Ali El-Bastawissy

A Flexible Tool for Web Service Selection in Service Oriented Architecture

Web Services are emerging technologies that enable application to application communication and reuse of services over Web. Semantic Web improves the quality of existing tasks, including Web services discovery, invocation, composition, monitoring, and recovery through describing Web services capabilities and content in a computer interpretable language. To provide most of the requested Web services, a Web service matchmaker is usually required. Web service matchmaking is the process of finding an appropriate provider for a requester through a middle agent. To provide the right service for the right user request, Quality of service (QoS)-based Web service selection is widely used. Employing QoS in Web service selection helps to satisfy user requirements through discovering the best service(s) in terms of the required QoS. Inspired by the mode of the Internet Web search engine, like Yahoo, Google, in this paper we provide a QoS-based service selection algorithm that is able to identify the best candidate semantic Web service(s) given the description of the requested service(s) and QoS criteria of user requirements. In addition, our proposed approach proposes a ranking method for those services. We also show how we employ data warehousing techniques to model the service selection problem. The proposed algorithm integrates traditional match making mechanism with data warehousing techniques. This integration of methodologies enables us to employ the historical preference of the user to provide better selection in future searches. The main result of the paper is a generic framework that is implemented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm for QoS-based Web application. Our presented experimental results show that the algorithm indeed performs well and increases the system reliability.

Data warehouse testing

During the development of the data warehouse (DW), too much data is transformed, integrated, structured, cleansed, and grouped in a single structure that is the DW. These various types of changes could lead to data corruption or data manipulation. Therefore, DW testing is a very critical stage in the DW development process. A number of attempts were made to describe how the testing process should take place in the DW environment. In this paper, I will state briefly these testing approaches, and then a proposed matrix will be used to evaluate and compare these approaches. Afterwards, I will highlight the weakness points that exist in the available DW testing approaches. Finally, I will describe how I will fill the gap in the DW testing in my PhD by developing a DW Testing Framework presenting briefly its architecture. Then, I will state the scope of work that I am planning to address and what type of limitations that exist in this area that I am expecting to experience. In the end, I will conclude my work and state possible future work in the field of DW testing.

Directional Skyline Queries

Continuous monitoring of queries over moving objects has become an important topic as it supports a wide range of useful mobile applications. A continuous skyline query involves both static and dynamic dimensions. In the dynamic dimension, the data object not only has a distance from the query object, but it also has a direction with respect to the query object motion. In this paper, we propose a direction-oriented continuous skyline query algorithm to compute the skyline objects with respect to the current position of the user. The goal of the proposed algorithm is to help the user to retrieve the best objects that satisfy his/her constraints and fall either in any direction around the query object, or is aligned along the object’s direction of motion. We also create a pre-computed skyline data set that facilitates skyline update, and enhances query running time and performance. Finally, we present experimental results to demonstrate the performance and efficiency of our proposed algorithms.

AEDA: Arabic edit distance algorithm Towards a new approach for Arabic name matching

String matching algorithms play a vital & crucial role in many applications such as search engines, object identification, hand written recognition, name searching in large databases, data cleansing, and automatic spell checking. Many algorithms have been developed to measure string similarity but most of them designed mainly to handle Latin-based languages. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for Arabic string matching which takes into consideration the unique features of the Arabic language and the different similarity levels of the Arabic letters such as phonetic similarity and character form similarity in addition to keyboard distance.

Multi-level continuous skyline queries (MCSQ)

Most of the current work on skyline queries mainly dealt with querying static query points over static data sets. With the advances in wireless communication, mobile computing, and positioning technologies, it has become possible to obtain and manage (model, index, query, etc.) the trajectories of moving objects in real life, and consequently the need for continuous skyline query processing has become more and more pressing. In this paper, we address the problem of efficiently maintaining continuous skyline queries which contain both static and dynamic attributes. We present a Multi-level Continuous Skyline Query (MCSQ) algorithm, which basically creates a pre-computed skyline data set, facilitates skyline update, and enhances query running time and performance. Our algorithm in brief proceeds as follows: First, we distinguish the data points that are permanently in the skyline and use them to derive a search bound. Second, we establish a pre-computed data set for dynamic skyline that depends on the number of skyline levels (M) which is later used to update the first (initial) skyline points. Finally, every time the skyline needs to be updated we use the pre-computed data sets of skyline to update the previous skyline set and consequently updating first skyline. Finally, we present experimental results to demonstrate the performance and efficiency of our algorithm.

Towards a Composite index for measuring the higher education institutions in Egypt

Egypt has the largest and most significant higher education system in the Middle East and North Africa but it had been continuously facing serious and accumulated challenges. The gap between what is existing and what is supposed to be for the self-regulation and improvement processes is not entirely clear to face these challenges. The effective use of information technology in higher education requires good and new techniques as well as rational strategies. The reform of higher education through strategies based on data analysis of current situation will affect the overall performance of transitional state and will shape new paradigms in higher education system development in Egypt. This research has objective to develop a model of Composite index (CI) based on a set of key performance indicators (KPI) commensurate with the nature of higher education institutions in Egypt. The outcomes of the composite index aim to measure overall performance of institutions and provide unified ranking method in this context. KPIs are determined as description of key success factors related to institutions sustainability. These KPIs are classified into main areas and sub-indicators. Within this scope, the indicators were weighted via Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method according to their significance levels. Pairwise comparison survey template and database web application were developed to collect narrative responses, apply algorithm and extract results. The research study was conducted with 40 professors from 19 renowned universities in Egypt as education experts. The status of composite index model implementation is discussed from theoretical and technical perspectives.

E-Government multi-layers Maturity Model

e-Government implementation and applications have gained a growing attention in the last decade. Countries seek to apply and extend the use of e-Government, and international organizations evaluate e-Government implementation and its impacts. The benefits of e-Government sound to be worthy while the costs of e-Government implementation sound to be costly. A clear implementation plan is a must to avoid financial loss. Countries should follow a road map compatible with their specific capabilities. Countries can depend on e-Government Maturity Models as guidelines for e-Government implementation. Available e-Government Maturity Models do not address the needs of individual countries. This article presents a new e-Government Maturity Model adjustable according to countries own capabilities through multi-layers, to ensure e-Government successful implementation within available resources. So this model is applicable for any given country, and it is even more useful for countries with limited resources.