Enhancement of the usability of SOA services for novice users

Recently, the automation of service integration has provided a significant advantage in delivering services to novice users. This art of integrating various services is known as Service Composition and its main purpose is to simplify the development process for web applications and facilitates reuse of services. It is one of the paradigms that enables services to end-users (i.e.service provisioning) through the outsourcing of web contents and it requires users to share and reuse services in more collaborative ways. Most service composers are effective at enabling integration of web contents, but they do not enable universal access across different groups of users. This is because, the currently existing content aggregators require complex interactions in order to create web applications (e.g., Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL)) as a result not all users are able to use such web tools. This trend demands changes in the web tools that end-users use to gain and share information, hence this research uses Mashups as a service composition technique to allow novice users to integrate publicly available Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) services, where there is a minimal active web application development. Mashups being the platforms that integrate disparate web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to create user defined web applications; presents a great opportunity for service provisioning. However, their usability for novice users remains invalidated since Mashup tools are not easy to use they require basic programming skills which makes the process of designing and creating Mashups difficult. This is because Mashup tools access heterogeneous web contents using public web APIs and the process of integrating them become complex since web APIs are tailored by different vendors. Moreover, the design of Mashup editors is unnecessary complex; as a result, users do not know where to start when creating Mashups. This research address the gap between Mashup tools and usability by the designing and implementing a semantically enriched Mashup tool to discover, annotate and compose APIs to improve the utilization of SOA services by novice users. The researchers conducted an analysis of the already existing Mashup tools to identify challenges and weaknesses experienced by novice Mashup users. The findings from the requirement analysis formulated the system usability requirements that informed the design and implementation of the proposed Mashup tool. The proposed architecture addressed three layers: composition, annotation and discovery. The researchers developed a simple Mashup tool referred to as soa-Services Provisioner (SerPro) that allowed novice users to create web application flexibly. Its usability and effectiveness was validated. The proposed Mashup tool enhanced the usability of SOA services, since data analysis and results showed that it was usable to novice users by scoring a System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 72.08. Furthermore, this research discusses the research limitations and future work for further improvements

Quality of Service Aware Data Stream Processing for Highly Dynamic and Scalable Applications

Huge amounts of georeferenced data streams are arriving daily to data stream management systems that are deployed for serving highly scalable and dynamic applications. There are innumerable ways at which those loads can be exploited to gain deep insights in various domains. Decision makers require an interactive visualization of such data in the form of maps and dashboards for decision making and strategic planning. Data streams normally exhibit fluctuation and oscillation in arrival rates and skewness. Those are the two predominant factors that greatly impact the overall quality of service. This requires data stream management systems to be attuned to those factors in addition to the spatial shape of the data that may exaggerate the negative impact of those factors. Current systems do not natively support services with quality guarantees for dynamic scenarios, leaving the handling of those logistics to the user which is challenging and cumbersome. Three workloads are predominant for any data stream, batch processing, scalable storage and stream processing. In this thesis, we have designed a quality of service aware system, SpatialDSMS, that constitutes several subsystems that are covering those loads and any mixed load that results from intermixing them. Most importantly, we natively have incorporated quality of service optimizations for processing avalanches of geo-referenced data streams in highly dynamic application scenarios. This has been achieved transparently on top of the codebases of emerging de facto standard best-in-class representatives, thus relieving the overburdened shoulders of the users in the presentation layer from having to reason about those services. Instead, users express their queries with quality goals and our system optimizers compiles that down into query plans with an embedded quality guarantee and leaves logistic handling to the underlying layers. We have developed standard compliant prototypes for all the subsystems that constitutes SpatialDSMS

Helping end-user programmers find and fix performance problems in visual code

End-user programmers often struggle to create programs that run quickly and effectively, which can be a major deterrent in completing their tasks as desired. Current research has primarily focused on catching user mistakes, such as errors or misused formulas. However, end users deal with issues other than just correctness. In particular, there are very few tools and very little research aimed at helping end-user programmers to find and fix performance issues. This thesis details three specific methods: detecting code smells, combining static code smell detection with profiling information, and the semi-automatic or tool-guided removal of code smells. These methods have been prototyped to interface with the Labview IDE with the support of National Instruments. These methods have been evaluated through several user studies to ensure that they are effective and helpful

