Systematic incremental development of agent systems using Prometheus

This paper presents a mechanism for dividing an agent oriented application into the three IEEE defined scoping levels of essential, conditional and optional. This mechanism is applied after the initial system specification, and is then used to direct incremental development with three separate releases. The scoping described can be applied at any stage of a project, in order to guide consistent scoping back if such is needed. The three levels of scoping that are used are consistent with the approach used in many companies. The approach to scoping requires that scenarios are prioritised manually on a five point scale. All other aspects are then prioritised automatically, based on this information. The approach used allows a developer to indicate what size partitions - based on number of scenarios - are required for each scoping level. The mechanisms are applied to the Prometheus development methodology and are integrated into the Prometheus design tool (PDT)

Software design metrics for predicting maintainability of service-oriented software

As the pace of business change increases, service-oriented (SO) solutions should facilitate easier maintainability as underlying business logic and rules change. To date, little effort has been dedicated to considering how the structural properties of coupling and cohesion may impact on the maintainability of SO software products. Moreover, due to the unique design characteristics of Service-Oriented Computing (SOC), existing Procedural and Object-Oriented (OO) software metrics are not sufficient for the accurate measurement of service-oriented design structures. This thesis makes a contribution to the field of SOC, and Software Engineering in general, by proposing and evaluating a suite of design-level coupling and cohesion metrics for predicting the maintainability of service-oriented software products early in the Software Development LifeCycle (SDLC). The proposed metrics can provide the following benefits: i) facilitate design decisions that could lead to the specification of quality SO designs that can be maintained more easily; ii) identify design problems that can potentially have a negative effect on the maintainability of existing service-oriented design structures; and iii) support more effective control of maintainability in the earlier stages of SDLC. More specifically, the following research was conducted as part of this thesis: - A formal mathematical model covering the structural and behavioural properties of service-oriented system design was specified. - Software metrics were defined in a precise, unambiguous, and formal manner using the above model. - The metrics were theoretically validated and empirically evaluated in order to determine the success of this thesis as follows: a. Theoretical validation was based on the property-based software engineering measurement framework. All the proposed metrics were deemed as theoretically valid. b. Empirical evaluation employed a controlled experimental study involving ten participants who performed a range of maintenance tasks on two SO systems developed (and measured using the proposed metrics) specifically for this study. The majority of the experimental outcomes compared favourably with our expectations and hypotheses. More specifically, the results indicated that most of the proposed metrics can be used to predict the maintainability of service-oriented software products early in the SDLC, thereby providing evidence for the validity and potential usefulness of the derived metrics. Nevertheless, a broader range of industrial scale experiments and analyses are required to fully demonstrate the practical applicability of the metrics. This has been left to future work

Prioritisation mechanisms to support incremental development of agent systems

It is often necessary to partition a project into different priority levels and to develop incrementally. This paper presents a mechanism whereby a developer can prioritise scenarios on a five point scale, leading to automated, coherent partitioning of all required design entities, according to the three IEEE defined priority levels of essential, conditional and optional, which are used in many companies. This allows for automated support to guide the developer as to what design artefacts need to be developed at each phase. The developer can indicate the relative sizes desired for the three partitions and the algorithm described will attempt to get as close to this as possible. It is also possible to move items manually to achieve better sized partitions, as long as priority orderings are not violated. The approach is fast and easy to apply at various times during development, as needed

A formal model of service-orientated design structure

Service-oriented computing (SOC) is a promising paradigm for developing enterprise software systems. The initial concepts of service-orientation have been described in the research and industry literature and software tools for assisting in the development of service-oriented (SO) applications are becoming more widely used. Nonetheless, a precise description of what constitutes a SO system is yet to be formally defined, and the design principles of SOC are not well understood. Therefore, this paper proposes a formal mathematical model covering design artefacts in service-oriented systems and their structural and behavioural properties. This model promotes a better understanding of SO concepts, and in particular, enables the definition of structural software metrics in an unambiguous, formal manner. Finally, although the proposed model is generic, it can be customised to support particular technologies as shown in this paper where the model was tailored for BPEL4WS implementation

