Visualizing Software Architecture with Off-The-Shelf Components
Software Architecture provides a high-level model of the components and connectors that comprise a complex system. Visualizing both its static description and dynamic execution facilitates understanding of its key properties by software architects. Off-the-shelf components provide a rich foundation on which an advanced architecture visualization tool can be constructed. This paper discusses our experience in integrating a set of off-the-shelf components to create an event-based software architecture development environment that supports the visualization of the description and execution of certain architectures. We discuss the benefits and obstacles of integrating CommonOff-The-Shelf (COTS) components, describe the design and implementation of the visualization solution, and report some experiences from this effort.

title: Reuse of off-the-shelf components in C2-style architectures
abstract: Reuse of large-grain software components offers the potential for significant savings in application development cost and time. Successful component reuse and substitutability depends both on qualities of the components reused as well as the software context in which the reuse is attempted. Disciplined approaches to the structure and design of software applications offers the potential of providing a hospitable setting for such reuse. We present the results of a series of exercises designed to determine how well “offthe-shelf” components could be reused in applications designed in accordance with the C2 software architectural style. The exercises involved the reuse of two user-interface constraint solvers, two graphics toolkits, a World Wide Web browser, and a persistent object manager. A subset of these components was used to construct numerous variations of a single application (thus an application family). The exercises also included construction of a simple development environment for locating and downloading a component off the Web and incorporating it into an application. The paper summarizes the style rules that facilitate reuse and presents the results from the exercises. The exercises were successful in a variety of dimensions; one conclusion is that the C2 style offers significant reuse potential to application developers. At the same time, wider trials and additional tool support are needed.1 Index Terms -software reuse, architectural styles, messagebased architectures, component-based development, graphical user interfaces (GUI).

title: Architectural support for trust models in decentralized applications
abstract: Decentralized applications are composed of distributed entities that directly interact with each other and make local autonomous decisions in the absence of a centralized coordinating authority. Such decentralized applications, where entities can join and leave the system at any time, are particularly susceptible to the attacks of malicious entities. Each entity therefore requires protective measures to safeguard itself against these entities. Trust management solutions serve to provide effective protective measures against such malicious attacks. Trust relationships help an entity model and evaluate its confidence in other entities towards securing itself. Trust management is, thus, both an essential and intrinsic ingredient of decentralized applications. However, research in trust management has not focused on how trust models can be composed into a decentralized architecture. The PACE architectural style, described previously [21], provides structured and detailed guidance on the assimilation of trust models into a decentralized entity's architecture. In this paper, we describe our experiments with incorporating four different reputation-based trust models into a decentralized application using the PACE architectural style. Our observations lead us to conclude that PACE not only provides an effective and easy way to integrate trust management into decentralized applications, but also facilitates reuse while supporting different types of trust models. Additionally, PACE serves as a suitable platform to aid the evaluation and comparison of trust models in a fixed setting towards providing a way to choose an appropriate model for the setting.

title: Anomaly Detection in Concurrent Software by Static Data Flow Analysis
abstract: Algorithms are presented for detecting errors and anomalies in programs which use synchronization constructs to implement concurrency. The algorithms employ data flow analysis techniques. First used in compiler object code optimization, the techniques have more recently been used in the detection of variable usage errors in dngle process programs. By adapting these existing algorithms, the sane classes of variable usage errors can be detected in concurrent process programs. Important classes of errors unique to concurrent process programs are also described, and algorithms for their detection are presented.

title: An infrastructure for the rapid development of XML-based architecture description languages
abstract: Research and experimentation in software architectures over the past decade have yielded a plethora of software architecture description languages (ADLs). Continuing innovation indicates that it is reasonable to expect more new ADLs, or at least ADL features. This research process is impeded by the difficulty and cost associated with developing new notations. An architect in need of a unique set of modeling features must either develop a new architecture description language from scratch or undertake the daunting task of modifying an existing language. In either case, it is unavoidable that a significant effort will be expended in building or adapting tools to support the language. To remedy this situation, we have developed an infrastructure for the rapid development of new architecture description languages. Key aspects of the infrastructure are its XML-based modular extension mechanism, its base set of reusable and customizable architectural modeling constructs, and its equally important set of flexible support tools. This paper introduces the infrastructure and demonstrates its value in the context of several real-world applications.

