Software Design Techniques Research Articles

Requirements specification, design, and evaluation of dental image exchange and management system with user-centered approach: A case study in Iran.

Systems existing in hospital or clinic settings offer services within the physical environment. Examples of such systems include picture archiving and communication systems, which provide remote services for patients. To develop a successful system, methods like software development life cycles (SDLCs) and design techniques, such as prototyping, are needed. This study aimed to specify requirements, design, and evaluation of dental image exchange and management system using a user-centered approach. This cross-sectional study was conducted in four phases, each corresponding to different stages of SDLCs. User-needs data were used to gathered by interviews and observations. A prototype was developed using object-oriented programming and presented to users for feedback. Finally, focus group was used to finalized the prototype into the desired system. User needs were identified and prioritized from the outset, with ease of use, security, and mobile apps being their most essential requirements. The prototype underwent several iterations of design and evaluation in focus group sessions until users were satisfied, and their feedback was incorporated. Eventually, the prototype was refined into the final system with users' consent. The study revealed that instant access to information, voluntary participation, user interface (UI) design, and usefulness were critical variables for users and should be integral to any system. Successful implementation of such a system requires careful consideration of end-users' needs and their application to the system. Moreover, integrating the system with electronic health records can further enhance the treatment process and the efficiency of medical staff. The voluntary perspective of users played a significant role in achieving an exemplary UI and overall satisfaction with the system. Developers and policymakers should consider these aspects in similar system development projects.

Operating inlet pressure head assessment for multi-outlet submain manifolds in a low-pressurized water distribution network system

Abstract Multi-outlet pipes can be used to distribute and collect fluids and have applications in various engineering fields, especially in the water supply system. The hydraulic design of a submain unit pipeline with multiple outlets is a very important concern for the proper hydraulic performance of irrigation water distribution systems. The operating inlet pressure head, H0I, is a main hydraulic component for the proper hydraulically efficient design and evaluation of pressure head distribution along the line. The energy-gradient ratio (EGR) approach is a useful tool to identify first which type of pressure profile occurs for a given uniform design slope with other hydraulic variables initially known and then, comprehensively evaluate its definite hydraulic characteristics along the line. Knowing the hydraulic properties of any type of pressure profile regarded enables the design engineer to evaluate pressure parameters through the line sections in a simple way. The procedure is simplified by regarding the localized head loss along the pipe but neglecting the change in kinetic head. The present analytical technique performs sufficiently accurately in comparison with the computer-aided software design technique, for all performed simulations.

Cognitive Driven Development helps software teams to keep code units under the limit!

Software design techniques are key elements in the process of designing good software. Over the years, a large number of design techniques have been proposed by both researchers and practitioners. Unfortunately, despite their uniqueness, it is not uncommon to find software products that make subpar design decisions, leading to design degradation challenges. One potential reason for this behavior is that developers do not have a clear vision of how much a code unit could grow; without this vision, a code unit can grow endlessly, even when developers are equipped with an arsenal of design practices. Different than other design techniques, Cognitive Driven Development (CDD for short) focuses on (1) defining and (2) limiting the number of coding elements that developers could use at a given code unit.In this paper, we report on the experiences of a software development team using CDD for building from scratch a learning management tool at Zup Innovation, a Brazilian tech company. By curating commit traces left in the repositories, combined with the developers’ perception, we organized a set of findings and lessons that could be useful for those interested in adopting CDD. For instance, we noticed that by using CDD, despite the evolution of the product, developers were able to keep the code units under a small amount of size (in terms of lines of code). Furthermore, although limiting the complexity is at the heart of CDD, we also discovered that developers tend to relax this notion of limit so that they can cope with the different complexities of the software. Still, we noticed that CDD could also influence testing practices; limiting the code units’ size makes testing easier to perform.

Rancang Bangun Sistem Irigasi Tetes dan Monitoring Kualitas Lahan Pertanian Tadah Hujan Berbasis Web

In this study the object studied was rainfed agricultural land, this type of agriculture depends on rainwater so good management is needed in managing the cropping system to produce optimal results. The drip irrigation system can be used when the dry season arrives to support the quality of moisture in the soil and soil quality monitoring is carried out to determine the planting of corn plant seeds. The prototype method is used in designing drip irrigation systems and monitoring the quality of agricultural land. System design using the prototype method is one of the software design techniques used in designing web applications. The application is designed using the PHP programming language and the framework used is CodeIgniter (CI), so the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is designed. Internet of Things uses NodeMCU ESP8266 as a microcontroller that will connect to the web. The results of the sensor test for 30 minutes on soil moisture can be maintained at 40-80% humidity when drip irrigation is running. When the water in the tank runs out and drip irrigation is not running, the soil moisture will decrease by 30%, the soil pH value is at a value of 6-7% and the temperature value is at 21-34 degrees Celsius, the soil quality is suitable for planting corn seeds. The drip irrigation system can be used when the dry season arrives to keep the soil moist and this land monitoring is useful for farmers in determining good land conditions for planting corn seeds. The system design can be further developed by adding sensors to the water control in the drip irrigation tube to measure the amount of water used.

Using formal methods for autonomous systems: Five recipes for formal verification

Formal Methods are mathematically-based techniques for software design and engineering, which enable the unambiguous description of and reasoning about a system’s behaviour. Autonomous systems use software to make decisions without human control, are often embedded in a robotic system, are often safety-critical, and are increasingly being introduced into everyday settings. Autonomous systems need robust development and verification methods, but formal methods practitioners are often asked: Why use Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems? To answer this question, this position paper describes five recipes for formally verifying aspects of an autonomous system, collected from the literature. The recipes are examples of how Formal Methods can be an effective tool for the development and verification of autonomous systems. During design, they enable unambiguous description of requirements; in development, formal specifications can be verified against requirements; software components may be synthesised from verified specifications; and behaviour can be monitored at runtime and compared to its original specification. Modern Formal Methods often include highly automated tool support, which enables exhaustive checking of a system’s state space. This paper argues that Formal Methods are a powerful tool for the repertoire of development techniques for safe autonomous systems, alongside other robust software engineering techniques.

Fixing Design Inconsistencies of Polymorphic Methods using Swarm Intelligence

Background: Modern industry is heavily dependent on software. The complexity of designing and developing software is a serious engineering issue. With the growing size of software systems and increase in complexity, inconsistencies arise in software design and intelligent techniques are required to detect and fix inconsistencies. Aim: Current industrial practice of manually detecting inconsistencies is time consuming, error prone and incomplete. Inconsistencies arising as a result of polymorphic object interactions are hard to trace. We propose an approach to detect and fix inconsistencies in polymorphic method invocations in sequence models. Method: A novel intelligent approach based on self regulating particle swarm optimization to solve the inconsistency during software system design is presented. Inconsistency handling is modelled as an optimization problem that uses a maximizing fitness function. The proposed approach also identifies the changes required in the design diagrams to fix the inconsistencies. Result: The method is evaluated on different software design models involving static and dynamic polymorphism and inconsistencies are detected and resolved. Conclusion: Ensuring consistency of design is highly essential to develop quality software and solves a major design issue for practitioners. In addition, our approach helps to reduce the time and cost of developing software.

Visual guidance for auditory brainstem implantation with modular software design

Abstract An auditory brainstem implant (ABI) attempts to restore hearing at patients with bilateral damaged hearing nerve. The optimal placement of the ABI is challenging even with available auditory measures on the brainstem. We present a visual guidance system that aims to assist during intraoperative ABI placement. As a starting point, a surgical probe is navigated and intuitively visualized in the microscope oculars. The system is developed using modular and agile software design techniques. In a usability study, the participants were able to detect invisible targets marked in a phantom image with a millimetric precision. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that this kind of visual guidance is presented. In the future, the system will be expanded with surgical instruments used for the ABI placement.

Software Components’ Coupling Detection for Software Reusability

Most of the software systems design and modeling techniques concentrates on capturing the functional aspects that comprise a system’s architecture. Non-functional aspects are rarely considered on most of the software system modeling and design techniques. One of the most important aspects of software component is reusability. Software reusability may be understood by identifying components’ dependence, which can be measured by measuring the coupling between system’s components. In this paper an approach to detect the coupling between software system’s components is introduced for the purpose of identifying software components’ reusability that may help in refining the system design. The proposed approach uses a dynamic notion of sequence diagram to understand the dynamic behavior of a software system. The notion of data and control dependence is used to detect the dependences among software components. The components’ dependences are identified in which one component contributes to the output computation of the other component. The results of the experiments show that the proposed algorithm can help the software engineers to understand the dependences among the software components and optimize the software system model by eliminating the unnecessary dependences among software components to enhance their cohesiveness. Such detection provides a better understanding of the software system model in terms of its components’ dependences and their influence on reusability, in which their elimination may enhance software reusability.

