ADAPTABLES 2006 : proceedings of the joint CIB, Tensinet, IASS international conference on adaptability in design and construction, Volume 3

No abstract

Development tools for context aware and secure pervasive computing in embedded systems middleware

PhD ThesisThe increasing number of devices that are invisibly embedded into our surrounding environment as well as the proliferation of wireless communication and sensing technologies are the basis for visions like ambient intelligence, ubiquitous and pervasive computing. The PErvasive Computing in Embedded Systems (PECES) project developed the technological basis to enable the global cooperation of embedded devices residing in different smart spaces in a context-dependent, secure and trustworthy manner. The PECES development tools aim to help the application developer to build applications using the PECES middleware and simulate the smart space dynamics such as device connections and context changes, etc. To ease the middleware development process, the development tools are implemented as Eclipse plugins and integrated into the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The development tools provide graphical user interface (GUI) to configure, model and test the PECES middleware based smart space applications. This thesis presents the design, implementation and devaluation of three groups of tools namely Configuration Tool (Peces Project, Peces Device Definition, Peces Ontology Instantiation, Peces Security Configuration, Peces Service Definition, Peces Role Specification Definition, Peces Hierarchical Role Specification Definition), Modelling Tool (Peces Event Editor, Peces Event Diagram) and Testing Tool which enalble application developer to build, model and test the PECES middleware based smart space application using the novel concepts such as role assignment, context ontologies and security

Designing Trustworthy Autonomous Systems

The design of autonomous systems is challenging and ensuring their trustworthiness can have different meanings, such as i) ensuring consistency and completeness of the requirements by a correct elicitation and formalization process; ii) ensuring that requirements are correctly mapped to system implementations so that any system behaviors never violate its requirements; iii) maximizing the reuse of available components and subsystems in order to cope with the design complexity; and iv) ensuring correct coordination of the system with its environment.Several techniques have been proposed over the years to cope with specific problems. However, a holistic design framework that, leveraging on existing tools and methodologies, practically helps the analysis and design of autonomous systems is still missing. This thesis explores the problem of building trustworthy autonomous systems from different angles. We have analyzed how current approaches of formal verification can provide assurances: 1) to the requirement corpora itself by formalizing requirements with assume/guarantee contracts to detect incompleteness and conflicts; 2) to the reward function used to then train the system so that the requirements do not get misinterpreted; 3) to the execution of the system by run-time monitoring and enforcing certain invariants; 4) to the coordination of the system with other external entities in a system of system scenario and 5) to system behaviors by automatically synthesize a policy which is correct

Formal specification-based monitoring, regression testing and aspects

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

An investigation into quality assurance with respect to the management of quality in the South African building industry

Includes bibliographical references (pages 154-163).This thesis cont a ins a descriptive research concerning the Building Industry in South Africa and Quality Assurance. The study identifies the Building Industry and investigates the process of quality management. The thesis does not attempt to solve any problems in the industry but shows the need for the application of quality assurance to the industry. Through experience the author has identified this need, which is not confined to the Building Industry alone. The urgency of this need is what has prompted research in this area

