Supporting Quality of Service in Scientific Workflows

While workflow management systems have been utilized in enterprises to support businesses for almost two decades, the use of workflows in scientific environments was fairly uncommon until recently. Nowadays, scientists use workflow systems to conduct scientific experiments, simulations, and distributed computations. However, most scientific workflow management systems have not been built using existing workflow technology; rather they have been designed and developed from scratch. Due to the lack of generality of early scientific workflow systems, many domain-specific workflow systems have been developed. Generally speaking, those domain-specific approaches lack common acceptance and tool support and offer lower robustness compared to business workflow systems. In this thesis, the use of the industry standard BPEL, a workflow language for modeling business processes, is proposed for the modeling and the execution of scientific workflows. Due to the widespread use of BPEL in enterprises, a number of stable and mature software products exist. The language is expressive (Turingcomplete) and not restricted to specific applications. BPEL is well suited for the modeling of scientific workflows, but existing implementations of the standard lack important features that are necessary for the execution of scientific workflows. This work presents components that extend an existing implementation of the BPEL standard and eliminate the identified weaknesses. The components thus provide the technical basis for use of BPEL in academia. The particular focus is on so-called non-functional (Quality of Service) requirements. These requirements include scalability, reliability (fault tolerance), data security, and cost (of executing a workflow). From a technical perspective, the workflow system must be able to interface with the middleware systems that are commonly used by the scientific workflow community to allow access to heterogeneous, distributed resources (especially Grid and Cloud resources). The major components cover exactly these requirements: Cloud Resource Provisioner Scalability of the workflow system is achieved by automatically adding additional (Cloud) resources to the workflow system’s resource pool when the workflow system is heavily loaded. Fault Tolerance Module High reliability is achieved via continuous monitoring of workflow execution and corrective interventions, such as re-execution of a failed workflow step or replacement of the faulty resource. Cost Aware Data Flow Aware Scheduler The majority of scientific workflow systems only take the performance and utilization of resources for the execution of workflow steps into account when making scheduling decisions. The presented workflow system goes beyond that. By defining preference values for the weighting of costs and the anticipated workflow execution time, workflow users may influence the resource selection process. The developed multiobjective scheduling algorithm respects the defined weighting and makes both efficient and advantageous decisions using a heuristic approach. Security Extensions Because it supports various encryption, signature and authentication mechanisms (e.g., Grid Security Infrastructure), the workflow system guarantees data security in the transfer of workflow data. Furthermore, this work identifies the need to equip workflow developers with workflow modeling tools that can be used intuitively. This dissertation presents two modeling tools that support users with different needs. The first tool, DAVO (domain-adaptable, Visual BPEL Orchestrator), operates at a low level of abstraction and allows users with knowledge of BPEL to use the full extent of the language. DAVO is a software that offers extensibility and customizability for different application domains. These features are used in the implementation of the second tool, SimpleBPEL Composer. SimpleBPEL is aimed at users with little or no background in computer science and allows for quick and intuitive development of BPEL workflows based on predefined components

The Commons And The New Age of Laissez Faire

The one thing new laissez faire rhetoric seldom does is find any place for broader visions of civil society, and in particular, nonprofit organizations, voluntary action, or philanthropy which have been such important parts of the American past. Laissez faire visions of the future being promoted today are dangerously limited in at least one important respect: They omit any reference to nonprofit organizations, voluntary action or philanthropy (along with sustaining reference groups like family and support and friendship groups) as operative parts of the future. Instead, they offer an altogether familiar bi-polar social universe from the past composed of “the state” (a.k.a. “big government”) and “the individual” (which appears to include such fictive “individuals” as Fortune 500 corporations). In some alternate versions, this new laissez-faire may also find a place for “state and local government” in contast to the “big” (that is, federal) government

Law, Technology and Dispute Resolution : The Privatisation of Coercion

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Law, Technology and Dispute Resolution

The use of new information and communication technologies both inside the courts and in private online dispute resolution services is quickly changing everyday conflict management. However, the implications of the increasingly disruptive role of technology in dispute resolution remain largely undiscussed. In this book, assistant professor of law and digitalisation Riikka Koulu examines the multifaceted phenomenon of dispute resolution technology, focusing specifically on private enforcement, which modern technology enables on an unforeseen scale. The increase in private enforcement confounds legal structures and challenges the nation-state’s monopoly on violence. And, in this respect, the author argues that the technology-driven privatisation of enforcement – from direct enforcement of e-commerce platforms to self-executing smart contracts in the blockchain – brings the ethics of law’s coercive nature out into the open. This development constitutes a new, and dangerous, grey area of conflict management, which calls for transparency and public debate on the ethical implications of dispute resolution technology

Europe: from emancipation to empowerment

Marx is dead. But so is Hayek. With neoliberalism crumbling, Europeans are beginning to wonder what it is that is really wrong with the current European Union. The paper proposes the following answer: To this day, European integration has not been a process of emancipation. This shortcoming, however, is not written on the Union’s face. It requires, pursuant to best psychological traditions, a careful analysis of symptoms. One indication of the absence of emancipation is, indeed, the Union’s rhetorical embrace of empowerment

The Landscape of Artificial Intelligence Ethics: Analysis of Developments, Challenges, and Comparison of Different Markets

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementArtificial Intelligence has become a disruptive force in the everyday lives of billions of people worldwide, and the impact it has will only increase in the future. Be it an algorithm that knows precisely what we want before we are consciously aware of it or a fully automized and weaponized drone that decides in a fraction of a second if it may strike a lethal attack or not. Those algorithms are here to stay. Even if the world could come together and ban, e.g., algorithm-based weaponized systems, there would still be many systems that unintentionally harm individuals and whole societies. Therefore, we must think of AI with Ethical considerations to mitigate the harm and bias of human design, especially with the data on which the machine consciousness is created. Although it may just be an algorithm for a simple automated task, like visual classification, the outcome can have discriminatory results with long-term consequences. This thesis explores the developments and challenges of Artificial Intelligence Ethics in different markets based on specific factors, aims to answer scientific questions, and seeks to raise new ones for future research. Furthermore, measurements and approaches for mitigating risks that lead to such harmful algorithmic decisions and identifying global differences in this field are the main objectives of this research

Dispute resolution and technology : revisiting the justification of conflict management

Verkkoversio: Helsingin yliopisto, 2023The rapid increase in e-commerce transactions has led to the emergence of new dispute resolution models, e.g. online dispute resolution (ODR). Simultaneously, public courts embrace new information and communication technologies in order to overcome the shortcomings of the public court system. Technological redress is more and more often sought within the private regimes of e-commerce instead of through public courts. But what exactly does this shift to technology in dispute resolution entail? In this book Koulu examines the multifaceted phenomenon of dispute resolution technology, using private enforcement as an example, and the impact it has on justifying dispute resolution. The implementation of technology in dispute resolution reveals the hidden justificatory narratives of procedural law and thus provides possibilities for their critical examination. Koulu argues that the privatisation of enforcement – as it is enabled by different forms of technology from the direct enforcement of e-commerce market leaders to self-executing smart contracts in the blockchain – brings the inherent violence of law out into the open. This increase in private enforcement, in turn, challenges the nationstate’s monopoly on violence, which has traditionally formed the main source of justification for dispute resolution and the enforcement of judicial decisions. After examining the possibilities of finding justification for private enforcement from other sources, e.g. from private autonomy or from human rights discourse, Koulu claims that private enforcement constitutes a new grey area of conflict management. Koulu’s doctoral dissertation gives unique insight into contemporary debates both in global procedural law and law and technology studies.peerReviewe

Dispute resolution and technology : revisiting the justification of conflict management

Verkkoversio: Helsingin yliopisto, 2023The rapid increase in e-commerce transactions has led to the emergence of new dispute resolution models, e.g. online dispute resolution (ODR). Simultaneously, public courts embrace new information and communication technologies in order to overcome the shortcomings of the public court system. Technological redress is more and more often sought within the private regimes of e-commerce instead of through public courts. But what exactly does this shift to technology in dispute resolution entail? In this book Koulu examines the multifaceted phenomenon of dispute resolution technology, using private enforcement as an example, and the impact it has on justifying dispute resolution. The implementation of technology in dispute resolution reveals the hidden justificatory narratives of procedural law and thus provides possibilities for their critical examination. Koulu argues that the privatisation of enforcement – as it is enabled by different forms of technology from the direct enforcement of e-commerce market leaders to self-executing smart contracts in the blockchain – brings the inherent violence of law out into the open. This increase in private enforcement, in turn, challenges the nationstate’s monopoly on violence, which has traditionally formed the main source of justification for dispute resolution and the enforcement of judicial decisions. After examining the possibilities of finding justification for private enforcement from other sources, e.g. from private autonomy or from human rights discourse, Koulu claims that private enforcement constitutes a new grey area of conflict management. Koulu’s doctoral dissertation gives unique insight into contemporary debates both in global procedural law and law and technology studies.VertaisarvioitupeerReviewe

Managing and Teaching Ethics in Higher Education

Following the development of Globethics.net’s new Strategy, Vision and Mission, the Globethics.net International Conference 2018 came as an honest contribution to the urgent search for solutions to a world noticeably and without doubt in disarray, as problems continue to mount. ‘How can we translate and make ethics practically present and relevant in the classroom and lives of students, teachers and professionals who emerge from higher education institutions?’ More than 100 teachers, policy makers, research fellows, vice-chancellors, ethics and scientific institutions, consultants, NGOs, IGOs and other stakeholders gathered from all over the world during three days to answer this question. The conference took place on 4–6 June 2018 at the Château de Bossey in the county of Vaud, Switzerland. This book is structured into two parts: the first is composed of discussions and ethical puzzles meant to bring breakthrough insights from the Globethics.net International Conference on ethics in higher education; the second part features selected papers that disclose the conference proceedings

Through A Glass, Darkly Technical, Policy, and Financial Actions to Avert the Coming Digital Dark Ages

Through A Glass, Darkly Technical, Policy, and Financial Actions to Avert the Coming Digital Dark Age