A suite of visual languages for model-driven development of statistical surveys and services

Objective: To provide statistician end users with a visual language environment for complex statistical survey design and implementation. Methods: We have developed, in conjunction with professional statisticians, the Statistical Design Language (SDL), an integrated suite of visual languages aimed at supporting the process of designing statistical surveys, and its support environment, SDLTool. SDL comprises five diagrammatic notations: survey diagrams, data diagrams, technique diagrams, task diagrams and process diagrams. SDLTool provides an integrated environment supporting design, coordination, execution, sharing and publication of complex statistical survey techniques as web services. SDLTool allows association of model components with survey artefacts, including data sets, metadata, and statistical package analysis scripts, with the ability to execute elements of the survey design model to implement survey analysis. Results: We describe three evaluations of SDL and SDLTool: use of the notation by expert statistician to design and execute surveys; useability evaluation of the environment; and assessment of several generated statistical analysis web services. Conclusion: We have shown the effectiveness of SDLTool for supporting statistical survey design and implementation. Practice implications: We have developed a more effective approach to supporting statisticians in their survey design work.

Specifying model transformations by direct manipulation using concrete visual notations and interactive recommendations

Model transformations are a crucial part of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) technologies but are usually hard to specify and maintain for many engineers. Most current approaches use meta-model-driven transformation specification via textual scripting languages. These are often hard to specify, understand and maintain. We present a novel approach that instead allows domain experts to discover and specify transformation correspondences using concrete visualizations of example source and target models. From these example model correspondences, complex model transformation implementations are automatically generated. We also introduce a recommender system that helps domain experts and novice users find possible correspondences between large source and target model visualization elements. Correspondences are then specified by directly interacting with suggested recommendations or drag and drop of visual notational elements of source and target visualizations. We have implemented this approach in our prototype tool-set, CONVErT, and applied it to a variety of model transformation examples. Our evaluation of this approach includes a detailed user study of our tool and a quantitative analysis of the recommender system.

Generating reusable visual notations using model transformation

Visual notations are a key aspect of visual languages. They provide a direct mapping between the intended information and set of graphical symbols. Visual notations are most often implemented using the low level syntax of programming languages which is time consuming, error prone, difficult to maintain and hardly human-centric. In this paper we describe an alternative approach to generating visual notations using by-example model transformations. In our new approach, a semantic mapping between model and view is implemented using model transformations. The notations resulting from this approach can be reused by mapping varieties of input data to their model and can be composed into different visualizations. Our approach is implemented in the CONVErT framework and has been applied to many visualization examples. Three case studies for visualizing statistical charts, visualization of traffic data, and reuse of a Minard's map visualization's components, are presented in this paper. A detailed user study of our approach for reusing notations and generating visualizations has been provided. 80% of the participants in this user study agreed that the novel approach to visualization was easy and 87% stated that they quickly learned to use the tool support.

A visual language and environment for enterprise system modelling and automation

Objective: We want to support enterprise service modelling and generation using a more end user-friendly metaphor than current approaches, which fail to scale to large organisations with key issues of "cobweb" and "labyrinth" problems and large numbers of hidden dependencies. Method: We present and evaluate an integrated visual approach for business process modelling using a novel tree-based overlay structure that effectively mitigate complexity problems. A tree-overlay based visual notation (EML) and its integrated support environment (MaramaEML) supplement and integrate with existing solutions. Complex business architectures are represented as service trees and business processes are modelled as process overlay sequences on the service trees. Results: MaramaEML integrates EML and BPMN to provide complementary, high-level business service modelling and supports automatic BPEL code generation from the graphical representations to realise web services implementing the specified processes. It facilitates generated service validation using an integrated LTSA checker and provides a distortion-based fisheye and zooming function to enhance complex diagram navigation. Evaluations of EML show its effectiveness. Conclusions: We have successfully developed and evaluated a novel tree-based metaphor for business process modelling and enterprise service generation. Practice implications: a more user-friendly modelling approach and support tool for business end users.

Convert meets KIELER: integrating advanced layout algorithms into by-example visualisations

The CONcrete Visual assistEd Transformation (CONVErT) framework provides facilities to generate reusable notations and compose them to form a wide variety of visual-isations. With an increased number of notations in large scale visualisations, it is crucial to use advanced layout algorithms to improve understandability of such complex visualisations. This showpiece paper demonstrates how advanced layout algorithms can be integrated into the notation specifications of CONVErT to generate layouts of complex visualisations.

The insurance function of contracts

One of the central problems in contract law is to define the frontier between legal and illegal breaches of promises. The distinction between good and bad faith is perhaps the conceptual tool most commonly used to tell one from the other. Lawyers spend a lot of energy trying to frame better definitions of the concepts of good and bad faith based on principles of ethics or justice, but often pay much less attention to theories dealing with the incentives that can engender good faith behavior in contractual relationships. By describing the economics of what Stiglitz defined as “explicit” and “implicit” insurance, I highlight the “insurance function” hidden in any promise with basically no mathematical notation. My aim is to render the subject intelligible and useful to lawyers with little familiarity with economics.

Contractual solutions to the holdup problem: a survey

In this survey, we presented the general idea and main results from what we understand that are the most important contributions to contractual solutions to the holdup problem literature. The aim of this paper is to push the previous analysis, uniform the notation and provide a snapshot on the most recent literature, as well as bring topics for future inquires on this issue.

DEMO models based automatic workflow process generation

Nowadays, more than half of the computer development projects fail to meet the final users' expectations. One of the main causes is insufficient knowledge about the organization of the enterprise to be supported by the respective information system. The DEMO methodology (Design and Engineering Methodology for Organizations) has been proved as a well-defined method to specify, through models and diagrams, the essence of any organization at a high level of abstraction. However, this methodology is platform implementation independent, lacking the possibility of saving and propagating possible changes from the organization models to the implemented software, in a runtime environment. The Universal Enterprise Adaptive Object Model (UEAOM) is a conceptual schema being used as a basis for a wiki system, to allow the modeling of any organization, independent of its implementation, as well as the previously mentioned change propagation in a runtime environment. Based on DEMO and UEAOM, this project aims to develop efficient and standardized methods, to enable an automatic conversion of DEMO Ontological Models, based on UEAOM specification into BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) models of processes, using clear semantics, without ambiguities, in order to facilitate the creation of processes, almost ready for being executed on workflow systems that support BPMN.

Maude Object-Oriented Action Tool

MAIDL, André Murbach; CARVILHE, Claudio; MUSICANTE, Martin A. Maude Object-Oriented Action Tool. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science. [S.l:s.n], 2008.

Espaço público e sociabilidade urbana: apropriações e significados dos espaços públicos na cidade contemporânea

Study public space is studying the city and its dynamics through a representation point. The changes that are observed in these spaces and in the relations established there, or with it, are related to changes that occurred in the city as a whole, in the urban way of living. Study public space allied to urban sociability permits an even better focus on this relation between people in these spaces and with the spaces and in the consequences and fragile aspects this relation can impose to people and cities. This work is aimed towards this relation between public space and urban sociability. Through a conceptual/theoretical discussion aims, specifically, comprehend how to establish and what is the relation between urban space and urban sociability (appropriation/perception of place, tendencies of seclusion), from an isolated analysis of each one of these themes in the contemporaneous city. The Brazilian public space has peculiar characteristics, arising from its historical process of construction, also influenced by the public sphere fragile construction that permeates it, as well as more recent variables such as the sensation of insecurity and commodification of these places. The urban sociability influences and is influenced along all this process of significance and reframing of the public space. The conceptual discussion about each isolate variable provides the necessary coverage for discussion and analysis of the relation between them and the consequence of this relation in the city, such as the notation of relevant experiences of this process of revaluation of the public space. The hereby search is not through a path to reestablish the relation as it already existed, but also for an understanding of the dynamic as is established today and for existing possibilities for maintenance and appreciation of the relation between people and the city by believing in its importance to urban life

Alfabetização de crianças e jovens: superando desafios da inclusão escolar

This work has its genesis in the life of a teacher. It contemplates the report of a great story that expresses the political will of anonymous people who sought/seek to overcome challenges and prejudices, a joint effort to make real the right to literacy. The reported story was developed in the Pedagogic Clinic Teacher Heitor Carrilho, Natal-RN which, concerned about the sentence of 'unable to learn the written language' attributed to children and young public school students, decided to invest in overcoming prejudices and fight against school failure of these underprivileged. The problem that motivated the study was thus set up: What particularities characterize a pedagogical practice which aims to teach literacy to children and youth from public schools, considered not capable of learning the written language? What theoretical and methodological procedures are shown as a boost to literacy in the development of a pedagogical practice systematically targeted to reflect the perspective of educating those students in public schools? Aiming to answer these questions, we conducted a qualitative research having as methodology, Life Stories and Research/Formation. For the construction of the data, it was decided to use the participative observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Guided by the principles of content analysis the data analysis was built, from which emerged two categories: theoretical and methodological procedures aligned to the major axes of literacy and Procedures of the specific theoretical and methodological fundamentals of literacy. As subsets of the transverse procedures others were seized: didactic-pedagogic procedures; social affective procedures. Regarding these ones, the research shows the importance of the teacher to build a relationship of listening to the students and their families in order to organize the pedagogical work, looking at multiple dimensions of the subject: the intellect, the creative, the affective, moral, noting that between the methodology and didactics or as part of it, the links built represent great opportunities to promote literacy. Regarding the specific procedures, others were built: procedures that emphasize oral communication, procedures that favor writing and procedures that privilege reading. Under these procedures, the results of research show that you can only promote literacy if the teacher provides the students effective conditions of understanding the principles of alphabetical notation from the use of various kinds of texts, leading them to comprehend and use them in different contexts. Therefore, instructors must meet the learners' prior knowledge, their language, and the learning real needs that will bring new challenges consistent with their possibilities. The research confirms the importance of the Educational Support extra school. However, it is essential to emphasize that it is a function of the school to promote literacy for all students in the early years of schooling. It is recorded, however, that for the implementation of this desire, we must break the school model characterized by a rigid tradition, in which there is only room for those who learn the content taught in a minimum time. Unfortunately, despite the discourse of inclusion and ensuring the right to education, the school remains exclusive and selective separating the school learning of interpersonal relations and social integration and performance. On the one hand, research showed the difficulties of conducting studies and/or strategies that address the particularities of children and young people believed not capable of learning. On the other hand, the political commitment and motivation have increased the perception that it is possible to mitigate the existing deficits in the educational context, beginning with the everyday teaching practice, in which new knowledge can be learned, methodologies can be improved and, despite everything, the educational success can be built

Investigação histórica na formação de professores de matemática: um estudo centrado no conceito de função

In this study we analyzed the development of a teaching experience, involving students with a bachelor s degree in mathematics from UFRN, based on the history of mathematics and mathematical investigations with the aim of contributing to the improvement of the teaching-learning of mathematics. The historical investigation tasks were planned and applied in the classroom, focusing on functional thought. The results obtained during the experience were described and evaluated based on authors who support the assumption of investigation and history as an alternative to the learning of mathematics. We emphasize that the material of analysis consisted of a work diary, audio recordings, questionnaires with testimony of the students involved, and, in addition, the assessment of the teacher of that subject. With regard to the mathematical content, the study was restricted to the concept of function, forms of representation and notation. It was evident that students showed great improvement with regard to the necessary formalization of the mathematical contents which were focused on, and to the active involvement of the students at different stages of the study. We can affirm that the completed study certainly represents significant contributions to an approach in the teaching-learning of functional thought

Geometria e arirmética numa visão multicultural: uma experiência pedagógica

This paper aims to build a notebook of activities that can help the teacher of elementary school mathematics. Topics covered are arithmetic and geometry and the activities proposed here were developed aiming print them a multicultural character. We take as a base line developed by Claudia Zaslavsky multiculturalism and reflected in his books "Games and activities worldwide" and "More games and activities worldwide." We structure our work around four themes: the symbol of the Olympic Games, the pyramids of Egypt, the Russian abacus abacus and Chinese. The first two themes allow you to explore basic concepts of geometry while the latter two themes allow us to explore numerical notation and arithmetic operations

BSmart: desenvolvimento rigoroso de aplicações Java Card com base no método formal B

Java Card technology allows the development and execution of small applications embedded in smart cards. A Java Card application is composed of an external card client and of an application in the card that implements the services available to the client by means of an Application Programming Interface (API). Usually, these applications manipulate and store important information, such as cash and confidential data of their owners. Thus, it is necessary to adopt rigor on developing a smart card application to improve its quality and trustworthiness. The use of formal methods on the development of these applications is a way to reach these quality requirements. The B method is one of the many formal methods for system specification. The development in B starts with the functional specification of the system, continues with the application of some optional refinements to the specification and, from the last level of refinement, it is possible to generate code for some programming language. The B formalism has a good tool support and its application to Java Card is adequate since the specification and development of APIs is one of the major applications of B. The BSmart method proposed here aims to promote the rigorous development of Java Card applications up to the generation of its code, based on the refinement of its formal specification described in the B notation. This development is supported by the BSmart tool, that is composed of some programs that automate each stage of the method; and by a library of B modules and Java Card classes that model primitive types, essential Java Card API classes and reusable data structures

Geração automática de testes a partir de descrições de linguagens

Some programs may have their entry data specified by formalized context-free grammars. This formalization facilitates the use of tools in the systematization and the rise of the quality of their test process. This category of programs, compilers have been the first to use this kind of tool for the automation of their tests. In this work we present an approach for definition of tests from the formal description of the entries of the program. The generation of the sentences is performed by taking into account syntactic aspects defined by the specification of the entries, the grammar. For optimization, their coverage criteria are used to limit the quantity of tests without diminishing their quality. Our approach uses these criteria to drive generation to produce sentences that satisfy a specific coverage criterion. The approach presented is based on the use of Lua language, relying heavily on its resources of coroutines and dynamic construction of functions. With these resources, we propose a simple and compact implementation that can be optimized and controlled in different ways, in order to seek satisfaction the different implemented coverage criteria. To make the use of our tool simpler, the EBNF notation for the specification of the entries was adopted. Its parser was specified in the tool Meta-Environment for rapid prototyping