Specification and analysis of SOC systems using COWS: a finance case study

Service-oriented computing, an emerging paradigm for distributed computing based on the use of services, is calling for the development of tools and techniques to build safe and trustworthy systems, and to analyse their behaviour. Therefore many researchers have proposed to use process calculi, a cornerstone of current foundational research on specification and analysis of concurrent and distributed systems. We illustrate this approach by focussing on COWS, a process calculus expressly designed for specifying and combining services, while modelling their dynamic behaviour. We present the calculus and one of the analysis techniques it enables, that is based on the temporal logic SocL and the associated model checker CMC. We demonstrate applicability of our tools by means of a large case study, from the financial domain, which is first specified in COWS, and then analysed by using SocL to express many significant properties and CMC to verify them

Integrating big data into a sustainable mobility policy 2.0 planning support system

It is estimated that each of us, on a daily basis, produces a bit more than 1 GB of digital content through our mobile phone and social networks activities, bank card payments, location-based positioning information, online activities, etc. However, the implementation of these large data amounts in city assets planning systems still remains a rather abstract idea for several reasons, including the fact that practical examples are still very strongly services-oriented, and are a largely unexplored and interdisciplinary field; hence, missing the cross-cutting dimension. In this paper, we describe the Policy 2.0 concept and integrate user generated content into Policy 2.0 platform for sustainable mobility planning. By means of a real-life example, we demonstrate the applicability of such a big data integration approach to smart cities planning process. Observed benefits range from improved timeliness of the data and reduced duration of the planning cycle to more informed and agile decision making, on both the citizens and the city planners end. The integration of big data into the planning process, at this stage, does not have uniform impact across all levels of decision making and planning process, therefore it should be performed gradually and with full awareness of existing limitations

A GRID-BASED E-LEARNING MODEL FOR OPEN UNIVERSITIES

E-learning has grown to become a widely accepted method of learning all over the world. As a result, many e-learning platforms which have been developed based on varying technologies were faced with some limitations ranging from storage capability, computing power, to availability or access to the learning support infrastructures. This has brought about the need to develop ways to effectively manage and share the limited resources available in the e-learning platform. Grid computing technology has the capability to enhance the quality of pedagogy on the e-learning platform. In this paper we propose a Grid-based e-learning model for Open Universities. An attribute of such universities is the setting up of multiple remotely located campuses within a country. The grid-based e-learning model presented in this work possesses the attributes of an elegant architectural framework that will facilitate efficient use of available e-learning resources and cost reduction, leading to general improvement of the overall quality of the operations of open universities

Situational Enterprise Services

The ability to rapidly find potential business partners as well as rapidly set up a collaborative business process is desirable in the face of market turbulence. Collaborative business processes are increasingly dependent on the integration of business information systems. Traditional linking of business processes has a large ad hoc character. Implementing situational enterprise services in an appropriate way will deliver the business more flexibility, adaptability and agility. Service-oriented architectures (SOA) are rapidly becoming the dominant computing paradigm. It is now being embraced by organizations everywhere as the key to business agility. Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX on the other hand provide good user interactions for successful service discovery, selection, adaptation, invocation and service construction. They also balance automatic integration of services and human interactions, disconnecting content from presentation in the delivery of the service. Another Web technology, such as semantic Web, makes automatic service discovery, mediation and composition possible. Integrating SOA, Web 2.0 Technologies and Semantic Web into a service-oriented virtual enterprise connects business processes in a much more horizontal fashion. To be able run these services consistently across the enterprise, an enterprise infrastructure that provides enterprise architecture and security foundation is necessary. The world is constantly changing. So does the business environment. An agile enterprise needs to be able to quickly and cost-effectively change how it does business and who it does business with. Knowing, adapting to diffident situations is an important aspect of today’s business environment. The changes in an operating environment can happen implicitly and explicitly. The changes can be caused by different factors in the application domain. Changes can also happen for the purpose of organizing information in a better way. Changes can be further made according to the users' needs such as incorporating additional functionalities. Handling and managing diffident situations of service-oriented enterprises are important aspects of business environment. In the chapter, we will investigate how to apply new Web technologies to develop, deploy and executing enterprise services

Supporting security-oriented, inter-disciplinary research: crossing the social, clinical and geospatial domains

How many people have had a chronic disease for longer than 5-years in Scotland? How has this impacted upon their choices of employment? Are there any geographical clusters in Scotland where a high-incidence of patients with such long-term illness can be found? How does the life expectancy of such individuals compare with the national averages? Such questions are important to understand the health of nations and the best ways in which health care should be delivered and measured for their impact and success. In tackling such research questions, e-Infrastructures need to provide tailored, secure access to an extensible range of distributed resources including primary and secondary e-Health clinical data; social science data, and geospatial data sets amongst numerous others. In this paper we describe the security models underlying these e-Infrastructures and demonstrate their implementation in supporting secure, federated access to a variety of distributed and heterogeneous data sets exploiting the results of a variety of projects at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) at the University of Glasgow

Online service delivery models : an international comparison in the public sector

Governments around the world are facing the challenge of responding to increased expectations by their customers with regard to public service delivery. Citizens, for example, expect governments to provide better and more efficient electronic services on the Web in an integrated way. Online portals have become the approach of choice in online service delivery to meet these requirements and become more customer-focussed. This study describes and analyses existing variants of online service delivery models based upon an empirical study and provides valuable insights for researchers and practitioners in government. For this study, we have conducted interviews with senior management representatives from five international governments. Based on our findings, we distinguish three different classes of service delivery models. We describe and characterise each of these models in detail and provide an in-depth discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches

Process-oriented Enterprise Mashups

Mashups, a new Web 2.0 technology provide the ability for easy creation of Web-Based applications by end-users. The uses of the mashups are often consumer related. In this paper we explore how mashups can be used in the enterprise area and hat the criteria for enterprise mashups are. We provide categories for the classification of enterprise mashups, and based upon a motivating example we go further in depth on business process enterprise mashup

Digital learning objects: a local response to the California State University system initiative

The purpose of this paper is to present a virtual library plan created by library directors of the 23 California State University (CSU) system campuses. The information literacy portion of the project offers a repository of high quality interactive digital learning objects (DLOs) in the MERLOT repository. Therefore, DLOs created locally at the Dr Martin Luther King, Jr Library at San José State University (SJSU) focus on topics that supplement the “core” DLO collection

Integration of BPM systems

New technologies have emerged to support the global economy where for instance suppliers, manufactures and retailers are working together in order to minimise the cost and maximise efficiency. One of the technologies that has become a buzz word for many businesses is business process management or BPM. A business process comprises activities and tasks, the resources required to perform each task, and the business rules linking these activities and tasks. The tasks may be performed by human and/or machine actors. Workflow provides a way of describing the order of execution and the dependent relationships between the constituting activities of short or long running processes. Workflow allows businesses to capture not only the information but also the processes that transform the information - the process asset (Koulopoulos, T. M., 1995). Applications which involve automated, human-centric and collaborative processes across organisations are inherently different from one organisation to another. Even within the same organisation but over time, applications are adapted as ongoing change to the business processes is seen as the norm in today’s dynamic business environment. The major difference lies in the specifics of business processes which are changing rapidly in order to match the way in which businesses operate. In this chapter we introduce and discuss Business Process Management (BPM) with a focus on the integration of heterogeneous BPM systems across multiple organisations. We identify the problems and the main challenges not only with regards to technologies but also in the social and cultural context. We also discuss the issues that have arisen in our bid to find the solutions