Introduction
The
introduction
of
software
based
laboratory
information
management
systems
(LIMS)
has
helped
manage
many
aspects
of
the
laboratory,
from
movement
of
samples
and
people
to
the
experiments
being
carried
out
.
These
management
systems
have
been
developed
further
to
interact
directly
with
devices
in
the
laboratory,
automating
certain
experiments
(such
as
auto
-
samplers)
.
The
use
of
online
systems
allows
for
remote
management
and
control
of
experiments
through
web
browsers
and,
where
possible,
through
hand
held
devices
such
as
mobile
phones
[
1
]
.
Allowing
remote
control
and
review
can
benefit
the
experimenter
in
a
number
of
ways
such
as
increasing
safety
where
the
experimental
environment
is
unsafe
to
remain
in,
improving
results
where
small
changes
in
the
environment
greatly
affect
the
obtained
results
and
can
save
time
through
early
detection
of
failures
.
Web Tools, Mashups and Automated Lasers
Stephen Wilson
&
Jeremy Frey*
School of Chemistry, University of Southampton,
Highfield
, Southampton, SO17
1BJ, UK;
sw1703@soton.ac.uk
Acknowledgments
Stephen
Wilson
thanks
the
EPSRC
for
a
studentship
.
Stephen
would
also
like
to
thank
Professor
Jeremy
Frey
and
the
research
group
for
their
support
in
the
project
.
References
1.
J.M
. Robinson, J.G. Frey, A.D. Reynolds, B.V.
Bedi
, and A.J. Stanford
-
Clark. From the laboratory to the mobile
phone:
Middleware
for laboratory data acquisition using the publication subscribe model. In e
-
Science 2005, 2005.
2.
Andy J. Stanford
-
Clark. Integrating monitoring and telemetry devices as part of enterprise information resources.
WebSphere
MQ Integrator, March
2002.
3.
Microsoft MSDN. Publish Subscribe. [web page] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en
-
us/library/ms978603.aspx. [Accessed
29 September 2009].
4.
MQ
-
Telemetry Transport.
MQTT.org
. [web page] http://mqtt.org/. [Accessed 29 September 2009].
5.
Simile. Simile. [web page] http://simile.mit.edu/. [Accessed 29 September 2009].
Fig. 1.
The interaction between producers and consumers using the message broker
Message
Brokering
In
this
project
we
have
developed
software
to
control
and
review
an
experiment
to
study
liquid
interfaces
.
The
data
flow,
of
both
captured
data
and
control
messages,
are
handled
through
a
centralised
message
broker
.
The
large
results
files
are
transferred
through
a
parallel
higher
throughput
system,
preventing
the
message
broker
from
becoming
overloaded
.
This
broker,
called
the
Microbroker,
is
part
of
the
IBM
WebSphere
[
2
]
software
suite
.
The
Microbroker
follows
the
publish/subscribe
[
3
]
architecture
for
controlling
the
flow
of
messages
using
the
message
queue
transport
telemetry
(MQTT)
[
4
]
.
A
data
producer
acquires
data
from
a
source
and
publishes
this
to
the
Microbroker
.
A
data
consumer
receives
message
for
which
they
are
subscribed
to
.
Using
the
message
broker
allows
the
software
to
be
independent
of
the
overall
system
;
such
that
should
a
new
data
source
be
introduced
no
changes
to
the
existing
software
are
required,
only
that
a
new
topic
will
be
available
.
To
include
a
new
data
consumer,
this
only
needs
to
subscribe
to
the
topics
it
is
interested
in,
rather
than
having
to
change
all
the
existing
data
producers
.
This
is
shown
in
Fig
.
1
.
Web
tools
The
development
of
Web
2
.
0
and
XML
has
led
to
a
number
of
tools
and
services
which
are
now
available
as
open
source
software
;
many
of
which
can
be
used
in
the
research
domain
.
Examples
of
these
can
be
well
known
websites
such
as
YouTube,
Flickr
or
more
specific
research
domain
tools
such
as
CiteULike
,
Connotea
or
Delicious
.
These
tools
are
scalable
to
a
number
of
domains
as
they
use
an
application
programming
interface
(API),
this
is
a
predefined
vocabulary
for
interacting
with
the
service
and
will
be
how
they
are
linked
to
the
message
broker
.
Although
these
tools
alone
are
useful,
many
can
be
combined
to
generate
a
more
descriptive
view
of
the
data
;
this
combination
of
web
services
and
tools
can
be
described
as
a
mashup
.
In
this
work
we
have
looked
at
tools
provided
by
the
Simile
group
[
5
]
such
as
graphing
and
facetted
searching
solutions
as
well
as
services
provided
by
Google
.
The
Liquid
Interface
Experiment
–
Control
In
this
project
an
experiment
to
study
the
liquid
interface
by
second
harmonic
generation
(SHG)
was
automated
using
the
Microbroker
to
control
the
flow
of
messages
both
to
the
apparatus
and
from
the
data
sources
.
The
SHG
experiment
consists
of
a
number
of
experimental
components,
each
of
which
can
be
controlled
through
RS
-
232
,
and
a
data
acquisition
card
.
The
main
parts
of
the
experimental
set
up
are
a
laser
source,
a
shutter,
two
polarisation
rotators
(input
and
output)
and
a
sample
diluter
;
the
experimental
set
up
is
shown
in
Fig
.
2
.
Simple
Perl
scripts
were
generated
to
subscribe
to
a
control
channel
of
the
message
broker,
when
a
message
is
received
this
was
converted
to
the
device
specific
command
and
sent
through
RS
-
232
to
the
device
.
As
the
message
broker
software
handles
all
the
communication
protocol
each
script
was
approximately
twenty
lines
of
code
.
At
this
time
security
is
handled
through
restricted
network
access
although
it
is
planned
to
implement
a
security
system
in
the
future
.
There
are
also
hardware
based
security
mechanisms
to
prevent
injury
and
damage
.
Fig.
2. The SHG laser apparatus showing the components of the system and how they communicate
with the message broker
The
Liquid
Interface
Experiment
–
Mashup
review
The
experimental
review
mashup
website
was
developed
in
PHP
and
uses
a
number
of
services
available
via
the
web
from
other
developers
.
To
allow
for
faster
searching
of
experiments
the
Simile
Timeline
software
is
used
.
The
Timeline
software
provides
an
overview
of
all
the
experiments
carried
out
via
a
timeline,
this
can
be
dragged
using
the
mouse
to
move
through
time
.
The
granularity
of
the
timeline
(such
as
hour,
day
or
year)
can
be
customised
and
combined
to
provide
faster
searching
.
Experiments
within
the
timeline
can
be
colour
coded
to
distinguish
between
certain
nodes
.
Once
an
experiment
has
been
selected
a
number
of
tools
are
used
to
generate
a
view
of
the
experiment
in
its
current
state
.
The
experimental
metadata
is
displayed
in
a
tabular
format
using
the
Google
Docs
API
;
here
each
cell
can
be
referenced
by
a
single
URI,
allowing
faster
abstraction
of
the
metadata
.
The
experimental
results
are
plotted
using
the
Google
Chart
API,
this
uses
a
single
URL
to
generate
a
plot
.
This
can
also
provide
mouse
over
functionality
to
display
information
about
each
point
and
embedded
links
within
the
plot
to
get
further
data
about
each
data
point
.
The
environmental
data
such
as
temperature,
humidity
and
light
levels
associated
with
the
experiment
can
also
be
reviewed
.
If
the
experiment
is
still
running
the
most
recent
values
are
shown
in
a
tabular
view
.
If
the
experiment
has
completed
the
Simile
Timeplot
software
is
used
to
generate
a
interactive
plot
of
this
environmental
data
.
The
Timeplot
software
reads
CSV
and
XML
data
files
and
generates
a
time
plot
of
the
data,
this
also
has
mouse
over
functionality
.
Fig
.
3
.
shows
a
number
of
screenshots
from
the
review
website
Fig.
3. Various parts of the SHG experimental mashup review website
Conclusions
The
use
of
the
Microbroker
as
a
standardised
communication
protocol
has
allowed
for
rapid
development
of
software
for
both
handling
acquired
data
and
sending
control
messages
.
As
each
component
is
only
required
to
interact
with
the
broker
the
system
can
be
set
up
as
a
distributed
deployment
.
This
allows
machine
demanding
processes,
such
as
data
acquisition,
to
run
on
a
remote
dedicated
server
;
reducing
the
load
on
the
other
machines
.
This
has
also
allowed
for
faster
integration
of
new
components,
the
addition
of
a
new
control
device
only
required
a
new
topic
.
The
use
of
parallel
transfer
systems
for
larger
data
files
has
prevented
the
broker
from
becoming
overloaded
.
It
has
been
shown
that
a
number
of
web
tools
and
services
can
be
used
in
the
research
domain
to
provide
a
detailed
view
of
experimental
data
.
The
ease
of
use
of
these
tools
is
greatly
increased
by
a
well
documented
API
.
When
combined,
these
tools
can
provide
more
detail
on
the
data
than
if
used
alone
.
The
Simile
tools
are
all
developed
with
inter
-
connectivity
in
mind
and
therefore
are
easy
to
integrate
with
each
other
.
Message
Broker
Data Producers
Data Consumers
Result Modelling
Result Review
Experiment Timeline
Data Point Review
Environmental conditions
Message Broker
Sample
Laser
source
Laser shutter
Polarisation
rotator
Polarisation
rotator
Detector
Dual syringe
diluter
Database
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