16566221
Naming: design pattern and framework
Naming is an important, but frequently overlooked, aspect of software systems. Naming is usually combined with other issues, e.g. distributed communication technology. The paper treats naming in isolation. It presents a naming design pattern which abstracts several naming policies and an object-oriented framework that can be customized to support naming policies. An applications designer can choose the correct naming properties (relative, absolute, universal identifiers, etc.) to refer to specific objects.
38014527
A Quality Design Solution for Object Synchronization
This paper presents a quality design solution, the Customizable Object Synchronization pattern, for object synchronization which decouples object synchronization from object concurrency and object functionality (sequential part). The solution described by this pattern provides encapsulation, extensibility, modularity and reuse of synchronization policies.
11562802
A Decision Support System for IST Academic Information
This article describes the Decision Support System (DSS) for Academic Information being developed at Instituto Superior Tecnico, the Engineering School of the Technical University of Lisbon. In Portuguese, this project has been given the acronym SADIA (Sistema de Apoio a Decisao da Informacao Academica). This paper focuses on the early phases of the DSS development process, i.e., the business requirements definition and the dimensional modelling. First, we show how the business requirements of the School drive the definition of the DSS dimensional model. Second, we detail the logical dimensional model for a selected business process, the IST Student Admission process. Third, the corresponding physical design decisions are reported. The results obtained from the three phases were successfully validated by business users.
9321144
Using separation and composition of concerns to build multiuser virtual environments
Developing multiuser virtual environments (MUVE) is a very complex task since it involves several engineering domain aspects such as virtual reality, cooperative work and distributed systems. Furthermore, existing technologies like graphics capabilities, processing power and network bandwidth, are permanently evolving. For MUVE systems to be successfully developed, they must not only deal with all the different aspects that are inherent to these systems but also have the ability to deal with the continuous technology and requirements evolution. To cope with these problems, a software engineering separation of concerns approach is proposed. Concerns are identified for each of the different aspects of MUVEs. To obtain the necessary flexibility, each one of the concerns should abstract its possible variations in order to support the future system evolution. Moreover it is shown how concerns composition has the necessary expressive power to build multiuser virtual environments.
35073381
Service Logic Deployment and Distribution Configuration
The success of service providers in the competitive communications market of the future will be determined by the efficiency with which services are developed, and the quality levels at which services are provided. A service creation environment (SCE) should provide the service developer with solutions to these problems. In this paper we present two essential facilities that should be provided by an advanced SCE: a tool for the optimisation of the service logic deployment scheme and a distribution configuration language supporting the deployment and configuration of component-based distributed applications.
203567
Separating replication from distributed communication: problems and solutions
Replication and distributed communication are usually tightly coupled. This code tangling forbids their independent reuse and adaptation. In this position paper, the problems resulting from coupling replication with distributed communication are discussed. In addition, a solution based on separation of concerns is proposed. The abstractions for each concern are presented, as well as their composition.
7623756
Knowledge Management Systems Development: A Roadmap
This paper approaches the Knowledge Management Systems study, focusing not only in the establishment of essential development activities, but also in techniques, technologies, and tools for their support. Despite of the wide range of existing proposals for the development of this type of systems, none of them has achieved a level detailed enough to allow a direct application. This study is intended to be a palliative for the above-mentioned lack of detail by means of a development guide for Knowledge Management Systems. In this way, the proposed solution offers a clear definition concerning what has to be done and which type of mechanisms should be used for its development.
191535
Polymorphy and Hybridization in Genetically Programmed Networks
In this paper we discuss the polymorphic abilities of a new distributed representation for genetic programming, called Genetically Programmed Networks. These are inspired in a common structure in natural complex adaptive systems, where system functionality frequently emerges from the combined functionality of simple computational entities, densely interconnected for information exchange. A Genetically Programmed Network can be evolved into a distributed program, a rule based system or a neural network with simple adjustments to the evolutionary algorithm. The space of possible network topologies can also be easily controlled. This allows the fast exploration of various search spaces thus increasing the possibility of finding a (or a better) solution. Experimental results are presented to support our claims.
8450178
Information Retrieval Aware Web Site Modelling and Generation
Design and maintenance of large corporate Web sites have become a challenging problem due to the continuing increase in their size and complexity. One particular feature present in the majority of this sort of Web sites is searching for information. However the solutions provided so far, which is based on the same techniques used for search in the open Web, have not provided a satisfactory performance to specific Web sites, often resulting in too much irrelevant content in a query answer. This paper proposes an approach to Web site modelling and generation of intrasite search engines, combining application modelling and information retrieval techniques. Our assumption is that giving search engines access to the information provided by conceptual representations of the Web site improves their performance and accuracy. We demonstrate our proposal by describing a Web site modelling language that represent both traditional modelling features and information retrieval aspects, as well as presenting experiments to evaluate the resulting intrasite search engine generated by our method.
10782860
OrgSwarm - A Particle Swarm Model of Organizational Adaptation
This study extends the particle swarm metaphor to include the domain of organizational adaptation. A simulation model, OrgSwarm, is constructed in order to examine the impact of strategic inertia on the adaptive potential of a population of organizations. The key finding is that a degree of strategic inertia, in the presence of an election mechanism, can assist rather than hamper adaption of the population.
1133493
A methodological framework for generic conceptualisation: problem-sensitivity in software engineering
Abstract The first step towards developing quality software is to conceptually model the problem raised in its own context. Software engineering, however, has traditionally focused on implementation concepts, and has paid little or no attention to the problem domain. This paper presents a generic methodological framework to guide conceptual modelling, focusing on the problem within its domain. This framework is defined considering aspects related to a generic conceptualisation, and its application to software engineering—illustrated using the IFIP Case—achieves the called-for problem-sensitivity.