WORKSHOP: Web Service Discovery and Composition Competition (WSC2008)

尽管面向服务的环境和技术在学术界和企业界都受到了极大的关注，但自动发现此类服务并将其组合成更高级别功能的能力仍然难以捉摸。 这是支持第四届国际Web服务发现和组合竞赛（WS-Challenge）的资金，其目标是识别，评估和基线方法来解决这个问题。 在2005年在香港、2006年在弗朗西斯科和2007年在东京成功举办的前三届比赛的基础上，（后两项由NSF资助），PI将组织2008年竞赛的规划和制定，该竞赛将与IEEE电子商务国际会议（CEC 08）和企业计算国际会议一起举行，电子商务和电子服务（2008年），将于7月在华盛顿举行。 第一个竞赛仅限于使用Web服务描述语言（WSDL）进行语法匹配;参赛者需要根据WSDL文档目录中指定的输入和输出消息来识别和组合WSDL指定的服务。 在2006年，比赛的重点是使用基于XML的语义标记的Web服务的语义链接。 2007年的竞赛支持初始Web服务接口包的实现，该接口包作为参与者构建组合引擎的平台，然后将其作为Web服务公开;团队在架构和设计以及性能方面进行评估。 2008年的比赛将集中在与传播有关的问题上，例如代码通用化和创建可用于帮助新团队进入比赛的API。 美国国家科学基金会的资金将支持来自美国的大约4个团队参加比赛，每个团队由大约2名学生组成。 一小笔款项专门用于组织者参加竞赛的旅费以及PI和研究助理的会议注册IEEE电子商务和企业计算、电子商务和电子服务国际会议汇集了来自不同计算领域的研究人员和开发人员。 这些会议为开发人员和从业人员提供了一个场所，以探索和解决围绕电子技术的具有挑战性的研究问题，以便为电子商务和电子商务制定共同的研究议程和愿景。 重点是两方面的：研究促进新一代电子转型的技术;以及推广在电子商务、电子学习、电子政府、电子金融等主题方面的应用和部署经验。由于会议集中讨论跨越多个"电子领域"的电子服务的应用，更广泛的影响：研讨会和由此产生的工件将作为一个集中的存储库，在一个及时出现的领域中存储算法、软件和技术。 讲习班将为参加者提供一个机会，让他们在社区中了解自己的创新工作，并从研究界的高级成员那里获得反馈和指导。 这将进一步帮助培养这些年轻研究人员的社区意识，使他们能够在自己之间以及在其专业发展的关键阶段与高级研究人员建立社会网络。 研讨会的经验将与软件工程教育的目标很好地结合起来，因为参与者除了他们的方法的性能外，还对他们的设计进行评估。 为了在今年的活动中吸引更广泛的观众，PI将扩大他以前成功的努力，从代表性不足的大学招募团队。

Although service-oriented environments and technologies are receiving a great deal of attention in both academic and corporate arenas, the ability to automate the discovery and composition of such services into higher-level capabilities remains elusive. This is funding to support the 4th international web service discovery and composition competition (the WS-Challenge), whose objective is to identify, evaluate and baseline approaches to solving that problem. Building on the success of the first three competitions, which were held in 2005 in Hong Kong, in 2006 in San Francisco, and in 2007 in Tokyo (the latter two with NSF funding), the PI will organize the planning and enactment of the 2008 competition to be held in conjunction with the IEEE International Conferences on Electronic Commerce (CEC 08) and on Enterprise Computing, E-Commerce and E-Services (EEE 08), which will take place in Washington DC in July. The first competition was limited to syntactical matching using the Web Services Description Language (WSDL); participants were required to identify and compose WSDL-specified services based on their input and output messages as specified in a directory of WSDL documents. In 2006 the competition focused additionally on the semantic linking of web services using XML-based semantic notations. The 2007 competition supported the implementation of an initial Web service interface package that served as a platform upon which participants built composition engines, which were then exposed as a Web service; teams were evaluated in terms of architecture and design as well as performance. The 2008 competition will focus on issues relating to dissemination, such as code generalization and creation of APIs that can be used to help new teams access the competition. NSF funding will support participation in the competition of approximately 4 teams from the United States consisting of about 2 students apiece. A small amount is earmarked for travel for the organizers to the competition and the conference registration of the PIs and research assistants.The IEEE International Conferences on Electronic Commerce and on Enterprise Computing, E-Commerce and E-Services bring together researchers and developers from diverse areas of computing. The conferences provide a venue for developers and practitioners to explore and address challenging research issues surrounding e-technology, in order to develop a common research agenda and vision for e-commerce and e-business. The focus is two-fold: to investigate enabling technologies to facilitate next generation e-transformation; and to disseminate application and deployment experience in e-themes such as e-business, e-learning, e-government, e-finance, etc. The CEC/EEE conferences are particularly timely and relevant because they focus on the application of electronic services as they cut across several "e-domains", whereas other conferences tend to either focus on a specific technology or on a single domain.Broader Impacts: The workshop and resulting artifacts will serve as a centralized repository of algorithms, software, and techniques in a timely emerging area. The workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to gain exposure in the community for their innovative work, and to obtain feedback and guidance from senior members of the research community. It will further help foster a sense of community among these young researchers, by allowing them to create a social network both among themselves and with senior researchers at a critical stage in their professional development. The workshop experience will integrate well with the goals of a software engineering education, as participants are evaluated on their design in addition to the performance of their approaches. To engage a broader audience in this year's event, the PI will expand his previously successful efforts to solicit teams from under-represented universities.