Implementation issues in product line scoping

Often product line engineering is treated similar to the waterfall model in traditional software engineering, i.e., the different phases (scoping, analysis, architecting, implementation) are treated as if they could be clearly separated and would follow each other in an ordered fashion. However, in practice strong interactions between the individual phases become apparent. In particular, how implementation is done has a strong impact on economic aspects of the project and thus how to adequately plan it. Hence, assessing these relationships adequately in the beginning has a strong impact on performing a product line project right. In this paper we present a framework that helps in exactly this task. It captures on an abstract level the relationships between scoping information and implementation aspects and thus allows to provide rough guidance on implementation aspects of the project. We will also discuss the application of our framework to a specific industrial project

How to Find Suitable Ontologies Using an Ontology-based WWW Broker

Knowledge reuse by means of outologies now faces three important problems: (1) there are no standardized identifying features that characterize ontologies from the user point of view; (2) there are no web sites using the same logical organization, presenting relevant information about ontologies; and (3) the search for appropriate ontologies is hard, time-consuming and usually fruitless. To solve the above problems, we present: (1) a living set of features that allow us to characterize ontologies from the user point of view and have the same logical organization; (2) a living domain ontology about ontologies (called ReferenceOntology) that gathers, describes and has links to existing ontologies; and (3) (ONTO)2Agent, the ontology-based www broker about ontologies that uses the Reference Ontology as a source of its knowledge and retrieves descriptions of ontologies that satisfy a given set of constraints. (ONTO)~Agent is available at http://delicias.dia.fi.upm.es/REFERENCE ONTOLOGY

Useful Descriptions of Organizational Processes: Collecting Data for the Process Handbook

This paper describes a data collection methodology for business process analysis. Unlike static objects, business processes are semi-repetitive sequences of events that are often widely distributed in time and space, with ambiguous boundaries. To redesign or even just describe a business process requires an approach that is sensitive to these aspects of the phenomena. The method described here is intended to generate semi-formal process representations suitable for inclusion in a "handbook" of organizational processes. Using basic techniques of ethnographic interviewing and observation, the method helps users map decomposition, specialization, and dependency relationships at an intermediate level of abstraction meaningful to participants. By connecting new process descriptions to an existing taxonomy of similar descriptions in the Handbook, this method helps build a common vocabulary for process description and analysis.

Reverse Engineering of Computer-Based Navy Systems

The financial pressure to meet the need for change in computer-based systems through evolution rather than through revolution has spawned the discipline of reengineering. One driving factor of reengineering is that it is increasingly becoming the case that enhanced requirements placed on computer-based systems are overstressing the processing resources of the systems. Thus, the distribution of processing load over highly parallel and distributed hardware architectures has become part of the reengineering process for computer-based Navy systems. This paper presents an intermediate representation (IR) for capturing features of computer-based systems to enable reengineering for concurrency. A novel feature of the IR is that it incorporates the mission critical software architecture, a view that enables information to be captured at five levels of granularity: the element/program level, the task level, the module/class/package level, the method/procedure level, and the statement/instruction level. An approach to reverse engineering is presented, in which the IR is captured, and is analyzed to identify potential concurrency. Thus, the paper defines concurrency metrics to guide the reengineering tasks of identifying, enhancing, and assessing concurrency, and for performing partitioning and assignment. Concurrency metrics are defined at several tiers of the mission critical software architecture. In addition to contributing an approach to reverse engineering for computer-based systems, the paper also discusses a reverse engineering analysis toolset that constructs and displays the IR and the concurrency metrics for Ada programs. Additionally, the paper contains a discussion of the context of our reengineering efforts within the United States Navy, by describing two reengineering projects focused on sussystems of the AEGIS Weapon System

A Model-Based Approach to Impact Analysis Using Model Differencing

Impact analysis is concerned with the identification of consequences of changes and is therefore an important activity for software evolution. In modelbased software development, models are core artifacts, which are often used to generate essential parts of a software system. Changes to a model can thus substantially affect different artifacts of a software system. In this paper, we propose a modelbased approach to impact analysis, in which explicit impact rules can be specified in a domain specific language (DSL). These impact rules define consequences of designated UML class diagram changes on software artifacts and the need of dependent activities such as data evolution. The UML class diagram changes are identified automatically using model differencing. The advantage of using explicit impact rules is that they enable the formalization of knowledge about a product. By explicitly defining this knowledge, it is possible to create a checklist with hints about development steps that are (potentially) necessary to manage the evolution. To validate the feasibility of our approach, we provide results of a case study.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, In: Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Software Quality and Maintainability (SQM), ECEASST Journal, vol. 65 201

Management consulting.

Including a lengthy, comprehensive introduction, this important collection brings together some of the most influential papers that have contributed to our understanding of management consultancy work. The two-volume set encompasses the breadth of conceptual and empirical perspectives and explores those key ideas that have helped to advance our knowledge of this intriguing area. The volumes are divided into a series of thematic sections, affording the reader easy access to a great resource of information. Professors Clark and Avakian have written an original introduction which provides a comprehensive overview of the literature

A method for re-modularising legacy code

This thesis proposes a method for the re-modularisation of legacy COBOL. Legacy code often performs a number of functions that if split, would improve software maintainability. For instance, program comprehension would benefit from a reduction in the size of the code modules. The method aims to identify potential reuse candidates from the functions re-modularised, and to ensure clear interfaces are present between the new modules. Furthermore, functionality is often replicated across applications and so the re-modularisation process can also seek to reduce commonality and hence the overall amount of a company's code requiring maintenance. A 10 step method is devised which assembles a number of new and existing techniques into an approach suitable for use by staff not having significant reengineering experience. Three main approaches are used throughout the method; that is the analysis of the PERFORM structure, the analysis of the data, and the use of graphical representations. Both top-down and bottom-up strategies to program comprehension are incorporated within the method as are automatable, and user controlled processes to reuse candidate selection. Three industrial case studies are used to demonstrate and evaluate the method. The case studies range in size to gain an indication of the scalability of the method. The case studies are used to evaluate the method on a step by step basis; both strong points and deficiencies are identified, as well as potential solutions to the deficiencies. A review is also presented to assesses the three main approaches of the methods; the analysis of the PERFORM and data structures, and the use of graphical representations. The review uses the process of software evolution for its evaluation using successive versions of COBOL software. The method is retrospectively applied to the earliest version and the known changes identified from the following versions are used to evaluate the re-modularisations. Within the evaluation chapters a new link within the dominance tree is proposed as is an approach for dealing with multiple dominance trees. The results show that «ach approach provides an important contribution to the method as well as giving a useful insight (in the form of graphical representations) of the process of software evolution

Cycle Time Reduction: Concepts and Case Studies

Increasingly organizations compete based on time. As a result, cycle-time reduction is a key agenda for organizations interested in achieving increased customer service and reduced cost. With improved cycle time, organizations can often eliminate or reduce inventory while expanding customer service offerings. The purpose of this tutorial is to present the fundamental concepts of cycle time reduction and to show how IS can be used to reduce cycle time, increase customer service, and reduce costs significantly. The tutorial examines several organizations that used IS as a way to leverage cycle time for competitive advantage

(ONTO)2 Agent: an Ontology-based WWW broker to select ontologies

Knowledge reuse by means of ontologies now faces three important problems: (1) there are no standardized identifying features that characterize ontologies from the user point of view; (2) there are no web sites using the same logical organization, presenting relevant information about ontologies; and (3) the search for appropriate ontologies is hard, timeconsuming and usually fruitless. To solve the above problems, we present: (1) a living set of features that allow us to characterize ontologies from the user point of view and have the same logical organization; (2) a living domain ontology about ontologies (called Reference Ontology) that gathers, describes and has links to existing ontologies; and (3) (ONTO)2Agent, the ontology-based www broker about ontologies that uses the Reference Ontology as a source of its knowledge and retrieves descriptions of ontologies that satisfy a given set of constraints. (ONTO)2Agent is available at http://delicias.dia.fi.upm.es/REFERENCE_ONTOLOGY