Reasoning about orchestrations of web services using partial correctness

A service is a remote computational facility which is made available for general use by means of a wide-area network. Several types of service arise in practice: stateless services, shared state services and services with states which are customised for individual users. A service-based orchestration is a multi-threaded computation which invokes remote services in order to deliver results back to a user (publication). In this paper a means of specifying services and reasoning about the correctness of orchestrations over stateless services is presented. As web services are potentially unreliable the termination of even finite orchestrations cannot be guaranteed. For this reason a partial-correctness powerdomain approach is proposed to capture the semantics of recursive orchestrations.

Web Services and Incerta Spiriti: A Game Theoretic Approach to Uncertainty

A web-service is a remote computational facility which is made available for general use by means of the internet. An orchestration is a multi-threaded computation which invokes remote services. In this paper game theory is used to analyse the behaviour of orchestration evaluations when underlying web-services are unreliable. Uncertainty profiles are proposed as a means of defining bounds on the number of service failures that can be expected during an orchestration evaluation. An uncertainty profile describes a strategic situation that can be analyzed using a zero-sum angel-daemon game with two competing players: an angel a whose objective is to minimize damage to an orchestration and a daemon d who acts in a destructive fashion. An uncertainty profile is assessed using the value of its angel daemon game. It is shown that uncertainty profiles form a partial order which is monotonic with respect to assessment.

A Web-Service Based Approach for Software Sharing

A Web-service based approach is presented which enables geographically dispersed users to share software resources over the Internet. A service-oriented software sharing system has been developed, which consists of shared applications, client applications and three types of services: application proxy service, proxy implementation service and application manager service. With the aids of the services, the client applications interact with the shared applications to implement a software sharing task. The approach satisfies the requirements of copyright protection and reuse of legacy codes. In this paper, the role of Web-services and the architecture of the system are presented first, followed by a case study to illustrate the approach developed.

Analysing Web-Orchestrations Under Stress Using Uncertainty Profiles

An orchestration is a multi-threaded computation that invokes a number of remote services. In practice, the responsiveness of a web-service fluctuates with demand; during surges in activity service responsiveness may be degraded, perhaps even to the point of failure. An uncertainty profile formalizes a user's perception of the effects of stress on an orchestration of web-services; it describes a strategic situation, modelled by a zero-sum angel–daemon game. Stressed web-service scenarios are analysed, using game theory, in a realistic way, lying between over-optimism (services are entirely reliable) and over-pessimism (all services are broken). The ‘resilience’ of an uncertainty profile can be assessed using the valuation of its associated zero-sum game. In order to demonstrate the validity of the approach, we consider two measures of resilience and a number of different stress models. It is shown how (i) uncertainty profiles can be ordered by risk (as measured by game valuations) and (ii) the structural properties of risk partial orders can be analysed.

Pet population management and public health:A web service based tool for the improvement of dog traceability

The risks associated with zoonotic infections transmitted by companion animals are a serious public health concern: the control of zoonoses incidence in domestic dogs, both owned and stray, is hence important to protect human health. Integrated dog population management (DPM) programs, based on the availability of information systems providing reliable data on the structure and composition of the existing dog population in a given area, are fundamental for making realistic plans for any disease surveillance and action system. Traceability systems, based on the compulsory electronic identification of dogs and their registration in a computerised database, are one of the most effective ways to ensure the usefulness of DPM programs. Even if this approach provides many advantages, several areas of improvement have emerged in countries where it has been applied. In Italy, every region hosts its own dog register but these are not compatible with one another. This paper shows the advantages of a web-based-application to improve data management of dog regional registers. The approach used for building this system was inspired by farm animal traceability schemes and it relies on a network of services that allows multi-channel access by different devices and data exchange via the web with other existing applications, without changing the pre-existing platforms. Today the system manages a database for over 300,000 dogs registered in three different Italian regions. By integrating multiple Web Services, this approach could be the solution to gather data at national and international levels at reasonable cost and creating a traceability system on a large scale and across borders that can be used for disease surveillance and development of population management plans. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

A framework for collaborative working environments

To utilize the advantages of existing and emerging Internet techniques and to meet the demands for a new generation of collaborative working environments, a framework with an upperware–middleware architecture is proposed, which consists of four layers: resource layer, middleware layer, upperware layer and application layer. The upperware contains intelligent agents and plug/play facilities; the former coordinates and controls multiple middleware techniques such as Grid computing, Web-services and mobile agents, while the latter are used for the applications, such as semantic CAD, to plug and loose couple into the system. The method of migrating legacy software using automatic wrapper generation technique is also presented. A prototype mobile environment for collaborative product design is presented to illustrate the utilization of the CWE framework in collaborative design and manufacture.