title: On the role of software architectures in runtime system reconfiguration
abstract: Society's increasing dependence on software-intensive systems is driving the need for dependable, robust, continuously available systems. Runtime system reconfiguration is one aspect of achieving continuous availability. We present an architecture-based approach to runtime software reconfiguration, highlighting the beneficial role of architectural styles and software connectors in facilitating runtime change. We conclude by describing the implementation of our tool suite, called ArchStudio, that supports runtime reconfiguration using our architecture-based approach.

title: Comparison of conformer distributions in the crystalline state with conformational energies calculated by ab initio techniques
abstract: SummaryThe conformational preferences of 12 molecular substructures in the crystalline state have been determined and compared with those predicted for relevant model compounds by ab initio molecular orbital calculations. Least-squares regression shows that there is a statistically significant correlation between the crystal-structure conformer distributions and the calculated potential-energy differences, even though the calculations relate to a gas-phase environment. Torsion angles associated with high strain energy (>1 kcal mol-1) appear to be very unusual in crystal structures and, in general, high-energy conformers are underrepresented in crystal structures compared with a gas-phase, room-temperature Boltzmann distribution. It is concluded that crystal packing effects rarely have a strong systematic effect on molecular conformations. Therefore, the conformational distribution of a molecular substructure in a series of related crystal structures is likely to be a good guide to the corresponding gas-phase potential energy surface.

title: Multi-modal Interface for Fluid Dynamics Simulations Using 3-D Localized Sound
abstract: Multi-modal capabilities can be added to a simulation system in order to enhance data comprehension. We describe a system for adding sonification capabilities to a real-time computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulator. Our system uses Max/MSP modules to add sonic properties to CFD solutions. The enhancements described in this paper allow users to locate sound sources in a 3---D environment using stereo auditory cues to identify data features.

title: Visualizing Emotion in Musical Performance Using a Virtual Character
abstract: We describe an immersive music visualization application which enables interaction between a live musician and a responsive virtual character. The character reacts to live performance in such a way that it appears to be experiencing an emotional response to the music it ‘hears.' We modify an existing tonal music encoding strategy in order to define how the character perceives and organizes musical information. We reference existing research correlating musical structures and composers' emotional intention in order to simulate cognitive processes capable of inferring emotional meaning from music. The ANIMUS framework is used to define a synthetic character who visualizes its perception and cognition of musical input by exhibiting responsive behaviour expressed through animation.

title: A High-Performance Flexible Architecture for Cryptography
abstract: Cryptographic algorithms are more efficiently implemented in custom hardware than in software running on general-purpose processors. However, systems which use hardware implementations have significant drawbacks: they are unable to respond to flaws discovered in the implemented algorithm or to changes in standards. In this paper we show how reconfigurable computing offers high performance yet flexible solutions for cryptographic algorithms. We focus on PipeRench, a reconfigurable fabric that supports implementations which can yield better than custom-hardware performance and yet maintains all the flexibility of software based systems. PipeRench is a pipelined reconfigurable fabric which virtualizes hardware, enabling large circuits to be run on limited physical hardware. We present implementations for Crypton, IDEA, RC6, and Twofish on PipeRench and an extension of PipeRench, PipeRench+. We also describe how various proposed AES algorithms could be implemented on PipeRench. PipeRench achieves speedups of between 2x and 12x over conventional processors.

title: Using Music to Interact with a Virtual Character
abstract: We present a real-time system which allows musicians to interact with synthetic virtual characters as they perform. Using Max/MSP to parameterize keyboard and vocal input, meaningful features (pitch, amplitude, chord information, and vocal timbre) are extracted from live performance in real-time. These extracted musical features are then mapped to character behaviour in such a way that the musician's performance elicits a response from the virtual character. The system uses the ANIMUS framework to generate believable character expressions. Experimental results are presented for simple characters.