Proceedings of VikingPLoP 2012 Conference

The papers in this proceedings are updated versions of the papers workshopped in the conference. Participants submitted their papers for shepherding process. In shepherding process, experienced pattern writer gave ideas and feedback for the author, colloquially known as a sheep. The sheep incorporated this feedback in to her paper. After three iterations of shepherding the paper was discussed at the conference in writer's workshop. Workshop group gave comments, criticism and praise. After the conference sheep updated their papers according to the workshop feedback. This process of giving feedback was made possible by having community of trust. Mutual trust was built by playing non-competitive games and by having social activities. VikingPLoP 2012 focused on patterns and their usage in various fields of expertise. These fields included a wide range of topics from language teaching to embedded system's software architecture. Bringing people together from various fields of expertise, stimulates creativity and new ideas might emerge. These innovations are reflected in the papers in these proceedings. VikingPLoP 2012 was especially a conference for newcomers and over half of the participants were first time PLoP participants. These proceedings contain 10 papers and description of one focus group. In addition, a shepherding workshop was arranged and updated version of the demo pattern used in this workshop is also presented in the proceedings. The conference had two writer's workshop groups. Papers are organized as follows: in the first part of the proceedings patterns for embedded systems are presented and the second part contains general software related patterns. Finally in the third part, interdisciplinary patterns are included.<br/

Proceedings of VikingPLoP 2012 Conference

The papers in this proceedings are updated versions of the papers workshopped in the conference. Participants submitted their papers for shepherding process. In shepherding process, experienced pattern writer gave ideas and feedback for the author, colloquially known as a sheep. The sheep incorporated this feedback in to her paper. After three iterations of shepherding the paper was discussed at the conference in writer's workshop. Workshop group gave comments, criticism and praise. After the conference sheep updated their papers according to the workshop feedback. This process of giving feedback was made possible by having community of trust. Mutual trust was built by playing non-competitive games and by having social activities. VikingPLoP 2012 focused on patterns and their usage in various fields of expertise. These fields included a wide range of topics from language teaching to embedded system's software architecture. Bringing people together from various fields of expertise, stimulates creativity and new ideas might emerge. These innovations are reflected in the papers in these proceedings. VikingPLoP 2012 was especially a conference for newcomers and over half of the participants were first time PLoP participants. These proceedings contain 10 papers and description of one focus group. In addition, a shepherding workshop was arranged and updated version of the demo pattern used in this workshop is also presented in the proceedings. The conference had two writer's workshop groups. Papers are organized as follows: in the first part of the proceedings patterns for embedded systems are presented and the second part contains general software related patterns. Finally in the third part, interdisciplinary patterns are included.<br/

Application of service composition mechanisms to Future Networks architectures and Smart Grids

Aquesta tesi gira entorn de la hipòtesi de la metodologia i mecanismes de composició de serveis i com es poden aplicar a diferents camps d'aplicació per a orquestrar de manera eficient comunicacions i processos flexibles i sensibles al context. Més concretament, se centra en dos camps d'aplicació: la distribució eficient i sensible al context de contingut multimèdia i els serveis d'una xarxa elèctrica intel·ligent. En aquest últim camp es centra en la gestió de la infraestructura, cap a la definició d'una Software Defined Utility (SDU), que proposa una nova manera de gestionar la Smart Grid amb un enfocament basat en programari, que permeti un funcionament molt més flexible de la infraestructura de xarxa elèctrica. Per tant, revisa el context, els requisits i els reptes, així com els enfocaments de la composició de serveis per a aquests camps. Fa especial èmfasi en la combinació de la composició de serveis amb arquitectures Future Network (FN), presentant una proposta de FN orientada a serveis per crear comunicacions adaptades i sota demanda. També es presenten metodologies i mecanismes de composició de serveis per operar sobre aquesta arquitectura, i posteriorment, es proposa el seu ús (en conjunció o no amb l'arquitectura FN) en els dos camps d'estudi. Finalment, es presenta la investigació i desenvolupament realitzat en l'àmbit de les xarxes intel·ligents, proposant diverses parts de la infraestructura SDU amb exemples d'aplicació de composició de serveis per dissenyar seguretat dinàmica i flexible o l'orquestració i gestió de serveis i recursos dins la infraestructura de l'empresa elèctrica.Esta tesis gira en torno a la hipótesis de la metodología y mecanismos de composición de servicios y cómo se pueden aplicar a diferentes campos de aplicación para orquestar de manera eficiente comunicaciones y procesos flexibles y sensibles al contexto. Más concretamente, se centra en dos campos de aplicación: la distribución eficiente y sensible al contexto de contenido multimedia y los servicios de una red eléctrica inteligente. En este último campo se centra en la gestión de la infraestructura, hacia la definición de una Software Defined Utility (SDU), que propone una nueva forma de gestionar la Smart Grid con un enfoque basado en software, que permita un funcionamiento mucho más flexible de la infraestructura de red eléctrica. Por lo tanto, revisa el contexto, los requisitos y los retos, así como los enfoques de la composición de servicios para estos campos. Hace especial hincapié en la combinación de la composición de servicios con arquitecturas Future Network (FN), presentando una propuesta de FN orientada a servicios para crear comunicaciones adaptadas y bajo demanda. También se presentan metodologías y mecanismos de composición de servicios para operar sobre esta arquitectura, y posteriormente, se propone su uso (en conjunción o no con la arquitectura FN) en los dos campos de estudio. Por último, se presenta la investigación y desarrollo realizado en el ámbito de las redes inteligentes, proponiendo varias partes de la infraestructura SDU con ejemplos de aplicación de composición de servicios para diseñar seguridad dinámica y flexible o la orquestación y gestión de servicios y recursos dentro de la infraestructura de la empresa eléctrica.This thesis revolves around the hypothesis the service composition methodology and mechanisms and how they can be applied to different fields of application in order to efficiently orchestrate flexible and context-aware communications and processes. More concretely, it focuses on two fields of application that are the context-aware media distribution and smart grid services and infrastructure management, towards a definition of a Software-Defined Utility (SDU), which proposes a new way of managing the Smart Grid following a software-based approach that enable a much more flexible operation of the power infrastructure. Hence, it reviews the context, requirements and challenges of these fields, as well as the service composition approaches. It makes special emphasis on the combination of service composition with Future Network (FN) architectures, presenting a service-oriented FN proposal for creating context-aware on-demand communication services. Service composition methodology and mechanisms are also presented in order to operate over this architecture, and afterwards, proposed for their usage (in conjunction or not with the FN architecture) in the deployment of context-aware media distribution and Smart Grids. Finally, the research and development done in the field of Smart Grids is depicted, proposing several parts of the SDU infrastructure, with examples of service composition application for designing dynamic and flexible security for smart metering or the orchestration and management of services and data resources within the utility infrastructure

Planning and Integrated Design of Urban Heat-Sharing Networks

Résumé Ces dernières années, les villes ont dû renforcer leurs obligations en matière de réduction de leur impact sur l’environnement. Heureusement, les villes relèvent ce défi et sont déterminées à trouver des solutions. La consommation d’énergie des bâtiments est l’un des principaux obstacles au développement durable. Les villes sont construites pour fournir des espaces confortables et habitables à leurs habitants, ainsi que pour assurer un environnement résistant aux événements météorologiques et climatiques. Cependant, fournir ce confort nécessite de grandes quantités d’énergie, ce qui participe aux changements climatiques. Les besoins en énergie des bâtiments étant en grande partie le résultat de décisions en matière de conception, les constructeurs des villes de demain ont un contrôle sur les différentes solutions proposées dans le domaine de l’environnement bâti. Des solutions technologiques existent, mais la bonne solution doit être mise en œuvre dans le bon contexte. Cette thèse porte sur une solution technique clé : l’utilisation de réseaux urbains d’énergie pour répartir — ou partager — la chaleur entre les bâtiments et équilibrer les charges de chauffage et de refroidissement restantes avec des sources de chaleur ou des puits hautement efficaces et à faible émission de carbone. Cette thèse est également motivée par les relations interdisciplinaires complexes entre les concepteurs participant à l’urbanisme, à l’architecture et à l’ingénierie de l’environnement bâti. Elle plaide en faveur d’un processus de conception intégrée piloté par les données et propose des méthodologies et des outils pour informer et activer ce processus de conception. Un indicateur de performance, l’indice de diversité thermique, est proposée pour localiser et évaluer la compatibilité thermique entre des bâtiments présentant différents niveaux de filtrage spatio-temporel. La thèse apporte ensuite des contributions aux différentes étapes nécessaires à la conception et à l’évaluation de réseaux de partage de chaleur, faisant souvent partie de la 5e génération de systèmes de chauffage et de refroidissement urbains : évaluer la demande thermique des bâtiments à l’échelle de la ville en optimisant la topologie des réseaux urbains d’énergie et l’intégration de sources d’énergie efficaces et à faibles émissions de carbone. Les archétypes, ou représentations typiques des bâtiments sont les fondements de nombreux outils de modélisation énergétique des bâtiments urbains (UBEM). Une méthodologie est proposée pour générer automatiquement des modèles d’archétype adaptés aux méthodes de modélisation contextuelles telles que celle implémentée dans UMI, l’un des principaux outils UBEM. La thèse aborde ensuite la complexité de la combinaison de sources de données partiellement complètes et parfois contradictoires pour obtenir une carte dynamique de la demande de chaleur pour une ville telle que Montréal. La méthodologie proposée comprend l’utilisation d’empreintes de bâtiment virtuelles basées sur des données ALS (Airborne Laser Scanning) (également appelées données LiDAR) pour estimer les empreintes au sol et les hauteurs de bâtiment. Elle est appliquée pour obtenir une carte dynamique de la demande de chaleur de bâtiments résidentiels, commerciaux et institutionnels pour l’ensemble de la ville de Montréal. Pour compléter le processus de conception des réseaux de partage de chaleur, cette thèse propose une méthodologie qui étend la capacité des algorithmes d’optimisation de la littérature utilisés pour les réseaux de chauffage et de refroidissement urbains : elle permet des flux de puissance bidirectionnels inhérents au partage de chaleur et optimise la compétitivité à long terme de l’approvisionnement en chaleur en équilibrant les coûts totaux d’exploitation et les coûts totaux d’investissement des différentes unités d’alimentation en chaleur. L’algorithme proposé, avec les autres contributions de la thèse, ouvre la porte à un cadre d’optimisation visant à peser l’impact des choix de conception inhérents à la sélection de la densité de construction, de la forme du bâtiment et de ses performances. Cette thèse affirme que l’intégration de cette optimisation des réseaux de partage de chaleur dans la phase de planification peut avoir une incidence nouvelle et imprévue sur la performance environnementale des futurs quartiers. Conformément à cet objectif à long terme, les contributions méthodologiques