The Clarens web services architecture

Clarens is a uniquely flexible web services infrastructure providing a unified access protocol to a diverse set of functions useful to the HEP community. It uses the standard HTTP protocol combined with application layer, certificate based authentication to provide single sign-on to individuals, organizations and hosts, with fine-grained access control to services, files and virtual organization (VO) management. This contribution describes the server functionality, while client applications are described in a subsequent talk.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 6 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures, PSN MONT00

Clarens Client and Server Applications

Several applications have been implemented with access via the Clarens web service infrastructure, including virtual organization management, JetMET physics data analysis using relational databases, and Storage Resource Broker (SRB) access. This functionality is accessible transparently from Python scripts, the Root analysis framework and from Java applications and browser applets.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 4 pages, LaTeX, no figures, PSN TUCT00

Investigating the origin and extent of variation in apple fruit quality

Thesis (MScAgric)--Stellenbosch University, 2022.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Developed countries with abundant food sources, have become more discerning of apple fruit quality. In addition to specific qualities that consumers may find desirable, variation in quality within a batch is perceived negatively, regardless if that fruit would have been acceptable when presented individually. Variation in apple fruit quality and maturity present a challenge for producers and complicate the postharvest handling and marketing of fruit. Understanding the origin and consequence of variation can lead the industry towards mitigating such issues. The variance components: region, orchard, tree, canopy position (top vs bottom fruit, sun exposed vs shaded fruit) and bearing wood (shoots vs spurs) were, investigated. Variation in ‘Golden Delicious’ fruit quality and maturity was extensive at harvest and in some cases even greater after storage. The largest contributors to total variation in both seasons was orchard-to-orchard and tree- to-tree differences. Region contributed less to overall variation than expected and variation in starch conversion percentage (SC%) was prevalent in both Elgin and the Koue Bokkeveld with the bottom branches having a higher SC% than top branches. Position within a tree interacting with light exposure influenced fruit firmness with sun exposed fruit and fruit from the top branches having a higher firmness. The effect persisted through to fruit after storage showing greater differences between the positions. Fruit peel lightness values and hue angles showed moderate and strong correlations from at harvest to after storage but correlated poorly with other variables. Relative bloom date (RBD) was investigated as an additional source of variation but accounted for less of the variation than anticipated. RBD had a stronger influence on maturity in the milder winter region than the colder winter region, with early clusters producing fruit with the higher starch conversion percentage than late cluster in Elgin, while there was no difference in the Koue Bokkeveld. The effect of RBD on fruit mass was commercially consequential in both regions with late blooming clusters producing the smallest fruit. Flower quality was also evaluated in warm and cold site, with number of flowers per cluster, receptacle diameter, pedicel length and dry weight of flower clusters being measured across bloom time (early and late), canopy position (top and bottom) and spur age (2-year-old spurs, 3-year-old spurs, old spurs, and shoots). Greater dry weight was observed for early clusters in the colder site than for late clusters, but there was no significant difference in the warmer site. The effect of bearing wood on flower cluster dry mass showed that flowers on shoots in the warmer site had the greatest dry mass while those on old spurs in the colder site had the highest dry mass. This translated through to fruit mass at harvest, where the heaviest fruit in the warmer site were found on shoots, and old spurs produced the heaviest fruit in the colder site. Results in this study confirm, that separate harvesting of the bottom and top halves of trees and sorting fruit on colour before storage, would increase the level of uniformity in batches of fruit. It should be noted though that colour sorting would not decrease the variance in maturity within batches of fruit but the fruit colour within a box or bag would be more consistent. By judicious pruning, summer pruning and branch removal, light distribution would be improved in existing orchards and possible result in less overall variation. The use of ethylene inhibitors such as aminoethoxyvinylglycine or 1- methyl-cyclopropene could also reduce variation in maturity at harvest. For the planting of new apple orchards, higher tree densities with thinner canopies are recommended and shade netting should be considered. Rest breaking programmes should be aimed at reducing the variance in flowering time between the bottom and top halves of trees.