Sunday, November 23, 2008

Gimme Shelter

Wild turkeys sensing Thanksgiving is nearly upon us gather in a safe place: my front lawn.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Budapester

After several years of delay, my wife and I finally had a chance to spend a long anticipated weekend in Budapest, Hungary. I'll give my impressions in three parts: aesthetic, economic and historical. Second - for those anticipating a visit - a few suggestions for tourists.



On several occasions, the first question I've gotten about Budapest is "what's it like?" To be frank, I've struggled to compare it to other central European cities I've visited: unlike, say, Prague, the oldest portions of Budapest are quite small: the city was the scene of many battles from the Turkish occupation through the second world war; in the latter, the Soviet army and the Nazi army clashed directly in the
city itself. With some notable exceptions, the city is redolent with 19th century facades. In fact, many of the buildings are quite impressive. My wife commented that to see Budapest, one has to be constantly looking upward.



Although it is hard to say exactly how any country is going to weather the current economic storm, Hungary has clearly experienced strong growth rates in recent years. Budapest itself reflects both a low post-Soviet starting point and the economic boom of recent years. Elegant restaurants are close to classic looking buildings suffering
from disrepair. Pricing is erratic at best. One can find a 1 USD cup of coffee, or spend 12 USD for coffee and pastry, all within a block. For a great view of the food of Hungary, traditional restaurants and the Central Market in Pest are great experiences: be prepared for tons of paprika.



A traditional breakfast at the Central Market!

The standard tourist circuit is worth doing. Budapest's museums are interesting though modest: meaning, it is possible to explore many in a day's time. There are several houses of worship that are worth visiting; in particular I recommend the Matyas Church in Old Buda and the Great Synagogue in Pest.



Matyas.

The Great Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world. The building is a 19th century construction and features continental Christian influence in features such as a (substantial) pipe organ: the same instrument is present in the even more beautiful Spanish Synagogue in Prague.



Time permitting, there is a modest Serbian Orthodox church on Szerb Utra ("Serb Street"), with an older iconostasis and the sweet smell of incense hanging in the air. The famous St. Stephen's cathedral is beautiful but also very modern.

And of course Budapest is famous for the public baths. We visited the baths in the central park, which is an experience not to miss. There are consultants available that will help construct a therapeutic regime while you are there, though we opted to wing it: both relaxing and revitalizing. Be forewarned: the plunge pool may not have ice crystals in the water, but it is … cold.

There are two less well-known options for visitors that I wanted to point out. First, the Terror Museum in Pest is a must-see. The Hungarians suffered under both a Nazi putsch and Soviet occupation. The Terror Museum is set in the secret police headquarters (shared by both regimes) and provides a bracing portrait of totalitarian terror as seen from the Hungarian experience. The first exhibit in the museum
was perhaps the most moving: videos of cheering and weeping crowds supporting both regimes cutting abruptly to the destruction and death concomitant with their rises. This was not an uplifting part of our visit, but a sobering and necessary look at two forms of evil.



The second thing to note about Budapest is the excellent restaurant scene. We had some of the best meals we have had in a long time in Pest. The restaurant Tigris near St. Stephen's Cathedral has fantastic food, wine and the most enthusiastic staff I've ever encountered. The "contemporary Hungarian" tasting menu at Babel was great: the chef
has a deft take on gastronomical science. Try both if you can.

The title of this post is taken from the iconic Vass shoe, the somewhat awkward looking, central European classic. The factory store is on Harris Kos in Pest and worth a visit for anyone interested in old world craftsmanship. There's a romanticism about much of Budapest tied up with the ubiquitous craftsmanship to be found.



All photos by Ruth Pavlik: they may not be used without permission.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Wild Ride

What an extraordinary few weeks we've been through economically. The economic system has started to unzip and then snap back several times: the scariest thing I saw was the more than doubling of the LIBOR rate over night. And the control of short sales is a step to nationalizing equity markets: incredible! And while, things continue to adjust and move forward, we are, for better or worse, living through an inflection point in economic history.

