Domain architecture a design framework for system development and integration

The ever growing complexity of software systems has revealed many short-comings in existing software engineering practices and has raised interest in architecture-driven software development. A system\u27s architecture provides a model of the system that suppresses implementation detail, allowing the architects to concentrate on the analysis and decisions that are most critical to structuring the system to satisfy its requirements. Recently, interests of researchers and practi-tioners have shifted from individual system architectures to architectures for classes of software systems which provide more general, reusable solutions to the issues of overall system organization, interoperability, and allocation of services to system components. These generic architectures, such as product line architectures and domain architectures, promote reuse and interoperability, and create a basis for cost effective construction of high-quality systems. Our focus in this dissertation is on domain architectures as a means of development and integration of large-scale, domain-specific business software systems. Business imperatives, including flexibility, productivity, quality, and ability to adapt to changes, have fostered demands for flexible, coherent and enterprise--wide integrated business systems. The components of such systems, developed separately or purchased off the shelf, need to cohesively form an overall compu-tational environment for the business. The inevitable complexity of such integrated solutions and the highly-demanding process of their construction, management, and evolution support require new software engineering methodologies and tools. Domain architectures, prescribing the organization of software systems in a business domain, hold a promise to serve as a foundation on which such integrated business systems can be effectively constructed. To meet the above expectations, software architectures must be properly defined, represented, and applied, which requires suitable methodologies as well as process and tool support. Despite research efforts, however, state-of-the-art methods and tools for architecture-based system development do not yet meet the practical needs of system developers. The primary focus of this dissertation is on developing methods and tools to support domain architecture engineering and on leveraging architectures to achieve improved system development and integration in presence of increased complexity. In particular, the thesis explores issues related to the following three aspects of software technology: system complexity and software architectures as tools to alleviate complexity; domain architectures as frameworks for construction of large scale, flexible, enterprise-wide software systems; and architectural models and representation techniques as a basis for good” design. The thesis presents an archi-tectural taxonomy to help categorize and better understand architectural efforts. Furthermore, it clarifies the purpose of domain architectures and characterizes them in detail. To support the definition and application of domain architectures we have developed a method for domain architecture engineering and representation: GARM-ASPECT. GARM, the Generic Architecture Reference Model, underlying the method, is a system of modeling abstractions, relations and recommendations for building representations of reference software architectures. The model\u27s focus on reference and domain architectures determines its main distinguishing features: multiple views of architectural elements, a separate rule system to express constraints on architecture element types, and annotations such as “libraries” of patterns and “logs” of guidelines. ASPECT is an architecture description language based on GARM. It provides a normalized vocabulary for representing the skeleton of an architecture, its structural view, and establishes a framework for capturing archi-tectural constraints. It also allows extensions of the structural view with auxiliary information, such as behavior or quality specifications. In this respect, ASPECT provides facilities for establishing relationships among different specifications and gluing them together within an overall architectural description. This design allows flexibility and adaptability of the methodology to the specifics of a domain or a family of systems. ASPECT supports the representation of reference architectures as well as individual system architectures. The practical applicability of this method has been tested through a case study in an industrial setting. The approach to architecture engineering and representation, presented in this dissertation, is pragmatic and oriented towards software practitioners. GARM-ASPECT, as well as the taxonomy of architectures are of use to architects, system planners and system engineers. Beyond these practical contributions, this thesis also creates a more solid basis for expbring the applicability of architectural abstractions, the practicality of representation approaches, and the changes required to the devel-opment process in order to achieve the benefits from an architecture-driven software technology

Quantum Information Effects

We study the two dual quantum information effects to manipulate the amount of information in quantum computation: hiding and allocation. The resulting type-and-effect system is fully expressive for irreversible quantum computing, including measurement. We provide universal categorical constructions that semantically interpret this arrow metalanguage with choice, starting with any rig groupoid interpreting the reversible base language. Several properties of quantum measurement follow in general, and we translate quantum flow charts into our language. The semantic constructions turn the category of unitaries between Hilbert spaces into the category of completely positive trace-preserving maps, and they turn the category of bijections between finite sets into the category of functions with chosen garbage. Thus they capture the fundamental theorems of classical and quantum reversible computing of Toffoli and Stinespring.Comment: 32 pages, including 10 page appendi

Adding Executable Context to Executable Architectures: Enabling an Executable Context Simulation Framework (ECSF)

A system that does not stand alone is represented by a complex entity of component combinations that interact with each other to execute a function. In today\u27s interconnected world, systems integrate with other systems - called a system-of-systems infrastructure: a network of interrelated systems that can often exhibit both predictable and unpredictable behavior. The current state-of-the-art evaluation process of these system-of-systems and their community of practitioners in the academic community are limited to static methods focused on defining who is doing what and where. However, to answer the questions of why and how a system operates within complex systems-of-systems interrelationships, a system\u27s architecture and context must be observed over time, its executable architecture, to discern effective predictable and unpredictable behavior. The objective of this research is to determine a method for evaluating a system\u27s executable architecture and assess the contribution and efficiency of the specified system before it is built. This research led to the development of concrete steps that synthesize the observance of the executable architecture, assessment recommendations provided by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Code of Best Practice for Command and Control (C2) Assessment, and the metrics for operational efficiency provided by the Military Missions and Means Framework. Based on the research herein, this synthesis is designed to evaluate and assess system-of-systems architectures in their operational context to provide quantitative results

Internet of Things Strategic Research Roadmap

Internet of Things (IoT) is an integrated part of Future Internet including existing and evolving Internet and network developments and could be conceptually defined as a dynamic global network infrastructure with self configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication protocols where physical and virtual “things” have identities, physical attributes, and virtual personalities, use intelligent interfaces, and are seamlessly integrated into the information network

A Collaborative Visualization Framework Using JINI™ Technology

It is difficult to achieve mutual understanding of complex information between individuals that are separated geographically. Two well-known techniques commonly used to deal with this difficultly are collaboration and information visualization. This thesis develops a generic flexible framework that supports both collaboration and information visualization. It introduces the Collaborative Visualization Environment (COVE) framework, which simplifies the development of real-time synchronous multi-user applications by decoupling the elements of collaboration from the application. This allows developers to focus on building applications and leave the difficulties of collaboration (i.e., concurrency controls, user awareness, session management, etc.) to the framework. The framework uses an object sharing approach to share information and views between participants in a collaborative session. This approach takes advantage of several Java technologies (i.e., JavaBeans™, Jini™, and JavaSpaces™). JavaBeans™ establish a well-known standard for applications to operate within the framework. Jini™ services provide framework stability and enable code sharing across the network. Objects are shared between remote clients through the JavaSpaces™ service

Ubiquitous Computing

The aim of this book is to give a treatment of the actively developed domain of Ubiquitous computing. Originally proposed by Mark D. Weiser, the concept of Ubiquitous computing enables a real-time global sensing, context-aware informational retrieval, multi-modal interaction with the user and enhanced visualization capabilities. In effect, Ubiquitous computing environments give extremely new and futuristic abilities to look at and interact with our habitat at any time and from anywhere. In that domain, researchers are confronted with many foundational, technological and engineering issues which were not known before. Detailed cross-disciplinary coverage of these issues is really needed today for further progress and widening of application range. This book collects twelve original works of researchers from eleven countries, which are clustered into four sections: Foundations, Security and Privacy, Integration and Middleware, Practical Applications