Application of Internet techniques into online collaborative design and manufacture

A research project in Web-enabled collaborative design and manufacture has been conducted. The major tasks of the project include the development of a Web-enabled environment for collaboration, online collaborative CAD/CAM, remote execution of large size programs (RELSP), and distributed product design. The tasks and Web/Internet techniques involved are presented first, followed by detail description of two approaches developed for implementation of the research: (1) a client-server approach for RELSP, where the following Internet techniques are utilized: CORBA, Microsoft’s Internet information server, Tomcat server, JDBC and ODBC; (2) Web-Services supported collaborative CAD which enables geographically dispersed designers jointly conduct a design task in the way of speaking and seeing each other and instantaneously modifying the CAD drawing online.

Digital Exposure of English Place-names (DEEP)

Place-names are a fundamental concept in all academic collections: everything happens somewhere. Contemporary place-names are comprehensively represented in digital gazetteer and geospatial web services such as GeoNames. However, despite millions of pounds of investment by JISC and other agencies in historical online resources in recent years, there is currently no equivalent for historic place-names. This project will digitize the entire 86 volume corpus of the Survey of English Place-Names (SEPN), the ultimate authority on historic place-names in England, and make its 4 million forms available.

Green Media: The Future of Wireless Multimedia Networks:Guest Editorial

By 2015, with the proliferation of wireless multimedia applications and services (e.g., mobile TV, video on demand, online video repositories, immersive video interaction, peer to peer video streaming, and interactive video gaming), and any-time anywhere communication, the number of smartphones and tablets will exceed 6.5 billion as the most common web access devices. Data volumes in wireless multimedia data-intensive applications and mobile web services are projected to increase by a factor of 10 every five years, associated with a 20 percent increase in energy consumption, 80 percent of which is multimedia traffic related. In turn, multimedia energy consumption is rising at 16 percent per year, doubling every six years. It is estimated that energy costs alone account for as much as half of the annual operating expenditure. This has prompted concerted efforts by major operators to drastically reduce carbon emissions by up to 50 percent over the next 10 years. Clearly, there is an urgent need for new disruptive paradigms of green media to bridge the gap between wireless technologies and multimedia applications.

A realist literature review of transition to adult services by young people with life-limiting conditions in ireland.

Background As a result of improvements in care and treatment more young people with life-limiting conditions are now living beyond childhood, meaning they must make the transition from children's to adult services. The loss of long-standing relationships with providers of children's services combines with poor co-ordination of services to make this a daunting prospect for young people and their families. However, there is little evidence on transition services for young people with life limiting conditions, with few models of good practice in the literature.


Aims The purpose of this review was to determine the factors that promote or hinder the transition to adult services for young adults with life limiting conditions, and identify gaps to be addressed.


Methods A comprehensive search of the literature was undertaken using key terms, of the following databases; MEDLINE and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 314 articles were sourced and inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to highlight the most relevant literature.


Results Studies were reviewed using a realist review approach and three themes emerged from the literature. Barriers and facilitators to the transition process were identified associated with: 1. The patient 2. Parents/carers 3. The organisation.


Conclusion It is unclear from the literature what the specific factors are that promote or hinder the transition process for young adults with life limiting conditions who go through the transition from children's to adult services, therefore, research is required to identify the factors that promote and hinder the transition process in Ireland. This research is currently being carried out by the author as part of Doctoral studies. The three year full time Doctoral study commenced in January 2013 and is funded by the All Ireland Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care.

QUADrATiC: scalable gene expression connectivity mapping for repurposing FDA-approved therapeutics

Background: Gene expression connectivity mapping has proven to be a powerful and flexible tool for research. Its application has been shown in a broad range of research topics, most commonly as a means of identifying potential small molecule compounds, which may be further investigated as candidates for repurposing to treat diseases. The public release of voluminous data from the Library of Integrated Cellular Signatures (LINCS) programme further enhanced the utilities and potentials of gene expression connectivity mapping in biomedicine. Results: We describe QUADrATiC (http://go.qub.ac.uk/QUADrATiC), a user-friendly tool for the exploration of gene expression connectivity on the subset of the LINCS data set corresponding to FDA-approved small molecule compounds. It enables the identification of compounds for repurposing therapeutic potentials. The software is designed to cope with the increased volume of data over existing tools, by taking advantage of multicore computing architectures to provide a scalable solution, which may be installed and operated on a range of computers, from laptops to servers. This scalability is provided by the use of the modern concurrent programming paradigm provided by the Akka framework. The QUADrATiC Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been developed using advanced Javascript frameworks, providing novel visualization capabilities for further analysis of connections. There is also a web services interface, allowing integration with other programs or scripts.Conclusions: QUADrATiC has been shown to provide an improvement over existing connectivity map software, in terms of scope (based on the LINCS data set), applicability (using FDA-approved compounds), usability and speed. It offers potential to biological researchers to analyze transcriptional data and generate potential therapeutics for focussed study in the lab. QUADrATiC represents a step change in the process of investigating gene expression connectivity and provides more biologically-relevant results than previous alternative solutions.

Optimal deployment of geographically distributed workflow engines on the cloud

When orchestrating Web service workflows, the geographical placement of the orchestration engine (s) can greatly affect workflow performance. Data may have to be transferred across long geographical distances, which in turn increases execution time and degrades the overall performance of a workflow. In this paper, we present a framework that, given a DAG-based workflow specification, computes the optimal Amazon EC2 cloud regions to deploy the orchestration engines and execute a workflow. The framework incorporates a constraint model that solves the workflow deployment problem, which is generated using an automated constraint modelling system. The feasibility of the framework is evaluated by executing different sample workflows representative of scientific workloads. The experimental results indicate that the framework reduces the workflow execution time and provides a speed up of 1.3x-2.5x over centralised approaches.

Multiwavelength observations of the M15 intermediate-velocity cloud

We present Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope HI images, Lovell telescope multibeam H I wide-field mapping, William Herschel Telescope long-slit echelle Ca II observations, Wisconsin Halpha Mapper (WHAM) facility images, and IRAS ISSA 60- and 100-mum co-added images towards the intermediate- velocity cloud (IVC) at + 70 km s(-1), located in the general direction of the M15 globular cluster. When combined with previously published Arecibo data, the H I gas in the IVC is found to be clumpy, with a peak H I column density of similar to1.5 x 10(20) cm(-2), inferred volume density (assuming spherical symmetry) of similar to24 cm(-3)/D (kpc) and a maximum brightness temperature at a resolution of 81 x 14 arcsec(2) of 14 K. The major axis of this part of the IVC lies approximately parallel to the Galactic plane, as does the low- velocity H I gas and IRAS emission. The H I gas in the cloud is warm, with a minimum value of the full width at half-maximum velocity width of 5 km s(-1) corresponding to a kinetic temperature, in the absence of turbulence, of similar to540 K. From the H I data, there are indications of two-component velocity structure. Similarly, the Ca II spectra, of resolution 7 km s(-1), also show tentative evidence of velocity structure, perhaps indicative of cloudlets. Assuming that there are no unresolved narrow-velocity components, the mean values of log(10)[N(Ca II K) cm(2)] similar to 12.0 and Ca II/H I similar to2 5 x 10(-8) are typical of observations of high Galactic latitude clouds. This compares with a value of Ca II/H I>10(-6) for IVC absorption towards HD 203664, a halo star of distance 3 kpc, some 3.degrees1 from the main M15 IVC condensation. The main IVC condensation is detected by WHAM in Halpha with central local-standard-of-rest velocities of similar to60-70 km s(-1), and intensities uncorrected for Galactic extinction of up to 1.3 R, indicating that the gas is partially ionized. The FWHM values of the Halpha IVC component, at a resolution of 1degrees, exceed 30 km s(-1). This is some 10 km s(-1) larger than the corresponding H I value at a similar resolution, and indicates that the two components may not be mixed. However, the spatial and velocity coincidence of the Halpha and H I peaks in emission towards the main IVC component is qualitatively good. If the Halpha emission is caused solely by photoionization, the Lyman continuum flux towards the main IVC condensation is similar to2.7 x 10(6) photon cm(-2) s(-1). There is not a corresponding IVC Halpha detection towards the halo star HD 203664 at velocities exceeding similar to60 km s(- 1). Finally, both the 60- and 100-mum IRAS images show spatial coincidence, over a 0.675 x 0 625 deg(2) field, with both low- and intermediate-velocity H I gas (previously observed with the Arecibo telescope), indicating that the IVC may contain dust. Both the Halpha and tentative IRAS detections discriminate this IVC from high-velocity clouds, although the H I properties do not. When combined with the H I and optical results, these data point to a Galactic origin for at least parts of this IVC.

HI and optical spectroscopy towards the M15 intermediate- velocity cloud

We present single-dish Arecibo 21-cm H i observations, covering a 0 degrees 675x0 degrees 625 RA-Dec. grid, of the intermediate-velocity cloud (IVC) centred upon the M15 globular cluster. The velocity and positional structure of the IVC gas at V-LSR=70 km s(-1) are investigated; it is found to be clumpy and has a peak surface density N(H i)similar to 8x10(19) cm(- 2). Additionally, we have performed a long H i integration towards HD 203664, a Galactic halo star some 3 degrees1 from M15, in which optical IVC absorption has previously been detected. No H i with a velocity exceeding 60 km s(-1) was found to a brightness temperature limit of 0.05 K. However, additional pointings did detect IVC gas approximately mid-way between HD 203664 and M15. Finally, we present both Arecibo H i pointings and low-resolution spectra in the Ca ii H and K lines towards 15 field stars in the general field towards M15, in an attempt to obtain the distance to the IVC. Intermediate- velocity H i is detected towards seven sightlines. Stellar spectral types are derived for 12 of the sample. Assuming that these stars lie on the main sequence, their distances are estimated to lie in the range 150 less than or equal tod less than or equal to 1350 pc. No Ca ii absorption is observed, either because the IVC is further away than similar to 1350 pc or more likely because the gas along these sightlines is of too low a density to be detected by the current observations.