Towards Modeling of DataWeb Applications - A Requirement\u27s Perspective

The web is more and more used as a platform for fullfledged, increasingly complex information systems, where a huge amount of change-intensive data is managed by underlying database systems. From a software engineering point of view, the development of such so called DataWeb applications requires proper modeling methods in order to ensure architectural soundness and maintainability. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, a framework of requirements, covering the design space of DataWeb modeling methods in terms of three orthogonal dimensions is suggested. Second, on the basis of this framework, eight representative modeling methods for DataWeb applications are surveyed and general shortcomings are identified pointing the way to nextgeneration modeling methods

Towards Intelligent Support of Workflows

In order to support business processes in a dynamically changing environment, workflow management systems are required to flexibly react to changes in the organization of work. We propose the notion of intelligent support for workflows by enhancing an existing workflow management system with three different concepts. First, agents are empowered to adapt the pre-planned workflows to their case-specific situation. Second, a recommender system presents to the agents the operations favorable in their current work situation. Finally, process histories are analyzed in order to make the implicit process knowledge explicitly available for further reuse

TIScover-A Tourism Information System based on Extranet and Intranet Technology

The tourism industry more and more intensifies the endeavors to take advantage of the World Wide Web. However, Web-based tourism information systems are required not to offer online brochures only, but rather to provide both, value and service. One system which has recognized this fact is TIScover. TIScover allows the tourist for convenient and powerful access to tourism information and products through the support of different information retrieval philosophies along with an online booking facility. In addition, TIScover employs an Extranet and an Intranet component allowing the decentralized maintenance and customization of the tourism database. With this, a high quality content in terms of comprehensiveness, accurateness and actuality can be achieved and the system can be easily adapted not only for different kinds of tourism information providers, but also for different regions and even different countries. This paper gives a brief overview of TIScover and describes its main functional components

Transaction Support for DataWeb Applications - A Requirement\u27s Perspective

W eb-based purely providing read-only access to information in terms of static HTML pages. Rather, more and more web-based information systems store (part of) the information within a database system (DBS) and generate HTML pages on demand. Such information systems are often called DataWeb Applications. Different users interact with the system, and often they perform changes concurrently. As an example in the area of electronic commerce, consider a web-based tourism information system, where an unpredictable number of a priori unknown tourists are allowed to book various tourism facilities at the same time. Whereas financial and security issues of such electronic commerce transactions are extensively discussed in literature, very few work exists on the database transaction aspect in terms of consistency and reliability of electronic commerce transactions and of DataWeb applications in general. The objective of this paper is to discuss the specific requirements that different architectures of DataWeb applications and the web itself pose on transaction management, and to identify promising technologies for enabling web transaction services

Identifying and Modelling Complex Workflow Requirements in Web Applications

Workflow plays a major role in nowadays business and therefore its requirement elicitation must be accurate and clear for achieving the solution closest to business’s needs. Due to Web applications popularity, the Web is becoming the standard platform for implementing business workflows. In this context, Web applications and their workflows must be adapted to market demands in such a way that time and effort are minimize. As they get more popular, they must give support to different functional requirements but also they contain tangled and scattered behaviour. In this work we present a model-driven approach for modelling workflows using a Domain Specific Language for Web application requirement called WebSpec. We present an extension to WebSpec based on Pattern Specifications for modelling crosscutting workflow requirements identifying tangled and scattered behaviour and reducing inconsistencies early in the cycle

Automated verification of model transformations based on visual contracts

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10515-012-0102-yModel-Driven Engineering promotes the use of models to conduct the different phases of the software development. In this way, models are transformed between different languages and notations until code is generated for the final application. Hence, the construction of correct Model-to-Model (M2M) transformations becomes a crucial aspect in this approach. Even though many languages and tools have been proposed to build and execute M2M transformations, there is scarce support to specify correctness requirements for such transformations in an implementation-independent way, i.e., irrespective of the actual transformation language used. In this paper we fill this gap by proposing a declarative language for the specification of visual contracts, enabling the verification of transformations defined with any transformation language. The verification is performed by compiling the contracts into QVT to detect disconformities of transformation results with respect to the contracts. As a proof of concept, we also report on a graphical modeling environment for the specification of contracts, and on its use for the verification of transformations in several case studies.This work has been funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under grant P21374-N13, the Spanish Ministry of Science under grants TIN2008-02081 and TIN2011-24139, and the R&D programme of the Madrid Region under project S2009/TIC-1650

Ubiquitous Access to Cultural Tourism Portals

Web-based tourism information systems are more and more required to provide besides traditional tourism information about hotel facilities and infrastructure also cultural content comprising material heritage, performing art, folk tradition, handicraft or simply habits of everyday life. These cultural Web applications are required not to offer on-line brochures only, but rather to provide both, value and service. This paper focuses on two crucial aspects of cultural Web applications comprising quality of content and quality of access. As an example for achieving quality of content in terms of comprehensiveness and cross-national nature, the MEDINA portal is presented, allowing one-stop access to cultural information of fourteen Mediterranean countries. In order to provide quality of access, the notion of ubiquity is introduced, allowing to customize Web applications towards different kinds of contexts, thus supporting the cultural tourist with device-independent, time-aware, location-aware, and personalized services. 1

Beaware!—situation awareness, the ontology-driven way.

Abstract Information overload is a severe problem for human operators of large-scale control systems as, for example, encountered in the domain of road traffic management. Operators of such systems are at risk to lack situation awareness, because existing systems focus on the mere presentation of the available information on graphical user interfaces-thus endangering the timely and correct identification, resolution, and prevention of critical situations. In recent years, ontologybased approaches to situation awareness featuring a semantically richer knowledge model have emerged. However, current approaches are either highly domain-specific or have, in case they are domain-independent, shortcomings regarding their reusability. In this paper, we present our experience gained from the development of BeAware!, a framework for ontology-driven information systems aiming at increasing an operator's situation awareness. In contrast to existing domain-independent approaches, BeAware!'s ontology introduces the concept of spatio-temporal primitive relations between observed real-world objects thereby improving the reusability of the framework. To show its applicability, a prototype of BeAware! has been implemented in the domain of road traffic management. An overview of this prototype and lessons learned for the development of ontology-driven information systems complete our contribution

Assisting Tourists on the Move- An Evaluation of Mobile Tourist Guides

The penetration of high-end mobile devices equipped with GPS and enhanced with multimedia features together with decreasing mobile data prices have resulted in larger usage of mobile services. One of the application domains particularly well-suited for mobile services is tourism, not least since tourists can be assisted especially during the vacation itself. Currently, there is a proliferation of such mobile tourist guides, proposing an unmanageable number of diverse functionalities. To counteract this situation, the contribution of this paper is threefold. First, an evaluation framework is proposed, comprising both, a classification of mobile tourist services and a categorization of their delivery aspects in terms of several orthogonal dimensions. Second, on basis of this framework, four representative mobile tourist guides are evaluated, thereby demonstrating the frameworks ’ applicability. Third, several lessons learned are discussed, thereby shedding light on the current state of effort in the area of mobile tourist guides. 1