Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are combinations of physical devices controlled by software systems to accomplish specified tasks under stringent real-time and physical resource constraints. The major benefit of these systems lies in their potentially positive impacts on real world systems by enabling high dependability assurance. However, a key challenge is to determine not only correct but also cost-effective dynamic operation of all physical devices in the system in the context of real world constraints.In this paper, we present a novel context-sensitive resource-explicit service model and develop the corresponding composition formalisms to help automate the composition process under real-time constraints as well as under various physical resource constraints. The approach is illustrated using an emergency response system.

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Compared with the traditional client/server streaming model, peer-assisted video streaming has been shown to provide better scalability with lower infrastructure cost. In this paper, we describe how peer-assisted video streaming can be implemented through real-time service oriented architecture. Our architecture, dubbed PACTS, is composed of 5 distinct service components: directory service, content service, peer download service, peer upload service and rate composition service. PACTS is designed to meet the specific QoS requirements of different users, entered through a simple Web interface. It also provides a distributed implementation of the content and peer directory services for effectively handling flash crowd situations, when a large number of users join during a very short period of time. We discuss the functionalities of the main PACTS services and specify the workflow of how these services work together to deliver real-time streaming services leveraging the benefits of peer to peer technology. By organizing elements of traditional video streaming and peer to peer computing into loosely-coupled composable middleware services and distributing them among participating entities, PACTS enables high-quality low- cost video streaming at a large scale and in real time.

Service oriented architecture (SOA) has become a popular paradigm for software development in many application domains, including real-time applications. Timing analysis is a critical issue which can guide service composition to best satisfy the real time requirements of the composed system. However, existing timing analysis works do not sufficiently address some important issues. For example, admission control is an important technique for real time assurance, but most of the timing analysis techniques do not take admission control into account and, hence, may result in unrealizable decisions. Also, communication time is an important factor in real-time assurance, but most of the works do not provide clear approaches in dealing with communication time analysis. In this paper, we propose a timing specification model and analysis techniques for real-time service-oriented systems. In the specification model, a thorough consideration of all information required for timing analysis is discussed. For timing analysis, we consider the service time softly guaranteed by the admission control policy as well as estimated communication cost to reach more accurate timing estimates. Also, to avoid the analysis overhead in large-scale SOA systems, we propose a three-phase approach. In this approach, we first use a highly efficient but moderately accurate algorithm to eliminate most of the candidate compositions. More accurate timing prediction is performed on a small number of selected compositions in the second phase. In the third phase, specific concrete services are selected and admissions are performed to finalize the composition and service grounding. The approach is scalable and can effectively achieve service composition for real time requirement satisfaction.

Web service provides a means to integrate functional components and for business IT solutions in an enterprise or cross-enterprise environment. Enterprise resources are consumed by Web services to provide desired capabilities expected by the users. However, beyond service provisioning, an enterprise needs to manage their Web services and related resources in an optimal manner in order to maximize the resource usage. This paper presents a framework of Web service management aimed for solving the resource allocation issues based on system dynamics models. Our approach combines the business operational consideration and IT infrastructure configuration. Dependency that is derived from impact analysis of different perspectives is an essential part of the model and can be built into control system. The resultant system embodies the capability of autonomic Web service management to certain degree if not fully. The reference architecture of this framework is accounted in this paper. We also demonstrate dynamical behavior of the system through simulation.

As the desire for business intelligence capabilities for e-business processes expands, existing workflow management systems and decision support systems are not able to provide continuous, real-time analytics for decision makers. Business intelligence requirements may appear to be different across the various industries, but the underlying requirements are similar nformation that is integrated, current, detailed, and immediately accessible. In this paper we introduce an agent-based architecture that supports a complete business intelligence process to sense, interpret, predict, automate and respond to business processes and aims to decrease the time it takes to make business decisions. In fact, there should be almost zero-latency between the cause and effect of a business decision. Our architecture enables analysis across corporate business processes notifies the business of auctionable recommendations or automatically triggers business operations, effectively closing the gap between business intelligence systems and business processes.

In the e-commerce market, we identified the need for an intelligent system that has the capacity to keep the customers well-informed. One form of information capture and discovery is through the services of event notification equipped with a prediction capability. With such a capability, an e-commerce participant can leverage (near-)real-time prediction regarding almost every area in the e-commerce market, ranging from stock selection to market trends. This paper describes PENS (Predictive Event Notification System). This system is part of an effort to enrich our e-commerce platform. PENS is presented from two different perspectives: the event notification service and the event prediction service. PENS has been applied to the domain of product support services and has generated satisfactory results for customers. A high-level description of PENS' architecture and its implementation is given in this paper.

This paper describes an FSM (Finite State Machine) architectural framework called StateJ. In an FSM architectural framework, a business service is realized by a finite state machine and implemented as a component called service managed by the state management service. Distributed services communicate with each other through the request management service and event notification service. StateJ has been exploited to develop several service-based applications, in particular, telecom service provisioning systems. This paper describes the StateJ framework and the authors' experience of using it.

Using formal specifications to represent software components facilitates the determination of reusability because they more precisely characterize the functionality of the software, and the well-defined syntax makes processing amenable to automation. This paper presents an approach, based on formal methods, to the search, retrieval, and modification of reusable software components. From a two-tiered hierarchy of reusable software components, the existing components that are analogous to the query specification are retrieved from the hierarchy. The specification for an analogous retrieved component is compared to the query specification to determine what changes need to be applied to the corresponding program component in order to make it satisfy the query specification.

Using formal specifications to represent software components facilitates the determination of reusability because they more precisely characterize the functionality of the software, and the well-defined syntax makes processing amenable to automation. The authors present an approach, based on formal methods, to the modification of reusable software components. From a two-tiered hierarchy of reusable software components, the candidate components that are analogous to the query specification are retrieved from the hierarchy. A retrieved component is compared to the query specification to determine what changes needed to be applied to the corresponding program component in order to make it satisfy the query specification.

Reusing software may greatly increase the productivity of software engineers and improve the quality of developed software. Software component libraries have been suggested as a means for facilitating reuse. A major difficulty in designing software libraries is in the selection of a component representation that will facilitate the classification and the retrieval processes. Using formal specifications to represent software components facilitates the determination of reusable software because they more precisely characterize the functionality of the software, and the well-defined syntax makes processing amenable to automation. This paper presents an approach, based on formal methods, to the classification, organization and retrieval of reusable software components. From a set of formal specifications, a two-tiered hierarchy of software components is constructed. The formal specifications represent software that has been implemented and verified for correctness. The lower-level hierarchy is created by a subsumption test algorithm that determines whether one component is more general than another; this level facilitates the application of automated logical reasoning techniques for a fine-grained, exact determination of reusable candidates. The higher-level hierarchy provides a coarse-grained determination of reusable candidates and is constructed by applying a hierarchical clustering algorithm to the most general components from the lower-level hierarchy. The hierarchical organization of the software component specifications provides a means for storing, browsing, and retrieving reusable components that is amenable to automation. In addition, the formal specifications facilitate the verification process that proves a given software component correctly satisfies the current problem. A prototype browser that provides a graphical framework for the classification and retrieval process is described.