La Robotique a connu une évolution remarquable au cours des dernières années, couplée à un intérêt croissant de la société pour ce domaine. Les robots ne sont plus fabriqués exclusivement pour effectuer des tâches répétitives dans les usines, mais ils sont aussi créés pour collaborer avec les humains dans plusieurs domaines d'application d'importance. Les systèmes robotiques qui contrôlent ces robots sont donc de plus en plus larges, complexes et difficiles à développer. Dans ce contexte, l'Architecture Orientée Services (SOA) a été identifiée comme un style d'architecture logicielle prometteur pour concevoir des systèmes robotiques de manière flexible, réutilisable et productive. Cependant, malgré le nombre considérable de Systèmes Robotiques Orientées Services (SORS) existants aujourd'hui, la plupart d'entre eux ont été développés de manière ad hoc. Le peu d'attention et le soutien limité portés à la conception d'architectures logicielles SORS peuvent non seulement masquer les avantages de l'adoption de la SOA, mais aussi réduire la qualité globale des systèmes robotiques, qui sont souvent utilisés dans des contextes de sécurité critiques. Cette thèse vise à améliorer la compréhension et la systématisation de la conception architecturale SORS. Elle décrit une taxonomie des services pour le domaine de la robotique, puis propose un processus ainsi qu'une architecture de référence afin de systématiser la conception d'architectures logicielles SORS. Les résultats obtenus dans les études d'évaluation montrent qu'à la fois le processus et l'architecture de référence peuvent avoir un impact positif sur la qualité des architectures logicielles SORS et, par conséquent, contribuent à l'amélioration des systèmes robotiques / Robotics has experienced an increasing evolution and interest from the society in recent years. Robots are no longer produced exclusively to perform repetitive tasks in factories, they have been designed to collaborate with humans in several important application domains. Robotic systems that control these robots are therefore becoming larger, more complex, and difficult to develop. In this scenario, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been investigated as a promising architectural style for the design of robotic systems in a flexible, reusable, and productive manner. Despite the existence of a considerable amount of Service-Oriented Robotic Systems (SORS), most of them have been developed in an ad hoc manner. The little attention and limited support devoted to the design of SORS software architectures may not only hamper the benefits of SOA adoption, but also reduce the overall quality of robotic systems, which are often used in safety-critical contexts. This thesis aims at improving the understanding and systematization of SORS architectural design.

The demand for systems i·ntegration has become more and more significant in higher education as institutions want systems that provide coherent information with data that is up to date and not redundant and can seamlessly support the end user experience. Institutions have become more reliant on information systems to support both administrative functions and those involved in teaching, learning and research, but because each department supports a diverse array of computing platforms and applications, it becomes very difficult to integrate these systems. SOA is classified as an innovative approach to integrating existing systems involving the use of independent services that can be accessed without knowledge of the underlying platform implementation. Unfortunately, the SOA initiative will not be success if it is not understood and used correctly by various applications and systems throughout the organisation. SOA introduces complexity and challenges in systems integration, acceptance, governance, data, development planning, security and external opportunities. If an organisation does not embrace or enable change in each of these areas, it is not ready for the adoption of SOA. This research investigates the systems integration challenge in selected South African universities and explores factors for SOA adoption. The framework for the adoption of SOA comprises seven factors, of which Systems Integration is the most significant and represents an efficient starting point for institutions considering SOA adoption. Acceptance, Governance, Data, Development Planning, Security and External Opportunities are other factors of SOA adoption that require careful and thorough consideration before an institution can successfully adopt SOA. The results of this research emphasise the importance of being able to embrace change and innovation and modify strategies in order to reflect the constant changes required for the adoption of SOA. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Customer profiling has recently gained much recognition in the e-commerce domain because of the benefits it is capable of bringing to online business. Customer profiling has been implemented in various systems development approaches such as in a client-server environment. Recently there has been an increase in the number of organisations adopting and implementing e-commerce systems using service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles. This research set out to determine how a customer profile can be implemented using open source SOA implementation tools, and how SOA-based customer profiles can be utilised to provide appropriate personalisation in an SOA environment. The research further endeavoured to complete a comparative study on customer profile implementation in two different architectures, namely SOA and client-server. An extensive literature review was conducted on SOA, customer profiling and e-commerce systems development. SOA enabling technologies, such as, web services, enterprise service bus (ESB) and open source Sun Java SOA