Groupware requirements evolution patterns

Requirements evolution is a generally known problem in software development. Requirements are known to change all throughout a system's lifecycle. Nevertheless, requirements evolution is a poorly understood phenomenon. Most studies on requirements evolution focus on changes to written specifications and on software architecture and design. Usually, the focus is when the software is under development. Little is known about how requirements evolve when software is put into use.\ud Groupware is an example of an application domain in which the requirements continue to evolve after the system is deployed to the organization. Groupware is any ICT (software + hardware) application that supports the cooperative processes of individuals working as a group. Increasingly, groupware functionality is becoming more present in today's business applications and large information systems. The cooperative processes supported by a groupware application have no structure. Rather, its structure evolves in a way that cannot be specified in advance and arises spontaneously. Therefore, how a groupware system will be used in its operating enviroment cannot be anticipated in advance. There is also the added complication that groupware requirements are difficult to elicit due to the elusive nature of cooperative work. As software for supporting the cooperative processes of people working together, groupware technology has the potential to bring about profound organizational changes. Various studies of groupware implementation point to emergent organizational properties. The interaction between users and software leads to improvements in performance, new forms of communication, changes to group structure and functioning, all of which indicate that requirements have changed.\ud This study is an empirical investigation of requirements evolution for groupware systems in use by means of case studies. Its goal is to contribute to the development of a theory of requirements evolution. A conceptual framework offering an integrated view of requirements as a collection of domains was developed to guide and structure the investigation. The view takes the broad dimensions of business, software, problems, and solutions as requirements thus giving rise to four domains of requirements: business problem, business solution, software product concept, and software solution specification. Requirements evolution is initially formulated as the change in requirements over the course of time.\ud The application domain of groupware was chosen as the empirical setting in which to observe requirements evolution during system use. Four case studies of groupware implementations were conducted. Two failed implementation and two successful implementations were investigated. The conceptual framework is used to analyze the cases and is updated and improved based on an evaluation of how useful has it been in providing insights about requirements evolution. A final version of the framework is developed and this is used to analyze the last two case studies.\ud The results include the discovery of impact relations: commonly recurring mechanisms by which changed and new requirements lead to other requirements in different areas. Ultimately, requirements evolution is the resolution of a breakdown or an initiative resulting in an impact relation. The most important contribution of this research is a set of requirements evolution patterns: aggregations of impact relation sequences that explain the mechanisms underlying awkwardly familiar patterns of behavior in system implementation

A New Framework for Strategic Information Systems in Airline Industry

Stiff competition in the Airline sector mandates airlines to innovate ways to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals; however, without a strong IT the mission to attain this would be arduous. Large airlines do their best to maximise the use of enterprise systems to stream their business processes. Nonetheless, some airlines are not up to date with technology and are left with few choices when attempting to secure their existence in today’s harsh market. One option is to implement bleeding edge systems concurrently (which is our focus in this paper) due to the fact that very scant research exists regarding this phenomenon, let alone the airline sector itself. The aim of this study is explore and investigate the phenomenon of deploying multi enterprise systems concurrently due to its uniqueness and owing to the fact that this approach is not the common practice most airline undertake. We argue here that having multi Airline Solution Providers (ASP) working together concurrently to constitute a homogeneous solution generates many aspects that necessitate a deep understanding in such matters as competitor ASPs and technology leakage. In addition, the study explored various themes that unleash the phenomenon of the concurrent Multi- collaborative Enterprise Systems (MES). The role of cohesion factors that groups the rivals to work under the umbrella of an organisation was also embarked upon in this study. Various aspects contributing to the success of the MES phenomenon have been exposed with regarding ASP’s interplay, organisation, and other contextual surrounding MES. Finally, this study drew a strategic frame work for airlines that unleash the MES phenomenon. A large airline and its collaborative airline solutions provider were taken as the scope of study; the airline had over twenty six thousand employees. Five reputable world class ASPs in the airline industry in various fields were also included. The twenty five participants in this study were professionals in IT and the airline business besides being involved heavily in the phenomenon of deploying concurrent multi enterprise systems. Grounded Theory techniques were used to analyse the large volume of data gathered underpinning this by using state of art software package such as nVivo. This research has explored the phenomenon under study using grounded theory methodology to build a theoretical model that best presents the MES initiative. In addition, it has offered a well-founded framework that explains the MES phenomenon in details, which is relevant to both practitioners and researchers.This research has clearly explored and demonstrated the inhibitors and enablers in the undertaking of MES. In particular, it has focused on enablers of the organisation that received the MES. Furthermore, it has explored the interrelationship between ASPs and exposed some of the aspects that need more focus between rivals working on the same project.Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabi