Report on the Workshop held at the University of Leeds on 6 November organised on behalf of the Transport Sub-Committee of the Environment Committee of the Science and Engineering Research Council

The meeting was the second in a series of three; called to review the prospects for future development of the Special Programme in the Application of Information Technology to Transport set up by the Transport Sub-committee of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC). The other seminars were: at University College London on Traffic Engineering Applications; held in July 1986; and at the University of Newcastle up Tyne, on Public Transport Information Systems, held in December 1986. The objectives of the workshop were to (i) review current perceptions of and future prospects for the role of expert systems in transport; and (ii) provide such feed-back to the SERC Transport Sub-committee as would assist it in forming a view about future work in this area. (Continues..

Report on the Workshop held at the University of Leeds on 6 November organised on behalf of the Transport Sub-Committee of the Environment Committee of the Science and Engineering Research Council

The meeting was the second in a series of three; called to review the prospects for future development of the Special Programme in the Application of Information Technology to Transport set up by the Transport Sub-committee of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC). The other seminars were: at University College London on Traffic Engineering Applications; held in July 1986; and at the University of Newcastle up Tyne, on Public Transport Information Systems, held in December 1986. The objectives of the workshop were to (i) review current perceptions of and future prospects for the role of expert systems in transport; and (ii) provide such feed-back to the SERC Transport Sub-committee as would assist it in forming a view about future work in this area. (Continues..

What IS Can Do for Environmental Sustainability: A Report from CAiSE’11 Panel on Green and Sustainable IS

The panel on Green and Sustainable Information Systems at the 21st International Conference on Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE’11), held in London in June 2011, was held to discuss issues in Environmental Sustainability and Information Systems within the Information Systems Engineering research community. This panel report describes the panelists’ views on using information systems for improving sustainability and on improving the energy efficiency of the data centres on which information systems are based. The current topics of research, possible contributions of the IS community, and future directions are discussed

Information systems, software engineering, and systems thinking: challenges and opportunities

This article traces past research on the application of the systems approach to information systems development within the disciplines of information systems and software engineering. Their origins historically are related to a number of areas, including general systems theory. While potential improvement of software development practices is linked by some leading experts to the application of more systemic methods, the current state of the practice in software engineering and information systems development shows this is some way from being achieved. The authors propose possible directions for future research and practical work on bringing together both fields with systems thinking

Requirements engineering for computer integrated environments in construction

A Computer Integrated Environment (CIE) is the type of innovative integrated information system that helps to reduce fragmentation and enables the stakeholders to collaborate together in business. Researchers have observed that the concept of CIE has been the subject of research for many years but the uptake of this technology has been very limited because of the development of the technology and its effective implementation. Although CIE is very much valued by both industrialists and academics, the answers to the question of how to develop and how to implement it are still not clear. The industrialists and researchers conveyed that networking, collaboration, information sharing and communication will become popular and critical issues in the future, which can be managed through CIE systems. In order for successful development of the technology, successful delivery, and effective implementation of user and industry-oriented CIE systems, requirements engineering seems a key parameter. Therefore, through experiences and lessons learnt in various case studies of CIE systems developments, this book explains the development of a requirements engineering framework specific to the CIE system. The requirements engineering process that has been developed in the research is targeted at computer integrated environments with a particular interest in the construction industry as the implementation field. The key features of the requirements engineering framework are the following: (1) ready-to-use, (2) simple, (3) domain specific, (4) adaptable and (5) systematic, (6) integrated with the legacy systems. The method has three key constructs: i) techniques for requirements development, which includes the requirement elicitation, requirements analysis/modelling and requirements validation, ii) requirements documentation and iii) facilitating the requirements management. It focuses on system development methodologies for the human driven ICT solutions that provide communication, collaboration, information sharing and exchange through computer integrated environments for professionals situated in discrete locations but working in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary environment. The overview for each chapter of the book is as follows; Chapter 1 provides an overview by setting the scene and presents the issues involved in requirements engineering and CIE (Computer Integrated Environments). Furthermore, it makes an introduction to the necessity for requirements engineering for CIE system development, experiences and lessons learnt cumulatively from CIE systems developments that the authors have been involved in, and the process of the development of an ideal requirements engineering framework for CIE systems development, based on the experiences and lessons learnt from the multi-case studies. Chapter 2 aims at building up contextual knowledge to acquire a deeper understanding of the topic area. This includes a detailed definition of the requirements engineering discipline and the importance and principles of requirements engineering and its process. In addition, state of the art techniques and approaches, including contextual design approach, the use case modelling, and the agile requirements engineering processes, are explained to provide contextual knowledge and understanding about requirements engineering to the readers. After building contextual knowledge and understanding about requirements engineering in chapter 2, chapter 3 attempts to identify a scope and contextual knowledge and understanding about computer integrated environments and Building Information Modelling (BIM). In doing so, previous experiences of the authors about systems developments for computer integrated environments are explained in detail as the CIE/BIM case studies. In the light of contextual knowledge gained about requirements engineering in chapter 2, in order to realize the critical necessity of requirements engineering to combine technology, process and people issues in the right balance, chapter 4 will critically evaluate the requirements engineering activities of CIE systems developments that are explained in chapter 3. Furthermore, to support the necessity of requirements engineering for human centred CIE systems development, the findings from semi-structured interviews are shown in a concept map that is also explained in this chapter. In chapter 5, requirements engineering is investigated from different angles to pick up the key issues from discrete research studies and practice such as traceability through process and product modelling, goal-oriented requirements engineering, the essential and incidental complexities in requirements models, the measurability of quality requirements, the fundamentals of requirements engineering, identifying and involving the stakeholders, reconciling software requirements and system architectures and barriers to the industrial uptake of requirements engineering. In addition, a comprehensive research study measuring the success of requirements engineering processes through a set of evaluation criteria is introduced. Finally, the key issues and the criteria are comparatively analyzed and evaluated in order to match each other and confirm the validity of the criteria for the evaluation and assessment of the requirements engineering implementation in the CIE case study projects in chapter 7 and the key issues will be used in chapter 9 to support the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) for acceptance and wider implications of the requirements engineering framework to be proposed in chapter 8. Chapter 6 explains and particularly focuses on how the requirements engineering activities in the case study projects were handled by highlighting strengths and weaknesses. This will also include the experiences and lessons learnt from these system development practices. The findings from these developments will also be utilized to support the justification of the necessity of a requirements engineering framework for the CIE systems developments. In particular, the following are addressed. • common and shared understanding in requirements engineering efforts, • continuous improvement, • outputs of requirement engineering • reflections and the critical analysis of the requirements engineering approaches in these practices. The premise of chapter 7 is to evaluate and assess the requirements engineering approaches in the CIE case study developments from multiple viewpoints in order to find out the strengths and the weaknesses in these requirements engineering processes. This evaluation will be mainly based on the set of criteria developed by the researchers and developers in the requirements engineering community in order to measure the success rate of the requirements engineering techniques after their implementation in the various system development projects. This set of criteria has already been introduced in chapter 5. This critical assessment includes conducting a questionnaire based survey and descriptive statistical analysis. In chapter 8, the requirements engineering techniques tested in the CIE case study developments are composed and compiled into a requirements engineering process in the light of the strengths and the weaknesses identified in the previous chapter through benchmarking with a Capability Maturity Model (CMM) to ensure that it has the required level of maturity for implementation in the CIE systems developments. As a result of this chapter, a framework for a generic requirements engineering process for CIE systems development will be proposed. In chapter 9, the authors will discuss the acceptance and the wider implications of the proposed framework of requirements engineering process using the CMM from chapter 8 and the key issues from chapter 5. Chapter 10 is the concluding chapter and it summarizes the findings and brings the book to a close with recommendations for the implementation of the Proposed RE framework and also prescribes a guideline as a way forward for better implementation of requirements engineering for successful developments of the CIE systems in the future

Reclaiming human machine nature

Extending and modifying his domain of life by artifact production is one of the main characteristics of humankind. From the first hominid, who used a wood stick or a stone for extending his upper limbs and augmenting his gesture strength, to current systems engineers who used technologies for augmenting human cognition, perception and action, extending human body capabilities remains a big issue. From more than fifty years cybernetics, computer and cognitive sciences have imposed only one reductionist model of human machine systems: cognitive systems. Inspired by philosophy, behaviorist psychology and the information treatment metaphor, the cognitive system paradigm requires a function view and a functional analysis in human systems design process. According that design approach, human have been reduced to his metaphysical and functional properties in a new dualism. Human body requirements have been left to physical ergonomics or "physiology". With multidisciplinary convergence, the issues of "human-machine" systems and "human artifacts" evolve. The loss of biological and social boundaries between human organisms and interactive and informational physical artifact questions the current engineering methods and ergonomic design of cognitive systems. New developpment of human machine systems for intensive care, human space activities or bio-engineering sytems requires grounding human systems design on a renewed epistemological framework for future human systems model and evidence based "bio-engineering". In that context, reclaiming human factors, augmented human and human machine nature is a necessityComment: Published in HCI International 2014, Heraklion : Greece (2014

"This is not 13th Grade": Making the Transition to College through Coding

The Summer Coding Academy 2017 at the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) was designed for the first-year freshman and transfer students with a declared Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) major. The camp participants were from diverse STEM fields that included engineering, biochemistry, nuclear medicine science, biology, computer information systems, meteorology, and 3-D animation & game design. The objectives of the camp were (1) to improve the student’s preparation for a rigorous STEM degree, (2) to increase their skills in communication and data analytics through coding and robotics. This paper describes the teaching materials that we utilized, the results of students evaluations, lessons learned and the future work.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Industry-driven innovative system development for the construction industry: The DIVERCITY project

Collaborative working has become possible using the innovative integrated systems in construction as many activities are performed globally with stakeholders situated in various locations. The Integrated VR based information systems can bind the fragmentation and provide communication and collaboration between the distributed stakeholders n various locations. The development of these technologies is vital for the uptake of these systems by the construction industry. This paper starts by emphasising the importance of construction IT research and reviews some future research directions in this area. In particular, the paper explores how virtual prototyping can improve the productivity and effectiveness of construction projects, and presents DIVERCITY, which is th as a case study of the research in virtual prototyping. Besides, the paper explores the requirements engineering of the DIVERCITY project. DIVERCITY has large and evolving requirements, which considered the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, such as clients, architects and contractors. However, practitioners are often unsure of the detail of how virtual environments would support the construction process, and how to overcome some barriers to the introduction of new technologies. This complicates the requirements engineering process

Organic Design of Massively Distributed Systems: A Complex Networks Perspective

The vision of Organic Computing addresses challenges that arise in the design of future information systems that are comprised of numerous, heterogeneous, resource-constrained and error-prone components or devices. Here, the notion organic particularly highlights the idea that, in order to be manageable, such systems should exhibit self-organization, self-adaptation and self-healing characteristics similar to those of biological systems. In recent years, the principles underlying many of the interesting characteristics of natural systems have been investigated from the perspective of complex systems science, particularly using the conceptual framework of statistical physics and statistical mechanics. In this article, we review some of the interesting relations between statistical physics and networked systems and discuss applications in the engineering of organic networked computing systems with predictable, quantifiable and controllable self-* properties.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, preprint of submission to Informatik-Spektrum published by Springe