I was in Moscow, Russia a few weeks back when the Russian central bank had to intervene to support the ruble. At that point, cooler heads seemed to have been regaining center stage and the political climate between the US and Russia seemed to warming a bit since the Georgia conflict. Then, right before I left, a US vice president candidate speculated that we might have to go to war with Russia! A week later, the Russian markets closed for several days. I'll have a report on my Russia trip in a few days, but I'll preface it by saying it was fascinating.

I escaped the economic chatter last week by attending Oracle's Open World conference. This was by far the best Open World I have seen: customers were very enthusiastic and the show was extremely well coordinated. Getting back to core technology was a great break from some of the bleaker world news. I arrived home late Saturday and then was back on a plane this morning: only to learn that Wachovia had been dispatched!

Deika Morrison blog

I wanted to point readers to the new blog of a friend of mine, Deika Morrison. She has an extremely interesting background: she served as a Senator and Minister of State for Finance and Planning for the country of Jamaica, is a business expert, and is a careful thinker. She's also one of the nicest people I know.

I continue to believe that so-called emerging markets are the well spring of innovative ideas in economics and business. Brazil, Israel, Russia, China, Jamaica are all interesting places where necessity has proven to be the mother not just of invention but innovation: Deika's blog should help illustrate what I mean.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

SVOD: Tech Sector in Russia

This year's Silicon Valley Open Doors conference has been scheduled, the dates are November 20-21. This is the premiere opportunity to learn about the technology sector and venture capital opportunities in and around Russia and understand more about what is happening with Russian companies. Hope to see you there.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Give Back/Help Out

I (slightly) modified the right hand side of my blog to include some charities that I support. In some cases, I have good friends that have dedicated their professional lives to helping to build these organizations.

These don't even begin to scratch the surface of great organizations that offer great ways to help others. I listed these because I know a bit more about them personally and I'm confident that they do good (efficiently!). Another good friend, Edwin, recently added a blog post on Abilities United, which works with kids experiencing challenges in development and gives them special attention based on their needs. Take a careful look at Abilities United: they deserve support and all the help they can get.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Cisco launches Russia/CIS fund

Brent Marcus left a note that Cisco recently announced a Russia focused venture fund. I will be in Moscow in a few weeks and will try to get some first hand information to blog about.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Data grids and the Web

There's been a lot of talk recently about web 2.0, social networks, and cloud computing. To my way of thinking, these are very much overlapping categories. One useful technology that can be used support all of these models is the concept of a "data grid": high performance, distributed and reliable caching technology. On-Demand Enterprise has a good profile of AbeBooks.com, which uses Oracle Coherence technology to support their web site.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The First Rome

I spent the last two weeks on holiday in Italy. This was the first time I've taken two weeks off from work in nearly 20 years, so this felt like a much needed break. We traveled to Rome for several days, then on to the Amalfi coast, and across the country to Romagna and then spent our last few days in Venice. Three things struck me about Italy: the warm and passionate people, the incredible food, and the rich cultural and religious history that one encounters – in many ways is confronted with – throughout the country. Here are a few of photos and some thoughts along the way.

Rome sits under waves of consecutive civilizations. There is the indelible imprint of the Greek, Roman, early Christian, Byzantine, Gothic, Frankish, and ultimately modern world in Rome. It's not an exaggeration to suggest that you could spend many lifetimes absorbed in studying the remnants of each: the city is history alive. Our hotel was right down the street from the Colosseum: to best grasp the complexity of the operations of the Colosseum, you need to walk the insides. From here, you can see something of the scale, still impressive in a modern city. Many of the blood sport scenes involved animals that were kept below the center of the stadium. You can see the basic layout in this photo.



The next photo is the Arch of Constantine, the emperor that in many ways was responsible for the Christianity Europe still knows it today: he called the first Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 364 AD, which established the basic dogmatic creed for the faith. The arch also illustrates the engineering prowess of the Romans: note also that Italy still runs potable fountains throughout the city that were based on the acquaducts established by the Romans as well.