implementation tools, for example, Open ESB, GlassFish application server and Netbeans IDE were analysed. A Java web services-based customer profiling system was prototyped following SOA design principles. An end-user evaluation survey was conducted using eye tracking with a sample of 30 participants. The evaluation was done on two e-commerce systems with the same interface but running on two different customer profile back-ends, SOA and client-server. The results show that participants did not experience significant difference between the two systems, however, eye tracking results showed a significant difference between the two systems. The research concluded that customer profiling using SOA offers more benefits than implementations using other architectures such as client-server. SOA component-based development proved to be easier to manage, develop, integrate and improves interoperability between different technologies. The research brought together necessary techniques and technologies that organisations can use to implement SOA. Using SOA, organisations can integrate and utilise different technologies seamlessly to achieve business goals.

This study addressed issues associated with implementing multiple data integrators. The process included implementing the same data integrator multiple times or implementing multiple different data integrators. It was shown that single data integrators implementations were failing at high rates. Environments were complicated because there were more acquisitions and mergers now than in the past, companies were required to be competitive while implementations were taking place, and possibly had short implementation time frames. The main goal of this study was to develop an agile, sturdy, and rigorous model that addressed the needs of companies that found themselves in situations where they needed to implement two or more data integrators and possibly business initiatives. This researcher developed a model and a questionnaire. The questionnaire was used to gather data from managers and practitioners in the information technology industry. The collected information was expected to show a consensus about the proposed JBurns Systems Implementation Model (JBSIM). Analysis showed various industry participants used different combinations of the proposed data integrators supported and they supported the proposed JBSIM. This model allowed for successful implementation of multiple data integrators used in this research. As this model matured, it had the potential that allowed the use of other data integrators not used in this research. It had potential that allowed corporate initiatives to be used.

A robótica tem passado por uma notável evolução ao longo dos últimos anos, juntamente com um crescente interesse por parte da sociedade. Robôs não são mais exclusivamente produzidos para realizar atividades repetitivas em fábricas, eles têm sido projetados para apoiar humanos em diversos e importantes domínios de aplicação. Os sistemas robóticos utilizados para controlar tais robôs têm, portanto, se tornado maiores, mais complexos e difíceis de desenvolver. Nesse cenário, a Arquitetura Orientada a Serviços (do inglês, Service-Oriented Architecture - SOA) tem sido investigada como um promissor estilo arquitetural para o desenvolvimento de sistemas robóticos de forma mais flexível, reusável e produtiva. Embora um número considerável de Sistemas Robóticos Orientados a Serviços (do inglês, Service-Oriented Robotic Systems - SORS) já exista, grande parte deles têm sido desenvolvida de maneira ad hoc. A pouca atenção e o suporte limitado ao projeto das arquiteturas de software de SORS pode não só impedir a obtenção dos benefícios associados à adoção da SOA, mas também reduzir a qualidade dos sistemas robóticos que, frequentemente, são utilizados em contextos de segurança crítica. Essa tese tem por objetivo aprimorar o entendimento e a sistematização do projeto arquitetural de SORS. Para isso, é proposta uma taxonomia de serviços para o domínio de robótica, bem como um processo e uma arquitetura de referência para sistematizar o projeto das arquiteturas de software de SORS. Os resultados obtidos evidenciam que tanto o processo quanto a arquitetura de referência podem impactar positivamente na qualidade das arquiteturas de software de SORS e, consequentemente, contribuir para o desenvolvimento de sistemas robóticos. / Robotics has experienced an increasing evolution and interest from the society in recent years. Robots are no longer produced exclusively to perform repetitive tasks in factories, they have been designed to collaborate with humans in several important application domains. Robotic systems that control these robots are therefore becoming larger, more complex, and difficult to develop. In this scenario, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been investigated as a promising architectural style for the design of robotic systems in a exible, reusable, and productive manner. Despite the existence of a considerable amount of Service-Oriented Robotic Systems (SORS), most of them have been developed in an ad hoc manner. The little attention and limited support devoted to the design of SORS software architectures may not only hamper the benefits of SOA adoption, but also reduce the overall quality of robotic systems, which are often used in safety-critical contexts. This thesis aims at improving the understanding and systematization of SORS architectural design. It describes a taxonomy of services for the robotics domain, as well as proposes a process and a reference architecture that systematize the design of SORS software architectures. Results achieved in the evaluation studies evidence that both process and reference architecture can positively impact on the quality of SORS software architectures and, as a consequence, contribute to the development of robotic systems.

