Evolution feature oriented model driven product line engineering approach for synergistic and dynamic service evolution in clouds: A04BPEL3.0 proposal.

Model Driven based approach for Service Evolution in Clouds will mainly focus on the reusable evolution patterns' advantage to solve evolution problems. During the process, evolution pattern will be driven by MDA models to pattern aspects. Weaving the aspects into service based process by using Aspect-Oriented extended BPEL engine at runtime will be the dynamic feature of the evolution.

Influência da revisão de atividades executadas para melhoria da acurácia na estimativa de software utilizando planning poker

Abstract – Background – The software effort estimation research area aims to improve the accuracy of this estimation in software projects and activities. Aims – This study describes the development and usage of a web application tocollect data generated from the Planning Poker estimation process and the analysis of the collected data to investigate the impact of revising previous estimates when conducting similar estimates in a Planning Poker context. Method – Software activities were estimated by Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR) computer students, using Planning Poker, with and without revising previous similar activities, storing data regarding the decision-making process. And the collected data was used to investigate the impact that revising similar executed activities have in the software effort estimates' accuracy.Obtained Results – The UTFPR computer students were divided into 14 groups. Eight of them showed accuracy increase in more than half of their estimates. Three of them had almost the same accuracy in more than half of their estimates. And only three of them had loss of accuracy in more than half of their estimates. Conclusion – Reviewing the similar executed software activities, when using Planning Poker, led to more accurate software estimates in most cases, and, because of that, can improve the software development process.

Mejora de los procesos de estimación de costos de software. Caso del sector de software de Barranquilla

El presente artículo es resultado de la investigación: “Diseño de un modelo para mejorar los procesos de estimación de costos para las empresas desarrolladoras de software”. Se presenta una revisión de la literatura a nivel internacional con el fin de identificar tendencias y métodos para realizar estimaciones de costos de software más exactas. Por medio del método predictivo Delphi, un conjunto de expertos pertenecientes al sector de software de Barranquilla clasificaron y valoraron según la probabilidad de ocurrencia cinco escenarios realistas de estimaciones. Se diseñó un experimento completamente aleatorio cuyos resultados apuntaron a dos escenarios estadísticamente similares de manera cualitativa, con lo que se construyó un modelo de análisis basado en tres agentes: Metodología, capacidad del equipo de trabajo y productos tecnológicos; cada uno con tres categorías de cumplimiento para lograr estimaciones más precisas

Early investigation towards defining and measuring sustainability as a quality attribute in software systems

Sustainability in software system is still a new practice that most software developers and companies are trying to incorporate into their software development lifecycle and has been largely discussed in academia. Sustainability is a complex concept viewed from economic, environment and social dimensions with several definitions proposed making sometimes the concept of sustainability very fuzzy and difficult to apply and assess in software systems. This has hindered the adoption of sustainability in the software industry. A little research explores sustainability as a quality property of software products and services to answer questions such as; How to quantify sustainability as a quality construct in the same way as other quality attributes such as security, usability and reliability? How can it be applied to software systems? What are the measures and measurement scale of sustainability? The Goal of this research is to investigate the definitions, perceptions and measurement of sustainability from the quality perspective. Grounded in the general theory of software measurement, the aim is to develop a method that decomposes sustainability in factors, criteria and metrics. The Result is a method to quantify and access sustainability of software systems while incorporating management and users concern. Conclusion: The method will empower the ability of companies to easily adopt sustainability while facilitating its integration to the software development process and tools. It will also help companies to measure sustainability of their software products from economic, environmental, social, individual and technological dimension.

Know-cap: um método para capitalização de conhecimento no desenvolvimento de software

The intensive character in knowledge of software production and its rising demand suggest the need to establish mechanisms to properly manage the knowledge involved in order to meet the requirements of deadline, costs and quality. The knowledge capitalization is a process that involves from identification to evaluation of the knowledge produced and used. Specifically, for software development, capitalization enables easier access, minimize the loss of knowledge, reducing the learning curve, avoid repeating errors and rework. Thus, this thesis presents the know-Cap, a method developed to organize and guide the capitalization of knowledge in software development. The Know-Cap facilitates the location, preservation, value addition and updating of knowledge, in order to use it in the execution of new tasks. The method was proposed from a set of methodological procedures: literature review, systematic review and analysis of related work. The feasibility and appropriateness of Know-Cap were analyzed from an application study, conducted in a real case, and an analytical study of software development companies. The results obtained indicate the Know- Cap supports the capitalization of knowledge in software development.

Modelo institucional do processo de estruturação de empresas de desenvolvimento de software: um estudo de múltiplos casos

Some authors have shown the need of understanding the technological structuring process in contemporary firms. From this perspective, the software industry is a very important element because it provides products and services directly to many organizations from many fields. In this case, the Brazilian software industry has some peculiarities that distinguish it from other industries located in developed countries, which makes its understanding even more relevant. There is evidence that local firms take different strategies and structural configurations to enter into a market naturally dominated by large multinational firms. Therefore, this study aims to understand not only the structural configurations assumed by domestic firms but also the dynamic and the process that lead to these different configurations. To do so, this PhD dissertation investigates the institutional environment, its entities and the isomorphic movements, by employing an exploratory, descriptive and explanatory multiple cases study. Eight software development companies from the Recife's information technology Cluster were visited. Also, a form was applied and an interview with one of the main firm s professional was conducted. Although the study is predominantly qualitative, part of the data was analyzed through charts and graphs, providing a companies and environment overview that was very useful to analysis done through the interviews interpretation. As a result, it was realized that companies are structured around hybrids business models from two ideal types of software development companies, which are: software factory and technology-based company. Regarding the development process, it was found that there is a balanced distribution between the traditional and agile development paradigm. Among the traditional methodologies, the Rational Unified Process (RUP) is predominant. The Scrum is the most used methodology among the organizations based on the Agile Manifesto's principles. Regarding the structuring process, each institutional entity acts in such way that generates different isomorphic pressure. Emphasis was given to entities such as customers, research agencies, clusters, market-leading businesses, public universities, incubators, software industry organizations, technology vendors, development tool suppliers and manager s school and background because they relate themselves in a close way with the software firms. About this relationship, a dual and bilateral influence was found. Finally, the structuring level of the organizational field has been also identified as low, which gives a chance to organizational actors of acting independently

Problem-Based SRS: método para especificação de requisitos de software baseado em problemas

Requirements specification has long been recognized as critical activity in software development processes because of its impact on project risks when poorly performed. A large amount of studies addresses theoretical aspects, propositions of techniques, and recommended practices for Requirements Engineering (RE). To be successful, RE have to ensure that the specified requirements are complete and correct what means that all intents of the stakeholders in a given business context are covered by the requirements and that no unnecessary requirement was introduced. However, the accurate capture the business intents of the stakeholders remains a challenge and it is a major factor of software project failures. This master’s dissertation presents a novel method referred to as “Problem-Based SRS” aiming at improving the quality of the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) in the sense that the stated requirements provide suitable answers to real customer ́s businesses issues. In this approach, the knowledge about the software requirements is constructed from the knowledge about the customer ́s problems. Problem-Based SRS consists in an organization of activities and outcome objects through a process that contains five main steps. It aims at supporting the software requirements engineering team to systematically analyze the business context and specify the software requirements, taking also into account a first glance and vision of the software. The quality aspects of the specifications are evaluated using traceability techniques and axiomatic design principles. The cases studies conducted and presented in this document point out that the proposed method can contribute significantly to improve the software requirements specification.

Embedding sustainability into the new computer science curriculum for English schools

The primary goals of this study are to: embed sustainable concepts of energy consumption into certain part of existing Computer Science curriculum for English schools; investigate how to motivate 7-to-11 years old kids to learn these concepts; promote responsive ICT (Information and Communications Technology) use by these kids in their daily life; raise their awareness of today’s ecological challenges. Sustainability-related ICT lessons developed aim to provoke computational thinking and creativity to foster understanding of environmental impact of ICT and positive environmental impact of small changes in user energy consumption behaviour. The importance of including sustainability into the Computer Science curriculum is due to the fact that ICT is both a solution and one of the causes of current world ecological problems. This research follows Agile software development methodology. In order to achieve the aforementioned goals, sustainability requirements, curriculum requirements and technical requirements are firstly analysed. Secondly, the web-based user interface is designed. In parallel, a set of three online lessons (video, slideshow and game) is created for the website GreenICTKids.com taking into account several green design patterns. Finally, the evaluation phase involves the collection of adults’ and kids’ feedback on the following: user interface; contents; user interaction; impacts on the kids’ sustainability awareness and on the kids’ behaviour with technologies. In conclusion, a list of research outcomes is as follows: 92% of the adults learnt more about energy consumption; 80% of the kids are motivated to learn about energy consumption and found the website easy to use; 100% of the kids understood the contents and liked website’s visual aspect; 100% of the kids will try to apply in their daily life what they learnt through the online lessons.

Diseño de una metodología para la gestión de pruebas y ensayo en proyectos de software

Independientemente de la metodología que se adopte en el desarrollo de software, se contemplan aquellas actividades gerenciales o de dirección del proyecto y las inherentes a las técnicas, propias del desarrollo del producto como tal, como los requerimientos demandados, análisis, diseño, implementación y pruebas o ensayos previos a su materialización -- El presente trabajo se deriva del interés por diseñar una metodología para la gestión de la fase de pruebas y ensayo, con base en el modelo de integración de las actividades contempladas en la guía del PMBOK, la cual es compatible con las funciones de dirección y actividades técnicas de otras metodologías, especialmente en su etapa de prueba; de allí la importancia que representa para los gerentes de proyectos obtener resultados satisfactorios en esta fase, por su impacto directo y significativo en el cumplimiento del tiempo y los costos estimados, lo que permite prevenir o mitigar, tiempos adicionales o sobrecostos por reproceso, evitando ser transferidos al cliente o asumidos por el fabricante de software -- Así mismo, asegurar una ejecución correcta de la fase de pruebas y ensayo, garantiza que el proyecto responda a los estándares de calidad, de acuerdo con sus indicadores de medición y la satisfacción del usuario

Pervasive Software Visualizations

A picture tells a thousand words. We all know that. Then why are our development tools showing mainly text with so much obstinacy? Even when visualizations do make it into our tools, they typically do not make it past the periphery. Something is deeply wrong. We argue that visualizations must become pervasive in software development, and to accommodate this goal, the integrated development environments must change significantly.

Leadership competencies in the requirements phase of IS/IT development projects

Doutoramento em Gestão

EVIDENCE FOR MECHANICAL STRAINS INFLUENCE IN OSTEOPHYTE DEVELOPMENT

Purpose: Osteophytes are osteo-cartilaginous metaplastic tissue outgrowths of bone capped by cartilage usually found in degenerative and inflammatory joint disease. The presence and degree of maturity of osteophytes, along with joint space narrowing, are the main radiographic criteria for diagnosis and grading osteoarthritis (OA). Although osteophytes are known for being anatomic signs of advanced OA, they can occur in non-symptomatic joints, in joints with no other observable alterations, and in early stage OA. It remains unclear if they develop from molecular, physiological and/or mechanical stimuli. We hypothesized that mechanical strains play a role in osteophyte development. The overall objective of this thesis was to find evidence that osteophytes are influenced by mechanical strains. Methods: The first project was to develop a mechanically-induced osteophyte animal model. One single impact load that was reported to induce moderate joint damage was applied to the periosteum of the rat knee. Animals were sacrificed at four time points to characterize the evolution of damaged tissue and the joint by histology. A second study using human mature hip osteophytes was conducted to evaluate if mature osteophyte presented histological signs of proliferating and developmental processes. The histological characterization of mature osteophyte was used to compare findings of the mechanically-induced osteophyte in the animal model to validate the use of this rodent model in studying some aspect of osteophyte development of human. Lastly, a detailed three-dimensional (3D) radiological morphometric analysis was performed on microscopic computed tomography (µCT) scanned femoral heads collected from total hip arthroplasty patients presenting mature hip osteophytes. Quantitative morphometric measures of osteophytes internal structure was compared to three regions of the femoral head of known quality of organisation and mechanical constraint. Results and Conclusion: Osteophyte can be mechanically induced by a single load impact to the joint periosteum, indicating that a moderate trauma to the periosteal layer of the joint may play a role in osteophyte development. Mature osteophytes have proliferation, developing and remodelling zones and have trabecular structures. Mechanically-induced osteophytes and mature osteophytes presented similar histological composition. Mature osteophytes have organized internal structure. These results provide evidence that mechanical strain can influence osteophyte development.

Data, Software, and Advanced Computational Usage of University of Washington Research Leaders

Scientific research is increasingly data-intensive, relying more and more upon advanced computational resources to be able to answer the questions most pressing to our society at large. This report presents findings from a brief descriptive survey sent to a sample of 342 leading researchers at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, Washington in 2010 and 2011 as the first stage of the larger National Science Foundation project “Interacting with Cyberinfrastructure in the Face of Changing Science.” This survey assesses these researcher’s use of advanced computational resources, data, and software in their research. We present high-level findings that describe UW researchers’: demographics, interdisciplinarity, research groups, data use, software and computational use—including software development and use, data storage and transfer activities, and collaboration tools, and computing resources. These findings offer insights into the state of computational resources in use during this time period as well as offering a look at the data intensiveness of UW researchers.

Surveying Scientists About Their Software

Software is an important infrastructural component of scientific research practice. The work of research often requires scientists to develop, use, and share software in order to address their research questions. This report presents findings from a survey of researchers at the University of Washington in three broad areas: Oceanography, Biology, and Physics. This survey is part of the National Science Foundation funded study Scientists and their Software: A Sociotechnical Investigation of Scientific Software Development and Sharing (ACI-1302272). We inquired about each respondent’s research area and data use along with their use, development, and sharing of software. Finally, we asked about challenges researchers face with and about concerns regarding software’s effect on study replicability. These findings are part of ongoing efforts to develop deeper characterizations of the role of software in twenty-first century scientific research.

Sviluppo del software di un sistema per l'analisi in tempo reale della combustione di motori endotermici alternativi

Limiti sempre più stringenti sulle emissioni inquinanti ed una maggiore attenzione ai consumi, all'incremento di prestazioni e alla guidabilità, portano allo sviluppo di algoritmi di controllo motore sempre più complicati. Allo stesso tempo, l'unità di propulsione sta diventando un insieme sempre più variegato di sottosistemi che devono lavorare all'unisono. L'ingegnere calibratore si trova di fronte ad una moltitudine di variabili ed algoritmi che devono essere calibrati e testati e necessita di strumenti che lo aiutino ad analizzare il comportamento del motore fornendo risultati sintetici e facilmente accessibili. Nel seguente lavoro è riportato lo sviluppo di un sistema di analisi della combustione: l'obbiettivo è stato quello di sviluppare un software che fornisca le migliori soluzioni per l'analisi di un motore a combustione interna, in termini di accuratezza dei risultati, varietà di calcoli messi a disposizione, facilità di utilizzo ed integrazione con altri sistemi tramite la condivisione dei risultati calcolati in tempo reale.