Building Distributed Systems for the Pragmatic Object Web

We review the growing power and capability of commodity computing and communication technologies largely driven by commercial distributed information systems. These systems are built from CORBA, Microsoft\u27s COM, JavaBeans, and rapidly advancing Web approaches. One can abstract these to a three-tier model with largely independent clients connected to a distributed network of servers. The latter host various services including object and relational databases and of course parallel and sequential computing. High performance can be obtained by combining concurrency at the middle server tier with optimized parallel back end services. The resultant system combines the needed performance for large-scale HPCC applications with the rich functionality of commodity systems. Further the architecture with distinct interface, server and specialized service implementation layers, naturally allows advances in each area to be easily incorporated. We illustrate how performance can be obtained within a commodity architecture and we propose a middleware integration approach based on JWORB (Java Web Object Broker) multi-protocol server technology. We illustrate our approach on a set of prototype applications in areas such as collaborative systems, support of multidisciplinary interactions, WebFlow based visual metacomputing, WebFlow over Globus, Quantum Monte Carlo and distributed interactive simulations

Pervasiveness of a Programming Paradigm: Questions Concerning an Object-oriented Approach

This paper outlines the way in which a radical syllabus is being designed for the new introductory computing course being offered by the Open University from 1997. It describes how a decision to teach object-oriented programming has resulted in the associated concepts and paradigm pervading the syllabus. The result is a novel ped- agogy by which students take considerable time to begin conventional programming. The context for this innovatory approach is a very large student population (3,500 per year), a long lead time for developing courses, and a need to remain current six or seven years after conception. The background and the emerging syllabus are both summarized and questions concerning the teaching of the object-oriented approach are raised

Chapter Leveraging Internet-of-Things to Support Circular Economy Paradigm in Manufacturing Industry

Circular economy represents a fundamental alternative to the currently predominating linear economy model, while Industry 4.0 is a technological enabler to bring process innovation in the industrial domain. New economic models are needed in order to reduce material inputs and waste generation leveraging on ecodesign, recycling and reusing of products, new business models, and new technologies. Internet-of-Things and artificial intelligence can support the circular economy paradigm, through the development of a marketplace for connecting buyers and sellers of manufacturing services, raw materials and products toward building global supply chains. The core component of this marketplace is a novel, agent-based, brokering module that will apply both syntactic and semantic matching in terms of manufacturing capabilities, in order to find the best possible supplier to fulfill a request for a service, raw materials or products involved in the supply chain

Leveraging Internet-of-Things to Support Circular Economy Paradigm in Manufacturing Industry

Circular economy represents a fundamental alternative to the currently predominating linear economy model, while Industry 4.0 is a technological enabler to bring process innovation in the industrial domain. New economic models are needed in order to reduce material inputs and waste generation leveraging on ecodesign, recycling and reusing of products, new business models, and new technologies. Internet-of-Things and artificial intelligence can support the circular economy paradigm, through the development of a marketplace for connecting buyers and sellers of manufacturing services, raw materials and products toward building global supply chains. The core component of this marketplace is a novel, agent-based, brokering module that will apply both syntactic and semantic matching in terms of manufacturing capabilities, in order to find the best possible supplier to fulfill a request for a service, raw materials or products involved in the supply chain

Survey: Agent-based Middlewares for Context Awareness

In the last few years, many middlewares for context awareness have claimed to be agent-based. In this paper, we make a survey on the most known frameworks. We classify them according to their level of conformity to the agent paradigm and we discuss the usefulness of agents in these frameworks. Based on this survey, we enumerate several advantages of using agents in context-aware middlewares and give illustrative examples. We also point to the weakness of existing frameworks and identify challenges to be addressed