Honours Scholarship Recipients

Our congratulations to the following people who have been awarded an Honours Scholarship for 2009 R2.

Paul Coster - University of Melbourne
Joshua Swee - University of Adelaide

Each recipient will receive $4000, paid in two even amounts midway through each semester.

A short summary of their Honours Projects are below:

Paul Coster - University of Melbourne

String Processing on Emerging Parallel Architectures  
My research involves developing algorithms to manipulate sets of character strings using parallel desktop processors. I have a particular interest in developing algorithms which run on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) which have hundreds of parallel cores and offer enormous potential in terms of doing more work with less resources. A string is a set of characters like a word or a name. These are an important kind of data in many areas but particularly in DNA processing for molecular biology and also on the internet where there are massive amounts of text produced every day and huge rewards exist for those who can process it effectively. Strings also pose the novel challenge of being a data type of varying size. This means that an algorithm must react dynamically to the data it is processing.
A key objective or the research is to develop a parallel string sorting algorithm to take advantage of the parallel nature of the GPU. Parallel means that rather than performing all the instructions one after the other, a parallel algorithm performs many operations simultaneously by doing them side by side on different parts of the chip. This offers some major advantages but requires new ways of thinking about the problem.

The reason for pursuing a parallel solution to a problem already solved by a serial method is that essentially serial technology is beginning to reach its physical limits. The power requirements to increase the speed of serial operation much further are prohibitive. Therefore to increase the performance of string processing a look to parallel algorithms is essential. This offers to increase the amount of data that we can process, offering to reduce the cost of genetic research and testing. Parallel processing might also allow the us to sort data using less power, offering significant environmental and financial benefits.

Joshua Swee - University of Adelaide

Exploring Aspect Orienated Approaches to Weaving Business Processes and Rules
Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) is a promising paradigm to implement cross-organizational e-Business applications where both business processes and business policies (rules) play a central role. Unfortunately, the intermixing of processes and rules using a single process language (e.g. Web Services Business Process Execution Language or BPEL) weakens the modularity and adaptability of applications, making the run-time adaptation of the applications very cumbersome, time consuming, and error-prone.

My Honours research project deals with exploring aspect-orientated and model-driven technologies that allow business rules and business processes intermixed while preserving the modularity and adaptability of business processes. A toolset will be developed, allowing business processes and rules to be modeled and intermixed in a modeling language such as Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), which can be automatically translated into an executable architecture.

Currently business processes can be represented by applying Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) concepts, allowing each business process to be broken down into a series of tasks. The business processes can then be actualized as executable architecture by having each task correspond to a Web service and using an orchestration language such as Web Services Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) to represent the execution workflow of the services.

The main point of contention in the SOC approach of business processes involves how business rules (e.g., frequent customers receive a 10% discount on purchases) can be effectively intermixed into business processes without affecting the modularity of the Service-Orientated Architecture. The most direct approach of simply integrating the rules into the individual business tasks is unsuitable due to the constantly changing nature of business policies. For example, in the rule above, the discount for frequent customers might change constantly on a month to month basis, or may be completely removed at some point in the future.

Alternate solutions to this exist, the most persuasive of which is to apply aspect orientated modeling (AOM) concepts to the business processes. By decoupling business rules from business processes, arranging the applicable rules into aspects and weaving the aspects back into the business process, the modularity of the business process can be preserved regardless of changes to business rules.

For my Honours research project, I plan to explore implementations and extensions of this novel methodology, including developing a toolset that will allow business rules and processes to be visually modeled using BPMN, woven using an aspect-orientated approach and automatically translated into executable architecture that can be deployed.