Software Engineering Domain Research Articles

2.6.4 Measurement of System Safety Processes

AbstractThe ‘Measurement of Safety Processes and ALARP’ project is a UK Ministry of Defence Corporate Research Programme, managed by QinetiQ Ltd. that is developing fine‐grained, non‐invasive, measurement systems for the safety domain. The need for better measurement systems is being driven by a number of factors, principally the need to reduce risks to As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) and the achievement of higher levels of process maturity.The Safety Process Engineering Language (SPEL) is a language‐based measurement framework for safety processes. The approach, originally developed in the software engineering domain, is described via a case study of its industrial application on an auto‐code verification project. We show how the technique enables the cost‐effective collection of fine‐grained information to help identify improvements in the technical and business management of the safety process.

3.4.2 Supporting Object‐Oriented Analysis of Human Performance Systems

AbstractThere is a move towards conceptualizing, packaging and building human performance support systems, such as e‐learning, around reusable objects. As with the software engineering domain this approach may only be successful if analysis and design also moves to an object model. There is a need for new methodological thinking and automated tools to support the change. An automated object‐oriented performance analysis system is described, which enables modeling and collaboration during human performance systems analysis. The system is based on web services and uses a repository model to support the sharing and reuse of analysis knowledge both within and between organizations.

Transforming Object Oriented Models with BOTL

In many application domains, like for example B2B, B2C, or CASE, a lot of heterogeneous applications exist which have to cooperate and exchange data. A major task of system integration is the mapping of different data models, on which the applications are built upon. In this paper, the Basic Object-oriented Transformation Language (BOTL) is introduced as a mathematically founded approach for the integration of data models. Class diagrams of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) are today established as a technique for meta modelling in the software engineering domain. Therefore, BOTL uses a UML-based notation for the definition of declarative mapping rules that allow reasoning about properties like applicability, metamodel conformance and bidirectionality of transformations.

Patterns for encapsulating speech interface design solutions for older adults

An increasing number of older adults will need to use computers and computer related systems in the future to avoid social exclusion and enable them to live more independently in the future. There are therefore currently many interface designers searching for pointers to good design for older adults, a user group which is significantly different from the mainstream younger user groups mainly as a result of age associated impairments. There is currently no detailed body of knowledge from which interface designers can learn how to cater for this user group. This paper suggests a framework for encapsulating good interface design for older adults which is based on rigorous experimental work and sets out the findings in the form of patterns, a representation which has already been used successfully in the domain of software engineering and architecture.A robust framework for interface design is particularly important as those designing systems for older adults tend to be younger people who have no concept of what it is like interact with computerized systems as an older person with the age associated impairments.

Risk management in the design of medical device software systems.

The safety of any medical device system is dependent on the application of a disciplined, well-defined, risk management process throughout the product life cycle. Hardware, software, human, and environmental interactions must be assessed in terms of intended use, risk, and cost/benefit criteria. This article addresses these issues in the context of medical devices that incorporate software. The article explains the principles of risk management, using terminology and examples from the domain of software engineering. It may serve as a guide to those new to the concepts of risk management and as an aide-memoire for medical device system/software engineers who are more familiar with the topic.

Process-Based Software Engineering: Building the Infrastructures

A recent trend in software engineering is the shift from a focus on laboratory-oriented software engineering to a more industry-oriented view of software engineering processes. This complements preceding ideas about software engineering in terms of organization and process-orientation. From the domain coverage point of view, many of the existing software engineering approaches have mainly concentrated on the technical aspects of software development. Important areas of software engineering, such as the technical and organizational infrastructures, have been left untouched. As software systems increase in scales, issues of complexity and professional practices become involved. Software development as an academic or laboratory activity, has to engage with software development as a key industrialized process. This expanded domain of software engineering exposes the limitations of existing methodologies that often address only individual subdomains. There is, therefore, a demand for an overarching approach that provide a basis for theoretical and practical infrastructures capable of accommodating the whole range of modern software engineering practices and requirements. One approach is provided by Process-Based Software Engineering (PBSE); part of the more general trend towards a focus on process. This paper provides a review of process techniques for software engineering and a high-level perspective on PBSE. Typical approaches and techniques for the establishment, assessment, improvement and benchmarking of software engineering process systems are introduced in this paper, and many are developed further in other contributions to this volume.

Maturity and its impact on new product development project performance

The Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) has popularized the concept of process maturity. Software organizations use the CMM to assess their current capabilities and plan for further improvements. The purpose of this paper is to generalize the concept of maturity beyond the software engineering domain and determine the impact of maturity on project performance in new product development. In this paper we define the construct of maturity as the degree to which a process is defined, managed, measured, and continuously improved. We employ survey methodology to operationalize the construct, and a sample of 39 new product development programs is used to test the proposition that increased maturity leads to better project results, as measured by project cost and timeliness. We also test a number of environmental factors as moderators of this relationship. Results confirm a positive relationship between maturity and project success.

Knowledge-based verification of clinical guidelines by detection of anomalies

As shown in numerous studies, a significant part of published clinical guidelines is tainted with different types of semantical errors that interfere with their practical application. The adaptation of generic guidelines, necessitated by circumstances such as resource limitations within the applying organization or unexpected events arising in the course of patient care, further promotes the introduction of defects. Still, most current approaches for the automation of clinical guidelines are lacking mechanisms, which check the overall correctness of their output. In the domain of software engineering in general and in the domain of knowledge-based systems (KBS) in particular, a common strategy to examine a system for potential defects consists in its verification. The focus of this work is to present an approach, which helps to ensure the semantical correctness of clinical guidelines in a three-step process. We use a particular guideline specification language called Asbru to demonstrate our verification mechanism. A scenario-based evaluation of our method is provided based on a guideline for the artificial ventilation of newborn infants. The described approach is kept sufficiently general in order to allow its application to several other guideline representation formats.

Excellent Performance: The Role of Communication and Cooperation Processes

This paper summarises recent research on excellent performance in the domains of software development and engineering. The paper focuses on differences between excellent and moderate performers with respect to communication and cooperation activities. When excellent performers’ peers were asked to describe an excellent performer, they frequently mentioned competencies referring to cooperation and communication. Compared to moderate performers, excellent performers more often regarded cooperation as a useful strategy. Excellent performers generally participated more in work‐related communication and cooperation processes than did moderate performers. Moreover, they were found to be more engaged in specific cooperation‐related activities, such as helping coworkers and asking them for feedback.

Users as Composers: Parts and Features as a Basis for Tailorability in CSCW Systems

Tailoring CSCW systems by composing components has received some attention in the last few years. The underlying ideas and techniques usually come from the domain of software engineering. We take a closer look at the specific situation and requirements when applying composition for tailoring CSCW systems and relate it to other kinds of tailoring mechanisms. We then describe the different approach of feature composition, originating from the domain of telecommunication networks. Roughly, the difference can be characterized as composing either i>parts or i>properties (``features''). We argue, that in many cases feature composition is better suited for tailoring CSCW systems than the normal approach. Hence, feature composition should be applied, in addition to the normal approach, in tailorable CSCW systems. We show how both approaches can be combined in a single system and demonstrate their use with an example from the workflow management domain.

Building knowledge through families of experiments

Experimentation in software engineering is necessary but difficult. One reason is that there are a large number of context variables and, so, creating a cohesive understanding of experimental results requires a mechanism for motivating studies and integrating results. It requires a community of researchers that can replicate studies, vary context variables, and build models that represent the common observations about the discipline. The paper discusses the experience of the authors, based upon a collection of experiments, in terms of a framework for organizing sets of related studies. With such a framework, experiments can be viewed as part of common families of studies, rather than being isolated events. Common families of studies can contribute to important and relevant hypotheses that may not be suggested by individual experiments. A framework also facilitates building knowledge in an incremental manner through the replication of experiments within families of studies. To support the framework, the paper discusses the experiences of the authors in carrying out empirical studies, with specific emphasis on persistent problems encountered in experimental design, threats to validity, criteria for evaluation, and execution of experiments in the domain of software engineering.

Towards a modular methodology for designing software in telecommunication network planning

In the field of telecommunication networks considered as basic infrastructure of distributed system architectures, the size and complexity of the software environments to be developed impose the decomposition of problems to be solved into subproblems, up to reaching the most easily controllable units. Nevertheless, provided that both from theoretical and practical standpoints the criteria of decomposition used in software engineering differ from one design method to another, the problem of selecting the “best” method takes on strategic importance. However, the intrinsic nature of problems arising in planning as well as in operating telecommunication networks is such that there does not exist one solving/development methodology which is absolutely better, but rather some methods are more or less suited to different solving contexts. Such an observation naturally leads to the prohibition in this field of the use of any rigid and exclusive development approach, in order to take advantage of the most adaptable and open methodology, based on an integration of approaches and described as modular. This paper exposes the basic principle of this modular methodology, and presents a case study in the specific context of topological design of distributed computer networks. As a result, some research issues and challenges related to software development in telecommunication network planning are pointed out, challenges which concern the entire domain of software engineering.

Elaborating analogies from conceptual models

This article defines and analyzes a computational model of similarity which detects analogies between objects based on conceptual descriptions of them, constructed from classification, generalization relations, and attributes. Analogies are detected (elaborated by functions which measure conceptual distances between objects with respect to these semantic modeling abstractions. The model is domain independent and operational upon objects described in nonuniform ways. It does not require any special forms of knowledge for identifying analogies and distinguishes the importance of distinct object elements. Also, it has a polynomial complexity. Due to these characteristics, it may be used in complex tasks involving intra- or interdomain analogical reasoning. So far the similarity model has been applied in the domain of software engineering. First, to support the specification of software requirements by analogical reuse and second, to enable the integration of requirements specifications, generated by the multiple agents involved in information system development. Details of these applications can be found in cited references. Also, we have conducted an empirical evaluation of: (i) the consistency of the estimates generated by the model against human intuition about similarity and (ii) its recall performance in tasks of analogical retrieval, the results of which are presented in this article.

Elaborating analogies from conceptual models

This article defines and analyzes a computational model of similarity which detects analogies between objects based on conceptual descriptions of them, constructed from classification, generalization relations, and attributes. Analogies are detected (elaborated) by functions which measure conceptual distances between objects with respect to these semantic modeling abstractions. The model is domain independent and operational upon objects described in nonuniform ways. It does not require any special forms of knowledge for identifying analogies and distinguishes the importance of distinct object elements. Also, it has a polynomial complexity. Due to these characteristics, it may be used in complex tasks involving intra- or interdomain analogical reasoning. So far the similarity model has been applied in the domain of software engineering. First, to support the specification of software requirements by analogical reuse and second, to enable the integration of requirements specifications, generated by the multiple agents involved in information system development. Details of these applications can be found in cited references. Also, we have conducted an empirical evaluation of: (i) the consistency of the estimates generated by the model against human intuition about similarity and (ii) its recall performance in tasks of analogical retrieval, the results of which are presented in this article. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Issues in Development Models of Real-Time Process-Control Software

The trend in real-time process-control systems can be characterized by increasing complexity, increasing demands on safety and distributed implementations. This results in a demand for tools and techniques that can be applied especially in the implementation phase of the development process. The control engineering domain is adequately equipped with tools and techniques in order to analyze control problems as well as to design solutions. Implementation of the design with ad-hoc methods is due to the increased complexity not longer suitable. Applying methods from the domain of software engineering seems promising. But then the question arises whether these methods offer the needed features and can be embedded in the development process of real-time process-control systems. Although there are numerous methods which can be, and in fact are, applied in the development process of real-time process-control systems, it is shown, by taking a closer look at the underlying models used in the two domains, that an iterative development scheme is the most promising one.

Transaction mechanisms for distributed programming environments

Considerable research effort in the software engineering domain has been focused on the development of more advanced programming environments. A key aspect in this development is distribution. Distributed computer systems have the potential for high reliability. This is primarily because resources can be provided redundantly at different sites. However, the possibility of partial system failure and the high level of parallel activity in distributed systems make it difficult to realise this potential. In an attempt to simplify the treatment of these problems in distributed database systems, the notion of atomic transactions was introduced. The transaction concept is equally applicable to the area of distributed programming environments. However, traditional database transaction mechanisms are not efficient or flexible enough to meet the requirements of distributed programming environments. This paper presents a survey of transaction techniques and discusses the application of the transaction model to distributed programming environments.

Expert system applications in software engineering

This paper presents an overview of research in expert systems and artificial intelligence as they relate to software engineering. The paper begins with a review of current thinking regarding the software process. This is followed by a discussion of artificial intelligence (AI) and the paradigms it uses. Six current projects are described: three are concerned with programming in the large and three with programming in the small. These six projects provide a representative sample of the AI research now underway in the software engineering domain. The paper concludes with some observations regarding when and how the concepts represented by these projects will be available for application to operational projects.