The Opal

Newsletter of the OPAALS network of excellence

Issue 1 - 1st June 2007

Happy Birthday - OPAALS is one year old today!

 

Editorial

by Neil Rathbone

First anniversary sees success

It seems only yesterday, but it is exactly one year today since OPAALS was officially born. What’s more, Phase One, in which the network is brought together and the research programme initialised, ends in six months. This includes the Open Knowledge Space; a vital enabler for international multi-disciplinary research, providing a common platform on which to work and interact. Phase Two planning is imminent, and the project has now passed the initial exploratory uncertainties, so we are able to know in more detail and with more certainty how to chart our path ahead. This first issue newsletter is the beginning of our ‘broadcast�communication actions and I’m happy to say that it is on time, reflecting the generally good progress that has been made by the project. As well as a round up of items from the individual Work Packages, which will be a regular feature, we have a special feature on the Open Knowledge Space (OKS) which will be such a fundamental tool for our work. Several important meetings have taken place recently, not least of which are the first General Meeting hosted in Kassel, and a Digital Ecosystems Cluster meeting in Brussels, in which OPAALS was able to demonstrate the provision of a cluster repository for the use of all DE projects.

Preparing for the review starts now

The first formal project review will be held on Monday and Tuesday July 16th and 17th in Brussels. As this is a major milestone and a critical (in more ways than one) point in the project’s life, it is imperative that all domains, work packages, and tasks are not only achieving satisfactory progress, but are able to demonstrate and communicate this to the independent reviewers. The first review of a project is often the toughest. Expectations are high and the project is still at an early enough stage for changes to be made. Any lack of coherence in presentation, any mis-understandings among partners, and any project failings are likely to come under very close scrutiny. With this in mind, two opportunities to prepare are scheduled. One is the ‘Two cultures�meeting in Barcelona from 26th - 29th June, which will also be a review preparation meeting. The PMB has requested that all domain and WP leaders submit their review presentations for that meeting so that coordination and cooperation can be well developed by the time of the actual review. Another opportunity for final preparation will be in Brussels from Thursday 12th to Sunday 15th July. A room had been reserved at the Fondation Universitaire in Rue d’Egmont and a series of preparation workshops is planned. Delegates who can’t make the two weekend dates are expected to attend on the Thursday and Friday.

News from the Project Management Board (PMB)

The Board held its second full meeting in London on the 11th May and was able to see that project management is working satisfactorily and progress is largely on track. A management change was actioned, in that Paul Krause of University of Surrey was nominated to take on the coordination role for the computer science domain. Developments were made to make the Researcher Exchange Programme, which is now open for applications, more flexible. The details of the process in Phase II and III are still being worked out, but participation in Phase I on a more ad hoc basis was approved and will be supported. The Board noted that several deliverables are overdue and will be requesting explanations and updates from the partners concerned. Also, partners were reminded that publication of deliverables and reports should be made promptly on the OKS. More positive news is that two new regions, through the University of Maynooth in Ireland, and the University of Zaragoza in Aragon, Spain, are lined up to join in Phase Two, and that the reports from various other areas indicated good progress. The planning process for Phase Two was discussed including the need for transparency in budget allocation and the need for the WP leaders to work more closely together. It was agreed that the planning process must start now in order to be completed by the end of June.

Feature article

Virtual research space becomes a reality

by Gerard Briscoe


Key Components of the OKS are: Research Spaces,
Personal Spaces, Content Manager, Repository

The Open Knowledge Space (OKS) is the virtual workspace within which OPAALS research is conducted. A collection of online tools, it provides all the functionality required for a global research project. Although presently still in development and paralleling the OPAALS community development, it is already a functioning entity that is being used for real.

The first OKS application to get going was a wiki: a kind of web site where the users can edit and update the pages themselves. These pages have blossomed and are being used for such tasks as collective authoring of project deliverables. Blogs are now also enabled so that members can create their own personal diary of thoughts and ideas. Blogs have been described as people-centred, whereas wikis are content-centred.

