RePLEX: A Model-Based Reengineering Tool for PLEX Telecommunication Systems

Maintenance of complex legacy software systems is a challenging task. In the first place, maintenance requires understanding the system. Reverse engineering and reengineering tools, which make the design of the current system available on-line and which support planning and performing changes to the system, are urgently needed. We present a new tool for reengineering telecommunication systems, recovering the current architecture, and extracting state machines reflecting the system behavior. The tool is based on a structure graph of the architecture and allows architectural modifications with according code changes. The modifications are specified as graph transformations using FUJABA enabling the generation of a Java prototype, which is accessible via a GUI based on the Graphical Editor Framework (GEF) plug-in for the Eclipse workbench

Teaching telecommunication standards: bridging the gap between theory and practice

©2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Telecommunication standards have become a reliable mechanism to strengthen collaboration between industry and research institutions to accelerate the evolution of communications systems. Standards are needed to enable cooperation while promoting competition. Within the framework of a standard, the companies involved in the standardization process contribute and agree on appropriate technical specifications to ensure diversity and compatibility, and facilitate worldwide commercial deployment and evolution. Those parts of the system that can create competitive advantages are intentionally left open in the specifications. Such specifications are extensive, complex, and minimalistic. This makes telecommunication standards education a difficult endeavor, but it is much demanded by industry and governments to spur economic growth. This article describes a methodology for teaching wireless communications standards. We define our methodology around six learning stages that assimilate the standardization process and identify key learning objectives for each. Enabled by software-defined radio technology, we describe a practical learning environment that facilitates developing many of the needed technical and soft skills without the inherent difficulty and cost associated with radio frequency components and regulation. Using only open source software and commercial of-the-shelf computers, this environment is portable and can easily be recreated at other educational institutions and adapted to their educational needs and constraints. We discuss our and our students' experiences when employing the proposed methodology to 4G LTE standard education at Barcelona Tech.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Intelligent Integrated Management for Telecommunication Networks

As the size of communication networks keeps on growing, faster connections, cooperating technologies and the divergence of equipment and data communications, the management of the resulting networks gets additional important and time-critical. More advanced tools are needed to support this activity. In this article we describe the design and implementation of a management platform using Artificial Intelligent reasoning technique. For this goal we make use of an expert system. This study focuses on an intelligent framework and a language for formalizing knowledge management descriptions and combining them with existing OSI management model. We propose a new paradigm where the intelligent network management is integrated into the conceptual repository of management information called Managed Information Base (MIB). This paper outlines the development of an expert system prototype based in our propose GDMO+ standard and describes the most important facets, advantages and drawbacks that were found after prototyping our proposal

An evaluation of total quality management practices on business performance of the Nigerian telecommunications sector: a case study of MTN Nigeria Limited

This study examines the effects of The Total Quality Management practices on Business Performance of the Nigerian Telecommunications Sector. A review of literatures on TQM shows that no study has been carried out on its application in the Nigerian Telecommunication sector hence the need for this research. To assess the situation One hundred and fifty (150) questionnaires were administered to customers of MTN Limited within the Lagos environ. These customers were randomly selected from five (5) different MTN customer care centres within the five divisions of Lagos State. These divisions include Epe, Ikorodu, Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland and Badagry. Thirty (30) questionnaires were administered at each centre. Fifty (50) questionnaires were also administered to employees of MTN and a total of twenty (20) questionnaires were administered to top management in the same organizations. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Our finding revealed that 90.7% of the changes that occurred in employees’ satisfaction could be traced to the policy and commitment of top management. It also shows that 69.4% of the changes in customer satisfaction could be attributed to continuous training in quality. The study recommended among other things the training of telecommunications personnel on Total Quality Management practices and the adoption of alternative renewable sources of energy like solar to address their energy problems

Engineering of interworking TINA-based telecommunication services

This paper describes a Service Creation approach being developed in the EU funded ACTS TOSCA (TINA Open Service Creation Architecture) project to rapidly develop validated TINA based multimedia telecommunications services. The approach is based around object-oriented software frameworks in SDL which are specialized towards services by means of graphical paradigm tools. Further, in TOSCA, the need for service interworking across service provider domains via federation has been recognized in order to allow users to join service sessions offered by providers they are not customers of. However, service interworking may cause undesired behavior - the so called service interaction phenomenon. This paper focuses on this issue and the underlying technology of the service creation approach with emphasis on how service federation has been implemented

Measuring internet activity: a (selective) review of methods and metrics

Two Decades after the birth of the World Wide Web, more than two billion people around the world are Internet users. The digital landscape is littered with hints that the affordances of digital communications are being leveraged to transform life in profound and important ways. The reach and influence of digitally mediated activity grow by the day and touch upon all aspects of life, from health, education, and commerce to religion and governance. This trend demands that we seek answers to the biggest questions about how digitally mediated communication changes society and the role of different policies in helping or hindering the beneficial aspects of these changes. Yet despite the profusion of data the digital age has brought upon us—we now have access to a flood of information about the movements, relationships, purchasing decisions, interests, and intimate thoughts of people around the world—the distance between the great questions of the digital age and our understanding of the impact of digital communications on society remains large. A number of ongoing policy questions have emerged that beg for better empirical data and analyses upon which to base wider and more insightful perspectives on the mechanics of social, economic, and political life online. This paper seeks to describe the conceptual and practical impediments to measuring and understanding digital activity and highlights a sample of the many efforts to fill the gap between our incomplete understanding of digital life and the formidable policy questions related to developing a vibrant and healthy Internet that serves the public interest and contributes to human wellbeing. Our primary focus is on efforts to measure Internet activity, as we believe obtaining robust, accurate data is a necessary and valuable first step that will lead us closer to answering the vitally important questions of the digital realm. Even this step is challenging: the Internet is difficult to measure and monitor, and there is no simple aggregate measure of Internet activity—no GDP, no HDI. In the following section we present a framework for assessing efforts to document digital activity. The next three sections offer a summary and description of many of the ongoing projects that document digital activity, with two final sections devoted to discussion and conclusions

Application of artificial neural network in market segmentation: A review on recent trends

Despite the significance of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithm to market segmentation, there is a need of a comprehensive literature review and a classification system for it towards identification of future trend of market segmentation research. The present work is the first identifiable academic literature review of the application of neural network based techniques to segmentation. Our study has provided an academic database of literature between the periods of 2000-2010 and proposed a classification scheme for the articles. One thousands (1000) articles have been identified, and around 100 relevant selected articles have been subsequently reviewed and classified based on the major focus of each paper. Findings of this study indicated that the research area of ANN based applications are receiving most research attention and self organizing map based applications are second in position to be used in segmentation. The commonly used models for market segmentation are data mining, intelligent system etc. Our analysis furnishes a roadmap to guide future research and aid knowledge accretion and establishment pertaining to the application of ANN based techniques in market segmentation. Thus the present work will significantly contribute to both the industry and academic research in business and marketing as a sustainable valuable knowledge source of market segmentation with the future trend of ANN application in segmentation.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures,3 Table