De nos jours, la façon d’utiliser les applications mobiles dans le domaine des transports offre de nouveaux défis liés aux spécificités de l’environnement, comme la forte mobilité des terminaux, leur répartition, ou encore le réseau instable de communication. La plupart des applications existantes ont des contraintes de fonctionnement qui les rendent inadaptées si les conditions d’exécution évoluent rapidement. Cela rend intéressant l’utilisation d’un cadre unifié de conception et d’exécution, capable de gérer ces applications. Nos travaux portent, dans un premier temps, sur une étude des applications mobiles et de leur comportement, en fonction du contexte d’exécution. Nous considérons le cas des applications dédiées aux transports, conçues pour accompagner et assister un usager dans son déplacement (navigation, sécurité routière, applications des moyens de transports, etc.). Nous identifions les éléments du contexte propres aux applications fortement mobiles et les modélisons. Dans un second temps, nous proposons un cadre dynamique et sensible au contexte, permettant le déploiement de nouveaux services « à la volée » ainsi que leur adaptation pour une meilleure utilisation des ressources dans des milieux très évolutifs. Nous nous focalisons sur le côté réactif, permettant d’adapter le comportement des applications à leurs nouvelles conditions d’utilisation. Les applications sont décomposées en services de base avec un couplage lâche pour une plus grande flexibilité. Nous utilisons une architecture orientée service, qui permet la réutilisation des services communs à plusieurs applications mais aussi la gestion du contexte au travers de services équivalents mais capables de fonctionner dans des conditions différentes.Nous montrons, grâce au prototype de notre plateforme CATS (Context-Aware Transportation Services), d’abord la faisabilité d’une plateforme à services sur des terminaux portables. Nous testons ensuite plusieurs scénarios afin de démontrer la réactivité des adaptations aux changements de contexte. Dans cette thèse nous proposons une vue d’ensemble sur la création et la gestion des applications sensibles au contexte pour le domaine des transports. Le but de notre démarche est d’assurer le bon fonctionnement de l’ensemble des applications d’un utilisateur, malgré les changements dynamiques du contexte. / The use of mobile applications in the transportation domain raises a multitude ofchallenges, related to the specific execution environment: highly mobile and distributed devices, unstable communication networks, etc. Most of the existing applications are not flexible enough to cope with the rapidly changing environment. It would be interesting to provide a unified frame for the design and execution of such applications, offering management capabilities as well. We propose a study of the mobile applications and their behavior in relation with thecontext. We consider a certain type of applications, designed to accompany and assist users on the move (navigation, traffic security, applications related to a means of transport, etc.). We identify the context elements which are characteristic to highly mobile applications and we propose a context model for the transportation domain. In order to handle multiple applications at a time, we propose a dynamic and contextaware framework, capable of deploying services “on the fly”. We consider applications built through the assembly of services, allowing them to adapt to the execution environment and make the best use of the available resources. We focus on the reaction of the applications to the changes in the environment. Applications are built of services and thus benefit from loose coupling, allowing them to be flexible. A service oriented architecture brings further advantages, notably that services can be shared between applications and that a service can have multiple implementations. We manage the adaptation to new conditions of use through equivalent services built for different context situations. The framework that we have proposed, called CATS (Context-Aware Transportation Services), has been tested thanks to a prototype. We were able to prove the feasibility of the framework as well as evaluate several testing scenarios, showing the reactivity of the applications to context changes. This work proposes a complete view of the design and management of context-aware applications for the transport domain. Our goal is to enhance user experience by ensuring the well functioning of his/her applications despite the ever changing context.