We visited the Vatican, including St. Peter's and the Vatican Museum. What an incredible wealth of Renaissance art. The scale of St. Peter's is awe inspiring, though the artistic motif is very much humanist. The church retains the old style of a domed church, so common in the Byzantine tradition; inside each dome is an elaborate series of paintings:



A haunting view of St. Peter in Glory (the dove represents the Holy Spirit):



It was, however, the Vatican Museum, that most impressed and surprised me by its scale and beauty. As we were touring with child, we had to move rather quickly through the museum to visit the Sistine Chapel, our top target. However, here is a view of one of the corridors leading through the museum. The museum is one of the main things in Rome I'd like to return to visit for a few days of sustained study:



When we left Rome, we traveled to the Amalfi coast for the better part of five days, partially for relaxation. A snapshot of the beach area below the cliff into which our hotel (La Terrazze: highly recommended for both location and the dinners) was built.



Here is the exterior of St. Andrea's Cathedral in Amalfi: note the cultural interplay between Byzantine and Arabesque styling; Amalfi was once a major port city and trading center in the Mediterranean.



A closeup of the mosaics of the twelve apostles, again, Byzantine in style.



The American novelist Gore Vidal described Ravello as the most beautiful place he had visited in all his travels. I concur. The church of St. Panteleone on the main piazza contained several throwbacks to early Christianity: the blood relics of Panteleone from 306 AD and an old icon of the virgin Mary. This seems to me to echo the early apostolic churches, which transferred dogma through liturgy, iconography and the veneration of saints, rather than scripture (the New Testament canon had not yet been formed at the time of Panteleone). Here are some fresco remains with an air of antiquity:



We spent several days in Romagna, a great family destination for relaxing on the Adriatic beaches. We explored the medieval hill towns by car. Stunning vistas overlooking valleys, olive groves and vineyards.



After Romagna, we had a few days in Venice. A remarkable city, though after a few days, we were glad to escape the throngs of tourists. Venice is a place to explore for three reasons: history, art and architecture. San Marco Basilica combines all three and is rightly considered the centerpiece of the city. Here are some external shots of Venice (photos in the interior of San Marco are forbidden, but the interior mosaics are stunning).





Switching gears: if the export of tourists is any indicator of macroeconomic conditions, pay attention to Venice. The tourists from Europe were, as always, predominantly German. But I was stunned by the throngs of Russian tourists, something I rarely encountered five years ago. Similarly, Japanese tourists still lead the visitors from Asia, but they were joined by lots of visitors from China. Of course, China and Russia have both been doing well, so perhaps this is evidence of well-known trends.

All photos by Ruth Pavlik; no photos may be reused without permission.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Solzhenitsyn remembered

I read Solzhenitsyn relatively late, much later than I should have. For me, his work will always serve as a warning about how readily humans can be trapped in a cycle of cruelty and exploitation: both as exploited and exploiters. I read dozens on essays remembering Solzhenitsyn over the last few days; I thought this piece from der Speigel captured the Western perspective quite well: he was never really understood by those who received him in exile, that he was sometimes thoroughly wrong headed, and that he was undoubtedly one of the greatest men of the last century.

Monday, August 04, 2008

WESOA 08 Workshop (second CFP)

S E C O N D C A L L F O R P A P E R S

4th INT. WORKSHOP ON ENGINEERING SERVICE ORIENTED APPLICATIONS:
"SERVICE-ORIENTED ANALYSIS AND DESIGN" (WESOA'08)

In conjunction with the 6th Int. Conference on Service Oriented
Computing (ICSOC 2008) http://www.icsoc.org/

Sydney, Australia, December 1st, 2008

WESOA Workshop Website http://www.wesoa.org/

Abstract Submission Due: Oct. 1st, 2008


OBJECTIVES
==========

In large-scale software projects that increasingly adopt
service-oriented software architecture and technologies, availability
of sound systems engineering principles, -methodology and -tools for
service-oriented applications is mission-critical for project success.
However, engineering service-oriented applications poses specific
requirements that differ from traditional software engineering and
service systems engineering (SSE) is not yet established.
Consequently, there is an urgent need for research community and
industry practitioners to develop comprehensive engineering
principles, methodologies and tool support for the entire software
development lifecycle of service-oriented applications.

