An architecture for certification-aware service discovery

Service-orientation is an emerging paradigm for building complex systems based on loosely coupled components, deployed and consumed over the network. Despite the original intent of the paradigm, its current instantiations are limited to a single trust domain (e.g., a single organization). Also, some of the key promises of service-orientation - such as the dynamic orchestration of externally provided software services, using runtime service discovery and deployment - are still unachieved. One of the main reasons for this is the trust gap that normally arises when software services, offered by previously unknown providers, are to be selected at run-time, without any human intervention. To close this gap, the concept of machine-readable security certificates (called asserts) has been recently introduced, which paves the way to automated processing about security properties of services. Similarly to current security certification schemes, the assessment of the security properties of a service is delegated to an independent third party (certification authority), who issues a corresponding assert, bound to the service. In this paper, we propose an architecture, which exploits the assert concept to realise a certification-aware service discovery framework. The architecture supports the discovery of single services based on certified security properties (in additional to the usual functional properties), as well as the dynamic synthesis of service compositions, that satisfy the given security properties. The architecture is extensible, thus allowing for a range of domain specific matchmaking components, to cover dimensions related to, e.g., performance, cost and other non-functional characteristics

The joy of matching

Here, the authors discuss matching problems and how the Gale-Shapley algorithm solves them, while also explaining some matching techniques

Action Design Research for Social Innovation: Lessons from Designing a Health and Wellbeing Platform

IT artifacts play an important role in solving societal problems and realizing social innovations. Existing practice-inspired design science research (DSR) approaches, such as Action Design Research (ADR), do not consider social innovation as an explicit starting point for design iterations. In this paper, we explore how social innovation as a starting point affects the ADR approach. By reflecting on a three-year long ADR project in the domain of health and wellbeing, we suggest four principles to extend the ADR approach: (1) Translate a societal problem into practical problems on a stakeholder-level; (2) Reciprocal shaping between social practices and the IT artifact; (3) Involve citizens early and throughout the project; and (4) Balance political, economic and societal values for evaluating ADR results

Open-system orchestration as a relational source of sensing capabilities: Evidence from a venture association

Research on innovation networks has highlighted the pivotal role that actors with more prominence and power, such as hub firms, may play in orchestrating the activities of other network members along a collective innovation effort. Our study examined the undertheorized, but no less important, type of orchestration that characterizes other organizations, such as business incubators and venture associations, who seek to support the dispersed entrepreneurial efforts of network members. We refer to this type as ‘open-system’ orchestration, as opposed to the commonly studied ‘closed-system’ type performed by hub firms. Our findings reveal how the processes of open-system orchestration differ markedly from those of closed-system orchestration, and detail how these processes influence the micro-foundations of network members’ sensing capabilities. By doing so, we also offer empirical substantiation and theoretical elaboration to the idea that dynamic capabilities might not reside exclusively inside firms, but could be co-created relationally with other parties in the business ecosystem

A framework for branched storytelling and matchmaking in multiplayer games

Video games often either have good single player campaign modes or good multi-player campaign-less modes. This paper presents a framework aimed at the full game development pipeline, from designers to programmers, to aid in creating multiplayer campaigns by providing components that help singleplayer story modes to be used in multiplayer interaction settings. We also propose a custom matchmaking system capable of matching players so as to intertwine their individual stories. The proposed framework has been validated in a case study. A set of experimental results show that the framework is capable of producing valuable story crossings and proper matchmaking.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Analysis of Matchmaking Optimization Systems Potential in Mobile eSports

Matchmaking systems are one of the core features of experience in online gaming. They influence player satisfaction, engagement, and churn risk. The paper looks into the current state of the theoretical and practical implementation of such systems in the mobile gaming industry. We propose a basic classification of matchmaking systems into random and quasi-random, skill-based, role-based, technical factor-based, and engagement based. We also offer an analysis of matchmaking systems in 16 leading mobile Esport games. The dominant industry solution is skill and rank based systems with a different level of skill depth measurement. In the further part of the paper, we present a theoretical model of engagement and a time-optimized model

Higher-Order Process Modeling: Product-Lining, Variability Modeling and Beyond

We present a graphical and dynamic framework for binding and execution of business) process models. It is tailored to integrate 1) ad hoc processes modeled graphically, 2) third party services discovered in the (Inter)net, and 3) (dynamically) synthesized process chains that solve situation-specific tasks, with the synthesis taking place not only at design time, but also at runtime. Key to our approach is the introduction of type-safe stacked second-order execution contexts that allow for higher-order process modeling. Tamed by our underlying strict service-oriented notion of abstraction, this approach is tailored also to be used by application experts with little technical knowledge: users can select, modify, construct and then pass (component) processes during process execution as if they were data. We illustrate the impact and essence of our framework along a concrete, realistic (business) process modeling scenario: the development of Springer's browser-based Online Conference Service (OCS). The most advanced feature of our new framework allows one to combine online synthesis with the integration of the synthesized process into the running application. This ability leads to a particularly flexible way of implementing self-adaption, and to a particularly concise and powerful way of achieving variability not only at design time, but also at runtime.Comment: In Proceedings Festschrift for Dave Schmidt, arXiv:1309.455