Kronos: a workflow assembler for genome analytics and informatics.

BackgroundThe field of next-generation sequencing informatics has matured to a point where algorithmic advances in sequence alignment and individual feature detection methods have stabilized. Practical and robust implementation of complex analytical workflows (where such tools are structured into "best practices" for automated analysis of next-generation sequencing datasets) still requires significant programming investment and expertise.ResultsWe present Kronos, a software platform for facilitating the development and execution of modular, auditable, and distributable bioinformatics workflows. Kronos obviates the need for explicit coding of workflows by compiling a text configuration file into executable Python applications. Making analysis modules would still require programming. The framework of each workflow includes a run manager to execute the encoded workflows locally (or on a cluster or cloud), parallelize tasks, and log all runtime events. The resulting workflows are highly modular and configurable by construction, facilitating flexible and extensible meta-applications that can be modified easily through configuration file editing. The workflows are fully encoded for ease of distribution and can be instantiated on external systems, a step toward reproducible research and comparative analyses. We introduce a framework for building Kronos components that function as shareable, modular nodes in Kronos workflows.ConclusionsThe Kronos platform provides a standard framework for developers to implement custom tools, reuse existing tools, and contribute to the community at large. Kronos is shipped with both Docker and Amazon Web Services Machine Images. It is free, open source, and available through the Python Package Index and at https://github.com/jtaghiyar/kronos

Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) for Market Analysis of FP7 CHOReOS Products

AbstractThe European 7th Framework FP7-ICT-2009-5 project CHOReOS No. 257178 (2010-2013) “Large Scale Choreographies for the Future Internet (IP)” is aimed to elaborate on new methods and tools related to Future Internet ultra-large-scale (ULS) solution development based on the use of choreographies. The purpose of this research is to identify exploitable CHOReOS products and approaches and business market trends that may exploit them. The aim is to collect and assess early market inputs, thereby ensuring that market needs are addressed properly by the CHOReOS project. The market acceptance assessment is done using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), but the credibility of results is assessed using Cronbach's Alpha, Split-Half Reliability and Spearman–Brown testing methods

Special Session on Industry 4.0

No abstract available

Building an Emulation Environment for Cyber Security Analyses of Complex Networked Systems

Computer networks are undergoing a phenomenal growth, driven by the rapidly increasing number of nodes constituting the networks. At the same time, the number of security threats on Internet and intranet networks is constantly growing, and the testing and experimentation of cyber defense solutions requires the availability of separate, test environments that best emulate the complexity of a real system. Such environments support the deployment and monitoring of complex mission-driven network scenarios, thus enabling the study of cyber defense strategies under real and controllable traffic and attack scenarios. In this paper, we propose a methodology that makes use of a combination of techniques of network and security assessment, and the use of cloud technologies to build an emulation environment with adjustable degree of affinity with respect to actual reference networks or planned systems. As a byproduct, starting from a specific study case, we collected a dataset consisting of complete network traces comprising benign and malicious traffic, which is feature-rich and publicly available

Report from GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394: Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World

This report documents the program and the outcomes of GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394 "Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World". The seminar addressed the problem of performance-aware DevOps. Both, DevOps and performance engineering have been growing trends over the past one to two years, in no small part due to the rise in importance of identifying performance anomalies in the operations (Ops) of cloud and big data systems and feeding these back to the development (Dev). However, so far, the research community has treated software engineering, performance engineering, and cloud computing mostly as individual research areas. We aimed to identify cross-community collaboration, and to set the path for long-lasting collaborations towards performance-aware DevOps. The main goal of the seminar was to bring together young researchers (PhD students in a later stage of their PhD, as well as PostDocs or Junior Professors) in the areas of (i) software engineering, (ii) performance engineering, and (iii) cloud computing and big data to present their current research projects, to exchange experience and expertise, to discuss research challenges, and to develop ideas for future collaborations

A framework and tool to manage Cloud Computing service quality

Cloud Computing has generated considerable interest in both companies specialized in Information and Communication Technology and business context in general. The Sourcing Capability Maturity Model for service (e-SCM) is a capability model for offshore outsourcing services between clients and providers that offers appropriate strategies to enhance Cloud Computing implementation. It intends to achieve the required quality of service and develop an effective working relationship between clients and providers. Moreover, quality evaluation framework is a framework to control the quality of any product and/or process. It offers a tool support that can generate software artifacts to manage any type of product and service efficiently and effectively. Thus, the aim of this paper was to make this framework and tool support available to manage Cloud Computing service quality between clients and providers by means of e-SCM.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RJunta de Andalucía TIC-578