Improving Consistency of UML Diagrams and Its Implementation Using Reverse Engineering Approach

Software development deals with various changes and evolution that cannot be avoided due to the development processes which are vastly incremental and iterative. In Model Driven Engineering, inconsistency between model and its implementation has huge impact on the software development process in terms of added cost, time and effort. The later the inconsistencies are found, it could add more cost to the software project. Thus, this paper aims to describe the development of a tool that could improve the consistency between Unified Modeling Language (UML) design models and its C# implementation using reverse engineering approach. A list of consistency rules is defined to check vertical and horizontal consistencies between structural (class diagram) and behavioral (use case diagram and sequence diagram) UML diagrams against the implemented C# source code. The inconsistencies found between UML diagrams and source code are presented in a textual description and visualized in a tree view structure

A performance measurement framework for Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) in global IT projects

In spite of the increasing prevalence of global virtual teams (GVTs), It should be noted that in spite of the advantages of technology provides, most of global IT projects tend to face problems and risks, and great deal of such projects fail to reach all their objectives. According to the literature review we found that there is a lack of communication within global virtual teams in global IT projects and this problem affect the global IT project performance and leads to global IT project failure. So there is a need to develop a framework to measure the performance for global virtual teams in global IT projects. Early stage and before developing the instrument and conducting the pilot test, the researchers conducted a structured interview with 6 experts to validate the proposed framework. In conclusion, The validity and reliability of the instrument were tested through experts, typical respondents, and analyzed by SPSS 22. The results confirmed the validity of the proposed framework and the validity and reliability of the instrument

Global virtual teams’ (GVTs) performance: online training and development, organizational commitment, and motivation

The global virtual teams (GVTs) comprise of team members who are geographically dispersed, culturally varied, and mainly depends on information and communication technologies (ICT) to communicate with each other's. In spite of technological leverages, the GVTs facing many challenges that affect their performance. Hence, the online training and development is very important for GVTs to perform. The main goal of online training and development is to improve the skills and behaviors of the GVTs, which leads to increase the performance of the team. A systematic literature review was conducted to answer two research questions. The first research question is to investigate the relationship between online training and development and global virtual teams' performance. The second research question is to find out the existing frame works involving online training and development in GVTs. Then, the related frameworks are analyzed to highlight the gaps and limitations for each of them. The findings indicated that there is a positive relationship between online training and development and global virtual teams' performance. The existing frameworks are overlapped in some variables such as online training and global virtual teams' performance. However, the existing frameworks are still not sufficient to measure the performance of GVTs. A Performance Measurement Framework for GVTs was proposed to assist the project manager on measuring the global virtual teams' performance involving the online training and development, organizational commitment, and motivation based on defined key performance indicators (KPIs)

Measuring the Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) performance: confirmation study

Objectives: This paper found that there is a need to propose a framework to measure the global virtual teams’ performance involving online training and development, organizational commitment, and motivation in global IT projects. Also this research aims to examine the relationship among online training and development, organizational commitment, motivation, and virtual teams’ performance in global IT projects success, propose a framework to assist the project manager to measure the global virtual teams’ performance in global IT projects involving the online training and development, organizational commitment, and motivation based on defined measures and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the global virtual teams in global IT projects which is our contribution for this study. Method: The Confirmation study were conducted which is including study (expert-questionnaire interview, pilot study, and empirical study (the survey) then the framework proposed. The proposed framework was evaluated through experts from academics and industries. Findings: The results of the confirmation/preliminary study confirmed the validity of the conceptual framework and the validity and reliability of the instrument. Confirmation/empirical study were verified the conceptual framework and the final framework was proposed. Applications: This framework is to assist the project manager to measure the global virtual teams’ performance in global IT projects

Factors for communication technologies selection within virtual software teams

Virtual teams are established to during software development environment. Virtual team members are gradually engaged in globalized business environments across space, time and organizational boundaries with links ensured by information and communication technologies. A virtual team relies on communication, collaboration, and information exchange is the most important criteria in virtual teams operations and their efficiency directly influences team performance. The aim of this paper is to identify the factors of selecting and using of technologies within virtual teams communication to improve virtual team communication to enhance the virtual team performance. This researcher uses systematic literature review by Kitchenham to review existing literature on the issues and implementation of virtual team members. In this review 22 papers were analyzed to answer the research questions

Verifying the Correctness of UML Statechart Outpatient Clinic Based on Common Modeling Language and SMV

Unified-modelling language (UML) is a standard general purpose modelling language, which is widely, used in system design of banking, biological, plantation and healthcare. Recently, there are many systems of healthcare are modeled using behavioral diagram such as UML statechart for design purposes. However, the behavior of healthcare statechart is rarely verified to ensure it is behaving as we needed. In software engineering, a software should be verified before it is transform to the further phases. In this paper, a statechart of outpatient clinic is verified to ensuring the correctness of its design. Therefore, to achieve our objective, we have applied Common Modeling Language (CML) and SMV model checker for verification formal system modeling and specification of property of statechart outpatient clinic. The result shows that the statechart of outpatient clinic is behave as required and the statechart is allowable to transform to the next phase

Bacterial community shift as potential bioindicator for monitoring the performance of palm oil mill effluent treatment system

The growing demand for palm oil has caused a substantial increase in the generation of palm oil mill effluent (POME). POME has been known to give the adverse environmental impacts including land and aquatic ecosystem contamination and the biodiversity loss if it is not properly treated. In Malaysia, the biological ponding system is commonly being used to treat POME because of the low cost and less maintenance is required. However, the current wastewater treatment system for POME regularly fails to treat the effluent efficiently. To meet the standard discharge limit proposed by the Malaysian Department of the Environment, the POME must be treated effectively before being released into the receiving water bodies, hence monitoring a correct operation of POME treatment system is crucial. However, to date, only few studies have been conducted on the microbial aspects of POME and little is known about microbial diversity involved in the POME treatment system, either in terms of their community structure and function or their response to the environment. Therefore, the study on the microbial community composition of POME treatment system has been carried out which later can be used as potential bioindicator to monitor the performance of the treatment system. Sampling from POME treatment system was done by collecting samples from raw POME, anaerobic tanks, as well as from facultative and algae ponds. The shift of microbial community composition at each stage of POME treatment system has been shown by using PCR-Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) and Illumina Miseq. As a conclusion, a sensitive and accurate monitoring approach of POME treatment system using bacterial community shift is proposed to ensure a correct operation for POME treatment, hence can be used to complement the current physicochemical assessment method

Potential cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase producer from locally isolated bacteria

Cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase (CGTase) is one of the most important groups of microbial amylolytic enzymes that have been used for degradation of starch to yield cyclodextrin (CD) via cyclization reaction. The increasing demand for CD in industrial application has led to an extensive study about CGTase which begin with screening, isolation and characterization of CGTase-producing bacteria. The identification of CGTase producer involves the use of solid media containing phenolphthalein and methyl orange as indicators that was detected by the colour changes. The formations of clearance zone around the bacterial colony in the starch-containing medium were observed and the diameters were measured to gauge the hydrolytic efficiency of the bacteria. Out of 65 soil bacterial samples screened, Bacillus sp. NR5 UPM was identified as the most prolific CGTase producer, which produced highest CGTase activity (11.709 U/ml) and highest β-CD concentration (2.504 mg/ml) with α-CD:β-CD:γ-CD ratio was 0.5:91.1:8.4 when using raw soluble starch as a substrate. It also showed as the best CGTase producer when using sago starch as a substrate (15.514 U/ml). This isolate was known as a raw starchdegrading enzyme producer since it has the capability to use raw starch as a substrate. Thus, in the future, this new isolate perhaps can share the biggest market in industrial application.Key words: Cyclodextrin, cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase, starch

The Use of Metamodel-based Approach for Designing Healthcare Applications

Recently, the use of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) via metamodeling approach is gaining more attention for software applications development. The community from the healthcare domain also attempts to employ the metamodel approach for producing quality healthcare applications. Healthcare applications have become an imperative in every attempt to improve healthcare management. Numerous studies reported that the healthcare domain is seen as a complex and unique domain, which involves dynamic characteristics. In addition, it is widely recognized that the increase of information exchange in the healthcare domain is caused by the diversity of healthcare data. This has led to the increase use of information technologies in the healthcare industry so as to enhance the healthcare delivery process via healthcare applications. However, the complexity of healthcare information leads to ineffective models and design of healthcare applications. Modeling the healthcare processes and developing healthcare applications are challenging tasks.  Hence, the advances of MDE have influenced the use of the metamodeling technique in the development of healthcare applications. Various metamodels are developed as a solution to provide a clear healthcare process model and a correct healthcare application. The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of the metamodel-based approach in designing healthcare applications. We believe that the metamodel-based approach would improve the development of healthcare applications.&nbsp

Microbial community changes in different stages of palm oil mill effluent treatment

The growing demand for palm oil has caused a substantial increase in the generation of palm oil mill effluent (POME). POME has been known to give the adverse environmental impacts including land and aquatic ecosystem contamination and the biodiversity loss if it is not properly treated. Currently, the wastewater treatment system for POME regularly fails to treat the effluent efficiently. To meet the standard discharge limit proposed by the Malaysian Department of the Environment, the POME must be treated effectively before being released into the receiving water bodies. In Malaysia, the ponding system is commonly being used to treat POME because of the low cost and less maintenance is required. To date, only few studies have been conducted on the microbial aspects of POME and little is known about microbial diversity involved in POME treatment, either in terms of their community structure and function or their response to the environment. Therefore, the study on the microbial community structure during POME treatment is proposed. Several samples from POME treatment system were collected, including POME samples from anaerobic tanks, as well as from facultative, and algae ponds. The changes of microbial community structure at each stage of POME treatment has been shown by using PCR-Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) approach. As a conclusion, the microbial community changes during POME treatment is expected to be explored and identified, hence will bring to the microbial community rebound after implementation of zero discharge system in the future