Non-functional Characteristics Research Articles

Evaluation of Different Electronic Product Code Discovery Service Models

Electronic Product Code Discovery Service (EPCDS) is an important concept in supply chain processes and in Internet of Things (IOT). It allows supply chain participants to search for their partners, communicate with them and share product information using standardized interfaces securely. Many researchers have been proposing different EPCDS models, considering different requirements. In this paper, we describe existing architecture designs of EPCDS systems, namely Directory Service Model, Query Relay Model and Aggregating Discovery Service Model (ADS). We also briefly mention Secure Discovery Service (SecDS) Model, which is an improved version of Directory Service Model with a secure attribute-based access control mechanism. Then, we analyze the strengths and limitations of these models, by comparing based on non-functional features such as data ownership, confidentiality, business relationship independence, availability, reliability, implementation complexity, visibility, and scalability. From the analysis results, we have a better understanding of which model is more suitable in what kinds of situations or scenarios. Moreover, we suggest possible improvements and identify possible future add-on applications to SecDS model in the paper.

Cultural influences on seeking quality health information: An exploratory study of the Korean community

Consumer health information-seeking behavior of members of a local Korean community in Tallahassee, Florida, was explored through semi-structured interviews. Questions explored how this community assessed the quality of health information, and what cultural values influenced their understanding of its quality. Accuracy and reliability were identified as the two most valuable quality characteristics. A commercial type of webpage was considered as a negative indicator for reliability, while information described in detail or displayed reiteratively was a positive indicator. In addition to functional quality criteria, nonfunctional characteristics such as sympathy were found. Above all, findings highlighted that cultural differences limited the use of health information. Quality based selection of information is an important part of a health information seeking process. Findings can give the designers of Web-based consumer health information systems important insights into how to support evaluation of the quality of health information by consumers, and how to reduce barriers to health information seeking and use caused by cultural differences.

A QOS Ontology-Based Component Selection

In the component-based software development, the selection step is very important. It consists of searching and selecting appropriate software components from a set of candidate components in order to satisfy the developer-specific requirements. In the selection process, both functional and non-functional requirements are generally considered. In this paper, we focus only on the QoS, a subset of non-functional characteristics, in order to determine the best components for selection. The component selection based on the QoS is a hard task due to the QoS descriptions heterogeneity. Thus, we propose a QoS ontology which provides a formal, a common and an explicit description of the software components QoS. We use this ontology in order to semantically select relevant components based on the QoS specified by the developer. Our selection process is performed in two steps: (1) a QoS matching process that uses the relations between QoS concepts to pre-select candidate components. Each candidate component is matched against the developer's request and (2) a component ranking process that uses the QoS values to determine the best components for selection from the pre-selected components. The algorithms of QoS matching and component ranking are then presented and experimented in the domain of multimedia components.

QoS-Aware Web Service Recommendation by Collaborative Filtering

With increasing presence and adoption of Web services on the World Wide Web, Quality-of-Service (QoS) is becoming important for describing nonfunctional characteristics of Web services. In this paper, we present a collaborative filtering approach for predicting QoS values of Web services and making Web service recommendation by taking advantages of past usage experiences of service users. We first propose a user-collaborative mechanism for past Web service QoS information collection from different service users. Then, based on the collected QoS data, a collaborative filtering approach is designed to predict Web service QoS values. Finally, a prototype called WSRec is implemented by Java language and deployed to the Internet for conducting real-world experiments. To study the QoS value prediction accuracy of our approach, 1.5 millions Web service invocation results are collected from 150 service users in 24 countries on 100 real-world Web services in 22 countries. The experimental results show that our algorithm achieves better prediction accuracy than other approaches. Our Web service QoS data set is publicly released for future research.

XTCA-compliant PCIe hub/controller for Physics CODAC subsystems

Fusion plasma devices require highly complex Control, Data Acquisition and Communications (CODAC) systems due to ever-increasing demands on loop-cycle time, data bandwidth, channel density and failure prevention. The Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) specification has already proven to be a successful solution for real-time multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) architectures, and provides important non-functional features such as hardware management, fail-safe and redundancy. xTCA builds up from ATCA, standardizing timing signaling and port assignment on the Rear Transition Module (RTM), which are important features for instrumentation. Continuing the development efforts on ATCA instrumentation for CODAC systems for fusion devices, the authors designed an improved, xTCA-compliant, PCI Express-based, switch/AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) carrier module. Switching is carried out by a PCIe Gen 2 Switch and links to all existing nodes within an xTCA shelf, in a redundant dual-star topology. Timing distribution for the AMC modules, RTM and xTCA backplane is implemented on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Each module can carry up to four AMC and one RTM, up to 70 cards interconnected through a PCIe network. Therefore, the hardware will be able to perform a vast range of functionalities, such as data acquisition, processing, storage or signal generation, by inserting appropriate RTM and commercially available AMC modules, making them suitable for MIMO control of fusion devices. This paper presents the detailed hardware implementation, technology and layout of the module, and exemplifies its potential applications in a fusion control environment.

SeDiM

Service Discovery Protocols (SDPs) provide mechanisms that allow networked devices and applications to advertise and locate services with minimum or no human intervention. For fixed networked devices, SDPs such as SLP, Bonjour, and UPnP have been proposed. For more dynamic networked environments such as ad hoc, sensor, and wireless networks, a set of discovery technologies have been designed to operate optimally in such conditions; these include protocols like Ariadne, Allia, GSD, and UDDI. Hence, it is possible to advertise and discover services in diverse network types using one of a suite of technologies. Importantly, there are differences between individual protocols in terms of: (i) service description language, (ii) message format, (iii) directory architecture, (iv) discovery protocol behavior, (v) network communication, and (vi) nonfunctional features. These differences mean it is not possible to discover services with one protocol that is advertised by another and vice versa; we characterize this as service discovery protocol heterogeneity . In this article, we propose SeDiM, a dynamic middleware solution to allow heterogeneous discovery protocols within and across different domains to interoperate with one another. SeDiM is evaluated within a case study that demonstrates transparent interoperation of protocols including SLP and Bonjour in highly heterogeneous environments.

ART-Improving Execution Time for Flash Applications

Rich Internet Applications (RIA) require fast execution time and allow richer, faster, and more interactive experiences. Flash is a common technology for building RIAs. Flash programmers usually specialize in graphic design rather than programming. In addition, the tight schedule of projects makes the Flash programmers ignore non-functional characteristics such as the efficiency of their systems; yet, to enhance Flash users’ experiences, writing efficient ActionScript code is a key requirement. Flash programmers require automated support to assist with this key requirement. This paper proposes a refactoring system called ART (ActionScript Refactoring Tool) to provide automatic support for Flash programmers by rewriting their ActionScript code to make their applications faster.

Discovering Services during Service-Based System Design Using UML

Recently, there has been a proliferation of service-based systems, i.e., software systems that are composed of autonomous services but can also use software code. In order to support the development of these systems, it is necessary to have new methods, processes, and tools. In this paper, we describe a UML-based framework to assist with the development of service-based systems. The framework adopts an iterative process in which software services that can provide functional and nonfunctional characteristics of a system being developed are discovered, and the identified services are used to reformulate the design models of the system. The framework uses a query language to represent structural, behavioral, and quality characteristics of services to be identified, and a query processor to match the queries against service registries. The matching process is based on distance measurements between the queries and service specifications. A prototype tool has been implemented. The work has been evaluated in terms of recall, precision, and performance measurements.

Service Value Networks: Unleashing the Combinatorial Power of Service Mashups

The long tail phenomenon has been heavily discussed in recent years. What has been neglected so far is its striking relevance for electronic services. Whereas consumers expectations about information goods are often vague and transient, their requirements are pronounced and specific when it comes to the functional and non-functional characteristics of electronic services. Moreover, modular services can be combined and configured into service mashups that have the potential to meet complex consumer requirements. In this vein, the long tail phenomenon can be leveraged into a new dimension – the long valley, where every service exerts positive network externalities on the remaining services, thereby spurring an increase in supply and demand. The combinatorics of constructible service mashups are enabled by universally accessible service orchestration platforms known as Service Value Networks (SVNs). This article shall not only pave the way for a rising research area on a new business trend, but will also help business actors to harness the opportunities opened up by SVNs.

Dynamic Reconfiguration of Middleware for Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous computing scenarios call for middleware support solutions able to cope with changes in environment conditions and user requirements. Changes greatly impact on the application logic the middleware is able to carry out (content/service adaptation, multichannel content delivery, mobility management, and so on), but also on the non-functional support logic middleware exploits to enforce the application logic itself (e.g., naming, persistence, communication infrastructures). In this work, the authors propose a novel middleware for ubiquitous computing scenarios that is able to reconfigure both application and non-functional features, in order to cope with increasingly complex and heterogeneous ubiquitous and pervasive landscapes.

Classifications and comparisons of service architectural styles

Service systems are essential to the execution of business services. When designing a service system, it is important to consider its global architecture to enable optimisation of high-level decision-making. In this paper, based on the analysis of the similarities between software and service systems, a new concept, service architecture, is presented. Service architecture (SA) defines the high-level structure of a service system, including service elements and their co-production relationships. The design quality of SA has a strong effect on the quality of service. Based on the summarisation of various service systems, we present several typical service architectural styles that can be directly reused to facilitate the development of high quality and efficient service systems. These styles are classified into three types, creational, structural and behavioural, based on a set of distinct dimensions. Features, application scenarios, graphical topology and typical cases for each style are then briefly discussed. In addition, comparisons between these styles, especially regarding their non-functional features, are shown. The results of this paper will aid in the study of methodologies for service system development.

Designing for All in Ambient Intelligence Environments: The Interplay of User, Context, and Technology

This article outlines issues that emerge from the evolution of the Information Society towards Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environments, focusing on the diversity of human needs, the dynamic evolution of context, and the multifaceted characteristics of interactive technologies. Such an evolution brings forward many implications and challenges in the context of Universal Access, that is, accessibility and usability of Information Society Technologies by all users, independently of individual abilities and characteristics. Identified research challenges include the investigation of human requirements in the context of AmI, suitable approaches to nonfunctional characteristics (such as accessibility, privacy, security, and safety), suitable models of the context of use, appropriate interaction devices and techniques for diverse users and contexts of use, interaction design for continuous and implicit interaction, elaboration of design methods suitable for very complex interactive environments, and mechanisms for interaction adaptation. This article argues that such challenges in the context of AmI environments can be addressed by systematically investigating the interplay between the user, the context, and the technologies. Such a research direction requires systematic approaches to diverse human needs, dynamic context characteristics, and technology possibilities, all of which need to be elaborated and validated in practice.

An experimental evaluation of SEC+, an enhanced search engine for component-based software development

Current approaches for service discovery are inherently restricted to the exact querying. This may provide incomplete answers since queries are often overspecified and may lead to low precision and recall. To alleviate these problems, we achieved an experimental evaluation that uses of the enhanced search engine, SEC+. This engine is based on the subsumption mechanism and a function that calculates the semantic distance. Both the used rate and the non-functional features are considered to filter the selection. We show that such a solution can improve the quality of the search and can enhance both the recall and the precision.

An experimental evaluation of SEC+, an enhanced search engine for component-based software development

Current approaches for service discovery are inherently restricted to the exact querying. This may provide incomplete answers since queries are often overspecified and may lead to low precision and recall. To alleviate these problems, we achieved an experimental evaluation that uses of the enhanced search engine, SEC+. This engine is based on the subsumption mechanism and a function that calculates the semantic distance. Both the used rate and the non-functional features are considered to filter the selection. We show that such a solution can improve the quality of the search and can enhance both the recall and the precision.

Patterns for real-world-aware and real-time solutions

We apply pattern language methodology to describe design and integration patterns for real-world-aware and real-time solutions, i.e., software solutions that integrate business information processing with sensor and actuator manipulations of the external world. Efficient engineering of such solutions depends on the definition and reuse of components whose real-time characteristics can be specified. Other nonfunctional characteristics, such as throughput and reliability, may also be constrained and critical for correct behavior of a design element. We present a pattern language comprising a basic catalog of design patterns for component-based real-time solutions.

Prediction-based approaches to characterize bidirectional promoters in the mammalian genome

BackgroundMachine learning approaches are emerging as a way to discriminate various classes of functional elements. Previous attempts to create Regulatory Potential (RP) scores to discriminate functional DNA from nonfunctional DNA included using Markov models trained to identify sequences from promoters and enhancers from ancestral repeats. We proposed that knowledge gleaned from those methods could be further refined using a multiple class predictor to separate classes of promoter elements from enhancers or nonfunctional DNA.ResultsWe extended our previous work, which identified over 5,000 candidate bidirectional promoters in the human genome, to map the orthologous promoter regions in the mouse genome. Our algorithm measured the robustness of evidence provided by the spliced EST annotations and incorporated evidence from annotations of UCSC Known Genes and GenBank mRNA. In preparation for de novo prediction of this promoter type, we examined characteristic features of the dataset as a whole. For instance, bidirectional promoters score very highly among all functional elements for Regulatory Potential Scores. This result was unexpected due to the limited sequence conservation found in these noncoding regions. We demonstrate that bidirectional promoters can be classified apart from other genomic features including non-bidirectional promoters, i.e. those promoters having no nearby upstream genes. Furthermore bidirectional promoters consistently score at the level of very highly conserved functional elements in the genome- developmental enhancers. The high scores are due to sequence-based characteristics within the promoters, not the surrounding exons. These results indicate that high-scoring RP regions can be deconvoluted into various functional classes of genomic elements. Using a multiple class predictor we are able to discriminate bidirectional promoters from enhancers, non-bidirectional promoters, and non-promoter regions on the basis of RP scores and CpG islands.ConclusionsWe examine orthology at bidirectional promoters, use discriminatory machine learning approaches to differentiate multiple types of promoters from other functional and nonfunctional features in the genome and begin the process of deconvoluting classes of functional regions that score well with RP scores. These types of approaches precede supervised learning techniques to discover unannotated promoter regions.

A study on a general rapid prototyping software based on distributed technology

As a key component of Rapid Prototyping & Manufacturing (RP&M) technology, Rapid Prototyping software (RP software) was used to transform three dimensional (3D) CAD models into the CNC files needed to run the RP system. With the development of RP&M technology and rising of market application, many non-functional characteristics of RP software have been put forward. Developing cheap, general, robust, scalable, reusable, rapidly responsive and web-based RP software is necessary to meet the RP&M enterprise applications. New software concepts, like open distributed architecture, component, object-oriented and network computing have been put into the practice of RPA (RP software proposed in this paper). RPA is well combined RP software with current prevailed software technologies and has advantages of manufacturing on the network, generality, rapid response, reusability and portability. Excellent features of advanced RP software have being achieved.

Improving Web Service Discovery with Usage Data

Service-oriented computing and Web services are becoming more popular, enabling organizations to use the Web as a market for selling their own services and consuming existing services from others. Nevertheless, the more services are available, the more difficult it becomes to find the most appropriate service for a specific application. Existing approaches to Web service discovery tend to address different information-processing styles. However, Web services have functional and nonfunctional characteristics that can be difficult to present and control. Service behavior and quality-of-service (QoS) parameters can vary over time, and new services can emerge in certain business areas.

Cost-Effective Security

To be successful, application software needs compelling functionality, availability within the right timeframe, and a reasonable price. But equally critical, teams must get nonfunctional characteristics right - performance, scalability, manageability, maintainability, usability, and, of course, security. The authors introduced misuse or abuse cases as counterparts to use cases and explained that although use cases capture functional requirements, abuse cases describes how users can misuse a svstem with malicious intent, thereby identifying additional security requirements. Another prior installment discussed how to fit misuse and abuse cases into the development process by defining who should write them, when to do so, and how to proceed. In this article, we discuss what abuse cases bring to software development in terms of planning. We don't assumes fixed budget is assigned to security measure's but that budgetary constraints apply to the project as a whole. We believe it's reasonable, and often accessary, to trade funtionality against security, so the question isn't how to prioritize security requirements but how to prioritize the development effort across both functional and security requirements.

Consumer-centric QoS-aware selection of web services

There exist many web services which exhibit similar functional characteristics. It is imperative to provide service consumers with facilities for selecting required web services according to their non-functional characteristics or quality of service (QoS). However, the selection process is greatly complicated by the distinct views of service providers and consumers on the services QoS. For instance, they may have distinct views of the service reliability—wherein a consumer considers that a service is reliable if its success rate is higher than 99%, while a provider may consider its service as reliable if its success rate is higher than 90%. The aim of this paper is to resolve such conflicts and to ensure consensus on the QoS characteristics in the selection of web services. It proposes a QoS Consensus Moderation Approach (QCMA) in order to perform QoS consensus and to alleviate the differences on QoS characteristics in the selection of web services. The proposed approach is implemented as a prototype tool and is tested on a case study of a hotel booking web service. Experimental results show that the proposed approach greatly improves the service selection process in a dynamic and uncertain environment of web services.