Comprehensive Monitor-Oriented Compensation Programming

Compensation programming is typically used in the programming of web service compositions whose correct implementation is crucial due to their handling of security-critical activities such as financial transactions. While traditional exception handling depends on the state of the system at the moment of failure, compensation programming is significantly more challenging and dynamic because it is dependent on the runtime execution flow - with the history of behaviour of the system at the moment of failure affecting how to apply compensation. To address this dynamic element, we propose the use of runtime monitors to facilitate compensation programming, with monitors enabling the modeller to be able to implicitly reason in terms of the runtime control flow, thus separating the concerns of system building and compensation modelling. Our approach is instantiated into an architecture and shown to be applicable to a case study.Comment: In Proceedings FESCA 2014, arXiv:1404.043

Hermeneutics framework: integration of design rationale and optimizing software modules

To tackle the evolution challenges of adaptive systems, this paper argues on the necessity of hermeneutic approaches that help to avoid too early elimination of design alternatives. This visionary paper proposes the Hermeneutics Framework, which computationally integrates a design rationale management system, an auto-adaptive control system and a reflective and modular event-driven language runtime together. The Hermeneutics Framework is, among others, suitable for implementing dynamic adaptive software systems that undergo intensive evolution cycles

The Role of Deontic Logic in the Specification of Information Systems

In this paper we discuss the role that deontic logic plays in the specification of information systems, either because constraints on the systems directly concern norms or, and even more importantly, system constraints are considered ideal but violable (so-called `soft¿ constraints).\ud To overcome the traditional problems with deontic logic (the so-called paradoxes), we first state the importance of distinguishing between ought-to-be and ought-to-do constraints and next focus on the most severe paradox, the so-called Chisholm paradox, involving contrary-to-duty norms. We present a multi-modal extension of standard deontic logic (SDL) to represent the ought-to-be version of the Chisholm set properly. For the ought-to-do variant we employ a reduction to dynamic logic, and show how the Chisholm set can be treated adequately in this setting. Finally we discuss a way of integrating both ought-to-be and ought-to-do reasoning, enabling one to draw conclusions from ought-to-be constraints to ought-to-do ones, and show by an example the use(fulness) of this

Intensional Cyberforensics

This work focuses on the application of intensional logic to cyberforensic analysis and its benefits and difficulties are compared with the finite-state-automata approach. This work extends the use of the intensional programming paradigm to the modeling and implementation of a cyberforensics investigation process with backtracing of event reconstruction, in which evidence is modeled by multidimensional hierarchical contexts, and proofs or disproofs of claims are undertaken in an eductive manner of evaluation. This approach is a practical, context-aware improvement over the finite state automata (FSA) approach we have seen in previous work. As a base implementation language model, we use in this approach a new dialect of the Lucid programming language, called Forensic Lucid, and we focus on defining hierarchical contexts based on intensional logic for the distributed evaluation of cyberforensic expressions. We also augment the work with credibility factors surrounding digital evidence and witness accounts, which have not been previously modeled. The Forensic Lucid programming language, used for this intensional cyberforensic analysis, formally presented through its syntax and operational semantics. In large part, the language is based on its predecessor and codecessor Lucid dialects, such as GIPL, Indexical Lucid, Lucx, Objective Lucid, and JOOIP bound by the underlying intensional programming paradigm.Comment: 412 pages, 94 figures, 18 tables, 19 algorithms and listings; PhD thesis; v2 corrects some typos and refs; also available on Spectrum at http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/977460

Financial Information Mediation: A Case Study of Standards Integration for Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment Using the COIN Mediation Technology

Each player in the financial industry, each bank, stock exchange, government agency, or insurance company operates its own financial information system or systems. By its very nature, financial information, like the money that it represents, changes hands. Therefore the interoperation of financial information systems is the cornerstone of the financial services they support. E-services frameworks such as web services are an unprecedented opportunity for the flexible interoperation of financial systems. Naturally the critical economic role and the complexity of financial information led to the development of various standards. Yet standards alone are not the panacea: different groups of players use different standards or different interpretations of the same standard. We believe that the solution lies in the convergence of flexible E-services such as web-services and semantically rich meta-data as promised by the semantic Web; then a mediation architecture can be used for the documentation, identification, and resolution of semantic conflicts arising from the interoperation of heterogeneous financial services. In this paper we illustrate the nature of the problem in the Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) industry and the viability of the solution we propose. We describe and analyze the integration of services using four different formats: the IFX, OFX and SWIFT standards, and an example proprietary format. To accomplish this integration we use the COntext INterchange (COIN) framework. The COIN architecture leverages a model of sources and receivers’ contexts in reference to a rich domain model or ontology for the description and resolution of semantic heterogeneity.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications