Yacine Atif

Context-based matching for Web service composition

In this paper, we propose a novel matching framework for Web service composition. The framework combines the concepts of Web service, context, and ontology. We adopt a broad definition of context for Web services, encompassing all information needed for enabling interactions between clients and providers. Context-based matching for Web services requires dealing with three major research thrusts: context categorization, modeling, and matching. We first propose an ontology-based categorization of contextual information in Web service environments. We then define a two-level mechanism for modeling Web service contexts. In the first level, service providers create context specifications using category-specific Web service languages and standards. In the second level, context specifications are enveloped by policies (called context policies) using WS-Policy standard. Finally, we present a peer-to-peer architecture for matching context policies. The architecture relies on a context matching engine, context policy assistants, and context community services. Community services implement rule-based techniques for comparing context policies.

Ontology-based framework for context-aware mobile learning

Mobile learning is becoming an important research topic as people are increasingly connected through smart phones that combine telephony, computing, messaging, and multimedia. The process of designing, communicating and presenting learning resources for mobile learners poses new challenges to the research community. This is mainly due to the limited bandwidth of wireless networks, limited resource available on mobile devices, and the special requirements of mobile learners. In this paper, an attempt is made to solve some of these problems by proposing an ontology-based framework for context-aware mobile learning. The system consists mainly of a rule-based ontology and a search agent. The rule-based ontology component is driven by the learner profile to contextualize learning content accordingly. The goal is to extract from a source ontology a lightweight target ontology by firing a set of rules based on the learner profile. The extracted conceptual knowledge is then mapped to a set of learning objects that meet the technical requirements of the used mobile technology. The mapping is geared by a search agent that searches a set of distributed learning objects repositories for feasible lightweight learning objects.

Building trust in e-commerce

Most of us who have purchased items via the Internet have felt reluctant about the transaction at some point — usually when entering our credit card number or receiving unexpected goods. As customers, we need guarantees that the other party will not misuse confidential information, and merchants need guarantees that they will receive payment for the goods delivered. While security protocols such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) ensure that a credit card number will not be intercepted during transmission, they provide no guarantee against its misuse by the receiving party, nor against fraud by the transmitting party. To increase confidence in commercial transactions over the Web, where the transacting parties are invisible to each other, we need not just new protocols but also new transaction processes. One solution is to enlist a third party, referred to here as a trust service provider (TSP), to act as an Internet-based intermediary that assumes responsibility for a smooth transaction. The TSP is known and trusted by both customer and merchant and makes purchases on behalf of the one and conveys the goods on behalf of the other. This article describes my proposal for a trust web model based on a distributed search algorithm and a network of trusted intermediaries that can establish a trusted channel through which terminal transacting parties deal virtually directly and risk-free with each other. I have developed a CORBA-based implementation of the trust-path building algorithm and am currently testing its performance. The actual version of the system can be found at http://faculty.uaeu.ac.ae/~atif/ research/ecommerce/ec.html.To increase confidence in commercial transactions over the Web where the transacting parties are invisible to each other, we need not just new protocols but also new transaction processes. One solution is to enlist a third party, referred to here as a trust service provider (TSP), to act as an Internet-based intermediary that assumes responsibility for a smooth transaction. The TSP is known and trusted by both customer and merchant and makes purchases on behalf of the one and conveys the goods on behalf of the other. The article describes a proposal for a trust Web model based on a distributed search algorithm and a network of trusted intermediaries that can establish a trusted channel through which terminal transacting parties deal virtually directly and risk-free with each other. The author has developed a CORBA-based implementation of the trust-path building algorithm and is currently testing its performance. The actual version of the system can be found at: http://faculty.uaeu.ac.ae//spl sim/atif/research/ecommerce/ec.html.

Dynamic scheduling techniques for heterogeneous computing systems

There has been a recent increase of interest in heterogeneous computing systems, due partly to the fact that a single parallel architecture may not be adequate for exploiting all of a programs available parallelism. In some cases, heterogeneous systems have been shown to produce higher performance for lower cost than a single large machine. However, there has been only limited work on developing techniques and frameworks for partitioning and scheduling applications across the components of a heterogeneous system. In this paper we propose a general model for describing and evaluating heterogeneous systems that considers the degree of uniformity in the processing elements and the communication channels as a measure of the heterogeneity in the system. We also propose a class of dynamic scheduling algorithms for a heterogeneous computing system interconnected with an arbitrary communication network. These algorithms execute a novel optimization technique to dynamically compute schedules based on the potentially non-uniform computation and communication costs on the processors of a heterogeneous system. A unique aspect of these algorithms is that they easily adapt to different task granularities, to dynamically varying processor and system loads, and to systems with varying degrees of heterogeneity. Our simulations are designed to facilitate the evaluation of different scheduling algorithms under varying degrees of heterogeneity. The results show improved performance for our algorithms compared to the performance resulting from existing scheduling techniques.

Learning Objects Based Framework for Self-Adaptive Learning

How learners can build their own knowledge, which is precisely tailored to their needs and background? This is precisely the question to which this paper attempts to answer by providing a framework for a flexible object-based e-learning environment. The paper recognizes that the general learner modeling alternative is an intractable problem. However, it suggests learning objects construct used as building blocks to root out individual learning deficiencies. The paper also provides an algorithm to construct individual learning routes that are adjusted to learners profile as well as an open implementation to accommodate the integration of various learning sources.

Web of Things: Description, Discovery and Integration

The vision for the Web of Things (WoT) aims at bringing physical objects of the world into the World Wide Web. The Web is constantly evolving and has changed over the last couple of decades and the changes have spurted new areas of growth. The primary focus of the WoT is to bridge the gap between physical and digital worlds over a common and widely used platform, which is the Web. Everyday physical things, which are not Web-enabled, and have limited or zero computing capability, can be accommodated within the Web. As a step towards this direction, this work focuses on the specification of a thing, its descriptors and functions that could participate in the process of its discovery and operations. Besides, in this model for the WoT, we also propose a semantic Web-based architecture to integrate these things as Web resources to further demystify the realization of the WoT vision.

Building a smart campus to support ubiquitous learning

New technological advances in user mobility and context immersion are enabling novel adaptive and pervasive learning models in ambient environments. These advances allow physical learning spaces with embedded computing capabilities to provide an augmented self-aware learning experience. In this paper, we aim at developing a novel ubiquitous learning model within a pervasive smart campus environment. The goal of our research consists of identifying the steps towards building such an environment and the involved learning processes. We define a model of a smart campus, and advocate learning practices in the light of new paradigms such as context-awareness, ubiquitous learning, pervasive environment, resource virtualization, autonomic computing and adaptive learning. We reveal a comprehensive architecture that defines the various components and their inter-operations in a smart educational environment. The smart campus approach is presented as a composition of ambient learning spaces, which are environments where physical learning resources are augmented with digital and social services. We present a model of these spaces to harness future ubiquitous learning environments. One of the distinguished features of this model is the ability to unleash the instructional value of surrounding physical structures. Another one is the provision of a personalized learning agenda when moving across these ambient learning environments. To achieve these goals, we profile learners and augment physical campus structures to advocate context-aware learning processes. We suggest a social community platform for knowledge sharing which involves peer learners, domain experts as well as campus physical resources. Within this pervasive social scope, learners are continuously immersed in a pedagogically supported experiential learning loop as a persuasive approach to learning. A learning path, which responds to learners’ goals and qualifications, autonomously guides learners in achieving their objectives in the proposed smart campus. We evaluated our ubiquitous learning approach to assert the performance of these building blocks in the proposed smart campus model. The results show interesting tradeoffs and promising insights.

Building sustainable parking lots with the Web of Things

Peak-time traffic woes create considerable amount of stress and environmental pollution resulting in an economic loss. Research innovations in areas such as the Web of Things are able to curtail some of these issues by creating scalable and sustainable environments like parking lots, which provide motorists with access to convenient parking spots. We present a scalable parking lot network infrastructure that exposes parking management operations through a judicious mashup of physical things’ services within a parking lot. Our system uses service-oriented architecture, allowing motorists to reserve parking spots in advance. In doing so, our proposed system leverages the use of HTTP and Wi-Fi for the Web enablement and interoperability of things within a parking spot and elevates it as a Smart Parking Spot on the Web. Our suggested semantic Web-based structure for representing things makes it possible to query physical things’ states and services depending on their capabilities and other relevant parking-related parameters. Our performance evaluation reveals that a maximum of 40xa0% time is saved to find parking spots and also 40xa0% reduction in air pollution is observed.

The Web of Things - Challenges and Enabling Technologies

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an active research area, focusing on connecting real-world things over TCP/IP. This trend has recently triggered the research community to adopt the interoperability of the Web (HTTP) as an application platform for integrating ‘things’ on the Internet. Harnessing physical things into the virtual world using Web standards is also enriching the arena of conventional Web services to unleash data and functions of real-world things as service providers and consumers on the Internet. This evolution of the Web as a highly interoperable application platform for connecting real-world things has raised many research challenges and problems, leading to the fast growing research area called the Web of Things (WoT). Current research on WoT is a catalyst for the realization of IoT, opening up the possibilities of creating ambient spaces (AS), where people and things seamlessly communicate over the Web. In this chapter we discuss the state of the art in WoT research, focusing on the various challenges, and enabling technologies that are driving this research. We discuss architectural frameworks, models and technologies to build applications for future ambient spaces with the WoT. We present case studies that reflect the feasibility and applicability of the WoT technology. We also discuss future trends and research directions within this domain to throw light on existing problems and challenges.

Conversational learning integration in technology enhanced classrooms

Todays college students have grown up with technology. These digital natives typically gravitate toward group activities in technology embedded social contexts. However, despite this multidimensional evolution, little has changed in conventional classrooms where they build their education experience. We investigate learning models in a classroom environment which still remains the main driver of education today. We describe a conversational learning model based on group activities which involve multi-party conversations. We implement this model in a technology-enhanced studio-classroom to visualize conversations which otherwise would remain abstract to learners. Teachers are empowered with instructional patterns to guide their changing role in this novel classroom environment. Based on standard assessment indicators, we conduct an experimental analysis which results show interesting tradeoffs of learning performance that favor the proposed conversational learning approach compared to those obtained from conventional instruction.