) competes effectively with the automobile unless a city is big and its demand low. This happens despite the uniform demand assumption, which penalizes collective transport. It is also found that if a city has enough suitable streets on which to run Bus and BRT systems, these outperform Metro even if the city is large and the demand high. Agency costs are always small compared with user costs; and both decline with the demand density. In all cases, increasing the spatial concentration of stops beyond a critical level increases both, the user and agency costs. Too much spatial coverage is counterproductive.

Collaborative reliability prediction of service-oriented systems

Abstract: Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is becoming a major software framework for building complex distributed systems. Reliability of the service-oriented systems heavily depends on the remote Web services as well as the unpredictable Internet. Designing effective and accurate reliability prediction approaches for the service-oriented systems has become an important research issue. In this paper, we propose a collaborative reliability prediction approach, which employs the past failure data of other similar users to predict the Web service reliability for the current user, without requiring real-world Web service invocations. We also present a user-collaborative failure data sharing mechanism and a reliability composition model for the service-oriented systems. Large-scale real-world experiments are conducted and the experimental results show that our collaborative reliability prediction approach obtains better reliability prediction accuracy than other approaches.

Verifiable device assisted service policy implementation

Abstract: A wireless device and a method for reducing data usage over a first wireless access network associated with a first service activity with the method being performed by the wireless device are disclosed. The wireless device comprises one or more modems for enabling the wireless device to communicate over at least two wireless access networks; a user interface; a memory and one or more processors for executing one or more agents. The at least two wireless access networks comprises a first wireless access network and a second wireless access network. The memory is configured to store a first service policy associated with the first wireless access network. The first service policy comprises one or more first network policy settings or rules and the first service policy is configured to assist in reducing data usage associated with a first service activity over the first wireless access network. The first service activity is less than all service activities available to the wireless device and the first service policy is for enabling control of the first service activity on the first wireless access network that is different from how the first service activity is controlled on the second wireless access network. The one or more agents are configured to obtain, through the user interface, a user input indicating to apply the first service policy to the first service activity when the wireless device is connected to the first wireless access network, identify when the wireless device is connected to the first wireless access network, identify attempted or successful data communications over the first wireless access network that are associated with the first service activity, and apply the first service policy to the identified attempted or successful data communications over the first wireless access network, thereby reducing data usage over the first wireless access network associated with the first service activity.

Research Challenges for Enterprise Cloud Computing

Abstract: Cloud computing represents a shift away from computing as a product that is purchased, to computing as a service that is delivered to consumers over the internet from large-scale data centers - or "clouds". This paper discusses some of the research challenges for cloud computing from an enterprise or organizational perspective, and puts them in context by reviewing the existing body of literature in cloud computing. Various research challenges relating to the following topics are discussed: the organizational changes brought about by cloud computing; the economic and organizational implications of its utility billing model; the security, legal and privacy issues that cloud computing raises. It is important to highlight these research challenges because cloud computing is not simply about a technological improvement of data centers but a fundamental change in how IT is provisioned and used. This type of research has the potential to influence wider adoption of cloud computing in enterprise, and in the consumer market too.

Software Assistants for Randomized Patrol Planning for the LAX Airport Police and the Federal Air Marshal Service

Abstract: The increasing threat of terrorism makes security at major locations of economic or political importance a major concern. Limited security resources prevent complete security coverage, allowing adversaries to observe and exploit patterns in patrolling or monitoring, and enabling them to plan attacks that avoid existing patrols. The use of randomized security policies that are more difficult for adversaries to predict and exploit can counter their surveillance capabilities. We describe two applications, ARMOR and IRIS, that assist security forces in randomizing their operations. These applications are based on fast algorithms for solving large instances of Bayesian Stackelberg games. Police at the Los Angeles International Airport deploy ARMOR to randomize the placement of checkpoints on roads entering the airport and the routes of canine unit patrols within the airport terminals. The Federal Air Marshal Service has deployed IRIS in a pilot program to randomize the schedules of air marshals on international flights. This paper examines the design choices, information, and evaluation criteria that were critical to developing these applications.

