Model based Design of Robust Framework Implementation for Process Improvement in IT Companies

This has been always a problem faced by Software Manufacturers to deliver an application before time with satisfactory quality, high performance and productivity. Due to this problem, the time for development gets shortened and organizations focus more on quality of the product, resulting in more pressure on the development team. Organizations focus on rapid productivity rather than focusing on standard productivity. These problems lead many projects on referent point. In Pakistan, 85% IT companies face many difficulties and challenges to improve their processes due to numerous reasons. The purpose of this research is to identity these problems and difficulties so that these challenges may be addressed. This research is the survey based analysis of Process Improvement Challenges, which are faced by small and “medium size IT companies in Pakistan”

UML consistency rules: a systematic mapping study

Context: The Unified Modeling Language (UML), with its 14 different diagram types, is the de-facto standard tool for objectoriented modeling and documentation. Since the various UML diagrams describe different aspects of one, and only one, software under development, they are not independent but strongly depend on each other in many ways. In other words, the UML diagrams describing a software must be consistent. Inconsistencies between these diagrams may be a source of the considerable increase of faults in software systems. It is therefore paramount that these inconsistencies be detected, ana

Método para la evaluación de usabilidad de sitios web transaccionales basado en el proceso de inspección heurística

La usabilidad es considerada uno de los factores más importantes en el desarrollo de productos de software. Este atributo de calidad está referido al grado en que, usuarios específicos de un determinado aplicativo, pueden fácilmente hacer uso del software para lograr su propósito. Dada la importancia de este aspecto en el éxito de las aplicaciones informáticas, múltiples métodos de evaluación han surgido como instrumentos de medición que permiten determinar si la propuesta de diseño de la interfaz de un sistema de software es entendible, fácil de usar, atractiva y agradable al usuario. El método de evaluación heurística es uno de los métodos más utilizados en el área de Interacción Humano-Computador (HCI) para este propósito debido al bajo costo de su ejecución en comparación otras técnicas existentes. Sin embargo, a pesar de su amplio uso extensivo durante los últimos años, no existe un procedimiento formal para llevar a cabo este proceso de evaluación. Jakob Nielsen, el autor de esta técnica de inspección, ofrece únicamente lineamientos generales que, según la investigación realizada, tienden a ser interpretados de diferentes maneras por los especialistas. Por tal motivo, se ha desarrollado el presente proyecto de investigación que tiene como objetivo establecer un proceso sistemático, estructurado, organizado y formal para llevar a cabo evaluaciones heurísticas a productos de software. En base a un análisis exhaustivo realizado a aquellos estudios que reportan en la literatura el uso del método de evaluación heurística como parte del proceso de desarrollo de software, se ha formulado un nuevo método de evaluación basado en cinco fases: (1) planificación, (2) entrenamiento, (3) evaluación, (4) discusión y (5) reporte. Cada una de las fases propuestas que componen el protocolo de inspección contiene un conjunto de actividades bien definidas a ser realizadas por el equipo de evaluación como parte del proceso de inspección. Asimismo, se han establecido ciertos roles que deberán desempeñar los integrantes del equipo de inspectores para asegurar la calidad de los resultados y un apropiado desarrollo de la evaluación heurística. La nueva propuesta ha sido validada en dos escenarios académicos distintos (en Colombia, en una universidad pública, y en Perú, en dos universidades tanto en una pública como en una privada) demostrando en todos casos que es posible identificar más problemas de usabilidad altamente severos y críticos cuando un proceso estructurado de inspección es adoptado por los evaluadores. Otro aspecto favorable que muestran los resultados es que los evaluadores tienden a cometer menos errores de asociación (entre heurística que es incumplida y problemas de usabilidad identificados) y que la propuesta es percibida como fácil de usar y útil. Al validarse la nueva propuesta desarrollada por el autor de este estudio se consolida un nuevo conocimiento que aporta al bagaje cultural de la ciencia.Tesi

Web-based survey tool and its evaluation

Retrospektiivisessä pitkän aikavälin käyttäjäkokemustutkimuksessa ollaan kiinnostuneita tuotteen tai palvelun käyttöön liittyvistä muistikuvista. Eräs tapa kerätä retrospektiivistä käyttäjäkokemustietoa on käyränpiirtotehtävä, jossa vastaaja piirtää käyttäjäkokemuksensa laadusta kuvaajan. Tässä työssä jatkokehitettiin ja arvioitiin käyränpiirtotehtäviin perustuvaa web-kyselytyökalua, jolla voi toteuttaa retrospektiivisiä pitkän aikavälin käyttäjäkokemuksen etätutkimuksia. Jatkokehitykseen kuului lukuisia ominaisuuksia ja näkymiä, joista tärkeimmät ovat vastausten tarkasteluun kehitetty näkymä, mobiilivastausnäkymä ja pitkittäistutkimuksia tukeva kyselytyyppi. Järjestelmä kehitettiin PHP-kielellä CodeIgniter-kehyksen avulla. Kuvaajat toteutettiin Highcharts-kirjastolla. Työssä myös toteutettiin järjestelmän nykyisen toteutuksen arviointi. Arvioinnissa toteutusta verrattiin järjestelmälle asetettuihin vaatimuksiin, joista rakennettiin laatukriteeripuu. Arvioinnissa huomioitiin järjestelmän sopivuus käyttöön, tehokkuus ja ylläpidettävyys. Arvioinnin pohjalta järjestelmän havaittiin olevan ominaisuusvalikoimaltaan kattava, mutta joidenkin näkymien käytettävyydessä on vielä puutteita. Teknologiavalinnat ja perusarkkitehtuuri todettiin onnistuneiksi. Eräästä näkymästä löytyi merkittävä tehokkuusongelma. Ylläpidettävyysarvioinnissa kooditiedostojen pituus ja rakenne havaittiin ongelmalliseksi. Tehokkuuteen ja ylläpidettävyyteen vaikuttivat negatiivisesti myös eräät monimutkaiset syötteenkäsittely- ja kommunikointisekvenssit. Lisäksi kehitysprosessissa itsessään oli puutteita erityisesti testauksen ja dokumentoinnin suhteen. Työssä saatiin järjestelmään onnistuneesti kehitettyä lähes kaikki projektin aikana toteutettaviksi suunnitellut ominaisuudet. Lisäksi arvioinnissa saatiin kattava käsitys toteutuksen vahvuuksista ja ongelmakohdista. Lopuksi muodostettiin lista parannus- ja jatkokehityssuosituksista. Suosituksista olennaisimmat ovat järjestelmän kattava testaaminen, tulosten tarkastelunäkymän suorituskyvyn parantaminen käyräobjektien laiskalla alustamisella, syötteenkäsittelyn erottaminen omaksi kerroksekseen ja joidenkin epäideaalien sekvenssien uudelleensuunnittelu

Ανάπτυξη μοντέλου αναφοράς για την υλοποίηση πληροφοριακού συστήματος εμπορευματικών μεταφορών

Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο--Μεταπτυχιακή Εργασία. Διεπιστημονικό-Διατμηματικό Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών (Δ.Π.Μ.Σ.) “Τεχνο-Οικονομικά Συστήματα (ΜΒΑ)

Architectural stability of self-adaptive software systems

This thesis studies the notion of stability in software engineering with the aim of understanding its dimensions, facets and aspects, as well as characterising it. The thesis further investigates the aspect of behavioural stability at the architectural level, as a property concerned with the architecture's capability in maintaining the achievement of expected quality of service and accommodating runtime changes, in order to delay the architecture drifting and phasing-out as a consequence of the continuous unsuccessful provision of quality requirements. The research aims to provide a systematic and methodological support for analysing, modelling, designing and evaluating architectural stability. The novelty of this research is the consideration of stability during runtime operation, by focusing on the stable provision of quality of service without violations. As the runtime dimension is associated with adaptations, the research investigates stability in the context of self-adaptive software architectures, where runtime stability is challenged by the quality of adaptation, which in turn affects the quality of service. The research evaluation focuses on the effectiveness, scale and accuracy in handling runtime dynamics, using the self-adaptive cloud architectures

Software Patterns and Architecture Under Examination Hammer: An Approach to the Consolidation of Interdisciplinary Knowledge

Software engineering is normally perceived, and even defined, based upon applicability of scientific and technical knowledge, in order to provide solutions to different challenges. The bright side of engineering concepts in general, is the continuous process of acquiring knowledge and skills needed to develop and make adjustments to various systems, in respect to helping humankind. An important phase of this process is ”Architecting”, which is the big picture of any intended systems. While good architecture leads to successful systems, bad architecture can result in misfortune. In this thesis, my proposition is to investigate, in depth, both theoretical (academic) and industry domains, regarding the way in which they treat Software Pattern (SP), Software Architecture (SA), and Software Architecture Evaluation (SAE) techniques. I argue that the process of creating, evaluating, and documenting SPs and SA with no common guidelines, standards, and frameworks, will result in unused and conflicted information within their areas, which finally will impact the software engineering field. While the employment of interdisciplinary knowledge (such as SPs, modelling techniques, description languages, evaluation methods, standards, and frameworks), could elevate SA development and validation methodologies, and increase its utilisation within the software engineering community. The goal here is to help build better systems, which could be improved by developing suitable SA, and evaluate its qualities by proper methods and tools, before further development, which should save time as well as money. Therefore, after a long process of analysing the current-state-of-the-art, I have introduced in this thesis novel findings concerning descriptions, relationships, documentation, and utilisation in relation to SA, SAE, and SPs, through employing several investigatory techniques, including comparisons between reliable references, questionnaires, field study, and case study. The investigation of SPs resulted in creating a database as a partial solution, in order to minimise their confusion within the literature, concerning their definitions, categorisations, and relationships with different quality attributes Quality Attribute (QA)s; also, to introduce the information in a proper fashion for users, which includes the required data that supports comparisons between pattern references, and to facilitate their selection processes. The issues, gaps, limitations, inconsistencies, and conflicts within current SA, QAs, and SPs discovered by this study, such as their poor description and the ignorance of them by developers during software development, has led to important recommendations, as well as suggestions for future research. The required information from different sectors (government, academia and industry) regarding SPs, SA, SAE, and modelling languages, has been gathered, and analysed through two surveys and a field study. The strong relationships and influences between the aforementioned areas were introduced and proven by a case study analysis for the Real-time Control System Real-time Control System (RCS) reference architecture, followed by introducing a conceptual paradigm that aimed to improve and generalise the Moreno et al. [2008] performance model. The outcomes from this thesis provide the basis for future work. Also, the information from different interdisciplinary knowledge merged to form new concepts for SA evaluation, which are recommended for future study