Les services Web (SW) sont considérés comme étant un bloc pilier pour la réalisation de transactions électroniques entre entreprises. Ainsi, de plus en plus d'entreprises utilisent des SW pour réaliser des transactions avec leurs partenaires et/ou offrir des services en ligne. Dans un tel contexte, chaque entreprise possède un ou plusieurs référentiels privés de descriptions de SW. Pour que ses SW soient consultables et puissent être découverts par d'autres entreprises, une entreprise devra rendre ses référentiels de SW publics. La solution couramment utilisée consiste à publier les descriptions de ses SW dans des annuaires de SW. En conséquence, le nombre d'annuaires disponibles peut être aussi important que le grand nombre d'entreprises et la découverte d'un SW devient ainsi une tâche fastidieuse pour un demandeur de services et coûteuse pour un système de découverte. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de fournir des solutions pour assurer une découverte d'annuaires de SW adaptée à un environnement distribué. Pour ce faire, nous proposons tout d'abord d'organiser le réseau d'annuaires en communautés. Ensuite, afin de préserver la consistance de cette organisation face aux changements qui peuvent se produire (départ/arrivée d'annuaires), nous définissons les mécanismes de gestion nécessaires. Enfin, nous proposons une approche pour la découverte d'annuaires de SW qui utilise deux filtres pour limiter l'espace de recherche d'un demandeur de services. Les solutions proposées ont été testées par la mise en place d'un réseau de communautés d'annuaires, l'implémentation d'un gestionnaire de communautés et d'un système de découverte d'annuaires. / Web services (WS) can be seen as a pillar block for achieving electronic B2B transactions. More and more companies are using WS to achieve transactions with their partners and/or offer on-line services. These companies have to make their WS available for consultation through their own private WS registries. As a result, the number of WS registries that are made available for use can be as many as the large number of companies. This raises an old, search engine, problem in a new form: discovery mechanisms of WS are not efficient both in response times and quality of results. In this context, if appropriate solutions are not considered, "traditional" WS discovery mechanisms that consist of scanning all the registries would for instance slow down the increase rate of WS. In this thesis, we are interested in WS discovery in a distributed registry environment. To do this, we first propose to organize a registries network into communities based on functionalities offered by the WS of a registry. Then, to handle the dynamic nature of communities and their members, we define the needed management mechanisms to monitor changes and reconcile potential conflicts. Finally, we propose an approach for WS registries discovery that uses two filters to limit the search space. We first use the functional requirement of a service requester to select the appropriate registry community. Then we use the requester's non-functional requirements and his behavior to select the registries. The proposed solutions were tested by setting up a P2P network of registry communities, implementing a community manager and a discovery system.

The need for modern enterprises and Web users to simply and rapidly develop and deliver platform-independent services to be accessed over the Web by the global community is growing. This is self-evident, when one considers the omnipresence of electronic services (e-services) on the Web. Accordingly, the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is commonly considered as one of the de facto standards for the provisioning of heterogeneous business functionalities on the Web. As the basis for SOA, Web Services (WS) are commonly preferred, particularly because of their ability to facilitate the integration of heterogeneous systems. However, WS only focus on syntactic descriptions when describing the functional and behavioural aspects of services. This makes it a challenge for services to be automatically discovered, selected, composed, invoked, and executed – without any human intervention. Consequently, Semantic Web Services (SWS) are emerging to deal with such a challenge. SWS represent the convergence of Semantic Web (SW) and WS concepts, in order to enable Web services that can be automatically processed and understood by machines operating with limited or no user intervention. At present, research efforts within the SWS domain are mainly concentrated on semantic services automation aspects, such as discovery, matching, selection, composition, invocation, and execution. Moreover, extensive research has been conducted on the conceptual models and formal languages used in constructing semantic services. However, in terms of the engineering of semantic services, a number of challenges are still prevalent, as demonstrated by the lack of development and use of semantic services in real-world settings. The lack of development and use could be attributed to a number of challenges, such as complex semantic services enabling technologies, leading to a steep learning curve for service developers; lack of unified service platforms for guiding and supporting simple and rapid engineering of semantic services, and the limited integration of semantic technologies with mature service-oriented technologies. vi In addition, a combination of isolated software tools is normally used to engineer semantic services. This could, however, lead to undesirable consequences, such as prolonged service development times, high service development costs, lack of services re-use, and the lack of semantics interoperability, reliability, and re-usability. Furthermore, available software platforms do not support the creation