Vatsala Nundloll - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Vatsala Nundloll

Springer eBooks, 2011

Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly difficult p... more Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly difficult problem given the level of heterogeneity and dynamism exhibited by contemporary systems. While progress has been made, we argue that complexity is now at a level such that existing approaches are inadequate and that a major rethink is required to identify principles and associated techniques to achieve this central property of distributed systems. In this paper, we postulate that emergent middleware is the right way forward; emergent middleware is a dynamically generated distributed system infrastructure for the current operating environment and context. In particular, we focus on the key role of ontologies in supporting this process and in providing underlying meaning and associated reasoning capabilities to allow the right run-time choices to be made. The paper presents the CONNECT middleware architecture as an example of emergent middleware and highlights the role of ontologies as a cross-cutting concern throughout this architecture. Two experiments are described as initial evidence of the potential role of ontologies in middleware. Important remaining challenges are also documented.

software engineering for adaptive and self managing systems, Jun 29, 2020

A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental cont... more A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental context changes. Such required evolution imposes unbearable complexity on system development. An alternative is to make systems able to self-adapt by opportunistically composing at runtime to generate systems of systems (SoSs) that offer value-added functionality. The success of such an approach calls for abstracting the heterogeneity of systems and enabling the programmatic construction of SoSs with minimal developer intervention. We propose a general ontology-based approach to describe distributed systems, seeking to achieve abstraction and enable runtime reasoning between systems. We also propose an architecture for systems that utilize such ontologies to enable systems to discover and 'understand' each other, and potentially compose, all at runtime. We detail features of the ontology and the architecture through two contrasting case studies. We also quantitatively evaluate the scalability and validity of our approach through experiments and simulations. Our approach enables system developers to focus on high-level SoS composition without being tied down with the specific deployment-specific implementation details. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Architectures; • Computer systems organization Self-organizing autonomic computing;

Abstract. Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly d... more Abstract. Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly difficult problem given the level of heterogeneity and dynamism exhibited by contemporary systems. While progress has been made, we argue that complexity is now at a level such that existing approaches are inadequate and that a major re-think is required to identify principles and associated techniques to achieve this central property of distributed systems. In this paper, we postulate that emergent middleware is the right way forward; emergent middleware is a dynamically generated distributed system infrastructure for the current operating environment and context. In particular, we focus on the key role of ontologies in supporting this process and in providing underlying meaning and associated reasoning capabilities to allow the right run-time choices to be made. The paper presents the CONNECT middleware architecture as an example of emergent middleware and highlights the role of ontolog...

Abstract. Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together ... more Abstract. Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together thus enabling more reliable distributed systems. Although every middleware tries to solve interoperability issues among a given set of applications, nonetheless there still remains interoperability challenges across various middlewares. Interoperability enables diverse systems to work in accordance and extend the scope of services that are provided by individual systems. During an interoperability process, it is imperative to interpret the information exchanged in a correct and accurate manner in order to maintain coherence of data. Hence, the aim of this paper is to tackle this issue of semantic interoperability through an experimental approach using the domain of vehicular ad-hoc networked systems. Keywords: Interoperability, Ontology, Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks. 1.

Environmental processes are often complex, as they involve non-linear interactions between biolog... more Environmental processes are often complex, as they involve non-linear interactions between biological, chemical and physical processes across a range of temporal and spatial scales. Soil systems are one example of this complexity. Soils emerge from the interaction between geology, biology (plant and microbial processes), biogeochemistry, hydrology, and climate. Further complexity arises from the feedbacks between soil and human systems. Soils underpin society: they provide the vast majority of our food, the regulate water flows and quality, as a carbon store they are important for climate regulation. Through agriculture, land use change and pollution, human actions over the last have modified soils for centuries. Yet soil sustainability is often overlooked in policy and private sectors [1]. To understand these complex systems, simulation models are needed to integrate the processes that shape soils and influence their sustainability and that of our ecosystems and societies. To date,...

The rapid changing world of computing has sparked off a major increase in the complexity, heterog... more The rapid changing world of computing has sparked off a major increase in the complexity, heterogeneity and dynamicity of distributed systems. Consequently, standard middleware platforms are unable to cope with the extreme heterogeneity and dynamicity of this new generation of distributed systems. Furthermore, given new trends in mobile/pervasive applications, distributed systems are required to connect to one another at run time, implying that heterogeneities arising in systems need to be resolved on the fly. This ability of a system to interact with a different system is known as interoperability. Existing middleware interoperability solutions cannot deal with dynamic interoperability because of their static and hand-crafted nature. Hence, more advanced solutions that exceed the state-of-the-art in middleware, are required to handle interoperability on the fly. This thesis investigates the challenges of dynamic interoperability and how to devise an emergent middleware to enable su...

Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 15th International Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems, 2020

A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental cont... more A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental context changes. Such required evolution imposes unbearable complexity on system development. An alternative is to make systems able to self-adapt by opportunistically composing at runtime to generate systems of systems (SoSs) that offer value-added functionality. The success of such an approach calls for abstracting the heterogeneity of systems and enabling the programmatic construction of SoSs with minimal developer intervention. We propose a general ontology-based approach to describe distributed systems, seeking to achieve abstraction and enable runtime reasoning between systems. We also propose an architecture for systems that utilize such ontologies to enable systems to discover and 'understand' each other, and potentially compose, all at runtime. We detail features of the ontology and the architecture through two contrasting case studies: one on controlling multiple systems in smart home environment, and another on the management of dynamic computing clusters. We also quantitatively evaluate the scalability and validity of our approach through experiments and simulations. Our approach enables system developers to focus on high-level SoS composition without being constrained by deployment-specific implementation details. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Architectures; • Computer systems organization Self-organizing autonomic computing; KEYWORDS

Journal of Flood Risk Management, 2020

Future Internet, 2019

Internet of Things (IoT) systems have seen recent growth in popularity for city and home environm... more Internet of Things (IoT) systems have seen recent growth in popularity for city and home environments. We report on the design, deployment, and use of the IoT infrastructure for environmental monitoring and management. Working closely with hydrologists, soil scientists, and animal behaviour scientists, we successfully deployed and utilised a system to deliver integrated information across these two fields in the first such example of real-time multidimensional environmental science. We describe the design of this system; its requirements and operational effectiveness for hydrological, soil, and ethological scientists; and our experiences from building, maintaining, and using the deployment at a remote site in difficult conditions. Based on this experience, we discuss key future work for the IoT community when working in these kinds of environmental deployments.

Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together thus enabl... more Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together thus enabling more reliable distributed systems. Although every middleware tries to solve interoperability issues among a given set of applications, nonetheless there still remains interoperability challenges across various middlewares. Interoperability enables diverse systems to work in accordance and extend the scope of services that are provided by individual systems. During an interoperability process, it is imperative to interpret the information exchanged in a correct and accurate manner in order to maintain coherence of data. Hence, the aim of this paper is to tackle this issue of semantic interoperability through an experimental approach using the domain of vehicular ad-hoc networked systems. Keywords: Interoperability, Ontology, Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks. 1.

Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Adaptive and Reflective MIddleware - ARM '09, 2009

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

ABSTRACT Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems w... more ABSTRACT Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems which encounter and spontaneously communicate with one another in pervasive computing environments. This challenge is exasperated by the highly heterogeneous technologies employed by each of the interacting parties, i.e., in terms of hardware, operating system, middleware protocols, and application protocols. The key aim of the CONNECT project is to drop this heterogeneity barrier and achieve universal interoperability. Here we report on the revised CONNECT architecture, highlighting the integration of the work carried out to integrate the CONNECT enablers developed by the different partners; in particular, we present the progress of this work towards a finalised concrete architecture. In the third year this architecture has been enhanced to: i) produce concrete CONNECTors, ii) match networked systems based upon their goals and intent, and iii) use learning technologies to find the affordance of a system. We also report on the application of the CONNECT approach to streaming based systems, further considering exploitation of CONNECT in the mobile environment.

Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems which en-c... more Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems which en-counter and spontaneously communicate with one another in pervasive computing environments. This challenge is exasperated by the highly heterogeneous technologies ...

Environmental Modelling & Software, 2019

Ensemble is an interdisciplinary research team, working to explore the opportunity of new and eme... more Ensemble is an interdisciplinary research team, working to explore the opportunity of new and emergent digital technologies in understanding, mitigating and adapting to environmental change. Using methods drawn from computer science, environmental science, social science, statistics, art, design and writing the team aim to transform the work of environmental scientists and decision makers, and the experience of communities by addressing themes related to complexity, uncertainty and abstraction of data. This paper discusses activities undertaken within a research ‘sprint’ directed at addressing flood risk management through data driven decision making, communication and community engagement.

Springer eBooks, 2011

Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly difficult p... more Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly difficult problem given the level of heterogeneity and dynamism exhibited by contemporary systems. While progress has been made, we argue that complexity is now at a level such that existing approaches are inadequate and that a major rethink is required to identify principles and associated techniques to achieve this central property of distributed systems. In this paper, we postulate that emergent middleware is the right way forward; emergent middleware is a dynamically generated distributed system infrastructure for the current operating environment and context. In particular, we focus on the key role of ontologies in supporting this process and in providing underlying meaning and associated reasoning capabilities to allow the right run-time choices to be made. The paper presents the CONNECT middleware architecture as an example of emergent middleware and highlights the role of ontologies as a cross-cutting concern throughout this architecture. Two experiments are described as initial evidence of the potential role of ontologies in middleware. Important remaining challenges are also documented.

software engineering for adaptive and self managing systems, Jun 29, 2020

A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental cont... more A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental context changes. Such required evolution imposes unbearable complexity on system development. An alternative is to make systems able to self-adapt by opportunistically composing at runtime to generate systems of systems (SoSs) that offer value-added functionality. The success of such an approach calls for abstracting the heterogeneity of systems and enabling the programmatic construction of SoSs with minimal developer intervention. We propose a general ontology-based approach to describe distributed systems, seeking to achieve abstraction and enable runtime reasoning between systems. We also propose an architecture for systems that utilize such ontologies to enable systems to discover and 'understand' each other, and potentially compose, all at runtime. We detail features of the ontology and the architecture through two contrasting case studies. We also quantitatively evaluate the scalability and validity of our approach through experiments and simulations. Our approach enables system developers to focus on high-level SoS composition without being tied down with the specific deployment-specific implementation details. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Architectures; • Computer systems organization Self-organizing autonomic computing;

Abstract. Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly d... more Abstract. Interoperability is a fundamental problem in distributed systems, and an increasingly difficult problem given the level of heterogeneity and dynamism exhibited by contemporary systems. While progress has been made, we argue that complexity is now at a level such that existing approaches are inadequate and that a major re-think is required to identify principles and associated techniques to achieve this central property of distributed systems. In this paper, we postulate that emergent middleware is the right way forward; emergent middleware is a dynamically generated distributed system infrastructure for the current operating environment and context. In particular, we focus on the key role of ontologies in supporting this process and in providing underlying meaning and associated reasoning capabilities to allow the right run-time choices to be made. The paper presents the CONNECT middleware architecture as an example of emergent middleware and highlights the role of ontolog...

Abstract. Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together ... more Abstract. Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together thus enabling more reliable distributed systems. Although every middleware tries to solve interoperability issues among a given set of applications, nonetheless there still remains interoperability challenges across various middlewares. Interoperability enables diverse systems to work in accordance and extend the scope of services that are provided by individual systems. During an interoperability process, it is imperative to interpret the information exchanged in a correct and accurate manner in order to maintain coherence of data. Hence, the aim of this paper is to tackle this issue of semantic interoperability through an experimental approach using the domain of vehicular ad-hoc networked systems. Keywords: Interoperability, Ontology, Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks. 1.

Environmental processes are often complex, as they involve non-linear interactions between biolog... more Environmental processes are often complex, as they involve non-linear interactions between biological, chemical and physical processes across a range of temporal and spatial scales. Soil systems are one example of this complexity. Soils emerge from the interaction between geology, biology (plant and microbial processes), biogeochemistry, hydrology, and climate. Further complexity arises from the feedbacks between soil and human systems. Soils underpin society: they provide the vast majority of our food, the regulate water flows and quality, as a carbon store they are important for climate regulation. Through agriculture, land use change and pollution, human actions over the last have modified soils for centuries. Yet soil sustainability is often overlooked in policy and private sectors [1]. To understand these complex systems, simulation models are needed to integrate the processes that shape soils and influence their sustainability and that of our ecosystems and societies. To date,...

The rapid changing world of computing has sparked off a major increase in the complexity, heterog... more The rapid changing world of computing has sparked off a major increase in the complexity, heterogeneity and dynamicity of distributed systems. Consequently, standard middleware platforms are unable to cope with the extreme heterogeneity and dynamicity of this new generation of distributed systems. Furthermore, given new trends in mobile/pervasive applications, distributed systems are required to connect to one another at run time, implying that heterogeneities arising in systems need to be resolved on the fly. This ability of a system to interact with a different system is known as interoperability. Existing middleware interoperability solutions cannot deal with dynamic interoperability because of their static and hand-crafted nature. Hence, more advanced solutions that exceed the state-of-the-art in middleware, are required to handle interoperability on the fly. This thesis investigates the challenges of dynamic interoperability and how to devise an emergent middleware to enable su...

Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 15th International Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems, 2020

A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental cont... more A distributed system's functionality must continuously evolve, especially when environmental context changes. Such required evolution imposes unbearable complexity on system development. An alternative is to make systems able to self-adapt by opportunistically composing at runtime to generate systems of systems (SoSs) that offer value-added functionality. The success of such an approach calls for abstracting the heterogeneity of systems and enabling the programmatic construction of SoSs with minimal developer intervention. We propose a general ontology-based approach to describe distributed systems, seeking to achieve abstraction and enable runtime reasoning between systems. We also propose an architecture for systems that utilize such ontologies to enable systems to discover and 'understand' each other, and potentially compose, all at runtime. We detail features of the ontology and the architecture through two contrasting case studies: one on controlling multiple systems in smart home environment, and another on the management of dynamic computing clusters. We also quantitatively evaluate the scalability and validity of our approach through experiments and simulations. Our approach enables system developers to focus on high-level SoS composition without being constrained by deployment-specific implementation details. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Architectures; • Computer systems organization Self-organizing autonomic computing; KEYWORDS

Journal of Flood Risk Management, 2020

Future Internet, 2019

Internet of Things (IoT) systems have seen recent growth in popularity for city and home environm... more Internet of Things (IoT) systems have seen recent growth in popularity for city and home environments. We report on the design, deployment, and use of the IoT infrastructure for environmental monitoring and management. Working closely with hydrologists, soil scientists, and animal behaviour scientists, we successfully deployed and utilised a system to deliver integrated information across these two fields in the first such example of real-time multidimensional environmental science. We describe the design of this system; its requirements and operational effectiveness for hydrological, soil, and ethological scientists; and our experiences from building, maintaining, and using the deployment at a remote site in difficult conditions. Based on this experience, we discuss key future work for the IoT community when working in these kinds of environmental deployments.

Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together thus enabl... more Advances in the middleware paradigm has enabled applications to be integrated together thus enabling more reliable distributed systems. Although every middleware tries to solve interoperability issues among a given set of applications, nonetheless there still remains interoperability challenges across various middlewares. Interoperability enables diverse systems to work in accordance and extend the scope of services that are provided by individual systems. During an interoperability process, it is imperative to interpret the information exchanged in a correct and accurate manner in order to maintain coherence of data. Hence, the aim of this paper is to tackle this issue of semantic interoperability through an experimental approach using the domain of vehicular ad-hoc networked systems. Keywords: Interoperability, Ontology, Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks. 1.

Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Adaptive and Reflective MIddleware - ARM '09, 2009

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

ABSTRACT Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems w... more ABSTRACT Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems which encounter and spontaneously communicate with one another in pervasive computing environments. This challenge is exasperated by the highly heterogeneous technologies employed by each of the interacting parties, i.e., in terms of hardware, operating system, middleware protocols, and application protocols. The key aim of the CONNECT project is to drop this heterogeneity barrier and achieve universal interoperability. Here we report on the revised CONNECT architecture, highlighting the integration of the work carried out to integrate the CONNECT enablers developed by the different partners; in particular, we present the progress of this work towards a finalised concrete architecture. In the third year this architecture has been enhanced to: i) produce concrete CONNECTors, ii) match networked systems based upon their goals and intent, and iii) use learning technologies to find the affordance of a system. We also report on the application of the CONNECT approach to streaming based systems, further considering exploitation of CONNECT in the mobile environment.

Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems which en-c... more Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems which en-counter and spontaneously communicate with one another in pervasive computing environments. This challenge is exasperated by the highly heterogeneous technologies ...

Environmental Modelling & Software, 2019

Ensemble is an interdisciplinary research team, working to explore the opportunity of new and eme... more Ensemble is an interdisciplinary research team, working to explore the opportunity of new and emergent digital technologies in understanding, mitigating and adapting to environmental change. Using methods drawn from computer science, environmental science, social science, statistics, art, design and writing the team aim to transform the work of environmental scientists and decision makers, and the experience of communities by addressing themes related to complexity, uncertainty and abstraction of data. This paper discusses activities undertaken within a research ‘sprint’ directed at addressing flood risk management through data driven decision making, communication and community engagement.