Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui

Toward an agent-based and context-oriented approach for Web services composition

This paper presents an agent-based and context-oriented approach that supports the composition of Web services. A Web service is an accessible application that other applications and humans can discover and invoke to satisfy multiple needs. To reduce the complexity featuring the composition of Web services, two concepts are put forward, namely, software agent and context. A software agent is an autonomous entity that acts on behalf of users and the context is any relevant information that characterizes a situation. During the composition process, software agents engage in conversations with their peers to agree on the Web services that participate in this process. Conversations between agents take into account the execution context of the Web services. The security of the computing resources on which the Web services are executed constitutes another core component of the agent-based and context-oriented approach presented in this paper.

Context aware service provisioning

In this paper, we present our initiative on a new direction of research for bringing into the common fold context-aware computing and Web services-oriented computing. Our long term research objective is to allow users to satisfy their needs regardless of their location and the resources that are considered in the performance of the services. Our contribution is the enhancement of the service discovery and composition by taking into account the available contextual information. As a first step towards this goal we are in the process of designing a new service description based on context.

Advances in Ubiquitous Computing: Future Paradigms and Directions

The development and availability of new computing and communication devices, and the increased connectivity between these devices, thanks to wired and wireless networks, are enabling new opportunities for people to perform their operations anywhere and anytime. This technological expansion has developed a multitude of challenges that demand further research. ,bAdvances in Ubiquitous Computing: Future Paradigms and Directions investigates the technology foreground of ubiquitous computing, the emerging applications and services, as well as certain social issues that are vital for the successful deployment of a ubiquitous computing application, through a multi-perspective analytical lens. Providing academics and practitioners with high quality, authoritative content on such topics as device design, wireless communication, location sensing, privacy concerns, attention focus, multi-person interaction, and direct interaction, work patterns, this Premier Reference Source is a must-have addition to library collections worldwide.

A new model for context-aware transactions in mobile services

With the ubiquity of handheld devices (such as smart phones and PDAs) and the availability of a wide range of mobile services (such as mobile banking, road traffic updates, and weather forecast), people can nowadays access information and conduct online transactions virtually anywhere and anytime. In such flexible, dynamic but less reliable environment, transaction management technology is believed to provide service reliability and data consistency. Indeed, in mobile and ubiquitous environments where devices as well as services can seamlessly join and leave the ubiquitous network; transaction management can be very helpful during the recovery of services from failure. Current transaction models and commit protocols do not take into account context information. However, in mobile environments, it is imperative to consider context information in the commit of a transaction—i.e., a transaction can be successfully completed if it meets the required context. In this paper, we propose a new model for context-aware transactions and their performance management in mobile environments. Unlike conventional transactions, context-aware transactions adapt to the required context. By context, we mean the service’s context as well as the users’ context that includes users’ needs and preferences. This paper designs and develops the proposed transaction model and evaluates its performance in terms of time and message complexities as well as transaction’s throughput.

Context-Aware Mobile Services Transactions

With the ubiquity of handheld devices people can now access information and conduct online transactions virtually anywhere and anytime. In such flexible but less reliable environment transaction management technology is believed to provide service reliability and data consistency. Existing models developed for mobile transactions mainly focus on variation of conventional commit procedures and give little or no attention to the context-awareness which has become a crucial part of modern mobile applications. Given the high availability of context-aware services, mobile transactions should not only acquire required services but should also comply with the service context. This paper exploits the service-oriented computing technology and accordingly proposes a novel approach that manages transactions using the contextual information of mobile services. The proposed approach has several advantages. It manages transactions such that they adapt to the required service context as well as user’s needs. It also ensures the reliability of transactions and also increases their resilience to failures.

Web services composition using software agents and conversations

This paper discusses the process of integrating software agents and conversations into the composition of web services. A web service is a component that an organization provides in order to be assembled and re-used in a distributed, Internet-based environment. Acting on behalf of users, software agents are responsible for various operations such as discovering the web services that satisfy user needs, gathering the appropriate web services into composite services, and monitoring the execution of the composite services. While carrying out these operations, the software agents engage in conversations with their peers in order for example to agree on the web services that will take part in a composition. These conversations are specified with state chart diagrams, which are enhanced with awareness mechanisms for assessing the execution contexts of web services.

Network-Based Conflict Resolution in Business Processes

With the latest development in social technologies, (e.g., ~blogs and social networks), there is a growing interest in embracing these technologies to address conflicts hampering business-processes completion. This paper presents a coordination framework that regulates the interactions between the three components of a business process namely task, person, and machine, when conflicts related to resource consumption and use occur. These components are connected to peers through specialized networks. The realization of this framework goes through three steps: identification of conflicts per type of component, impact assessment of conflicts on business-process completion, and network use to develop solutions for conflicts.

A context model based on UML and XML schema representations

In this paper, we present our generic three- layered data model for context. The conceptual and physical layers built on top of a XML schema layer constitute the backbone of our approach.

An XML-based model for monitoring pervasive environments

This paper presents a generic model for handling sensory information in pervasive environments. The used modelling concepts are founded on an XML based approach, in which sensory information is structured around a set XML schema files.

Towards a Framework for Weaving Social Networks Into Mobile Commerce

This paper discusses a framework that supports weaving social elements into mobile commerce applications. This weaving takes place through different types of social networks that identify the stakeholders taking part in completing these applications. These stakeholders are consumers, providers, and brokers and are connected to each other through relationships such as competition, referral, loyalty, and collaboration. Each relationship is mapped onto a social network upon which a stakeholder relies before engaging in any of these applications and afterwards, making any decision. The value of social networks added to mobile commerce is illustrated with a set of experiments implementing a smart mobile restaurant guide.