of semantic services that are intelligent beyond the application of semantic descriptions, as envisaged for the next generation of services, where the connection of knowledge is of core importance. In addressing some of the challenges highlighted, this research study adopted a qualitative research approach with the main focus on conceptual modelling. The main contribution of this study is thus a framework called iSemServ to simplify and accelerate the process of engineering intelligent semantic services. The framework has been modelled and developed, based on the principles of simplicity, rapidity, and intelligence. The key contributions of the proposed framework are: (1) An end-to-end and unified approach of engineering intelligent semantic services, thereby enabling service engineers to use one platform to realize all the modules comprising such services; (2) proposal of a model-driven approach that enables the average and expert service engineers to focus on developing intelligent semantic services in a structured, extensible, and platform-independent manner. Thereby increasing developers’ productivity and minimizing development and maintenance costs; (3) complexity hiding through the exploitation of template and rule-based automatic code generators, supporting different service architectural styles and semantic models; and (4) intelligence wrapping of services at message and knowledge levels, for the purposes of automatically processing semantic service requests, responses and reasoning over domain ontologies and semantic descriptions by keeping user intervention at a minimum. The framework was designed by following a model-driven approach and implemented using the Eclipse platform. It was evaluated using practical use case scenarios, comparative analysis, and performance and scalability experiments. In conclusion, the iSemServ framework is considered appropriate for dealing with the complexities and restrictions involved in engineering intelligent semantic services, especially because the amount of time required to generate intelligent semantic vii services using the proposed framework is smaller compared with the time that the service engineer would need to manually generate all the different artefacts comprising an intelligent semantic service. Keywords: Intelligent semantic services, Web services, Ontologies, Intelligent agents, Service engineering, Model-driven techniques, iSemServ framework. / Computing / D. Phil. (Computer science)

This thesis is focused on the application of Component-Based (CB) technology to shop floor devices using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services (WS) for the purpose of realising future generation agile manufacturing systems. The environment of manufacturing enterprises is now characterised by frequently changing market demands, time-to-market pressure, continuously emerging new technologies and global competition. Under these circumstances, manufacturing systems need to be agile and automation systems need to support this agility. More specifically, an open, exible automation environment with plug and play connectivity is needed. Technically, this requires the easy connectivity of hardware devices and software components from different vendors. Functionally, there is a need of interoperability and integration of control functions on different hierarchical levels ranging from field level to various higher level applications such as process control and operations management services. A potential solution is to realise a modular and reconfigurable automation system, based on a platform of reusable components; while simultaneously reducing the number of unique components. For designing such reusable components, a component-based technology has been used in current thesis. The automation components created are active and distributed entities interacting through their data, event and service ports. To communicate these entities, this thesis focuses on applying SOA and WS at device level. SOA and WS have already been proven successful in linking business applications. If SOA can be applied at shop floor using the embedded devices, it can enable entirely new automation architecture based on peer-to-peer interactions between autonomous devices. The adoption of this SOA-WS approach at shop floor level would enable a seamless integration of higher level business applications and shop- floor level system. This will also provide a loosely coupled message-oriented service in embedded device networks and geographically distributed automation system. SOA can be implemented using Web Services on the embedded devices, which will provide even greater exibility and interoperability because WS is platform neutral. This SOA-WS approach will enable end users to operate and maintain the supplied system easily. A key aim of this thesis is to examine if the adoption of SOA-WS at the embedded control devices can provide the same level of message speed and reliability as the current control systems. It is expected that the desired distributed, loosely coupled and reconfigurable automation system can be formed by a network of these collaborative autonomous SOA-WS based devices using an open control platform. This approach has been experimentally evaluated both in terms of quantity and quality using various parameters involved in the design, implementation, evaluation and recon guration of SOA-WS based automation systems. This has been done using the Ford Festo test rig located at the Manufacturing System Integration Research Institute of Loughborough University. The mechanisms on this test rig represent control problems typically associated in engine assembly and handling machines. Therefore, the result of experimental studies performed on this test rig can be considered applicable to real manufacturing applications.

