Application of Service-Oriented Architecture in Software Quality Management

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): D.2.5, D.2.9, D.2.11.

Design software architecture models using ontology

Software architecture plays an essential role in the high level description of a system design, where the structure and communication are emphasized. Despite its importance in the software engineering process, the lack of formal description and automated verification hinders the development of good software architecture models. In this paper, we present an approach to support the rigorous design and verification of software architecture models using the semantic web technology. We view software architecture models as ontology representations, where their structures and communication constraints are captured by the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and the Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). Specific configurations on the design are represented as concrete instances of the ontology, to which their structures and dynamic behaviors must conform. Furthermore, ontology reasoning tools can be applied to perform various automated verification on the design to ensure correctness, such as consistency checking, style recognition, and behavioral inference.

A methodology for formally modeling and analyzing software architecture of mobile agent systems

A methodology for formally modeling and analyzing software architecture of mobile agent systems provides a solid basis to develop high quality mobile agent systems, and the methodology is helpful to study other distributed and concurrent systems as well. However, it is a challenge to provide the methodology because of the agent mobility in mobile agent systems.^ The methodology was defined from two essential parts of software architecture: a formalism to define the architectural models and an analysis method to formally verify system properties. The formalism is two-layer Predicate/Transition (PrT) nets extended with dynamic channels, and the analysis method is a hierarchical approach to verify models on different levels. The two-layer modeling formalism smoothly transforms physical models of mobile agent systems into their architectural models. Dynamic channels facilitate the synchronous communication between nets, and they naturally capture the dynamic architecture configuration and agent mobility of mobile agent systems. Component properties are verified based on transformed individual components, system properties are checked in a simplified system model, and interaction properties are analyzed on models composing from involved nets. Based on the formalism and the analysis method, this researcher formally modeled and analyzed a software architecture of mobile agent systems, and designed an architectural model of a medical information processing system based on mobile agents. The model checking tool SPIN was used to verify system properties such as reachability, concurrency and safety of the medical information processing system. ^ From successful modeling and analyzing the software architecture of mobile agent systems, the conclusion is that PrT nets extended with channels are a powerful tool to model mobile agent systems, and the hierarchical analysis method provides a rigorous foundation for the modeling tool. The hierarchical analysis method not only reduces the complexity of the analysis, but also expands the application scope of model checking techniques. The results of formally modeling and analyzing the software architecture of the medical information processing system show that model checking is an effective and an efficient way to verify software architecture. Moreover, this system shows a high level of flexibility, efficiency and low cost of mobile agent technologies. ^

Refinement methods for software architecture design using the software architecture model

Modern software systems are often large and complicated. To better understand, develop, and manage large software systems, researchers have studied software architectures that provide the top level overall structural design of software systems for the last decade. One major research focus on software architectures is formal architecture description languages, but most existing research focuses primarily on the descriptive capability and puts less emphasis on software architecture design methods and formal analysis techniques, which are necessary to develop correct software architecture design. ^ Refinement is a general approach of adding details to a software design. A formal refinement method can further ensure certain design properties. This dissertation proposes refinement methods, including a set of formal refinement patterns and complementary verification techniques, for software architecture design using Software Architecture Model (SAM), which was developed at Florida International University. First, a general guideline for software architecture design in SAM is proposed. Second, specification construction through property-preserving refinement patterns is discussed. The refinement patterns are categorized into connector refinement, component refinement and high-level Petri nets refinement. These three levels of refinement patterns are applicable to overall system interaction, architectural components, and underlying formal language, respectively. Third, verification after modeling as a complementary technique to specification refinement is discussed. Two formal verification tools, the Stanford Temporal Prover (STeP) and the Simple Promela Interpreter (SPIN), are adopted into SAM to develop the initial models. Fourth, formalization and refinement of security issues are studied. A method for security enforcement in SAM is proposed. The Role-Based Access Control model is formalized using predicate transition nets and Z notation. The patterns of enforcing access control and auditing are proposed. Finally, modeling and refining a life insurance system is used to demonstrate how to apply the refinement patterns for software architecture design using SAM and how to integrate the access control model. ^ The results of this dissertation demonstrate that a refinement method is an effective way to develop a high assurance system. The method developed in this dissertation extends existing work on modeling software architectures using SAM and makes SAM a more usable and valuable formal tool for software architecture design. ^

Advanced functionality for radio analysis in the Offline software framework of the Pierre Auger Observatory.

The advent of the Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) necessitates the development of a powerful framework for the analysis of radio measurements of cosmic ray air showers. As AERA performs "radio-hybrid" measurements of air shower radio emission in coincidence with the surface particle detectors and fluorescence telescopes of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the radio analysis functionality had to be incorporated in the existing hybrid analysis solutions for fluorescence and surface detector data. This goal has been achieved in a natural way by extending the existing Auger Offline software framework with radio functionality. In this article, we lay out the design, highlights and features of the radio extension implemented in the Auger Offline framework. Its functionality has achieved a high degree of sophistication and offers advanced features such as vectorial reconstruction of the electric field, advanced signal processing algorithms, a transparent and efficient handling of FFTs, a very detailed simulation of detector effects, and the read-in of multiple data formats including data from various radio simulation codes. The source code of this radio functionality can be made available to interested parties on request. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Representing Variability in Software Architecture

Software Architecture is a high level description of a software intensive system that enables architects to have a better intellectual control over the complete system. It is also used as a communication vehicle among the various system stakeholders. Variability in software-intensive systems is the ability of a software artefact (e.g., a system, subsystem, or component) to be extended, customised, or configured for deployment in a specific context. Although variability in software architecture is recognised as a challenge in multiple domains, there has been no formal consensus on how variability should be captured or represented. In this research, we addressed the problem of representing variability in software architecture through a three phase approach. First, we examined existing literature using the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) methodology, which helped us identify the gaps and challenges within the current body of knowledge. Equipped with the findings from the SLR, a set of design principles have been formulated that are used to introduce variability management capabilities to an existing Architecture Description Language (ADL). The chosen ADL was developed within our research group (ALI) and to which we have had complete access. Finally, we evaluated the new version of the ADL produced using two distinct case studies: one from the Information Systems domain, an Asset Management System (AMS); and another from the embedded systems domain, a Wheel Brake System (WBS). This thesis presents the main findings from the three phases of the research work, including a comprehensive study of the state-of-the-art; the complete specification of an ADL that is focused on managing variability; and the lessons learnt from the evaluation work of two distinct real-life case studies.

Radio over fiber enabling PON fronthaul in a two-tiered cloud

Avec l’avènement des objets connectés, la bande passante nécessaire dépasse la capacité des interconnections électriques et interface sans fils dans les réseaux d’accès mais aussi dans les réseaux coeurs. Des systèmes photoniques haute capacité situés dans les réseaux d’accès utilisant la technologie radio sur fibre systèmes ont été proposés comme solution dans les réseaux sans fil de 5e générations. Afin de maximiser l’utilisation des ressources des serveurs et des ressources réseau, le cloud computing et des services de stockage sont en cours de déploiement. De cette manière, les ressources centralisées pourraient être diffusées de façon dynamique comme l’utilisateur final le souhaite. Chaque échange nécessitant une synchronisation entre le serveur et son infrastructure, une couche physique optique permet au cloud de supporter la virtualisation des réseaux et de les définir de façon logicielle. Les amplificateurs à semi-conducteurs réflectifs (RSOA) sont une technologie clé au niveau des ONU(unité de communications optiques) dans les réseaux d’accès passif (PON) à fibres. Nous examinons ici la possibilité d’utiliser un RSOA et la technologie radio sur fibre pour transporter des signaux sans fil ainsi qu’un signal numérique sur un PON. La radio sur fibres peut être facilement réalisée grâce à l’insensibilité a la longueur d’onde du RSOA. Le choix de la longueur d’onde pour la couche physique est cependant choisi dans les couches 2/3 du modèle OSI. Les interactions entre la couche physique et la commutation de réseaux peuvent être faites par l’ajout d’un contrôleur SDN pour inclure des gestionnaires de couches optiques. La virtualisation réseau pourrait ainsi bénéficier d’une couche optique flexible grâce des ressources réseau dynamique et adaptée. Dans ce mémoire, nous étudions un système disposant d’une couche physique optique basé sur un RSOA. Celle-ci nous permet de façon simultanée un envoi de signaux sans fil et le transport de signaux numérique au format modulation tout ou rien (OOK) dans un système WDM(multiplexage en longueur d’onde)-PON. Le RSOA a été caractérisé pour montrer sa capacité à gérer une plage dynamique élevée du signal sans fil analogique. Ensuite, les signaux RF et IF du système de fibres sont comparés avec ses avantages et ses inconvénients. Finalement, nous réalisons de façon expérimentale une liaison point à point WDM utilisant la transmission en duplex intégral d’un signal wifi analogique ainsi qu’un signal descendant au format OOK. En introduisant deux mélangeurs RF dans la liaison montante, nous avons résolu le problème d’incompatibilité avec le système sans fil basé sur le TDD (multiplexage en temps duplexé).

Energy Efficiency of Software Transactional Memory in a Heterogeneous Architecture

Hardware vendors make an important effort creating low-power CPUs that keep battery duration and durability above acceptable levels. In order to achieve this goal and provide good performance-energy for a wide variety of applications, ARM designed the big.LITTLE architecture. This heterogeneous multi-core architecture features two different types of cores: big cores oriented to performance and little cores, slower and aimed to save energy consumption. As all the cores have access to the same memory, multi-threaded applications must resort to some mutual exclusion mechanism to coordinate the access to shared data by the concurrent threads. Transactional Memory (TM) represents an optimistic approach for shared-memory synchronization. To take full advantage of the features offered by software TM, but also benefit from the characteristics of the heterogeneous big.LITTLE architectures, our focus is to propose TM solutions that take into account the power/performance requirements of the application and what it is offered by the architecture. In order to understand the current state-of-the-art and obtain useful information for future power-aware software TM solutions, we have performed an analysis of a popular TM library running on top of an ARM big.LITTLE processor. Experiments show, in general, better scalability for the LITTLE cores for most of the applications except for one, which requires the computing performance that the big cores offer.

A ROS-based software architecture for a versatile collaborative dual-armed autonomous mobile robot for the manufacturing industry

The industrial context is changing rapidly due to advancements in technology fueled by the Internet and Information Technology. The fourth industrial revolution counts integration, flexibility, and optimization as its fundamental pillars, and, in this context, Human-Robot Collaboration has become a crucial factor for manufacturing sustainability in Europe. Collaborative robots are appealing to many companies due to their low installation and running costs and high degree of flexibility, making them ideal for reshoring production facilities with a short return on investment. The ROSSINI European project aims to implement a true Human-Robot Collaboration by designing, developing, and demonstrating a modular and scalable platform for integrating human-centred robotic technologies in industrial production environments. The project focuses on safety concerns related to introducing a cobot in a shared working area and aims to lay the groundwork for a new working paradigm at the industrial level. The need for a software architecture suitable to the robotic platform employed in one of three use cases selected to deploy and test the new technology was the main trigger of this Thesis. The chosen application consists of the automatic loading and unloading of raw-material reels to an automatic packaging machine through an Autonomous Mobile Robot composed of an Autonomous Guided Vehicle, two collaborative manipulators, and an eye-on-hand vision system for performing tasks in a partially unstructured environment. The results obtained during the ROSSINI use case development were later used in the SENECA project, which addresses the need for robot-driven automatic cleaning of pharmaceutical bins in a very specific industrial context. The inherent versatility of mobile collaborative robots is evident from their deployment in the two projects with few hardware and software adjustments. The positive impact of Human-Robot Collaboration on diverse production lines is a motivation for future investments in research on this increasingly popular field by the industry.

Integrating mobile devices into a scalable Grid Computing architecture designed to perform distributed computations

The idea of Grid Computing originated in the nineties and found its concrete applications in contexts like the SETI@home project where a lot of computers (offered by volunteers) cooperated, performing distributed computations, inside the Grid environment analyzing radio signals trying to find extraterrestrial life. The Grid was composed of traditional personal computers but, with the emergence of the first mobile devices like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), researchers started theorizing the inclusion of mobile devices into Grid Computing; although impressive theoretical work was done, the idea was discarded due to the limitations (mainly technological) of mobile devices available at the time. Decades have passed, and now mobile devices are extremely more performant and numerous than before, leaving a great amount of resources available on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, untapped. Here we propose a solution for performing distributed computations over a Grid Computing environment that utilizes both desktop and mobile devices, exploiting the resources from day-to-day mobile users that alternatively would end up unused. The work starts with an introduction on what Grid Computing is, the evolution of mobile devices, the idea of integrating such devices into the Grid and how to convince device owners to participate in the Grid. Then, the tone becomes more technical, starting with an explanation on how Grid Computing actually works, followed by the technical challenges of integrating mobile devices into the Grid. Next, the model, which constitutes the solution offered by this study, is explained, followed by a chapter regarding the realization of a prototype that proves the feasibility of distributed computations over a Grid composed by both mobile and desktop devices. To conclude future developments and ideas to improve this project are presented.

Developing and implementing an open and non-proprietary device description for FOUNDATION fieldbus based on software standards

Support for interoperability and interchangeability of software components which are part of a fieldbus automation system relies on the definition of open architectures, most of them involving proprietary technologies. Concurrently, standard, open and non-proprietary technologies, such as XML, SOAP, Web Services and the like, have greatly evolved and been diffused in the computing area. This article presents a FOUNDATION fieldbus (TM) device description technology named Open-EDD, based on XML and other related technologies (XLST, DOM using Xerces implementation, OO, XMIL Schema), proposing an open and nonproprietary alternative to the EDD (Electronic Device Description). This initial proposal includes defining Open-EDDML as the programming language of the technology in the FOUNDATION fieldbus (TM) protocol, implementing a compiler and a parser, and finally, integrating and testing the new technology using field devices and a commercial fieldbus configurator. This study attests that this new technology is feasible and can be applied to other configurators or HMI applications used in fieldbus automation systems. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

MODELING OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR WINE TRACEABILITY BASED ON A SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE

The purpose is to present a scientific research that led to the modeling of an information system which aimed at the maintenance of traceability data in the Brazilian wine industry, according to the principles of a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Since 2005, traceability data maintenance is an obligation for all producers that intend to export to any European Union country. Also, final customers, including the Brazilian ones, have been asking for information about food products. A solution that collectively contemplated the industry was sought in order to permit that producer consortiums of associations could share the costs and benefits of such a solution. Following an extensive bibliographic review, a series of interviews conducted with Brazilian researchers and wine producers in Bento Goncalves - RS, Brazil, elucidated many aspects associated with the wine production process. Information technology issues related to the theme were also researched. The software was modeled with the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and uses web services for data exchange. A model for the wine production process was also proposed. A functional prototype showed that the adopted model is able to fulfill the demands of wine producers. The good results obtained lead us to consider the use of this model in other domains.

The AdapLib Library for Execution of Adaptive Devices: Architecture and Use

In this paper it is presented the theoretical background, the architecture (using the ""4+1"" model), and the use of the library for execution of adaptive devices, AdapLib. This library was created seeking to be accurate to the adaptive devices theory, and to allow its easy extension considering the specific details of solutions that employ this kind of device. As an example, it is presented a case study in which the library was used to create a proof of concept to monitor and diagnose problems in an online news portal.

XSophe-Sophe-XeprView (R). A computer simulation software suite (v. 1.1.3) for the analysis of continuous wave EPR spectra

The XSophe-Sophe-XeprView((R)) computer simulation software suite enables scientists to easily determine spin Hamiltonian parameters from isotropic, randomly oriented and single crystal continuous wave electron paramagnetic resonance (CW EPR) spectra from radicals and isolated paramagnetic metal ion centers or clusters found in metalloproteins, chemical systems and materials science. XSophe provides an X-windows graphical user interface to the Sophe programme and allows: creation of multiple input files, local and remote execution of Sophe, the display of sophelog (output from Sophe) and input parameters/files. Sophe is a sophisticated computer simulation software programme employing a number of innovative technologies including; the Sydney OPera HousE (SOPHE) partition and interpolation schemes, a field segmentation algorithm, the mosaic misorientation linewidth model, parallelization and spectral optimisation. In conjunction with the SOPHE partition scheme and the field segmentation algorithm, the SOPHE interpolation scheme and the mosaic misorientation linewidth model greatly increase the speed of simulations for most spin systems. Employing brute force matrix diagonalization in the simulation of an EPR spectrum from a high spin Cr(III) complex with the spin Hamiltonian parameters g(e) = 2.00, D = 0.10 cm(-1), E/D = 0.25, A(x) = 120.0, A(y) = 120.0, A(z) = 240.0 x 10(-4) cm(-1) requires a SOPHE grid size of N = 400 (to produce a good signal to noise ratio) and takes 229.47 s. In contrast the use of either the SOPHE interpolation scheme or the mosaic misorientation linewidth model requires a SOPHE grid size of only N = 18 and takes 44.08 and 0.79 s, respectively. Results from Sophe are transferred via the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) to XSophe and subsequently to XeprView((R)) where the simulated CW EPR spectra (1D and 2D) can be compared to the experimental spectra. Energy level diagrams, transition roadmaps and transition surfaces aid the interpretation of complicated randomly oriented CW EPR spectra and can be viewed with a web browser and an OpenInventor scene graph viewer.