Heterogeneous Software Components Research Articles

EMF-Syncer: scalable maintenance of view models over heterogeneous data-centric software systems at run time

With the increasing presence of cyber-physical systems (CPSs), like autonomous vehicle systems and digital twins, the future of software engineering is predicated on the importance of designing and developing data-centric software systems that can adapt intelligently at run time. CPSs consist of complex heterogeneous software components. Model-driven engineering advocates using software models to tame such complexity, capturing the relevant design concerns of such systems at different levels of abstraction. Yet most of the existing CPSs are engineered without considering MDE practices and tools, facing fundamental challenges when working with data: monitoring the program data at run time, syncing updates between program and model, dealing with heterogeneous data sources, and representing such observed data at run time to facilitate automated analysis. In this work, we introduce the notion of view models to explicitly represent parts of the domain knowledge implicitly embedded in the source code of a software system. This notion is equipped with a scalable bidirectional syncing mechanism that extracts view model instances from program snapshots at run time. The syncing mechanism is proposed from a conceptual point of view, independently of specific implementations and supports incremental view model update and view model maintenance. We show how this syncing mechanism is flexible enough to facilitate the non-intrusive adoption of MDE technology over existing MDE-agnostic heterogeneous data-centric systems. We study the run-time cost implied by the EMF-Syncer , the tool implementing this syncing mechanism for Java applications and view models atop the eclipse modeling framework (EMF) when executing data analytic and transformation tasks over large volumes of data in the presence of data updates at run time. An empirical evaluation of the EMF-Syncer has been conducted with an industry-targeted benchmark for decision support systems, analyzing performance and scalability. The novel syncing mechanism enables new opportunities to adopt MDE technology in heterogeneous data-centric systems.

Evaluating a multicore Mixed-Criticality System implementation against a temporal isolation kernel

Digital transformation causes the deployment of vast quantities of heterogeneous software components in modern systems, while the urge to lower material cost wants more software to be integrated in less hardware. Safety critical systems incorporate components that must be assured to never fail and others that may do as long as the consequences can be contained without threatening safety. Isolation is the prime response to this need, which yields low CPU utilization, as large precautionary resource margins are apportioned to components that must never fall short of resources, which defeats the quest for integration. Alternative models that promise to achieve higher CPU utilization without losing safety, have been explored under the umbrella term of Mixed-Criticality Systems (MCS). This paper uses a concrete implementation of a state-of-the-art MCS solution to assess how viable its premises are in practice and how they compare to a standard Time-and-Space-Partitioning solution for sustained performance.

Exception Handling in SARL as a Responsibility Distribution

Exception handling has been successfully proposed in software engineering practice as a simple, but effective, technology to address abnormal situations possibly occurring at runtime. Such mechanisms support the robust composition of heterogeneous software components, promoting code modularity, decoupling, and separation of concerns. Multi-agent systems bring these features to an extreme, but often lack systematic mechanisms for treating exceptions as part of their design. In this paper, we show how exception handling mechanism can be introduced in SARL, leveraging the abstractions that characterize its programming model. We introduce a new kind of space, supporting the responsibility distribution among agents concerning the handling of exceptional situations.

Tikiri—Towards a lightweight blockchain for IoT

Internet of Things (IoT) platforms have been deployed in several domains to enhance efficiency of business process and improve productivity. Most IoT platforms comprise of heterogeneous software and hardware components which can potentially introduce security and privacy challenges. Blockchain technology has been proposed as one of the solutions to realize IoT security by leveraging the (a) Immutable ledger, (b) Decentralized architecture and (c) Strong cryptography primitives. However, integrating blockchain platforms with IoT based applications presents several challenges due to lack of (a) acceptable performance on resource-constrained devices, (b) high transaction throughput, (c) keyword-based search and retrieve, (d) transaction back pressure operations, and (e) real-time response. In this paper, we propose a lightweight blockchain platform, “Tikiri”, for resource-constrained IoT devices. Tikiri uses Apache Kafka for the consensus and proposes new blockchain architecture to handle real-time transaction execution on the blockchain. Tikiri is characterized by functional programming and actor-based smart contract platform that realizes concurrent execution of transactions in the blockchain. Tikiri realizes a lightweight and scalable blockchain that can provides performance on the resource-constrained IoT devices.

Honey, I Shrunk the ELFs

In the embedded domain, industrial sectors (i.e., automotive industry, avionics) are undergoing radical changes. They broadly adopt commodity hardware and move away from special-purpose control units. During this transition, heterogeneous software components are consolidated to run on commodity operating systems. To efficiently consolidate such components, a modular encapsulation of common functionality into reusable binary files (i.e., shared libraries) is essential. However, shared libraries are often unnecessarily large as they entail a lot of generic functionality that is not required in a narrowly defined scenario. As the source code of proprietary components is often unavailable and the industry is heading towards binary-only distribution, we propose an approach towards lightweight binary tailoring . As demonstrated in the evaluation, lightweight binary tailoring effectively reduces the amount of code in all shared libraries on a Linux-based system by 63 percent and shrinks their files by 17 percent. The reduction in size is beneficial to cut down costs (e.g., lower storage and memory footprint) and eases code analyses that are necessary for code audits.

