The Design of QoS Broker Algorithms for QoS-Capable Web Services
QoS (quality of service) support in Web services is an important issue since it ensures service usability and utility for each client and, in addition, improves server utilization. In this article, we present a QoS-capable Web service architecture, QCWS, by introducing a QoS broker module between service clients and providers (servers). The functions of the QoS broker module include tracking QoS information about servers, making selection decisions for clients, and negotiating with servers to get QoS agreements. We study two resource allocation algorithms (HQ and RQ) used by QoS brokers acting as the front-end of servers. The goals of the algorithms are to maximize the server resource usage while minimizing the QoS instability for each client. The first algorithm, HQ, assigns a homogeneous service level to all clients on the system and adjusts the service level according to the number of active clients. The second algorithm, RQ, assigns different service levels to clients according to their needs. Both algorithms try to minimize the resource reallocations for existing clients. The QoS performance and instability trade-offs are studied by simulation.

title: A reputation and trust management broker framework for Web applications
abstract: This paper presents a distributed reputation and trust management framework that addresses the challenges of eliciting, evaluating and propagating reputation for Web applications. We propose a broker framework where every service user is associated with a broker who may represent multiple users. A broker collects for its users the distributed reputation ratings about any Web service. In return, a user provides its broker the transaction rating after every transaction with any service in order to build up the reputation database on all services. In addition, brokers form a trust network where they exchange and collect reputation data about services. By delegating trust management to brokers, individual users only need to ask their brokers about the reputation of a service before any transaction with a server. The only overhead for a user is the responsibility to share the reputation feedback with its broker. We present the distributed reputation and trust management framework and show the performance of the system by simulations.

title: Service Selection Algorithms for Web Services with End-to-End QoS Constraints
abstract: Web services are new forms of Internet software that can be universally deployed and invoked using standard protocol. Services from different providers can be integrated to provide composite services. In this paper, we study the end-to-end QoS issues of composite service by utilizing a QoS broker that is responsible for coordinating the individual service component to meet the quality constraint. We design the service selection algorithms used by QoS brokers to meet end-to-end QoS constraints. The objective of the algorithms is to maximize the user-defined utility while meeting the end-to-end delay constraint. We model the problem as the multiple choice knapsack problem (MCKP) and provide efficient solutions. The algorithms are tested for their performance.

title: Modeling and Measuring Privacy Risks in QoS Web Services
abstract: The privacy issue for QoS Web services is considered. As more Web services are constructed and deployed, many of our personal needs may be served by more than one service providers regardless of their platforms and implementation technologies. Service selection is performed by comparing the QoS attributes of all candidate services. Releasing private data without due control may raise the risk of allowing potential adversaries to collect, reveal or utilize one's data in undesirable ways. We propose a QoS model that quantifies a user's privacy risk in order to make the service selection process manageable. The privacy risk is derived using the percentage of the private data set to be released, and user-defined context-oriented weights that quantify the potential damage of privacy leaking in a specific context. We have included privacy risk cost as one of the QoS parameters by extending the end-to-end QoS composition algorithms developed previously

title: Service selection algorithms for Web services with end-to-end QoS constraints
abstract: Web services are new forms of Internet software that can be universally deployed and invoked using standard protocols. Services from different providers can be integrated into a composite service regardless of their locations, platforms, and/or execution speeds to implement complex business processes and transactions. In this paper, we study the end-to-end QoS issues of composite services by utilizing a QoS broker that is responsible for selecting and coordinating the individual service component. We design the service selection algorithms used by QoS brokers to construct the optimal composite service. The objective of the algorithms is to maximize the user-defined utility function value while meeting the end-to-end delay constraint. We propose two solution approaches to the service selection problem: the combinatorial approach, by modeling the problem as the Multiple Choice Knapsack Problem (MCKP), and the graph approach, by modeling the problem as the constrained shortest path problem in the graph theory. We study efficient solutions for each approach.

title: Service Selection Algorithms for Composing Complex Services with Multiple QoS Constraints
abstract: One of the promises of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) is that complex services can be composed using individual services. Individual services can be selected and integrated either statically or dynamically based on the service functionalities and performance constraints. For many distributed applications, the runtime performance (e.g. end-to-end delay, cost, reliability and availability) of complex services are very important. In our earlier work, we have studied the service selection problem for complex services with only one QoS constraint. This paper extends the service selection problem to multiple QoS constraints. The problem can be modelled in two ways: the combinatorial model and the graph model. The combinatorial model defines the problem as the multi-dimension multi-choice 0-1 knapsack problem (MMKP). The graph model defines the problem as the multi-constraint optimal path (MCOP) problem. We propose algorithms for both models and study their performances by test cases. We also compare the pros & cons between the two models.

title: Integrating XML data sources using approximate joins
abstract: XML is widely recognized as the data interchange standard of tomorrow because of its ability to represent data from a variety of sources. Hence, XML is likely to be the format through which data from multiple sources is integrated. In this article, we study the problem of integrating XML data sources through correlations realized as join operations. A challenging aspect of this operation is the XML document structure. Two documents might convey approximately or exactly the same information but may be quite different in structure. Consequently, an approximate match in structure, in addition to content, has to be folded into the join operation. We quantify an approximate match in structure and content for pairs of XML documents using well defined notions of distance. We show how notions of distance that have metric properties can be incorporated in a framework for joins between XML data sources and introduce the idea of reference sets to facilitate this operation. Intuitively, a reference set consists of data elements used to project the data space. We characterize what constitutes a good choice of a reference set, and we propose sampling-based algorithms to identify them. We then instantiate our join framework using the tree edit distance between a pair of trees. We next turn our attention to utilizing well known index structures to improve the performance of approximate XML join operations. We present a methodology enabling adaptation of index structures for this problem, and we instantiate it in terms of the R-tree. We demonstrate the practical utility of our solutions using large collections of real and synthetic XML data sets, varying parameters of interest, and highlighting the performance benefits of our approach.

title: Limiting the Disclosure of Access Control Policies during Automated Trust Negotiation
abstract: Automated trust negotiation is a new approach to establishing trust between strangers through the exchange of property-based digital credentials, and the use of mobile access control policies that specify what combinations of credentials a stranger must supply in order to gain access to each local service or credential. In this paper, we show that access control policies can also contain sensitive information that should be protected from inappropriate access by strangers during negotiation. We present and analyze two automated trust negotiation strategies that support protection for access control policies. The first is the relevant credentials set strategy, which does not directly disclose access control policies and has a fast running time, but may disclose more credentials than strictly necessary. The second strategy is the all relevant policies strategy, which freely discloses all relevant access control policies that the other negotiating party has earned access to during negotiation, and offers the possibility of disclosing fewer credentials

title: Switching observation models for contour tracking in clutter
abstract: We propose a generative model approach to contour tracking against nonstationary clutter and to coping with occlusions by explicit modelling and inferring. The proposed dynamic Bayesian networks consist of multiple hidden processes, which model the target, the clutter and the occlusions. The image observation models, which depict the generation of the image features, are conditioned on all the hidden processes. Based on this framework, the tracker can automatically switch among different observation models according to the hidden states of the clutter and occlusions. In addition, the inference of these hidden states provides self-evaluations for the tracker. The tracking and inference are implemented based on sequence Monte Carlo techniques. The effectiveness of the proposed approach to robust tracking and inferring nonstationary clutter and occlusion is demonstrated for a variety of image sequences.

title: A note on “On the conversion of indirect to direct recursion”
abstract: In the article “On the Conversion of Indirect to Direct Recursion”(ACM , a method was introduced to convert indirect to direct recursion. It was claimed that for any call graph, there is a mutual-recursion elimination sequence if and only if no strongly connected component contains two node-disjoint circuits. We first give a counterexample and then provide a correction.

title: Interoperable strategies in automated trust negotiation
abstract: Automated trust negotiation is an approach to establishing trust between strangers through the exchange of digital credentials and the use of access control policies that specify what combinations of credentials a stranger must disclose in order to gain access to each local service or credential. We introduce the concept of a trust negotiation protocol, which defines the ordering of messages and the type of information messages will contain. To carry out trust negotiation, a party pairs its negotiation protocol with a trust negotiation strategy that controls the exact content of the messages, i.e., which credentials to disclose, when to disclose them, and when to terminate a negotiation. There are a huge number of possible strategies for negotiating trust, each with different properties with respect to speed of negotiations and caution in giving out credentials and policies. In the autonomous world of the Internet, entities will want the freedom to choose negotiation strategies that meet their own goals, which means that two strangers who negotiate trust will often not use the same strategy. To date, only a tiny fraction of the space of possible negotiation strategies has been explored, and no two of the strategies proposed so far will interoperate. In this paper, we define a large set of strategies called the disclosure tree strategy (DTS) family. Then we prove that if two parties each choose strategies from the DTS family, then they will be able to negotiate trust as well as if they were both using the same strategy. Further, they can change strategies at any point during negotiation. We also show that the DTS family is closed, i.e., any strategy that can interoperate with every strategy in the DTS family must also be a member of the DTS family. We also give examples of practical strategies that belong to the DTS family and fit within the TrustBuilder architecture and protocol for trust negotiation.