Requirements modelling and formal analysis using graph operations

The increasing complexity of enterprise systems requires a more advanced analysis of the representation of services expected than is currently possible. Consequently, the specification stage, which could be facilitated by formal verification, becomes very important to the system life-cycle. This paper presents a formal modelling approach, which may be used in order to better represent the reality of the system and to verify the awaited or existing system’s properties, taking into account the environmental characteristics. For that, we firstly propose a formalization process based upon properties specification, and secondly we use Conceptual Graphs operations to develop reasoning mechanisms of verifying requirements statements. The graphic visualization of these reasoning enables us to correctly capture the system specifications by making it easier to determine if desired properties hold. It is applied to the field of Enterprise modelling

Reusing Scenario Based Approaches in Requirement Engineering Methods: CREWS Method Base

National audienceIn the CREWS project four different scenario-based approaches have been developed with the aim of supporting system requirements acquisition and validation in a systematic way. Two approaches deal with the requirements acquisition from real world scenes [Haumer 98] and from natural language scenario descriptions [Rolland 97], [Rolland 98a]. Two other approaches deal with the requirements validation through systematic scenario generation coupled to scenario walkthrough [Sutcliffe 98] and scenario animation [Dubois 98]. The project hypothesis is that each of the approaches might be useful in specific project situations which are not well tackled by existing analysis methods and therefore, that it is worth looking for the integration of such approaches in current methods. This shall lead to an enhancement of the existing methods with scenario-based techniques. Moreover, in the CREWS project we have proposed a framework for classifying scenarios [Rolland 98b] as a way to explore the issues underlying scenario based approaches in Requirements Engineering (RE). The application of this framework on several scenario based approaches proven the existence of the variety of products and practices of scenarios. We situate our work in the situational method engineering domain. The situational method engineering discipline aims at defining information systems development methods by reusing and assembling different existing method fragments. This approach allows to construct modular methods which can be modified and augmented to meet the requirements of a given situation. Following this approach, a method is viewed as a collection of method fragments [Rolland 96], [Harmsen 94], [Harmsen 97]. New methods can be constructed by selecting fragments from different methods which are the more appropriate to a given situation [Brinkkemper 98], [Plihon 98]. Thus, method fragments are the basic building blocks which allow to define methods in a modular way. In our work we are interested in specific method fragments, namely scenario based approaches, that we call scenario method chunks. The objective of our work is to develop an approach for integrating different kinds of scenarios as method components into usual RE methods. To achieve this goal we propose to represent the scenario based approaches in a method base as method components called scenario method chunks. We need also to define the approach for retrieving relevant scenario method chunk for the situation at hand. Finally, we need to define the approach supporting the integration of the retrieved component with the existing RE method or with another method component

Storyboard basados en escenarios futuros

La certeza de estar modelando el software correcto es una preocupación de los ingenieros desde las primeras etapas del proceso de construcción del software. Es así que garantizar la actividad de validación es un objetivo primordial y como tal debe asegurar que los involucrados comprendan, con total claridad, la propuesta del nuevo software y su contexto. Este proyecto aspira a presentar el conocimiento de los Escenarios Futuros desde una perspectiva gráfica mucho más cercana a la vida cotidiana; es así que se propone la generación de storyboards que faciliten la percepción, por parte del cliente o usuario, del impacto que el futuro sistema de software tendrá en el proceso del negocio. De esta manera se espera mejorar la interacción con los clientes o usuarios para que estos puedan aceptar, discutir o negociar el contexto del futuro sistema de software e indirectamente los requisitos del software empotradros en los Escenarios Futuros e identificar los requisitos tardíos.Eje: Ingeniería de Software y Base de DatosRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Storyboard basados en escenarios futuros

La certeza de estar modelando el software correcto es una preocupación de los ingenieros desde las primeras etapas del proceso de construcción del software. Es así que garantizar la actividad de validación es un objetivo primordial y como tal debe asegurar que los involucrados comprendan, con total claridad, la propuesta del nuevo software y su contexto. Este proyecto aspira a presentar el conocimiento de los Escenarios Futuros desde una perspectiva gráfica mucho más cercana a la vida cotidiana; es así que se propone la generación de storyboards que faciliten la percepción, por parte del cliente o usuario, del impacto que el futuro sistema de software tendrá en el proceso del negocio. De esta manera se espera mejorar la interacción con los clientes o usuarios para que estos puedan aceptar, discutir o negociar el contexto del futuro sistema de software e indirectamente los requisitos del software empotradros en los Escenarios Futuros e identificar los requisitos tardíos.Eje: Ingeniería de Software y Base de DatosRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Method Enhancement by Scenario Based Techniques

