ICON: A System for Implementing Constraints in Object-based Networks

In today's Network Management scenario, the network operator's interface to the network is through a Management Information Base (MIB). The MIB stores all management related data such as configuration information, performance statistics, and trouble logs and so on. Configuration management, which is at the core of network management, is implemented through the MIB in a three step process: making updates to MIB data elements, checking the validity of the updates, propagating the effects of the updates to the network elements. While all three steps need to be executed efficiently for the MIB to serve its intended goal, the second step of checking update validity is especially important from the management viewpoint. For example, if an operator mistakenly configures a ninth port on an eight port card, it is essential that the MIB should both detect and prevent this error. Allowing such operations to go through would have adverse impact on the performance of the network (since it increases the network management traffic). Therefore, we focus primarily on the problem of checking the validity of updates to MIB data elements, which can be viewed as a specific instance of the general problem of constraint management in database systems. We introduce the design of ICON (Implementing Constraints in Object-based Networks), a proposed constraint management system. In ICON, constrains are expressed through rules. Each rule is composed of an event, a condition, and an action. Occurrence of the event triggers the rule, the condition is a boolean check, and the action is executed if the condition is satisfied. Rules and events are also treated as objects so that they can be created, modified, and deleted like other objects, thus providing a uniform view of rules and events in an OO context. The OO paradigm results in an extensible and a reusable system. To our knowledge, not much work has been done in this area and this paper would trigger further research in this area

Usabilidade de Aplicações SIG Web na Perspectiva do Usuário: um Estudo de Caso

Aplicações SIG Web têm recebido muito destaque nos últimos anos, pois a informação geográfica pode ser visualizada/manipulada em diferentes locais, por diferentes perfis de usuários, através da Internet. Isso aumenta a complexidade da implementação de aplicações SIG, tanto com relação a aspectos funcionais, quanto em aspectos de interface humano-computador. O objetivo deste trabalho é ilustrar o conceito e técnica de usabilidade no contexto de interfaces de aplicações SIG Web, por meio de um estudo de caso de teste de usabilidade para essas aplicações.Pages: 262-26

Inspecting user interface quality in web gis applications

Web GIS applications can be found in many domains. The quality of the interfaces of applications determines not only the usability of such applications, but the possibilities offered to their users. This work investigates aspects of interface quality for Web GIS applications. The approach adopts an inspection evaluation based on ISO 9241. Preliminary results show the effectiveness of such an approach to user interface evaluation as a complement to tests with users.Pages: 201-21

Documenting Changes in a Spatiotemporal Database

Spatiotemporal databases have been extensively used to represent the evolution of geographic phenomena. However, in a large spectrum of geographical applications, users need more than a mere representation of data evolution. For instance, in urban management applications- e.g., cadastral evolution- users often need to know why, how and by whom certain changes have been performed or their impact on the environment. Answers to these queries are not possible unless supplementary information concerning real world events is associated with the corresponding changes in the database. This paper proposes a solution to this problem, which is based on extending a spatiotemporal database with a mechanism for managing documentation on the evolution o

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A framework based on semantic Web services and AI planning for the management of bioinformatics scientio/c workAEows L.A. Digiampietri J.J. Pe'rez-Alca'za

ABSTRACT 7th ACM Symposium on Advances in Geographic Information Systems

This paper introduces a geographic information system architecture based on ontologies. Ontology plays a central role in the definition of all aspects and components of an information system in the so-called ontology-driven information systems. The system presented here uses a container of interoperable geographic objects. The objects are extracted from multiple independent data sources and are derived from a strongly typed mapping of classes from multiple ontologies. This approach provides a great level of interoperability and allows partial integration of information when completeness is impossible

WASA: a workflow-based architecture to support scientific database applications

Scientific applications which involve the use of databases are of emerging interest. However, computer-based environments which support such applications are still in their infancy. The overall goal of the WASA project is to provide such an environment, and to do so with the specific domains of geosciences and biocomputing in mind. This paper introduces the architecture of WASA, explains its design decisions, describes how its various components interact, and how it can be utilized in the target applications. One important design decision has been to reuse existing database technology as far as possible, but to integrate this with the emerging paradigm of workflow management. As a result, WASA has a workflow manager as its central component; this tool manages information as well as other tools associated with a given environment, some of which are domain-independent, while others have to be adapted whenever the system is used in a new application area. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RO 7057(1995,2) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman