Authorization schema for electronic health-care records: for Uganda

This thesis discusses how to design an authorization schema focused on ensuring each patient's data privacy within a hospital information system

Generic analysis support for understanding, evaluating and comparing enterprise architecture models

Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is one mean to deal with the increasing complexity of today’s IT landscapes. Architectural models are used within EAM to describe the business processes, the used applications, the required infrastructure as well as the dependencies between them. The creation of those models is expensive, since the whole organization and therewith a large amount of data has to be considered. It is important to make use of these models and reuse them for planning purposes and decision making. The models are a solid foundation for various kinds of analyses that support the understanding, evaluation and comparisons of them. Analyses can approximate the effects of the retirement of an application or of a server failure. It is also possible to quantify the models using metrics like the IT coverage of business processes or the workload of a server. The generation of views sets the focus on a specific aspect of the model. An example is the limitation to the processes and applications of a specific organization unit. Architectural models can also be used for planning purposes. The development of a target architecture is supported by identifying weak points and evaluating planning scenarios. Current approaches for EAM analysis are typically isolated ones, addressing only a limited subset of the different analysis goals. An integrated approach that covers the different information demands of the stakeholders is missing. Additionally, the analysis approaches are highly dependent on the utilized meta model. This is a serious problem since the EAM domain is characterized by a large variety of frameworks and meta models. In this thesis, we propose a generic framework that supports the different analysis activities during EAM. We develop the required techniques for the specification and execution of analyses, independently from the utilized meta model. An analysis language is implemented for the definition and customization of the analyses according to the current needs of the stakeholder. Thereby, we focus on reuse and a generic definition. We utilize a generic representation format to be able to abstract from the great variety of used meta models in the EAM domain. The execution of the analyses is done with Semantic Web Technologies and data-flow based model analysis. The framework is applied for the identification of weak points as well as the evaluation of planning scenarios regarding consistency of changes and goal fulfillment. Two methods are developed for these tasks, as well as respective analysis support is identified and implemented. These are, for example, a change impact analysis, specific metrics or the scoping of the architectural model according to different aspects. Finally, the coverage of the framework regarding existing EA analysis approaches is determined with a scenario-based evaluation. The applicability and relevance of the language and of the proposed methods is proved within three large case studies

From the conception to the definition of a new service: the case of the European GeoPKDD project”

La tesi affronta il processo che parte dalla generazione di un nuovo servizio di tipo technology push ed arriva fino alla sua definizione, attraverso l’analisi del lavoro svolto per WIND Telecomunicazioni s.p.a. nell’ambito del progetto Europeo GeoPKDD. Dopo un inquadramento teorico sulle metodologie di sviluppo di nuovi servizi e sulle peculiarità di uno sviluppo technology push rispetto al caso market pull, il lavoro si concentra sul processo che, partendo dalla generazione di nuove idee basate sulla tecnologia GeoPKDD, si è concluso con la definizione delle specifiche finali da implementare nel servizio finale

Co-sourcing in software development offshoring: A case study of risk perception and alleviation

Software development projects are increasingly geographical distributed with offshoring, which introduce complex risks that can lead to project failure. Co-sourcing is a highly integrative and cohesive approach, seen successful, to software development offshoring. However, research of how co-sourcing shapes the perception and alleviation of common offshoring risks is limited. We present a case study of how a certified CMMI-level 5 Danish software supplier approaches these risks in offshore co-sourcing. The paper explains how common offshoring risks are perceived and alleviated when adopting the co-sourcing strategy in a mature (CMMI level 5) software development organization. We found that most of the common offshoring risks were perceived and alleviated in accordance with previous research, with the exception of the task distribution risk area. In this case, high task uncertainty, equivocality, and coupling across sites was perceived more as risk alleviation than risk taking. This perception of task distribution was combined with high attention to the closely interrelated structure and technology components in terms of CMMI and the actors’ cohesion and integration in terms of Scrum

Supporting Automatic Interoperability in Model-Driven Development Processes

By analyzing the last years of software development evolution, it is possible to observe that the involved technologies are increasingly focused on the definition of models for the specification of the intended software products. This model-centric development schema is the main ingredient for the Model-Driven Development (MDD) paradigm. In general terms, the MDD approaches propose the automatic generation of software products by means of the transformation of the defined models into the final program code. This transformation process is also known as model compilation process. Thus, MDD is oriented to reduce (or even eliminate) the hand-made programming, which is an error-prone and time-consuming task. Hence, models become the main actors of the MDD processes: the models are the new programming code. In this context, the interoperability can be considered a natural trend for the future of model-driven technologies, where different modeling approaches, tools, and standards can be integrated and coordinated to reduce the implementation and learning time of MDD solutions as well as to improve the quality of the final software products. However, there is a lack of approaches that provide a suitable solution to support the interoperability in MDD processes. Moreover, the proposals that define an interoperability framework for MDD processes are still in a theoretical space and are not aligned with current standards, interoperability approaches, and technologies. Thus, the main objective of this doctoral thesis is to develop an approach to achieve the interoperability in MDD processes. This interoperability approach is based on current metamodeling standards, modeling language customization mechanisms, and model-to-model transformation technologies. To achieve this objective, novel approaches have been defined to improve the integration of modeling languages, to obtain a suitable interchange of modeling information, and to perform automatic interoperability verification.Giachetti Herrera, GA. (2011). Supporting Automatic Interoperability in Model-Driven Development Processes [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/11108Palanci

Simple identification tools in FishBase

Simple identification tools for fish species were included in the FishBase information system from its inception. Early tools made use of the relational model and characters like fin ray meristics. Soon pictures and drawings were added as a further help, similar to a field guide. Later came the computerization of existing dichotomous keys, again in combination with pictures and other information, and the ability to restrict possible species by country, area, or taxonomic group. Today, www.FishBase.org offers four different ways to identify species. This paper describes these tools with their advantages and disadvantages, and suggests various options for further development. It explores the possibility of a holistic and integrated computeraided strategy

Analysis and measurement of internal usability metrics through code annotations

Nowadays, usability can be meant as an important quality characteristic to be considered throughout the software development process. A great variety of usability techniques have been proposed so far, mostly intended to be applied during analysis, design and final testing phases in software projects. However, little or no attention has been paid to the analysis and measurement of usability in the implementation phase. Most of the time, usability testing is traditionally executed in advanced stages. However, the detection of usability flaws during the implementation is of utmost importance to foresee and prevent problems in the utilization of the software and avoid significant cost increases. In this paper, we propose a feasible solution to analyze and measure usability metrics during the implementation phase. Specifically, we have developed a framework featuring code annotations that provides a systematic evaluation of the usability throughout the source code. These annotations are interpreted by an annotation processor to obtain valuable information and automatically calculate usability metrics at compile time. In addition, an evaluation with 32 participants has been carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach in comparison to the manual process of analyzing and measuring internal usability metrics. Perceived satisfaction was also evaluated, demonstrating that our approach can be considered as a valuable tool for dealing with usability metrics during the implementation phaseThis work was partially supported by the Madrid Research Council (P2018/TCS-4314