Ontological Reengineering for Reuse

This paper presents the concept of Ontological Reengineering as the process of retrieving and transforming a conceptual model of an existing and implemented ontology into a new, more correct and more complete conceptual model which is reimplemented. Three activities have been identified in this process: reverse engineering, restructuring and forward engineering. The aim of Reverse Engineering is to output a possible conceptual model on the basis of the code in which the ontology is implemented. The goal of Restructuring is to reorganize this initial conceptual model into a new conceptual model, which is built bearing in mind the use of the restructured ontology by the ontology/application that reuses it. Finally, the objective of Forward Engineering is output a new implementation of the ontology. The paper also discusses how the ontological reengineering process has been applied to the Standard-Units ontology [18], which is included in a Chemical-Elements [12] ontology. These two ontologies will be included in a Monatomic-Ions and Environmental-Pollutants ontologies

Analysis of Software Binaries for Reengineering-Driven Product Line Architecture\^aAn Industrial Case Study

This paper describes a method for the recovering of software architectures from a set of similar (but unrelated) software products in binary form. One intention is to drive refactoring into software product lines and combine architecture recovery with run time binary analysis and existing clustering methods. Using our runtime binary analysis, we create graphs that capture the dependencies between different software parts. These are clustered into smaller component graphs, that group software parts with high interactions into larger entities. The component graphs serve as a basis for further software product line work. In this paper, we concentrate on the analysis part of the method and the graph clustering. We apply the graph clustering method to a real application in the context of automation / robot configuration software tools.Comment: In Proceedings FMSPLE 2015, arXiv:1504.0301

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE WORLD CRISIS. AN ACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVE

Purpose – Our aim is to seize the essential aspects of the economical-financial environment and the alternatives that the companies have in their confrontation with the current challenges, the reorganization of the company being regarded as an option for ensuring the continuity of their activity. We have also been interested in the issue of intangible assets, which lie at the basis of the process of value creation by the company. Methodology – The article is a critical review of the process of reorganization and of the importance of the intangible asset, providing a personal perspective. Conclusions – The process of reorganization is no longer an option, but an essential condition for avoiding the disappearance of the companies from the market.reorganization, reengineering, mergers, intangible assets, economic crisis

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

gOntt, a Tool for Scheduling and Executing Ontology Development Projects

Nowadays the ontology engineering field does not have any method that guides ontology practitioners when planning and scheduling their ontology development projects. The field also lacks the tools that help ontology practitioners to plan, schedule, and execute such projects. This paper tries to contribute to the solution of these problems by proposing the identification of two ontology life cycle models, the definition of the methodological basis for scheduling ontology projects, and a tool called gOntt that (1) supports the scheduling of ontology developments and (2) helps to execute such development projects

Using Reengineering Techniques for Distance Study Course Improvement

The paper analyses the reengineering concept as it comes from software engineering and management fields. We combine two viewpoints and apply them to solve a problem of reengineering of a distance study system, in general, and the unit of learning, in particular. We propose a framework for reengineering of unit of learning, based on general model of software reengineering, and present a case study, in which we describe, how one topic of distance study course was reengineered, considering triple consistency principle and requirements for computer science. The proposed framework contributes to increasing quality, effectiveness and systematization of delivering distance studies

The impact of enterprise application integration on information system lifecycles

Information systems (IS) have become the organisational fabric for intra-and inter-organisational collaboration in business. As a result, there is mounting pressure from customers and suppliers for a direct move away from disparate systems operating in parallel towards a more common shared architecture. In part, this has been achieved through the emergence of new technology that is being packaged into a portfolio of technologies known as enterprise application integration (EAI). Its emergence however, is presenting investment decision-makers charged with the evaluation of IS with an interesting challenge. The integration of IS in-line with the needs of the business is extending their identity and lifecycle, making it difficult to evaluate the full impact of the system as it has no definitive start and/or end. Indeed, the argument presented in this paper is that traditional life cycle models are changing as a result of technologies that support their integration with other systems. In this paper, the need for a better understanding of EAI and its impact on IS lifecycles are discussed and a classification framework proposed.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Grant Ref: (GR/R08025) and Australian Research Council (DP0344682)

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

Towards an ontology for process monitoring and mining

Business Process Analysis (BPA) aims at monitoring, diagnosing, simulating and mining enacted processes in order to support the analysis and enhancement of process models. An effective BPA solution must provide the means for analysing existing e-businesses at three levels of abstraction: the Business Level, the Process Level and the IT Level. BPA requires semantic information that spans these layers of abstraction and which should be easily retrieved from audit trails. To cater for this, we describe the Process Mining Ontology and the Events Ontology which aim to support the analysis of enacted processes at different levels of abstraction spanning from fine grain technical details to coarse grain aspects at the Business Level