Orientador: Frank José Affonso / Resumo: O cenário atual de desenvolvimento de software tem revelado um uso crescente de aplicações baseadas em serviços. Em um ambiente de computação distribuída, monitorar a qualidade de serviços para que essa aplicação não apresente algum tipo de anomalia ou interrupção pode ser considerada uma tarefa vital. Para isso, é necessário prover meios para o desenvolvimento de sistemas baseados em serviços capazes de observar seu estado interno de execução e/ou contexto ao qual estão inseridos e reagir diante de mudanças ou algum tipo de imprevisibilidade. Aplicações orientadas a serviços que permitem adaptação em tempo de execução podem ser classificadas como Self-Apps (do inglês, Self-adaptive Service-oriented Applications). Em função da complexidade intrínseca a esse tipo de aplicação, o uso de frameworks tem se mostrado uma alternativa viável por aliviar a carga cognitiva de desenvolvimento, a qual envolve o conhecimento de diversas áreas de pesquisa. Motivado por esse cenário, durante a realização deste trabalho foi conduzida uma revisão da literatura que engloba a condução de um mapeamento sistemático e consultas complementares em bases nacionais de teses e dissertações. Essa revisão permitiu obter um panorama detalhado referente ao estágio atual da pesquisa, seus desafios e as perspectivas futuras sobre frameworks para Self-Apps. Embasado nos resultados dessa revisão, o objetivo deste trabalho é o desenvolvimento do framework DynaMS (do inglês, Dynamic Deployment, QoS Metrics and S... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The current software development scenario has shown a crescent usage of service-based applications. In a distributed computing environment, the monitoring of the service’s quality is a relevant task because aims to assure that it does not present any anomaly or interruption. To do so, it is necessary to provide means to develop service-based systems that are capable to observe their internal execution state and/or the context in which they are inserted and to react in face of changes or unforeseen circumstances. Service-oriented applications that are able to perform adaptation in runtime can be classified as Self-Apps (i.e., Self-adaptive Service-oriented Applications). Given the complexity involved in this type of application, the use of frameworks has been shown as a viable alternative to reduce the cognitive development load regarding the knowledge from different research areas. Motivated by this scenario, we conducted a literature review as a part of this work. This review includes a systematic mapping and complementary searches to national thesis and dissertations’ databases. This review provided us a detailed panorama about the current stage of research, its challenges and the future perspectives regarding frameworks for Self-Apps. Based on the results from this review, the purpose of this Master’s project is to present a framework called DynaMS (Dynamic Deployment, QoS Metrics and Semantic Search) to support the development of this type of application. In short, this f... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Nowadays, wireless sensor network (WSN) is becoming popular in various fields of different industries along with the rapid development of hardware and software. Whereas more and more WSN applications come into use has make it difficult for consumers especially those who do not have professional knowledge to use. So it is urgently necessary and significant to offer services which do not need professional knowledge to satisfy consumers’ requirements from the users’ point of view. Therefore, service oriented architecture (SOA) is introduced as a method to do our research from the users’ point of view. After asimple overall introduction of WSN which include the system architecture, hardware, software and supported technologies, we pay our emphasis on the power consumption modeling for WSN and get some formulations following the operation cycle. Last but not least, SOA method is analyzed and some SOA based WSN applications are introduced as examples to further understand of SOA based WSN for readers.

