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For multi-hop wireless sensor networks, this paper presents a simple, loop-free, distributed algorithm to select path for data gathering from each sensor node to the sink node that attempts to balance the load in terms of power dissipation in communication at individual nodes with 100% data aggregation to enhance the lifetime of the network as a whole. It requires just a one-time computation during the initialization of the network, and the paths remain static unless the routing tree gets partitioned due to faults etc. The performance of the proposed scheme has been compared with some conventional centralized routing techniques, namely the minimum hop routing, the shortest power path routing and the minimum spanning tree routing by simulation. In all the cases, the proposed algorithm results improved lifetime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a set of n different deterministic finite state machines (DFSMs), we examine the problem of tolerating k faults among them. The traditional approach to this problem involves replication, requiring n.k backup DFSMs. For example, given two state machines, say A and B, to tolerate two faults, this approach maintains two copies each of A and B, thus resulting in a total of six DFSMs in the system. In this paper, we question the optimality of such an approach and present another approach based on the ‘fusion' of state machines allowing for more efficient backups. We introduce the theory of fusion machines and provide an algorithm which can generate fusion machines corresponding to a given set of machines. Further, we have implemented this algorithm and tested it for various examples. It is important to note that our approach requires only k backup DFSMs, as opposed to the n.k backup DFSMs required by the replication approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current state of the art of workflow composition over web services employ a centralized composite process to coordinate the constituent web services. Therefore, the coordinator process is complex, less scalable, and bulky. This paper introduces an architecture and associated techniques for distributed coordination of these workflows, and a prototype system, namely BondFlow system, with capability to control workflow execution using a handheld device. We distribute the centralized coordination logic of traditional workflows by (i) extending the stateless web services into self-coordinating entities using coordinator proxy objects, and (ii) creating the workflow over these entities by interconnecting them into a distributed network of objects using web bond primitives. Previously, we have developed web bond primitives to enforce interdependencies among autonomous entities. The prototypedr BondFlow systeh provides a platform to configure such distributed workflows, producing coordination components with a footprint small enough to be executed on a handheld (footprint no larger than 150 KB). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2006 MACE workshop [1, 28] has presented the drivers and challenges of Autonomic Networking [2] and fostered an understanding of emerging principles for this new type of networks [3]. In this paper, we present concepts and principles that define a technological neutral, architectural perspective of Autonomic Networks. The work presented in largely based on work within the Architecture team of the TeleManagement Forum (Technological Neutral Architecture, [4]) and joined research work of industrial and academic research teams (for example Ericsson [5], HP & QinetiQ [6] and Motorola [7]). The goal of this paper is to provide the reader with manageability guidelines and architectural patterns leading to the development of manageable autonomic software and communication systems. We present a component-based, distributed system architecture and an associated set of critical system services that Autonomic Networks require. Since we tackle the problem from a technologically neutral angle, this paper will not prescribe a single new technology, but rather provide a means that allows for federating different technologies, each of which offers particular advantages at business and system levels. In particular, it enables business concepts and principles to drive system design and architectures. This may be further implemented using currently available distributed systems information technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Run-time application environments are affected by the changes in mini-world or technology changes. Large number of applications are process driven. For robust applications that can evolve over time, there is a need for a methodology that implicitly handles changes at various levels from mini-world to run-time environment through a layers of models and systems. In this paper, we present ER* methodology for evolving applications. In the context of this paper, the role of two-way active behaviour and template driven development of applications is presented. This methodology facilitates capturing active behaviour from run-time transactions and provides a means of using this knowledge to guide subsequent application design and its evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a context-aware text summarizer based on ontologies intended to be used for adapting information to mobile devices. The system generates summaries from texts according to the profile of the user and the context where he/she is at the moment. Context is determined by spatial and temporal localization. Ontologies are used to allow identifying which parts of the texts are related to the user's profile and to the context. Ontologies are structured as hierarchies of concepts and concepts are represented by keywords with a weight associated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to extract the frequent patterns that can become motif at high speed from amino acid sequences, we are developing the parallel Modified PrefixSpan with the distributed worker paradigm. This paper presents a new dynamic load balancing technique for the parallel Modified PrefixSpan with the distributed worker paradigm and its performance evaluation. The characteristics of the dynamic load balancing are the small-grain task and the Cache-based Random Steal schema. This paper explains