In-process machine vision monitoring of tool wear for Cyber-Physical Production Systems

Abstract The monitoring of tool wear in machining process is becoming a crucial element in the modern production systems to predict the tool lifespan, and consequently the ideal point to replace it, still remains a challenge up to now. On the other hand, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) have attracted researchers in many areas, especially in manufacturing, and they are playing a key role in the integration of heterogeneous software and hardware components. In this paper, an in-process machine vision monitoring of tool wear is integrated into a production system based on the CPS approach. Thereby, a methodology of four phases is proposed, whose goal basically is to raise the requirements, validate the integration, develop the decentralized architecture and finally prove the efficiency, robustness, and capabilities that only cyber-physical systems can bring to a production system. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed monitoring system for in-process tool wear is validated in a CNC drilling machining process.

Subsecond Tsunamis and Delays in Decentralized Electronic Systems

Driven by technological advances and economic gain, society’s electronic systems are becoming larger, faster, more decentralized and autonomous, and yet with increasing global reach. A prime example are the networks of financial markets which—in contrast to popular perception—are largely all-electronic and decentralized with no top-down real-time controller. This prototypical system generates complex subsecond dynamics that emerge from a decentralized network comprising heterogeneous hardware and software components, communications links, and a diverse ecology of trading algorithms that operate and compete within this all-electronics environment. Indeed, these same technological and economic drivers are likely to generate a similarly competitive all-electronic ecology in a variety of future cyberphysical domains such as e-commerce, defense and the transportation system, including the likely appearance of large numbers of autonomous vehicles on the streets of many cities. Hence there is an urgent need to deepen our understanding of stability, safety and security across a wide range of ultrafast, large, decentralized all-electronic systems—in short, society will eventually need to understand what extreme behaviors can occur, why, and what might be the impact of both intentional and unintentional system perturbations. Here we set out a framework for addressing this issue, using a generic model of heterogeneous, adaptive, autonomous components where each has a realistic limit on the amount of information and processing power available to it. We focus on the specific impact of delayed information, possibly through an accidental shift in the latency of information transmission, or an intentional attack from the outside. While much remains to be done in terms of developing formal mathematical results for this system, our preliminary results indicate the type of impact that can occur and the structure of a mathematical theory which may eventually describe it.

Automatic deployment of component-based applications

In distributed systems like those based on cloud or service-oriented frameworks, applications are typically assembled by deploying and connecting a large number of heterogeneous software components, spanning from fine-grained packages to coarse-grained complex services. Automation techniques and tools have been proposed to ease the deployment process of these complex system. By relying on a formal model of components, we describe a sound and complete algorithm for computing the sequence of actions that permits the deployment of a desired configuration even in the presence of circular dependencies among components. We give a proof for the polynomiality of the devised algorithm and exploit it to develop METIS, a tool for computing deployment plans. The validation of METIS has been performed in two ways: on the one hand, by considering artificial scenarios consisting of a huge number of different components synthesized by following typical configuration patterns and, on the other hand, by exploiting it to deploy real-life installations of a WordPress blogging service.

A unifying perspective on protocol mediation: interoperability in the future internet

Given the highly dynamic and extremely heterogeneous software systems composing the Future Internet, automatically achieving interoperability between software components —without modifying them— is more than simply desirable, it is quickly becoming a necessity. Although much work has been carried out on interoperability, existing solutions have not fully succeeded in keeping pace with the increasing complexity and heterogeneity of modern software, and meeting the demands of runtime support. On the one hand, solutions at the application layer synthesise intermediary entities, mediators, to compensate for the differences between the interfaces of components and coordinate their behaviours, while assuming the use of the same middleware solution. On the other hand, solutions at the middleware layer deal with interoperability across heterogeneous middleware technologies but do not reconcile the differences between components interfaces and behaviours at the application layer. In this paper we propose a unified approach for achieving interoperability between heterogeneous software components with compatible functionalities across the application and middleware layers. First, we provide a solution to automatically generate cross-layer parsers and composers that abstract network messages into a uniform representation independent of the middleware used. Second, these generated parsers and composers are integrated within a mediation framework to support the deployment of the mediators synthesised at the application layer. More specifically, the generated parser analyses the network messages received from one component and transforms them into a representation that can be understood by the application-level mediator. Then, the application-level mediator performs the necessary data conversion and behavioural coordination. Finally, the composer transforms the representation produced by the application-level mediator into network messages that can be sent to the other component. The resulting unified mediation framework reconciles the differences between software components from the application down to the middleware layers. We validate our approach through a case study in the area of conference management.