Eine umfängliche Berücksichtigung der qualitativen Zusammensetzung von beschreibenden Artefakten im Internet der Dienste über dafür ausgelegte Dienstplattformen steigert die Erlebnisqualität für die Benutzer der angebotenen Dienstleistungen. In dieser Dissertation sind die existierenden Verfahren zur Erkennung, Propagierung und Verbesserung von Qualitatsmetriken in dienstorientierten Architekturen in Hinblick auf diese gesteigerten Anforderungen systematisch in Verfahren eingebunden. Die Arbeit liefert zwei wissenschaftliche Beiträge. Der erste ist beinhaltet ein Konzept für inkrementelle Qualiẗatsverbesserungen von Diensten durch Nutzung von Laufzeitmechanismen zur dynamischen Beschreibung und Bewertung nichtfunktionaler Eigenschaften. Der zweite liefert eine Definition eines abstrakten Zusammenspiels von Architekturmustern und Prozessen zur vertraglich abgesicherten Gewahrleistung von Dienstgüteeigenschaften in Dienstlandschaften in Form einer Referenzarchitektur. / A holistic consideration of the qualitative composition of descriptive artefacts in the Internet of Services through specifically designed service platforms increases the quality of experience for the users of the offered services. In this dissertation, the existing methods for the recognition, propagation and improvement of quality metrics in service-oriented architectures are systematically included in methods related to these increased requirements. The work delivers two scientific contributions. The first one encompasses a concept for the incremental improvement of quality of services via the use of runtime mechanisms for the dynamic description and rating of non-functional properties. The second one carries a definition of an abstract interplay of architecture patterns and processes for the contractually safeguarded guarantee of quality of service properties in service ecosystems in the form of a reference architecture.

A Engenharia de Software tem desenvolvido técnicas e métodos para apoiar o desenvolvimento de software confiável, flexível, com baixo custo de desenvolvimento e fácil manutenção. A avaliação da manutenibilidade contribui para fornecer meios para produzir software com alta qualidade. Este trabalho apresenta um experimento controlado para avaliar a manutenibilidade entre as abordagens de web services: RESTful e SOAP-WSDL. Esta avaliação foi conduzida usando 3 programas implementados na linguagem de programação Java e com a mesma arquitetura. Com base na arquitetura projetada, os web services desenvolvidos foram utilizados como objetos em estudos de caso, possibilitando avaliar e comparar a sua manutenibilidade. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram relações entre as informações sobre o custo e a qualidade dos serviços web, que contribuíram para esclarecer os critérios para a obtenção de uma boa relação entre o custo da manutenção e a evolução dos serviços web. Para concluir, os resultados indica que os web services RESTful são mais manuteníveis do lado do servidor, e os web services SOAP-WSDL são mais manuteníveis do lado do cliente. Os estudos realizados no experimento controlado são promissores e podem auxiliar na redução de custo na manutenção dos serviços web, melhorando dessa forma a qualidade do software no geral / Software Engineering has developed techniques and methods to support the development of reliable software, exible, low development cost and easy maintenance. The evaluation of maintainability contributes in this direction, providing the means to produce software with high quality. This paper presents an controlled experiment to evaluate the maintainability between the approaches of web services: RESTful and SOAP-WSDL. This evaluation was conducted using four programs implemented in the Java programming language, using the same architecture. Based on the designed architecture, Web services were developed as objects used in case studies, allowing to evaluate and compare its maintainability. The results showed relationships between the information on the cost and quality of web services, which contributed to clarify the criteria for obtaining a good relationship between the cost of maintenance and evolution of web services. In conclusion, the results indicate the RESTful web services are more maintainable server side in contrast to the SOAP-WSDL web services are more maintainable client side. Studies in controlled experiments are promising and may help reduce the maintenance cost of web services, thus improving overall software quality

