A Run-Time Approach of Combining Ontologies to Enhance Interactive Requirements Elicitation for Software Customization

This thesis highlights the recent developments in Requirements Engineering for Software Product Line Engineering, with a focus on the use of ontology in interactive Requirements Elicitation and the existing techniques of ontology operations. Recent research done in Requirements Elicitation has been towards using ontologies as a modeling basis for gathering requirements. A new algorithm has been developed to allow ontologies to be combined at run-time when gathering the requirements of software clients. By harnessing knowledge in other ontologies, a more refined set of requirements can be generated. A scenario illustrating the use of ontology combination towards acquiring requirements for mobile platforms is also provided. The proposed method further enhances the capability of interactive software customization, thus helping to make Software Product Line Engineering a new practice in software development

Interactive whiteboards in mathematics education: possibilities and dangers

Interactive whiteboards are a new technology for ‘traditional’ teaching in the whole class. Although they have been installed in educational settings, the emphasis of research has been on their use in office settings. Preliminary findings from a pilot study of a mathematics teacher's use of a ‘traditional’ blackboard suggest that interactive whiteboards should not only be seen as a presentational device for the teacher, but as an interactive and communicative device to enhance the communication with and among students. In this paper, interactive whiteboards are placed within the wider context of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a tool for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). The potential of interactive whiteboard is explored from the perspective of Requirements Engineering, a branch of computer science that aims to determine what properties a system should have in order to succeed. Drawing on this field, four steps for the design of technology in educational settings are specified and illustrated

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