Accurate situational assessment is key to any decision maker and especially crucial in military command and control, air traffic control, and complex system decision making. Endsley described three dependent levels of situational awareness, (1) perception, (2) understanding, and (3) projection. This research was focused on Endsley's second-level situational awareness (understanding) as it applies to service-oriented information technology environments in the context of the Semantic Web. Specifically, this research addressed the problem of developing accurate situational assessments related to the status or health of information technology (IT) services, especially composite, dynamic IT services, when some of Endsley's first level (perceived) information was inaccurate or incomplete. Research had not adequately addressed the problem of how to work with inaccuracy and situational awareness information in order to produce accurate situational assessments for Semantic Web services. This problem becomes especially important as the current Web moves towards a Semantic Web where information technology is expected to be represented and processed by machines. Costa's probabilistic Web ontology language (PR-OWL), as extended by Carvalho (PR-OWL2), is a framework for storage of and reasoning with uncertainty information as part of the Semantic Web. This study used Costa's PR-OWL framework, as extended by Carvalho, to build an ontology that supports reasoning with service-oriented information in the context of the Semantic Web and then assessed the effectiveness of the developed ontology through the use of competency questions, as described by Gruninger and Fox and verified through the use of an automated reasoner. This research resulted in a Web Ontology Language for Services (OWL-S), PR-OWL2 based ontology, and its associated Multi-Entity Bayesian Network which are flexible and highly effective in calculating situational assessments through the propagation of posterior probabilities using Bayesian logic. Specifically, this research (1) identifies sufficient information required for effective situational awareness reasoning, (2) specifies the predicates and semantics necessary to represent service components and dependencies, (3) applies Multi-Entity Bayesian Network to reason with situational awareness information, (4) ensures the correctness and consistency of the situational awareness ontology, and (5) accurately estimates posterior probabilities consistent with situational awareness information.

The field of Smart Logistics is attracting interest in several areas of research, including Business Process Management. Awide range of research works are carried out to enhance the capability of monitoring the execution of ongoing logistics processes and predict their likely evolvement. In order to do this, it is crucial to have in place an IT infrastructure that provides the capability of automatically intercepting the digitalised transportation-related events stemming from widespread sources, along with their elaboration, interpretation and dispatching. In this context, we present here the service-oriented software architecture of such an event-based information engine. In particular, we describe the requisites that it must meet. Thereafter, we present the interfaces and subsequently the service-oriented components that are in charge of realising them. The outlined architecture is being utilised as the reference model for an ongoing European research project on Smart Logistics, namely GET Service.

Since the early 2000s, Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) have played a key role in the development of complex applications within a virtual organization (VO) context. Grids and workflows have emerged as vital technologies for addressing the (SOA) paradigm. Given the variety of Grid middleware, scientific workflow systems and Grid workflows available, bringing the two technologies together in a flexible, reusable and generalized way has been largely overlooked, particularly from a scientific end user perspective. The lack of domain focus in this area has led to a slow uptake of Grid technologies. This thesis aims to design a framework for Grid-enabling workflows, which identifies the essential technological components, how these components fit together in layered architecture and the interactions between them. To produce such a framework, this thesis first investigates the definition of a Grid-workflow architecture and mapping Grid functionality to workflow nodes, focusing on striking a balance between performance, usability and the Grid functionality supported. Next, it presents an examination of framework extensions for supporting various forms of Grid heterogeneity, essential for ii VO based collaboration. Given the complex nature of Grid technologies, the work presented here investigates abstracting Grid based workflows through high-level definitions and resolution using semantic technologies. Finally, this thesis presents a way to resolves abstract Grid workflows using semantic technologies and intelligent, autonomous agents. The frameworks presented in this thesis are tested and evaluated within the context of domain-based case studies defined in the SIMDAT, BRIDGE and ARGUGRID EU funded research projects.

No âmbito industrial, o custo empregado na manutenção de equipamentos ainda representa uma grande parcela dos investimentos. Dessa forma, o desenvolvimento de técnicas de manutenção, e o seu correto planejamento, cada vez mais estão assumindo papeis de grande importância nesse setor, visto que impactam diretamente no fator econômico das empresas. Neste sentido, o trabalho em questão apresenta a proposta de uma arquitetura orientada a serviços para um sistema de manutenção inteligente, a fim de possibilitar a integração de forma facilitada entre equipamentos e as ferramentas de análise de degradação. A arquitetura é composta por diferentes entidades, cada uma responsável por determinada tarefa para o funcionamento do sistema. No trabalho, as entidades são implementadas e experimentos são realizados a fim de validar a solução proposta. / In the industrial field, the costs associated with equipment’s maintenace still represents a large portion of the financial resources available to a company. Therefore, new researches in maintenance systems, and the correct task planning, are growing, since they impact directly on the economic side of the companies. Thus, current work presents a service-oriented architecture for maintenance systems integration. The proposed architecture intends to facilitate the integration of equipments and degradation analysis tools. The architecture is comprised of several entities, where each one is responsible for executing a given task in order to keep the system running properly. In this work, all the entities are implemented and experiments are performed in order to validate the proposed system.

No âmbito industrial, o custo empregado na manutenção de equipamentos ainda representa uma grande parcela dos investimentos. Dessa forma, o desenvolvimento de técnicas de manutenção, e o seu correto planejamento, cada vez mais estão assumindo papeis de grande importância nesse setor, visto que impactam diretamente no fator econômico das empresas. Neste sentido, o trabalho em questão apresenta a proposta de uma arquitetura orientada a serviços para um sistema de manutenção inteligente, a fim de possibilitar a integração de forma facilitada entre equipamentos e as ferramentas de análise de degradação. A arquitetura é composta por diferentes entidades, cada uma responsável por determinada tarefa para o funcionamento do sistema. No trabalho, as entidades são implementadas e experimentos são realizados a fim de validar a solução proposta. / In the industrial field, the costs associated with equipment’s maintenace still represents a large portion of the financial resources available to a company. Therefore, new researches in maintenance systems, and the correct task planning, are growing, since they impact directly on the economic side of the companies. Thus, current work presents a service-oriented architecture for maintenance systems integration. The proposed architecture intends to facilitate the integration of equipments and degradation analysis tools. The architecture is comprised of several entities, where each one is responsible for executing a given task in order to keep the system running properly. In this work, all the entities are implemented and experiments are performed in order to validate the proposed system.

No âmbito industrial, o custo empregado na manutenção de equipamentos ainda representa uma grande parcela dos investimentos. Dessa forma, o desenvolvimento de técnicas de manutenção, e o seu correto planejamento, cada vez mais estão assumindo papeis de grande importância nesse setor, visto que impactam diretamente no fator econômico das empresas. Neste sentido, o trabalho em questão apresenta a proposta de uma arquitetura orientada a serviços para um sistema de manutenção inteligente, a fim de possibilitar a integração de forma facilitada entre equipamentos e as ferramentas de análise de degradação. A arquitetura é composta por diferentes entidades, cada uma responsável por determinada tarefa para o funcionamento do sistema. No trabalho, as entidades são implementadas e experimentos são realizados a fim de validar a solução proposta. / In the industrial field, the costs associated with equipment’s maintenace still represents a large portion of the financial resources available to a company. Therefore, new researches in maintenance systems, and the correct task planning, are growing, since they impact directly on the economic side of the companies. Thus, current work presents a service-oriented architecture for maintenance systems integration. The proposed architecture intends to facilitate the integration of equipments and degradation analysis tools. The architecture is comprised of several entities, where each one is responsible for executing a given task in order to keep the system running properly. In this work, all the entities are implemented and experiments are performed in order to validate the proposed system.

Active Documents is a technique for automating the handling and control of documents by making them a combination of service providers (mobile agents) and resources (compound documents) in the form of autonomous agents. The main focus of this solution is to provide an encapsulation of documents, including their data structures and related functionality, but also to enable documents to reflect upon themselves in respect of their computational environment, and take actions accordingly.