Synchronous primary carcinoid tumor and primary adenocarcinoma arising within mature cystic teratoma of horseshoe kidney: a unique case report and review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malignant transformation of mature cystic teratoma is a rare complication. While any of the constituent tissues of a teratoma has the potential to undergo malignant transformation, squamous cell carcinoma is the most commonly associated malignancy. Renal carcinoid tumors are rare and frequently associated with horseshoe kidney and renal teratoma. Renal teratoma rarely presents together with carcinoid tumor or adenocarcinoma. To the best of our knowledge, there has never been a report of renal teratoma coexisting with both carcinoid tumor and adenocarcinoma.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Here, we present a unique and first case of synchronous primary carcinoid tumor and moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma arising within mature cystic teratoma of horseshoe kidney in a 50-year-old female. Lumbar spine X-ray, done for her complaint of progressive chronic low back pain, accidentally found a large calcification overlying the lower pole of the right kidney. Further radiologic studies revealed horseshoe kidney and a large multiseptated cystic lesion immediately anterior to the right renal pelvis with central calcification and peripheral enhancement. She underwent right partial nephrectomy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Macroscopically, the encapsulated complex solid and multiloculated cystic tumor with large calcification, focal thickened walls and filled with yellow-tan gelatinous material. Microscopically, the tumor showed coexistent mature cystic teratoma, moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma and carcinoid tumor. Immunohistochemically, alpha-methylacyl-coenzyme A-racemase, calretinin, CD10 and thyroid transcription factor-1 were negative in all the three components of the tumor. The teratomatous cysts lined by ciliated epithelium showed strong staining for cytokeratin 7 and pancytokeratin, and those lined by colonic-like epithelium showed strong staining for CDX2, cytokeratin 20 and pancytokeratin, but both were negative for calretinin. Additionally, the teratomatous cyst wall showed strong staining for smooth muscle actin, and weak staining for carbonic anhydrase IX, CD99, chromogranin and synaptophysin. The adenocarcinoma component was strongly positive for cytokeratin 7 and pancytokeratin, weakly positive for synaptophysin and CD56, and negative for carbonic anhydrase IX, CD99, CDX2, chromogranin, cytokeratin 20 and smooth muscle actin. The carcinoid tumor component was strongly positive for CD56, chromogranin and synaptophysin, weakly positive for pancytokeratin, and negative for carbonic anhydrase IX, CD99, CDX2, cytokeratin 7, cytokeratin 20 and smooth muscle actin. She received no adjuvant therapy and is alive without evidence of disease six months after diagnosis and surgery.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This unique and first case herein presented with synchronous primary carcinoid tumor and primary adenocarcinoma arising within mature cystic teratoma of horseshoe kidney emphasizes the need for thorough sectioning and entire submission for histologic evaluation of mature cystic teratomas, in order to avoid missing multiple additional histogenetically distinct neoplasms.</p

The connection analysis between the dilution of the deposited Fe-Cr-V-Mo-C layer by the basic metal and the parameters of its microstructure

In this work, the structure of the Fe-Cr-V-Mo-C coatings received by plasma transferred arc cladding was investigated. Coatings were deposited on plates with a thickness of 10 mm and made from constructional steel (steel 20). The correlation analysis of relationships between dilution of the deposited layers by the basic metal and the parameters of their microstructure was carried out. The parameters were as follows: volume fraction, a size, a shape factor, the distance between particles, the number of particles of vanadium carbide, volume fraction of the eutectic on the basis of carbide M[7]C[3] and the distances between its colonies, as well as the volume fraction of the [alpha]-phase in the alloy matrix

Use case and actor driven requirements engineering: An evaluation of modifications to Prometheus

This paper describes modifications to the System Specificaton Phase of the Prometheus agent development methodology. The modifications include introduction of actors, and provision of additional structure to the System Specification Phase of Prometheus. The introduction of actors and additional structure leads to better understanding of the system and its environment, and allows the intended users of the system to be directly involved in the system specification process. Also, the proposed approach is use-case driven, thus conforming to the approach prescribed by Rational Unified Process (RUP). The refined methodology has been evaluated by volunteering RMIT students taking a class on `Agent-Oriented Programming and Design¿. Results indicate that the refined methodology is more systematic, produces a more balanced set of design artifacts and is perceived by users to be less complex

A controlled experiment for evaluating the impact of coupling on the maintainability of service-oriented software

One of the goals of Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) is to improve software maintainability as businesses become more agile and thus underlying processes and rules change more frequently. This paper presents a controlled experiment examining the relationship between coupling in service-oriented designs, as measured using a recently proposed suite of SOC-specific coupling metrics, and software maintainability in terms of the specific sub-characteristics of analysability, changeability, and stability. The results indicate a statistically significant causal relationship between the investigated coupling metrics and the maintainability of service-oriented software. As such, the investigated metrics can facilitate design decisions leading to the specification of more maintainable service-oriented software products. Ordered through Document Delivery - 179966

Cohesion metrics for predicting maintainability of service-orientated software

Although Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) is a promising paradigm for developing enterprise software systems, existing research mostly assumes the existence of black box services with little attention given to the structural characteristics of the implementing software, potentially resulting in poor system maintainability. Whilst there has been some preliminary work examining coupling in a service- oriented context, there has to date been no such work on the structural property of cohesion. Consequently, this paper extends existing notions of cohesion in OO and procedural design in order to account for the unique characteristics of SOC, allowing the derivation of assumptions linking cohesion to the maintainability of service-oriented software. From these assumptions, a set of metrics are derived to quantify the degree of cohesion of service oriented design constructs. Such design level metrics are valuable because they allow the prediction of maintainability early in the SDLC