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ontwikkelde lande, met ʼn oorvloed voedselbronne, het meer oordeelkundig geword rakende die gehalte van appels. Benewens spesifieke eienskappe wat verbruikers wenslik mag vind, word variasie in kwaliteit binne 'n karton of sak appels as negatief ervaar, ongeag of dieselfde vrugte aanvaarbaar sou wees as dit individueel aangebied was. Variasie in appelvrugkwaliteit en rypheid bied 'n uitdaging vir produsente en bemoeilik die na-oes hantering en bemarking van vrugte. Die verstaan van die oorsprong en gevolge van hierdie variasie, kan die appelbedryf lei om hierdie probleme op te los. Die variansie komponente: produksie streek, boord, boom, blaredak posisie (bo of onder en sonblootgestelde teenoor skadu vrugte) en drahout (lote of spore) is ondersoek. Variasie in ‘Golden Delicious’ vrugkwaliteit en rypheid was verrassend groot tydens oes en in sommige gevalle selfs groter na opberging. Die grootste bydraers tot die totale variasie in beide seisoene was boord-tot- boord en boom-tot-boom verskille. Produksie streek het minder bygedra tot algehele variasie as wat verwag was en variasie in styselomsettingspersentasie (SC%) was teenwoordig in beide Elgin en die Koue Bokkeveld, waar die onderste takke 'n hoër SC% as die boonste takke getoon het. Posisie binne 'n boom, wat met ligblootstelling in wisselwerking was, het 'n effek op die vrugfermheid gehad. Sonblootgestelde vrugte en vrugte van die boonste takke het 'n hoër fermheid gehad. Die effek het voortgeduur tydens opberging, waar groter verskille tussen die posisies aangetoon was. Ligheidswaardes van die skil en kleurhoeke het matige en sterk korrelasies getoon vanaf oes tot na opberging, maar was swak gekorreleerd met ander veranderlikes. Relatiewe blomdatum (RBD) is ondersoek om die oorsprong van die variasie te probeer aanspreek, en daar is gevind dat dit minder tot die variasie bygedra het as wat verwag was. RBD het 'n sterker invloed op rypheid van vrugte in die warmer winterstreek as die koeler winterstreek gehad. In Elgin het vroeë trosse se vrugte ʼn hoër styselomsettingspersentasie as laat trosse getoon, terwyl daar geen verskille in die Koue Bokkeveld was nie. Die effek van RBD op vrugmassa was kommersieel betekenisvol in beide streke, waar laatbloeiende trosse die kleinste vrugte geproduseer het. Blomgehalte was ook in beide ʼn kouer en ʼn warmer proefperseel geëvalueer, met aantal blomme per tros, deursnee van die blombodem, steellengte en droë gewig van blomtrosse bepaal tydens blomtyd (vroeg en laat), blaredakposisie (bo en onder) en drahoutouderdom (2-jarige spore, 3-jarige spore, ou spore, en lote). Vroeë trosse was swaarder in die kouer perseel as laat trosse, maar daar was geen betekenisvolle verskil in droë gewig in die warmer perseel nie. Die effek van drahout op die blomtrosse se droë massa het getoon dat blomme op lote in die warmer perseel die grootste droë massa gehad het terwyl dié op ou spore in die kouer perseel die hoogste droë massa gehad het. Dit het deurgevoer na vrugmassa tydens oes, waar die swaarste vrugte in Elgin (warmer area) op lote gevind is, en ou spore die swaarste vrugte in die Koue Bokkeveld (kouer area) opgelewer het. Resultate in hierdie studie bevestig dat die eenvormigheid in vrugte kwaliteit verhoog kan word indien die onderste en boonste helftes van bome apart geoes word, asook deur die sortering van vrugte volgens hul kleur voor opberging plaasvind. Daar moet egter gelet word dat kleursortering nie die variasie in rypheid binne ‘n besending vrugte sal verminder nie, maar eerder sal verseker dat die vrugkleur binne 'n boks of sak meer uniform sal wees. Deur oordeelkundige snoei, somersnoei en takverwydering sal ligverspreiding in bestaande boorde verbeter kan word, en moontlik minder algehele vrugvariasie tot gevolg hê. Die gebruik van etileen-inhibeerders soos aminoetoksivinielglisien of 1-metiel-siklopropeen kan ook variasie in rypheid tydens oes verminder. Vir die vestiging van nuwe appelboorde, word hoër boomdigthede met dunner blaredakke aanbeveel en skadunet kan ook oorweeg word. Rusbreekprogramme moet daarop gemik wees om die variasie in blomtyd tussen die onderste en boonste helftes van bome te verminder.Master

The Clarens Web Service Framework for Distributed Scientific Analysis in Grid Projects

