Automated analysis of feature models: Quo vadis?

Feature models have been used since the 90's to describe software product lines as a way of reusing common parts in a family of software systems. In 2010, a systematic literature review was published summarizing the advances and settling the basis of the area of Automated Analysis of Feature Models (AAFM). From then on, different studies have applied the AAFM in different domains. In this paper, we provide an overview of the evolution of this field since 2010 by performing a systematic mapping study considering 423 primary sources. We found six different variability facets where the AAFM is being applied that define the tendencies: product configuration and derivation; testing and evolution; reverse engineering; multi-model variability-analysis; variability modelling and variability-intensive systems. We also confirmed that there is a lack of industrial evidence in most of the cases. Finally, we present where and when the papers have been published and who are the authors and institutions that are contributing to the field. We observed that the maturity is proven by the increment in the number of journals published along the years as well as the diversity of conferences and workshops where papers are published. We also suggest some synergies with other areas such as cloud or mobile computing among others that can motivate further research in the future.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-70560-RJunta de Andalucía TIC-186

Issues about the Adoption of Formal Methods for Dependable Composition of Web Services

Web Services provide interoperable mechanisms for describing, locating and invoking services over the Internet; composition further enables to build complex services out of simpler ones for complex B2B applications. While current studies on these topics are mostly focused - from the technical viewpoint - on standards and protocols, this paper investigates the adoption of formal methods, especially for composition. We logically classify and analyze three different (but interconnected) kinds of important issues towards this goal, namely foundations, verification and extensions. The aim of this work is to individuate the proper questions on the adoption of formal methods for dependable composition of Web Services, not necessarily to find the optimal answers. Nevertheless, we still try to propose some tentative answers based on our proposal for a composition calculus, which we hope can animate a proper discussion

International conference on software engineering and knowledge engineering: Session chair

The Thirtieth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2018) will be held at the Hotel Pullman, San Francisco Bay, USA, from July 1 to July 3, 2018. SEKE2018 will also be dedicated in memory of Professor Lofti Zadeh, a great scholar, pioneer and leader in fuzzy sets theory and soft computing. The conference aims at bringing together experts in software engineering and knowledge engineering to discuss on relevant results in either software engineering or knowledge engineering or both. Special emphasis will be put on the transference of methods between both domains. The theme this year is soft computing in software engineering & knowledge engineering. Submission of papers and demos are both welcome

Representations of molecules and materials for interpolation of quantum-mechanical simulations via machine learning

Computational study of molecules and materials from first principles is a cornerstone of physics, chemistry and materials science, but limited by the cost of accurate and precise simulations. In settings involving many simulations, machine learning can reduce these costs, sometimes by orders of magnitude, by interpolating between reference simulations. This requires representations that describe any molecule or material and support interpolation. We review, discuss and benchmark state-of-the-art representations and relations between them, including smooth overlap of atomic positions, many-body tensor representation, and symmetry functions. For this, we use a unified mathematical framework based on many-body functions, group averaging and tensor products, and compare energy predictions for organic molecules, binary alloys and Al-Ga-In sesquioxides in numerical experiments controlled for data distribution, regression method and hyper-parameter optimization

Models for an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

This document is one outcome from a workshop held in Gizo in October 2010 attended by 82 representatives from government, NGO's private sector, and communities. The target audience for the document is primarily organizations planning to work with coastal communities of Solomon Islands to implement Community-Based Resource Management (CBRM). It is however also envisaged that the document will serve as a reference for communities to better understand what to expect from their partners and also for donors, to be informed about agreed approaches amongst Solomon Islands stakeholders. This document does not attempt to summarize all the outcomes of the workshop; rather it focuses on the Solomon Islands Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) National Plan of Action (NPoA): Theme 1: Support and implementation of CBRM and specifically, the scaling up of CBRM in Solomon Islands. Most of the principles given in this document are derived from experiences in coastal communities and ecosystems as, until relatively recently, these have received most attention in Solomon Islands resource management. It is recognized however that the majority of these principles will be applicable to both coastal and terrestrial initiatives. This document synthesizes information provided by stakeholders at the October 2010 workshop and covers some basic principles of engagement and implementation that have been learned over more than twenty years of activities by the stakeholder partners in Solomon Islands. The document updates and expands on a summary of guiding principles for CBRM which was originally prepared by the Solomon Islands Locally Managed Marine Area Network (SILMMA) in 2007

An Analysis of Service Ontologies

Services are increasingly shaping the world’s economic activity. Service provision and consumption have been profiting from advances in ICT, but the decentralization and heterogeneity of the involved service entities still pose engineering challenges. One of these challenges is to achieve semantic interoperability among these autonomous entities. Semantic web technology aims at addressing this challenge on a large scale, and has matured over the last years. This is evident from the various efforts reported in the literature in which service knowledge is represented in terms of ontologies developed either in individual research projects or in standardization bodies. This paper aims at analyzing the most relevant service ontologies available today for their suitability to cope with the service semantic interoperability challenge. We take the vision of the Internet of Services (IoS) as our motivation to identify the requirements for service ontologies. We adopt a formal approach to ontology design and evaluation in our analysis. We start by defining informal competency questions derived from a motivating scenario, and we identify relevant concepts and properties in service ontologies that match the formal ontological representation of these questions. We analyze the service ontologies with our concepts and questions, so that each ontology is positioned and evaluated according to its utility. The gaps we identify as the result of our analysis provide an indication of open challenges and future work