these characteristics and presents performance evaluations with the PC cluster of 100 nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most cache architectures exploit only a second level cache prefetch. In this paper, we propose the hierarchical prefetch cache architecture which allows prefetch between all levels of caches. We discovered that this architecture has a virtual effect of expanding memory bus bandwidth. According to an experimental analysis using 10 benchmark programs, the proposed architecture that employs all level cache prefetcher obtained a maximum 11% increased performance when compared to both architecture with expanded bus bandwidth and architecture with employment only a level 2 cache prefetcher. This shows our proposed architecture has an effectiveness of memory-bus bandwidth expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constraint Programming (CP) technology has been extensively used in Random Functional Test Generation during the recent years. However, while the existing CP methodologies are well tuned for traditional combinatorial applications e.g. logistics or scheduling, the problem domain of functional test generation remains largely unexplored by the CP community and many of its domain specific features and challenges are still unaddressed. In this paper we focus on the distinctive features of CP for the random functional test generation domain and show how these features can be addressed using a classical CP engine with custom extensions. We present some modeling and solving problems arising in this context and propose solutions. In particular, we address the way of model building in the problem domain of test generation which we refer to as multi-layer modeling. In this context we introduce constraint patterns of composite variable, implied condition and implied composite variable condition, define their semantics and propose schemes for their CSP modeling. The paper also addresses specific problems arising at the solving stage in the problem domain of random test generation. We propose solutions to these problems by means of custom random search algorithms. This approach is illustrated on the examples of the disjunction constraint and conditional variable instantiation. The latter algorithm addresses the feature of dynamic modeling required in the test generation task. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach we present experimental results based on the implementation using ILOG Solver as a CP engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses extending the Unified Modelling Language by means of a profile for modelling knowledge-based system in the context of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) framework. The profile is implemented using the eXecutable Modelling Framework (XMF) Mosaic tool. A case study from the health care domain demonstrates the practical use of this profile; with the prototype implemented in Java Expert System Shell (Jess). The paper also discusses the possible mapping of the profile elements to the platform specific model (PSM) of Jess and provides some discussion on the Production Rule Representation (PRR) standardisation work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a methodology to derive views over a relational database by applying a sequence of appropriately defined operations to the global schema. Such tailoring and composition process aims at offering personalized views over the database schema, so as to improve its ability to support the new needs of customers, support evolutionary software development, and fix existing legacy database design problems. The process is driven by the designer's knowledge of the possible operational contexts, in terms of the various dimensions that contribute to determine which portions of the global schema are relevant with respect to the different actors and situations. We formally introduce some operators, defined on sets of relations, which tailor the schema and combine the intermediate views to derive different final views, suitable for the different envisioned situations. The application to a case study is also presented, to better clarify the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to formalize Object Role Modeling (ORM) using the $\mathcal{DLR}$ description logic. This would enable automated reasoning on the formal properties of ORM diagrams, such as detecting constraint contradictions and implications. In addition, the expressive, methodological, and graphical capabilities of ORM make it a good candidate for use as a graphical notation for most description logic languages. In this way, industrial experts who are not IT savvy will still be able to build and view axiomatized theories (such as ontologies, business rules, etc.) without needing to know the logic or reasoning foundations underpinning them. Our formalization in this paper is structured as 29 formalization rules, that map all ORM primitives and constraints into $\mathcal{DLR}$, and 2 exceptions of complex cases. To this end, we illustrate the implementation of our formalization as an extension to DogmaModeler, which automatically maps ORM into DIG and uses Racer as a background reasoning engine to reason about ORM diagrams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-adaptive systems are capable of changing their behaviour at runtime to meet target constraints. An important research question is how quality of service models can inform runtime adaptation. This paper presents a solution to the problem by application of control theory to improve performance of queued systems by means of architectural adaptation. In a paper presented at the previous year's QoSA conference, we showed how Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average techniques can be utilized to forecast how Quality of Service (QoS) characteristics are likely to evolve in the near future. This is particularly important in cases where systems can be adapted to counter QoS constraint violations. In this paper, we show how, given a similar type of QoS characteristic forecasts, strategies of architectural adaptation can be implemented that pre-emptively avoid QoS violations. The novelty of our approach is that we use classical control theory to ensure that our adaptation strategies are stable, in the sense that they do not oscillate between choices. We