WORKSHOP: Web Services Discovery and Composition Systems Challenge (WSC2007) July 2007 in Toyko, Japan

尽管面向服务的环境和技术在学术界和企业领域都受到了极大的关注，但是将这些服务自动发现并组合成更高级的功能的能力仍然难以实现。这笔资金用于支持第三次国际web服务发现和组合竞赛，即WS-Challenge，其目标是识别、评估和基线化解决该问题的方法。前两届比赛分别于2005年在香港和2006年在旧金山（后者由美国国家科学基金会资助）成功举办，在此基础上，PI将组织策划和举办2007年的比赛，并将于7月在东京举行的IEEE电子技术、电子商务和电子服务国际会议（EEE'07）同期举行。第一次竞争仅限于使用Web服务描述语言（WSDL）的语法匹配；参与者需要根据WSDL文档目录中指定的输入和输出消息来标识和组合WSDL指定的服务。2006年，竞赛的重点是使用基于xml的语义符号的web服务的语义链接。2007年的比赛将进一步探讨这些主题。美国国家科学基金会将资助最多7支由2-3名学生组成的美国团队参加比赛。在比赛开始前的夏季，一名兼职本科生将获得一小笔资金，用于支持比赛，以及支付PI和他的学生参加比赛的旅费。IEEE电子技术、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实践者提供了一个探讨和解决有关电子技术的挑战性研究问题的场所，以便为电子商务和电子商务制定一个共同的研究议程和愿景。重点是双重的：研究使能技术，以促进下一代电子转型；传播电子商务、电子学习、电子政务、电子金融等电子主题的应用和部署经验。EEE会议特别及时和相关，因为它们关注电子服务的应用，因为它们跨越了几个“电子领域”，而其他会议往往要么关注特定技术，要么关注单个领域。更广泛的影响：研讨会和产生的工件将在一个及时出现的领域中作为算法、软件和技术的集中存储库。研讨会将为参加者提供一个机会，让他们的创新工作在社区中得到曝光，并从研究界的资深成员那里获得反馈和指导。它将进一步帮助培养这些年轻研究人员之间的社区意识，允许他们在他们自己之间以及与处于专业发展关键阶段的资深研究人员建立一个社会网络。研讨会的经验将与软件工程教育的目标很好地结合在一起，因为参与者除了评估他们的方法的性能之外，还会评估他们的设计。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中征集团队。

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 third 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 two competitions, which were held in 2005 in Hong Kong and in 2006 in San Francisco (the latter with NSF funding), the PI will organize the planning and enactment of the 2007 competition to be held in conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on e-Technology, e-Commerce, and e-Services (EEE'07), which will take place in Tokyo 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 will further explore these topics. NSF funding will support participation in the competition of up to 7 teams from the United States, consisting of 2-3 students apiece. A small amount is earmarked for support of the competition by one part-time undergraduate student during the summer prior to the event, as well as to cover the cost of travel by the PI and his students to the competition.The IEEE International Conferences on e-Technology, e-Commerce and e-Service 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 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.