Since the early 2000s, Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) have played a key role in the development of complex applications within a virtual organization (VO) context. Grids and workflows have emerged as vital technologies for addressing the (SOA) paradigm. Given the variety of Grid middleware, scientific workflow systems and Grid workflows available, bringing the two technologies together in a flexible, reusable and generalized way has been largely overlooked, particularly from a scientific end user perspective. The lack of domain focus in this area has led to a slow uptake of Grid technologies. This thesis aims to design a framework for Grid-enabling workflows, which identifies the essential technological components, how these components fit together in layered architecture and the interactions between them. To produce such a framework, this thesis first investigates the definition of a Grid-workflow architecture and mapping Grid functionality to workflow nodes, focusing on striking a balance between performance, usability and the Grid functionality supported. Next, it presents an examination of framework extensions for supporting various forms of Grid heterogeneity, essential for ii VO based collaboration. Given the complex nature of Grid technologies, the work presented here investigates abstracting Grid based workflows through high-level definitions and resolution using semantic technologies. Finally, this thesis presents a way to resolves abstract Grid workflows using semantic technologies and intelligent, autonomous agents. The frameworks presented in this thesis are tested and evaluated within the context of domain-based case studies defined in the SIMDAT, BRIDGE and ARGUGRID EU funded research projects.

Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is a large field of research, and is rapidly expanding in terms of capabilities and applications. As the number of SDR platforms, deployments, and use-cases grow, interoperability, compatibility, and software re-use becomes more difficult. Additionally, advanced SDR applications require more advanced hardware and software platforms to support them, necessitating intelligent management of resources and functionality. Realizing these goals can be done using the paradigms of Component-Based Design (CBD) and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs). Component-based design has been applied to the field of SDR in the past to varying levels of success. We discuss the benefits of CBD, and how to successfully use CBD for SDR. We assert that by strictly enforcing the principles of CBD, we can achieve a high level of independence from both the hardware and software platforms, and enable component compatibility and interoperability between SDR platforms and deployments. Using CBD, we also achieve the use-case of a fully distributed SDR, where multiple hardware nodes act as one cohesive radio unit. Applying the concept of service-orientation to SDR is a novel idea, and we discuss how this enables a new radio paradigm in the form of goal-oriented autonomic radios. We define SOAs in the context of SDR, explain how our vision is different than middle-wares like CORBA, describe how SOAs can be used, and discuss the possibilities of autonomic radio systems. This thesis also presents our work on the Cognitive Radio Open Source Systems (CROSS) project. CROSS is a free and open-source prototype architecture that uses CBD to achieve platform independence and distributed SDR deployments. CROSS also provides an experimental system for using SOAs in SDRs. Using our reference implementation of CROSS, we successfully demonstrated a distributed cognitive radio performing dynamic spectrum access to communicate with another SDR while avoiding an interferer operating in the spectrum. / Master of Science

We describe CoSMo, a Cognitively Inspired Service and Model Architecture for situational awareness and monitoring of vehicular traffic in urban transportation systems using a network of wireless sensors. The system architecture combines (i) a cognitively inspired internal representation for analyzing and answering queries concerning the observed system and (ii) a service oriented architecture that facilitates interaction among individual modules, of the internal representation, the observed system and the user. The cognitively inspired model architecture allows one to effectively respond to deductive as well as inductive queries by combining simulation based dynamic models with traditional relational databases. On the other hand the service oriented design of interaction allows one to build flexible, extensible and scalable systems that can be deployed in practical settings. To illustrate our concepts and the novel features of our architecture, we have recently completed a prototype implementation of CoSMo. The prototype illustrates advantages of our approach over other traditional approaches for designing scalable software for situational awareness in large complex systems. The basic architecture and its prototype implementation are generic and can be applied for monitoring other complex systems. CoSMo's architecture has a number of features that distinguish cognitive systems. This includes: dynamic internal models of the observed system, inductive and deductive learning and reasoning, perception, memory and adaptation. This thesis describes the service oriented model and the associated prototype implementation. Two important contributions of this thesis include the following: The Generic Service Architecture - CoSMo's service architecture is generic and can be applied to many other application domains without much change in underlying infrastructure. Integration of emerging web technologies - Use of Web Services, UPnP, UDDI and many other emerging technologies have taken CoSMo beyond a prototype implementation and towards a real production system. / Master of Science