provide a description of how our control theoretic model can be implemented using context-based interception in .NET via model driven engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important role of a workflow system is to schedule and reschedule the workflow process and to allow the user to monitor and guide the overall progress of the workflow and its activities. This paper presents extensions of a rescheduling algorithm based on minimal graph cut. The initial approach allowed to find an optimal rescheduling, which changed the initial schedule by shortening and moving of activities. The new schedule had the lowest overall price, counted as the sum of prices of shortening activities. The extension presented in this paper allows several extensions, while keeping the optimality: handling several delayed activities, handling the price of moving an activity and handling the price of deadline violation. The rescheduling algorithm is used within an ontology-based workflow management system for the process of military exercise preparation in Centre of simulation technologies National Academy of Defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freyd showed that in certain CPO-categories, locally continuous functors have minimal invariants, which possess a structure that he termed dialgebra. This gives rise to a category of dialgebras and homomorphisms, where the minimal invariants are initial, inducing a powerful recursion scheme (direcursion) on a cpo. In this paper, we identify a problem appearing when translating (co)iterative functions (on a fixed parameterised datatype) to direcursion (on the same datatype), and present a solution to this problem as a recursion scheme (primitive direcursion), generalising and symmetrising primitive (co)recursion for endofunctors. To this end, we give a uniform technique for translating (co)iterative maps into direcursive maps. This immediately gives a plethora of examples of direcursive functions, improving on the situation in the literature where only a few examples have appeared. Moreover, a technical trick proposed in a POPL paper is avoided for the translated maps. We conclude the paper by applying the results to a denotational semantics of Abadi and Cardelli's typed object calculus, and linking them to previous work on higher-order coalgebra and to bisimulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In formal language theory, James Rogers published a series of innovative papers generalising strings and trees to higher dimensions. Motivated by applications in linguistics, his goal was to smoothly extend the core theory of the formal languages of strings and trees to higher dimensions. Rogers' definitions rely on a specific representation of higher dimensional trees. This paper presents an alternative approach which focusses more on their universal properties and is based upon category theory, algebras, coalgebras and containers. Our approach reveals that Rogers' trees are canonical constructions which are also particularly beautiful. We also provide new theoretical results concerning higher dimensional trees. Finally, we provide evidence for our devout conviction that clean mathematical theories provide the basis for clean implementations by indicating how our abstract presentation will make computing with higher dimensional trees easier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a new control system interface which utilises the user's eye gaze to enable severely disabled individuals control electronic devices easily. The system is based upon a novel human computer interface, which facilitates simple control of electronic devices by predicting and responding to the user's possible intentions, based intuitively upon their point of gaze. The interface responds by automatically pre-selecting and offering only those controls appropriate to the specific device that the user looks at, in a simple and accessible manner. It therefore affords the user conscious choice of the appropriate range of control actions required, which may be executed by simple means and without the need to navigate manually through potentially complex control menus to reach them. Two systems using the head-mounted and the remote eye tracker respectively are introduced, compared and evaluated in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state of the art in vehicle configuration is still very much characterized by a face-to-face sales situation. In addition, web browsers are becoming market places. But direct sales over the internet, without contact with a sales person constitute still a small segment of the market, of only a few percent for European manufacturers. The internet is more used as a medium to gather information. A standardised DIYD vehicle configuration is thus a must for European manufacturers today. This paper presents an Intelligent DIY e-commerce system for vehicle design, based on Ontologies and 3D Visualization, that aims at enabling a suitable representation of products with the most realistic possible visualisation outcome. The platform, designed for the automotive sector, includes all the practicable electronic commerce variants and its on-line product configuration process is controlled by an ontology, that was created using the OWL Web Ontology Language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new method for robustly extracting moving objects in an environment with varying illuminations. The proposed method applies background subtraction scheme based on hue and hue gradient to minimize the effect of the illumination change. First, we train the background images in the HSI color space and build the Gaussian background model with respect to the hue and hue gradient. Next, image subtraction is performed between the trained background image and the current input image based on the Gaussian background model. Finally, the morphological operations are applied to remove the background noise. In this paper, we compare the previous subtraction schemes to our method applied to both the hand and body tracking in order to prove the robustness of the proposed method in sudden illumination changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of personal electronic equipment has significantly increased during recent years. Augmented Reality (AR) technology enables mobile devices to provide a very rich user experience by combining mobile computing with connectivity and location-awareness. In this paper we discuss the approach and development of an Augmented Reality-based personal assistant, combining the familiar interface of a human person with the functionality of a location-aware digital information system. The paper discusses the main components of the system, including the anthropomorphic user interface as well as the results of an initial prototype evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In real life, most of the tasks we perform throughout the day are first person tasks. Shouldn't these same tasks be realized from a first person point of view in virtual reality? This paper presents a first person Projection-based Visuo-Haptic Environment, and virtual prototyping and data exploration applications taking advantage of the first person visuo-haptic features of this configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a device that indicates the direction of an obstacle that is encroaching into the path of a visually impaired person who is walking. Our proposed system, which would resemble a pair of eyeglasses, first detects an obstacle and then indicates its direction and distance to the wearer through puff of air to the forehead. This paper describes the preliminary testing for presenting distance information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce a Prover-Verifier model for analyzing the computational complexity of a class of Constraint Satisfaction problems termed Binary Boolean Constraint Satisfaction problems (BBCSPs). BBCSPs represent an extremely general class of constraint satisfaction problems and find applications in a wide variety of domains including constraint programming, puzzle solving and program testing. We establish that each instance of a BBCSP admits a coin-flipping Turing Machine that halts in time polynomial in the size of the input. The prover P in the Prover-Verifier model is endowed with very limited powers; in particular, it has no memory and it can only pose restricted queries to the verifier. The verifier on the other hand is both omniscient in that it is cognizant of all the problem details and insincere in that it does not have to decide a priori on the intended proof. However, the verifier must stay consistent in its responses. Inasmuch as our provers will be memoryless and our verifiers will be asked for extremely simple certificates, our work establishes the existence of a simple, randomized algorithm for BBCSPs. Our model itself serves as a basis for the design of zero-knowledge machine learning algorithms in that the prover ends up learning the proof desired by the verifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Test effectiveness is a central quality aspect of a test specification which reflects its ability to demonstrate system quality levels and to discover system faults. A well-known approach for its estimatation is to determine coverage metrics for the system code or system model. However, often these are not available as such but the system interface only, which basically define structural aspects of the stimuli and responses to the system. Therefore, this paper focuses on the idea of using test data variance analysis as another analytical approach to determine test quality. It presents a method for the quantitative evaluation of structural and semantical variance of test data. Test variance is defined as the test data distribution over the system interface data domain. It is expected that the more the test data varies, the better the system is tested by a given test suite. The paper instantiates this method for black-box test specifications written in TTCN-3 and the structural analysis of send templates. Distance metrics and similarity relations are used to determine the data variance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the volumes of software development increase and the cost reduction is required, most Japanese IT companies are interested in offshore software outsourcing. Although a lot of engineers have experienced the success and failure on their projects, their know-how still remains as tacit knowledge. This paper proposes a risk assessment scheme for new projects by externalizing such tacit knowledge. Such a scheme requires collaboration between industry and academia because the tacit knowledge is scattered over many companies and cannot be formalized by a single company or academic institute. Defining fourteen attributes related to software development and designing questionnaire about project evaluation, this paper clarifies how to quantify the risk of offshore software outsourcing. Risk assessment tool based on the proposed scheme will promote a knowledge spiral for project management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will focus on what could be one of the biggest challenges in offshore development, communication. Communication is of such importance, that if it is not taken seriously in the offshore project, all the advantages of offshore development, such as access to talent, greater flexibility in access to resources and cheaper resources will be lost in the informational overhead. The paper will argue that communication channels and infrastructure are often not well established in offshore projects, which in worst cases results in project failures. The paper will focus on factors which have an impact on communication and on how to meet these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed software projects are becoming increasingly commonplace in industry. Yet, software engineering education rarely graduates students with the necessary skills and hands-on experience that are particular to off-shore software development projects. Three key areas in successful off-shore software development projects are well documented in the literature as communication, knowledge management, as well as project and process management. This paper maps tasks within each of these three areas to functions that have to be provided by remote collaboration platforms and tools that distributed projects rely on. A case-study of an off-shore requirements engineering class experience between a Master course of Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and a customer in a Swiss financial institution shows a correlation between areas of