Declarative specification and verification of service choreographiess

Abstract: Service-oriented computing, an emerging paradigm for architecting and implementing business collaborations within and across organizational boundaries, is currently of interest to both software vendors and scientists. While the technologies for implementing and interconnecting basic services are reaching a good level of maturity, modeling service interaction from a global viewpoint, that is, representing service choreographies, is still an open challenge. The main problem is that, although declarativeness has been identified as a key feature, several proposed approaches specify choreographies by focusing on procedural aspects, leading to over-constrained and over-specified models.To overcome these limits, we propose to adopt DecSerFlow, a truly declarative language, to model choreographies. Thanks to its declarative nature, DecSerFlow semantics can be given in terms of logic-based languages. In particular, we present how DecSerFlow can be mapped onto Linear Temporal Logic and onto Abductive Logic Programming. We show how the mappings onto both formalisms can be concretely exploited to address the enactment of DecSerFlow models, to enrich its expressiveness and to perform a variety of different verification tasks. We illustrate the advantages of using a declarative language in conjunction with logic-based semantics by applying our approach to a running example.

Method and apparatus for generating a virtual interactive workspace

Abstract: An approach is provided for creating a virtual workspace among devices based, at least in part, on location information. The virtual workspace corresponds to an application or a service common to the devices. Monitoring of the movement of one or more of the devices causes manipulation of the virtual workspace, the application, the service, or a combination thereof based, at least in part, on the movement. Example applications and services include media editing, media playback, image processing, social networking, and social control functionality.

Architecture and protocols for the Internet of Things: A case study

Abstract: In this paper, we describe a practical realization of an Internet-of-Things (IoT) architecture at the University of Padova, Italy. Our network spans the floors of different buildings within the Department of Information Engineering, and is designed to provide access to basic services such as environmental monitoring and localization to University users, as well as to manage service access based on user roles and authorizations. The network is based on a flexible and expandable infrastructure allowing easy node management. A support for the 6LoWPAN standard makes nodes reachable from outside the network using IPv6 and provides an infrastructure to realize IoT applications.

SLA-Based Trust Model for Cloud Computing

Abstract: Cloud computing is a new form of technology, which infrastructure, developing platform, software, and storage can be delivered as a service in a pay as you use cost model. However, for critical business application and more sensitive information, cloud providers must be selected based on high level of trustworthiness. In this paper, we present a trust model to evaluate cloud services in order to help cloud users select the most reliable resources. We integrate our previous work “conceptual SLA framework for cloud computing” with the proposed trust management model to present a new solution of defining the reliable criteria for the selection process of cloud providers

Systems and methods for cross-cloud vendor mapping service in a dynamic cloud marketplace

Abstract: Embodiments relate to systems and methods for a cross-cloud vendor mapping service in a dynamic cloud marketplace. The cloud marketplace system receives bids from a user for the provisioning of applications or other software in the cloud, and registers selected provisioning clouds to deliver the requested software. The set of provisioning clouds can be re-selected on a scheduled and/or other ongoing basis, creating a sequence of provisioning clouds. A vendor mapping service can be abstracted and provided external to the cloud marketplace system, and track the user's software usage across the shifting sets of provisioning clouds. The vendor mapping service can aggregate the usage history over time, and generate billing and/or other subscription reports. The cloud marketplace system need only register the user ID, software applications, and/or other subscription data to the vendor mapping service one time, after which the service can track the user's software usage history automatically.

Enterprise client-server system and methods of providing web application support through distributed emulation of websocket communications

Abstract: A system enabling service communications in distributed Web applications between servers otherwise inaccessible due to cross-origin security restrictions in pre-HTML5 compliant Web-browser clients. A Web-browser client executes a client-side Web application received from a source origin server having a defined source origin and requests connections to request identified Web-application services. Execution of an emulation client library establishes a bidirectional capable HTTP-based communications connection between the Web-browser client and a gateway server, having a target origin outside the scope of the source origin, providing access to the request identified Web-application service. The bidirectional capable HTTP-based communications connection includes a cross-origin communications bridge providing a secure communications path between the source and target origins. The gateway server can establish an HTML5 compliant connection to a target defined service, provided by a target server, having a predefined relation to the request identified Web-application service.

System for and method of providing reusable software service information based on natural language queries

Abstract: A system for and method of providing reusable software service information based on natural language queries. The system and method may include receiving, from a user system, query data in a natural language format that indicates a request for a plurality of reusable software service applications that are configured to perform a particular task, processing the query data to generate search criteria that include query values, and searching, a database, for the plurality of reusable software service applications based on the query values.

Methods and systems for managing, controlling and monitoring medical devices via one or more software applications functioning in a secure environment

Abstract: Systems and methods that include configurations of a medical device, user device and service platform are described. Embodiments may include a secure network to run medical applications that control and/or monitor the medical device. An online store may be provided for storing and distributing medical applications to the user device and medical device. A secure environment may be provided within the user device and medical device that protects the integrity of medical applications running on those devices. A service platform may provide a service that enables a medical authority to certify and monitor the medical applications. In some implementations, various third parties and the user of the user device may be allowed to manage and monitor the medical device.

The Next Wave of Digital Innovation: Opportunities and Challenges: A Report on the Research Workshop 'Digital Challenges in Innovation Research'

Abstract: The turn of the millennium is marked by rapid developments in digital technologies The ubiquity of digitalization is one of the primary forces behind innovations across a wide range of product and service categories In order to create an initial forum for scholars from different fields, and to establish a preliminary theoretical framework that can guide future scholarly research on digital innovations, we organized an interdisciplinary research workshop, entitled “Digital Challenges in Innovation Research”, held on October 18 – 20, 2008 at Temple University This report documents major themes from the workshop, highlighting the new opportunities and challenges associated with digital innovation The workshop participants identified three design characteristics of digital technology that play pivotal roles in facilitating digital innovations: (1) the homogenization of digital data, (2) the programmable digital computing architecture, and (3) the self-referential nature of digital technologies Furthermore, the participants saw digitalized products as having seven material properties: programmability, addressability, senesability, memorability, communicability, traceability, and associability, which lead to the emergence of loose coupling across the four layers of a digital service architecture, which includes devices, networks, services and contents The main challenges and opportunities for innovation outcomes emerge primarily from convergence and digital materiality First, new research opportunities lie in understanding different forms and capabilities of ongoing digital convergence Second, another set of research issues are associated with new entrepreneurial opportunities that emerge from embedding digital capabilities into non-digital products and services Finally, the increased use of digital tools and the interpenetration of digital and physical materiality in work practices offer new sets of challenges and opportunities that need to be carefully investigated The primary factors that affect innovation processes are heterogeneity, generativity, locus of innovation and pace First, the combination of heterogeneity, generativity, and distributed locus of innovation leads to the emergence of dynamic, non-linear patterns of digital innovation Developing and validating analytic models to understand how heterogeneous actors at the periphery of digital innovation networks are related to innovation patterns will be an important challenge for innovation scholars Second, understanding the temporal dynamics of digital innovations provides another important opportunity for future innovation research Finally, future research should investigate the multi-layered nature of organizational transformations that are associated with the digitalization of products The report concludes with six broad recommendations for future research: multi-disciplinary research, design scholarship, multi-methods approach, taking data seriously, understanding infrastructure, and theorizing digital technology

Cloud computing as a basis for equipment health monitoring service

Abstract: A system includes a computing cloud (108) having at least one data storage unit (112) and at least one processing unit (110). The computing cloud is configured to provide at least one service. The system also includes a plurality of clients (102-106) each configured to communicate with the computing cloud and at least one industrial automation unit and to transmit information associated with the at least one industrial automation unit to the computing cloud. The at least one processing unit in the computing cloud is configured to determine a status of the at least one industrial automation unit using the information provided the clients.

Creating a self-improving school system

Abstract: A third thinkpiece, to be published early in 2012, will set these developments within the wider national context as it evolves, including how local authorities respond to these changes and with what consequences for schools within a self-improving system. The education service is embarking on radical reforms, and more time is needed before the initial dust settles and pertinent longer-term questions may usefully be posed.

System and method for providing annotated service blueprints in an intelligent workload management system

Abstract: The system and method described herein for providing annotated service blueprints in an intelligent workload management system may include a computing environment having a model-driven, service-oriented architecture for creating collaborative threads to manage workloads. In particular, the management threads may converge information for creating annotated service blueprints to provision and manage tessellated services distributed within an information technology infrastructure. For example, in response to a request to provision a service, a service blueprint describing one or more virtual machines may be created. The service blueprint may then be annotated to apply various parameters to the virtual machines, and the annotated service blueprint may then be instantiated to orchestrate the virtual machines with the one or more parameters and deploy the orchestrated virtual machines on information technology resources allocated to host the requested service, thereby provisioning the requested service.

