817,458 research outputs found

    Engineering design optimization using services and workflows

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    Multi-disciplinary design optimization (MDO) is the process whereby the often conflicting requirements of the different disciplines to the engineering design process attempts to converge upon a description that represents an acceptable compromise in the design space. We present a simple demonstrator of a flexible workflow framework for engineering design optimization using an e-Science tool. This paper provides a concise introduction to MDO, complemented by a summary of the related tools and techniques developed under the umbrella of the UK e-Science programme that we have explored in support of the engineering process. The main contributions of this paper are: (i) a description of the optimization workflow that has been developed in the Taverna workbench, (ii) a demonstrator of a structural optimization process with a range of tool options using common benchmark problems, (iii) some reflections on the experience of software engineering meeting mechanical engineering, and (iv) an indicative discussion on the feasibility of a ‘plug-and-play’ engineering environment for analysis and design

    Understanding requirements work in e-science projects

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    The e-science vision is to create infrastructures to enable faster, better and more collaborative science to be carried out in the 21st Century. The goal is for these infrastructures to allow scientists to collaborate routinely, scaling geographical and disciplinary boundaries; to create ad hoc arrangements datasets, equipment or computational power to solve larger, more complex scientific problems; to federate remote datasets, hence, aiding scientists in data discovery and even data re-use. The work to turn the e-science vision into reality has been the subject of major research programmes in the UK (UK E-Science Programme) and the US (National Science Foundation’s Cyberinfrastructures Programme). Inevitably, e-science technologies and scientific practices will co-evolve as collaborative work becomes more prevalent, and cross-disciplinary work becomes routinised. Thus, the design and development of e-science technologies will play a critical part in the above process; there is a clear need to develop technologies which will accurately reflect end-users’ needs as well as account for the wider social structures of future scientific work. In e-science, there has been an on-going debate about whether new requirements techniques are needed to deal with the ‘unique’ characteristics of e-science projects, and the ambitious aims of e-science software. Some argue that e-science presents sufficiently novel combinations of challenges that new techniques are needed, whilst others argue that e-science practitioners should ‘borrow’ from pre-existing requirements engineering techniques. However, one barrier in settling this question (insomuch as it can be ‘settled’) is that there is currently a lack of empirical data on the requirements work and activities carried out in existing e-science projects. Studying requirements activities in e-science projects by examining the actual problems encountered would yield insights regarding the challenges in working out requirements for e-science technologies, and more generally, better inform the structure of requirements work in future projects. The research in this thesis examines the requirements activities of three UK e-science projects drawn from the astronomy, molecular simulation and translational science disciplines. Detailing the experience of project team members, the research explores issues and challenges encountered over the course of working out requirements for escience technologies. In particular, this research takes a slightly different approach from similar studies, with the unit of analysis being at the project level, reflecting shifts in emphasis on requirements work as projects evolve. Three aspects of requirements work in e-science projects are explored closely. Firstly, the temporal patterns in development work and how requirements activities fitted into such rhythms, phases and trajectories; secondly, the challenges of making a prototyping approach work; thirdly, the challenges of stabilising the ‘missing middle’ – a term to describe the gap between the high-level visionary description of the system from the project proposal, into fine-grained, detailed requirements. Then all three themes are drawn together, in order to make more general observations regarding the challenges of working out requirements for e-science technologies, as well as some observations regarding the shape of requirements work over the course of an e-science project. The thesis concludes that working out requirements for e-science technologies is challenging due to the complexities of supporting multi-disciplinary and multi-organisational work and the novelty of the technology to be developed. Team members have to grapple with multiple domains of knowledge, where there is little pre-existing expertise on how these aspects could be combined. Evidence from the data suggests that multiple strategies are employed to manage this complexity; where the selection of techniques is done on a contingent basis. Thus, one of the major implications of this thesis is to suggest more systematic and explicit capture of ‘lessons learnt’ from developers of previous e-science technologies

    Trust Requirements in E-Health System: A Conceptual Framework

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    Resulting from the development of new technology, conventional scientific practices have migrated into computer-based infrastructures, called e-science. Specifically, escience applied in health discipline is called e-health. It is an organized system that deals to diagnose and treat patients. Considering trust is an important role and fundamental for the provision of effective healthcare service, this paper discusses trust requirement in e-health. To highlight the importance of trust in e-health system, a conceptual framework of trust requirements in e-health system is developed. Drawn from literature search framed by STARLITE, a conceptual framework that addresses trust resulting from relationships of various actors based on two perspectives: sociotechnical and technical perspectives are presented. This framework suggests that e-health system must build a trust relationship between actors and understand trust based on sociotechnical and technical perspectives. Further, security and privacy that protect the confidentiality of patient’s data, especially m-health (mobile health) also need trust in resource sharing. It can be concluded that trust requirements in e-health depend on how the media transmits a social experience, patient-system relationship, and collaboration of software engineering and healthcare professionals. The implementation of trust requirements has the potential to produce well-engineered software in a healthcare organization, resulting in the use of software for effective diagnosis and treatment of patients

    Structural requirements and launcher validation process for MECSE CubeSat

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    MECSE is the first CubeSat being developed at UBI - University da Beira Interior, and it is an under development nanosatellite, resulting from the collaboration between C-MAST - Center for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies and CEiiA - Centre of Engineering and Product Development. MECSE’s mission, aside from the education aims to provide hands-on experience to universitary students in space projects, it intends to demonstrate that is possible the manipulation of plasma layer using an electromagnetic field that will mitigate the RF - Radio Frequency blackout, which occurs when a space vehicle re-enter in the Earth’s Atmosphere. In this dissertation, an overview of the requirements for a structural configuration, design, dimensioning, verification and validation are presented, using several references. Nevertheless, the ECSS - European Cooperation for Space Standardization documents was where the most of the information was consulted, in order to identify and present the requirements from a systems engineering and structural perspective. Therefore, it was initially identified the main structural requirements, such as the mechanical environment, the interconnection between CubeSat and launcher, and the minimum natural frequency required for the satellite structure. Followed by the main structural requirements are the conditions under which the verifications and validations must be performed in a satellite structure. This led to the definition of the verification methods and to the organization, planning and methodology of the verification processes, which are normally used for a CubeSat validation. Knowing that the validation is only granted if the verifications and validation conditions are followed, applied and accomplished in the numerical and experimental verifications, such as for ROD’s - Reviews of Design and inspections. In a final phase of this work, a set of launchers was analysed with the objective of identifying a suitable proposal for MECSE project. The launchers Bloostar, Electron, LauncherOne and Vector-R were the launchers with better performance for the analysed parameters. The analysis of the various launchers was also carried out in order to recognize the most demanding mechanical environment among the cases taken into account, so that MECSE project could be designed and analysed according to the worst case scenario, while the final launcher is not selected. In this same phase a proposal is made for a possible approach to the verification process, with the main focus on the numerical models to be developed, on the experimental test methodology which was defined by a hybrid approach with a structural model, an engineering qualification model and a protoflight model, as well as identified the levels and duration of the tests and analyses to be performed in these same numerical and experimental models.MECSE é o primeiro CubeSat desenvolvido na UBI - Universidade da Beira Interior e é um nanosatélite em desenvolvimento resultante de uma parceria entre o C-MAST - Center for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies e o CEiiA - Centre of Engineering and Product Development. O objectivo do MECSE, além de ser educacional e de providenciar experiência prática a alunos universitários em projetos espaciais, tem como missão demonstrar que é possível manipular a camada de plasma, usando um campo electromagnético que irá permitir a mitigação da perda de sinal de rádio frequência que ocorre quando um veículo espacial reentra na atmosfera terrestre. Nesta dissertação, uma visão geral dos requisitos para a configuração, design, dimensionamento, verificação e validação são apresentados usando diversas referências, sendo dos documentos da ECSS - European Cooperation for Space Standardization que a maior parte da informação foi consultada, de forma a identificar e apresentar os requisitos de uma perspetiva da engenharia de sistemas e estrutural. Posto isto, foi inicialmente identificado os principais requisitos estruturais, tais como o ambiente mecânico, a interconexão entre CubeSat e lançador e a frequência natural mínima exigida à estrutura do satélite. De seguida foram assinaladas as condições pelas quais as verificações e validações se devem realizar numa estrutura espacial. Tendo as condições de verificação e validação levado à definição dos métodos de verificação e à organização, planeamento e metodologia dos processos de verificação que normalmente são aplicados num CubeSat para a sua validação. Sabendo que a validação só é obtida se forem seguidas as condições definidas para a realização das verificações numéricas e experimentais, tal como das ROD’s - Reviws of Design e das inspeções a proceder. Numa fase final deste trabalho, foi analisado um conjunto de lançadores com o objetivo de identificar uma proposta adequada para o projeto MECSE, tendo sido os lançadores Bloostar, Electron, LauncherOne e o Vector-R com melhor desempenho para os parâmetros analisados. A análise dos vários lançadores foi realizada também com o intuito de reconhecer qual o ambiente mecânico mais exigente de entre os casos tidos em conta, de forma a que o projeto MECSE possa ser desenhado e analisado segundo esse mesmo caso, enquanto o lançador final não é selecionado. Também nesta fase é realizada uma proposta para uma possível abordagem ao processo de verificação, com o principal foco para os modelos numéricos a desenvolver, para a metodologia de testes experimentais, foi definida uma abordagem híbrida com o intuito de ser construido um modelo estrutural, um modelo de qualificação de engenharia e um modelo protoflight, tal como é definido os níveis e duração dos testes a realizar nesses mesmos modelos numéricos e experimentais

    A systematic review of quality attributes and measures for software product lines

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    [EN] It is widely accepted that software measures provide an appropriate mechanism for understanding, monitoring, controlling, and predicting the quality of software development projects. In software product lines (SPL), quality is even more important than in a single software product since, owing to systematic reuse, a fault or an inadequate design decision could be propagated to several products in the family. Over the last few years, a great number of quality attributes and measures for assessing the quality of SPL have been reported in literature. However, no studies summarizing the current knowledge about them exist. This paper presents a systematic literature review with the objective of identifying and interpreting all the available studies from 1996 to 2010 that present quality attributes and/or measures for SPL. These attributes and measures have been classified using a set of criteria that includes the life cycle phase in which the measures are applied; the corresponding quality characteristics; their support for specific SPL characteristics (e. g., variability, compositionality); the procedure used to validate the measures, etc. We found 165 measures related to 97 different quality attributes. The results of the review indicated that 92% of the measures evaluate attributes that are related to maintainability. In addition, 67% of the measures are used during the design phase of Domain Engineering, and 56% are applied to evaluate the product line architecture. However, only 25% of them have been empirically validated. In conclusion, the results provide a global vision of the state of the research within this area in order to help researchers in detecting weaknesses, directing research efforts, and identifying new research lines. In particular, there is a need for new measures with which to evaluate both the quality of the artifacts produced during the entire SPL life cycle and other quality characteristics. There is also a need for more validation (both theoretical and empirical) of existing measures. In addition, our results may be useful as a reference guide for practitioners to assist them in the selection or the adaptation of existing measures for evaluating their software product lines. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.This research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the MULTIPLE (Multimodeling Approach For Quality-Aware Software Product Lines) project with ref. TIN2009-13838.Montagud Gregori, S.; Abrahao Gonzales, SM.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE. (2012). A systematic review of quality attributes and measures for software product lines. Software Quality Journal. 20(3-4):425-486. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-011-9146-7S425486203-4Abdelmoez, W., Nassar, D. 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B., Barachisio Lisboa, L., de Almeida E. S., & de Lemos Meira, S. R. (2008). Evaluating domain design approaches using systematic review. In 2nd European conference on software architecture, Cyprus, pp. 50–65.Ejiogu, L. (1991). Software engineering with formal metrics. QED Publishing.Engström, E., & Runeson, P. (2011). Software product line testing—A systematic mapping study. Information & Software Technology, 53(1), 2–13.Etxeberria, L., Sagarui, G., & Belategi, L. (2008). Quality aware software product line engineering. Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society, 14(1), Campinas Mar.Ganesan, D., Knodel, J., Kolb, R., Haury, U., & Meier, G. (2007). Comparing costs and benefits of different test strategies for a software product line: A study from Testo AG. In 11th international software product line conference, Kyoto, Japan, pp. 74–83, September 2007.Gómez, O., Oktaba, H., Piattini, M., & García, F. (2006). 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    Experimenting with Realism in Software Engineering Team Projects: An Experience Report

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    Over Several years, we observed that our students were sceptical of Software Engineering practices, because we did not convey the experience and demands of production quality software development. Assessment focused on features delivered, rather than imposing responsibility for longer term `technical debt'. Academics acting as 'uncertain' customers were rejected as malevolent and implausible. Student teams composed of novices lacked the benefits of leadership provided by more experienced engineers. To address these shortcomings, real customers were introduced, exposing students to real requirements uncertainty. Flipped classroom teaching was adopted, giving teams one day each week to work on their project in a redesigned laboratory. Software process and quality were emphasised in the course assessment, imposing technical debt. Finally, we introduced a leadership course for senior students, who acted as mentors to the project team students. This paper reports on the experience of these changes, from the perspective of different stakeholders

    Evaluating groupware support for software engineering students

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    Software engineering tasks, during both development and maintenance, typically involve teamwork using computers. Team members rarely work on isolated computers. An underlying assumption of our research is that software engineering teams will work more effectively if adequately supported by network-based groupware technology. Experience of working with groupware and evaluating groupware systems will also give software engineering students a direct appreciation of the requirements of engineering such systems. This research is investigating the provision of such network-based support for software engineering students and the impact these tools have on their groupwork. We will first describe our experiences gained through the introduction of an asynchronous virtual environment ­ SEGWorld to support groupwork during the Software Engineering Group (SEG) project undertaken by all second year undergraduates within the Department of Computer Science. Secondly we will describe our Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) module which has been introduced into the students' final year of study as a direct result of our experience with SEG, and in particular its role within Software Engineering. Within this CSCW module the students have had the opportunity to evaluate various groupware tools. This has enabled them to take a retrospective view of their experience of SEGWorld and its underlying system, BSCW, one year on. We report our findings for SEG in the form of a discussion of the hypotheses we formulated on how the SEGs would use SEGWorld, and present an initial qualitative assessment of student feedback from the CSCW module

    Identifying Agile Requirements Engineering Patterns in Industry

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    Agile Software Development (ASD) is gaining in popularity in today´s business world. Industry is adopting agile methodologies both to accelerate value delivery and to enhance the ability to deal with changing requirements. However, ASD has a great impact on how Requirements Engineering (RE) is carried out in agile environments. The integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) plays an important role due to the focus on user and stakeholder involvement. To this end, we aim to introduce agile RE patterns as main objective of this paper. On the one hand, we will describe our pattern mining process based on empirical research in literature and industry. On the other hand, we will discuss our results and provide two examples of agile RE patterns. In sum, the pattern mining process identifies 41 agile RE patterns. The accumulated knowledge will be shared by means of a web application.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED
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