A automação de tarefas como descoberta, composição e invocação de Serviços Web é um requisito importante para o sucesso da Web Semântica. Nos casos de insucesso na busca por um serviço, por não existir disponível um serviço completo que atenda plenamente a requisição do usuário, uma possibilidade de contorno é compor o serviço procurado a partir de elementos básicos que atendam parcialmente a requisição inicial e que se completem. A composição de Serviços Web pode ser realizada de forma manual ou de forma automática. Na composição manual, o desenvolvedor de Serviços Web pode tirar proveito da sua expertise sobre os serviços envolvidos na composição e sobre o resultado que se deseja alcançar. Esta tese aborda problemas e apresenta contribuições relacionadas ao processo de composição automática de Serviços Web. A composição automática de Serviços Web requer que os serviços sejam descritos e publicados de forma a modelar o conhecimento (semântica explícita) que o desenvolvedor utiliza para realizar a composição manual. A descoberta automática baseada nas descrições semânticas do serviço é também um passo crucial na direção da composição automática, pois é um estágio anterior necessário para a seleção dos serviços candidatos à composição. Trabalhos da área de pesquisa em Serviços Web Semânticos exploram a utilização dos padrões da Web Semântica para enriquecer, com semântica explícita, a descrição dos Serviços Web. O problema da composição automática de Serviços Web é tratado neste trabalho por meio de três linhas de investigação: modelagem dos Serviços Web Semânticos; descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; e composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos. As contribuições desta tese incluem: a plataforma RALOWS para modelagem de aplicações Web como Serviços Web Semânticos, tendo como estudo de caso aplicações para realização de experimentos remotos; um algoritmo para descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma proposta baseada em grafos e caminhos de custo mínimo para prover composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma infra-estrutura e ferramentas de apoio à descrição, publicação, descoberta e composição de Serviços Web Semânticos / The automation of the discovery, composition and invocation of Web Services is an important step to the success of the Semantic Web. If no single Web Service satisfies the functionality required by one user, an alternative is to combine existing services that solve parts of the problem in order to reach a complete solution. Web Services composition can be achieved manually or automatically. When composing services manually, Web Service developers can take advantage of their expertise and knowledge about the composition services and the target service. This thesis addresses issues and presents contributions related to the process of automating Web Services composition. The automatic composition of Web services requires the description and publication of the services in order to model the necessary knowledge (explicit semantics) that the developer uses to perform the manual composition. The automatic Web Service discovery is a crucial step toward the automatic composition, because it is a previous stage necessary to the selection of composition service candidates. Semantic Web Services researches explore the use of the Semantic Web technologies to enrich the Web Services descriptions with explicit semantics. Three main lines of investigation are adopted in this thesis to explore the process of automatic composition of Web Services. They are the following: Semantic Web Services modeling; automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; and automatic composition of Semantic Web Services. The main contributions of this thesis include: the RALOWS platform for modeling Web applications as Semantic Web Services; an algorithm for the automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; a graph-based approach to the automatic composition of Semantic Web Services; and an infrastructure and tools to support the Semantic Web Services description, publishing, discovery and composition

A automação de tarefas como descoberta, composição e invocação de Serviços Web é um requisito importante para o sucesso da Web Semântica. Nos casos de insucesso na busca por um serviço, por não existir disponível um serviço completo que atenda plenamente a requisição do usuário, uma possibilidade de contorno é compor o serviço procurado a partir de elementos básicos que atendam parcialmente a requisição inicial e que se completem. A composição de Serviços Web pode ser realizada de forma manual ou de forma automática. Na composição manual, o desenvolvedor de Serviços Web pode tirar proveito da sua expertise sobre os serviços envolvidos na composição e sobre o resultado que se deseja alcançar. Esta tese aborda problemas e apresenta contribuições relacionadas ao processo de composição automática de Serviços Web. A composição automática de Serviços Web requer que os serviços sejam descritos e publicados de forma a modelar o conhecimento (semântica explícita) que o desenvolvedor utiliza para realizar a composição manual. A descoberta automática baseada nas descrições semânticas do serviço é também um passo crucial na direção da composição automática, pois é um estágio anterior necessário para a seleção dos serviços candidatos à composição. Trabalhos da área de pesquisa em Serviços Web Semânticos exploram a utilização dos padrões da Web Semântica para enriquecer, com semântica explícita, a descrição dos Serviços Web. O problema da composição automática de Serviços Web é tratado neste trabalho por meio de três linhas de investigação: modelagem dos Serviços Web Semânticos; descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; e composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos. As contribuições desta tese incluem: a plataforma RALOWS para modelagem de aplicações Web como Serviços Web Semânticos, tendo como estudo de caso aplicações para realização de experimentos remotos; um algoritmo para descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma proposta baseada em grafos e caminhos de custo mínimo para prover composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma infra-estrutura e ferramentas de apoio à descrição, publicação, descoberta e composição de Serviços Web Semânticos / The automation of the discovery, composition and invocation of Web Services is an important step to the success of the Semantic Web. If no single Web Service satisfies the functionality required by one user, an alternative is to combine existing services that solve parts of the problem in order to reach a complete solution. Web Services composition can be achieved manually or automatically. When composing services manually, Web Service developers can take advantage of their expertise and knowledge about the composition services and the target service. This thesis addresses issues and presents contributions related to the process of automating Web Services composition. The automatic composition of Web services requires the description and publication of the services in order to model the necessary knowledge (explicit semantics) that the developer uses to perform the manual composition. The automatic Web Service discovery is a crucial step toward the automatic composition, because it is a previous stage necessary to the selection of composition service candidates. Semantic Web Services researches explore the use of the Semantic Web technologies to enrich the Web Services descriptions with explicit semantics. Three main lines of investigation are adopted in this thesis to explore the process of automatic composition of Web Services. They are the following: Semantic Web Services modeling; automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; and automatic composition of Semantic Web Services. The main contributions of this thesis include: the RALOWS platform for modeling Web applications as Semantic Web Services; an algorithm for the automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; a graph-based approach to the automatic composition of Semantic Web Services; and an infrastructure and tools to support the Semantic Web Services description, publishing, discovery and composition

Esta dissertação de mestrado aborda a Composição de Web services baseada em atributos de Qualidade de Serviço (CWSbQ). Foi selecionado o domínio de sistemas de e-commerce, por se tratar de uma área em franca expansão, tanto no cenário nacional como internacional. Além disso, os sistemas de e-commerce podem se beneficiar da CWSbQ devido à sua interoperabilidade e atendimento aos requisitos de qualidade de serviço de seus clientes. Foram implementados dez algoritmos para resolver esse problema, usando várias técnicas diferentes, sendo elas: busca aleatória, busca exaustiva, busca heurística, busca meta-heurística e um algoritmo híbrido. Foram realizados experimentos de avaliação de desempenho, considerando tamanhos de espaço de busca diferentes e dois deadlines estabelecidos. As principais contribuições deste trabalho foram o desenvolvimento de três novos algoritmos: Heurística Gulosa (HG), Heurística Gulosa 2 (HG2) e Algoritmo Genético Duplamente Híbrido (AGDH); o uso de planejamento de experimentos e avaliação de desempenho para aperfeiçoar Algoritmos Genéticos (AGs) usados no problema de CWSbQ; e o estudo de adequação dos algoritmos de CWSbQ para diferentes situações / This MSc dissertation addresses the QoS-aware Web services composition (QWSC) problem. The field of e-commerce systems was selected because it comprises an area in wide expansion, both in national and international scenarios. Furthermore, e-commerce systems can benefit from QWSC due to its interoperability and compliance to the requirements of quality of service of the customers. Ten algorithms were implemented to solve this problem by using several different techniques, namely: random search, exhaustive search, heuristic search, meta-heuristic and a hybrid algorithm. Performance evaluation was made considering different search space sizes for two different established deadlines. The main contributions of this work were the development of three new algorithms: Greedy Heuristic (GH), Greedy Heuristic 2 (GH2) and Doubly Hybrid Genetic Algorithm (DHGA); the use of planning of experiments and performance evaluation to improve the genetic algorithms (GAs) used in QWSC problem; and a suitability study of QWSC algorithms for different situations

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:53:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 21 / Nenhuma / Após o advento da Internet, diversas estratégias de desenvolvimento de software foram modificadas para promover maior reuso e interoperabilidade. Design Patterns e Frameworks nos ajudam a criar software e design flexíveis. A idéia de compor aplicações para que trabalhem juntas é bastante atrativa. No entanto, no domínio da saúde, surgem diversos empecilhos para que se realize esta integração. O uso de tecnologias de Agentes em conjunto com Web Services nos permite pensar em uma solução que garanta interoperabilidade, reuso e flexibilidade entre ambientes heterogêneos. Este trabalho descreve a arquitetura de um Agente de Software, chamado WSAgent (que consiste de uma instância de um Framelet para o sub-domínio paciente, no domínio da saúde) e suas estratégias de colaboração e interoperabilidade. Este trabalho também apresenta um estudo de caso com implementação de um protótipo / After the Internet advent, several strategies about software development were changed to promote more reuse and interoperability. Design Patterns and Frameworks help us to create software and design flexible. The idea of glue applications to work together is very attractive. In the health domains, there are many drawbacks to address its goals. The use of agent technologies combined with Web Services allow us to think about the construction of a bind to grant interoperability, reuse and flexibility between heterogeneous environments. This work describes the architecture of a software agent called WSAgent – an instance of a Framelet of Patient subdomain in Health domain – and its strategies of collaborations and interoperability. This work also presents a case study with the implementation of a prototype

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:56:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Para promover a reutilização de conteúdos de aprendizagem é necessário promover a normalização desses conteúdos para que possam funcionar corretamente em qualquer sistema de e-learning. A normalização permite: uma fácil reutilização; a portabilidade dos conteúdos criados; a padronização dos processos de criação; e a gestão dos conteúdos de aprendizagem. Porém, normalizar um ambiente de Educação a Distância já existente não é uma tarefa trivial e necessita de uma adequação tanto dos conteúdos de aprendizagem quanto do sistema de e-learning, pois toda a arquitetura é alterada, sendo necessário separar o conteúdo da estrutura. Esta pesquisa propõe e implementa uma arquite-tura denominada Fábrica de Adequação capaz de promover a interoperabilidade dos conteúdos educacionais e promover a adequação de recursos educacionais para Objetos de Aprendizagem Reutilizáveis, respeitando a norma SCORM, utilizando de tecnologias de Agentes de Software,Meta-dado (SCORM) e Web Services, os quais dispõem de mecanismo de auton / To promote learning object reusability it is necessary to provide the normalization of its contents so that they can work appropriately in any e-learning system. The normalization alows easy reusability, portability of created contents, standardization of processes of creation, and management of learning objects. However, to normalize an existing E-learning environment it is not a trivial task and it requires adequacy either of the learning contents and the e-learning system, once the whole architecture is modified, being necessary though to separate the content from the structure. This research proposes and implements an architecture caled Adequacy Factory which is capable of promoting the interoperability of educational contents and the adequacy of educational resources for Learning Object Reusability, respecting the SCORM norm by using technologies such as Soft-ware Agents, Meta-Data (SCORM), and Web Services which make use of autonomy mechanism, interaction, invocation, access, and reuse of services