learning by the students and functionalities covered with the tools used in the classroom. The paper identifies additional tools, developed by the authors, which will provide additional functionalities in the deficient areas to increase the learning and preparation of the students for off-shore software development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development and maturity of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) to support business-to-business transactions, enterprises are using Web services to expose the public functionalities associated with internal systems and business processes. Semantic Web service infrastructure achieves automatic data integration to enable enterprises to collaborate and compete effectively in a dynamic global environment. In this paper, we deal with two important aspects of enterprise information integration, namely process integration and data convergence. This paper talks about solution strategies for global enterprise system which provides unified information and agile solution with greater ease and simplicity. Today's Web data lacks machine understandable semantics making it impossible to achieve data integration with the Web service. Hence, the semantic Web services in action to overcome the limitations of information finding, information extracting, information representing, information interpreting and information maintaining. This paper takes you through a case study simulating semantic Web paradigm (and semantic Web services) over a leasing business system. It also portrays the various advantages and explains the hurdles in accepting the semantic Web technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural approach to development that turns traditional techniques upside down. SOA encourages organizations to think in terms of actual business services and the associated data, rather than low level technology details. Instead of developing applications from the ground up, SOA frees organizations to start with high level business definitions for data, interfaces, documents, and processes. SOA then maps these high level service definitions onto new or existing infrastructure, regardless of the details, location, or programming language in which the systems were written. In this paper we share our practical experience regarding application of SOA to a very large and complex enterprise transformation. By transformation we mean modernization of legacy applications, operating systems, server components, development of new applications, and business process automation with incremental deployment option using either a traditional distributed heterogeneous environment or a set of Virtual machines deployed on a set of utility computing platforms (on-demand computing). Transforming a large and complex enterprise requires digital visibility into the holistic view of the enterprise. This holistic view is captured as a set of interrelated models. Models are digital representations of the enterprise business architecture, the associated technology architecture, and their semantic dependencies. Models are stored in a living and manageable repository with impact analysis capability to accommodate for SOA modernization to be driven by the business needs. We describe our 3D Visible Enterprise (3D-VE) modeling methodology as the analysis phase of our SOA approach. We then describe how such analysis guided us through modernization styles, where each style prescribes the transformation of a legacy entity into its modernized form while following our SOA governance. In this approach the modernization requirements are mapped into the appropriate transformation styles and finally to technical implementation. The mapping follows our SOA governance, a set of guidelines regarding transformation style selection, and the SOA design & run time governance. Relevant SOA standards and products supporting modernization implementation are used to carry the implementation. In particular, some aspect of modernization approach and Unisys SOA governance are described as well. In this paper we tried to describe three important areas of our overall SOA solution methodology, namely the 3D VE modeling, the Architecture Driven Modernization and applied SOA governance to the ADM style. Our plan is to publish subsequent papers each describing the details of our SOA solution methodology, specifically the modeling phase, the tools and methods used to implement the applied ADM styles, criteria selecting ADM style, the SOA governance and the associated SOA standards and products. The paper concludes with lessons learned through such a complex transformation, especially the importance of the front-end business process analysis leading us to identify the components or a subset of the enterprise computing environment for systematic and incremental SOA transformation. Finally we discuss some of the pros and cons of the transformation applying SOA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address coordination of services in complex business processes. As the main coordination mechanism we rely on a channel-based exogenous coordination language, called Reo, and investigate its application to service-oriented architectures. Reo supports a specific notion of composition that enables coordination of individual services, as well as complex composite business processes. Accordingly, a coordinated business process consists of a set of web services whose collective behavior is coordinated by Reo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business Process Execution Language(BPEL) has been recognized as a standard for the service orchestration in Service Oriented Architecture(SOA). Due to the pivotal role played by BPEL in service composition, the reliability of a business process becomes critical for a SOA system, especially during its evolution. Regression testing is well known as an effective technology to ensure the quality of modified programs. To reduce the cost of regression testing, a subset of test cases is selected to (re)run, known as regression test selection. Previous work addressing this problem will fail in the presence of concurrent control flow, which is an important and widely used feature of BPEL in describing service orchestration. In this paper, a regression testing approach for BPEL business processes is presented. In this approach, an impact analysis rule is proposed to identify the test paths affected by the change of BPEL concurrent control structures. Based on the impact analysis result and process changes identification, the impacted test paths are classified into reusable, modified, obsolete and new-structural paths. Experiments show that our approach is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The area of service oriented computing stretches between two extremes: On the one hand industry has pushed a whole stack of WS-* standards and tools to support the integration of distributed services into business applications. These standards are used in production environments and are applied successfully, e.g. in the area of enterprise application integration. However, the expensive and labor intensive task of putting together services and maintaining and administering the composed applications has to be done manually. In contrast, academia is busily working on numerous efforts leveraging ontology based semantics and various AI planning techniques to automate these tasks. Yet, up to now the developed technologies have rarely if ever been applied in industry. In our opinion, this has two main reasons: there is high cost involved in creating the necessary comprehensive ontologies and businesses are reluctant to trust semantic technologies. In this paper we bring together the extremes in order to combine their strengths. We show how to flexibly integrate advanced semantic service discovery, composition and invocation technology into manually created standard BPEL processes. Our approach leaves it to the discretion of the developer to flexibly choose an appropriate degree of automation for the process at hand and thus offers him complete control over the usage of semantic technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key function of a Service Oriented Architecture is the separation between business logic and the platform of its implementation and deployment. Much of the focus in SOA research has been on service design, implementation, composition, and placement. In this paper we address the challenge of configuring the hosting infrastructure for SOA service deployment. The functional and non-functional requirements of services impose constraints on the configuration of their containers at different levels. Presently, such requirements are captured in informal documents, making service deployment a slow, expensive, and error-prone process. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to formally capturing service deployment best-practices as model-based patterns. Deployment patterns capture the structure of a solution, without bindings to specific resource instances. They can be defined at different levels of abstraction supporting reuse, and role-based iterative refinement and composition. We show how we extended an existing model driven deployment platform to support pattern based deployment. We formally define pattern semantics, validation, and refinement. We also present an algorithm for automatically instantiating such patterns on multiple distributed service environments. Our approach has been verified in a large prototype that has been used to capture a variety of functional and non-functional deployment constraints, and demonstrate their end-to-end maintenance and realization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently scientists and practitioners are discussing Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) as an approach to reconcile business requirements and IT. The alignment of business and technology in organizations is a key challenge in the discipline of Enterprise Architecture (EA). Therefore the contribution starts with a discussion of SOA as an EA integration concept to synchronize business requirements and IT architecture in an efficient way. Differentiating methodological and technological aspects of EA the paper shows the need for methods in the field of domain analysis supporting the design of a SOA. The main contribution of the paper is an algorithm based modeling tool and methodology to support service domain clustering. Service clusters are being used for service definition and management. Due to enormous complexity it is necessary to support architects by finding and defining appropriate clusters. For modeling interdependencies in EA the paper's focus is on business processes, information systems and interfaces. Our approach adopts network-centric algorithms used in the field of social network analysis to define and/or identify service domain clusters in complex scenarios. Edge remover algorithm is used to compute the relevant model aspects. The results of our approach will be demonstrated in a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a common model for both functional verification and performance evaluation of a network protocol will reduce a considerable amount of protocol development time and cost. Although there have been several researches trying to achieve this goal, they have not been used widely yet especially in industry. This paper shows a case study in SDL design and performance evaluation of a wireless and mobile technology. In order to evaluate our mobility management technique for 3GPP LTE systems, we designed a simple 3GPP LTE system and its mobility performance system with pure SDL and Tau performance library. This paper describes our experience in pure SDL-based performance evaluation with Tau and discusses SDL design and simulation issues for more efficient performance evaluation with SDL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Use Case Map (UCM) notation enables the use of graphical scenarios to model grey-box views of a system's operational requirements and behaviour, in context. The scenario traversal mechanism is the most popular UCM analysis technique but its current tool support in UCMNav is limited and hard to use, and the high coupling of its features makes it difficult to maintain and evolve. This paper presents major enhancements to the recent jUCMNav Eclipse plugin consisting of a new scenario traversal semantics accompanied by enhanced trace transformations to Message Sequence Charts. In addition, this paper identifies a set of semantic variation points which lay the groundwork for notational clarifications and user-defined semantic profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a toolset for functional testing UML2.0 models by TTCN-3 test suites and its application within Motorola. The toolset incorporates support for part of the UML2.0 testing profile from which TTCN-3 can be generated. The toolset has been developed within Motorola for models developed using Telelogic Tau G2 and test suites using Telelogic Tester. The models are subsequently used for application code generation. The basic integration of the Telelogic Tau and Tester, called cosim, has novel features, such as the ability to service operations declared as external to the model within TTCN-3, and to control model timer operations within TTCN-3. Translating UML2.0 data structures, such as classes, signal definitions, port definitions, and constants into TTCN-3 is done by a tool called UMB. The paper deals with complexities in mapping Tau UML2.0 types and structuring into TTCN-3. To provide more rigorous test specification a tool supporting part of the UML2.0 Testing Profile has been developed which enables consistency of test specifications to be checked automatically and also the generation of executable TTCN-3 test suites for cosim. The toolset is being used by several different product groups within Motorola, and the paper reports some experience and findings, including areas where TTCN-3 can be extended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perception and modeling of other robots has been a topic of minor regard in the Four-Legged League, because of the limited processing und sensing capabilities of the AIBO platform. Even the current world champion, the GermanTeam, abandoned the usage of a robot recognition. Nevertheless, accurate position estimates of other players will be needed in the future to accomplish tasks such as passing or applying adaptive tactics. This paper describes an approach for localizing other players in a robot's local environment by integrating different unreliable perceptions of robots and obstacles, which may be computed in a reasonable way. The approach is based on Gaussian distributions describing the models of the robots as well as the perceptions. The integration of information is realized by using Kalman filtering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the RoboCup small-size league, most teams calculate the robots' positions by means of a camera that is mounted above the field as well as different kinds of artificial intelligence methods that run on an additional PC. This processing loop induces various time delays, which require forecasting routines, if more accurate behaviors are desired. This paper shows that by utilizing a combination of a neural network and local sensors, the robot is able to estimates its actual position quite accurately. This paper furthermore shows that the learning procedure is also able to compensate for slip and friction effects that cannot be observed by the local sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a method for cooperative play among 3 robots in order to score a goal in the RoboCup Small Size League. In RoboCup 2005 Osaka, our team introduced a new attacking play, where one robot kicks a ball and the other receives and immediately shoots the ball on goal. However, due to the relatively slow kicking speed of the robot, top opponent teams could prevent successful passing between robots. This motivates the need for more complex play, such as passing around to several robots to avoid the opponents' passing defense. In this paper we propose a method to realize such a play, i.e. a combination play among 3 robots. We discuss the technical issues to achieve this combination play, especially for a pass-and-shoot combination play. Experimental results on real robots are provided. They indicate that the success rate of the play depends strongly on the arrangement of the robots, and ranges from 20 % to 90 % in tests with an opponent goalkeeper which stands still. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning automata act in a stochastic environment and are able to update their action probabilities considering the inputs from their environment, so optimizing their functionality as a result. In this paper, the goal is to investigate and evaluate the application of learning automata to cooperation in multi-agent systems, using soccer simulation server as a test bed. We have also evaluated our learning method in hard situations such as malfunctioning of some of the agents in the team and in situations that agents' sense/act abilities have a lot of noise involved. Our experiment results show that learning automata adapt well with these situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Color segmentation is typically the first step of vision processing for a robot operating in a color-coded environment, such as RoboCup soccer, and many object recognition modules rely on that. Although many approaches to color segmentation have been proposed, in the official games of the RoboCup Four Legged League manual calibration is still preferred by most of the teams. In this paper we present a method for color segmentation that is based on an adaptive transformation of the color distribution of the image: the transformation is dynamically computed depending on the current image (i.e., it adapts to condition changes) and then it is used for color segmentation with static thresholds. The method requires the setting of only a few parameters and has been proved to be very robust to noise and light variations, allowing for setting parameters only once when arriving at a competition site. The approach has been implemented on AIBO robots, extensively tested in our laboratory, and successfully experimented in the some of the games of the Four Legged League in RoboCup 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that it is possible to retrieve all parameters of the parabolic flight trajectory of an object from a time stamped sequence of images captured by a single camera looking at the scene. Surprisingly, it is not necessary to use two cameras (stereo vision) in order to determine the coordinates of the moving object with respect to the floor. The technique described in this paper can thus be used to determine the three-dimensional trajectory of a ball kicked by a robot. The whole calculation can be done, at the limit, with just three measurements of