Run-time support for parallel object-oriented computing: the NIP lazy task creation technique and the NIP object-based software distributed shared memory

PhD ThesisAdvances in hardware technologies combined with decreased costs have started a trend towards massively parallel architectures that utilise commodity components. It is thought unreasonable to expect software developers to manage the high degree of parallelism that is made available by these architectures. This thesis argues that a new programming model is essential for the development of parallel applications and presents a model which embraces the notions of object-orientation and implicit identification of parallelism. The new model allows software engineers to concentrate on development issues, using the object-oriented paradigm, whilst being freed from the burden of explicitly managing parallel activity. To support the programming model, the semantics of an execution model are defined and implemented as part of a run-time support system for object-oriented parallel applications. Details of the novel techniques from the run-time system, in the areas of lazy task creation and object-based, distributed shared memory, are presented. The tasklet construct for representing potentially parallel computation is introduced and further developed by this thesis. Three caching techniques that take advantage of memory access patterns exhibited in object-oriented applications are explored. Finally, the performance characteristics of the introduced run-time techniques are analysed through a number of benchmark applications

Word add-in for ontology recognition: semantic enrichment of scientific literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In the current era of scientific research, efficient communication of information is paramount. As such, the nature of scholarly and scientific communication is changing; cyberinfrastructure is now absolutely necessary and new media are allowing information and knowledge to be more interactive and immediate. One approach to making knowledge more accessible is the addition of machine-readable semantic data to scholarly articles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The Word add-in presented here will assist authors in this effort by automatically recognizing and highlighting words or phrases that are likely information-rich, allowing authors to associate semantic data with those words or phrases, and to embed that data in the document as XML. The add-in and source code are publicly available at <url>http://www.codeplex.com/UCSDBioLit</url>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The Word add-in for ontology term recognition makes it possible for an author to add semantic data to a document as it is being written and it encodes these data using XML tags that are effectively a standard in life sciences literature. Allowing authors to mark-up their own work will help increase the amount and quality of machine-readable literature metadata.</p

Assessing the Risk and Value of Adopting Emerging and Unstable Web Services Specifications

With the proliferation of Web Services specifications, the question of which of the multiplicity of technologies to adopt arises. While sometimes the decision can be based purely on matching requirements to protocol capabilities, a harder consideration is whether the chosen specifications will enable wide interoperability with other systems, or lead to an architectural dead-end. This paper presents a risk assessment of several contemporary WS- * protocols, enabling architects and developers to make sane choices for service interoperability. 1

Building Grid applications using Web Services

There has been a lot of discussion within the Grid community about the use of Web Services technologies in building large-scale, loosely-coupled, cross-organisation applications. In this talk we are going to explore the principles that govern Service-Oriented Architectures and the promise of Web Services technologies for integrating applications that span administrative domains. We are going to see how existing Web Services specifications and practices could provide the necessary infrastructure for implementing Grid applications. Biography Dr. Savas Parastatidis is a Principal Research Associate at the School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Savas is one of the authors of the "Grid Application Framework based on Web Services Specifications and Practices" document that was influential in the convergence between Grid and Web Services and the move away from OGSI (more information can be found at http://www.neresc.ac.uk/ws-gaf). He has done research on runtime support for distributed-memory parallel architectures and he co-lead the research &amp; development HP team that produced the world's first Web Services transaction product. His current work involves the use of Web Services technologies for building Grid applications. Savas' blog can be found at http://savas.parastatidis.name

Run-Time Support for Parallel ObjectOriented Computing: The

Advances in hardware technologies combined with decreased costs have started a trend towards massively parallel architectures that utilise commodity components. It is thought unreasonable to expect software developers to manage the high degree of parallelism that is made available by these architectures. This thesis argues that a new programming model is essential for the development of parallel applications and presents a model which embraces the notions of object-orientation and implicit identification of parallelism. The new model allows software engineers to concentrate on development issues, using the object-oriented paradigm, whilst being freed from the burden of explicitly managing parallel activity. To support the programming model, the semantics of an execution model are defined and implemented as part of a run-time support system for objectoriented parallel applications. Details of the novel techniques from the run-time system, in the areas of lazy task creation and objectbased, distributed shared memory, are presented. The tasklet construct for representing potentially parallel computation is introduced and further developed by this thesis. Three caching techniques that take advantage of memory access patterns exhibited in object-oriented applications are explored. Finally, the performance characteristics of the introduced run-time techniques are analysed through a number of benchmark applications

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Experiences with Migrating my Grid Web Services to Grid Services

The North-East Regional e-Science Centre is involved in a large number of research projects that rely on the design and development of a Grid-based infrastructure. Building a large number of different infrastructures would be time-consuming, difficult and risky; currently available OGSA-based middleware is relatively immature and subject to change, while the knowledge and experience of it among e-Science researchers is understandably very limited. Consequently, it was decided to analyse the requirements of all our projects and to design and build a common Core Grid Middleware consisting of a selected number of Grid Services. This required the migration of Web Services to Grid Services – a common requirement as many UK e-Science research projects have built their infrastructure on Web Services and are now considering a move to Grid Services. Therefore, this paper discusses the experience gained by migrating two Web Services to the Core Grid Middleware and making them OGSIcompliant. 1

Task-Based Access Control for Virtual Organizations. Scientific Engineering of Distributed Java Applications

Abstract. GOLD (Grid-based Information Models to Support the Rapid Innovation of New High Value-Added Chemicals) is concerned with the dynamic formation and management of virtual organisations in order to exploit market opportunities. The project aims to deliver the enabling technology to support the creation, operation and successful dissolution of such virtual organisations. A set of middleware technologies are designed and being implemented to address issues such as trust, security, contract management and monitoring, information management, etc. for virtual collaboration between companies. In this paper we discuss the set of requirements for access control in dynamic virtual organisations that have been defined as part of the trust-related work. We propose a solution, which extends the ideas of role based access control (RBAC), and we examine the use of existing and emerging Web Services technologies as an implementation platform.