Metodologia híbrida de desenvolvimento centrado no utilizador: aplicada ao software educativo

No panorama atual do desenvolvimento de software educativo é importante que os processos de desenvolvimento sejam adequados e compatíveis com o contexto em que serão utilizados este tipo de recursos. Desta forma, é importante melhorar continuamente os processos de desenvolvimento bem como se proceder à avaliação de forma a garantir a sua qualidade e viabilidade económica. Este estudo propõe uma Metodologia Híbrida de Desenvolvimento Centrado no Utilizador (MHDCU) aplicada ao software educativo. Trata-se de um processo de desenvolvimento simples, iterativo e incremental que tem como “alicerces” princípios do Design Centrado no Utilizador, especificados na International Organization for Standardization - ISO 13407. Na sua base encontra-se a estrutura disciplinada de processos de desenvolvimento, bem como práticas e valores dos métodos ágeis de desenvolvimento de software. O processo é constituído por 4 fases principais: planeamento (guião didático), design (storyboard), implementação e manutenção/operação. A prototipagem e a avaliação são realizadas de modo transversal a todo o processo. A metodologia foi implementada numa Pequena e Média Empresa de desenvolvimento de recursos educacionais, com o objetivo de desenvolver recursos educacionais com qualidade reconhecida e simultaneamente viáveis do ponto de vista económico. O primeiro recurso que teve por base a utilização desta metodologia foi o Courseware Sere – “O Ser Humano e os Recursos Naturais”. O trabalho seguiu uma metodologia de investigação & desenvolvimento, de natureza mista, em que se pretendeu descrever e analisar/avaliar uma metodologia de desenvolvimento de software educativo, i.e., o processo, bem como o produto final. O estudo é fundamentalmente descritivo e exploratório. A metodologia de desenvolvimento do software (primeira questão de investigação) foi proposta, essencialmente, com base na revisão integrativa da literatura da especialidade e com base nos resultados que emergiram das Fases 2 e 3. Do ponto de vista exploratório, foi avaliado, por um lado, o potencial técnico e didático da 1ª versão do software inserido no Courseware Sere (segunda questão de investigação), e, por outro lado, analisar os pontos fortes e as fragilidades da metodologia utilizada para o seu desenvolvimento (terceira questão de investigação). Como técnicas de recolha de dados recorreu-se a dois inquéritos por questionário e à observação direta participante (mediada pela plataforma moodle). Quanto às técnicas de análise de dados optou-se pela análise estatística descritiva e pela análise de conteúdo. Os resultados indicam que o recurso desenvolvido possui qualidade técnica e didática. Relativamente a análise da Metodologia Híbrida de desenvolvimento Centrado no Utilizador foram propostas algumas melhorias relacionadas com o envolvimento do utilizador e introdução de novos métodos. Apesar de identificadas algumas limitações, este projeto permitiu que a empresa melhorasse significativamente os processos de desenvolvimento de recursos (mesmo os que não são informatizados), bem como permitiu o aumento do seu portefólio com o desenvolvimento do Courseware Sere.

Boost Software Business Products with Hybrid Development

This paper presents how new paradigms and methodologies for software development are changing rapidly in the last two years. In the current scenario where we live on, occurs a transition that, although slight, reflects the rapid manner in which the software production paradigms are reinvented due to the change of display devices and interaction with the end user. Studies indicate that in 2013 was the turn out of the internet access domain for mobile devices over the traditional desktop device, which is currently at around 60% mobile, against 40% desktop. This field will tend to grow in the coming years and it is expected that the use of internet for a desktop terminal tends to be less each day (comScore). In this context, the software industry has been re-invented and updated with respect to technologies that promote software and mobile applications, building products capable of responding to the user market. The development of software products, such as applications, must be put into production for different user environments, such as Web, iOS and Android in a way to enhance efficiency, optimization and productivity in the software development cycle (Langer, Arthur M.).

Model-based systems engineering: a system for traffic & environment

The contemporary world is crowded of large, interdisciplinary, complex systems made of other systems, personnel, hardware, software, information, processes, and facilities. The Systems Engineering (SE) field proposes an integrated holistic approach to tackle these socio-technical systems that is crucial to take proper account of their multifaceted nature and numerous interrelationships, providing the means to enable their successful realization. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is an emerging paradigm in the SE field and can be described as the formalized application of modelling principles, methods, languages, and tools to the entire lifecycle of those systems, enhancing communications and knowledge capture, shared understanding, improved design precision and integrity, better development traceability, and reduced development risks. This thesis is devoted to the application of the novel MBSE paradigm to the Urban Traffic & Environment domain. The proposed system, the GUILTE (Guiding Urban Intelligent Traffic & Environment), deals with a present-day real challenging problem “at the agenda” of world leaders, national governors, local authorities, research agencies, academia, and general public. The main purposes of the system are to provide an integrated development framework for the municipalities, and to support the (short-time and real-time) operations of the urban traffic through Intelligent Transportation Systems, highlighting two fundamental aspects: the evaluation of the related environmental impacts (in particular, the air pollution and the noise), and the dissemination of information to the citizens, endorsing their involvement and participation. These objectives are related with the high-level complex challenge of developing sustainable urban transportation networks. The development process of the GUILTE system is supported by a new methodology, the LITHE (Agile Systems Modelling Engineering), which aims to lightening the complexity and burdensome of the existing methodologies by emphasizing agile principles such as continuous communication, feedback, stakeholders involvement, short iterations and rapid response. These principles are accomplished through a universal and intuitive SE process, the SIMILAR process model (which was redefined at the light of the modern international standards), a lean MBSE method, and a coherent System Model developed through the benchmark graphical modeling languages SysML and OPDs/OPL. The main contributions of the work are, in their essence, models and can be settled as: a revised process model for the SE field, an agile methodology for MBSE development environments, a graphical tool to support the proposed methodology, and a System Model for the GUILTE system. The comprehensive literature reviews provided for the main scientific field of this research (SE/MBSE) and for the application domain (Traffic & Environment) can also be seen as a relevant contribution.

Service composition for biomedical applications

A exigente inovação na área das aplicações biomédicas tem guiado a evolução das tecnologias de informação nas últimas décadas. Os desafios associados a uma gestão, integração, análise e interpretação eficientes dos dados provenientes das mais modernas tecnologias de hardware e software requerem um esforço concertado. Desde hardware para sequenciação de genes a registos electrónicos de paciente, passando por pesquisa de fármacos, a possibilidade de explorar com precisão os dados destes ambientes é vital para a compreensão da saúde humana. Esta tese engloba a discussão e o desenvolvimento de melhores estratégias informáticas para ultrapassar estes desafios, principalmente no contexto da composição de serviços, incluindo técnicas flexíveis de integração de dados, como warehousing ou federação, e técnicas avançadas de interoperabilidade, como serviços web ou LinkedData. A composição de serviços é apresentada como um ideal genérico, direcionado para a integração de dados e para a interoperabilidade de software. Relativamente a esta última, esta investigação debruçou-se sobre o campo da farmacovigilância, no contexto do projeto Europeu EU-ADR. As contribuições para este projeto, um novo standard de interoperabilidade e um motor de execução de workflows, sustentam a sucesso da EU-ADR Web Platform, uma plataforma para realizar estudos avançados de farmacovigilância. No contexto do projeto Europeu GEN2PHEN, esta investigação visou ultrapassar os desafios associados à integração de dados distribuídos e heterogéneos no campo do varíoma humano. Foi criada uma nova solução, WAVe - Web Analyses of the Variome, que fornece uma coleção rica de dados de variação genética através de uma interface Web inovadora e de uma API avançada. O desenvolvimento destas estratégias evidenciou duas oportunidades claras na área de software biomédico: melhorar o processo de implementação de software através do recurso a técnicas de desenvolvimento rápidas e aperfeiçoar a qualidade e disponibilidade dos dados através da adopção do paradigma de web semântica. A plataforma COEUS atravessa as fronteiras de integração e interoperabilidade, fornecendo metodologias para a aquisição e tradução flexíveis de dados, bem como uma camada de serviços interoperáveis para explorar semanticamente os dados agregados. Combinando as técnicas de desenvolvimento rápidas com a riqueza da perspectiva "Semantic Web in a box", a plataforma COEUS é uma aproximação pioneira, permitindo o desenvolvimento da próxima geração de aplicações biomédicas.

Development of a sustainable method for the extraction of lycopene and β-carotene from food wastes

The main objective of the present work is the study of a profitable process not only in the extraction and selective separation of lycopene and β-carotene, two compounds present in tomato, but also in its potential application to food industry wastes. This is one of the industries that produce larger amounts of wastes, which are rich in high value biomolecules with great economic interest. However, the conventional methods used to extract this kind of compounds are expensive which limits their application at large scale. Lycopene and βcarotene are carotenoids with high commercial value, known for their antioxidant activity and benefits to human health. Their biggest source is tomato, one of the world’s most consumed fruits, reason for which large quantities of waste is produced. This work focuses on the study of diverse solvents with a high potential to extract carotenoids from tomato, as well as the search for more environmentally benign solvents than those currently used to extract lycopene and β-carotene from biomass. Additionally, special attention was paid to the creation of a continuous process that would allow the fractionation of the compounds for further purification. Thus, the present work started with the extraction of both carotenoids using a wide range of solvents, namely, organic solvents, conventional salts, ionic liquids, polymers and surfactants. In this stage, each solvent was evaluated in what regards their capacity of extraction as well as their penetration ability in biomass. The results collected showed that an adequate selection of the solvents may lead to the complete extraction of both carotenoids in one single step, particularly acetone and tetrahydrofuran were the most effective ones. However, the general low penetration capacity of salts, ionic liquids, polymers and surfactants makes these solvents ineffective in the solid-liquid extraction process. As the organic solvents showed the highest capacity to extract lycopene and βcarotene, in particular tetrahydrofuran and acetone, the latter solvent used in the development process of fractionation, using to this by strategic use of solvents. This step was only successfully developed through the manipulation of the solubility of each compound in ethanol and n-hexane. The results confirmed the possibility of fractionating the target compounds using the correct addition order of the solvents. Approximately, 39 % of the β-carotene was dissolved in ethanol and about 64 % of lycopene was dissolved in n-hexane, thus indicating their separation for two different solvents which shows the selective character of the developed process without any prior stage optimization. This study revealed that the use of organic solvents leads to selective extraction of lycopene and β-carotene, allowing diminishing the numerous stages involved in conventional methods. At the end, it was possible to idealize a sustainable and of high industrial relevance integrated process, nevertheless existing the need for additional optimization studies in the future.

Multi-purpose adaptable business tier components based on Call Level Interfaces

Call Level Interfaces (CLI) play a key role in business tiers of relational and on some NoSQL database applications whenever a fine tune control between application tiers and the host databases is a key requirement. Unfortunately, in spite of this significant advantage, CLI are low level API, this way not addressing high level architectural requirements. Among the examples we emphasize two situations: a) the need to decouple or not to decouple the development process of business tiers from the development process of application tiers and b) the need to automatically adapt business tiers to new business and/or security needs at runtime. To tackle these CLI drawbacks, and simultaneously keep their advantages, this paper proposes an architecture relying on CLI from which multi-purpose business tiers components are built, herein referred to as Adaptable Business Tier Components (ABTC). Beyond the reference architecture, this paper presents a proof of concept based on Java and Java Database Connectivity (an example of CLI).

ABTC: multi-purpose adaptable business tier components based on Call Level Interfaces

Call Level Interfaces (CLI) are low level API that play a key role in database applications whenever a fine tune control between application tiers and the host databases is a key requirement. Unfortunately, in spite of this significant advantage, CLI were not designed to address organizational requirements and contextual runtime requirements. Among the examples we emphasize the need to decouple or not to decouple the development process of business tiers from the development process of application tiers and also the need to automatically adapt to new business and/or security needs at runtime. To tackle these CLI drawbacks, and simultaneously keep their advantages, this paper proposes an architecture relying on CLI from which multi-purpose business tiers components are built, herein referred to as Adaptable Business Tier Components (ABTC). This paper presents the reference architecture for those components and a proof of concept based on Java and Java Database Connectivity (an example of CLI).