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，但将此类服务的发现和组合自动化为更高级别的功能的能力仍然难以捉摸。这笔资金是为了支持第四届国际Web服务发现和组合大赛(WS-Challest)，其目标是识别、评估和基线解决该问题的方法。继2005年在香港、2006年在三藩市和2007年在东京(后两项由国家科学基金会资助)举办的首三项比赛取得成功后，国际创新促进会将筹划和推行2008年与IEEE国际电子商贸会议(CEC 08)和企业计算、电子商贸和电子服务(EEE 08)有关的比赛，该比赛将于7月在华盛顿特区举行。第一个竞赛仅限于使用Web服务描述语言(Web Services Description Language，Web Services Description Language，WSDL)的句法匹配；参与者被要求根据他们的输入和输出消息识别和组成由Web服务描述语言(Web Services Description Language，Web Services Description Language)指定的服务，这些消息是在一个目录中指定的。2006年，竞争还集中在使用基于XML的语义表示法的Web服务的语义链接上。2007年的比赛支持最初的Web服务接口包的实现，该包充当参与者构建组合引擎的平台，然后将组合引擎公开为Web服务；从体系结构和设计以及性能方面对团队进行评估。2008年的比赛将集中在与传播有关的问题上，例如代码泛化和创建可用于帮助新团队参加比赛的API。NSF的资金将支持来自美国的大约4支队伍参加比赛，每支队伍由大约2名学生组成。其中一小部分将用于组织者参加比赛的旅费，以及私人投资和研究助理的会议登记。IEEE关于电子商务和关于企业计算、电子商务和电子服务的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者提供了一个场所，以探讨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。重点有两个方面：调查促进下一代电子转型的使能技术；以及传播电子商务、电子学习、电子政务、电子金融等电子商务主题的应用和部署经验。CEC/EEE会议特别及时和相关，因为它们侧重于电子服务的应用，因为它们跨越几个“e领域”，而其他会议往往要么侧重于特定技术，要么侧重于单一领域。广泛的影响：研讨会和由此产生的成果将作为一个及时新兴领域的算法、软件和技术的集中储存库。研讨会将为参与者提供一个机会，让他们在社区中接触到他们的创新工作，并从研究界的高级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的社区意识，使他们能够在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交网络。研讨会的体验将与软件工程教育的目标很好地结合在一起，因为除了他们的方法的性能之外，参与者还会就他们的设计进行评估。为了在今年的活动中吸引更多的观众，PI将扩大他之前成功的努力，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.