Visual understanding industrial workflows under uncertainty on distributed service oriented architectures

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an evolution of distributed computing based on the request/reply design paradigm for synchronous and asynchronous applications. In such architectures, application developers or system integrators can build scenarios by composing one or more services without knowing the services’ underlying implementations. In this paper, we adopt a SOA framework for on-line scheduling complex industrial workflows. The proposed SOA consists of three main layers; the input layer, the benchmarking layer, the prediction layer and the scheduler. The main innovation of our SOA architecture is the prediction layer that supports computer vision tools able to visually observe how an industrial workflow is actually executed. This way, we can automatically estimate the actual execution time for a process. In particular a new self-initialized visual tracker algorithm is proposed in this paper to robustly trace workers’ trajectory in a plant via visual observations. Then, part-to-whole curve matching is presented so as to find correspondences among the traced curve and the ideal one and thus improving scheduler efficiency. The input layer interoperably describes industrial operations using the XPDL (an XML-based) format. The benchmarker evaluates much faster than real-time and in an off-line mode how long it takes for an industrial workflow to be executed on a given resource guaranteeing an almost real-time implementation of the video processing algorithms on the plant. The last component of the proposed SOA is the scheduler with the goal to assign the workflows to the available resources. In this paper, a Maximum Benefit First (MBF) scheduler is presented which maximizes the total gain received by the industry when completing execution of all the beneficial operations with minimum violations of their delivery deadlines (that is with the minimum compensations). Experiments have been conducted on a real-world industrial plant of Nissan Iberica automobile construction indicating the efficiency of the proposed system.     

Enterprise cloud service architectures

As a new computing paradigm, cloud computing has received a lot of attention from enterprises and has being integrated or applied to enterprise architectures. This paper surveys the state of the art of enterprise cloud service architectures. Specifically, this paper discusses enterprise cloud service architectural requirements, design approaches, architectural styles, emerging cloud service platforms, applications and related challenges in an enterprise context. This paper also identifies research trends and opportunities for researchers and practitioners in this fast moving field.     

Time synchronization for VoIP quality of service

Various approaches seek to optimize the quality of service of VoIP applications. We propose a system that uses synchronized time to combine the useful characteristics of both fixed and adaptive buffer strategies, thereby improving VoIP quality of service. Using a combination of global positioning system (GPS) technologies and the network time protocol (NTP), hosts can learn the precise end-to-end delay for each packet. This information can benefit both domestic and business Internet telephony users. We outline our proposed system and discuss issues arising from the use of synchronized time     

Mobile service oriented architectures for NN-queries

The ever-increasing number of mobile device users has also raised the users’ expectation of mobile services accordingly. This phenomenon has given pressures to the mobile service providers to improve their services in order to stay competitive in the market. The service oriented approach is seen to be a promising scheme for mobile services. This paper presents mobile service oriented architectures for Nearest-Neighbor (NN) queries that are classified into five categories, namely (i) intermittent query mobile services, (ii) continuous query mobile services, (iii) context-aware mobile services, (iv) continuous moving object query mobile services, and (v) data broadcast mobile services. These services incorporate query, location and context-aware services, ontological context model, and broadcast. The proposed architectures are concerned with mobile services for clients on the move requesting services based on their current location, which is arguably the most important feature in a wireless environment. Furthermore, we also discuss the Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirement for mobile services in which request latency time is one of the most important parameters to consider. Some analytical models for query latency measurement are presented and the results are compared with the simulation experiments.     

Viewpoints of DSP software and service architectures

The software architecture of a future mobile telecommunication system consists of three main parts: system infrastructure services, middleware services and application services. Infrastructure services provide access technologies and networking services for the middleware services that again provide richer capabilities for wireless applications through mobile Internet. Architecture describes the organization of software systems, components, their internal relationships and connections to the environment. Reusing architectural structures benefits companies, because the architecture is a pivotal part of any system, and a costly one to construct. Architecture is documented and reused through architectural views that describe identified stakeholders and concerns, e.g. the purpose of a system, and the feasibility of constructing, deploying, evolving and maintaining it. Views conform to special viewpoints defined for the domain. This paper describes the viewpoints selected for developing the architecture of middleware services and digital signal processing software and provides a general framework for comparing viewpoints. Comparison and analysis of the defined viewpoints show that domain and system size are the dominant issues to be considered when architectural viewpoints are being selected.     