A forum facility gives an industry-standard way to discuss issues, while an issue tracker feature provides a more formal way to document, track and resolve them.

A file repository not only allows documents to be viewed via the Web but is designed to be made into a ‘WebDav drive�on your local computer, so that you can just copy and paste to and from the facility, as if it were a hard drive on your system.

An online conferencing facility is in the process of development and construction. This will enable VoIP conferencing while application sharing and text messaging, meaning that any users can hold virtual meetings at no cost.

The OKS is developing as the key element for facilitating decentralised and flexible research. Its development is being driven by the needs of the user community, which are being discovered, analysed and met as a key part of the OPAALS project.

 

A new approach to OKS development

Following suggestions at the 2007 Kassel meeting, a strategic Working Group has been created to drive a more user-orientated development approach for the Open Knowledge Space (OKS). The OKS needs to support the community in collaborative knowledge creation, being a place to find, share, exchange and discuss information and ideas. So, we must provide better alternatives to existing practices (e.g. citeseer.com), new practices (online publishing), and new methods to support existing practices (e.g. arixv.org). On a technical level, we will follow a Web 2.0 based approach, where Web 2.0 is a new paradigm for the provision of internet based services, which focuses on the creation desktop application like functionality through web-pages.

The OKS will focus on Research Spaces to allow the community to collaborate on different research topics, which will be a modular interface to unify the technologies available to support collaborative research. Including web-pages, forums, blogs, RSS/Atom feeds, web-conferences, instant messaging, message walls, etc. A corner stone of the OKS will be an integrated web-conferencing solution, which will be implemented by the IPTI.

Each community member will also have an Personal Space in the OKS, again a modular interface, which will inform the user of activity on the Research Spaces the user is involved with, allow them to control their personal profile, have a personal message wall, etc. It will naturally be able to be personalised by the users to meet the functionality they require.

The OKS will include a Content Manager for manipulating content and collections within the OKS Repository (distributed relational database), including urls, files, photos, mailing lists, blogs, forums, web-pages, feeds, calendars, etc., and will make use extensive use of the auto-tagging that will be introduced based around the OKS folksonomy concept. A pluggable architecture will allow for different views, including the advanced OKS Visualisations being developed.

The OKS is due to be launched at the first OPAALS conference in December 2007, following which it will help to underpin a common purpose and a shared knowledge, creating an inclusive community to push forwards the leading edge of Digital Ecosystems research.

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News

OPAALS public website ready for launch

by Mehita Iquani

The OKS will gradually become increasingly open to the research community and the general public. To start this process off, an initial public website has been prepared that carries basic project information about the OPAALS network and its research. This website, which will soon be fully launched, draws its content from the OKS, which means that not only is content editing easy for project participants, but as the OKS gradually matures and is opened up, the website will provide a semi-automated ‘live�public view into the OKS. http://oks.opaals.org/website

 

Digital Ecosystems cluster repository demonstrated

by Neil Rathbone

A Digital Ecosystems cluster document repository has been created using the OKS technology in order that the DE cluster of projects can each have their own area for storage of public documents and deliverables. This means that the most important DE research will be gathered together in one location, allowing for better interaction and knowledge dissemination. The system was successfully demonstrated at a DE cluster meeting in May.

News by Work Package

WP1 Automata Theory and Autopoiesis

Mathematical symmetry - the key to life’s computer?

by Paolo Dini and Alastair Munro

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the invertible transformations of a mathematical object that preserve some feature of its structure form a group. This is called the symmetry group of the object.

A symmetric object

Galois discovered that the symmetry group of the set of zeros of a polynomial determines whether the polynomial is solvable. In other words, the symmetric properties of the zeros can be detected before the zeros are actually found. This is an example of what mathematicians call “structure�

In WP1 we are trying to understand how the symmetric properties of a highly abstract specification (DNA, or genotype) can map to the symmetric properties of the phenotype. The mechanism by which this map is effected is called “gene expression� The universality of this mechanism in all life forms points to the importance of an underlying structure, which appears to be quite independent of the values of the “zeros� i.e. the specific organism.

At the scale of the DNA biological structure and behaviour are digital. Thus gene expression can also be seen as a form of computation, which can be defined as the execution of a sequence of mathematical operations (“algorithm� according to well-defined state transition semantics. In WP1 we are studying automata theory and trying to extend it to model the interactions between the DNA finite state machine and the rest of the cell FSM. The open architecture of the biological cell points to the need to generalise the computation to the notion of a “distributed�algorithm. Thus, the role of gene expression research in OPAALS is to provide a biological and mathematical foundation for gene expression-inspired computing. We believe that this approach can lead to a better adaptive behaviour of software services than is currently possible.

Adaptive behaviour is generally associated with evolution. In our research we acknowledge the dichotomy between ontogeny (gene expression) and phylogeny (evolution). Evolution is modelled simplistically in software through genetic algorithms and genetic programming. The ability of such approaches to evolve complex structure and behaviour in software remains limited by the unbounded growth of size of the genotype (specification) with the increasing complexity of the phenotype (running instance), which quickly exhausts computing resources. This phenomenon is a consequence of the linearity of the genotype-phenotype map. In Nature we observe that the number of genes is much smaller than the number of morphological or behavioural traits of the organism they code for, indicating that Nature has been able to evolve a non-linear genotype-phenotype map—a topic of intense current research in evolutionary computing.

In order to address such a difficult challenge, we are therefore following two parallel approaches, one oriented towards evolutionary/genetic algorithms, and the other oriented towards the discovery and formalisation of explicit order construction processes. In addition to being used as an optimisation method, the former approach aims to understand and reproduce the evolution of complexity (basically the evolution of gene expression), whereas the latter approach aims to model gene expression mathematically, directly. This latter approach is algebraic in character and is inspired by Galois theory. It is envisaged that the convergence of this mathematical model with various models of computation will lead to the realisation of gene expression-inspired computing, which we understand to embody the ability to support a non-linear genotype-phenotype map.

Complementing this mathematical and computational approach is the experimental work carried out by the University of Dundee. Their objective is to understand the regulatory and self-regulating cycles of the cell for the purpose of controlling and limiting the growth of cancerous cells. Cancer can show us where important things have gone wrong: cancer-specific perturbations are like the smoking gun or the bloodstained knife at the scene of the crime, it tells us where to look for key systems involved in the command and control of cells. The search for a model of the stability of the organisation of biological cells, also called “organisational closure� unites our two research groups.

Organisational closure is a feature characteristic of autopoietic systems. The concept of autopoiesis was invented by Maturana and Varela, two Chilean neuroscientists, in the 1960s and 70s, as a model that generalises the structure and function of a biological cell. An autopoietic system can be described briefly as “A self-generating system with the ability to reproduce itself recursively� A stem cell is a typical example of such a system. The reference to a “system�carries a specific meaning in the theory, namely the ability of an autopoietic system to delimit itself spatially through a physical boundary (the cell membrane) in order for the autopoietic process to be able to discriminate the “inside� to which autopoiesis applies, from the “outside� to which it does not.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, and Ian Stewart, Galois Theory.

http://math.about.com/od/geometry/ss/platonic.htm

WP2 Automatic Code Generation From Models

Design of Software Generation Demonstrator revealed

by Thomas Heistracher

WP2 aims at studying and prototypically implementing the generation of software based on human natural language specifications. The partners involved in tasks T2.1 to T2.3 of WP2 are currently finalizing their first deliverable 2.1 "Design of Software Generation Demonstrator" which is, at the time of writing, under internal review. This paper is the result of the joint effort of UCE and SUAS and summarises the work performed so far. Besides a short recap of model driven architecture with focus on software generation through standardized model transformation techniques, D2.1 provides a summary of the state-of-the-art in business modelling. Additionally, one chapter is dedicated to "lessons learned" in the DBE research project regarding business modelling. Furthermore, the deliverable outlines different target platforms for code generation with respect to applicability for small and medium enterprises. In general, this deliverable gives an overall outlook to the "Software Generation Prototype" which will be realized in the following months and after the first project review in July.

WP3 Autopoietic P2P Networks

The challenge of true P2P

by Paul Krause

Work package 3 has a key target of developing Peer to Peer (P2P) architectures to support “distributed long-term transactions, accountability, identity and trust� In order to do this, we must move away from “traditional�centralised solutions for P2P architectures and transactional modelling, to fully distributed solutions. Existing approaches rely on a centralised, or limited decentralised architecture that threatens the local autonomy of participating SMEs and leaves them vulnerable to governance from a single large organisation.

In keeping with the spirit of OPAALS our P2P architecture proposal derives much of its inspiration from studies of networks of interaction and collaboration in the social and natural sciences. It can be viewed as an example of a birth (node duplication with divergence), death (node inactivation or removal), and innovation (horizontal “gene�transfer) model (BDIM). What we are aiming for here is the development of a digital environment that evolves naturally to support a sustainable economy, where interactions through e-commerce are an integral part of that economy. Our work is further supported by a wide-ranging study indicating the importance of a pool of rare species in sustaining (innovation in) an ecosystem. In a digital ecosystem, for “rare species�read SMEs. At the moment our claims for the relevance of this work to DBEs is drawn by analogy, but we believe that further modelling that is in progress will make this relationship more precise.

WP4 Distributed Accountability Identity And Trust

Model of accountability in Digital Ecosystems

by Paul Malone

Task 4.1 on Distributed Accountability has undertaken a literature review of accountability in e-Commerce with a focus on peer-to-peer solutions and models. An initial model of accountability in digital ecosystems is currently being developed through a mutual exchange of digitally signed usage and charging data. The output of this work will be reported in the upcoming Deliverable D4.2.

Task 4.2 Distributed Collaborative Knowledge sharing is developing a framework and algorithms for collaborative knowledge sharing in digital ecosystems. This task is also proposing a strategy called Virtual Web for the sharing of distributed knowledge together with data-mining techniques and a formal concept structure.

Task 4.3 is working on the development of a distributed trust model together with a service composition strategy based on iterative negotiations with multiple peers who offer prices based on their trust with the current consortium of service providers.

Task 4.4 is developing a model for decentralised identity based on self-signed certificates combined with a web of trust approach.

WP5 Integration With DE Infrastructure

The OKS Desktop - The collaborative Tool for the Digital Ecosystem Community of developers

by Jesús E. Gabaldón & Javier Noguera

The developers working on Open Source projects, and many other professionals, are often spread out all over the world. During the last decade the Internet has introduced many different opportunities to interact with people working very far from each other.

The OKS Desktop is expected to become a pioneering application in the context of the OPAALS Network of Excellence. This tool, actually a complete collaborative desktop, will definitely serve its purpose of approaching the community of software Digital Ecosystem’s developers.

On the other hand, although the software developers are probably one of the first professional communities taking advantage of IT, the rest of the professional groups are quickly adopting them to its maximum. This trend goes in parallel with the massive deployment and availability of broadband connection, in the working office as well as at private homes.

Therefore, the asynchronous tools that represented a revolution in the eighties and beginning the nineties, soon became almost outdated, being quickly substituted by a new generation of collaborative tools that will facilitate interaction in real time.

All tools present in the OKS Desktop are currently used in some Open Source projects and ongoing communities. Teams are using these tools because they have been proved to be useful for working in such environment, combining on-line/off-line behavior. Some of these tools, like the source code repository, have been used for a long time. Some others, like the Wiki are more recent, but the community is quickly adopting them. Nevertheless, most of the tools used in development tasks follow a centralized design. This means that all of these tools have to be installed in a central server that users connect to. As we can easily state, this nature is not useful for the integration of several projects. Thus, along the execution of the project we will progressively move from a centralized behaviour to a decentralized one.

WP6 Socio-Economic Constructivism And Language

Language is the key to interdisciplinary research

by Frauke Zeller

WP6’s main topic is language, which can be regarded as an interface between the different domains within OPAALS and as a socio-constructivist vehicle towards Digital Ecosystems.

WP6 covers ‘language�from three complementary points of views:

1) Language as subject of analysis

=> Technical languages (agorising metaphors); discourse organization (T6.1, T6.2);

=> Symbolic ecosystems (T6.3)

2) Language as a formalised tool for construction

=> Formal language production and integration (T6.5, T6.7)

3) Language as socio-constructivist environment

=> Evolutionary framework for language (T6.6)

=> Methodological framework for the analysis of knowledge production processes (T6.4)

Researchers from WP6 were actively involved in the first workshop meeting in Tampere in October and also among the first exclusive Social Science domain meeting at Trento in January, which had three main themes:

(1) Community Networks and Open Source / Knowledge

(2) Identity and Trust

(3) Language Models and Communication Networks

As well as being a first face-to-face meeting dedicated exclusively to this domain, Trento enabled participants to brainstorm about their respective research activities, find synergies between their lines of research and facilitate collaboration by developing a common language. In particular Frauke Zeller presented trust from a social perspective. According to Frauke, “Discourse and communication are important to the OPAALS network as communication styles and practices constitute communities. Trust is intrinsically interwoven with language (in a broad sense) in that meaning is context sensitive and is defined in concrete contexts by communities that use a common language. Conceptual expressions that we take for granted, such as 'trust', need language as a means of visualisation.�

One of the main research activities within WP6 is the development of a socio-linguistic framework to study the multiple communication patterns within OPAALS with a focus on the role of ICT. This framework plays an important role in the development of the Open Knowledge Space and also offers valuable synergies with WP4 and WP10.

Another important topic are community currencies, which was discussed during the Kassel meeting and a multi-disciplinary group of OPAALS researchers was put together in order to discuss the different aspects of this field and its implications for various tasks and WPs.

WP7 Community Networks And Digital Ecosystems

DE links community networks in Trento

by Francesco Botto

WP7 is conceptualizing Community Networks (CNs) as a mix of top-down and bottom-up initiatives that enhance local communities by developing their on-line presence with broadband infrastructures and services, as well as an effective policy framework. Digital Ecosystems (DEs) are a new way to interlink CNs in order to sustain local economies and better connect them to global markets.

The Trentino Region (Provincia Autonoma di Trento - PAT) is mainly mountainous with a population of almost 500,000 people in a territory of 620,688 ha. It is made up of many small municipalities and 62 of them fall under Objective 2. Peripheral areas of the Region are nowadays suffering from a lack of broadband infrastructures.

The T.Net project is bringing broadband Internet coverage to the entire Trentino region to encourage the development of peripheral areas and to bridge the digital divide. A process which will bring broadband to the entire Region by 2010 started using a public financed network, managed by a new public company, Trentino Network, but will eventually be opened to private companies to guarantee competition.

In order to stimulate local development, CREATE-NET is trying to start from local needs in the many layers of local society. Under the T.Net project we have already started working with municipalities, associations and local SMEs.

WP8 Open Source And Open Knowledge

Version 2.0 transforms OSS

by Maha Shaikh

There has been a subtle but nevertheless deep-rooted transformation of open source software from its Free Software origins to a more mainstream commercially viable form - OSS 2.0, as we term it.

We identify the key differences between this emergent OSS 2.0 model and the initial Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) concept in terms of process and product characteristics. Also, we contend that the OSS 2.0 development process will become less bazaar-like as more rigorous project management elements will be enacted to produce a more professional product.

In contrast, the OSS 2.0 product life cycle will become more bazaar-like as loose federations of companies converge to create a customized and professional 'whole product' service. For OSS 2.0, 'value' will be the key term, with two of its connotations especially significant - value as in 'value for money' and value as in 'acceptable community values'.

Striking an appropriate balance between the two will be key to achieving success in OSS 2.0. The commercial setting of OSS 2.0 also introduces a number of complications. For example, the community-based development model may not be completely compatible with a corporate environment. Business strategy becomes a central concern, and the very acceptance of OSS as a serious contender becomes a critical issue.

Workpackage 8

Task T8.1

WP9 Communication And Dissemination

Communication swings into action

by Neil Rathbone

There has been a planned communication silence during the first year as there was much work to be done before the OPAALS network and its results would begin to emerge. The last months of the year have seen increasing activity with the brand identity deliverable, the initial public website built and ready to go live ( see it at http://oks.opaals.org/website/index.php ), the first major public event in December is under organisation, and this first issue newsletter to start the process of broadcast communication

The initial OPAALS public web site draws content from the OKS

Communication and dissemination is set to ramp up markedly during year two and to assume a vital role. The objectives could be described as:

  • Create a visual identity that reflects the emerging cultural identity of the network
  • Encourage interest, mainly from the wider research community, but also the media and economic development actors
  • Disseminate research results as they appear

Although strictly part of WP10 the Open Knowledge Space (OKS) is partly a communication tool and the WP9 team are working closely with Gerard Briscoe to ensure that communication and the OKS are seamless. As an example of this, the web site draws its content from the OKS. This mixes formal official content that is editable as wiki pages by a restricted group of persons, and automatic surfacing of recent and popular blogs so that activity within the OKS is pushed out to visitors in order to tempt them to want to join the network.

WP10 Sustainable Community Building

Visualisation - seeing the Open Knowledge Space

by Markus Mannio

The purpose of the task 10.5 is to set up an environment for visualising the Open Knowledge Space (OKS). The OKS is the technical cornerstone of the OPAALS project that will act as the distributed data storage for the community created information.

The idea of the task T10.5 is to create a way of visualising the OKS so that eventually each participant could participate in designing and sharing visualisations with other community members with similar interests. Thus, the end result of the task does not only include creating example visualisations but rather preparing a prototype environment that would eventually enable community members to participate in designing visualisations. Initially the main activity of the community members would is naturally geared towards viewing the visualisations. However, we believe that involvement in the visualisation will gradually become more proactive, where end users are taking a design role in the visualisation development.

Our initial steps in the task have been focused in understanding the community needs, communication, and the technical environment we are part of. Based on this initial view, a visualisation architecture and design was planned based on pipelined component architecture paradigm. The pipelined architecture supports the integration of existing open source components as part of the visualisations, thus enabling building new visualisations by using existing building blocks. This reduces the amount of resources needed to design visualisations and helps in unleashing the potential of open source communities.

The architecture is developed incrementally in an iterative fashion to in order to adapt to the evolution of the OKS and the community needs. Iterative development enables the integration of components and features as our understanding of the needs of the community and evolving OKS environment increases. The evolutionary nature of the project and the related data models and software components has provided some challenges for the visualisation task, which we aim to overcome with the iterative process and active participation in the project activities in related areas.

Visualisation task T10.5 activities in OPAALS phase I: From community to visualisation architecture to examples and community processes.

Our current work is focused on creating example visualisations into the pipeline environment and integration of the visualisations to other OKS tools. In the end of the first phase we are planning to concentrate more on the collaborative visualisation process in order to understand and communicate how the visualisations can be used and designed as part of the other community processes. This highlights our view that the people and the community are the key to the success of the OKS.

Find more:

Task T10.5.

Diary dates:

June 26-29
Pre-review meeting, Barcelona

July 16-17
1st Review, Brussels

November - TBA
EC Digital Ecosystems conference

December 3-5
OPAALS conference, Rome

Useful links:


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