The WESOA series of workshops addresses challenges of service systems
engineering that arise from unique characteristics of service-oriented
applications. Service-oriented applications closely resemble the
organisation principles of their application domains that are often
process-driven networks. They are compositions of service system
components that are provided by autonomous stakeholders based on
unique assets and capabilities. Therefore, service-oriented
applications often have a social dimension and can be regarded as
constituents of social service communities. It is the challenge of
service systems engineering to not only cope with these specific
circumstances but to capitalise on them with radically new approaches.
The WESOA series addresses these challenges and particularly
concentrates on the aspects of service-oriented analysis and design
that provide principles methodology and tool support to capture the
characteristic requirements of networked service communities and
transform them into reusable high-quality service system designs that
underpin and drive the holistic service-oriented development
lifecycle.

WESOA'08 continues a successful series of former ICSOC
workshops. During the past three editions, WESOA has demonstrated its
relevance by constant high numbers of contributions and participants.
Its impact is documented by consistent output of high-quality papers
that regularly satisfied requirements of Springer and led to a special
issue of IJCSSE.

TOPICS
======

WESOA'08 encourages a multidisciplinary perspective and welcomes
papers that address challenges of service-oriented systems
engineering, analysis and design in general or in the context of
specific domains. Workshop topics of interest include, but are not
limited to the following:

* Service systems development lifecycle methodologies
* Service-oriented reference models and modelling frameworks
* Service-oriented analysis and design patterns
* Models, languages and methods for service-oriented domain analysis
* Analysis and design for service-based organisations, social networks
and communities
* Requirements-engineering for service systems
* Service-oriented business processes modelling
* Engineering methods for design of reusable and composable services
* Service-oriented analysis and design for grid-computing, e-Science
and cloud computing
* Architectural styles and standards for service systems
* Contract and policy design for service systems
* Design of service systems choreography and orchestration
* Service assembly, composition and aggregation models and languages
* Validation and verification of service systems
* Tools support for analysis and design of service systems
* Model-driven SOA and service systems development
* Case studies and best practices of service-oriented analysis, design
and development

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
=======================

Authors are invited to submit original, previously unpublished
research papers. Papers should be written in English and must not
exceed 12 pages, strictly following Springer LNCS style
(http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) including all text,
references, appendices, and figures. Please, submit papers via the
WESOA conference management tool (see WESOA website) in PDF format.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by members of the international
program committee. Paper acceptance will be based on originality,
significance, technical soundness, and clarity of presentation.
Accepted papers will be included in the workshop proceedings, and
circulated to participants prior to the event. Workshop proceedings
will be published as a Springer LNCS volume.

At least one author of an accepted paper must register and participate
in the workshop. Registration is subject to the terms, conditions and
procedure of the ICSOC conference to be found on their website
http://www.icsoc.org/.

IMPORTANT DATES
===============

* Abstract Submission Due: October 1, 2008
* Paper Submission Due: October 6, 2008
* Notification of Acceptance: November 3, 2008
* Camera-Ready Copy Due: November 24, 2008
* Workshop Date: December 1, 2008

