Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

A theory and model for the evolution of software services

Software services are subject to constant change and variation. To control service development, a service developer needs to know why a change was made, what are its implications and whether the change is complete. Typically, service clients do not perceive the upgraded service immediately. As a consequence, service-based applications may fail on the service client side due to changes carried out during a provider service upgrade. In order to manage changes in a meaningful and effective manner service clients must therefore be considered when service changes are introduced at the service provider's side. Otherwise such changes will most certainly result in severe application disruption. Eliminating spurious results and inconsistencies that may occur due to uncontrolled changes is therefore a necessary condition for the ability of services to evolve gracefully, ensure service stability, and handle variability in their behavior. Towards this goal, this work presents a model and a theoretical framework for the compatible evolution of services based on well-founded theories and techniques from a number of disparate fields.

Development of Disaster Resilient Coastal Communities to Enhance Economic Development and Social Welfare: Book of Abstracts

Coast at risk – the importance of risk knowledge Coastal communities all over the world are under severe pressure resulting from planned and unplanned development, population growth and human induced vulnerability, coastal hazards with increasing frequency and magnitude and impacts of global climate change. These unprecedented changes have increased the level of risk of such coastal communities from a wide range of coastal hazards arising from natural phenomena and human induced activities. In this respect the assessment and management of risk for coastal hazards plays a vital role for safety of human lives, conservation of ecosystems and protection of the built environment. It leads to the development of disaster resilient communities to enhance economic development and social welfare. Risk assessment is one of the fundamental first steps towards planning, improving and implementing effective disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. One has to know and identify risks if they are to be effectively reduced and contained. There is a need to develop simplified approaches to risk assessment to convince a wider stakeholder base that investing in risk assessments pay. Such approaches bring together so many members of civil society leading the efforts to make disaster risk reduction everyone’s business

Building Realism: Architectural Metaphor in the Mid-Victorian Novel

This thesis examines the use of architectural metaphor in four mid-Victorian novels: Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1853), Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (1853), Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), and George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872). The thesis argues that psychological realism in these novels is taking shape via architecture and provides a detailed examination of the heroines of mid-Victorian realist novels who narrate or convey their understanding of the world through architecture. This pattern of narration materialises in the novels through both straightforward architectural reporting (description of the built environment) and creative, imaginative architecture (architectural metaphor). A second layer of architecture exists in these novels apart from the built environment, a layer in which architecture functions in order to give three-dimensionality to a heroine’s thoughts and emotions. I refer to these moments as ‘architectural internalisation’ and explore it as a dynamic technique used by authors to heighten the psychological realism of their work by allowing heroines to articulate and narrate their subjective experience via architecture: architecture provides these heroines with a vehicle for creative and constructive self-expression. While many critics address material architecture in these novels in terms of a realist built environment and metaphoric architecture primarily in terms of female entrapment and confinement, this thesis suggest a reappraisal of the role of architecture and an interrogation of the tendency to reflexively consider the architecture presented by Victorian authors as restrictive and constraining. It examines the architecturally-mediated psychological interiors crafted by these authors that anticipates the direct and unmediated access of the modernists, advocates that equal attention be afforded to built as well as organic images, and urges that built images be examined as purposeful constructions instead of dismissing them as pre-existing vehicles channelling the flow of organic systems. A close reading with a focus on architecture reveals that architectural metaphors are a vital component of the psychological realism of these novels. The thesis accordingly offers new insight into their heroines and narrators. Bleak House’s Esther Summerson is at the centre of a psychological realist form depicted through architecture, while she has historically been depicted as a character with little psychological depth. Villette’s Lucy Snowe, frequently considered a guarded and withdrawn narrator, builds and displays her own interiority for the reader and provides unprecedented access to her thoughts and emotions, while the narrator of Lady Audley’s Secret uses an extended architectural metaphor to construct the novel’s psychological realism. In Middlemarch, Eliot turns to architecture to imaginatively represent the internal workings of the mind. While much attention has been paid to living structures in Eliot’s work, the built also has a significant role in Eliot’s representation of the human mind and body and contributes to her particular mode of realism. Collectively, these novelists build psychological realism through architectural themes and narrative strategies

Contextual mobile adaptation

Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) involves systems that attempt to fit in with users’ context and interaction. Researchers agree that system adaptation is a key issue in ubicomp because it can be hard to predict changes in contexts, needs and uses. Even with the best planning, it is impossible to foresee all uses of software at the design stage. In order for software to continue to be helpful and appropriate it should, ideally, be as dynamic as the environment in which it operates. Changes in user requirements, contexts of use and system resources mean software should also adapt to better support these changes. An area in which adaptation is clearly lacking is in ubicomp systems, especially those designed for mobile devices. By improving techniques and infrastructure to support adaptation it is possible for ubicomp systems to not only sense and adapt to the environments they are running in, but also retrieve and install new functionality so as to better support the dynamic context and needs of users in such environments. Dynamic adaptation of software refers to the act of changing the structure of some part of a software system as it executes, without stopping or restarting it. One of the core goals of this thesis is to discover if such adaptation is feasible, useful and appropriate in the mobile environment, and how designers can create more adaptive and flexible ubicomp systems and associated user experiences. Through a detailed study of existing literature and experience of several early systems, this thesis presents design issues and requirements for adaptive ubicomp systems. This thesis presents the Domino framework, and demonstrates that a mobile collaborative software adaptation framework is achievable. This system can recommend future adaptations based on a history of use. The framework demonstrates that wireless network connections between mobile devices can be used to transport usage logs and software components, with such connections made either in chance encounters or in designed multi–user interactions. Another aim of the thesis is to discover if users can comprehend and smoothly interact with systems that are adapting. To evaluate Domino, a multiplayer game called Castles has been developed, in which game buildings are in fact software modules that are recommended and transferred between players. This evaluation showed that people are comfortable receiving semi–automated software recommendations; these complement traditional recommendation methods such as word of mouth and online forums, with the system’s support freeing users to discuss more in–depth aspects of the system, such as tactics and strategies for use, rather than forcing them to discover, acquire and integrate software by themselves