With the help of appropriate IT support, health care services can be executed in a more effective and secure way. In Sweden, the NPÖ (National Patients’ Översikt) stands for National Patients’ Overview. It is a platform where authorized health care providers can access comprehensive and continuous information about health care and patients’ situation, based on which care providers can offer safe and qualified services. The NPÖ project is focusing on the information sharing phase. In order to improve the efficiency and correctness of care services, the next step is that health care systems can offer clinical suggestions and warnings with the existing patients’ data and medication information. Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs) are aimed to offer such assistance and are necessary to be integrated. But by now, there is no explicit architecture to guide Swedish government to implement the integration. Although some architectures have been proposed for integrating CDSSs in health information systems, those architectures are developed for certain use cases and cannot be adopted directly in NPÖ. An integration architecture which takes full consideration of NPÖ-adopting data types, message structures and interface types is needed. This thesis adopts constructive research method, which contains three main phases. First, related backgrounds about national electronic health care system, clinical decision supports system and integration techniques are introduced. Second, the integration architecture is constructed following service-oriented principles. Third, theoretical valuation work is finished by assessing system features and making interviews. This thesis takes advantage of service-oriented architecture to design an architecture with Clinical Decision Support (CDS) middleware for health care information system integration. With this structure, national electronic health care systems, such as NPÖ, can have interaction with various types of CDSSs to provide more efficient and secure health care. It offers united interfaces which enable different CDSSs with different developing platforms to communicate without obstacles. Unlike the existing CDSS integration architectures, the new one with CDS Middleware can provide maximized scalability. Evaluation work has been done from two aspects. Feature criteria and interviews with national health care system developers indicate that the architecture can contribute to the development of NPÖ, and future works such as involving security agents can be continued to optimize the results.

La croissance des appareils connectés, principalement due au grand nombre de déploiements de l'internet des objets et à l'émergence des services de cloud mobile, introduit de nouveaux défis pour la conception d'architectures de services dans le Cloud Computing Mobile (CCM) du cloud computing mobile. Nous montrons dans cette thèse comment l'architecture orientée services SOA peut être une solution clé pour fournir des services cloud mobiles distribués et comment la plate-forme OSGi peut être un cadre adaptatif et efficace pour fournir une telle implémentation. Nous adaptons le cadre CCM proposé à différents contextes d'architecture. Le premier est un modèle centré traditionnel, où les appareils mobiles sont réduits à consommer des services. Le second est un modèle distribué où la puissance de l'interaction de mobile à mobile offre des opportunités illimitées de services de valeur, et enfin, l'architecture à trois niveaux est considérée avec l'introduction de la notion de cloudlet. Pour chaque contexte, nous explorons la performance de notre cadre axé sur le service et le comparons à d'autres solutions existantes. / The growth of connected devices, mostly due to the large number of internet of things IoT deployments and the emergence of mobile cloud services, introduces new challenges for the design of service architectures in mobile cloud computing MCC. An MCC framework should provide elasticity and scalability in a distributed and dynamic way while dealing with limited environment resources and variable mobile contexts web applications, real-time, enterprise services, mobile to mobile, hostile environment, etc. that may include additional constraints impacting the design foundation of cloud services. We show in this thesis how service-oriented architecture SOA can be a key solution to provide distributed mobile cloud services and how OSGi platform can be an adaptive and efficient framework to provide such implementation. We adapt the proposed MCC framework to different architecture contexts. The first one is a traditional centric model, where mobile devices are reduced to consuming services. The second one is a distributed model where the power of mobile-to-mobile interaction offers unlimited value-services opportunities, and finally, three-tier architecture is considered with the introduction of the cloudlet notion. For each context, we explore the performance of our service-oriented framework, and contrast it with alternative existing solutions.