Semantic-based policy engineering for autonomic systems

This paper presents some important directions in the use of ontology-based semantics in achieving the vision of Autonomic Communications. We examine the requirements of Autonomic Communication with a focus on the demanding needs of ubiquitous computing environments, with an emphasis on the requirements shared with Autonomic Computing. We observe that ontologies provide a strong mechanism for addressing the heterogeneity in user task requirements, managed resources, services and context. We then present two complimentary approaches that exploit ontology-based knowledge in support of autonomic communications: service-oriented models for policy engineering and dynamic semantic queries using content-based networks. The paper concludes with a discussion of the major research challenges such approaches raise

Internal report cluster 1: Urban freight innovations and solutions for sustainable deliveries (3/4)

Technical report about sustainable urban freight solutions, part 3 of

Innovative public governance through cloud computing: Information privacy, business models and performance measurement challenges

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze challenges and to discuss proposed solutions for innovative public governance through cloud computing. Innovative technologies, such as federation of services and cloud computing, can greatly contribute to the provision of e-government services, through scaleable and flexible systems. Furthermore, they can facilitate in reducing costs and overcoming public information segmentation. Nonetheless, when public agencies use these technologies, they encounter several associated organizational and technical changes, as well as significant challenges. Design/methodology/approach: We followed a multidisciplinary perspective (social, behavioral, business and technical) and conducted a conceptual analysis for analyzing the associated challenges. We conducted focus group interviews in two countries for evaluating the performance models that resulted from the conceptual analysis. Findings: This study identifies and analyzes several challenges that may emerge while adopting innovative technologies for public governance and e-government services. Furthermore, it presents suggested solutions deriving from the experience of designing a related platform for public governance, including issues of privacy requirements, proposed business models and key performance indicators for public services on cloud computing. Research limitations/implications: The challenges and solutions discussed are based on the experience gained by designing one platform. However, we rely on issues and challenges collected from four countries. Practical implications: The identification of challenges for innovative design of e-government services through a central portal in Europe and using service federation is expected to inform practitioners in different roles about significant changes across multiple levels that are implied and may accelerate the challenges' resolution. Originality/value: This is the first study that discusses from multiple perspectives and through empirical investigation the challenges to realize public governance through innovative technologies. The results emerge from an actual portal that will function at a European level. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Independent Evaluation of the Water and Sanitation Hibah Program Indonesia

This evaluation assess the effectiveness of Indonesia's Water and Sanitation Hibah Program pilot and identifies lessons for applying this mechanism more broadly. The program, which operates by paying an agreed amount for verified household water or sanitation service connections installed by local water and sanitation utilities, takes advantage of excess capacity of water companies to bypass the need for infrastructure investment. It was evaluated through a document review, key informant interviews, a key stakeholder workshop, field work, and a beneficiary survey, along with quantitative data from existing sources

A case study of MMO2's Madic: A framework for creating mobile internet systems

Mobile Internet applications on ubiquitous mobile networks allows real-time, anywhere, anytime connectivity to services. Due to its scalability and potential cost savings, mobile communication is being increasingly applied in the business and consumer communities to create innovative data and voice application, which run over the Internet infrastructure. This paper reports on a case study at an organisation that created an innovative approach to developing mobile applications developed by third party independent developers. A conceptual wireless reference model is presented that was used to define the various system components required to create effective mobile applications

Automating SLA-Driven API Development with SLA4OAI

The OpenAPI Specification (OAS) is the de facto standard to describe RESTful APIs from a functional perspective. OAS has been a success due to its simple model and the wide ecosystem of tools supporting the SLA-Driven API development lifecycle. Unfortunately, the current OAS scope ignores crucial information for an API such as its Service Level Agreement (SLA). Therefore, in terms of description and management of non-functional information, the disadvantages of not having a standard include the vendor lock-in and prevent the ecosystem to grow and handle extra functional aspects. In this paper, we present SLA4OAI, pioneering in extending OAS not only allowing the specification of SLAs, but also supporting some stages of the SLA-Driven API lifecycle with an open-source ecosystem. Finally, we validate our proposal having modeled 5488 limitations in 148 plans of 35 real-world APIs and show an initial interest from the industry with 600 and 1900 downloads and installs of the SLA Instrumentation Library and the SLA Engine.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-70560-RMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-101204-B-C21Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU15/0298

Combining goal-oriented and model-driven approaches to solve the Payment Problem Scenario

Motivated by the objective to provide an improved participation of business domain experts in the design of service-oriented integration solutions, we extend our previous work on using the COSMO methodology for service mediation by introducing a goal-oriented approach to requirements engineering. With this approach, business requirements including the motivations behind the mediation solution are better understood, specified, and aligned with their technical implementations. We use the Payment Problem Scenario of the SWS Challenge to illustrate the extension