International audienceScenarios have proven useful to elicit, validate and document requirements but cannot be used in isolation. Our concern in this paper is to integrate scenario-based techniques in existing methods. We propose a set of operators to support such an integration. This set is classified in two sub-sets: the one dealing with the integration of the product models of the two initial methods and the one concerned with the integration of their process models. The operators are used to integrate the CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach with the OOSE method. This leads to enhance the use case model construction of the OOSE method with on one hand, the linguistic techniques for scenario authoring and formalisation and on the other hand, the discovery strategies to elicit requirements by scenario analysis of the CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach

A web system trace model and its application to web design

Traceability analysis is crucial to the development of web-centric systems, particularly those with frequent system changes, fine-grained evolution and maintenance, and high level of requirements uncertainty. A trace model at the level of the web system architecture is presented in this paper to address the specific challenges of developing web-centric systems. The trace model separates the concerns of different stakeholders in the web development life cycle into viewpoints; and classifies each viewpoint into structure and behaviour. Tracing relationships are presented along two dimensions: within viewpoints; and among viewpoints. Examples of tracing relationships are presented using UML. This trace model is demonstrated through its application to the design of a commercial web project using a web-design process. The design artifacts in each activity are transformed based on the artifacts tracing relationship in the trace model. The model provides mechanisms for verification of consistency, completeness and coverage within each viewpoint and the connectedness across viewpoints

La importancia estratégica de los sistemas de información inteligentes en Colombia

El progreso que puede representar la informática para las organizaciones hoy en día, está fundamentado en un nuevo enfoque orientado hacia el procesamiento y generación del conocimiento y no de los datos. La aplicación de este nuevo paradigma conduce a la construcción de sistemas de información inteligentes para administrar, organizar y distribuir la información de la empresa, aprendiendo y modificando su comportamiento a medida que ella va evolucionando. El propósito de este artículo es resaltar la importancia que tienen estos sistemas como generadores de ventajas estratégicas sostenibles para las empresas, mediante la utilización de herramientas como la planeación estratégica, la ingeniería de información, la reingeniería de software y la inteligencia artificial; también se propone enfatizar en la necesidad de fortalecer la investigación en nuevas tecnologías en el país, con miras a obtener el mejor beneficio de nuestro potencial informático

HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT FOR MEDICAL DEVICES

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) methods have become a standard part of decision-making processes in healthcare service. Although it is routinely applied in drugs and surgery, HTA in medical devices is still quite challenging. The reason is that the main objective of HTA studies for devices is not optimization of the costeffectiveness ratio, but rather decisions about procurement and/or incorporation of the device. The clinical benefit is not expressed in terms of quality of life, but in the rate of diagnostic yield, and in the extent to which the technology makes the therapy shorter and/or more patient-friendly. Utilization of multiple-criteria decision-making methods for evaluation of the aggregated clinical, technical and user´s effect (outcome) is recommended as the input to costeffectiveness analyses. Different methods are derived for strategic and/or operational assessment of new technology. Other studied problems are identification of requirements for medical device selection and purchase, composition of expert panels, and assessment of medical device maintenance demandingness

J Biomed Inform

Responding to public health emergencies requires rapid and accurate assessment of workforce availability under adverse and changing circumstances. However, public health information systems to support resource management during both routine and emergency operations are currently lacking. We applied scenario-based design as an approach to engage public health practitioners in the creation and validation of an information design to support routine and emergency public health activities.|Using semi-structured interviews we identified the information needs and activities of senior public health managers of a large municipal health department during routine and emergency operations.|Interview analysis identified 25 information needs for public health operations management. The identified information needs were used in conjunction with scenario-based design to create 25 scenarios of use and a public health manager persona. Scenarios of use and persona were validated and modified based on follow-up surveys with study participants. Scenarios were used to test and gain feedback on a pilot information system.|The method of scenario-based design was applied to represent the resource management needs of senior-level public health managers under routine and disaster settings. Scenario-based design can be a useful tool for engaging public health practitioners in the design process and to validate an information system design.P01 TP000297/TP/OPHPR CDC HHS/United StatesT15LM007442-08/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United StatesT15 LM007442/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United StatesT15 LM007442-08/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United StatesP01HK000027/HK/PHITPO CDC HHS/United StatesP01 HK000027/HK/PHITPO CDC HHS/United States5P01TP000297/TP/OPHPR CDC HHS/United States2012-12-01T00:00:00Z21807120PMC32269208873vault:728

A Multi-Model View of Process Modelling

International audienceSituatedness of development processes is a key issue in both the software engineering and the method engineering communities, as there is a strong felt need for process prescriptions to be adapted to the situation at hand. The assumption of the process modelling approach presented in this paper is that process prescriptions shall be selected according to the actual situation at hand i.e. dynamically in the course of the process. The paper focuses on a multi-model view of process modelling which supports this dynamicity. The approach builds on the notion of a labelled graph of intentions and strategies called a map as well as its associated guidelines. The map is a navigational structure which supports the dynamic selection of the intention to be achieved next and the appropriate strategy to achieve it whereas guidelines help in the operationalization of the selected intention. The paper presents the map and guidelines and exemplifies the approach with the CREWS-L'Ecritoire method for requirements engineering