365943
Modeling and Storing Scientific Protocols
We propose an abstract model for scientific protocols, where several atomic operators are proposed for protocol composition We distinguish two different layers associated with scientific protocols: design and implementation, and discuss the mapping between them We illustrate our approach with a representative example and describe ProtocolDB, a scientific protocol repository currently in development Our approach benefits scientists by allowing the archiving of scientific protocols with the collected data sets to constitute a scientific portfolio for the laboratory to query, compare and revise protocols.
3132727
Query Processing over Incomplete Autonomous Databases
Incompleteness due to missing attribute values (aka "null values") is very common in autonomous web databases, on which user accesses are usually supported through mediators. Traditional query processing techniques that focus on the strict soundness of answer tuples often ignore tuples with critical missing attributes, even if they wind up being relevant to a user query. Ideally we would like the mediator to retrieve such possible answers and gauge their relevance by accessing their likelihood of being pertinent answers to the query. The autonomous nature of web databases poses several challenges in realizing this objective. Such challenges include the restricted access privileges imposed on the data, the limited support for query patterns, and the bounded pool of database and network resources in the web environment. We introduce a novel query rewriting and optimization framework QPIAD that tackles these challenges. Our technique involves reformulating the user query based on mined correlations among the database attributes. The reformulated queries are aimed at retrieving the relevant possible answers in addition to the certain answers. QPIAD is able to gauge the relevance of such queries allowing tradeoffs in reducing the costs of database query processing and answer transmission. To support this framework, we develop methods for mining attribute correlations (in terms of Approximate Functional Dependencies), value distributions (in the form of Naive Bayes Classifiers), and selectivity estimates. We present empirical studies to demonstrate that our approach is able to effectively retrieve relevant possible answers with high precision, high recall, and manageable cost.
2511748
QPIAD: Query Processing over Incomplete Autonomous Databases
Incompleteness due to missing attribute values (aka "null values") is very common in autonomous Web databases, on which user accesses are usually supported through mediators. Traditional query processing techniques that focus on the strict soundness of answer tuples often ignore tuples with critical missing attributes, even if they wind up being relevant to a user query. Ideally we would like the mediator to retrieve such relevant uncertain answers and gauge their relevance by accessing their likelihood of being relevant answers to the query. However, the autonomous nature of the databases poses several challenges, such as the restricted access privileges, limited query patterns, and sensitivity of database and network resource consumption in the Web environment. We introduce a novel query rewriting and optimization framework QPIAD that tackles these challenges to retrieve relevant uncertain answers. Our technique involves reformulating the user query based on approximate functional dependencies (AFDs) among the database attributes and ranking these queries using value distributions learned from naive Bayes classifiers. Empirical studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in retrieving relevant uncertain answers with high precision, high recall and manageable cost.
1747046
UCSOA: User-Centric Service-Oriented Architecture
This paper introduces a new user-centric service-oriented architecture (UCSOA) that allows end users to compose applications. UCSOA is an extension of consumer-centric service-oriented architecture (CCSOA), which is an extension of conventional SOA. The conventional SOA is producer-centric because service providers publish their services and service consumers must search available services to compose their applications. CCSOA is different as it allows consumers publish their needs including workflows and services, and let producers to produce services to meet the requirements. Based on CCSOA, UCSOA provides support for end users. An application builder is an engineer who has both domain and programming knowledge, while an end user has little knowledge on programming and thus UCSOA needs to allow nontechnical persons to compose their applications. This paper presents the concepts, architecture, enabling techniques, and illustrative examples
37282807
Testing Web Services Using Progressive Group Testing
This paper proposes progressive group testing techniques to test large number of Web services (WS) available on Internet. At the unit testing level, the WS with the same functionality are tested in group using progressively increasing number of test cases. A small number of WS that scored best will be integrated into the real environment for operational testing. At the integration testing level, many composite services will be constructed and tested by group integration testing. The results of group testing at both unit and integration levels are verified by weighted majority voting mechanisms. The weights are based on the reliability history of the WS under test. A case study is designed and implemented, where the dependency among the test cases in WS is analyzed and used to generate progressive layers of test cases.
8136301
Architecture classification for SOA-based applications
The architecture of SOA-based applications is different from traditional software architecture where the architecture is mainly static. The architecture of an SOA-based application is dynamic, i.e., the application may be composed at runtime using existing services. Thus SOA has provided a new direction for software architecture study, where the architecture is determined at runtime and architecture can be dynamically changed at runtime to meet the new software requirements. This paper proposes an architecture classification scheme for SOA-based applications. Using this classification, several well-known SOA-based applications are reviewed including the architectures proposed and adopted by major computer companies and standard organizations. The architecture classification provides a unified way to evaluate a variety of architectures for SOA-based applications
3177556
A parallel architecture for probabilistic relaxation operations on images
Abstract The design of a parallel architecture for executing probabilistic relaxation operations on two dimensional images is addressed. First of all, the concerned relaxation process is divided into three different parallel operations, i.e. systolic, simultaneous, and pipelined. All these parallel operations are mapped onto a linear array architecture that runs smoothly without any bottleneck in the data flows. The proposed architecture and its components are described. An illustrative running of the relaxation process for an image thresholding application on the architecture is described in some details. The hardware implementation and CAD logic simulation are then given. Finally, performance comparison between the proposed architecture and some existing ones is reported.
17883721
Classification of self-consumable highlights for soccer video summaries
An effective scheme for soccer summarization is significant to improve the usage of this massively growing video data. The paper presents an extension to our recent work which proposed a framework to integrate highlights into play-breaks to construct more complete soccer summaries. The current focus is to demonstrate the benefits of detecting some specific audio-visual features during play-break sequences in order to classify highlights contained within them. The main purpose is to generate summaries which are self-consumable individually. To support this framework, the algorithms for shot classification and detection of near-goal and slow-motion replay scenes is described. The results of our experiment using 5 soccer videos (20 minutes each) show the performance and reliability of our framework
18308344
Using Colored Petri Nets for Conversation Modeling
Conversations are a useful means of structuring communicative interactions among agents. The value of a conversation-based approach is largely determined by the conversational model it uses. Finite State Machines, used heavily to date for this purpose, are not sufficient for complex agent interactions requiring a notion of concurrency. We propose the use of Colored Petri Nets as a model underlying a language for conversation specification. This carries the relative simplicity and graphical representation of the former approach, along with greater expressive power and support for concurrency. The construction of such a language, Protolingua, is currently being investigated within the framework of the Jackal agent development environment. In this paper, we explore the use of Colored Petri Nets in modeling agent communicative interaction.
3031903
A new IIR-type digital fractional order differentiator
A new infinite impulse response (IIR)-type digital fractional order differentiator (DFOD) is proposed by using a new family of first-order digital differentiators expressed in the second-order IIR filter form. The integer first-order digital differentiators are obtained by the stable inversion of the weighted sum of Simpson integration rule and the trapezoidal integration rule. The distinguishing point of the proposed DFOD lies in an additional tuning knob to compromise the high-frequency approximation accuracy.
26236484
A new object-oriented method integrating Jackson structured programming method
Abstract This article presents a new object-oriented method which integrates the Jackson Structured Programming method with an object-oriented approach. The new method analyzes the user's services, identifies attributes from data structure diagrams, and identifies operations from program structure diagrams. Also, this method defers the identification of class relationships until the attributes and operations have been identified, so as to prevent premature decisions. In addition, the concept of “leading object” is used to decrease the number of actors and agents and to increase the number of servers in a system. This may enhance reusability of the objects.