Large scientific collaborations are moving towards service oriented architecutres for implementation and deployment of globally distributed systems. Clarens is a high performance, easy to deploy Web Service framework that supports the construction of such globally distributed systems. This paper discusses some of the core functionality of Clarens that the authors believe is important for building distributed systems based on Web Services that support scientific analysis

BOUND OBJECT HIERARCHY SERVICE

Presented herein is a hierarchical representation of uniquely identified objects within the physical world, referred to as a “Bound Object Hierarchy Service.” The Bound Object Hierarchy Service enables the synchronous shared view and creation of digital twins among coordinating entities. The system enables the representation and policy based access to objects, mapped from the physical world, that would typically be considered to follow a “bound within” hierarchy. The digital custody and ownership of the physical objects can autonomously change over time within the system (e.g., as an object passes along a supply chain, determined via sensors within the environment and policy based access). The policy based approach can additionally enable third parties or a limited set of the system participants to access the object hierarchy data in order to view specific elements of the tracked objects, along with the sharing of object sensor data

Job Monitoring in an Interactive Grid Analysis Environment

The grid is emerging as a great computational resource but its dynamic behavior makes the Grid environment unpredictable. Systems and networks can fail, and the introduction of more users can result in resource starvation. Once a job has been submitted for execution on the grid, monitoring becomes essential for a user to see that the job is completed in an efficient way, and to detect any problems that occur while the job is running. In current environments once a user submits a job he loses direct control over the job and the system behaves like a batch system: the user submits the job and later gets a result back. The only information a user can obtain about a job is whether it is scheduled, running, cancelled or finished. Today users are becoming increasingly interested in such analysis grid environments in which they can check the progress of the job, obtain intermediate results, terminate the job based on the progress of job or intermediate results, steer the job to other nodes to achieve better performance and check the resources consumed by the job. In order to fulfill their requirements of interactivity a mechanism is needed that can provide the user with real time access to information about different attributes of a job. In this paper we present the design of a Job Monitoring Service, a web service that will provide interactive remote job monitoring by allowing users to access different attributes of a job once it has been submitted to the interactive Grid Analysis Environment

Use of grid tools to support CMS distributed analysis

In order to prepare the Physics Technical Design Report, due by end of 2005, the CMS experiment needs to simulate, reconstruct and analyse about 100 million events, corresponding to more than 200 TB of data. The data will be distributed to several Computing Centres. In order to provide access to the whole data sample to all the world-wide dispersed physicists, CMS is developing a layer of software that uses the Grid tools provided by the LCG project to gain access to data and resources and that aims to provide a user friendly interface to the physicists submitting the analysis jobs. To achieve these aims CMS will use Grid tools from both the LCG-2 release and those being developed in the framework of the ARDA project. This work describes the current status and the future developments of the CMS analysis system

Job Interactivity Using a Steering Service in an Interactive Grid Analysis Environment

Grid computing has been dominated by the execution of batch jobs. Interactive data analysis is a new domain in the area of grid job execution. The Grid-Enabled Analysis Environment (GAE) attempts to address this in HEP grids by the use of a Steering Service. This service will provide physicists with the continuous feedback of their jobs and will provide them with the ability to control and steer the execution of their submitted jobs. It will enable them to move their jobs to different grid nodes when desired. The Steering Service will also act autonomously to make steering decisions on behalf of the user, attempting to optimize the execution of the job. This service will also ensure the optimal consumption of the Grid user's resource quota. The Steering Service will provide a web service interface defined by standard WSDL. In this paper we have discussed how the Steering Service will facilitate interactive remote analysis of data generated in Interactive Grid Analysis Environment

Distributed Analysis and Load Balancing System for Grid Enabled Analysis on Hand-held devices using Multi-Agents Systems

Handheld devices, while growing rapidly, are inherently constrained and lack the capability of executing resource hungry applications. This paper presents the design and implementation of distributed analysis and load-balancing system for hand-held devices using multi-agents system. This system enables low resource mobile handheld devices to act as potential clients for Grid enabled applications and analysis environments. We propose a system, in which mobile agents will transport, schedule, execute and return results for heavy computational jobs submitted by handheld devices. Moreover, in this way, our system provides high throughput computing environment for hand-held devices.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC 2004

The Ultralight project: the network as an integrated and managed resource for data-intensive science

Looks at the UltraLight project which treats the network interconnecting globally distributed data sets as a dynamic, configurable, and closely monitored resource to construct a next-generation system that can meet the high-energy physics community's data-processing, distribution, access, and analysis needs