Estudio de una metodología de software para la predicción y análisis del balance paramétrico de buques para su aplicación en los criterios de estabilidad de segunda generación

El objetivo de ésta tesis es estudiar cómo desarrollar una aplicación informática que implemente algoritmos numéricos de evaluación de características hidrodinámicas de modelos geométricos representativos de carenas de buques. Se trata de especificar los requisitos necesarios que debe cumplir un programa para informático orientado a dar solución a un determinado problema hidródinámico, como es simular el comportamiento en balance de un buque sometido a oleaje, de popa o proa. una vez especificada la aplicación se realizará un diseño del programa; se estudiarán alternativas para implementar la aplicación; se explicará el proceso que ha de seguirse para obtener la aplicación en funcionamiento y se contrastarán los resultados obtenidos en la medida que sea posible. Se pretende sistematizar y sintetizar todo el proceso de desarrollo de software, orientado a la simulación del comportamiento hidrodinámico de un buque, en una metodología que se pondrá a disposición de la comunidad académica y científica en la forma que se considere más adecuada. Se trata, por tanto, de proponer una metodología de desarrollo de software para obetener una aplicación que facilite la evaluación de diferentes alternativas de estudio variando parámetros relativos al problema en estudio y que sea capaz de proporcionar resultados para su análisis. Así mismo se incide en cómo ha de conducirse en el proceso para que dicha aplicación pueda crecer, incorporando soluciones existentes no implementadas o nuevas soluciones que aparezcan en este ámbito de conocimiento. Como aplicación concreta de la aplicación se ha elegido implementar los algoritmos necesarios para evaluar la aparición del balance paramétrico en un buque. En el análisis de éste problema se considera de interés la representación geométrica que se hace de la carena del buque. Además de la carena aparecen otros elementos que tienen influencia determinante en éste estudio, como son las situación de mar y las situaciones de carga. Idealmente, el problema sería resuelto si se consiguiera determinar el ángulo de balance que se produce al enfrentar un buque a las diferentes condiciones de mar. Se pretende preparar un programa utilizando el paradigma de la orientación a objetos. Considero que es la más adecuada forma de modularizar el programa para poder utilizar diferentes modelos de una misma carena y así comparar los resultados de la evaluación del balance paramétrico entre sí. En una etapa posterior se podrían comparar los resultados con otros obtenidos empíricamente. Hablo de una nueva metodología porque pretendo indicar cómo se ha de construir una aplicación de software que sea usable y sobre la que se pueda seguir desarrollando. Esto justifica la selección del lenguaje de programación C++. Se seleccionará un núcleo geométrico de software que permita acoplar de forma versátil los distintos componentes de software que van a construir el programa. Este trabajo pretende aplicar el desarrollo de software a un aspecto concreto del área de conocimiento de la hidrodinámica. No se pretende aportar nuevos algoritmos para resolver problemas de hidrodinámica, sino diseñar un conjunto de objetos de software que implementen soluciones existentes a conocidas soluciones numéricas a dichos problemas. Se trata fundamentalmente de un trabajo de software, más que de hidrodinámica. Lo que aporta de novedad es una nueva forma de realizar un programa aplicado a los cálculos hidrodinámicos relativos a la determinación del balance paramétrico, que pueda crecer e incorporar cualquier novedad que pueda surgir más adelante. Esto será posible por la programación modular utilizada y los objetos que representan cada uno de los elementos que intervienen en la determinación del balance paramétrico. La elección de aplicar la metodología a la predicción del balance paramétrico se debe a que este concepto es uno de los elementos que intervienen en la evaluación de criterios de estabilidad de segunda generación que estan en estudio para su futura aplicación en el ámbito de la construcción naval. Es por tanto un estudio que despierta interés por su próxima utilidad. ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis is to study how to develop a computer application implementing numerical algorithms to assess hydrodynamic features of geometrical models of vessels. It is therefore to propose a methodology for software development applied to an hydrodynamic problem, in order to evaluate different study alternatives by varying different parameters related to the problem and to be capable of providing results for analysis. As a concrete application of the program it has been chosen to implement the algorithms necessary for evaluating the appearance of parametric rolling in a vessel. In the analysis of this problem it is considered of interest the geometrical representation of the hull of the ship and other elements which have decisive influence in this phenomena, such as the sea situation and the loading condition. Ideally, the application would determine the roll angle that occurs when a ship is on waves of different characteristics. It aims to prepare a program by using the paradigm of object oriented programming. I think it is the best methodology to modularize the program. My intention is to show how face the global process of developing an application from the initial specification until the final release of the program. The process will keep in mind the spefici objetives of usability and the possibility of growing in the scope of the software. This work intends to apply software development to a particular aspect the area of knowledge of hydrodynamics. It is not intended to provide new algorithms for solving problems of hydrodynamics, but designing a set of software objects that implement existing solutions to these problems. This is essentially a job software rather than hydrodynamic. The novelty of this thesis stands in this work focuses in describing how to apply the whole proccess of software engineering to hydrodinamics problems. The choice of the prediction of parametric balance as the main objetive to be applied to is because this concept is one of the elements involved in the evaluation of the intact stability criteria of second generation. Therefore, I consider this study as relevant usefull for the future application in the field of shipbuilding.

Towards moldable development tools

Developers commonly ask detailed and domain-specific questions about the software systems they are developing and maintaining. Integrated development environments (IDEs) form an essential category of tools for developing software that should support software engineering decision making. Unfortunately, rigid and generic IDEs that focus on low-level programming tasks, that promote code rather than data, and that suppress customization, offer limited support for informed decision making during software development. We propose to improve decision making within IDEs by moving from generic to context-aware IDEs through moldable tools. In this paper, we promote the idea of moldable tools, illustrate it with concrete examples, and discuss future research directions.

SubCM: A tool for improved visibility of software change in an industrial setting

Software Configuration Management is the discipline of managing large collections of software development artefacts from which software products are built. Software configuration management tools typically deal with artefacts at fine levels of granularity - such as individual source code files - and assist with coordination of changes to such artefacts. This paper describes a lightweight tool, designed to be used on top of a traditional file-based configuration management system. The add-on tool support enables users to flexibly define new hierarchical views of product structure, independent of the underlying artefact-repository structure. The tool extracts configuration and change data with respect to the user-defined hierarchy, leading to improved visibility of how individual subsystems have changed. The approach yields a range of new capabilities for build managers, and verification and validation teams. The paper includes a description of our experience using the tool in an organization that builds large embedded software systems.

Supporting the software testing process through specification animation

Achieving consistency between a specification and its implementation is an important part of software development. In this paper, we present a method for generating passive test oracles that act as self-checking implementations. The implementation is verified using an animation tool to check that the behavior of the implementation matches the behavior of the specification. We discuss how to integrate this method into a framework developed for systematically animating specifications, which means a tester can significantly reduce testing time and effort by reusing work products from the animation. One such work product is a testgraph: a directed graph that partially models the states and transitions of the specification. Testgraphs are used to generate sequences for animation, and during testing, to execute these same sequences on the implementation.

Developing relational navigation to effectively understand software

Effective comprehension of complex software systems requires understanding of both the individual documents that represent software and the complex relationships that exist within and between documents. Relationships of all kinds play a vital role in a software engineer's comprehension of, and navigation within and between, software documents. User-determined relationships have the additional role of enabling the engineer to create and maintain relational documentation that cannot be generated by tools or derived from other relationships. We argue that for a software development environment to effectively support the understanding of complex software systems, relational navigation must be supported at both the document-focused (intra-document) and relation-focused (inter-document) levels. The need for a relation-focused approach is highlighted by an evaluation of an existing document-focused relational interface. We conclude with the requirements for a relation-focused approach to relational navigation. These requirements focus on the user's perspective when interacting with a collection of related documents. We define the requirements for a software development environment that effectively supports the understanding of the software documents and relationships that define a complex software system.

Development of real-time process control systems using formal techniques

A major application of computers has been to control physical processes in which the computer is embedded within some large physical process and is required to control concurrent physical processes. The main difficulty with these systems is their event-driven characteristics, which complicate their modelling and analysis. Although a number of researchers in the process system community have approached the problems of modelling and analysis of such systems, there is still a lack of standardised software development formalisms for the system (controller) development, particular at early stage of the system design cycle. This research forms part of a larger research programme which is concerned with the development of real-time process-control systems in which software is used to control concurrent physical processes. The general objective of the research in this thesis is to investigate the use of formal techniques in the analysis of such systems at their early stages of development, with a particular bias towards an application to high speed machinery. Specifically, the research aims to generate a standardised software development formalism for real-time process-control systems, particularly for software controller synthesis. In this research, a graphical modelling formalism called Sequential Function Chart (SFC), a variant of Grafcet, is examined. SFC, which is defined in the international standard IEC1131 as a graphical description language, has been used widely in industry and has achieved an acceptable level of maturity and acceptance. A comparative study between SFC and Petri nets is presented in this thesis. To overcome identified inaccuracies in the SFC, a formal definition of the firing rules for SFC is given. To provide a framework in which SFC models can be analysed formally, an extended time-related Petri net model for SFC is proposed and the transformation method is defined. The SFC notation lacks a systematic way of synthesising system models from the real world systems. Thus a standardised approach to the development of real-time process control systems is required such that the system (software) functional requirements can be identified, captured, analysed. A rule-based approach and a method called system behaviour driven method (SBDM) are proposed as a development formalism for real-time process-control systems.

CADS*: Computer-Aided Development of self-* systems

We present the prototype tool CADS* for the computer-aided development of an important class of self-* systems, namely systems whose components can be modelled as Markov chains. Given a Markov chain representation of the IT components to be included into a self-* system, CADS* automates or aids (a) the development of the artifacts necessary to build the self-* system; and (b) their integration into a fully-operational self-* solution. This is achieved through a combination of formal software development techniques including model transformation, model-driven code generation and dynamic software reconfiguration.

FlexSIG-Flexible software inspection groupware

The objective of this research is to design and build a groupware system which will allow members of a distributed group more flexibility in performing software inspection. Software inspection, which is part of non-execution based testing in software development, is a group activity. The groupware system aims to provide a system that will improve acceptability of groupware and improve software quality by providing a software inspection tool that is flexible and adaptable. The groupware system provide a flexible structure for software inspection meetings. The groupware system will extend the structure of the software inspection meeting itself, allowing software inspection meetings to use all four quadrant of the space-time matrix: face-to-face, distributed synchronous, distributed asynchronous, and same place-different time. This will open up new working possibilities. The flexibility and adaptability of the system allows work to switch rapidly between synchronous and asynchronous interaction. A model for a flexible groupware system was developed. The model was developed based on review of the literature and questionnaires. A prototype based on the model was built using java and WWW technology. To test the effectiveness of the system, an evaluation was conducted. Questionnaires was used to gather response from the users. The evaluations ascertained that the model developed is flexible and adaptable to the different working modes, and the system is capable of supporting several different models of the software inspection process.

Enhanced semantic access to formal software models

The success of the Semantic Web, as the next generation of Web technology, can have profound impact on the environment for formal software development. It allows both the software engineers and machines to understand the content of formal models and supports more effective software design in terms of understanding, sharing and reusing in a distributed manner. To realise the full potential of the Semantic Web in formal software development, effectively creating proper semantic metadata for formal software models and their related software artefacts is crucial. In this paper, a methodology with tool support is proposed to automatically derive ontological metadata from formal software models and semantically describe them.

Developing a knowledge-based perspective on coordination:the case of global software projects

We have attempted to bring together two areas which are challenging for both IS research and practice: forms of coordination and management of knowledge in the context of global, virtual software development projects. We developed a more comprehensive, knowledge-based model of how coordination can be achieved, and\illustrated the heuristic and explanatory power of the model when applied to global software projects experiencing different degrees of success. We first reviewed the literature on coordination and determined what is known about coordination of knowledge in global software projects. From this we developed a new, distinctive knowledge-based model of coordination, which was then employed to analyze two case studies of global software projects, at SAP and Baan, to illustrate the utility of the model.

Trends, challenges and opportunities for performance engineering with modern business software

The author looks at trends in software and systems, and the current and likely implications of these trends on the discipline of performance engineering. In particular, he examines software complexity growth and its consequences for performance engineering for enhanced understanding, more efficient analysis and effective performance improvement. The pressures for adaptive and autonomous systems introduce further opportunities for performance innovation. The promise of aspect oriented software development technologies for assisting with some of these challenges is introduced.

Selecting the 'invisible' user interface development tool

Developers of interactive software are confronted by an increasing variety of software tools to help engineer the interactive aspects of software applications. Typically resorting to ad hoc means of tool selection, developers are often dissatisfied with their chosen tool on account of the fact that the tool lacks required functionality or does not fit seamlessly within the context in which it is to be used. This paper describes a system for evaluating the suitability of user interface development tools for use in software development organisations and projects such that the selected tool appears ‘invisible’ within its anticipated context of use. The paper also outlines and presents the results of an informal empirical study and a series of observational case studies of the system.

Agile Case Study Evaluation In Middle Size Project

In the last few years Agile methodologies appeared as a reaction to traditional ways of developing software and acknowledge the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes. This paper shortly presents a combination between Rational Uni ed Process and an agile approach for software development of e-business applications. The resulting approach is described stressing on the strong aspects of both combined methodologies. The article provides a case study of the proposed methodology which was developed and executed in a successful e-project in the area of the embedded systems.

An automated tool for semantic accessing to formal software models

Many software engineers have found that it is difficult to understand, incorporate and use different formal models consistently in the process of software developments, especially for large and complex software systems. This is mainly due to the complex mathematical nature of the formal methods and the lack of tool support. It is highly desirable to have software models and their related software artefacts systematically connected and used collaboratively, rather than in isolation. The success of the Semantic Web, as the next generation of Web technology, can have profound impact on the environment for formal software development. It allows both the software engineers and machines to understand the content of formal models and supports more effective software design in terms of understanding, sharing and reusing in a distributed manner. To realise the full potential of the Semantic Web in formal software development, effectively creating proper semantic metadata for formal software models and their related software artefacts is crucial. This paper proposed a framework that allows users to interconnect the knowledge about formal software models and other related documents using the semantic technology. We first propose a methodology with tool support is proposed to automatically derive ontological metadata from formal software models and semantically describe them. We then develop a Semantic Web environment for representing and sharing formal Z/OZ models. A method with prototype tool is presented to enhance semantic query to software models and other artefacts. © 2014.

Traceability Management Architectures Supporting Total Traceability in the Context of Software Engineering

In the area of Software Engineering, traceability is defined as the capability to track requirements, their evolution and transformation in different components related to engineering process, as well as the management of the relationships between those components. However the current state of the art in traceability does not keep in mind many of the elements that compose a product, specially those created before requirements arise, nor the appropriated use of traceability to manage the knowledge underlying in order to be handled by other organizational or engineering processes. In this work we describe the architecture of a reference model that establishes a set of definitions, processes and models which allow a proper management of traceability and further uses of it, in a wider context than the one related to software development.