Won CONISAR 2012 Conference Best Paper Award

 Paper titled "Comparing Performance of Web Service Interaction Styles: SOAP vs. REST" won the best conference paper award at CONISAR 2012 conference, New Orleans, LA, USA.

Abstract:
This paper presents a comparative performance evaluation of two Web service implementations: one is based on SOAP and the other on Representational State Transfer (REST). Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and REST-based development approaches handle service interactions quite differently. SOAP is a standardized framework for constructing and processing messages independent of the technological capabilities of the receiver and can work on top of a variety of application layer protocols such as RPC, HTTP, or SMTP, whereas, REST is a set of principles for designing Web applications (HTTP as the underlying protocol). We built SOAP and REST-based Web services that perform Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations on a database and retrieve local files. We utilized response time and throughput metrics to compare the performance of these Web services. We found that, on average, REST has better performance compared to SOAP, though not all results were statistically conclusive. As an ancillary outcome, we found that developing Web services using SOAP was easier, due to considerable tool support. However, developing Web services using REST was time consuming and difficult due to the necessity of in-depth knowledge of HTTP and rudimentary tool support.

Authors:
Pavan Kumar Potti
Sanjay Ahuja
Karthikeyan Umapathy
Zornitza Prodanoff

This paper was written based on Pavan Kumar's master thesis. I presented this paper at the CONISAR 2012 on November 2, 2012.

Here is the link for the presentation: 

http://prezi.com/1envmwefahzt/comparing-performance-of-web-service-interaction-styles-soap-vs-rest/?auth_key=c7748dd182ba1ebdb8bd3160d9b230d581ebb035

Here is the link for the article:

http://proc.conisar.org/2012/pdf/2208.pdf

Here is the list of papers that won awards at CONISAR 2012:

http://proc.conisar.org/2012/bestpapers.html

Digging into Human Rights Violations Talk at the Western University

I was invited by Western University, Canada to give talk on the system architecture developed for the Digging into Human Rights Violation Software. Talk was part of the panel discussion titled "Digging into Human Rights Violation: What We Know and What We Don't." Panel members were Ben Miller from Georgia State University, Lu Xiao from Western University, and Karthikeyan Umapathy from University of North Florida. Panel discussion was held on June 19, 2012 from 10 AM to 11:30 AM at the Faculty of Information & Media Studies, Western University, London, Canada.

For more information on the panel:

http://www.fims.uwo.ca/about/news/news_items/12-06-15/Lecture_Digging_into_Human_Rights_Violation_What_We_Know_and_What_We_Don_t.aspx

Web of Web Things Talk at the Joe Berg Seminar

On February 21, 2012, I gave a talk on Web technologies at the Joe Berg Seminar held at the Museum of Science and History, Jacksonville, FL.

Title of talk: "Web of Web Things"

Talk provided an overview of value of the Web, growth of the Web, and a discussion on past, present, and future Web technologies. Talk provided examples of global projects (such as Ushahidi, PatientsLikeMe, and Kiva) that use Web technologies to make a difference in the global society. The talk also provided examples of UNF student projects that are making a difference in the Jacksonville community.

Mission of Joe Berg Seminar:

“The Joe Berg Seminars of Jacksonville presents challenging evening seminars and programs for outstanding public and independent high school students led by experts in various fields of the sciences and humanities. Participation in the society promotes independent thinking and a love of learning while enlarging the students' awareness of career options and current societal issues and allowing association with many of the other best students in Jacksonville.”

For more information about Joe Berg Seminar:

http://www.unf.edu/coas/sci/Joe_Berg_Seminar_HOME.aspx

Won 2011 Digging into Data Grant Challenge

Project Title:
Digging into Human Rights Violations: Anaphora Resolution and Emergent Witnesses

Project description:
Unidentified victims, perpetrators, and details of human rights violations are camouflaged by the scale of archival records of witness reports; keyword based search is insufficient to extract them. Digging into Human Rights Violations will develop an automated reader for large text archives of human rights abuses that will reconstruct stories from fragments scattered across a collection, and an interface for navigating those stories. By improving on anaphora resolution techniques in Natural Language Processing for the connection of pronouns to specific nouns, this system will help researchers and courts reveal witnesses and patterns contained in their own collections. This project will read reports of historic disappearances and systemic violence in Guatemala, of abuse against women and children in Burma, and of violent incidents and rights violations in Chechnya, and provide new methods and free tools for human rights advocates.

Principal Investigators:
Ben Miller (Georgia State University), Karthikeyan Umapathy (University of North Florida), Lu Xiao (University of Western Ontario), George Pullman (Georgia State University), and Saurav Karmakar (Georgia State University).

Grant competition link: http://www.diggingintodata.org/
Grant winners listing:
http://www.diggingintodata.org/Home/AwardRecipients2011/tabid/185/Default.aspx
NSF award link: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1209172

Jacksonville Startup Weekend

This message is for those interested in starting a business or cultivating your entrepreneurial skills. Jacksonville Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event that aims to provide foundations for formulating a startup business that focuses on Web and mobile application development. This event will be held on January 20th, 21st, and 22nd at the Student Union Building, University of North Florida. This event is an excellent opportunity to network with local business leaders and investors.

Registration cost for students is $50 (use discount code "STUDENT"). Students must produce a valid student ID at the event.

For more information about the event, see below link:
http://jacksonville.startupweekend.org/

Fall 2011 School of Computing Student Symposium

The School of Computing Student Symposium was held on December 2nd, from 3 PM to 7 PM at the Student Union Building. We had invited community partners, professionals, and industry leaders nearby Jacksonville area. More than 200 people attended the symposium. About 90 students participated with the symposium as presenters.

The symposium had three parallel sessions. Individual project and Team project presentation sessions were held from 3 PM to 5:30 PM. Poster presentations were held from 3 PM to 7 PM. There were 10 project presentations and 25 poster presentations.

Winners of presentation sessions were recognized with cash prizes and certification awards. All student participants were recognized with a certification award. Please visit below link for the details of project works that were recognized by panels of judges as well as based on UNF dollars invested by attendees:


http://www.unf.edu/ccec/computing/news/School_of_Computing_Student_Symposium.aspx

TLO Award for School of Computing Pilot Internship Program

Transformational Learning Opportunities (TLO) proposal for School of Computing Pilot Internship Program was awarded $10,000 to support 10 students. The objective of this TLO is to provide faculty supervised real-world summer internship experiences to School of Computing undergraduate students.

Principal Investigators for this proposal: Karthikeyan Umapathy and Ching-Hua Chuan.

List of 2012 TLO award winners:
http://www.unf.edu/tlo/awards/Round_7.aspx

Paper on Professional Associations accepted at the ACM SIGMIS 2011 Conference

Paper Title: Role of Professional Associations in Preparing, Recruiting, and Retaining Computing Professionals

Abstract:
The purpose of this preliminary study is to investigate an under-explored topic, specifically, the role of professional associations in preparing, recruiting, and retaining computing professionals. Drawing on relevant literature, we identified a comprehensive list of services that should be provided by professional associations in order to prepare, recruit, and retain professionals. Then we assessed several computing professional associations to determine whether they offer those identified services. Our findings show that ACM has better coverage of services, followed by IEEE-CS, AITP, and AIS. This study indicates that computing professional associations have considerable influences on higher educational institutes by establishing curriculum guidelines to prepare professionals, on organizations by organizing career fairs and placement websites to recruit professionals, and on retention by providing professional development opportunities. We propose that more research is needed to gain an in-depth understanding of the role of computing professional associations and to identify unique ways they can influence preparation, recruitment, and retention of computing professionals.

Authors: Karthikeyan Umapathy and Albert D. Ritzhaupt

Conference Link: http://www.sigmis.org/CPR_2011_Home_Page.html

Paper on Web Service Choreography accepted at the DESRIST 2011

Paper Title: Analyzing Web Service Choreography Specifications Using Colored Petri Nets

Abstract:
Enacting cross-organizational business processes requires critical support for long-running and complex interactions involving multiple participants. The Web Services Choreography Description Language (WS-CDL) aims at facilitating just that, by providing means to describe correlated message exchanges among services geared towards achieving a business goal. While WS-CDL specifications are machine-readable documents, they do not necessarily allow developers to determine—by direct inspection—whether or not the patterns of message exchanges they stipulate do indeed describe the intended service behavior. In this research paper, we show how Colored Petri Nets (CPN) can be used to analyze WS-CDL documents in order to identify faults in the specification. We have developed a research prototype that assists in the creation of a CPN model from a given WS-CDL document. The CPN model generated is then analyzed using the formal verification environment and simulation capability provided by CPN-Tools. We provide a discussion on the analysis of an example WS-CDL document using this approach, as well as on the advantages and limitations of using CPN for analyzing WS-CDL specifications.

Authors: Enrique Caliz, Karthikeyan Umapathy, Arturo J. Sánchez-Ruíz, and Sherif A. Elfayoumy

Conference Link: http://www.desrist2011.uwm.edu/

Paper on SOAP standardization process accepted for publication in the Information Systems e-Business Systems (ISeBM) Journal

Paper Title: Empirical analysis of anticipatory standardization processes: a case study

Abstract:
The processes followed for developing anticipatory standards such as those for web services are still not well-understood. In spite of the openness of the process, there are few analysis that shed light on the roles that different participants play or the actions they engage in during the development of these standards. We analyze archival documents that capture development of SOAP, a core web service standard. Our analysis shows that participants spend a bulk of their time discussing technical issues, identifying action items, and engaging in discussion to reach consensus. These activities reveal prototypical roles that participants take on such as: Advocate, Architect, Bystander, Critic, Facilitator, Guru, and Procrastinator. Together, the findings support the existence of three clusters in standards development processes: design activities performed by Architects, sense-making activities performed by Critics, and managerial activities performed by Facilitators; along with the important activity of coordinating the work of multiple participants. We discuss implications of our findings and identify opportunities for future work.

Note:
For those interested in the "Avatars of Participants in Anticipatory Standardization Processes" book chapter article, instead suggest to read this Information Systems e-Business Management Journal article.

DOI: http://www.springerlink.com/content/p21406677l48k577/

Academic Researcher Social Network Search (ArnetMiner)

Researchers from Tsinghua University have developed online researcher and topic profiling tool. Online tool provides following features: profile a researcher's publications including h-index, co-authorship network, link semantic analysis between researcher and topics, ranked list of experts, ranked article listing for journals and conferences, and much more.

However, there are few problems such as missing publications, erroneous citations, author disambiguation, and does not allow Boolean searches for example querying for author name and topic (or) author and affiliation. Despite those problems, ArnetMiner is useful tool with good visualizations.

See for yourself, here it the link:
http://arnetminer.org/index.jsp

Computer Magazine Column in November 2010 Issue

A column article on "Systems Integration and Web Services" was published in the Computer magazine November 2010 issues. This column provides overview of outstanding issues that remains to be solved for using Web services technology based solutions for systems integration problems.


See DOI: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MC.2010.328

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Paper on Collaborative Sensemaking accepted at the CSCW 2010 CIS Workshop

Paper Title: Requirements to support Collaborative Sensemaking

Abstract:
Collaborative sensemaking occurs when a group of people with diverse backgrounds engage in the process of making sense of information rich, complex and dynamic situations. Our understanding of collaborative sensemaking and critical functionalities to support such sensemaking is limited. In this paper, based on review of relevant literature, we outline a set of broad requirements critical for supporting collaborative sensemaking. Requirements identified are: support for creating explicit representations, support co-existence of different representations, support for developing shared representation, support for creating representations using templates, providing workspace for developing shared representations, support for building consensus and reaching agreement, support for facilitating and moderating interactions, support for exchanging documents, and support for retrieving and visualizing information. We argue that a collaborative systems designed to satisfy above requirements would provide better support for collaborative sensemaking activities.

Conference Link: http://workshops.fxpal.com/cscw2010cis/

Paper on Standardization Activities accepted at the WEB 2009

Paper Title: Analyzing Processes behind Web Service Standards Development

Abstract:
Anticipatory standards such as Web service standards are artifacts ‘designed’ by consortium-based standards development organizations. Intricate processes followed to develop anticipatory standards are not well-understood. Recently, the D-S-N model was developed to explain these processes, and suggested that these processes contain cycles of design (D), sense-making (S), and negotiation (N) activities. In this paper, we provide an initial report of a case study that empirically analyzes archival documents of SOAP standard development. Our findings reveal that the D-S-N model is applicable to the Web service standardization process followed at W3C but this model provides only partial explanation of the process, and that design and sense-making are the core activities of the process. Our findings also show that participants spent most of their time discussing technical issues and identifying action items to be performed, large organizations dominated the process, and negotiation is the least frequent activity.

Authors: Karthikeyan Umapathy, Sandeep Purao, and John Bagby

Conference Link: http://www.som.buffalo.edu/isinterface/Web09/

Paper on W3C Standardization Process accepted at the AIS SIGPrag 2009

Paper Title: An Investigation of W3C Standardization Processes Using Rational Discourse

Abstract:
Standards, in particular Web standards, have become critical and complex information technologies as they influence our everyday activities. Standards making is a social practice where in experts engage in discussions to develop standards by weighing various alternative design solutions. Processes followed to develop these standards and how decisions for core features are made is not well understood. In this paper, we drawn on concepts of rational discourse described by Habermas to examine whether processes followed at W3C meets requirements of rational discourse. Our investigation shows that processes followed at W3C do exhibit an approximation of rational discourse, while some concerns exist.

Conference Link: http://www.sigprag.org/phoenix_2009.html

Paper on Computing Professional Association Membership accepted at the CONISAR 2009

Paper Title: Factors that Persuade and Deter Membership in Professional Computing Associations

Abstract:
A decision to join a professional computing association is, generally, considered a decision to affiliate with a group. The value of a professional association can be measured in terms of services it offers. Professional computing associations play a critical role in advancing professional growth of its members by offering a variety of services such as career development, networking opportunities, and dissemination on current advancements in the profession. In particular, the computing discipline consists of several sub-disciplines each having substantial differences among them, which creates considerable differences among computing professionals. Due to differences among computing professionals, it is important for computing professional associations to identify services that are valuable for its members and help in retaining their membership. Towards that, in this paper, we identify factors that persuade and deter membership in professional computing associations. We present results of a survey conducted with the Association of Information Technology Professionals’ members, with primary focus on qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions. Persuading factors identified are networking opportunities, dissemination of technical information and advancement in the field, professional development programs, advocacy opportunities, leadership and community service opportunities, and reputation of the association. Deterring factors are solicitation and unwarranted emails, timing and location constraints of events, lack of a local chapter, and behavior and characteristics of peer members in the association.

Authors: Karthikeyan Umapathy, Lisa Jamba, and Albert D. Ritzhaupt.

Conference link: http://conisar.org/

Paper accepted at the ISECON 2009 Conference

Paper Title: Role of Web Server in Capstone Course

Abstract:
Web applications has become commonplace in the information systems curriculum. Much of the discussion about Web development for capstone courses has centered on the scripting tools. Very little has been discussed about different ways of incorporating Web server into Web application development courses. In this paper, three different ways of incorporating Web server are discussed: shared Web server (minimal student control), managed Web server (configuration control), and controlled Web server (full student control). This paper argues that capstone courses oriented towards Web applications development should provide certain amount of Web server control to students as it is an important skill set to acquire.

Authors: Karthikeyan Umapathy, and F. Layne Wallace

Conference link: http://www.isecon.org/

Paper on Web Services Choreography accepted at the AMCIS 2009

Paper Title:From Service Conversation Models to WS-CDL

Abstract: Changing business environments are forcing organizations to develop flexible and adaptable enterprise systems. To accomplish this and to solve associated systems integration issues, many are moving towards web service technology. Two key ingredients of web services based solution are service composition and service choreography. While there has been lot of advancement in respect to service composition, service choreography rather largely remains an open problem. WS-CDL specification is considered to be a candidate standard for service choreography; however, consensus on support mechanisms to develop conversation models depicting peer-to-peer interactions are yet to be reached. In this paper, we develop an approach as well required heuristics for identifying service interaction patterns from business process models and using them to develop conversation models. We provide detailed discussion on heuristics, illustrate our approach through an example, as well as indicate how these conversation models can be used for generating WS-CDL specifications.

http://www.amcis2009.org/

Paper accepted at the SAIS 2009 Conference

Paper Title: Information Extraction From Different Data Representation Forms: Charts and Tables

Abstract:
Presenting data in the form of graphs and tables has long been considered as an important tool for decision making. Extracting information from these presentation forms are considered to be cognitively intensive tasks. Prior research works on aspects of presentation forms have produced inconsistent and conflicting results. In this study, we examine effects of tabular and graphical (bar, line, and pie) forms on information extraction. Graphs were examined with solid and textured patterns as well. We conducted a laboratory experiment where in subjects answered set of questions which would require them to extract information from the presentation display. Our study reveals that tables, even though they have higher response rate, produced more accurate results than graphs. Comparison within graphs showed that bar charts had a lower response rate than pie and line charts, while pie charts produced the least accurate results. Comparison of solid and textured patterns in graphs revealed that they are not an influencing factor in regards to information extraction. We also provide detailed comparison of current research findings against to prior research results.

Authors: Janice M. Engberg, Karthikeyan Umapathy, and F. Layne Wallace

Conference Link: http://sais.aisnet.org/2009/