A heuristic-based approach to code-smell detection

Encapsulation and data hiding are central tenets of the object oriented paradigm. Deciding what data and behaviour to form into a class and where to draw the line between its public and private details can make the difference between a class that is an understandable, flexible and reusable abstraction and one which is not. This decision is a difficult one and may easily result in poor encapsulation which can then have serious implications for a number of system qualities. It is often hard to identify such encapsulation problems within large software systems until they cause a maintenance problem (which is usually too late) and attempting to perform such analysis manually can also be tedious and error prone. Two of the common encapsulation problems that can arise as a consequence of this decomposition process are data classes and god classes. Typically, these two problems occur together – data classes are lacking in functionality that has typically been sucked into an over-complicated and domineering god class. This paper describes the architecture of a tool which automatically detects data and god classes that has been developed as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The technique has been evaluated in a controlled study on two large open source systems which compare the tool results to similar work by Marinescu, who employs a metrics-based approach to detecting such features. The study provides some valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the two approache

Sustainability of systems interoperability in dynamic business networks

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresCollaborative networked environments emerged with the spread of the internet, contributing to overcome past communication barriers, and identifying interoperability as an essential property to support businesses development. When achieved seamlessly, efficiency is increased in the entire product life cycle support. However, due to the different sources of knowledge, models and semantics, enterprise organisations are experiencing difficulties exchanging critical information, even when they operate in the same business environments. To solve this issue, most of them try to attain interoperability by establishing peer-to-peer mappings with different business partners, or use neutral data and product standards as the core for information sharing, in optimized networks. In current industrial practice, the model mappings that regulate enterprise communications are only defined once, and most of them are hardcoded in the information systems. This solution has been effective and sufficient for static environments, where enterprise and product models are valid for decades. However, more and more enterprise systems are becoming dynamic, adapting and looking forward to meet further requirements; a trend that is causing new interoperability disturbances and efficiency reduction on existing partnerships. Enterprise Interoperability (EI) is a well established area of applied research, studying these problems, and proposing novel approaches and solutions. This PhD work contributes to that research considering enterprises as complex and adaptive systems, swayed to factors that are making interoperability difficult to sustain over time. The analysis of complexity as a neighbouring scientific domain, in which features of interoperability can be identified and evaluated as a benchmark for developing a new foundation of EI, is here proposed. This approach envisages at drawing concepts from complexity science to analyse dynamic enterprise networks and proposes a framework for sustaining systems interoperability, enabling different organisations to evolve at their own pace, answering the upcoming requirements but minimizing the negative impact these changes can have on their business environment

Methodology for enterprise interoperability assessment

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresWith the evolution of modern enterprises and the increasing market competitiveness, the creation of ecosystems with large amounts of data and knowledge generally needing to be exchanged electronically, is arising. However, this enterprise inter and intra-connectivity is suffering from interoperability issues. Not visible when it is effective, the lack of interoperability poses a series of challenging problems to the industrial community, which can reduce the envisaged efficiency and increase costs. Those problems are mostly caused by misinterpretations of data at the systems level, but problems at the organizational and human levels may pose equivalent difficulties. Existing research and technology provides several frameworks to assist the development of collaborative environments and enterprise networks with well-defined methods to facilitate interoperability. Nonetheless, the interoperability process is not guaranteed and is not easily sustainable, changing upon frequent market and requirement variations. For these reasons, there is a need for a testing methodology to assess the capability of enterprises to cooperate at a certain point in time. This dissertation proposes a methodology to assess that capability, with a corresponding framework to evaluate the interoperability process, applying eliminatory tests to assess the structure of the organizations, the conceptual models and their implementation. This work contributes to increase the chances enterprises have of interoperating effectively, and enables the adoption of extraordinary measures to improve their current interoperability situation

Model morphisms (MoMo) to enable language independent information models and interoperable business networks

MSc. Dissertation presented at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa to obtain the Master degree in Electrical and Computer EngineeringWith the event of globalisation, the opportunities for collaboration became more evident with the effect of enlarging business networks. In such conditions, a key for enterprise success is a reliable communication with all the partners. Therefore, organisations have been searching for flexible integrated environments to better manage their services and product life cycle, where their software applications could be easily integrated independently of the platform in use. However, with so many different information models and implementation standards being used, interoperability problems arise. Moreover,organisations are themselves at different technological maturity levels, and the solution that might be good for one, can be too advanced for another, or vice-versa. This dissertation responds to the above needs, proposing a high level meta-model to be used at the entire business network, enabling to abstract individual models from their specificities and increasing language independency and interoperability, while keeping all the enterprise legacy software‟s integrity intact. The strategy presented allows an incremental mapping construction, to achieve a gradual integration. To accomplish this, the author proposes Model Driven Architecture (MDA) based technologies for the development of traceable transformations and execution of automatic Model Morphisms

Monitoring morphisms to support sustainable interoperability of enterprise systems

Dissertation to obtain the Master degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceNowadays, organizations are required to be part of a global collaborative world. Sometimes this is the only way they can access new and wider markets, reaching new opportunities, skills and sharing assets, e.g. tools, lessons learnt. However, due to the different sources of enterprise models and semantics, organizations are experiencing difficulties in exchanging vital information via electronic and in a seamlessly way. To solve this issue, most of them try to attain interoperability by establishing peer-to-peer mappings with different business partners, or in optimized networks using neutral data standards to regulate communications. Moreover, the systems are more and more dynamic, changing frequently to answer new customer’s requirements, causing new interoperability problems and a reduction of efficiency. This dissertation proposes a multi-agent system to monitor existing enterprise systems, by being capable of detecting morphism changes. With this, network harmonization breakings are timely detected, and possible solutions are suggested to regain the interoperable status, thus enhancing robustness for reaching sustainability of business networks

Assessing and Improving Interoperability of Distributed Systems

Interoperabilität von verteilten Systemen ist eine Grundlage für die Entwicklung von neuen und innovativen Geschäftslösungen. Sie erlaubt es existierende Dienste, die auf verschiedenen Systemen angeboten werden, so miteinander zu verknüpfen, dass neue oder erweiterte Dienste zur Verfügung gestellt werden können. Außerdem kann durch diese Integration die Zuverlässigkeit von Diensten erhöht werden. Das Erreichen und Bewerten von Interoperabilität stellt jedoch eine finanzielle und zeitliche Herausforderung dar. Zur Sicherstellung und Bewertung von Interoperabilität werden systematische Methoden benötigt. Um systematisch Interoperabilität von Systemen erreichen und bewerten zu können, wurde im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit ein Prozess zur Verbesserung und Beurteilung von Interoperabilität (IAI) entwickelt. Der IAI-Prozess beinhaltet drei Phasen und kann die Interoperabilität von verteilten, homogenen und auch heterogenen Systemen bewerten und verbessern. Die Bewertung erfolgt dabei durch Interoperabilitätstests, die manuell oder automatisiert ausgeführt werden können. Für die Automatisierung von Interoperabilitätstests wird eine neue Methodik vorgestellt, die einen Entwicklungsprozess für automatisierte Interoperabilitätstestsysteme beinhaltet. Die vorgestellte Methodik erleichtert die formale und systematische Bewertung der Interoperabilität von verteilten Systemen. Im Vergleich zur manuellen Prüfung von Interoperabilität gewährleistet die hier vorgestellte Methodik eine höhere Testabdeckung, eine konsistente Testdurchführung und wiederholbare Interoperabilitätstests. Die praktische Anwendbarkeit des IAI-Prozesses und der Methodik für automatisierte Interoperabilitätstests wird durch drei Fallstudien belegt. In der ersten Fallstudie werden Prozess und Methodik für Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Netzwerke instanziiert. Die Interoperabilität von IMS-Netzwerken wurde bisher nur manuell getestet. In der zweiten und dritten Fallstudie wird der IAI-Prozess zur Beurteilung und Verbesserung der Interoperabilität von Grid- und Cloud-Systemen angewendet. Die Bewertung und Verbesserung dieser Interoperabilität ist eine Herausforderung, da Grid- und Cloud-Systeme im Gegensatz zu IMS-Netzwerken heterogen sind. Im Rahmen der Fallstudien werden Möglichkeiten für Integrations- und Interoperabilitätslösungen von Grid- und Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Cloud-Systemen sowie von Grid- und Platform as a Service (PaaS) Cloud-Systemen aufgezeigt. Die vorgestellten Lösungen sind in der Literatur bisher nicht dokumentiert worden. Sie ermöglichen die komplementäre Nutzung von Grid- und Cloud-Systemen, eine vereinfachte Migration von Grid-Anwendungen in ein Cloud-System sowie eine effiziente Ressourcennutzung. Die Interoperabilitätslösungen werden mit Hilfe des IAI-Prozesses bewertet. Die Durchführung der Tests für Grid-IaaS-Cloud-Systeme erfolgte manuell. Die Interoperabilität von Grid-PaaS-Cloud-Systemen wird mit Hilfe der Methodik für automatisierte Interoperabilitätstests bewertet. Interoperabilitätstests und deren Beurteilung wurden bisher in der Grid- und Cloud-Community nicht diskutiert, obwohl sie eine Basis für die Entwicklung von standardisierten Schnittstellen zum Erreichen von Interoperabilität zwischen Grid- und Cloud-Systemen bieten.Achieving interoperability of distributed systems offers means for the development of new and innovative business solutions. Interoperability allows the combination of existing services provided on different systems, into new or extended services. Such an integration can also increase the reliability of the provided service. However, achieving and assessing interoperability is a technical challenge that requires high effort regarding time and costs. The reasons are manifold and include differing implementations of standards as well as the provision of proprietary interfaces. The implementations need to be engineered to be interoperable. Techniques that assess and improve interoperability systematically are required. For the assurance of reliable interoperation between systems, interoperability needs to be assessed and improved in a systematic manner. To this aim, we present the Interoperability Assessment and Improvement (IAI) process, which describes in three phases how interoperability of distributed homogeneous and heterogeneous systems can be improved and assessed systematically. The interoperability assessment is achieved by means of interoperability testing, which is typically performed manually. For the automation of interoperability test execution, we present a new methodology including a generic development process for a complete and automated interoperability test system. This methodology provides means for a formalized and systematic assessment of systems' interoperability in an automated manner. Compared to manual interoperability testing, the application of our methodology has the following benefits: wider test coverage, consistent test execution, and test repeatability. We evaluate the IAI process and the methodology for automated interoperability testing in three case studies. Within the first case study, we instantiate the IAI process and the methodology for Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks, which were previously assessed for interoperability only in a manual manner. Within the second and third case study, we apply the IAI process to assess and improve the interoperability of grid and cloud computing systems. Their interoperability assessment and improvement is challenging, since cloud and grid systems are, in contrast to IMS networks, heterogeneous. We develop integration and interoperability solutions for grids and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) clouds as well as for grids and Platform as a Service (PaaS) clouds. These solutions are unique and foster complementary usage of grids and clouds, simplified migration of grid applications into the cloud, as well as efficient resource utilization. In addition, we assess the interoperability of the grid-cloud interoperability solutions. While the tests for grid-IaaS clouds are performed manually, we applied our methodology for automated interoperability testing for the assessment of interoperability to grid-PaaS cloud interoperability successfully. These interoperability assessments are unique in the grid-cloud community and provide a basis for the development of standardized interfaces improving the interoperability between grids and clouds

Negotiation environment to support enterprise interoperability sustainability

Dissertation to obtain the Master degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceSpecialized and diversified global markets are facing a competitiveness that keeps pushing enterprises to abandon their traditional product centrism, where basically it is enough to concentrate their efforts in very narrow specialization fields and change their methods of work relying on networks of other providers that are able to fulfill their needs towards the development of complete solutions. These new methods of work, regarding the rapid change in markets and business organizations, requires new interoperability demands and complexity levels, from connection and syntax-oriented exchanges to semantic and model-oriented knowledge, which becomes very difficult for enterprises to cope with the pace of change. This dissertation proposes the implementation of a framework, based on agents and rules, to achieve solid and stable integration of solutions, via the use of a strong and formal negotiation mechanism, which will be the basis for increasing the enterprise interoperability in the supply chain for the development of solutions.European Commission through the funding of the FP7 ENSEMBLE, UNITE, MSEE and IMAGINE project

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business