ont été mises en œuvre dans des outils contribuant à l’expansion rapide du corpus de logiciels en code ouvert. Avec les contributions à la littérature et aux pratiques de planification des réseaux urbains d’énergie, ces outils offrent une solution à la planification et à la conception intégrée de réseaux de partage de chaleur en milieu urbain. ---------- Abstract In recent years, cities have had to step up their obligations to reducing their impact on the environment. Fortunately, cities are rising to this challenge and are determined to find solutions. One piece of the larger sustainability problem is the energy use of buildings. Cities are built to provide comfortable and livable spaces to their inhabitants as well as ensure a resilient environment towards meteorological and climatic events. However, providing this comfort requires large amounts of energy, which exacerbates climate change. Since the energy requirements of buildings are in large part the result of design decisions, the builders of cities have an innate control over the various solutions in the built environment problem space. Technological solutions exist, but the right solution must be implemented in the right context. This thesis focuses on one key technical solution: the use of district energy systems to distribute—or share—heat between buildings and balance the remaining heating and cooling loads with highly efficient, low-carbon heat sources or sinks. This thesis is also motivated by the complex interdisciplinary relationships between designers participating in the urban planning, the architecture and the engineering of the built environment. It makes the case for a data-driven Integrated Design process and proposes methodologies and tools to inform and enable this design process. An urban planning metric, the thermal diversity index, is proposed to locate and assess the thermal compatibility between buildings with various levels of spatial and temporal filtering. The thesis then makes contributions to the different steps required in designing and assessing heat-sharing networks, often part of the 5th generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC): assessing the thermal demand of buildings at the city scale, optimizing the topology of district systems, and integrating efficient and low-carbon energy sources within an overall optimization process. Archetypes, or typical representations of buildings, are the foundation stones of many Urban Building Energy Modelling (UBEM) tools. A methodology is proposed to automatically generate archetype templates adapted to context-aware modelling methods such as the one implemented in UMI, one of the prominent UBEM tools. The thesis then addresses the complexity of combining partially complete and sometimes contradictory data sources to obtain a dynamic heat demand map for a city such as Montréal,Canada. The proposed methodology includes the use of virtual building footprints based on Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data (also known as LiDAR data) to estimate building footprint areas and building heights. It is applied to obtain a dynamic heat demand map of residential, commercial and institutional buildings for the whole city of Montréal. To complete the design process of heat-sharing networks, this dissertation proposes a methodology that expands the capability of state-of-the-art optimization algorithms used for district heating and cooling networks: it allows bidirectional power flows that are inherent to heat-sharing networks and optimizes the long-term competitiveness of heat supply by balancing the total operating costs and the total investment costs of different heat supply units. The proposed algorithm, with the other contributions of the thesis, opens the door to an optimization framework aiming to weigh in the impact of design choices inherent to the selection of built density, building form and building systems performance. This thesis proclaims that bringing this optimization of heat-sharing networks inside the planning phase can impact the environmental performance of future districts in new and unforeseen ways. In line with this long-term goal, the methodological contributions were implemented in tools contributing to the rapidly expanding body of open source software. Together with the contributions to the literature and the district energy planning practice, these tools offer one solution to the planning and integrated design of urban heat-sharing networks

Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering, FASE 2020, which took place in Dublin, Ireland, in April 2020, and was held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2020. The 23 full papers, 1 tool paper and 6 testing competition papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 81 submissions. The papers cover topics such as requirements engineering, software architectures, specification, software quality, validation, verification of functional and non-functional properties, model-driven development and model transformation, software processes, security and software evolution

Human-in-the-Loop Cyber-Physical-Systems based on Smartphones

Tese de doutoramento em Ciências e Tecnologias da Informação, apresentada ao Departamento de Engenharia Informática da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de CoimbraTechnological devices increasingly become smaller, more mobile, powerful and efficient. However, each time we have to hurdle through unintuitive menus, errors and incompatibilities we become stressed by our technology. As first put forward by the renowned computer scientist Mark Weiser, the ultimate form of computers may be an extension of our subconscious. The ideal computer would be capable of truly understanding people's unconscious actions and desires. Instead of humans adapting to technology and learning how to use it, it would be technology that would adapt to the disposition and uniqueness of each human being. This thesis focuses on the realm of Human-in-the-loop Cyber-Physical Systems (HiTLCPSs). HiTLCPSs infer the users’ intents, psychological states, emotions and actions, using this information to determine the system's behavior. This involves using a large variety of sensors and mobile devices to monitor and evaluate human nature. Therefore, this technology has strong ties with wireless sensor networks, robotics, machine-learning and the Internet of Things. In particular, our work focuses on the usage of smartphones within these systems. It begins by describing a framework to understand the principles and theory of HiTLCPSs. It provides some insights into current research being done on this topic, its challenges, and requirements. Another of the thesis' objectives is to present our innovative taxonomy of human roles, where we attempt to understand how a human may interact with HiTLCPSs and how to best explore this resource. This thesis also describes concrete examples of the practical usage of HiTL paradigms. As such, we included a comprehensive description of our research work and associated prototypes, where the major theoretical concepts behind HiTLCPS were applied and evaluated to specific scenarios. Finally, we discuss our personal view on the future and evolution of these systems.A tecnologia tem vindo a tornar-se cada vez mais pequena, móvel, poderosa e eficiente. No entanto, lidar com menus pouco intuitivos, erros, e incompatibilidades, causa frustração aos seus utilizadores. Segundo o reconhecido cientista Mark Weiser, os computadores do futuro poderão vir a existir como se fossem uma extensão do nosso subconsciente. O computador ideal seria capaz de entender, em toda a sua plenitude, as ações e os desejos inconscientes dos seres humanos. Em vez de serem os humanos a adaptarem-se à tecnologia e a aprender a usá-la, seria a tecnologia a aprender a adaptar-se à disposição e individualidade de cada ser humano. Esta tese foca-se na área dos Human-in-the-loop Cyber-Physical Systems (HiTLCPSs). Os HiTLCPSs inferem as intenções, estados psicológicos, emoções e ações dos seus utilizadores, usando esta informação para determinar o comportamento do sistema ciber-físico. Isto envolve a utilização de uma grande variedade de sensores e dispositivos móveis que monitorizam e avaliam a natureza humana. Assim sendo, esta tecnologia tem fortes ligações com redes de sensores sem fios, robótica, algoritmos de aprendizagem de máquina e a Internet das Coisas. Em particular, o nosso trabalho focou-se na utilização de smartphones dentro destes sistemas. Começamos por descrever uma estrutura para compreender os princípios e teoria associados aos HiTLCPSs. Esta análise permitiu-nos adquirir alguma clareza sobre a investigação a ser feita sobre este tópico, e sobre os seus desafios e requisitos. Outro dos objetivos desta tese é o de apresentar a nossa inovadora taxonomia sobre os papeis do ser humano nos HiTLCPSs, onde tentamos perceber as possíveis interações do ser humano com estes sistemas e as melhores formas de explorar este recurso. Esta tese também descreve exemplos concretos da utilização prática dos paradigmas HiTL. Desta forma, incluímos uma descrição do nosso trabalho experimental e dos protótipos que lhe estão associados, onde os conceitos teóricos dos HiTLCPSs foram aplicados e avaliados em diversos casos de estudo. Por fim, apresentamos a nossa perspetiva pessoal sobre o futuro e evolução destes sistemas.Fundação Luso-Americana para o DesenvolvimentoFP7-ICT-2007-2 GINSENG projectiCIS project (CENTRO-07-ST24-FEDER-002003)SOCIALITE project (PTDC/EEI-SCR/2072/2014