Managing the requirements engineering process

Process management is a crucial issue in developing information or computer systems. Theories of software development process management suggest that the process should be supported and managed based on what the process really is. However, our learning from an action research study reveals that the requirements engineering (RE) process differs significantly from what the current literature tends to describe. The process is not a systematic, smooth and incremental evolution of the requirements model, but involves occasional simplification and restructuring of the requirements model. This revised understanding of the RE process suggests a new challenge to both the academic and industrial communities, demanding new process management approaches. In this paper, we present our understanding of the RE process and its implications for process management.<br /

Geoscience after IT: Part J. Human requirements that shape the evolving geoscience information system

The geoscience record is constrained by the limitations of human thought and of the technology for handling information. IT can lead us away from the tyranny of older technology, but to find the right path, we need to understand our own limitations. Language, images, data and mathematical models, are tools for expressing and recording our ideas. Backed by intuition, they enable us to think in various modes, to build knowledge from information and create models as artificial views of a real world. Markup languages may accommodate more flexible and better connected records, and the object-oriented approach may help to match IT more closely to our thought processes

Distribution pattern-driven development of service architectures

Distributed systems are being constructed by composing a number of discrete components. This practice is particularly prevalent within the Web service domain in the form of service process orchestration and choreography. Often, enterprise systems are built from many existing discrete applications such as legacy applications exposed using Web service interfaces. There are a number of architectural configurations or distribution patterns, which express how a composed system is to be deployed in a distributed environment. However, the amount of code required to realise these distribution patterns is considerable. In this paper, we propose a distribution pattern-driven approach to service composition and architecting. We develop, based on a catalog of patterns, a UML-compliant framework, which takes existing Web service interfaces as its input and generates executable Web service compositions based on a distribution pattern chosen by the software architect

Incorporating design explanation within formal object-oriented method (FOOM)

Requirements engineering is a commencing phase in the development of either software applications or information systems. It is concerned with understanding and specifying the customer\u27s requirements of the system to be delivered. Throughout the literature, this is agreed to be one of the most crucial and, unfortunately, problematic phases in development. Despite the diversity of research directions, approaches and methods, the question of process understanding and management is still limited. Among contemporary approaches to the improvement of the current practice of Requirements Engineering, Formal Object-Oriented Method (FOOM) has been introduced as a new promising solution. The FOOM approach to requirements engineering is based on a synthesis of socio-organisational theory, the object-oriented approach, and mathematical formal specification. The entire FOOM specification process is evolutionary and involves a large volume of changes in requirements. During this process, requirements evolve through various forms of informal, semi-formal, and formal while maintaining a semantic link between these forms and, most importantly, conforming to the customer\u27s requirements. A deep understanding of the complexity of the requirements model and its dynamics is critical in improving requirements engineering process management. This thesis investigates the benefits of documenting both the evolution of the requirements model and the rationale for that evolution. Design explanation explains and justifies the deliberations of, and decisions made during, the design activity. In this thesis, design explanation is used to describe the requirements engineering process in order to improve understandability of, and traceability within, the evolving requirements specification. The design explanation recorded during this research project is also useful in assisting the researcher in gaining insights into the creativity and opportunistic characteristics of the requirements engineering process. This thesis offers an interpretive investigation into incorporating design explanation within FOOM in order to extend and advantage the method. The researcher\u27s interpretation and analysis of collected data highlight an insight-driven and opportunistic process rather than a strictly and systematically predefined one. In fact, the process was not smoothly evolutionary, but involved occasional \u27crisis\u27 points at which the model was reconceptualised, simplified and restructured. Therefore, contributions of the thesis lie not only in an effective incorporation of design explanation within FOOM, but also a deep understanding of the dynamic process of requirements engineering. The new understanding of the complexity of the requirements model and its dynamics suggests new directions for future research and forms a basis for a new approach to process management

Revelando el poder de la emoción en español L2: un estudio sobre la instrucción de los verbos de afecto

This study explores one of the most important research lines in the field of Applied Linguistics: the teaching and learning of a second language (L2), and more specifically, of L2 Spanish. Spanish is a rapidly growing language, with a user base that has increased to 591 million, 6 million more than in 2020, according to the latest annual El español en el mundo (Instituto Cervantes, 2021). Spanish is thus becoming one of the most in-demand languages and this requires effective teaching. Through the analysis of seven L2 Spanish textbooks, we aim to examine the theoretical approach underlying the explanations of verbs of affection in Spanish (e.g., me fastidia [‘it bothers me’], me encanta [‘I love’]), as this grammatical construction is complex for a non-native speaker. Based on the findings, this investigation endeavors to provide pedagogical illustrations of how cognitive linguistics can be an advantageous method in teaching and learning psych verbs. The results of the study indicate that while all teaching materials are based on the classical communicative paradigm, none of them provide a cognitive perspective for the instruction of psych verbs in the early stages of learning or across the entire spectrum of emotions. This disregard for grammatical meaning and systematic treatment of these linguistic forms results in a reduced focus on their formal aspects, neglecting the changes in meaning that occur based on the focus on the stimulus or experiencer. This approach to teaching emotions grammar is viewed as mechanical and artificial.Este estudio investiga una de las áreas más importantes en el campo de la Lingüística Aplicada: la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de una segunda lengua (L2), específicamente el español L2. El español es un idioma que está experimentando un rápido crecimiento, con una base de usuarios que ha alcanzado los 591 millones, 6 millones más según el último informe “El español en el mundo” del Instituto Cervantes (2021). Esto convierte al español en uno de los idiomas más demandados, lo cual requiere una enseñanza efectiva. Mediante el análisis de siete libros de texto de español L2, pretendemos examinar el enfoque teórico subyacente en las explicaciones de los verbos de afecto en español (por ejemplo, “me fastidia, me encanta”), ya que esta construcción gramatical resulta compleja para un hablante no nativo. Con base en los resultados de la investigación, buscamos proporcionar ejemplos pedagógicos de cómo la lingüística cognitiva puede ser un método ventajoso en la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de los verbos psicológicos. Los resultados del estudio indican que, aunque todos los materiales didácticos se basan en el paradigma comunicativo clásico, ninguno de ellos ofrece una perspectiva cognitiva para la enseñanza de los verbos psicológicos en las etapas iniciales del aprendizaje o en todo el espectro de las emociones. Esta falta de atención al significado gramatical y al tratamiento sistemático de estas formas lingüísticas se refleja en una descuido de sus aspectos formales, dejando de lado los cambios de significado que ocurren al centrarse en el estímulo o el experimentador. Este enfoque de enseñanza resulta limitado y no aborda adecuadamente la riqueza de significados que estas expresiones pueden transmitir

Security Requirements Specification and Tracing within Topological Functioning Model

Specification and traceability of security requirements is still a challenge since modeling and analysis of security aspects of systems require additional efforts at the very beginning of software development. The topological functioning model is a formal mathematical model that can be used as a reference model for functional and non-functional requirements of the system. It can also serve as a reference model for security requirements. The purpose of this study is to determine the approach to how security requirements can be specified and traced using the topological functioning model. This article demonstrates the suggested approach and explains its potential benefits and limitations

Metaphor, Objects, and Commodities

This article is a contribution to a symposium that focuses on the ideas of Margaret Jane Radin as a point of departure, and particularly on her analyses of propertization and commodification. While Radin focuses on the harms associated with commodification of the person, relying on Hegel's idea of alienation, we argue that objectification, and in particular objectification of various features of the digital environment, may have important system benefits. We present an extended critique of Radin's analysis, basing the critique in part on Gadamer's argument that meaning and application are interrelated and that meaning changes with application. Central to this interplay is the speculative form of analysis that seeks to fix meaning, contrasted with metaphorical thought that seeks to undermine some fixed meanings and create new meanings through interpretation. The result is that speculative and metaphorical forms are conjoined in an interactive process through which new adaptations emerge. Taking this critique an additional step, we use examples from contemporary intellectual property law discourse to demonstrate how an interactive approach, grounded in metaphor, can yield important insights

Apperceptive patterning: Artefaction, extensional beliefs and cognitive scaffolding

In “Psychopower and Ordinary Madness” my ambition, as it relates to Bernard Stiegler’s recent literature, was twofold: 1) critiquing Stiegler’s work on exosomatization and artefactual posthumanism—or, more specifically, nonhumanism—to problematize approaches to media archaeology that rely upon technical exteriorization; 2) challenging how Stiegler engages with Giuseppe Longo and Francis Bailly’s conception of negative entropy. These efforts were directed by a prevalent techno-cultural qualifier: the rise of Synthetic Intelligence (including neural nets, deep learning, predictive processing and Bayesian models of cognition). This paper continues this project but first directs a critical analytic lens at the Derridean practice of the ontologization of grammatization from which Stiegler emerges while also distinguishing how metalanguages operate in relation to object-oriented environmental interaction by way of inferentialism. Stalking continental (Kapp, Simondon, Leroi-Gourhan, etc.) and analytic traditions (e.g., Carnap, Chalmers, Clark, Sutton, Novaes, etc.), we move from artefacts to AI and Predictive Processing so as to link theories related to technicity with philosophy of mind. Simultaneously drawing forth Robert Brandom’s conceptualization of the roles that commitments play in retrospectively reconstructing the social experiences that lead to our endorsement(s) of norms, we compliment this account with Reza Negarestani’s deprivatized account of intelligence while analyzing the equipollent role between language and media (both digital and analog)