Quality-aware model-driven service engineering

Service engineering and service-oriented architecture as an integration and platform technology is a recent approach to software systems integration. Quality aspects ranging from interoperability to maintainability to performance are of central importance for the integration of heterogeneous, distributed service-based systems. Architecture models can substantially influence quality attributes of the implemented software systems. Besides the benefits of explicit architectures on maintainability and reuse, architectural constraints such as styles, reference architectures and architectural patterns can influence observable software properties such as performance. Empirical performance evaluation is a process of measuring and evaluating the performance of implemented software. We present an approach for addressing the quality of services and service-based systems at the model-level in the context of model-driven service engineering. The focus on architecture-level models is a consequence of the black-box character of services

Interactive Visual Analysis of Networked Systems: Workflows for Two Industrial Domains

We report on a first study of interactive visual analysis of networked systems. Working with ABB Corporate Research and Ericsson Research, we have created workflows which demonstrate the potential of visualization in the domains of industrial automation and telecommunications. By a workflow in this context, we mean a sequence of visualizations and the actions for generating them. Visualizations can be any images that represent properties of the data sets analyzed, and actions typically either change the selection of data visualized or change the visualization by choice of technique or change of parameters

ADEPT2 - Next Generation Process Management Technology

If current process management systems shall be applied to a broad spectrum of applications, they will have to be significantly improved with respect to their technological capabilities. In particular, in dynamic environments it must be possible to quickly implement and deploy new processes, to enable ad-hoc modifications of single process instances at runtime (e.g., to add, delete or shift process steps), and to support process schema evolution with instance migration, i.e., to propagate process schema changes to already running instances. These requirements must be met without affecting process consistency and by preserving the robustness of the process management system. In this paper we describe how these challenges have been addressed and solved in the ADEPT2 Process Management System. Our overall vision is to provide a next generation process management technology which can be used in a variety of application domains

Enhancing Workflow with a Semantic Description of Scientific Intent

Peer reviewedPreprin

Generating collaborative systems for digital libraries: A model-driven approach

This is an open access article shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Copyright @ 2010 The Authors.The design and development of a digital library involves different stakeholders, such as: information architects, librarians, and domain experts, who need to agree on a common language to describe, discuss, and negotiate the services the library has to offer. To this end, high-level, language-neutral models have to be devised. Metamodeling techniques favor the definition of domainspecific visual languages through which stakeholders can share their views and directly manipulate representations of the domain entities. This paper describes CRADLE (Cooperative-Relational Approach to Digital Library Environments), a metamodel-based framework and visual language for the definition of notions and services related to the development of digital libraries. A collection of tools allows the automatic generation of several services, defined with the CRADLE visual language, and of the graphical user interfaces providing access to them for the final user. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by presenting digital libraries generated with CRADLE, while the CRADLE environment has been evaluated by using the cognitive dimensions framework

Planning and managing the cost of compromise for AV retention and access

Long-term retention and access to audiovisual (AV) assets as part of a preservation strategy inevitably involve some form of compromise in order to achieve acceptable levels of cost, throughput, quality, and many other parameters. Examples include quality control and throughput in media transfer chains; data safety and accessibility in digital storage systems; and service levels for ingest and access for archive functions delivered as services. We present new software tools and frameworks developed in the PrestoPRIME project that allow these compromises to be quantitatively assessed, planned, and managed for file-based AV assets. Our focus is how to give an archive an assurance that when they design and operate a preservation strategy as a set of services, it will function as expected and will cope with the inevitable and often unpredictable variations that happen in operation. This includes being able to do cost projections, sensitivity analysis, simulation of “disaster scenarios,” and to govern preservation services using service-level agreements and policies

AMP: A Science-driven Web-based Application for the TeraGrid

The Asteroseismic Modeling Portal (AMP) provides a web-based interface for astronomers to run and view simulations that derive the properties of Sun-like stars from observations of their pulsation frequencies. In this paper, we describe the architecture and implementation of AMP, highlighting the lightweight design principles and tools used to produce a functional fully-custom web-based science application in less than a year. Targeted as a TeraGrid science gateway, AMP's architecture and implementation are intended to simplify its orchestration of TeraGrid computational resources. AMP's web-based interface was developed as a traditional standalone database-backed web application using the Python-based Django web development framework, allowing us to leverage the Django framework's capabilities while cleanly separating the user interface development from the grid interface development. We have found this combination of tools flexible and effective for rapid gateway development and deployment.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, in Proceedings of the 5th Grid Computing Environments Worksho

Teaching photonic integrated circuits with Jupyter notebooks : design, simulation, fabrication

At Ghent University, we have built a course curriculum on integrated photonics, and in particular silicon photonics, based on interactive Jupyter Notebooks. This has been used in short workshops, specialization courses at PhD level, as well as the M.Sc. Photonics Engineering program at Ghent University and the Free University of Brussels. The course material teaches the concepts of on-chip waveguides, basic building blocks, circuits, the design process, fabrication and measurements. The Jupyter notebook environment provides an interface where static didactic content (text, figures, movies, formulas) is mixed with Python code that the user can modify and execute, and interactive plots and widgets to explore the effect of changes in circuits or components. The Python environment supplies a host of scientific and engineering libraries, while the photonic capabilities are based on IPKISS, a commercial design framework for photonic integrated circuits by Luceda Photonics. The IPKISS framework allows scripting of layout and simulation directly from the Jupyter notebooks, so the teaching modules contain live circuit simulation, as well as integration with electromagnetic solvers. Because this is a complete design framework, students can also use it to tape out a small chip design which is fabricated through a rapid prototyping service and then measured, allowing the students to validate the actual performance of their design against the original simulation. The scripting in Jupyter notebooks also provides a self-documenting design flow, and the use of an established design tool guarantees that the acquired skills can be transferred to larger, real-world design projects