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
=================

* Sudhir Agarwal, Karlsruhe University (TH), DE
* Marco Aiello, University of Groningen, NL
* Sami Bhiri, DERI Galway, IE
* Jen-Yao Chung, IBM T.J. Watson Research, US
* Oscar Corcho, University of Manchester, GB
* Vincenzo D'andrea, University of Trento, IT
* Valeria de Castro, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, ES
* Gregorio Diaz, University of Castilla La Mancha, ES
* Schahram Dustdar, Technical University of Vienna, AT
* Wolfgang Emmerich, University College London, GB
* George Feuerlicht, Sydney University of Technology, AU
* Stefan Fischer, University of Luebeck, DE
* Howard Foster, Imperial College London, GB
* Paul Greenfield, CSIRO, AU
* Rannia Khalaf, IBM watson Research, US
* Bernd KrƤmer, FernuniversitƤt Hagen, DE
* Winfried Lamersdorf, University of Hamburg, DE
* Heiko Ludwig, IBM Research, US
* Tiziana Margaria-Steffen, University of Potsdam , DE
* E. Michael Maximilien, IBM Almaden Research, US
* Massimo Mecella, Univ. Roma LA SAPIENZA, IT
* Harald Meyer, HPI Potsdam, DE
* Daniel Moldt, University of Hamburg, DE
* Josef Noll, Telenor R&D, NO
* Guadalupe Ortiz Bellot, University of Extremadura, ES
* Rebecca Parsons, ThoughtWorks, US
* Greg Pavlik, Oracle, US
* Pierluigi Plebani, Politecnico di Milano, IT
* Franco Raimondi, University College London, GB
* Wolfgang Reisig, Humboldt-University Berlin, DE
* Thomas Risse, L3S Research Center, DE
* Norbert Ritter, University of Hamburg, DE
* Dumitru Roman, DERI Innsbruck, AT
* Stefan Tai, Karlsruhe University (TH), DE
* Willem-Jan van den Heuvel, Tilburg University, NL
* Walid Gaaloul, DERI Galway, IE
* Jim Webber, ThoughtWorks, AU

Friday, July 04, 2008

Catching Up

Between work and holiday, I haven't been able to post much to the blog over the last 6 weeks. I am going to do a series of updates. Outside of work, I've been thinking a bit about the future of the web architecture, emerging markets and human social and religious history: post coming up related to all topics.

1) I was out of the country when Feedly was rolled out. I will talk about Feedly, why it is important and do a series of reviews on the technology.

2) I am hoping to publish details on a venture fund investing in Africa that I think will be quite interesting in the near future.

3) A longish entry on my recent holiday in Italy, including "the first Rome" is in the works.

Hope all that is of interest.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

WESOA 08 Workshop

In general, WESOA is a productive exchange of experiences and ideas. I am reviewing papers again this year for the program committee and I encourage you to consider writing up a paper that covers practical experiences in SOA implementations and applications.

C A L L F O R P A P E R S

4th INT. WORKSHOP ON ENGINEERING SERVICE ORIENTED APPLICATIONS:
"SERVICE-ORIENTED ANALYSIS AND DESIGN" (WESOA'08)

In conjunction with the 6th Int. Conference on Service Oriented
Computing (ICSOC 2008) http://www.icsoc.org/

Sydney, Australia, December 1st, 2008

WESOA Workshop Website http://www.wesoa.org/

Abstract Submission Due: Sep. 1st, 2008


OBJECTIVES
==========

In large-scale software projects that increasingly adopt
service-oriented software architecture and technologies, availability
of sound systems engineering principles, -methodology and -tools for
service-oriented applications is mission-critical for project success.
However, engineering service-oriented applications poses specific
requirements that differ from traditional software engineering and
service systems engineering (SSE) is not yet established.
Consequently, there is an urgent need for research community and
industry practitioners to develop comprehensive engineering
principles, methodologies and tool support for the entire software
development lifecycle of service-oriented applications.

The WESOA series of workshops addresses challenges of service systems
engineering that arise from unique characteristics of service-oriented
applications. Service-oriented applications closely resemble the
organisation principles of their application domains that are often
process-driven networks. They are compositions of service system
components that are provided by autonomous stakeholders based on
unique assets and capabilities. Therefore, service-oriented
applications often have a social dimension and can be regarded as
constituents of social service communities. It is the challenge of
service systems engineering to not only cope with these specific
circumstances but to capitalise on them with radically new approaches.
The WESOA series addresses these challenges and particularly
concentrates on the aspects of service-oriented analysis and design
that provide principles methodology and tool support to capture the
characteristic requirements of networked service communities and
transform them into reusable high-quality service system designs that
underpin and drive the holistic service-oriented development
lifecycle.

