Systems architecture

About: Systems architecture is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 17612 publications have been published within this topic receiving 283719 citations. The topic is also known as: system architecture.

The Technology Behind Personal Digital Assistants: An overview of the system architecture and key components

Abstract: We have long envisioned that one day computers will understand natural language and anticipate what we need, when and where we need it, and proactively complete tasks on our behalf. As computers get smaller and more pervasive, how humans interact with them is becoming a crucial issue. Despite numerous attempts over the past 30 years to make language understanding (LU) an effective and robust natural user interface for computer interaction, success has been limited and scoped to applications that were not particularly central to everyday use. However, speech recognition and machine learning have continued to be refined, and structured data served by applications and content providers has emerged. These advances, along with increased computational power, have broadened the application of natural LU to a wide spectrum of everyday tasks that are central to a user's productivity. We believe that as computers become smaller and more ubiquitous [e.g., wearables and Internet of Things (IoT)], and the number of applications increases, both system-initiated and user-initiated task completion across various applications and web services will become indispensable for personal life management and work productivity. In this article, we give an overview of personal digital assistants (PDAs); describe the system architecture, key components, and technology behind them; and discuss their future potential to fully redefine human?computer interaction.

The K-Component Architecture Meta-model for Self-Adaptive Software

Abstract: Software architectures have recently emerged as a level of design concerned with specifying the overall structure of a system. Traditionally, software architectures only provide static descriptions of the participants and interaction structures in a system. Dynamic software architectures, however, can be reconfigured at runtime and therefore provide support for building dynamically adaptable applications. Software architectures can be specified using architectural reflection. In this paper we introduce an architecture meta-model that realises a dynamic software architecture. The architecture meta-model reifies the configuration graph of the architecture and is automatically generated from our component definitions and implementation language source-code. We show how graph transformations that re-write the architecture's configuration graph can be implemented as reflective programs, called adaptation contracts. Adaptation contracts are written in a separate programming language, thus cleanly separating the adaptation code from the computational code. Adaptation contracts can even be replaced at run-time. They are deployed in a run-time meta-level architecture that addresses issues of system safety, integrity and overhead during graph transformation. The paper also describes a prototype implementation of our model called K-Components.

An Internet-based geographic information system that integrates data, models and users for transportation applications

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the development of an Internet-based geographic information system (GIS) that brings together spatio-temporal data, models and users in a single efficient framework to be used for a wide range of transportation applications – planning, engineering and operational. The functional requirements of the system are outlined taking into consideration the various enabling technologies, such as Internet tools, large-scale databases and distributed computing systems. Implementation issues as well as the necessary models needed to support the system are briefly discussed.

The interactive performance of SLIM: a stateless, thin-client architecture

Abstract: Taking the concept of thin clients to the limit, this paper proposes that desktop machines should just be simple, stateless I/O devices (display, keyboard, mouse, etc.) that access a shared pool of computational resources over a dedicated interconnection fabric --- much in the same way as a building's telephone services are accessed by a collection of handset devices. The stateless desktop design provides a useful mobility model in which users can transparently resume their work on any desktop console.This paper examines the fundamental premise in this system design that modern, off-the-shelf interconnection technology can support the quality-of-service required by today's graphical and multimedia applications. We devised a methodology for analyzing the interactive performance of modern systems, and we characterized the I/O properties of common, real-life applications (e.g. Netscape, streaming video, and Quake) executing in thin-client environments. We have conducted a series of experiments on the Sun Ray™ 1 implementation of this new system architecture, and our results indicate that it provides an effective means of delivering computational services to a workgroup.We have found that response times over a dedicated network are so low that interactive performance is indistinguishable from a dedicated workstation. A simple pixel encoding protocol requires only modest network resources (as little as a 1Mbps home connection) and is quite competitive with the X protocol. Tens of users running interactive applications can share a processor without any noticeable degradation, and many more can share the network. The simple protocol over a 100Mbps interconnection fabric can support streaming video and Quake at display rates and resolutions which provide a high-fidelity user experience.

Data Cleaning for RFID and WSN Integration

Abstract: Today's manufacturing environments are very dynamic and turbulent. Traditional enterprise information systems (EISs) have mostly been implemented upon hierarchical architectures, which are inflexible to adapt changes and uncertainties promptly. Next-generation EISs must be agile and adaptable to accommodate changes without significant time delays. It is essential for an EIS to obtain real-time data from the distributed and dynamic manufacturing environment for decision making. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems provide an excellent infrastructure for data acquisition, distribution, and processing. In this paper, some key challenges related to the integration of WSN and RFID technologies are discussed. A five-layer system architecture has been proposed to achieve synergistic performance. For the integration of WSN and RFID, one of the critical issues is the low efficiency of communication due to redundant data as redundant data increases energy consumption and causes time delay. To address it, an improved data cleaning algorithm has been proposed; its feasibility and effectiveness have been verified via simulation and a comparison with a published algorithm. To illustrate the capacity of the developed architecture and new data cleaning algorithm, their application in relief supplies storage management has been discussed.