Inexpensive high availability solutions for the SIP-based VoIP service

In the era of IP-based service, people expect a simple, cheap, and competent Voice over IP (VoIP) service as an alternative of the traditional voice over PSTN. The introduction of the SIP protocol realizes the expectation. Following the cost saving spirit of VoIP, we focus on studying inexpensive high availability solutions for the SIP-based VoIP Service. In this paper, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) based and DN-LB based schemes are mainly compared in the paper. A P2P-based scheme enables an inexpensive high availability solution to the VoIP service by the shared computation resources form P2P nodes. Such a P2P-based solution may be appropriate for an individual VoIP user. However, a caller may take a large volume of messages to find out a callee via the proxy nodes in the P2P network. This inherent property of a P2P network may induce the message overhead and long call setup delay. Based on above, another inexpensive scheme, which is a probing-based name resolution solution, is proposed to achieve high availability and load balancing for the VoIP service. We tag the probing mechanism onto the open source project Domain Name Relay Daemon (DNRD) to become a domain name resolution based load balancer (DN-LB). With DN-LB, all request messages from clients can be fairly distributed to all failure-proof proxy servers in the server farm without using any additional costly intermediate network device and changing the standard SIP architecture. Such a DN-LB based solution may be a good choice for a VoIP service provider.     

一种基于SIP协议的VoIP服务质量保证

针对下一代网络中IP电话VoIP服务质量QoS的需求,对目前国内外各种QoS技术进行了分析研究,介绍了基于SIP协议的VoIP网络协议栈结构,提出了一种基于Q-SIP的VoIP网络服务器架构模型,并对其主要的功能模块进行了详细的阐述。     

A stock market trading framework based on deep learning architectures

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Market prediction has been a key interest for professionals around the world. Numerous modern technologies have been applied in addition to statistical models...     

Emerging alternatives to today's advanced service architectures for Internet telephony: IN and beyond

Two principal sets of standards are emerging for Internet telephony: H.323 from the ITU-T, and session initiation protocol (SIP) from the IETF. The advanced service architecture that comes with H.323 is rather archaic, and reminiscent of the old days of circuit–switched telephony. The one that comes with SIP is more modern, but has its share of deficiencies. While improvements are being made, alternatives are being sought. Two trends are noticeable in the search for alternatives: the return to the old and well-known intelligent network (IN) architectural framework, and the exploration of more recent approaches, such as mobile agent technology, that go beyond IN. This paper scrutinizes the trends in the search for alternatives to today's ITU-T and IETF advanced service architectures for Internet telephony. We successively review the IN-based architectures that are emerging, and the mobile agent-based architectures that are being explored. Many circuit–switched networks that adhere to the IN architectural framework have been deployed worldwide. The emerging IN-based advanced service architectures may facilitate the reuse of this installed base. They will however fall short when it comes to supporting the wide range of advanced services expected from Internet telephony. Mobile-agent-based advanced services architectures are much more promising, although the technology is not yet mature. Their inherent flexibility can easily help in exploiting to the fullest extent the host of opportunities Internet telephony brings. The return to the IN architectural framework may be economically viable in the short and medium terms. There is however no doubt that it will be imperative to go further in the long term. Mobile agent technology is certainly among the venues worth being explored for going beyond IN.     

A reference requirements set for public service provision enterprise architectures

Electronic Government (eGov) is a political priority worldwide. One of the core objectives of eGov is the online public services provision (PSP). However, many of eGov PSP systems fail in realizing their objectives. Enterprise Architectures (EA) could contribute to overcome some of the relevant obstacles. The objective of this paper is to derive a reference requirements set for eGov PSP that can be used in EA development. Aiming at capitalizing on existing knowledge, we conduct a systematic literature review on eGov PSP systems requirements. This results in identifying a unified requirements set, i.e. 186 requirements, and stakeholders set, i.e. 19 stakeholders, for eGov PSP systems. Based on these findings, we determine 16 overview use cases demonstrating the basic functionality of such systems. Our findings are modeled using ArchiMate 2.0 notation. The identified requirements set can be used by virtually any public organization providing public services for developing its own EA. As a result, it can lead to the reduction of eGov PSP project failures, the decrease of software development costs and the improvement of its effectiveness and quality. Furthermore, it can be used as a basis to develop a complete reference EA for the eGov PSP domain.     

The software quality challenges of service oriented architectures in e-commerce

Web Services technologies and their supporting collection of de facto standards are now reaching the point of maturity where they are appearing in production software systems. Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) using Web Services as an enabling technology are also being discussed widely in the IT press. However, despite the numerous and real advantages of these architectural patterns there are still many software quality challenges that remain unresolved. This is particularly true as we consider more advanced architectures that exploit the technology to its maximum advantage: utility computing and on-demand service discovery and composition, grid computing and multi-agent systems will only become pervasive once the software quality challenges of real-world industrial applications have been addressed. In this paper potential quality issues such as performance, reliability and availability are addressed in terms of the quality assurances that might need to be provided to consumers of services. Proposed XML-based Service Level Agreement (SLA) languages are reviewed as a means of providing these quality assurances in machine-readable ways. We also discuss how SLAs might be automatically negotiated to enable automated, on-demand service discovery and composition. The next section of this paper addresses quality issues from a service provider's perspective. The providers of such services will need to ensure that SLA commitments are met and this poses interesting problems in terms of application management. Network quality of service is currently addressed through such means as IntServ and DiffServ. Research proposals to introduce similar techniques at an application level are described. From the service consumer's perspective, interesting research proposals for proactively ensuring that good quality of service is obtained are also reviewed. These could be particularly important for creating confidence, from a consumer's perspective, in these architectures. Finally, the paper evaluates the challenges and suggests areas where further research is most urgently required. Shelly Saunders MSc, BSc (Hons), MBCS (CITP) is an e-commerce Technical Architect, currently employed by ACE Group, a global insurance and reinsurance company. She is also studying part-time for a PhD with the Southampton Institute. She has 12 years experience in the software development industry and has provided the architecture for numerous e-commerce sites for global blue-chip clients. She also has another 5 years experience as a research scientist in the optical communications industry. She holds three patents. Margaret Ross is Professor of Software Quality at Southampton Solent University, She is an active member of the BCS, being on various Boards, Committees, and Working Parties including the BCS Council, the Quality Specialist Group (Vice Chair and Secretary); BCSWomen Specialist Group (Committee member) and the BCS Ethics Expert Panel. She is a Fellow of the BCS and also a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Scientist. Geoff Staples is the Chairman of the BCS Quality Specialist Group and a member of the BCS TickIT Committee. Geoff has been active in various aspects of computing, particularly quality. Geoff has been the Conference Chair or for the BCS Quality Specialist Groups international SQM and INSPIRE conferences are for many years. He is a Fellow of the BCS and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and also a Chartered Engineer Sean Wellington leads the Communications Engineering Subject Group (CESG) within the Faculty of Technology at Southampton Solent University. The group is responsible for programmes in computer systems and networks, web design, media technology and electronic engineering. Sean has a wide range of academic and research interests, including digital signal processing and multisensor fusion. He is an active member of the Institution of Electrical Engineering (Member 1993, Fellow 2002) and has served on numerous boards and committees.     

基于并联监控的VoIP业务阻断策略研究

VoIP技术的不断发展给传统电话业务带来了巨大冲击,电信运营商希望准确了解网络中存在哪些VoIP业务。针对VoIP业务的多协议以及串联控制模式的不足,研究了VoIP业务的并联控制技术,详细描述了并联控制原理及其业务阻断策略,实现了在不干扰网络服务质量的前提下对VoIP业务的控制。     

Quantifying the impact of uncertainty in embedded systems mapping for NoC based architectures

We describe a modeling framework to capture and account for uncertainty in design parameters in embedded systems. We then develop an uncertainty-aware solution to the problem of mapping in embedded systems that uses Network-on-Chip (NoC) based architecture platforms. The problem of mapping is formulated as a multi-objective - reliability, performance, and energy consumption - optimization problem. To solve this problem, we propose a solution based on the NSGA-II genetic algorithm and Monte Carlo simulation techniques. The solution is implemented as a computer-aid design tool that can generate robust 3D Pareto frontiers in the solution space formed by the design objectives of reliability, performance, and energy consumption. Comparison to several state-of-the-art models and solutions for the mapping problem, indicate that significant differences in the actual values of the design attribute of interest exist when one considers uncertainty in design parameters. For example, in the case of mapping with reliability as the only objective, 10% uncertainty in design parameters can lead to a 10.06% difference in MTTF estimation. In the case of mapping with execution time and energy consumption as objectives, the difference in 2D Pareto frontiers due to 10% uncertainty in design parameters can be up to 7.9%. These differences are important because they can mislead the overall optimization process of mapping toward suboptimal solution points. The DESUU-NOC tool that implements the proposed multi-objective mapping algorithm has as a main feature and contribution of this paper the ability to generate 3D Pareto frontiers comprised of robust solution points.     

A strategic approach to customer satisfaction in the telecommunication service market

As is the case in most other service industries, customer satisfaction is of paramount importance in the telecommunications industry. owever, customer satisfaction management in the telecommunication industry is difficult because of the diversity of services and customer segments that exist. This diversity makes it implausible to have a uniform customer satisfaction questionnaire that can be administered to all the different service/customer segment combination. Therefore, we first carried out a segmentation study to identify key customer segments for Korea Telecom, and then focused on one service/customer group in developing the questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed using the SERVPERF approach to measuring service satisfaction. We then developed a decision support system to manage and analyze the customer satisfaction data. The system consists of data input, tracking ability, and statistical modeling capabilities. The computer software was designed as an “open” decision support system that was intended to be used by a wide and general audience within Korea Telecom to review and make active use of customer satisfaction data.     

ADI公司CIC周年记——CIC打造中小客户优质服务平台

<正>"ADI公司有一项非常重要的策略,那就是越来越重视中小客户(ADI称之为Core Market)。这些中小客户或者中小公司的数量非常多,而且都是ADI的忠诚客户。我们认为这些中小客户是ADI目标客户群中十分重要的组成部分,他们对ADI来说是非常重要的。ADI成立CIC     

Iterative uncertainty reduction in multi-actor smart service innovation

Smart service innovation is the process of reconfiguring resources, structures, and value co-creation processes in service systems that result in novel data-driven service offerings. The nature of such offerings requires the involvement of multiple actors, which has been investigated by a few studies only. In particular, little is known about the multiple actors’ efforts to manage uncertainty in the process of establishing smart service systems. Empirically grounded in data from 25 interviews with industry experts, we explore how organizations act and interact in smart service innovation processes. For our data analysis, we adopt a microfoundational view to derive a theoretical model that conceptualizes actor engagement as a microfoundation for iterative uncertainty reduction in the actor-to-actor network of the smart service system. Our study contributes to information systems research on service systems engineering and digital transformation by explaining smart service innovation from both a multi-actor and a multi-level perspective, drawing on service-dominant (S-D) logic and microfoundations as well-established theoretical lenses.

     

Enhancing VoIP service for ubiquitous communication in a campus WLAN with partial coverage

The IEEE 802.11 WLAN technology has become the de facto standard for wireless Internet access. The spotty coverage of WLAN access points, however, confines the applicability of many real-time services such as VoIP within the boundary of the WLAN service area. In this paper, we investigate the problem of enhancing VoIP service for ubiquitous communication in a WLAN with spotty service area. We consider a university campus that has an established infrastructure for supporting SIP-based VoIP service through either wired or wireless data networks. The campus WLAN service does not have 100% full coverage, and hence users cannot make untethered VoIP calls anywhere on campus. The goal of this paper is to overcome the limitations of such “dead spots” for motivating the use of campus IP telephony service. To proceed, we start with two approaches called one-hop extension and dual-mode communication. The first approach uses multi-hop relay to extend the WLAN coverage, while the second approach leverages the availability of dual-mode handsets for ubiquitous voice communication. We implement the two approaches, and evaluate their performance in the campus testbed environment. We find that while the two approaches can effectively allow voice communication in WLAN dead spots, they have one common problem as the potential lack of support for voice call continuity that can cause degradation of the speech quality to an active call. We adopt a cross-layer solution based on signal processing algorithms to address the problem, thus achieving seamless voice call continuity while enabling ubiquitous voice communication on campus. Testbed evaluation shows promising results for future research along the proposed direction.     

一种VoIP流量识别的新方法*

目前传统的基于端口的流量识别方法不适合VoIP流量识别,基于载荷分析的流量识别方法应用于实时监测存在开销过大的问题,基于统计模型的流量识别方法也不适合实时监测。为此,针对VoIP的传输特性,提出并实现了一种新的VoIP流量识别方法。实验表明,只根据传输层信息,该方法的误报率在10%左右。     

Incorporating weather uncertainty in demand forecasts for electricity market planning

A major component of electricity network planning is to ensure supply capability into the future, through generation and transmission development. Accurate forecasts of maximum demand are a crucial component of this process, with future weather conditions having a large impact on forecast accuracy. This article presents an improved methodology for the consideration of weather uncertainty in electricity demand forecasts. Case studies based on the Australian national electricity market are used to validate the proposed methodology.     

基于VPN的安全VoIP述评

VoIP的高速发展,其安全性日益引起人们的关注,用VPN保证VoIP数据流的安全是一种合理的解决方案。综述了VPN保证VoIP通信安全的数据封装技术,并对VPN对VoIP服务质量的影响作了较深入的分析。