WESOA'08 continues a successful series of former ICSOC
workshops. During the past three editions, WESOA has demonstrated its
relevance by constant high numbers of contributions and participants.
Its impact is documented by consistent output of high-quality papers
that regularly satisfied requirements of Springer and led to a special
issue of IJCSSE.

TOPICS
======

WESOA'08 encourages a multidisciplinary perspective and welcomes
papers that address challenges of service-oriented systems
engineering, analysis and design in general or in the context of
specific domains. Workshop topics of interest include, but are not
limited to the following:

* Service systems development lifecycle methodologies
* Service-oriented reference models and modelling frameworks
* Service-oriented analysis and design patterns
* Models, languages and methods for service-oriented domain analysis
* Analysis and design for service-based organisations, social networks
and communities
* Requirements-engineering for service systems
* Service-oriented business processes modelling
* Engineering methods for design of reusable and composable services
* Service-oriented analysis and design for grid-computing, e-Science
and cloud computing
* Architectural styles and standards for service systems
* Contract and policy design for service systems
* Design of service systems choreography and orchestration
* Service assembly, composition and aggregation models and languages
* Validation and verification of service systems
* Tools support for analysis and design of service systems
* Model-driven SOA and service systems development
* Case studies and best practices of service-oriented analysis, design
and development

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
=======================

Authors are invited to submit original, previously unpublished
research papers. Papers should be written in English and must not
exceed 12 pages, strictly following Springer LNCS style
(http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) including all text,
references, appendices, and figures. Please, submit papers via the
WESOA conference management tool (see WESOA website) in PDF format.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by members of the international
program committee. Paper acceptance will be based on originality,
significance, technical soundness, and clarity of presentation.
Accepted papers will be included in the workshop proceedings, and
circulated to participants prior to the event. Workshop proceedings
will be published as a Springer LNCS volume.

At least one author of an accepted paper must register and participate
in the workshop. Registration is subject to the terms, conditions and
procedure of the ICSOC conference to be found on their website
http://www.icsoc.org/.

IMPORTANT DATES
===============

* Abstract Submission Due: September 1, 2008
* Paper Submission Due: October 6, 2008
* Notification of Acceptance: November 3, 2008
* Camera-Ready Copy Due: November 24, 2008
* Workshop Date: December 1, 2008

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
=================

* Sudhir Agarwal, Karlsruhe University (TH), DE
* Marco Aiello, University of Groningen, NL
* Sami Bhiri, DERI Galway, IE
* Jen-Yao Chung, IBM T.J. Watson Research, US
* Oscar Corcho, University of Manchester, GB
* Vincenzo D'andrea, University of Trento, IT
* Valeria de Castro, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, ES
* Gregorio Diaz, University of Castilla La Mancha, ES
* Schahram Dustdar, Technical University of Vienna, AT
* Wolfgang Emmerich, University College London, GB
* George Feuerlicht, Sydney University of Technology, AU
* Stefan Fischer, University of Luebeck, DE
* Howard Foster, Imperial College London, GB
* Paul Greenfield, CSIRO, AU
* Rannia Khalaf, IBM watson Research, US
* Bernd KrƤmer, FernuniversitƤt Hagen, DE
* Winfried Lamersdorf, University of Hamburg, DE
* Heiko Ludwig, IBM Research, US
* Tiziana Margaria-Steffen, University of Potsdam , DE
* E. Michael Maximilien, IBM Almaden Research, US
* Massimo Mecella, Univ. Roma LA SAPIENZA, IT
* Harald Meyer, HPI Potsdam, DE
* Daniel Moldt, University of Hamburg, DE
* Josef Noll, Telenor R&D, NO
* Guadalupe Ortiz Bellot, University of Extremadura, ES
* Rebecca Parsons, ThoughtWorks, US
* Greg Pavlik, Oracle, US
* Pierluigi Plebani, Politecnico di Milano, IT
* Franco Raimondi, University College London, GB
* Wolfgang Reisig, Humboldt-University Berlin, DE
* Thomas Risse, L3S Research Center, DE
* Norbert Ritter, University of Hamburg, DE
* Dumitru Roman, DERI Innsbruck, AT
* Stefan Tai, Karlsruhe University (TH), DE
* Willem-Jan van den Heuvel, Tilburg University, NL
* Walid Gaaloul, DERI Galway, IE
* Jim Webber, ThoughtWorks, AU
* Christian Zirpins, Karlsruhe University (TH), DE

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
====================

Jen-Yao Chung
IBM T.J. Watson Research, USA

Wolfgang Emmerich
University College London, UK

Guadalupe Ortiz
University of Extremadura, Spain

Christian Zirpins
University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany

If you have further queries please email to the workshop chairs on:
chairs wesoa.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Dr. Guadalupe Ortiz Bellot
Assistant Professor
Computer Science Department
University of Extremadura

gobellot@unex.es
http://personales.ya.com/gobellot/

Quercus Software Engineering Group
http://quercusseg.unex.es

Friday, May 09, 2008

Silicon Valley Open Doors

The SVOD 08 conference is now set for November 13-14. This conference looks at Russian venture opportunities, focused on early stage companies and technology. It's the premiere event in the US of its kind: if you have an interest in early stage companies eastern Europe or Russia, plan for this event.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

JavaOne 2008

I was supposed to be a panelist for BOF 5846, a session organized by my friend Mark Little, exploring how OSGi informs SOA implementations and strategies. Unfortunately, I had to cancel out due to travel conflicts, but stop by the BOF at the show if you are there. Alex Alves from BEA (now Oracle too) will be taking my slot and talking about his experience using OSGi as the substructure of the BEA Event Server.

Also, in case you missed Thomas Kurian's keynote this morning, the JavaOne site is hosting some video clips: this clip, which features Kevin Clugage showing off the SOA platform preview's SCA support and Mike Lehmann demonstrating WebLogic's operations console and JRockit realtime. Both are definitely worth watching.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

DOA 08 Call For Papers Reminder

I am co-chairing the middleware track for the OTM conference in Mexico this year. Take a look at the Call for Papers: I'm hoping to see some good submissions.

OTM 2008 Federated Conferences - Call For Papers
Monterry (Mexico), November 9 - 14, 2008
http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/fedconf/

BRIEF OVERVIEW

"OnTheMove (OTM) to Meaningful Internet Systems and Ubiquitous Computing"
co-locates five successful related and complementary conferences:
- International Symposium on Distributed Objects and Applications (DOA'08)
- International Conference on Ontologies, Databases and Applications of
Semantics (ODBASE'08)
- International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS'08)
- International Symposium on Grid computing, high-performAnce and Distributed
Applications (GADA'08)
- International Symposium on Information Security (IS'08)

Each conference covers multiple research vectors, viz. theory (e.g. underlying
formalisms), conceptual (e.g. technical designs and conceptual solutions) and
applications (e.g. case studies and industrial best practices). All five
conferences share the scientific study of the distributed, conceptual and
ubiquitous aspects of modern computing systems, and share the resulting
application-pull created by the WWW.

PAPER SUBMISSION SITE
http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/fedconf/index.html?page=submit

IMPORTANT DEADLINES:

- Abstract submission: June 8, 2008
- Paper submission: June 15, 2008
- Acceptance notification: August 10, 2008
- Camera ready: August 25, 2008
- Registration: August 25, 2008
- OTM Conferences: November 9 - 14, 2008

PROGRAM COMMITTEE CHAIRS

CoopIS PC Co-Chairs (coopis2008@cs.rmit.edu.au)
* Johann Eder, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
* Masaru Kitsuregawa, University of Tokyo, Japan
* Ling Liu, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

