Preliminary Results Towards Contract Monitorability

This paper discusses preliminary investigations on the monitorability of contracts for web service descriptions. There are settings where servers do not guarantee statically whether they satisfy some specified contract, which forces the client (i.e., the entity interacting with the server) to perform dynamic checks. This scenario may be viewed as an instance of Runtime Verification, where a pertinent question is whether contracts can be monitored for adequately at runtime, otherwise stated as the monitorability of contracts. We consider a simple language of finitary contracts describing both clients and servers, and develop a formal framework that describes server contract monitoring. We define monitor properties that potentially contribute towards a comprehensive notion of contract monitorability and show that our simple contract language satisfies these properties.Comment: In Proceedings PrePost 2016, arXiv:1605.0809

Accra Conference on Aid Effectiveness - Perspectives from Bangladesh

This paper seeks to articulate the perspectives from Bangladesh as an aid recipient country on the evolving international aid system and more particularly on the Accra agenda. Based on secondary information from various sources including the Economic Relations Division, Ministry of Finance (MoF), OECD DAC Survey and Economic Review of the Ministry of Finance this paper briefly discusses the changing aid scenario in the context of Bangladesh and highlights some of the key issues related to aid effectiveness during the run up to the Accra HLF3. The paper also draws information from interviews of Development Partners working in Bangladesh to understand their perspectives on the bottlenecks of implementation of Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness in Bangladesh.Bangladesh, Aid, Aid effectiveness, Accra, Accra Conference

A management architecture for active networks

In this paper we present an architecture for network and applications management, which is based on the Active Networks paradigm and shows the advantages of network programmability. The stimulus to develop this architecture arises from an actual need to manage a cluster of active nodes, where it is often required to redeploy network assets and modify nodes connectivity. In our architecture, a remote front-end of the managing entity allows the operator to design new network topologies, to check the status of the nodes and to configure them. Moreover, the proposed framework allows to explore an active network, to monitor the active applications, to query each node and to install programmable traps. In order to take advantage of the Active Networks technology, we introduce active SNMP-like MIBs and agents, which are dynamic and programmable. The programmable management agents make tracing distributed applications a feasible task. We propose a general framework that can inter-operate with any active execution environment. In this framework, both the manager and the monitor front-ends communicate with an active node (the Active Network Access Point) through the XML language. A gateway service performs the translation of the queries from XML to an active packet language and injects the code in the network. We demonstrate the implementation of an active network gateway for PLAN (Packet Language for Active Networks) in a forty active nodes testbed. Finally, we discuss an application of the active management architecture to detect the causes of network failures by tracing network events in time

A management architecture for active networks

In this paper we present an architecture for network and applications management, which is based on the Active Networks paradigm and shows the advantages of network programmability. The stimulus to develop this architecture arises from an actual need to manage a cluster of active nodes, where it is often required to redeploy network assets and modify nodes connectivity. In our architecture, a remote front-end of the managing entity allows the operator to design new network topologies, to check the status of the nodes and to configure them. Moreover, the proposed framework allows to explore an active network, to monitor the active applications, to query each node and to install programmable traps. In order to take advantage of the Active Networks technology, we introduce active SNMP-like MIBs and agents, which are dynamic and programmable. The programmable management agents make tracing distributed applications a feasible task. We propose a general framework that can inter-operate with any active execution environment. In this framework, both the manager and the monitor front-ends communicate with an active node (the Active Network Access Point) through the XML language. A gateway service performs the translation of the queries from XML to an active packet language and injects the code in the network. We demonstrate the implementation of an active network gateway for PLAN (Packet Language for Active Networks) in a forty active nodes testbed. Finally, we discuss an application of the active management architecture to detect the causes of network failures by tracing network events in time

Monitoring Multi-Party Contracts for E-Business.