Security by design

This paper is the first paper in a series of papers that describe the development of a Security by Design approach for teaching secure software design and development techniques. The focus of thi...

Declarative Approach Design Technique: Requirements Analysis

Рассматриваются актуальные проблемы современных методов проектирования программного обеспечения. Основными недостатками современных методов проектирования программного обеспечения являются несоответствие быстро меняющимся требованиям в условиях стремительно развивающейся индустрии информационных технологий, сложность сопровождения и поддержки программного обеспечения из-за преобладания императивной составляющей и слабой степени документированности. Дана характеристика предметно ориентированного метода проектирования (Domain Driven Design), определены преимущества и недостатки рассматриваемого метода. Сделан вывод о необходимости создания новой методики, учитывающей особенности и требования современных процессов проектирования. Предложена методика декларативного процесса проектирования, рассматривающая процесс проектирования в виде последовательных этапов: определение требований к системе, анализ, проектирование и разработка. Данная методика основана на формальных правилах декларативного перехода между различными состояниями процесса проектирования. Рассмотрены этапы определения требований к системе и анализа с использованием предлагаемой методики на примере проектирования системы проведения онлайн-соревнований по спортивному программированию BACS. На этапе формулирования требований к системе был определен словарь предметной области. Результатом этапа анализа является модель предметной области, формальное определение внешних характеристик процессов и зависимости процессов друг от друга, представленной в виде диаграммы вариантов использования. Полученные описания и диаграммы являются входными данными для следующего этапа «Проектирование».

Smart PCS Based System for Oxygen Content Measurement

This paper presents the performance analysis of smart PCS based system for an accurate oxygen content measurement in the aqueous electrolyte solution. The system intends to measure the photo catalytic activity of the PCS which is sensitive to O2 by integrating the software and hardware design technique for more accurate results. The threshold voltage of the PCS changes due to photo catalysis process causing fluctuations in the PCS readout which is sensed by the microcontroller via an inbuilt 10 bit A/D converter. The digitized signal is processed and converted into corresponding value of O2 content. The proposed digital system is fast as compared to conventional flow injection analysis which is tiresome and time consuming job. The approach for this system relies on the fast operation of PCS which operates under sub threshold conditions and reduced computation time. The system is more user friendly and the outcomes of simulation are fairly in agreement with the theoretical estimations. The system is highly favourable for water quality monitoring applications due to reduced response time.

EMI Reduction Techniques in Digitally Controllable Power Supplies

Abstract The paper presents EMI reduction techniques in analog and digital power supplies, highlighting the role of each technique apart. There are also detailed some useful hardware and software design techniques in order to reduce or attenuate the EMI. Passive techniques focus on reducing the EMI level by filtering, shielding and proper PCB layout of the power components. Active techniques focus on modifying the PWM control signal shape in order to reduce EMI or spread the energy of the signal on wide frequency range. The paper also presents an implementation method of the spread frequency modulation on a low cost RISC MCU unit. The paper describes the mathematical and simulated relationship between a non-ideal PWM signal's main parameters and the spectral content of the signal. The experimental results are obtained by measurements performed on a multistage buck-boost converter, which uses two converters working in parallel and in phase-shift of 180° developed by the authors.

The fourth phase of creating a standardised international information technology implementation, modification and maintenance software application: the ITIP project

The following article is the fourth in a series of papers related to a project which utilises software design and development techniques to aid in the integration of information technology implementation paradigms and constructs. Here the focus is program design, development and the technological aspects of IT management, usage and maintenance. The paper also covers how processes used for real world decision–making have been translated into source code. The defined fields of behaviour and organisation are included as they are essential factors related to IT implementation. A positivist epistemological methodology has been utilised that builds on the design science techniques developed earlier in the project.

