Guidance for Requirements Engineering Processes

International audienceGuidance plays a crucial role in requirements engineering as this task is both ill defined and highly intellectual. Guidance can be provided once the goal to be achieved has been identified. Two kinds of guidance are proposed, point and flow guidance. The former supports the fulfillment of goals whereas the latter helps in goal identification. Guidance is driven by guidelines which we have modelled as processes instantiated from a process meta-model just as any other, normal process is. Finally, guidelines are modular. This makes possible the rapid modification of guidelines. The paper presents the two types of guidance, the corresponding guidelines and the tool environment which supports the enactment of guidelines

An approach for measuring rdf data completeness

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Towards a semantic quality based approach for business process models improvement

Business process (BP) modeling aims at a better understanding of processes, allowing deciders to improve them. We propose to support this modeling with an approach encompassing methods and tools for BP models quality measurement and improvement. In this paper we focus on semantic quality. The latter is evaluated by aligning BP model concepts with domain knowledge. The alignment is conducted thanks to meta-models. We also define validation rules for checking the completeness of BP models. A medical case study illustrates the main steps of our approach.<br /

Structuring Guidelines for Web Application Designers - A Meta-model

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Qualité des modèles : retours d'expériences

National audienceAvec la complexification des systèmes d'information (systèmes ubiquitaires, entreprises ouvertes etc.), de nombreux nouveaux langages de modélisation sont proposés. Face à ce développement de langages spécifiques, on peut s'interroger sur la qualité des modèles qui en sont issus. Cet article traite de ce problème en tirant les leçons de nos expériences passées. Elles mettent en évidence les besoins d'outillage automatisé pour l'évaluation de la qualité de modèles, la participation conjointe des différentes parties prenantes dans le processus d'évaluation, et la nécessité d'envisager une véritable ingénierie des langages et des modèles centrée sur l'humain

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Guidance for Requirements Engineering Processes

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Integrating accessibility as a quality property in web developments

The emergence of new information technologies has contributed to the appearance of a new form of knowledge sharing, particularly with the use of the Internet. This gave a rise to the notion of Web Accessibility. The problem is that Accessibility is often reduced to a set of summative estimation. In that case, the evaluation of the conformance is done at the end of the process. Based on a literature review and a case study, this paper presents a method for web sites developments which takes into account accessibility expectations of end-users

Formalising Guidance For The CREWS Goal-Scenario Approach To Requirements Engineering

Guidance plays a crucial role in requirements engineering (RE) as this task is both ill defined and highly intellectual. The guidance approach presented in this paper consists of supporting requirements engineers by a collection of enactable guidelines embodied in a computer environment. The key characteristics of the approach is its intention orientation. Guidance can be provided once the intention to be achieved has been elicited. Two kinds of guidance are proposed, step and flow guidance. The former supports the fulfilment of intentions whereas the latter helps in intention elicitation. The paper presents the two types of guidance, the corresponding guidelines and the Computer Aided Requirements Engineering (CARE) environment which supports their enactment. The approach is illustrated with the CREWS requirements engineering approach which elicits requirements through interleaved goal modelling and scenario authoring