"Monitoring Multi-party Contracts for E-business" investigates the issues involved in the performance of econtract monitoring of business automations in business to business e-commerce environment. A pro-active monitoring contract model and monitoring mechanism have been designed and developed. A new architecture and framework is proposed for pro-active monitorable contracts. This pro-active monitoring contract model is supported by a prototype

Genie: A Generator of Natural Language Semantic Parsers for Virtual Assistant Commands

To understand diverse natural language commands, virtual assistants today are trained with numerous labor-intensive, manually annotated sentences. This paper presents a methodology and the Genie toolkit that can handle new compound commands with significantly less manual effort. We advocate formalizing the capability of virtual assistants with a Virtual Assistant Programming Language (VAPL) and using a neural semantic parser to translate natural language into VAPL code. Genie needs only a small realistic set of input sentences for validating the neural model. Developers write templates to synthesize data; Genie uses crowdsourced paraphrases and data augmentation, along with the synthesized data, to train a semantic parser. We also propose design principles that make VAPL languages amenable to natural language translation. We apply these principles to revise ThingTalk, the language used by the Almond virtual assistant. We use Genie to build the first semantic parser that can support compound virtual assistants commands with unquoted free-form parameters. Genie achieves a 62% accuracy on realistic user inputs. We demonstrate Genie's generality by showing a 19% and 31% improvement over the previous state of the art on a music skill, aggregate functions, and access control.Comment: To appear in PLDI 201

Working Paper 55 - Strategic Considerations for Building a Healthy Pipeline for Bank Group Operations

The African Development Bank has, since 1982, experienced a problem withbunching of projects towards the fourth quarter of each year’s Lending Program.Contributing factors include both systemic and endogenous constraints as well asexogenous constraints. This paper proposes a holistic approach, that recognizesall the forces at work in the development of Public Investment Programs (PIPs) atthe RMC level as well as the Bank’s internal processes that help to guide andgenerate the pipeline.At the RMC level, the paper examines the need to build the capacity of NationalPlanning Commissions (NPCs) to administer the PIP process. It also advocatesfor sensitizing RMCs, through intensive and persistent dialogue, to decentralize thePIP process in order to minimize the risk of marginalizing the poor and vulnerablegroups of society in the PIP process.At the Bank Group level, the paper examines the existing processes for bothlending and non-lending services and explores areas where the Bank’s lendingoperations need to be streamlined to enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness.To this end, the need to promote and reward good Economic and Sector Work(ESW) is highlighted along with the need to formalize Country Teams and strengthentheir roles. Furthermore, the concept of a Task Manager (TM) is re-examined andproposals are made that will assure greater responsibility and accountability ofTMs and allow them to play a leadership role in building up the Bank’s pipeline. Amore objective and easily monitorable classification of “bankable” projects isproposed along with a more flexible set of lending instruments that are necessaryto secure a smoother implementation of the Bank’s pipeline beyond the three-yearplanning horizon engendered by the three-year lending cycle.

A monitoring approach for runtime service discovery

Effective runtime service discovery requires identification of services based on different service characteristics such as structural, behavioural, quality, and contextual characteristics. However, current service registries guarantee services described in terms of structural and sometimes quality characteristics and, therefore, it is not always possible to assume that services in them will have all the characteristics required for effective service discovery. In this paper, we describe a monitor-based runtime service discovery framework called MoRSeD. The framework supports service discovery in both push and pull modes of query execution. The push mode of query execution is performed in parallel to the execution of a service-based system, in a proactive way. Both types of queries are specified in a query language called SerDiQueL that allows the representation of structural, behavioral, quality, and contextual conditions of services to be identified. The framework uses a monitor component to verify if behavioral and contextual conditions in the queries can be satisfied by services, based on translations of these conditions into properties represented in event calculus, and verification of the satisfiability of these properties against services. The monitor is also used to support identification that services participating in a service-based system are unavailable, and identification of changes in the behavioral and contextual characteristics of the services. A prototype implementation of the framework has been developed. The framework has been evaluated in terms of comparison of its performance when using and when not using the monitor component