the ball position captured in three consecutive frames. Therefore, this technique can be used to forecast the future motion of the ball a few milliseconds after the kick has taken place. The computation is fast and allows a robot goalie to move to the correct blocking position. Interestingly, this technique can also be used to self-calibrate stereo cameras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fast gait is an essential component of any successful team in the RoboCup 4-legged league. However, quickly moving quadruped robots, including those with learned gaits, often move in such a way so as to cause unsteady camera motions which degrade the robot's visual capabilities. This paper presents an implementation of the policy gradient machine learning algorithm that searches for a parameterized walk while optimizing for both speed and stability. To the best of our knowledge, previous learned walks have all focused exclusively on speed. Our method is fully implemented and tested on the Sony Aibo ERS-7 robot platform. The resulting gait is reasonably fast and considerably more stable compared to our previous fast gaits. We demonstrate that this stability can significantly improve the robot's visual object recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When developing skills on a physical robot, it is appealing to turn to modern machine learning methods in order to automate the process. However, when no accurate simulator exists for the type of motion in question, all learning must occur on the physical robot itself. In such a case, there is a high premium on quick, efficient learning (specifically, learning with low sample complexity). Recent results in learning locomotion have demonstrated the feasibility of learning fast walks directly on quadrupedal robots. This paper demonstrates that it is also possible to learn a higher-level skill requiring more fine motor coordination, again with all learning occurring directly on the robot. In particular, the paper presents a learned ball-grasping skill on a commercially available Sony Aibo robot, with no human intervention other than battery changes. The learned skill significantly outperforms our best hand-tuned solution. As the learned grasping skill relies on a learned walk, we characterize our learning implementation within the layered learning formalism. To our knowledge, the two learned layers represent the first use of layered learning on a physical robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the rapidly growing modern telecommunications industry, software quality and reliability requirements are in contrast to the shorter time to market and higher complexity requirements dictated by strong competition on the telecommunications market. In such a rapidly changing environment, software development organization must improve almost on a daily basis in order to achieve the operational excellence which leads to business success. In this paper, an approach to the continuous improvement of the software verification process based on the application of Six Sigma is given. More precisely, with the help of the Six Sigma methodology, change management, and statistical tools and techniques, the proposed approach solves the problem of fault slippage through verification phases, which is particularly important in overlapping project conditions. Success of the proposed process improvement, proved using Six Sigma methodologies for a case study from a real industrial project, encourages wide and general application to any software verification process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most industries are challenging to increase productivity of software development. Often many process improvement activities are started with enthusiasm, unfortunately most of these are less successful than forecasted or improvements do not sustain for long. This paper presents the Seven Forces Improvement Method, SFIM, which claims to overcome unexpected disappointment in improvement results. SFIM is built upon different aspects that influence the success of software process improvements, such as culture, skills and organization. The method has been applied to improvement activities in a large software department for a number of years. The success of SFIM is compared with the compliance with the SFIM method. The paper shows that application of SFIM increases the success rate of software improvement activities in industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new multi-agent development method, named MDAD (Model Driven Agent Development). It is based on the MDA (Model Driven Architecture) paradigm. The aim of MDAD method is to reduce the cost of building MAS applications by starting from abstract specification of system thanks to MAS meta-models, and producing the final system by means of transformations of this specification into computational entities. We present in this paper the application of MDAD to the INAF framework. First we give an overview of MDA approach and its application to MAS. Thus, several abstraction levels are determined and a set of meta-models is introduced. Then, we give the transformation rules used to produce INAF compliant models. MDAD method is illustrated with the timetable management benchmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiagent systems may be elegantly modeled and designed by enhancing the role of the environment in which agents evolve. In particular, the environment may have the role of a governing infrastructure that regulates with laws or norms the actions taken by the agents. The focus of modeling and design is thus shifted from a subjective view of agents towards a more objective view of the whole multiagent system. In this paper, we apply the idea of a governing environment to model and design a multi-agent system that micro-simulates the Swiss highway network. The goal of the simulation is to show how traffic jams and accordion phenomena may be handled with appropriate local regulations on speed limits. A natural modeling would give segments the capacity to regulate the speed based on observed local events. We developed the simulation platform from scratch in order to accommodate our design choices and a realistic complexity. This paper presents in details our modeling choices, and first experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]