Model Based Development of Quality-Aware Software Services

Modelling languages and development frameworks give support for functional and structural description of software architectures. But quality-aware applications require languages which allow expressing QoS as a first-class concept during architecture design and service composition, and to extend existing tools and infrastructures adding support for modelling, evaluating, managing and monitoring QoS aspects. In addition to its functional behaviour and internal structure, the developer of each service must consider the fulfilment of its quality requirements. If the service is flexible, the output quality depends both on input quality and available resources (e.g., amounts of CPU execution time and memory). From the software engineering point of view, modelling of quality-aware requirements and architectures require modelling support for the description of quality concepts, support for the analysis of quality properties (e.g. model checking and consistencies of quality constraints, assembly of quality), tool support for the transition from quality requirements to quality-aware architectures, and from quality-aware architecture to service run-time infrastructures. Quality management in run-time service infrastructures must give support for handling quality concepts dynamically. QoS-aware modeling frameworks and QoS-aware runtime management infrastructures require a common evolution to get their integration

Illinois Digital Scholarship: Preserving and Accessing the Digital Past, Present, and Future

Since the University's establishment in 1867, its scholarly output has been issued primarily in print, and the University Library and Archives have been readily able to collect, preserve, and to provide access to that output. Today, technological, economic, political and social forces are buffeting all means of scholarly communication. Scholars, academic institutions and publishers are engaged in debate about the impact of digital scholarship and open access publishing on the promotion and tenure process. The upsurge in digital scholarship affects many aspects of the academic enterprise, including how we record, evaluate, preserve, organize and disseminate scholarly work. The result has left the Library with no ready means by which to archive digitally produced publications, reports, presentations, and learning objects, much of which cannot be adequately represented in print form. In this incredibly fluid environment of digital scholarship, the critical question of how we will collect, preserve, and manage access to this important part of the University scholarly record demands a rational and forward-looking plan - one that includes perspectives from diverse scholarly disciplines, incorporates significant research breakthroughs in information science and computer science, and makes effective projections for future integration within the Library and computing services as a part of the campus infrastructure.Prepared jointly by the University of Illinois Library and CITES at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig

Attack-Surface Metrics, OSSTMM and Common Criteria Based Approach to “Composable Security” in Complex Systems

In recent studies on Complex Systems and Systems-of-Systems theory, a huge effort has been put to cope with behavioral problems, i.e. the possibility of controlling a desired overall or end-to-end behavior by acting on the individual elements that constitute the system itself. This problem is particularly important in the “SMART” environments, where the huge number of devices, their significant computational capabilities as well as their tight interconnection produce a complex architecture for which it is difficult to predict (and control) a desired behavior; furthermore, if the scenario is allowed to dynamically evolve through the modification of both topology and subsystems composition, then the control problem becomes a real challenge. In this perspective, the purpose of this paper is to cope with a specific class of control problems in complex systems, the “composability of security functionalities”, recently introduced by the European Funded research through the pSHIELD and nSHIELD projects (ARTEMIS-JU programme). In a nutshell, the objective of this research is to define a control framework that, given a target security level for a specific application scenario, is able to i) discover the system elements, ii) quantify the security level of each element as well as its contribution to the security of the overall system, and iii) compute the control action to be applied on such elements to reach the security target. The main innovations proposed by the authors are: i) the definition of a comprehensive methodology to quantify the security of a generic system independently from the technology and the environment and ii) the integration of the derived metrics into a closed-loop scheme that allows real-time control of the system. The solution described in this work moves from the proof-of-concepts performed in the early phase of the pSHIELD research and enrich es it through an innovative metric with a sound foundation, able to potentially cope with any kind of pplication scenarios (railways, automotive, manufacturing, ...)

Degree of Scaffolding: Learning Objective Metadata: A Prototype Leaning System Design for Integrating GIS into a Civil Engineering Curriculum

Digital media and networking offer great potential as tools for enhancing classroom learning environments, both local and distant. One concept and related technological tool that can facilitate the effective application and distribution of digital educational resources is learning objects in combination with the SCORM (sharable content objects reference model) compliance framework. Progressive scaffolding is a learning design approach for educational systems that provides flexible guidance to students. We are in the process of utilizing this approach within a SCORM framework in the form of a multi-level instructional design. The associated metadata required by SCORM will describe the degree of scaffolding. This paper will discuss progressive scaffolding as it relates to SCORM compliant learning objects, within the context of the design of an application for integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) into the civil engineering curriculum at the University of Missouri - Rolla

Museum Experience Design: A Modern Storytelling Methodology

In this paper we propose a new direction for design, in the context of the theme “Next Digital Technologies in Arts and Culture”, by employing modern methods based on Interaction Design, Interactive Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence. Focusing on Cultural Heritage, we propose a new paradigm for Museum Experience Design, facilitating on the one hand traditional visual and multimedia communication and, on the other, a new type of interaction with artefacts, in the form of a Storytelling Experience. Museums are increasingly being transformed into hybrid spaces, where virtual (digital) information coexists with tangible artefacts. In this context, “Next Digital Technologies” play a new role, providing methods to increase cultural accessibility and enhance experience. Not only is the goal to convey stories hidden inside artefacts, as well as items or objects connected to them, but it is also to pave the way for the creation of new ones through an interactive museum experience that continues after the museum visit ends. Social sharing, in particular, can greatly increase the value of dissemination

A Unified Solution for the Integration of Media Applications and Products in Broadcaster Environments-The ASSET Architecture

The ASSET project, an European funded project, is defining and developing a software architecture that will be made available to manufacturers for allowing easy interfacing between digital television equipment and applications. The project partners (Compaq-HP Group, THOMSON, Dalet ann, INESC Porto, INRIA, Institut fuer Rundfunktechnik, Front Porch Digital International, SHS Multimedia) are creating an universal and unified system architecture that shall make the integration of different systems easier. This paper gives an overview of the project approach, describes the system architecture and the prototype under development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Extensible Modeling and Simulation Framework (XMSF) Opportunities for Web-Based Modeling and Simulation

Technical Opportunities Workshop Whitepaper, 14 June 2002Purpose: As the Department of Defense (DoD) is engaged in both warfighting and institutional transformation for the new millennium, DoD Modeling & Simulation (M&S) also needs to identify and adopt transformational technologies which provide direct tactical relevance to warfighters. Because the only software systems that composably scale to worldwide scope utilize the World Wide Web, it is evident that an extensible Web-based framework shows great promise to scale up the capabilities of M&S systems to meet the needs of training, analysis, acquisition, and the operational warfighter. By embracing commercial web technologies as a shared-communications platform and a ubiquitous-delivery framework, DoD M&S can fully leverage mainstream practices for enterprise-wide software development

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research