Platform-as-a-Service Architecture for Real-Time Quality of Service Management in Clouds

Abstract: Cloud computing offers the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of software services through the commoditization of information technology assets and on-demand usage patterns. However, the complexity of determining resource provision policies for applications in such complex environments introduces significant inefficiencies and has driven the emergence of a new class of infrastructure called Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). In this paper, we present a novel PaaS architecture being developed in the EU IST IRMOS project targeting real-time Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for online interactive multimedia applications. The architecture considers the full service lifecycle including service engineering, service level agreement design, provisioning and monitoring. QoS parameters at both application and infrastructure levels are given specific attention as the basis for provisioning policies in the context of temporal constraints. The generic applicability of the architecture is being verified and validated through implemented scenarios from three important application sectors (film post-production, virtual augmented reality for engineering design, collaborative e-Learning in virtual worlds).

A real-time search engine for the Web of Things

Abstract: The increasing penetration of the real world with embedded and globally networked sensors leads to the formation of the Internet of Things, offering global online access to the current state of the real world. We argue that on top of this realtime data, a Web of Things is needed, a software infrastructure that allows the construction of applications involving sensor-equipped real-world entities living in the Internet of Things. A key service for such an infrastructure is a search engine that supports lookup of real-world entities that exhibit a certain current state as perceived by sensors. In contrast to existing Web search engines, such a real-world search engine has to support searching for rapidly changing state information generated by sensors. In this paper, we show how the existing Web infrastructure can be leveraged to support publishing of sensor and entity data. Based on this we present a real-time search engine for the Web of Things.

Automated software testing as a service

Abstract: This paper makes the case for TaaS--automated software testing as a cloud-based service. We present three kinds of TaaS: a "programmer's sidekick" enabling developers to thoroughly and promptly test their code with minimal upfront resource investment; a "home edition" on-demand testing service for consumers to verify the software they are about to install on their PC or mobile device; and a public "certification service," akin to Underwriters Labs, that independently assesses the reliability, safety, and security of software.TaaS automatically tests software, without human involvement from the service user's or provider's side. This is unlike today's "testing as a service" businesses, which employ humans to write tests. Our goal is to take recently proposed techniques for automated testing--even if usable only on to y programs--and make them practical by modifying them to harness the resources of compute clouds. Preliminary work suggests it is technically feasible to do so, and we find that TaaS is also compelling from a social and business point of view.

Ranking and Clustering Web Services Using Multicriteria Dominance Relationships

Abstract: As the web is increasingly used not only to find answers to specific information needs but also to carry out various tasks, enhancing the capabilities of current web search engines with effective and efficient techniques for web service retrieval and selection becomes an important issue. Existing service matchmakers typically determine the relevance between a web service advertisement and a service request by computing an overall score that aggregates individual matching scores among the various parameters in their descriptions. Two main drawbacks characterize such approaches. First, there is no single matching criterion that is optimal for determining the similarity between parameters. Instead, there are numerous approaches ranging from Information Retrieval similarity measures up to semantic logic-based inference rules. Second, the reduction of individual scores to an overall similarity leads to significant information loss. Determining appropriate weights for these intermediate scores requires knowledge of user preferences, which is often not possible or easy to acquire. Instead, using a typical aggregation function, such as the average or the minimum of the degrees of match across the service parameters, introduces undesired bias, which often reduces the accuracy of the retrieval process. Consequently, several services, e.g., those having a single unmatched parameter, may be excluded from the result set, while being potentially good candidates. In this work, we present two complementary approaches that overcome the aforementioned deficiencies. First, we propose a methodology for ranking the relevant services for a given request, introducing objective measures based on dominance relationships defined among the services. Second, we investigate methods for clustering the relevant services in a way that reveals and reflects the different trade-offs between the matched parameters. We demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of our proposed techniques and algorithms through extensive experimental evaluation on both real requests and relevance sets, as well as on synthetic scenarios.

iServe: a linked services publishing platform

Abstract: Despite the potential of service-orientation and the efforts devoted so far, we are still to witness a significant uptake of service technologies outside of enterprise environments. A core reason for this limited uptake is the lack of appropriate publishing platforms able to deal with the existing heterogeneity in the service technologies landscape and able to provide expressive yet simple and ecient discovery mechanisms. In this paper we describe iServe, a novel and open platform for publishing services which aims to better support their discovery and use. It exposes service descriptions as linked data expressed in terms of a simple vocabulary for describing services of different kinds with annotations in diverse formalisms. In addition to describing iServe, this paper also highlights the set of principles behind iServe, which we believe are essential for other generic repositories of semantic information notably ontology repositories.