Abstract: Computations are pervasive across many domains, where end users have to compose various heterogeneous computational entities to perform professional activities. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a widely used mechanism that can support such forms of compositions as it allows heterogeneous systems to be wrapped as services that can then be combined with each other. However, current SOA orchestration languages require writing scripts that are typically too low-level for end users to write, being targeted at professional programmers and business analysts. To address this problem, this paper proposes an approach based on an architectural-style for service orchestration using an end user specification style called SCORE. SCORE uses high-level constructs that can be tailored for different domains and automatically translated into executable constructs by tool support. We demonstrate the usefulness of SCORE across two domains – dynamic network analysis and neuroscience, where users are intelligence analysts and scientists respectively. They can use an architectural style based vocabulary as a basis of their domain-specific

Abstract: An increasingly important class of software-based systems is plat-forms that permit integration of third-party components, services, and tools. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is one such plat-form that has been successful in providing integration and distri-bution in the business domain, and could be effective in other domains (e.g., scientific computing, healthcare, and complex deci-sion making). In this paper, we discuss our application of SOA to provide an integration platform for socio-cultural analysis, a domain that, through models, tries to understand, analyze and predict relationships in large complex social systems. In developing this platform, called SORASCS, we had to overcome issues we believe are generally applicable to any application of SOA within a domain that involves technically naïve users and seeks to establish a sustainable software ecosystem based on a common integration platform. We discuss those issues and the lessons learned about the kinds of problems that occur, and pathways toward a solution.

Abstract: An emergent domain that raises some unique engineering challenges is that of software architectures to convert large bodies of unstructured data to human-usable knowledge, such as in the domain of socio-cultural information analysis. We report on an architecture based on Service-Oriented Architectures that we are applying in this domain. We list the requirements that such an architecture must support, describe our architecture for addressing them, and outline what we believe are the important engineering and research issues that must still be overcome.

Abstract: Abstract—Dynamic Network Analysis is a domain of computation that refers to the analysis of complex social systems that change over time. Within this domain, analysts need to be able to carry out workflows, involving composition of various tools and procedures that they use to extract and analyze social systems. Typically these workflows require the incorporation of heterogeneous tools in distributed locations, are interactive in that they allow dynamic parameterization and exploration, and can be shared with and reused by other analysts in different contexts. Furthermore, because such analysts are not computer programmers, they require an approach for constructing workflows that allows them to focus on their analysis task, and that provides them with appropriate guidance in constructing and reusing workflows. In this paper, we describe a tool, called SWiFT, that provides a workflow construction environment for dynamic network analysis, built on a service oriented architecture, that provides these features.