The Evolution of Balance Scorecard and its Impact on Web Services Quality

Web services quality have become a significant part of small businesses who use it to facilitate the seamless flow of business transactions and financial growth. While previous research focused on the technological, operational and infrastructure capabilities such as; reducing the cost of application development, systems integration and increasing interoperability among heterogeneous software components, applications and platforms. Small businesses on the other hand, are often more challenged than larger firms by resource constraints such as; lack of financial capital, and technical or managerial skills. Further, they are often confronted with the reality of their business performance. “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it,” since effective performance management requires accurate performance measurement. The author applies the integrated evolved Enterprise-Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (E-DMAIC) balanced scorecard methodology to examine web services quality in a small business firm. The integrated framework applies the traditional balanced scorecard four perspectives namely; learning and growth, internal business processes, customer and financial perspectives and the nine stages of the E-DMAIC balanced scorecard approach along with quality indicators. The new approach serves three purposes; first, as a measurement system monitoring performance and the quality of their goods and services. Second, as a communication tool providing diagnostic feedback of their performance, and lastly, as a strategic management system focusing on the small business visions. The author then tests the framework via an exploratory case study and reports the findings. The findings contribute to guidelines that will inform, educate and promote small businesses on the importance of web services quality.

Integrating medical devices in the operating room using service-oriented architectures

Abstract With the increasing documentation requirements and communication capabilities of medical devices in the operating room, the integration and modular networking of these devices have become more and more important. Commercial integrated operating room systems are mainly proprietary developments using usually proprietary communication standards and interfaces, which reduce the possibility of integrating devices from different vendors. To overcome these limitations, there is a need for an open standardized architecture that is based on standard protocols and interfaces enabling the integration of devices from different vendors based on heterogeneous software and hardware components. Starting with an analysis of the requirements for device integration in the operating room and the techniques used for integrating devices in other industrial domains, a new concept for an integration architecture for the operating room based on the paradigm of a service-oriented architecture is developed. Standardized communication protocols and interface descriptions are used. As risk management is an important factor in the field of medical engineering, a risk analysis of the developed concept has been carried out and the first prototypes have been implemented.

A Graph-based Approach for Deploying Component-based Applications into Channel-based Distributed Environments

With significant advances in software development technologies, it is now possible to have complex software applications, which include a large number of heterogeneous software components distributed over a large network of computers with different computational capabilities. To run such applications, their components must be instantiated on proper hardware resources in their target environments so that user requirements and constraints are also met. This process is called software deployment. However, this process is often challenging for large, distributed, component-based applications with many constraints and requirements. This article presents a graph-based deployment approach that does the deployment with respect to the communication resources required by application components and communication resources available on the hosts in the target environment. In our approach, component-based applications and distributed environments are modeled with the help of graphs. Deployment of an application is then defined as the mapping of the application graph to the target environment graph. This article further discusses how this mapping could be done to minimize the cost and to maximize the reliability of deployments.

An Integrated Data-Driven Framework for Computing System Management

With advancement in science and technology, computing systems are becoming increasingly more complex with a growing number of heterogeneous software and hardware components. They are thus becoming more difficult to monitor, manage, and maintain. Traditional approaches to system management have been largely based on domain experts through a knowledge acquisition solution that translates domain knowledge into operating rules and policies. This process has been well known as cumbersome, labor intensive, and error prone. In addition, traditional approaches for system management are difficult to keep up with the rapidly changing environments. There is a pressing need for automatic and efficient approaches to monitor and manage complex computing systems. In this paper, we propose an integrated data-driven framework for computing system management by acquiring the needed knowledge automatically from a large amount of historical log data. Specifically, we apply text mining techniques to automatically categorize the log messages into a set of canonical categories, incorporate temporal information to improve categorization performance, develop temporal mining techniques to discover the relationships between different events, and take a novel approach called event summarization to provide a concise interpretation of the temporal patterns.

Calibration of a crop model to irrigated water use using a genetic algorithm

Abstract. Near-term consumption of groundwater for irrigated agriculture in the High Plains Aquifer supports a dynamic bio-socio-economic system, all parts of which will be impacted by a future transition to sustainable usage that matches natural recharge rates. Plants are the foundation of this system and so generic plant models suitable for coupling to representations of other component processes (hydrologic, economic, etc.) are key elements of needed stakeholder decision support systems. This study explores utilization of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model to serve in this role. Calibration required many facilities of a fully deployed decision support system: geo-referenced databases of crop (corn, sorghum, alfalfa, and soybean), soil, weather, and water-use data (4931 well-years), interfacing heterogeneous software components, and massively parallel processing (3.8×109 model runs). Bootstrap probability distributions for ten model parameters were obtained for each crop by entropy maximization via the genetic algorithm. The relative errors in yield and water estimates based on the parameters are analyzed by crop, the level of aggregation (county- or well-level), and the degree of independence between the data set used for estimation and the data being predicted.

Designing autonomous robots

Autonomous robots are complex systems that require the interaction or cooperation of numerous heterogeneous software components. Nowadays, robots are getting closer to humans and as such are becoming critical systems that must meet safety properties including logical, temporal, and real-time constraints.

Hardware/software IP integration using the ROSES design environment

Considering current time-to-market pressures, IP reuse is mandatory for the design of complex embedded systems-on-chip (SoC). The integration of IP components into a given design is the most complex task in the whole reuse process. This paper describes the IP integration approach implemented in the ROSES design environment, which presents a unique combination of features that enhance IP reuse: automatic assembly of interfaces between heterogeneous software and hardware IP components; easy adaptation to different on-chip communication structures and bus and core standards; generation of customized and minimal OSs for programmable components; and an architecture-independent high-level API embedded into SystemC that makes application software independent from system implementation. Application code is written by using communication functions available in this API. ROSES automatically assembles wrappers that implement these functions, such that the application code does not need to be modified in order to run in the final synthesized system.

On the semantics of software adaptation

The problem of adapting heterogeneous software components that present mismatching interaction behaviour is one of the crucial problems in Component-Based Software Engineering. A promising approach to solve this problem is based on an adaptation methodology relying on extending component interfaces with protocol information which describes their interaction behaviour, and using a high-level notation to express the intended connection between component interfaces. The adaptor specification defines a component-in-the-middle capable of making two components interact successfully, according to certain constraints. The aim of this paper is to contribute to setting a theoretical foundation for software adaptation following this approach. A formal analysis of adaptor specifications is presented, and their usage to feature different forms of flexible adaptations is illustrated.

Mining logs files for data-driven system management

With advancement in science and technology, computing systems are becoming increasingly more complex with an increasing variety of heterogeneous software and hardware components. They are thus becoming increasingly more difficult to monitor, manage and maintain. Traditional approaches to system management have been largely based on domain experts through a knowledge acquisition process that translates domain knowledge into operating rules and policies. This has been well known and experienced as a cumber-some, labor intensive, and error prone process. In addition, this process is difficult to keep up with the rapidly changing environments. There is thus a pressing need for automatic and efficient approaches to monitor and manage complex computing systems.A popular approach to system management is based on analyzing system log files. However, some new aspects of the log files have been less emphasized in existing methods from data mining and machine learning community. The various formats and relatively short text messages of log files, and temporal characteristics in data representation pose new challenges. In this paper, we will describe our research efforts on mining system log files for automatic management. In particular, we apply text mining techniques to categorize messages in log files into common situations, improve categorization accuracy by considering the temporal characteristics of log messages, and utilize visualization tools to evaluate and validate the interesting temporal patterns for system management.

On the specification of software adaptation

The problem of adapting heterogeneous software components that present mismatching interaction behaviour is one of the crucial problems in Component-Based Software Engineering. The aim of this paper is to contribute to setting a theoretical foundation for software adaptation. A formal analysis of adaptor specifications is presented, and their usage to feature different forms of flexible adaptations is illustrated.

Biosphere

The growing use of DNA microarrays in biomedical research has led to the proliferation of analysis tools. These software programs address different aspects of analysis (e.g. normalisation and clustering within and across individual arrays) as well as extended analysis methods (e.g. clustering, annotation and mining of multiple datasets). Therefore, microarray data analysis typically requires the interoperability of multiple software programs involving different analysis types and methods. Such interoperation is often hampered by the heterogeneity inherent in the software tools (which may function by implementing different interfaces and using different programming languages). To address this problem, we employed the simple object access protocol (SOAP)-based web service approach that provides a uniform programmatic interface to these heterogeneous software components. To demonstrate this approach in the microarray context, we created a web server application, Biosphere, which interoperates a number of web services that are geographically widely distributed. These web services include a clustering web service, which is a suite of different clustering algorithms for analysing microarray data; XEMBL, developed at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) for retrieving EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database sequence data; and three gene annotation web services: GetGO, GetHAPI and GetUMLS. GetGO allows retrieval of Gene Ontology (GO) annotation, and the other two web services retrieve annotation from the biomedical literature that is indexed based on the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. With these web services, Biosphere allows the users to do the following: (i) cluster gene expression data using seven different algorithms; (ii) visualise the clustering results that are grouped statistically in colour; and (iii) retrieve sequence, annotation and citation data for the genes of interest. Biosphere and its web services described in Web Service Description Language (WSDL) can be accessed at http://rook.cecid.hku.hk:8280/BiosphereServer.