Configuration management and product lines to enhance the replication process in software engineering

This research is concerned with the experimental software engineering area, specifically experiment replication. Replication has traditionally been viewed as a complex task in software engineering. This is possibly due to the present immaturity of the experimental paradigm applied to software development. Researchers usually use replication packages to replicate an experiment. However, replication packages are not the solution to all the information management problems that crop up when successive replications of an experiment accumulate. This research borrows ideas from the software configuration management and software product line paradigms to support the replication process. We believe that configuration management can help to manage and administer information from one replication to another: hypotheses, designs, data analysis, etc. The software product line paradigm can help to organize and manage any changes introduced into the experiment by each replication. We expect the union of the two paradigms in replication to improve the planning, design and execution of further replications and their alignment with existing replications. Additionally, this research work will contribute a web support environment for archiving information related to different experiment replications. Additionally, it will provide flexible enough information management support for running replications with different numbers and types of changes. Finally, it will afford massive storage of data from different replications. Experimenters working collaboratively on the same experiment must all have access to the different experiments.

Conceptualización e Infraestructura para la Investigación Experimental en Ingeniería del Software

Antecedentes: Esta investigación se enmarca principalmente en la replicación y secundariamente en la síntesis de experimentos en Ingeniería de Software (IS). Para poder replicar, es necesario disponer de todos los detalles del experimento original. Sin embargo, la descripción de los experimentos es habitualmente incompleta debido a la existencia de conocimiento tácito y a la existencia de otros problemas tales como: La carencia de un formato estándar de reporte, la inexistencia de herramientas que den soporte a la generación de reportes experimentales, etc. Esto provoca que no se pueda reproducir fielmente el experimento original. Esta problemática limita considerablemente la capacidad de los experimentadores para llevar a cabo replicaciones y por ende síntesis de experimentos. Objetivo: La investigación tiene como objetivo formalizar el proceso experimental en IS, de modo que facilite la comunicación de información entre experimentadores. Contexto: El presente trabajo de tesis doctoral ha sido desarrollado en el seno del Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería del Software Empírica (GrISE) perteneciente a la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Informáticos (ETSIINF) de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), como parte del proyecto TIN2011-23216 denominado “Tecnologías para la Replicación y Síntesis de Experimentos en Ingeniería de Software”, el cual es financiado por el Gobierno de España. El grupo GrISE cumple a la perfección con los requisitos necesarios (familia de experimentos establecida, con al menos tres líneas experimentales y una amplia experiencia en replicaciones (16 replicaciones hasta 2011 en la línea de técnicas de pruebas de software)) y ofrece las condiciones para que la investigación se lleve a cabo de la mejor manera, como por ejemplo, el acceso total a su información. Método de Investigación: Para cumplir este objetivo se opta por Action Research (AR) como el método de investigación más adecuado a las características de la investigación, para obtener resultados a través de aproximaciones sucesivas que abordan los problemas concretos de comunicación entre experimentadores. Resultados: Se formalizó el modelo conceptual del ciclo experimental desde la perspectiva de los 3 roles principales que representan los experimentadores en el proceso experimental, siendo estos: Gestor de la Investigación (GI), Gestor del Experimento (GE) y Experimentador Senior (ES). Por otra parte, se formalizó el modelo del ciclo experimental, a través de: Un workflow del ciclo y un diagrama de procesos. Paralelamente a la formalización del proceso experimental en IS, se desarrolló ISRE (de las siglas en inglés Infrastructure for Sharing and Replicating Experiments), una prueba de concepto de entorno de soporte a la experimentación en IS. Finalmente, se plantearon guías para el desarrollo de entornos de soporte a la experimentación en IS, en base al estudio de las características principales y comunes de los modelos de las herramientas de soporte a la experimentación en distintas disciplinas experimentales. Conclusiones: La principal contribución de la investigación esta representada por la formalización del proceso experimental en IS. Los modelos que representan la formalización del ciclo experimental, así como la herramienta ISRE, construida a modo de evaluación de los modelos, fueron encontrados satisfactorios por los experimentadores del GrISE. Para consolidar la validez de la formalización, consideramos que este estudio debería ser replicado en otros grupos de investigación representativos en la comunidad de la IS experimental. Futuras Líneas de Investigación: El cumplimiento de los objetivos, de la mano con los hallazgos alcanzados, han dado paso a nuevas líneas de investigación, las cuales son las siguientes: (1) Considerar la construcción de un mecanismo para facilitar el proceso de hacer explícito el conocimiento tácito de los experimentadores por si mismos de forma colaborativa y basados en el debate y el consenso , (2) Continuar la investigación empírica en el mismo grupo de investigación hasta cubrir completamente el ciclo experimental (por ejemplo: experimentos nuevos, síntesis de resultados, etc.), (3) Replicar el proceso de investigación en otros grupos de investigación en ISE, y (4) Renovar la tecnología de la prueba de concepto, tal que responda a las restricciones y necesidades de un entorno real de investigación. ABSTRACT Background: This research addresses first and foremost the replication and also the synthesis of software engineering (SE) experiments. Replication is impossible without access to all the details of the original experiment. But the description of experiments is usually incomplete because knowledge is tacit, there is no standard reporting format or there are hardly any tools to support the generation of experimental reports, etc. This means that the original experiment cannot be reproduced exactly. These issues place considerable constraints on experimenters’ options for carrying out replications and ultimately synthesizing experiments. Aim: The aim of the research is to formalize the SE experimental process in order to facilitate information communication among experimenters. Context: This PhD research was developed within the empirical software engineering research group (GrISE) at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)’s School of Computer Engineering (ETSIINF) as part of project TIN2011-23216 entitled “Technologies for Software Engineering Experiment Replication and Synthesis”, which was funded by the Spanish Government. The GrISE research group fulfils all the requirements (established family of experiments with at least three experimental lines and lengthy replication experience (16 replications prior to 2011 in the software testing techniques line)) and provides favourable conditions for the research to be conducted in the best possible way, like, for example, full access to information. Research Method: We opted for action research (AR) as the research method best suited to the characteristics of the investigation. Results were generated successive rounds of AR addressing specific communication problems among experimenters. Results: The conceptual model of the experimental cycle was formalized from the viewpoint of three key roles representing experimenters in the experimental process. They were: research manager, experiment manager and senior experimenter. The model of the experimental cycle was formalized by means of a workflow and a process diagram. In tandem with the formalization of the SE experimental process, infrastructure for sharing and replicating experiments (ISRE) was developed. ISRE is a proof of concept of a SE experimentation support environment. Finally, guidelines for developing SE experimentation support environments were designed based on the study of the key features that the models of experimentation support tools for different experimental disciplines had in common. Conclusions: The key contribution of this research is the formalization of the SE experimental process. GrISE experimenters were satisfied with both the models representing the formalization of the experimental cycle and the ISRE tool built in order to evaluate the models. In order to further validate the formalization, this study should be replicated at other research groups representative of the experimental SE community. Future Research Lines: The achievement of the aims and the resulting findings have led to new research lines, which are as follows: (1) assess the feasibility of building a mechanism to help experimenters collaboratively specify tacit knowledge based on debate and consensus, (2) continue empirical research at the same research group in order to cover the remainder of the experimental cycle (for example, new experiments, results synthesis, etc.), (3) replicate the research process at other ESE research groups, and (4) update the tools of the proof of concept in order to meet the constraints and needs of a real research environment.

Novel Negotiation protocol to support CDM process in a layered ATM System

In the SESAR Step 2 concept of operations a RBT is available and seen by all making it possible to conceive a different operating method than the current ATM system based on Collaborative Decisions Making processes. Currently there is a need to describe in more detail the mechanisms by which actors (ATC, Network Management, Flight Crew, airports and Airline Operation Centre) will negotiate revisions to the RBT. This paper introduces a negotiation model, which uses constraint based programing applied to a mediator to facilitate negotiation process in a SWIM enabled environment. Three processes for modelling the negotiation process are explained as well a preliminary reasoning agent algorithm modelled with constraint satisfaction problem is presented. Computational capability of the model is evaluated in the conclusion.

Generating Awareness from Collaborative Working Environment using Social Data

Nowadays, Internet is a place where social networks have reached an important impact in collaboration among people over the world in different ways. This article proposes a new paradigm for building CSCW business tools following the novel ideas provided by the social web to collaborate and generate awareness. An implementation of these concepts is described, including the components we provide to collaborate in workspaces, (such as videoconference, chat, desktop sharing, forums or temporal events), and the way we generate awareness from these complex social data structures. Figures and validation results are also presented to stress that this architecture has been defined to support awareness generation via joining current and future social data from business and social networks worlds, based on the idea of using social data stored in the cloud.

Localization and activity detection Based on the fusion of environment And inertial sensors = Localización y detección de actividad Basadas en integración de sensores y dispositivos inerciales

Los sensores inerciales (acelerómetros y giróscopos) se han ido introduciendo poco a poco en dispositivos que usamos en nuestra vida diaria gracias a su minituarización. Hoy en día todos los smartphones contienen como mínimo un acelerómetro y un magnetómetro, siendo complementados en losmás modernos por giróscopos y barómetros. Esto, unido a la proliferación de los smartphones ha hecho viable el diseño de sistemas basados en las medidas de sensores que el usuario lleva colocados en alguna parte del cuerpo (que en un futuro estarán contenidos en tejidos inteligentes) o los integrados en su móvil. El papel de estos sensores se ha convertido en fundamental para el desarrollo de aplicaciones contextuales y de inteligencia ambiental. Algunos ejemplos son el control de los ejercicios de rehabilitación o la oferta de información referente al sitio turístico que se está visitando. El trabajo de esta tesis contribuye a explorar las posibilidades que ofrecen los sensores inerciales para el apoyo a la detección de actividad y la mejora de la precisión de servicios de localización para peatones. En lo referente al reconocimiento de la actividad que desarrolla un usuario, se ha explorado el uso de los sensores integrados en los dispositivos móviles de última generación (luz y proximidad, acelerómetro, giróscopo y magnetómetro). Las actividades objetivo son conocidas como ‘atómicas’ (andar a distintas velocidades, estar de pie, correr, estar sentado), esto es, actividades que constituyen unidades de actividades más complejas como pueden ser lavar los platos o ir al trabajo. De este modo, se usan algoritmos de clasificación sencillos que puedan ser integrados en un móvil como el Naïve Bayes, Tablas y Árboles de Decisión. Además, se pretende igualmente detectar la posición en la que el usuario lleva el móvil, no sólo con el objetivo de utilizar esa información para elegir un clasificador entrenado sólo con datos recogidos en la posición correspondiente (estrategia que mejora los resultados de estimación de la actividad), sino también para la generación de un evento que puede producir la ejecución de una acción. Finalmente, el trabajo incluye un análisis de las prestaciones de la clasificación variando el tipo de parámetros y el número de sensores usados y teniendo en cuenta no sólo la precisión de la clasificación sino también la carga computacional. Por otra parte, se ha propuesto un algoritmo basado en la cuenta de pasos utilizando informaiii ción proveniente de un acelerómetro colocado en el pie del usuario. El objetivo final es detectar la actividad que el usuario está haciendo junto con la estimación aproximada de la distancia recorrida. El algoritmo de cuenta pasos se basa en la detección de máximos y mínimos usando ventanas temporales y umbrales sin requerir información específica del usuario. El ámbito de seguimiento de peatones en interiores es interesante por la falta de un estándar de localización en este tipo de entornos. Se ha diseñado un filtro extendido de Kalman centralizado y ligeramente acoplado para fusionar la información medida por un acelerómetro colocado en el pie del usuario con medidas de posición. Se han aplicado también diferentes técnicas de corrección de errores como las de velocidad cero que se basan en la detección de los instantes en los que el pie está apoyado en el suelo. Los resultados han sido obtenidos en entornos interiores usando las posiciones estimadas por un sistema de triangulación basado en la medida de la potencia recibida (RSS) y GPS en exteriores. Finalmente, se han implementado algunas aplicaciones que prueban la utilidad del trabajo desarrollado. En primer lugar se ha considerado una aplicación de monitorización de actividad que proporciona al usuario información sobre el nivel de actividad que realiza durante un período de tiempo. El objetivo final es favorecer el cambio de comportamientos sedentarios, consiguiendo hábitos saludables. Se han desarrollado dos versiones de esta aplicación. En el primer caso se ha integrado el algoritmo de cuenta pasos en una plataforma OSGi móvil adquiriendo los datos de un acelerómetro Bluetooth colocado en el pie. En el segundo caso se ha creado la misma aplicación utilizando las implementaciones de los clasificadores en un dispositivo Android. Por otro lado, se ha planteado el diseño de una aplicación para la creación automática de un diario de viaje a partir de la detección de eventos importantes. Esta aplicación toma como entrada la información procedente de la estimación de actividad y de localización además de información almacenada en bases de datos abiertas (fotos, información sobre sitios) e información sobre sensores reales y virtuales (agenda, cámara, etc.) del móvil. Abstract Inertial sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes) have been gradually embedded in the devices that people use in their daily lives thanks to their miniaturization. Nowadays all smartphones have at least one embedded magnetometer and accelerometer, containing the most upto- date ones gyroscopes and barometers. This issue, together with the fact that the penetration of smartphones is growing steadily, has made possible the design of systems that rely on the information gathered by wearable sensors (in the future contained in smart textiles) or inertial sensors embedded in a smartphone. The role of these sensors has become key to the development of context-aware and ambient intelligent applications. Some examples are the performance of rehabilitation exercises, the provision of information related to the place that the user is visiting or the interaction with objects by gesture recognition. The work of this thesis contributes to explore to which extent this kind of sensors can be useful to support activity recognition and pedestrian tracking, which have been proven to be essential for these applications. Regarding the recognition of the activity that a user performs, the use of sensors embedded in a smartphone (proximity and light sensors, gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers) has been explored. The activities that are detected belong to the group of the ones known as ‘atomic’ activities (e.g. walking at different paces, running, standing), that is, activities or movements that are part of more complex activities such as doing the dishes or commuting. Simple, wellknown classifiers that can run embedded in a smartphone have been tested, such as Naïve Bayes, Decision Tables and Trees. In addition to this, another aim is to estimate the on-body position in which the user is carrying the mobile phone. The objective is not only to choose a classifier that has been trained with the corresponding data in order to enhance the classification but also to start actions. Finally, the performance of the different classifiers is analysed, taking into consideration different features and number of sensors. The computational and memory load of the classifiers is also measured. On the other hand, an algorithm based on step counting has been proposed. The acceleration information is provided by an accelerometer placed on the foot. The aim is to detect the activity that the user is performing together with the estimation of the distance covered. The step counting strategy is based on detecting minima and its corresponding maxima. Although the counting strategy is not innovative (it includes time windows and amplitude thresholds to prevent under or overestimation) no user-specific information is required. The field of pedestrian tracking is crucial due to the lack of a localization standard for this kind of environments. A loosely-coupled centralized Extended Kalman Filter has been proposed to perform the fusion of inertial and position measurements. Zero velocity updates have been applied whenever the foot is detected to be placed on the ground. The results have been obtained in indoor environments using a triangulation algorithm based on RSS measurements and GPS outdoors. Finally, some applications have been designed to test the usefulness of the work. The first one is called the ‘Activity Monitor’ whose aim is to prevent sedentary behaviours and to modify habits to achieve desired objectives of activity level. Two different versions of the application have been implemented. The first one uses the activity estimation based on the step counting algorithm, which has been integrated in an OSGi mobile framework acquiring the data from a Bluetooth accelerometer placed on the foot of the individual. The second one uses activity classifiers embedded in an Android smartphone. On the other hand, the design of a ‘Travel Logbook’ has been planned. The input of this application is the information provided by the activity and localization modules, external databases (e.g. pictures, points of interest, weather) and mobile embedded and virtual sensors (agenda, camera, etc.). The aim is to detect important events in the journey and gather the information necessary to store it as a journal page.

Integration of research advances in modelling and monitoring in support of WFD river basin management planning in the context of climate change

The integration of scientific knowledge about possible climate change impacts on water resources has a direct implication on the way water policies are being implemented and evolving. This is particularly true regarding various technical steps embedded into the EU Water Framework Directive river basin management planning, such as risk characterisation, monitoring, design and implementation of action programmes and evaluation of the "good status" objective achievements (in 2015). The need to incorporate climate change considerations into the implementation of EU water policy is currently discussed with a wide range of experts and stakeholders at EU level. Research trends are also on-going, striving to support policy developments and examining how scientific findings and recommendations could be best taken on board by policy-makers and water managers within the forthcoming years. This paper provides a snapshot of policy discussions about climate change in the context of the WFD river basin management planning and specific advancements of related EU-funded research projects. Perspectives for strengthening links among the scientific and policy-making communities in this area are also highlighted.

Using configuration management and product line software paradigms to support the experimentation process in software engineering.

There is no empirical evidence whatsoever to support most of the beliefs on which software construction is based. We do not yet know the adequacy, limits, qualities, costs and risks of the technologies used to develop software. Experimentation helps to check and convert beliefs and opinions into facts. This research is concerned with the replication area. Replication is a key component for gathering empirical evidence on software development that can be used in industry to build better software more efficiently. Replication has not been an easy thing to do in software engineering (SE) because the experimental paradigm applied to software development is still immature. Nowadays, a replication is executed mostly using a traditional replication package. But traditional replication packages do not appear, for some reason, to have been as effective as expected for transferring information among researchers in SE experimentation. The trouble spot appears to be the replication setup, caused by version management problems with materials, instruments, documents, etc. This has proved to be an obstacle to obtaining enough details about the experiment to be able to reproduce it as exactly as possible. We address the problem of information exchange among experimenters by developing a schema to characterize replications. We will adapt configuration management and product line ideas to support the experimentation process. This will enable researchers to make systematic decisions based on explicit knowledge rather than assumptions about replications. This research will output a replication support web environment. This environment will not only archive but also manage experimental materials flexibly enough to allow both similar and differentiated replications with massive experimental data storage. The platform should be accessible to several research groups working together on the same families of experiments.

A knowledge based framework to support active aging at home based environments

Information and Communication Technologies can support Active Aging strategies in a scenario like the Smart Home. This paper details a person centered distributed framework, called TALISMAN+, whose aim is to promote personal autonomy by taking advantage of knowledge based technologies, sensors networks, mobile devices and internet. The proposed solution can support an elderly person to keep living alone at his house without being obliged to move to a residential center. The framework is composed by five subsystems: a reasoning module that is able to take local decisions at home in order to support active aging, a biomedical variables telemonitorisation platform running on a mobile device, a hybrid reasoning middleware aimed to assess cardiovascular risk in a remote way, a private vision based sensor subsystem, and a secure telematics solution that guarantees confidentiality for personal information. TALISMAN+ framework deployment is being evaluated at a real environment like the Accessible Digital Home.

Enhancement of a body area network to support smart health monitoring at the digital home

The deployment of home-based smart health services requires effective and reliable systems for personal and environmental data management. ooperation between Home Area Networks (HAN) and Body Area Networks (BAN) can provide smart systems with ad hoc reasoning information to support health care. This paper details the implementation of an architecture that integrates BAN, HAN and intelligent agents to manage physiological and environmental data to proactively detect risk situations at the digital home. The system monitors dynamic situations and timely adjusts its behavior to detect user risks concerning to health. Thus, this work provides a reasoning framework to infer appropriate solutions in cases of health risk episodes. Proposed smart health monitoring approach integrates complex reasoning according to home environment, user profile and physiological parameters defined by a scalable ontology. As a result, health care demands can be detected to activate adequate internal mechanisms and report public health services for requested actions.

A Web-based Support System for Providing Effective Monitoring, Feedback and Evaluation in Project Management Education

This work introduces a web-based learning environment to facilitate learning in Project Management. The proposed web-based support system integrates methodological procedures and information systems, allowing to promote learning among geographically-dispersed students. Thus, students who are enrolled in different universities at different locations and attend their own project management courses, share a virtual experience in executing and managing projects. Specific support systems were used or developed to automatically collect information about student activities, making it possible to monitor the progress made on learning and assess learning performance as established in the defined rubric.

Participatory modelling to support decision making in water management under uncertainty: Two comparative case studies in the Guadiana river basin, Spain.

A participatory modelling process has been conducted in two areas of the Guadiana river (the upper and the middle sub-basins), in Spain, with the aim of providing support for decision making in the water management field. The area has a semi-arid climate where irrigated agriculture plays a key role in the economic development of the region and accounts for around 90% of water use. Following the guidelines of the European Water Framework Directive, we promote stakeholder involvement in water management with the aim to achieve an improved understanding of the water system and to encourage the exchange of knowledge and views between stakeholders in order to help building a shared vision of the system. At the same time, the resulting models, which integrate the different sectors and views, provide some insight of the impacts that different management options and possible future scenarios could have. The methodology is based on a Bayesian network combined with an economic model and, in the middle Guadiana sub-basin, with a crop model. The resulting integrated modelling framework is used to simulate possible water policy, market and climate scenarios to find out the impacts of those scenarios on farm income and on the environment. At the end of the modelling process, an evaluation questionnaire was filled by participants in both sub-basins. Results show that this type of processes are found very helpful by stakeholders to improve the system understanding, to understand each others views and to reduce conflict when it exists. In addition, they found the model an extremely useful tool to support management. The graphical interface, the quantitative output and the explicit representation of uncertainty helped stakeholders to better understand the implications of the scenario tested. Finally, the combination of different types of models was also found very useful, as it allowed exploring in detail specific aspects of the water management problems.

Exploring public support for climate change adaptation policies in the Mediterranean region: A case study in Southern Spain.

The understanding of public perception to climate change is an essential factor in the development of adaptation policies. In the Mediterranean, agriculture, as the largest consumer of freshwater, has the highest potential to suffer adverse impacts of climate change. Future water availability predictions, conflicting interests among stakeholders and an increasing social concern about the environment further aggravate the situation. Therefore studying public support for adaptation policies can play a key role in successfully adapting the sector. The study site, approximately 36,000 hectares of rice fields in Seville (Spain), exemplifies an area in the Mediterranean where water needs to be carefully re-allocated in view of the limitations anticipated by climate change scenarios; in particular where conflicts will arise between water for agriculture and water for ‘natural’ ecosystems. This paper proposes an ex-ante evaluation of the societal support for adaptation policies. A survey of 117 respondents was conducted and a Logit model utilized to analyze which predictors positively or negatively affect people's support for adaptation policies. Results suggest that the main barriers to support these policies were economic losses and low climate change concern whereas the primary motivation factor was environmental commitment. Additionally, the main socio-demographic determinants were gender, age, education and family structure. In order to improve societal support for climate change adaptation policies, implementing educational and awareness raising initiatives will be the main challenges for policy makers to overcome.

A reliable support tool for monitoring, testing and debugging wireless sensor cookie nodes

In this work a WSN Support Tool for developing, testing, monitoring and debugging new application prototypes in a reliable and robust way is proposed, by combining a Hardware -Software Integration Platform with the implementation of a parallel communication channel that helps users to interact to the experiments in runtime without interfering in the operation of the wireless network. As a pre-deployment tool, prototypes can be validated in a real environment before implementing them in the final application, aiming to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the technology. This infrastructure is the support of CookieLab: a WSN testbed based on the Cookie Nodes Platform.

Terminological Importation for Adapting Reusable Knowledge Representation Components in the KSM Environment

This paper describes the adaptation approach of reusable knowledge representation components used in the KSM environment for the formulation and operationalisation of structured knowledge models. Reusable knowledge representation components in KSM are called primitives of representation. A primitive of representation provides: (1) a knowledge representation formalism (2) a set of tasks that use this knowledge together with several problem-solving methods to carry out these tasks (3) a knowledge acquisition module that provides different services to acquire and validate this knowledge (4) an abstract terminology about the linguistic categories included in the representation language associated to the primitive. Primitives of representation usually are domain independent. A primitive of representation can be adapted to support knowledge in a given domain by importing concepts from this domain. The paper describes how this activity can be carried out by mean of a terminological importation. Informally, a terminological importation partially populates an abstract terminology with concepts taken from a given domain. The information provided by the importation can be used by the acquisition and validation facilities to constraint the classes of knowledge that can be described using the representation formalism according to the domain knowledge. KSM provides the LINK-S language to specify terminological importation from a domain terminology to an abstract one. These terminologies are described in KSM by mean of the CONCEL language. Terminological importation is used to adapt reusable primitives of representation in order to increase the usability degree of such components in these domains. In addition, two primitives of representation can share a common vocabulary by importing common domain CONCEL terminologies (conceptual vocabularies). It is a necessary condition to make possible the interoperability between different, heterogeneous knowledge representation components in the framework of complex knowledge - based architectures.

Thin Client Technology in the Academic Environment

From research groups at the universities of developed countries there is a growing interest in providing solutions to problems of developing countries. In this context we have studied typical problems in many (educational) institutions, such as the lack of technicians who repair the computers, the administration of the machines, and also the difficulty to maintain and configure the old hardware available due to the variety of characteristics of the different machines and the amount of hardware breakdowns and software issues (viruses, administration issues) that the local staff has to face up to with their equipments. We propose a thin client approach that takes into account the human, hardware and software characteristics of developing institutions to provide a complete service for a computer network. The network administration is reduced to the administration of one server only. The maintenance of the machines is simplified and old computers can simulate the running of a powerful computer. Our proposal results in a cheap, simple (from the support point of view) and powerful (in terms of achieved functionalities) design.