A study of energy-aware implementation techniques: Redistribution of computational jobs in mobile apps

As devices like smartphones and tablets have been adopted by millions of users, the offer of mobile software products and services has as well evolved significantly. Current mobile software products require hardware resources, computer job and network connectivity that is reflected in increasing power needs. This power demand represents a major challenge to the strong autonomy requirement of mobile devices, powered by batteries. As a consequence, one of the most important qualities of mobile software development is the ability to produce applications that consume energy resources wisely. To accomplish this goal, different approaches have been proposed, including energy-aware software design and implementation techniques. The energy aware software design techniques considered in this work are two: Method Reallocation, which refers to the placement of pieces of code in different execution scopes within a single target (e.g., kernel space, application space, shared library space), and Method Offloading, which refers to the placement of pieces of code in external resources in different scopes (for instance a remote server). Both techniques aim to economize resources like processing power, and memory usage, but always upon the expenses carried by interfacing, communication and network overhead. Our goal is to investigate how each one can contribute to reduce the overall energy consumption of a mobile software application. As an experiment, we utilized a mobile application that runs software benchmarks coded in Java and C. We exercised the benchmarks in different execution scopes within the handheld target and a remote server counterpart, measuring the amount of energy required to complete each job. After determining the energy consumed by each routine for each execution scope, we identified in what cases it is convenient to reallocate the processing job, and when it is advisable to offload it to an external execution environment.

Development of an integrated Web-based system with a pile load test database and pre-analyzed data

A Web-based pile load test (WBPLT) system was developed and implemented in this study. Object-oriented and concept-based software design techniques were adopted to integrate the pile load test database into the system. A total of 673 case histories of pile load test were included in the database. The data consisted of drilled shaft and driven precast concrete pile axial load tests in drained, undrained, and gravel loading conditions as well as pre-analyzed data and back-calculated design parameters. Unified modeling language, a standard software design tool, was utilized to design the WBPLT system architecture with five major concept-based components. These components provide the static structure and dynamic behavior of system message flows in a visualized manner. The open-source Apache Web server is the building block of the WBPLT system, and PHP Web programming language implements the operation of the WBPLT components, particularly the automatic translation of user query into structured query language. A simple search and inexpensive query can be implemented through the Internet browser. The pile load test database is helpful, and data can be easily retrieved and utilized worldwide for research and advanced applications.

Persuasive software design patterns for social influence

This article describes software design techniques for social influence as software design patterns, instantiating social influence features defined in the persuasive systems design (PSD) model. The article draws on literature from PSD, social psychology and software patterns to derive the social influence patterns, which are then implemented in a conceptual system. This paves the way for an important research track within persuasive systems research. The ultimate aim of these persuasive software patterns was to develop generalizable techniques that could aid the development of social support features in any persuasive system.

Improving Software Modularity using AOP

Software modularity is a software design technique that increases the level to which software is composed of separate interchangeable components called modules. The modules are devised by breaking down the program functions. Each module accomplishes one function and contains all that is necessary to accomplish it. Modules represent a separation of concerns, and improve the maintainability by enforcing logical boundaries between the components. Languages that formally support the module concept include Java, AspectJ, etc. OOP supports modularity, i.e., the source code for an object can be written and maintained independently of the source code for other objects. Once created, an object can be passed around inside the system. When compared to OOP, AOP is more finely grained, making it more functional for software engineering. In OOP, a software module corresponds directly to a block of executable code. Whereas in AOP, a crosscutting concern, can be located in multiple code blocks. This can turn modules into a tangled mess of crosscutting concerns. AOP is a programming paradigm that increases modularity by allowing the separation of cross-cutting concerns. AOP does not replace OOP in the maintenance of the systems but adds certain decomposition features that address the domination of crosscutting concerns. The effectiveness of AOP is illustrated by discussing the logging function in the online shopping catalogue application.

Digital Control of Power Converters—A Survey

Power converters offer a high capability to efficiently manage electrical energy flows. Until a few years ago, their primary use was in supplying motors in industrial applications and in electric traction systems. Nowadays, in addition to those fields they are employed in a very wide range of low, medium, and high power applications including residential applications, renewable energy systems, distributed generation, and automotive. Since digital control represents a key element of modern power converters, this paper presents a review on digital devices [microcontrollers, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)], hardware and software design techniques as well as implementation issues useful for designing modern high-performance power converters.

Arithmetic Optimization techniques for Hardware and Software Design

Arithmetic Optimization techniques for Hardware and Software Design

WITHDRAWN: Special issue on “Intelligent formal techniques for software design: IFTSD”

The Publisher regrets that this article is an accidental duplication of an article that has already been published, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2010.04.002 . The duplicate article has therefore been withdrawn The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy .