Software Engineering Applications Research Articles

Using Software Engineering to Guide Commercial CAD Software Secondary Development

Effective secondary development is the key process for CAD application. But as a cross-disciplinary problem and new software development mode, secondary development based on commercial CAD software has new features compared with complete independent software development. From angle of software engineering, this paper summarizes demand of software engineering, standards to observe, software development flow, configuration of development team in the process of commercial CAD software secondary development. Finally, this paper presents the case of secondary development of AutoCAD standard base parametric system to illustrate the specific application of software engineering in detail.

Reliable performance prediction for multigrid software on distributed memory systems

We propose a model for describing and predicting the parallel performance of a broad class of parallel numerical software on distributed memory architectures. The purpose of this model is to allow reliable predictions to be made for the performance of the software on large numbers of processors of a given parallel system, by only benchmarking the code on small numbers of processors. Having described the methods used, and emphasized the simplicity of their implementation, the approach is tested on a range of engineering software applications that are built upon the use of multigrid algorithms. Despite their simplicity, the models are demonstrated to provide both accurate and robust predictions across a range of different parallel architectures, partitioning strategies and multigrid codes. In particular, the effectiveness of the predictive methodology is shown for a practical engineering software implementation of an elastohydrodynamic lubrication solver.

Special Issue: Agents, Web Services and Ontologies: Integrated Methodologies

In the last years there has been a growing interest towards computing problems which involve a large number of heterogeneous components that are physically distributed and that interoperate, and which share with multi-agent systems the properties of openness, dynamicity, and flexibility. Web services, mashups, SOA, sensor networks, middleware, distributed components are but a few examples. Among these, web services are one of the most mature fields. Since the W3C defined them as software systems, designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network, web services attracted the attention of scientists, working in research areas as diverse as Semantic Web, Web Services, Agents, Ontologies. The aim is both to define theoretical basis and languages and to design the infrastructures, which are necessary to allow the construction of composed web services and which show the mentioned characteristics of openness, flexibility, heterogeneity and dynamicity. A final solution is not yet at hand but it is clear that the challenge involves many facets (from formal theories to software engineering and practical applications), and that the way is the integration of results achieved by different disciplines. So, on the one hand, there is a need of representing web services. This has been done, initially, by consortia like W3C and OASIS, which developed and maintain languages like WSDL and BPEL4WS, bearing from the WorkFlow research area. However, in order to allow web services to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries, such languages are not sufficient: descriptions must be machine-processable, i.e. they must be given a well-defined meaning. To this aim the use of ontologies has been proposed and is being investigated. WSMO provides a conceptual framework and a formal language for semantically describing all relevant aspects of web services in order to facilitate the automation of discovering, combining and invoking electronic services over the Web. Recently, also declarative languages are raising attention in the Semantic Web research field, where the focus started to shift from the ontology layer to the logic layer, with a consequent need of expressing rules and of applying various forms of reasoning, such as verifying at design time properties regarding the behavioral aspects of a composed system. On the agents side, the explicit reference to ontologies in messages exchanged between agents in order to achieve better semantic interoperability, as well as the

Applying Software Engineering to Agent Development

Developing intelligent agents and cognitive models is a complex software engineering activity. This article shows how all intelligent agent creation tools can be improved by taking advantage of established software engineering principles such as high-level languages, maintenance-oriented development environments, and software reuse. We describe how these principles have been realized in the Herbal integrated development environment, a collection of tools that allows agent developers to exploit modern software engineering principles.

(Position Paper) Applying software engineering methods and tools to CSE research projects

The need for applications that are developed especially for Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) has been growing rapidly in the recent years. These applications are often a prerequisite for research and have to be evolved and maintained for considerable periods of time. However, CSE researchers have traditionally put focus on achieving better computational performance and results rather than the software’s comprehensibility, maintainability and extensibility. This paper first presents two case studies on two different CSE research projects, where common and specific problems are identified. Second we propose solutions that intend to apply software engineering methodologies and tools to improve the CSE research software development.

A Dependence Representation for Coverage Testing of Object-Oriented Programs.

We propose a dependence-based representation for object-or- iented programs, named Call-based Object-Oriented System Dependence Graph (COSDG). Apart from structural features, COSDG captures im- portant object-oriented features such as class, inheritance, and polymor- phism. Novel features of COSDG include details of method visibility in a derived class, and dierent types of method call edges to distinguish be- tween various calling contexts—simple, inherited, and polymorphic. We also propose an algorithm for the construction of COSDG, and subse- quently explain its working with an example. COSDG has been devel- oped primarily to aid test coverage analysis. However, it can be used in a variety of other software engineering applications such as program slicing, software re-engineering, and debugging.

Fast and precise points-to analysis

Many software engineering applications require points-to analysis. These client applications range from optimizing compilers to integrated program development environments (IDEs) and from testing environments to reverse-engineering tools. Moreover, software engineering applications used in an edit-compile cycle need points-to analysis to be fast and precise. In this article, we present a new context- and flow-sensitive approach to points-to analysis where calling contexts are distinguished by the points-to sets analyzed for their call target expressions. Compared to other well-known context-sensitive techniques it is faster in practice, on average, twice as fast as the call string approach and by an order of magnitude faster than the object-sensitive technique. In fact, it shows to be only marginally slower than a context-insensitive baseline analysis. At the same time, it provides higher precision than the call string technique and is similar in precision to the object-sensitive technique. We confirm these statements with experiments using a number of abstract precision metrics and a concrete client application: escape analysis.

Parameterized matching on non-linear structures

The classical pattern matching paradigm is that of seeking occurrences of one string in another, where both strings are drawn from an alphabet set Σ. In the parameterized pattern matching model, a consistent renaming of symbols from Σ is allowed in a match. The parameterized matching paradigm has proven useful in problems in software engineering, computer vision, and other applications. In classical pattern matching, both the text and pattern are strings. Applications such as searching in xml or searching in hypertext require searching strings in non-linear structures such as trees or graphs. There has been work in the literature on exact and approximate parameterized matching, as well as work on exact and approximate string matching on non-linear structures. In this paper we explore parameterized matching in non-linear structures. We prove that exact parameterized matching on trees can be computed in linear time for alphabets in an O ( n ) -size integer range, and in time O ( n log m ) in general, where n is the tree size and m the pattern length. These bounds are optimal in the comparison model. We also show that exact parameterized matching on directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) is NP -complete.

A dependence graph-based representation for test coverage analysis of object-oriented programs

Test coverage analysis is used to determine the extent to which different features of interest are exercised by a given test suite. For object-oriented programs, it involves determining the extent to which features such as inheritance, polymorphism, dynamic binding, etc. are exercised. As object-oriented coverage analysis using only source code or object code is difficult and inefficient, the source code is converted to a suitable intermediate representation for subsequent analysis. We propose a dependence graph-based representation for object-oriented programs, named Call-based Object-Oriented System Dependence Graph (COSDG). COSDG captures the important object-oriented features, provides details of method visibility in a derived class, and differentiates various calling contexts with different type of method call edges: simple, inherited, and polymorphic. We also propose an algorithm to construct COSDG incrementally. Though COSDG has been developed primarily to aid test coverage analysis, it can be used in a variety of other software engineering applications also.

Harmonizing high performance computing (HPC) with large‐scale complex systems in computational science and engineering

AbstractThis paper addresses the challenges facing the three different groups within the professional community that support the development of large‐scale scientific and engineering (CSE) software applications. Scientific and engineering systems are but one example of large‐scale complex (LSC) systems. The authors recognize that many of the observations made in this paper also apply to the larger domain. The focus of this paper is restricted to CSE because it is the source of the experiences from which the observations are derived. The first of the groups encompasses the application developers of large‐scale scientific and engineering software systems, especially those requiring high‐performance computing (HPC). The second group covers the HPC software development and run‐time environments. The third consists of the integrators of the first two groups, with a focus on the systems engineers whose task is to bridge the technical and cultural gap between the other two. These challenges reside in several areas, the most important being the educational and cultural backgrounds that are reflected in the knowledge, expertise, and experience of the principals involved. In particular, the cultural gaps and thus the communications and ultimate systems integration challenges are the byproducts of the academic educational system that graduates most software engineers without formal courses in systems engineering, process control, and systems integration. All three groups of challenges are explored individually and in conjunction with each other. Thus, a major problem addressed here is centered in software, because the developers of LSC systems in CSE perceive hardware through the HPC software development environment. Given the unique attributes and characteristics of LSC‐HPC systems, to meet the challenge of the risk modeling, assessment, and management associated with them—at least partially—this paper discusses two complementary approaches: decomposition and hierarchical modeling, which, when applied in conjunction with conventional aggregate modeling methods, offers several promising advantages, especially when dealing with LSC‐HPC systems, and Phantom System Models, used as a real‐time and virtual modeling laboratory for systems integration and risk assessment and management. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng

IFE has become CSRD

During the past year, IFE has undergone a major change. After being a German-language journal for more than 20 years, it has now changed to English as the lingua franca in science and the language of choice for publishing scientific research results. This development is also reflected in IFE’s change of name: it will henceforth be called “Computer Science – Research and Development (CSRD)”. The focus of CSRD/IFE has also been widened to take into account the key role software plays as an integral part of many products in the Information Age. Just as software, the basic raw material of the Information Age, is connected to many neighbouring disciplines, CSRD publishes high-quality research and survey papers from the area of Software Engineering and Systems and its adjacent disciplines, including embedded systems, mobile systems, information systems, algorithm engineering, web engineering, ubiquitous computing, service-oriented architectures, model-driven architectures, process-oriented architectures and related topics. Contributions describing research in application areas such as mechanical engineering, medical engineering and medical technology, traffic engineering and environmental technology are also welcome. This change in CSRD/IFE’s language and focus has already been mirrored in the articles that have appeared in the journal over the past year. CSRD/IFE has published papers providing insight into topics such as embedded operating systems, algorithmic problems in drawing subway maps, industrial applications of model checking as well as software engineering applications in medical technology and medical

Granular problem solving and its applications in software engineering

Granulation is an important component of granular computing (GrC) as a problem solving paradigm. Specification and regulation of granulation are necessary in helping researchers and practitioners apply GrC into different applications. At present, there is insufficient investigation of this topic. This paper defines concepts and mechanisms of problem solving, investigates the fundamental principles and processes of granulation and demonstrates that the development of software engineering methodologies follows the basic idea of GrC: granulation. With the guide of granulation, this paper also proposes a new method of granulation by rolification (the act or the result of designing roles), i.e., roles and agents. The major contribution of this paper is establishing the foundations of granular problem solving and clarifying the relationships between granular problem solving and software engineering.

Legends of Drilling

During SPE's Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Denver, JPT honored ?ve pioneers in the drilling industry with its ?rst Legends of Drilling Award. The reception, held on 23 September, honored Leon Robinson, Martin E. Chenevert, Marvin Gearhart, William A. Rehm, and William C. Maurer, and was sponsored by Schlumberger. Although the pioneering achievements of the early days of drilling are well known and documented, little attention has been given to the achievements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The people this award honors have been instrumental in the creation and development of these more recent drilling accomplishments. Robinson has contributed greatly to the industry's technical literature, and has made many notable technological contributions in the areas of mud cleaners, explosive drilling, and drilling data telemetry. He has received 24 international patents, 34 US patents, and many service and achievement awards. Chenevert is considered a legend in the world of oil and gas drilling. In addition to 100 published works and three books, he has developed petroleum engineering software applications and holds nine US patents. He has earned international recognition for his work in the area of wellbore stability and drilling ?uids, has received numerous industry awards and recognitions, and has been active in SPE and many other associations. Gearhart has had a long track record for creating companies that specialize in high-performing technologies. During the 1970s, his company developed a major advance in openhole logging equipment and became a forerunner in measurement-while-drilling technology. His Gearhart Company is currently putting together an integrated line of drilling tools and systems designed for vertical and horizontal drilling in the Barnett Shale play. Rehm helped develop well control and pressure measurement from electric logs and wrote the ?rst manual on well control accepted by the US Minerals Management Service. He has contributed to some of the most signi?cant technological advancements in recent history, including the development of directional drilling, coiled tubing, underbalanced drilling, and high-pressure drilling operations. He is a recognized expert in underbalanced drilling and conducts schools and management seminars internationally and has written several books and manuals on the technology. Maurer's work has contributed to pioneering changes in the industry, including extensive research into novel drilling techniques, drilling mechanics, rock mechanics, drill bit design, downhole drilling motors, high-pressure jet drilling, horizontal drilling, and advanced drilling tools. His Maurer Engineering was instrumental in the development of measurement-while-drilling technology. During the 1980s, he organized an effort to develop tools to economically and reliably drill horizontal wells, and was instrumental in the development of the then-revolutionary PDC bit. It is my hope that reading about the remarkable achievements of these extraordinary people will inspire others to create and contribute to new technologies and solutions that will bene?t the oil and gas industry in the years to come.

Applications of Software Engineering to Manufacturing Process Planning

Agile methods of software development promote the use of flexible architectures that can be rapidly refactored and rebuilt as necessary for the project. In the mechanical engineering domain, software tends to be very complex and requires the integration of several modules that result from the efforts of large numbers of programmers over several years. Such software needs to be extensible, modular, and adaptable so that a variety of algorithms can be quickly tested and deployed. This paper presents an application of the unified process (UP) to the development of a research process planning system called CyberCut. UP is used to (1) analyze and critique early versions of CyberCut and (2) to guide current and future developments of the CyberCut system. CyberCut is an integrated process planning system that converts user designs to instructions for a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine. The conversion process involves algorithms to perform tasks such as feature extraction, fixture planning, tool selection, and tool-path planning. The UP-driven approach to the development of CyberCut involves two phases. The inception phase outlines a clear but incomplete description of the user needs. The elaboration phase involves iterative design, development, and testing using short cycles. The software makes substantial use of design patterns to promote clean and well-defined separation between and within components to enable independent development and testing. The overall development of the software tool took about two months with five programmers. It was later possible to easily integrate or substitute new algorithms into the system so that programming resources were more productively used to develop new algorithms. The experience with UP shows that methodologies such as UP are important for engineering software development where research goals, technology, algorithms, and implementations show dramatic and frequent changes.

On System Algebra

Systems are the most complicated entities and phenomena in abstract, physical, information, and social worlds across all science and engineering disciplines. System algebra is an abstract mathematical structure for the formal treatment of abstract and general systems as well as their algebraic relations, operations, and associative rules for composing and manipulating complex systems. This article presents a mathematical theory of system algebra and its applications in cognitive informatics, system engineering, software engineering, and cognitive informatics. A rigorous treatment of abstract systems is described, and the algebraic relations and compositional operations of abstract systems are analyzed. System algebra provides a denotational mathematical means that can be used to model, specify, and manipulate generic “to be” and “to have” type problems, particularly system architectures and high-level system designs, in computing, software engineering, system engineering, and cognitive informatics.

Automatic construction of accurate application call graph with library call abstraction for Java

AbstractCall graphs are widely used to represent calling relationships among methods. However, there is not much interest in calling relationships among library methods in many software engineering applications, such as program understanding and testing, especially when the library is very big and the calling relationships are not trivial. This paper explores approaches for generating more accurate application call graphs for Java. A new data reachability algorithm is proposed and fine tuned to resolve library callbacks accurately. Compared with an algorithm that resolves library callbacks by traversing the whole‐program call graph, the fine‐tuned data reachability algorithm results in fewer spurious callback edges. In empirical studies, the new algorithm shows a significant reduction in the number of spurious callback edges. On the basis of the new algorithm, a library abstraction can be calculated automatically and applied in amortized slicing and dataflow testing. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Visual data mining and analysis of software repositories

In this article we describe an ongoing effort to integrate information visualization techniques into the process of configuration management for software systems. Our focus is to help software engineers manage the evolution of large and complex software systems by offering them effective and efficient ways to query and assess system properties using visual techniques. To this end, we combine several techniques from different domains, as follows. First, we construct an infrastructure that allows generic querying and data mining of different types of software repositories such as CVS and Subversion. Using this infrastructure, we construct several models of the software source code evolution at different levels of detail, ranging from project and package up to function and code line. Second, we describe a set of views that allow examining the code evolution models at different levels of detail and from different perspectives. We detail three views: the file view shows changes at line level across many versions of a single, or a few, files. The project view shows changes at file level across entire software projects. The decomposition view shows changes at subsystem level across entire projects. We illustrate how the proposed techniques, which we implemented in a fully operational toolset, have been used to answer non-trivial questions on several real-world, industry-size software projects. Our work is at the crossroads of applied software engineering (SE) and information visualization, as our toolset aims to tightly integrate the methods promoted by the InfoVis field into the SE practice.

Implementing tutoring strategies into a patient simulator for clinical reasoning learning

This paper describes an approach for developing intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) for teaching clinical reasoning. Our approach to ITS for clinical reasoning uses a novel hybrid knowledge representation for the pedagogic model, combining finite state machines to model different phases in the diagnostic process, production rules to model triggering conditions for feedback in different phases, temporal logic to express triggering conditions based upon past states of the student's problem solving trace, and finite state machines to model feedback dialogues between the student and TeachMed. The expert model is represented by an influence diagram capturing the relationship between evidence and hypotheses related to a clinical case. This approach is implemented into TeachMed, a patient simulator we are developing to support clinical reasoning learning for a problem-based learning medical curriculum at our institution; we demonstrate some scenarios of tutoring feedback generated using this approach. Each of the knowledge representation formalisms that we use has already been proven successful in different applications of artificial intelligence and software engineering, but their integration into a coherent pedagogic model as we propose is unique. The examples we discuss illustrate the effectiveness of this approach, making it promising for the development of complex ITS, not only for clinical reasoning learning, but potentially for other domains as well.

Application of Web Services for Structural Engineering Systems

The Internet has revolutionized the way computing is done and the way software systems work. Many systems, such as search engines and PC games, have utilized Web-related technologies for Web-based systems. However, the application of Web-based engineering software is still in its infancy, especially regarding engineering computing. This paper presents a prototype development of Web-based structural engineering systems by utilizing modern computer graphics and information technology to provide Web-based analytical services. The system design emphasizes platform-independence, graphical interface, system performance, and a multiple-user environment. The user needs only an Internet-connected machine to access high-performance services provided at remote sites over the Web. This framework will provide users a powerful tool to efficiently perform analysis with minimal computer resource requirements. The user will always have access to the most up-to-date and functional system with no client-side updates or maintenance required. Two Web-based system implementations are given as examples in this paper.

Doctoral Education as Social Practice for Knowledge Development

This article reports on an empirical study of industry PhD students in the Swedish Graduate School for Applied IT and Software Engineering. The students were questioned in semi-structured interviews about their experiences of sharing their postgraduate studies between industrial and academic environments. The results from the first analysis indicate that there are considerable differences between companies in terms of their traditions and their propensity to take part in joint knowledge development with universities. Three types of company environment were identified in this context: (a) research-intense, (b) engineering and (c) consultancy. The focus of this study is on how the type of activity, the difference in time perspective between companies and universities, the competence of other company employees and the character of the thesis project affect the doctoral student's situation, identity, support and participation in knowledge development.