DOA PC Co-Chairs (doa2008@cs.rmit.edu.au)
* Mark Little, Red Hat, UK
* Alberto Montresor, University of Trento, Italy
* Greg Pavlik, Oracle, USA

ODBASE PC Co-Chairs (odbase2008@cs.rmit.edu.au)
* Malu Castellanos, HP, USA
* Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento, Italy
* Feng Ling, Tsinghua University, China

GADA PC Co-Chairs (gada2008@cs.rmit.edu.au)
* Dennis Gannon, Indiana University, USA
* Pilar Herrero, Universidad PolitƩcnica de Madrid, Spain
* Daniel S. Katz, Louisiana State University, USA
* Marƭa S. PƩrez, Universidad PolitƩcnica de Madrid, Spain

IS PC Co-Chairs (is2008@cs.rmit.edu.au)
* Jong Hyuk Park, Kyungnam University, Korea
* Bart Preneel, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
* Ravi Sandhu, University of Texas, USA
* André Zúquete, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Israeli Startups Part Two

A follow on panel May 1 in Palo Alto discussing successful tech companies birthed in Israel.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Darwin Online

I'm a part time science buff, by which I mean I enjoy science but don't always have bandwidth to stay up on science news. However, present work necessarily builds on the past and it's always a pleasure to spend time looking back at the history of science. I recently discovered this very cool repository of the complete works of Charles Darwin. It's humbling to realize the number of fundamental insights that Darwin was able to decipher from this observations: he was truly one of history's great geniuses. Nature recently ran a wonderful story on Darwin's key contributions to current scientific understanding, though it unfortunately requires a subscription.

Russian millionare count soaring

Kommersant reports that the number of Russian millionaires is now greater than the number of Indian millionaires. I had to do a double take on this: the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of India is economic growth and transformation. Perhaps that is giving India a bit of short change, since it also boasts a rich cultural and religious history that has influenced large swaths of the globe.

To an extent, this reinforces my belief that Russia is the hidden gem in so-called emerging markets at the moment. While this may be a cause for celebration, it is also a cause for concern: take a deeper look and you'll find that the wealth is being generated predominantly in connection with extractive industries. This means the economy is vulnerable to price pullbacks in commodities and not structured to experience the kind of explosive and sustainable growth associated with technology and intellectual industries. Extraction based economies have had a devil of a time diversifying. The Kremlin is looking to address this in fits and starts (see previous posts that look at some of initiatives of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade), but it is a decisive matter for the future of the Russian economy that will influence the country for generations to come.

In the meantime, I believe India is doing a lot of the right things, especially by building industry (and wealth) organically, based on intellectual capital. They are still leading the way for emerging markets and in some ways for everyone.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Coaldale History

I got feedback from several people interested in coal mining history in Pennsylvania based on my previous blog entry, none of whom I know: it's amazing how many random connections you get from Web searches. In any case, I wanted to link to a really interesting set of articles that traces the history of the region around Coaldale in its early stage, including the tensions that existed in the mining communities. I remember hearing stories as a kid about the "Black Marias" that would drop off the bodies of miners after an accident.

The source site is an interesting assembly of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant histories, which is part of the background on my grandmother's side. By her generation, everyone seemed to think of themselves generically as Russian, but the background of many was more diverse and our family has a variety of Eastern Slavic traditions. For example, most of the Pascha activities I remember best were heavily influenced by the traditions of Ukraine.

The Carpatho-Rusyn ethnic group is not well known. As a matter of interest, here's a link to an overview of their history. Many were probably Uniate or so-called Greek Catholics, though in the US they were poorly received by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church and I believe many moved back after centuries to the Eastern Orthodox church, specifically under the autocephalous church in Moscow. Other Eastern European ethnic groups in the region included, according the the New York Times, Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Russians, Jews and Hungarians. The derogatory term "Hunky" was a generic reference to Eastern European immigrants in this region, derived from the fact that many of the immigrants were believed to have migrated from the Austro-Hungarian empire.